bread baking – In Good Taste

BBA Challenge (Week 18): Light Wheat Bread

Maris Callahan — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Of all of the breads that I’ve baked in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge, I have had a few favorites. To Peter Reinhart, selecting a favorite might be a little too much like choosing a favorite child, but for me the cinnamon buns and English muffins were, in their own rite, unrivaled. However, no one really needs cinnamon buns and I usually only buy English muffins if they’re on sale. Sandwich bread, however, is a staple and this week’s recipe for light wheat bread was one that I was able to make on a weekend and then not buy at the store that week (as if I only go grocery shopping once a week…). Made with whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour, it gets its name from its light caramel color rather than its nutritional value (which isn’t bad either). I can’t remember the last time I had white bread but I do remember the first time I had wheat bread – my mother started buying a new brand that came in a yellow wrapper, though I can’t remember what it called. It was suspiciously darker than the bread I was used to eating with peanut butter and jelly but […]

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BBA Challenge (Week 17): Lavash Crackers

Maris Callahan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

My deepest, darkest secret is that sometimes, I eat cheese and crackers for dinner. Actually, not sometimes. Often. It’s my go-to dinner when I don’t feel like cooking. For some people, it’s cereal and milk. For others, it’s takeout from the Thai place on the corner. When I’m not in the mood to cook, which is seldom — it’s more likely that I’ll not cook because I’m not in the mood to do dishes — I break out a box of whole wheat crackers, the creamiest brie I can afford and maybe some fig jam or my favorite store-bought hummus. However, eating cheese and crackers for dinner really isn’t such a shortcut when you occasionally bake your own crackers. Though I typically buy my own crackers, there have been few occasions that have merited baking them. Finding an especially delicious recipe accounts for one occasion and the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is another. Lavash is a Middle Eastern flatbread, similar to the Mexican tortilla but baked to a crisp, golden brown sheet and then broken into shards, into rough, unevenly shaped crackers perfect for dipping or topping with a creamy cheese. I’m breaking the Rule again. I’m posting this recipe […]

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BBA Challenge (Week 16): Kaiser Rolls

Maris Callahan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’m going to come right out and say this. I have long since thought that New York food is overrated. First though, let’s take a step back and start from the beginning. I made Kaiser Rolls, the 16th bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, recently. They were a nice change from my usual whole grain sandwich bread, but what I enjoyed most about eating them was realizing that the big, crusty, sesame-seed encrusted rolls seemed so New York. I might have bittersweet feelings towards my city, but I suppose that New York food is not all overrated. The Big Apple, is, after all, home to some of the best restaurants in the world. The problem is, most of those great restaurants are tucked away in Soho, hiding in the West Village, so that visitors often miss them in lieu of places like bustling pizza and pasta joints like Carmine’s or the famous that is the Second Avenue Deli. It’s not that any of these places are bad, but when I’m in a new city, I like to wander off the beaten path and look for hidden gems that I haven’t read about in the guidebooks. Places that the locals know and love. Though […]

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BBA Challenge (Week 14): French Bread

Maris Callahan — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, a friend and I were talking about narcissism. Bloggers spend a great deal of timing writing into space, on our blogs and on Twitter, about ourselves, hoping people will read them, hoping people will like them, hoping people will like us. We write about what we had for breakfast, we write about our dogs, our kids, our boyfriends and our parents. We right about the trivial moments of our lives and we write about the most important moments in our lives. Are we narcissistic or just outgoing? Do we have a lot to say or do we say too much? I think that there is a boundary, a happy medium that’s defined by how genuine you are. Is it all good, all the time? Or are you just sharing stories from your life as they happen, when they happen, because you havre a passion for that? Well, I talk about my great cooking all time but I’m going to be honest with you when I tell you about this week’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: it was a flop. I. Am. Bad. At. Hearth. Baking. When you bake certain types of breads from the book, Peter Reinhart instructs you to replicate a […]

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BBA Challenge (Week 13): Focaccia Bread

Maris Callahan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:00:00 +0000

I’m no stranger to focaccia bread. Specifically, foccacia bread with onion and rosemary that was so good I even recommended making it to impress a date (and I promise you won’t wind up with onion breath). I wish I could whole-heartedly recommend Peter Reinhart’s recipe but for the strapped-for-time bread baker, I wouldn’t suggest anything other than the olive oil dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. If you’re entertaining, though, this is the bread for you. It makes enough bread to easily feed a crowd, and a hungry crowd, at that. Peter Reinhart’s dough was difficult to manage because there was so much of it. Between each proof, I thought it might outgrow the pan. I had visions of it ballooning in my oven like a big, sticky dough pillow that I would have to untangle from my oven racks….and what kind of photo would that be?Luckily, the bread that emerged from my oven (crisis averted) was crispy and soft in all the right places and was perfect, when served as an appetizer or as a sandwich, stuffed with fresh basil, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Since one of the rules of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge is that […]

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