Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Pesto Bread - A Taste of Summer


After taking a break for the past two bread braids with the Healthy Bread in Five group, I jumped back on the wagon with Pesto Bread. Not having any pesto in the freezer, I went looking for a small jar at the grocery store. The bread was not as green as I imagined it would be, and I did not taste a difference in using the spelt flour (from King Arthur's catalog). I did not use the pine nuts in the recipe, because I didn't think they would go over well with the eaters in the house (myself included).

I mixed the half recipe up on Saturday, and baked the loaves on Monday. I am finding that I really like the tang and flavor that I get with a somewhat rested dough compared to a fresh batch. I served the bread with homemade spaghetti sauce Tuesday, and with local butter it was a definite hit! This will definitely be a keeper recipe, especially in the summer with fresh basil!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Apple Strudel, Hamburger Buns, and More!


The Healthy Bread in Five Group's next task was to make the 100% Whole Wheat Loaf and some variations. This was the very first recipe I made from the book when I got it in November, so I wanted to focus on the variations for this round. Knowing that my Pain de Mie pan uses 3/4 of a batch of dough, I planned on making the full recipe, but would make more hamburger buns to keep on hand in the freezer. I love "Everything Bagel" topping on hamburger buns to accompany a nice bowl of Black Bean Chili!
I was really impressed with the Apple Strudel Bread - knowing how hearty this loaf is, I didn't expect it to be like an Apple Strudel pastry. I used gala apples, raisins, and crystallized ginger chips. I would have liked to use nuts, but I was taking it into work and there are some serious nut allergies at my school. Even without the nuts, this was a great loaf! I loved the crunch of the demerara sugar on top. While I was chopping the apples, I only used two apples for the loaf, as it seemed like a lot of fruit to fill a pan. I loved the rise of the bread and didn't have any "wet spots" to contend with. No picture of the beautiful inside of this loaf - it was devoured at work!


Since I had also made the Hamburger Buns before, I wanted to try some new toppings. I used the "Everything Bagel" topping from King Arthur to great success.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

HBinFive - Master Recipe


Over the holidays I tried to be ahead of the game - after all, the recipe isn't due until the 15th of January! However, between visits and holiday get togethers, I didn't get all three recipes completed - I only got the baguette and epi finished. I definitely will be trying the crackers at a later date, but time slipped away and it just never got done for this post! I enjoyed making the baguette, and enjoyed it with my lunch for a few days. My epi looked more like a bear claw, not so much a stalk of wheat, but it tasted great nonetheless! Instead of using white whole wheat, I used King Arthur Whole Wheat, and we enjoyed the taste - it wasn't too overpowering!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Challah With Dried Cranberries and Orange Zest



This is my first contribution to the Healthy Bread in Five Group, led by Michelle. I ran out of time in November to make the first Bread Braid. This braid seemed right up my alley - the dried cranberries and orange zest just seemed to sing out "holidays" to me! I mixed up half a batch of the dough, using King Arthur White Whole Wheat and King Arthur All Purpose flour. I did use the wheat germ (although mine was toasted), and I accidentally added the full amount of orange zest from the basic recipe. I allowed the dough to refrigerate for three days before heading back to my braid. I made two small braids from the batch, and sprinkled each loaf with raw sugar before baking. Since I was trying to save myself time, I baked both loaves in the oven, but it took a little longer to finish up the baking, so I baked them for about 40-45 minutes. Even with the added orange zest, I found that the flavor did not really come through (perhaps because I used dried zest reconstituted with orange juice...). The bread was delicious! I think the next time I make this, I will make it into mini-loaves for sharing with others, and I think it would also make a good sandwich bread for leftover turkey... :) Thanks Jeff for a great recipe! I can't wait to see what everyone made, and to start the book in January!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread



I have joined the Healthy Bread in 5 group, and this is my first post related to that! The group actually doesn't start baking from the book until January, but I have already made the basic boule recipe once and this recipe twice. I got myself a 13" Pullman pan (from King Arthur's catalog), because I wanted to make "sandwich" bread. My three year old wouldn't really eat sandwich bread if it wasn't shaped like a sandwich bread from those plastic bags! I followed the directions for the batch from the book, then after the first rise, took about 3/4 of the dough and placed it into the greased Pullman pan. I allowed it to rise again, then baked it for 45 minutes. As a note, when I did this two weeks ago, I was using cold dough from a 24 rest in the fridge - even with a 90 minute warm up time in my kitchen, it still took over an hour for the dough to cook to 190 degrees - I really didn't want a gummy loaf! I will definitely try this again with a cold dough, and maybe allow it more time to "warm up" - this is such a winner of a recipe that I haven't branched out to other recipes from the book!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Long time gone... THING #10

It's been a busy summer, and life got in the way of working on these 23 Things! Then school started, and now that I have my groove with that, I feel it's time to get cracking on the rest of this list! The image generator is a LOT of fun - I made a Monopoly card that said "Get out of paying overdue library fines" - like the Get out of jail Free cards you can pick up. Lots of fun! I can definitely see ideas like this to use in my library. Sometimes I don't have the time or the $$ to get things from Upstart, but I could certainly do it on my own with something like this!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Task #8 and #9 - RSS Feeds

I really like the idea of an RSS feed - I do not know why I haven't joined this sooner! I have been an avid blog reader for a number of years, and instead of checking bookmarks, I can simply go to my GoogleReader and just READ WHAT'S NEW!!! What a concept! I don't think I would like to do a feed for things that get updated every hour, but for general library/knitting/craft/cooking blogs, I am totally sold on this idea! I found a number of library review blogs at the end of the school year, which I added to my RSS Feed, and they have helped me with title selection for my 2 libraries. Just having some new titles to check out and read this summer has been wonderful!