12/26 John's Birthday

12/26
The day after Christmas is never a letdown for us. It is my husband John's birthday and we invite our local family over for Spaghetti.

This year was a landmark for John, he is 70!

I wanted to prepare Italian Bread to pair with the Spaghetti and I turned to Breadworld for a recipe.  Breadworld is a site from the Fleischmann's Yeast Company. I have experienced  much success with recipes from this site ad I selected their version of Italian Bread. The recipe called for a high percentage of yeast and I was expecting quick fermentation. This bread turned out so well. The bread was light with a pleasing mild flavor. I used steam at the beginning of baking and there was a thin crunchy crust.

This year was a landmark for John, he is 70!

There was some leftover bread and the next morning: French Opinion Toast!

Italian Bread

Oh my goodness! Will the Italian's mind if their bread becomes French Toast?

12/25/17 French Opinion Soup

12/25/17 Merry Christmas Everyone!

It is a wonderful Christmas Day and the big feast will be this evening. Our family wants a small lunch to save room for dinner. Our daughter Elizabeth wants to make French Onion soup. This is a family favorite on Christmas of our daughter-in-law Laura. My contribution to the effort is Baguettes for the top.  While sending pictures from her phone to her parents, Laura's phone auto corrected to French Opinion Soup and we have decided it should stay that way. Here is our result with French Opinion soup with Swiss Cheese on Crostini.

12/18 The Tomato Crop from the Garden

Our family has enjoyed gardening this Fall and we still has a few leftovers. The chives are cheery little plants and after cutting have bounced back. We have had cherry tomatoes all Fall, but it is time to pick all tomatoes, green or not because the plants are dying away. There were only two butternut squash, but we had lots of Mesclun Mix. There are still a few broccoli about ready for harvest.

The tomatoes were not all ripe but never fear. We made fried green tomato sandwiches and shared some with our friend Charles Phillips who fries them up for breakfast.

12/18 Sticky Buns

12/18 Sticky Buns

I have discovered the Early Bird Prayer Group really enjoys sweet breads over savory for prayer breakfast. For this last breakfast of the year, I decided to prepare sticky buns. When I am searching for recipes I usually rely upon these sources for recipes:
1. King Arthur Flour: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/ 
2. Breadworld: http://www.breadworld.com
3. Pastry Chef Central: http://www.pastrychef.com/
4. Cooks Illustrated: Bread

For the Sticky Buns today, I selected the King Arthur Recipe:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sticky-buns-recipe

The result was very sweet and gooey buns with pecans for a nice crunch of texture. Actually, they were too sweet for me but the prayer group loved them and well as my friend Anita who receives the leftovers.

Plated Sticky Buns

On the breakfast buffett

The Early Bird Prayer Group celebrating Christmas!!

12/12 Crustini for the Book Club Christmas Party

12/12
Using baguettes from today's Artisan Breads class, I prepared Fig Crostini for Hors d'oeuvres for my Book Club Christmas Party. Once the sliced and toasted bread slices were cooled, they were topped with cream cheese, my own fig preserves and a lettuce leaf from my garden. The garden lettuces were strongly flavored and added much spiciness, color, and texture to the crustini.

12/12 Baguettes for Artisan Bread Practical

  

12/11 and 12/12
After much concern, the days have arrived to produce Baguettes for our final practical in Artisan Breads class. On 12/11, our first attempt baguettes did not meet standard. We discovered the Bake Shop was very cold upon arrival and possibly could have warmed our water to improve our doughs. But, our doughs did not rise to produce quality baguettes. After practice last week and practice today, we were disappointed.

On 12/12, I was concerned. I wanted to be successful in my baguette attempt for my final. The class decided to use warmer water and bulk ferment and proof in the proofer rather than rely on the too cool room temp. I was very please with my final baguettes.

Sheila is forceful with window pane!

Lovely risen dough

Bakery Shop worthy!!

Beautiful! I am pleased!

11/27/17 Stenciled Breads

11/27/17
Chef Summers purchased stencils for us to apply to bread as a decoration. We followed our frequently used lean dough recipe. Before baking, the doughs were dusted with flour.

Follow this link for a video of pictures from this lab:  https://animoto.com/play/awxTwwVHZPZu9JzQLwfomA

Visiting the Library 12/15/17

12/15/17
At the CCC Library, there is a wonderful collection of resources for the culinary student. Here are three of the latest books I have read.

My Sweet Mexico is a collection of authentic recipes from Mexico. There are many familiar favorites as well as new to me recipes. Each recipe is accompanied with a description of origin and interesting information.

In the Sweets from the Convent, I am interested in Mexican Wedding Cookies. From Sweet Breads, I like Churros. There is a killer Tres Leche Cake in the Desserts section I know I want to try.

There are many recipes and ingredients to explore.

I am I IN LOVE!! Je t'dore! The Art of French Pastry is packed with divine creations! I want to make pastries for the rest of my life!!

This is the first book I feel compelled to purchase for my own. I wanted to make most of the recipes in this book. The narrative included with the recipes is enjoyable and informative.

I want to begin with the pastry creams first and work up!! Can't write, must bake!!

This book has 80 bread recipes from renown French Baker Eric Kayser. The recipes cover the basic breads such as baguettes and batards and are designed for the home baker. The instructions are well formatted with no fluff: The Basics.

12/4 and 12/5 Practicing Baguettes for Final

12/4 and 12/5
Our class is practicing Baguettes for Artisan Breads class final. Monday, I started on my dough just like I have in class before. Choosing to rise and bake my breads on the baguette pans began my downfall toward a poor product. I also overworked the dough while shaping and preshaping. Result: gummy product with a very tight texture!!

Tuesday, it's a new day and I am ready to perfect my baguettes for final!! I scale with care and time and observe the bulk fermentation with one fold. I barely preshape to avoid releasing CO2. The preshapes are bench rested and then I roll out the baguettes handling as little as possible. The baguettes are baked in the deck oven on stone.

I have to say, at times I have doubted techniques, thinking they just did not achieved the desired result. Well, all the extra attention really paid off for me. My baguettes were fabulous!!

Rustic, floury, crusty

Large uneven holes

Fab photo

11/28/17 Decorative Breads

11/28/17
For class today, we used Practice Dough to sculpt into decorative breads. What a fun class. This is the wheat sheaves I created.

Follow this link for all the sculptures: https://animoto.com/play/N21JrZI161xm3fmUYUanuA

11/26/17 Baked Flounder with the Clawson's

11/26/17 Every Fall our great friends, Hot and Imogene Clawson, will invite us for Baked Flounder. Imogene really bakes a lovely flounder. Rather than bake a large fish, she likes to bake several smaller fish. The fish are placed in a 13 x 9 sheet pan with onions, chunked potatoes, topped with slices of bacon. Yum! I volunteered to bring rolls, of course. Made a smaller recipe. Notice the "blisters" on top so valued by the Down East cooks.

11/23/17 Thanksgiving

11/23/17 This year at Thanksgiving my family was just 3 members for dinner. Good news: we were adopted by the Sam Brake family for the feast. I volunteered to make bread. Sweet Potato Rolls would make a good fit for dinner. I also brought unbaked Cinnamon Rolls for the Brakes to have for breakfast and a Pullman loaf for sandwiches.

We had a wonderful day. We began with an oyster roast at 2:00 and continued eating through to 6:00.

11/22/17 Sour Dough Rye Bread

11/22/17

My daughter Mary Margaret and I are experimenting with rye sourdough. We are not having much success. We can't seem to get a starter going. Here is a first attempt. Looks fabulous but the bread was lackluster.

Add caption

11/15/17 Rolls for Delivery

11/15/17

The Early Bird Prayer breakfast group join together to take dinner to a church family needing help. Making Down East Light Rolls again. I did save out 2 rolls for John and I.

11/14/17 Fresh Homemade Donuts

11/14/17

We have died and gone to heaven!! Fresh homemade donuts. Out of the park on this day:

Cut donuts

Jameson fries em up!!

Flip em

Before and after

Glazed and chocolated

I think Patrick likes this lab

Heaven in a bite!!

New Jersey Crumb Cake 11/13/17

11/13/17
From the February issue of Cook's Country, here is an interesting recipe from the B&W Bakery in Hackensack, New Jersey: New Jersey Crumb Cake. The bakery has a line out the door to buy this cake.

This would be an excellent recipe for Monday morning to share with my class, my prayer group, and my friend Anita.

Using the Cook's Country recipe, the crumb cake has a dense crust and a very deep streusel top. The final result did not strike a good note with all my recipients. The cake was very plain and the crumb was slightly sweet.

Here is the cake on the Prayer Breakfast Buffet!!!

2nd Cake for Artisan Bread Class

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