8/16/2009

This weekends baking...

This weekend I tried potato bread again and another attempt at Peter's basic sourdough.



Then I tried Pan de Cioccolate from Suas' book. It uses a sourdough starter and then has a bunch of cocoa in the dough and some chocolate bits added. While it took a long time to ferment and proof, it turned out very well for a first effort. Is very tasty with peanut butter.


A fare amount of the baking I do ends up at either my work or my wifes work. Someone from Lou's office requested pumpkin scones a few weeks ago. As an experiment, I took a recipe that I had and tweaked it to replace some of the butter and buttermilk with pumpkin puree. I then spiced it like a pumpkin muffin with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and some candied ginger. The end result was pretty good but the recipe needs a little refining. The flavor was OK, but they turned out a little dense. I think I didn't bake them at a high enough temperature and the butter melted before the dough matrix could set up. Guess I will have to make them again. I am sure Lou will be very disappointed if I have to do them again.

8/02/2009

This weekends baking...

This weekend was another big bake. It started innocent enough. I had planned on trying Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough and another run at sticky buns from "Advanced Bread and Pastry". The sourdough took a bit of time to do but turned out really well. It has a nice crumb and has a really good sourdough flavor.


The sticky buns also turned out well and are going to work with my wife as an office treat.


But then scope creep occurred. It all started with a quart of buttermilk that was about to expire. Not wanting to waste it and also seeing that I needed to feed my rye sourdough starter, I decided to try Reinhart's Rye Sandwich Meteil. It turned out pretty well. It has a very intense flavor and a pretty dense texture. I had a little trouble with the oven temperature so the free standing loaf got kinda flat but will definitely try that one again.


Finally, to use up the rest of the buttermilk, I made some scones using the buttermilk scone recipe from the Tartine cookbook. I made some with cranberry and the zest of grapefruit and some with apricot, ginger and a pinch of allspice. Compared to the ones I have made from the "Advanced Bread and Pastry" book, these were very decadent. They have about 50% more butter than the other ones so the texture becomes more like a pie crust. While good, not something one could really eat on a recurring basis. I did like the favor of the buttermilk so might have to rework the other recipe with that in mind.


All in all, the weekend bake was very satisfying but was way more than I should have taken on. Just ate up to much of the weekend. Will have to learn to restrain myself in the future.