Wild Yeast

If I’m being honest, I have to breathe a sigh of relief that 2007 is almost over. Well, maybe not all of 2007, just the last couple of weeks. OK, maybe not all of the last couple of weeks, but the baking part. At least the part where I make at least one very stupid mistake with each and every thing I bake.

My mental bandwidth overloaded with holiday freneticism, and my brain cells additionally blunted by the consumption of a staggering amount of butter and sugar (excuses, excuses), I have felt, of late, like I’m starring in “Inspector Clouseau in the Kitchen.”

Everything turned out to be salvageable, and I’ll spare you the details, except to offer a vague explanation for why I’m not including the recipe for my submission to this month’s BreadBakingDay (#05). Our host Chelsea of Rolling in Dough chose the theme of filled breads, and I made Cardamom-Pear-Pecan Sticky Buns.

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It’s that time of year when superlatives abound, and Zorra (1 x umrühren bitte) and Sandra (Un Tocco di Zenzero) are hosting Best of 2007 for food bloggers. (What, is that me? Who’d have thought?). Everyone is invited to submit the one recipe that stands above all the others among their 2007 entries.

Deciding on a single recipe to designate as my best gave me more than a little pause, as each bread exhorted, “Pick me! Pick me!” From Norwich Sourdough: “You know I’m the most reliable and versatile bread ever to grace your oven. You can’t live without me!” But here’s Semolina Bread with Fennel, Currants and Pine Nuts, giving me that golden yellow, jewel-studded, come-hither look. “You want a piece of me?” barks beefy High-Extraction Miche as he muscles them both out of the way. “I can take the two of you with my hands tied behind my back!” And so on.

No, it wasn’t easy, but I do have a winner, which I will announce forthwith (before I change my mind again). But first, just a tiny break for station identification:

You are reading Wild Yeast. Be sure and tune in next week, when Susan will reveal which of her children she loves more.

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December is a month for lists, so here we go:

What this is:

• A Yule Log, or Bûche de Noël.
• The December Daring Bakers challenge, hosted by Lis (La Mia Cucina) and Ivonne (Cream Puffs in Venice), who are also the illustrious founders of the DBs.
• My interpretation of the recipe Lis and Ivonne adapted from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Dessert. (The recipe should be up on their blogs soon.)
• A genoise cake rolled with coffee buttercream filling and frosted with mocha buttercream, garnished with meringue mushrooms and other embellishments.

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I don’t like to nag, but if you haven’t gotten your donation and raffle bids in for Menu for Hope, it’s time to get your little beehive in gear, because today is the last day.

There are still quite a few prizes with terrific odds of winning, including mine (UW16, a set of three autographed books by Tom Douglas: Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen, I Love Crab Cakes!, and Tom’s Big Dinners).

Pim has compiled a list of other prizes with as-yet low numbers of bidders, so take a look. But remember, it’s ultimately not about your chances of winning, but about your chances that you will contribute to a fantastic cause, and those odds are absolutely 100%.

Sugar High Fridays. If you have a sweet tooth (and I admit it, yes, I do), it’s hard to ignore this incredibly sumptuous and well-attended monthly sweet fest founded by Jennifer, The Domestic Goddess. But I bake bread, not desserts (Daring Baker challenges notwithstanding).

Even so , when I opened my inbox to discover an invitation from Zorra to participate in this month’s event, Pudding, I really wanted to, because, well, it was an invitation from Zorra.

So I thought, let’s see, pudding… There’s chocolate, although last time I made it, the texture was, shall we say, suboptimal … I love rice pudding and I might not screw that up… or I could probably handle plum pudding for Christmas, but I don’t really like it… [Fret, fret] what pudding can I make?

Duh.

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