October 28 2011
As always, my heartfelt thanks to all who bake and send in the gorgeous loaves and pastries that make YeastSpotting possible week after week!
Before I’ll let you go to this week’s inspirations, a couple of housekeeping items:
- In order to give me a little more time to prepare each weekly roundup, I have moved the deadline for submissions up to each Wednesday at noon Pacific Time. If you submit after that time, your bread may not be included until the following Friday.
- In order to continue to present YeastSpotting for the three weeks I am on vacation (woo hoo!) next month, I would be grateful to have volunteers to guest host the November 11, November 18, and November 25 editions. If you are interested, please contact me!
And now, on to the main event:
YeastSpotting is a weekly collective showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. For more bread inspiration, and information on how to submit your bread, please visit the YeastSpotting archive.
yeastspotting
October 26 2011
The inspiration for this seeded bread came from Pain de Beaucaire, which uses a unique shaping technique to create a rustic, bran-speckled fissure in the loaf with no slashing required. Here, the bran is replaced with black sesame seeds, for a nutty flavor and dramatic presentation. Sandwiched between two slurry-slathered layers of dough, the seeds cause the loaf to open down the middle.
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recipes
October 17 2011
This month the Bread Baking Babes were all about shaping our loaves into leaves and ladders, as Elizabeth directed us to use our favorite bread dough for fougasse. These breads are shaped into flat-ish ovals and cut either before the final proof or just before baking. The payoff is maximal surface area (crust!) and something different for the table.
Fougasse often has cheese, herbs, or other additions in the dough or on top, but I kept it simple and used plain old (and by “plain old” I mean my very favorite) Norwich Sourdough. I cut my ovals after proofing (just before baking) with a small rigid plastic dough scraper. After baking I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with Kosher salt. A nice accompaniment to early fall vegetable soup.
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events
October 13 2011
Blueberries are everybody’s darling lately: antioxidant-rich, cancer-fighting, cholesterol-lowering, brain-sharpening, blood pressure-controlling, diabetes-battling. And they taste good, too! Even when they’re not in season, I usually keep a bag on hand in the freezer for smoothies, and a store of dried berries to throw into my oatmeal.
I can’t imagine why it took me this long — that is, until my number-one bagel eater made the request — to make blueberry-studded bagels. To keep the berries as intact as possible, I incorporated the dried berries into the mostly-mixed dough without soaking them first. I did make the dough a bit wetter than usual to allow for the berries’ absorption of some water.
If you haven’t made bagels before, don’t be intimidated! Bagels are one of my favorite things to make. There’s lots of hands-on time with the dough, a plus in my book. For more of my bagel opinions, take a look at my basic 100%-sourdough bagel recipe.
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recipes
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