Wild Yeast

Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters

Secrets of Failure

[This space reserved for a gorgeous photo that didn’t happen.]

The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

I am happy to report that the planets have aligned, the ships have come into port, and all is once again right with the world. After two months of Daring Bakers successes, I can once again plant a tick mark firmly in the FAIL column.

And there’s even an added bonus: It was cookies. I was defeated by cookies! Not something even a little hard like genoise or lemon meringue. Who the hell is ever undone by cookies?

So yes! I can once again lay claim to the the title of world’s worst non-yeast baker. Go me!

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Grilled Nectarine and Goat Cheese Pizza

I’ve been making a lot of pizza on the grill this summer, and I’ve made this one quite a few times, both because I really like it and because I’ve been hoping to get a decent photo of the finished pizza. The photos aren’t really happening, but I decided to post it anyway.

The general idea is the same as for the grilled pizza margherita I made a few weeks ago: Grill the olive-oil-brushed crust on both sides, directly on the grill, adding the toppings after the first side is done.

The toppings here are pre-grilled nectarine slices (grilled on one side only), thinly-sliced Sally Jackson goat cheese, and a little chopped rosemary and Kosher salt. I chose this cheese, which comes wrapped in grape leaves, because it is a sliceable, meltable goat cheese; crumbly or creamy goat cheeses will not melt well in the short amount of time you have to cook the pizza while the second side of the crust is grilling.

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Brotforms Winner

I apologize for not announcing the winner of the brotforms earlier. If you haven’t heard from me, you didn’t win, I’m sorry. The only person who has heard from me is Dave R from Boston, MA; congratulations, Dave!

As I said before, I highly recommend Brotform.com for your brotform needs. Good selection, good prices, fast shipping, nice people. So go order some.

Yeasted Olive Oil Plum Cake

The timing of this is really unfortunate. I’m on vacation now, but I baked this olive oil plum cake before I left. It was great. Really great. I told myself I would post about it while I was away, and obviously I am, but on vacation sometimes you’re just so busy doing nothing that you don’t have time to do much of anything.

So this cake gets short shrift because I can’t muster an honest post for it. It’s so sad, because this is a really great cake. In fact, if I could pick one thing I have baked in the past few months that I would not have wanted to give short shrift, it would be this cake.

See the recipe…

We Have Bread — Sort Of

As my dad used to say, “Call Walter Cronkite!” Almost a year later, it looks like my earth oven might finally be dry.

I fired it up last weekend and lo and behold, it actually got hot. So hot, in fact, that I burned the bottoms of the loaves because I haven’t exactly got the temperature-gauging thing down yet. But after that layer of carbonized crust was lopped off, the bread was actually quite good. Maybe I can do this.

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Brotform.com Giveaway

Got brotforms?

These coiled cane proofing baskets turn ordinary loaves into affairs of crusty gorgeousness. You can read more about their use and care here.

I’ve discovered that Brotform.com is a wonderful source for brotforms. Not only do their prices beat all others I’ve found by quite a bit, but my order arrived in record time and I did not feel gouged on the shipping charges. They offer a variety of sizes in round, oval, and oblong shapes.

All of this is, of course, meant to console and inform you in case you are not the lucky winner of the two brotforms — 9″ round and 8.5″ oval — that the very nice people at Brotform.com will send to a randomly-drawn commenter on this post, provided said commenter has a US shipping address.

So go on and comment it up before 11:59 PM PST on Thursday, July 9. Please make it interesting (but hey, no pressure!).

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