My best friend is also my cousin, which was the best thing when growing up because whenever we had a family function I always got to hang out with her. Unfortunately, we don't live fifteen minutes away from one another anymore, we are more like three hours apart. Luckily, a … [Read more...]
Cooling and storing your freshly baked bread
Most people don’t realize that the final stage of baking bread is to let your bread cool properly. Slicing into a hot loaf of bread can cause bread to tear instead of slicing cleanly through, or it can be gummy on the inside . To cool your loaves properly you need to transfer … [Read more...]
Baking Bread
After you have allowed your loaves to fully proof you will need to transfer them to your oven quickly and carefully. You don't want the oven to lose too much heat, but you also don't want to damage your loaves while you put them into the oven. The easiest thing to do is to line … [Read more...]
Scoring Loaves
Scores or cuts in the tops of loaves are there for a baking purpose as well as for aesthetics. Scoring controls the rise of the dough as it bakes. The dough needs to expand when it begins to heat up and if you did not score the tops then the crust would split open wherever it … [Read more...]
Easter Babka
In my house it was always hard boiled eggs topped with horseradish, kielbasa with spicy brown mustard, and soft subltly sweet babka covered in butter for Easter breakfast. Nowadays I can't seem to find that same quality babka we used to get, so I worked at coming up with my own … [Read more...]
Turning Your Oven into a Hearth
For great rustic hearth breads that have crisp crusts and silky interiors you will need to make a hearth out of your home oven. While we can't all have professional bread ovens in our homes we can mimic them. The first essential piece of equipment is a baking stone. A baking … [Read more...]
Resting the Dough or Autolyze
This resting of the dough occurs just after you have mixed your ingredients together. In France the term for this is called an autolyze period. All recipes can take advantage of a resting period, but some recipes will specifically say to let your dough rest after mixing for ten … [Read more...]
Gruyere and Roasted Garlic Loaves
I love roasted garlic! I love the aroma in my home, I love how it spreads like butter on my toasted baguette slices, and I love how it is mild and sweet, yet distinctive all at the same time. These gruyere and roasted garlic loaves are kind of large rolls (each one will probably … [Read more...]