Baking A Sweet Life

I’ve been so eager to try this bread, and I’m so glad I finally did! The reason I had put it off for so long is that the high extraction do-it-yourself-part had intimidated me. I don’t know why - it ended up being so easy to do, and so worth this 4 extra minutes that it took.

This bread was gargantuan! But so incredible. It was probably 14″ across, and about 8″ or 9″ tall. This would be my first jumbo-sized loaf, and it really could feed an army. Well, a small army. Maybe a small baseball team. Anyway. I have an electric mill and normally mill my own wheat, spelt, kamut, etc for my whole grain breads. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to sift anything out of it, since the entire wheat berry is milled at the same grind.
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This month’s Bread Baking Day theme was simple - the bread must include oats. Astrid of Paulchen’s Food Blog was our lovely host this month, and I thought there are so many options that I was paralyzed by indecision for the first 3 weeks that this challenge was posted. I decided that I wanted to incorporate fruit, and I was in the mood for something quick, specifically a quickbread! I decided to do a variation of the Peach Oatmeal Bread in King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking book. I thought that peaches would be super appropriate since I reside in the official peach state. :)

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Its Tuesday, and that means that the TWD’ers are back at it again. This time it was carrot cake! I’ve been wanting to make carrot cake for a while, but I’ve got so much going on it the kitchen, it had just taken a number and was waiting at the back of the line. So, luckily for it, its number was called this week, and I got to play around with one of the tastiest recipes I’ve made in a while.
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When Holly of Phemomenon asked for participants in her one-off foodie event, “Blogging for Babies - An Invitation for Little Wonders” I didn’t hesitate to say yes. This is an event to promote the March For Babies, which does amazing work in the way of improving the life quality of infants, both full term and premature.

I have a particular interest in causes like this one because I work at a childrens’ hospital, specifically doing anesthesia on these little miracles. We sometimes have to anesthetize patients as little as 23 weeks gestation, and they barely weight ONE pound. They are so tiny, and are fighting so hard for their life. Its both heartbreaking and amazing, and I’m so glad that there are organizations like this that are able to help these little ones make it through this rough start to life. Please consider going to the link above to donate to this cause - your money will be truly well spent.  Please see below for Holly’s personal statement to everyone regarding this event/cause. Read the rest of this entry »

The difficultly level of this bread is marked as “advanced” in Maggie Glezer’s book. I took one look at that and thought, what the heck. I’ve got a bread class under my belt, and I just won’t take pictures of it if its inedible :).

I adapted the recipe from her book Baking Across America, and this particular recipe is from Della Fratoria’s Bakery. I happened to have all the ingredients on hand which was about 70% why I chose to get started on this recipe last night. The other 30% was that it used sourdough starter, and I’m always looking for a reason to use it! I keep my starter at 100% hydration, and adapted the recipe to account for that.
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I’d been daydreaming about trying my luck at English muffins ever since I saw Susan’s post at Wild Yeast. They just looked so tasty, and so much better than what you get out of a package! I’m so glad that I tried them - they are every bit as good as she promised. I didn’t know until I was about to make them, that English muffins are not baked - they are merely cooked on a griddle (or nonstick skillet in my case) on both sides, much like a stiff pancake batter. I was also surprised by how much milk they required.
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Okay, so not really, but it was fun to make these little bites of chocolatey goodness. Dorie’s recipe for Gooey Chocolate Cakes were what was on this weeks TWD agenda. I had opted to make miniature versions, simply because I wanted to bring all of the left overs to work (especially since hubbs is out of town) and I thought that it would be nice to have more to share - 15 in fact. Dorie says that you definitely need to serve this with something - its too rich to stand on its own, and I’d have to agree. I plated it with some fresh cut strawberries and some seedless raspberry preserves (that I used yesterday in Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake, no less!) and those flavors balanced the richness nicely. I just wish I had thought ahead enough to pour a glass of milk, but I was too focused on eating chocolate.
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