Dessert By Candy

Ten Pounds Of Flour

I bought five pounds of all-purpose and five pounds of bread flour during the first week of my stay in Florida. That was end of February. My time here is quickly coming to a close and I’m in a frenzy to use up everything I bought for my little pantry. Believe it or not, I think there is good chance I’ll finish those two bags of flour. That’s ten pounds of flour in five weeks. I don’t think I go through flour so quickly except for bake sales or holiday baking.

Baking my daily bread obviously uses plenty of flour. Every loaf calls for a pound of bread flour. The batches of cookies, cakes, and pizza helped with depleting my all-purpose flour supply. I did not fully realize the scary amount of baking I did until I scanned through my Florida album. It is packed with so many photos of baked goods. No wonder Boyfriend wondered if I have been slacking off with training at all (no I haven’t).

Bring Out The Icing, Bring On The Decadence

There is stress eating but I much rather practice stress baking. When the pressure heats up, so does my oven. In fact, you can gauge the reading of my stress-o-meter by looking at what kind of decadent dessert I churn out. Yesterday I baked up a batch of Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls complete with Cream Cheese Icing. So how stressful am I? Take a look at this photo and judge for yourself.

Cinnamon roll has the power to dissolve self-control with its sweet aroma of butter and spice. If you’ve ever come into sniffing-distance of any cinnamon roll stands, you know what I mean. Worse yet, at an airport. Where there’s no decent food available within walking distance. It’s hard to walk away from such encounters without a roll or two that I’m sure go directly from mouth to waistline. That’s just a long way to say, yes I am pretty stress out.

When More Is More

People often preach the virtue of “less is more” but I think there is merit to the “more is more” approach. Homemade bread is a good example. How satisfying is it to bite into a slice generously studded with briny olives or to sink my knife into a loaf loaded with plump currants? I had the pleasure to experience both last weekend with just a bit of minimal effort. Bread baking does not need to be complicate. As long as you’re willing to invest in a bit of time and patience, you too can share this wonderful experience.

Baking bread at home means that I do not need to count my pennies when it comes to loading my bread with tasty add-ins. A whole jar of kalamata olives? Sure! Half a pound of currants? Why not? On top of that, I got to use fresh dried herbs and good quality spices. Such small indulgences are quite affordable in the home kitchen. It was small price to pay to indulge in Currants Cinnamon Bread or Black Olives Sesame Bread coated in oregano, thyme, sumac, and lemon zest.

C For Ascorbic Acid

My recent interest in bread baking has naturally led me to the joy of using whole grain flours. The flavour and behaviour for spelt, kamut, rye, whole wheat, buckwheat, red fife wheat are all different than the common unbleached refined wheat flour. Dare I say they have more character? It did not take long before I amass a small collection of flours in all their many shades of white.

One challenge of using whole grain flour is lightness and crumb quality. All that outer layers of grain contribute deep flavours but at the same time they are of little help to gluten development. It is not uncommon that the dough feels sticky while the baked loaf turns heavy and crumbly. One solution is to make your bread using part white flour and part whole grain flour. For those who are keen on making 100% whole grain bread, there is a secret weapon in vitamin C.

Milk And Bread

I’ve been on a mission to use up gallons of raw milk. Boyfriend is part of a herdshare program and that comes with two gallons of milk every week. Just because we went on a road trip to South Carolina for a few days, that did not mean the cows took a break from milking. We had so much extra milk in the fridge that I was using milk in many of my cooking.

Aside from rice pudding and double batch of butter rum pudding, I also made a rustic loaf of bread loosely adapted from Dan Lepard’s Delicate Milk Loaf. I absolutely love his technique of starting with a sponge followed by brief 10 seconds kneading with 10 minutes rest in between for half an hour. The dough is entirely made by hand. The only equipment I really need is an accurate kitchen scale, something I do not expect to find in a bachelor’s abode. Apparently there is much I have yet to learn about my Boyfriend.

Gifts From The Heart

Last Saturday I worked myself into a frenzy to prepare a few homemade gifts to my closest and dearest. While most of my friends enjoyed an assortment of homemade candies, Little Brother and Boyfriend got something a bit more special. I noticed recently that Nutella made its way to Little Brother’s shopping list. Nutella is one of those things that goes in and out of fashion at my home. We would go through phases when we could not get enough Nutella and then for no reasons at all, we go cold turkey for months, even years. To feed our latest obsession, I decided to make a homemade version. Thanks to Nutella Day, there is a huge collection of recipes out there for the beloved hazelnut spread. I went with David Lebovitz’s trusted recipe.

When you have such a scrumptious spread, you need an equally great slice of bread as canvas. For a special treat, I made Boyfriend a loaf of Cardamom Cherry Bread loaded with half a pound of dried sour cherries. Every slice was studded with deep garnet nuggets of tart sweet cherries, it tasted like the bread had jam built right in!

Bread That Money Can’t Buy

The allure of homemade bread goes further than having my house smelling like fresh bread. The quality ingredients that I use and the endless combination of flavours mean I make bread that simply can’t be bought from commercial bakeries. This weekend’s Banana Maple Pecan Buns are the perfect example. When was the last time you encounter yeast bread made with banana puree?

These glossy mahogany buns have beauty much more than skin deep. Let me count the goodies that went into the dough: banana puree, pecans, jumbo sundried red grapes, maple syrup, cocoa, cinnamon, and ginger. They taste as indulgent as it sounds yet at the same time there is a hearty quality about them. These Banana Maple Pecan Buns are great way to start any morning along with a mug of coffee-spiked Ovaltine.

On Schedule

Last week’s Walnut Loaf totally boosted my bread baking confidence. In fact, so much so that I am breaking up with my weekly Seeduction bread from Whole Foods. The challenge, novelty, and satisfaction of making my own bread is too hard to resist now that I get to spend more time at home on weekends.

This weekend I tried another recipe from Dan Lepard, a twist on the beloved cinnamon raisin bread. His Apricot Wheatgerm Loaf is studded with juicy chopped apricots with a moist tender crumb created by pureed medjool dates and whole milk yogurt. Since the loaf was baked, I could not resist from stopping by for a quick sniff of its sweet aroma every time I walked by. That smell of cinnamon is all that I adore about baking fruit bread. It also doesn’t hurt that this bread is drop dead gorgeous too with matching great taste!

Bread Baking Passion Renewed

Like most well-intended new year resolutions, my 2011 plan to bake bread twice a month fell through some time in early spring. At the beginning of the year, I had grand vision of cultivating my own sourdough starter to conclude a year-long learning with the most handsome boule of walnut sourdough. With the arrival of warmer temperature, my weekends became increasingly busy traveling out of town to inline skating races. Needless to say, bread baking dropped from my priorities and the sourdough starter never even came to be.

I still dream of the day when I can proudly call myself a proficient baker. Until then, I am armed with plenty of recipes to help me fake-it-til-I-make-it. One such recipe is Dan Lepard’s Simple Walnut Loaf. He originally published the recipe in The Guardian way back in 2005. The recipe has been revised for his cookbook Short & Sweet but the theme remains the same. This is a tender loaf with crispy crust and big walnut flavour. Oh, and dead simple technique that any beginner bakers can follow. Lepard called this a bread that would win you applause instead of awards. I cannot agree more.

Indian Feast At Home

Indian cuisine is at once familiar and exotic to me. Familiar to my taste buds because Toronto is a multi-cultural city with large South Asian population and authentic Indian food is woven into our dining culture. Exotic in my kitchen because I rarely crave Indian food at home. The whole concept of toasting whole spices and grinding my own spice blend as building blocks for most dishes seems like a job best left to the professionals. However, there are great reasons to cook Indian food at home. The wonderful choices of vegetarian and vegan dishes fit right in to my way of eating. Besides, I can still enjoy the vibrant flavours of these dishes without the heavy greasy taste often found at restaurants with penchant for ghee.

About a week ago I received a new recipe to test for an upcoming issue of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine. The recipe for naan promises fluffy tender restaurant-style flatbread that I can make at home with a non-stick skillet. Of course I jump at the chance to cook an Indian Feast at home.