#2. Lambroso, Greek Celebration

I've decided Peter's recipes are fool proof. As happy as I am that I barely had a mess to clean up after this one, it doesn't make for a very eventful story. I made my first poolish last night and let it refrigerate overnight to add to the bread mixture. Let everything rise for 90 minutes, then had fun braiding the dough, let it proof for 90 minutes, baked it, and voila! It's a traditional Greek bread served at Easter with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, raisins and almonds. It turned out to be just as delicious as as it looks! Oh, and the size of my leg.

#1. Anadama Bread

The first bread was a success! Believe me, I had my doubts since it went through 3 rising and proofings stages. I thought for sure it wouldn't rise or I would look at it too hard and it would immediately implode, but apparently this is a tough bread that can withstand anything. And rightly so considering the story behind it. The name Anadama got it's name years ago when a very frustrated man was constantly cussing at his wife named Ana saying "Ana Damn 'er" who only would serve him cornmeal and molasses for breakfast. The tough girl added yeast and flour one day, and the Anadama bread was made.

It's a simple and mild flavored bread (partially because I think I should have added more salt). I only had access to salted butter so I underestimated the additional salt to include and it's got a sweet hint due to the molasses. By the way, should you need to bake with molasses, Peter recommends the Brer Rabbit Molasses brand.

This one's going to stay short and sweet, because the best news is it rose, didn't burn, and was super delicous. The 12th stage to bread baking according to Peter is to be patient and let the bread sit for one hour before eating. We skipped step twelve and went straight to the eating, which explains my lack of pictures. Yum.  Up next, Greek Celebration bread.

A Well-Read Breadhead

105 pages done and I'm back with more scientific terms and mathematical equations stuck in my head than I ever thought could fit. This book covered everything from enzyme science to gluten development to ingredient ratio formulas. Who knew there are people out there who are this serious about bread? True "breadheads" I suppose. Maybe by the end of this book I too will be taking a side in the continual battle of hand kneading vs. machine mixing bread advocates.

Peter, the bread baker and author, not to be confused with Paul the bread eater and husband, listed in his book all the necessary supplies to be a successful bread baker. This turned out to be extremely disapointing seeing that I left more than a few items back in the states since I knew not all would fit in my microwave size oven or microwave size kitchen. For the record, in case anything goes wrong I will blame it on the fact that I am without my kitchenaide, baking stone, more than one mixing bowl, baking pans, baking sheets, muffin pans, etc. As you can see I'm going to be doing a lot of improvising.

Now that I have more information than I know what to do with regarding bread making, I've been given the go ahead to jump in and try my first loaf. The recipes in this book are in alphabetical order and I'm going to start with the first recipe so not to leave any out. The good thing about this is I'll be chowing down on bagels and cinnamon rolls in the near future. Potato Cheddar and Chive Torpedo, you're going to have to wait a while.

I took a cab yesterday to a grocery store I've not shopped at until yesterday, and it was a baker's paradise for me. Those of you used to having a specialty baking supply store in the city, and a regular grocery store the size of an airplane hanger just around the corner in the U.S., not so much. I could not believe I actually had a choice on flour types. And not just one or two but about 6 or 7.


So I bought a few different types to try out and prepare for the first recipe I will complete tomorrow. It looks to be fairly simple, with the fewest ingredients and is called Anadama bread. I've got the cornmeal soaker sitting for 24 hours which when added to the bread tomorrow will make the sugars even more flavorful. Hopefully this time tomorrow I'll be watching the rain with the smell of freshly baked bread infusing the air!

I'm a Breadhead

My name is Katherine and I'm a breadhead. Some people might argue I'm also a bed head, but we can talk about that another time. I wouldn't really consider myself a "foodie" because I like sophisticated and unsophisticated, pretty and not so pretty, refined and unrefined food as long as it tastes good, and I frequently eat in places that most self proclaimed foodies probably would not. I have never been to culinary school, although it would be fun, and I've pretty much learned to cook and bake with my mother and use a collection of family recipes. I do however know that bread makes my taste buds go zing, my heart sing, my stomach go nom nom nom and I will without a doubt eat it to my hearts content if I have the chance. For all of you no-carb activists out there I say you're missing out on one of the best parts of life! Carbs, smarbs. That's my motto.

For a little background info: My husband Paul, and I have lived in Malaysia for almost a full year now, but we are as Texan as they come. In Malaysia frying is a huge part of cooking, and sadly, baking is not. I've scoured the city for bread bakeries and the closest thing I've gotten is sour dough from Singapore which really isn't that sour or that tasty. I miss it all. Sourdough, olive bread, french bread, ciabatta, marble rye, panettone, you name it. Even the sandwich bread here leaves something to be desired. Instead of a regular whole wheat nice dark bread, they call the closest they've got to that "wholemeal" that is mostly white with a few flakes of brown in it. I've basically decided that if I want to find bread done right, I'm just going to have to buckle up and make it myself. The only big problem is I have never made bread. Another minor setback is I'm working with an oven the size of a microwave, but that's minor in the grand scheme of things right?

After coming to this conclusion yesterday after a mediocre loaf of sourdough, Paul asked what I'm going to blog about since I haven't written in my travel blog www.kpinkl.blogspot.com in several months. Things have been stagnant here to say the least and I've been looking for something to fill my time and keep my brain from turning to mush, so I figured, why not blog about bread? If Julie and Julia can make it through 365 recipes I think there is a small possibility of me coming out alive after 50+ bread recipes. I hope. Paul was probably relieved that I've come up with such a ridiculous new hobby so that I have no excuse for being bored anymore. We went up to the bookstore Kinokuniya and found the book bakers are raving about online called "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread" by Peter Reinhart" and bought it for twice the price as the US, but in my mind it's well worth it if I can even successfully complete one recipe. I just hope I don't have to downgrade to "Bread Baking for Dummies". div>

So I have some 105 pages to read in this textbook like bread bible before the recipes even start. A few recipes Mr. Reinhart and I will be covering, to give you a little preview, are breads from bagels to ciabatta to panettone to french, and everything in between. I have a feeling an additional setback will be finding the ingredients for some of the recipes, but I'll do my best. Each recipe takes at least two days because you use a starter and let it ferment and whatever else, but from the looks of things if I'm not just a complete dummy in the kitchen I will be carbo loading in no time! Now I've got to start reading, and I'll get back to you hopefully prepared to conquer the loaf.