There’s a discussion near the bottom of this page about this loaf. I was looking for another bread that needed a whole wheat mother starter, so I made this rye bread. I used yogurt in the soaker, and molasses, caraway and fresh onion in the final dough. The rye starter was ver...
Both the soaker and the biga require potato water to soften and flavour the final bread. I added roasted garlic and freshly ground black pepper as suggested, as well as using chopped fresh rosemary. This dough was very soft to work with and did not rise that much. There is a w...
About a year and a half ago, I answered a call on Peter Reinhart’s blog to be a tester for an upcoming book about whole grains. The techniques were very new to me and I stuck it out for about a half a year of testing (you can see my results on Flickr). His book was finally pub...
An involved, weekday morning project that was ultimately very satisfying. I converted the basic recipe into a gluten-free one by replacing the flour with the same amount of a basic gluten-free mix and added a rounded ¼ tsp. of xanthan gum. Waffles might be the perfect candidat...
I haven’t even received this issue in the mail yet but there was enough buzz about the unorthodox crust recipe that I wanted to try it immediately. The short story: vodka. A discussion with the recipe’s author is insightful reading. Traditional techniques and recipes aren’t th...
Our final class began with a lot of activity as there were a lot of ingredients in the crusts for both pies. My job was to finely chop peanuts, which I spent almost a half hour doing. It took a long time (and with an unfamiliar knife) and I grumbled about not having a food pro...
I used the cream-milk combination and a Tahitian vanilla bean that I bought from here. What an easy recipe, no need to make a custard and deal with leftover whites. I left the bean in to infuse for a day and it really produced a great vanilla fragrance. While the ice cream doe...
Using leftover pie dough, I rolled out a large piece, enough to fit into my 11” tart pan. It was tough and seemed stiff. After a rest in the fridge, it puffed up during baking (I didn’t prick any holes) even though I used pie weights (dried beans, maybe I need heavier things)....
An easy class this week since we used the same crust and filling base for both pies. Since we didn’t prep the dough for this week in the last class, we started by making the chocolate crust. It was a very tender dough, rich with butter and coloured and flavoured with cocoa pow...
This cake is simple enough that I was able to make it on a weeknight evening in under an hour, plus baking time. I only had 1 cup of sour cream, so I used ½ cup of half-and-half cream, and compensated for the additional moisture with more flour. For the topping, I used walnuts...
I followed the master recipe but made a few changes, adding ground ginger to the custard and using maple sugar instead of white. I put a tiny bit of candied ginger puree on the caramel, and added some chopped dried cranberries that I had soaked in a mixture of 100% cranberry j...
A simple yeasted bread with a sweet-tart component in the form of chocolate chips and tiny cranberries. The authors call for freezing both the chips and fruit beforehand, presumably so they will not melt or get crushed during the gentle kneading of the dough. I used the smalle...
This week didn’t feature any sweet pies in the traditional sense. We started by rolling out the crust (made last week, using real butter this time) for the savoury pies. I tucked the overhang underneath the edge so that it would be thicker and be better able to hold a fluted e...
Using fresh pumpkin puree, I made a double batch of this seasonal ice cream for a mini-potluck at work where both tubs were quickly consumed. The brown sugar and spices gave it a deep, rich flavour (although a bit more of the spices wouldn’t have hurt). I particularly liked th...
This recipe features pumpkin puree in the batter, as well as seeds in the muffin and as a topping. It’s a bit more work than most recipes, as there is a separate streusel that needs to be made. I baked two pie pumpkins in the oven and pureed the flesh in a food processor (I’m ...