And in more fruitcake news… there’s this. I have my fruitcake lackeys sparing no time or expense finding fabulous fruitcake fripperies for you. Just so you know.
Rye Report
Rye toast for breakfast – and the report is that it’s quite good. For a first attempt it was excellent, I say albeit a bit biased! I think it needed a little more slashing and steaming in the baking to allow for more oven spring. And it needed an egg wash to keep the caraway seeds attached. This is really just window dressing – the real deal are inside the dough, but still. Crust good, crumb ok, (a hair dense which would fix with more spring-ability).
Worth doing and easy eating.
Snow day here in eastern upstate NY. Mom reminded me that I should “let he who put it there, take it away.” Probably can do that this time of year with an inch or so of snow – who knows what tomorrow will bring.
I needed a change, needed to use some rye starter so the yeastie boyz feel appreciated or something, so I decided to try a different rye recipe from St. Hamelman. This time St H’s “Light Rye”. Pretty simple, mostly white flour, 15% pre-ferment (all whole rye) and not bad at all to work with.
And that was with splashing a little more water into it while mixing. Guess I’m over my fear of sticky dough.
Two big loaves as promised (mit seeds of course!) and it smells so good that I can barely stand not cutting into it. But I.will.wait. the crust has gone from super hard to nicely crunchy. Next time I’d do a little egg wash there but you know how it is – first time out you follow the directions!
Baking bread at the same time as making pizza is pretty good time management. Both start the night before as you make the preferment or starter or poolish. I try to look at the rising schedule of the bread to see which gets started first. Pizza is basically a two hour ferment with a folding in the middle. Then you have to look at how long in the oven. This worked out great tonight. The pizza came out and the bread went in. If you want to be really efficient about it, make something that needs a long slow bake so the oven is on to make everybody feel warm and fuzzy and growing.
A little eye candy for you today. Check out the blog and website of Renske Helmuth, Canadian quilt artist.
Another day of being sick. This really stinks, let me tell ya. I’m tired of being sick. OK, and I’m just tired. Sick of being tired and sick.
But there is good news.
Some of the stuff I ordered at lunch on Monday from Lee Valley for holiday presidents – arrived today! Now that’s pretty great stuff. A big box of a lot of little great stuff. Yeah Lee Valley – I’m never disappointed.
I also ordered what will no doubt be a crowd pleaser.
I’d like to say more but you understand that I cannot. More on this in a few weeks. I can say no more.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
