Bread

I have very few memories from my childhood. Saying that makes me sound like some poor abused refugee kid, but I assure you, I had a very normal, middle-class suburban childhood. I was just a sensitive child to being bullied. So, in a move towards self-preservation, I have blocked out much of my childhood. It's sad, really...I remember mostly bad moments...and I'm quite sure I had much happier experiences. The whole normal middle-class suburban thing, you know.

One happy memory I have is eating fresh homemade bread. I remember the wheat grinder my mom used to grind fresh wheat into flour. The smell of hot flour was intoxicating to me as a six-year-old. I remember the wire cooling racks my mom set the hot loaves on. And I remember that first thick slice of bread, still steaming. Dense and moist, and perfectly flavored. Especially with a smear of jam or honey.

It was always a treat when my mom made bread.

Breadsticks

We often collaborate on dinner with our neighbors. It's wonderful; it motivates both of us to cook, we make great dinners, we get to hang out together, and everyone wins! I often bring breadsticks because I have a great recipe, and they are almost always the first thing to go. Her oldest daughter loves them and would eat them all if we would let her. We also use them to bribe her second daughter, a picky eater, to eat her dinner. Last time I made them, I tried something a little different. First, I divided the dough and then let them rise a second time so they would look more uniform (in the past, they've always been misshapen because I am terrible at rolling them out!). Second, I baked them on the pizza stone instead of a baking pan. What a difference! I am using my stone more and more often because I love the results. Crusts are crisper and have a better color, and the interiors are soft and delicious. If you don't have a pizza stone, I seriously recommend getting one; it is definitely for more than just pizza!

Calzones

Trusty Dishwasher Jeff requested Calzones last week. And I aim to please, so I made them for him. I was a little concerned, because I had eaten calzones that weren't cooked all the way through (and in Venice, no less!), calzones that were doughy...so I was a hesitant to make them. But, after some googling, I noticed that most recipes used a basic pizza dough, and I had a recipe I loved, so I just went for it. And they worked out! I think I will use less yeast in the future (and have changed the recipe below to reflect that) because even though I rolled them out fairly thin, they still rose a good deal in the oven and they were a bit more bready than I think they should have been.

What is so great about calzones (and pizza) is that you can top them with whatever you want! So, go crazy with this. It's so flexible, and that's totally my kind of cooking.

Rustic Sourdough Bread

If you'll recall from last week, I made a sourdough starter and then questioned how it was doing...well, I still wasn't sure, but I thought I might as well go for it. It seemed like the right consistency, and rather than just discard what I removed to feed it, I thought I would use it to try and bake. If it didn't work, I wasn't out much, just the extra flour really.

So, I headed back over to the King Arthur Flour website, confident that they could provide a suitable recipe to try out my starter. And of course they came through. I was surprised at how many of the sourdough recipes called for wheat gluten, which I didn't have...but I found one that did not: Rustic Sourdough Bread.

Sourdough Update

So, I'm not entirely sure this is working.

My mixture smells like alcohol, and I think that is probably a good sign.

But it's thin, and it's not bubbling anymore, although it still separates.

Maybe this is what the blogger on King Arthur meant when she said "Frankly, I tried to make my own from scratch, and it simply wasn’t a happy experience."

I'd post a picture, I really would, but it looks kinda gross. I'll spare you.

Challenge: Make Your Own Sourdough Starter

I have heard people throw around the term "starter" for a while. I think when I was a freshman in college, a boy in the next dorms over had a starter he used frequently. He bragged about how it had been around since the Gold Rush. Hearing that made me feel intimidated by it; if it's something that people cherish so much and keep around for so long, it MUST be difficult.

This fear was confirmed when I read on the King Arthur blog that one of the test kitchen cooks tried to make a starter and it was a complete disaster.

But then I read their instructions for making a starter and it sounded extraordinarily easy! How could it be that hard? Four ingredients.