I can’t quite remember bread

Hello all you bread lovers out there! jotimaz and I apologize that our posts have fallen off in the past weeks, but with Alaskan summers being what they are, we’ve been trying very hard to be out enjoying the sun as much as possible. There has still been much bread baking but most times I forget to take a picture before a big hunk is cut away from it. These pictures are from the beginning of June and I can’t quite remember what kind of bread it was. It’s a whole wheat loaf, but other than that I don’t know the specifics.

For a potluck last night, jotimaz whipped up a sweet multi-herb loaf that he shaped into a round. It came out so beautiful and brown and tasted so good! Well, we’ll try to be better about posting but I have a feeling it will become more regular only after the weather turns cold again. =)

Italian cobblestone bread

This is actually the recipe that started the cobblestone fascination, but for some reason I posted the other one first. Oh well. =)

Talk about an aromatic cooking experience – this smelled like an Italian feast was being made in my oven! And I can’t say enough about how quick and easy this bread is to make! Within 45 minutes, you have yummy smelling and tasting bread to eat. You really can’t beat that.

Cinnamon-raisin-almond-sourdough cobblestone bread

Oh my goodness! What a wonderful creation this quickbread is! It’s easy too: mix up the dough, cut it into pieces, let it rise for a bit and then bake it! It becomes this wonderful pull-apart bread that’s oh so tasty. jotimaz served this to his graduate committee and they almost ate the whole thing. =)

A little bit of everything bread

jotimaz and I apologize for not posting in such a long while, but grad school and a little bit of travel has kept us busy.

The sandwich loaf for this week has a little bit of everything in it – bread flour, dark and light rye flour, wheat flour, cornmeal and sourdough. It’s dense and aromatic. All the other flours negate the crumbly nature of the cornmeal so it stays together quite nicely. Unfortunately, our sourdough had alot of liquid in it so the loaf didn’t rise as high as it could have. No worries though – we just have a little bit smaller sandwiches. =)

Sunflower whole wheat sourdough bread

The bread for last week’s sandwiches was superb! Whole wheat sourdough is always a winner in my book, but throwing in sunflower seeds really was a nice touch. The whole loaf was moist and nutty…perfect for turkey sandwiches!

Pane bigio (grey bread)

jotimaz entered a new bread realm – making and using a two-week biga. Biga is a classic Italian starter and is much like a sourdough starter, but it’s used in classic country breads. It’s just a mixture of flour, water and yeast that ferments in the fridge, but it provides such an amazing flavor. You just add a chunk of the biga along with your other ingredients and off you go! This particular bread is called “grey bread” because the whole wheat flour and bran supposedly give it a grey tinge.

Wow! I wish I could have captured the aroma in the house while these beautiful loaves were baking. I can’t even describe how wonderful the flavor of this bread was. It was just yeasty and natural and lovely. The crust was to die for – jotimaz let me have the ends just so I could enjoy the flavor of the crust in its entirety. =)

If you’re up for some awesome country bread, I would definitely look into starting a biga. Be aware that the whole process is extended for almost an hour more because of some additional rising and baking time. It’s well worth it though!

Whole wheat herb bread

This week’s sandwich bread is delectable! It’s filled with a couple of different kinds of herbs which means it smells and tastes amazing. Plus it’s soft and has kept well, which is always a plus in my book. If you want a little bit of exciting flavor in your sandwich, I would definitely recommend this herb bread. =)

Graham bread

Have you ever used graham flour before? Holy mackeral – it is so fine and silty. It’s technically a whole wheat flour but it’s milled finer. Man oh man does it make a wonderful tasting loaf. It’s sweeter compared to its other flour counterparts and it definitely stayed moist for the week. Plus, it bakes up so beautiful and golden brown. =)

Rye baguettes

jotimaz whipped up these little rye baguettes for us for dinner the other night. They were very yeasty, good smelling AND good tasting.

Irish soda bread

I realize now that I should have put up this wonderful little loaf up for St. Patty’s day! Oh well.
jotimaz and I had this with dinner the other night after a trip to Fred Meyers where we encountered Irish soda bread for the first time. Of course, the trusty bread books (each at least 2 or 3 inches thick) held the recipe to make our own. Oh my goodness! It was a gigantic warm crusty biscuit bread. I would have this bread again in a heartbeat. It would be a perfect “sop up soup” bread or even a nice bread to have with a cup of coffee or hot cocoa. Oh, and the beautiful cracks in the crust happened completely on their own! It came out looking like a rustic artisan bread even after jotimaz had forgotten to score it before going in the oven. =) YUM!