Step by step through this amazing, decadent, savoury challah-based Purim treat! I baked it straight from the book (my mother’s copy, now kind of floury and used-looking) but someone has kindly shared the recipe on The Fresh Loaf if you haven’t bought the book yet.  It is worth buying, however.  At least, if I had money to buy baking books, which I don’t. Dough.  What a smooth, elastic and well-behaved dough this is.  Straight out of the book, a touch more flour into the food processor to stop it from sticking, and it is absolutely PERFECT.   Snakes:  Roll out two 30-inch snakes and then roll them flat (about 30 x 4). Fill:  Spoon decadent luscious onion-poppy-butter filling along the length of both flat snakes.       Seal:  roll up the flat snakes and pinch along the length to close.   Twist:  Twist the two snakes together and fumble with the ends until they are a royal mess and then fumble some more to make them go together and not look too awful.  Ugh.  Allow to

  Breadsticks?  Oy, do we have breadsticks!      

Needed bread in a hurry for last night’s supper, and luckily I had some dough left over from the breadsticks I made on Sunday evening! So I quickly whipped it up into a boule shape, let it rise for an hour or so, and baked it at 460 with as much steam as I could muster.  It started to get very dark (even with just a couple of tbsp of oil!), so I tented it with tinfoil. What was incredible to me was the amazingly cracked crust on this bread!  I have been trying for months to achieve this effect, and here it happened almost entirely by lucky accident.  See?  Lovely!   The bread was fairly dense, not artisany at all.  Almost the texture of a deli rye bread… because it was so highly kneaded, I guess.  But it was VERY well-risen, completely cooked through, and absolutely delicious.   A neighbour stopped in and we invited her to stay for supper. Neighbour:  “Why are you taking pictures of the bread?”  (bit of a pause while neighbour washed and came and ate a bite)  “Well, it

This post is an ongoing journal of my Purim breadstick experiments over the next day or two.  :-) I am trying to put together a nice selection of not-too-junky (and not-too-expensive) food gifts to go in this years shalach manos (mishloach manot) baskets for Purim. These breadsticks really seem to hit the spot.  Nice and crunchy; with the right seasoning on top, I think they’re just about right.  These have salt, pepper and sesame.  I may be a bit daring and try rosemary instead on the final product.  What you see here (plus two breadsticks that got munched before I could take the picture) is the output of 1/4 of the recipe I’m using ).  About a dozen; more if I make them shorter, which I’ll have to do if they’re going to fit in the baskets I’ve bought.  Maybe even twenty. Which means a full recipe might make up to 80 breadsticks. And then we divide:  4-5 breadsticks in each basket, times thirty baskets… about 120-150 breadsticks. Okay!  I can definitely do this… but it’s s

Much Purim baking ahead this week…!

I have, with great sadness and resignation, given up on sourdough for the time being, at least until our house regularly goes over 20 degrees celsius during the day. This week’s tweaked challahs (based on this recipe ) are looking good so far. Soft, soft, soft, but they look perfectly-done in the centre. I suspect they’re the same as what I made two weeks ago , but I got busy and forgot to record any specific impressions about what and how I made those ones. So here’s the formula this time around. For anyone looking for an EASY challah, this recipe is no-knead but it is not no-work. I am hoping to capture the best of all possible bread worlds: lots of moisture, no initial knead step, no food processor, and several long ferments to improve flavour. We shall see if I have struck gold… Jennifer’s Experimental Do-Not-Knead Challah 30g active dry yeast (or maybe I used 35g?) 4 cups warm tap water 45g kosher salt 200g white sugar 1 cup vegetable oil (can

Sourdough fact:  House too darn cold!

I think I’ve used this title before, but seriously.  Why will Maggie Glezer’s beautiful sourdough challah not work out for me? This week, I was very respectful of the rise times for the sourdough and STILL the braids lost their shape and the breads flattened out miserably… Will report back on the taste after Shabbos! Dough, kneaded, before first rise, 10:00 p.m. Thursday night: Braids, braided, 1 a.m. Friday morning, after first rise:     Out of the fridge, 9:15 a.m. Friday morning: Three hours later, 12:15 noon Friday, still not much growth:   Oven preheated, as ready as they’ll ever be:   Baked and yes, the braids are almost completely GONE.  :-(   Sigh… these had better taste fantastic .  That’s all I can say!

Well, I made this one last night with the leftover molasses-y rye dough. I think I will definitely NOT make that pumpernickel again. The molasses taste is too pervasive; it is the strongest note in anything made with it, and it throws the rye flavour off completely. Not a disaster, but not a Happy Bread Night either… on to bigger and better things!!!

I didn’t realize it was just last week that I made rye bread last.  Anyway, so I made it again! This is actually an attempt at the Artisan Bread in 5 no-knead Pumpernickel bread… but rhe colour is disappointingly light.  Without the cocoa the recipe calls for , and perhaps also without the caramel colour, it really looks just like rye bread. It does seem to have more flavour than just ordinary rye bread.  There is a really almost boozy sour note to the smell and taste.  I’m not sure why because it’s not fermented longer, but it could be due to the burnt-sugar substitute for caramel colour .  Everybody noticed the distinctive presence of molasses… I’m not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was surprising given that there are only 2 tbsp in the whole thing. Anyway, I thought I’d show it off here anyway.  Will probably make again because of the complex interesting flavour.  I wouldn’t necessarily call it “ryelicious” like last week’s, but it’s decent eatin’ with l

Nearly perfect challah… really mellow Shabbos!

Easy, easy, easy.  So easy I am – gasp! – chucking my rye sourdough starter because a) it’s been sitting in the fridge since October, b) it wasn’t that hard to start from scratch in the first place, and c) if we want the best rye bread, we can always use this recipe. It is NOT all-rye, or even mostly rye.  Truth be told, it’s only one cup or so of rye tossed into plain old Artisan Bread in Five no-knead dough.  Still and all, a masterful flavour. Let me just say:  I first bit into this when it was hot and fresh, and was wowed by the hotness and freshness of it.  We had to run out on an errand in the middle of supper, and I took along a piece of bread to munch on (it was quicker than bentching).  By the time I got a chance to bite into it, it had thoroughly cooled off… and was, if anything, even better than fresh.  SO moist, SO flavourful.  SO subtly rye, SO subtly sour; truly great bread.     See how lovely it looks beside this crockpot Miami-Ribs supper ???   Although I