Baguettes. Le sigh!

...As Pepe LePeu would say...

Oh, Pickle, I fear you may have done it this time. I have dabbled in bread baking but, to be honest, I have never understood the urge to take it ultra-seriously at home. I've always lived in city neighbourhoods where a great loaf of one kind or another is just blocks away. I've had those Ma Ingalls/nouveau hippie urges to bake my own bread, sure. I'm often seen kneading up a batch of fresh rolls for Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever. Sometimes I get fancy and put sweet potatoes or something in them. One time I bought a rather expensive baking stone, although Mr. Salty mistook it for a brick and threw it out after spilling pizza sauce on it in the oven, thereby ending that 'run' at serious home baking.

But this is the first time I've really seriously made a kind of artisanal quality bread at home.

I went hard-core, inspired by your challenge, and chose the recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I really was up early Wednesday morning to make a Pate Fermentee, which I learned is like a mini-version of the dough to come (flour - half bread and half all purpose, yeast - surprisingly instant again - water and salt). You knead this and then leave it in the refrigerator overnight, like an insurance policy on deliciousness. Although, part of you does feel ripped off that you did a whole bunch of work and nothing is coming out of it. YET.


You can't call this recipe 'easy' in fact, because there are a lot of steps that take a looooooong time - but the steps in and of themselves aren't complicated. On Thursday I got the Pate Fermentee out to de-chill, which took it an hour, then cut it up to add to a new batch of dough (which used the exact same simple ingredients.) Mixing - I went with the stand mixer because I am unlike Ma Ingalls in that I hate hand mixing stiff bread doughs. Kneading - this I did by hand because it's tremendously satisfying. Rising - 2 hours during which I did a bunch of work. Shaping - I even made a homemade couche for the bread to rise in from a piece of linen, spritzed with oil and sprinkled with flour. Rising part II - about an hour. Slashing - Xacto blade worked like a charm. Baking. Steaming while baking - first with a steam pan in the oven and then with three visits at short intervals to spritz the oven walls with more water, which had my babysitter certain that I was BONKERS. And THEN you have to wait a torturous 40 minutes before you get to eat them. I'm exhausted just typing that.

It was worth the wait. Leaving Paris out of the equation (because one must, always, or it is unfair to the rest of the bread-baking world,) AND leaving modesty out of the equation, I don't think I've had baguette this delicious. No, really. There are some good ones around, but there is something about the freshness. The work with the steam was a good investment, I think, making for that chewy crust that marks this species of bread.

I sent a loaf home with the babysitter, as payment for having to work for a crazy lady.

Thank you SO MUCH for making me do this. It won't be the last time - I figure that now that I've done it, it will get easier. Right? Right?!? This is the part where I think you may have done it. If I get serious about this...? There goes the rest of my leisure time. And my hard work at weight-loss.

Get ready for a new challenge before Tuesday. And don't put the yeast away!!!

Bisous,
Gumdrop

Cultural Exchange - Haiku Meets Baguette

Seven this morning
Momma the insomniac
Makes Pate Fermentee...
- - - - -
Old school recipe
The dough aging overnight
Torture for my soul
- - - - -
Oh! The thought of it!
Fresh baguette tomorrow night!
I can smell it now!
- - - - -
Children must eat it
Momma loves carbs but also
Anthropologie...




Thanks for the mountie
Husbands toiling on movies
At least good for laughs...

Banish the Baguette (but not why you think)

Ma chère Gumdrop:

This is not a picture of a baguette. It’s a picture of the IE filming on location. This, as you will recall, was the reason I needed to bake bread. But I’ve discovered another problem, possibly a bigger one. The problem is that I love bread. I love bread too much. But bread does not love me the same way. Sure, it pretends to love me; it makes me feel good with that first warm crusty hunk, so I go back for more. And more. Until I feel sick with self-loathing for loving something that just ends up making me feel bloated and pasty. Then when I swear off bread, it comes back with that come-hither scent wafting from the oven.

So that’s why there isn’t a picture of my warm, golden, albeit slightly misshapen, baguette. I loved that baguette so much; I had to kick it to the curb before I could take a picture.

This fantastically simple recipe from the talented bakers at King Arthur Flour was just the sort to make a novice bread maker like me fall head over heels with homemade bread. It’s so easy; I could even handle making it the old-fashioned way (with a wooden spoon and elbow grease) since I didn’t have my kitchen-aid at the cottage. As it was a rainy autumn day in August, the time required inside wasn’t a hardship, although the actual work time is paltry enough. It’s really just the waiting that makes the whole bread thing a chore.

So, recipe: dead simple and I found the second half of the dough, which I used the next day, produced lighter bread, but that may have been because I rolled the second batch into a longer shape (a baguette is a lot longer than you think and definitely a lot longer than your average baking sheet!).

Because of this shortfall, my baguette did end up misshapen as I said. It looked more like a French loaf than baguette, but hey, it still looked French! And with some wine and good company, it passed muster for a rustic cottage weekend. The loaves gave the most wonderful thwack when tapped and had a fabulous flake when torn. Like the best bread, it was a small soul-satisfying experience (I’d love to try it with actual King Arthur Flour next time, but that would require a road trip. Interested?).

I do need a bit more practice with my shaping technique before I take to riding my bike through the city with a few jaunty homemade baguettes and a lush bouquet of fresh flowers in my basket. But I’m definitely a few steps closer to the kind of life portrayed in an Anthropologie ad. As long as I remember not to eat any of bread. Who am I kidding? That baguette had me at bon jour…

Adieu,
P

And yes, this is just a random picture from the IE’s movie. While not a baguette, Mounties are yummy too.

Cake Shopping Will Help Too!

Oh, Pickle!

Don't be sad, I can't bear it! (Would it help to tell you that I would DIE for a couple of months by myself and spend them running around the house naked while eating bon-bons with no husbands or kiddos to steal them from me or to be startled by my bouncing buttocks? The truth is I would probably just sit in an armchair and enjoy the fact that my shoes are where I left them and I don't need to vacuum like, hourly. Still, jaded bliss...)

We will totally cheer you up with baguette. Warm. With butter. How can one be sad then?

In the mean time, go look at adorable cupcake accoutrements here. I ordered a whole bunch including the absolutely charming Christmas cupcake kit, full of retro toppers that make me wish it was December, and the pirate cupcake kit which will undoubtedly make little boys very happy. I also ordered a bunch of darling cupcake papers which came packaged with little decos to coordinate with them. That will help! And just think, no husband to scrutinize your package of imported foo-fas when it arrives = less guilt.

I have some pictures coming up of a couple of baked goods which will feature the blue gingham cupcake papers.

Love and warm bread to you,
Gumdrop

Bake Away the Blues

Dear Gumdrop:

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little blue. A husband who has been MIA for 2 ½ months is to blame (damn movie-making in far-flung locales!). Not even a burst of truly summer-like weather has been able to lift my spirits. But I think fresh-baked bread might do the trick.

A homemade baguette might be the bread-lover’s equivalent of those pillow boyfriends you see Japanese girls with blunt cuts and knee socks clutching in indie fashion magazines. After this challenge, IE may find me curled up with an olive boule (and sporting a stylish yet sensible new haircut) when returns.

So feel the love, bake some bread.

Pickle

Kreskin Hearts Crackers

Dear Pickle:

Remember the amazing Kreskin and his act? Okay, here’s my version:

ANSWER – Knit scarves, the rules, jokes about your mother and crackers.



QUESTION – Name things that are better if you make them yourself…

My apologies to Johnny Carson.

You’d never know it by how late I am with this one, but I too loved and was comforted by making these crackers. The first time I made bread I was like nineteen and going through the obligatory college hippie phase. I hereby apologize to High School Boyfriend and His University Buddy, who were forced to eat the leaden loaves I enthusiastically produced from the Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book (the original hippie GET BAKED bible). OHMIGOD, soggy and kind of anvil-like and absolutely indigestible.

If only I’d started with delightful, delicious SIMPLE crackers! And, maybe, some nice white flour instead of sprouted rye or WTF I was brainwashed into at that point.

The recipe I used was from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, a gorgeous book that won the James Beard award and the subject of yet another weekly blog circle that I had dreams of joining at some, more ambitious point. I was a bit shocked to see instant yeast used here as I thought maybe purists wouldn’t think of such a thing, but I faithfully bought some and with the additions of honey, oil and flour I had a dough in like thirty seconds! No proofing of the yeast with the sugar or anything!

It’s been a mega-stressful summer for me work-wise, and yet it all kind of melted away with the ten minutes of kneading required. This is one of those things that every time I do it, I am all like – why don’t I knead something EVERY DAY?!? (Oh yeah, because I was born at the wrong time. Drat. Though I do appreciate the indoor plumbing and anti-frizz hair products available nowadays.) I guess the tricky part was finding a day when I would be at home and sane for two hours while the dough rose, but once it was done working it’s magic on a sunny windowsill, I swear it only took me another thirty seconds to roll these mofos out on a counter lightly sprayed with cooking spray.

I chose to sprinkle them with alternating lines of poppy and sesame seeds, although the book’s author uses a number of spices so I may have to go back and try that too… Anyway, they were light and crisp and joyous - if not perfectly, evenly browned. They were consumed enthusiastically by all members of my little household, despite the fact that they came out of the oven mere moments after dinner, the smell having been just too intoxicating to ignore. And I got to feel all smug that they had no preservatives and didn’t come out of a package (er, for once.)

Anyway, I hope your summer has been good to you and I can’t wait to dig in – so please, challenge me!!!

Crackers for you,
Gumdrop

Look, gratuitous cute baby eating ice cream as my apology to you! Peanut just turned ONE!