TWD: County Bread

This was an easy recipe for a busy long weekend. I made the sponge quickly on Saturday night and put in the refrigerator overnight and most of the next day.  This smelled divine out of the oven.  I could not wait until it was fully cooled to cut into it. The texture and yeast aroma was wonderful.  Next time I would just do the wheat and bread flour. Because I left the sponge overnight and more, I got a fabulous sourdough taste.  I thought the small amount of rye was more distracting to the sourdough and hearty wheat chewiness then a great addition.



After two basketball games, grocery shopping, a visit to my mom and three loads of laundry I was ready to put this together with Sarah during the Patriots Colts playoff game. My stand mixer did all the work and it went to rise again.




Miraculously I had one of those bread baskets the recipe called for.  My and my husband's obsession with King Arthur Flour store pays off again.



The dough was wonderful and easy to work with.  I easily turned over on top of the peel. Next time, I will not slash so deeply; the baking razor that I have works too well!



I baked it on my stoneware deep dish pizza pan.



I love how the flour from the bread basket stayed even after baking.



Was even better toasted the next day!

TWD: Gingersnaps

I'm not a fan. The taste was reminiscent of ginger but no snap.  A devil to roll and then transfer.  I would not make again.  I'm in a pattern to have one holiday Baking with Julia not turn out.  Last year the Gingerbread was a nightmare for the tongue. I made the White Bread Loaves to soothe my baking soul.





 

TWD: Challah

Challah perfection.  Honestly a great recipe.  We gave a pipping hot loaf as a host gift for a holiday party at a neighbor's house.  The other loaf was devoured on Christmas Day morning and later in the day alongside the Pumpernickel with smoked salmon.

TWD: Pumpernickel Loaves

So many ingredients! Very good just cooled, sliced, toasted and slathered with butter.  I froze one of the loaves and served on Christmas Day with a smoked salmon and a lemon caper cream cheese.  Delish!

TWD: Double Chocolate Cookies

Dark chocolate brownie cookies is what these should be called.  My husband loved these, not too sweet.  My brother's niece (my niece-in-law?) Shannon ate about 10 of these on Christmas day; very much a hit.

TWD: X - Cookies

Broad Brook Bakers have been absent for a while. We've been doing some of the recipes but I've had a difficult last quarter of 2013 in terms of work/life balance.  Enjoy the next few back to back blog entries (they may seem more like twitter posts!)...we've made up some ground and hope to take the rest of the break to fully catch up. 

We did these together back in October.  The kids were not crazy about the ingredients for the filling so we used poppyseed. 

The kids loved making these but thought they were rather plain. I felt the same although they were tasty with a cup of Earl Gray tea.

TWD: Blueberry Muffins

This is the second time I've made blueberry muffins this summer. The first was with fresh New Jersey berries. We gobbled these up faster than I could make them. The second time was a few weeks ago for this Tuesdays with Dorie entry. With this batch I used frozen berries.  The taste is the same but it is hard to prevent most of the berries from sinking to the bottom.












Regardless of frozen or fresh they are hard to keep around. They are delicate, buttery and filled with berry goodness.

What's not to like?