I’m back in Connecticut now, but here’s one I baked while I was in California. Chocolate-Cherry Swirl Bread.
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My mom lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and I live in Connecticut, but we talk on the phone all the time. This is how our conversations have gone as of late:
Mom: Hi, hon.
Me: Hi.
Mom: What did you do today?
Me: Made bread.
Or sometimes they go:
Mom: Hi.
Me: Let me call you back, I’m covered in dough!
Or :
Mom: Let me guess what you did today. Made bread? What kind was it?
You guessed it, I’m up to my eyeballs in breads; but it’s for a pretty good reason. I’m working on another cookbook, entitled United States of Breads. For those readers that have my first cookbook, United States of Pie, this book will be like my first—a celebration of regional, historical recipes from around the country.

I have scoured libraries, vintage cookbooks, newspaper clippings, and food-splattered memorabilia from across the nation in search of homey, satisfying, unique, and delicious bread recipes to bring [...]

Do you ever start one project, and by the the time you’ve finished it, it is almost unrecognizable from what it was meant to be? I do. It happens to me all the time– when I’m getting dressed for the day, running errands, and especially when I’m cooking.
When I’m cooking  I like to call these events improvisations. Don’t have any green onions? I’ll add the usual yellow Spanish sort. Out of sour cream? Plain yogurt works just as well. I’ll make a prescribed meat dish a vegetarian entree instead, and so on. These improvisations can be liberating. It is freeing to use a recipe simply as a guide.
So while this improvisation happens more often than not when I cook, baking is another story. Baking can be finicky. There is melting, aerating, and tempering, that all have to be done just so. If you stray too far from the recipe you [...]

I’m smitten with a lowly flour.
It all started last year with a trip to upstate New York. I went to the teeny-tiny, mill town of Penn Yan. It was quaint. But what do you do in a mill town except buy flours and grain? Not a whole lot. So, I filled the trunk of my car with stone-ground polenta, finely milled pastry flour, groats, and buckwheat flour.
The buckwheat flour was excellent, nutty, chewy, and somehow fluffy. I made filling buttermilk pancakes and delicate crepes– enjoying every mouthful. A few months after my trip, my supply quickly diminishing, a dear, like-minded friend moved away.  He left behind a cache of baking ingredients for me. As I was unpacking my new muscavado sugar, whole wheat pastry flour, and vanilla paste, I found his supply of buckwheat flour. Great minds and hungry bellies think alike!

With my supply replenished without a trip to the [...]

Hello.
My word, it’s been a long time. A really looooooooong time. And it’s my fault—that’s right—you can place the onus squarely on me. I guess you could say that I’m not too great about keeping in touch. Apologies.
I have an excuse, a rather good one in fact. But first, I’m going to butter you up—with muffins.

Muffins can be a tricky thing. Purchased on-the-go from a non-reputable coffee joint they can be a leaden, flavorless mass. Bought from a vendor at your local farmer’s market and they can have a crunchy sugar-coated top and chewy oats within. But when you are searching for the best muffin, when running to the farmer’s market, or even the bakery simply won’t do, you need to make them yourself.
This classic blueberry muffin recipe is actually based on a Sour Cream-Peach Muffin that I found in Jim Fobel’s Old Fashioned Baking Book. You will notice that [...]

I know that I’m a day late, but for all of those readers who are observing the Passover holiday, and eating only non-leavened bread products– you have an entire week to eat plenty of matzos. One whole week with nary a slice of bread to be seen. Truth be told, it’s been several years since I have been an observant Jew. But I remember in elementary school, my mother packing my lunch for me. I would open my lunch box only to find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on not homemade white bread, not bread at all– but matzos.
Those were some dry sandwiches! At first, having matzos to snack on seemed special. Like being a member of some secret society. I would pull the brittle pieces out of a sandwich bag, and my non-Jewish schoolmates would ask a slew of questions. [...]

I was at the heath food store recently, perusing through the many bags of Bob’s Red Mill products when I spotted a bag of graham flour. Graham flour? Graham crackers, I thought. So, I grabbed a bag and went home.
Some may think of graham crackers as a childish food. And I suppose they are. I remember sitting around diminutive work tables in elementary school, with a Dixie cup full of apple juice and a teacher’s assistant placing graham crackers on the paper napkin in front of me. I loved the snack then, and I love the snack now. Graham crackers are still one of my go-to snacks when nothing else sounds good. Slathered with peanut butter, they can’t be beat. And I only could imagine that they would be superlative when homemade.
I went home, and did a quick Google search for [...]

Did everyone have a splendid Thanksgiving? Was it filled with turkey, pie, and maybe a little bit of booze? Was there enough food? That is a silly question. If your Thanksgiving is anything like mine, it is all about abundance. Abundance is great; but after the turkey is packed up, the sides are nestled in their Tupperwares, the brussels sprouts two ways (yes, you read that correctly) are chilling in the refrigerator, and each guest has his or her own care package to take home, and you still find yourself looking at a bowlful of homemade cranberry sauce, what are you to do?
Make scones, of course!
For the past two years one of our guests has made the most delicious cranberry sauce, based on this recipe. The cranberries are tart yet sweet, flavored with just a hint of orange, and blooming with those warm spices of [...]

Maybe you have seen them sitting in the glass case at a Mexican Panaderia, a sweet roll, with a sugar crust, that is often brightly colored. If you’re anything like me, you may have been turned off by the neon hues, and ordered something else. Well, I didn’t know what I was missing. I should have said, “One concha, please!” My mornings would have been a lot brighter.
Conchas are named for their resemblance to a conch shell, and for those of you who have yet to try them, they are a soft, sweetened roll that is topped with a crumbly, flaky, sugar-based shell. Take one bite, and bits of the sugar shell come off, gently spilling down your shirt– what a delicious mess to eat! The roll is very similar in taste to brioche bread, and it is made rich with the addition of [...]

Well, autumn is definitely arriving. I can almost see the pots percolating on the stove, and smell the braising meats in the oven. Yes, I can tolerate having the oven on for more than a few moments, and to me this means the baking of bread will resume. In order to christen the process, I baked up a batch of Batter Dinner Rolls from an out-of-print cookbook called The Complete Bread Cookbook.
Very similar to a Parker House Roll, the batter was loose and pliable, while the inclusion of milk made the rolls taste rich and homey. With the house smelling warm and yeasty, I’d say they were an excellent way to say goodbye to the summer and to usher in the fall.
from Nosheteria
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