Wild Yeast Baguettes

The wild yeast baguettes - great crumb, crisp light crust - even when it was a little over baked (like I did today) and has a sweet aftertaste - yum!

















Bake for 5 minutes (with steam - water in pan underneath baguette pan) at 500. Remove pan with water and lower temp to 425 for 10 - 15 minutes until golden.

Hard Brown Sugar

So, I ran out of apples and I need my brown sugar soft for making cookies tomorrow. I decided that I would use potato slices. That worked great and now I can make some more cookie batter.

I make mine almost like a cake batter and then roll / freeze for later use.

Glad I found a substitute for apples :)

Wild Yeast Bread (continued)

Well - I forgot to take pics of the dough this morning..but I did remember to take some of the results before they were all gone!

I made the dough last night before going to bed and let it rise overnight. I punched it down this morning and added a bit more flour and water and let it rise another 5 or 6 hours. It was looking great by then and when I pushed down on it, the spring was there and so I figured it was ready to bake.

I had added some grated cheese to the dough and so I was deciding on the type of bread I was going to make. We decided on buns - whole wheat cheese buns.

They turned out great!

The little brown bits are the cheese that melted on the outside of the bun when baking. Yummy!

I formed them into balls, scored and set aside to rise for 15 minutes, while the oven heated up. I used a perforated pan to have a crispier crust and sprayed the buns with water just before putting them in the oven.





They baked for 10 minutes on 450 and then for another 8 minutes on 425. They came out perfect - just what you would expect.

The taste is really nice as well - the whole wheat and you can almost smell the raisins in the crust, just a hint of the fruit in the crust.

Wild Yeast Bread

So I wanted to try this out....making bread with wild yeast (captured or cultivated - but not from a commercial source)...you know...not the yeast you can buy in the store.

I found this on my Fresh Loaf site (one of my favorite baking sites), which looked easy enough for even me to try.

I've been snapping pics the second go round - as I was too impatient the first time round....it takes a long time to make bread without commercial yeast to fluff it up :)

So first you start with filtered water, organic material & sugar (to speed things up - but not required). I am using raisins as it seems to work really well for a starter - I'm going to experiment with rice, apples, tea leaves, etc - but for now - raisins.

As you see - I've put the water, sugar, raisins together in a plastic dish that I can put the top on tight. I put it all together, give it a big shake and then open the top to keep the airflow going, but the bugs out (it's just loose on the top). This picture was taken at about 8:30 am.

This second picture (yes, very close up) is at about 11am. Now I cheated a bit - I used some of the raisin water I had left over from my last loaf to start this one and it really speeds things up. I didn't get to this stage the first time around until almost day 3! So - it's really a quick thing to do once you have your first batch going. By 3pm - it was bubbling away and ready to go, so I made my pre-ferment (I was planning on that tomorrow - but it was ready). I'm going to leave the water out overnight and put it in the fridge tomorrow (fruit and all) with the lid on tight and that should keep for about a month.

To use, you need to revive (I put mine out 24 hours in advance and added a bit of sugar to perk things up).

I made the pre-ferment and it grew and grew!


So the picture above - is at 8pm tonight (about 5 hrs after I set the pre-ferment to go) and below you'll see what the pre-ferment started out looking like....it is 3.0 oz of yeast water and 3.5 oz of whole wheat flour (I suppose you could use any kind of flour .... will be experimenting with that) and you let it sit with a loose lid on the counter. Tomorrow I'll make the dough and let it rise the 5 - 7 hrs for each rise and see the loft :)

Chocolate Lover's Cake

This recipe is from Baking Made Simple and has been slightly modified for our tastes. It is simple to make, but it does take a while to put together.

Cake:
¾ c butter or margarine – at room temp
6 sq. of semi-sweet chocolate
4 eggs (separated)
¾ c sugar
1/3 c flour

Glaze:
5 tbsp margarine – room temp
10 sq of semi-sweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 9” sprinform pan and line.
1. melt butter and chocolate in pan over low heat (or in microwave), set aside when melted

2. In medium bowl, beat egg whites with salt until stiff peaks form (about 3 or 4 minutes). Set aside.

3. In medium bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar until light yellow and ribbony (about 3 minutes).

4. When light yellow, add chocolate mixture from step 1 into egg yolk mixture and continue to beat until well blended. Add flour slowly while continuing to blend.

5. When egg yolk mixture is well blended, fold in egg whites until just blended.

6. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (toothpick will NOT come out clean). Remove cake from oven.

8. Run knife around cake edges and set on wire rack to cool for 15 minutes.

9. Remove cake from pan after 15 minutes and let cool completely (about 1 – 2 hrs).

10. In a small saucepan or in microwave, melt the 10 chocolate squares and butter together until smooth. Spread warm glaze over cooled cake and let set for 1 – 2 hrs.

Spicy Vegetarian Ginger Beef

These tasty treats are better after soaking in the sauce for a bit or overnight. As these seem to be a Calgary invention, not sure if anyone else has heard of them, but they are delicious.

TIPS:
1. To make it extra crispy, deep-fry the beef twice. This technique is often used in restaurants: staff prepare a batch of ginger beef and set it aside. When a customer places an order, a portion is deep-fried again.

2. Don't put all of the meat in the wok at once - that will lower the wok temperature. Start with adding about 1/4 of the meat mixture.

3. Mix the batter thoroughly. Test with chopsticks or a wooden spoon - it should just drop without sticking.

Meat:
1 lb yves beef strips or regular beef strips (any meat can be used, if a low cost cut – marinade overnight in a mix of soy sauce, garlic & ginger)

Sauce:
3 Tbsp Chinese rice wine, cooking wine or dry sherry
8 Tbsp light soy sauce (or 4 tbsp regular soy + 4 tbsp water)
3 Tbsp white or rice vinegar
7-8 tablespoons granulated sugar / brown sugar or honey
2 tsp sesame oil
Regular Oil
2 teaspoon hot chili oil or crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste

Other:
Celery, red bell pepper, green onion and carrot strips (about ½ cup in total)
Oil for deep-frying
3 red chili peppers, seeds left in or 4 tbsp chili peppers
2-3 Tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp sesame oil

Batter:
Equal portions of cornstarch & flour
Water to make the batter watery


PREPARATION:

Beef:
Mix all marinade ingredients and cut yves veggie beef strips into thin slices, set aside. Add to batter just before deep-frying

Sauce:
Fry the garlic, ginger, chili & sesame oil with oil in a pan until lightly brown. Add vegi’s and sauce which was mixed in bowl and simmer on low until thick.

To Prepare:
Heat the oil for deep-frying to 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Dip the marinated beef pieces into the batter. When the oil is hot, add the beef and deep-fry until it is golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.Increase the heat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Deep-fry the beef a second time, to make it extra crispy. Remove and drain. Serve over rice noodles (crispy) or coconut rice.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are bit dryer as they have cocoa in them to make them dark...otherwise the recipe is very moist.

Ingredients:

1 c butter/margerine

1 c brown sugar

1/3 c corn syrup

1 egg

pinch of salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 c flour

2 tbsp cocoa

1/4 c milk

bag of chocolate chips

Mix together, spoon onto baking sheet and bake for 10 min in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. These stay nice and soft and you can swap out the chocolate chips for butterscotch chips or something else if you don't want the chocolate. Yummy treat (recipe 1 of 30 down).