Post Fair Roundup

Fresh baked ribbons

I submitted six different breads to the LA County Fair this year, most if not all of which I’ve posted previously on my blog. I’d heard from someone who works for my parents that I’d gotten two third place ribbons and one second place ribbon, and my ribbons arrived in the mail today so I can confirm the results. The Whole Wheat Panmarino and Pain de Campagne both received third place ribbons while my Cinnamon Swirl Walnut and Raisin bread received a second place ribbon. I did better than I expected, but not as well as I’d hoped of course! I’ll have to go back next year and come home with at least one first place. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to the fair while the breads were still up to see my competition, so I’ll just have to guess. So, as said I think I’ve posted these before but here they are again celebration of the results at the fair!

Oregano Flatbread (with bonus cinnamon sugar version)

Cinnamon Sugar Flatbread

I’ve got a flatbread this week, somewhere in between a pita and a flour tortilla. The oregano is a really good addition, and though you can add it into the dough instead of just on the surface like I do here, I found you get plenty of flavor from having it on the surface, and I like the way it makes them look. These cool and soften well if you cover them with a towel, but they’re also really good hot off the pan. In fact while I was making them I stole one to make myself a quick little dinner, a chicken breast, the flatbread and some pesto!

Sourdough Wheat Panmarino

Sliced Panmarino

I’ve made panmarino before using Peter Reinhart’s recipe from Bread Baker’s Apprentice, this time I kept the concept the same and used my own recipe. I’m submitting some breads to the LA County fair this year and was looking for something interesting to make in the whole wheat category, and the panmarino seemed like a good choice. It also seemed like it would be a good bread for a hike, two birds with one stone! I should also note, I bumped the salt content up slightly for the hike, I’d suggest .4 or .5 of an ounce instead of the .6 of an ounce. It tastes good with the .6 though it may be a bit salt for some peoples’ taste, however that salt tastes yummy on a sweat inducing 7 hour hike!

Sourdough Casatiello

Casatiello

I made casatiello sometime last year as part of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge (which I never actually finished…) but never got around to posting, I made the bread again recently for our second hike up Icehouse Canyon (trail report here [2 of us continued to Telegraph Mountain, great views!!]). I’ve modified the recipe slightly, mainly to accommodate making it as a sourdough. I figured this bread, which we commonly refer to as sandwich bread, would be good for a hike since it would be ready made sandwiches!

Sourdough Banana Walnut Bread with Caramelized Banana Slices

Slices

I’ve made strawberry banana bread before (and actually have a new modification on that I need to finish testing and post!) but this time I was looking for something that provided more of a hybrid between yummy sourdough breads, and great quick breads. So this time I went for just bananas as a source of hydration in the dough (the riper the better!), walnut butter for the richness of color and flavor it adds, and the real secret to what makes this the best banana bread I’ve ever had: caramelized banana slices. Most banana bread has good banana flavor throughout the bread, but this one has that PLUS delicious little slices of banana heaven scattered throughout the bread. I’ve made this as freestanding loaves every time, but it would probably work fairly well in loaf pans as well.

Granola Bread

Granola Bread crumb

I’m trying a new method of posting recipes here, vs what I’ve been using previously. We’ll see how it works? It has been a while since I’ve made a YeastSpotting submission, been trying to refine some already posted recipes, and, well, busy hiking! This is also cross posted on my new hiking blog. This bread is really good, if a bit heavy, and I did unfortunately screw up with the way I set the timer and so I underbaked it a bit. Alas, I’ll fix that next time.

Jasmine Tea Bread

Jasmine Tea Bread

I’ve been wanting to make a bread involving tea for a while, and just finally got around to it. I really like jasmine tea and gemaicha, and I’ve managed to work both of them in here. It would, however, be appropriate to substitute any tea you like a lot in this recipe. I think the jasmine and genmaicha pair really well to give it a toasted/roasted base with a floral finish, but lots of other teas would work well too. The tea you brew as the liquid for the recipe you should brew quite a bit stronger than you would normally brew for drinking, the bitterness will almost completely disappear in the bread leaving you with a much stronger flavor impression from the tea.

Marmalade Bread

Marmalade Bread

I’ve been making marmalade recently (planning on entering some in the county fair), playing around with recipes trying to find my favorite, I should have a post with some recipes soon. One of them, lemon raspberry, never really set up. It was more like lemons and raspberries in syrup. Probably didn’t have enough seeds in with it when I made it. Anyway, I was trying to think of a recipe for bread at the same time as I was trying to think of what to do with the lemon raspberry in syrup blend. Then it hit me, make bread with it. So, I just decided to modify my high hydration sourdough recipe to use marmalade for much of the moisture content. In this case when life gives you lemons, make lemon raspberry marmalade, and when that doesn’t work… stick it in bread. Just as notes, this one again uses less starter even though the recipe makes the whole amount, you only use some. Also, if you don’t have a really think marmalade I’d suggest compensating with a bit more water and a bit less marmalade.

Six Seed Bread

Look at those seeds!

This bread came out of a rather failed attempt at a bread with roasted pumpkin in it. I’d seen a bread online somewhere with slow roasted pumpkin in it, but I guess the pumpkin I used wasn’t that good because it just came out with a really bitter and not very positive flavor. However, the sunflower and pumpkin seeds in it did lend a great flavor (if a bit overpowered by the pumpkin). So I decided to take that idea and expand on it a bit. Sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, chia, and flax seeds and pine nuts. In addition to that, I used toasted sesame oil to add even more of a toasty/nutty flavor. The one mistake I think, was not using enough water with the chia and flax seed. So while the recipe will include the amount I used, I strongly suggest adding another 50% water to the flax and chia seeds, I think it would help the finished bread a fair amount. I also used a smaller amount of starter in this recipe, because I forgot to make enough and was making another bread… Way to go me!

Sourdough Waffles

Sourdough Waffles

Been a while since I’ve posted! Largely because I haven’t been making much new lately, just remaking things I’ve made before. I do have some new variations on a couple of the recipes that I should have up soon, and a few other non bread related projects. But for today, just my spin on a yeasted waffle recipe from the LA Times.

I had been wanting to try this recipe for a while, and when I finally decided to make it I had some extra starter so I figured, hey, why not make it sourdough? It turned out pretty tasty, and quite fluffy waffles.