Heart of Winter Loaf

After enjoying a relatively mild winter weather in January, we are back in the freezer for February. I'm not complaining, not that I enjoy the cold but I'm happy when the weather is seasonal, if it is not then I get worried about global warming.

This 'Heart of Winter' loaf recipe is from King Arthur flour catalog and it caught my attention with its name itself. We are technically in the middle of winter and what perfect time but to make this bread right now.

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Harvest Grains Loaf

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 2
Bake of the Day: Harvest Grains Loaf

Here's another family favorite bread that is soft and delicious with a nice blend of grains and seeds. I used King Arthur's Harvest Grain blend which is a mixture of 4 grains and 4 seeds. You can use any combination of grains and seeds. Grains like oat berries, millet, barley flakes and seeds like flax, poppy, sesame, sunflower etc can be used.

I think the next time I make this bread I will use a higher ratio of wholewheat to all purpose flour. Like I said before this is a very soft and tasty bread that is great toasted for even in a sandwich. I made some potato curry & cheese sandwiches and also Nutella sandwiches with this bread. Both tasted great.

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Basic Sourdough Bread

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 1
Bake of the day: Basic Sourdough Bread
It's December already which means we are right smack in the middle of the holiday season. It is also the month where few baking enthusiastic bloggers come together for a Bake-a-thon. So look out for new posts with baked goodies on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in December. Thank you to Valli for organizing the event and also for the very helpful linky tool so all of our bakes are all in one place.

First up is a basic sourdough bread. I already have a basic sourdough sandwich bread on the blog that is made with very few ingredients. This one has some fat and potato flour for a more softer crumb and a fluffier bread.

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Semolina Wholewheat Bread

Blogging Marathon# 52: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes

Dish: Semolina Bread from Sandhya's My Cooking Journey
My theme for the final week of this month's marathon is 'bookmarked recipes'.  It is almost impossible to pick just 3 dishes from my ever growing list of bookmarks, so I narrowed my search to just breads. After the month long mega baking marathon from April, I have many breads and other baked goodies bookmarked -- I thought this will be the beginning of many I tried from those.
First up is Sandhya's 'Semolina Bread'. Her pictures really won me over and I immediately bookmarked it to try soon. I actually made the bread twice since she posted.

Semolina bread has been on my to-try list for a very long time. But most of the recipes I saw, needed a covered cloche or a special baking utensil. Also most of them looked very crusty and chewy. Since my family prefers soft, sandwich bread I never got around to try any of the recipes.

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No Knead Cheese Burger Buns

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 8

Bake of the Day: Breads -- No Knead Cheese Burger Buns

Today I have the recipe for some delicious burger buns that requires minimal hands-on time thanks to the no-knead method of preparing them. They are soft but sturdy enough to hold a veggie burger and all of its accouterments.

The ingredients are beaten in a mixing bowl for just 2 minutes and after that it is very very easy to make these soft, cheese-scented buns that are perfect for any kind of burger.

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Long Sandwich Rolls

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 7

Bake of the Day: Bread -- Long Sandwich Rolls

The taste of freshly baked bread is just amazing. It is time consuming and needs some patience, but it is all well worth it. I baked these long sandwich rolls for last month's marathon and used them to make Hoagie sandwiches.

Initially I was planning on just buying store bought bread but then wanted to utilize the opportunity to bake something new and post it for the mega baking marathon. After looking through recipes for long sandwich rolls on the internet, I realized most of the recipes are similar to homemade bun recipes but shaped differently.

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Swedish Limpa (Rye Bread)

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 5

Bake of the Day: Swedish Limpa (Rye Bread)

I love trying out new ingredients and when I go to a grocery store, I feel like a kid in a toy store. I go with 2~3 things in mind to buy and end up with buying way more than that. So on one of my trips to Whole Foods, I picked up Whole grain Rye flour because I thought I saw seeing a recipe with it. But as luck might have it, I was actually imagining that recipe and couldn't find anything.

Hence the flour sat in the pantry for quite sometime, until I saw this Swedish Limpa or Rye Bread recipe in King Arthur catalog. The use of caraway & fennel seeds gives this bread the unmistakable rye flavor. I reduced the quantity of both the spices because I wasn't sure if we'll like the strong flavor. There's also some orange oil added to the dough making it very fragrant. The house smelled amazing when this bread was baking.

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Basic Sourdough Sandwich Loaf

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 4

Bake of the Day: Breads -- Basic Sourdough Sandwich Loaf

I have had sourdough starter for more than 4 years now, but as a family we are not much into crusty breads. So I don't call myself a sourdough baker, I have a sourdough starter that I use along with quite a bit of yeast to make soft, everyday not-so crusty breads. Real sourdough bakers utilize the starter itself to leaven the breads instead of relying on yeast.

As I was looking for sourdough sandwich bread, I found this beginner bread recipe on the Kitchn blog and one look at the pictures I knew this was exactly what I need to bake with my starter. I followed the recipe to the 'T' and the bread turned out just perfect. Here's my just fed, bubbly sourdough starter. Here's the post with the recipe for the Sourdough Starter.

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Multigrain Loaf Bread

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 3
Bake of the Day: Breads -- Multigrain Loaf Bread
After 2 easy bread recipes (sandwich bread and focaccia), here's a yeast bread with multi-grains and follows the typical 2 rise bread making process. This bread has quite a number of whole grain flours in it and is packed with 11 grams of whole grains per serving.

I have a very well stocked pantry, so I had all the ingredients on hand. If you don't have any of the flours, then feel free to increase the quantity of another flour to make this bread.

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Easy Sandwich Bread

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 1
Bake of the Day: Breads -- Easy Sandwich Bread
Our Blogging marathon team is starting a month long Baking marathon today. Good thing is we knew about the marathon almost 6 months ago, so I started baking or at least planning what to make all this time. Eating all this flour and sugar all by myself or just with my family would have been quite a challenge, so I have been utilizing all the opportunities to bake and feed (and share the calories) friends and family.
There are no official themes for this marathon, but I imposed some on myself to streamline my thoughts. For the first week (or first week and a half), my theme is going to be 'Yeast & Sourdough Breads'. 

I have stopped buying store bought bread for quite a while now and try to make a loaf every week. My son loves bread and can happily live on sandwiches for breakfast, lunch & dinner. I pack him sandwiches to school too. Our requirement for bread is simple, it has to be soft and not too crusty. It could be sweet or slightly savory, it should work in pb&j and/ or grilled cheese.

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Fruited Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Bake-a-thon 2014: Day 14

Bake of the Day: Fruited Sourdough Bread

It has been a busy Christmas weekend. We drove to Chicago to see my cousins. It was a really long drive (about 800 miles) and thankfully it went really well, though we are still recovering from the after effects. I had all the last weeks posts scheduled ahead of time and planned on baking couple of cookies for the last 2 days of bake-a-thon.

But unfortunately the hectic weekend is taking a toll on me. I can't seem to keep myself awake, so I looked through my drafts and found 2 bread recipes that I baked a while back. After the eggless ricotta loaf, here's another loaf bread using sourdough starter and fruits like apple & raisins.

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