Breads and Spreads

Do not be alarmed. We are still here, holding down the fort here with the yuppies of park slope. Life has been busy since our trip to Austin! The sun is out, the tomato plants are fruiting, I'm dancing and gardening my booty off every weekend, the Brain Trust and I are busily plotting the Dacha of the Future, and everything is generally swimming along.

This past weekend my dear friend J. and I drove up the Hudson Valley to the Culinary Institute of America to attend a class on Artisan Bread Baking. It was a fabulous way to spend a Saturday. We watched and helped to mix the doughs for 6 different breads. We manipulated the doughs as they rose, shaped 6 different types of loaves, put them in the huge industrial ovens and removed them with wooden peels. Then we took our loaves home to feed our friends!

We made Sourdough, Ciabata, Baguettes, Cinnamon Raisin, Pizza dough, Onion-Cheddar Rolls. A couple of universal lessons about all these breads: use INSTANT yeast rather than active dry yeast; make a starter or sponge the day before you mix up your bread dough to improve flavor; the time available to make your bread is inversely proportional to the amount of muscle you need to prepare it; resist the urge to add more flour--if the dough is sticky you need to work with it more. I'm going to try out my new skills over the next couple of months using the shiny new recipe book that I also got as a part of the class.

Saturday night J. and I invited our friends over for a Breads and Spreads extravaganza. We asked everyone to bring a favorite bread topper and we provided the bread we'd baked that day. The spreads and cheeses were AMAZING. The stars of the evening were an artichoke-lemon spread that my neighbors made and a horseradish ale cheese spread that my dear friends Jason and Jacy brought. MMMMMMMM horseradish!! My favorite bread was probably the Ciabata because it was delicious, had amazing texture, and I know how easy it was to make. The Cinnamon-Raisin bread was a close second with a smooth soft texture and a really lovely cinnamon flavor.

This adventure has inspired me to think about bread as a potential part of my future cottage industry. Has anybody out there used or built a mud or brick outdoor bread oven? How did it go?