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cooking and baking
Dec. 13th, 2015 08:59 amI made some bagels this weekend, using the recipe from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice instead of the one I'd used before from the King Arthur Flour website. I like the results much better with Reinhart's recipe: the dough is easier to work with and the overnight rise makes the bagels more flavorful. ( Recipe and comments under the cut )
Besides bagels, I also baked an onion focaccia using some dough I had in the freezer. Nice, but the onion turned a bit pinkish.
I also improvised a salady thing with bulgur wheat, chickpeas, olives, chopped preserved lemon, pomegranate seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, and a bit of dried mint. It turned out blander than you'd expect given all the stuff in it, but it used up some things that needed using, notably the pomegranate, and it'll make passable lunches for the week.
My Christmas cooking plans have been drastically scaled back, as they tend to be. I'm thinking I won't cook at all, just have treats--bread, crackers, a couple of decent cheeses, some smoked salmon, olives, etc. The weekend before Christmas I might make a soup or a lasagne or something and freeze it in case I decide I really must have a proper meal.
At some point before Christmas I'll bake some chocolate-chestnut bars (recipe from one of the Ottolenghi cookbooks). I'll also have to make something to bring to work, because we usually have a Christmas Eve potluck. Maybe bread again (a different kind this time) since it was such a hit before, and maybe a cheesecake.
I decided not to make a fruitcake this year, since while I like fruitcake, I'm not sure I like it enough.
After Christmas, when work is calmer and the long cold months stretch bleakly before me, that's when I'll cook a ham (hopefully on sale cheap post-Christmas), and maybe bake the chocolate mandarin truffle cake I've been ogling for months in Marcel Desaulniers' I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas. This involves two layers of flourless chocolate cake, filled and frosted with rich orange buttercream; in other words, a chocolate orange taken to the height of smooth creamy perfection. Oh, and I also want to bake Ottolenghi's spice cookies at some point, and this cranberry-pomegranate bundt cake I found online, and some sweet-potato cinnamon rolls . . .
So many things I could bake, so little time. And the cake-eating capacity of any human, even me, is tragically limited.
Besides bagels, I also baked an onion focaccia using some dough I had in the freezer. Nice, but the onion turned a bit pinkish.
I also improvised a salady thing with bulgur wheat, chickpeas, olives, chopped preserved lemon, pomegranate seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, and a bit of dried mint. It turned out blander than you'd expect given all the stuff in it, but it used up some things that needed using, notably the pomegranate, and it'll make passable lunches for the week.
My Christmas cooking plans have been drastically scaled back, as they tend to be. I'm thinking I won't cook at all, just have treats--bread, crackers, a couple of decent cheeses, some smoked salmon, olives, etc. The weekend before Christmas I might make a soup or a lasagne or something and freeze it in case I decide I really must have a proper meal.
At some point before Christmas I'll bake some chocolate-chestnut bars (recipe from one of the Ottolenghi cookbooks). I'll also have to make something to bring to work, because we usually have a Christmas Eve potluck. Maybe bread again (a different kind this time) since it was such a hit before, and maybe a cheesecake.
I decided not to make a fruitcake this year, since while I like fruitcake, I'm not sure I like it enough.
After Christmas, when work is calmer and the long cold months stretch bleakly before me, that's when I'll cook a ham (hopefully on sale cheap post-Christmas), and maybe bake the chocolate mandarin truffle cake I've been ogling for months in Marcel Desaulniers' I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas. This involves two layers of flourless chocolate cake, filled and frosted with rich orange buttercream; in other words, a chocolate orange taken to the height of smooth creamy perfection. Oh, and I also want to bake Ottolenghi's spice cookies at some point, and this cranberry-pomegranate bundt cake I found online, and some sweet-potato cinnamon rolls . . .
So many things I could bake, so little time. And the cake-eating capacity of any human, even me, is tragically limited.
