​I saw this recipe for pretzel knots in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) a few weeks ago, and immediately clipped it.  Frozen hot pretzels are a popular evening snack for my boys, so I thought I could make them something even better.  This is a great activity with the little ones, even if they only join you for the shaping of the knots. Plus it is springtime - and it makes me think of baseball, the Braves, and stadium hot pretzels.
 
This recipe is from Kelly Senyei’s cookbook “The Secret Ingredient Cookbook.”  For this recipe, she says the secret ingredient is the everything bagel seasoning.  And while I don’t disagree, I only used that for half of them. I used coarse sea salt on the other half since not everyone in my house likes everything bagels (crazy, I know).
 
If you try this for yourself, please let me know how it goes! And if you're interested, check out Kelly's website for more great recipes:  www.justataste.com

​The Baguettes I made last time were yummy, but I’m testing lots of different recipes. This time I tried the Classic Baguettes from King Arthur Baking.
 
This recipe was relatively easy – you just have to plan ahead.  I made the starter/poolish at 5pm the night before to give it plenty of time to expand and become bubbly by the morning.
 
The next morning, I got started on the next step at 7am. For step 2, I used my KitchenAid and that worked great.
 
There are a lot of steps, so this is not an ideal undertaking if you have a lot of activities the next morning. The good thing is it'll be all done baking by lunchtime.
 
For Step 8 I used a baker’s couche and that worked better than I expected.
 
The only change to the recipe for me was for Step 12. I already had the cast iron pan heating in the bottom of the oven. Once I placed the bread in the oven, then I added 2 cups of ice cubes to the cast iron pan and shut the door quickly.
 
I cooked them for exactly 25 minutes, and they were as yummy as they were pretty. My son commented that I got the “cuts” right this time.  The difference is that I have more practice with the baker’s lame. Definitely my best try at baguettes so far. This recipe is a keeper, as long as you plan and schedule ahead of time for it.  (Not unlike any of other bread!)
 
If you try this one, let me know how it goes!

So now that I’m following all of these amazing bakers on IG, I’ve been inspired to try different sourdough recipes.  So I tried this recipe for Classic Sourdough that I found on the BBC. 
 
As you can tell from the picture, I did not get that classic, open crumb that sourdough is known for.  And I don’t know why. My starter was active, and I followed all of the instructions perfectly. It was very humid the day I made this, and the dough was very sticky. Was that it? I’d love any advice from my fellow bakers. Or even a reference to your favorite never-fail sourdough recipe.
 
That being said, it was super yummy, and the crust was perfectly crumbly.  It’s almost all gone and it’s still on the cooling rack. My taste testers approve.
 
If any of you want to try this recipe variation for yourselves, here is the link to the BBC’s Classic Sourdough. And let me know how it goes!

Being a Delaney (by marriage), and it being St. Patricks’ Day Week – I felt compelled to try Irish Soda Bread. In doing my research ahead of time, I learned a lot about its origins.
 
Soda Bread became popular in Ireland when bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) became available as a leavening agent.  Bread soda made it possible to work with the “soft” wheat grown in Ireland’s climate, versus the “hard” wheat flour like we have in the US today which needs yeast to rise properly. “Soft” wheat doesn’t work well with yeast but is great for quick breads, like soda bread.
 
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There is also a Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread and on their website you can learn a lot more about the history of soda bread. But according to them, the earliest published soda bread recipe was in a London magazine in 1836.
 
Soda Bread’s popularity was easy to understand –the soda wasn’t perishable, it was relatively inexpensive, and the other two main ingredient – wheat flour and buttermilk (which is a by-product of making butter) were easily available.
 
Before baking, a cross is traditionally cut on the top of the soda bread.  It is said that this is done to bless the house and ward off the devil.  But it is also practical - it lets the heat get through to the thickest part of the bread so it can stretch and rise.  It also automatically separates the bread into 4 equal quadrants making it easy to break apart, hence both breaking bread and giving thanks.
 
My husband found the recipe for me to try – it is “Granny Reynold’s Soda Bread.”  According to the recipe, “Casements Bar in San Francisco serves this tender and tangy soda bread, based on a family recipe from co-owner Gillian Fitzgerald.” Gillian says its equally delicious topped with butter and jam for breakfast or dipped in stew for supper. I can say that it was delicious with butter and jam – I used my favorite local Atlanta Emily’s G’s Triple Berry Jam. And I'd recommend this bread not just for St. Patrick's Day, but any time. Yum!

Granny Reynolds’s Soda Bread Recipe 
​Makes 1 large loaf

Casements Bar in San Francisco serves this tender and tangy soda bread, based on a family recipe from co-owner Gillian Fitzgerald. Granny Reynolds never measured her sour milk or knobs of butter, but good soda bread is more technique than ingredients, pulling the wet and dry ingredients together in a few swift strokes, without overworking the dough. Cut with a cross and baked until golden, it’s equally delicious topped with butter and jam for breakfast or dipped into stew for supper.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1⅔ cups (8 ounces/225 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more
• 1⅔ cups (8 ounces/225 grams) whole-wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 large egg
• 1½ cups (12 fluid ounces/375 milliliters) low-fat buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon (½ ounce/15 grams) butter, chilled (Fitzgerald recommends Kerrygold salted Irish Butter
  

PREPARATION:

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Generously dust a sheet pan and work surface with all-purpose flour.

Step 2: In a mixing bowl, combine the all-purpose and whole-wheat flours. Add the baking powder, baking soda, and salt and stir to combine. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg and buttermilk until smooth.

Step 3: Add the butter to the flour mixture and gently rub into the flour with your fingertips, until about the size of peas. Create a well in the middle of the flour mixture.

Step 4: Pour half of the buttermilk mixture into the well, and start to gently scoop the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients to combine. Unlike most bread, the less you knead this, the better. Add the remaining buttermilk and continue to scoop until just combined. The mixture should be soft and shaggy, but if it’s too sticky, add another ¼ cup all-purpose flour.

Step 5: Wash and dry your hands and dust them with flour. Turn out the dough on the generously floured work surface. Knead lightly in a circular motion, just a few folds, to create a wide, round loaf. Transfer the loaf to the prepared pan. With a sharp knife, score the top of the loaf in the shape of a cross; the cuts should be about an inch deep.

Step 6: Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes to set the crust. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees, then continue to bake until the loaf starts to turn golden, 30 minutes. Flip upside-down and continue to bake until the loaf is golden and it sounds hollow when tapped, 5 to 10 minutes longer. Transfer to a rack and let cool slightly.
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Slice the soda bread, spread the slices with butter, and serve warm.

My guys love French bread. If we get a loaf at the bakery, half of it is gone before dinner.  Since I knew it would be a crowd pleaser, I have been looking at lots of recipes for classic French baguettes, trying to decide which one to try first.  I decided to go with this recipe from Baker Bettie and it was a great success.

I learned a couple of things along the way as well:
1. Don't rush the process: You definitely want to let the poolish sit overnight.  It made for a very delicious bread.  
2. I easily adapted this recipe to use my new baguette pan and made 4  smaller loaves instead of two large ones. 
3. Since French bread doesn't have any fat, it needs to be wet. As a result, it can get stuck in the holes of a pan like this so you will want to use parchment paper as well.

After my great success with Sourdough Bread – all thanks to the virtual guidance of Patrick Ryan from Firehouse Bakery in Ireland and the website ilovecooking.ie – I knew I needed to try his recipe for scones. I used Ryan’s Apple & Berry Scones Recipe. This was easy to follow, and easy to be exact thanks to the digital kitchen scale. I am not sure that the final product looked the way he intended, especially since I chose to omit the sliced almonds, but they were really pretty. And perfectly crumbly.  I served it with Emily G’s Triple Berry Jam and it was the perfect addition.
 
I learned a lot about scones in general when I did my research to select a scone recipe. The website FoodCrumbles.com talked about the science of baking scones. I encourage you to read the article for yourself, but here’s the part I found most interesting: “In order to get that crumbliness, you need those fat pockets (from the butter). Not starting by mixing the flour and butter at the start can cause them to not form properly. However, there’s another thing to keep in mind. The butter has to remain solid while making the scones. If the butter melts completely those pockets are gone and it will become more bread like than scone like. Also, remember to not extensively knead the scone dough. Knead so that everything just comes together, but not anymore or again you will lose those air pockets.”

After my great success with Sourdough Bread – all thanks to the virtual guidance of Patrick Ryan from Firehouse Bakery in Ireland and the website ilovecooking.ie – I felt emboldened to try again. This time I made Ryan’s Olive Sourdough Loaf recipe. The steps were almost identical to the regular loaf, so I felt confident about that.  And it was beautiful when it came out of the oven, but that has happened before but without success.  The Olive Loaf was perfect!  It looked beautiful and tasted fantastic. Another Sourdough Win!
 
HINT: If you decide to try this one too, I recommend getting started with the dough around 2pm/2:30 in the afternoon.  That gives you plenty of time to let it proof before putting it in the fridge overnight for the second proofing.  Then you can cook it first thing in the morning.

​So if you are feeding your starter each day, then you are discarding quite a bit of starter each day.  Especially if you have a couple of starters going like I do. It definitely seems wasteful, especially when you are working so hard to keep it alive.  It turns out there are a ton of recipes out there with ideas of things to make with that discard.
 
So far, my favorite sourdough discard recipe is from Little Spoon Farms for Sourdough Discard Crackers.  Even when I couldn’t get my sourdough bread to work, I could always make good crackers thanks to this recipe. Plus it is SUPER EASY!!
 
This recipe also offers some room for creativity in terms of seasoning.  We prefer to use herbs de provence, but using everything but the bagel or Italian seasoning makes for yummy crackers as well.

           Cracker Mixture                                     Finished Crackers                                          Yum!

So I strongly suggest getting a bit of sourdough starter to get started. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got mine from the Georgia Sourdough Company, via a regular order from Garnish and Gather. Or if you know a crazy baker like me, we always have some starter to spare. So this post is NOT about getting your starter started, but keeping it alive. I’ve read some articles about this where the started has been passed along through the decades, so it can’t be too hard, right?
 




In the beginning I was afraid that keeping the starter alive would be very time consuming. Even though there are only two ingredients, there’s a bit of exacting measurements involved and it is a bit messy. But it has become very routine and much easier as time has gone on.
​
What is the Starter, exactly?  The sourdough starter is a combination of flour, water, wild yeast and bacteria that is used to make bread rise when baking. And you want the starter to be “strong” and very active and fluffy at the top before making bread. Bread made this way is referred to as “naturally leavened”.

And why exactly do I need to “feed” it?  Once the water and flour are initially combined, the wild yeast and bacteria that are found naturally on the flour and in the environment will start to multiply. As they multiply they "eat" the flour in the jar. So once they have “eaten” all of the flour available to them, they must be fed again to keep growing and multiplying.
 
So how do I feed it? Here you have two options – you can store your starter at room temperature, or you can store it in the fridge.  I keep one of each, just to hedge my bets.

If you are storing the starter at room temperature:

1. Stir the starter and discard all but 4 ounces, or approximately ½ cup at the bottom of the jar.
2. Add  1 cup of bread flour, and ½ cup of filtered, lukewarm water. (I get mine filtered from the fridge and then heat it in the microwave for 20 seconds.)
3. Mix until smooth and then cover. Some people like to use a piece of fabric and a rubber band to cover their starters, but I find mine to be much more active with a proper top.
4. I have seen instructions that say you should feed it every 12 hours, but I find that just once a day works fine.  I feed mine in the mornings while I wait for my teakettle to boil.
5. It needs to stay warm - at around 70 degrees F. Here is a previous post I did about how important that is.

If you are storing the starter in the fridge:

1. Take the starter out of the fridge. There may be a bit of clear/slightly yellowish liquid on top. You can either drain this off or stir it in – it’s your choice.  It is a byproduct from the fermenting yeast. I think it’s a bit yucky so I pour it off.
2. Stir the starter and discard all but 4 ounces, or approximately ½ cup at the bottom of the jar.
3. Add  1 cup of bread flour, and ½ cup of filtered, lukewarm water. (I get mine filtered from the fridge and then heat it in the microwave for 20 seconds.)
4. Mix until smooth and then cover. Some people like to use a piece of fabric and a rubber band to cover their starters, but I find mine to be much more active with a proper top.
5. Allow the starter to rest at room temperature (minimum 70°F) for at least 2 hours to give the yeast a chance to warm up and get feeding. After about 2 hours then you can put it back in the refrigerator.
6. With the refrigerator method, you only have to feed the starter once a week.

 
A few tips I've learned along the way:
1.    I have transitioned to using the wide mouth, 2 cup mason jars for my starters. They are the perfect size, easy to access with the wider mouth, and fit nicely in the fridge.

2.    Once every two weeks or so I will transition my starters into clean mason jars, and put the old ones in the dishwasher.  This is more about aesthetics than anything as the jars can get pretty messy.

3.    After feeding the starters but before covering them, I wipe down the outside of the jar, as well as the inside of the jar to keep it tidy and so I can easily see how the starter is doing.

4.    Once you are done feeding the starters, wash all spoons and the countertop immediately.  If you let the starter dry on them, it gets like concrete.  It’s just too hard to get it off once its dry, so take care of it asap.

5. One way to determine if your starter is ready is to do the float test. My starter did not pass the float test until I found a way to keep my starter warm, as I shared in a previous post. My house was just too chilly. The float test is easy - fill a jar or cup with room temperature water and gently add a tablespoon of the starter into the water. If it floats, you are ready to go. If not, then keep feeding it and trying to get it more active.

After diagnosing the issues I was having with my slow starter (my house was too cold) and then getting it to be bubbly and lively, I was ready to try to make sourdough again.  And I found the best teacher.  The website is www.ilovecooking.ie (yes - from Ireland!)  and the teacher of their Bread Masterclass was Patrick Ryan from Firehouse Bakery.  In addition to the recipe, he also filmed a youtube tutorial, which I found helpful as well. I followed the recipe exactly, and my bread came out perfectly.  I've never been so happy about bread!

You are supposed to let sourdough cool before slicing, and this is where I've always struggled.  My previous breads were all too dense.  But this one?  The wait was worth it. It was perfect! It looked and tasted as good as anything I've gotten in San Francisco. Thanks for the lesson, Ryan!  I'll be making your scones recipe next.....

When I first started with my bread making experiments, I realized that my kitchen need a serious gear update. Many of my tools were 20+ years old from when I first got married, and they were beat.  So I upgraded with new mixing bowls, baking sheets, silicone baking mats, a new rolling pin and measuring spoons. It feels great to have an overall kitchen facelift.

I also needed some additional tools for bread.  Let me save you the research and tell you what I ended up with:

1.  A good mixing bowl with a cover
It turns out that the batter bowl and cover that I got from Pampered Chef eons ago is perfect for letting dough rise. Of course if you have a good sized pyrex bowl that will work, too.  But this one really works great too. It's on their site for $20.

2.  Banneton Proofing Baskets
The longer bread proofs, the more the gluten breaks down. This makes the bread easier to digest and more flavorful. A banneton proofing basket helps the bread to keep it's shape and it outs very professional-looking ridges on the top of your loaves. And you don't want to get cheap banneton or it will start to flake.  I got mine on amazon from Bread Bosses for about $20 and it work great. Bonus - it comes with a dough scraper, which is another tool I didn't know I needed until I had it.

3.  Bowl Covers
Last year I made a commitment to eliminate as much plastic and disposable plastics items as I could from my kitchen.  So instead of covering my bowls with plastic, I am using fabric covers.  I found a set of 3 cute red-striped ones in various sizes from Earth Bunny for $30 and they work great. I also bought a set of silicone ones from Modfamily on Amazon for $15 that work great if I need to let something rise in a warm oven.

4. A Kitchen Scale
Many of the recipes are very exacting, especially for sourdough. And many of the recipes are in grams. In order to be that precise, I realized that I needed a kitchen scale.  I bought the Escali Primo P115C Precision Kitchen Scale from Amazon. It was $25 and it works great.

5. A Dutch Oven
I did not have a proper dutch oven to use for making bread.  After doing my research I shopped the sales at Christmas and got the enameled cast iron Staub 5.5QT Round Cocotte at Sur la Table. The cover is specially designs to baste as it cooks, so it helps to keep the crust of the bread moist. This prevents me from having to use a sheet pan full of boiling water in the bottom of the oven - which sounds like a disaster to me. Plus, having this beautiful pot in my kitchen makes me feel like Julia Child.
A more cost effective option is also a classic pyrex set of a bowl and cover. I found this one on Amazon for about $30.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, sourdough was testing my patience. And after all this work I really wanted something to show for it.  So I decided to switch to yeast based baking for a bit.

I had some great success with two recipes form the King Arthur Baking site. The first was the French Style Country Bread.  This was easy to follow, and delicious.

After this success, I decided to try another.  This was the Easiest Loaf of Bread You'll Ever Bake.  And it was.  This recipe makes two loaves, and it was delicious. I highly recommend this as a recipe to get started with, maybe before you even try the sourdough. It was easy, and a crowd pleaser.

So in the Fall I finally decided to join the Sourdough craze that everyone else had been participating in at the beginning of the pandemic.  I ordered my sourdough starter from Garnish and Gather (they supply organic meal prep dinners and groceries in Georgia using locally-sourced ingredients and organic groceries from all of my favorite farmers and vendors from the local farmer's market. To say I'm a fan is an understatement, but I'll tell you more about them in a later post.) They sell starter in a jar and with directions from Georgia Sourdough Co.

I was not a good keeper of my starter, and had to get a second one. As a result, I learned all about how they are little eco-systems and need to be fed. And I was determined to take good care of this one. I'll do a future post on starters and how to keep them alive.

In the meantime, I did a lot of research on sourdough recipes before getting started.  I decided to start with the Beginner's Sourdough Bread Recipe from Little Spoon Farm. Their terrific website is full of great tips and tricks, and I thought their clear recipe would set me up for success.  I did everything by the book. And while the final product was pretty to look at, it was so dense you could hardly cut it. I couldn't even make croutons out of it. So I did some more research and tried again.

This time, I took some advice from The Traditional Cooking School and added baking soda before shaping.  This helped a little bit, but not much. It was still dense. We could only slice it when it was warm. Once it cooled it was as hard as a rock.

After reading a bit more, I determined that the problem was the temperature of my house. This time of year (November) it is a chilly 65 degrees Fahrenheit.  And the starter needs it to be around 70 degrees F to thrive. Heating my house enough to warm up the starter was only going to make Georgia Power even richer, and not something my hubby would approve of.

I found the solution on Amazon (of course) in a product that is used to grow seedings, or to help ferment kombucha.  It's the VivoSun Heat Mat. This has been a total game changer.  Now my starters (I have three going now) are alive and bubbly. I'll do another post on keeping the starters going, but this ended up being the key to my future success.

In the meantime, I made a few yeast-based breads since I wanted to have something to show for all my efforts.  Hence the next post on French Style Country Bread and the Easiest Loaf of Bread you'll Ever Make, both with recipes from King Arthur Baking.

​A History Bonus:
As an aside, I learned that  one of the reasons that the west coast is so famous for their sourdoughs is that the Pioneer Women would carry their sourdough starter in a jar and keep it close to their bodies to keep it warm. They had no access to yeast no traditional baking methods. This allowed them to be able to make bread anyway.

I started another sourdough starter as insurance, and placed the jar adjacent to the jar with the mat wrapped around it.  This turned out to be a very happy accident, and the glass acted as a conductor. Now this is the best jar of starter I've got going.
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I also learned that by keeping my starter jars all touching, and in the corner of the kitchen with the coffee pot, that it created a nice and toasty environment.  These happy starters ended up created the wonderfully successful sourdough that I'll share with you tomorrow.  Yum!
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