events

2008 Food Blog Awards

The judges for Well Fed Network’s 2008 Food Blog Awards have announced their finalist picks, and I’m delighted and honored that Wild Yeast is among five in the running for Best Food Blog – Theme. Thank you to Well Fed, and to Margie (CoffeeGrounded), who nominated me.

If you’d like to cast a vote for Wild Yeast or one of the other excellent theme blogs — Lunch In a Box, Karina’s Kitchen, Prudence Pennywise, and Hunter Angler Gardener Cook — the polls are open until 8PM EST on January 24.

Also, be sure to take a look at the 13 other categories, where you’ll no doubt find some of your already-favorite blogs as well as some new gems to whet your appetite.

Thank you for voting, for reading, and for making this blog so much fun to write!

Gorgonzola Fougasse With Figs and Pecans

Fougasse, the French version of focaccia, is a flat bread that is cut to resemble a tree, leaf, or ladder. Because the cuts maximize surface area, this is yet another type of loaf that is wonderful for crust lovers like my husband. The dough usually contains olive oil, and may have additions or fillings such as fresh herbs, cheese, nuts, olives, or anchovies.

I chose to make mine really cheesy with Gorgonzola, and added some pecans and figs to make it extra decadent. I know it’s not much to look at, but please take my word for it — it it tastes a lot better than it looks. Just to be clear, it’s really cheesy.

Since I was going for crispy as well as cheesy, I flattened the dough to about 1/4-inch thick. If you want it a little softer in the middle, you could make it thicker. Also, depending on the size and shape of your stone, you may need to make the fougasse a little more square or circular rather than elongated like mine. For more options on how to shape and cut a fougasse, take a look at these from Mon Blog Loisirs and Living in the Kitchen With Puppies.

I have found that it’s much easier to make clean cuts by exerting straight downward pressure on the dough (guillotine-style), rather than dragging a blade through it. I use a small rigid plastic dough scraper, but the end of a square metal spatula would work as well.

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Rosca de Reyes

In the western Christian tradition, Epiphany is celebrated on January 6. Although this is not a day that I personally observe, on our recent trip to Mexico I was interested to learn about the Mexican Epiphany, Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos (Three Wise Kings Day), when the Kings are said to have arrived bearing gifts for the baby Jesus. This day is the traditional day of gift exchanging, and it’s not Santa but the Three Kings who leave presents for the children in the night.

Rosca de Reyes is the sweet ring bread that is enjoyed during this time. According to custom, a small porcelain baby Jesus is baked into the bread, and whoever gets the doll in his or her piece must host a party on February 2, Candelaria Day.

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Menu for Hope, and Hoping for a Menu

I just wanted to remind all you procrastinators that time’s running out to get your Menu for Hope donations and raffle bids in. If you haven’t put a ticket in for my King Arthur Flour $100 gift certificate (prize code UW04), now would be a good time. How about a couple of brotforms, Hamelman’s Bread (my favorite bread book), or a digital scale?

Now I have a little hope of my own: that some of you kind people will steer me in the direction of a foolproof recipe for boneless leg of lamb, which I have never cooked before but somehow thought that Christmas dinner would be the ideal time to learn. At least it seemed like a good idea last month when I put the lamb order in to my meat CSA. Because, you know, the holiday shopping and decorating and baking and partying don’t occupy nearly enough of my bandwidth, and cooking the second most important meal of the year for three times as many people as I usually cook for is always the best time to try new things, and waiting until the last minute to figure this sort of thing out is just… well, it’s just me.

So here’s a deal for you: the first ten commenters to give me a recipe link or constructive advice for “lamb for people who don’t know how to cook” by noon (PST) tomorrow will get one extra virtual Menu for Hope raffle ticket, on me. Just indicate the 4-character code of the prize you’d like it to be for (prize codes are here), and I’ll buy a ticket for it, and if I win it, it’s yours. (But please make it something other than my prize, because I don’t think I should bid on my own.) Check out the list of prizes if you don’t have all the codes committed to memory by now.

So how about it? Will you help make Menu for Hope, and my Christmas dinner, a success?

Menu for Hope V

Menu for Hope 5 logo Once again, I am proud and excited to join the international food blogging community in Menu for Hope. Organized by Chez Pim, this fundraising event to benefit the United Nations World Food Programme is a wonderful opportunity to donate to a most worthy cause, and have a chance at scores of fantastic food-related prizes while you’re at it.

Last year’s Menu for Hope raised over $91,000 (!) and this year’s effort can surpass that extraordinary success, with your participation. Proceeds from this campaign will go to the WFP’s school lunch program in Lesotho, in southern Africa.

Each $10 you donate to Menu for Hope between now and December 24 gets you one chance on your choice of item(s) from a dazzling array of prizes offered by food bloggers around the world. The more you donate, the more virtual raffle tickets you earn and the greater your chances of winning.

You may bid on any prize(s) you like, but I hope you’ll consider mine:

Item #UW04: A $100 King Arthur Flour gift card

(calling all cooks: it’s not just for flour!)

Cake Fear

I think we have established by now that I am generally afraid of baking cakes. I fear that it won’t rise, or it will fall, or it will organize its temperamental little self into foam, sauce, and jelly-jammy layers because I failed to beat the egg whites just so. I worry that it will stick to the pan and come out in pieces so I have to make a “German Chocolate Trifle” for my husband’s birthday. Or it will be underbaked in the middle and I will not discover, until it is already on my guests’ plates and on its way to their mouths, that my lovely apple upside-down cake is actually apple upside-down pudding. (All theoretical concerns, of course, not that any of these things has actually happened to me.)

Well. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge (or “mob bake,” as my husband calls it) brought a whole new meaning to the phrase “fear of cake.” The way I see it, any recipe whose author admonishes you not to slip up or you’re looking at a trip to the ER definitely warrants an extra dose of serious baking anxiety. Not to mention full body armor.

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