Wild Yeast

Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters

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Win-Win

Is anyone up for a game of “Connect the Facts”?

  • Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book coverFact One: For reasons that are not altogether clear to me, I seem to have acquired an extra copy of Peter Reinhart’s latest book, Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.
  • Fact Two: Next week, most of us in the U.S. will be sitting down to our most important and most lavish feast of the year, but many people here and around the world will not have enough to eat.

In this game, everyone wins, even if you don’t win.

The rules are simple. All you have to do is make a donation, in any amount, to the hunger-fighting organization of your choice between now and November 30. Leave a comment here indicating what your organization is (you don’t have to say how much you donated), and you will be entered into a random drawing to win the book.

That’s all there is to it. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether you actually made a donation, so we’re on the honor/karma system here.

Here are some organizations you might consider to receive your donation (but feel free to choose a different one):

How about making an online donation right now, so you don’t forget? Please be as generous as you can!

Thank you.

Bostini Cream Pie: Folded, Not Whisked

Daring Bakers logoWhen I joined the Daring Bakers, this was exactly what I was afraid of, and exactly what I was hoping for.

I’ll come right out and admit it, I’m afraid of cake, my number one baking nemesis! Although the name of this month’s challenge is Bostini Cream Pie, it’s cake alright, individual orange chiffon cakes no less, atop creamy vanilla custard and drizzled with smooth chocolate glaze. I’m quite sure Mary (Alpineberry) didn’t mean to freak me out on my very first challenge, but goodness, did it have to be cake? With me and cake, it’s always something: it sticks to the pan, it falls, it cracks, it’s too wet, it’s too dry. It’s always something with cake.

But as much as I was dreading cake, I was also hoping to learn some things and have fun exploring new baking territory. And this challenge did not disappoint in those departments. Who better than a cadre of Daring Bakers to help me face my cake phobia and come out with something that was lovely and delicious? (See the recipe here.)

Bostini Cream Pie

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The 2007 World Bread Day Roundup is Online

World Bread DayZorra has posted the roundup for World Bread Day, and it’s one for the books. More than 200 entries from 183 participants in 28 countries! It’s going to take me some time to visit them all, but the amazing Zorra already has, and I want to thank her again for initiating this event in celebration of bread and bakers.

And in case you didn’t know, Zorra is also the founder of BreadBakingDay, which returns in December with Manuela from Baking History hosting “Bread & Spices.”

World Bread Day, World Food Day, and a Recipe

World Bread Day World Food Day

Today is World Bread Day. The International Union of Bakers and Bakers-Confectioners designated this day to celebrate and honor the food that is, in many phraseologies, synonymous with “food.” So it is no accident that World Bread Day was chosen to coincide with Word Food Day, October 16, the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

The theme for World Food Day 2007 is “The Right to Food.” The FAO’s message is that regular access to sufficient, nutritious, culturally appropriate food is a basic human right that is currently denied to 850 million people worldwide.

The recipe is coming, I promise. But first:

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Rye and Whole Wheat Sourdough for BreadBakingDay #3

Rye sourdough loaves

Ulrike of Küchenlatein set the task for BBD #3: bread leavened exclusively with sourdough, preferably rye. The sourdough part did not make me nervous, but the rye part did. Rye bread and I do not exactly have a long history together.

For one thing, I only recently acquired a taste for it. For another, to be honest, it scares me a little. Other than the wheat family, rye is the only grain that contains gluten, but its gluten is much more fragile than wheat’s. It can, therefore, tolerate less mixing and fermentation. The prospect of a twitchy dough made for a twitchy me. Time to be brave.

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