Wild Yeast

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

In Which I Lose My Gluten-Free Virginity

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

There isn’t much gluten-free baking around here — in fact, I’m usually all about the gluten. I have to admit there was a little scene playing out in my mind as I prepared these gluten-free graham wafers, my first foray into a world where wheat flour is taboo and things like sweet rice flour, sorghum flour, and tapioca flour rule the oven.

If anyone asked for a taste, I would, with shuffling feet and downcast eyes, stammer out an apologetic explanation for why these tasted more like graham cracker box than graham crackers.

Well. As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!” The wafers tasted fantastic — just like “real” graham crackers, only better. Even though I was in a rush and messed them up — well of course I did, this is a DB challenge, isn’t it? — by not letting them chill thoroughly, so it was impossible to cut them into squares and they (it) ended up looking like a giant ginger snap — even then I found myself wishing I’d made a full batch instead of just the half I’d need most of for the Nanaimo bars. I actually wanted to eat these.

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Be My Guest

Hey Bay Area bread fans, what are you doing next Sunday?

I think I’ve mentioned that I’ll be putting my bread on the line at SF Food Wars‘ Yeast Affliction! All-out Artisan Bread Bakedown & Craft Beer Tastiness. My Semolina Sourdough with Fennel, Currants, and Pine Nuts will go up against Dark Horse Bread’s Black Pepper and Fig Sourdough, Go Nuts!’ Nuthing But Net, The Itty Biddies’ Nutty Sourdough, and 17 others to see which loaf will be the cat’s pajamas.

Tickets were a quick sell-out, so maybe you thought you missed your opportunity to come, drink beer, taste all the breads, and vote for mine. But I believe in second chances, so I saved two tickets to give away to one of my yeast-loving friends in a random drawing.

— Update 1/26: The drawing is done. Congratulations to Erin Beller! —

Get the scoop on how to enter…

Sourdough Corn Bread

For Christmas Eve dinner I made chili and corn bread. Because we were ten people and I thought to save a little time on after-dinner clean-up, I made sourdough corn bread bowls to hold the chili. I mixed the dough at about 7 a.m. and the bowls were baked, cooled, and hollowed out just in time for dinner at 6 p.m. Uh huh, it was such a time-saver over washing ten dishes.

OK, so I may not win the Ms. Efficiency title this year, but everyone said these bowls were good. So good, in fact, that they ate them before going back for seconds on the chili, so we still ended up with a bunch of dishes to wash. But isn’t that, after all, what the holidays are about — baking and cleaning?

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Satay Got My Goat

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day. I opted to use goat instead of pork.

These Daring Cooks escapades always involve lots of education. Let’s just cut to the chase with what I learned this month:

  • Bamboo skewers should be soaked for longer than 20 minutes before putting them under the broiler.
  • A broiled bamboo skewer does not make a bad charcoal stick if there isn’t a pencil handy.
  • My kitchen smoke detector is in good working order.

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Chocolate Salami (Grandchildren Not Included)

Have I mentioned that some of my favorite blogs are in French? Le Pétrin, Bombance, …au levain! and Makanai are some fantastic francophones that you must check out if you don’t know them.

You don’t speak French? No problem, neither do I, really. Oh, my high-school French serves in a pinch and yours probably does too, but why knock ourselves out when Google Translate is such an able servant? Thanks to this tireless polyglot-bot, a mouse click gets you the translation of any text or web page in any of 45 languages.

This came in very handy the other week when I spotted Sandra’s dazzling and decadent chocolate salami and had to have it. Feeling lazy, I called upon our trusty GT to produce the English translation of the recipe, and commenced reading through the ingredient list:

  • 200g dark chocolate 70%. Check. I actually had exactly this amount left over from my Christmas baking. Sitting untouched for over a week in my cupboard. I amaze myself sometimes.
  • 100g butter. Check.
  • 2 egg yolks, extra costs. I checked the fridge. Yes, my eggs were from Whole Foods, and those are more expensive than Safeway eggs. So I was good on the pricey egg yolks.
  • 2 tablespoons Amaretto. Check. (In the end I only used one tbsp.)
  • 2 pinches of dried chili flakes. Check.
  • 8 grandchildren butter (80g). What?

What is a grandchild of butter? Read on…

Let the Bread Wars Begin


Image courtesy of SF Food Wars

Attention Bay Area bakers, eaters, and drinkers — mark your calendars and start your ovens, SF Food Wars is going yeast!

On January 31, SF Food Wars and the San Francisco Baking Institute will sponsor Yeast Affliction! All-out Artisan Bread Bakedown & Craft Beer Tastiness. Twenty of the Bay Area’s most fearless bakers (including yours truly) will go head to head at Thirsty Bear in San Francisco to see whose loaf will win over the judges and capture the imaginations and the taste buds of the attendees.

Bakers: If you want to do battle, get your application in now. But consider yourself warned — you (and I) will face some seriously formidable competition from several of my SFBI classmates. Not only are they very talented, but they’re very competitive. (Did I say I was fearless? I lied. I’m scared, and you should be too. These people make good bread.)

Eaters: Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, January 13 on the SF Food Wars website. A ticket means you get to come and taste all the bread. Of course, you are free to vote for whichever bread you think is well and truly the best. (If you are in my family, however, you might do well to remember which side your bread is buttered on.)

Drinkers: A ticket also gets you a free beer to go with the bread.

So, see you there?

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