We might have a new favorite snack around here. Upon reading the recipe Lien chose for the Bread Baking Babes’ fourth anniversary (!), I predicted deliciousness, because it features quite a few of my favorite ingredients: semolina, anise seeds, olive oil. It’s hard to go wrong with that combination. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for how much I would like these wildly aromatic, savory (but sweet, without a speck of sugar, thanks to the anise), flaky, crumbly Biscotti Picanti (Spicy Sicilian Rusks) from Anissa Helou’s terrific book, Savory Baking from the Mediterranean.

Biscotti means “twice baked,” indicating the two baking phases involved here. The recipe calls for loaves of dough to be sliced prior to proofing, then baked initially on high heat before separating the slices and allowing them to dry thoroughly in a cooler oven. Because I added a little too much olive oil (140 grams instead of 130 – 135), and probably for other mysterious reasons, my dough was much too soft to slice before baking. So I baked the three loaves at 500F for 15 minutes, then sliced them with a serrated knife (at which point, my number one taste tester sampled one and declared “I. Love. Them.”) and spread the slices out on the baking sheet to dry at 175F.

I’m not apologizing for the extra olive oil; I’ll use the same amount when I make them again, because I. Love.Them. And already my mind is awhirl with ideas for variations on this delightful snack: What other seeds and spices could we include? What about toppings? And I’m dreaming of a sourdough version, of course.

I do believe the Babes (for links, see my right sidebar) are unanimous this month in pronouncing these biscotti a winner. Please bake with us! The recipe is here on Lien’s blog. To be included in the Buddy roundup, send a photo plus a link to your blog post or photo-sharing site to Lien by February 28.

We are the Bread Baking Babes, and we love to bake bread. Sometimes we do other things too, which is why Ilva’s choice for us this month is a welcome addition to our repertoire. This Cuban Bread, from Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads, calls for a good amount of yeast and rolls the final proof into the baking step by starting the bake in a cold oven. This means we can have a delicious boule with a unique bronze-colored crust and a soft, close, sweet crumb in two hours from start to finish, leaving us time for various other things like working, spending time with our families, exercising, and hobbies. (My latest hobby is sweeping tiny crunchy ball bearings from every corner of the kitchen. If that’s not your thing, do not coat your bread with errant amaranth seeds, as I did. Stick to sesame.)

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Today is December 16, 2011. Is this an important date because …

A) It’s the posting (and my hosting) day for the Bread Baking Babes

B) I get married today

C) Both of the above, and by the time you read this I will have pulled the Stollen from the oven, dusted the flour off my dress, and made my way to City Hall to exchange vows with my beautiful, brilliant, sweet, funny, gentle, loving…

Ahem. Back to the Stollen. A perfect choice for this month, because it practically makes itself, leaving us Babes to occupy our minds with… whatever other things we may wish to occupy them with.

Stollen is one of my favorite holiday breads, and quite easy to make. It is a traditional bread from Dresden, Germany, and the shape is said to represent the swaddled child in the manger. You kind of have to use your imagination to see this.

Mixing the dough is simple if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, although it takes some time. Just throw the ingredients in the mixer, turn it on, and go buy a wedding dress or something.The dough will be ready when you get back.

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Yes, I am delinquent Babe. I have no excuse for being two days late with these wonderful Viennese rolls that our wonderful Viennese Astrid assigned to the Bread Baking Babes this month.

If they don’t look exactly Viennese on the outside, it’s because I chose to apply the “Dutch crunch” topping suggested by Peter Reinhart, from whose book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Astrid selected this recipe. So these little torpedoes are crispy crackly on the outside, soft and fluffy inside, and lightly sweet throughout — a very nice treat for breakfast or tea.

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This month the Babes were treated to the perfect summer bread: soft, buttery burger buns, chosen by Sara.

Because timing is not my strong suit, my buns did not get the chance to hold the burgers they were intended to. They did make lovely almond butter sandwiches, though. And I’m thinking the sleek and slightly sweet dough could also make fantastic cinnamon rolls…

The recipe was quick and easy. I made a few tweaks and a few notes:

• I measured the flour according to the weight given in the recipe (625 grams), but I wonder if this was too much, since the equivalent volume was given as 4 cups. This would make a cup equal to 156 grams — on the high side for sure.
• I substituted 10.4 grams (about 3 1/3 teaspoons) instant yeast for the 4.5 teaspoons of active dry yeast in the recipe.
• I measured a tablespoon of Kosher salt, the amount the recipe called for, and found that it weighed 15 grams. I cut that back to 12.5 grams to make the salt 2% of the flour weight, which I usually find to be about right.
• Instead of rolling out the dough and cutting it into squares, I divided it into 12 pieces of 100 grams each and rolled them into balls that I flattened slightly with the palm of my hand.
• I proofed for 30 minutes as directed by the recipe, but this was too short for the temperature of my kitchen (yes, it can be cool on July mornings in Northern California). The crumb, while soft, was a little dense. This could also be because I had too much flour.
• I baked both sheets of buns at once, using my oven’s convection setting at 375F for 16 minutes.

You need to check out the other beautiful Babes’ buns — you’ll find links to slider buns, barbecued buns, square buns, rounds buns, sunflower seed buns, buns, buns… on my lower right sidebar!

It seems we Bread Baking Babes were a busy bunch this month, so Ilva kindly provided us with a bread that is ever-so-quick but oh-so-delicious.

I love yeast, but it’s a slowpoke, so soda bread (leavened by baking soda, imagine that!) can save the day if you need a bread fix fast. I got home from a busy work day at 5:30, and by 6:30 this fragrantly herby loaf was out of the oven, even though I had to take time to figure out the volume of a dessert spoon. (It’s 2.4 teaspoons, but I used a tablespoon of each herb; other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.) The bright combination of sage, rosemary, and chives is perfect, but other herbs could work just as nicely.

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