Well, not a day off, but kind of a “working vacation” at the Shoresh First (hopefully annual!) Food Conference yesterday. I was covering it for the Canadian Jewish News, but I let someone snap this delightful shot of me kneading some authentic flour-and-water-only half-whole-wheat matzah. Read More »

This is from last week… Tuesday?  I wanted to have a plain meal, with tinned comfort-food tomato soup and awesome bread.  And I had a dream, not a literal dream, but an in-my-head-so-close-I-can-almost-taste-it dream of a savoury RYE bread full of ONIONS.  No poppy seeds, not a pletzl.  FULL of onions, like almost to bursting. Read More »

3 pm on a winter Friday afternoon is NOT the best time to realize the challah that has been lovingly rising since late the previous night actually contains NO YEAST. I was lying down with GZ when I realized… I started visualizing me getting out all the ingredients the night before: salt, sugar, flour, water, oil, eggs… nope, definitely no yeast. Read More »

Question!  What do you do late Thursday night when you are ravaged by a painful – ahem – something-or-other, not a single mixing bowl or counter is clean, you and your lovely spouse are both exhausted… but your mother is expecting Delicious Challah Read More »

Drat.  As with almost every other erev-Shabbos baked delicacy I try out, I didn’t get a chance to take a picture when they came out of the oven; by now, of course, 26 hours later, they are ALL GONE. I made BOW TIES!!!  Also known as kichel, also known as egg kichel and also, obscurely, as “eyer kichel. Read More »

I have taken one giant step forward in my Ongoing Quest to create the perfect round and malty bread, which will sustain me through the winter!  And I also got to test-drive the newly-toivelled Pyrex Bake-a-Round baking “pan. Read More »

Actually, this is more than a New Baking Toy – it’s Step 1 in a however-many step plan to bake the perfect Malt Bread, exactly as I remember it from childhood, or as near as makes no nevermind. Here’s the toy… Bought new in box on etsy for not too much money, and shipped BEAUTIFULLY packed – I’m very impressed. Read More »

But isn’t this a beautiful braiding pattern for a round loaf??? Definitely something to try next Rosh Hashanah! Read More »

Yay!  You may remember this photo from my Rosh Hashanah sourdough Pan de Calabazas this past year. Well, I sold my editor at the Canadian Jewish News on an article about “kosher sourdough baking” – in which I reveal the stunning truth that “kosher sourdough baking” is pretty much the same as any other sourdough baking. Read it here. Read More »

(no pics because my camera batteries are recharging… hopefully tomorrow) Forgive me, I know it’s not bread, but it’s that time of year again, when I bake up a storm for the sake of in-laws far and wide – hopefully wide, once they’ve tasted my yummy bakies! So last year’s shortbreads were GOOD, but I wanted to kick them up a notch. Read More »

Not pita exactly, since this is basically the same way I make any flatbread.  Roll it, pat it, and toast it in my wonderful cast-iron skillet.   Dry – no grease or anything on the pan beyond the olive oil we apply to store the pan. I used the basic “50% spelt” recipe from Artisan Pizza & Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day . Read More »

Why the weird dates? Click here to find out! Hate to brag – but delicious challah! Only my second time succeeding with Maggie Glezer’s “My Sourdough Challah”… but BOY did it turn out well!  Hate to brag, but this was delicious challah – and beautiful.   I still have no idea why my sourdough challahs were losing their braids last year. Read More »

Is it October and the fruit flies are still #$^! everywhere??? Luckily, I have a tent! Here, it’s sheltering two sourdough breads I made yesterday – one for our family, one for a friend who had a baby.  (I sent the bread with a lasagna… one cannot live on bread alone!) I used Peter Reinhart’s basic Pain au Levain from p. Read More »

Nothing goes together at Sukkos time like fresh-picked PUMPKIN and challah dough! We didn’t actually pick the pumpkins ourselves, but did pick them UP (and pick them OUT) at the place we went for apple picking . Read More »

I love the IDEA of galette, though I still couldn’t overcome my distrust of fruit desserts enough to actually TASTE this one.  But still, I made it and it turned out great – if I say so myself – with delicious Spy apples that Ted picked himself and set aside specifically for this purpose. Read More »

  Besides a bunch of Auntie Sally’s challah which I whipped up before Rosh Hashanah and still had in the freezer, this is the main “overnight sponge challah” I’ve been playing around with this yom tov season. Read More »

Someone asked over Yom Tov how long I’ve been making challah.  I thought it was a weird question, but the consensus is that it’s a perfectly FINE question and I’m just overly sensitive.  To me, I guess it sounds like “how long have you been breathing?”  Like – obvious. But it’s true:   there WAS a time I didn’t make challah. Read More »

A wonderful, wonderful year to everybody reading this and even those who are not! May all of our braids go ‘round and ‘round     Coiled tightly   in the snails of our lives!   More New Years’ Dough! Two kinds of challah this year:   4-600g loaves of Super Wonder Challah (double recipe) and 3-675g loaves of Auntie Sally’s Challah . Read More »

Mmm…. my baker sister was coming up today to babysit the kids and she said (half-joking?) that if I had some sourdough awake, she could make something with it. Read More »

Well, we’re back from the cottage, and here we are, making homemade “cottage challah” last Friday! Eyeballing a very basic, thicker-than-usual dough on Thursday night… Kneading in an impromptu “dough bowl”…   Then, hauling it out for the kids on Read More »