Pizza - No Knead Pizza

I just ate the best pizza crust that I've ever made. I used Jim Lahey's recipe from his book called My Pizza.

Jim Lahey is well known in the bread making world for his adaptation of no knead bread at his bakery in New York, Sullivan Street Bakery.

I made his recipe though I didn't document it because of the blog app that I'm using which only allows pictures at the end of the blog and not at each step.

Anyways it's a very easy recipe!! It's just flour, salt, yeast and water. Let it sit for 18 hours and voilà!!

It's so good!!! It tastes very similar to Grimaldi Pizzeria in Brooklyn. Of course it's not 100% the same but it's close enough north of the border. Trust me, after the pizza in Brooklyn, I can't stop obsessing finding the ultimate homemade pizza crust that tastes similar to that. This dough by Jim Lahey is very close plus it so easy to make.

Here is my pizza with Jim's tomato sauce. I fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and spinach.

Candy Cane Sweet Bread Braid

I borrowed Debbie Macomber's Christmas Cookbook from the library because it was a new cookbook. I don't know who she is but as I was looking for a picture of the cookbook cover to put on this blog, I realized that she is an author.





I decided to try two of the recipes in the book and this is one of them.

Meat & Bread

A friend took me to this place around springtime and I LOVED it. I couldn't blog about it then because my phone battery was dead. I was determined that I would come here again because it was is delicious and also to share with my readers.

Unfortunately I tried coming here on a Sunday and found out they were closed. So this time, I went on a Saturday. They were busy!

The name of this sandwich place is simple. It describes what they serve, Meat and Bread.

The One

After supper, I was very thirsty and didn't want to go home. So where did I go??? Bubble tea!!!

Went to a place called The One Restaurant (美味x係-can't replicate 3rd word)

Steamed BBQ Pork (Char Siu) Bun (叉燒飽)

I had extra BBQ pork this weekend and it was way too much food to eat as leftovers plus it was pretty fatty. So I decided to make steamed BBQ pork buns. The best recipe is the one my mom used to make using Bisquick. It was a "cakey" dough. Unfortunately that recipe has been missing since 1990s and could not be found. My mom asked my grandmother and my aunt but no avail. (To my relatives in SA, if you read my blog, please ask your mom if she has a BBQ bun recipe. It's important because it came from our grandmother and don't want to lose that recipe).

Anyways, I was going to use the recipe I got from my cooking teacher but I couldn't find it either, so I used this book's recipe.



This book was a gift from a good friend many many years ago. She stated that it was pretty authentic. I agree. I haven't tried a lot of recipes because many are from other parts of China, I have so many recipes from my mom and grandmother to perfect plus I'm taking cooking classes that it's hard to try so many recipes.

Farmhouse French Bread

I made Farmhouse French bread before but didn't blog it because when blogging bread, after a while, they look the same. The first time I made it, I made it the night before, baked it the next day and had fresh and warm bread at a picnic.

Today, I was in the mood for crusty bread with cheese so decided to make a crusty bread like this one today. However I started late so had to eat something else for lunch since the bread wouldn't finish in time for lunch.

I got the recipe from Wooden Spoon Bread. It's a pretty good recipe book for bread. The only problem is it lacks pictures and diagrams, especially for breads that have special shapes and I'm not familiar with.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

I really needed to make something for breakfast. Last little while, I guiltily went to Starbucks to buy their "baking." I feel guilty cos 1) I can make them 2) it costs unnecessary spending 3) I know what I put in and control the ingredients whereas with them, I don't.

Anyways so Saturday, I decided to bake something with cinnamon with some old Digweed CDs. I wanted something cinnamon not because I crave it but because the last time I baked I accidentally mixed flour and sugar with my cinnamon and it's bothered me since!!!! I felt I had to use it up.

I wanted cinnamon buns but the recipe I had needed buttermilk and I didn't want to go out and buy. So I had a choice of stacked cinnamon bread (from my Wooden Spoon Bread book) or Cinnamon Raisin Bread (from the Kitchen Aid Baking Companion). Since I never used the Kitchen Aid book, I decided to try it's recipe.



I bought this book a long time ago. It's actually one of the reason why I decided to have a New Year's resolution of not buying a recipe book unless I finish making everything in one recipe book (that New Year resolution is partially successful in that I haven't bought any recipe books but failure because I'm not going to complete 1 recipe book by the end of this year. By 2012, I'm gonna be buying!!

Hearty Rolls

I'm out of sugar but wanted to bake so could only make bread and pizza dough. They don't require sugar. This post will be on my bread.

I've been wanting to make bread rolls because I can freeze and use as needed. With loaves of bread, I have a hard time finishing it. Often I have to eat it for lunch and breakfast and throw away the last piece cos it's too old and hard to even toast.

The bread roll I made came from my favourite book (and my fave cooking show on PBS). It's from America's Test Kitchen.

Bread, bread and bread

Yesterday I baked three types of bread. No new recipes, just the same ones by special request by my mom Actually the request was only for my sourdough but I decide to make extra to give away.



The rolls and the two loaves in front are sourdough. The big loaf on top left is called American sandwich bread and the two loaves on top right is rustic Italian loaf.

My mom really like the sourdough bread which is quite unusual because she usually dislikes the tartness of sourdough. Even when we were in San Francisco, eating San Francisco sourdough she didn't really enjoy it much. She enjoyed the crab and clam chowder but made no comment on the bread.

Of course mom's are suppose to encourage and praise their kids but when it comes to food, my family tells it as it is. It is a good quality cos then you aren't deluding yourself thinking the food is good when in fact it is mediocre.

So my mom will tell me if it's soso which is good so I continue with only the best!!

The Breads:
For the rustic Italian and sourdough, I had to prepare it the night before. I had to make a sponge.






Here is my three doughs rising simultaneously.



Here is a pic where some dough are still rising the first time and others formed into loaves or rolls, rising a second time.



I made sourdough rolls for myself so I could freeze and take out the rolls as I need.

I got a real good workout kneading all this bread. It's kinda addictive that I want to bake more but my freezer does not have space!!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bad Bread Day :(

I made bread yesterday - a Rustic Italian Bread and Everyday sourdough. I decided to make bread because I ran out of bread and felt like baking.

It was a bad bread because I didn't read the instructions fully and missed a step in each recipe.

Rustic Italian Bread
Rustic bread or artisan bread often require more than 24hrs to make them. In this case, it was no different. I had to make a sponge the night before. A sponge is a yeast mixture that is allowed to ferment or rise overnight. This is suppose to make the texture of the bread better and the bread more tasty.

After 24hrs, it should look like this. Nice and bubbly!

Breas,

Banana bread

I usually wouldn't blog about banana bread as it's quite commonly baked. However since this recipe uses my leftover creme fraiche, I thought I'd blog about it.

So if you read my previous posts, I have lots of whipping cream, buttermilk, ricotta cheese and creme leftover from making my mushroom tart. I wanted to use my creme fraiche since it only had a fridge life of 10 days. I reviewed my recipe books, googled internet and recipe apps to find any recipe that would use my creme fraiche. Finally I found a banana bread recipe in epicurious app on the iPhone that used creme fraiche and got lots of rave reviews.

Making of - Banana bread with creme fraiche

The recipe is not easy as I had to mix sugar and 4 eggs for 10 min until the batter formed ribbons.

The Wooden Spoon Bread Book

I'm very much into bread and bought Marilyn Moore's book called The Wooden Spoon Bread Book and The Wooden Spoon Dessert Book. I bought them because Ms Moore describes sone recipes from her mother and grandmother and I enjoy "old" family recipes. I left the dessert book in Edmonton so can't comment on it.

I started reading her bread book.



It's quite interesting as she gives her opinion and knowledge of bread making. It's not as scientific as Peter Reinhart's book. I'll take about that book in another posting. This book focused on her experience.

I like her low key and experiential tone. It was very interesting and easy to read. I've only tried one of her recipes so far but it's very easy to follow along and ingredients are quite clear.

Bread making

I'm so into making bread nowadays. I make it once every one or two weeks. I find it very relaxing and rewarding. As I said in a previous post, I don't buy bread anymore. Usually I have to freeze bread and take out as needed.

Bread
So here is my Chinese baked bread dough that I learned from Mrs. Chiu at VSB. She introduced me to bread flour and Chinese wheat flour. I had some red bean paste and made red bean paste flower bun and regular bread. This is a nice rich bread, as it uses milk, butter AND egg.

Buns

Went to a Bread making class in Cantonese. It was fun because teacher is very interesting and direct. The bread was really good. The secret is using bread flour. Anyways, here is a pic of 7 buns I made in the second class. They include a Mexican bun, Pineapple bun, Corn Beef Braid, Coconut roll, Lotus paste piggy, Taro bun and Cream spiral.

This other one is all the buns I made at home including Kwai Fei Bun (BBQ pork filling with Mexican bun topping). Now I can make it VERY VERY quickly! No longer have to buy bread anymore!