You bake me right round baby, right round....

Today, while I was procrastinating about writing a paper for the college course I am taking, I ran across this little gadget I found a few years ago- and promptly buried in my closet of "I'll fool around with this later" kitchen clutter.  
Thinking that this would be a great blog entry, I promptly turned off the laptop (and my Paper), and got to work on figuring this thing out. It had not come with instructions but I was able to find some on the Internet a few years ago, and they were still in the box.





Following the package recipe (word for word) for the French bread, well, that wasn't going to happen. So I modified it all to heck, adding rye flour, white whole wheat, and a 12 grain add in. Fourty-five minutes later, I tugged,  and shaped, and got the dough into the glass container.

       

Another bit of a raise and into the 425 degree oven it went. (That was a bit nerve racking- hot oven and cold glass thing). But after following the directions on timing, 20 minutes later I had this.                                                                       

Following the directions in order to get it out of the tube... well that was a whole another level of frustrations and a minor burn!











I let it cool a bit and cut into it.



















What coolness!
                                                                                                                     

But what to do with it now,- cool toast, appetizers?  While looking around I saw my other favorite kitchen gadget- the Breakfast Sandwich Maker- and an idea popped up!








I added sliced chicken, provolone and pepperoni to the left side: provolone, jalapenos, and tuna salad to the right.

Toasted them for 4 minutes, and

Yummy Goodness.

Here are the finished sandwiches:

They were very good!  And such fun to eat!  So if you stumble across the Pyrex "Bake-a-Round" snag it up for yourself or your favorite baker...

Here's a site that helped me with some new recipe ideas.

http://neufie.com/bake-a-round/

Now, sadly, back to the homework...

As always,
Live Peacefully. Cook Fearlessly
Chris

Move over Leg of Lamb-- This Garlic/ Mustard/Rosemary Baguette Bread is the new Classic!

Happy Spring Everyone!
Today, I was at a spring celebration and wanted to create a bread that went with a friend's lamb dish. Well, actually that was Plan B- Plan A was to make Lamb/Rosemary/Garlic/Dijon mustard sausage that was inspired by Julia Child's traditional mustard-sauced Leg of Lamb. Sadly, due to a minor miscalculation of mine- who would have thought it?, the lamb was wasn't defrosted in time... so that will be tomorrow's post.
So-- I thought, why not take that fabulous mustard sauce and make it the basis of a French baguette? Classic! Plus I recently acquired some new baguette shaping pans from vacation, and wanted to get in some more time with them. Here is the results:

Do they look Yummy or what? And you know it-- they tasted out of this world. All warm garlic-y, mustard-y goodness.
The Basics:

2 cups of warm water
2 tbsp white sugar
2 packages (2 tbsp) of yeast
1 cup rye flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
4 cups of bread flour
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried minced garlic
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp yellow mustard
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary or 2 tsp dried rosemary

Mix the water, sugar, and yeast in a stand mixer bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with a dough hook until smooth, or mix together by hand and knead on a floured surface until smooth. Let rise for 20 minutes then cut into four equal pieces and shape each into baguette form. Place either in greased baguette trays or on a greased sheet pan, and let them rise until doubled, another 30 minutes or so.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees when you set the loaves for the second rise.
When the loaves have risen and the oven is warm, brush the tops with an egg white wash, and score the loaves with a sharp knife.
Bake until golden brown and hollow tapping, 20 minutes or so. Let cool and enjoy.

I took extra over to the Spring feast, and the texture on this loaf was great. Here's a picture of it with the lamb stew.

So that is it. It was a great dipping bread, and I saved one to have ham and cheese on tomorrow!
Enjoy!

I'm excited to share some news!

If you want to learn how to bake artisan bread with a no fail method, use deconstructing techniques, AND make some recipes that create stunning reconstructed meals- cross your fingers for me. The book proposal has been in the hands of an agent that I would LOVE to be with, and I am hoping for good news. Five more weeks  of potential waiting, I hope I can learn some patience. LOL
So far the recipe development has been fun- here is a sneak peak at one of the finished pictures.

Also in development is a YouTube site, intending to be used as a instructional area where you can find me teaching an demonstrating cooking and baking techniques.  Got a question? Want to know how to torch a cream brulee, or shape a baguette? Just mention it in the comments, and I will get on it!

Hoping that things are exciting and creative in your lives also.

Live Peacefully. Cook Fearlessly.

Chris