Braiding doesn’t just have to be for sweets. I found myself with some 2-week-old dough (truth be told it was closer to 3 weeks) and it was a little wet to shape a nice tall boule. We always recommend using older dough for flatbreads or baking it in a loaf pan, since it can lose […]
It’s basically summer, even here in Minnesota, and I’m baking loaves outside on the grill already. Last summer, we did a lot of grilled flatbreads (and there’ll be more to come), but a few days ago I baked a peasant loaf in a closed cast iron pot, right on the gas grill. We’ve had lots […]
(photo by Mark Luinenburg) Like many people, my wife, Laura, and I live far from family, so this time of year, we’re always reminded that you have to find family wherever you land. Well, we have landed; this is our thirty-sixth year in Minnesota. Over the years we’ve been lucky to be invited for Thanksgiving […]
It’s the dead of winter here in Minnesota, and everyone I know is baking again–so it’s time to review the basic recipe from my BreadIn5 books. Back when the cookbooks first came out (2007!), authors didn’t generally put their most important recipe out on a website for free. I took a different approach. You can […]
Many readers have asked about baking bread inside a closed cast-iron pan, based on a much older method, where bread is baked inside a closed clay pot (or “cloche,” meaning bell, in French). Both methods depend on trapped steam from the dough to create a perfect crust, but the clay pot has the added benefit […]
The older I get, the less I am ‘into’ Valentine’s Day, but I have two little kids who still think it is an amazing holiday, so anything red, pink, and heart-shaped is welcomed into our home on February 14. I was scrolling through Instagram last week and came across this lovely heart-shaped challah, and then, […]
About unorthodox Holiday traditions (for me, Hannukah)–how about panini? Any time of year is the right time of year for one. We’ve done two grilled sandwich posts here on the website. Now, our official panini post isn’t quite right for Hannukah (there’s ham in it, but you can leave it out, of course). Our other […]
This week is Thanksgiving and we have to make the most of our oven space. Scheduling what will go in and out of the oven is just shy of a NASA level endeavor. By the time the pies come out, the Turkey must go in and then what to do about the rolls? There is […]
How is it that I’d never tried Dutch Crunch bread, never even heard of it? It’s a loaf that seems to be ubiquitous in the San Francisco area, and it would seem that they have been keeping it all for themselves. Now that I’ve had it I can’t blame them. Dutch Crunch gets its name from […]
Zoe did a great post last month on a traditional braided loaf (made with peasant dough). I thought now might be a nice time to do a new video (it’s way at the bottom of this post), showing one of my favorite techniques, the flatbread braid. Flat or traditional tall, these techniques also work great […]