Wednesday bread

Yes, I know - strictly speaking it's not a bread... I wanted some change in my breakfast routine, so I decided to bake some croissnts. No, I am not that crazy to make them completely on my own - t would take me about 4-5 hours. So I let you do the counting to figure out, what time you should gt up if you want to eat freshly baked croissants at 7 a.m.

Lucky me, they have here fresh dough for croissants, which you only have to cut in shape, roll it and bake it. Just this simple.

Oh boy, they are TASTY. Maybe they don't look as they are from a bakery, but they are delicious. And at the en of the day - that's what counts, right?

With a cup of hot tea it's a nice beginning of the day!

Are you getting hungry ?

Thursday bread

This time it's wholegrain rye mix. The taste is a bit heavier than a normal wheat bread. But I am Russian, and our traditional bread is rye bread, so I really enjoy the taste of it.

The napkin is, by the way, the result of the previous weekend in the Netherlands. The napkin itself comes from Dille en Kamille, I only had to add a crochet edging.

Rye bread is the most difficult to bake I think. It's structure is too thick and wet, and you have always a risk that it will ot rise properly. Luckily for me, this time it's turned out quite well.

I also managed to bake a plum crumble cake. It was delicious! It didn't last long though. We managed to eat it in 2 days. And now all I have left are the memories...

Well, let's add a little bit of colour.

I love baking! And as you hae noticed, I am quite proud with my napkin.

It's pumpkin time!

I have found today a wounderful blog/website which tells you all about bread baking!
Just look at all these tasty things - don't you feel urged to rush into the supermarket for the ingredients?
I have picked a couple of recipes for myself to try out this autumn. I want to start using pumpkin a bit more in my cooking and baking. It's such a terrific vegetable and it suits autumn cuisine so well!

And what do you think about these marvelous butternut muffins from J. Oliver? I am definitely going to try this! And here you see the result of it:

Right, do you recognise the granny blocks?

Nice colour matching, don't you think?..

Wednesday bread

Here we go again. This time it's casual light-brown one. I am quite happy with the result. Btw I still think that adding a bit of milk makes the structure of the bread much softer... The best way is to use water-milk mix for almost every sort of bread, imho...

Yesterday I started this project. I am using 100% sheep wool in natural colour from Russian TroitskWorsted factory.

It is VERY warm, but has rather rough weaving structure.

A couple of months ago I managed to buy 2 pieces of pleated fabric to make 2 skirts. I think they will look nice and a bit folklore with this cape.

Early mornings

Good way to begin your day - freshly baked homemade bread. I am not so into white bread, but from time to time I allow myself to bake. Maybe not so good for my line, but it's soooo tasty. And this is in fact the only reason I bake my own bread - because it tastes so much better than any other bread!

This little one keeps me also quite busy in the mornings. He is 4 months old and has lots of energy! His name is Felix.


Have a nice day everyone!

By Bread Alone

Thanks to Farmgirl Fare blog, I have read 2 books in 10 days time - By Bread Alone and Blessed are the cheesemakers by K. Lynch! It's a record for me as I am a very slow reader. I must tell it was nice summer reading, although these are books which you read once and never return to them again. Anyway, they did inspire me to try out a couple of new bread recipes, and that's a good thing!

I love, I really do love it to bake my own bread. I do it the old-fashioned way, kneading with hand. It takes a lot of time,I must admit, but it'ssuch a relaxing process. The kneading itself, then waiting and seeing the dough evolve and rise, looking at your bread turning golden brown on the oven...and then this smell, this gorgeous smell of freshly baked bread at your home! Trust me, it'sreally worth trying.

This morning though I have decided to bake bookwheat pancakes. These are typical Russian pancakes, which are being served with sour cream or caviar. They are smaller and thicker than the normal pancakes, and have a much stronger taste. If you find them to heavy for breakfast, you can always mix the bookwheat flour with normal pastry flower in the proportion you prefer.
This is what you will need to make 10 pancakes:
100 gr flour
1 egg( separate the yolk)
1 ts salt
1/2 ts black peper
15 gr fresh yeast
200 ml milk (room temperature)

Mix all the ingredients (except for white of egg). Add the yeast-milk mix and set apart for one hour. Whisk the white of egg, add it carefully to your mix and bake!

Enjoy it!

The true story of baking

I have been baking my own bread for while already but to be honest, I can't really call it baking. Bying those all-in mixes, adding some water and kneading a bit, you can't really call it baking. I've been dreaming of making my own sourdough starter for ages though, even tried it once, but it turned out badly. Now that the temperature outside and inside is much suitable for this kind of projects than in the middle of the winter, I will give it another try. I have found a cople of nice websities with instructions of how to make your own starter (here and here) and I have also one in a book, I've leant from the local library another day. They all have a couple of things in common, but still vary from each other. At the moment I am trying to figure out, which method will suite me the most.
I am baking bread every 2 days, so feeding and keeping the starter alive shouldn't be a problem. By the way, I am reading A Bread Alone from S-K Lynch (thanks to Farmgirl Fare blog), which is extra inspiring for trying out the sourdough!
I love to bake simple, basic things and adding unexpected and not-so-traditional ingredients to them. I love experimenting with herbs, flowers and herbal waters. These ingredients can change your basic pastry to something completely new and surprising. You should try it, you won't be disappointed!

Rosemary Cake

For tonight we have a Rose Cake plan. I want to try out my own recipe (actually it's a basic cake recipe; what I want to do is to add some rose jelly and rose water to the dough, and some sugar with rose flowers on top... We will see how it will turn out).

Have a nice day!