Our Daily Bread: Crusty Beer Bread

After a detour in pastry-land, I turned back to Nancy Baggett’s Kneadlessly Simple for an old favorite:  beer bread.  We had some beer left over from a get-together at our place, so I thought I could sacrifice a bottle to make bread with.

The recipe calls for a whole bottle of beer, plus some water.  But I found that the beer was enough liquid, so I left the water out.  I got one of the crackliest and most beautiful crusts I’ve ever made, while the crumb was dense and smelled like beer (in a good way!).  This bread made great toast and we even used it as a delicious substitute for burger buns.

See more breads here, at YeastSpotting!

Read Full Post »

Our Daily Bread: Cinnamon Buns

After weeks and weeks of baking only breads, I decided to branch out into pastries.  I was partly inspired by an old can of Love ‘N Bake Schmear Cinnamon Filling that I found in the cupboard. We had bought it in Brooklyn when we visited our old ‘nabe and stocked up on the stuff we missed from our favorite Brooklyn grocery: Sahadi’s.  I peeled off the label, followed the recipe, and voila!

After they cooled, I whipped up some simple white glaze and dribbled it on…

Read Full Post »

Our Daily Bread: Encephalitis (aka Buttermilk) Bread

I stuck with “Beard On Bread” this week and made his “Buttermilk White Bread”.  I’m calling it “Encephalitis Bread” (no offense to the swollen-headed intended) because it rose so much that the top was gigantic! 

The crust had bite but was softer than that of other breads I’ve made, and the crumb was pillow soft and very airy.  It made great toast for breakfast and bread to eat with dinner.

So how did this odd shaped bread come to be?

Read Full Post »