It's Vesak Day (Buddha's Birthday & Public Holiday) today and so thought I'd try out a recipe from one of my new cookbooks, Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes. Let me first clarify, until my eyes laid upon the recipe I had no idea what Bialys (Bee-ah-lees) were, so while I thought they looked and tasted pretty good, I have nothing to compare it to. I of course still did some research and looked at some images for reference and I think... I'm doing okay for a beginner.

It's supposed to be like a bagel but without the hole but with a depression in the center for for an onion filling. Though it's not quite as dense, it's chewier like a super thick pizza crust! The natural flavour of the dough really comes through and it is beautiful. I really liked it! It's pretty easy to prepare, just simple steps between a few hours - if you have the time. Great for breakfast, lightly toasted have it plain or with a generous amount of cream cheese! Mmm!

Kossar's Bialys in New York is apparently the best place (in the world) to get yourself an original Bialy. So if you haven't already patronised their fine establishment, please do so on my behalf!

Tags: Bread, Chewy

Care to wake up to Wasabi Glazed Muffins? This will make your brain explode and your eyes pop! It's actually not as weird as it sounds (you can stop making that strange face now), the glaze is complimented with salty seaweed-bonito-sesame seed flakes so it works quite well to balance the shocking flavour of wasabi. And much of it depends on your preference and tolerance to Wasabi - if you don't want to shock your eyeballs out of their sockets you can of course opt of a milder subtler taste.

Why Wasabi Glazed Muffins? Gourmet's is hosting Muffin Monday (MM03) and this time round, it's all things SPICY SWEET SAVOURY! I'm just making the deadline (30 May) and when I saw the round-up (Lip smacking!) - I needed to come up with a spicy muffin FAST! And to be honest, I'm not really big on spicy food - save for a few wonderful exceptions. I think I suffered from some sort of childhood trauma relating to chilies and that memory has been blocked out. So I was only left with the very few spicy options that were left open for me and hey! Wasabi!

This is very basically a generic Muffin (sweet) recipe with a Wasabi glaze (spicy) and sprinkled with Nori Goma (Seaweed - Sesame Seeds ) Seasoning Mix (savoury). The basic muffin recipe is adapted from Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers. This is the best basic muffin I've had - very moist, spongy texture and nicely balanced flavours!

Note : I would try the glaze on 1 muffin first, just to see if you like it. If you don't at least you won't have to get rid of otherwise perfectly yummy muffins!

Tags: MM03, Wasabi, Muffins

It was another Big Bread weekend! Inspired by the wonderful recipes from my two brand new Bread baking books, Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers and Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes (There was a sale at Kinokuniya). Reinhart's new book Whole Grain Bread: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor - which I am eagerly anticipating, is in the press as we speak and should be out in stores in September.

I made 3 different types of bread: The Austrian Sourdough Wheat Rye failed terribly. For some reason every time I bake something from Classic Sourdoughs by Ed Wood, the breads turn out really very wet. Has anyone else encountered similar problems? I also finally made The New York Times No-Knead Bread and I almost had it perfect, so I will try again next week and will blog about it. And I have been wanting to try out baking with terra-cotta flowerpots for a while now and I thought I'd stick to a recipe that was safe and fool-proof, seeing how the previous 2 experiments didn't go through too well...

So here's presenting Banana Bread in Terra-cotta Flower Pots!! Aren't they the cutest things! Terra-cotta pots practical and great for baking breads because of how wonderfully and evenly it distributes heat to the dough. They have to be unglazed terra-cotta pots or you might be seriously poisoned by lead compounds from the glaze. You will need to "season" the pots first before baking (of course). I bought mine for $1 each from Ikea. Wash them thoroughly (remove the very sticky price tag too), dry it well and rub some vegetable oil on both the inside and outside the pot. Preheat your oven to the max. Leave pots to absorb the oil and repeat until it stops absorbing, because of its porous nature it will be extremely absorbent so be patient. Bake pots on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet in the oven for half and hour. Leave to cool completely before using it. Do not wash after use, wipe clean with a paper towel to remove any access oil and it is ready for use.

This Banana Bread recipe is from Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers. It's a quick bread - more like a larger version of a muffin. This was a big hit when I brought it to work the following day and I promise if you do the same you will be very popular with your colleagues. This was very moist and richly flavourful. I had added 1 too much a banana and this made it crumble easily because it was just way too much goodness!

I'm in the need for comfort food. Rich foods (equals fatty foods). I'm not usually known to finish a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's (Chubby Hubby's my Fav!) all on my own, stuff my face with cheesecake (it was offered to me) even when I was full, and have chocolate molten lava cake a few hours later or gorge on a variety of Thai tourist snacks (they were lying on the table calling my name!) some people brought back on from recent trips to Chiang Mai and Melbourne. I usually have more self control and concern about failing to fit into my shrinking pants.

I'm depressed. My wonderful and most incredible pet companion died last week. We've had him with us for 15 years, 4 months and 22 days. That's half my life - we grew up together. He was very healthy (he loved jumping and fooling around) up until the start of this year he started to age and became old. I knew it was time for him we were very lucky to have him as part of the family, he gave us so much love and joy. I called him my Sunshine Day because he made my day all bright and beautiful. It's been different without his presence at home. Empty. Which of course explains the rush to fill the void with rich rich foods.

So I bake Brioche. It's part of the grieving process. Brioche is the richest bread ever. I chose to make the Middle Class Brioche instead of the Rich Man's Brioche because even I am depressed now, I'll be more depressed if I have to buy new clothes to fit my expanding waistline.

The warm buttery aroma combined with the beautifully flakey, fluffy and oh so moist texture of the freshly baked Brioche was worth the very long baking process. It almost filled the empty void.