Turning the Corner on Baking

 

Baguette

Originally uploaded by chifoodies

I haven’t been baking for a while (or blogging for that matter) for various reasons, mostly because I have been working too much these last few months. Also, I had reached a plateau with my baking – I just wasn’t happy with how my breads were turning out.

Inspired by the holidays and a couple of resources that I recently found, I baked up some baguettes for Christmas. Happily, I had an excellent result. Still not perfect, but such an improvement upon what I had been baking before that I know I can get it right.

Over on The Fresh Loaf, I found a great List of Tips for Better French Bread. The thing that finally struck me is that I can’t be afraid to get my hands dirty (duh). I can’t be squeemish about working with wet, sticky dough. In fact, it is moisture that makes the loaf tender on the inside, and crispy on the outside. Also, I have to crank the oven as high as I can, and spray the oven several times throughout the baking to get some nice steam going.

Voila, I turned out two beautiful (if I do say so), crispy, and tender-in-the-middle loaves. Also, the tips for autolysing and folding (as opposed to punching down and kneeding) I think made a huge difference in improving my crumb, though I still have to practice.

Another new inspiration: A recipe for Sour Dough English Muffins that could not have been easier, but was still impressive. We had home-made English muffins for our Christmas breakfast! Pretty darn cool.

Since we were just lamenting with some friends about how hard it is to find decent bread in Chicago, I am more determined than ever to master this art. Now I just need to acquire that pizza stone. Mmmhmm.

Turkey Day Prep

While we don’t have major family get-togethers on major holidays, we take full advantage of the days off and the national tradition of cooking a delicious meal and busting out the elastic-waste pants.

At Chez Conner-Smith, we love Thanksgiving.

And Gillian, chef extrordinaire that she is, has been in planning and preparation mode all week. Today we did our final shop. I had been at the office all morning, and when I came home, she had been busy getting all of the recipes out, brining the turkey, and making check lists.

And this is all just for the two of us.

So, tomorrow, we’ll post our menu, recipes, and photos. And over the weekend we will report on what we do with the leftovers.