Brioche Cake with Caramel Custard Cream

This post is way late, but better late than never :o) For our fifth Bread Bake-Together (BBT), Janis and I both wanted to bake a sweet yeast recipe to change things up a bit. The choice was easy: Brioche Cake with Caramel Custard Cream from "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle. Doesn't that sound ridiculously good? :o)

So far I've baked a good handful of recipes from this book and loved each and everyone of them. Needless to say, I was very much looking forward to this recipe as well, especially since it's my first yeast recipe from Tish's book. She clearly mentions that the dough will be very soft and she wasn't joking. It was so soft that it was borderline soupy, but I carried on. To be honest, I was skeptical until the very end, but shouldn't have been. The Brioche Cake turned out great.

Look at all that fluffiness :o)

Ciabatta

For our fourth BBT (Bread Bake-Together), Janis and I decided to bake Ciabatta bread. There are many recipes out there for Ciabatta but we settled on a recipe from "Local Breads" by Daniel Leader. Unfortunately I didn't have much luck with this recipe. I think I added too much water to the dough because it felt dry in the beginning. Janis' bread turned picture perfect so obviously it's not the recipe but rather a pilot error :o)

Whole-Grain Maple Oat Bread

Those of you familiar with King Arthur Flour I'm sure are big fans, like I am. When I received their latest catalog in the mail a little while ago, I happily paged through it, and loved all the recipes that were included. One that I wanted to try right away was their Whole-Grain Maple-Walnut Oat Bread. I suggested it to my Bread BakeTogether (or BBT) buddy, Janis, and she was interested in making it as well. Yay! :o)

Whole-Grain Maple Oat Bread

Who says healthy has to taste yucky? :o)

Floating Sesame Loaf

A few weeks ago, Janis and I decided to bake the Floating Sesame Loaf for our 2nd Bread BakeTogether. She blogged about this bread a couple weeks ago. I'm a little late blogging about this bread but better late than never, right? Besides, you really need to know about the unique technique used for this bread. The recipe is from the book Ancient Grains for Modern Meals by Maria Speck. The dough requires minimal kneading and is placed in a pot of cold water for its first rise. Yes, you read it right. You place the ball of dough into cold water, and you'll know when it's done when it floats to the top. I have to admit I was a little skeptic at first. I had never heard of this technique before and just couldn't wait to try it myself. I was giddy with excitement when I saw the dough float. I have proof too! Just keep on reading :o)

Floating "Flax Seed" Loaf :o)

Old-fashioned Raisin Bread

When I saw this bread on Phyl's blog, I knew I had to make it. The loaves looked so wonderful and the crumb so perfect. When I read that the recipe was a preview from Nick Malgieri's new book "Bread" (to be published in the fall 2012), I had one more reason to try it.

Baking bread is fun, but it's even more fun when you can do it with someone else and turn it into a mini (virtual) baking project. Fellow ABC-er and baking buddy, Janis of The Kitchen Is My Shrink, had mentioned that she'd like to get back into bread baking. The timing of the Old-fashioned Raisin Bread couldn't have been better. We both took the challenge and baked the bread in our respective kitchens. Do check out Janis' post. She did an awesome experiment where she made the recipe as-is and then again with natural enhancers such as Vital Wheat Gluten. Check out her side-by-side comparison here.

I love the three colors from the raisin, golden raisins and craisins in this bread!