I have a new addiction! Besides the old one (chocolate) and not instead of! Drum roll please!
I am addicted to bread making! There .. I confessed in public.
And my new guru is Peter Reinhart and my new Bible The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
I tried about 1/3 of the recipes in the book and I loved them all. What's funny is that I do not find they take that much time. They take planning because most recipes take 2 days from start to finish, but the total time involvement from my part is maybe 30 min. The rest of the time the dough does what it is supposed to do on its own. I tried the pizza napoletana dough. That was the softest and tastiest dough ever. I also made bagels. This was the most time consuming recipe I tried because it had more steps that required my hands-on involvement. The bagels came out a bit different than the commercial bagels we have here. In fact, I like these ones better because they remind me of the bagels I used to eat as a kid back home. They are chewier (I did it on purpose by boiling them a bit longer) and saltier than the commercial ones. I also chose to make them only 2oz instead of 4oz simply because I am concerned about the amount of carbs I eat.
Now I am forever spoiled I will have to make bread for the rest of my life! Prospero does not mind, it continues to bubble happily on the counter. This weekend I will try one of the rye sourdough recipes not sure which one yet ... yummm ...I will try to remember to take pictures.
