andrew's Reviews
174 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title 
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The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant
By Judy Rodgers, Gerald Asher
W.W. Norton & Co. - 2002
I've made these a couple of times now, once with fresh rosemary and once with dried. I'd definitely recommend fresh, and the 'bruising' method she details in the recipe. Also, salting the water fairly liberally when you initially cook the potatoes is a good tip, since I find salting roast potatoes during or after can be hit or miss. I also found that it took a bit longer to cook than the recipe - probably just increasing the temperature to 425 would do the trick (I don't have a convection oven, so I have a feeling this may some impact).
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I made this for breakfast today, intrigued by the other reviews, and was favourably impressed. It's a simple recipe, but I would never have thought of combining fried eggs and bread crumbs. I really like the crust that results under the egg. I too did them over-easy, without any herbs, but I can see how this could be experimented with in future - not just herbs, but maybe a sprinkling of parmesan cheese too. I liked the balsamic vinegar on top.
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I just made this for Sunday breakfast without even checking to see if anyone else had done it. Great minds...
Anyway, I agree that this is a nice, simple omelette variation. I like the way it puffs up and I would never have thought of cooking eggs in a full tablespoon and a half of olive oil like this, but it turned out very tasty. Until Zuni, I hadn't thought of balsamic vinegar on eggs, but it's a great idea - a nice flavour shot. I also tend to over-beat my eggs when making omelettes and frittatas, so taking her advice to stop a bit early was also a good discovery.
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These are delicious scones, and very simple and fast to prepare. I didn't have an orange to zest, but had some lovely orange oil I'd picked up at a gourmet store for just this eventuality. It meant they didn't have any orange flecks in them, which would have looked nice, but they tasted very nice - citrus and sweet. She calls for a scant half cup of sugar which doesn't seem like much but I think I'd try reducing this a tiny bit next time I make them as they were fairly sweet.
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I'll just add my enthusiastic agreement to the other reviews. These were excellent biscotti. I also didn't have anisette, so I just used a little almond extract instead - the anise seeds seemed to be fine by themselves. I might also try this one without the anise seeds - it looks like a good base recipe to experiment with.
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Williams-Sonoma Mastering: Frozen Desserts
By Melanie Barnard
Free Press - 2006
As my wife said after tasting this the first time, "it's like mint-chocolate chip ice cream, only better". It makes commercial versions seem like, well, imitations of the real thing. Yes, this recipe is the Platonic ideal.
There's nothing I'd change in the recipe - I used a cup of fresh peppermint leaves which were growing in our ditch and I steeped them for a nice long time in the cream mixture before making the custard. I used melted semisweet chocolate, drizzled in at the end of the churning process.
Both of my children said this was the best ice cream they'd ever tasted, and it's got to be in my top five (and this includes gelato from all over Italy too).
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This is an ideal recipe if you want to make home-made ice cream in a hurry or you don't have any eggs. It's simplicity itself: cream, milk, sugar and vanilla, and nothing else. Since you're using cold milk and cream, it doesn't require the long cooling of a cooked custard ice cream and can be made in one day if you start early enough.
Compared to a classic French vanilla, it lacks depth, but as the recipe says, it's great for cones and other ice-cream based desserts, and as usual with home-made ice creams, you're still better off than buying commercial!
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Vijs At Home: Relax, Honey: The Warmth and Ease of Indian Cooking
By Meeru Dhalwala, Vikram Vij
D&m Adult - 2010
This has a very interesting flavour and is a nice variation on the standard chicken curry. I used dates, as the recipe suggests (you can also use prunes or tamarind paste), and the flavour of the dates permeated the dish, complemented by the interesting spicing. Instead of a standard curry powder, this one has cayenne, garam masala and paprika. The overall effect is a creamy, slightly cinnamony dish, with a nice little bit of heat, but not too much. Great for a dark and wet evening.
Served with rice and chapati, I made half the recipe and it was enough for four reasonable servings.
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Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine
By Vikram Vij, Meeru Dhalwala
Douglas & McIntyre - 2006
This is a very mild chai recipe. We followed the directions exactly, using green cardamom pods and fennel seeds straight from our garden, with orange pekoe tea. The taste was quite subtle, more subtle than I remember from visiting the restaurant, so maybe next time I'll boil the spices a little more slowly when I make it.
It's definitely not the aggressive chai flavour you'll get from some places - no cloves, cinnamon or ginger. They do it this way deliberately for the restaurant, so they can keep it hot and not overspiced. It's definitely pleasant, but I think I'll experiment a bit with some additional spices in the future.
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I agree with robing on this one. It was easy to prepare (we had some pre-cooked chickpeas in the fridge, so I didn't even have to open a can. I also used canned tomatoes, though I had whole ones. But the spicing was a little subtle. We had it with rice and the flavour didn't really come through that well. We had some for lunch the next day and had the curry by itself and it was much tastier - you definitely got the cumin seeds, ginger and jalapenos then.
It's not a conventional curry - it only has those three ingredients as spices (and ginger and jalapenos are not exactly spices, are they?), plus the coconut milk. So, I wouldn't up the spicing in the future, as I think it's enough, but I would take care to not dilute it with rice etc.
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Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
By Heidi Swanson
Ten Speed Press - 2011
A very tasty, simple granola variation. It's fairly straightforward - toasted oats with some nuts and a sweetener. She brings it up a notch with a couple of things - unsweetened coconut and currants - and sweetens it with maple syrup. Orange zest is the final tweak.
Be careful with the cooking time though - I let this one go until it was as brown as I thought it should be, then it cooked a little more on the tray when I took it out, and it turned out I'd overdone it - the currants were fossilized and the coconut was a bit burnt!
Update: I did this again and cooked it until it was nicely tanned but not dark brown. I put the currants in halfway through and they were better, but still a bit dried out. I'm going to take onepotkitchen's advice and put them in right at the end next time. I also did them with almonds and liked that very much.
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These are truly excellent. I was a little skeptical at first, thinking that they'd end up fairly dry, but no - they're just right. They were just as good two and even three days after I made them. The best way to describe them would be as a cross between granola bars and muffins.
I was lucky to have all the ingredients on hand - my personal interests and shopping whims seem to be aligning more and more with Heidi's focus on whole, natural ingredients. Be warned though, to do these properly you'll need a few things that most people don't stock regularly: spelt flour (you can substitute whole wheat), cane sugar and extra virgin coconut oil.
The only tweaks I'd contemplate when I make these again (and I had to restrain myself from making them again immediately today when we finished the last one) would be adding some dried fruit for a little burst of extra flavour. I intend to experiment with dried apple, apricot, and currants in the future.
Update: I've been making these with lightly toasted, chopped almonds now instead of walnuts, and adding chopped dates, and I'm really loving the result.
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This is a simple and quick soda bread recipe, with about 60% rye, the rest being white flour. You can, as Heidi writes, whip it together and have fresh bread cooling on your counter in about an hour.
However, you do have to like the particular taste of soda bread. I don't mind it, but I don't love it. My kids didn't like it at all, and they usually love all breads. My wife, however, thought it was great. So, your mileage will vary. I've tried to review this to reflect this varied level of opinion in our household.
I do like the way she cuts it before baking - almost through, in 8 pieces, so that it bakes up lovely and crusty. Also note, it was quite sticky and not easy to knead - I was a little concerned it wouldn't work out, but it turned out just fine.
If I did this again, I'd consider adding something to contrast the baking soda flavour - maybe caraway seeds.
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I was very pleasantly surprised by this recipe. Not that I didn't expect it to be tasty, but it was almost completely different tasting than I'd expected from looking at the ingredients. Although there's no peanuts in it, it had a slightly nutty, peanut flavour, possibly from the mixture of coconut oil, soy, sugar and tempeh. Everything about it was bursting with flavor - spice from the red pepper flakes and the black pepper, little gingery explosions, a note of caramelized cauliflower, and the mellow taste of the slowly cooked onion and garlic.
I will be making this again, and soon. It may say 'serves four' but my wife and I gobbled it up, with barely enough rescued from the skillet for my lunch tomorrow.
Recommendations: use coconut oil if at all possible, as the flavor contributes mightily to the final product, and don't be afraid to really crank the heat for the last couple of minutes to brown the cauliflower and tempeh. I added a little more water just to help at the end, as suggested in the recipe.
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As long as you have the ingredients at hand (squash, white miso, curry paste, tofu, kale, cilantro...) this is a simple and fast dish which makes a very tasty supper. I made it tonight and served it with some chapatis and it was very good indeed - spicy, but not too spicy, and the roasted vegetables went very nicely with the miso, lemon, oil and Thai curry dressing.
I didn't have a delicata squash but used some cubed butternut squash, which was nice, but it did start to disintegrate a little. Another dish I'll be making again.
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A good basic curry recipe, useful for all sorts of vegetables. I found it a little underspiced, however, compared to some of her other recipes, and in future would add a bit more curry paste. It's also not as complex or innovative as some of the other recipes in the book, hence my 3 stars.
I used red potatoes, red pepper and cauliflower as my vegetables rather than the zucchini and asparagus she suggests (she does say it's her 'refrigerator curry' for leftover veggies, so I felt this followed in the spirit of the thing.
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They tasted great, but I did have some problems with these, and I think that if I didn't have a good idea of why there were problems, I'd have given them a 3.
The issue is that she uses Greek-style yogurt as well as butter in these biscuits, but also suggests using regular plain yogurt. I had homemade yogurt which was a little runny, and the resulting dough, used with exactly her measurements, was extremely sticky. Since she doesn't suggest how sticky the dough should be (something I really appreciate in Peter Reinhart's bread recipes) I forged ahead despite my misgivings and ended up with scones that were more like modest buns - they didn't have the laminated layers that look so lovely in the recipe photo.
Doing this again I would cut back on the yogurt, or add more flour and work to get a dough which was tacky but not overly sticky. Then I would be able to pat / roll it out in such a way that the butter would be flattened and layers would be formed by the folding the recipe specifies.
That all said, I did really like the tangy taste of these, and the mixture of whole wheat and AP flour also added a taste and texture I liked a lot.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
I made tonight this based on aj's recommendation below and I have to agree - this was excellent pizza. The asparagus and cheese went together perfectly, and the asparagus was perfect - not soggy, not raw, but just lightly cooked.
I used Peter Reinhart's Neo-Neapolitan dough for the crust and then followed the directions as written, though we didn't have scallions to put on top once it was out of the oven.
I found that our vegetable peeler worked fairly well on the asparagus, though I had to press pretty hard. I also found that our pizza didn't take the 10-15 minutes she recommends in the recipe - more like 7 or 8 in our oven set at 500 degrees.
Update: I've made this a few more times since first reviewing it, and it continues to impress. It's a great appetizer, and we served slices of it cold as part of several different types of nibbles for a summer party, to lots of acclaim.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
I agree with everyone! It's a delicious, rich and fairly time-consuming tart. It took me about 2 hours, start to finish, though when I make it again, I'll consider roasting the cauliflower and caramelizing the onions ahead of time. I might even consider a pre-made crust to save time, though the one I used (a press-in recipe from Cook's Illustrated rather than her recommended crust) was simple to make and very tasty.
I had no mascarpone, so used her suggestion of cream cheese mixed with heavy cream. I could see experimenting with reducing the richness a little in the future by possibly cutting back on the mascarpone/cream cheese and just doing this like a classic tart (using an extra egg and straight cream, without the extra cheese), but that's only my vague sense of excess nagging at me - it's very tasty as it is.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
This was a good version of the famous chickpea curry - adapted from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe it is well-spiced, slightly sour and tasted fairly authentic to me (I'm no expert though). I might try to soften the flavor a little next time with some tweaks - maybe a little coconut.
Served with basmati rice and homemade naan (from Bittman's How to Cook Everything).
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
I was looking for a quick apple dessert, saw the reviews of this one and decided to give it a shot. This came together quick quickly - it only took a few minutes to make the pastry and then when it chilled in the fridge I peeled and cored apples. I weighed out two pounds, but was left with 2 1/2 apples after I filled my tart dish, so next time I'll cut back on the fruit a bit. I also used Gravensteins, which I'd bought from a local farm, forgetting that they're better for sauce - so the filling ended up rather squishy. Still, very nice flavour and a nice presentation.
If you like your apple desserts sweet rather than tart, I'd mix a bit more sugar in with the slices before assembling it. I like a bit of tartness, though, so I was fine with a couple of tablespoons of sugar on top. It also took less than an hour to cook - more like 45 minutes.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
Echoing everyone else, these are excellent scones. I used a medium/strong cheddar (yellow/orange as I didn't have white) and the cheese flavor was fairly muted, but still delicious.
I was careful not to overmix, as the recipe says, and still had chunks of butter in the batter which melted out during cooking. Next time, I'll cut the butter in smaller pieces and see if that helps. Definitely addictive!
I also agree with the baking time suggestions - I set my timer 2 minutes less than the recipe suggests and they were almost overcooked - so next time I'll probably try 4-5 minutes under.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
Very good indeed. I'm particularly impressed by how light in texture they seemed. Perhaps it is partly our peanut butter (it was from a new jar of natural pb, and it seemed fairly runny), but also the creaming of the butter and peanut butter at room temperature has something to do with it, I think.
We made a couple of tweaks - brown sugar only (we're out of white) and chocolate chunks rather than chocolate and peanut butter chips. Otherwise, exactly as written and it made a very good cookie. I might cut back a little on the sugar in future, but that's it. Hello to our new peanut butter cookie recipe!
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
I'll just add my hurrahs to this recipe. These are very, very good cookies. I've done them with fleur de sel and the little nuggets of saltiness are just perfect. I imagine kosher salt would work just as well.
I was extra careful not to overmix them and they ended up tender and crumbly. They didn't look too much like Deb's smooth versions on Smitten Kitchen, however - mine are fissured and cracked. Taste trumps all though.
I did one batch on parchment and one batch on Silpat and preferred the parchment ones. I find that buttery cookies on Silpat have a tendency to spread out more and sometimes get too thin and burned at the edges.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
As the other reviewers have said, these are nice, simple to make oatmeal raisin cookies. I like them with a bit of kosher salt to make them taste a little more 'adult', and I made the recipe as written.
Update: I've also made these with chocolate chips and walnuts and they're excellent.
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Rose's Heavenly Cakes
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
Wiley - 2009
Very nice, and a good alternative to banana bread for your spotty bananas. The cake is exceptionally moist and has a very light crumb. Lemon zest lightens the flavour a little too, and the icing is delicious - though this would be just fine without icing too.
I made the recipe as written, with no substitutions other than using sour cream instead of creme fraiche. It did rise a little more than she suggested it would in the recipe, but I don't mind a curved cake!
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I'm including this review for those of you who are not quite as expert in cake making as the previous reviewer (lovely photo by the way!), or who don't have all the tools recommended in the recipe.
I have a silver springform pan, but no cake strips and no cake nail either, but I forged ahead and the cake still turned out to be delicious and it didn't suffer too much for not having the nail or the strip. It was light and fluffy and had a lovely orange flavour. I didn't frost it and we just had it as the dessert for a nice lunch.
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Website: River Cottage Recipes - Channel 4
www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/tv-show-recipes/river-cottage-recipes
I saw this soup made on the River Cottage Christmas Fayre episode this year, and was intrigued - I've not cooked very much with celeriac, and I'm trying to eat more traditional winter foods this season.
I made it as written in the recipe, except for the walnut parsley pesto, which I didn't have. It was a good soup, but didn't really stand out for me. It tastes mostly of the leek, and is very similar to a leek and potato soup. Heartwarming and good for the winter, but the celeriac just adds a, to me anyway, fairly subtle celery flavour. Perhaps the pesto really makes the soup sparkle.
If I came upon celeriac again, I'd definitely consider this soup - it's quite nice, but it's not going to make my 'must cook' list each winter. I'm going to try his celeriac gratin at some point, though, as that looks quite delicious, and I would like to give the root some more kitchen time.
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Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant flavors of a World-Class Cuisine
By Rick Bayless
Scribner - 1996
This has a lovely taste, and is definitely different than the normal dulce de leche that I make the South American way by simmering a can of condensed milk for several hours. It is definitely more time consuming, and took about an hour of standing and stirring, all told.
Be careful not to over-reduce it, however. I did the first time I made this and ended up with a very thick caramel once I'd refrigerated it. Still tasted amazing - with a creamy note that's hard to describe - but it was too thick to use in the warm cajeta pudding in the book. I'll be mixing it into ice cream when I make a batch this weekend, so it won't go to waste!
Remember that it will thicken more when it cools, so pull it off the heat before it gets to the point where you can see the bottom of the pan for a few moments after stirring it - in my case the color was still not very dark but the cajeta was already a little too thick.
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Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press - 2010
If you like nuts in your cookies, these are the chocolate chip cookies for you. They are quite nutty - he recommends 2 cups worth (I used walnuts and pecans), and very chocolatey, with 3 cups of chopped chocolate.
Interestingly, there's very little salt or baking powder. When I make these again I'm going to increase it beyond the 1/8 of a teaspoon he uses (!) and put at least 1/2 and likely closer to a whole teaspoon. I did find them a little lacking in salt, at least for my tastes.
Overall, a very credible chocolate chip cookie, and I did like these quite a bit, however if you're a purist, and expect only chocolate to adulterate your cookie, then these are not for you. If I had to choose, I'd still pick the New York Times recipe.
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I have a weak spot for ginger cakes of all sorts and this recipe finds that weak spot and blasts a hole in it wide enough to drive a... well you know what I mean. It's really good. Really, really good. But you have to like a bit of zing in your desserts.
It calls for 1/4 pound of grated ginger - none of these sad little teaspoons of the powdered stuff. And black pepper too - the first time I've used that in a dessert. It makes for a wet batter and bakes up beautifully, rising and cracking. The crumb is moist and tender and the crust (if a cake can have a crust) is a little chewy and sweet.
Recommendations: make sure your ginger is well chopped - I used a food processor to make sure it was in very small pieces, so they just melt into the cake. If you have kids or other family members a little sensitive to spicy foods, you might want to dial back the ginger and cut out the pepper. Both my daughters (5 and 7) tasted this and declined to have any more. My wife and I are now forced to eat the whole thing ourselves. Sigh.
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A very credible gingersnap. Not that these deviate very far from the standard gingersnap cookie, but he does have a few nice touches. As well as cinnamon, ginger and cloves, there is a good teaspoon and a half of ground black pepper.
David used this in his (fabulous) ginger cake, to good effect, and it is similar here, giving an extra zing to the cookies - you don't taste it at first, then there's a little kick after a few moments. Nice!
Also, the recipe suggests it makes 60 cookies, but I got 48, which is a change for a North American cookie recipe (usually it's the reverse). Perhaps his time in Paris is affecting his portion sizes?
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This is a good snacking cake if you like dates. I'm a big fan and bought a box of medjool dates recently so went looking through my cookbooks for something sweet to make with them. This is quite a simple recipe - two cups of chopped dates and a cup of toasted walnuts, baked in a simple cake batter with a hint of anise. It is dense enough to pass as a bar rather than a cake and I'm not sure why it's called a torte in the recipe, other than its denseness and nut content. Still, definitely tasty.
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Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
By Michael Ruhlman
Scribner - 2009
What I like about this stock recipe is that it assumes the most common situation you'll find yourself in (or at least which I find myself in) - staring at a roasted chicken carcass after you've picked the meat from the bones and thinking it would be smart to make some stock with it.
Well it is, and it's quite simple. I think of the carcasses I've wasted before and sigh. Stock is really one of those things that everyone should make.
I followed this almost exactly as written, with the only difference being that I put some celery in. Otherwise it's very easy - water on the bones and simmer for a few hours, then add some vegetables and herbs and you're off to the races.
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Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Jonathan Lovekin
Chronicle Books - 2011
Very rich and tasty. The flavour of the leeks and mustard, the broccoli and the cheese go very well together. From a flavour standpoint, this is a very good recipe, though the recipe itself has a few issues.
First, I'm not convinced puff pastry is the ideal pastry for blind baking, which you do first before putting the contents of the pie inside. The pastry puffed up a great deal (which it's supposed to do, of course), and although it fell somewhat after it cooled, it was still fairly thick compared to a regular tart crust.
Secondly, the proportions seemed a llittle off - he calls for 2 broccoli heads at 1.5 lbs total, but my two heads were about 1/2 lb and this was enough to fill my tart with almost a cup of broccoli left over. Perhaps he's weighing with the stalks still on?
It calls for 7 oz of Gorgonzola, but after I'd put about 3 or 4 oz on, it seemed to me to be more than enough cheese, especially considering there's 3/4 cup of heavy cream in there already. Not that I'm fat-phobic like the letter writer he refers to in his headnotes, but it just seemed like enough, and it certainly tasted like enough.
Anyway, the combination of leeks, mustard, cream and broccoli with a blue cheese is lovely, and I'll definitely be getting inspiration for this for future recipes.
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The Pie and Pastry Bible
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
Scribner - 1998
Pretty good indeed, though I found it hard to fit enough fruit in to make them really stuffed full! And it takes a long time to make these, what with the pastry making, the refrigerating, the prep of the filling...
I did like the idea of reducing the juice that drips from the apples with some butter, though. The filling was really tasty.
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She may call this basic, but I call it indispensable. I made her 'All American Apple Pie' with this crust, and it was perfect - flaky, crunchy, buttery and not hard to work with at all.
As with her other crusts, it's a little complicated - you freeze some of the butter in advance, then knead the whole amount in a plastic freezer bag when it's mixed. But the result tells the tale. This is now my default crust.
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Very tasty indeed - the cream cheese adds a lovely flavour and texture. I do find this one a little more difficult to work with than her basic butter crust, however - unless you're in a cold kitchen you do get a bit more sticking when you roll out the pastry as the cream cheese softens while you work it. Though I'm a bit slow with a rolling pin, so that doesn't help...
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It lives up to its name (though being Canadian, I'd like to take a little license and call it the best 'North American' apple pie!
Using one of her excellent crusts, I've made this several times, and it's always great. She has two very simple secrets to this pie: the first, collect the juices from the apples as they sit in a colander macerating, mixed with some sugar, lemon and spice, then boil them down into a syrup. The second is to ensure the apple slices are all 1/4 inch or less to reduce any gap between the crust and the filling.
Oh, and I have to mention her recommendation to bake pies low in the oven on a baking stone. This had never occurred to me before, but it's brilliant - you get a nice crisp bottom crust and slightly less chance of the top pastry burning.
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A very nice combination of blueberries and lemon make this a refreshing, slightly tart pie. We used our own blueberries for this, along with lots of lemon zest and lemon juice. The sugar is important, as cooked blueberries do get a bit less sweet. I might try increasing it from 1/2 cup to 3/4 next time, just to edge up the sweetness a little. Otherwise, this was near-perfect.
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This got raves as the dessert at a recent BBQ. I made it as written in the recipe (with one exception) with her Sweet Cookie Tart Crust, Pastry Cream and fresh blueberries and raspberries.
I made the pastry cream, but didn't add the whipped cream as recommended, so it was heavier than in the regular recipe. It was thick but not quite thick enough to prevent it from oozing out when I started cutting the tart. Maybe it would have worked better with the whipped cream as it would have been lighter and possibly a bit stiffer (if that's not a contradiction).
Anyway, though a bit messy, it was delicious, and we ate it all up.
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This is a very nice pate sucree recipe, with Rose's customary detailed directions and exact measurements. Easy to make, and hard to mess up. I skipped the step where you pour it into a freezer bag to knead it and just dumped it onto a large piece of plastic wrap; it came together quickly after that.
I put it in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes after putting it into the tart shell I was using, then blind baked it with weights for a bit shy of her recommended time.
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I had to make this after reading the glowing reviews, and I was not disappointed. I made the recipe almost exactly (to the gram) following the directions, with only one change (see below).
As usual, Rose provides incredible detail, and although it takes more time than whipping up a standard pumpkin pie, the result is more than worth it.
I used gingersnaps (Anna's brand) for the crust, with pecans. My mother-in-law told me this was the best pie she'd ever had.
Note: my one change was that I heated the egg whites for the chiffon, using the 'new safe meringue' technique worked out by Alice Medrich, but using the quantities here rather than the ones in the technique I linked to, and not bothering with the cream of tartar.
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Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor
By Peter Reinhart
Ten Speed Press - 2007
A good, solid recipe for a very decent loaf of whole grain bread. It uses two techniques that Peter highlights in this book - a soaker and use of a pre-ferment, retarded by refrigeration. A soaker is simply a mixture of flour and water, left overnight at room temperature. The pre-ferment is mixed up with a small amount of yeast and left in the fridge.
Together they help make a more flavourful loaf. I've had good success with this recipe, and like this sort of whole wheat loaf better than trying to make a sandwich loaf, which I find troublesome (tend to fall apart when sliced).
Last made, November 12, 2009 with Red Fife wheat; didn't have much oven spring for some reason.
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Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day
By Peter Reinhart
Ten Speed Press - 2009
Truly remarkable! Peter has taken the already successful recipe for Whole Wheat Hearth Bread from his Whole Grain Breads book and has improved it.
Whole wheat bread, as we all know, is very good for us. The problem is that the bran which is good for us is terrible for the gluten strands which make for light, airy bread. The standard whole wheat loaf is often tasty, but usually crumbly and dense.
With his previous recipe, Peter used a few techniques to soften the bran and extract more flavour - specifically an overnight soaker and pre-fermented dough. It made for a quite good bread (I gave it 4 stars).
Now, however, he's knocked it out of the park, making the recipe easier to make, and the results noticeably better. Higher hydration, the stretch and fold method and overnight refrigerator fermentation are the secrets. I just made this with Red Fife wheat, and got the best loaf of whole wheat bread I've ever made. I'm in awe...
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This is a slight variation on the classic dough Peter introduced in American Pie. He has tweaked the amounts and the technique slightly, but it's still quite similar, and still produces what is my favourite pizza dough.
It is vitally important that you refrigerate this dough overnight (or even better, for two days). I made this in a rush a few weeks ago, and put half the batch in the fridge and made the other half immediately (after a 3 or 4 hour rise). So I got to taste the difference between aged and unaged dough when I baked the first and then a few days later, the second batch of pizzas. It was remarkable how noticeable it was! The aged dough had real flavour, while the quick dough was more or less tasteless - just a delivery mechanism for toppings.
I also recommend using parchment paper to transfer to your baking stone. I've had too many accidents with sticking dough! Now I use parchment, it's easy every time - you can either remove the parchment halfway through the bake once the crust has firmed up, or just leave it - it browns but won't burn.
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These are very buttery, very tasty crackers. But, like bspillane, I also found that they were overly thick when I rolled them out to 1/8th of an inch before baking.
Next time I try them I'm going to cut the dough in half, and try to roll them out to closer to 1/16th of an inch. The last time I made crackers (from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc At Home) I rolled the dough almost to transparency, and this gave me crispy, thin crackers. I also found the dough shrank a bit as it rested after being rolled. It may be worth looking at refrigerating it, or letting it rest and re-rolling it.
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This has been my favourite bread recipe since Peter introduced it in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I've made baguettes only so far, which are better than any bakery baguette I've ever had. The bread is airy, nutty, chewy - just fantastic. They're also incredibly easy to make; all the work happens overnight in the fridge.
Peter has tweaked the recipe for this book, and has managed to improve it using some of the new techniques he's developed here. It does add a little time on the front end, as you do a number of stretch and folds before putting the dough in the fridge overnight. But he's reduced the work when you bake - the dough only has to be out for an hour before going in the oven, and there's no need to spray the oven walls with water.
The result is just as tasty as the previous recipe, and the baguettes I made had noticeably higher oven spring - they were much rounder in cross-section than any I'd made before.
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Peter gets quite a bit of mileage out of the panettone dough here. Most hot cross buns I've had before are essentially spiced bread with fruit - my wife called them 'hamburger buns' recently. These are completely different. Because of the enriched panettone dough (lots of butter and egg yolks), they are small, fairly dense, and quite rich tasting. Closer in fact to fruit scones than hamburger buns.
They're very tasty. However, they're not for the faint of heart. Doing them as Peter lays out in the recipe (which also works for Stollen, Greek Celebration bread and Panettone), takes 3 days and requires a sourdough starter (which is a whole other story). Thankfully, however, they don't need the 12 hour rise he recommends for panettone - just 1 hour is all you need.
If you take the plunge, don't worry if they don't seem to rise during the 1 hour proofing stage. I was skeptical myself and actually did a test batch at 2 hours and 6 hours, with no real difference in rising or crumb between them. They puff up a little during baking.
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These worked out perfectly for me - and they are now my official go-to summer bun recipe. I tried several other enriched dough recipes from other sources, and then finally turned to Peter in frustration with the results, and was delighted to get just what I was looking for.
These are soft, tasty, and perfect for small sandwiches and burgers. They're not quite as fluffy as restaurant burger buns maybe, but they hold up well. I used them with pulled pork and they were excellent.
The overnight fermentation gives more flavour than the quick recipes (though his quick recipe from BBA is also quite good). I added 50% whole wheat with no issues; still light and airy. I did the knotted buns, and after a few odd ones, got the hang of it - they impressed the heck out of my dinner guests the first time I did them.
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