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From: New York, NY

Joined: June 6th, 2010

Chicken Fricassee with Meatballs from Back to Square One: Old-World Food in a New-World Kitchen

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recipe reviews (218)
book reviews (2)
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bhnyc's Reviews

16 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 16Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day

By Peter Reinhart
Ten Speed Press - 2009

I thought this was OK- definitely not my favorite from this book. I made the rustic loaves (three small ones) instead of the pizza dough and followed the directions for the pain a l'ancienne, as indicated. I did not get the nice big holes that I get when I make the pain a l'ancienne with bread flour- but perhaps that is due to using whole wheat flour instead. This bread didn't smell so good while it was baking which I thought was a bad sign. It isn't great plain but tasted good with butter and with peanut butter- but what doesn't?!

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Another easy and delicious recipe from this book. It made eight bagels. While they are smaller than bagel shop bagels they are still fairly big. Next time I might try to make ten instead so they are even smaller. I didn't use the egg wash before putting on the toppings, but wish I had since most came off. Next time! These were so good, I will never have store-bought bagels again.

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This is a delicious challah recipe. It is easy to make and the dough can be made up to four days before you want to bake it. Beware though, I kept mine in the refrigerator in a four-liter proofing container and it literally blew the lid off because it rose so high. The recipe doesn't call for them but I added 1 cup of raisins to each loaf. A little bit more would have been good too. I also chose to make a round braided loaf from directions I got online and not in the book. It tastes as good as it looks!

Note- bake this less than instructed- I pull it out at around 185 degrees.

Also- if you wonder what to do with all the egg whites, make Ina Garten's Black and White Angel Food Cake!

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It took me three times to make this before I felt like I got it almost right. It is really easy to over-bake so this time I baked it for the minimum time suggested- and then maybe a few minutes less would have been good. I baked it in a bundt pan and the bottom (when you invert it) got really dark so I had to put aluminum foil on it. If I hadn't noticed this 15 minutes in, the whole thing would have been ruined.

I haven't been able to get the streusel topping right. The first time I made this I used a loaf pan but the dough rose so much that there was little room for the topping. The second time I made this I used a bundt pan. However, that meant that the topping was placed on the dough after the rise and the topping ended up on the bottom of the cake. This time I put the streusel in the bundt pan first, added the dough and baked it. It tasted really good but you couldn't see the topping- it baked into a hard covering on the top of the cake.

This babka tasted really good and I finally got the swirl right. I am not sure why mine hadn't twisted properly the other times. I thought this one looked great and tasted good too! Finally.

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This recipe was so easy- especially since the dough can be made up to four days ahead and kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake it. Keep an eye on it while it is baking since mine was done in less time than indicated.
This is the best French bread I have ever made.

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Bread doesn't get much better than this! I was excited to make this once I established a starter. I used cheddar cheese and made both a baguette and a batard. So beautiful and so delicious! This would be great in the fall with a bowl of soup.

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These are very good rolls. They don't have tons of flavor- I guess hoagie rolls don't- but they have a nice consistency and texture. Watch them carefully. As another reviewer mentioned, they are done before the time indicated. I took mine out early and they still were above 190 degrees and are probably darker than they should be.

My batch made ten 113 gram rolls. I made half as directed. The other half I used egg wash on and then added reconstituted dehydrated onions and a little sea salt. I intend to use those for sandwiches made with leftover brisket.

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I was excited to make this given all of the reviews. I made it ahead and froze it in four portions (instead of five) based on the comments here. It was easy to make and when we wanted pizza, all we had to do was defrost some dough.

The dough was easy to stretch with rests in between. I couldn't quite master the back-handed stretch so I just used my thumbs and moved around the edges.

I thought the sauce was really good but the recipe calls for a little too much fresh garlic. I used four cloves and even that seemed like a little too much since it is pretty much raw.

I was impatient and sliced the pizza quickly. It should have rested for a while. Because I divided the dough into larger portions this was definitely not an individual pizza.

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I found this to be one of the more confusing recipes in the book. The directions about dimpling the dough with the oven vs. on the counter top could have been clearer. Prior to baking, the dough had risen quite a bit but when it came out of the oven the bread was actually flatter than I expected it to be. The amount of oil used is a little alarming, so I cut back considerably on it. I topped the focaccia with some rosemary and sea salt. Yum!

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Another easy recipe from this book. I love that you can make the dough in advance and leave it in the refrigerator for up to four days. The 'stretch and fold' method is easy to do- right in the bowl so it makes clean up fast. The bread is better the next day if you like crispier crust.

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Like some of the other reviewers, this was my first attempt to make a bread with my own starter. I was pretty impressed with the leavening and with the flavor and look forward to trying this again after the starter is a little older.

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Like the other reviewers, I made this using the starter I created following Reinhart's directions. I made this sourdough bread twice.

The first time, I should have added more flour to the dough because in hindsight it was too wet and didn't keep its shape after I took it out of the mold. The second time I made it, I really made sure that the dough was not too sticky, which meant that I had to keep adding a little flour at a time as I mixed it by hand. It took quite a bit more flour to get to the right texture. This time the bread came out of the brotform and really kept its shape.

I made both the purist version and the version with the added yeast. Both tasted great but I preferred the rise on the one with yeast.

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This is delicious! Everyone loved it. My six-year-old niece said it was, "The best bread in the whole world." The house smells so good while it is cooking. I used chives and a combination of cheddar, asiago and a little parmesan. I made one batard and one Kranz style in a loaf pan.

Easy to make, everyone should try it!

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These are REALLY good! The dough was easy to portion and made about 17 2-ounce pretzels. I found that I had to let the dough rest for quite a bit while rolling it out in order to get the 17 inch strands that the book suggests. I rolled out some, let them rest, started others and then went back to the first ones. I am glad I did. The strands that were longer and thinner made pretzels that had better-defined holes in them. Otherwise, they baked up into a mass with no holes. They still tasted good but didn't have the thinner pretzel look which I like.

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This is a super easy dough to make and it smells so good. I divided it up and at one time made twelve butterflake rolls and nine knotted rolls. The rest of the dough is still in the refrigerator while I decide what to do with it.

I liked the technique used to make the butterflake rolls- rolling out the dough, stacking the pieces, cutting them and placing them on their side in the cupcake tin. The rolls look really pretty and taste extra buttery. However, I found them a little dense.

Even though the dough is the same, I actually preferred the taste and texture of the knotted rolls. They came out much lighter and fluffier than the butterflake rolls. I thought these look great too. It was necessary to let the rolled out strands rest for quite a while before they could roll out to ten inches.

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This is a great sandwich bread. It is pretty easy to make if you have all the grains on hand: oats, wheat bran, cooked brown rice. To this loaf I added some wheat germ as well. I made extra brown rice, portioned it and froze it in baggies so all I have to do next time is pull some out of the freezer. Having the cooked rice will save about an hour of prep time.

The dough was a little firmer than I had expected. It was a little thicker during the stretch and folds than some other types of bread. I don't know if I added more flour than is necessary but I don't think so. But I guess it doesn't matter because the end result is really good. The sesame and poppy seeds on top were a hit.

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