staff of life

I bought two new books about bread baking. The first is "Artisan Baking" by Maggie Gleezer. The second is "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart. I have tried recipes from both and they are all good, as far as I've gone. Each book gives lots of ink space to the theories of bread baking; what's the best kind of flour, the most potent yeast, how to buy and store ingredients, etc. It all makes for interesting reading. Sort of like reading a chemistry textbook.

Today I decided to make Hi-Rise's Corn Bread from the Artisan book. It's a yeast bread that uses cornmeal and fresh corn. I made it once before and wasn't too happy with the result. This time is was 100% better.


It's a very sticky dough and is hard to work with but the end result is worth the mess. Two lovely loaves that will sustain my breakfast toast and lunch sandwiches. The texture is soft and rich, dotted with corn kernels.


Next I will make the Anadama bread from the BBA book. Or maybe the Greek Celebration Bread that is fragrant with spices. Bread baking is good for the soul. And the aroma that fills the house is perfect payback for all the trouble it takes.

Another reason for this effort is to provide some change from bollio bread at the beach. We don't get any variety to the strictly white bread unless we load up on Canadian whole wheat bread from the bakery in San Miguel. I want to expand my repertoire to include some interesting bread for the stay. Of course I will have to take most of the ingredients with me since we can't get things like cornmeal, molasses or bread flour.