Yes, I did bake some brioche on the outdoor gas grill, and it works quite well, but more on that in a minute.  My family just got back from Door County, Wisconsin, home of the famous Montmorency sour cherry.  It has an indescribable, almost spicy flavor that can be perfectly heightened by adding sugar in jams and sauces (they’re not for eating out of hand).  For jams, you’re pretty limited to a sweet version (for canning safety), and that’s what’s pictured above.  It’s what we gave you in the book (page 335 of Artisan Bread in Five).  When my family goes to the Door peninsula, we make a bunch of different versions, some that we can and store; but some that we just eat immediately.  This time around, we put the cherry preserve on top of luscious brioche (yes, done on the grill).  Then we gilded the lily with a little fresh whipped cream:

We ate very, very well, and everyone was in a good mood–no one was voted off the peninsula.  Cherries and brioche didn’t hurt–  Read More

I just bought herbs to plant in my garden. Unlike my girlfriend Anne Phyfe who lives in Seattle and has a hedge of rosemary in her yard, all year round, I have to replant mine every spring and hope for enough to get me through the season. After I planted the rosemary my hands were perfumed with that fresh herbaceous scent. I was moved to cut off some of the new delicate stems and bake it into the baguette that was rising on the counter. The result was a crust that had the light smell and taste of rosemary. Read More

This is a fabulously simple bread to make, and incredibly quick if you have a bucket of Brioche dough on hand. You can bake the bread in a loaf pan but for the Brioche à tête (tête means head) you really want to have the traditional fluted pan. It will be wonderful served with Lemon Curd (page 228) and jam on Mother’s Day this weekend. Not to mention its shape reminds me of the Venus of Willendorf, the ultimate 25,000 year old symbol of being a mom!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the proud moms!

Now let me show you how to shape the Brioche à tête. Read More

I’m pretty lucky about lunch.  My wife and I both work at home, and most days, we have lunch together.  Not yesterday; I was on my own, so there was no need for a whole loaf of bread.  I took a cue from Zoe’s mom and made myself a single roll (it’s basically still winter here in Minnesota so it’s not so bad to turn on the oven.  I’m afraid I’m not kidding).

I took a peach-sized chunk of four-day old Light Whole Wheat dough (page 74), and stretched it, knotted it, and shaped it a bit (a round lump would have worked well too).  It turned out more like a Kaiser roll than I’d intended, and I can’t say it was intentional.  More about what I did for shaping in Book #2 (for which we’re busily writing/testing/eating!).  But it was the roll’s toppings that made my leftovers special (see the roasted salmon with red onion compote just north of the roll).  The topping was simple but it elevated the bread to a different level—nothing more than garlic and parsley sauted in olive-oil, with the whole mixture drizzled over the roll before baking for about 25 minutes at 450 (with steam; see page 30).  When there’s a lot of oil or butter in the picture (like here), don’t bake directly on a stone or the fat will smoke– use a greased cookie sheet or silicone pad.  After the roll was drizzled, I sprinked a bit of coarse salt all over the roll, which you can see in the picture.  Salt can be a pretty photogenic mineral.

Keep that scorchy flour off your lens!

People have asked how to prevent free-form loaves from spreading sideways, especially if the dough is a little too wet or it’s near the end of its batch-life (two weeks). Using a banneton (or in German, brotform), is one gorgeous solution to the problem, and they work well with our method. But, you’ll have to make a few adjustments. Interested? Read More