What do I do if my starter won’t grow? It happens sometimes. You use distilled water, you feed regularly, but you can’t seem to reach that ultra-bubbly critical mass. As long as it looks good, smells good and you’re seeing at least a few pea-sized bubbles every day, you’re probably on the right track. The […]
READ ONOne of the big variables in the world of bread starter recipes is moisture. Some can be extremely wet, up to 60% water, others somewhat dry, in the realm of 35% water. Is there any practical difference between them? For the purpose of getting a starter culture going, the answer is no. Though I’ve had […]
READ ONIf you’re wondering what I meant when I said that I generally let my starter ferment for five days to make sure I “clear all the suckers out” it’s because starter bowls can occasionally grow some funky stuff. Actually, maybe I should take part of that back. They always grow some funky stuff, but occasionally […]
READ ONBlueberry-cinnamon jam to be precise, though these general instructions can be applied to just about any kind of jam. It all starts of course with fruit. Most people use fresh fruit, fresh picked especially, but I’ve known more than a few people to use frozen. Frozen? Yes, frozen. It doesn’t make terribly much sense from […]
READ ONI’ve had a weakness for English muffins all my life. The pity is, I’ve bought almost all of them from the grocery store. To think, all the while I could have been making a far superior — and far cheaper — English muffins myself! They’re not the slightest bit difficult to make…about like pancakes. The […]
READ ONI don’t think I’ve ever made a bagel that’s a flawless torus, but nobody’s perfect. They’re crunchy, chewy, deep brown and taste great with cream cheese, which is all you need to get into bagel-maker heaven when you die. As I’ve mentioned previously, there are a lot of bagel dough recipes out there, and when […]
READ ONIf you’re in the mood for bagel-making this week or weekend, there are a couple of things I should mention about the recipe below. First, you don’t strictly need malt powder, nondiastatic malt, or malt syrup to make great bagels. But then they don’t hurt either. Any of them are useful for bagel-making. Malt powder […]
READ ONIt happens every time we go to Manhattan. The wife visits her favorite bagel shop (Second Avenue Bagels) and for the next six months I’m under the gun to produce fresh bagels at home. It’s funny, there are actually some pretty decent bagels made right here in Louisville (some truly awful ones too), but then […]
READ ONI call it “-ish” because my brick oven pizza doesn’t strictly adhere to Italian D.O.C. regulations. But then why should it really? I live in Kentucky. Going nuts procuring perfectly authentic everything — tomatoes, flour, oil, cheese and salt — plus making my dough in perfect accordance with D.O.C. strictures — to my mind goes […]
READ ONThe first thing to do when setting out to make a Chicago-style deep dish pizza is to disabuse yourself of the notion that what you are about to make is in any way Italian. It’s American fast food, and if you want it to be good, you must treat it as such. That means premium-quality […]
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