Monthly Archives: April 2012

Happy Easter!

April 8, 2012 in Uncategorized

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day. I unfortunately don’t get to see my family today, and this will be my first Easter without them.

My AMAZING mom, however, still made me feel so special and loved on this day. Even in completely separate parts of the state, she still managed to get an Easter basket to me, filled will all sorts of my favorite vegan chocolates. It even had this cute little hand-knitted bunny inside!

And one of my favorite chocolate combos:

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful, loving family, and my heart is with them on this special day :) Check back tomorrow for a recipe dealing with a little of this:

Until then, Happy Easter!

 

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French Bread

April 4, 2012 in Breads and Muffins, Featured

French bread is just so incredible in all of its simplicity. With just four ingredients, it’s a breeze to throw together, and a pleasure to eat.

 

Despite its simplicity, I’ve tried this recipe in a number of different ways, mostly toying with the types of flour used. I would absolutely LOVE to make all of my bread with King Arthur Bread Flour, but that unfortunately gets pretty expensive (although a 25 lb bag does only cost $25… that $1 per each 1.5 lb loaf I make…). Either way, I’ve been buying the cheap all-purpose flour from Costco, which is probably a bad life decision. It comes bleached and enriched, neither of which is desirable. It also has a fairly low protein percentage, which doesn’t make for the best bread.

So, I’ve made this bread with 100% Ap flour from Costco, and the results were less than outstanding. It did not hold its shape while rising and just spread out to the sides. The crumb was a bit more dry, not nearly as creamy, and altogether kind of blah. Even adding some Vital Wheat Gluten didn’t help much. I next tried a half-and-half mixture with 50% Costco AP and 50% KAF Bread, and the results were much better, although not perfect. So, I broke down and used a precious pound of my KAF bread flour and, my gosh, I was blown away. The bread had a beautiful yellow hue, rose to perfection in the oven, had in incredible crust, and 100% made my day.

 

AJ & I agreed – it was the best french bread to ever come out of my oven. And now it is all he requests. So much for saving my special flour…

This bread is so versatile. You can throw things like spices and herbs into the dough to transform it into a savory loaf, perfect with some roasted potatoes. Or you can top the plain bread with some olive oil and garlic for the best garlic bread you’ve ever had (that Albertson’s stuff? You’d never buy it again!). Or go traditional, and make yourself a PB&J. Pretty soon you’ll be in heaven.

 

French Bread

by Raquel

Prep Time: 3.5 hours

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Keywords: bake bread vegan sugar-free

Ingredients (1.5 lb loaf)

  • 15 oz bread flour (I used KAF)
  • 9 3/4 oz warm water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp yeast

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir to make a shaggy dough. Turn out onto a counter and knead for10 minutes, until a nice smooth dough forms. It should pass the windowpane test. Alternatively, knead in a mixer on speed 2 for 7-8 minutes.

Let rise in an oiled bowl for 60-90 minutes, until doubled in size.

Turn the dough out onto the counter again. Oil or wet your hands to keep them from sticking. Form the dough into a ball by pulling the sides down under to the bottom of the dough. Place the seam side down and let rest 5 minutes.

Shape the ball into a torpedo shape (aka a batard) by gently pushing two of the sides inward and under. It should gradually get longer. Set the dough on a piece of parchment to rise.

Lightly spray the dough with spray oil and cover with plastic wrap. Let proof for another 60 minutes, until very puffy and about doubled in size.

While the dough is proofing, preheat the oven to 425F. Place a steam pan in the oven to warm up as well. Let the oven heat for at least 20 minutes!

When you are ready to bake, score (slash) the dough with a sharp knife and QUICK movements. The slower you go, the more it will tear.

Slide the dough into the oven, pour 2 cups of water into the steam pan (carefully!), and shut the door. Bake about 30 minutes, until it is a deep golden brown and registers 205F on an instant thermometer.

Let cool 2 hours, and enjoy!

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News!

April 2, 2012 in Uncategorized

Hey everyone, happy Monday! I have three news-y things to talk about today.

Number one!

Last week, Katie over at Creature of Habit (thanks, Katie!) awarded me the Liebster Award – an award that honors bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, like me! This is my first award, and I’m so excited to receive it. Hopefully there will be more to come!

Here’s how it goes:

  1. Link back to the person who gave it to you and thank them.
  2. Post the award to your blog.
  3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you appreciate and value (It’s a great way to get to word out there about other blogs!!)
  4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have received this award.

Narrowing down to 5 blogs I love was difficult, but here they are. I’m not sure how to tell how many followers a blog has, so I’m just going by feel. If someone gets 200 comments per post, I’m guessing they have more than 200 followers… just sayin’.

1. Once Upon A Loaf: Cindy is pretty new in the blogging scene, and she’s gotten off to a very good start. She’s already put on an event, Project PB&J, to celebrate National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day. She also posts wonderful recipes (focused on… you guessed it, bread!) and some beautiful pictures that will have you running to the kitchen to try out her newest creation.

2. Pickles & Honey: Amanda recently quit her job to pursue her passion – vegan cooking! Her recipes are simple, yet so creative. She had dabbled with raw foods and other specialties on her blog, so you’ll be sure to find innovation and inspiration here!

3. Baking in Spain: Mireia is a Spanish student who blogs in… English! Which I am so happy about, since I am able to enjoy her musings. Her blog is very down-to-earth, and you feel so connected with her after reading just a couple of posts. Her latest post features a recipe for Mississipi Mud Pie, which looks like it could take you to heaven with just one bite.

4. In Love and Peanut Butter: The cutest name for a blog! Tori is obsessed with many things (such as baking, running, triathlon-ing, girlfriend-ing….), but she is most obsessed with peanut butter! Which is understandable. I love reading her blog for the focus on her athletic life. She is also a vegan, so I feel an instant connection when I read her blog!

5. Leaves and Flours: Shannon recently left her Ph D program to be the head baker at a vegan bakery in Maryland. So she bakes all day, goes home, and bakes some more to share with us! Her most recent lemon curd phyllo cups look so delicious, and her chick-o-stick cookies seem bomb! (where do I get that stuff???)

I hope you all find something you like on these blogs – I know I do!

Number two!

My sister was here to visit this weekend :) We hung out, shopped around, made whole-wheat pizza, and enjoyed a lot of sister time. It was so nice to have her here, and I’m sad to see her go. So, I unfortunately don’t have a recipe for you today. In the mean time, check out these awesome recipes:

Asparagus Pesto Pasta

Chocolate Chip & Fruit Cookies

Lovely Lemon Coffee Cake

And check back on Wednesday for a new recipe!!

Number three!

The last order of business has to do with my feed. Previous to this week, I had been using Feedburner. Feedburner is great because it is free and fairly functional (that’s a lot of F’s), but it also has a lot of drawbacks. After I publish a post, Feedburner doesn’t update it until I “ping” the site, and even then it takes hours. Often times it won’t even let me ping. On top of that, my subscriber count is all over the board. I will have so many (or not so many…) subscribers one day, and it’ll be down by 15% the next day! And then up by 20% the next… the kind of stuff that is too big to really happen (I hope). So, to get my posts to you guys in a more timely manner, I’ve switched to a paid service called FeedBlitz. I’m really happy with it so far, and I’ll do a post on it later. Basically, what I need you to do is remove the feed you are currently getting, and resubscribe with the link at the top of the page or with this feed: http://feeds.feedblitz.com/ovenmittsblog. It’ll help me keep my counts accurate, let me see what you guys like to see as far as posts go, and will be more reliable for the both of us. Thanks so much for your help! If you don’t like something about the new feed, please let me know. FeedBlitz has a ton of functionality, some of which I have no idea what to do with. So if something seems amiss, I’d appreciate the comments!

(And if you decide not to resubscribe, the Feedburner feed will still work. You’ll just get your posts later, as per usual.)

As far as email goes, all of you on my email list should now be getting emails from FeedBlitz. If you are still getting emails from Feedburner, please unsubscribe from the Feedburner emails, not the FeedBlitz ones. As with the feed, please let me know if you don’t like something about the new email format – I’ll do what I can to make it better!

MAN that was a wordy post! Have a good Monday, and I’ll see you Wednesday!

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