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Friday, August 10, 2012

Hiatus & a Raisin Rye Bread

Two months of inactivity on this blog deserves an explanation. And the explanation simply is that summers in Phoenix are not conducive to baking of any kind. (Yesterday's high was 113°F!). I have managed to avoid buying a loaf of bread at a store (english muffins, pita breads and tortillas are not loaves). The inevitable low carb diet did help me lose some unwanted pounds, even though they have found their way back after a vacation cruise. On the plus side, I have a new found love for salads.

I did bake a few loaves, including the monthly loaf for my father in law. I baked the following breads:

May 5, 2012: Soy flour buttermilk bread (my own recipe)
May 18, 2012: Brown rice garbanzo bread (my own recipe)
Jun 1, 2012: Multigrain applesauce walnut bread from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (Similar to this and this, substituting some oat flour for whole wheat). This was the June bread for Dad.
June 24, 2012: Oat bran broom bread from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book.
July 4, 2012: German style many seed bread. Another Reinhart recipe. (Previously attempted here and here). This was the July bread for Dad.
August 4, 2012: Raisin Rye bread from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. I went through the previous attempt and made changes such as using lesser amount of raisins and molasses and found the bread still fairly sweet. The loaf was Dad's August bread.

Can't have a post without a picture, right? Here's the latest bread in pictures.

Raisin Rye bread using 2 day delayed fermentation process.

Decently even crumb.
Can't wait for the weather to get cool enough to start baking. Until then I'm trying not to look at the oven.