Bread Bible: Pita Bread

My hubby is vegan. He has been vegan for several years now and he's doing a version where he's not eating any added oil. So no olive oil. When I baked things from The Baking Bible, he has allowed himself to taste a bit. A taste. That is one bit of 1/2 recipe or 1/4 recipe that I have been making. So since we are making pita bread this week and I want him to eat more than one small bite, I omitted the olive oil in the recipe and added more water instead.

I have to confess I am not motivated at all in this baking club. Even though this recipe is easy to put together. And I have made this before too! Back in 2011! (blogged here).

The dough came together really quick. But 2 days later I feel too tired to proceed to the next time. It's not helping that work has been busy. Crazy work getting in the way.

Bread Bible: Rosemary Foccacia

Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into...

In addition to baking through The Baking Bible, the Alpha Bakers decided to bake through The Bread Bible as well, with a once a month frequency. It took me about 5 minutes to decide to join. In that 5 minutes a lot of thoughts went through my head. Pros: I really want to improve my bread baking skills. I want to bake through The Bread Bible after Rose's Heavenly Cakes but lack motivation. This is my chance. Cons: I have already a lot of things going on. Can I really take on one more? My knitting is a tad neglected nowadays- which makes me sad sometimes. Now adding baking through the Bread Bible into the equation. Pros: I really want to do this and can't say no (this is not a legitimate reason, but it is according to that baking-loving-evil-voice in my head). Cons: Who's gonna eat it?

I am here now, which means the baking-loving-evil-voice won. As to who's gonna eat it, we'll eat some and give away some.

Glori said we are going to follow Marie's adventure and her schedule as a template. Reading through Marie's experience on making Rosemary Foccacia has me worried. Marie's first attempt at this bread didn't turn out. But then I take comfort in the fact that Marie is a super awesome baker now and has nailed recipes from various other books including Tartine Bread. Tartine Bread! I borrowed it once from the library, leafed through it and returned it promptly. It was too intimidating to even attempt.

I am not a big fan of foccacia. It always seem super oily in restaurants that I always feel like I'm eating oil. I have nothing against oil, especially olive oil, except I always thought if I'm gonna eat oil I might as well skip the bread. Why add carbs to it when I have to burn walk it off later. So my plan is to make 1/2 recipe and then take it to my local yarn store to share.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

A couple of weekends ago, I woke up to a craving of sweet bread. Leafing through Rose Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible, I saw a recipe that looks good: Cinnamon Raisin Bread.

As with most bread recipes that I found, it requires the dough to be refrigerated overnight. I don't have time for that, so I cheated and did everything in 1 day.

First, combining the dry ingredients and added honey to it.

Pita Bread - Finally!!!

Bread is one of those things that I love making but failed often. I know that if I follow Marie's lead and bake through the Bread Bible I will get better, but that's a discussion for another day.

When the bread failed, it's usually still in edible stage, just not the consistency or shape that I think they are supposed to be.

I'm usually blaming the failure on the dryness and high altitude climate here (5,000 feet), and my incompetence. In that order.