There Will Be Brie

"Ladies and gentlemen... I've traveled over half our state to be here tonight."


Ok...not really.  I just went to the grocery store and then baked the bread.

#62 Brie and Basil Bread

This bread was not difficult to make, but now I have some Brie that I don't know what to do with.

Mixed the dough, let it rise, shaped the loaf, added the Brie and Basil, let it rise and baked it.  Nothing difficult at all, actually.  I did find it interesting that there was only the whole-wheat flour.  A typical whole-wheat loaf from Paul Hollywood's book has white bread flour mixed with the whole-wheat and this one didn't.

"And as long as I have teeth, I will bite you!"

It was a pretty good bread.  My official taster said that the bread portion was really delicious.  I was thinking that I prefer white bread to whole-wheat, but otherwise it was pretty good.

If you haven't seen There Will Be Blood, I will inform you that it is an extremely intense movie experience.  Here's a trailer:



"Now run along and play, and don't come back."  


...please come back!

All quotes are from There Will Be Blood.

Saved by the Bell Pepper

"Go to class, learn something. "

#61 Bell Pepper and Onion Flowerpot Bread

Mr. Belding: Screech, you can't elope.
Screech: Who're you calling a cantaloupe, you melon head?

Such an easy bread! Make dough, cook onions, chop red bell peppers and basil then mix and bake. I did have to go buy flowerpots to be able to make this bread, but everything else went pretty well. I mean, except for the mixing thing. Still haven't mastered mixing things in.

Everything was looking pretty good when it went in the oven...and even immediately after...

"I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so, I'm so... scared!"

When I took the bread out of the oven I had to remove it from the pots to cool and the bottom 4/5 was really soft. I got nervous that it wasn't cooked through and was going to be another inedible mess (see: Let it Brie). I dug into one of the loaves to check for doneness and was pleasantly surprised.


Here they are!

Aren't they cute?

And they're tasty too!

It's all right cuz I'm saved by the bell!

All quotes are from "Saved By the Bell".

Let it Brie

This one was pretty spectacular...and by spectacular I mean a spectacular failure.

#60 Brie and Brioche Packages

I love making brioche dough and I love how brioche tastes...I love brioche!  The dough was completely fine with recipe.  The problem came with the baking.

The only thing I did obviously wrong was that though the recipe called for 9oz of Brie and the largest I could find was 8oz so I went with that.

Otherwise, I followed all the instructions.

Here's the final product uncut:

It wasn't supposed to crack like that.

Here's what it should have looked like cut:

Mmmm...gooey and cheesy.

Here's mine cut:

Not gooey...until...

About an hour later when this happened.

The dough wasn't cooked but the heat from the baking caused it to continue rising after it was out of the oven.  The cheese started melting as well.

I had taken a piece of excess dough and made a tiny little loaf which I later enjoyed with a little of the Brie.

This was a huge disaster!  And I will not be re-attempting the recipe.  I think the problem was just too much dough.  The cheese was still really cold and hard and of course the dough wasn't cooked on the bottom.

I leave you with The Beatles...

Mr. Sunshine, yay...

Sunshine, summer, sunflowers...

#59 Sunflower Seed Bread

This bread was pretty easy to make.  Whole-wheat flour, white bread flour, yeast, salt, water and sunflower seeds.

I did add a little bit too much water to the dough so I had to add a little flour during kneading.  The bread rose ridiculously high and it was a little easier to mix in the seeds.

Alice: So what are you going to do for your fortieth birthday?
Ben Donovan: Pretty exciting little plan actually. I'm ordering in some Chinese food and watching Bridge Over The River Kwai. Kwai? Because it is a 3 hour epic adventure.
Alice: That's kind of depressing.
Ben Donovan: Along the way maybe. But ultimately it's a story about the triumph of the human spirit.
Alice: I'm talking about your birthday plan.
Ben Donovan: So am I.

Before I put the bread in the oven, it kind of looked like a sunshine (weirdly enough).  After, it didn't.  It was kind of...well you decide:

This bread was waaaay better than I thought it would be.  Partially because I've never eaten sunflower seeds before and partially because...ok...I pretty much judged how I might feel completely on my non-history with sunflower seeds.  I tried it with honey and it was even better.

Vivien: Hey, Ben, I just wanted to let you know that if I were a zombie, you could shoot me in the head.
Ben Donovan: Oh, ok. And if you weren't a zombie?
Vivien: Then please don't.

P.S.  I love Allison Janney and James Taylor.  And, of course, Matthew Perry.

All quotes are from "Mr. Sunshine".

"Where's Olive?"

Personally, I think Olive is Little Miss Sunshine!



#58 Cypriot Olive and Cilantro Bread

Another bread with olives in it...I do love olives.  I did make a substitution, though.   I don't like to, but the recipe called for black Greek olives and those are really expensive.  I had Kalamata olives already, so I used those.  I also had to chop onions and cilantro which made my hands smell really strongly for most of the day.

I still have trouble getting the solid ingredients to mix into the dough so one loaf ended up with all the olives and onions on the bottom and the other had them exploding from the top.

"Everybody just pretend to be normal."

I had a little personal issue while the dough was rising and I ended up letting the dough rise for an extra hour (not on purpose).  That's when the dough on the left burst open.

They bread tastes really great and I think I'll try it again, especially because it's dairy-free and still amazingly soft.

"There's two kinds of people in this world, there's winners and there's losers. Okay, you know what the difference is? Winners don't give up. "

All quotes from Little Miss Sunshine.

I would do anything for loaf...

...but I won't do that.

#57 Ricotta and Chive Loaf



I made this loaf a few days ago.  It was a pretty easy loaf to make mostly because the things that were mixed in (ricotta and chives) were mixed in at the beginning instead of halfway through the rising process.

This bread smelled so great while it was rising and even better while it was baking.  I was a little concerned about the baking process because the cheese made the dough very wet.  I left the bread in the oven a little longer than I was comfortable with to make sure that there was no gooey-ness in the middle.

The bread turned out so well!  I love this bread!  Amazing flavor, great toasted and fresh from the oven!

The next morning, I ate a bacon and egg sandwich on toasted slices of this bread.  It was amazing!  Bacon and this bread are a match made in heaven.  Speaking of bacon here's a meatloaf recipe from Nigella Lawson that I consider to be a vegetarian nightmare (wrapped in bacon), but something that I'd like to make someday.

Mmmm...

Lavroche Actually

"Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don't buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free!"

Today's bread is a bread from Cyprus.  It's really more of a cracker than a bread.

#56 Lavroche

"Life is full of interruptions and complications."

This bread was pretty easy and quick to make.  No yeast, so no rise time.  I did, however, have to roll it out, which I hate doing.  I didn't really get the dough thin enough, but I did what I could.  I also ran out of parchment paper.  I just barely had enough to bake this bread and had to run out to buy more to finish the other bread I baked today.  Which I will write about tomorrow because I'm running late today.

"I will miss you. And your very slow typing... and your very bad driving."

Here it is:

It tasted better than I thought it would, but it is not something I will make again.  Also, I guess it was supposed to look like this as the recipe said to cut the dough into random shapes.  I'm gonna say it's good enough.

"You've seen the films, kiddo. It ain't over 'til it's over."

All quotes from Love Actually.

A Post About Nothing (This post title is false)

Thanks to a show about nothing I have an awesome video today.

#55 Rye with Caraway

Dear Jerry, 
This rye is not marbled, but maybe you'll like it.
Love, K


I baked this bread yesterday, but I had to go to work last night so I didn't get to post it.

This was an overnight bread.  I started with rye flour, white bread flour, yeast and water.  It needed 10-12 hours to rise.  In the morning I added salt, butter, more of each flour, a little more water and caraway seeds.

In case you're not familiar, here's some caraway seeds:

Yum!  (Ok, you wouldn't just eat these, but the flavor in baked goods is pretty great.)

According to Mr. Hollywood (author, 100 Great Breads), "This loaf you love or you hate, mainly because of the caraway seeds."

Pretty easy to make, it just takes a while.  Here's the final product:

I liked this bread.  It was yummy!  I did already know that I loved rye bread so liking this wasn't a big surprise.  I ate this plain.  Just sliced and ate.  It might be good toasted with cream cheese.  Mr. Hollywood recommends eating it warm with smoked salmon.

That was something...and it didn't cost anybody $50.