Friday Bread Basket 3/14/25

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain. I hope the transition to Ghost has gone smoothly for everyone so far. If you've had any issues, be sure to let me know and I'll get them sorted out.

All hail the king (cake)

For The New Yorker, Hannah Goldfield traveled to New Orleans to investigate the city's Carnival-season bread monarch, the king cake, which a new generation of bakers are making their own.

The February days I spent in the city were mostly muggy and gray, punctuated by downpours, but my spirit couldn’t be dampened as I zigzagged all over town. King cake found me even when I wasn’t looking: at a kiosk at the airport, which sold individually wrapped slices and nips of king-cake-flavored rum; at dinner at Brigtsen’s, a Creole restaurant uptown, where king-cake bread pudding was a dessert special. Upon waking at Hotel Peter and Paul, on the grounds of a refurbished Catholic church in the Marigny, I stumbled over to the Elysian Bar, a restaurant in the old rectory. As the young resident baker, Curtis Litwiller, plaited ropes of dough, he explained that his king-cake recipe was inspired by coffee cake but also by East Asian milk breads, which use a water roux to insure an extra-fluffy crumb.

At Ayu Bakehouse, I enjoyed a king-cake latte, topped with colored sugar, and a wedge of “Croissant City” king cake, made from a laminated dough. I sampled a savory variety at Bywater Bakery, made by stuffing a garlic-bread dough with a creamy mixture of shrimp and crawfish. (The Parmesan cheese on top was dyed in the Mardi Gras colors.) At King Cake Hub, a pop-up in a Mid-City brewery which carries cakes from dozens of bakeries, old and new, accessories for sale included copies of “The Big Book of King Cake,” a 2021 compendium by a local writer named Matt Haines, and a knife with a sparkly acrylic handle that read “STAYS IN BOX.” It’s a point of pride among king-cake devotees that someone will want another slice soon.

A Crowning Moment for the New Orleans King Cake

During Carnival, the ingenuity of the city’s bakers is on full display.

The New YorkerHannah Goldfield

All hail the other king (Arthur)

My friends Martin Philip and Jessica Battilana, of King Arthur Baking Company, made an appearance on Francis Lam's The Splendid Table podcast recently, to discuss their recent book, Big Book of Bread. It's a great conversation and highly recommended. As is the book, of which I have a copy to raffle off to Wordloaf paid subscribers (keep an eye out for a separate email about that soon, and join up if you want in on it).

The King Arthur Baking Company’s Big Book of Bread with Jessica Battilana and Martin Philip

We spend the hour baking with co-authors of The King Arthur Baking Company’s Big Book of Bread, Jessica Battilana and Martin Philip.

The Splendid Table

There's also a link to one of the recipes from the book, Masa-Honey Toasting Bread, which looks excellent:

Masa-Honey Toasting Bread

This aromatic bread is made with a combination of bread flour and masa harina, which gives it a wonderful corn-y flavor. The thin, crispy crust yields to a moist, tender crumb, and, as the name suggests, it’s especially good toasted. While we find it easiest to make this dough in a stand mixer, it can also be made by hand; just be mindful of the amount of flour added during kneading so that the nice tender crumb you’re going for doesn’t become too dense.

The Splendid Table

Croissants in watercolor

I loved this conversation between artist Anna Brones and Jessie Kanelos Weiner, author of the new book Thinking in Watercolor. And I especially love that croissant illustration.

Always knowing I was an “artist” of some kind (or at least a Pisces with an artistic personality), I knew I had to stay open to the possibilities that life would bring me. I graduated from college and literally moved to Paris as soon as possible. I knew that I wouldn’t have many opportunities to move abroad with no strings attached. I was expecting a year of high culture and gastronomy, but my life as an au pair did not really promise any of that. Paris wasn’t what I expected at all. I didn’t speak French and had to make sense of this new, voiceless version of myself in this city that seemed cold and impossible to understand. This is when I really tried to dissect myself and this celebrated city that I just couldn’t get. I started a blog where I shared the stories of putting my foot in my mouth. Camera phones were far from advanced at this time so I illustrated my posts with watercolors. This really was the catalyst where I had a story and had to find a visual concept to illustrate it. This really is the brut idea behind Thinking in Watercolor. It’s how to activate your own voice using watercolor.

Art as a Portal to Wonderment

A conversation about watercolor, creative inspiration, and real life in Paris with artist Jessie Kanelos Weiner, author of the new book Thinking in Watercolor.

Creative Fuel with Anna BronesAnna Brones

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew