Friday Bread Basket, 10/1/21
Oktoberfest Edition
Welcome to the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a roundup of links and items relating to bread, grains, and baking. A couple of quick things before we unwrap this week’s basket:
One: I’m SO happy with the response to this past Monday’s first-ever Open Thread, where so many of you shared a little bit about yourselves and your baking adventures. If you haven’t yet joined in, it’s never too late to do so. (Remember that you need to add your words as a comment under the post, and not as a reply to the email you receive, so that everyone else here can read them.) I haven’t had time yet to read and respond to everything myself, but I promise you I’m paying attention. And I hope you’ll see it as a place to hang out with one another as much as to interact with me.
Two: This morning I made an appearance on Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter and podcast, which is a huge honor for me. Alicia is a big inspiration for what I do with the Wordloaf newsletter, even though we cover very different beats. I don’t love talking about myself, but I really enjoyed our conversation. The podcasts and Friday interviews are for paying subscribers only, but they are well worth the price of admission.
My friend Carla Finley and her tiny-but-mighty Brooklyn apartment bakery Apt. 2 Bread got a well-deserved write-up recently over at Food 52, written by the great Emily Wilson. Carla’s compact setup and amazing-looking breads are both an inspiration to me and a source of anxiety around whether I should do something similar myself. I can’t wait to get down there and visit with her in person (for the newsletter, someday soon!), but in the meantime this will do.
A Good Bread Tweet
Pizza maven Feng Chen (aka Leopard Crust) has a recipe on her website—alongside a couple of must-try pizza dough formulas—for something she calls “cheat code stracciatella”, which is basically a trick to convert low-moisture mozzarella into a faux-but-authentic-looking stracciatella, which, if you do not know it, is the stringy and delicious precursor to fresh mozzarella and burrata. I haven't tried it yet, but it’s high on my list now.
Another Good Bread Tweet
It’s October 1st, which means that 11/1, or The Day of the Dead, is just one month away. Thus it is the time to start eating and making pan de muerto, or Day of the Dead bread. The good news for you all is that I’m going to be sharing a guest recipe for one in a few weeks, from Selene Tepatzi, a Mexican baker who works at Atticus Bakery in New Haven.
That’s it for this week’s bread basket. I hope you all have a peaceful and pizza-full weekend (like mine, as I’ll be testing dough recipes for my upcoming tabletop pizza oven recipes for Serious Eats). See you all on Monday’s Open Thread.
—Andrew
I tried Feng's recipe last week! And, sadly, I failed. In a chat with Feng, we think it was the cheese and (thankfully) not me. In that, the low-moisture mozzarella that I have access to is less "clean" than what she recommends. The method was super simple, however. I think the higher-moisture mozz I can get has fewer additives, so I might try that. Feng thinks it's worth a shot; the only change would be a smaller yield.
Loved the roundup this week! In particular the guest room bakery was quite inspiring. There's so much you can do with a small space if you have the skill. I'm hoping to build up those skills and get back in the kitchen myself.