Brioche to blow your mind.

Have a tizer and some whippets handy and gathering dust since college? Michael Voltaggio - that's the assholeish one - shows us how to put those to good use:

What fate had in mind for these croissants.

In the laborious process of making these croissants, I think we were meant to learn about either restraint or perseverance. In the end, we chose to only learn about perseverance. Despite all the obstacles that poor reading comprehension threw at us, Eric and I succeeded in making some buttery, if slightly smoky-tasting, croissants. We used the recipe in the beautiful Tartine cookbook. Some photographs:

Whatever you do, don't do this:


Laminating was not as tough as it sounded like it might be.


As Julia Child might say: "num num!"


The seductive power of croissants to compel you to eat them only grows stronger after baking:


Not for the faint of heart:


But definitely for the fancy-schmancy and almond-lovers:

Breads of novelty.

During the Glindster's second stop at our nameless Baltimore abode, three kinds of bread were made. One unfortunately escaped photographic documentation, which is really too bad because it took novelty bread to the next level. It involved scalded milk, browned butter, toasted flour, and burnt sugar -- plus lots of magical gluten (some might say, too much magical gluten.) We called it the Lindley Loaf, and it showed amazing staying power, as well as the ability to make Eric ill-at-ease.

Eric also made us English muffins - which we enjoyed in the form of eggs florentine, with Eric-made hollandaise sauce. (Were you even aware of it: hollandaise sauce is like warm mayonnaise! Delicious.) Needless to say, it was amazing:





In accordance with the Meal Plan we drafted on Eric's arrival, we made bagels on Sunday. We were also supposed to celebrate Hunter's Southern heritage with our wildly offensive caricature of what we thought that meant, breakfast-wise, but instead we showed some uncharacteristic restraint.

This is what the bagels looked like before boiling: moist, gleaming and naked:



This is what they looked like after baking:



They were nearly perfect in texture, and very neutral in taste. I think Eric used honey instead of malt? We suspect that malt might have made them more bagel-y. Anyways, they were excellent media for sandwiches of all sorts, or strawberry cream cheese.

Recipes for both the English muffins and bagels from the inestimable Bread Baker's Apprentice.