Zucchini bread

My birthday cake to Robert made from Smitten Kitchen's recipe here which I halved and modified for less sugar.

Pumpernickle bread

Hello people, I don't usually declare myself genius to the world but after taking a bite of this bread fresh out of the oven, I clapped my hands and declared myself genius and did a happy dance! ( I wanted to declare a national holiday too, but that would be going a tad bit overboard).

Well, actually, it is the authors of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes that are geniuses. As I had mentioned in earlier postings, I love, love, love this book. Last week I made their deli rye bread and this weekend I decided to make their Pumpernickle bread with the lovely organic rye flour I had on hand. I modified the recipe by adding whole wheat and increasing the amount of rye (I just cant bring myself to make breads which has more than half white flour ratio--just seems wrong, if you going to be making home made bread may as well use the more interesting textured flours). I also added fennel seeds into the bread mixture (the recipe called for a sprinkle of caraway seeds to scatter on top). Now the most wonderful and exciting thing for me about this recipe was that I got to use coffee and cocoa in the batter. You can tell how excited I was to mix this batter when I readily gave up (sacrifice, really) my morning coffee (that I brewed with a french press) to go into this mix before I had some myself (I had to brew a second batch). I was that eager to get the bread mixed and rising! It was worth it!

I have been enjoying this hearty and fragrant bread with slices of avocado and tomato drizzled with olive oil.

Rye bread

Baking bread always makes me happy. I found some organic rye flour recently and could not wait to make rye bread. I made two loaves here using a recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I did not have any caraway seeds on hand so used fennel instead. There's a recipe for dark rye bread in the book which uses coffee and cocoa powder, can't wait to try that next and maybe make a swirl (dark and light) rye bread.

No-knead bread

I could not sing enough praise for this wonderful, versatile bread recipe. It truly changed the way I make bread. Bread making becomes so easy and accessible. This recipe is from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, a wonderful book by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. You can find the recipes online too. The recipes is so easy. Mix. Proof. Shape. Rise. Bake. Notice I did not say anything about kneading. This is the world's most amazing no-knead bread recipe. I adapted the Master Boule recipe by using my favorite grains and nuts for this wholesome bread.

Mix

Rise

Shape and Proof

Bake

Slice

Enjoy!