Potato Rosemary Bread

Hello friends!  It's Thanksgiving, the time of love, family, and bread.  BREAD.  Batty.

So, I'm baking potato rosemary bread.  Which is good.  Because it's super Thanksgivingy.  And the recipe calls for leftover mashed potatoes, and hey!  We actually have leftover mashed potatoes.

Sweet.

So!  Yesterday, I made some biga.  Here it is, all cut up.



And!  Flour (I had to use all-purpose, because it's like, dude -- I'm not going to buy bread flour that I can't take back with me b/c I'm flying on a plane and can't check things because it costs fifty dollars and they also body scan you and feel you up with a pat down and that happens, yeah.) + salt + yeast + pepper =

Hey look!  Benz took a picture of me!  What up, kids!?  Oh, and b/c I'm at my parents', I used a MIXER.  It's practically like you're not making bread.  Because the mixer does all the work.  Yeah.  There are a lot of people here right now.  I'm typing things.  Sports are being discussed.  Or something.

So!  + biga + mashed potatoes (!) + rosemary (fresh from the muthafuckin' yard -- check it:

) + olive oil + water =

Pretty!  Whoa.  Everyone is tie (tye?) dying t-shirts.  I am being anti-social for you, friends.  I hope you appreciate it.  Even though most of my readers = my sisters.  Oops.  Love ya!

And!  All kneaded.  And all cool.  This sits for two hours while I tie-dye a shirt and wish we had music playing.  I suppose I can make that as a suggestion.  But, my family's pretty loud.  We don't need that added nothing.  Meanwhile, here's a song that's been stuck in my head for forever.  Enjoy it as background music while you finish reading.



OMG.  I just realized I added double the amount of biga.  Ah!  I hope it still tastes okay : /

Well, here it is.  Doubled.  With double the biga.  Gah!

OMG.  PS: My sisters defaced my bookmark.  DEFACED.  It's okay.  James Franco looks wonderful even with a drawn-on mustache.

Hey, look!  Benz caught me rolling the rolls in action.  Batty insists on being a part of the party.  Always.

And the finished rolls!  There are fifteen instead of eighteen, but what are you gonna do?  Eat sweet potatoes.  That's what I'm doing.

These sit for one to two hours, while everyone else parties and Benzie stays here to hang out with me.  Thanks, Benz.  <3

All blown up after an hour.

And, in the oven!  And after eighty billion hours (b/c they weren't done after twenty minutes, so my dad offered to take them out of the oven for me so Benz and I could leave):

These were okay.  I think the addition of the extra biga was a problem.  It came out too doughy.

Everyone helped me rate:

Me: 3/5
Benzie: 3.5/5
Chris: 3/5
Zainu: 2.5/5

Everyone said it was better with butter.  Also, this was hours after it came out of the oven.  Oh well, whatevs <3

Portuguese Sweet Bread

aka Hawaiian bread aka the bread that apparently makes this sandwich delicious:

Well, people -- I'll make a vegetarian version of that sandwich and let you know what I think upon the completion of this bread.  First, all I can say is that looks like a bun.  Portuguese sweet bread/ Hawaiian bread is way darker than that.

Okay, this is a one-day bread.  THANK GOD.  It's so annoying to stretch bread baking over days and days.  But, my boy's not here -- therefore, I'm baking like a fucking fiend.  Get ready, friends.  And by friends, I mean literal friends, because you may or may not be at the receiving end of this bread shiz.

SO.

Sponge: flour + sugar + yeast.

+ water.  It's super cloudy and rainy out today.  So the flash was going AT IT.  Which means really whitewashed pictures.  Additionally, there was a bomb threat at school today.  I mean, a bomb in the rain?  Let's be a little more practical, bombers.  Please.  Also, evacuations in the rain aren't exactly nice.

All stirred up (and looking like a sun!), this sits for 60 to 90 minutes while I pretend to work on a paper.  OMG.  Drafts for papers three weeks before the paper's due make no sense to me.  I mean, srsly.  I guess I get to finish early, you know, if I was a good student and not out of town last weekend.  Oh, the pressures of being a PhD student who wants to be an intellectual rockstar at some point in her life.

After an hour!  All bubbly and crazy!  It kind of reminds me of something delicious, but idk what.  Maybe some cooking sugar?  Or marshmallow creme, which I haven't had in forever.  But I need to stop eating sweets or something.

SO.

Sugar + salt + butter + shortening.  I was supposed to use powdered milk here because "The most distinctive aspect of this bread, besides the softness and the shape, is the flavor imparted by the powdered milk.  I have tried making versions with whole milk and buttermilk, but once you get the taste of the powdered-milk version in your mind, no other taste will do."  Peter talks about bread like it's a seductive woman.  Once you go powdered-milk, you don't go back.  OH.  The softness and the shape of this bread.  HOT.

Well, Peter, I prefer the liquidy deliciousness of evaporated milk.  Thick, luscious, and sensuously potent, this highly concentrated wet dream will force you to push every other milk out of your fucking mind.

Plus powdered milk is like eight dollars for this huge box I will never use.

+ egg + orange extract + lemon extract + vanilla extract.

+ flour + sponge.



This song = my life.

Stirred and kneaded and ready to sit for two hours.  And by two hours I mean an hour on "warm" in the oven.  I've realized that this process is amazing.  It's like speeding up time.  Kind of like TV on a DVR, which quite possibly the closest thing to time travel we currently have access to.

So, after two-hours-that-was-really-an-hour, the dough doubled!  Yay warm setting on the oven!

Look how cute!  This bakes in a pie pan!  But, for now it sits for two to three hours.  See, this timing I can get behind.  Because I can legit go to class and come home and bake this shit.  She rockin' that shit like . . . there's nothing I can say.

Ow ow!  With a quick egg wash with quite possibly the coolest pastry brush ever (thanks, Benz!), this goes into the oven for 50 to 60 big ones.  Like Benjamins.  I need to come up with a slang term for minutes that's as badass as names for money.  So I can be a Young Money millionaire.  Or I can marry Drake, which I'm sure would put me in the running for that title.  PS, PEOPLE:

Most amazing video EVER?!  Yes.

Holy ef.  This looks and smells delicious.  AND IT'S NOT BURNT.  Sits for 90 minutes.

Yay!  My oven worked with me.  We are no longer frenemies.  And I made some tasty chile relleno casserole with it yesterday, too!  Perhaps this is the start of a lovely future together.  Oven, do me right, please.

I would give this 4/5.  Idk why it doesn't get the other point, but whatever.  It's here.  <3

Poolish Baguettes

Oh my god, friends.  I want to blog.  But life is getting in the way.  I'm finally taking control in order to bring my avid readers some entertainment.  This will be exciting.

Poolish baguettes.  They are baguettes.  Except different because they use poolish as a starter.  And they have whole wheat flour in them.  Basically, they are boring.  But, the next two recipes are more exciting.  I'm excited.

But, first, poolish baguettes.

That's bread flour + wheat flour + salt + yeast.  I was supposed to sift the wheat flour to take out the wheat bran or something, but dude.  Really?  Also, I don't own a sifter.  They are pointless.  We live in an uber-industrialized society.  Flour should already be sifted.  Thank you, bye.

+ poolish + water =

Murky depth of pangea.  Which isn't a real word?  Or I spelled it wrong.  Nope, I didn't.  Oh, radio station DJing + college.

Stir stir.  It's like eight in the morning when I'm doing this, PS, the reason for which will hopefully be explicated as we go through this process.

Oh, and apparently kneaded, too.  So, I made the poolish like two days ago.  And I'm going out of town tomorrow.  So, I was like EF.  I need to make this like today.  Which is a little complicated b/c I have class like the whole day today.  This is a really interesting story.  I should tell it at parties.  So, basically, all the timings for this recipe are going to be fucked up.  Kind of like your best friends on a Friday night.

Ready to rise.  Kind of like zombies.

Risen.  Kind of like zombies.

This was for three hours instead of two b/c I was in class talking about comfort women and queer familial relationships.

Then, I had to walk back home just to effing knead this dough for a minute.  A MINUTE.

Here it is, scrunched up.  Kind of like a scrunchie.  Can I come up with a better analogy.  Can you come up with a better analogy?  Can your mom come up with a better analogy.

Good luck on the SATs, bitches.

So, this is supposed to sit for another two hours, but I don't have that kind of time.  So, it'll sit for an hour.  I'm banking on the fact that it sat for three hours to begin with, so it's kind of the same, right?  Peter, don't read this.  You'll think it's blasphemy.  As you should.  I put it in the semi-warm oven to speed up the process.  We'll see what happens.

OMG -- so I am fail.  I had like two seconds to pack all of my stuff to go out of town AND I had to bake this bread = me, not taking pictures, running around, having random people at my house, burning bread and not even tasting it.  Fail.

Sorry.

<3