Only two buddies for this 8th Anniversary Caramelized Onion Bread but they are both top quality!
I am so happy to celebrate a first time buddy this month – Shirley Flourish.en Test Kitchen. Here is a true bread head and a fabulous blog.
And I am super happy to celebrate our frequent no blogger, FaceBook friend Louise! Louise is a quick learner baking bread.
“Thank you for selecting this truly delicious bread from an interesting book. I appreciated the clear instructions for S and F, although the tuck step is one I’ve yet to master. The combination of caramelized onions and a hint of buckwheat was definitely a winner at our house. I baked mine on parchment on a baking stone, allowing it to crisp directly on the stone once firm. Great bread–I even bought the digital version of the book!”
Louise I also got the digital version of the book as we are traveling now. It is a most interesting book and I know I’ll be baking from it again soon.
Thanks to you both many times. It is a most memorable bread.
If there is one thing Buddies and Babes have in spades, it’s free thinking creativity. If essay exams had only been like this in college, life would have been grand and fun. Probably we’d have come away knowing a lot more as well.
I feel like it’s more difficult to get many bread bakers interested in whole wheat/whole grain bread. Many of us were raised on that white stuff (I call library paste) and that’s what we’re happy to bake and see on our plates. Whole wheat/whole grain is more challenge having less gluten and the potential to taste bitter or funny or just not regular. For that reason, I am doubly pleased with Babes and Buddies who took up this challenge.
These are not in any special order because each really stands alone in it’s own special way. That’s really how essay exams and SandBox play should be.
Granary Loaf was Judy’s first loaf in her new home, a christening of sorts she called it … I call it a spectacular loaf, just look at that marvelous crust.
Judy’s Gross Eats
We got a great crumb shot from Karen who considers herself the “champion ingredient collector” but didn’t have any malted wheat flakes in her pantry. I really like the sound of that “champion ingredient collector” … I wonder how many of us feel that way … perhaps it would be better to ask how many of our partners consider each of us the “champion ingredient collector”.
Karen’s Kitchen Stories
One of our most faithful Buddies Carola of course came through again after welcoming Tom Cruise into her pantry with a … globe continents and seas … well maybe I don’t have all those facts straight and you should check it out for yourself.
Sweet and That’s It
For the crowning Crumb (and actually the first to bake in) and lovely bouquet! I would love to find some sprouted oat like Kelly did. Her loaf rose gorgeously well, has a wonderful looking crumb and her son gave it thumbs up which is an A+ in my book.
A Messy Kitchen
Apologies for my tardy posting. I really was greatly needed by a friend in dire need.
Thank you all for baking once again with us and playing so well in the SandBox!
I am always so happy to see the breads coming from the your ovens, I don’t know how to say thank you enough. I do feel we have the very Best Buddies around and the three we have this month are all Charmers. Following in the tradition of Babes, each of these Buddies who made the Beaujolais Bread, made it their own. A true sign of a Babe.
She came up with a fantastic curve to the grape vine! I wish I’d seen/thought of shaping it that way Carole. Your grapes are terrific. Even though her family thought this was a funny bread, everybody seemed to love it. I think it makes any table a party.
Paola’s first photo on her blog shows all the glory of the red Bardolino wine that she used. There’s a wonderful crumb shot … but it’s the photo with the salami sticking out that makes my mouth water.
On FaceBook, Renee, blogging at KudosKitchenByRenee, deemed herself a day late and a dollar short … I ask you, could this grape cluster be called even a penny short? Since I’m so late getting my buddy post up, how could I possibly call anyone late.
MerciBeaucoup! once again for Baking with the Babes.
Hope to see you again this month on the 16th when we have another stunning bread coming from the ovens!
Buddies … I can’t fully explain what bread baking means to me/us. I know it’s all mixed together with the feelings of touching the physical dough, connecting with a long history of bread bakers through the centuries, befriending those around my kitchen table and that strange creative process of relaxing kneading. It’s always fascinating to me that bread is such simple ingredients and is always different, glorious but always different.
Buddies … I can’t fully explain what our Bread Baking Buddies mean to me/Babes. I know it’s partly all the above of baking bread but it’s something above that and extraordinarily special. Strangers come into my kitchen, take a recipe, are willing to put time, effort and good ingredients into that recipe, make it their own and bake with us.
This time around I especially enjoyed Louise Persson’s words:
I’m pleased to have been able to bake this unusual recipe with the BBBs. I saw it posted at KAF sometime ago and thought I would never attempt crackers. Yet baking as a Buddy, I’ve stretched myself and added some new experiences, and happily, this was one of them.
I really can’t remember how I found the BBB while browsing through blogs one day, but I’m very glad I did! I look forward to each new bread, sometimes, like this month, thinking, “Oh, I can’t. I don’t have the time or skill.” But it’s amazing what we can accomplish, isn’t it?
Louise’s experience is typical of so many of us. Perhaps I should be less emphatic, I do know Louise expresses what I experienced when I started blogging and it continues to this day even though I do recognize I have more confidence when I approach a new recipe. Yes Louise it is amazing what we can accomplish when we give it a go.
On top of that empathy, what perhaps thrills me/Babes even more is to think that we have somehow influenced a few others to take up this BreadHead Cause and enjoy, experience, learn and share these experiences.
Bread Baking makes my heart happy. Bread Baking Buddies make my heart happier. I am so glad that you each give of yourselves and take time to bake with us. You are truly very special people. Thank you. Each one of you.
Now do you see what I mean when I say these are are really special bunch of bakers!
Hope you can excuse me being late (but it did allow some extra Buddies to sneak in!) between company and that great mystery of the internet gobbling up my post requiring it to be redone … I was late.
If you baked as a Buddy and I missed you please send me an e-mail with your link and a photo so that I may include you!
You’ll excuse me now while I go bake these crackers again AND see if I can get baking on the Babes October bread.
You know the kind of post where your best laid plans went packing. That’s actually what has been happening in my kitchen. About all my plans for baking have become plans for packing. The kitchen here is 80% packed. So, while appliances function, tools can be difficult to come by. Last week I wanted to bake with a tube pan …. packed. Makes things challenging. And a bread with starter … stopped me cold.
When I wanted to bake with the Babes last month, the starter eluded me. I forgot to mix it every night for days on end. Probably the most difficult issue was that by the end of the day of packing boxes and stacking them to be able to walk through the kitchen, the bottle of Riesling really begged just to be poured into glasses not into a bowl of dough.
So even though I didn’t bake the bread, I can see from the Babes and Buddies who baked it, this was a wonderful loaf. So I’ve gathered up the Buddies who did bake the bread and they are a truly glorious bunch of Babe Buddies.
In no particular order here they are:
Kelly did a lot better than I did. My starter had stopped, Kelly was able to revive her starter to bake this gorgeous loaf seems to be keeping it going full force with light fluffy pancakes!
Karen seemed to be doing something I’m always doing … she started on the recipe without getting the big picture reading through the recipe before beginning. Fortunately she knew how to slow things down … she also knew that baking this bread in a cast iron Dutch oven would give her a lovely color to her loaf and crisp crust.
Cathy says her loaf has ” a slight blemish from being stuck to the basket.” I say her loaf has individualism and great flavor. How do I know it had great flavor? Because the friend she shared it with liked it enough to keep the entire loaf. Now that’s good flavor.
“Thank you for selecting this truly delicious bread from an interesting book. I appreciated the clear instructions for S and F, although the tuck step is one I’ve yet to master. The combination of caramelized onions and a hint of buckwheat was definitely a winner at our house. I baked mine on parchment on a baking stone, allowing it to crisp directly on the stone once firm. Great bread–I even bought the digital version of the book!”
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