You know how on Friday night you look forward to sleeping in until the hour hand on the clock contains double digits but get up at the usual time anyway out of habit? Sure enough I was awake by 6 AM, but at least had a productive morning Before 11 AM I had completed the following.
From left to right: Seven half pints of green-tea kombucha re-fermenting with grated ginger and wedges of lime; two batards of rye; a fermenting starter (wait for it) in the metal bowl; and a dozen chocolate cranberry muffins.
The muffins, in addition to the cocoa and cranberries, were filled with walnuts and were made with my usual blend of found dry ingredients (soy flour, buckwheat, whole flaxseed meal) and wet (mashed banana, okara, also known as the soybean mash leftover from my soymilk maker, honey, and two eggs from my friend the chicken farmer). Perfect weekend breakfast.
Not a great photo, perhaps, but this miche tasted as good as it looked. The crust was crackly and the interior was warm, sour, almost solid in its richness, but still full of irregular crumb big holes and that we bakers are always aiming for. I brought this bread to a dinner party we attended. A perfect complement on an icy winter night to the stuffed cabbage, pickled beets, edamame hummus, green salad, and red wine. For dessert, Sue made Melissa Clark’s lemon bars with olive oil and sea salt that was so good it stunned the group into silence.