Bread!

Simple, eh? I've made bread before, years ago, but that was before I got a Kitchenaid. Then, I needed a lot of kneading space and time and while the bread was good, it wasn't fall-in-love good. And the kitchen ended up coated in flour.

This time round, things were different.

I'm using Alton Brown's Basic Bread recipe. You really do need a scale for this recipe, but as you'll note, I winged it with conversion of bread flour into cups. (In future, I won't do this.) All of the Good Eats eps are available on YouTube, and I'd suggest watching the ep while making the bread because he explains the science of what he's doing. Such as "why mix together a yeast slurry the night before?"

So, into a suitable container: first portion flour, honey, first portion rapid yeast, and bottled/filtered water. Whisk quickly, then leave in the fridge overnight.

Wake up the next morning, put rest of flour, rest of yeast, and salt into the Almighty Kitchenaid! Attach piratey bread hook, arrr. Tip the yeast slurry into the mixer, and turn the gears onto "2". Why 2? Because Kitchenaid really can't handle anything faster while kneading bread, but no one tells you that until your machine starts making funny noises. And if you've measured the flour incorrectly, your dough's going to be REALLY thick and bad, bad things might happen.

Once the dough's picked up all the flour in the bowl and blended in well, tip up the mixer's head and leave the dough at the bottom of the bowl to rest for 20 minutes, covering the bowl with a teatowel. It'll be a little puffier, at which point lower the hook, bwa ha ha! Knead mercilessly for 5-10 minutes.

Lightly grease a container and chuck the doughball in; put this in your oven with a roasting pan full of boiling water. Don't turn the oven on or anything, this is just to keep the steam in an enclosed place with the rising dough. Leave it alone for 2 hours.

I'll update with kneading photos sometime, maybe. It's probably better to leave it to the Good Eats episode. Besides, the really weird and important part was the slurry. (That, and not breaking your mixer.)

But here is the result! It's Franken bread! I didn't shape the loaf as well as I might have, so there's a weird little bulge going on at the bottom of the bread, but that didn't affect the flavour. Which was delicious!

All together, good project. Long project, and passively time-consuming -- you don't really need to do much more work than about 30 minutes, but you need to be present. But this is a pretty good thing to do on a Saturday morning, and you'll have fresh (unpreserved, so short shelflife) bread for the weekend. And when you add up all the ingredients, it's cheaper than buying nice bread from a local bakery. So really, it's all about working the time into your schedule.

But let me tell you: this fresh bread with honey, or jam, or nutella or peanut butter? Seriously satisfying.

To the kitchen!

Zucchini Bread

Yes, it's Superbowl Sunday. No, this means nothing to me.


Zucchini bread isn't what you're thinking -- it's actually quite a sweet, cake-like bread that is fantastic with tea. Set all the cake stuff aside for mixing -- three eggs, a cup of vegetable oil, a tablespoon of vanilla essence, and a cup and a half of sugar (did you know those Twist'n'Loc storage containers are marked for cup measurements?) . Gaze at your Kitchenaid mixer with almost unhealthy fervour, but walk away -- it's best to get everything else prepared before you get to blendin'.

Oven at 350 degrees, please. And make sure that whatever pan you're using can be easily placed mid-level in the oven.


One thing that's become a sort of kitchen tool for me is my computer. You can find a million different variations of recipes on any given Google search, or head to Epicurious (aka, the mothership). It's like all the world's cookbooks in one place -- for instance, the recipe I'm using for this bread is likely evolved from the "Silver Palate Cookbook", with a few changes here and there. But since the laptop's already in the kitchen, why not put it to full use? For me, that means the glorious mind-control platform that is Hulu.com, where I can find things like Psych episodes and archived movies and The Daily Show. Truly, a wondrous invention that I hope the writers got a damn good residual deal on.

The zucchini bit's simple: wash, peel off any rough or scarred patches, but leave most of the skin on. Then grate grate grate, using the smaller grater side if possible. May I suggest "Revenge of the Pink Panther" as accompaniment? It's old, but hilarious. Don't let the Steve Martin remake turn you off the originals.


Once you've grated all of the zucchini, you'll realise that zucchini has a huge amount of water in it. Using a sieve is probably the best way to go about it, but I don't have one of those so had to make do with sort of tipping the bowl and squishing all the grated stuff to one side. You can also just squeeze out the moisture by hand. Either way, you want to get to a stage where green liquid isn't collecting in the bottom of the bowl.

Back to the Kitchenaid! I am unreasonably excited about this, because it's my birthday present from my family, and I have always wanted one of these. So I intend to use every possible attachment with little rhyme or reason. With that in mind, I whisked together the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla until the mix was light and thick, then switched over to that beater contraption and dumped in the drained zucchini.



Blend this together for about 30 seconds, making sure all the zucchini's spread through the egg mix.

In another bowl, sift together the following: two cups of flour, two tablespoons of baking soda, one tablespoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of ground cloves and one of cinnamon. I've also added half a teaspoon of "Apple Pie Spice", which has some mace and allspice in it as well.

I'm pretty sure that the weird guard shield on the bowl isn't necessary. I'm pretty sure I'm using it anyway. Add the flour blend and mix for about a minute.
(At right: prelude to a cautionary tale about improperly unpacking groceries? Perhaps.)




The tin I'm going to use is a cast-iron bundt-type tin. My mother got it for me at Home Goods. She's got one that makes me think of the Sydney Opera House, but this one's more understated. Last time I cooked something in hers, entire sections of archway stayed stuck to the pan and I had to cement them back on with lemon icing. In an effort to avoid the same fate, I've carefully cleaned all the grooves of this pan and bought the Baking Pam aerosol spray, which I will apply liberally to the inside of the mould. Place in the oven on that mid-level rack and set the timer for 1 hour 10 minutes. The top of the bread is going to puff up considerably, so make sure you've got the needed clearance.

Settle down for the hour wait. If you've been stopping and starting the way I was, you'll be up to the part where Inspector Clouseau returns home only to find out that he's been declared dead and his Asian manservant Kato has turned his apartments into some sort of opium den/whorehouse. You know, there's plenty in this movie that's objectionable by today's standards (mostly racial and politically correct stuff), but I also haven't seen a joke involving feces or weird sexual leering. It's a refreshing change after the Austin Powers stuff, and I don't really get why Kato in the new series is Jean Reno. Kato's awesomeness lies in the fact that he is just as clueless as Clouseau, but together they make a mad sort of sense.

Enough film critiques. Retrieve the marshmallows you hid from your sister and make a cup of cocoa, then settle in for the rest of the film.

One hour later, Clouseau's in Hong Kong with Dyan Cannon and the bread's done! Better yet, after 15 minutes cooling on a rack, the entire thing tipped out without anything sticking to the inside of the mould. Voila!

To the kitchen!