Sourdough Rye Bread 裸麥包

It is amazing how four simple ingredients--flour, water, yeast and salt (plus time and patience)--can produce such a nutritious and flavorful food that human beings have consumed since thousands of years ago.

This is my first time using rye to make bread. Rye is very different from wheat. Although rye flour has similar gluten producing proteins, there is virtually no gluten formation. It has more bran, mineral, fiber, soluble sugars, pentosans, and amylase enzymes than wheat flour. All these differences make baking with rye a bit challenging. In particular, amylase will cause the bread crumb to have more of a gummy texture in a process called "starch attack" (I am not going to go into details here. For more information, read Hamelman's book, Bread, p40-42)

Oatmeal Bread (No Knead Method) 燕麥麵包(免揉)

"Most bread produced in factory bakeries in the industrialized world is made without the critical step of fermentation.....Dough conditioners, flavorings, processing aids, gums, fats and additives are used in an attempt to save one precious thing, TIME....They mix, shape, and bake a loaf in less than an hour. A baker using traditional methods and actual fermentation may take up to 72 hours."  by Martin Philip, head baker of King Arthur Flour, "Breaking Bread" (emphasis added).

Molasses Oats Bread 燕麥麵包

Molasses is a thick and sticky by-product of the sugar refining process. It is more nutritious than granulated sugar because it contains iron, vitamin B, calcium, and magnesium. Usually unsulfured molasses is used in baking or other cooking recipes. Avoid blackstrap, which can make the baked goods bitter. Oats are a common breakfast staple. Besides using it to make oat meal, it is widely used in baking such as bread, cookies, granola, etc. The molasses lend the bread a sweet flavor, moist crumb, and crunchy crust, and the oats compliment the bread by giving it a hearty texture. It is great toasted and spread with butter or used as sandwich bread.

Sriracha Honey Popcorn 是拉差爆谷

The popularity of this hot sauce is quite the phenomenon. There are not a lot of products that only rely on word of mouth and reach such a level of success. People who love Sriracha put it in almost everything they eat. There are even Sriracha mayonnaise and ketchup in the market.

So when I was flipping through the pages of a new cookbook named The Kitchn (without an "e"), this recipe for Sriracha popcorn caught my eyes.

Purple Rice Bread 紫米麵包

If you are like me who eat bread on a daily basis, do you get bored with white toast or whole wheat bread? Here is something different: whole grain bread, not only with whole wheat flour, but also with rice.

This is my first time using rice to make bread. I should have made it earlier! It stays soft for 3-4 days in room temperature, just like tong zhong bread.

Purple rice is also called black glutinous rice or sticky black rice. It is one of the fragrant type of rice. Cook it in a rice cooker and cool before adding to the bread dough.