Cookbook Project: Weekend recipes
My friend became part of our pandemic bubble when she came to Seattle a few months ago (after tests, quarantining, and a LOT of conversations about logistics) and I couldn’t be happier about it. She and I decided we wanted to spend a day making an elaborate recipe - the perfect pandemic activity!
#1. Tartine Bread
We ended up going with the baguette recipe from Tartine Bread. This is another cookbook that I think looks amazing but is a little overwhelming to work with. I’ve always had good luck with the recipes in it, but I don’t think they’re always laid out in a clear way. But when you’ve got the time and determination to work through them, they’re great!
I’ve made baguettes before, but they’ve always been relatively quick recipes so I was intrigued by this one that uses relatively little yeast in a poolish and sourdough starter.
First steps first, making the poolish the night before.
We ended up making three baguettes that were shockingly huge. Now that I’m looking at the mountain of flour that the recipe calls for, I feel like we shouldn’t have been so surprised.
Pre-shaping. This is when we started to realize just how big these baguettes were going to be.
Resting for the final rise.
We probably could have worked the dough an awful lot more than we did because these aren’t shaped quite as beautiful as they could be. However, they are delicious. There are very few things better than a baguette that’s still warm from the oven which is why I don’t have a picture of all three of them together after baking - that didn’t last too long!
#2. Dirt Candy
I got this book as a Christmas present and it’s full of really interesting vegetarian and vegan recipes! The one that intrigued me was carrot halvah - I really love making (and eating) halvah but I’d never had carrot halvah before. Carrots and tahini are a delicious combination so I figured this would be a hit.
I think one of the reasons I like making halvah so much is that I like doing mise en place and setting everything up before hand. This recipe needed quite a bit of it - toasting sesame seeds and reducing carrot juice down before you even add the sugar.
After the prep work is done, this recipe goes very quickly as halvah always does! I just have to be careful to not get too mesmerized by the cooking sugar and pull it off the heat at the right temperature!
The sugar mixture was bright orange from the carrot juice, so I was kind of surprised by the final color of this halvah. It also isn’t quite as firm as halvah I’ve made or eaten in the past, but that has not stopped me from enjoying it!
