rise to the challenge!

I’ve probably gone a little overboard signing up for baking challenges recently. Mellow Bakers start their second run of Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread – A Baker’s Book of Technique and Recipes this month. Mr. Hamelman is an instructor and the director of the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Vermont. He wrote an excellent text on bread making science and process. I bought my copy soon after it was published in 2004, but only made a couple of the many breads. This challenge starts with Hot Cross Buns just in time for Easter! The group also starts a second challenge in April baking its way through Dan Lepard’s The Art of Handmade Bread, originally published in the UK as The Handmade Loaf, also in 2004. I am less familiar with Mr. Lepard’s work, but a quick flip through the pages promises old world tradition in these recipes. Bakers will have a choice of three loaves from the book of their choice each month (yes, you can join both challenges if you’re the un-mellow sort), but participation requirements are very flexible in keeping with the mellow theme.

I then found out about BakeTogether hosted by Abby Dodge, noted cookbook author and contributor to Fine Cooking magazine. Abby shares one of her recipes at the beginning of the month, and then you bake it with your own creative variations and post the results. Since I’m always changing recipes to fit the ingredients I have on hand or my culinary whims, this is a great challenge platform for me.

So if you have some folks to help you eat the delicious results of these challenges, check out the links in this post or the blogroll.