Cuochi d’artificio: Sweet Winter Bread, baked in a pot / Cuochi d’artificio: Pane invernale dolce cotto in pentola

Christmas is just around the corner and this month’s episode of Cuochi d’artificio I was asked to bake a recipe for bread that could be baked in a pot. There are plenty of iron cast pot bread recipes out there and I myself have already developed a few recipes. This time around I thought about using the Winter festive time as a pretext to devise a sweet bread recipe, a kind of bread that personally I have never seen on the web. For the spice blend I was inspired by two loaves of German culinary tradition, the Breslau Stollen and the Hutzelbrot. I took some ingredients from each recipe and came up with this soft loaf, which looks a little like a very primitive panettone but is enriched with cinnamon, cardamom, almonds, plums, figs and dates instead of raisins and candied fruit as in the traditional version of panettone.

Here you will find the list of ingredients and step by step description of the recipe, and here you can see the video recipe to have a more accurate visual reference.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Traditional Wheat Loaf, baked in a Cast Iron Pot / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Pane classico di frumento cotto in pentola

Yet another Friday and to make up for my macaron incident two weeks ago (for those who don’t know I should have posted a recipe fro Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook but messed up with the schedule) yet another recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. For today’s post I baked a simple, classic loaf. A round loaf with a crispy and fragrant crust.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Cast Iron Pot Wheat and Whole Rye Bread / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Pane in pentola al frumento e segale rotta

Yet another Friday and yet another loaf. There will be changes in the blog and in Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook in general. As you know I embarked this new path of macrobiotic diet in order to solce a health problem, and have no other choice, for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook, to focus more on the bread (especially ones made with wholemeal flours which are more suitable for the regime that I must follow). I won’t do any biscuits, cakes nor dessert recipes, at least not for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook as I don’t really think macrobiotic sweets and desserts fit into such column, because they have too many banned ingredients and even though I am allowed to have a little taste of banned foods better not risk to fall into unnecessary temptations. I have in mind a new project, which I will talk about later on. In short from now on, concerning Maroggia’s Mill cookbook, I will publish only bread, breadsticks and crackers recipes.

A nice discovery: About Mornflake Oats and a recipe for Rye and Coarse Oat Loaf / Che bella scoperta! L’Avena Mornflake e una ricetta per il Pane alla segale e avena spezzata

If I say oats, what do you say? Porridge! I assume, as most of us associate this ingredient with the infamous healthy breakfast. One of the most healthy but yet discriminated cereals, it’s one of the few products I have a clear memory of when going back to my childhood days.

Spelt, wholemeal and wheat bran bread / Pane al farro-spelta, farina integrale e crusca di frumento

Few days ago I was discussing with Barbara, on a bread baker’s group on facebook , about dough hydration. Highly hydrated doughs scare the wits out of me, and I have disastrous memories of my first attempts at highly hydrated ciabatta. Barbara encouraged me to try and hey, there is nothing as a good challenge to get me going. Since I had been doing very little baking and feeling a bit down in the previous days I decided I needed a proper kick in my backside.

Knock Knock here comes Le Creuset’s Knob / Il pomello del desiderio

A year ago, after a lot of internet browsing and actual drooling over pictures of magnificient breads, I decided to get my own Le Creuset pot. I longed for one for far too much time. Blame it on childhood memories of my mum’s orange set of pots, my natural attraction to all things nice and often too expensive, or the new colors that were issued in 2012. Who knows. I knew I needed one.