Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye and Extra Virgin Olive Oil Bread Rolls / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Panini all’olio e farina di segale

Ooops, I messed up with the blog. Many of you may have noticed that last Friday I mis-scheduled my post. Instead of posting a recipe for the Mill I posted a recipe for macarons…too many things to do, appointments, too many bad days and then I lost track of the usual scheduling (I have to go back to the good habit of writing down a special calendar only for blog posts). I apologize to Alessandro, who has to deal with my head in the clouds, and all of you that expected a new recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. I have to get used to the new routine Macro-Monday and Baking-Friday. The recipe that I am finally posting was developed very spontaneously, going with the flow feeling the dough as it takes shape under the kneading hands. Bread rolls so fragrant, soft and tasty you simply cannot fall for them. To give them a special flavour and rustic texture I added whole rye flour (I think it is quite plain to everyone how much I love this flour) and extra virgin olive oil. Have them for breakfast or just a quick snack to fill your hungry belly. Want to try and make them together?

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye, Toasted Flour and Thyme Crackers / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Crackers di farina di segale, farina tostata e timo

New year, new life, new recipe. I start the year with new recipes, with Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook and some news. As already anticipated shortly I will be opening a new blog where I will talk about my new adventure with macrobiotics and develop my own recipes according to my new lifestyle. Some changes are necessary for this blog too. It is unthinkable for me to be able to publish twice a week in both blogs, so I decided to split up the posts on two different days, keeping Fridays as posting day for the current blog and keeping Monday for the macro blog. Here the focus will be mainly on bread, and if possible I will try to participate to the various bread collections and contest I took part to the past year and a half, as Twelve Loaves, Daring Bakers and MTC Challenge. Of course Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook column will stay so I will have to make some choices, probably picking just a few challenges from month to month. But now let’s move on to the recipe with which I greet the new year.

Crunchy Licorice Snails / Chioccioline croccanti alla liquirizia

It has been a while that I’ve been entertaining the idea of experimenting a little with basic grissini dough and some time ago, a morning before going off to work, I baked my first batch of grissini snails.

Sourdough Surprises: Hot Dog Buns

I am back on track with Sourdough Surprises, one of my favourite bread events from which I had withdrawn a bit due to other obligations. But I am more than glad to be back on track and with a recipe totally new to me. Hot dog buns. I am not a big meat eater, and very rarely eat hamburgers and hot dogs. But the thought of being able to pull together a good and more or less healthy fast food recipe appeals to me. So much I ate Hot Dogs two days in a row!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Pizza with zucchini, lemon zest and mint / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Pizza con zucchine, scorza di limone e menta

Pizza is one of my fixations. The ones who know the baking world are well aware of how this recipe can cause insomnia, stress and nervous breakdowns. Whether it is baked in a pan or the classic round neapolitan pizza shape it doesn’t matter, both variants need some knowledge to come out of the oven as true masterpieces. I don’t recall confessing it, but my infatuation with sourdough started with an obsessive search for the perfect pizza, which began three years ago and perhaps has now come to an end at last.

Ècole de Boulangerie de Panissimo: Marguerite

Last month I was so taken by Easter Festive Breads (fortunately all went down well) I didn’t post the bread for Panissimo’s École. You probably won’t believe it but at the beginning of April my bread for the École de Boulangerie de Panissimo – the Marguerite – was already baked and photographed. But then came Twelve Loaves, a couple of recipes Michela and I cooked together and some other projects and there was no space for another blog post.

#Twelve Loaves: Rye and fennel seeds snails with blood oranges and red onion chutney / #Twelve Loaves: Girelle di segale e semi di finocchio al chutney di arance sanguinelle e cipolle

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recipe, most of all because the need to create a savoury bread was stronger than ever. What triggered this flavour combination was the poll that Lora-Cake Duchess launched in Twelve Loaves to choose April’s theme.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Beetroot, Orange and White Chocolate Muffins / Il ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Muffin alla barbabietola, arancia e cioccolato bianco

Two weeks have passed since the first recipe especially conceived for Maroggia’s Mill flours. Weeks during which flour was consumed a lot, in my search for new recipes. Some have already appeared on the blog and others that are waiting in the “limbo” folder on my desktop.

Smithy Loaf, or about Twelve Loaves and the pleasure of unfussy baking / Smithy Loaf, o anche di Twelve Loaves e il piacere di una semplice infornata

Keep it simple. This is this month’s Twelve Loaves theme, as beautifully explained by the talented Rossella in her blog Ma che ti sei mangiato?. Simplicity can freeze. Always in search of the elaborated techniques, which require time and effort but reward with breathtaking results and oh so many compliments we forget about the joy of a simple, quick bake. Yes baking can be rewarding with little efforts, using basic ingredients and techniques you can obtain delicious results within one hour sharp.

Dried wild fennel leaves, Lemon and Pepper crackers / Sfogliate di pane al finocchietto, limone e pepe

Lately baking disasters have been the norm, the uneasy feeling of not doing it right, of not being focused. Yet another batch of grissinis gets burnt, the ciabatte do not rise as expected and every single recipe and experiments turns into drama. Not good. To get back on the track and to push myself I turn to the easiest solution to soothe the wounds to my confidence: online challenges and contests. When improvising too much I often lose concentration, having to participate to contests is another thing…there are deadlines and a recipe can turn out bad once, maybe twice. I started with a quick and easy recipe, because as always I put myself in the position of squeezing my urge of baking between chores and appointments. Renouncing is not an option.