Whole Rye Flour and White Wine Taralli / Taralli alla segale rotta e vino bianco

It has been quite a while since I last posted a recipe to use up sourdough leftovers, but once more my leftover jar lay in the fridge almost filled to the brim. What to do? Yes, we all do love bread thins, breadsticks and fritters but I wanted to bake something new. In the end inspiration came to me in guise of a tarallo. I still remember discovering taralli during the first year of Art School in Varese.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Chocolate and Cinnamon Cake / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Torta al cioccolato e cannella

Holidays are indeed over, and Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook is back as well, and back with a sweet tooth. This cake was born from the need to recycle egg whites that I had to freeze last Easter, after some proper Colombe baking (here is the link to the original recipe I used, my post has yet to be put online!). Having had enough of meringues and macarons I needed to find a new recipe to use up all those whites! Upon returning from vacation I realized that my freezer exploded with different vegetables, sauces, meat, and egg whites. A recipe for Sacher Torte taken from an old issue of A Tavola, which I baked several times during my university years, came up to my mind.

Oh all these excesses! Bread Thins against Sourdough waste / Oh tutti questi eccessi! Sfogliate di pane per combattere lo spreco di pasta madre

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A mess, such a total mess I collected not 150 grams, not 300 grams but one kilo excess sourdough. These things happen when scheduling gets out of control, chaos grows and my excess sourdough jar fills up to the brim. What to do? Luckily bread thins are always there to save the day (and are quite appreciated by my guinea pigs). If you are like me, a waste hater that gets lost into too many projects this is the recipe for you. It does take some time but it has an addictive quality to it, once you start rolling out the dough you soon get into a state of trance. Try it for yourself, you won’t be disappointed by these super crisp crackers, far the best I have ever tasted and baked in my own house. You can flavor them as you please, in fact I did three different flavoring a for these batches. Are you ready to roll the bread thins?

Sourdough Surprises: Sourdough, Saffron and Black Pepper Apple Fritters, diet can wait! / Sourdough Surprises: Frittelle di mele allo zafferano e pepe nero…e la dieta può aspettare!

I admit it, when I read this month’s Sourdough Surprises theme I was very pleased, and not pleased at all at the same time! It no secret to those who know me well and see me on a weekly basis that I have gained weight. Not a lot, but still those 2 almost 3 kilos one starts to gain without noticing and then it’s almost too late. For a long time my weight has been more or less stable but probably at 33 I should take a little more care about what I eat. Well luckily summer has hit Switzerland with a terrible heatwave and I’ll probably be able to shed off the extra weight I put on. Frying was not really in my book, oh well it surely was in one book…the black one! But these fritters, oh these fritters!

Garganelli and Ragù alla Mamma / Garganelli del riciclo pasquale e ragù alla mamma

I still remember the day when I virtually met Michela, aka Menta e Rosmarino, on Facebook’s group Panissimo. She had just published a recipe for a very nice bread. As absurd as it sounds I vaguely remember the loaf but remember very well the main colors of the photo, white and red, which I later discovered to be her “signature colors”. A sort of White Stripe of baking my friend, the third missing element who I imagine playing the pans using woden spoons. No time for digression, let’s get on with my story.

Panettone Yule Log, the recycling of a monstrous Panettone / Tronchetto Natalizio di Panettone, o del riciclo del Panettone dilusione

Panettone, only Panettone on my mind. Every step I take, every move I make am thinking about IT and yes, it does sound a bit like a bitter-sweet nightmare. What I have been avoiding for years, the most difficult and scary of leavened has now become my obsession.

Sourdough Crackers and the art of recycling / Crackers alla pasta madre, o dell’arte di riciclare

One of the first thing that hit me when I started my adventure with sourdough baking, was the constant referring to throwing away the excess sourdough. Yes, you read well. Throwing away. All formulas to make your own sourdough that I found on the net used a lot of flour (200 gr) so you can imagine that in a few days one would swim in sourdough or be forced to throw away a lot of it. Are you kidding me? One thing I always hated is food waste. So from the beginning I decided to work on smaller percentages of flour and water, but still found myself with some excess sourdough. What to do? A quick look on the internet provided me with a lot of different solutions, from crackers to grissini and pancakes.

Stale bread? French toast! / Pane secco? Colazione gustosa!

I must admit it, sometimes I get carried away. Last weekend some friends came over for breakfast and I overbaked. Not only they had a go at my latest millefeuille experiment, I also baked some brioches, an experimental bread (regretfully chucked away…a failure!) and four baguettes.