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.

Twelve Loaves October: Apple and cinnamon pull apart bread muffins / Twelve Loaves Ottobre: Muffin di pane alla mela e cannella

Last few months have been a mess. I for holidays with all posts for the blog scheduled and ready to post automatically for at least two weeks (thanks to my innate swissness) and confident I would go immediately back to my routine in the kitchen. But the unexpected consequences of the accident in Copenhagen (luckily resolved within two month or so of physiotherapy) and a bad flu got in the way. Add a last minute collaboration, a personal project to develop and Food Immersion Festival and you’ll have the perfect recipe for disaster. My whole routine scrambled up. So much to think about, and I forgot the usual deadlines to submit a recipe for Twelve Loaves’s bread collection. It has been a long time I hadn’t taken part to it. This month, with the excuse of going to my sister’s on a visit, I took the challenge and its theme: apples, and put together a quick recipe. Just a simple recipe for my niece’s Ada afternoon snack.

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.

MTC Challenge May: Orange flavored Babà with Saffron Cream and Chopped Pistachios / MTC Challenge di Maggio: Babà aromatizzato all’arancia con crema allo zafferano e pistacchi tritati

When I read this month’s MTC Challenge recipe I jumped for joy. Babà! A sweet treat that has always fascinated me, a leavened which is not easily baked at home. In short, a real challenge! I thank Antonietta (not Antonella as I called her wrongly in my excited comment to the post on the official page of MTC Challenge…I do have a problem with names…) from the blog La Trappola Golosa, for throwing such a high standard challenge and especially for providing us with a GOR GE OUS recipe.

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!

Garlic and Lemon Thyme Ciabattas for Twelve Loaves / Ciabatte all’aglio e al timo limonato per Twelve Loaves

When this month’s Twelve Loaves theme came out I was so happy! Onions, garlic, chives, shallots, leeks and Co. Love them all and the choice is so vasti t was only a matter of flavour pairings. Michela just came by for a few days, bringing with her nice presents and a few little glass jars filled with herbs and spices. One particular herb stole my heart and amazed my tastebuds: lemon thyme. I wanted, at all costs, to use it in a bread. Lemon thyme and garlic, I just knew it would work.

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.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Savoury Muffins with Salami and Cheese / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Muffin salati con salame e formaggio nostrani

It’s Maroggia’s Mill Friday again! This recipe wasn’t meant to be published, well…not really. In fact I made it up for Azione, a quick job that was commisioned to me in a short time and I was able to pull together in just one hour prior to leaving home and going to the shop where I work part time. Needless to say there are just few pics I shot for my own database. But then my friend Michela, whom is always up to date and informed of my experiments, tried the recipe out and asked me to please please please post it so she could then make her own blogpost. That’s how much she loved the muffins, and trusting her as I trust my own judgment well…I could not decline!

My heart belongs to Genoa. Sourdoug Surprises: Focaccia with pickled artichokes, red cabbage and anchovies / Il cuore a Genova, una focaccia alla crema di carciofi, cavolo rosso e acciughe per l’amore della mia vita

Focaccia, Genoa’s most famous bread, is this month’s Sourdough Surprises theme. Genoa has adopted me for little less than a year back in 2006, and still is the city I consider my true home.