Apples and Honey Whole Grain Challah

Our challenge for HBin5 this time was an apple and honey whole grain challah. Being a beekeeper, how could I not attempt this one? This dough came together easily and after leaving it in the refrigerator overnight I pulled it out to make my bread. This was one of the stickiest doughs that I’ve made so far in the challenge. I was hoping to do a traditional braid, but once I handled the dough, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. So, I took the easy way out and put it in loaf pans. This was a very light and airy bread, and I sent one loaf off with MJOL to share at a meeting he was attending. I sliced it up for easy serving and had to have a few of the wayward crumbs. It is very good and I think it will toast up very nicely.

We have an abundance of bread in the kitchen this week. I made my regular 2 sourdough loaves and now this extra loaf also. But, is that really a problem? I don’t think so.

Until our next baking adventure.

No-Knead 100% Whole Wheat Bread

This time for our challenge I decided to try a recipe that I’ve saved from the back of my King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour bag. I’ve always wanted to try it and it seemed like a good time. It is more of a batter bread and easy to mix up. After mixing it rises for 90 minutes.

 Well, of course I couldn’t just make it totally like the recipe. I didn’t have any orange juice, but I did have pomegranate juice left over from our last challenge, so I used that. The dough (or batter) rose well, but when baked it flattened out. I think that next time maybe I won’t let it rise for the whole 90 minutes. It tastes great toasted.

Until our next baking adventure.

BTW, some bounty from my garden.

Warning: PG Rated Post

Well, not really.
Last week, Ray, the guy who gave us our rabbits, called to request a favor. He wanted to know if we still had our rabbits (we do) and if he could bring over one of his females to mate with our male, Hemingway. We agreed.

So far we have not bred our rabbits. What to do with all those little bunnies?

 Anyway, we have Florida Whites, a smaller rabbit breed, around 5 lbs. Hemingway is even a little smaller maybe around 4 lbs or so. Ray brought over his female, Charcoal, a beautiful, dark gray, almost chocolate bunny. However, she is around 8 lbs, even bigger then our little Yorkie. Well, Hemingway was more than agreeable, and Charcoal was somewhat ambivalent, but not adverse to the attention. Poor Hemingway tried every which way he could, but just couldn’t connect. After a while he wore himself out without being successful. If you’ve ever seen rabbits mate…you know when they connect! So much for the term ******* like bunnies.

 Now, after this experience, we’ve decided to mate one our females, Bette, with Hemingway. Bette is our feisty bunny. She grunts and bats at you when you reach in her hutch. Ray said that mating her would probably calm her down. He also said that he would take two of the female babies, and help us place the rest. So, on to a new and exciting adventure.

Update: 09/05/2011 Today I think we were successful with Bette and Hemingway. So the first week of October we will see!