ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
As of lately, I'm too rarely in the “bakery”. The lockdown last year, and, in its following, the outright pop-cultural fashion that everyone now grew sourdough and baked bread all of a sudden, has depleted much of its somewhat exotic appeal for me.
However, that doesn't make baking itself less fun. I'm just again and again surprised which great treats I have made in the past, and don't remember that they were totally worth being repeated/varied/adapted/… (maybe I'm also slowly getting senile?). One tends to collect a massive amount of passive knowledge about the finest foodstuff all around the world, but still the radius of active knowledge/actual application is awkwardly small. It's not the time. It's not the availability. It's not the motivation. I don't know what it is.
Anyhow, I'm grown-up (?) and should know what to do. I've prepared a dough for tomorrow: I'll bake a bread with 1 tablespoon of milled fenugreek per pound of flour. I'm totally in love with that taste, somewhere between maple syrup and dal! On top of that, it is good for the dough, it boosts the fluffiness of the sourdough crumb (everyone who has toyed with fenugreek seeds knows how slimy they get when wet). Unfortunately it'll become bitter if overdosed. But that's something I already can handle quite well.
Another remarkable addition, to savoury as well as sweet baked goods, is cardamom. It reminds me of some ingenious Scandinavian pastry creations, of which I SWEARED to not bake too many (but I missed to promise a lower limit, though
).
Also on my list are tarragon (potica!), and then that tiny bag of mahleb that's still untouched, since I don't know what to do with it. Ajwain which bluntly reminds of thyme, and challenges me since quite a time to pave its way into sweet pastry too. Anise (I recently found out that a nearby farm sells anise grown a few km from where I live) and star anise are underrated too. Allspice, tonka bean, tamarind, chestnut, boldo, honey-garlic ferment, pandan leaves, fried onions, cinnamon (in a savoury context), parsley, mastic, …
What are your “secret spices” which you are mad on yourself that you use them just too rarely?
However, that doesn't make baking itself less fun. I'm just again and again surprised which great treats I have made in the past, and don't remember that they were totally worth being repeated/varied/adapted/… (maybe I'm also slowly getting senile?). One tends to collect a massive amount of passive knowledge about the finest foodstuff all around the world, but still the radius of active knowledge/actual application is awkwardly small. It's not the time. It's not the availability. It's not the motivation. I don't know what it is.
Anyhow, I'm grown-up (?) and should know what to do. I've prepared a dough for tomorrow: I'll bake a bread with 1 tablespoon of milled fenugreek per pound of flour. I'm totally in love with that taste, somewhere between maple syrup and dal! On top of that, it is good for the dough, it boosts the fluffiness of the sourdough crumb (everyone who has toyed with fenugreek seeds knows how slimy they get when wet). Unfortunately it'll become bitter if overdosed. But that's something I already can handle quite well.
Another remarkable addition, to savoury as well as sweet baked goods, is cardamom. It reminds me of some ingenious Scandinavian pastry creations, of which I SWEARED to not bake too many (but I missed to promise a lower limit, though
).Also on my list are tarragon (potica!), and then that tiny bag of mahleb that's still untouched, since I don't know what to do with it. Ajwain which bluntly reminds of thyme, and challenges me since quite a time to pave its way into sweet pastry too. Anise (I recently found out that a nearby farm sells anise grown a few km from where I live) and star anise are underrated too. Allspice, tonka bean, tamarind, chestnut, boldo, honey-garlic ferment, pandan leaves, fried onions, cinnamon (in a savoury context), parsley, mastic, …
What are your “secret spices” which you are mad on yourself that you use them just too rarely?
