The Silver Palate's Apricot and Raisin Bread

Last week, I was a baking maniac! Our little church was having its annual summertime flea market - a huge event for the little community in which I live. The ladies of the church always have a long bake table and sell all manner of sweet treats, pies, cakes, quiches, breads, muffins, scones, and preserves. My contribution this year was a double batch of scones (cranberry/almond and mango/ginger) and this quick bread ... there were cookies made too, for the grill station lunch specials that the men's group heads up. I was beat by the end of the weekend, but it was great fun working on the event and seeing everyone enjoy each other's company!

Pain Grenoblois - A Random Recipe

Baking bread is one of the most satisfying of baking ventures and it seems that Dom, our dear friend over at Belleau Kitchen, has tapped his inner baker and become a blogging bread fiend! Well, he's in good company here! In fact, when he suggested that May's Random Recipe challenge was to collect one's bread baking books and randomly choose a bread recipe to make and post, I was pretty excited! I only hoped that I would choose a bread recipe that was new and untried! Score!

This French recipe comes from Paris Boulangerie Patisserie, Linda Dannenberg's excellent book of recipes from the most famous and well-established bakeries in Paris. On opening the book to a random page, I  was greeted by a raisin and walnut bread that comes from the countryside in the southeastern region of France. This bread had me doing something I have never done before in my bread baking. It calls for making a yeast starter dough called Pâte Viennoise and letting it rise for 45 minutes. Then, another dough is made that incorporates the starter dough in during the kneading process. This white wheat flour starter combines with the second rye and wheat flour mixture to make a striated dough, rich with butter, raisins, currants, walnuts, and a bit more sugar than usual ... really a beautiful combination!

A Wintertime Galette

At last. The Holidays are beginning to become a part of wintertime memory. The treats and candy and excessive savories are a thing of the past. The refrigerator is beginning to look normal again. I am slowly going through the last of the special food gifts received - gorgeous blue cheese that graced a creamy sauce atop venison steaks, roasted and salted almonds that were part of a Gouda cheese, prosciutto and fig jam cheese board, lovely chocolates that came from Beacon Hill Chocolates.

It's time to go back to basics. That's not to say that we must not have a sweet dessert until Easter, though! It just means that I will be rustling about in the stores and using up things that were stockpiled for the holiday baking and cooking and need to be used before I go through a 're-stocking period'.

50 Woman Game-Changers - Edna Lewis

"Edna Lewis" - oil painting by Elayna Shakur

There is nothing like a beautiful cake and Edna Lewis's Famous Coconut Lane Cake is just that! This cake attests to the rich tradition of Southern cooking and Ms. Lewis's place in preserving it.

This is a cake that is rich with eggs, butter and sugar, coconut, pecans, and chopped raisins - three layers of confection worthy of gracing a table at a garden party with big jugs of iced tea served on the side. I made it to share with friends at a small weekend dinner party. Folks will certainly be 'wowed', don't you think?