Fresh Bread

Today I baked some of my favorite bread. It is a whole-wheat-cranberry-orange-pecan loaf from the King Arthur whole grain baking book, which has become one of my favorite cook books. I've loved everything I've made from this book, but this bread is especially good. It's moist and chewy and has a fabulous flavor. And I think this bread is part of the reason my fiance asked me to marry him ;-)

Mmmmm..... ginger....

Although today's post has nothing to do with fiber arts, it is releated to the other kind of fiber... dietary fiber. One of my Christmas gifts from my mom this year was the book King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. This is a fabulous book comprising recipes for cakes, cookies, quiche, pies, pizza, pancakes, muffins, and, of course, breads. This weekend I made ginger bread (not gingerbread). This is a yeast bread made with whole wheat flour, oats, and three forms of ginger (dried ground, syrup, and crystallized). The first step is to make the ginger syrup. This was done by boiling equal parts of sugar and water with a TON of sliced fresh ginger. The resulting syrup was awesome, not to mention the scent it gave the whole apartment. The recipe made plenty of syrup, so I'll be watching for other uses for it. Anyway, the bread turned out great. It was sweet, chewy, and moist, with a noticeable ginger flavor. I'll be making it again.