Wednesday, July 10, 2013

New York cheesecake, with crusty twist.

 Pretty standard ingredients for a cheesecake I'd think. Except the Vanilla Wafers, now what could those be for?
 If your cheesecake goes over 160 internal temperature it will crack, I'm thinking I'll need to try a new cooking method. Anyways, this one came out with a custardy texture, and quite a bit fluffier than most cheesecakes I've made.
 Look at those sides, beautifully browned, and wait... Are those nilla' wafers in my crust?













Here we can see the lighter fluffier texture earlier mentioned. The nilla' wafers made an excellent crust, if anything I would have used a few more towards the middle as it went a little thin.








Next up is Irish Soda Bread.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

An experiment and rye.

 Here we have a loaf of whole wheat and oats,  it turned out quite well and tastes pretty darn good for whole wheat.
Good crumb texture, if not very dense. Though that is to be expected with whole wheat.
Mmm, there really isn't anything like a good loaf of homemade rye. Plus, it's a traditional very traditional recipe, with the inclusion of molasses and heavy cream. It turned out excellent.
 Look at that, a nearly perfect, dense texture that with stone ground flour brings across a whole different taste than any store brought bread can bring. 


And here we go... In the foreground you can see the individual grains of rye flour sticking out of the loaf. The golden brown area is some beautifully caramelized eggwash that only adds to the flavor. 









Next up is a New York style cheesecake, with a twist of my own.

Monday, July 8, 2013

Stocking up and cornbread.

Baked a ton of stuff today so I have to sift through 30-ish pictures and crop em' down a tad. Here's my flour inventory as of 8:45 a.m.
 That's a 25 pound bag of white bread flour on the right, three 5 pound bags of whole wheat flour in the center, a single 5 pound bag of rye flour and finally a 10 pound bag of all-purpose flour. Should keep me stocked for a few weeks.
I made cornbread, didn't get any better pictures than this, and it doesn't really convey the epicosity of it. Only problem was a little graininess left from the cornmeal.












Tomorrow will bring whole wheat and oat bread, plus two loaves of traditional German rye bread. 

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Wonderful ciabatta.

 Here you can see the beginnings of a great loaf, or in this instance, two. 
Now the two loaves have been baked for 40 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Please pardon the poor lighting and the tea kettle.


 One loaf being sliced, absolutely wonderful crumb, though the crust was a little soft for my taste, 'twas still excellent.
 This is 
Another day, another loaf. Beautiful texture all the way through and a harder crust too.
This picture... It is simply indescribable how clearly it portrays some excellent homemade bread.







Welcome to Improper Baking!

Sup, I'm going to post a bunch of stuff here from my baking trials and errors. I found my passion for baking about a year ago when I stumbled upon a recipe for ciabatta bread and realized just how awesome baking can be. Be it pita bread from the Middle East, rye bread from Germany, or good ole' Southern American cornbread, I'm going to make it. I hope you follow along, and try some out yourself.