This loaf makes great toast because it’s not only crackly on the outside, but also has crunchy bits on the inside. In this yeast-raised cornbread recipe from Jeffrey Hamelman, fine cornmeal is added to a basic white wheat dough for texture and that freshly made tortilla smell.

I couldn’t help but think of popcorn so I replaced the extra virgin olive oil in the original recipe with brown butter (or beurre noisette for you Francophiles). The movie theater scent is faint, but toasting and serving with a side of the amber liquid makes it a bit more obvious.

View Yeast-Raised Cornbread with Brown Butter Recipe »

Are your attempts at pumpkin pie dough getting you down? Can’t roll it out because it’s either too tough or crumbly? Is it sticking to your counter and rolling pin even with heavy dustings of flour? Did the crust turn into a soggy mess after baking?

Ditch the pie dough and bake it on streusel instead.

Baked flat and sliced into square or rectangular portions, pavé pastries are so named because of its resemblance to tiles or paving stones. The dessert itself is the farthest thing from a brick, though. In this recipe, the smooth cream cheese filling is lightly sweetened to let some of its mellow tang through. With the addition of allspice and cinnamon, pumpkin pavé will be familiar even if its name and appearance are anything but.

Aside from being less finicky than pie dough, streusel is probably the ideal serving platform for the creamy pumpkin filling. Its crumbly texture provides much-needed contrast, and more importantly, because of the addition of ground pumpkin seeds, doesn’t fade into the background flavor-wise.

View Pumpkin Pavé Recipe - Spiced Pumpkin Filling on Streusel »

Pumpkin puree and its familiar spice mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger are kneaded into buttery dough in this seasonal take on the classic brioche. This recipe makes so much sense to me - winter squashes simply roasted with butter is always comforting when in season . These soft yellow puffs topped with crunchy pumpkin seeds have a bit more to offer than its oven-roasted cousin but it took a bit of deciphering to get started.

This pumpkin brioche recipe was derived from a rocket scientist-friendly formula posted in the San Francisco Baking Institute website. Converting every single decimal into manageable measurements was mind-numbing tediousness but the effort was thankfully worth it. I’ll make this again whether pumpkins are in season or not, thanks to the magic of canning.

Here’s to hoping that I’m not the only geek who bakes with a laptop and spreadsheet in the kitchen instead of measuring cups.

View Pumpkin Spice Brioche Recipe »

Pane Francese is the bastard lovechild of the baguette and the ciabatta, melding the best qualities of each iconic bread into rustic loaves. Shaped into long sticks like its French archetype, the crust-to-crumb ratio is maximized, making it a great accompaniment to rich soups and stews. The high hydration characteristic of the ciabatta, at 76% for all you bread nerds, gives pane Francese an airy crumb and irregular holes even with the addition of whole wheat flour.

While the pane Francese procedure of cutting dough into strips and stretching is less fussy than shaping traditional baguettes, the wet dough presents its own set of problems with handling and gluten development. Dough strength is achieved through a long fermentation time interspersed with stretching and folding, arguably the best technique to use for developing slack dough. Use small amounts of flour when stretching the dough on a counter, or better yet, watch Susan of Wild Yeast Blog do the same thing with less mess in a rectangular container.

View Pane Francese Recipe - The Italian take on French Bread »

No, I didn’t confuse my (non-existent) French and Italian. This formula for Italian ciabatta uses French terminology because it’s from Eric Kayser, well-renowned in Paris for his breads and pastries. In a city saturated with driven artisans dedicated to their craft, Maison Kayser still manages to consistently rank high among the best Parisian bakeries.

Even more impressive, for bread nerds like me at least, are his somewhat accessible bread formulas that share a common thread in liquid levain, wild yeast starter fed with equal weights water and flour. Used with commercial yeast to bring dough to life, the liquid starter also adds a very subtle acidity, a quality lacking in bread raised exclusively with commercial yeast.

After trying several ciabatta formulas, I can’t quite pinpoint why this method produces results better than the rest. All of the ciabatta formulas I tried had an airy interior but the most noticeable difference is the crust. It not so much crunches but shatters audibly as bitten, as opposed to the other formulas that yielded a slightly thicker and chewier crust.

View Eric Kayser's Ciabatta au Levain Liquide Recipe »