Simply Great Breads

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in a bread workshop with Dan Leader, the owner of Bread Alone, one of America’s best artisanal, organic bakeries.

Dan managed to fit in quite a lot into the workshop – we made chocolate babka, savory yeasted flatbread, and jam-filled berliner doughnuts. All of the recipes are from Dan’s new book called Simply Great Breads, a collection of yeasted sweet and savory baking recipes. That’s the chocolate babka on the cover!

Dan showed us how many things you could do with a brioche dough and how easy it is to make lean yeasted doughs at home. We also talked about the challenges of organic baking and certification, different kinds of flours, and the preservation and resurrection of old Europe and old family recipes – a subject always close to my heart!

It was a great session and, of course, the yummy treats were out of this world.