June Baking

A birthday, donut day, and Kneading Conference prep

Dear Bread Fans,

I was going to write a few different letters: about baking for my son Felix’s 20th birthday, or the doughnuts I made for a delayed Father's Day celebration, or the sandwich propaganda that I am gathering -- but I couldn't decide on a single topic so I will give you glimpses of my kitchen and desk.

The birthday boy smiles near service berry sauce on vanilla ice cream, and I show off our low-key birthday sammies: ham and cheese on einkorn bread with potato chips.

The Birthday: Felix requested a war surplus cake and a Nian Gao, and so he got both of them. He had friends over all day to play board games. For many years, he had a ‘no manners’ birthday party and the kids climbed on the table, ate off each other 's plates, and even threw food. (I’m sensitive about food waste and the chickens ate all the scraps.) Eventually the meal moved to a tablecloth on the floor. With a couple of his friends now six feet tall, no mayhem was on the menu. The group assembled some subdued sandwiches, and I made burritos for dinner, when lots of adults came over and saluted him, with cake, ice cream, and rounds of cards and liars’ dice.

The doughnuts: I make them every Father's Day. I grew up terrified of frying, so it took a lot to begin this tradition. I remember being pregnant with Felix, and Francis begging to help me. I allowed & shouldn’t have because hot oil splattered on his hand. How to keep kids safe & let them learn? I remember the apron tight over my tight belly, the heft of the next baby, so big in my body. Now he is so big in his body, and his brother just turned 25! Time is a like a vat of hot oil: it can burn and surprise you.

Back to the doughnuts: Last year I used baker extraordinaire Rachel Wyman’s recipe for potato doughnuts from her cookbook Fueled By Doughnuts and this year I turned to Barton Springs Mill because I had some of their ancient grain flour. The doughnuts were a hit and Jack and the boys played cards, hearts and Milles Bournes -- anybody else babysit kids in the 70s and play that game a million times too?

Jenn holds a cornmeal rhubarb and a Kamut rhubarb cake.

Baking for the Kneading Conference: I am studying ingredients, mostly flour, of course, for savory and sweet quick breads/snack cakes. As much as I want to understand everything my starting point is grains.

I began fiddling with urad dal and Indian savory cakes called Khaman or Khaman Dhokla. You can make them with gram (chickpea flour) but I fermented the split dal, and tried making it without rice. First tries are going okay — steamed in a pan inside my electric pressure cooker, and topped with some spices heated in oil.

A round cake made from dal and topped with cumin, nigella seeds and curry leaves.

For the snack cake, I’m riffing on Olia Hercules’ rhubarb cake, and this morning made it three separate ways, with cornmeal, Kamut flour and semolina. I sent it out to gardening and tree crews for sampling. More rhubarb is the universal vote.

I’ve had baking on my to-do list all month but time feels fluid until deadlines are close. I don’t believe I’m procrastinating, any more than I was procrastinating about my children growing up.

The flaw is that I don’t like to make decisions. This is apparent as I face the mountains of paper, and flood of digital files I’m collecting for my book. If I recycle anything, there goes the option of delivering that fact or idea. If I never decide which words and thoughts go into the book, the book will never get written. That’s not a desired outcome.

My task this week is to read everything I’ve accumulated, and come up with another round of chapter summaries. My Biography of Bread: A Coming of Age in Food is the title I have in mind. But any minute I’ll pick another.

Stay tuned for some bread propaganda reports. In the meantime, I hope you have as much bread and cake as you need.

Yours, Amy

• The Kneading Conference is in Skowhegan, Maine next month, July 27-28. Don Guerra is the keynote!! Saturday July 29 is the Bread Fair, a fabulous bread day where you can buy treats from local bakers & from the workshops.

• If you are hungry for recipes that use whole grain flour, a great place to look is the websites of flour mills. I loved perusing Barton Springs Mill’s recipes here.

• Serviceberry/June berry/Saskatoon berry season is about over with but I highly encourage you to put this fruit on your radar. Commonly planted as street trees in my city and elsewhere in the Northeast, if you can beat the birds to them, you will have a feast. Especially if you cook them, and their little purple hearts burst and split some of the flavor of their seeds, lending an almondy note that is glorious.