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JanKK, you made me feel so much better, thanks! As for the danishes, I think the instructions said to give them a "top knot", so I twisted the edges together to do just that and they all stayed together. (Whew!)

I'm finally able to post pics of my danishes. I used homemade berry jam with the almond filling and I did the pocket shape: Sadly I'm a genoise failure! I obviously overworked the batter (plus I didn't have any cake flour which I'm sure didn't help any). Look how sad and flat my cake turned out! I've just put it in the fridge until I decide what to do with it. I'm sure it tastes pretty good but those would have been some very short mini rounds!

Kirsten, the ones you took a picture of were beautiful. Did you try all the shapes? I only did the one called the pocket. (I think that was the shape.) Decided on that shape because it looked like it might keep it's shape during baking and was more interesting to me than doing the triangle ones. I'll post a pic later when I have my USB cable!

oooh, now I want to try popovers. I've never had them even though I grew up in the US! Wasn't something we made in MT. I'll try to do the mini rounds today. I did the danishes which were yummmmmmmy! I'm gonna have to take a couple of weeks off from this thread b/c I'm travelling overseas (to Denmark, ironically, where I can taste real danishes!).

hathor, what in the world is a scooped out bagel? Should I make sure I have one when I'm in NYC later in the year? Thanks for blogging! You sound like a great foodie.

Uh-huh. Wonderful home-made sausage. I was waiting for that paragraph to end that way. I don't imagine you'll be seeing that other brother again.... Lisa, you really crack me up sometimes. I seriously laughed out loud and I'm glad the workman I have here happened to be out of earshot at the time!

JanKK, excellent tips, esp since I only managed to do the rolling out and folding last night, not the final shaping. I think I'll shape them tonight and bake them in the morning so they'll be extra extra good when I take them to the office! :-)

Oh my goodness JanKK, you've got me so excited to go make the danishes tonight! I've had the dough in the fridge for a couple of days. Because yours looks so beautiful I'm inspired to rush home tonight to bake them. (Though maybe I should follow your cue and bake them in them morning so I can take them to the office nice and fresh.)

I think you've talked me into doing the ww bread. I need to make some more bread this weekend anyway! May I suggest that you also try the rustic potato loaves. I've done them a couple of times and though I have yet to perfect the shaping technique the bread itself has the most gorgous texture!

Those are beautiful! Well done! I'd love to try rugelach pg 325, some time. I'd be up for the Danish Pastries if they taste good for more than a day b/c I'll have to take them into the office. (We just can't eat all that I bake on our own!)

Oh yeah, the mahlab. I didn't go in search of that for my ka'kat. I used some ground up lemon myrtle leaf but I couldn't taste it in the bread. I made the naan a while back. It's excellent also with dips. Mmmm. Can't wait to see your pics. My naan looked a bit scary!

Forgot to mention that I tried the pita bread this weekend. (Sorry I've so gone off on my own tangent a few times). I did it initially to make the lamb pizza things that follow the pita recipe. I added spiced yogurt dollops on the top. It was very very tasty! I used the rest of the dough a couple of days later (I LOVE that you can keep it in the fridge for a week!) and made the normal pitas. Super easy. I'd make them again. Only thing about them was that they're thicker than I was thinking they'd be and therefore very filling. Shoulda eaten less than I did.

I've been very busy and haven't had a chance to get back for about a week to this thread. I'm still catching up wth you guys so I did a few things this week. I made the baby cakes where I used apples instead of rhubarb. The cake is so scrumptious! I used 6 ramekins and a small springform that was about the size of 2 ramekins since I didn't have the right number of them. I also did the ka'kat which were pretty yummy too. I sprinkled them with black and white sesame seeds. When they came out of the oven I didn't resist trying them for long and as a result burnt my mouth a bit! They were wonderful dipped into babaganoush. I took them to work like I do with many of the things I bake. I think people at work must want sweet stuff instead because these took longer to disappear. I tried the mixed starter this weekend with the frozen piece of dough to start. The bread turned out tasty when it was finally done but I think if I use the frozen starter again I'll make sure it's at room temp and fluffy before I start the recipe. The way it was I just worried about it for 2 days until the final dough where I ended up adding not as much flour and added more water to get the dough consistency I thought they were describing. The dough was actually too wet and the baguettes almost collapsed but the final bread tasted good. I'm not giving up on that one. I'll try it again soon. I made babas for dessert last night. They also didn't turn out quite like they were supposed to because the cream filling wasn't thick enough. However my guests LOVED them. They kept exclaiming at how light they were. Whew!

hillvalley, I'm hoping some "real" Australians reply to you too (I'm an American who has been living here for 10 years) but thought I'd give you a reply with my 2 cents worth. For Vegemite (by the way, I think it's rather nasty tasting but then again peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are revolting to many people who grew up in Oz) I think it's an acquired taste and since many people get it here from childhood they love its salty savoury taste. Primarily people eat it on buttered toast and here's the trick IT MUST BE SPREAD VERY VERY THINLY so that you can barely see the layer of Vegemite! Pavlova is suprisingly easy but Anzac Biscuits are even easier. They're really simple oatmeal cookies. Let me know if you want a recipe. That would make you popular again after the fun of Vegemite. Lamingtons would be a HUGE hit but they're much fiddlier to make. They're yellow cake, cut into rectangles and iced all over with chocolate frosting and the rolled into coconut. If you want more savoury stuff damper's easy to make since it's a quick bread, really. You can throw some cheese in it or herbs or other spices if you want to jazz it up a bit. Or just let them top it with butter. Hope that helps.

GREAT blog! I especially love all the pictures. Keep 'em coming. Where did you move from when you moved to Lyon? Did your cat have to be in quarantine?

foodie3, thanks! I'm gonna do what you do because it would sure be handy to have the first dough easily at hand!

SethG, you didn't hurt my feelings! I did look at the recipe last night an noticed they gave a load of suggested other fruit ideas. I may try the recipe after all. Last night I made the pizza dough. I think if I make the recipe again I'd make 4 pizzas out of the dough so that I get a nice thin crust. Tasted wonderful, though. I was going to do some mixed starter bread this weekend but don't have time. I've put the walnut sized piece of dough from the pizza recipe in the freezer. Hopefully that'll work for my mixed starter. If it does I think I'll have a few of those in the freezer for future use in mixed starter. Anyone have any thoughts on whether that's a good idea or not?

Hmmm, I might catch up on some of the other stuff I missed instead of doing the rhubarb cake. Not sure I can find much rhubarb here (Australia) at the moment, but I'll see. I've been so looking forward to being able to bake again this weekend since I haven't been around for a few weeks!

Hmmm, very interesting! You're right about what sort of fish is most frequently used here. Other than that I don't know what might be the difference since batter can very significantly from place to place. Hungry now!

Hi guys! Sethg, the matzoh, look great. I wanted to make them but, as mentioned previously, my oven doesn't get hot enough. I did the berry galette last week. Did apples and blackberries and decided to make it a bit wider by folding in less of an edge around the pastry. I love that pastry when it's crisp. Not as nice the next day but still tasty. brngckn, well done on all that baking! I'm so jealous! I've not had time and when I do I'm gonna have to bake for a week straight to catch up with everyone! I won't be able to do anything until the weekend after Easter but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm anxious to try the mixed starter bread that everyone has done so beautifully. <edited for weird typo>

Don't know what my worst pressie would be but one of the best was my Kichenaid mixer that my dad gave me. LOVE IT! Use it all the time, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Dorie, count me as one of those that would love to hear stories too. Makes the book feel more personal! For those of you looking at getting bannetons, the San Francisco Institute of Baking seems to have them at an excellent price: http://www.sfbi.com/oc.shtml I think I'll order from them if it's no probs for them to ship 'em to me over in Oz. (No affiliations. I only found out about SFBI last week when I did a tour of one of our fabulous atisan bakeries here. One of the owners said he bought all of their bannetons from there b/c of the good price.)

mdt: where'd ya get the basket for your walnut bread? Do you use plastic or wood? I'm looking at getting some of those baskets so any tips you provide would be greatly appreciated!

Those epis look absolutely perfect. Well done!

Do you all have ovens that get hot enough to do the matzoh? (If I recall it calls for something like 500 degrees!) My oven doesn't go that hot otherwise I'd definitely give it a try.