Continuing the experiment in my kitchen: sourdough pretzel

I feel that the winter of New York has come to the peak (maybe one of the peaks) of its power recently. Oh, yeah, I should mention the 'happening' snowstorm this week- yay snow-white New York/nah,,, snow-ruined traffic...

I'm always so late in sensing what's going on. Like this time, I didn't even do my regular weekly grocery shopping, while all my friends go crazy stocking up their fridge (btw, it was said that the electricity system might shut down because of the snow) and got back telling me that supermarkets were empty...

Luckily, until now things are fine. The graduate school is closed for today (Tuesday) but lab buildings are all open lol. I'm enjoying looking at the now through my window, writing this blog and procrastinating to go to work lol...

Excited about the snow, I'm actually the kinda of person who hates coldness to death (a leftover effect of an extremely unforgettable, chilled camping trip.) So since the winter came, I have cut most of my outdoor activities out. My typical weekends now normally include some leftover labwork, some youtube time, and baking!

I'm obsessed with chewy&crunchy texture when it comes to bread, crunchy crusts, bagels and PRETZEL!!! (which gives you both). For this recipe, my secret ingredient to give the perfect brown crust is lye wash. Dissolve 30g lye in 1000ml water, soak your shaped pretzel doughs in for ~30s, bake them at 400F for 20min, and voila~

I used a similar recipe making these bagels.

All recipes using lye wash also say something like "lye is EXTREMELY dangerous so take EXTRA cautions!" Ah I know, it is just like doing experiment in the kitchen. Wait, experiment- I can handle it XD

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First bread in my new kitchen: Thomas Keller's multigrain batard

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Isn't spring the moving season? Yes, to me I guess as I've been moving for two years in a row at this time of year. Sadly I finally moved out from the glorious upper east side of New York after being there for 4 years (can't believe! is it that long already??), to the "humble" Queens.. However, after I moved in, I'm starting to love my neighborhood. There is actually quite a few to explore and to discover (I mean, hmm, restaurant) in Queens. Indeed, I can't just improvise to make a call to order some Chinese food delivered to my door, or walk to the French bakery a few blocks away whenever I want. Luckily I can opt to make my own. With a good multigrain bread, some jam/spread, slices of good cheese, I am considering myself having a perfect breakfast/brunch. Of course, the world is even better if there is a cup of tea :) Multigrain batards are the most frequently-ordered bread I do in store- they're crust...

Continue the whole crepe theme: cocoa& banana infused crepe cake

I've been making crepe cakes in a row for three weeks! That sounds ridiculous even to myself, but I just like to keep practicing one recipe until I finally feel happy about it. As a result, I never get the have the 'beliked' cakes often. Now, after my crepe cake battle, I did learn some tricks, especially about how to have really thin crepes. Let's have some troubleshooting, shall we? For those who are not familiar with crepe cakes, or care only about how they taste but never bother to know how they're made, crepe cakes are assembled by layers of crepes, filled with cream in between. To make a crepe cake, you make the crepes individually, let them cool, and layer them to compose the cake with the cream as 'glue'. The whole process is nothing fancy, just get your 'bricks and cement' ready and be a good builder! What is tricky are the quality of your materials, in other words, to get your crepes as thin as possible. There are professional crepe ...

Chocolat in my bread- meet my cocoa&chestnut sourdough light rye bread XD

As a phD student who is "with all her heart" devoted to science and conquering cancer- lol just kidding... by which I mean life is kinda boring and simplified- I figure that I really need to have some serious hobbies! Baking of course pops up first and it has been more or less my weekly routine. But recently I got to think that I should more or less expand a little bit. Let's say, after I baked this bread (baking), I spent time taking pictures of it (photography), I posted it on my blog (blogging), and I need to work out to burn out the calories the bread brought me (jogging and rock climbing). See, now I have quite a few hobbies lol. Part of the above is joking, but I've never really doing something consistently for long, so I really hope I'm going to putting new stuffs in my blog. And I met so many cool friends while climbing, and I never expected I would be enjoying it so much! As I've been baking artisan bread for a while, I'm consisten...

A touch of Claire- baking, cooking& life

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