Softer Crust - Part II

How to achieve that elusive soft crust on home baked bread

Previously I wrote about tips and tricks to ensure that homemade bread (Irish brown bread in particular) doesn't suffer from an overly hard crust.  The adding of Oil and wrapping the bread in a tea-towel both help.

Recently I read that adding an egg would also help so I tried it last night.

Success !  This morning's bread is pretty much my best ever - here what I did:-

• Followed my basic Brown Bread Recipe
• Added two tablespoons Olive Oil
• Added one egg
• Lightly beat the egg and oil together before adding with the milk
  
• When finished baking, wrapped the bread in tea towel and allowed to cool
  

The result is slightly crumbly but definitely a softer crust.  Hooray!

Let it snow, let it snow....

Forecast for a MASSIVE 4cm of Snow today so no doubt the entire country will grind to a halt. Time to make some brown bread then!

Must try some ideas I read yesterday on how to keep the crust soft - I already use the damp tea-towel trick and the Olive Oil trick, to that I'll add the lightly beaten egg (new) trick and see how it turns out. Stay tuned.

http://irishbaker.blogspot.com/2007/01/for-softer-crust.html

Lemon Cookies - Zingly!

Lemon & Ginger == Sublime Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped
• 1 large egg
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp. lemon zest, freshly grated and divided
• 1/2 cup caster sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In bowl of electric mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add ginger, egg, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon zest; beat until combined. Gradually add flour mixture; mix well. Cover dough and chill 30 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine remaining zest and caster sugar; set aside.

Drop dough by heaping teaspoons, 2 inches apart, onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Dip the bottom of a glass into the lemon sugar mixture and flatten dough; repeat for all cookies. Place remaining lemon sugar mixture in a sifter and sift additional sugar over each cookie. Bake 9 to 12 minutes until edges begin to brown. Allow cookies to cool on sheet 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove to a cooling rack; cool completely. Store at room temperature in an airtight container with wax paper between layers for up to 1 week.... as if they'll last that long!

 Thanks to eatwisconsincheese.com