Sunday morning: fresh air, fresh coffee, sweetened sourdough

After walking my dog this morning in the rain scoured and wind freshened air, I returned to the apartment to brew coffee, wash dishes and to set out dough to rise. While my coffee brewed, I washed some blueberries and put them over soy yogurt. That I ate with some whole grain toast and a café au lait (de soja). Although I have stacks of papers to check, I'm wasting a bit of time updating this here blog. [[Grading papers sucks. If there were some way to teaching in truly a Socratic fashion, I'd be happy. No grades, no seemingly arbitrary curriculum, but pure discovery. That'd be an educational Utopia, for me anyway.]

For the past several months, I've been experimenting with home grown sour dough starter. Until I conducted a small amount of research on the toile mondiale, I thought it was some great secret known only to chuck wagon cooks and San Franciscan artisan bread bakers. Hah! It's a delightful accident of nature. One cup of flour (whole grain, baby, whole grain!) and one cup of filtered water mixed well and left to stand from 1 to 24 hours, and then you've got sourdough starter. Wow. So, for about six months now, I've had a continuously cultured batch of starter, separating and feeding it about every 7 to 10 days, using about 1/3 to make more starter, the rest in a loaf of bread. Here's my recipe for the dough that's rising now.

• 2/3 cup sourdough starter
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 3 cups whole grain AP flour
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 3 Tbsp soy margarine
• 100% whole wheat flour for dusting

I just threw it all in my trusty KitchenAid and let the machine work until the dough became a smooth, fat ball. I put the ball into a greased, tightly lidded plastic container to chill in the refrigerator over night. I took the container out of the refrigerator this morning, and I'm going to allow it to rise as long as needed until it has doubled and bulk. Natural yeasts can take quite a long time to rise bread, but it's all so worth it! Then I plan to form it into two baguettes, then allow those to rise a bit longer. Then I'll bake them until they are deeply golden brown and have that lovely hollow thump when tapped. I'm the only one home, and these generally don't last more than three days. They're wonderful with breakfast, with lunch, with dinner, or with a snack. Okay, I'm addicted to bread. My midsection is a witness to that.

The rest of my papers await this Mother's day for my pen to score points and then this little computer demands that I update the grade records so that I can distribute progress reports to my students. [See notes above about Socratic methods.]

Early birthday cake

Tuesday, my son will have completed 14 years on this Earth. He asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for the party we had today to celebrate while he is with me this weekend. I was happy to oblige. At least when it comes to sweets, he and I are often on the same page. The recipe was very much like the one I posted for the chocoberry cupcakes except for the following substitutions:

• 1 ½ cups white cake flour
• 1 ½ cups whole grain all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons of black cocoa
• 6 ounces vanilla soy yogurt
• 8 ounces total of cold black coffee and plain soy milk
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

To get the height I wanted, I used three 8" round dark cake pans that I first greased with shortening and then lined with rounds of baking parchment. I baked the cakes all at once at 350°F for 23 minutes. Luck was with me, as they were perfect. After about 15 minutes of cooling in the pans on wire racks, I turned them out, removed parchment and allowed them to cool completely, several hours actually.

For the icing, I used ½ cup kosher margarine, ¼ cup shortening, 1 ½ lbs. 10X confectioner's sugar, 3 squares unsweetened Baker's chocolate (melted), and several tablespoons of soy "cream" blended on medium-low speed until very creamy and spreadable.

The three layers stay positioned nicely if you insert three toothpicks each time you stack a layer while icing. They hold the cake in place easily, but do warn those about to enjoy so that no one injures his or her mouth (see the photo). Finishing off my son's wish for total chocolate enjoyment, I topped it with chocolate jimmies. Serving it with vanilla ice cream cuts some of the rich flavor for those with less of a sweet tooth (John and I had soy ice cream, but the kids had Breyer's All Natural).

For a little fun, I positioned my son's 14 candles à la romaine: XIV. He got a kick out of it. Unfortunately, he has a bit of a cold, so I had to blow out the candles for him. He should still get his wish!

A long weekend

Three days to rest & relax
With too many hours at video games,
Glazed eyes reflect the LCD.
Alarm clock's disabled so there's only
The gentle lift of café au lait
To soothe & revive me.
The quiet of late winter snow
Melts too quickly.
The brilliant white blanket
Disintegrates,
Erased from view but not from memory.
Photographic bytes & bits
Pointed & clicked into sepia warmth
Capture an excited dog's antics
Pixelated by 10 million
Turning the day into a White Christmas,
An unexpected gift to be cherished
God-sent on the tiniest fluttering angelic wings.
The purity of new fallen snow
Hides the sins of apartment dwellers
For one morning
All is an illuminated Eden.
Under the smoothed rubber sole of a Gortex lined boot,
There's first the gentle crunch and then the easy slosh.
Everything is temporary,
And in Georgia
Le temps des neiges s'enfuit trop vite.