Bread scares us, it relies too heavily on conditions beyond our control. Is the room too hot? Too cold? Is the yeast still active? And even if the dough seems stringy and flexible and it’s risen considerably — is there any way to really know whether the lump of wet flour will become into a fluffy and beautiful loaf?

We suffered a fright yesterday. Our recipe said that the dough would rise in two to three hours, but it didn’t. With no clue what to do, we guessed, kneading it down and then letting continue to rise for another four hours after that, until it had sufficiently doubled in size. Miraculously, it turned out. This always happens to us; disaster looms until the last minute and then somehow it all works. How? To quote a favorite movie: I don’t know, it’s a mystery.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts

Instructions:
Pulse flour and yeast together in the food processor for 5 seconds. Add water and pulse again until the dough forms a shaggy, sticky ball. Remove from the food processor, and add the nuts and cranberries. Place the dough ball in a bowl and cover lightly with plastic wrap or a towel. Let sit for 2-3 hours, until the ball has doubled in size. If yours doesn’t seem to be rising well, consider punching down or kneading it (requires more flour) and letting it continue to rise — don’t rush it into the oven. 30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450. Bake for 20 minutes, turn the oven to 350 and bake for an additional 25 minutes, till the crust has lightly browned. Remove, cool, slice, serve.

Before this week, my most recent attempt at challah was in pre-school, when I stood in line with 10 other kids for the chance to brush a stroke of egg yolk over the ready-to-bake loaf. But having graduated ourselves from the school of kneadless bread, Alex and I felt determined Saturday morning to try something more challenging and hopefully more rewarding. We chose challah, a Jewish sabbath bread, because it was the only recipe that didn’t require a trip to the grocery store.

Now I just said that baking challah is more challenging than baking kneadless bread which is true, but that doesn’t mean that the recipe is actually difficult — it’s not. The recipe calls for hours of waiting, so while the entire process takes a while, the actual work time is minimal. And each ounce of effort put into creating a challah will be rewarded x10 when you see how beautifully the dough rises into a golden loaf. We each gave a little yelp of joy when we first peeked into the oven.

Soft, sweet and eggy, challah begs to be lathered in honey, reborn into french toast, and pulled from the loaf in handfuls for mindless snacking.

Ingredients:
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp honey
3 eggs, plus 1 yolk
1 1/3 cups milk, warmed slightly
butter or non-stick spray for greasing a pan

Instructions:
Mix flour, yeast and salt together. Add honey, eggs and milk to the mixture, and knead together. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, using additional flour if necessary. Form the dough into a ball, and let it sit in a covered, greased bowl for at least 1 1/2 hours to rise. When you are ready to prepare the dough for baking, divide it into three pieces, and role each piece out into a long rope, about 15 inches. Braid the pieces, pinching the dough together at each end. Preheat the oven to 375, and let the dough sit while the oven heats. Before putting the dough in the oven, brush egg yolk over it. Bake for about 40-50 minutes, until golden.

We met Alex’s parents in New York this weekend, and they spoiled us like crazy: fancy brunch, a shopping spree at Zabar’s, a case of awesome wines… it was paradise. But the gift that truly set our hearts aglow (besides their wonderful company!) was the bag of fresh Connecticut apples.

We wanted to keep some of them for snacking, but a few begged to be baked into a delicious dessert, so we obliged. Of course, we turned to Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and his apple bread recipe did not disappoint. We made it our own healthier version with the usual whole wheat flour and smart balance substitutions. Moist and nutty, warm and aromatic, sweet and easy to bake, this could even work as a side dish or toasted for breakfast.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted smart balance
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups skim milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup apple, peeled and grated
1 cup walnuts, chopped

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, milk and butter together. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients, apples, and walnuts into it. Using a spatula, mix everything the batter together. It should be pretty lumpy. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake it for about an hour, until a knife comes out clean. Let it cool, then serve.

This recipe from Mark Bittman caused a huge stir on the interwebs a few months ago. But we are slow, and kept forgetting to buy yeast, so today marks our first attempt at the baking the famous kneadless bread. The New York Times video is no longer available, but you can check out the clip on YouTube instead. This recipe is AMAZING. Please make it, you will not regret it. It is as easy as it looks, and it tastes like a cloud, and now the apartment smells like a bakery. Yay.

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water

Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients together. Add water, pull the dough into a clump, and don’t knead it. Let it sit for 12 hours. Preheat the oven to 500. Fold dough into a loaf over some flour, and put it inside a preheated pot/cast-iron skillet/pyrex container. Bake it for 30 minutes covered, and 15 minutes uncovered. Let it cool, and eat it up.