Breaking Bread on Spring
Cher Lectours! (Dear Readers!) Happy April!
With numerous bags and bowls of flour, jars of starter, and experimenting with Mediterranean ingredients such as kishk, trakhanas, and farina de grano arso - I‘m thrilled to share the pre-order link so you can get your hands on The Bread of Dreams Cookbook. Pre-order your copy.
So what about kishk? What is it besides wonderful? Here’s a quote about kishk from “Savory Baking from the Mediterranean by Anissa Helou. "Kishk is bulghur wheat fermented with yogurt, dried and ground to a floury consistency. Kishk is a flour-like mixture made by mixing bulgur wheat with yogurt and strained yogurt and letting it ferment for several days before drying it in the sun and then rubbing it and passing it through a sieve to produce the fine kishk powder. Kishk is used with garlic and preserved lamb (qawarma) to make a winter soup or it is mixed with olive oil, onions and tomatoes to make the topping for this bread. Kishk is an important part of Lebanese mountain people’s preserves and is prepared in the fall to use throughout the winter months. Sometimes I added coarsely ground walnuts to the topping which adds a nice crunch."
The pizza that everyone voted on as their favorite is the bread of dreams from Perpetua who is Mistress Antaia’s little grand daughter. And not to be outdone, here’s a dessert Trakhanas recipe from Mistress Antaia.
Sweet Trakhanas Cake with Yoghurt, Figs, and Honey
olive oil or butter, to grease the pan
1/2 cup red turkey wheat berries, cooked (we like the ones from our local producer, Red Tail Grains in Mebane, NC )
1 cup all-purpose organic flour
2 cups sweet trakhanas, cooked
1/2 cup apricot peel, cut into slivers
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon each baking soda and baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plain Greek whole-milk yogurt
3/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup each raisins or dried figs, cut in slivers
2 eggs
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
For the Syrup
1/2 cup honey, I used C'est si Bon! honey
1 cup hot water
1 sprig rosemary
peel of 1 orange
***
Make the cake
Heat the oven to 375.
Butter or oil an 8 x 8 inch square glass baking dish. Combine the cooked and cooled wheat berries with the cooked and cooled trakhanas, and the apricot paste.
In another large bowl combine the yogurt, orange juice, olive oil, with the raisins and figs, if using. Mix in the sugar, flour, baking powder, soda, and salt.
Add the wet ingredients to the wheat berry and trakhanas mixture and stir well to combine.
Pour the batter into the greased baking dish. Bake at 375 till light golden brown and the center tested comes out clean, about 40-45 minutes.
***
While the cake is baking, make a syrup from the orange peel, rosemary, honey and water. Simmer over low heat till a thick syrup forms. Maybe 10 minutes? Remove the rosemary and the orange peel before using.
When the cake comes out of the oven, make holes in the surface of the cake with a fork, and pour the hot syrup over the top of the cake. Cool before cutting into squares to serve.
LAUNCH NEWS
I am so excited to share the blurbs provided by my colleagues for the back cover of The Bread of Dreams Cookbook. I’ve included links to their websites and books, too.
Release date is May 1. Pre-order your copy.
ADVANCED PRAISE
FOR THE BREAD OF DREAMS
Dorette Snover’s Bread of Dreams is an enchanting companion to her novel Tales of the Mistress, an elegiac journey on the wings of a dream through her sixteenth-century Mediterranean characters, illustrated with fascinating, unique, and delicious-sounding recipes for a variety of breads and other foods. Bread of Dreams is a poetic tour-de-force with intriguing characters, wonders, and enticing recipes that will have you dreaming of bread.
Clifford A. Wright, Winner of the James Beard Cookbook of the Year and Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food for A Mediterranean Feast in 2000 and An Italian Feast 2023
The Bread of Dreams just might make you dream of not only heavenly breads, but also sweet cookies, rich stews, and rustic dishes that will make you wish for a time machine to take you back to an era when everyone cooked these luscious dishes.
Debra Borchert, author of Soups of Château de Verzat: A Literary Cookbook & Culinary Tribute to the French Revolution.
Ambrosial bread recipes based on ancient wisdom woven into a delightful tale of suspense lead the reader on a journey of discovery across the present-day Mediterranean, revealing the secrets of long-lost bread-making and Old-World languages and cultures as Epi searches for the bread of dreams and a lost mother.
Jonell Galloway, Contributor to Le Tour du Monde en 80 Pains
In The Bread of Dreams Dorette Snover takes her readers back in time to a world where Persephone roamed the fields and the goddess Hestia tended the hearth. Ancient grains of the Mediterranean that we are only now rediscovering: spelt, blue emmer, trakhanas and beyond return the taste of the olive orchard covered hills of yore to the bread basket. For those who’ve read the stories and savored the descriptions from her novel, Tales of the Mistress, as well as those who’ve yet to crack its cover, this much anticipated companion cookbook shares the savoir-faire of the past brought forward to our modern kitchens. Flavors and methods will delight the creative cook and enrich many a feast. Check the ingredients’ list, fill your pantry, and prepare to tempt your senses.
Madeleine Vedel, owner Provence Cooks LLC, Touring Company