The Cheese Board Lives in Astoria

Hello! I have brought a little bit of The Cheese Board, aka the most amazing bakery in the Bay Area here with me to Astoria. I am a proud owner of their cookbook, which rocks, and since I had all this sourdough starter (and was holding a grudge against Cook's Illustrated), I decided to try their sourdough recipe. It worked very very well.

So, I decided to make Zampanos - sourdough rolls with red pepper flakes and Parmesan (my little sister's all time favorite) and Bialys (a Jewish classic - sourdough with onions and poppy seeds). Luckily, they both have the same basic dough, which is pictured here:



On Meredith's advice, I needed it a lot longer than before. I meant to do 15 minutes, but I got really caught up in it and ended up kneading the dough for 45 minutes. Whoops! It worked out, so no worries. See how the dough is not sticky and flat? Yeah, that's my awesome kneading. Yay for me. So here is my beautiful Zampano!


Yeah, it tastes good. You should have one. And here is the Bialy:



I still have some starter left, so I can keep making things. I might try the sourdough pancakes that Meredith posted a few weeks ago. But I won't blog about it, so as not to keep copying her.

Also, everyone should be impressed that I figured out how to post my pictures better. Thanks to Meredith. Again.