Pumpernickel bread & Ukrainian Borscht
Borscht was easy. I have my trusted recipe. This time, I replaced 2 cup of 6 cup water with low-sodium beef broth, and used Russel potato instead of Yukon gold. The taste was great!
My Pumpernickel project was fun. First I needed a recipe. Quickly I run into a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. The pictures of the recipe's Russian Black Bread looked great while the recipe had a long ingredient list: surprisingly 17 ingredients!! I had had no idea what Pumpernickel is usually made from, so quickly checked a couple of bread recipe books on my bookshelf. I see, other recipes didn't call for many ingredients. Then, what did I do? Of course, I went with the 17 ingredient recipe. I like an experiment in chemistry.
I halved the recipe to make just one loaf. And I admit I used only 16 ingredients by skipping caraway seeds. Many would say it IS the core flavor of Pumpernickel bread, but I am not a big fan of caraway seeds. I doubled fennel seeds though, which have a milder, sweeter taste than caraway. The procedure was not complicated at all. The result was lovely moist bread with complex flavors! It would be my standard Pumpernickel bread.
