It's a snowy day here today...three days ago Caitlin and I started a little Lemon Anise Snowflake Bread project, so it seems fitting that the final product is arriving at the same time as all these other snowflakes. Twitter is a fun thing...I only Twitter with my online baking pals, and on any given day, someone is making something that somebody wants "in" on and away it goes...ingredients flying off the shelves in each of our kitchens.
Caitlin is a busy gal, recently getting married, enrolling in a prestigious graduate school, and setting up housekeeping. She loves to bake, so there is always something going on in her kitchen. This week she found this bread (click on recipe title to connect to bread recipe) she wanted to make, tweeted about it, mentioning that it had lemon in it, and it took me no time at all to click over and decide this was going to be a happening thing in my kitchen as well.
It was just so cute. I figured it would be fun to learn new techniques, and to be able to form and shape the bread like a snowflake sounded just plain fun. And, it was!
We made the sponge together late Friday afternoon, consoled each other with the lack of active rising with that, and headed into Saturday afternoon ready to mix and shape the final dough. Finally, this morning, we baked it together...well, sort of, her in her kitchen in North Carolina and me in mine in Indiana and all, but together at the same time.
The taste? Well, it is not a sweet bread but it isn't savory either. It doesn't have the typical crumb that I would expect in a yeast bread, but it didn't "not" have it either, just something a little different. The flavorings were great (okay, I left out the anise and added almonds...they both start with "A" and I figured lemon almond bread sounded just that much better to me) and after the first bite of not knowing quite what to expect, it kind of grows on you, being lemony and almondy and not too sweet but just a little bit. The powdered sugar on the top (I thought it was a nice touch to make it look a little more like a real snowflake) added just a bit of sweetness.
So now you know exactly, right? No? Well, I can't describe it any better than that, so you will just need to make it yourself, or ask Caitlin for her take on it all. Will I make it again? Well, I might, I just might, it was something a little different, and come on, it's lemony!