Boulanger itinérant / Baker on the Go

To date, Rebecca Anderson has raised over $8,200—much more than she had ever thought possible. Given that there is still time to raise money, and that there is never enough money for causes as important as this one, she now has her sights set on $10,000. To help her get there, we have put together a bread making class that we’ve dubbed Raising Dough for Cancer.

If you love food as much as we do, this event is for you! A fantastic cookbook store in Westmount, Appetite for Books, is hosting the three-hour class in their picture-perfect teaching kitchen, where I will share some recipes, including those for Boston Brown Bread, Mini Rustic Buns, Homemade Breadsticks, and a divine Chocolate Brioche. Served alongside the bread will be dips and sides by Vanessa Laberge, chef de cuisine at Olive+Gourmando, and a couple of nice glasses of wine (generously donated by Philippe Dandurand Wines) to wash it all down. If that wasn’t enough, each participant will take home a copy of one of my favourite cookbooks, Flatbreads and Flavours by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Harper Collins Canada). Put it all together and you have the perfect recipe for an educational, scrumptious, entertaining and rewarding evening.

Tickets for Raising Dough for Cancer are $125 per person with a maximum of 10 participants. If you are interested in breaking bread with us, please contact Rebecca by email or call her at 515 524 9225.

If you simply want to make a donation, there’s still time: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2194899.

Thanks,
Marc-André and Rebecca

Surveillez l’émission télé L’Épicerie aux ondes Radio-Canada le mercredi 30 septembre à 19h30.

J’ai eu le plaisir de tourner un clip avec eux dernièrement sur le pain brun vapeur. Quel plaisir! M. Denis Gagné et toute l’équipe étaient si sympathiques et très professionels.

Vous trouverez ma recette de Boston brown bread dans la section Recettes. Laissez-moi savoir ce que vous en pensez!

Tune in to Radio-Canada’s L’Épicerie TV show on Wednesday, September 30 at 7:30 p.m.

I had the pleasure of filming a clip recently on steamed brown bread. What a pleasure! Denis Gagné and the whole crew were so friendly and very professional.

You’ll find my recipe for Boston brown bread in the Recipe section. Let me know what you think!

I’m really excited about a special bread baking workshop I’m trying to put together for sometime in September.
My dear friend Rebecca Anderson from Hello Darlin’ Productions has joined Team in Training in the hope of raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada and together with the friendly folks at Appetite for Books bookstore we’ve decided that a bread workshop could be a fun and tasty way to do some good.
The “Raising Dough for Cancer” workshop will feature a bunch of different bread recipes, some inspired by books available at the shop. With this demonstration workshop, I hope to demystify the bread baking process; I’ll cover some of the basics as well as show you some interesting techniques that will help you get started in home bread baking. It promises to be a pleasant evening talking about and tasting bread.
Proceeds from the evening will be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada.
Check out Rebecca’s personal fund-raising page and see what it’s all about: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2194899.

More details available soon, so keep checking in to see where we’re at…
In the meantime, take a look at what Michelle and Jonathan are cookin’ up at the coolest bookstore in town:
http://www.appetitebooks.ca/

Hope to see you there!

I’m looking forward to some summertime travelling to south-eastern New Brunswick and Toronto.
If you have any suggestions for yummy and interesting baked goods I should check out,
please send me a note at info@marcandrecyr.com. Thanks!

Before Christmas, I taught a couple of bread making classes at the new Cuisine Gourmet store on Monkland Avenue, in N.D.G. They were small groups: 4-5 kids at a time. We sat at the low kid-sized table to weigh our ingredients, mix, knead, and eventually eat our bread. I think the kids dug it. In fact, they usually wanted to share the fruits of their labour with the customers wandering through the store. They even helped with the clean up. Sure, it’s not hardcore fancy baking but you know what I realized? … The actual bread recipes don’t matter. What’s important is the process itself and all that comes out of that. The little curious, hyper kid gets a chance to sit with a “real live” baker in his impressive chef’s whites and gets careful answers to all his questions, no matter how “unrelated” (“How tall do you have to be to be a baker? Does dough taste good raw? Will I get big muscles from kneading the dough?”). The shy, klutzy seven-year-old gets to make a mess with the flour and water and gets told that it’s all good and that, actually, it’s a necessary part of the process so she shouldn’t feel bad.
Some of the bread we made looked amazing and some looked a little scary, but boy were those kids proud of what they’d done! I swear some of them even looked a little taller when they left.

I did The Baker’s Brunch workshop at Les Touilleurs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. What a treat! It’s gotta be one of the nicest kitchens to work in, and the participants were quite a wonderful bunch.

As usual, François Longpré was a generous and gracious host. The workshop menu included english muffins, rustic buns, Boston brown bread and a couple of other goodies.

The fun and friendly group from my brunch workshop on Wednesday night.

Fun, fun, fun!

Julian Armstrong’s article was in today’s paper:

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=149b03a2-8fce-47d4-8945-adf0b755f6c5

Hope you like it!

Cheers,

Marc

The recipe I submitted to Bakers Journal magazine was published in a supplement called the Bakers Journal Recipe Collection 2008 – Baking Across Canada. Needless to say, I am very pleased. Bakers Journal is a national magazine that covers all kinds of baking activities from small scale bakeries to large producers of baked goods. It’s an honour to be included.

I submitted a recipe for Roasted Tomato Bread. Mmmmm, delicious!

I’ll post the recipe, as it appeared (probably in pdf. format) very soon so keep checking in or subscribe.

Cheers,

Marc

I had the pleasure of meeting Julian Armstrong from the Montreal Gazette a couple of days ago. She came over with a photographer, Natasha Fillion, for an interview and to take some photos of me making bread at home. Good times! Julian was preparing her yearly list of Montreal-area cooking schools and classes for publication on September 17th. (Stay tuned, I’ll post a link once it’s available.)

That morning, I had made three Boston brown breads, a loaf of NKB (no-knead bread) and a bunch of little rustic buns. When the ladies arrived, I made us some espresso then we got to work. I started weighing up, Julian started asking questions. I started mixing and kneading, Natasha started snapping shots. We talked about the Slow Food movement, the Montreal baking scene, the Bread Bakers Guild of America, Red Fife wheat, bread machines, butter versus margarine – we were all over the place, it was great.

We cut into the NKB first of course, Julian was intrigued, she hadn’t tried this bread yet.  It didn’t disappoint. With a generous spread of butter, wow! She loved it. Natasha, meanwhile was very curious about the Boston brown bread. Again, butter made its way onto the slices…Delicious! She loved it. In fact, they both left for home with their own Boston bread.

For the pictures, I made a dough with white flour (Moulin Abenakis all-purpose) and whole wheat flour (Speerville Mills Red Fife organic wheat). A nice and sticky one, probably not the ideal dough texture to reassure people that bread is easy to make but hey, I’m sure it’s gonna look cool in the photos.

The Gazette feature that will come out of this should be good for business, I hope. I’m looking forward to doing more workshops with folks in their kitchens and hearing their bread stories.