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Crumb Pancakes

1 cup bread crumbs (not dried)

1 tablespoon sweetener, OR

whatever flavoring seems right

1 cup buttermilk

½ cup whole wheat flour, scant

½ teaspoon soda

1 large or 2 small eggs, slightly beaten

These are very flavorful, and if the crumbs are made from light bread, the pancakes are at least as light as normal ones. If you have rye bread crumbs, serve the pancakes with yogurt and applesauce: wow!

The taste, the texture, and especially the sweetness of the bread you use will make them different every time, so vary the amount of the added sweetener as seems appropriate to you.

Soak the crumbs and flavoring in the milk for several hours. Sift together the flour and soda. Add these and the eggs to the bread crumb mixture and drop like pancakes on a hot, seasoned griddle. Makes 6 to 8.

Tykmaelk

This simple and satisfying dish could be breakfast or lunch or a midnight snack. It is presented as fondly remembered from a year in Copenhagen, where it is a specialty at the famous Strawberry Cellar restaurant.

ELEGANT VERSION, QUITE AUTHENTIC

Choose large shallow soup bowls that hold about 1 ½ cups. Heat enough rich, unhomogenized milk to fill them, warming it slowly so that it is gradually reduced in volume by onefourth. Cool to 120°F. Stir in fresh yogurt, about a teaspoonful per bowl, and pour the inoculated milk into the bowls. Keep them at about 90° to 100°F for 3 to 4 hours, or until set. The result should be softer than regular yogurt, and less sour. There will be a delicate creamy-yellow skin on the top. Chill.

Over each bowl of cultured milk, sprinkle about ½ inch of crunchy-chewy sourdough rye bread crumbs.

Serve with a small bowl of coarse brown sugar, which is to be sprinkled on top to taste.

QUICKER VERSION & NO EXCUSES

Use mild yogurt, kefir, or even good buttermilk. Put it in a cereal bowl. Over the top, sprinkle crumbs; if you don’t have sourdough rye, any innovation is fair. The sugar is optional if you aren’t being authentic.

Using (Accidentally) Saltless Loaves

A word here on the sad subject of (accidentally) saltless bread. Many people simply can’t abide the taste of toast or sandwiches made on such bread, and if you or yours fall into this group, use the loaves to make bread pudding, flavored crumbs, or any of the other recipes in this section that seem appropriate, depending on how heavy the bread is. Add 1 ¼ teaspoon of salt for each loaf’s worth of bread, mixing it into the recipe wherever it will be best absorbed by the bread. Note that if the bread did not rise well, you will not get 1 cup of cubes per slice: gauge the salt by the portion of the loaf that is included, whatever it is.

BREAD PUDDING

Dissolve the salt in the liquid, and give the pudding a little time to sit before you bake it, especially if the bread was heavy. Note that for most people, even sweet bread pudding needs some salt if the bread doesn’t have any.

CRUMBS & CROUTONS

Dissolve the desired salt in the flavoring mixture or in plain water or broth if you don’t want to add fat. Shake the mixture into the cubed bread or crumbs, making every effort to mix them evenly. Bake until crisp.

A Breadmaking Handbook

A Breadmaking Handbook

There are some wonderful gadgets that can make baking easier and even better, and in this section we talk about a few of them and give a lot of tips and information that can be helpful, too. But all this aside, the most important thing is that you get in there and start baking, however timid you’re feeling, whatever equipment you have at hand.

Whenever I begin to be dazzled by shiny pans, handturned bowls and fancy equipment, the figure of Walter Reynolds comes vividly to mind. I met him in the late sixties in Berkeley, a towering, white-bearded Dutchman, broad of chest, big of heart. Just then he was teaching a Free University course, Baking and Giving Away Bread. Even in those days, it was whole wheat all the way for him—but then he was ahead of his time in a lot of ways.