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12/16/2024

We’re wrapping up this year of revisiting old favorites with a Christmas-time classic: Stollen. When we celebrated the mighty, mighty Okapi back in 2012, this was 📷 Meggles’s first animal bread. And the rest is history.

Rich with rum-soaked dried fruits, toasted nuts, almond paste, warm spices, citrus peel, and chocolate chips, this bread celebrates the holiday season in style. This time around, we’re using it to honor the surprisingly small but mighty Gyrfalcon. These guys weigh, on average, about 1/5 of this loaf of bread and are still used as effective hunting birds. That has nothing to do with Xmas. It’s just really cool.

Happy holidays y’all. See you in 2025 with more related shenanigans. Or maybe it won’t be bread. Who knows. We’re rebels over here.

12/13/2024

Bandicoots

What can we say about bandicoots that hasn’t already been said? Amirite? (Something,something marsupial…something, something video game character….)

Honestly, we didn’t really learn a thing about these little guys last month. In the hustle and bustle of the beginning of the holiday season, we were all so busy that we kinda had to phone in our usual monthly celebration since we couldn’t all get together for it.

But bread had to be had nonetheless. And what better bread to remake and update than this one, originally made to celebrate the mighty, mighty walrus waaaay back in 2013. It goes great with Thanksgiving leftovers with all those toasted nuts and seeds and dried fruit and whatnot.

Trail Mix Baguette v2.0

Original photo credit- 🥑
Original Metallica shirt credit- probably Hot Topic?
New Metallica shirt credit-

11/11/2024

Dessert Improv, Leftovers edition:

One of the real joys of making so may different products regularly is that “seeing through the matrix” moment when you look in the fridge and the light goes on both inside the cold box and above your head. You say to yourself, “Hey, there’s a fun dish in here” and you just go ahead and plate up something awesome with leftovers and scraps just for funsies.

Caramel jam and chocolate cremeaux from last month’s animal bread. Frozen passion fruit curd cubes from ’s bday cake. Homemade graham crumbs frozen since pi day. Tempered chocolate thingy from something or other. Awesome jet black cocoa marshmallows made by 🦇 and 📷. The last couple of strawberries 🍓that were in the fridge. The only fresh made thing on here is a quenelle of whipped cream.

10/31/2024

This month’s was chosen by 📷Meg and boy did she ever tee us up with a winner for spooky season! The tiny and adorable Painted Bat of Thailand is tailor made for celebrating the Halloween season with its beautiful black and orange coloring and so are the orange painted chocolate bats decorating the top of this Halloween “cruffin” (flakey, buttery croissant dough baked in a muffin tin). In this case it’s filled with rich milk chocolate cremeaux topped with salted caramel because all the best Halloween candies have those things …and we will take no questions on that!

(BTW- Since this is the year of reinventing past favorites, the Lowland Streaked Tenrec got a cruffin in Sept ‘21.)

10/09/2024

Fifteen years ago, I made one of the most fateful statements of my life. It was September 2009 and I was starting to get into bread baking in a serious, professional way. I’d met Kristin and Meredith only a few weeks before and I came over to their home one day with a loaf of challah that I’d made at work. It was hastily wrapped in a piece of parchment paper secured with blue tape.

We sat in the kitchen talking and the conversation turned to their newly minted “Animal of the Month Club.” The idea was that they’d choose an animal every month to honor and learn about and share fun facts and memes and such. They’d only just started in August with Elephants. September was the month of the Orca and as we talked I absentmindedly started doodling an orca on the parchment around the bread. And then we ate the bread. And the bread was good, or at least good enough for my limited skills at the time. (It wasn’t great but ‘Orca Bread’ was born.) I needed practice. I needed structure. I needed a challenge.

And then I said it. “Hey…if you guys keep up this animal thing and include me in it, I’ll make you a bread for each animal you do.” Kristin & Mer came through. And my life hasn’t been the same since. Fifteen years, 153 animals, and countless recipes later, I see every new month and every new animal as a new hill to climb. I could spend a lifetime baking breads and treats for people and always have had more to learn but this recurring challenge has been the heartbeat of my year for more than half of my career.

And I’ve learned so many useless facts about animals I’d never have heard of. (You wouldn’t believe how some of them reproduce. Just sayin’)

I’ve done a drawing on parchment each month to keep up that part of the tradition as well, though, full disclosure, it’s always a tracing. I can’t draw for s**t. (Check out the bottom of this month’s drawing to see what happens when I try to draw freehand.) We keep them taped up on the wall at home and looking at that wall gives me a really proud feeling of accomplishment.

And it’s safe to say that the taking and posting of photos and video has made this project all the more special. I owe Meg 📷 a lot for her efforts. That was all her idea.

This month: The adorable Longhorn Cowfish, aptly honored with the first bread we ever did. Vanilla Glazed Challah v2.0

Epilogue: The 🐘 never got a bread of its own and surely will never forget this insult.

Here’s to many, many more.
Justin

08/19/2024

Summer is fading fast and we’re holding on tight with both hands! Earlier this month we went 🍑 picking at Mood's Farm Market in New Jersey and thought the bounty of that trip needed to find its way into the for August.

Waaaaay back in September 2012 we honored the Tiger with a Peach & Balsamic Vinegar Focaccia, because black and orange. (This month’s animal, the , sports no such coloring but peaches happen now and so here we have it.)

We rarely took bread photos back then so this one needed an update a decade later (now in sandwich form featuring burrata, which is a cheesy delight that we hadn’t even heard of back then.)

Coming soon: Next month is the 15th anniversary of our first animal bread!

07/14/2024

Cookie Cutter Sharks…what can we say. They look terrifying. That’s the main takeaway on these guys. But this 🍓bread on the other hand, she’s a beauty. July’s is a throwback to 2013 when we first made it to honor the mighty, mighty capybara and 📷 Meggles has been awaiting its triumphant return ever since.

Dried strawberries, raw pine nuts, fresh basil, and semolina flour went into this toasty, savory, and sweet loaf. This time we truly went to the source. Anna Marie Ferreira took us berry picking at Rowand’s Farm back in May and we dried and saved some of our bounty just for this purpose. (Also, some of the basil in the bread came from the very plant you see in the photo. It doesn’t get more local than this.)

Strawberry, Basil, & Pinenut Bread 🍓🌿

07/01/2024

L👀k at those pictures!!

This month’s , specially made to honor the for 🏳️‍🌈 month, is a real stunner. We first made rainbow croissants back in early 2018 to celebrate the Rainbow Mantis Shrimp, and they came out great even then. But boy howdy has our photo and video game improved since then. (Check out the bts reel we posted and scroll through for some process shots.) And how could we not bring them back to celebrate Pride Month?

Let’s also take notice of the amazing work photographer Meg did on the doodle this month. (Chef Justin is usually just a tracer and we all know it. She really raised the bar on this one.)

Thanks also to The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College for the use of the sheeter. It made rolling and laminating an absurd amount of kerrygold butter into this dough a real pleasure. Just. Look. At. Those. Layers!!

Lastly, to the Galaxy Frog: we still know almost nothing about you. But, you are tiny. You are beautiful. You are mysterious and we are so very glad to have learned that you exist.

06/21/2024

. A silly name for a silly looking bird.

But there’s nothing silly about this . This is serious bread with serious flavor. We went aaaaallll the way back in the archives to 2012 to update and improve this recipe. (When we originally celebrated the , sadly we got no pictures, but trust us, this was an improvement. Dutch oven baking wasn’t a thing we’d tried yet back then and the grain mill only joined the team in 2018 or so.)

Freshly milled rye flour and soaked whole rye berries gave this bread a real earthy, hearty flavor (and we did promise last month that the duck fat from the bao bar would get put to good use!)

Duck Fat Sourdough Rye v2.0

05/09/2024

Here’s to the mighty Dugong! And a mighty redo!

Eleven(ish) years ago, we honored the equally mighty Flamingo with Char Siu Bao, our favorite dim sum steamed bun. And it was….okkkaaayy, we guess. It was Chef Justin’s first foray into Chinese baking and it tasted great, don’t get us wrong. But it looked…a bit rough and ready (to steal a line from The Great British Bake Off.)

And so this month’s animal bread post is an installment of “how it started/how it’s going.” And it is going much better these days, if we do say so ourselves. Just look at Photographer Meg’s camera work!

This build-your-own bao bar, including roast pork, duck, & all the fixin’s was super tasty and we hope we did April’s proud.

Preview alert - tune in this month to see what happens with all the delicious rendered duck fat!

04/24/2024

In celebration of the 15th year of , we’ll be digging back through deep storage to find and put out breads that never got released for one reason or another. The first up, the B***y, from Aug 2018.

What can we say? We’re literalists around here. The connection on this bread to the name of the creature of the month from Aug ‘18 should be fairly clear, thought the name actually means “Brioche of the Head”, this might conjure up images of parts further south than the cranial region.

Buttery and wonderful, brioche may be the richest of all the classic breads.

***y

04/21/2024

It’s chaos over here! Anarchy! (Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!)

The program celebrated the mighty, mighty halibut this March by stepping way, way out of the box. Chef Justin didn’t even bake this beauty!

Last month, volunteered to take on the awesome responsibility of baking in service of the critter of the month and she didn’t disappoint. Right on time for St. Patty’s Day, the Guinness Cake was a welcome treat. And when asked about her thought process, the answer was pure poetry:

“F**k this fish. I dunno anything about it. I just decided to go with March.”

04/20/2024

Four years ago was our 100th animal bread, which we celebrated by honoring the mighty, mighty Centipede (naturally) and instead of making just one bread in its name, we spent a very memorable day hanging in the kitchen with friends baking and eating multiple breads. The Dragon Tail Baguette was one (check out that post from Feb 2020 to see the full family photo), but we’ve brought it back because of its perfect resemblance to the rattle end of a rattlesnake, the animal of the month for this past February. (We also made some epi and a plain baguette you’ll see in the photo because why not.)

The homemade butter was literally because “no time to go to the store for fancy butter. I’ll just make my own” seemed like a reasonable statement early on a Sunday morning. Scroll through for behind the scenes footage.

03/18/2024

Another Pi(e) Day is in the books! (This one was lucky #13, btw.) And this year was a total banger.

It was only a few weeks before the big day and Chef Justin was experiencing a bit of a creative block with the menu. He put on the Beatles White Album to unwind and was promptly swallowed by the couch. He was awoken a short time later by photographer Meg who had a slew of flavor suggestions with a little wink & nudge. How about Tangerine? Cherry? Honey & Almond? Coffee? Coconut Fudge?

Inspired by The Beatles “Savoy Truffle,” a track near the end of the White Album penned by George Harrison which was itself inspired by the sweets found in a box of Mackintosh’s chocolates, we translated the Fab Four’s song into our pi(e) buffet with the addition of a few classics that have become mainstays of our annual tradition.

03/15/2024

In honor of Pi(e) Day, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorites from irrational days past.

Motherf*ckin’ Chicken Pot Pie
2021 Family Photo
2020 Passionfruit Grapefruit
2019 Tart Au Citron
2023 Pistachio Sour Cherry
2019 Ratatouille Pie
2020 Loko Quiche
2022 Chocolate Cremeux Raspberry
2023 Bango (Banana Mango)
2020 Tart Arlette

02/26/2024

Its 2024 and during this year we will mark the 15th(!) anniversary of the animal/bread of the month program. We could have had no idea when this started that we’d still be doing it and sharing it with all of you each month.

For this whole year, our monthly will be reaching back into the archives (yes, we have a spread sheet) to redo, reimagine, reinterpret, or just remake favorites from the early days, before we thought to take pics or share them with anyone.

The story on this one comes from Kristin Harkins, who’s been right there along with this whole shebang since day 1:

“Fun fact: This month’s bread is also a blast from the past. The previous iteration (celebrating the peaceful, chlamydia-prone non-bear, the koala) was baked and devoured in December of 2009, when this monthly odyssey was still in its infancy. I’ve always ranked it among the top of our monthly treats, and have harbored a not-so-secret desire for another taste. It’s been an open question, however, as to whether the magic came from the onion braid itself, or the circumstances of its consumption — a whole loaf gobbled in one sitting, in a dimly lit coffee shop basement on a cold winter’s night.

Well, the verdict is in. Cheddar onion braid 2.0 (bonobo bread) maintained the savory, salty, cheesy goodness of the original, with the addition of a soupçon of nostalgia, and a bit of awe at how long this little project has lasted and how lucky I am to continue to reap its delicious rewards - originals and remixes alike.”

01/20/2024

Making this year’s anniversary cake, as we have been honored to do every December for the last 13 years, was bittersweet (and not just because of the absurd amount of chocolate that went into this one. Details on the cake below with illustration by the great )

Just under a week before the event, we learned that David April, the founder of the , had lost his years long battle with cancer. We at Tulip Street Kitchen have been proud members of FBR for more than a decade and we owe a great debt to David. Our whole group mourns his loss as we celebrate his legacy, including completing another trip around the sun with the Beer Runners.

It’s said that many people have two families. There’s your “biological” family, the one you’re born into. And then there’s your “logical” family, the people you choose to surround yourself. FBR is more than just a running group. It has been our logical family for a very long time and the loss of a family member dealt us a real blow. It will hopefully draw us that much closer to each other moving forward as we continue to run and drink and laugh and give and love together.

To that end:
Holiday Yule Log, Vanilla Whipped Ganache, Chocolate Covered Cherry Filling with Rough Puff Stout, Puffed Rice & Milk Chocolate Crispy Base, Whipped Dark Chocolate Ganache Icing, Many Chocolate Garnishes.

12/17/2023

but we’re celebrating the Maned Wolf, November’s , with this Cranberry Curd Tartlet with Toasted Almond & White Chocolate Decoration.

As November marks the transition from the turkey/cranberry-related holiday into the Xmas holiday, this month’s is living in both worlds as well.

Cranberries are turned into a tart and delicious curd filling for a buttery, slightly salted tart shell. The toasted almond-white chocolate decoration has enough sweetness to cut through the cranberry’s bite.

Also Maned Wolves are adorable, yet stinky and they’re surprisingly into apples. Who knew?

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It’s frickin bats! 🦇 #animalbread #paintedbatofthailand #cruffin #tulipstreetkitchen #tulipsweetkitchen

This month’s #animalbread, specially made to honor the #galaxyfrog for 🏳️‍🌈 month, is a real stunner. We first made rainbow croissants back in early 2018 to celebrate the Rainbow Mantis Shrimp, and they came out great even then. But boy howdy has our photo and video game improved since then. And how could we not bring them back to celebrate Pride Month? Let’s also take notice of the amazing work photographer Meg did on the doodle this month. (Chef Justin is usually just a tracer and we all know it. She really raised the bar on this one.)Thanks also to @walnuthillcollege for the use of the sheeter. It made rolling and laminating an absurd amount of @kerrygold butter into this dough a real pleasure. Just. Look. At. Those. Layers!! Lastly, to the Galaxy Frog: we still know almost nothing about you. But, you are tiny. You are beautiful. You are mysterious and we are so very glad to have learned that you exist.