Panfusine

You know that a collective project is a success when you lose track of the number of bakes you've done, and yet when the name pops up, you seem to know exactly what went into that particular confection and (as is usually the case with me) what quirky tweak I incorporated. This month,  +Aparna Balasubramanian  's choice was a traditional Roman bun known as Maritozzi, based on a suggestion I gave her. I spotted this recipe on  +Food52  last month as part of a series on regional Italian food . I've been a fan of Emiko Davies' recipes on Food52 ever since I signed up to test  her recipe for grape jam dumplings  - Celli Ripieni - for a community pick. Her articles are a fabulous introduction to the simple home fare from various regions of Italy. When you see the recipe on Food52, the first thing you realize from Emiko's head notes is the number of tweaks and variations that this recipe can weather and still remain a robust and delicious. Well, Emi...

  Of all the breads baked this year, I must say October's challenge that Aparna Balasubramanian from My Diverse kitchen picked out  really gave me a run for the effort and conferred a whole new respect  for the simple sandwich bread. As easy as it is to pick up a bag of brown bread from the supermarket (which unfortunately just turns out to be caramel colored white bread most of the time), It was quite a surprise to discover the completely different taste and texture of the real thing. Whole wheat flour needs a lot of coaxing to create a good looking loaf, and one of the reasons it took  me some time to get around to this post was that the sandwich bread exercise was a tough lesson to master. I could make it right the first time, but it took 2 more loaves to really get the hang of it. This particular recipe is the brainchild of  Peter Reinhart , and makes use of an autolysing technique with 2 components a 'soaker' and a 'sponge'. Just take your time t...