This is one of those recipes that comes across my inbox and is just irresistible. First, there’s the photo. I mean, isn’t it amazing? I see something like this and I am just dying to learn how to make it. You can see photos of mine below. It doesn’t look quite as “woolly” as the original, but it’s pretty close!

The name is because the loaf should look like a skein of yarn. I think I made my “yarn strands” too thin (this will surprise absolutely no-one who has been reading this blog), so the result was a loaf with less definition in the yarn effect.

One key change I made was to make this a savory loaf rather than sweet. The recipe allows for this. Instead of cream cheese, sugar, and raspberries, I went with sharp cheddar and crumbled bacon. It was basically wonderful, and I happily ate every bit of it. It was easy to make the woolly strands, and the effect was pretty.

One thing that I noticed with this loaf, though, is that making regular yeast-raised bread (as opposed to sourdough), while faster and easier, is just not as flavorful. My sourdough isn’t particularly sour, but it just has a more interesting dimension to it that I miss when it’s not there. That realization is motivating me to try using sourdough as the leavening in some recipes that call for yeast. I basically don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s fun to try.

I wonder if this loaf would have benefited from throwing some spices into the dough… cracked pepper, cayenne, something… ?

As Christine likes to say, though, “I managed to choke it down”. 😋