All About the Yeast

White Bread

2010-07-05T19:08:00.003-06:00

This is not your store's "Wonder bread." This style of dough has many uses beyond that of just a loaf bread. One could make dinner rolls, hamburger buns and hot dog buns. It's often referred to as milk dough because in most version the hydration is primarily from fresh milk (or powdered milk and water).

These white breads fall into the category of enriched breads, as they are made with the used natural dough conditioners: fat (butter or oil), sugar, and milk. The cause the crust to caramelize quickly and, when fermented correctly, give the finished bread a light-as-air quality with a very soft texture.

The variations of this type of bread will mostly come with the kind of milk and fat used and small changes in the ratio of dry to wet ingredients. Once created I would have to say that this was the most flavorful bread I have made to date. I say that every week, but some how this one was so different. Perhaps it was because it was so simple and relatively quick to make.

Portuguese Sweet Bread

2010-04-04T19:27:00.005-06:00

In some areas of the country, not here of course, this bread is called Hawaiian bread, but even then most of the time Hawaiian's give credit to the Portuguese for this big, soft, sweet, round pillow of a loaf. I cannot imagine making a sandwhich from this bread, but according to the text it's a very popular bread to do so. The distintive aspect of this bread, besides the lemon and orange extracts is the flavor the powdered-milk imparts. I can't say I tasted the powdered-milk, but the extracts made this bread wonderful.

This was a fun bread to make because of all the stages the bread went through. It started in the morning with a sponge, which had to be equal parts flour, water, and then sugar and instant yeast. It's mixed, and you wait until it's bubbly and will fall when touched. After the sponge is ready the butter, shortening, eggs, sugar and extracts are creamed. After this first frosting type is created, it's mixed with the sponge and the remaining flour.

Because of the high amounts of fat and sugar, the gluten takes a while to form. I had to let the dough sit and rise for 2hours before I divided and formed into boules. The boules are put into pie plates and given another 2-3 hours to rise. I instead let the loaves retard overnight, and Sunday morning pulled out the loaves for a good 5 hours. The loaves did get larger, but didn't fill the plates like the book described. After the rising, and egg wash, the loaves baked up and turned out perfectly and almost exactly like the picture in the book. The bread tasted wonderful. I don't know that I would make a sandwhich out of it. It just seems too good to enjoy as a sandwhich.

Panettone

2010-03-21T19:38:00.002-06:00

Panettone is a rich (fat included, with also other ingredients) Christmas bread originating from Milan. There are many folktales about its origins, the most popular being that it was created a few hundred years ago by a humble baker named Tony to woo his beloved, the daughter of a rich merchant. More importantly, he had to win over the father to the idea of his daughter marrying a baker, so he pulled out all the stops, filling his bread with the baker’s equivalent of the gifts of the wise men, Butter, Brandied fruits and nuts and sugar. The merchant was so impressed that he not only gave his daughter in marriage, but he also Tony up with his own bakery in Milan with the promise that he would continue to make his pane Tony.

This was a difficult bread to make. It took almost two weeks to make the barm (a sour dough starter) and another day to soak the dried fruit in brandy (not a good brandy mind you) and another day to let the sponge soak overnight. Man, this was a wet bread and after mixing it, found that it took a ton more flour than it called for, but that didn’t surprise me considering the dried fruit was still moist. I decided to have fun with this one and eliminate the candied fruit because quite honestly, I can’t stand the taste. I just went with the dried fruit of plums, Turkish apricots, craisins, raisins, and dates. There were many options for shaping this, and the traditional calls for tall paper cups that the dough rise up, but small loaves and even muffins were suggested.

Pane Siciliano

2010-03-15T18:22:00.004-06:00

Dang, did this one take a long time to make. Well, not in the literal sense of days to create the bread, but rather to procure the ingredients to make this bread. I hope it’s worth it. People at work have been putting up with the same bread for three weeks, just shaped differently.

The reason it took so long was getting the semolina flour. On one day I traveled to no more than 4 grocery stores, including two health food stores. I found all sorts of odd flours, for example; almond flour, cashew flour, and bean flour. But nowhere was semolina flour to be found. I thought it would be easy; after all, this is what you use to make homemade noodles. I searched on the Inter-world-wide-webs and found some Bob’s Red Mill, and order up some. It seemed a little pricey, but where the heck was I going to fine some of this, right?

When it finally arrived on Friday, I realized why it was so pricey. I must not have read the description that great since a whole display box and 5 individual 24oz bags arrived. Oh well, I guess I’ll be making a lot of homemade noodles.

This bread is described as enriched, which if you remember means fat, standard dough, indirect (pre-ferment) and commercial yeast (as opposed to wild.) The technique and bread combines large portions of pre-ferment and overnight fermentation. Semolina is the gritty, sandy flour milled from durum wheat. It’s a hard high-protein wheat, but not high in gluten. The golden color is mainly due to a high proportion of beta-carotene. This version consists of 40% semolina and 60% high gluten bread flour, which I didn’t have, so I just used bread flour.

I used the last shaping technique of the series by doing the ‘S.’ The finished loaf has a beautiful blistered crust, not too crackly and a crumb with large, irregular holes, open to the same degree as a good French or Italian. This bread quickly doubled in size and turned out looking perfect. I knew I shouldn’t have added the sesame seeds. They are just too messy and in my opinion don’t add that much in flavor.

Pain de Campagne

2010-02-21T20:59:00.003-06:00

Another one of the rustic breads, simple and easy to shape, this week’s bread is intended to be shaped. There were so many to choose from and I was very excited to try some of the different techniques out. This dough is similar to the regular French baguette from last week, but it includes a small percentage of whole grain. The additional grain gives the bread more character and flavor, and contributes to the brownish-gold, country-style crust that distinguishes it from the white flour counterpart.

I had a number of choices to shape the dough, and I was anxious to try the epi or wheat sheaf. It looked fun to create a baguette in the shape of some wheat stalks, and I get to use scissors. However my technique proved to be lacking and I had to resort to youtube to see the actually shaping techniques. I should have kept it straight and cut along the face of the bread itself. Instead I just cut at the 45 degree angle from the side. I also used a suggested cutting technique on the boule shape here. It was fun and I think I’ll be doing the epi shape again, especially for a party since it does look good and acts like a pull-a-part bread.

Pain a l’Ancienne

2010-02-17T19:33:00.002-06:00

We now turn to the rustic breads. By rustic I mean simple, lean and very basic to make. It is one of the basics that many others coming up will be derived from. This first is your classic French baguette recipe and pretty much turned out exactly how it was supposed to.

I wish I had read the book ahead of time as I was supposed to retard the dough overnight. Oh well, people at work got some on Tuesday instead of Monday. This delayed fermentation uses ice cold water and a very slack dough. This larger hydration ratio uses the water to break down the flour even further into sugar, to dig at the natural sweetness that remain in breads using standard fermentation techniques.

From this basic recipe I can make Ciabatta, pizza, focaccia, pugliese, stirato, and pain rustique. The bread was sweeter than a standard French bread, and had a great chewy crust. I think this was my favorite bread so far. I served it with oil and balsamic vinegar.

Next week – Pain de Campagne

Leeloo Dallas Mul-ti-grain

2010-02-07T20:18:00.002-06:00

This week’s bread was a beautiful looking multi-grain. I was looking forward to this one as there was a call for things like wheat bran, millet, rolled oats, buckwheat and quinoa. Many of those ingredients were much like a choose your own adventure, except in this case when you turn to page 32 you get a delicious bread and not eaten by a dragon.

I have adapted some of the previous techniques this week to aid with the loaf development. The dough started with a soaker, where the night before I soaked the polenta, wheat bran and buckwheat in water. I chose buckwheat only because I haven’t worked with it before. The polenta used the same method as the Anadama bread, so I knew it had to soak for a long time to get the corn soft. What was unique about this bread was after using the indirect dough is that it also called for some cooked brown rice. The rice I am sure was used for the extra starch to offset the fiber from the other types of wheat introduced.

With the use of brown sugar and honey, this bread colored up very nicely and I am told will make a great toast. Being an enriched dough it of course called for fat, this time in the form of butter milk. Since I didn’t have any buttermilk I had to use the old method of skim milk and lemon juice to get the fat out.

Next week: Pain a l’Ancienne (don’t ask I have no idea what that is)

He Stole My Marbled Rye!

2010-01-31T21:37:00.003-06:00

How could I not quote that famous Seinfeld episode? I was anxious to make this bread as it calls for a little more artistic flare than the standard wheat bread. Well, not too artistic, but I did have to make two separate doughs and combine them together to form the spiral.

The rye has a great smell, and even better taste with the caraway seeds. I’m thinking that when I make my corned beef I’ll have to make a couple loaves of this bread to go with it. In this session of bread making I had to ensure that both doughs were of the same consistency and texture. I suppose I should have read more details on this bread, as it seems it could have gone wrong.

I did mix it for the 4 minutes it suggested, but I have been known to go longer. With rye flour, the type of gums in the flour interferes with gluten development. With a slight overmixing (if I had done, but I didn’t) the dough would have gummed up and become too tough to rise. It was good then I let it be a slight bit tacky when it was done.In order to get the dark coloring for the dark rye, the recipe called for either caramel coloring or cocoa powder. Since I could not find any coloring, I went with the powder. I was a little skeptical since the cocoa made the bread smell, well, like cocoa. But after baking, I couldn’t tell it was there, and it photographed very nicely.

Kaiser Rolls and a Light Wheat

2010-01-24T20:42:00.003-06:00

So this weekend I got my Kaiser roll stamp. It's exactly what you're thinking of, a playdough looking think to cut a swirly pattern into the dough.

I have no idea why the rolls are formed that way, but only with the pattern are they known as Kaiser rolls. Supposedly without the pattern they are known as "weck." The Beef and Weck is a sammich that came from England and also gained popularity in Buffalo, where we get the Buffalo Wild Wings and Weck from.

Either way, I had the opportunity to actually make some shredded Italian Beef and use it on the rolls. Even better I was able to share all of this with out neighbors.

Later this weekend, in fact, this morning. I decided to start the adventure of creating bread loaves for everyday use around here. Lo and behold the bread this week was a light wheat bread. I cannot describe how excited I was when this bread turned out. I got to use my knew loaf pans, and the bread turned out perfectly. There has always been a little bit of reservation on my part with using whole wheat flour. I can never seem to make the loaf work. However, it was explained to me in this passage that whole wheat uses a 1/3 to 2/3 of whole wheat to white bread flour for a 100% flour weight. I think this was the combination I may use. Some of the food sites I read say I can substitute 100% of the whole wheat flour, but I not sure. This bread was beautiful.

This is the one I'm bringing in to work tomorrow. Enjoy everyone. Next week...Marbled Rye.
Also..I made more crackers this weekend. A book I read gave a rule for eating.."Eat all of the junk food you can make." So I made some.

Lavash? Must be Eye-talian

2010-01-17T20:23:00.003-06:00

So, I’ve been negligent in posting for the last couple of weeks, but now I’m back on the band wagon. I did a foccica about three weeks ago, but that was a remake of something I did while I had my wisdom teeth removed. Now I’ve moved on to the Italian loaf. This was one loaf I was familiar with. Like the French, Italian is the other basic loaf that I make a lot. I say basic in only that it’s not a complicate recipe. It’s essentially the same as the French, but with the addition of a fat, in this case, olive oil. And I don’t mean Popeye’s girlfriend. Italian is a softer loaf because of the fat, and because of this, I tend to make buns or rolls using this recipe. In my case this week however, I believe I added too much water, and as you can see, that didn’t help with the shape.

Since there was so much hydration the dough spread out, instead of up. It tasted great, and with the use of a pre-ferment biga, I was able to draw out a lot of flavor. I just didn’t get the torpedo shape that I wanted. Next time I do this, I have made notes and I will incorporate either more flour, or less water to firm up the dough.

This week brings us to Kaiser Rolls. Alas my search for a Kaiser Roll stamp was fruitless and I was relegated to ordering it from Amazon. So, we move on to another recipe for this week, Lavash Crackers.

Lavash crackers seemed kind of weird. After all, this is a bread blog. I should be making bread. But, it’s in the book, so of course I’m doing it. Lavash is also called Aremenia flatbread, has Iranian roots and eaten throughout the middle-east.

The recipe is the same, but the oven it’s cooked in or how flat it’s rolled might be dictated by the culture you are from. The key to this crisp cracker is to roll it out paper thin. It would seem that I didn’t roll it out thin enough as some of the pieces are kind of doughy. Well, it was fun to put the toppings on and now I have a new cracker to use on my friends for our party.

Party on Wayne, Party on Garth.

Next week, Light Wheat bread.

Freedom Bread

2009-12-27T20:30:00.003-06:00

I know that I’ve been missing in action for a couple of weeks now, and the truth is this time of year makes me awfully lazy. Lazy to the point that I get bored and decide to have my wisdom teeth extracted. When I mean extracted, I mean they cut and grind and yank them out. Ah, well, I don’t need to bore you with all of the gory details, but I will say that I haven’t been able to eat properly for about a week. It had severely curtailed my bread baking and enjoying ability. I still feel that every carbohydrate that I eat gets stuck in the other world that used to occupy where my teeth once stood.

I missed out on eating anything Focaccia, so I’m going to be making that one again for everyone. Oh, what did you say? I didn’t bring that one to work? Oh, quite right, quite right. I gave that one to my wife to take as I was horizontal with packs of ice massaging my cheeks. Plus I can’t find the pictures.

I moved on to a tried and true recipe for me, the French Bread. My favorite of favorite breads. And it’s not that it’s my favorite because it’s the simplest, but just because of the crust and how “homey” the bread, with some good fresh butter, can make you feel. It’s this time of year that this bread will accompany, so nicely any home style soup, chili or loafed meat recipe that you can dream up.

There’s nothing to this recipe, it’s just flour, water, salt and yeast. That’s it, nothing else. The recipe out of the book called for equal parts of bread and all-purpose flour, and I suspect this has something to do with the gluten content, but I’ve made this recipe before just using all bread flour and it turned out great. The one element that might make this better tasting is the introduction of the pate fermente, or a pre-ferment. Just taking part of the dough and letting it sit in the fridge overnight to develop flavor. I am not sure this really raises the flavor of the bread, but then again, perhaps in this case, my pallet isn’t as refined as I really care it to be, and I just want to enjoy a good piece of bread.

Stollen – Frohe Weihnachten!

2009-12-06T22:04:00.003-06:00

I thought better of it and skipped Foccacia all together this week and jumped to Stollen. I believed it would be better from a baking point of view in terms of the upcoming holiday. Plus, next week I’m getting my wisdom teeth extracted and I don’t know what I’ll be able to do and not do in terms of bread, but I should be able to crank out one more.

Growing up, my great aunt would bake Stollen’s during the Christmas season, at my dad’s wish. He loved eating these things. I’ll tell you what, I didn’t and I know what it was about it. The candied fruits. I cannot stand eating those yucky red and green cherries, or pineapple. So, since this was my stollen, I decided to use raisins, craisins, prunes and apricots. That, I think would be much tastier than the other. I was also able to use this as a lesson in patients and again…following directions.

The sponge called for the milk to be heated up to 100 degrees and wisked with the flour and yeast. I heated up the milk in a pan and kept it hot and wisking with the four. It turned out lumpy and rather thick, like paste. However, with all that was going on this weekend, I did it and left to run errands with Logan. When we came back the sponge wasn’t frothy and risen like it should have. It was flat…and didn’t move at all. I decided to try again, and this time I microwaved the milk, took the temp and wisked in the flour and yeast. It turned out much better. I think that I got it too hot and either killed the yeast or changed the chemical composition of the flour and made it too thick. Even the boys knew it wasn’t right.

Once last thing, I forgot to buy the powdered sugar. Oh well, I brushed butter on top of it anyway and topped with sugar in the raw as my own signature. Merry Christmas!

Of shopping malls and English gardens

2009-11-29T21:19:00.004-06:00

How the heck does either of these things have anything in common, let alone anything to do with bread? Is there some queer reference in a Shakespearean play to the current economic situation of our local shopping centre? Or perhaps Hugh Grant was appearing at our local Macy’s doing a book signing for his latest seller “Pancake and me: Love syrup.”

No, none of this is how they relate, but it was a good guess, and I’ll give you a slug of chewing gum for a best effort. They tie in very nicely I think and relate to all the baking that I did this weekend for the bread. I had decided last weekend not to make anything, due to our vacation and the keen knowledge that I was saving the Cinnamon Bun recipe for our annual Thanksgiving Day tradition of said sweet treat. This year, however, I opted for the home made kind rather than the store bought pre packaged exploding tube of goodness.

You see, I have not eaten a T.J. Cinnabon, ever (the mall reference). You might find that odd, but every time I watch them create these devilishly sinful treats, I just can’t bring myself to consume such large and concentrated forms of delectable goodness (never mind the 8billion calories.) So, when last week’s recipe switch came to be, I decided mine would be just as good, but with considerably less sugar. This one was only difficult from a shaping and proofing aspect. I rolled up the dough, but the cinnamon sugar acted as a barrier and I was unable to seal the seam together nicely and the two ends were uneven, and came apart. However, they browned up nicely and after a glaze of fondant, they were ready to eat. They tasted pretty good and I even shared with the neighbors.

This weekend’s next bread was English muffins (hence the English reference.) And these seemed like they would be fun to me. The neat part that I didn’t know was English muffins are fried on a griddle, and then finished in the oven to get the center done. I think they turned out ok. They look like real English muffins from the outside, and they taste like them too, but on the inside I was missing the trademark big holes. The recipe said wet dough will help to get the big holes and I thought I had that, but apparently not. I decided then to make English muffin loaf bread instead of the actual muffins for work since I know I couldn’t make enough of the muffins for everyone.

Next week: Focaccia

Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread

2009-11-17T20:52:00.003-06:00

What exactly are we celebrating? Today is National Day for Tolerance. Sweet, and this bread to celebrate that historic day when put up with everyone’s BS. Or, perhaps it’s an engineering holiday when we test tolerance limits on various metals. I don’t really know. I purposely did not cut this bread ahead of time because I wanted people to be able to see the braiding that went into it. I still don’t have the braiding down to the point, where the ends stay together. During the rising and baking process, they seem to come undone, and the ends start to expand apart.

What I love about this bread is the smell and taste. It should evoke all of the flavors and smells of Thanksgiving. It has a very similar taste to a Christmas stolen, without the glaze and candied fruits. I think this bread would taste great with a flavored butter, perhaps cinnamon and sugar.

Next week I'll be doing home made cinnamon rolls, but that will be for Thanksgiving morning, so I'm afraid that my coworkers will most likely miss out on that one.

Corn Bread

2009-11-08T20:19:00.002-06:00

Dear Wonderous Man/Woman who invented bacon. Let me thank you with the up most cured salty goodness in the bottom of my deep soul for that meat which you invented. It not only brings joy to us poor souls who love all the cured meats, but also rapture for the smoky fatty goodness that clogs our veins. In this we praise your name.

To be honest, I wasn’t too excited at first to make this recipe. After all, Corn Bread is really bread in name only. It’s considered a quick bread. That bread by which is chemically leavened so as to not have to wait for fermenting and yeast cultivating. However, I should not shun all that which is not made by yeast, because yea, this bread can stand on its own as a great American Bread.

It has a great combination of flavors, and textures. From the sweetness of the corn and honey, to the smoky and crunch flavor that the bacon helps to finish. This bread is moist enough to seemingly stand on its own for a meal, but yet was ok to mingle nicely at a church gathering we had, where our entrée brought was chili (what compliments chili better than corn bread?) Perhaps with our new canning endeavors, I’ll be able to use fresh/canned corn rather than the frozen stuff.

This bread was so beautiful when I just pulled it out of the oven, as I had to make a second batch for everyone who so craves this at work. I only wish that I could serve it warm as intended.

Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

2009-11-01T21:10:00.004-06:00

Wait Brian, what happened to the Ciabatta?

Um…what?

What happened to the Ciabatta?

Ah…nope, don’t know what you’re talking about. You mean Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread. That’s what I worked on this week. Don’t know what a Chi-bata is. Is that some kind of new fangled exercise you buy on T.V. from that guy who used to play The Incredible Hulk? No, not Bill Bixby, that other dude. Never mind, can I get on with this?

I have done this recipe before, and pretty much came to the same results. This particular recipe of cinnamon raisin bread has all the qualities one wants from raisin bread. Namely, cinnamon and raisins. It is light, flavorful, good finish and fills your mouth with a nice little after taste of roasted walnuts. The recipe indicated that I could have eliminated the walnuts without any further changes to the recipe itself and I may do that in the future.

I find that kneading nuts into the dough tends to tear the dough ever so slightly, which is what I thought was preventing it from rising properly. However, after some measurements after I set the pans for proofing, I discovered my pans were too small. I thought they were losing air or not rising because of the tears, but it turns out my loaf pans are too big. I never really paid attention to the sizing requirements. This recipe calls for an 8.5 x 4.5 and as it turns out my loaf pans are 9 x 5. That’s a big difference in bread making when you’re trying to make a proper loafs. So, in these pans, the loafs look particularly small, when they really aren’t.

I have since asked for smaller pans for Christmas.

Incidentally, I’m lazy, and just didn’t post the Ciabatta from last week. Truth be told, it didn’t turn out how I wanted. It lacked the large irregular holes that are the signature of a Ciabatta. It would have been like serving Cinnamon Raisin bread, without raisins.

Next week, in time for Thanksgiving…Corn Bread

Let me Challah at you!

2009-10-18T18:31:00.003-06:00

Ok, dumb joke, but I thought it was kind of clever. Challah (pronounced holla) the braided Sabbath bread of Judaism, is a type of European celebratory loaf (similar to the Greek bread I made) symbolic of God’s goodness and bounty. I find myself reminiscing of my great-great-uncle, Tevye. I would spend time with him and countless hours in his simple house in a small village in Russia. We would celebrate the Sabbath by making many loaves of this slightly crusty, yet soft bread. Normally we would gather up the eggs to use up just before the Sabbath since gathering is obviously considered work in that Orthodox Jewish Community.

The key, apparently, to making great looking Challah, is to braid it so that it is tapered at the ends and plump in the middle. This is by far, the most beautiful bread that I have made. I may do this one again, just for the aesthetics. You can vary the shape of the bread based on the message you are trying to convey. You can curl the dough into a round shape for Rosh Hashanah. The round shape symbolizes how the world has no beginning and no end; three strands symbolize truth, peace and beauty; and the spiral coil indicate the ascent to God.

I am a little sad that the people who get to eat this tomorrow will not be able to eat it fresh, but it still tastes great, and I will include the pictures since I’ll have to slice it before I serve it tomorrow.

Next week, Ciabatta.

TU VUO' FA l'AMERICANO

2009-10-12T20:02:00.004-06:00

Castatiello

This is a rich bread, only an Italian version of the French Brioche from the previous baking. It’s loaded with flavors that stem from the combination of a cured meat (in this case Salami) and soft cheese (provolone.) You may notice the same crust and texture of the Brioche in this loaf comes from the eggs and nearly 1 cup of butter. This time I let the dough site before adding the butter so as to let the gluten develop. By letting the mixture sit before adding the butter, I was able to avoid having the butter coat the gluten before it could form.

It’s noted that in this type of bread other types of cheese may be used, but it should be a good melter with distinctive flavors, such as Swiss, Gouda, or good old Wisconsin Cheddar. What I discovered is that my blending technique needs to be improved as you can see the folds and I managed to get a seam on top which leads to an uneven rising. However, this is primarily due to my desire to get the bread done since I had company coming over and I really didn’t have a lot time this weekend. No…I didn’t make this in my kilt. The bread is traditionally baked in paper bags or panettone molds, but I really didn’t want to push my luck with this rich bread, so I just stuck to a loaf pan.

The hollow parts come from the cheese being centered and then melting into the bread itself. The bread was a success, but I think next time I will mix the cheese in a little more to ensure a more even distribution. It’s awesome warmed, and if you’ve ever had that cheesy mozzarella bread at the Madison’s farmer’s market, it was similar to that. I would like to cap this weekends ethnic activities for those who knew was going on. I a Mexican in a Scottish wedding, made an Italian bread similar to a French bread and preparing for a Jewish bread next week.

Next week, Challah

Brioche

2009-09-28T20:20:00.000-06:00

It wasn’t until just now that I figured what I did wrong with this week’s bread. No don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I accidently mixed in a tablespoon of industrial waste and everyone who consumes my bread becomes BRIOCHE MAN! (Queue dramatic music)

No, rather, I didn’t read close enough and I didn’t wait until the gluten had time to develop. Here is what happened. It started way back in History, with that rhyme MCA and me, Mike D. No…wait, it started more like this.

I had created the sponge with no problem, and it even became a bubbling mass, just like the directions. It struck me odd that this bread was going to be something special, as no water is/was required and it was totally laden with fat. Whole milk, 5 eggs, and a crap load of butter. In case you don’t know, a crap load is a unit of measurement developed by Enos Jenkins in central Tennessee in the mid 1920’s.

I followed the recipe to (what I naively thought) the tea, or Tee, or T. However, once I started mixing and adding the butter, remember 1 pound of it, I knew something wasn’t right. There wasn’t any of the typically “doughy” feel to the mass, as any bread so far has felt. In fact, when I was done mixing the butter in and shaping the “loaf” to chill overnight, it reminded me more of sugar cookie dough.

After I took it out the next day and put it in loaf pans, I realized that there indeed was not going to be much in the way of rising. There was just not enough strength. Even if the bread could ferment, I doubted it could rise to any significant level. After a couple hours at church and running errands, I came back to loaves that barely filled the pans. I forged ahead and baked everything. Afterwards, to my surprise, the bread turned out. The crumb was tight, but it tasted good and wasn’t dense at all. It tasted like a good biscuit, and tasted even better with jam on it.

When I read the commentary on this bread, here’s what I found. We’ll see if you can decide what happened. “When a formula calls for lots of fat, whether butter, shortening, or oil, it is usually beneficial to wait until gluten had has an opportunity to develop before adding the fat. If the fat is added at the beginning, it coats the protein fragments and makes it difficult for them to bond into the longer, stronger gluten molecule.”

Next week I’m off, after that Casatiello.

If I were a rich man

2009-09-20T20:25:00.003-06:00

As I sit here among the aromas of cooking applesauce, cinnamon and vanilla drifting through the air, I contemplate the joys of the bread making up to now. The sauce will be another blog entry, even though it has nothing to do with yeast, but rather just the experience of new cooking itself.

This week, my challenge hat is tipped to my Jewish friends and friends who just like eating bagels. Whether it’s the nonchalant way we dismiss the store bought mass produced pucks that we call bagels, or the pile of freebies on someone’s birthday, which we arrogantly sigh “don’t you have one without sesame seeds on it” there is a lost art to these beautiful creations that we’ve forgotten.

It makes me long for the old country. (Ok, my old country consists of central Mexico, but I’m trying to paint a picture here.)

I can honestly say that I used to take bagels for granted, just picking the ones that had my favorite toppings on it, and spreading some kind of odd monstrosity of chive-tomato-onion-garlic-parsley-chive (wait I said chive already) cream cheese. I did not realize how great and fun it is to make bagels from scratch. They were..delightful.

Everyone I talked to about this, asked me if I was going to boil them. And to answer that question, yes I am and yes I did. From what I have learned, most of us, at least here in Wisconsin are blind when it comes to bagels, but I’m sure there are some of you who found that really truly great bagels are boiled, and not jet steamed. The recipe had me on the adventure to locate some malt powder. Not malted milk, but malt powder. Apparently this is what gives bagels their distinctive flavor and an edge over all those other lesser forms of bagels.

Alas my quest would prove not to be fruitful, and instead I had to rely on the backup of honey. Thankfully the author knew such was to be my fate and had graciously offered any number of substitutes. My only saving grace was the knowledge that had I an accessible home brewing supply store, my source of malt powder, or LME (that’s liquid malt extract to my non home brewing friend) would be limitless. I know I’m not a bagel former, so the finished product doesn’t look nice, but it serves its purpose well. I shaped and let them ferment overnight in the fridge, which is what helps develop the flavors. The next day I boiled them until done (just like a big noodle), topped them, here with cinnamon sugar, and then seed and salt mix and baked them until done.

Freakin awesome.

I am sad to say that the people at work will only get to enjoy bagel bites as I would like more than 12 to try them out. But I think this is a recipe that I will make again. I just think that I need a bigger fridge to hold more overnight.

Next week, Brioche.

Celebration time come on!

2009-09-14T20:15:00.004-06:00

Greek Celebration Bread

Artos is the general name for Greek celebration breads, and they are given specific names for the shapes and/or occasions they are baked.This bread called for a number of special ingredients for just this master formula. A lot of fat, represented by the eggs, oil and milk, with plenty of spices to round out the flavor. From this recipe, you can make the following

Christopsomos – Christmas (also involves an elaborate shaping of the loaf with crosses, and dried colored fruits and nuts)

Lambropsomo – Easter (has hard cooked eggs in it, dyed red. What the hell? Hard boiled eggs?)

This bread was awesome to make. It required a lot of preplanning as the “barm” prepared four days before, takes a while. In order to create a barm, you essentially begin seed culture of Rye Flour and water to form a sticky goo. You let the goo bubble and ferment over a couple of days, each day removing a part of it, and adding water and more flour. With this see culture you make many of preferments and embark on your wild yeast culture. I won’t be going there right now, but sometime soon.

From the seed culture you can make barms, bigas, pate fermente and many of the sour doughs. Even though commercial instant yeast is used in this formula, the barm is there to present the bread with some help and great taste. The taste comes from the long drawn out flavor coaxed from the prolonged soaking of the rye flour.

This is the master formula that I did, by which all other Greek Celebration breads can be created. The bread turned out great, and I make two loaves. One by hand and the other entirely by mixer. If it hadn’t been like 80 degrees outside, this would have made the house all warm and fuzzy. I’m sure we would have been cuddled up with blankies watching a Charlie Brown Christmas. As it was, I was up early mixing and staying up late baking. We had Dozer Day, to get to, Church, Whitewater part, and all sorts of domestic stuff.

I believe I will be making this loaf again, and this time adding the dried fruits and nuts and giving my hands a try at shaping the complicated Christopsomos loaf. Shaped into a simple boule and glazed with honey water concoction, it was wonderful. A little sticky to cut, but it smelled great. Next week, bagels.

The taming of Anadama

2009-09-07T19:25:00.004-06:00

I was indeed hesitant to start the whole bread baking thing again. Last time I tried this recipe it failed miserably. I don’t think I even posted about it, it was that bad. However, like Lewis and Clark in the face of starvation and the threat of attack, I perservered. (Ok a little over dramatic, but you get my point.) When last I tried my hand at this recipe, I recall something of either a hockey puck or door stop coming out of the oven.

Mmmm…fresh baked door stop. You know, the kind that is just a brick with some kind of needlepoint covering.

I reread the whole section on fermeting and the window pane test. Not that I’m going to stretch out my bread evertime like some kind of edible Stretch Armstrong (save that idea for another day) but rather to understand more what is happening with the bread in terms of glueten development.

The recipe started with a soaker a day before. A soaker is nothing more than taking some of the coarse, or whole grains and getting them soft by soaking them in water. This one called for coarse ground cornmeal soaked in water. Using corn will give this bread a heartier texture and more flovor. The next day, just after my morning run, I combined the soaker, ½ the flour, yeast and rest of water to make sponge.

A sponge will further develop the flavor and slowly coax out the shy natural sugars who from a long winters nap will be looking for a party. “Hey is that yeast? Holy crap! Man, it’s been ages, lets get down!” And did they. The sponge was to set until it started to buble, and that is the time we mix together the remaining ingredients, including 4oz of Molasses, Grandma’s Dark Molasses. I mixed everything together in the Kichenaid and when it formed a ball, I transferred the dough to begin the kneading.

One point that I read on the whole kneading front is that “the dough, not the formula, dictat the needs.” And I adhered to that adding nearly 1 and ½ cups of additional flour to the dough. The formula did indicate that you may have to add more and it would take longer to get to the right dough consistency. Holy gucamole did it ever take a long time, but I stuck with it until the dough was pliable, but not sticky. That is the key.

I let the dough rise (for a good three hours) while the family and I went off to a 5year old birthday party. When we got home, I nearly fell over with how much the dough had risen, and the boys were so excited they wanted to touch it. It was beautiful. I punched it down and shaped into the loaf pans. As indicated in the formula I put the pans in the fridge to retard fermentation until the next day when I wanted to bake it. Getting out the pans the next morning and proofing for a good two hours, I think as described in the book “they fully crested the pans.”

The bread turned out wonderful and it had a great hearty feel to it, and slightly sweet. While I don’t know if this would make a good sandwhich, I think it would make a great type of open face type meal, something with cheese and broiled perhaps.

Next week, Greek Celebration bread.

Week 1 - We start with Anadama

2009-09-03T19:37:00.002-06:00

I’m starting over again and approaching this whole bread baking thing a little more methodically. I have had a couple of books on bread baking and have read many websites dedicated to the art of doing so, but I never really tackled it like I would a new subject in school.

I have to break this down, read, research, practice and plan. It should be treated much like my 5 credit lab science, Consumer Chemistry, without the Friday morning hang over preferably. This strategy will give me the background on the subject I need, while also allowing me to put the ideas into practice in my lab, the kitchen.

My inspiration behind this is indeed the concept from the move “Julie & Julia.” Snicker if you want my male friends, but this movie is entertaining and once in a while I like to watch these kinds. I will dedicate one week to a bread recipe until I have completed every single recipe and most every single variation.

Variants may be left up to interpretation and ultimately not completed, depending on if they are worthy. The reason for this is that I’m not sure I need to try all of the dried fruit options available to me in a stolen. I’m pretty sure there’s not much of a difference between raisins and craisins, other than a C. However, if there is a different technique or flour type, with a recipe I will try that in order to get the full experience of this experiment. It’s possible that on a given weekend I will try many variations, as long as my time and ingredients permit. I actually know already that two weekends will not permit me to bake (Aaron’s bachelor party, and a Green Bay Marathon.)

The textbook of choice for this endeavor is none other than the encyclopedia of bread making, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread”, by Peter Reinhart. Since this isn’t a Capstone (shout out to my Stritch Alum) I won’t be documenting proper APA style. A sturdy book with both instructions, theories, stories, formulas and recipes. It’s a virtual cornucopia of everything that you need to know about bread baking. In this book there are approximately 44 recipes (which he calls formulas), not including the pre-ferments. Pre-ferments are just the starters that are sometimes used to extend fermentation, tease out flavours (look I’m so cool I use an ‘ou) from the different grains. I would say most of you know the Sourdough starter as the classic pre-ferment.

As you may recall I haven’t had that much luck with sourdough starters, but I will trudge on. Yo Joe!

Here are the ground rules for my experiment

Only the book can be used for the formulas
No “weight watchering it up.” Some of you know that I lost 45lbs on Weight Watchers and I currently am a WW leader. It’s hard to not want to make things “healthier” or try and substitute another ingredient to add less fat, or more fiber. However, like my loving wife indicated, “follow the formula, no substitutions, no weight watchering it up.”
I will weigh out the ingredients rather than measure. The book makes it clear that the best way to bake, is to weigh ingredients because 8oz is 8oz, but someone’s 1 cup scooping is different from another one’s scooping method.
I will definitely have to plan things out if I am going to get this right. I will make a calendar to plan out any preferments, or soakings that have to take place before hand (especially them starters.)

That’s it. I will post most of my adventure on Sunday nights so that any one at work or Andi’s work can anticipate some goodies the next day. I will try and do a couple of batches whenever possible.

This first week, Andama Bread. Needs a soaker of cornmeal started the day before. Coarse ground if possible. Oh yeah, it’s possible. Sendiks FTW.

It has been many moons....

2009-02-28T08:58:00.004-06:00

Kind of funny to be looking at my last post on this blog and now I'm longing for spring. Good news is that we tore down the Virginia Creeper on our purgola and Andi has given the go ahead to plant more hops. I just have to wait to buy the rhizomes and then plant some time in late March. Any way, on to the bread.

It's been while since I've baked, and I tried my hand at a whole wheat bread. This one started out with two pre-soaks. A soaker and a starter. The soaker was some water and called for some coarsely ground grain. All I had was some rye flour and since the recipe called for a grain, I figured this would be ok. The soaker sits with grain and water over night. That is supposed to start some natural yeast, coaxed from the air, as well break down the coarse grain.

The other was a pre-ferment, which consisted of the whole wheat, yeast and water. After the pre-ferment rose, you cover and stick into the fridget overnight (to retard the rising process.)

I didn't quit like how the pre-ferment turned out. Something about it didn't seem right and I should have listened to myself. The next day, I left the pre-ferment to rise and take the chill out while we were out to church. When I came back, I completed the dough, and again, something didn't feel right.

It was very wet, and none of the moisture seemed to be going away. Wheat breads, or coarse grains tend to take a little more water, but this was weird. I must have added close to a cup of extra flour and it didn't seem to help. The dough felt too dense and too wet.

As you can see, after a couple of hours rising, it failed to double in size, and I feared that it would turn out to be a brick. If you can't get the window pane test to pass, then the bread doesn't form the glueten strands to keep it taught, and therefore won't trap the gas bubbles to rise. This dough ball is cracking beacuse the gas isn't getting trapped. It was too wet, but I forged ahead.

I was hoping to get a spring in the loaves from the oven, and then perhaps they would rise. But alas, it was for naught. They didn't rise, and turnned out to be bricks. They didn't even make good croutons. Blech. Oh well, I'll chalk it up to one year old wheat bread, and sub par kneading. Andi is at the grocery store right now getting me some fresh whole wheat and some steel cut oats (one of the whole grains it calls for) and I'm confident that this loaf will turn out better.

Hey man, what you growing?

2008-06-29T19:20:00.002-06:00

Here are my hops. Thank you honey for taking the pictures. The vine clippings that I planted are not doing anything, which is good. If this works, I think I use our light bench and grown some more rhizomes over the winter. Next year I'll construct some larger poles since even in most of the hop gardening that I have read, the poles are about 15ft.

Also, after poking around Amazon, there's a book I saw, that I'll probably buy, all about home brew gardening. That should be fun for next year. This year, we're sticking with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, parsley and chives.

After a bit

2008-06-24T20:00:00.003-06:00

I think I sense two seasons approaching and how I will treat this blog. I think it's quite obvious that baking in the Summer time is just, well...dumb. Why would you want to turn on the oven anyway? So, in the Summer a young-old man's fancy turns to brewing (and gardening.)

I am tending to my hops in the back, pictures to come either tomorrow or Thursday. They are turning out wonderfully. They have grown tall and I've started to trim them back so that they will grow more bushy. There's already little buds on them.

Andi turned to me today and indicated that she was ready to give up on the Silverlace. That would be the piss poor excuse for a vine on the West side of our house. The vine is all on one side of the trellis, and the leaves are small and not pretty. To my glee she "told" me to order some hops. After all, they get really big leaves, grow bushy and do smell nice when blooming.

To my horror, I've discovered a world wide hop shortage. Not sure on what the deal with that is, so I think some more research is necessary. I then though to myself, "can I reclaim the rhizomes I have now?" I started to do some research and found little. But then, I did call my favorite gardener (Nana-M) and asked her what I could do? As I found the answer, she told me to try and root it from a cutting.

I had just trimmed a bunch of vines, so I cleared off the leaves, and buried the vine in a nice pot of fresh potting soil. If we're lucky I'll have a duplicate of my Hallertauer. This also brings up a bit of a problem for me. I have three types of hops, but I only know one of them, since the label disintegrated. I know which is the Hallertauer, but the Kent Golding and the Cascade are kind of a mystery. I found a website that has pictures of the cones, and it looks like there is a difference in the kinds that once ripe, I should be able to tell. Go to the bottem http://www.brewjobs.net/beer/hops-gardening.html

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, I got a kit and brewed it up on Monday. This is amber from Northern Brewer, in fact a Phat Tyre Amber. I'm going to come up with a name for myself, so we'll see.

Batch Bread - A Tale of Trial and Error

2008-01-13T20:15:00.000-06:00

The Batch Bread, from 100 Great Bread Recipes, looked simple enough. And with only a couple of ingredients it should have been. Oh how I was wrong. I followed the recipe and the bread at first try looked like it was going to turn out great.

I thought like most bread I was supposed to slash the top so that the bread would expand properly when baked. As it turns out, I was not supposed to. As soon as I made the first cut, I realized I made an error. The bread immediately deflated to about half the height.

Upon further reading instructions, no where in the recipe does it state to slash it. It baked up fine with a decent color and the flavor was excellent. It was light, but not fluffy, which I attribute to the whole cutting thing. Ok, back to the bread again two days later.
Second batch, pretty much turned out the same way, but this time I didn't slash it before putting it in the oven. This time I decided to prepare an egg wash. If you recall in previous posts, the egg wash used for the roles made them turn out pretty and shiny and perfect.

Now if you remember from the paragraphs above this bread is supposed to light and fluffy. It's sweet, light and makes a great sandwich bread. What does that tell you? The bread being light and one loaf, being huge, is very heavy. This egg wash acted just like the slashing and just added to the weight.

The wash started collapsing the bread. What the hell?! Why can't I just freaking follow directions? Another two days later, I followed the directions to the tee (except for the extra water.) This one turned out absolutely perfect. The dough rested for an hour and came out like this.

After two hours of rising, you can see just how large this bread got. It's freaking huge. As previously stated I took this opportunity to follow directions. I didn't have any egg wash, and I didn't slash it. After baking, it turned out so good. It was freaking great. It baked up high and the crust turned out perfect. It was my most perfect bread.

Ye Old Bread Shope

2008-01-07T21:15:00.000-06:00

The first breads I attempted to create from 100 Great Breads was a Crusty Cob. This bread, which date back to medieval times, was known as one of the oven bottom, as this was invariable where it was baked. Baked to a deep color, it's a great British loaf.

Sweet. I played Dungeons and Dragons. I could just picture myself speaking some kind of thick Cockney accent that no one but Ozzy can understand, all covered in flour shoveling loaves into a gigantic hearth. More close to reality, I'm not British and don't have a hearth. The bread turned out ok, the first batch being tossed.

I added more water to this one, about 1/4 cup more. I don't think I kneaded it as well as I should have, since it did turn out to be somewhat dense. Not very dense, just a little. I only kneaded it for 5 minutes per directions. However, I now know how and what these directions really mean. The color and taste turned out ok. It was a little salty, but this recipe did call for 1 tbs of salt. Compared to the loaf I'm making tonight which was only 1.5tsp and 1/2 cup of sugar.

By the way, I really love making the round loaves, free form style. Something about bread pans (traditional) that bother me.

A new year, and new books

2008-01-07T20:41:00.000-06:00

This year for Christmas my lovely wife and boys bought some great books to enhance my bread baking skills. Actually it was to bring them up to snuff.

The first book I got was The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This cook book is right up my alley. Not only is it a great recipe book, but much like 50 Great Curries of India, this book contains a gigantic section on history, theory, science, technique and philosophy.

It's a highly rated bread making book and almost exclusive used by us armatures on Thefreshloaf.com. I have only read a couple of pages so far and it reads like more of a story of bread making discovery as the author recants his tale of bread bakings highest honor and achievement, Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. I have not created any breads from this book, as I have not dedicated anytime to reading it at a great extent.
The second book I got I have already created two breads from and tonight I am working on a third. 100 Great Breads, is a British book as everything talks about grams and such. Luckily for me the author includes measurements for us dumb Americans.

I screwed up one recipe in this because I didn't read his one page introduction. All of his recipes use cake yeast, which if you don't know what is, just know that it's different than the dry yeast you know and love. The first recipe I made was supposed to be your basic white bread. It was horrible, I followed his recipe but it turned out too hard.

I figured it was something I did, because after all he's British so he knows what he's talking about, right? I read the introduction and learned there that he uses cake yeast and if I'm using dry, I should cut the amount by 25%. That's a lot if you know anything about baking bread. Oh yeah, and your wheat type might vary so you may need to add more water. Now you tell me! I should have trusted my instincts. While I did end up throwing away the dough, I wasted time mixing and kneading.

A new finish

2007-12-17T21:13:00.000-06:00

After giving up on sour dough I decided to turn my attention to the finish of the breads. Normally for my French and Italian breads, I have had no finish. I would simply give the bread a steam bath to crunch it up a bit.

For the boys family birthday party I made some fresh rolls for the beef that Nana R. made. Chef Logan helped me out with this batch. He enjoyed smacking the dough around and singing "Dough dough dough dough-dough-dough" (from The Wiggles.)

This recipe was a classic Italian that contained plenty of fat (butter and milk) which makes for a softer bread. Very suitable for sandwiches After shaping the dough balls for the rolls I gave the dough a egg wash bath. As you can see after baking this made for a much shinier smoother
finish.

The Sour Dough Chronicals Part Three - Dough Boy's Revenge

2007-11-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

So, I started all over again. I threw out the starter and found a new recipe. This one made a little more sense to me. In the sense that this should work. It was essentially pineapple juice and flour. Over many days I changed out pineapple juice and flour and let my baby grow and rise. The theory is that the acidity in the pineapple juice will breed the exact type of tangy yeasties we want.
My little creation grew and grew and bubbled and grew. After the prescribed amount of time I proofed my homegrown yeast and let it rise! Rise!

It was a long time sitting and rising. Hours upon hours the yeast and flour mixed and combined, were born and died along with thousands of their brothers and sisters. I kept the dough properly hydrated so I had a reasonable assumption that this would turn out perfectly. I enlisted the help of my lovely wife to shape the two loaves so they would look very nice.
This little contraption we bought at the kitchen store outlet when we were in Oshkosh a couple of weeks ago. It's for baking, of course, and helps to make the loaves look prettier than if I used my own man hands to shape them.

In the oven they went amidst a great cloud of steam and fan fare. There was great rejoicing in Ranch for the bread smelled divine. There was a nice crust and splendid color but something just didn't seem right.

When I pulled them out of the pan and on to the
cooling rack, the bread felt wrong. I knew immediately that it didn't turn out. The bottom of the loaves felt dense, and while the crumb was acceptable, and the over look appealing, it just wasn't right.

I knew even when we sliced to eat it, that it wasn't meant to be. The taste was just....eh. There was no sour, there was no tang, it was just a mediocre white bread at best. Luckily we had friends over that night, one of them just happened to be a bread junkie. For me that meant constant reassurance that the bread tasted wonderful. I ditched the started that night. It wasn't worth it. It beat me. I'm defeated. I think I'll order a starter from a website. This weekend I went back to my roots and made a French loaf. I'll post pictures of these loaves. I'm sure they'll turn out.

The Sour Dough Chronicals Part Duex - The return of dough boy

2007-10-27T08:23:00.000-06:00

I am back. Now that we have regained a kitchen I am able to begin work on crafting and perfecting my bread making abilities. All throughout this ordeal I have attempted to keep my starter alive. Once and while I would discard and feed anew the starter.

My first attempt back using this starter was woefully disappointing. Not only was the crumb chewy and dense, there was not a sour tang throughout the entire loaf. I am not sure it was even worth eating, but we did. The only saving grace, was that it had a nice crust.

Now, I didn't give up on this one at all. I feed that starter and proofed it all over again. Taking some advice from my wise wife, I kept this batch slightly more hydrated than the last. She thought the reason it was dense was lack of moisture.

With the recent addition we've also finally been able to take Andi's KitchenAide away from her parents. I thought this time I would use the KitchenAide to knead everything, especially with it being so sticky. I also enlisted the assistance of famous baker and chef, Logan, from the highly viewed Tales of the Peanut Gallery fame.

He enjoyed duping everything in the bowl and turning on the mixer. After letting this one rise a good deal more than the previous loaf, we threw it into the oven. I knew something wasn't right because it didn't rise anymore than when we put it on. As you can see the crumb looks good, and it wasn't dense at all. However, there just wasn't any substance nor any tang.

I took this time to rethink everything about sourdough and start over. The do over will be in the next post. The Sourdough Chronicals Part 3.

The Sourdough Chronicals - Part I

2007-05-22T20:27:00.000-06:00

The search for a simple sourdough recipe began easily enough. All I wanted to do was create a sourdough starter that I could keep alive for years and years and and years. You know...something that I could pass down to my boys. Right.

The recipe was easy. 1 cup of raisin water and 1 cup of wheat flour. Mix and leave in a open container, somewhere warm. Raisin water, in case you don't know is water that has been soaked in raisins. Supposedly all of the nooks and crannys in a raisin contain some kind of natural little beastie that will help our little culture grow. I placed the container on top of the fridge and waited.

I fed it daily as instructed. Throwing out half of it, and adding a 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of flour. I kept this up for 4 days and like the recipe said, rite on the button, my started, started to bubble. At this point I had a culture growing. I could now cover it with some ventilation and keep in the fridge only feeding it once a week and I would be good for life.

After a couple of days, I decided to try my hand at my first sourdough loaf. According to the directions, I made a sponge by adding 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water and letting it sit for a couple of hours. Then I mixed in basically some of the sponge 2-3 cups of flour, 2 tbs of oil, 1 cup of water and salt. I went to kneading and right away I noticed something different. The dough was very very stiff. It was very tough to knead and almost felt like play dough. I reasoned that I didn't hydrate it enough. However adding water didn't really seem to help.

After letting it rise, as you can see, it didn't really double in size like I'm used to seeing. The ball of dough just kind of sat there...staring at me. Mocking me.

I asked my bride to take over and punch it down and shape it and prepare it for the oven. I thought I would let it rest and rise again for another hour and perhaps her delicate touch would coax the glutinous mass to come out and play nicely. Even after waiting for a time, it did plump up a little bit, but I was not holding out hope.

You know that feeling you get when you just know something isn't going to turn out. Kind of like when you were in little league and you just knew that ball was coming your way and you knew you were just going to drop it no matter how hard you tried? Yeah, that's what happened with this loaf.

During baking, the bread did rise, but the taste was just kind of underwhelming. It was a very dense bread, kind of like my first loaves when I didn't knead enough.

I reasoned that in this loaf, I could have waited longer for the sponge to grow, even over night as the recipe suggested. Next time, in part two we'll visit the longer sponge time and longer rise to see if we improved on the sourdough. Oh, by the way, did I mention, NO tangyness what so ever. There was nothing sour. I wanted like the pictures on the Thefreshloaf.com, with the cool irregular holes and fantastic taste.

Wisconsin heresy? Propose beer tax hike

2007-05-14T14:06:00.000-06:00

Madison - Two Democratic legislators today vowed to try again to raise the $2-per-barrel beer tax, which has been unchanged for 38 years, despite a warning they are taking on a "sacred Wisconsin beverage."

"I am not predicting it's going to pass," Democratic Rep. Terese Berceau of Madison said of her proposal to boost the $2 tax to $10 per barrel to fight drunken driving and treat alcohol addiction. "I'm kind of fooling around with holy water here."

Her beer-tax increase would raise the tax on a six-pack from 3.6-cents to 18-cents. Overall, it would cost beer drinkers between $40 million and $48 million more a year, she said.

The Assembly leader of her own party has panned her proposal, however.

Senate President Fred Risser (D-Madison) defended the increase, noting it essentially was indexing the beer tax for inflation since its last hike 38 tears ago. In 1969, Risser voted to raise the tax from $1 per barrel to $2, and he said none of the predictions then that it would devastate the state's economy came true.

Wisconsin's $2-per-barrel tax is third lowest in the nation, behind the 59-cent levy in Wyoming and the $1.86 tax in Missouri, home of Budweiser. Legisaltors said the highest beer tax in the nation is $33.17 per barrel in Alaska.

Michael Miller, a Madison-area physician who heads the American Society of Addiction Medicine, said Wisconsin's history, culture and politics has treated beer like a "sacred Wisconsin beverage." Raising the tax is needed and overdue, Miller said.

Miller commended Berceau and Risser for "walking directly into the mouth of the lion," comparing their effort to trying to raise the tax on wine in California or the tax on bourbon in Kentucky.

Other groups calling for the increase included Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Mental Health Association of Wisconsin and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

A Shandy Beach...

2007-05-07T20:11:00.000-06:00

This weekend I was talked into trying a new beer against my better judgment. I say this because, it was described to me as the new Leinenkugel's, which for the record makes some incredible beers. There was a twist on this one, it is their Weiss beer, mixed with lemonade.

"It's very popular is Europe," I was told. So is eating your french fries with tiny wooden forks and mayonnaise, but you don't see us yanks doing that. Either way I immediately thought of that man law, "Don't fruit your beer." And I'd like to think that I don't participate in this barbaric act. But what do I do when my beer comes with the fruit already mixed in?

I tried to remember my time in jolly old Germany, next to Wisconsin, the Mecca of all that is good and right with beer. You wouldn't find Lemonade in compliance the German Beer Purity law. However, as I hope Patrick can help clear me up, I do recall stopping at a convenience store, and situated right next to the shiza porn were a whole slew of soda infused beers.

It would seem that by doing a little research, a Shandy is a term used to described any beer infused with either soda or lemonade. So, I gave it the old college try, and you know what, it wasn't that good. No sir, not in this beer snobs opinion.

The beer was definitely one of the lightest I've ever seen. One could say almost like the colour of lemonade. It tasted more like a hard lemonade that was trying to act like a beer. A hard lemonade in beer clothing if you will. The taste was ho-hum and didn't give any kind of crisp refreshing taste normally coming from a Leinenkugels. The after taste was dry and slightly bitter, my tongue was wishing for something to cling to. I immediately gave some to my lovely wife who I knew would enjoy this kind of beer, and I was right. However, in her defense she would rather drink this kind of beverage than a beer.

The head retention was weak, and there was barely a trace of it. Its smell was over powered by the lemons where it should have been a nice clean Weiss, with a hint of lemons. Over all, I couldn't see my self buying this beer for any kind of enjoyment or pleasure, but rather to say, "Hey, did you try that lemonade beer? I did...it tastes like lemonade mixed with beer."

Time to move back to Wisconsin

2007-05-04T11:47:00.001-06:00

State Senate OKs free beer samples at the store
The Associated Press

MADISON — Beer lovers of Wisconsin, rejoice! Thanks to the state Senate, you’re a step closer to getting a free (yes, free!) half-can of beer.

The Senate today approved a bill on an unanimous voice vote that allows grocery and liquor stores to hand out samples of up to 6 ounces of free beer per day to people of legal drinking age. The Assembly was expected to take up the measure later today.

Current state law allows wineries, but not grocery and liquor stores, to offer up to 6 ounces of free samples.

Sen. Pat Kreitlow, D-Chippewa Falls, home of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., is the bill’s main sponsor. He said the measure is designed to help beer manufacturers compete with wine makers.

Mmmmm....beer

2007-04-29T19:39:00.000-06:00

This blog is suppose to be about all kinds of yeast related stuff. This weekend was beautiful and both of us worked hard outside all day. There was playing around, digging around, watering around, etc. Any way, today, out of any day was the most perfect day of the year so far to end it with a beer.

This is one of my home creations, a Honey Blond. The primary sugars while derived from the liquid malt extract was enhanced with a full pint of pure Wisconsin honey. I really like this one and it poured nicely. It's a little darker than I would have guessed a blond to be, but it tasted perfect.

It was sweet, with a dry after taste. I'm guessing the alcohol content is pretty high on this one, but you can't taste it. Now while I do prefer my beers at room temp, this one was perfect being refrigerated.

Next blog, sour dough strikes.

Freedom Baguettes

2007-04-29T19:26:00.000-06:00

The weekend before last I ended up making some baguettes with the same simple French Bread recipe that I began with. The only difference this time was that I cut the dough and formed two smaller loaves. Andi and I ended up making them into sandwiches. They tasted excellent, however we had them the next day and the crust wasn't as crunchy. I don't think I should have stored them in a plastic bag. I'm not exactly please with the shaping but I'll get it down some day.

Last weekend...a little Italian

2007-04-23T20:30:00.000-06:00

I know a little Italian.

He's sitting over there.

Now that I got that out of my system. Last weekend I went for the Italian loaf. I was looking to make bread that would rise a lot and make some decent sandwiches. While we never made sandwiches out it, I think these turned out beautifully.

The little secret behind these loaves or Italian for that matter, is the crust. While your French and sour doughs typically are accentuated by a hard crusty....well crust, the Italian is not as, and mostly chewy. Not unlike the Wookie.

I've been playing with techniques to change the type of crust you get with various suggestions on hydration. I've mostly been placing the broiler pan at the bottom of the oven and letting that heat up with the preheat. When I put the bread in I throw a cup of warm water on the pan and create a steam cloud. This cloud normally results in a super crunchy crust.

For the Italian, in order to get the crust just right, there has to be a little bit more moisture in the outer layer. This crust technique called for brushing the loaves with water before putting in the oven. They turned out perfect, and the loaves were only too ready to sop up all that tomato goodness from a nice (or not so nice) pasta dinner. These loaves were f-ing huge and I ended up taking one over to the neighbors. After all, bread, especially home made bread should be shared among friends.

Next time, I try and improve on my loaf shaping techniques, when I make baguettes.

A baking fool

2007-04-13T18:47:00.000-06:00

I was feeling especially creative and recently emboldened by my success at rolls, I decided to attempt the Cinnamon Oatmeal Raisin bread. This time however, I didn't have any oatmeal. Not to be dissuaded I went and scoured the internet for a recipe for cinnamon raisin bread that didn't have oatmeal or any thing else fancy. I found one at allrecipe.com Cinnamon Bread. This one was promising.

I actually added about 1/2 cup more raisins than the recipe called for because it didn't look like enough and frankly, I like raisins. These first two pictures show the dough and then after the first rise. It doubled all right, and then some. Don't worry, this called for making three loaves.

After this rising you punch it down and flatten it out with a rolling pin. After rolling it out you spread out a cinnamon sugar mixture all over it. Now this was the tricky part and where my lovely wife lent a hand. She rolled it up for me like a jelly roll. After that you cut it into thirds and pinch the ends down.

We only had two loaf pans so one of the loaves was made to bake free form style. You can see that they colored very well and the rolling action made for a pretty neat looking loaf of bread. Tasty too I might add.

Second verse same as the first

2007-04-13T18:43:00.000-06:00

This past weekend since I had off an extra day and decided to get some more baking practice. I did the same recipe as the weekend before however, I made rolls instead of loaves. I believe they turned out very pretty and very tasty. They went well with Nana's leftover ham from Easter. I thought they even split nicely.

The Second First Attempt - Lesson 2

2007-04-05T20:15:00.000-06:00

Ok, so on Sunday I decided to follow directions a little better and move up on the lesson plan. Lesson two called for adding fat and sugar to the mix. This time, milk, butter and sugar were added to the flour mixture. However, I did deviate from the recipe. I know I shouldn't have, but for some reason it made sense in my head. I shouldn't listen to myself. It didn't turn out bad, but not as fluffy as I wanted. I added a little bit of wheat flour to the mix, when it didn't call for any.

The next time (this next sunday) I'll follow the recipe and do it right. Perhaps, I'll only try to make rolls instead.

This time you can see that my first rising was very successful. In the first picutre my blob of dough doubled in size just like it was supposed to. Now this time, after I beat up the dough, I took the time to shape it and rise for a second time on the stone. After scoring and baking you can see the bread did rise and color very nicely.

However, if you can tell once I cut it, that while it did rise nicely, the addition of the wheat flour seemed to have a negative effect on the crumb (little air pockets that form when the bread rises and bakes). It was slightly....heavy. I think the added wheat was too much gluten and I didn't compensate for it. I will do better and follow the recipe.

Basics

2007-04-01T19:18:00.000-06:00

It’s true that I’m a little bit of a beer snob. I have been brewing for about three or four years now, and while I don’t drink enough to make enough, I try to keep up on my local and national micro brews. Also, recently, I’ve started to make homemade bread. Not the stuff in the machine, but actual down to earth get your hands sticky and beat down some dough, bread.

The first two attempts were disastrous. I tried to make some fancy bread and they just turned our horrible. The first was a blue cheese and walnut, which was flat and smelly. I know blue cheese is smelly any way, but this was like burnt blue cheese. The second one I tried was a cinnamon raisin. Again, this turned out disastrous and I made more of a cinnamon raisin hockey puck, then bread.

Thankfully the boys aren’t sophisticated with their tastes and they loved the bread anyway. Perhaps they were just being polite, but they would always ask for more “ray-ray bread.”

It was after this second disastrous loaf that I decided to do my research and found this site, The Fresh Loaf. They have not only lessons on line for free, but great tips from someone who’s worked at a commercial as well as local bakery. His insights and tips, led me to the conclusion that I had not been or did not knead enough.

So then last weekend, I did his lesson 1 first simple loaf. All it consisted of was flour, water, yeast and salt. Can’t get more simple than that. After kneading for the right amount of time, the dough turned out exactly like he described, a smooth silky ball. It doubled in size just like it was supposed to, the other loaves didn’t. And with the second rising, I knew I would be successfully. My one problem was that I should have shaped it after the second kneading. So that after the second rising, when I put it into the oven, when it was finished, I really had a bread ball, instead of a loaf.

It was a classic French ball, and tasted just fine for my first real bread. I had achieved success. For the most part. So now, in lesson two, we’ll add some kind of sugar, while changing out the water for milk. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to that today.