White Bread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.