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.

Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

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