Five-Grain Sourdough w/ Rye Sourdough (Mellow Bakers: November)

I decided to bake the Five-Grain Sourdough first this month for mellow bakers, since I hadn't used by starter to bake with in awhile and  I was eager to try it after reading Cathy's post on this bread.  She did an excellent post of this bread here and like her, I didn't have any rye chops so I thought it an excellent idea to use rye flakes, which I have, and to make a cold soaker as opposed to a hot one.

I chose to cut the recipe in half for this one, whereas Cathy made the whole recipe, and since it was a cold soaker I decided it wasn't necessary to include the salt in it.  I added the salt in when I mixed up the final dough.  I included some process pictures below for fun, since the shaping process went smoothly and I was in the mood for taking lots of pictures.  I'm also trying to learn how to use Picasa to do fun things like making collages and this gives me more practice.

The top left picture is the dough just after pre-shaping.  I used ~ 2lbs of the dough for my batard and since I only had 8 ounces left, I decided what the heck, rolls would be nice for dinner.  So with the 8 oz piece of dough, I made two little 4 oz dinner rolls.
 

I folded the dough for my batard just like Cathy did, except that I added the 4 or 5 extra steps that JH includes in his book Bread on page 72, which is what I was doing in the bottom left picture.  I finished the final shaping of my batard and the rolls and transferred them to a piece of parchment on my peel, covered them for their final fermentation, and then scored them after ~ 70 minutes.  Since Cathy liked her loaf with the single score down the middle I went with that one too.  I tried snipping my rolls w/ the scissors for scoring, but the slits actually just closed right back up when they baked :( 

 

It's always fun to see just what shape the bread is going to assume after scoring it, since for the home bread baker like me,  the scoring is a constant struggle and learning process.  On this one my bread opened WAY up, and it looked pretty neat.  It almost kind of looked like it had an 'ear' on top, but I'm not really sure.  Regardless of whether the scoring was correct, hubby and I thought it looked wonderful and possibly like I'd just gone and picked it up from the corner artisan bread bakery :)

The loaf was soft inside, but the crust is firm and just slightly crunchy, which hubby said was a good thing.  We couldn't really taste much tang from the sourdough component, but it does have a mellow, nutty quality.  I made the loaf on the day I did, with the hopes that it might make good grilled cheese sandwiches to go w/ homemade tomato soup the next night.  It tasted super as 'grilled cheese bread', and I think I'll probably make this one again, as it is quite tasty.  The batard shape made it much easier to get nice sandwich slices from it, which can be more difficult when I shape the loaf as a round boule.

Mmmmmmm, it doesn't get much better than grilled cheese and tomato soup on a rainy, cold evening after a difficult day at the office (for hubby)!

Focaccia w/ Herb Oil (Mellow Bakers: August)

After seeing Abby's wonderful focaccia and reading her encouragement to make this, I decided to whip it up this weekend.  I decided to make up the full batch of biga from the ciabatta recipe on page 105, but I had planned on only using 2/3 of it for the final dough.  I figured 2/3 of the ciabatta recipe would be just enough to make both the regular focaccia and the focaccia con formaggio.  However, as quite often happens when I do things like this,  I goofed and put the whole biga in with the other ingredients when I was mixing up the final dough, instead of only 2/3 of it.  I didn't realize my error until all the fermentation was finished and I was ready to put my dough into the pan.  I was mad at myself for committing this blunder, and hoped that it didn't have an adverse impact on the finished product.  As Abby said, this dough was very wet and quite sticky.  I even tried oiling my hands really well, but it didn't seem to help much. 

I don't have a 10-inch cake pan so my focaccia ended up going into my 9 inch cake pan, and I just used an ounce less of dough.  Since I had my PR book, 'Bread Bakers Apprentice', open to his focaccia recipe, I decided to just go ahead and make the herb oil he describes, for mine as well.  I didn't have any other ideas and it won't be too long before cooler weather comes and the only way to get fresh herbs will be from the grocery stores.  I used a generous amount of fresh basil and rosemary.  I didn't have fresh oregano so I threw in dried.  I think I had about 2 heaping tablespoons full of herbs that I put into my 1/4 cup of warmed (to ~ 100°F) olive oil.  To the warmed oil I also added kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and a minced garlic clove.  Mmmm did it smell good. 

I put 2 Tbsp of plain olive oil into my cake pan, which I had lined w/ a piece of parchment.  I made sure the bottom and sides were nicely coated.  After reading Jeffrey's instructions for shaping and panning the focaccia, I thought 'Heck with that!!  I'm not shaping and then trying to move that very wet dough to the pan'.  So I did what Mr. Reinhart recommends, and that was to put the dough into my cake pan, smoosh it out a little bit, pour on a generous amount of my herb oil and then using my fingertips, to dimple the dough until it stretched out and just touched the sides of the pan.  I covered it for 1 1/2 hours for its final fermentation and then into the oven it went. 

As we were sitting down to dinner, hubby had already tried the focaccia before I had touched mine, and he says 'you better let me have yours, it tastes aweful'.  He said this with such a straight face, and is usually very honest w/ me, that I almost believed him (especially since I was worried that my biga blunder might have hurt the dough in some way).  Then I detected a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth and realized he was fibbing to me. 

This focaccia was absolutely awesome!!  This is our favorite focaccia by far, compared to the others I have made so far.  It is incredibly light, even compared to the others I've made.  Here are our first two slices, which we devoured, and then decided to finish off the whole thing, since it always tastes best straight from the oven the first day.

So, I have to ask, for those who have made the BBA focaccia and this one, is the BBA focaccia even better than this one?

Oatmeal Bread (Mellow Bakers: August)

We were finishing our last loaf of bread on Friday, and I saw that the Oatmeal Bread was on the list for Mellow Baker's for August, so I thought I'd give it one more try.  I made this bread back in February maybe? and I was not too crazy about it. 

When I made this bread the last time and saw that overnight retarding would work well for this straight dough bread, I decided to go that route.  I really love being able to mix up the dough for a bread, and then shoving it in the fridge until the next day when I just have to shape, proof and bake.  On page 232 where it explains that overnight retarding can be used for many of the breads in the straight dough section, it says 'little time' is needed the next day to finish the job.  So when I looked at the oatmeal bread recipe and saw that final fermentation was 1 to 1 1/2 hours, I assumed that was roughly the time it would take to proof after it came out of the fridge and was shaped.  I cut the recipe in half last time and proofed it in a 9" by 5" pan and I remember wondering if I had used the wrong size pan, because after an hour and a half, the loaf had still not crested the lip/edge of the pan.  I was puzzled and I think I let it proof a bit longer, but not much, and threw it into the oven, as I was concerned that the dough would overproof.  I thought maybe I had done something else wrong that prevented the dough from rising very much in the pan.  Anyway, that loaf I made back in the winter was pretty flat when it finished baking, and I thought it was dry, dense and I couldn't taste any sweetness to it at all.  I actually thought it tasted quite bland.

This time around I thought I'd change up the ingredients just a bit to try improving the flavor and/or texture.  Sometimes I make changes, though, and I'm not sure why I did it.  I just think it might perhaps bring some improvement.  I used whole milk as opposed to 1%.  (I had a small quantity of whole milk in the fridge this time, because I had been using it for a Nick Malgieri cake recipe).  My thinking was that perhaps a higher fat content in the milk might make a more tender loaf.  Instead of the King Arthur whole wheat, I used their white-whole wheat and I subbed some barley flour for part of the wheat flour as well.  I had just made some cookies last week with oat flour, barley flour and whole wheat flour and I thought the barley flour might give a more complex, nuttier flavor to the bread.  I didn't have enough high-gluten flour, so I had to use some of my bread flour.  I used 1/4 tsp less salt than called for when cutting the recipe in half, but don't ask me why.  No reason. 

Just like last time, the loaf hadn't even risen above the lip of the pan after 1 1/2 hours of proofing in my 9 by 5 pan.  I looked at some of the recipes in Peter Reinhart's book Artisan Breads Every Day, and those loaves required 2 1/2 to 3 hours of proofing after the dough was shaped and had come from the fridge.  So I decided everything was fine, and that I'd just leave the loaf go for 2 1/2 hours and then come back to it.  When I came back, it had crested the top of the pan and was ~ 1/2 inch above the lip of the pan.  I left it go another fifteen minutes and decided it was probably ready to go. 

The loaf had nice oven spring and rose at least another good half inch or so upon baking.  I was fairly pleased with that.  The loaf didn't taste nearly as dry this time I believe.   It slices very nicely and doesn't seem  too dense.  I still don't taste any sweetness at all, but maybe its just me.  I think next time I'll use agave nectar and see if that gives me my sweetness.  It tastes much better than before, but I'm going to increase the amount of barley flour next time anyway, just to see if I get a more pronounced nutty flavor. 

Now its on to the bread I'm really looking forward to, the Oatmeal Bread w/ Cinnamon and Raisins

Sun-dried Tomato, Asiago, Rosemary & Olive Oil Focaccia

I was trying to think of what I could make with local herbs and/or spices for the June Bread Baking Day, and for some reason, focaccia kept popping into my head.  However, maybe that's because I hadn't made a foccocia since last year and I have a large rosemary plant on my front porch just begging to be placed atop a tender focaccia.  I don't think rosemary is necessarily a local herb, but people here do love growing it and its especially popular here at Thanksgiving and Christmas on roasts and large birds. 

As I was contemplating the possibility of making focaccia, I realized the only focaccia I had made thus far was a bread machine recipe that I had made once.  I had never made focaccia from any other recipe.  This definitely needed remedied soon. 

Hubby and I had really loved the first focaccia I had made topped with rosemary, garlic, and kosher salt, but I wanted to top this one a little differently.  I love to peruse the breads in the bakery section of The Fresh Market, a gourmet grocery that has locations scattered all over the central and eastern part of the United States.  I don't ever buy their breads (way too expensive), but I get ideas on what I'd like to make at home.  I saw a basketful of focaccia last week and the variety that caught my attention was the sun-dried tomato, asiago, rosemary and olive oil one.  It looked soooooo good!  The perfect toppings.

The recipe for focaccia that I chose was from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion.  The recipe looked interesting to me because of its list of ingredients, which included potato flour and nonfat dry milk, and because of the first step in its preparation.  I knew that the inclusion of potato flour and nonfat dry milk would definitely yield tender results. 

The first step listed in the preparation of this focaccia was to mix hot water and flour together and beat for several minutes to develop a smooth batter.  Hmmm, I'd never mixed boiling water and flour together before for a dough.  I wanted to give it a try.  When I did this, it didn't necessarily seem to me like a batter, but more like a paste:

It didn't look like much in the bowl, certainly not very appetizing.  I decided to cut the recipe in half so 1 cup of boiling water and 1 cup of flour didn't amount to much.  I added almost an 1/8 tsp of yeast to the batter (paste) and let it sit on the counter for 4 hours.  This was to develop flavor in the finished focaccia, as well as a soft interior texture.  After the four hours though,  it looked pretty much the same.  I had thought it would swell quite a bit, but it only got very slightly puffy.

Next, whisk potato flour with the remaining flour, dry milk, yeast, and salt.  I added this to the batter/paste, while beating it together and then put in 1 Tbsp of olive oil.  I beat this a little more by hand, which was hard, because it was so stiff and thick.  I put it into my stand mixer bowl and used the dough hook on medium speed for at least 10 minutes.  It seemed like I was adding alot of extra flour to the dough to get it to come together.  The directions didn't say what the finished dough consistency should be like, so I just had to hope I was doing this thing right.  Here's my dough after kneading and placing in a lightly greased bowl.

I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise on the counter for 30 minutes.  The dough increased by about one third and looked puffy.  I then pulled the sides of the dough up and over in a folding motion (while keeping the dough in the bowl).  I did this several times to release some of the gas, and then I let the dough rise for another 30 minutes. 

I drizzled 1 tablespoon of olive oil into my 8 inch round pan and smeared it around a bit.  I placed the dough into the pan, gently stretching it to fit, covered, and let rest for 30 minutes.  Stretched it a little more to fit the pan and then preheated the oven to 400°. 

Just before sliding the focaccia into the oven, I dimpled it with my fingertips, brushed it with a little olive oil, and topped it with my sun-dried tomato, asiago, rosemary, and just a pinch of kosher salt.

I had meant to put some of the sun-dried tomatoes inside the dough, but I kind of forgot.  Into the 400° oven it went.  In only about 10 minutes, I could smell the melting asiago from the upstairs landing.  I could hardly wait for it to finish baking.  It took about 25 minutes before the focaccia was a nice deep, golden brown all over. 

I don't know if the folding of the dough was correct or if I dimpled it properly, but who cares after it comes out of the oven looking like this:

Ahhhhh, it smelled sooooo good.  I'm glad I had made a light dinner of 1 fish fillet (that we split) and rice, because we each had a quarter of this and we highly considered consuming the entire thing, it was that good.  Here's one of the quarters,

Tender Focaccia

from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion

yields two 8-inch round or one 12- to 14- inch round focaccia

2 cups (16 ounces) boiling water

3 3/4 cups (16 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (1 1/2 ounces) potato flour, or 1/3 cup (3/4 ounce) potato flakes

1/4 cup (1 1/4 ounces) nonfat dry milk

2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus

2 to 3 tablespoons to grease the pan and the surface of the dough

Well, it wasn't very creative or elaborate, but it was what I decided to do for this month's bread baking day.  I will however, continue to try to experiment with my fresh herbs over the next few months in some more breads. 



If you'd like to participate in bread baking day   #41, hurry and get baking your bread with local herbs and/or spices and go to My Discovery of Bread, the host, to get the details of how to submit your bread.

Dilly Bread (BBD #40)

The theme for this month's Bread Baking Day was announced as Bread with Curds.  Not being familiar with curds at all, I was a little worried at first, until I went back to zorra's announcement of this BBD, and read that we could use curds, cottage cheese, quark or paneer.  Whew!  I was relieved .  I love cottage cheese and have used it in bread in the past, just not very much.  My favorite way to eat cottage cheese is a small bowlful, with a large dollup of apple butter stirred in.  Mmmmmm.

Anyway, I went back to the internet and as I was looking around, I found a recipe at The Pioneer Woman Cooks called Jan's Dilly Bread.  I liked the looks of this recipe, because it brought back fond memories of the Cottage Dill Bread from the recipe booklet that came with my old ABM3100 Welbilt Bread Machine.  I made this recipe often (back when all my breads came from my bread machine).  I loved the taste of the dill and minced onion in the bread and how moist and soft it always turned out.  So here's the dilly bread I made for Bread Baking Day #40, 

Jan's Dilly Bread

slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Ingredients
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
1/4 cups warm water
1 cup cottage cheese, heated to lukewarm
1Tbsp + 1tsp honey
1 Tbsp dried minced onion
1 Tbsp softened butter
1 Tbsp dried dill weed
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 whole egg
1 cup white-whole wheat (I used King Arthur Flour)
1 1/4 cup bread flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. 
Combine the warm cottage cheese, honey, minced onion, dill weed, salt, soda, and egg. 
Stir to combine.
Stir in yeast mixture gently, then add flour gradually, stirring gently.

I did all my mixing with my dough whisk and then at the end I turned the dough out onto my silicone mat to knead it a tad by hand, and to work in a little extra flour.  I placed the dough in a lightly greased, clean bowl, covered it with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 1/2 hours until it doubled in bulk.  I turned it back out onto my mat, gently punched the dough down, gently shaped it into a round and placed it into a well greased, 9 inch cake pan.

I covered the dough again with plastic wrap and it rose for another 50 minutes on the counter.  It puffed up nicely, filled out the pan completely and rose above the top of the cake pan.  I then placed the pan into my preheated (350°) oven and baked it for ~30 minutes on a lower rack of the oven.  The bread started to brown a little too much, so after about 20 minutes, I moved the pan to a higher rack in the oven and it was done in 30 minutes even, though the directions had said 40-50 min.  After it came out of the oven, I turned the bread out onto my rack and brushed the top with melted butter.

This comforting bread went really well with Girlichef's Tomato Garlic Soup w/ Cheese Tortellini.  With the cooler weather we had this past week it made a perfect meal. 

To complete the perfect meal, for dessert we consumed the biggest Nutty Peanut Butter Cookies I've ever had.  These were made from the recipe on page 113, of The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread.  The cookies were about 4 inches in diameter.  (Hubby was being silly as I was trying to take pictures).



I had so much fun with this bread.  If you'd like to participate in Bread Baking Day #40, go to Zorra's blog to get the details.  If you'd like to see the roundup of all the different breads baked with curd, be sure to stop by Zorra's shortly after June 1 to view them.   

Easy, Tasty Cracked Wheat Bread

I acquired a 1.5 lb bag of cracked wheat a few months back from Weisenberger Mills, in order to bake this Whole Wheat bread with Mellow Bakers.  I wasn't too worried about using the bag of cracked wheat up, but now when I open my fridge and see that bag, it looks like alot of cracked wheat.  I couldn't find cracked wheat as an ingredient in any recipes from the other bread books I own, so I jumped on the internet yesterday peeking at various blogs and other websites.  I didn't have to look too far before I found one on allrecipes.com that looked promising.  I decided to have a go at it yesterday and it turned out a tender, nutty, slightly sweet little loaf that is perfect for sandwiches, (especially my lunchtime PB&J's), and toast.  Hubby's out of town at the moment, but he'll be back tomorrow for me to see how he likes it.

I changed the recipe just a little, corrected the pan size called for, and adapted the directions to how I like to make my loaves, and though I'm no cracked wheat bread expert,  I was really happy with the results.

Cracked Wheat Bread
adapted from Allrecipes.com

1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp water
1/4 cup cracked wheat
1 1/8 tsp + a pinch of instant yeast
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp warm water
1 Tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp molasses
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp flax seed, ground
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour + an additional 1/4-1/2 cup

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil.  Stir in cracked wheat and simmer for 10 minutes; let cool to lukewarm.

Place the cracked wheat mixture in the bowl of your stand mixer, and add the butter, salt, molasses, honey, yeast, ground flax seed, whole wheat flour and 1 cup bread flour.

I put the remaining water, and the milk in a saucepan and heated it to ~ 95° and then poured it over the rest of the ingredients already in the stand mixer bowl.  I let all the ingredients sit undisturbed for maybe 10 minutes and then with the paddle attachment I mixed the ingredients for 2 1/2 - 3 minutes on low speed until the dough came together in a shaggy ball.  I added ~ 1/4 cup of additional bread flour as the dough was still a little too wet.  I stopped the mixer, switched to the dough hook and continued mixing on medium-low for about 7-8 minutes, making minor adjustments of added flour.  I turned the dough out onto my lightly floured silicone mat, and kneaded the dough for a couple more minutes until it was soft, supple and no longer sticky.  I lightly oiled a large bowl, rolled the dough around just a little to barely coat it with oil, placed it in the bowl and covered with plastic wrap.

Upstairs the dough went to sit on my dryer, while I dried a load of clothes.  It was cold in the house, so I figured it couldn't hurt.  I let the dough rise until approximately doubled, which took 1 1/2 hours.  I shaped the dough into a loaf, placed in a greased 4 1/2 by 8-inch loaf pan (the recipe incorrectly called for a  9 by 5 pan), spritzed the top of the loaf with a bit of cooking spray and loosely covered with plastic wrap.
Let rise until dough domes at least an inch above the rim of the pan.  It took my loaf ~ 1 hour and 15 minutes for this to happen.  I pressed my finger into the loaf to test to see if it was ready to bake and the indent remained, so into the oven it went.  I had preheated my oven to about 360°.  I baked 20 minutes and rotated the pan 180°, and then baked another 10 minutes until my thermometer read 188-189°.

I immediately turned the loaf out of its pan and let it cool briefly on its side, then turned it upright and ran a stick of butter over the top.

Next days PB&J was mighty yummy!!

Whole Wheat Bread with Hazelnuts & Currants (Mellow Bakers:February)

Since hazelnuts are my husband's favorite nut to crack open and eat at Christmas time, I knew I had to try the Whole Wheat Bread with Hazelnuts and Currants.  I also love currants and use them alot in making biscotti, which I love with my morning coffee:)

I had never roasted hazelnuts before, which is odd since we love them so much and they are readily available in bulk bins at two stores where I shop.  I think I had my oven set between 350 and 375 to roast the nuts and I took them out at 9 minutes.  They were plenty brown, smelled wonderful, and there was smoke coming up from the pan. Yikes!!  The skins just began to fall off as they were roasting which was cool, making it easier for me to get the rest off.  Here's my roasted hazelnuts:

I decided to cut the recipe in half, which was a good thing, because I hadn't grabbed enough hazelnuts to make a full batch of dough!  Jeffrey said that this dough makes very nice rolls, so I wanted to make a couple with the extra dough I knew I'd have.  I shaped my loaf into a batard with 1.5 pounds of the dough, and with the remaining 8 ounces I made two rolls.  The first thing my husband said when he walked into the kitchen was, "Ahh, aren't they cute", when he saw the rolls.  I used kitchen shears to snip an X on the top of each roll before baking.

This bread is very, very good!!!  My husband is sad now that it is Friday and our loaf is almost gone.  The roasted hazelnuts go really  well with the sweet little currants dispersed throughout the loaf.  We have thoroughly enjoyed this bread with our meals this week and I'll definitely make again!

Here is a picture of the interior of the batard:

Thank you for visiting my blog and be sure to go to mellow bakers.com to see what others have made for February!

Mellow Bakers is a group of bread baking enthusiasts looking to bake a particular bread or breads together each month, with the recipes being chosen from Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes.

Whole-Wheat Bread (Mellow Bakers: February)

This past week I made my first bread from Jeffrey Hamelman's book "Bread-A Baker's Book of Techiniques and Recipes".  I'm joining Mellow Bakers a little late, seeing as how they started the book in March 2010, but better late than never!  I received the book for Christmas and really wanted to start in January, but since I have neither a starter or a Pullman Pan, I decided to wait till February.

I know it's a simple bread without any fancy nuances, but I really liked the whole-wheat bread recipe found on page 122 of this book.  Since it was a very simple recipe, it gave me a chance to become familiar with JH's various techiniques, such as folding and preshaping.  Here are my two preshaped pieces of dough resting comfortably before they become loaf shapes:

The dough was really easy to work with and the only problem I had was mixing up the final dough in my stand mixer.  The dough wanted to constantly be climbing the dough hook.  I would stop the mixer, push the dough off the hook and within 20 seconds after turning the mixer back on, the dough was all the way up the hook again.  It was kind of frustrating.  I was wondering if any kneading was getting done at all, with me constantly stopping the mixer to push the dough down into the bowl.  Oh well,  we're still learning :)

For the final fermentation I shaped both pieces of dough into logs and put them into my 9X5 loaf pans.  This was to be our sandwich bread for the week.  I was puzzled that JH didn't give a lower temperature to bake at if you were using pans to bake in.  In every recipe I've made so far this year and in Peter Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice", bread baked in a loaf pan is baked at 350, but JH said to bake this bread at 450 and that it would take 40 minutes.  Well,  I just couldn't bring myself to set the oven at 450, because I thought it was too high.  So I kept it at 425 to start with and remained squatted there in front of the oven peering in at the bread the whole time it was baking.  I turned the pans around 180 degrees after 20 minutes and the tops looked really brown!!!  I decided to put my probe thermometer into one of the loaves to check the temperature.  After 25 minutes in the oven at 425, the temperature was at 192 and climbing, so I took them out.  After depanning the loaves and putting them on a wire rack, I took a stick of butter and rubbed it across the top of both loaves to keep the crust tender.  Here they are:

I was really pleased with their shape.  These were the most symmetrical, nicely shaped loaves I've made so far.  I think I waited roughly an hour and fifteen minutes before I couldn't wait any longer to try the bread.
We had slices for dinner with butter/canola oil spread on them.  Mmmmmmmm!!

I agree with some that whole-wheat bread isn't the best title for this recipe, but I still liked the taste of the bread for what it was and when I want a 100% whole wheat bread I'll look for another recipe, but when I want something a little lighter and softer I'll go to this recipe!! 

Here is a nice close up of the crumb and texture of this bread:

Thank you for visiting my blog and hop on over to Mellow Bakers if you would like to see what others made for February!

Seeded Hamburger Buns

For some reason I kept thinking sloppy joes this past week.  I was really hungry for some sloppy joes.  Hmmm.  I needed buns for my sloppy joes.  I had seen a blog post by Michelle at BigBlackDog who made her own salt crusted buns for her fried catfish sandwiches and I thought, "I can do that too!"  I wanted to get over yet another fear of making my own hamburger buns.

Well, I was very happy with the results.  Don't let anyone tell you that its hard to make hamburger buns from scratch at home.  It was VERY easy.  The recipe I decided to use for my buns can be found here.  I can always trust a King Arthur Flour recipe.  The only change I made was that I used half milk, half water for the 3/4 cup water.  I used 2 TBSP softened butter instead of oil for the fat.

I weighed my flour and dumped all my ingredients into my stand mixer, turned it on low for a minute or two using the paddle attachment, then switched to the dough hook and kneaded 7 minutes.  I  plopped my dough into a lightly oiled bowl and after an hour I shaped my buns.  Here is the video that Michelle included in her post and that I'm including as well so you can see how to shape the buns.

Here are my buns after they have been shaped and risen another hour:

As you can see there is no need for any kind of hamburger bun pan.  Just bake on a sheet pan!

After they bake for 10 minutes you brush with beaten egg white, spinkle on seeds and then after 5 more minutes you have:

After cooling and slicing they became the perfect vehicle for my sloppy joes for dinner.  Paired with some kettle chips and sliced apple it was a wonderful dinner.  The buns were also excellent with just deli turkey and some provolone cheese for lunch the next day.

I encourage everyone to try making their own hamburger buns.  You won't be disappointed!!!

Thank you for visiting my blog!

BYOB is a group committed to a

 year long adventure of baking our own 

 bread and other baked goods instead of buying them.

Transitional Multigrain Sandwich Bread

This week for my sandwich bread, I chose to try the Transitional Multigrain Sandwich Bread from page 106 in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread.  For the two weeks prior to this week, I had made Peter Reinhart's Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire from the Bread Baker's Apprentice and my husband was actually requesting it for his lunch sandwiches I pack him!  I was so happy that he wanted my bread instead of that soft squishy supermarket stuff.

So this week I thought I'd try one of PR's Multigrain Breads that includes a little whole wheat flour in it and see if my husband still liked it.  He did!!!  Yea!  The Multrigrain Bread Extraordinaire used only bread flour, but the Transitional loaf uses 3 oz of whole wheat flour in addition to bread flour.  The loaf looked so pretty in the pan with such a nice dome on it that I had to take a picture (above) before I took it out of the pan.

This loaf was very good, but not quite as good as the Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire.  It toasted nicely and we used it for deli turkey sandwiches all week.  Here is the loaf out of the pan ready to be devoured:

We always have a slice apiece for dinner on the day I make the bread, otherwise the loaf does not fit in the plastic bag that I keep it in on the counter :)  It was still slightly warm inside when we cut it for dinner and was superb with a little butter spread on it.

Roasted Garlic Bread (25th Bread Braid)

I love garlic almost as much as I love pizza.  I couldn't wait to make the roasted garlic bread found on page 100 of the HB in 5 book.  I picked out my head of garlic very carefully at the grocery store.  People probably think I'm weird, because I take so long to pick out my produce, almost 15 minutes just to find that perfect head of garlic.  Most people in Kroger don't even hardly look at the produce they pick up.  I wanted this bread to have good garlic flavor so I picked the largest, most plump head of garlic I could find.  If it were summer I'd buy a beautifully big head of garlic from Blue Moon Farm  at the farmer's market, but alas it's not summer.

I cut off the top third of my garlic head to roast, placed it on foil, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, closed up the foil and roasted at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.  This summer when I roasted one, the cloves just kind of dried up, but this time they didn't.  The roasted cloves were shiny, gooey, chestnut colored nuggets that I squeezed out into a bowl.  I kind of mushed up the roasted cloves with the back of a spoon to smooth them out and kind of make a paste that I thought would distribute itself better throughout the dough.

Here is my first baked loaf:

I did cut the loaf in half horizontally like it suggested in the book, but I followed the guidelines for garlic bread included with the Bobby Flay spaghetti and meatball recipe I was making for dinner.  I minced a couple cloves of garlic, spread a butter/canola oil blend onto the slice of garlic bread and then sprinkled on the minced garlic and dried parsley.  I placed the bread under the broiler for 2-3 minutes just till I could smell the garlic (some bits were starting to brown) and then took it out.  I immediately applied fresh grated parmesan and it went to the table with our spaghetti.   I thought it was yummmmy and so did my hubby.  I will probably make this again in the future.  Here's our prepared slice:



I did not make the whole wheat and flax seed bread that was also part of this assignment.  It just didn't sound that interesting and looked like it would be bland so I skipped.  I make a whole wheat flax bread occasionally for my sandwhich bread and am happy with it, so I didn't really need another flax seed bread recipe.   

Also, I wanted to thank everyone again who helped me decide what kind of rum to buy for my Christmas Stollen.  It turned out beautifully!!  I chose Bacardi Select dark rum.  It was wonderful in the bread, but I  have to say that the stuff is vile by itself.  My husband had to make me try some just to see what I thought. 

I soaked my fruit overnight in the rum and I used the almond paste down the middle of the loaf.   My parents really liked it and were intrigued by the almond paste in the center.  My mom took a knife and spread her almond paste over the surface of her slices of bread.  The only problem I had was that like others, my loaf browned too much on the bottom before the internal temperature was high enough for it to be done.

Here's my stollen:



Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Do you ever walk down the bread aisle and glance at the Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread and think "Wow, that looks wonderful, but I don't need it" and then with a heavy sigh you pick up your regular plain old sandwich bread?

Well, I used to do that alot, and so when I saw a recipe in PR's Whole Grain Bread book for Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread, I knew I had to try it.  Peter's method in this book is to make the breads usually over the span of two days.  On the first day, I made my soaker and my biga in separate bowls.  The soaker, which had the raisins in it, sat on the counter overnight.  The biga had 1/4 tsp yeast (but no salt to inhibit the yeast) in it and stayed in the refrigerator overnight. 

Here are my biga and soaker the next day ready to do their thing:

On the day of baking I divided both the biga and the soaker into twelve pieces each and tossed them together in the bowl of my KA mixer and then added the remaining ingredients for the bread.  Here are my biga and soaker all chopped into pieces in the bowl of my KA mixer.  I used my brand new OXO pastry scraper to do the chopping.  It worked wonderfully and I didn't cut any fingers off :)

I've made cinnamon rolls once before, but I haven't had much other experience rolling up doughs with filling in them.  I was spreading the cinnamon sugar mixture over the rolled out dough, taking it all the way to the edge, because the book didn't say not to.  I had a funny feeling though, that something wasn't right.

I rolled up the dough to place it in my 9x5 loaf pan, and when I went to transfer it, a shower of cinnamon sugar fell out all over my silicon mat.  I looked under the log of dough and the seam had  flopped open.  I looked again more closely at the picture in the book and it did look like they hadn't taken the cinnamon sugar all the way to the edge on one side.  Next time I make this I'll leave an inch or two border on one long side.  I managed to somehow squish the seam closed and get the rolled up log of dough into the pan. 

It said to cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 45 to 60 minutes, but I had almost no rise whatsoever after 1 hour.  So I preheated the oven to 170 degrees for five minutes, then turned the oven off and placed the pan of dough into it to see if some extra warmth might help.  I needed a few groceries for supper so I took off to the grocery store and was back in 45 min to an hour.  The loaf had STILL not crested the top of the pan.  I was really worried about the fate of my cinnamon raisin bread now.  I took the pan out, preheated the oven to 400 and held my breath as I slid the pan into the oven to bake.  Boy did it smell good baking!!!  Thankfully it had a nice oven spring and it rose maybe an inch or so above the rim of the pan after it had baked about 20 minutes.  The total time in the oven to reach the 195 degree internal temperature was the full 60 minutes plus maybe a few extra.

I transferred my loaf to a cooling rack and had to smell that cinnamony goodness for the next two hours as I waited to cut into it.

At first I was slightly disappointed when I tasted it, because it wasn't as soft and as sweet as the Pepperidge Farm bread.  As I ate more though, I started to appreciate the 100%  whole wheat flavor and stopped trying to compare it to something that's not whole wheat.  My bread was dense and a little dry and maybe I do need to work on my kneading skills, since I'm having trouble with the dough passing the windowpane test, but I still really like this bread. It just needs maybe an additional 1/2 cup of raisins added to the soaker next time.

My husband, who isn't a real big fan of 100 % whole wheat breads, except for a very select few at the supermarket, didn't like this bread as well, but he still said it wasn't bad toasted with a little butter and a sprinkling of cinnamon-sugar. 

Tabbouleh Bread (22nd Bread Braid) & Wild Rice and Onion Bread

I've never had Tabbouleh Salad before, but always wondered what it tastes like.  I knew it had lots of parsley in it being that I stare at it everytime I'm shopping at Whole Foods and walk by the salad bar.  The farthest I've gotten with bulgur is using it in a meatloaf so trying it in bread sounded interesting!  I'm not sure if this helps with knowing the correct pronunciation, but Tabbouleh is also known as tabouleh or tab(b)ouli according to Wikipedia.  It is a Levantine salad typically containing bulgur, parsley, mint, tomato, and spring onion, seasoned with lemon juice and olive oil. 

 I decided to keep it simple for my first loaf and just made an oval.  Here it is proofing on my pizza pan covered with saran wrap (the only change I made was to use two cloves of garlic for half the recipe):

The loaf browned nicely and smelled good as it baked and it tasted pretty good too, but I was disappointed that neither the garlic or the parsley taste came thru much at all.  I even had trouble discerning the lemon at times.  The bread was good though.  I'd like to make it again using Michelle's version over at Big Black Dogs and trying to incorporate maybe another ingredient you typically find in the salad.  Here is my finished loaf:

With the remainder of my half recipe dough I made pita pockets to stuff tuna salad into.   I managed to make the pita pockets, but they didn't quite have the texture and thickness of pita bread I've had before.  Next time I'll try a dough recipe specifically tailored to making pita pockets.  I rolled the dough into 7 in. rounds, then baked them ~ 10 min. at 400 degrees.  Here's one of my prepared pockets with some chips and apples gotten from a local orchard:

  The second assigned bread for the 22nd bread braid was Turkish Pear Coffee Bread.  It just didn't sound very appealing and I still don't have any ground cardamom, which the recipe calls for.  So I didn't make this bread (yet), but I might try it over the holidays if I get some ground cardamom next time I'm at Penzey's.

Instead of the Pear Coffee Bread, I tried one the recipes from "Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day" book.  I hadn't had a chance to try one of his with all the other breads I've been baking.  The one I wanted to try first was the Wild Rice and Onion Bread on page 113.  I really like wild rice and since I had all the ingredients for the bread and Peter said it was the second most popular bread at Brother Juniper's Bakery, I had to try it.  It smelled good even before I baked it, with the dried minced onion in the dough.  I added a pinch of dried thyme and some fresh minced rosemary to the dough also.  He says that at Thanksgiving they added parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, garlic powder, and black pepper to the bread and it became a wonderful bread to use in making stuffing.  Here's my finished loaf:

This bread tasted wonderful!!! A great addition to our Beef Barley Stew we had for dinner that night.

Pizza on the Grill, Garlic Studded Baguette, & Grissini (21st Bread Braid)

The baking agenda for this bread braid was a little less labor intensive than the previous one, which is good because I had a bad cold.  I did get to go to a King Arthur Flour Baking Demonstration just before I caught my cold though.  It was in Columbus OH and I persuaded my husband, mom and dad to go with me, which was good because my Dad won me a bag of KAF Organic AP flour.  Now I know what Frank and Elizabeth look like and even got to ask Elizabeth a baking question in person!!

The first task of this braid was to make pizza on the grill.  For my dough I used the Master Recipe from the HBin5 book.  The only changes I made was to add 2-3 tsp of brown sugar and 1 Tbsp of olive oil to the other ingredients in the dough.

I chose to make two individual pizzas for dinner.  Individual sizes gives us more variety for dinner and the littler pizzas are easier to handle.  I rolled my dough on parchment paper and then this is what my husband uses to hold onto when he flips it onto the grill, paper side up.  He peels the paper off right away.  If I had a pizza peel, which I do want for Christmas, I would have tried flipping the dough onto the grill the way Alton Brown does in his "Flat is Beautiful" episode.  It looks so easy the way he does it, but I'll bet he's had lots of practice and his pizza probably doesn't always land so neat and centered on his grill grates.

My husband and I made a pepperoni pizza with black olives, diced red pepper & mozzarella cheese and a Hawaiian pizza with sliced green onions, ham, and pineapple tidbits.  For the sauce I just made an herbed pizza sauce , a standby sauce that I make alot, because I didn't have the time or ingredients to try another sauce.  It is a wonderfully simple, tasty sauce.

 



Next up was the garlic studded baguette.  My baguette was kind of small, but I did use the half pound recommended size piece of dough.  I was concerned that the garlic cloves would not be "spreadable" once the baguette was cooked so I thought it might help if I drizzled just a teeny bit of olive oil onto each piece of garlic.  The garlic still was not spreadable when the baguette was cooked.  My cloves also tried to pop out of the baguette when the loaf was cooking, so I reached in and pushed them back down into the bread with the handle of a knife.  Does anyone know what is required to get the cloves to be spreadable?

The Grissini were very easy to make.  I should've started out with my half sheet pan, but I didn't.  I used a pan that was too small and we had to make the grissini in two batches.  The first batch we brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic powder, kosher salt, and fresh minced rosemary.  Then we cut with a pizza cutter.  The second batch we sprinkled with garlic powder, kosher salt and fresh grated parmesan since we'd run out of the fresh rosemary.

The grissini were very tasty and we gobbled them all up just before they started to cool off.  They went well with the Penne Sausage Bake we had for dinner.

Be sure and check out what everyone else did for this bread braid at Big Black Dogs.

Also, I just wanted share about the apple pie I made yesterday.  It's the one they made at the King Arthur Flour noon baking demonstration that I went to in Columbus.  If anyone likes to make apple pies and hasn't tried this recipe it is very worth it to try this one.  It has a very good filling!  Here's the link to their KAF Guaranteed Apple Pie.  Here's the pie I made: