9/24/2010 - New York Deli Rye

This was the next bread in my sourdough run and my first rye bread. I added lightly sautéed onions to the preferment, which was optional, but I skipped the caraway seeds. J4 and I weren't sure if we knew what rye tasted like apart from the caraway flavor, and we wanted to find out. This bread smelled amazing as it baked. I think it was the onions that did it. I didn't really know what to think when I tasted it for the first time. I told J4 I didn't know if I could handle a bread with this much flavor. There was the tang of sourdough, the flavor of the onions, and the flavor of the rye itself. It took me a bit to get used to it, but J4 loved it from the start. The texture of this bread was very soft, and it stayed moist for days. While it was almost too flavorful to be eaten on its own (for my taste anyway), this bread made amazing sandwiches . . . and I guess that's what you're supposed to do with a deli rye anyway.

9/21/2010 - Basic Sourdough, Take 2

I figured it was time to give sourdough another go. This time, it worked like a charm. I used pineapple juice for the first two days of building the seed culture, just like last time; and just like last time, on day 3 I saw evidence of bacterial activity but not yeast. I followed the instructions PR had blogged for remedying this problem and stirred the seed culture every few hours to keep it aerated. It took an extra day, but I eventually got the doubling I was looking for. I made my barm, which in turn foamed and bubbled after a few hours just like it was supposed to, popped it in the fridge, and used it for the starter of my bread the very next day. My starter doubled perfectly, and I put it in the fridge overnight. The next day, I mixed, kneaded, fermented, shaped, and proofed, and then stuck the the proofed loaves in the fridge to develop flavor over one more night. On the final day, I allowed the loaves to sit at room temperature for a few hours and then baked them, hearth style.

These turned out perfectly. It was very rewarding to complete the entire process and have everything work just right. The bread was good. J4 liked it more than I did; I think I may just not really care for sourdough. I can eat it and I don't mind it, but it's definitely not my favorite. My plan now is to keep my barm active and motor through all the other sourdough formulas and be done with it. Maybe by the end I'll like at least some variation of sourdough better and decide to keep making it, maybe not. Either way, I should be pretty comfortable with the process by the time I'm done. I did freeze half of my barm when I refreshed it to start on the next formula, and PR says it should be good frozen for 6 months, so I can always pull that out and defrost it if I feel the urge to revisit sourdoughs down the road. 

9/19/2010 - Pugliese

This bread is a good reminder of how thankful I am for PR's brief excerpts that preface his formulas in this book. The cultural and historical background he provides and the descriptions of how the bread should perform throughout the baking process are invaluable. I was immediately intimidated as I read through it the day before baking this one, because this is a rustic bread with a very wet dough, something I am inexperienced and not very comfortable with. When he likened it to ciabatta, I was a bit concerned but also somewhat excited at this opportunity to correct my mistakes.

This is another bread that starts as a biga which is cold fermented in the fridge overnight. This dough calls for fancy durum flour, which I do not have, but PR notes that you can substitute a smaller amount of semolina flour and make up the difference with bread flour, so I opted to go that direction. This dough also can include an optional 1/4 cup of mashed potatoes, and I went ahead and added that to make the bread more tender. The dough I ended up with was extremely wet, but I was heartened by the note in the formula that the wetter the dough, the better the bread will be, and I plunged ahead. This dough is too wet to be kneaded; instead, it is turned out onto a bed of flour, generously dusted with more flour on top, stretched and folded, allowed to rest, and stretched and folded again. This was the point at which I knew my ciabatta dough was too stiff, but this time around it seemed to fit perfectly with the descriptions and pictures in BBA. After the first rise, gently shaping, and proofing, I attempted to score the loaves, this time with an exacto knife with a fresh blade. It worked better than my previous attempts, but I need to work on it. I baked my loaves on the pan they proofed on to avoid all the transfer from countertop to stone. I'm not sure that it makes much difference if the bread is baked on the stone or not; I've been happy with it both ways. I'm sure it makes more difference with some breads than with others.

We really liked this bread. It was very tender and the flavor was excellent. And I have to say that I kind of liked working with the wetter, rustic dough. This is one I would like to make again.    

9/16/2010 - Italian Bread

The moral of this story is, "Don't rush the bread." And I knew that going in. But I really wanted to have it fresh out of the oven with soup for lunch. By the book, this bread should require 5-6 hours on the day of baking, but I figured that with my warm house I could make it work. 

This formula calls for a biga, a firm preferment that is made the night before and refrigerated. I got up at 6:15am when the alarm clock went off (the first time, no snoozing) and pulled the biga out of the fridge to warm up while I showered. Then I rushed back out to the kitchen to mix my dough. I barely glanced at the cookbook as I went, and that is where I made my big mistake. I read, "3 1/2 cups all purpose flour; 2 1/2 cups bread flour." PR occasionally calls for both types, and I always just use bread flour, so I dumped 6 cups of bread flour in my mixing bowl along with my biga, salt, yeast, sugar, and malt powder. I added the smidge of olive oil called for, and then did a double take when I got to the water. It only called for 3/4 cup. I knew that would be a ridiculously stiff dough. But that's what it said to do, so I did it. As I struggled to bring the dough together, wondering also why PR would specifically call for a 4qt mixing bowl for such a large batch of dough, I looked back over the entire formula. And this time I read, "3 1/2 cups biga; 2 1/2 cups bread flour." Ouch. 

Since I had basically doubled the flour, I decided to salvage my dough by doubling everything else, except of course the biga. I ended up with a dough that felt right and I went with it. After kneading, I left the dough to rise to double, but I kept a close eye on it and divided and shaped as early as I possibly could. Since my batch was doubled, I made two loaves and a batch of breadsticks. After proofing for about 45 minutes, I called it good and baked them all together, with the loaves on my stone on the bottom oven rack and the breadsticks on a pan on the top rack.

This is one more hearth bread in which I failed to achieve the open crumb I wanted. I handled it as gently as I could, but I think rushing both rises was a big mistake. The bread tasted good, and we enjoyed it, but J4 said that I have to do this one again since it had half the biga it was supposed to. One more thing to fix next time: I wish I had waited and baked the breadsticks separately. They were soft on the inside from the high baking temperature and hard on the outside from the steam used in hearth baking. We decided we would prefer them to either be crunchy or soft, not halfway between. But they looked fun.

     

9/11/2010 - Lavash Crackers

I had no idea when I was going to make this one, because it didn't seem like these crackers would fill any niche in our day to day diet, and I'm all about meal planning around the baking that I do. But we had a Mission Sunday at church with a potluck that was supposed to feature international foods. So I decided to bring the Middle East in addition to a Norwegian dessert.

I mixed and kneaded the dough, and I left it to rise. Then I misted the counter with oil, and rolled out the dough to the thickness I thought I wanted. I was a little skeptical about transferring the rolled-out dough to a parchment lined baking sheet, but it held together beautifully and didn't stick to the counter at all. Then I misted the surface of the dough with water and topped it with rows of sesame seeds, caraway seeds, and paprika. I cut the dough into diamonds with a pizza cutter and popped the baking sheet in the oven. PR says they should take 15-20 minutes to brown across the top. Mine took almost twice that long and they puffed up a little during the baking. I realized about halfway through baking them that I had probably made them way too thick, at least in the middle.

When I got them out and tried one of the ugly ones, I decided that, yes, I should have rolled them out thinner. The edges were the right thickness and delightfully crispy, but the centers were too thick and lacking that crispiness. They were still fine, and I still brought them. But these might be worth another shot.

9/10/2010 - Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

This is a quick and easy bread that is made in one day. That was a little disappointing to me at first. I wanted it to be a dough that was refrigerated overnight so I could pull it out at 4:30am after M's nighttime feeding (yes, she's 7 months and still eating at 4am, but I'm ok with that), and bake it at 7am for yummy Saturday breakfast. The solution to this problem was to make the bread Friday evening so that it was a yummy Friday night bedtime snack AND a yummy Saturday breakfast.

I mixed and kneaded the dough and then quickly chopped my walnuts and measured and rinsed my raisins. The mounds of walnuts and raisins together looked to be equal to my volume of dough, and I wasn't sure how all of that goodness was going to go into that little ball of dough. But it did with some careful kneading. I set it in a bowl to rise and we put the kids to bed. Then I plopped down on the couch with J4 to watch Star Trek, the movie—the one about young Captain Kirk and Spock and time travel through black holes. I'm not a Trekkie, so I have no idea if that description actually differentiates this movie from any other Star Trek movie. The only other one I've ever seen is the one where Spock dies (he didn't die in this one, neither one of him). Once the dough had doubled, we paused the movie and I shaped my loaves by flattening the dough into rectangles, sprinkling liberally with cinnamon and sugar, rolling them up, and panning them. Then we watched another half an hour of so of movie before I preheated the oven and then dashed back to the kitchen again to pop them in. Fortunately, this was not a thinking movie. The loaves finished baking when we had about 15 minutes of movie left. PR instructs that these loaves should cool for at least an hour, preferably two hours, before being sliced. However, mine cooled for about 20 minutes.

This bread was perfect. It was excellent without any butter, and it made wonderful toast the next morning. The sweetness was just right, it's chock full of raisins, and I think the walnuts are what really made the flavor special. This is one that I need to remember to make again. And again, and again, and again.      

9/6/2010 - English Muffins

What better bread to make for a lazy Labor Day at home than English muffins? The formula was easy, and the muffins were ready in plenty of time for breakfast-for-lunch. I had fun making these. The dough is mixed, kneaded, raised, and shaped into buns for the final proofing. Then the muffins are cooked on a griddle for 5 minutes on each side, and then popped in the oven to finish baking. Easy, fun, yummy.

My English muffins weren't quite where I wanted them, and I think it was because my dough was too stiff. They didn't really spread on the griddle the way they were supposed to, so we ended up with very fat, dense, muffins. We still enjoyed them, but I'll be revisiting this one.

Even with thicker than desired English muffins, McDonald's has nothing on these.

Taking a "break"

Sort of. I went an entire week without crossing a single formula off my BBA list. That's not to say I didn't bake any of them, I just baked one I had made before. Specifically, I revisited potato rosemary bread, but with a slight variation. This past week I baked potato basil bread, and I made it twice. I was helping with the food at a baby shower this past weekend, and I decided to try out a recipe I've always been intrigued by but never had a good reason to make: the Big Sandwich. You take a round loaf of bread, slice it into five horizontal slices, and load it up with roast beef, turkey or ham, bacon, several types of cheese, onions, and tomatoes. You pop the whole thing in the oven to melt the cheese, slice it into wedges, and serve. Yum! I chose to use potato rosemary bread for its softness, but I wanted the flavor to be a bit milder so I substituted fresh chopped basil for the rosemary. It was perfect for this application. My sandwiches were only sliced into four horizontal slices because the loaves were on the small side, but they turned out beautifully and were delicious!  

8/28/2010 - Cinnamon Buns

Yum! I was excited about this one. This formula is one of the few in BBA that can be made in one day, but I opted to stretch it to two days so we could enjoy these for breakfast. This is a rich dough (though not nearly as rich as, say, brioche), and you actually begin by creaming together sugar, salt, and butter or shortening almost like you're making a cake. Once you mix in the remaining ingredients, it is clearly a bread dough, but a very soft one (or as PR describes it, "silky"). The dough is kneaded and rises to double its size. Then you roll it out into a rectangle, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, roll it up into a log, slice it, and lay the slices on a sheet pan. At that point, I stuck my sheet pan in the fridge overnight. Well, kind of overnight; I actually set it back on the counter to warm back up and proof at 1am or so. That way, they were ready to bake when we got up in the morning. While they baked, I made the glaze and we all enjoyed the smell of baking cinnamon buns.

These were yummy, but I'll make some changes next time. First, I will use the full amount of cinnamon and sugar called for. It looked like way too much as I was sprinkling it over the rolled out dough so I probably stopped with almost half of my mix left, but this batch definitely needed more. Second, I will make fewer, thicker buns next time. I made 16 buns this time; next time I'll try 12. Finally, the lemon extract. The formula calls for lemon extract to be added to both the dough and the glaze. It didn't bother me in the dough, and I think I'll keep it there, but the glaze was so overpoweringly lemon flavored that it took away from the flavor of the buns. Next time I'm leaving that out completely. One thing I changed that I was happy about - I halved the recipe for the glaze (and yes, I put in half the lemon extract called for), and that made the perfect amount.

8/27/2010 - French Bread

French bread made according to the formula in BBA begins as a preferment called pate fermentee, which means "fermented dough" or "old dough". As with any preferment, the delayed fermentation of the pate fermentee allows the enzymes time to work on the dough while the yeast is dormant, improving flavor considerably. The formula for pate fermentee is almost identical to the list of ingredients that is added to it the next day to make the final dough - 1/4 cup more flour is added, but that's hardly any difference at all. So, you basically mix, knead, and rise half a recipe of French bread dough, put it in the fridge overnight, and then add the other half to it the next day. I've read that it's common for bakers to simply set aside a bit of dough from each batch to add to the next day's bread, which would make sense if you were baking French bread every day.

This bread had excellent flavor, but I was too rough with it in the shaping phase and it lacked the open crumb you want to see in French bread. This is an ongoing issue with my bread and something I need to continue working on. I attempted to score this bread, which is something I generally avoid for reasons you can see in the picture. I think I just need a better, sharper knife, or even a lame to really do it right.