Sweet Rustic Bread

This is the kind of bread that makes you feel amazed that you actually baked it yourself--when you smell it baking, when you break it open and see its lovely texture, and, most of all, when you taste it. Of course, it is a three-day bread, so there should be some payoff.

Day 1 is simply making the sponge: a matter of mixing flour, water, and a small amount of yeast, and ignoring it until it's nice and bubbly. Then it can be refrigerated until it's ready to play its part in Day 2.

On the second day, two cups of the sponge is mixed in with more bread flour, a little sugar, water, olive oil, salt, and a bit more yeast. The dough is so wet that it must be mixed with the paddle attachment first--until it comes together enough that you can use the dough hook.

The dough hook goes to town for at least eight minutes. It would take a long time if you did it by hand, and the dough is so wet and sticky that I'm not sure you could do it successfully.

After about three hours, the dough becomes very soft and billowy, and you do get to roll it around in flour by hand, which is nice because it has such a good feel.

Another rising time, although this one's only about an hour. We have about four hours of rising time so far, and we're well into Day 2. It doesn't look like this bread is going to be on the menu for dinner.

After just about an hour, it's puffy and bubbly--ready to shape into eight small loaves. In my mind, I had envisioned these as about the size of dinner rolls--they're described as "wedges," but they're much bigger. There are little loaves of bread all over the house.

All these loaves have to proof for another two hours or so. Then they're supposed to go in the refrigerator overnight. I was going to skip that step, but as it happened I had a meeting to go to, so I ended up making room in the refrigerator for eight large--and getting larger by the hour--wedges of bread dough.
On Day 3, however, I had nothing to do but take the pans out of the refrigerator, let them come to room temperature, and bake them. The directions said to bake the loaves for five minutes at 475, and then for another 20 minutes at 425. I did 450 and 400 in my convection oven, and the first batch still got very, very brown. (I couldn't fit all eight loaves on my baking stone, so I had to bake them in two batches).

You're supposed to sprinkle powdered sugar lightly on top of the loaves, but I omitted the sugar for the loaves I made for dinner. On a second go-round, I'm not sure I'd put powdered sugar on any of them. Even without the sugar on top, they're sweet enough to have as a breakfast treat with butter and jam, yet not so sweet that you can't have them for dinner. The powdered sugar topping is attractive at first, but it melts by the next day. Having sugar on top makes the rolls much less versatile as well.

This "Sweet Rustic Bread" is one of the master recipes from Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Brad Bakers. It's one of his earlier books--published in 1998, three years before The Bread Baker's Apprentice. These formulas are long, so instead of typing the recipe, I'll just link to it.

You can find this recipe at a link to google books

Panmarino (Rosemary Bread)

I have a pot of rosemary growing just outside my back door, so when I saw this recipe, while browsing through one of my favorite bread cookbooks, I wanted to give it a try--especially when I saw how easy it was. In the dog days of summer, I just didn't have the energy for a full-on, two-day, complicated recipe.
Mixing milk and oil--that's about as difficult as it gets.

Well, that and chopping up the rosemary.

The dough comes together very nicely.

And shapes into a free-form boule quite easily.

Apart from the rosemary, what intrigued me about this loaf was its alleged sparkliness. The inventor of this bread, a baker named Luciano Pancalde, supposedly read a biography of the d'Este family, which told about a fabulous banquet where a rosemary bread encrusted with diamonds was served. I see some problems with this story, not least of which is the damage that eating diamond bread would do to your teeth. Luciano decided that his bread would have sea salt crystals on top and that they would "sparkle like diamonds" at a fraction of the cost. (Sea salt may be expensive, but not if you compare it to diamonds). Actually, I think that will be my new standard for deciding if something is too expensive for me to buy. I'll just ask one question: "cheaper than diamonds?" If yes, there's no reason to deprive myself.
As for the bread, I didn't really think the sea salt was going to convince anyone that I'd made diamond bread.

The salt looks faintly sparkly before baking. After baking, it looks a lot like ... salt.

It's a good bread, especially given how easy it is. However, I'll admit it doesn't surpass my own personal gold standard in rosemary bread--Rose's Rosemary Focaccia, from The Bread Bible. Once my nemesis, the rosemary focaccia has become my friend and my go-to bread for all kinds of occasions. But you have to keep trying new recipes; otherwise, you may miss the bread that's even better than anything you've ever made. This one doesn't meet that high standard, but it's certainly worth making, especially if you have a lot of rosemary and not a lot of time.


Notes: The recipe, as given, makes two loaves. I cut it in half. The recipe cautions that it is slightly large for a mixer, so if you make the full recipe, you'll have to stop now and then and push the dough down so it will thoroughly mix. That caution, and the fear of overtaxing my mixer's motor, are the reasons I made only one loaf.
For my taste, the bread was just slightly too salty. If I make this bread again, I'll cut the salt to about six grams per loaf.


Panmarino (Rosemary Bread)
--from The Italian Baker, by Carol Field

3 3/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 cup warm water
1 cup milk, room temperature
1/2 cup less 1 tablespoon olive oil
3 1/2 to 4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon (20 grams) salt
6 3/4 cups (900 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

Whisk together the yeast, flour, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Using the flat beater, mix in the water, milk, and olive oil. Mix until the flour is absorbed. Add the rosemary and change to the dough hook. Knead on medium speed until elastic, smooth, and somewhat moist, about three minutes. Finish kneading briefly by hand on a lightly floured surface.
You can also knead all ingredients by hand.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover tightly, and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Gently punch the dough down in a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough in half and shape each half into a round ball. Place the loaves on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, and sprinkled with cornmeal.

Put baking stone in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees. Just before oyou put the loaves in the oven, slash the top of each loaf in a star shape with a razor blade and sprinkle the sea salt into the cuts of each loaf. Bake 10 minutes, spraying three times with water. Reduce the heat to 400 degrees and bake 30 to 35 minutes longer. Cool completely on racks.

'Levy's' Real Jewish Rye Bread

Monday, May 31, 2010

I have made bread in the last two months--really, I have.  I just haven't had time to string two sentences together.  But I've finally gotten so tired of seeing those hot cross buns that I must blog about something else.  I got some rye flour from King Arthur a few months ago, and I was worried that, at this rate, it would go bad before I'd used an ounce of it, so I finally decided that on this long weekend, when I didn't even have to bake a cake, I'd open the bag and bake some rye bread.  I looked for exotic recipes, but I couldn't find anything that sounded better to me than good old "'Levy's' Real Jewish Rye Bread" from The Bread Bible.
This bread is made using the flour mixture on top of sponge method, which is excellent because you can start it the night before you want to eat the bread.

It's also a great method because as the sponge starts to rise, it oozes up over the flour mixture, giving it an alien space-blob appearance.

See, it looks like it's taking over the poor flour mixture, which is being swallowed up by The Blob.
All is normal again, however, when it's kneaded.

Rose gives alternate directions for mixing by hand and by machine. This dough has to be kneaded by ten minutes in the KitchenAid, and I didn't even check to see how long it's kneaded by hand. Probably if I kneaded bread by hand, I wouldn't have to lift weights to try to stave off the batwing arms that you start to get at a certain age.

The bread rises for about an hour and a half. You take it out of its bowl, stretch it out, give it a business-letter fold, and let it rise again.

The wonderful thing about bread is that you can just stick it in the refrigerator at any point if, for example, you decide that you must go out and buy more flowers, even though you have no room in your garden for more flowers, unless you dig some up, or at least do some serious pruning. When you return, with $148 of flowers, (I think I need help!), the dough is just right to shape and bake.

I'm putting it on parchment paper on the bottom of La Cloche. The top is in the oven, preheating.

Rose learned from her grandmother that the best way to eat this bread is with unsalted butter, sliced radishes, and kosher salt, crushed with your fingertips and sprinkled on top. I had radishes, salt, and butter, and of course I had the bread. But I ended up using the bread as a substitute for hamburger buns for our Memorial Day cookout, and after I'd eaten a big fat hamburger, I had no room for the more genteel sliced radish option. Maybe tomorrow.

"Levy's" Jewish Rye Bread
--from The Bread Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum
Sponge
3/4 cup (4 ounces, 117 grams) bread flour
3/4 cup (3.3 ounces, 95 grams) rye flour
1/2 teaspoon (1.6 grams) instant yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons (0.6 ounces, 18.7 grams) sugar
1/2 tablespoon (10.5 grams) barley malt syrup
1 1/2 cups (12.5 ounces, 354 grams) water, at room temperature

Flour Mixture
2 1/4 cups (12.5 ounces, 351 grams) bread flour
1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon (2 grams) instant yeast
2 tablespoons (0.5 ounces, 14 grams) caraway seeds
1/2 tablespoon (0.3 ounces, 10.5 grams) salt

Dough and Baking
1/2 tablespoon (0.25 ounces, 6.7 grams) vegetable oil
about 2 teaspoons (about 0.5 ounces, 16 grams) cornmeal for sprinkling

Make the sponge: Combine sponge ingredients in a large or mixer bowl and whisk until very smooth. Set it aside.

Make the flour mixture and cover the sponge: In a separate large bowl, whisk together the flour mixture and gently scoop it over the sponge to cover it completely. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow it to ferment for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature. (The sponge will bubble through the flour mixture in places.)

Mix the dough Add the oil and mix with the dough hook on low speed for about 1 minute, until the flour is moistened enough to form a rough dough. then raise the speed to medium and mix it for 10 minutes. The dough should be very smooth and elastic, and it should jump back when pressed with a fingertip; if it is sticky, turn it out on a counter and knead in a little extra flour.

Let the dough rise: Place the dough in a large container or bowl, lightly oiled. Oil the top of the dough as well. Allow the dough to rise until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Let the dough fall out on to a lightly floured counter, press it down gently, fold or form it back into a square-ish ball and allow it to rise a second time, back in the bowl covered with plastic wrap for about 45 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gently press it down again. Round it into a ball and set it on a cornmeal sprinkled baking sheet, or on a cornmeal-covered piece of parchment paper on the bottom of La Cloche. Cover it with oiled plastic wrap and let it rise until almost doubled, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450°F an hour ahead of time. On a shelf at the lowest level, place a baking sheet or bread stone. Unless you're using La Cloche, place a cast-iron skillet or sheet pan on the floor of the oven (or the bottom shelf) to preheat.

Slash and bake the bread: With a sharp knife or singled-edged razor blade, make 1/4- to 1/2-inch-deep slashes in the top of the dough. Put it in oven; if you're using La Cloche, cover it with preheated top dome. Otherwise, toss1/2 cup of ice cubes into the pan beneath and immediately shut the door. Bake for 15 minutes, lower the temperature to 400°F and continue baking for 30 to 40 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Cool the bread on a wire rack.

Hot Cross Buns

Sunday, April 4, 2010

I have never before made hot cross buns. I've tasted the ones available in grocery stores and have not been overly excited about them. When I saw this recipe, however, I thought--hmm, I'll bet these could be good. And they were.
Remember the rhyme?
Hot cross buns
Hot cross buns
One a penny, two a penny
Hot cross buns.
If you have no daughters
If you have no daughters
If you have no daughters
Then give them to your sons.
And if you have none of these merry little elves
Then you must eat them all yourselves!
This always struck me is a good reason not to have children. Hmmm. Here are your options after you buy something good to eat: A) give them away to your ungrateful children or B) eat them yourself.
I did not give any of these hot cross buns to my daughters, but I did take them to Doug and Mary's house, where we went for Easter dinner. At least they weren't ungrateful. And I didn't have to give them all away.

This recipe, from simplyrecipes.com, is a nice one. Since I don't have another one to compare it to, except for the store-bought ones, I can't say it's the best ever, but it's good and quite easy. It calls for 3/4 cup of currants. My grocery store was out of currants, possibly because everyone else in the neighborhood has baked hot cross buns for Good Friday, when you're supposed to make them, so I substituted a mixture of golden raisins and dried cherries. That may actually have been an improvement on the all-currant rendition.

The dough is simply left to rise for a few hours. It's then divided into 16 pieces (each weighing in at about 60 grams), and shaped into round rolls. I love doing this shaping. If you put them in a baking pan about a half-inch apart, they'll join together while rising and baking, and will look like the rolls I see in grocery stores. But I like to let them keep their shape.
If you want a roll with a shiny crust, and why wouldn't you, you'll brush them with a mixture of an egg and a tablespoon of milk.

You can also cut a cross into the roll with your trusty slasher.

You can either leave the slashed cross unfrosted, although that's not traditional, or you can use the slash marks as a guide for where the pipe the frosting cross. Otherwise, you can just pipe the frosting on without a guide.

Those of you who read my cake blog may notice how casually I used the words "pipe the frosting." It was only last week when I was hyperventilating at the thought of piping. Now suddenly it's second nature to me now. Like breathing out and breathing in.

I ended up with a combination of frosted and unfrosted hot cross buns, although none of them were hot, and if they had been, the frosting would have melted off the buns. The other dinner guests scoffed at the non-frosted variety, but I preferred them. The rolls, with the two kinds of fruit and the combination of cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg, hardly needed any more flavor and were sweet enough without the icing. But then I used to scrape the frosting off my birthday cake and give it to my dog.

Compagnon (or Whacked Bread)

Sunday, March 28, 3010

This is a recipe from one of my newer bread cookbooks--one that's been out of print for a while, and I finally just ordered it for myself: The Village Baker, by Joe Ortiz.

I've seen good reviews of this book, which was one of the earliest of the recent spate of books on artisan bread baking. (Compare the 1993 date of The Village Baker to the 2003 publishing date of The Bread Bible). Ortiz has some great stories about traveling around Europe talking to (what else?) village bakers. Unfortunately, Ortiz gathered up the European recipes and painstakingly translated all the weights into volume measurements. Scale snob that I've become, I was dismayed by this. If I want to try the recipes, I may have to go through the book and re-translate into grams.
The reasons I picked this recipe were: 1) It's a simple, direct-method dough that requires nothing other than flour, water, salt, and yeast; and 2) it directs you to whack the bread violently about 100 times with a rolling pin. It "helps to break down the gluten." (I'll just bet it does). It is also supposed to give the bread a very uneven texture.

I wouldn't call this a "very uneven" texture, so perhaps I didn't whack hard enough, although I certainly gave it my all.

You can't really tell from the still photos how enthusiastically I'm whacking the bread with the rolling pin. It might have worked better if I'd had the handleless French kind instead of the American pie-rolling-out kind. After all, it is a French bread. Although I may not have ended up with the uneven texture I was supposed to have, I will say that the whacking technique brought that dough into line.

This is what the dough looked like when it came out of the food processor, before getting assaulted.

And here is what it looks like after being punched into docility.
After the bread rises in its shaped form, it gets double-slashed.

And then it's glazed with a very diluted (one-half cup water and one egg white) egg white mixture.

I usually glaze with a slightly diluted egg yolk, so I wondered what the difference was. It turns out that an egg white glaze gives you a less shiny and not as dark loaf of bread. I prefer the result from the egg yolk glaze, which is shinier and more dramatic.
This compagnon (it means companion or company: synonyms include compère, camarade, condisciple, confrère, collègue, maître, intime, copain, complice, amant, associé, baron, collaborateur, acolyte) is a good basic bread, although the only thing truly extraordinary about it is that you attack it with a rolling pin. I can tell you that that will get the full attention of anyone who's with you in the kitchen, and that that person will be nicer to you the rest of the day because he's not completely sure what you may do next with the rolling pin.

Direct-Method Compagnon
--from The Village Baker, by Joe Ortiz

2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 3/4 cups water
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
Glaze: 1 egg white beaten up in 1/2 cup cold water.

Mix yeast and 3 cups flour in food processor fitted with plastic blade. Pour 1/4 cup cold water in food processor and pulse two or three times. With the motor running, slowly add 3/4 cup water and process for 30 seconds. With the processor still running, slowly add the rest of the water. Sprinkle the salt onto the dough and process for another 15 seconds. Add all but a handful of the remaining 1/2 cup flour, a little at a time, and pulse a few times.
Sprinkle the remaining flour on a countertop, and pour the dough out onto the table. Beat it vigorously about 100 times with a wooden rolling pin, folding the dough over onto itself several times. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour. After the dough is beaten, it should be moist, elastic, and satiny.
Let the dough rise in a covered bowl for 45 minutes. Put it on the counter, press it into a rectangle, and fold it over, business-letter style. Return to bowl and let rise another 30 minutes.
Flatten the dough and roll it into a tight, oval loaf or divide it in two and make two small loaves. Place the loaf, or loaves, on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover with a towel, and let rise for 1 1/2 hours.
Slash two long, parallel cuts on the top of the bread. Glaze the loaves and place them in a preheated 450-degree oven. Immediately spray the oven with an atomizer filled with water. Bake a large loaf for 35-40 minutes and small loaves for 25-30 minutes.
Remove when crust is golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Duivekater (Festive Dutch Spiced Loaf)--A Lazy Bakers' Project

Sunday, March 14, 2010

This is a Lazy Bakers Project. Melinda is always telling me I'm not lazy enough to be a proper Lazy Baker, but I guess I'm showing her that my laziness bows to no man's. Or woman's. She has already posted hers and so has Oriana. Thank goodness Evil Cake Lady has a yeast phobia, or I would have to be last, and how my stubbornly competitive self hates to be last! (Sorry, ECL).
This bread comes from a most intriguing cookbook called Warm Bread and Honey Cakes, by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra. If you leaf through this book, you'll wonder where on earth Pagrach-Chandra hails from because it contains such an oddly eclectic mix of recipes. It turns out that "where in the world" is pretty much right because she's got roots or connections all over the world. (She is of Indian ancestry, educated in North American and Europe). She's also an expert on Dutch baking, and is the author of the infamous speculaas-speculum cookie recipe that was another Lazy Bakers project.

This recipe makes an extremely stiff dough. I've been making baguettes and Italian breads lately, so I've become accustomed to the very soft and wet doughs that result in big holes. While the wet doughs have their own shaping problems, I thought this dough was hard to work with because it's so solid. I ended up working more milk into the dough as I kneaded it, but I still thought it was difficult to handle.

Once I added enough liquid to make the dough more malleable, I just had to let it rise.

I checked it after one hour. No movement at all. After two hours. No discernible change, even though there were two teaspoons of yeast in the dough. I began to wonder if I'd forgotten the yeast, but I distinctly remembered measuring out the yeast. Was the kitchen too cold? No, the sun was actually shining brightly and the kitchen was warm. After four hours, I was running out of time, so I decided it was good enough.

As I look at the pictures, I don't think it had doubled even after four hours.

You roll the dough out into a ten-inch-long rectangle, and then make cuts on both ends. You stretch the pieces you've cut into legs. I can see that my legs were not long and lovely as they should have been; I made short, stumpy legs. Then the legs are rolled up.

My short, stumpy legs (that is, my bread's short, stumpy legs) turned into misshapen lobster claws. I envisioned these legs as turning into lovely, graceful violin scrolls, but they didn't quite make it. Then I waited again for some upward movement from the dough. We were going out for dinner with friends, so I was running out of time, and had to hope that oven spring would make up for what wasn't happening with the dough.
Next step: egg wash and a whole lot of decorative slashing. It was pretty easy to cut the dough with a razor because it was still pretty stiff. I don't know why I have no pictures of this part of the process.

Melinda suggests that if you want a really brilliant shine, you should do two separate egg washes, waiting for the first to dry before you apply the second coat. This is one reason that her bread looks better than mine.
I didn't have any bread when it came out of the oven; instead, I waited dutifully until the next day to eat it, when the flavor is supposed to have mellowed. Even though I had my doubts about this bread all the way through the process, I actually liked it quite a lot.
The texture is fine, but still rustic-looking.

The spices in this spice bread are nutmeg and cardamom, with some lemon peel for fruity interest. I thought that the cardamom overpowered both the nutmeg and lemon zest. I didn't object to this because I like cardamom, but I would have preferred a more balanced taste. Because of the spices, the shaping, and the lengthy rising time, this is not a bread you'd want to have as your regular sandwich bread, but it's nice for a tea bread or just a change of pace. I have a practical objection to the ends of the bread, though (remember those rolled up legs?)--when you slice the bread, the ends fall apart into little bits and pieces of bread that are hard to do anything with. They also fall to the bottom of the toaster and can't be extracted, which is quite annoying when it happens first thing in the morning.
I believe that both Oriana's and Melinda's versions were aesthetically superior to mine, and the picture in the cookbook is quite amazingly beautiful. Even a second-rate version is impressive. (The pictures don't do it justice). If you want to impress people with your skill as a bread baker, this might be just the ticket.

Duivekater, or Festive Dutch Spiced Loaf
--from Warm Bread and Honey Cake, by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra

500g/1 lb 2oz/ 3 1/2 cups bread flour
scant 2 teaspoons easy blend (instant) yeast
100g/ 3 1/2oz./1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest of 1/2 lemon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
about 200 mls/ 7 fl oz/ 3/4 cup milk, warmed
75g/ 2 3/4 oz / 2/3 stick butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 egg, lightly beaten
extra beaten egg for glazing

Method:
Put the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, lemon zest, and spices in a large bowl. Add the milk, butter and beaten egg and mix with a spoon or spatula until the dry ingredients are well moistened.
If you are kneading by hand, turn out onto a floured surface or silicone mat and knead until elastic.
Alternatively, use a heavy-duty mixer fitted with a dough hook and knead for about five minutes, or until elastic.
Shape into a ball and place in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and leave in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment.
Transfer the risen dough to a lightly floured surface. Knead until once more smooth and elastic. Roll out to an elongated oval shape, about 25 cm/ 10 inch long.
Make a cut at the top, about 10 cm/ 4 inch long. Make a similar cut at the bottom.
Place on the baking sheet. Twirl the the cut pieces between your fingers to lengthen them a little.
Coil then inwards into a spiral. You will have two spirals at the top and the bottom.
Cover loosely with lightly oiled cling film and leave in a warm, draft-free place until almost doubled in bulk.
pre heat the oven to 350.
Brush well with beaten egg and use a very sharp knife, or razor blade, to score a decorative pattern into the top. A series of shallow semi-circles goes well with the shape. Start in the middle, making the cuts the shape of a parenthesis- ( )- and then make 4 or 5 parallel cuts on either side.
Bake for 30 -35 minutes. The loaf should be a rich golden brown with the scored pattern much lighter. To test, tap the loaf sharply on the top and bottom; it should sound hollow.
Cool on a wire rack.