Rosemary-Olive Oil Bread

From the looks of things around here, it doesn't seem like I've been baking much bread. The last time I mentioned baking a loaf of bread was on January 12. The truth is that I have been baking bread. I just haven't been thrilled with what I've baked. You see, ciabatta has become my nemesis. I set out to bake loaves of chewy, airy, holey ciabatta, and my results have been less than perfect. Some loaves have a few holes but not enough, and other loaves have a crumb that looks the same as my sourdough baguette. I've tried different recipes and techniques and eventually got to the point of dreading the moment of cutting into a baked and cooled loaf. Now, I have a freezer stocked with loaves of bread disappointments. I may have to admit defeat eventually, but I'm sure I'll try again as soon as I clear out some freezer space. For now though, I needed to move on, change things up, and bake a different kind of bread. I went back to the Breads from the La Brea Bakery book and chose the rosemary-olive oil bread recipe. In the headnote, this bread is described as having a "multifaceted flavor in which the rosemary is a strong but not overpowering element," and the olive oil coats "the gluten strands and make[s] a softer dough than usual." It was to have a uniform crumb and is basically a white dough flavored with herbs. This was perfect. A holey crumb was not the goal here, and that's the change in bread baking I needed.

As usual, the two-day dough process turned into three days for me because I always need to bring my sourdough starter to room temperature and feed it the day before mixing the dough. Then, on day two, the dough was mixed by combining water, white starter, bread flour, and wheat germ in a mixer with a dough hook. It was left for the autolyse, and there's a fantastic description of exactly what that 20 minute resting period is all about at A Bread a Day. After the autolyse, salt was added to the dough, and then chopped, fresh rosemary and olive oil were mixed in as well. It didn't seem like the olive oil was getting well-mixed into the dough in the mixer, so I transferred it to a board and kneaded by hand until the oil was incorporated. The dough was placed in an oiled bowl, covered, and left to ferment for about three and a half hours. It was then placed on a floured board, cut into two pieces and allowed to rest for a bit. After the rest, each piece was shaped into a boule, both were placed in proofing baskets, the baskets were covered, and the dough was left to rise at room temperature for an hour and a half. At that point, the baskets were covered with plastic and refrigerated for 12 hours. The next day, the baskets were removed from the refrigerator so the dough could warm up for a couple of hours before baking. I baked the two loaves at the same time on a baking stone, and the oven was spritzed with water from a spray bottle during the first five minutes of baking. After a total baking time of about 40 minutes, the loaves were browned and crisp on the surface.

As promised, the flavor from the rosemary was evident but not too strong. The tender texture of the crumb and the crispness of the crust were due to the olive oil. This made me excited about bread again. Not only did I finally have a couple of loaves that weren't failures, they were also very flavorful. This is a bread I'll look forward to baking and cutting into again, and then I'll think about going another round with ciabatta.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Flax and Sunflower Seed Whole Wheat Bread

Of the bread baking books I’ve read, they all tend to stick to techniques and recipes for fermenting, proofing, shaping, and baking bread dough of various types. Each one offers a slightly varied approach or unique tips for these processes. I just recently read my review copy of Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread, and there was something different and kind of ingenious about this bread book. After all the the interesting tips and information about making a wild yeast starter and crafting dough and the different types of breads and how to bake them, there’s a section full of suggestions for using day old bread. Seeing several dishes made with bread made the thought of having a house full of home-baked loaves even more delightful. The various, seasonal kinds of bruschetta, sandwiches, uses of breadcrumbs and croutons, and the delicious photos of all those things give you one reason after the next to bake more bread. So, I just had to decide which bread to make first. The beginning of the book is devoted to describing how to make a basic country loaf, and then all of the other breads are some sort of variation on it. I was distracted at first by the brioche dough and the beignets made from it, but I chose to begin with a whole wheat bread packed with flax and sunflower seeds. If you don’t have a sourdough starter in your possession, Robertson suggests a simple enough way of making one, and he recommends feeding it with half white and half whole wheat bread flours. My starter is always fed with white bread flour, so I began by separating some starter and feeding it with the recommended mix of flours for a day before beginning this bread dough.

There were two key elements to the bread making process in this book. One of those was the baking method which I’ll explain more below, and the other was the goal of achieving a not so sour taste in the bread by only using a scant tablespoon of the mature starter when making the leaven. The night before the dough was to be made, one tablespoon of starter was mixed with warm water and white and whole wheat flours and left at room temperature until the next morning. For whole wheat dough, the leaven was then added to more warm water, all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour, and it was mixed and left to rest for about an hour. Robertson explains that a whole wheat dough requires a longer rest after mixing that a white flour dough. After resting, salt was added, the dough was transferred to a clean bowl for the three hour bulk fermentation, and it was left until the turning began. Every 30 minutes, the dough was folded or “turned.” For the flax and sunflower seed bread variation, one cup of sunflower seeds was toasted, and one cup of flax seeds was soaked in boiling water. I would have expected the seeds to be added with the salt before the bulk fermentation began, but instead they were added after the second turn or one hour into it. Now, soaking the flax seeds causes them to become a little sticky and mixing all those little seeds into the dough takes a bit of squeezing and folding and mixing by hand. That seemed like a lot of working of the dough at that point of the bulk fermentation, so I may try adding them earlier next time. The next steps involved dividing the dough in two and giving both pieces a bench rest, and then each piece was shaped into a boule, rolled in one cup of raw sunflower seeds, and placed in bowls lined with towels that had been coated with all-purpose and rice flour for the final rise. I placed mine in the refrigerator for about twelve hours before baking. And, the baking involved that other interesting technique I mentioned. Rather than introducing steam in the oven with a spray bottle of water or by pouring water into a pan placed on the oven floor, a cast iron pan with a lid was used. The pan was heated in the oven with its lid, the dough was placed in the hot pan and carefully slashed, the lid was placed on top, and the bread began baking at 450 degrees F. After 20 minutes, the lid was removed, and the bread finished baking.

Because this was a rather wet dough, the lidded cast iron pan captured all the steam escaping from the dough as the bread baked and resulted in a crackly, crisp crust. My only disappointment was the lack of the open, holey crumb that I saw in other breads in the book. I suspect that was due to the bread being dense with seeds and the working of the dough in getting those seeds into it. Still, it was a nutty, flavorful bread that worked perfectly for sandwiches or simply toasted and slathered with butter. Now, I have more bread to bake so I can turn back to that last chapter of the book with all those ways of using it.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Panettone

A year ago, I had every intention of baking panettone for the holidays, and then somehow Christmas was gone in a flash and my kitchen saw not a single loaf of festive, fruit-filled bread. So this year, I was determined to make it happen. I even earmarked some of the candied orange peel I made in November for this very purpose. I used the panettone recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice which is a two-day process unless you need to bring your sourdough starter to room temperature and feed it before you get started in which case it becomes a three-day process. The first two days’ tasks are minimal, but the waiting time between days is necessary. This panettone recipe is made with a fairly rich dough with an egg and an additional egg yolk and half a cup of butter, and even though the dough is soft and a little sticky, it wasn’t difficult to knead or shape. The fun part was mixing the dried and candied fruits with rum, Gran Marnier, and vanilla so they could sit overnight to plump and absorb great flavors before being mixed into the dough. I made one big loaf in an eight inch springform pan and used the rest of the dough for muffin tin-sized mini panettones.

So, step one was making a wild yeast sponge with a barm or starter, milk, and flour. The sponge sat at room temperature to ferment for four hours before spending the night in the refrigerator. Also, on that day, the dried and candied fruits were soaked in rum, an orange or lemon extract and I chose to use Gran Marnier instead, and vanilla and left to sit overnight. I used dried sour cherries, dried cranberries, golden raisins, and chopped candied orange peel. The next day, the wild yeast sponge was brought up to room temperature before mixing the dough. I used a stand mixer and combined flour, sugar, salt, and instant yeast before adding the sponge, the whole egg, and an egg yolk. Water was added until the dough came together, it was allowed to rest for a bit, and then softened butter was worked into the dough before the soaked fruit mixture was added. It was kneaded with a dough hook for a few minutes, and then transferred to a floured board. The almonds were worked in while kneading by hand. Because this is a sticky dough and you don’t want to add too much flour while kneading, I used a bench scraper to lift and turn the dough while kneading with the other hand. It was left to ferment for two hours, shaped into one big loaf and some muffin sized pieces, and then all of that proofed for two more hours. For the big loaf in the springform pan, I placed a parchment collar around the sides and a parchment circle in the bottom of the pan. Last, the big loaf baked for about an hour, and the minis were pulled from the oven after about 25 minutes. The bread should reach 185 degrees F in the center.

If this bread counts in any way as a fruitcake, then it’s my favorite fruitcake ever. In fact, I’m thinking this should become an annual tradition. I can try different dried and candied fruit and different liquors or liqueurs each time, and I may never make the same panettone twice. The soft, brioche-like bread was irresistible warm from the oven, and it keeps well wrapped in foil too. It was so enjoyable simply sliced and toasted over the next few days, I never got around to trying it as French toast or in bread pudding, but that’s just another reason to make it again next year.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Kaiser Rolls

When I finally started baking from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I didn’t have good luck with the first two breads I tried. Maybe I chose poorly and should have started with less fussy varieties, but the efforts weren’t completely wasted. I became more familiar with pre-ferments and how chilling them overnight before mixing them into a dough develops flavor. Flavor was definitely not a problem with those first two breads, but I decided to take a break from ciabatta and pugliese and attempt Kaiser rolls. I wanted to jump right in and order a Kaiser roll stamp to make the distinctive cuts in the tops of the rolls, but given my track record with this book, I decided to wait and see how the first batch went before buying a special tool. The stamp makes the pinwheel cuts with one press. There’s also an alternative suggested in the book which involves making a knotted kind of roll that looks similar. I decided to just make multiple cuts in a pinwheel pattern using a lame. The rolls turned out fine, so I’ll have to order the stamp for next time.

Once again, a pre-ferment, this time a pate-fermentee, was mixed and chilled in the refrigerator overnight. The pate-fermentee was brought up to room temperature and then mixed into a dough with flour, salt, barley malt syrup, yeast, an egg, vegetable oil, and water. The dough was kneaded and then fermented for two hours. It was divided into eight pieces which were left to relax for ten minutes before shaping each into a Kaiser roll with pinwheel cuts on top. Then, oddly enough, each roll was placed top side down on a semolina-dusted baking sheet. The pretty, swirly cuts were smashed. That just seemed wrong. After 45 minutes, the rolls were flipped cut side up, and I ended up re-cutting the swirls into most of them. They proofed for another 30 minutes while the oven warmed. Then, I had some questions. The rolls pictured in the book have glossy tops that I assumed could only be achieved with an egg wash. However, the instructions for pre-baking were to simply mist with water and sprinkle with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. I proceeded with just water and sprinkled poppy seeds. That was question one. Question two was why was the oven spritzed with water after loading the rolls? Steam produces a crispy crust and these should have been tender and shiny rather than crisp. So, as suspected, water on the rolls and water spritzed in the oven resulted in crisp surfaced rolls that were perfectly fine and tasty but completely lacking gloss, and next time I will try an egg wash and no water sprayed in the oven.

It was a lot of fun to make Kaiser rolls at home for the first time, and they were delicious rolls. Sally, who is a great bread baker at Bewitching Kitchen, has told me that Reinhart’s later books include slightly different techniques with more consistent results. It will be interesting to bake from and compare the more recent books. Not that I’m giving up on this one. I’ve learned so much, it was almost like bread college in a book. I’ll definitely be trying more from it, but up next, I have to show you how I used these homemade Kaiser rolls.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Toasts Two Ways: Sauteed Mushrooms with Camembert and Harissa, Artichoke, and Mozzarella

I have some extra bread in the house since I’ve been baking from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I started with the pugliese which didn’t turn out quite right. That bread is made from a wet dough and should be very open in structure with a chewy, holey crumb. The process of making the dough went fine, and it came out of the oven looking great. However, when I cut into the first loaf, I was less than thrilled with a somewhat tight crumb lacking those characteristic, gaping holes. Those two loaves went into the freezer for crouton use at a later date. I moved on to ciabatta with poolish. This is the same style of dough, and again, the bread should have been full of holes throughout the interior. Again, it was less than ideal. This time, the flavor was amazing, the texture was moist as it should be, but the structure was wrong. I’ve double- and triple-checked the recipes to be sure I didn’t skip something or do any step out of order, and I’ve concluded I’ll just need to keep practicing. The flavor of the ciabatta saved it from being doomed to the freezer, and I decided to make some cheesy toasts with it to hide the look of the failed crumb.

I received a sample of Normandie Camembert from Ile de France, and thought the earthy notes of the cheese would pair well with mushrooms. So, for the first of two toasts, I sauteed cremini mushrooms with chopped rosemary and scooped them onto slices of my ciabatta that had been toasted under the broiler with a drizzle of olive oil. I added camembert which instantly softened and melted its way around the mushrooms. This was a camembert with character, a red wine kind of cheese, and mushrooms were the right choice to go with it.

The second type of toast is from Donna Hay magazine. I mentioned I had cut several pages from that last issue I read. This toast version was made by schmearing harissa on the toasted bread and then topping it with marinated artichoke quarters and adding fresh mozzarella. Once built, these toasts went back under the broiler so the mozzarella could transform into a deliriously oozy, lovely state. It’s an interesting combination and one I never would have thought to create, but the spicy harissa and marinated artichokes were delicious under the melted cheese. Even if you have perfect bread that can proudly show its face, both of these toppings are worth trying. 

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Pain de Campagne

I might be a bread geek, or there’s a very good chance that I’m in the process of becoming one. By bread geek, I mean that I’m fascinated with all things related to baking bread not that I have any expertise in baking it. I received a review copy of 52 Loaves: One Man’s Relentless Pursuit of Truth, Meaning, and a Perfect Crust, and the author’s goal made perfect sense to me. William Alexander set out to bake a loaf of peasant bread each week for a year with the hope of figuring out how to make perfect bread. Along the way, he sought out experts in everything from baking to yeast to milling and learned about bread from every angle. I was intrigued by that information shared throughout the book. He started by questioning why most flour is enriched and learned about why the vitamins were added and that added malted barley assists yeast in feeding on sugars in the flour. Then, he moved on to questioning the chlorine in the tap water he was using. He learned about conditioning the dough, or an autolyse, which involves letting the dough and the glutens in it rest before being kneaded. And, then he learned about sourdough or levain. My sourdough starter is my hard-working buddy who has been helping with my bread baking for over a year now. So, I was geekily thrilled when he started baking with sourdough. He does go a couple of steps further than even I would when he grows his own wheat and sets out to build his own bread oven. Although, I’d love to have a bread oven if someone else built it. He explains the bread baker’s percentage which I previously didn’t know. The details and trials and tribulations are entertainingly described with plenty of self-deprecating humor. I won’t reveal the end of the story, but I will say that ultimately the journey was about more than just baking bread. It was about setting a goal, becoming immersed in it, and learning more than you ever thought you would in trying to attain it.

At the end of the book, there’s a description for how to make a levain and four bread recipes. I attempted the Pain au Levain Miche. Alexander explains that this is a very wet dough that will flatten out on the peel. For me, it not only flattened, it stuck like glue to the peel. It was a misshapen, flat, ugly dough pile by the time I got it into the oven. It’s in my freezer now, but it’s destined to become croutons or possibly just breadcrumbs. Next, I tried the Pain de Campagne, and that’s the bread pictured here. It’s made from levain, or sourdough starter, bread flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, salt, a tiny bit of commercial yeast, and water. The dough ingredients were mixed and left to autolyse for 25 minutes. I used my mixer with a dough hook to do the kneading after that. With a mixer, it was only kneaded for about three minutes. Then, the dough was left in an oiled bowl to ferment for five hours. After it had risen, the dough was set on a floured surface and shaped into a boule. I placed it in my bread proofing basket, covered it with plastic, and refrigerated it overnight. It could have just sat for another two hours before being baked. The next morning, I removed the dough from the refrigerator while the oven heated to 500 degrees F. Following the recipe instructions, I placed a cast iron skillet on the bottom of the oven. After slashing the loaf and loading it into the oven, one cup of water was poured into the skillet. Wear an oven mitt when adding the water. The hot steam rises immediately. The oven temperature was reduced to 480 degrees F, and the bread baked for 25 minutes. The oven temperature was reduced again to 425 degrees F, and the bread baked for another fifteen minutes or so. It should reach an internal temperature of 210 degrees F. Then, the oven was turned off, and the bread remained in it for a few more minutes before being cooled on a rack.

I had much better luck with the second loaf. The dough wasn’t sticky, and I had no problems sliding it onto the baking stone from the peel. It came out of the oven crunchy crusted and not too densely crumbed. The flavor was very good, and the whole wheat and rye flours gave it good character. In the past, I’ve used a spray bottle to spritz the oven for steam, but I may now be a convert to the hot skillet with water method. Reading this book was a lot of fun, and I learned things about bread baking science along the way. Now that I’ve been introduced to the bread baker’s percentage and learned more about hydration levels of doughs, I’m inspired to learn more and add to the weight of my bread bookshelf.

recipe re-printed with publisher’s permission
Peasant Bread (Pain de Campagne)
52 Loaves by William Alexander

For the levain:
130 grams all-purpose flour
130 grams water

For the dough:
260 grams levain
400 grams unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
60 grams whole wheat flour
30 grams whole rye flour
13 grams salt
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast (also called bread-machine, fast-acting, or RapidRise yeast)
292 grams water (at room temperature)

1. At least two hours before beginning (you can do this the night before), feed the levain as follows: Remove from the refrigerator and add equal parts flour and room-temperature water (I use about 130 grams each, which replenishes what I'll be using in the bread). Stir well, incorporating oxygen, and leave on the countertop with the cover slightly ajar. The starter should be bubbling and lively when you begin your bread.
2. Place a large mixing bowl on a kitchen scale and add each ingredient in turn using the Tare button to zero out the scale between additions. Mix thoroughly with a wet hand until the dough is homogenous. Cover and leave the dough to autolyse for about 25 minutes.
3. Remove the dough to an unfloured countertop and knead by hand for seven to nine minutes (or if you insist, you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook for two to three minutes) until the dough is elastic and smooth. During the first minutes of kneading, a metal bench scraper is useful to scoop up te wet dough that clings to the countertop.
4. Clean out the bowl (no soap, please), mist with oil spray, and replace the dough, topping with a piece of oiled plastic wrap. Ferment at room temperature (68-72 degrees F) for four to five hours.
5. Remove the dough, which should have risen by about half, to a lightly floured countertop and gently press into a disk about one inch high. Form a boule by gathering the sides into the center, creating surface tension, then place seam side up in a colander covered with a well-floured linen napkin. Return the plastic wrap atop the dough and set aside to proof. Meanwhile, place a pizza stone in the lower third of the oven and an old cast iron skillet or pan on the bottom shelf. Preheat the oven to at least 500 degrees F.
6. After one and a half to two hours, carefully turn the loaf onto a baker's peel that has been liberally sprinkled with rice flour or cornmeal. Sprinkle the top of the loaf with rye or rice flour (not white flour, which turns brown) to get that country "dusted" look.
7. Make several symmetrical slashes (grngnes) with your lame or single-edged razor.
8. Immediately slide the loaf onto the stone and add one cup water to the skillet (wear an oven mitt), minimizing the time the oven door is open. Reduce oven temperature to 480 degrees F.
9. After 20 to 25 minutes, or when the loaf has turned dark brown, reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees F.
10. Continue baking until the loaf registers 210 degrees F in the center (about 50 to 60 minutes total) with an instant-read thermometer, or until a rap on the bottom of the loaf produces a hollow, drumlike sound. Return the bread to the oven, with the oven off, for about 15 minutes. Allow the bread to cool on a rack at least two hours before serving.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Norwich Sourdough

I had a disappointing bread experience a couple of weeks ago, and that’s not the bread I’m showing here today. That particular bread was the result of a time-consuming, all-day kind of baking project even though it wasn’t a sourdough bread. It required several folds and turns of the dough, and a nice, long proofing time. It did have a delicious, if tedious to prepare, filling of whole garlic cloves and balsamic syrup. Three heads worth of garlic were separated into cloves, boiled, and peeled, and then the garlic simmered in thick balsamic syrup. That syrup and the garlic were layered into the dough before the final folds. The bread smelled amazing as it baked. And, after all of that, it tasted, well, just alright. The crumb wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be, and while the flavor of the garlic was great, that of the bread itself wasn’t. That left me wanting to bake a really, really good loaf of bread, and that’s when I found this one on the Wild Yeast blog. Susan said this continues to be her favorite sourdough, and now I know why. There was of course some time involved in making it, but that was mostly fermenting or proofing, waiting, time. The active steps were actually very straightforward and quick compared to other sourdough bread recipes I’ve made. Outside, this bread was golden and crisp with a good, deep, crust taste, and inside, the crumb was flecked with color from rye flour, nicely chewy, and flavorful from the sourdough. Yes, this was a bread that was worth the wait.

The dough was made with only white starter, no commercial yeast, and I used bread flour and rye flour. The flours, starter, and water were mixed and left to rest before salt was added and the dough was mixed again. Then, it was transferred to a wide, oiled bowl. A wide bowl is a good choice so that the dough can be folded without removing it. The dough fermented for two and a half hours and was folded at 50 and 100 minutes, and this was so easy. Leaving the dough in a wide bowl and just coming back to fold twice was a breeze. After the two and a half hours, the dough was divided into four parts which were shaped into balls and left to rest for 15 minutes. Batard loaves were formed from the balls, and they were covered with plastic. The loaves could have spent the night in the refrigerator, but I left them at room temperature for a couple of hours and then baked them. I baked the loaves on a stone and sprayed water to produce steam during the first twelve minutes of baking time. Then, for the last five minutes, they baked with the oven door propped open, and last, the oven was turned off while the loaves sat in it for five more minutes. I love the crackling sounds you hear when the loaves have just come out of the oven. They sat on a cooling rack and made their noises, and I waited not so patiently to have a taste.

The crust was the deep, brown color that it was supposed to be, but I thought the surface was a little smooth. There’s a note in the recipe stating that if the formed loaves were refrigerated before being baked, the crust would be more blistered. I would have liked that, so I’ll plan for it next time. There will definitely be a next time. I timed it so the bread came out of the oven and cooled just before dinner. As dinner was being prepped, we cut into a loaf and dipped a few slices into seasoned olive oil. Then, we cut a few more slices. This delicious bread could easily become our favorite too. I’ve already almost forgotten that other experience, but I won’t rule out the possibility of one day layering some cooked garlic and balsamic syrup into this sourdough recipe.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Sourdough Corn Bread Bowls with Winter Vegetable Chowder

My sourdough starter just turned one year old. I’m proud of everything it did in that first year, but I think it can do a lot more. Out of fear, I stuck pretty closely to the Breads from the La Brea Bakery book all year since that’s where it all started. I followed the instructions in that book for making the starter, and I’ve only used that book for baking bread. It hasn’t failed me yet. I’ve made the bagels several times, and just this morning I was branching out by adjusting that recipe to include some whole grains. But, now that a whole year has gone by, I’m ready to start attempting some other sourdough breads. When I saw these sourdough corn bread bowls at Wild Yeast, they went to the top of my list. I loved the idea of cornmeal and corn flour used with sourdough, and a bread bowl for a winter soup was perfect. I followed Susan’s instructions carefully, and everything went fine. I think it’s going to be fun to keep trying new and different sourdough recipes. For the soup, I had a hearty vegetable chowder in mind, and I found just the thing I wanted in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

The sourdough corn bread was a breeze to mix. I combined bread flour, corn flour, coarse corn meal, water, salt, a little butter, and sourdough starter in the bowl of a mixer and let the dough hook do the work. The dough was transferred to an oiled bowl where it fermented for two and a half hours. It was then divided into six pieces which were left to rest for 30 minutes. Then each of those pieces was placed in a soup bowl, covered, and refrigerated until I was ready to bake. I let the dough come to room temperature while the oven pre-heated. Just before sliding the little loaves into the oven, they were slashed around the tops. The oven was spritzed, and I placed the loaves directly on a baking stone. The circular slash on each loaf made a good cut line for removing the tops and turning them into soup bowls.

The soup was even easier to prepare. First, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, sliced onion, peppercorns, and juniper berries were steeped in milk that was brought to a boil. That was covered and set aside while chopped leeks, carrots, turnips, rutabaga, celery, and potatoes were cooked in melted butter. After about 10 minutes, flour was stirred into the cooked vegetables, and then water was added. That was left to simmer for 25 minutes. Last, the milk was poured through a strainer into the soup, and seasoning was checked and adjusted.

A simple meal of bread and soup with some great cheese and olives seemed like a feast. The cornmeal and corn flour brought a little sweetness to the bread, and the crunchy crust gave way to a chewy, tasty, light yellow interior. The soup was a showcase of fresh, local, winter vegetables that was thickened just enough from the flour, starch from the potatoes, and the milk. As the soup disappeared in the bowl, it was easy to drag your spoon across the inner surface and bring bits of bread through the remaining chowder. Even better than that was pulling the bowl apart and eating the whole thing.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Squash Pepita Bread

Isn’t it nice how winter squashes can be stored for a while before being used? A few weeks ago, I received a couple of cute, little winter squashes in my last CSA pick up of the summer season and didn’t get around to using them until last week. They were still fine and could have waited even longer before being used. The reason they were finally used was for what is actually called pumpkin bread in the Breads from the La Brea Bakery book. Even though it’s called pumpkin bread, it was supposed to have been made with either sweet potatoes or kabosha squash. I used the squashes I had and roasted an acorn squash as well just to be sure I would have at least the 10 ounces of squash pulp that’s needed. Silverton’s reason for using sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin is because they add more flavor and color to the bread. Since my squashes’ insides were rather light, I failed to add color to my bread, but it smelled amazing as it baked and had a nice, chewy texture. Pumpkin in the name also refers to the pumpkin seeds which add a nice crunch to the crumb. I should point out that this is not a sweet type of pumpkin bread. It's made into small, savory loaves, and the squash flavor is accented by cumin in the dough.

Although this is a two-day bread, there is a six to ten hour waiting period on the first day, so I got an early start. First, the squashes were roasted, cooled, peeled, and the pulp was mashed. The dough was made from sourdough starter, water, wheat germ, cumin, bread flour, whole wheat flour, and squash pulp. Then, raw pepitas were toasted and added to the dough with salt. There was no additional commercial yeast in this dough, so, as usual when using only starter, I was nervous. The dough seemed dense, but I hoped that was just because of the squash and pepitas. The dough went into the refrigerator to ferment for about seven hours. It was then brought back to room temperature and divided into three pieces, and unfortunately, I’m not capable of dividing dough into equal pieces. They were close enough. After resting for a bit, each piece of dough was formed into a football shape, and I did a better job of football forming than last time. I’m learning. It helped that Silverton wrote that the loaves should look like sweet potatoes which I look at more often than footballs. The loaves were then covered with a cloth and wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and left in the refrigerator to proof for ten hours.

The next morning, I removed the plastic bag and brought the loaves up to room temperature. The oven was heated to 500 degrees F, and the loaves were slashed and loaded on a peel. The oven was spritzed with water, the loaves went in, the temperature was lowered to 450, and more spritzing was repeated during the first five minutes of baking. After a total baking time of 35 minutes, the pretty, little, football-sweet-potato-shaped, squash loaves were browned and crusty and delivered to the cooling rack. As noted in the recipe, this bread has a more even interior texture, and the seeds and squash give it some heft. It’s a hearty kind of bread, and it was delicious slathered with Irish butter. Next time, I’ll make it with sweet potatoes for a brighter color, but the squash worked very well otherwise.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Cinnamon Raisin Breakfast Ring

Last Saturday, we were invited to a brunch party, and that had me thinking about cinnamon rolls. I’ve made plain cinnamon rolls and pumpkin cinnamon rolls and tried different glazes on top, but I felt it was time to try something completely new and different. I found this breakfast ring in The Modern Baker, and this was just what I wanted to try. Incidentally, while looking through the book, I kept pausing and thinking yes, I have to make that sometime. I’m now sure that I’ll eventually bake every item in it. The blueberry crumb cake was irresistible, and I ended up baking that too. But, first, the breakfast ring. I thought the shape would be pretty, but I was curious if the taste and texture would be much different from my usual cinnamon rolls.

The dough is a quick brioche which is started with warmed milk, yeast, and flour. That mixture is left to bubble and rise for 20 minutes before it’s added to butter, sugar, salt, eggs, egg yolks, and flour in a food processor. There’s a tiny error in the breakfast ring recipe. You are instructed to follow the quick brioche recipe through step six, but you should actually only follow it through step four. That was no problem though; it’s obvious that you’re done at step four. The mixed dough was then chilled for an hour after which it was rolled into a rectangle on a floured surface. The filling included softened butter, light brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and chopped pecans, and that was spread over the rectangle of dough. The dough was rolled up jelly-roll style, transferred to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and then formed into a ring. Of course, I worried over the evenness of the circle. Where the ends meet, it forms a smaller cross-section that the rest of the ring, but a little coaxing and sculpting left it looking good enough.

The ring shape was smoothed and slightly flattened down from the top. Using scissors, cuts were made all around from the outside perimeter to about three-quarters of the way toward the center. Each piece was twisted to one side to expose the filling. You have to lift and pull a little to get the cut and turned pieces to sit nicely next to one another. After the twisting and flipping, the finished ring sat until doubled in size. An egg wash was applied, more chopped pecans were sprinkled on top, and it was baked. Once cool, it was dusted with confectioners’ sugar. Happily, it was sturdy enough to be transferred to a clean tray, but I feared that step and took photos prior to moving it.

I couldn’t wait to find out how it compared to the cinnamon rolls I’ve been making for years. Because of the ring shape, I couldn’t exactly have a little sample before presenting it to our hosts. So, I crossed my fingers and off we went. At the brunch, I heard some positive reactions about it from other guests and hoped they weren’t just being kind. Finally, I cut a piece for myself. The first bite informed me that it was good, second bite: yes, I like the raisins and pecans, third bite: ok, this dough is better than what I’ve been using for rolls, then no more thinking and just eating. The ring makes a nice presentation and is no more difficult than cutting rolls, but individual portions would be just as good. It was a definite keeper of a breakfast bread, and this tender brioche dough will be my new standard.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

Sourdough Starter and Bread Adventure: 3 Rustic Bread

My sourdough starter seems to be surviving. For this third bread adventure installment, it was used in rustic bread or ciabatta. Once again, this was from Nancy Silverton's Bread from the La Brea Bakery. It was a one-day bread, and the process seemed less frightening to me than the basic country white loaf. However, the very sticky, wet dough was not as lovely to work with as the bagel dough. Silverton explains that the wetter the dough, the bigger the holes. The finished loaf is intended to be flat and oval. Ciabatta takes very well to being dipped in olive oil or turned into garlic bread, and I had a feeling this wouldn’t last long once it was baked. The recipe makes enough dough for two large loaves, and I decided to follow the instructions for making one of them a rustic olive-herb loaf.

The starter was measured and combined with water, bread flour, and half a cake of fresh yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. After an initial mixing, it was left to rest for 20 minutes. Salt was added, it was mixed more, and then milk, olive oil, and more water were added. After the dough came together, it was left to ferment for two and a half hours. The big blob of wet stickiness was then turned out onto a well-floured board, sprinkled with more flour, covered, and left to sit a bit longer. At that point, the big blob was divided in two, and each was plopped onto parchment paper that had been heavily dusted with bread flour and semolina. Each loaf was dimpled by pressing my index finger all the way down to the parchment paper. More flour was sprinkled on top, they were covered and left to proof for two hours. Dough must get tired very easily as it requires more resting time than either of my cats. After that nap, the loaves were turned over, dimpled again and were finally ready to bake. The olive loaf was studded with pitted picholine olives in all of the dimples and little sprigs of fresh rosemary were tucked into the surface here and there.

The 500 degree oven was spritzed with water before the loaves were placed inside. Now, if you have no intention of baking this bread, just do this one part. Heat your oven to 500 degrees, spritz it with water, and then put something with fresh rosemary sprigs inside it. That immediate aroma of the rosemary hitting the hot steam is simply fantastic, and when it flavors a loaf of bread with some picholine olives, it’s quite a bonus. The temperature was reduced to 450, and the loaves baked for about 35 minutes. I was concerned that my blobs were a bit wide and didn’t seem quite as tall as most ciabatta loaves I’ve seen. I wasn’t sure I would get the nice porous interior that was the goal.

In the end, it worked fine. I think the dough would be easier to handle if there was less of it, so I’ll probably halve the recipe in the future. Now that I’ve experimented with the dough once, hopefully I can get a nicer ciabatta-looking shape and slightly taller loaves when I try again. What I did get this time was really wonderfully chewy, flavorful bread with a nice, crisp crust. When the loaves were cooled and ready to be tasted, we were kind of like kids in a candy store. We couldn’t stop eating this bread, and we didn’t take the time to dip it in olive oil. It was so fresh and so good. I may need to re-think that idea about halving the recipe next time.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.