What do you do?
I decided to roll it into long breadsticks, brush with butter, sprinkle with garlic powder and bake it anyway. 425 degrees; 15 minutes.
It must have been some bad yeast, because everything else was fairly precise. This was just an ordinary white loaf recipe that I had adapted to half whole wheat.
The kids never guessed it was a remedied situation.
So you can get a sense of scale here ...
It's like he's passing the peace pipe or something.
The winner of the lovely book giveaway, The Art + Soul of Baking, (by random number generator) ... is Sandrine. Congratulations, Sandrine.
Please email (link above right) your address and I will send the book out to you.
I was going to announce that One Good Loaf is 100 members strong, but yesterday we topped that. It's very exciting to see all of the beautiful photos (I've especially admired the amazing holiday breads) shared in the group pool. So inspiring!
Now that the holidays are behind us, we in colder climates continue to focus on nourishing ourselves and our families through the remaining cold months. Here is a book to take you from winter to spring, with a basic bread primer, to herbed chicken pot pie, to a classic yellow layer cake that will grace your easter table.
The Art & Soul of Baking, by Cindy Mushet, is the latest addition to Sur la Table's cookbook series and was selected as the October '08 choice of the Gourmet Magazine Cookbook club.
This is a beautifully photographed and written book with practical advice on baking ingredients and tools. Thanks to the good people at Andrews McMeel publishing, we have a copy to giveaway this week to one of our group members.
To be eligible to win you must be a member of our flickr group pool. We are always open to home bakers of all experience levels -- to join please sign up for a free flickr account and follow the 'join us' prompt to flickr mail. New members are usually added the same day.
Interested members please leave a comment on this post about what you plan to bake next. Please, one comment only.
We'll keep it open all week. Comments will be closed Friday, January 16 at 5 pm (EST). Shortly thereafter I will announce a winner of this gorgeous book.
Bake on!
easy no knead crusty bread :: from Mother Earth News
No fuss rustic artisan bread. You've heard the rumors and today I support every one.
This recipe closely resembles others that I've shared in earlier posts in its simplicity of ingredients, long rise time, and "leave it alone" philosophy. The single distinctive technique: baking in an enclosed oven-proof dish. It makes ALL the difference.
I do not own a dutch oven, and apparently any covered oven-proof dishes I once had have lost their lids. That was not going to stop me. With a little kitchen ingenuity, I sized together a spring-form cheesecake pan (pre-heated at 475 as called for ) with a stainless steel bowl turned upside down as a cover.
Even without a tight seal, this did the essential trick -- capturing moisture inside during baking -- with remarkably crunchy crusts and moist, tender wholly centers resulting.
The kids asked why I hadn't baked two loaves.
Most of the sources I've looked at make rye sound so complicated: "the key to a good rye," says one "is to use several fermented pieces reserved from an earlier loaf. Store bought will do." What? If I wanted to purchase a loaf of rye bread I wouldn't be baking my own. At some point there must be a starter.
I'm inventive in my day to day cooking, so why not try a little experimentation in the baking area as well? How hard could it be? Right? I set aside the recipes and set out on my own.
What follows is an adaption garnered from some basic recipe ingredients, incorporating the long rise method of the Bittman NYT 'no knead' article, (right sidebar) which mirrors the principals of the heretofore mentioned, Andrew Whitley.
seeded rye
step 1: make the starter:
1 cup rye flour
1 cup water
1 tsp. yeast
1 small onion (finely diced and sauteed or microwaved util soft)
Mix all. Let stand at room temperature, overnight or 12-18 hours.
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step 2: Add to the starter:
1 cup water
2 tsp. salt
3 Tbl. olive oil
3 Tbl. molasses
1/4 cup caraway seeds
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 + 1/2 cups bread or all-purpose flour
1 + 1/2 cups rye flour
In stand mixer whisk all ingredients but the last 1/2 cup of flour. Change wire whisk to bread hook attachment and continue adding the final half cup until incorporated. The dough will be very wet and will not wrap itself around the bread hook as it does with other breads.
scrape out dough into greased bowl and cover with plastic. Let stand 2 hours - overnight (or longer, or refrigerated overnight if desired).
Bring dough back up to room temp. Cut in half for two loaves. Turn out onto floured surface, coating each in flour all around.
[bake one today; refrigerate one for tomorrow.]
Quickly form into ball and place on a lined baking sheet. Let rise 1-2 hours. Timing is really flexible on all of this, as I followed the "practice patience" advice of the NYT article.
Pre-heat oven to 400. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce oven temp to 350 for remaining 15-20 minutes, or until tapping on the loaf makes the desired "hollow sound."
Let bread cool, then slice and deliver to your handsome, hardworking husband in his home office.
It turned out not half bad, and I'll be sure to freeze a couple of crusts of this loaf for the fermented 'starter' for the next.
Cheers!
[image courtesy of EllynAnne Geisel]
Author of The Apron Book, EllynAnne Geisel, has come up with a fantastic idea that I'm sure will be of interest to our readers/bakers: National Tie One On day. Excerpts from her website say it best:
"On the day before Thanksgiving, EllynAnne encourages us to pause in the preparation of our own meal, wrap a loaf of bread in an apron, tuck a prayer or note of encouragement in the pocket, ... and deliver the wrapped bundle to someone in need of spiritual or physical sustenance.
... “Women clad in aprons have traditionally prepared the Thanksgiving meal,” says EllynAnne, “and it is within our historical linkage to share our bounty.”
In celebration of the event, Ms. Geisel is hosting a book give-away on her blog. See her post for details and leave a comment to enter.
If you should choose to participate in National Tie One On day, please feel free to share any photos you may take in the our flickr pool.
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Also, check out this fun (unrelated) flickr group: tie-one-on.
... Jesspunky, with her apple doughnuts, by random drawing.
Please send a flickr mail with your address and Melanie of Lit*chick will mail your book directly.
Thank you once again to Melanie for making this fun offer available.
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... is closed.
I will be back in a short while to announce the winner.
I know, I know ... I'm supposed to be "trying something new" this week for the give-away theme, and even though I am removing myself from the running for the prize, I do plan to play along thematically baking 'something new' tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the kids still need to eat, and this recipe is so wonderfully simple that I quite literally don't look at the recipe anymore. This time, I changed it up with half rye flour instead of all the wheat and baked in one large pan instead of two. It was lacking that hearty rye flavor so I'm going to look for a traditional seeded rye recipe next time.
I find it interesting that, when I began thinking about baking each week I never conciously thought that we would eliminate all of the store-bought breads right away. My family can consume big quantities, so I thought initially that we would be supplementing our meals this way. A happy consequence of baking has been an easy shift -- I haven't bought bread in the store in weeks. None.
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Several 'one good loaf' bakers who are sharing recipes and posts on their blogs have been added to the sidebar list to the right. Please send me a comment if I have, by chance, missed yours.
The 'something new' submissions in the group pool this week are so deliciously inspiring.
There is still time to enter a photo for the book give-away challenge; which closes Sunday afternoon, at 4pm (EST.)
A beautiful sampling of recent baking by group members. Click red titles to link to individual photos and credits:
1. last week looks like this week and the week before 2. pumpkin scones with cranberries 3. playing with dough 4. spelt bread 5. Italian braid 6. corn porn 7. second rise 8. blue yonder daily bread recipe 9. 365/6 10. kneading the dough 11. daily bread 12. fougasse 13. challah bread two 14. first loaf 15. baking 16. warmth.
A junior baker makes the classic favorite, but no walnuts for us; it's pecans all the way. Nine year old Helen measured and mixed and blended and spooned her way through The Joy of Cooking's Banana Bread. All mom did was sit by to answer a question or two, and to chop the nuts with the big knife. I also removed it from the oven because she was nervous to get to near.
She was pretty pleased with herself upon tasting, having learned a good lesson: baking is, most certainly, its own reward.
