one good loaf

summer baking :: oregano bread

 
 
Turning on the oven in the summer is not the hindrance that I once thought. For the most part, most modern ovens are really good at heat containment, and in my home we happen to have central air. Not to mention we're not spending our time inside the house anyway; we're out enjoying the yard.

Inspired by cuttings from my potted oregano, I went seeking an herb bread with an emphasis on herbs. The one I chose, Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads, served well with some modifications, the most significant of which was doubling the herb quotient. I wanted it really chock full of flavor.

Be sure to wash the fresh herbs really well. I soaked and swirled them in a large bowl, then rinsed for a good while. Lay the clean oregano on a towel and pat to remove moisture. I left it overnight like this, but in no way were these herbs dried in the traditional, long term sense. Using dried herbs would certainly require far less (perhaps half?) the amount needed.

Remove leaves and coarsely chop them; discard stems. Whatever you don't use for the bread can be further left to dry, of course, for your pantry.

When adding ingredients I added the oregano at the dry flour and dry yeast stage, before adding the hot water and olive oil. I also added dehydrated onion for extra kick. Next time I might try adding fresh, caramelized onions. I think they'd add moisture to the finished bread.

Another great thing about summer baking is resting the covered dough outside to rise, letting the warm weather work its magic on the yeast. You do need to be careful not to kill the yeast, by overheating. I read this quote recently from the collected essays of James Beard in his book, Simple Foods:

"... [temperatures] over 95 degrees can kill fresh, active yeast cells in live yeast ...  granular yeast, on the other hand, requires water of [ and can withstand] higher temperature, from 110 to 115."

The same is true of the rising environment. Not too hot otherwise your yeast can accelerate rapidly, and the bread won't taste right without corrective measures. I'm not going to get into all of that today. Suffice it to say: be aware of temperatures and don't place dough directly in the sun.

 

Oregano Onion Bread *

• 1 packet dry yeast
• 3 1/2 cups bread or unbleached white flour
• 1 Tbl. sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 hot water (120-130 degrees, f.)
• 3 Tbl. olive oil
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh oregano
• 1/4 cup dehydrated onion
• yellow cornmeal to coat

In a stand mixer combine all dry ingredients, including herbs and onions. Whisk well.  Change to bread hook attachment. Add olive oil to hot water and with mixer running slowly, add water gradually in a steady stream. Allow bread hook to knead approx. 8-10 minutes 'til dough pulls away from the bowl and the sides are clean.

Form dough in a loose ball and place in a well oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap (or a moist towel if you prefer) to rise in a warm, shady spot for about 2 hours.

 

Remove risen dough to a board dusted in cornmeal, press and fold gently to remove large air pockets, form into a loaf and place in bread pan for the second rise of about an hour. Score with serated knife or razor blade.

Bake in pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temp. to 350 for remaining 20 minutes. Bread is done when crust is golden and knocking on the top yields a hollow sound.

* modified from Bernard Clayton's six herbs bread

 

In the half an hour before dinner, as its scent drifted out from the kitchen the kids asked if we were having pizza. It had all the flavor of a rustic, fresh pizza with added crunch and crumble. 

Apparently I'm a summer baking convert. Clearly happy gardeners make happy bakers. Let me know if you try my kid's latest favorite summer "pizza bread."

 

 

golden flaxseed bread

Patience bread. It will rise in it's good old time.

Free of the usual recent distractions of the thrift store or library, this snowy weekend seemed like a good time to return to playing with yeast bread.  What could be better with the sweet potato soup I had planned? I started the dough Saturday afternoon and set it aside in the warm oven for a couple of hours, but the dough didn't rise.

Rather than panic, I made some quick biscuits for dinner and decided to let time work on the dough and just see what happened. Left covered overnight in our 68 degree boiler room, and --  in its own time --  it did in fact decide to rise about 10-12 hours later, doubling in size to a beautiful mass of wet dough by Sunday evening.  'All things in their own time' is certainly one of the lessons of bread making.

----------------

Golden Flaxseed bread*

2 cups warm water

1 packet instant yeast (2 +1/2 tsp.)

2 tsp. sugar

 -- whisk together all three, and let stand for 30 min. to proof the yeast.

4 1/2 cups flour (I used unbleached white)

4 tsp. vital wheat gluten

1 tsp. salt

4 Tbl. milled flax seed (I used Hodgson Mill brand)

3 Tbl. nonfat dry milk

Add water/yeast mixture to stand mixer over dry ingredients and blend thoroughly with dough hook until dough pulls away from the wall, forming a mass around the bread hook. Knead for about 10 minutes. Place in oiled bowl and cover to rise 2-12 hours. (see notes on rising time above.)

When doubled in volume turn out dough on floured surface and fold over and form into a free-form loaf. Transfer to baking sheet covered in parchment. Score the top (I used a cross-hatching pattern.) Cover with towel and let stand 1/2 hour until it relaxes and rises slightly.

Bake in preheated oven at 400, for 30-35 minutes, or until tapping on the top of the loaf yields a hollow sound.

This bread has a bold, developed flavor (likely due to the long rise), fleck-y coloring from the milled flax seed hulls, and a hearty, dense [but not overly so] crumb texture.  It turned out far better than I believed it would after the first two hours of rising.  Being my first foray into adding vital wheat gluten -- an ingredient I understand aids rising and adds protein and fiber --  I don't know if that makes a contribution to its flavor but it was a wonderful bread for thick slices if you can wait a couple of  days after starting the dough.

* modified from the Hodgson Mill box, their recipe is here.

baking powder biscuits

Sometimes you don't need to look any further than Martha Stewart for the inspiration.

These baking powder biscuits were part of a feature I tore from an older issue (2002) that featured so many delicious varieties. The article also suggested several great ad-ins like crumbled bacon and onion, cheddar and dill, or any combination of chopped fresh herbs. I added poppy seeds. That's really all they needed along with a bowl of homemade vegetable soup and a spinach salad.  Satisfiying enough for an early autumn weekend dinner.

I tried making them moose-shaped, like Ella's lovely photo, but this dough was far too sticky so I defaulted to the mini biscuit circle prefered by my kids.

crusty rosemary bread

This bread began as a shortcut to the dutch oven bread concept. 

So many days I find myself thinking a nice fresh bread would round out our dinner table. You know, satisfy the kids' appetite in a way unlike greens and proteins. Trouble is I usually think that the very day I want it served. Advance preparation for that 12-16 hour slow-rise method isn't always realistic in my meal planning.

Since the pre-heated enclosure in the dutch oven approach is responsible for creating the desired crust and crumb, it seemed logical that using that technique with any recipe might yield a similar (maybe passable?) artisian effect. 

The first test was with a basic 'first loaf' recipe from Clayton's Complete Book of Breads, using a combination of whole wheat and unbleached bread flour. Crunchy crust and caramel color were pretty good. As I often find with my whole wheats the dough was a little dry, but the bread was good, if dense.

Next, I modified the same recipe (quite enough to comfortably share it here as a unique treatment) with an even better result than I could hope for. My kids' favorite home-baked bread to date, it combines the sweetness of cornmeal with the piney fragrance of fresh rosemary. 

 

I need not have scored the top, as the dough expanded too much to recognize the markings, however it trapped some of the cornmeal inside the bread while baking which contributed to its rich color and texture.

  

If ever I can break my pattern of always baking something new, I'll serve this one again. Please let me know if you try this and if you develop any helpful advice or variations.

Crusty rosemary bread

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
• 1/2 tsp. fine grain sea salt
• 3 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbl. fresh chopped rosemary (if using dry use half the amount)
• 4 cups bread flour (I used King Arthur brand) + extra for kneading
• cornmeal for crusting

Whisk together water and yeast; let stand about 10 min. Add to a stand mixer bowl with all other ingredients and pulse slowly with a bread hook until all are well combined and the dough begins to pull away from the bowl forming a mass around the hook. The dough should be rather moist. Knead by hand on a well-floured board until smooth, but still tender beneath the floured exterior. Cover in an oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours until rising substantially; doubled in size.

Turn out dough onto a surface dusted with cornmeal. Gently fold over while dredging. Place dough on a clean towel also dusted in cornmeal to prevent sticking. Fold towel over the top and let rise for an hour. Pre-heat oven to 425; pre-heat the dutch oven casserole dish as well. I didn't pre-heat the lid, for ease of the next step. Unwrap and  turn dough out into the pre-heated dutch oven. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then remove cover and bake 10 more minutes to brown the crust.

morning bribery

That's exactly what this is.

Four weeks into the school year and I am getting creative with morning incentives. Yesterday I kept thinking I had nothing in the house. No cereal, no bread for toast (yeah, probably not the best venue to be making that admission), but what I did have was ingredients and plenty of them.

I think in our day to day -- at least I know this is true of myself -- I sometimes forget that those pantry staples are the makings of everything we need.

Thanks to the beauty that is flickr, I remembered Heather's delicious image of homemade cinnamon rolls and scanned back through her entire photostream (a delight in and of itself) to find a link to the recipe. Well there wasn't one available, but the photo alone was the spark. After finding nothing suitable in my cookbooks a quick web search yielded several recipes and I landed on this one.

Making them was a pleasure. I used a bowl, a whisk and my hands to knead.  A stand mixer wasn't necessary. I rolled out the elastic dough, spread with butter and the cinnamon/sugar mixture (omitting the nuts since none were available) sliced, covered and refrigerated overnight. This morning I woke early, brought them up to room temperature and sent a waft of cinnamon upstairs to the sleeping school girls. They made their way down without assistance. Said they smelled it from their beds. Success!

I doubled the batch for after school snacks.

cinnamon rolls

 

simply empowered

When we all began the 'one good loaf' project last fall, I believe (without really articulating it) that my goal was to create REAL bread. The kind of bread you read about in historic novels. The kind of bread that you might spend $5-$6 for in an organic bakery. I envisioned the roundish, dark crunchy boule with a tender center and air pockets the size of your thumb.

After watching the movie Julie & Julia this past weekend, I enjoyed a delicious bruschetta and glass of pino grigio with my friend.  Served on super thin slices as large as your hand, crisped from butter and oven toasting, topped with diced tomato, tiny cubes of fresh mozzarella and basil chiffonade -- it was delicious! And a meal in itself. Between the bruschetta and the vision of Julia's smart white, long waist apron, my desire to make that dreamy 'one good loaf' is renewed. After all, what could be a better foundation for summers garden fresh tomatoes, or raspberries ripe for collecting from the orchard.

I've seen links to Mark Bittman's NYT video on numerous blogs and every time I watch it I think ... yes! That's it! That is as simple as it needs to be.  If you haven't watched it yet you might take 5 minutes to feel empowered by the simplicity of this process.  As Jim Lahey says at the end: let's make sure everyone has access to it; that's the goal.

when the dough doesn't rise

 

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.

Congratulations

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.

100 (+) member giveaway

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!

dutch-oven bread :: bread no. 8

 

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.