Breads – Page 2

BMB: Raisin Rye Bread

Update: Champa’s Round-up for Bread Baking Day #37: Breads with Sponge or Pre-Ferment, is ready. You’ll find a wonderful collection including a twist bread, pancakes, several versions of ryes and raisin breads, ciabatta, and so much more to tempt you!

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Behold Son of George, the rye sourdough starter — smaller, milder and studded with golden and dark raisins, but no less chewy and perfect for snacking, slathered in butter or not: the Raisin Rye Loaf.

This recipe is an adapted version of master baker George Greenstein’s recipe for light rye bread, and assumes you have a sourdough starter on hand already. With only half as much rye flour in the final dough and only one stage of rye development (as opposed to three in Mr. Greenstein’s), the loaf is much less tangy and the rye flavor, while distinctive and clear, is more of a background note than the defining flavor.

Since we undertook this resolution last month to bake bread at home, the recipes we’ve tried have not been enriched (added oil, dairy or eggs) and mostly whole grain — whole wheat, rye or oatmeal. We soon remembered one of the most challenging things about home-baked whole grain bread: you have to eat it within a couple of days because it becomes stale very quickly. Since there are only 2 of us and we are not usually very big bread consumers, my strategy involved dividing the dough to make smaller loaves, and giving away one. Great way to try many different bread recipes, not gain 10 lbs. a month, and gain popularity with colleagues and neighbors! While we would never want to take anything away from sharing, there is another solution. It’s called vital wheat gluten (VWG), and when baking with whole grains I think it is the home breadbaker’s BFF.

I came across mentions of VWG while perusing the forums on The Fresh Loaf, a wonderful resource for tips and stories from real bakers, both passionate hobbyists and professionals. VWG was touted as increasing the rise and improving the chew of whole grain breads, as well as prolonging their shelf life. We tried it with our first rye loaf, and were impressed at how fresh the loaf remained even on the third day after baking. The same as been true for this raisin rye, and now I don’t think I would bake whole grain bread without it. When a bread dough is enriched with eggs, milk and oil, these additions also aid in prolonging bread’s freshness and softness so vital wheat gluten is not necessary.

This loaf takes its sweet note to dear Champa of Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen, this month’s host for Bread Baking Day. In the 37th edition of this monthly event — the brainchild of our Zorra @ 1x Umrühren Bitte — the theme is Bread Made with Sponge/Pre-ferment. I am late to the game this month, as the last day to submit entries is tomorrow, but Champa promises to have a round-up by March 5th that will include not only yeast breads, but may include cakes, scones, waffles, pancakes and the like as long as they use a sponge (such as a sourdough), are vegetarian (can include eggs), and made in the month of February.

RAISIN RYE LOAF
Makes approximately two 1lb. loaves or one 1kg loaf

Start about 30 hours before you intend to bake.

For the Sponge:
1 cup (230g) sourdough or rye sourdough starter
1 cup (90g) rye flour
½ cup (120ml) water
½ tsp caraway seeds (optional)

Combine starter, rye flour and water and stir well to combine. Add caraway seeds, if using, and stir in. Leave to ferment at room temperature for at least 24 hours.

For the Dough:
¾ cup (98g) whole wheat flour
2¼ cup (293g) bread flour (aka “strong” or Typ 550)
4 tsp. vital wheat gluten
1 tsp sea salt
1 TBL raw sugar
2 cup (158ml) warm water
2¼ tsp. active dry yeast (about 1 cake fresh yeast)
1 cup (150g) golden raisins
½ cup (75g) dark raisins
1 TBL flour, for raisins
1 TBL cornmeal, for baking sheet
1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp water, for glazing

In a mixing bowl large enough to hold the finished dough, combine both flours, vital wheat gluten, salt and sugar. Mix well. Make a small well in the flours, add warm water and yeast and allow yeast to dissolve. Add fermented Sponge to yeast mixture in well. Slowly incorporate flour mixture into the well, until a shaggy dough forms.

Turn dough out onto a well-floured table and knead well until the dough becomes smooth and elastic, this took me about 13 minutes of hard kneading. Shape into a ball for first rise.

Oil a large bowl and turn dough ball to coat lightly with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until doubled in size, mine took about 1½ hours.

Combine raisins and toss with 1 TBL flour to coat. Set aside until needed.

Pre-heat oven to 375F/190C. Sprinkle cornmeal over baking sheet.

Punch down dough, and gently knead. Allow to rest under cover for about 10 minutes. Gently roll out dough to the size of a sheet of paper. Sprinkle half of raisins over half the sheet, and fold dough close, as if closing a book. Press dough to lightly, and press dough back to the size of a sheet of paper again. Sprinkle remaining raisins and fold over dough to enclose the fruit again. Gently knead to distribute fruit through the dough.

Divide dough into 2 equal pieces and shape each into a free-form loaf. Place on prepared baking sheet. Cover each loaf with oiled plastic film and allow to proof until doubled in size, about 50 minutes to 1 hour. To test: gently press dough with a finger, if it springs back quickly, the dough needs more proofing time; if the indentation remains, it is ready to bake.

Brush loaves with egg yolk glaze, and slash tops with sharp razor or scalpel.

Place baking sheet in middle of oven, and spray sides of oven water. Immediately close oven door and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped on its underside. A single 2lb/1kg loaf may take 35-40 minutes to bake. I turned the sheet around about half way through baking to ensure even browning.

Allow to cool completely on rack before slicing. Its mild sweetness and toothsome chew are wonderful on their own — it’s the only way T. has eaten it so far. I’ve indulged with a pats of unsalted butter to accompany my morning coffee.

BMB: New York-style Light Rye Breads

My new year’s resolution to bake bread at home has continued apace (Bake More Bread: BMB). From Anadama to Oatmeal to fruity Banana Yeast, finally we get to the sourdoughs. These are New York style sourdough rye loaves.

On the first day of the new year, I began a wild sourdough starter and attempted to follow directions from Sue, an accomplished bread baker and cheesemaker, at Know Whey. I began running into trouble early on. Sue’s directions called for removing a quantity of the starter each day by weight. That sounds logical, and on sight it seems easy. It was not. At least not for me.

The starter batter is very sticky. Could-be-used-to-set-wallpaper sticky. And equally gloppy. In the end I was just not talented enough to weigh and remove the required amount of starter each day without creating a huge mess. Goop on my clothes. Streaky smears on the counters. And paste coating all the utensils, bowls and kitchen scale. It was getting discouraging, so rather than give up on my starter, I gave up on the weighing the starter. Instead I eye-balled what looked like 50% of the starter to use or dump, but still weighed the flour and water going in. And I kept my fingers crossed.

After the requisite one week development period, I was happy to see that the starter looked healthy and active. I gave her a couple more days to really settle in and develop some “sour” before putting her to work. Yes, her. We know sourdoughs are live, active cultures — they must be fed and changed on a regular basis, right? Well, meet “Katharine” or Kate for short — she’s bubbly and energetic, with a stern backbone (of whole wheat) despite her soft appearance. Kinda like the actress after whom she’s named. This photo was taken today.

My first attempt to make an all sourdough bread (i.e., no yeast) was a potato sourdough that I made into a braid and into rolls. This recipe cautioned that raising and proofing times could be quite extended. The first rise took 8 hours, and the proofing sometime less than 6. In fact, I miscalculated the proofing time based on that first rise, and by the time I checked the breads at 6 hours, the braid had collapsed. The rolls came out all right — a bit dense and light-colored.

For the second sourdough I chose a light rye recipe from “Secrets of a Jewish Baker” by George Greenstein since I had made a Jewish recipe called Schmalz & Gribenes that is often served with rye breads. This is a very involved bread recipe. You begin well over 48 hours before you want to bake by first making a caraway-seasoned rye-based starter. After the first 24 hours, the starter is fed more rye flour in 3 additional stages. After another 18 hours, you’re ready to start the dough.

Instead of starting from scratch, I used Kate as the beginning starter and added crushed caraway seeds along with the first measure of rye flour and water for Stage One. The seeds completely disintegrate by the time the starter is ready to be made into a dough, so if you don’t want seeds in the final bread, you can still add them at Stage One for the flavor boost they will give your starter. After each feeding, the starter is allowed to double, though the time required for doubling shortens with each stage. Maybe because I did not start from scratch with Mr. Greenstein’s recipe, the Stage One rise took 10 hours. Stage Two took about 5, while Stage Three took about 4 hours.

After Stage Three, I removed about a half-cup of the rye sourdough to use for our next loaf — his name is George, of course. Per Mr. Greenstein’s recommendation, he’s covered with a film of water and lives in the fridge. Kate sits on the sideboard at room temperature.

When making the dough, I again had to depart from Mr. Greenstein’s meticulous directions because I had neither clear flour nor left-over rye bread to make something called the Altus, basically a wet mash of left-over rye bread that provides that je ne sais quoi of real rye breads. Clear flour, also called first clear, is a specialty bakery flour — it is traditionally what’s left after the first sifting of milled wheat to create white flour. So clear flour has some quantity of wheat bran and germ that are considered undesirable for white flour purposes. Evidently one doesn’t find clear flour on market shelves(super-, co-op, specialty or otherwise). You either have to chat up an artisan baker into selling you some, or order it online. Online sources can charge twice as much for shipping as they charge for the flour itself, so you might want to plan accordingly and put all your specialty baking needs in one order. Alternatively, one bread baker’s forum suggested a ratio of 3:1 all-purpose flour to whole wheat as a passable substitute for clear flour. I used 3:1 bread flour to whole wheat flour. This bread uses yeast as a leavener in addition to the sourdough, and I also included vital wheat gluten to increase the bread’s lift and keeping ability.

The bread is painted with cornstarch solution before it is slashed, then again as soon as it comes out of the oven. I had not used this glaze before — it adds an interesting powdered shine to the finished loaf, don’t you think? During baking, the sides of the oven are sprayed with water to create steam that for that distinctive chewy thick crust.

These are the final loaves we got: 2 plain, free-form loaves and one stuffed bread (a la Reuben). I am tickled at how chewy and tasty these breads were — pleasantly sour and redolent of rye. I doubled the amount of caraway seeds called for in the recipe, and I think it could hold up to even more. The rye and sour develop beautifully and taste even better on the second and third days. It was kind of hard but I portioned out a couple of slices to dry and keep for the Altus next time.

I refer any interested bakers to Mr. Greenstein’s recipe for the directions for this wonderful bread — they reflect a lifetime of learning and a close understanding of the bread baker’s art. Don’t be put off by the long lead times — the starter itself is very simple, and most of the work is done by Mother Nature. I am looking forward to baking this again with the Altus and clear flour to see just what the difference will be, but I would not hesitate to bake this with the substituted flours again if I didn’t have time to sweet talk a baker.

As I hoped, the light rye was the perfect foil for the Schmalz and Gribenes (GRIB-buh-nuhs).
Translation: Seasoned chicken fat and crispy chicken skin.
Mmmm, chicken skin… Look for that soon.

BMB: Coriander-Spiked Banana Braid

Continuing my resolution to bake bread at home more often (BMB: Bake More Bread), today we’re back to a recipe we first tried 12 years before and know we love: a banana yeast bread from the1000 Classic Recipes cookbook. I had never tried a yeast bread flavored with bananas before then — I had always thought of banana bread as a quick bread (made with baking soda, not yeast). But this lovely yeast bread is a nice change of pace for toast, French toast, and even sandwiches. It is moist, chewy, soft and mildly banana-— the banana flavor is noticeable but subtle. And the bread is really not sweet — other than a couple tablespoonsful of molasses or raw sugar, the only sweetness comes from the fruit itself. Hard to resist eating just as it is, but you can imagine how much better a PB&J would be if made with this bread, can’t you? Warm Nutella or squares of dark chocolate are absolutely heaven (Best.Breakfast.Ever.). I also like to use this for grilled cheese sandwiches, especially with an aged cheese. My dear T. has a problem with sweet breads used for savory purposes — he’s surprised that he enjoys the flavor combination, but at the same time feels “repulsed” (his word) by the sweet-savory combination. He recognizes, though, that he has a problem, so that’s the first step, right? *smile*

The original recipe is spiked with cardamom instead of coriander seed, and we do like the original but I just read someone waxing poetic about the combination of bananas and coriander and wanted to see for myself. The coriander is more subtle, but both spices complement bananas well — choose your favorite! Next time I’m going to try the same combination of spices I use for my banana quick bread: cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and allspice.

This loaf came about by pure serendipity. The market where I was shopping last week had a glut of over-ripe bananas that they were selling at 3 lbs. for $1.49. They weren’t bruised or blackened, just speckled. Can you pass that up? I can’t. What isn’t used in a bread, quick bread or oatmeal in the next 2 days will be peeled and frozen for later use. I was thinking of making our usual quick bread at the time I bought the bunch, but the morning I started to bake, I remembered this long unused recipe and went digging through yet-unpacked boxes to find the right cookbook. In 4 hours the kitchen was filled with the faint aroma of yeasty bananas (good name for a rock band?).

Now if only serendipity could help me find my copy of the original Tassajara Bread Book that my SIL gave me… I know it’s around here somewhere but it’s in a box we haven’t unpacked yet.

CORIANDER-SPIKED BANANA BRAID
(Adapted from 1000 Classic Recipes by Hermes House publishing)
Makes one 1lb loaf

3½ cups/1lb (455g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp powdered coriander seed
1¼ tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast
â…” cup liquid whey or water, warm to the touch
2 TBL (29ml or 43g) unsulphured molasses
or raw sugar (23g)(used sugar this time)
2 ripe bananas, mashed well
egg wash: 2 TBL beaten egg mixed with 2 TBL water

Combine flour, salt and coriander powder in the bowl of a stand mixer. Make a well in the center of the flour, and add the yeast. Mix together water, molasses/sugar and bananas, then add wet ingredients to the well in the bowl. Attach dough hook to stand mixer, and mix at low speed to incorporate all flour, about 1 minute.

When dough has come together, increase speed to medium high or high for 3-4 minutes, until the dough smoothes out.

Turn dough onto floured table and continue kneading by hand for 6-10 minutes or until dough is elastic and smooth. Let rest for 5 minutes under damp cloth or lightly oiled plastic film.

Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Braid dough and place on baking sheet. Cover again with lightly oiled plastic film and place in a warm spot away from drafts until well-risen, about an hour. Test for doneness by pressing gently but firmly on the top of the dough: if it springs back quickly, the dough needs more time; if the indentation remains, it’s ready to bake.

Pre-heat oven to 425F/220C.

Brush braid with egg wash. Place in middle rack of oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Lower temperature to 400F and bake 15 minutes longer, or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped (you may want to tent with foil if you prefer a softer, lighter-colored crust). Cool on rack.

Toasted Banana Braid with Dove Dark Chocolate:
Toast bread, place 2 chocolates on bread
and return to toaster oven for 30 seconds.
Smear with knife.
Bite. Smile. Repeat.

BMB (Bake More Bread): Oatmeal Loaf

One lucky side effect of my new year’s resolution to bake bread at home may be that it will also help me stay in better shape, too. That’s some workout — kneading dough by hand, or is that just that I’m in such BAD shape now that I’m getting winded by 15 minutes of hand kneading a one pound lump of dough….hmmmm, will think on that some more.

So, the actual resolution was to bake bread twice a month. The Anadama loaves have been completely dispatched, so as I prepared my weekly shopping list yesterday I started to put sandwich bread on the list and then thought, But why? Why not just bake one? Why not, indeed. This loaf will fill January’s quota for bread-baking, but Loaf #3 is already proofing, and the sourdough starter is on Day Five of its journey to becoming a fully blossomed baking leavener, so you know something has to be made with that the day after tomorrow. And we’re still in the first week of the year!

I still don’t have any bread flour (put THAT on the shopping list) so last night I started a dough for Oatmeal Bread using the last of our all-purpose flour instead of the bread flour the recipe specified. And speaking of sourdough starter, as you probably know sourdough is a living thing that has to be fed. And during its infancy it has to be fed and “changed” (excess fermented dough removed) daily. Instead of throwing out the 120g of fermented dough I removed from the sourdough yesterday, I added that to the Oatmeal Bread dough for good measure (in addition to yeast, not to substitute for it). Again, the dough did a slow rise overnight in a fridge-temperature environment (read: the unheated, uninsulated three-seasons room), and I proofed and baked in the morning. Unfortunately, too late for T. to try a slice before he had to catch his train (Sorry, Honey…).

With the substitutions I had made (especially the flour substitution), the final dough was quite stiff even after 4 minutes on the dough hook and 15 minutes of kneading by hand. I probably could have added back all the liquid I took out to compensate for the runny sourdough cast-off (and then some). After baking, we got a nice firm, dense loaf with a thick dark crust. The texture and color of the crust might be a function of the pan I use, which is a stoneware loaf pan. I ate the first slice with nothing more than a few slices of avocado dusted with sea salt and a few twists of black pepper. Scrumptious breakfast! It does have a noticeable tang which I attribute to the sourdough bit.

The bread is much denser than we prefer for a sandwich bread, but it would be perfect to accompany a soup or stew, or in thick slabs as toast, which is how we will probably finish this off. With gobs of unsalted butter and raspberry jam. Or almond butter. Or spinach dip. Or French toast?….

Hope you’re all baking bread out there, too. The Bake More Bread (BMB) posts will all be in the Breadbasket section of the recipe files (woo hoo, we’re up to 3 breads now!)… Next bread up: Coriander-spiked Banana Braid

OATMEAL BREAD
(Heavily adapted from the King Arthur Flour recipe)
Makes one 1-lb. loaf

1¼ tsp or 1 packet active dry yeast
10oz (296ml) milk, just warm to the touch
12¾oz (362g) all-purpose flour
3½oz (100g) rolled oats (old-fashioned oats)
1½ tsp salt
1oz (28g) unsalted butter
3 TBL (38g) raw sugar
** I used 9 oz of milk and 120g sourdough starter cast-off only because it was there, but if I dare to use cast-off starter again I would keep the full amount of 10oz milk next time

Sprinkle yeast over milk and stir to dissolve.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, oats and salt and stir well to mix. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add butter and sugar, then pour in yeast mixture.

Attach dough hook to mixer, and start on lowest setting to incorporate flour. When threat of flying flour has passed, increase speed to medium high or high, and allow to knead until dough starts to smooth out.

Turn out onto floured table and knead for 10-15 minutes or until dough is elastic and smooth. Bring ends of dough to center to form a ball. Lightly oil a deep bowl and place dough in center. Cover bowl with lightly oiled plastic film and let rise in a warm, draft-free area until doubled in size. Alternatively, if you want fresh baked bread for breakfast, place bowl in fridge for slower rise, and allow to come back to room temperature in the morning after punching down.

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

When bread has doubled, punch down then let rest about 15 minutes under a damp cloth or the oiled plastic film. Roll dough into a log and bring ends of log to center and place in loaf pan. Cover pan with oiled plastic film and allow to proof until a firm press on the dough’s surface does not spring back quickly, about 30-45 minutes depending on your room temperature. The recipe directions said to watch for the dough to rise 1″ above the pan rim, but this dough passed the “touch test” before it was 1″ over the rim so I put it in the oven when it passed the touch test. I did not want to “over-proof” the dough which simply means the dough has lost its rising power and will collapse when exposed to heat.

Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with rolled oats — it looks pretty.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow, or (and this was new to me) until an instant read thermometer registers 190F. I tried this with my analog instant read thermometer, but it’s not very reliable so I still went with the tried-and-true bottom-thumping method to gauge when to remove the loaf. Cool loaf on rack before slicing. (I can never wait that long, but maybe you’re more patient!)

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