Buffalo Barn Raisers Wheat Bread

Do you love surprises? I think it's fun to plan and give a gift that is totally unexpected, but my husband usually falls in the opposite camp. He knows what he wants, and doesn't like to wait or be surprised. That doesn't stop me from trying, however. Every now and then I manage to find a gift that both surprises and delights him.

This Christmas, the tables were turned. My husband presented me with a grain mill and a selection of different wheat varieties. I had never even considered a grain mill, but it was a perfect next step for my two-year bread baking journey! We wanted to grind the wheat and bake the first loaf together, but our schedules have been a little crazy, so it took a couple of months before we found a free weekend for baking.

Meanwhile, our daughter ALE has been baking up a storm in her kitchen in Western New York. She blogs about her life and creative adventures - including her bread baking - here, and when I saw her post about the bread she baked at a Buffalo Barn Raisers workshop, I tried it out immediately. It produced such a nice loaf that I knew it was a perfect recipe to inaugurate the grain mill.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- We decided to use hard red wheat, and ground a bit extra to use in other baking projects.

- My husband set up the mill and did the actual milling of the grain. He did such a good job that I think I need him around every time we need freshly ground flour!

- I modified the bread's method just a bit, incorporating some rest time before kneading the dough. I've learned that technique from baking so many of Dan Lepard's loaves. The recipe, as I baked it, is below.

- We doubled the recipe so that we would have plenty of bread, and used two 8.5" x 4.5" pans.

- I usually bake bread with weight, rather than volume, measurements. For the flours I assumed 4.5 ounces per cup.

- I had saved some of the dough from the first batch of this bread in the fridge, and we added it as a pre-ferment to this batch.

- My husband had baked yeast breads before he met me - over 30 years ago! - and it was fun to show him how I bake, with a digital scale, dough rising bucket, bench scraper and digital thermometer.

the verdict:

The bread had a firm, sturdy crumb that made the loaf perfect for toast or sandwiches. The best part was the flavor of the freshly ground wheat. This recipe will be a definite repeat for us.

the recipe:

Buffalo Barn Raisers Bread (borrowed and slightly adapted from the recipe my daughter posted here)

3/4 t instant yeast

approximately 1 cup of warm water

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 cup white flour

1 t salt

2 T honey or sugar

1 T olive oil

Prefermented dough (optional)*

Combine dry ingredients with yeast in large bowl. Add water, honey, oil, preferment if using, adding more water if necessary, to form a cohesive ball.

Knead on floured surface for several minutes, adding more flour if necessary, until dough feels lighter than when it started, is only slightly tacky, and approaches the windowpane test (it’s whole wheat, so it might still be more tear-y).

Let rise in a rising bucket or bowl in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape into loaf and let rise in loaf pan.

Slash the top with a knife and bake at 350 until the interior temperature is 190.

Messing around: Play with proportion of white to wheat flour, add herbs, or make into a pizza: after the first rise, when doubled in size, roll out into a circle or stretch over the backs of your hands, top as desired, and bake at 450 until crust is crisp.

* The Barnraiser recipe introduced a technique I haven’t used – reserving some of the dough from one batch of bread, letting it slowly develop in the fridge, and adding it to the next batch of dough. If this is a bread you’d be interested in making more than once, try reserving part of your first batch to add to the second and see whether it makes a difference!

I'm submitting this bread to Yeastspotting, a wonderful weekly showcase of all things yeasty, baked in kitchens around the globe. Stop by on Fridays to see all the delicious breads!

James Beard's Oatmeal Bread

For nearly two years I've baked our bread. On the odd occasion that we've bought a loaf, I've felt guilty. And the purchased bread - even from a bakery - hasn't tasted nearly as good as what comes from my oven. I have my stand-bys, and Dan Lepard's Simple Milk Loaf is my make-it-in-my-sleep recipe for morning toast.

I'm always up for trying a new bread recipe, though. My favorite soft dinner rolls are from James Beard, and I figured it was high time that I tried another of his yeast recipes. I paged through several possibilities on the James Beard Foundation website before deciding on his Oatmeal Bread. Actually, there are two different Oatmeal Breads on that site, but the headnotes for this particular recipe won me over. It was one of Beard's favorites; he loved making onion sandwiches on this bread.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe, from Beard on Food, can be found here.

- Rather than the active dry yeast specified in the recipe, I used 3.5 tsp of instant yeast, which I added with the dry ingredients.

- It's been a while since I've baked bread from a recipe using volume rather than weight measurements. The recipe calls for 5.5 cups of flour. I assumed a weight of 4.5 oz per cup which made a total of 24.75 oz of flour. I used roughly 60% bread flour, 40% all purpose.

- This recipe is essentially a no-knead bread; the flavor is developed by retarding the dough in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours. That is an advantage from scheduling standpoint also: the bread is baked in two two-hour time periods, separated by the chilling time.

the verdict:

This bread was not only simple to bake, it produced terrific toast; in fact it might beat out the milk loaf in that department. We finished off the loaf in record time, as my husband, daughter and I toasted slice after slice. Because of the molasses, the bread was brown, like a whole wheat bread, but it had a loose, soft crumb, and a subtle sweetness.

I did sneak half a slice to make a tiny onion sandwich in James Beard's honor. It was surpisingly good! That man certainly knew his food, and he definitely knew his bread.

If you bake this bread, go ahead and double the recipe. It disappears quickly.

BBA Slow & Steady: Marbled Rye Roundup

It can be a real challenge to photograph loaves of bread; all of the bakers in the slow and steady subgroup of the BBA Challenge have faced this difficulty as we've baked our way through the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Luckily today's bread, the Marbled Rye Bread, is festive enough to provide for an exciting picture, even without any additional props!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Jessica of The Singleton in the Kitchen is not, and has never been, a fan of rye bread, and after baking this bread she can say she never will be a fan of the rye flavor. Luckily all was not a total loss because Jessica had tons of fun marbling the bread - that's her loaf up above. Click over to her post: BBA S&S Loafin' Around, where you will see lots more pictures of her beautiful marbling work.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For Natalia of Gatti, Fili e Farina the hardest part of baking this bread was remembering to buy the rye flour! After that it was smooth sailing, and Natalia's marbled hearth loaves are exquisite. Her write-up is here: BBA Slow and Steady: Marbled Rye Bread

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table loved the outside, the marbled inside and the taste of this bread, which she used for Reuben sandwiches: "I know, thrills are cheap these days, but this was just so much fun to do!" Just look at the perfect spiral in her bread! You can find Kayte's post here: BBA: Marbled Rye Bread

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Leslie of Lethally Delicious found herself procrastinating when it came time to bake the marbled rye bread. Luckily she garnered a few hints from those of us who had baked the bread earlier, and ended up loving the looks and the taste of her bread. Don't you just love a success story? Here's Leslie's post: BBA - Marbled Rye Bread

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Rye bread is a long time favorite of Margaret of Tea and Scones, and Peter Reinhart's swirled version did not disappoint. She used cocoa to get that beautiful contrast in color in the two doughs. She describes her experience here: Slow and Steady BBA - Light Wheat Bread and Marbled Rye.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

An (unintended) use of blackstrap molasses (rather than the lighter stuff) left me without the required color contrast for successful marbling, I enjoyed forming my not-marbled knot rolls, and definitely enjoyed the depth of flavor in this delicious bread recipe. My post: Not-So-Marbled Rye Knotted Rolls.

Not-So-Marbled Rye Knotted Rolls {bba}

Since my childhood I've always loved rye bread in any form - and the next bread I was to bake in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice , Marbled Rye Bread looked particularly appealing to me. The picture in the book shows a lovely loaf with beautifully delineated light and very dark areas.


My husband is the primary bread eater around here, and eats it either as breakfast toast or an accompaniment to dinner. Since he has never been a fan of rye toast I decided to make this bread as dinner rolls. I had visions of cunningly twisted knots of light and dark dough baking into high-contrast, visually appealing (delicious, of course) puffy rolls.

Sad to say, the reality of my rolls diverged significantly from the vision of lovliness I'd imagined. As you can see in the picture, the marbling was essentially non-existent, but luckily the rolls did taste delicious.

n.o.e.'s notes:


- Here's the basic techique for this bread: mix up two different colors of dough, roll them together to form one loaf (or, in my case, rolls), then bake. The result should be marbled splendor.

- Although the two doughs look a lot different in the book, they are in fact nearly identical in ingredients. One of the dough has extra ingredients added to darken the color.

- The recipe calls for two kinds of flour; one third of the flour is specified as "white rye flour," a double sifted flour with the bran and germ removed. I didn't have any of that kind of flour, so I used some medium rye flour that I had on hand, and stirred it through a sieve to remove the coarser bran particles.


- For the remainig two-thirds of the flour, Reinhart gives a choice of either bread dough or "clear flour," a coarser flour with a higher content of bran and ash than bread flour. Clear flour is commonly used for making rye bread. I had ordered some "first clear" flour from King Arthur Flour, which I used for this bread.

- The dough contains molasses as a sweetener. Both the light and the dark doughs contain the same amount of molasses, in fact. This is where my bread went irretrievably off the track. The molasses made my "light" dough fairly dark. My light dough and my dark dough were essentially the same color. Additionally, I realize now that the organic molasses is "blackstrap" (although it's kind of hidden on the label) which means it's darker (and stronger in flavor) than ordinary molasses. So that's why both of the doughs were so dark. If I were to bake this bread again, I'd probably use honey or golden syrup in the light dough to make sure that the contrast in color would be noticeable.

- Reinhart gives instructions for darkening the dark dough with liquid caramel color, or with coffee, carob, or cocoa powder (which can make the dough a slight bit bitter). I didn't have any of the liquid caramel color. I first tried adding coffee to my "dark" dough. Sadly the dough didn't end up darker than the light dough. As a last ditch effort, after the dough was already mixed, I sprinkled super dark cocoa powder and tried to knead it in. It wasn't successful on any front. The dough was streaky but not really darker.

- Once my dough had risen, I rolled it into snakes then twisted them together into rolls. It really was impossible to tell the two doughs apart by looks; the "dark" dough did have a slight bitter taste.

the verdict:

Despite my many woes with producing actual marbled bread, the rolls ended up tasting quite good. My husband loved them, even though he usually doesn't care for rye bread.

KA part whole wheat hamburger buns

One of the very best parts about learning to bake bread at home is that you can avoid trips to the grocery store when you run low on bread, and can instead whip up your own batch of wonderful fresh-baked bread. Faced with no plans for dinner on a lovely summer evening, I quickly thawed a pound of ground beef for burgers, and decided to bake some buns to complement them.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I found the recipe on the King Arthur website.

- I made 1/2 recipe.

- For flours I used 1 c. whole wheat, 1/3 c. oat flour, 1/3 c. high gluten flour, and the remaining flour was all purpose.

- Instead of active dry yeast I substituted 2 scant teaspoons of instant yeast, which I added with dry ingredients.

- I mixed the bread dough in the food processor . First I put in 3 cups of the mixed flours, then added the wet ingredients which were cold. I pulsed the processor until the dough was stretchy and registered at least 77 degrees and "windowpaned" - about 2 minutes.

- The dough rose slowly. Finally it was tie to shape the rolls and I used 77 g of dough for each roll.

- The rolls could have used a bit more time on the second rise, but it was getting to be dinner time so I went ahead and baked them. Right before baking, I sprinkled the rolls with coarse salt.


the verdict:

These were soft, moist, and flavorful buns, a perfect complement to the burgers. We loved the salt on top (no surprise there since we love salt on almost everything).

I'm submitting the rolls to Yeastspotting, a weekly compilation of delicious yeasted breads, presented every Friday.

BBA Slow & Steady: Light Wheat Bread Roundup

The bakers of the slow and steady subgroup of the BBA Challenge pulled out our loaf pans to bake the next bread in Peter Reinhart's book The Bread Baker's Apprentice, the Light Wheat Bread. There are no tricky parts to baking this bread, and in the end the recipe produces a versatile loaf. Although the BBA bakers do not post recipes for the book's bread, Deb at Smitten Kitchen posted this bread last year, including the recipe, which you can find here.

Nicole, of the blog Pinch My Salt, is the founder of the BBA Challenge. Lately she has been baking at the same pace of the slow and steady bakers, so I thought I'd include her in our roundups. That's her bread up at the beginning of this post.

For Nicole, this bread was "easy to make, easy to eat, and not too bad to look at, either. The proud loaf that came out of my oven puts store-bought sandwich bread to shame." Nicole includes lovely step-by-step pictures in her BBA posts, so do yourself a favor and click over to her post: Bread Baker's Apprentice: Light Wheat Bread

As an aside, I'll note that most of us baked this bread months ago (and have, in fact, baked many of the BBA breads following this one) but my blogging efforts are lagging behind the pace of the group's baking.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Leslie of Lethally Delicious tried this bread first with high gluten flour and the bread didn't work for her. She switched to her favorite - bread flour - and the bread turned out beautifully. Its subtle flavor played well with other foods in Leslie's opinion. Here's Leslie's post: BBA - Light Wheat Bread

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Natalia of Gatti, Fili e Farina found this bread to be straightforward and a wonderful vehicle for her homemade jams and marmalades. That sounds wonderful, yum! Check out Natalia's post: BBA Slow and Steady: Light Wheat Bread

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In the course of all this bread baking, Margaret of Tea and Scones has discovered that she really enjoys whole wheat breads. This recipe was not her favorite, however; she thought it lacked "oomph." It looks beautiful though, doesn't it? Read more about it here: Slow and Steady BBA - Light Wheat Bread and Marbled Rye x

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Jessica of The Singleton in the Kitchen cleverly baked this bread as dinner rolls, which are versatile enough in her book to serve as toast, sandwich bread, or, as rolls at dinner (supper? you decide) time. Her post: BBA S&S: Light Wheat Bread

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook baked her Light Wheat Bread with white whole wheat flour. She found it to be perfect for toast and grilled cheese sandwiches. See more at this post: mmm, toasty

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table and her family enjoyed this easy and delicious bread, saying, "the bread was wonderful, soft and lovely for sandwiches and just crackly nice for toast." Here's Kayte's bread: BBA: Light Wheat Bread x

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And here's where I have a confession to make, one that should get me bounced out as a food blogger. Although I baked this bread, and we enjoyed every last crumb, when I went to write a blog post about the bread I realized that I had no photographs of it. Rather than re-bake the bread just to take pictures (which I actually contemplated doing), I decided to skip the post and report here in the roundup that this was a lovely bread. I used regular whole wheat flour and added a bit of oat flour to the dough as well. According to my notes, here's the verdict: This was lovely loaf of bread. Made delicious toast.

Stout, Oat, and Honey Knots

This is one of those recipes that at first glance seems to call out "winter" - the ingredients include stout (or cider) and oats, which conjure up images of a hearty, cold-weather bread. But really, I've baked them several times, and they are just as delicious in warm weather as they are in cold. And I'm posting them now because my good blogging friend Natashya of the lovely blog Living in the Kitchen with Puppies (with a blog name like that you know we just have to be friends, right?) is hosting this month's Bread Baking Day, and she chose the theme "Breads with a Twist." There's nothing twist-ier than a knot, in my opinion, so I'm going to post these wonderful knotted rolls as my participation in Bread Baking Day #30. In early June Natashya will post a roundup on her blog and it's always amazing to see the variety of breads from bakers around the globe.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- These rolls are a Dan Lepard recipe, one of a series of recipes that are published weekly by the Guardian. I love to check on Saturdays to see what Dan's baking up each week. recipe here

- Here is a youtube video of Dan baking these rolls:




- Dan came across the rolls in Findhor, on the Firth of Moray in northeast Scotland. The rolls incorporate oats that are cooked in stout - or cider - before being mixed with the flour and yeast.

- I've baked these rolls with all Guinness Stout , with Guinness stout supplemented slightly with an ounce or two of chocolate stout, and I've baked them with the alternate beverage listed, apple cider (I used the non-alcoholic kind, although the recipe might have been contemplating the "hard" kind).

- For the whole grain component the first time I baked the rolls I chose half rye, half white whole wheat. I've also used King Arthur Flour's Irish-Style Wholemeal Flour, which is a rough-ground whole grain soft wheat flour.

- I've used instant yeast and fresh yeast (6 tsp) with equally good results.

- The recipe produces 1200 g of dough, which makes 8 rolls @150 g each. These bake up into fairly large rolls, suitable for sandwiches. You could also make a dozen rolls at 100 g each, which would give you a generous dinner roll.

- The dough is soft and sticky, so the knots didn't keep their definition as well as the Italian knot rolls that I baked last year, and about as well as the kaiser rolls that I baked recently.

- In order to get a light coating of oats on the rolls, the dough is formed into logs, then rolled on wet paper towel and dipped into loose oats before forming the knots.

I ordered this cool cutting board here after hearing about it from Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen

the verdict:

These rolls are one of my favorite breads - substantial but not heavy, filled with the complexity of whole grains but not a bit dry, tinged with mystery from the stout, and just a touch sweet, especially version with the plain apple cider. These do just as well on the edge of a cold salad plate in summer as they do on the rim of a bowl of steaming soup in winter.

I'm also sending the rolls to Yeastspotting, a weekly compilation of delicious yeasted breads, presented every Friday.