Sherry Raisin Bread

You've heard it here before: in this house we're all about The Toast.  I can't even remember the last time I made (or ate) a sandwich; our bread, baked in a loaf pan, is invariably consumed after a trip through the toaster.

My favorite bread-baker, Dan Lepard, recently published a recipe for Sherry Raisin Bread, Here's how Lepard explains the role of the sherry: "using it instead of milk or water, sherry adds a gentle flavour that lends richness without being immediately detectable."  Doesn't that sound good?

Lepard said how good it was toasted, and I knew I had to make the bread.  My baking buddy Kayte, who blogs at Grandma's Kitchen Table, was up for a virtual bread bake, so we baked "together" via electronic communication.  She made her dough into rolls for the week's sandwiches, but you know that I stuck with the loaf, because: Toast.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  you can find the recipe here.

-  I followed the recipe's ingredients, except I skimped a bit on the measure of raisins and almonds.  There were still plenty of each in the dough.

-  The sherry is not the only distinctive ingredient.  The recipe also calls for adding marmalade to the dough.  I used Branches Three Citrus Marmalade from Katz Farm.  Milk, a substantial proportion of rye flour, and bread flour complete the flavor profile

-  Dan Lepard baked this bread as a hearth loaf, but I split my dough into three smallish loaf pans, to better optimize the bread for Toast.

- My dough took longer to rise than the recipe's times.  This is unusual for me with Dan Lepard's recipes, which are usually spot-on in my kitchen.  I gave the extra rising time until it rose close to the appropriate amounts.  Even so, the crumb of the finished bread was pretty dense.

the verdict:

Even though the bread didn't rise to lofty heights, oh, my, it was exceptional in flavor.  We loved it toasted with butter, and it was pretty darned good just sliced and eaten plain.

To see how this recipe tuned out as buns, check Kayte's post. (hint: they look amazing!)

Tapenade Fan Rolls

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

Bread-baking bears more than a passing resemblance to magic. I never tire of watching the yeast in action as it enlivens the dough - no matter how many times I've seen it I'm always a little surprised at the sight of the dough rising. Then there's the little miracle when just a few twists, turns, or cuts in the bread dough produce an amazingly beautiful loaf or roll.

Rolls are particularly rewarding. I've enjoyed making knots and twists and ovals, and really wanted to try my hand at fantail rolls. I chose Dan Lepard's Tapenade Fan Rolls.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find Dan Lepard's recipe for these rolls here.

- The recipe gives directions for homemade olive tapenade (not very difficult really) but I had a jar of prepared tapenade in my cupboard, so I went ahead and used it.

- Fantail rolls look really festive, but are surprisingly easy to make. It's just a question of rolling your dough in a square, cutting it into 3 rectangles, layering them with tapenade then cutting logs of the layers, pressing them in the center with a pencil or a chopstick, and putting each roll into the well of a muffin tin. Using silicone muffin pans ensured that I didn't need to worry about the rolls sticking to the pan. I knew that they'd release perfectly after their time in the oven.

the verdict:

These tender flavorful rolls are a perfect dinner accompaniment. The savory tapenade taste was quite pronounced, so if you are a fan of tapenade and you think you'd like rolls with tapenade, you will love these. If they don't sound good to you, you'll probably not like them! I served the tapenade rolls alongside some plain dinner rolls made from Dan Lepard's Simple Milk Loaf recipe, so diners had a choice of plain or fancy.

Because of its distinctive olive flavor, this is not a roll I'd want to eat every day. But I loved the method of making fantail rolls and would like to try it with other flavorings, like pesto, or Parmesan cheese, or even plain old rolls.

I'm submitting these rolls to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of all things bready.

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.

Spiced Stout Hot Cross Buns

Hot-cross buns! Hot-cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot-cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons,
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot-cross buns!
But if you have none of these little elves,
Then you may eat them all yourselves.

So goes the nursery song, describing the traditional English spiced buns that were eaten on Good Friday. (For a bit more history, check out my last year's hot cross buns post here.) Reading between the lines, it appears that if you have any hot cross buns, you are supposed to give them away. The preferred recipients appear to be any daughters that you might have. Failing that, hand the buns over to your sons. No children? You get to eat the buns yourself!

I baked a big batch of buns this year, and by chance my daughters were visting home this week! I sent most of the buns home with my older daughter to share with her Easter weekend guests.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Hot cross buns are a kind of celebration bread, filled with fruit and spices. The smell of this dough reminded me of some of the celebration breads that I've baked in from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

- The recipe for these hot cross buns is from Dan Lepard, part of his "How To Bake" weekly series for The Guardian. I love to check the site each Satuday to see what Dan is baking up. Ingredients for these buns include stout, tea, raisins, spices, and candied citrus peel. It sounded like an intriguing combination of ingredients, so I was very eager to see how the buns would turn out.

- This is the first time that I've followed a Dan Lepard recipe that employs an overnight pre-ferment; in this case stout, yeast, some of the flour, and the spices are mixed together, covered and put aside overnight.

- In a separate bowl, the raisins and peel soak in black tea for the same length of time. I ran out of regular raisins, so I measured out a combination of raisins, golden raisins, and currants.

- A big bag of homemade candied citrus peel (lemon,lime, tangerine, orange) was resting in my freezer and I was very excited to find a great use for it. (I posted about the candied peel recipe that I use here)

- The next day, the dough is mixed in typical Dan Lepard style: combine all ingredients, rest briefly, knead for 10 seconds every 10 minutes (3 cycles) then shape, rise, bake.

- I had run out of bread flour (it happens, even to bread bakers!), so I combined 2/3 all purpose flour with 1/3 high gluten flour (approximately).

- I measured out 100g for each bun, and ended up with 20 1/2. If I'd been a little more thoughtful when I was working, I could have avoided that half roll, but warm from the oven the little bun made for a great taste test for my daughter.

- Last year's buns featured a piped cross made from icing, but the crosses on these buns are a flour and water paste. After the buns come out of the oven they are brushed with a sugar glaze.

- I'm submitting these buns for Bread Baking Day #28. The theme this month is "Bread Buns" and is hosted by Rachel of Tangerine's Kitchen. Rachel will be posting a roundup, so be sure to check back to see the wonderful bun-ny bread!

The happy little half-bun, in bad artificial light!

the verdict:

After the rolls had mostly cooled, my daughter ALE tasted the little half roll. Here's her reaction: "yum. That's good. (pause) That's really good." After a few more bites, she gave a more complete assessment: "I like the glaze. I can taste the stout. I usually don't like fruit in breads, but I'm dealing with it. That candied peel is good."

She shared the buns with her friends, and reported that they made a big hit. Her boyfriend loved the peel and the complex variety of flavors.


Wishing a blessed Easter to all who observe the holy day.

Buttermilk Baps

The word "baps" is not heard in these parts - these parts being the Southeastern US - which only made Dan Lepard's recipe for Buttermilk Baps all the more appealing (as if being a Dan Lepard bread recipe wasn't appealing enough!) A "bap" - a British English word dating from the 16th century - is a soft roll, often made with fat to keep the crumb tender. With Lepard's wonderful easy bread mixing/kneading method, these rolls are a snap to bake.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe here. A couple things to note: 1 sachet of instant yeast = 7 g of instant yeast, and strong flour = bread flour.


- The method is slightly different from Lepard's Milk Loaf; the wholemeal flour is soaked in water with the yeast for 30 minutes before the dough is mixed. Also the butter is rubbed into the flour before any other ingredients are added. The kneading process is quite similar, with slight variations in rest times.

- I've made these rolls several times. One time I used hard red wheat for the wholemeal flour, another time I replaced 50 g of the bread flour with oat flour.


- The first time I baked them, I snipped chives from my little herb garden and added them to the dough, as the recipe suggests. I've also baked them herb-less, which makes for a more versatile roll.


- I usually make these rolls about 3 oz, and end up with 10 generously-sized rolls, which can serve as dinner rolls or for a small sandwich. The dough is first shaped into balls, then elongated into torpedo shapes.


the verdict:

I love to bake these just past the point of undercooked (about 190 degrees on a digital thermometer); they turn out nice and soft and wonderfully moist. To me the baps are good with or without the herbs, but my husband definitely prefers them plain. Nonetheless, he gave the chive version a rating of 9.5 out of 10. This is a versatile dough, and the rolls would be at home in the dinner bread basket or in a lunchbox. These baps just might be my favorite rolls (and not just because of their name!).


I'm sending this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly compendium of all things yeasted; stop by and check out all the yeasty goodness!

Almond-Milk Loaf

It's been about a year since I began my bread baking journey, and although I love to bake breads from a variety of sources, and have found a collection of delicious recipes, I'm never more excited than when I bake a new Dan Lepard bread. His method of kneading is so unusual and fun that it hardly seems like work, and his ingredient combinations are equally unique.

I'm not often drawn to white loaf breads but the inclusion of pureed almonds in this recipe for Almond Milk Loaf sounded too interesting to pass by without trying.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- This recipe is from Dan Lepard's book The Art of Homemade Bread; Contemporary European Recipes for the Home Baker, (first published in a British edition called The Handmade Loaf). You can also find the recipe online here from my baking friend Ulrike in Germany.

- I used a blender to grind almonds with sugar and water (I needed additional water). At first I tried my mini prep food processor but didn't get the almond mixture as smooth as I wanted.

- The actual mixing and kneading technique is typical of Dan Lepard's bread recipes: a series of resting times punctuated by 10-second kneading, then forming, proofing and baking.


the verdict:

This is an unusual white bread with a lovely texture and subtle almond flavor. Almond baked goods are usually of the sweet variety, so it's refreshing to come across a recipe that tastes distinctly almond but is not sweet.

[edit to add: I'm sending this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly compendium of all things yeasted]

World Bread Day: Simple Milk Loaf

Today is World Bread Day, and I'm excited to celebrate it on my bread blog! On this day last year, 246 bread bakers around the globe came together over bread. Click here to see the roundup of the diverse and fabulous breads that they baked and shared with the world. I have no doubt that this year there will be even more breads represented.

At this time last year I wasn't aware of World Bread Day, and had never worked with yeast. The very idea of it scared me! All that changed last November when I baked a Kugelhopf for the baking group Tuesdays with Dorie, and I was bitten hard by the bread bug. Christmas saw me stocking up on a few bread-y supplies and in January 2009 my yeast baking began in earnest. The rest, as they say, is history. (You can find my baby steps and early loaves on my other food blog, The Dogs Eat the Crumbs - click here to see the posts in my "Adventures in Yeast" series.)



My bread for World Bread Day is the Simple Milk Loaf. This is a recipe from the creative and generous UK baker Dan Lepard. One of my Christmas presents was Dan's book The Art of Handmade Bread, published in the UK as The Handmade Loaf. It is a volume of "contemporary European recipes for the home baker" and contains a wide array of breads made from every type of grain, many employing sourdough starters. This was heady stuff for a novice baker, but my husband leafed through and stopped right at p. 46: "This Simple Milk Loaf looks great. Why don't you make it?" And so I did. It's a perfectly accessible recipe, with no obscure ingredients or tricky techniques. The resulting loaf was the most delicious farmhouse white bread I've ever tasted. Toasted, with butter, it was the closest I'll come to tasting heaven on earth.


In the past 6 months I've baked this bread countless times, nearly always in a double batch, and always with a healthy dose of whole grain flours. I give at least one loaf of every batch away, and it never fails to receive rave reviews. I've shared the recipe with a couple dozen people, most of whom love it as I do.


The bread can be made with one bowl, one small ramekin, one measuring spoon and a scale. With a 4 hour time period and minimal hands-on work you can produce one of the most versatile and tasty loaves you'll ever eat, right in your very own oven.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- [edit: the original recipe links that I posted are now broken. Please see the recipe at the end of this post, below]

- Here is the easiest way to prepare the dough:

1. Melt the butter. I do that in a ramekin in the microwave.

2. Place a bowl on the digital scale and weigh out the milk and the maple syrup, then warm them slightly in the microwave. Stir in the fresh yeast.

3. Place the bowl back onto the scale and weigh the dry ingredients directly on top of the wet ones. For readers in the US, "strong" flour is the same as bread flour. The standard mix I've come to use is 60% bread flour, and 40% a mixture of oat flour, rye flour, and whole wheat flour. It still comes off as a nearly-white bread, and I like the extra nutty flavor from the whole grains.

4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients with your fingers - the book says to "squidge" it, which is exactly what you're doing. This part will bring you back to your childhood, making mudpies in the backyard. Pour the warm melted butter and squidge some more. This will actually un-stick much of the dough from your fingers.

5. Dan's kneading method is simple, unusual, and very effective - you will knead the dough on an oiled counter for 10 seconds every 10 minutes, for three rounds. The first time, leave the dough on the counter while you wash and dry the bowl. This gives the dough some helpful rest time, Dan says, but if you're in a hurry, you can get a second, clean, bowl out for the kneaded dough. The dough is so supple and delicious to feel, that it's hard to stop kneading after 10 seconds. Nothing bad will happen if you end up giving it an extra knead or 10.


6. The bread rises in the pan very vigorously, and usually gives a good spring in the oven to boot. I've baked it in an 8.5" x 4.5" pan, and a 9" x 5" pan, and in a lot of other unusual sizes. A single batch always yields 900 grams of dough, so that helps in dividing the dough to shape the balls. I've settled on baking double batches in 4 smallish pans, so each ball ends up being 225 grams. It only takes a few minutes to portion the dough, form the balls and drop them into their waiting oiled and floured pans.

the verdict:

This bread is a wonderful way to get your hands into bread-making. It doesn't give sore arms, 30 seconds of kneading is hardly strenuous, but does produce a lovely loaf to eat or to share.

Happy World Bread Day!


I'm also sending this Milk Loaf to Yeastspotting, a weekly compendium of all things yeasty.

[edit to add recipe, since the links I had are both broken, and further edited on 4/24/11 to add volume measurements:]

Simple Milk Loaf

Ingredients

1½ tsp fresh yeast, crumbled [or 1/2 tsp instant yeast, added with dry ingredients]
350g/12oz/1 1/2 cups whole milk, at room temperature, plus extra for brushing
20g/¾oz/1 Tbsp golden or maple syrup
250g/9oz/2 cups plain white flour
250g/9oz/1 3/4 cups strong white flour
1¼ tsp fine sea salt
25g/1oz/2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
olive oil, for greasing
flour, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 210C/410F/Gas 6.

2. Place the yeast, milk and syrup into a large bowl and whisk together.

3. Add the flour and salt and mix with your hands to bring together as a soft, sticky dough.

4. Pour over the warm melted butter and mix this into the dough with your hands, then cover the bowl and leave to stand for ten minutes.

5. Grease your hands and a flat clean surface with olive oil. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead for ten seconds, then form the dough into a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and grease with olive oil, then return the dough ball to the bowl and leave for a further ten minutes.

6. Repeat this ten-second kneading and resting process every ten minutes twice, then leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.

7. Grease a deep 12x19cm/5x8in loaf tin and dust with flour. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape into two balls and place side-by-side into the loaf tin. Cover with a cloth and leave to rise for one and a half hours, or until almost doubled in height.

8. Brush the top of the loaf with a little milk and place into the preheated oven to bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is a shiny dark brown and the loaf has come away from the sides of the tin.

9. Remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Rice Bread, Pullman-ish

I have two long slim loaf pans, vintage pans from the 1950's, which are my very favorite pan for baking 1-lb sized loaves of quick bread. My mother used this kind of pan for her cranberry bread, and her loaves always turned out perfectly. Several years ago my father came across some identical pans and mailed to me for my birthday. When I unwrapped them I began to cry because I thought that they were hers. Luckily, Mom hadn't quite given up baking yet! But now she has, and her pans are going to my sister-in-law, who's an amazing cook.

The straight sides of these pans are perfect for molded terrines, frozen or layered desserts, or even cakes. The slices are very square. You can get a sense of the proportions in the pictures of my Yogurt Cake.

As luck would have it, I also have a pair of similar vintage pans that are just over half the capacity of the long ones. If I had to grab something on the way out of a burning kitchen, it would be these 4 pans!


What's even cooler is that one of these pans has a slide-on cover. It can function as a Pullman pan, although it has some rounded edges and corners where a Pullman's are quite square. I've seen some beautiful-looking recipes for Pullman yeast loaves, but when I was paging through Dan Lepard's The Art of Handmade Bread; Contemporary European Recipes for the Home Baker and saw Rice Bread, which he cooked in a Pullman pan, I just knew that was the one I had to try in my covered pan. (Dan's book was published in Britain as The Handmade Loaf)

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The dimensions of most Pullman pans are larger than my pans, so I figured that I'd need to scale the recipe. I did my best to compare my pan size with the one Dan specifies and scaled the recipe accordingly.

- Things got a little tricky when I had to convert from fresh yeast to instant and then scale the amount.

- Dan's bread-making method is absolutely fascinating; it borders on a no-knead bread. First you mix entirely by hand - using your fingers. Than you knead it on an oiled surface ever so briefly: for 10 seconds every 10 minutes or so, letting the dough rest and develop in between. After a few rounds, the dough rises in its rising bowl or bucket.


- After the bulk rise and the proofing, I was left with a little ball of dough that was nowhere near big enough to fill that loaf pan. So I grabbed one of the shorter pans. I figured I'd bake the loaf uncovered (an option listed in the recipe) but then I noticed that the same sliding cover actually fit on the smaller pan.


- The theory of the Pullman is that the bread will try to rise as it bakes, but the lid will constrain it, forcing the dough into every corner of the pan and producing a dense, tight crumb.

- The cover is placed on the pan for the second rise (proofing). Once it was in place, it was hard for me to gauge how much the bread had risen in the pan and to guess how much more it might want to rise in the oven. Finally it seemed to be at a good baking point. I let it bake over half the time undisturbed, then was able to slide the top (you want to generously grease every part of a pullman pan) to test for doneness.


- Even though the pan was smaller and the lid kept the top flat, the loaf didn't rise to fill the entire pan, so it ended up with rounded top edges - which happened to match the bottom edges! The pictures don't really show it, but this was a diminutive loaf - so cute! Each slice was smaller than a deck of cards.

- I loved how the rice grains were still visible in the crust (see, in the picture above?)

- I was actually amazed that this bread turned out!


the verdict:

Soon after the bread cooled, I cut a piece off to taste (well, OK, I cut it to photograph, but then we had to taste it!) The first thing my husband said when he took a bite was, "this bread tastes European." Bingo! How did he know?

I eat white bread so seldom that I forget just how good a good white bread can be. Although truth be told, I don't think I've ever had white bread that tastes this good! The rice adds a chewy, dense and moist element to the texture, and the underlying flavor will differ depending on the type of honey used and even the oil that's used for the kneading.


As good as the bread was plain - and it was really good plain - it was even more wonderful toasted. It crisped up on the outside but remained dense, chewy and moist inside. It was about as substantial as a white bread could get. A big punch from a little loaf!

This loaf is heading over to Yeastspotting, and so should you!