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!)

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]

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I think in the entire universe of baked goods, those made with pumpkin and spices are my very favorites. When I saw the Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls on King Arthur Flour's blog Baker's Banter, I couldn't resist giving the recipe a try.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- I used my food processor to mix up the dough.

- I had some freshly roasted and mashed pumpkin on hand, so that's what I used in this recipe. I made the following substitutions: oil rather than melted butter, and 6 tsp fresh yeast instead of the 2 tsp of instant specified in the recipe. I heaped the measures of spices and added 1/2 tsp fresh nutmeg and 1/8 tsp freshly ground allspice.

- My dough seemed just right before I added any water. Instead of leaving well enough alone, I went ahead and mixed in 1/2 oz water, but it made the dough too sticky and I had to knead in a bit of flour.

- The dough rose quickly.

- To make the cinnamon filling, I mixed:

3/4 c brown sugar
1 T cinnamon
pinch of allspice, cloves and nutmeg
2 T very finely chopped crystallized ginger
finely chopped pecans
golden raisins

- I cut the rolled up dough into 10 spirals and nestled 9 of them in a 9x9 pan, and put the leftover 1 into a ramekin

- After forming the rolls, I popped the pan into the fridge overnight. They rose a bit in the fridge, and rose a little more the next morning as the oven preheated. The rolls puffed up beautifully in the oven.

- While the rolls were baking I was making somevanilla ice cream. I got distracted and walked away from the stove, and my cream, vanilla and sugar boiled merrily. It was ruined for an ice cream base, but turned out to make a fabulous vanilla cream sauce for the cinnamon rolls!


the verdict:

The cinnamon rolls came out of the oven a beautiful golden hue and with a lovely spicy aroma. We ate them warm from the oven with vanilla cream sauce - and without - and they tasted heavenly both ways! While I expected (and wished for) a stronger pumpkin flavor, it was quite subtle. My disappointment was short-lived, however, in face of the sheer deliciousness I was tasting. They were the best cinnamon rolls I've baked, and possibly the best I've eaten. They had a soft chewiness and warm sweet spiciness that was perfect on a Sunday morning in Autumn!

For a different take on these rolls, Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen made Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with cream cheese glaze.

I'm submitting these rolls to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of yeasted baked goods of bakers all over the world.

Cherry Walnut Whole Grain Celebration Bread

I have well and truly reached a milestone in the BBA Challenge. Not only is Cranberry {Cherry} Walnut {Whole Grain} Celebration Bread the last in a rather lengthy run of sweetened enriched breads in The Bread Baker's Apprentice book, it's also the final bread in the "C" section of the book. I don't know which milestone has me grinning wider. But what is the happiest thing of all is that this bread is really delicious. Despite the fact that I was totally unmotivated to bake this one (I mean, I've baked tons of different celebration-type loaves this year) one taste of this bread changed my attitude. In fact, even though I fully intended to give most of it away, we toasted up and enjoyed every last slice ourselves.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- I knew that we would enjoy this bread more if it had a bit of whole grain flour in it. I routinely add rye flour, oat flour and whole wheat flour to my toasting loaves, and love it there, so I added a bit of each flour to this dough. To compensate for the reduced amount of gluten in those flours I used some high gluten flour too.

- Peter Reinhart gives a choice of liquids to use in the recipe. I chose the buttermilk and the lemon juice options - I reduced the quantity of lemon juice because I didn't want the bread to be too citrus-y.

- I substituted dried cherries for the cranberries, and reduced the quantity from 9 to 6 ounces. I toasted my walnuts and added another half ounce or so to the 3 ounces in the recipe

- Although the bread in the book was baked as a double braid loaf on a baking sheet, it can also be baked in loaf pans. I prepared two 8.5" x 4.5" pans (so I could give at least one loaf away), braided the dough, and placed it in the pans, for a braided pan loaf. The dough didn't fill the pans very full and I almost used smaller pans but these were already greased and I was too lazy to wash them and grease smaller pans. Sure enough, they ended up being small loaves. I'm guessing that all of the dough would have fit nicely into a 9" x 5" pan.


the verdict:

This bread was good sliced while still warm and really delicious toasted with butter. I love the nuttiness from the whole grain flour and the toasted nuts. The amount of cherries was perfect for us, so I'm glad I made the adjustments that I did.
I asked my husband how this bread compares to the cinnamon raisin bread, and he commented, "it's even better - hard to believe!"

I'm sending this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly compilation of all yeasty goodness on blogs throughout the bread-baking world.

Artos, Greek Celebration Bread {bba}

Moving right along in Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice, bread #2, still in the "A"s, is Artos, Greek Celebration bread. Reinhart gives a general-celebration version, and elaborations on the theme for Christmas and Easter, each incorporating a different set of fruit and nut add-ins.

The first yeast bread I ever made was a celebration bread, in November 2008. My success with Dorie Greenspan's Kugelhopf (and the instant yeast that I used in it) planted the germ that incubated into full blown yeast fever once the calendar turned to 2009. In the past 6 months, I've made a variety of celebration breads: stollen, kugelhopf (different recipe), hot cross buns, and Italian Dove Bread. We've never been able to finish a batch before it goes stale, so I put it in the freezer. There are so many celebration breads up there, I'm pretty sure there's always a party going on when I close the freezer door!

Because of this surfeit of fancy fruited bread in my life, I planned to make a partial recipe, bake a small loaf for us to taste and a larger one to give to a friend, and call it a day. But, enter Kayte, who is journeying through the BBA Challenge with me in the Slow & Steady sub-group, and who announced that she was going to make all three of the Greek Celebration variations (read her post!). That works for her, because she has a houseful of boys and their friends, all of whom are voracious eaters and don't gain an extra ounce besides what is needed for growing, naturally. Even though our house has just two middle-aged folks (and two middle-aged dogs), I was inspired to try the different shaping techniques. I skipped the boule and went straight for the fun stuff: the Lambropsomo and the Christopsomos, known affectionately as the braid and the octopus (do you see the resemblance?) Any of the loaves can be topped with a traditional honey citrus glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The rich dough, aromatic spices, and dried fruit and nuts that I've used in all of the previous celebration loaves gave me a certain confidence when I approached the Artos, although Reinhart's method is different.

- Reinhart's Artos formula uses a poolish, a particular type of pre-fermented dough. Equal amounts of flour and water and just a touch of (instant) yeast are mixed up, and allowed to ferment until the following day. Other ingredients are then added to this bubbly poolish to make the final bread dough.


- I made half a recipe of the poolish, which yielded enough for two small batches (3/4 size) of Artos.

- For the final dough in each batch I used SAF Gold yeast, which is specially formulated for sweet rich doughs. The dough also has a combination of spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and extracts: almond and lemon.

Lambropsomo

- This bread is traditionally baked for the Greek Easter celebration. It is a braided loaf that traditionally includes red-dyed hard boiled eggs tucked among the strands of the braid. I figured if I were going to make this bread, I was going to do it right! So I dyed a couple of eggs for the bread.

- I divided my dough and made 2 braided loaves, each with a red egg. As the recipe instructed, I placed the egg into the braid before the final rise. By the time the loaf was ready to go into the oven, red dye had run onto the surrounding bread dough. Even more dye bled while the bread was baking in the oven.

I proved to myself that my braiding technique needs more practice!

- Although I had measured out the fruit and nuts to add to the bread, I totally forgot to mix them in until I was halfway through shaping the loaves. I left one loaf plain (had already braided it ) and hastily worked some fruit into the other one before braiding. I used golden raisins, dried cherries, and toasted chopped walnuts (which are actually the preferred fruits for the other version of Artos - the Christopsomos)

These slices are from the plain braided loaf.

- The loaves turned out to be a fair size; it was hard to believe that each was half of a 3/4 batch of dough. To see the size of one full recipe-sized braid visit Cathy's post, Di's post, or Caitlin's.

- I gave one Lambropsomo braid to a dear friend, B. She is getting her master's degree in divinity, and I knew she would appreciate receiving a traditional Easter bread while it was still in the liturgical Easter Season. I was hesitant to give the loaf because of the mess from the red dye, but I had already promised it to her (and she really didn't mind it). B had a fabulous suggestion for the next time: bake the bread with an undyed hard boiled egg, then after baking, substitute the red egg for the plain. Genius! There's a reason she's in that high-powered academic program!

Christopsomos

- This loaf is traditional for Christmas, and is shaped as a round loaf, or boule, with a curly-ended cross across the top.

- For this batch, I used nearly 1/3 white whole wheat flour, along with a bit of white all purpose flour and the white bread flour.

- I separated out 1/4 of dough and used the monkey bread technique, with 3/4 oz balls in a mini loaf pan. To see a full-size monkey-style Greek Celebration loaf, see Wendy's post.

- With the rest of the dough, I made the traditional Christopsomos shape, which required the dough to be shaped into a round boule before rising, and some dough reserved in the refrigerator for forming the curled cross just before baking the bread. This was my first boule, ever, and I tried to maintain the bread's surface tension. I might have let it rise a bit too long, as a rip developed in the top of the boule. The dough also ripped in holes around the nuts and fruit, especially in the cross pieces.

- My Christopsomos ended up being approximately half the size of a full recipe's loaf (mine was 3/4 of 3/4 recipe). Audrey's post shows two loaves approximately the size of my one. For a full size octopus, see Natashya's!

- This time I remembered to add the fruit and nuts to the dough at the correct time. I again used golden raisins, dried cherries and toasted walnuts.


- Once cooled, I popped the Christopsomos into the freezer. When my book group day rolled around I thawed the Christopsomos and made the glaze for it. I warmed the bread, thinking that it would help the glaze sink into the bread, but I think the reheating might have dried out the bread. Nonetheless, it was still good, especially with brie and honey.

- I made French toast with leftover Christmopsomos, and used the extra glaze as syrup on top.

the verdict:

This bread had a soft, tender crumb with understated sweetness and spice. It was less cake-y and more bread-y than some of the other celebration loaves that I've baked. I enjoyed trying the different methods of shaping the dough - I learned that I need lots more practice with braids and boules. But the bread is worthy of celebration!