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!)

BBA White Bread, variation 3

After baking bread more and less steadily over the past few years, one thing that I've learned (and relearned): bread is forgiving.  It's not usually difficult, and it rarely requires much hands-on work, but there is a fair amount of time waiting for the yeast to do its work raising the dough.  This process can be manipulated, and a simple bread can be baked in increments over a day or two rather than in one long session.

Such was this case with this bread in my kitchen.  It was kind of a busy day when I tackled this bread, and and the process of making it took me from 10am in the morning to 1am the next morning.  It became an exercise in me waiting for the dough and the dough waiting for me!


n.o.e.'s notes:

-  I made full recipe of this bread.  Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice has three different variations of White Loaf Bread.  I baked Variation 3 first because I had milk on hand that I needed to use up. [I later baked Variation 2, using buttermilk, but have skipped Variation 1, which calls for powdered milk. At some point I might revisit that formula]

-  This recipe starts with a sponge of warm milk, flour, and yeast.  My sponge was a bit stiff, so I probably should have added more liquid.  It never bubbled but it did swell.  After more than an hour, I added the other bread ingredients, mixing the dough first in the food processor and then finishing kneading it by hand.  It was looking as though the dough would need some more liquid, but when I added the fat to the recipe - I melted the butter so it would be liquid - the dough was perfect in texture.

-  My schedule didn't permit me to continue with the bread in one continuous session, so I put the dough in a rising bucket and straight into my fridge.  The dough was warm, and it rose as it cooled in the fridge - when I checked on it later I saw that it had nearly doubled!

-  I deflated it the dough intentionally and let it warm to room temperature and rise as it warmed.  Once the dough had doubled, I divided it then formed the loaves, placed it into bread pans and parked them back in the fridge while I attended a meeting.

-   There really wasn't that much dough.  I weighed it, and a full recipe of the bread - supposed to be 2 loaves - weighed just a bit more than the weight of one loaf in my standby Milk Bread recipe, so I measured out the amount of dough that goes into the typical milk loaf - 450g, and placed in a smallish loaf pan (the size I use for the milk loaf usually - it's about 7x3").  The remainder - about 575 g, went into the 8.5x4.5" pan.

-  After the meeting I pulled the pans out of the fridge, let it warm and rise.  I could have left the bread refrigerated overnight and baked the next morning.  Retarding the dough helps develop the flavor, so baking in an interrupted fashion always has a silver lining!

-  Before popping the bread into the oven, I slashed the tops with the lame and rubbed some oil into the slash.

-  Even with adjusting my pan sizes, the loaves were still pretty petite.  Next time I'd bake this recipe as one loaf in one larger (9x5) pan, or as sandwich rolls.

the verdict:

The bread had a close crumb, moist, soft, and golden. It was sweet and eggy in flavor. We used it for toast, but I think it's better suited for sandwiches, either in loaf or in roll form.

Old Fashioned Raisin Bread, No Cinnamon

Nick Malgieri has released a recipe for Old Fashioned Raisin Bread as a foretaste of his upcoming bread book (it is called BREAD, and will be released in September.)  My baking friend Phyl is a friend of Nick's, so with just two degrees of separation you could pretty much say that Nick and I are buddies!

Over the weekend Phyl decided to bake the raisin bread and the recipe looked so appealing, I decided to join him in the kitchen, virtually that is, since Phyl is in Ohio and I was in California.  It turned out to be a regular bread-fest, as Kayte in Indiana also baked the bread.  Because of schedule constraints I had to retard mine in the fridge between rises so the other two bakers had each baked, sliced, photographed, consumed, and blogged their loaves before mine even made it into the oven!  You can read about Phyl's bread here and Kayte's bread here.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  The raisin bread recipe is on baker Nick Malgieri's blog post.

-  I made half a batch - one loaf - in my long thin loaf pan.  Everything was exactly per the recipe, except that I mixed and kneaded the dough completely by hand.

-  This is an easy one day bread, using the direct method of mixing, rising, shaping, rising, baking.

-  I love that the recipe calls for two kinds of raisins (or currants).  I reduced the quantity of raisins just a bit, and there were still lots of raisins in each slice of bread.  Most of the slices had more raisins than the ones in the picture, actually.

the verdict:

This is a lovely bread, with a soft crumb and, and little pops of sweetness from the two kinds of raisins.  Although I was tempted to put a cinnamon swirl into this loaf, it really is nice just as a plain raisin loaf, especially toasted with a slick of salted butter.

We had the toast for dessert after dinner and it was the perfect ending to a meal.  My husband couldn't stop exclaiming over this bread, which left me wishing I had made the full recipe!

I'm submitting this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of all things deliciously yeasty.  Click over there to see what's baking in ovens around the world; new posts go up each Friday.

River Cottage Basic Bread

I was lucky enough to find The River Cottage Bread Handbook by Daniel Stevens at the library recently. I've been intrigued by the series of cookbooks put out by River Cottage, an English food-based entity founded by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. In its words, River Cottage stands for "less dependence on the outside world, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce." River Cottage runs a variety of programs and coordinates its activities with several different charities.

My daughter ALE has used the River Cottage Preserves Handbook with notable success, and I was eager to dive into the bread volume. The first part of the book sets out in great detail the principles behind bread and how the ingredients interact with each other. I decided to start baking with the first recipe, the Basic Bread, which is more of a formula. The basic recipe gives a lot of leeway to choose the type of flour, the liquids, the (optional) fat and sweetener, as long as the same baker's percentages are maintained.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- To see a very basic form of the recipe, click here.

- I made a half recipe, yielding one large loaf of slicing bread. The recipe, as I made it, is at the end of this post.

- For this first loaf, I stuck with my favorite combination of bread ingredients: part whole wheat flour, milk, honey, and olive oil. This made it somewhat similar to Dan Lepard's Milk Loaf, except that the River Cottage formula is less hydrated: 300g of liquid per 500g of flour, to Lepard's 350g liquid to 500g of flour.

- I used freshly ground hard red wheat for 30% of the flour, and the remaining 70% was all-purpose flour.

- The liquid I added was milk, and I included optional fat (olive oil) and sweetener (honey).

- I began kneading in food processor, but the processor I was using proved to be too small for the job. So I finished kneading the dough via Dan Lepard's method: brief kneading alternated with 10 to 15 minute rests. The dough was pretty stiff, so I ended up adding a bit more milk.

- In the recipe, Stevens says that you can deflate and then let the dough rise up to four times, and it will improve the bread's flavor. I gave my dough lots of resting periods, in between the kneading.

- After shaping the loaf, I coated in whole wheat flour before putting it in the bread pan. This was a new technique for me. Here's the way Stevens explains this step:

You can leave your loaves naked, but they will be much more grateful - and feel much more beautiful - f you give the a lovely coat to wear. Select a flour, or choose grains and seeds.

- The loaf rose beautifully as it baked.

- I started baking the bread in a very hot oven then I turned it down to around 350 degrees because it was so browned.

the verdict:

This was a fun bread to make, especially coating the outside of the bread with flour. I like the resulting crusty crust on the sandwich loaf. The loaf's crumb was sturdy and soft at the same time. This bread made lovely toast.

the recipe:

Whole Wheat Loaf with Milk and Honey
adapted from The River Cottage Bread Handbook by Daniel Stevens

350 g all-purpose flour and 150 g whole wheat flour (4 cups total flour)
5 g instant yeast (1/2 T)
5 g fine salt (2 tsp)
300 g(ml) milk (1 1/4 c) (warm)
a good slug of olive oil (or could use 2 tsp butter)
1 handful of whole wheat flour, for coating
- Mix the ingredients in a large bowl, then knead the dough by hand on an oiled counter until satiny (about 10 minutes). Alternatively, mix the ingredients in a large food processor, dry ingredients first then add the wet ingredients steadily while the motor is running. Pulse for about a minute, then test the dough to see it forms a windowpane when stretched between your fingers.
- Form the bread into a round and put in an oiled bowl to rise until doubled, approximately an hour, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.
- Knead the bread to degas it then form into loaves as desired and coat the bread in whole wheat flour. If you're making sandwich loaf, place the dough in an oiled and floured 1 pound size loaf pan. Allow loaves to rise, covered loosely with a plastic bag, until nearly doubled.
- Bake the bread at 525 degrees (500 convection) for 10 minutes. A steam method is recommended, as well as spritzing the bread first with water before placing it in the hot oven. The recipe also specifies that the loaves be slashed. I slashed but didn't steam my loaves.

- Turn the oven down to 425, 375 or 350 degrees, depending on how brown the crust is getting, for about 30 more minutes, until the loaves sound hollow when tapped, or register about 195 degrees on an instant read thermometer.

I'm submitting this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of all things yeasty.

Fancy & Delicious Cinnamon Raisin Bread

 Free-form loaf made by my daughter

I'm fairly new to baking bread; my kitchen's first yeasted baked good was less than three years ago. Since then I have had lots of fun turning out bread, and have introduced both of my girls to the basics of working with yeast. My daughter ALE took off running, and has become a proficient bread-baker. She fearlessly tackles things which are far out of my league: maintaining a sourdough starter, working with spent brewing grains, and baking in an outdoor hearth oven at temperatures far exceeding the typical home oven.

Since the beginning of the summer, ALE has been baking bread with the Fancy & Delicious bread collective in Buffalo, NY, to sell at market and for a bread share program. (see an article about about Fancy & Delicious here and a lovely video here)

One of the collective's most popular breads is the Fancy & Delicious Cinnamon Raisin Bread. When ALE came home for a visit in August, she baked up a batch of the bread for us (that's her loaf in the picture, above) and left me with the recipe. At the moment, it's become our favorite "daily bread" - the stuff of my husband's morning toast.

I'm posting this bread today in honor of World Bread Day, and also as part of my friend Di's Handmade Loaf Event. Additionally, I'm sending the bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of all things yeasty.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe is for 3 moderately-sized freeform loaves, but I used two long loaf pans (1 pound size) and ended up with perfectly-sized loaves for toasting. I oiled and floured the pans, and lined the bottoms of the pans with parchment.

- There are a variety of slightly different versions of is bread recipe. The recipe, as I baked it, is below.

- You can use whatever combination of white and whole wheat flour you like, as long as the total is 6.5 cups. I measured by weight, at 4.5 oz/cup, then adjusted for dough consistency.

- For richer flavor, you can add butter to the cinnamon swirl as you prefer

- At Fancy & Delicious, they mix the dough in a commercial stand mixer. I used a food processor (the dough really filled my large food processor), but you could definitely mix and knead the dough by hand.

- Add the liquid gradually, just enough for good dough consistency, because the dough can get quite slack with too much liquid.

These are my loaves, made in a bread pan. For this batch I mistakenly was short on both raisins + cinnamon swirl.

the verdict:

The minute I tasted this bread I could see why the loaves consistently sell out when Fancy & Delicious sells bread at market. A toasted slice was a perfect cinnamon-raisin experience! It's nutty from the whole grains, and sweet from the raisins and the luxurious swirl of cinnamon sugar. We love this bread so much that I've made it again and again, and now it's my go-to for cinnamon-raisin.

the recipe:

the recipe below is how I made the bread. My friend Kayte baked the bread using the one-loaf recipe variation that the Fancy & Delicious collective uses when it teaches bread workshops. You can see her loaf and get that recipe here.

Fancy & Delicious Cinnamon Raisin Bread
6 1/2 cups of flour: any combo of white/whole wheat flour works fine. (I used about 2 1/2 cups of whole wheat, and included some rye and some oat flour)
1 Tb yeast
1 tb cinnamon
2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/4 cup honey
splash oil - I used mild olive oil
1 3/4 cups warm water, or less, adjusting for dough consistency (can be room temperature if you use a food processor for kneading)
1.5 cups raisins
3/4 cup cinnamon-sugar blend per loaf (1 part cinnamon, 5 parts sugar)

1. Mix the flour, yeast, cinnamon, and salt, to combine

2. Gradually add the milk, honey, oil, and water, adjusting quantity of liquid to the consistency of the dough.

3. Knead until the dough passes the windowpane test. In a food processor this will take about a minute.

4. Knead in the raisins. If you have been using a food processor, add the raisins by hand.

5. Turn the dough into an oiled bowl, cover, and let the dough rise at room temperature until doubled in volume.

6. Divide the dough and form into desired number of loaves, shaping as follows:

To shape dough:
 
a. Prepare 8.5x4.5 bread pan: butter pan and cut parchment to fit pan (so cinnamon sugar will not cause bread to stick to pan), butter/flour parchment.
b. Shape dough into rough ball and grab a rolling pin.
c. Roll dough into a rectangle 1/2" thick.
d. Spread the 1/4 cup cinnamon sugar over middle of the bread, leaving an inch around all the edges.
e. Start rolling by turning a short edge inward.
f. Roll tightly until a cylinder is formed.
g. Press down edges, turn seams under, roll on work surface until sealed.

If using loaf pans, place into pans seam side down. Let loaves rise at room temperature until doubled.

7. Bake in 400 degree oven for 40-45 minutes, until loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom and the internal temperature is 195 degrees on an instant read thermometer.

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!

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.

Multigrain Struan [#17]

Learning to bake bread is one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. Every loaf is a new creation, and yet the very process of bread-baking is nearly as ancient as civilization itself. I've gathered recipes from sources old and new, from dusty books and from digital files. I've crafted loaves entirely with my own hands, and I've taken advantage of mixers and food processors. And in every case, the magic of the yeast, the ingredients, and the oven combine to create something warm, fragrant and inviting. Maybe some day I'll be blase, but for now I still experience a thrill, as a miracle observed, when I see the dough double.

There's also the social aspect: I've baked alone, I've had family members and friends stand beside me in my kitchen, and I've had virtual friends baking the same recipe at the same time and comparing notes on our computers via Twitter! And when the bread is baked? I love the smile when people bite into a fresh slice of bread, and I love posting pictures of my breads and viewing those of other bakers. There's a special connectedness in seeing that bakers all around the globe are baking around the same theme each month. Such is the special charm of Bread Baking Day - a monthly online event where bakers are invited to bake and share their bread.

The theme for this month's Bread Baking Day #20, hosted by Rachel of Tangerine's Kitchen, is "Multigrain Breads". While I've cooked many loaves in recent weeks that have more than one grain, the bread I really wanted to share this month is Peter Reinhart's Multigrain Struan, from his book, Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.

Reinhart has included a version of his struan bread in most of his bread books. The theory of the struan bread is that it is composed of what happens to be on hand, or in the current harvest. I feel quite blessed that my pantry is well-stocked, and I had all manner of delicious grains to choose for this bread. The version of struan in the Whole Grain Breads book is completely whole grain, and Reinhart's directions are quite detailed and thorough. Although you can find the recipe online, I'd advise getting the book if you are at all interested in baking with whole grains. The amount of information dispensed in the book is nothing short of astonishing.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Reinhart advises that the bread is particularly good if a mixture of cooked and uncooked grains are in the dough, and he gives advice on cooking times and methods for the various grains.

- For my 6 oz of grain, I used:
1 oz steel cut oats (cooked 4 parts water to 1 part grain, as oatmeal)
1 oz barley (cooked 2.5 to 1)
1 oz quinoa (cooked 1 to 1)
3 oz Bob's 10 grain cereal (uncooked)

- I froze the extra barley and quinoa in 1 oz packets for future use.

- All of the flour in the bread is whole wheat flour. I used half white whole wheat and half regular whole wheat (both King Arthur) for the biga, starter, and final dough.

- My sweetener was agave nectar.

- In the proofing stage, the bread rose 1.5 inches above rim of 8.5 x 4.5 pan

- I did not use the steam option for baking. My bread was done after 50 minutes in the oven.

- We waited just over an hour before cutting.

the verdict:

When the bread was still slightly warm, we sliced into it and sampled it plain.
this was GOOD. We enjoyed the very subtle and complex flavors. The texture was moist and the taste just a touch sweet. The bread was versatile, too, and was delicious toasted with butter.

Note: I'm sending this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly compendium of all things yeasty. Congratulations to Susan on her 1 year Yeastspotting anniversary!

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!

Anadama Bread {bba}

Just in case I wasn't crazy enough already, I've taken on a new baking project - the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge. A blogger named Nicole of Pinch My Salt started the whole thing with a simple "tweet" on Twitter, asking if anybody wanted to join her in baking through Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Well, the idea took off like wildfire, and by the time of the sign-up deadline, there were an even 200 bakers from around the world, all ready bake bread. Luckily for me, there aren't a lot of rules and regulations that come with the project; in fact the only rule is to bake each recipe in the book in order. Nicole (and most of the other bakers) will be baking weekly, but I knew that a weekly pace would be hard for me to maintain, given the other bread- and non-bread-baking that I need to fit into my schedule. So a couple of my bloggy buddies, Food From Books, The Tortefeasor, A Singleton in the Kitchen, Grandma's Kitchen Table, and I, are going to bake "together" and post every other week. At this leisurely rate we should make it through the book in somewhat under two years. And learn a whole lot about bread in the process!

The first interesting thing I learned is that the book is arranged alphabetically by name of bread. How cool is that? Very cool, but an arrangement by degree-of-difficulty might have been a bit more reassuring for a somewhat-novice baker. Luckily the uber-tricky sourdough recipes are all in their own group at the end, so by the time we get there I can abandon ship prepare myself.

First up in the challenge is the Anadama Bread, a classic New England bread, and a charming domestic tale underlying its name. You can read the lore and get the recipe here. The bread is made with molasses and cornmeal, so it's a bit sweet with a touch of crunch (or grit, depending on the coarseness of the cornmeal used)


n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe calls for coarse ground cornmeal. By some fluke I happen to have 4 different brands of cornmeal in the house, none "coarse grind". I couldn't see buying any more cornmeal just for this recipe (those thrifty New Englanders who made this bread recipe certainly wouldn't have), so I used 4.5 oz of the coarsest cornmeal I had and 1.5 oz quick grits for a little North/South fusion.

- The cornmeal is mixed with water and becomes a "soaker" which sits for awhile before being joined by flour, yeast, and more water and turning into a "sponge" after it in turn sits on the counter.

- When the soaker-now-sponge is joined by molasses, flour, salt and butter, it becomes dough. You can knead it by hand or with a mixer, but I used my food processor. In short order, the dough passed the "windowpane" test (could be stretched until translucent) and registered between 77 and 81 degrees on my instant read digital thermometer.

- For half of the flour I used white whole wheat.

- I had been tempted to make half a recipe but "all the other kids" were making a full recipe, so I did too. The recipe makes two 9x5 or three 8.5x4.5 loaves. I split my dough in half. With one half I made two small loaves (which I planned to give away) in my 7.5x3.5 pans. The other half of the dough produced one 8.5x4.5 loaf and two 4-oz rolls.

- I dusted the bottoms of my pans with cornmeal to help with releasing them later.

- The dough rose very quickly.

- My loaves got a few false starts in the oven. I pulled them out to take photos (really, sometimes I question my own judgment) and to mist them and dust them with cornmeal (which I'd totally forgotten).

- The loaves had no oven spring (hmm, do you think the in-and-out of the oven had anything to do with it?) and actually flattened out a bit. That's OK, the crumb was pretty nice, so I was happy.

how we ate it:

Well, I have to confess that we did, in fact, eat it all. My husband, Jim, is a big toast person, so the bread was great to add to his morning rotation. We also made two dinners out of Anadama sandwiches.


sandwiches:

The first night we had "Farm Box special" themed sandwiches--

1. duck egg salad w lots of salt and pepper + tomato + arugula (above)

2. roast chicken + tomato + arugula (from our garden!) + mustard (below)

The duck egg, tomatoes and roasting chicken were from the farm box! (and the potatoes for the potato salad)


sandwiches, round 2:

The second night, the sandwiches were "New England meets Sweden"--

smoked turkey, Vasterbotten cheese (from Sweden), sliced Granny Smith apple, lingonberry preserves (also Swedish) (below)

the verdict:

Well, given the fact that the two of us polished off this load of bread in less than a week, you can say this was a keeper recipe for us. Although it has molasses, we didn't find it particularly sweet. Nor did the molasses flavor stand out for us (although it did for some of the other bba bakers). This bread was fantastic for sandwiches, and was a great accompaniment to a variety of flavors. I was very sorry that I only made 2 buns. Jim liked it even better as toast, though! The toaster really brought out the crunch of the cornmeal.

Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire [#12]

First of all, let me apologize for anyone who follows this blog in a reader, as last night I mistakenly published (for all of 5 seconds) a very rough draft of this post - sorry you had to wade through all my notes!

Back in March, pinkstripes posted some amazing rolls,made from Peter Reinhart's formula for Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire (adapted recipe, as I make it is at the end of this post). I had a huge queue of yeast bread recipes to try, but this one got to jump the line because of its promise to be "the best toast in the world." If anything, we are all about The Toast in this house.

The first time I made this bread, I cobbled the recipe together from the Google book preview (partial recipe online) and the posts of pinkstripes and various other food bloggers. While the loaf was rising I got on my computer and ordered a copy of the book for myself - I loved what I saw in the preview! (And now that I have the book I can say it is well worth the purchase)

This is the soaker after a day on the counter. See how the quinoa has unwound?

n.o.e.’s notes:

- The formula for this bread gives lots of options of various grains to use, and also gives a choice of liquid. It truly can be customized to your taste preferences. The first time I quinoa + oats + buttermilk. For subsequent loaves, I’ve settled on Bob's 10 grain cereal + oats + buttermilk

- The brown rice is important to this bread. I made half a recipe's worth of brown rice, separated it into 1 oz packets and put them in the freezer for future loaves.

- I use the food processor for mixing the dough. First pulse the dry ingredients to mix them. Initially I added the liquid too slowly, and the dough went past the internal temp range (mine was 84 degrees) and passed the windowpane test before I got all the liquid in. To keep it from getting overheated, I incorporated the rest of the honey by hand. I've now learned to add the liquid ingredients while they are cool to cold, and to pour them steadily. The food processor only needs a minute or so to mix the ingredients.

- The dough is very sticky, so I usually incorporate more flour to get it to a good workable consistency.


- This bread rises like a fiend.

- I don't brush anything on the crust. We're not big seeds-on-bread folks. Figured I'd just brush it with some butter when it was done.


- My only 9x5 loaf pan is pyrex. My first loaf stuck to the sides and bottom of the pan and I had to manhandle the loaf with a spatula to get it out. Luckily the bread is springy - it held together despite lots and lots of prying and it got back in shape fairly well. Now I routinely sprinkle cornmeal or rolled oats in the bottom of the pyrex pan before putting in the dough.

see the "forceps" mark where I had to pry the bread out of the pan?

the verdict:

The bread is surprisingly soft inside. Even though I'd read other bakers' reactions and knew it would be tender I was still startled by the light but not dry texture. This bread is so soft that the bread knife almost tears the bread rather than cutting it. It's nearly fluffy, and quite moist inside. And the taste - a little chewy, a little tender, a little sweet, with a nice complexity from the whole grains.
Although I enjoyed the first version of this bread, my husband found the quinoa to be quite a bitter taste. So I now use a multigrain cereal mixture and everyone is happy!

the toast test:

Is it even possible for toast to taste this good? I literally didn't want to finish my piece of toast; I just wanted to savor every last bit. Peter Reinhart was right: toasted until golden, and spread liberally with butter, this was the perfect toast experience.

Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire

Adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice- this is the way that I make the loaves. See Reinhart's book for more complete instructions and the variety of choices for each ingredient

The formula is for one 2-lb loaf in a 9" x 5" pan.

Soaker:

• 3 tablespoons (1 ounce) 10-grain cereal mix
• 3 tablespoons (.75 ounce) rolled oats
  
• 2 tablespoons (.25 ounces) wheat bran
• 1/4 cup (2 ounces) water at room temperature
  

Combine the above ingredients in a small bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature overnight to initiate enzyme action.

Dough

• 3 cups (13.5 ounces) unbleached bread flour
• 3 tablespoons (1.5 ounces) dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 3 tablespoons (1 ounce) cooked brown rice, cool or cold
  
• 1 1/2 tablespoons (1 ounce) honey
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) cool buttermilk
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces) cool water

Pulse the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in bowl of food processor. Add the soaker and rice, and pulse until incorporated. With the food processor running, pour the honey, milk and water in a stream.

Process a minute or two, then knead by hand briefly to make a dough that is soft and pliable, tacky but not sticky, and until internal temperature reaches 77 F to 81 F on an instant read thermometer and can pass the window pane test. (This often happens while the dough is still in the food processor. I knead for a minute or two by hand to get a feel for the dough and to adjust the flour and water as necessary)

Lightly oil a bowl and transfer dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for about 90 minutes or until double in size.

Place dough into a lightly oiled bowl, spray top with oil, cover, and let rest for 90 minutes or until doubled.

Turn dough onto counter and press it to rectangle about 3/4 inch thick. Form into loaf by rolling the dough, then place into oiled 9x5 loaf pan. Mist with oil and cover dough loosely with plastic wrap or a clean towel.

Proof dough for another 90 minutes or so, until dough doubles and crests the pan about 1 inch in the center.

Preheat oven to 350F. Bake 20 minutes, rotating 180 degrees and then bake an additional 20-40 minutes until the bread temperature registers at least 190F in the center on instant read thermometer, and the loaf is golden brown and makes a hollow sound when tapped at the bottom.

Remove immediately from pan when done and cool on rack for at least an hour before eating. Enjoy, especially toasted!

Honey Wheat Ricotta Bread [#15]

My mother tells a story about her grandmother, one of three little girls. At one point all of them contracted smallpox and were very sick. They were all lying in the same bed when doctor came; he took one look at my great-grandmother, who was the sickest of the three, and said, "she is not going to make it. Roll her to the wall and we'll treat the other two." So they did, and as it turned out, my great-grandmother survived but her two sisters did not.

That's kind of how things went with this bread. Read on and you'll see.

There are dozens of bread recipes that I've bookmarked - physically and electronically - but I chose this recipe for Ricotta Bliss Bread, which I saw on Rose Levy Beranbaum's blog (it's also in her Bread Bible), because I had a container of ricotta in my fridge that was calling to be used.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Beranbaum calls this formula "bliss" bread, presumably because it is so perfect, but of course I had to tinker with the recipe, adding some whole wheat and subbing honey for the sugar.

- This is a direct rise dough, so it can be mixed and baked on the same day.

- I baked it as loaf bread (although Beranbaum waxes rhapsodically about how great it tastes as a free form loaf.)

- The recipe calls for the whole milk ricotta; I used part skim.

- I replaced the sugar with 2 T honey, added with the wet ingredients.

- Just under half of the flour was white whole wheat.

- This was the first time I'd followed one of Beranbaum's recipes. The primary instructions for this bread called for the food processor. One of the ingredients is "cold water." Now, the water from our tap can hardly be called "cold" and our refrigerator's water dispenser was broken. So I threw a couple of ice cubes into some water and weighed it. Oops, short a few ounces, so tossed in more ice. Then on with the recipe.

- The dough was really really cold. I set the rising bucket in my warmest spot to rise. Usually my dough rises faster than the time estimates in the recipes that I follow.

- At the end of an hour I checked and saw that the dough had not risen. Not a bit. In fact it was still cold. During that hour, I'd finally done some reading in Beranbaum's book. There was a comment in the book that ice cold water would kill the yeast. Yipes. I became convinced that I'd slain my yeast with the ice water I used :(

- So I tossed that dough aside as a failure and mixed up another - smaller - batch of dough with the the remainder of the 15 oz ricotta container, scaling the other ingredients appropriately:

360 flour (160 white whole wheat, 200 all purpose)
3.5 g instant yeast
180 g ricotta
85 g cold water
7 g salt
40 g egg in shell (I used a 51 g egg and spooned a bit out)
heaping 1 T honey

- A while later I looked over at the first batch of dough and found out it had risen after all. So I baked it in the 9x5 pan and put the other pan in the fridge to bake later.

- As it turned out, the first loaf, the "failed" one, baked up beautifully. And the second loaf? Lackluster! It didn't rise well, nor did it taste all that great.

- I've made this bread several times since this first loaf, and each time the dough takes a fairly long time to begin rising, but never as long as that first time when I used the ice water!

the verdict:

We couldn't believe how pretty this loaf was! My husband loved the taste of this bread, which he ate toasted, for breakfast. "This is so good I don't want to swallow it. It really is the best ever."

My daughter quipped, "the bread that the baker rejected has become the corner loaf" (a riff on Psalm 118) . Although she didn't intend this, her words, and indeed the afternoon's experience, spoke to me of paradox, improbability, redemption, and even resurrection. A fitting lesson, and... a great title for a blog! And the loaf? I'm commemorating it up on the blog banner!

I'm sending this loaf over to Susan at Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of fabulous breads.