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!)

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.

Whole Wheat St. Lucy buns [#16]

Back in March I had a rare weekend with both girls at home. J.D.E. was here for her Spring Break and A.L.E. came just for the weekend. We did a good bit of bread baking, and I made each girl her own special batch of homebaked bread. For A.L.E. I chose Whole Wheat Santa Lucia Buns from Peter Reinhart's book Whole Grain Breads.

St. Lucy, an early Christian martyr, was blinded (and then killed) when she refused to renounce her faith. As a result she is the patron saint of the blind. She's especially venerated in Sweden, where on her December feast day young girls distribute sweet buns in Lucy's honor. In making the buns, raisins can be added, symbolizing the saint's eyes. A little graphic, maybe, but that's often the way with martyred saints.

A.L.E. has always had a soft spot for St. Lucy so I was excited to bake these buns for her, even though we were not in the correct season. Reinhart's whole wheat buns are not particularly sweet in taste, but they are lovely in appearance, which made them perfect for sharing with special daughters on their visit home. I packed up the leftovers for A.L.E. to bring back to her apartment.

Shameless imitation of photo in Reinhart's book This bun has the raisin "eyes" of St. Lucy

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe, as I made it, is at the end of this post.

- For both the biga and the soaker, I used a little over half white whole wheat flour and the rest was regular whole wheat.

- For liquid, I used yogurt - the soaker was very crumbly and dry. At the time I didn't know what to add. I ended up misting it with water before I left it to rest on the counter. (Since I baked these I've been a good girl and have been reading the intro chapters of the book and I now know that I could have added some milk to get it to the proper consistency. Luckily it really didn't matter in the end.)

- After its 5 minutes of rest the biga dough was so wonderful to handle that I was sorry I only got to knead it for a minute. It was quite smooth and elastic.

- In making the final dough I used around half regular whole wheat and half white whole wheat. I kneaded by hand, adding some water to get to the proper consistency.

- The dough rose very nicely in the bulk rise, then I formed it into balls:

-After the balls rested for 10 minutes, I formed them into long snakes, then coiled them. Reinhart gives two ways to shape the coils (I'll call them "S" shape or "C" shape), so I did half one way and half the other way:


- After the buns proofed, I painted them carefully with an egg white wash (I didn't want them to deflate), then baked them on the same parchment on a baking sheet on top of baking stone.

- The buns were in the oven for 25 minutes and they were already over 200 degrees.

the verdict

These rolls were a big hit. Says A.L.E.: "They're fantastic and sustained me for a week. Great taste and look."

Besides the fact that I was inordinately proud of how pretty the rolls looked, they were absolutely delicious. We enjoyed them warmed or at room temperature, with butter and without. Sometimes whole wheat bread can have that assertive "not the best texture but it's good for you" quality. These rolls are very different; it's hard to believe they are entirely whole wheat - there's such a nice chewy elasticity in the texture. I'm sold on Reinhart's methods of maximizing the goodness of the grain through pre-ferments.

I'm submitting these rolls to Yeastspotting. Stop by and check out all of the yeasty goodness!


the recipe:

Santa Lucia Buns, as adapted

Soaker
227 g whole wheat flour (I used 127g KA white whole wheat and 100g KA whole wheat)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c plain yogurt

Mix all soaker ingredients together in bowl, until they form a ball. Add a bit of milk if necessary. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temp for 12-24 hours.

Biga
227 g whole wheat flour (I used 127 g KA white whole wheat and 100 g KA whole wheat)
1/4 tsp instant yeast
142 g filtered or spring water at room temp
1 lg egg, slightly beaten (47 g without shell)

Mix biga ingredients together in bowl to form ball of dough. Knead in bowl for 2 minutes with wet hands; the dough will feel very tacky. Let dough rest for 5 minutes then knead again with wet hands for 1 minute; dough will be smoother but still tacky.

Transfer dough to clean bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hrs-3 days.

Remove biga from fridge about 2 hours before making final dough.

final dough
All soaker (401 g)
All biga (417 g)
113 g whole wheat flour (I used half KA white whole wheat and half KA whole wheat
5 g salt
7 g instant yeast
71 g honey
56 g light flavor olive oil
1 egg white w/1 T water and 1/4 tsp honey for egg wash

Cut soaker and biga into 12 pieces each with metal pastry scraper. Sprinkle with flour to keep pieces from sticking

Put all pieces in bowl with the 113 g flour, salt, yeast, honey, and oil. Knead with wet hands 2 minutes; until all ingredients are incorporated. Dough should be soft and slightly sticky. Add water or flour as necessary (I had to add some water).

Turn dough onto floured counter and roll in flour to coat. Knead dough by hand for 3-4 minutes, incorporating flour as needed to make soft and tacky but not sticky consistency. Form into ball and let rest for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare a clean, lightly oiled bowl.

Continue kneading for 1 minute to strengthen the gluten. Dough should be soft and supple and pass the windowpane test. Form into ball and place in bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 45-60 minutes, until it is 1 1/2 times its original size.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Divide dough into 12 pieces. Round each piece into a tight ball then cover and let rise for 10 minutes. Roll out each ball into an even strand about 10" long. Spiral each strand from both ends toward the center, forming 2 snail shells that meet in the middle. You can flip one end so it is an "S" shape. (I flipped half). Place the shaped pieces of dough onto the parchment, leaving 1 1/2" between them. Mist the tops with oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature for an hour, until rolls have grown to 1 1/2 times original size.

Meanwhile preheat oven to 425 degrees. Brush the tops of each bun with egg white wash. Place raisin in center if desired and place pan in the oven. Immediately lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 15 minutes. Rotate pan 180 degrees and continue baking for an additional 10 to 20 minutes, until browned and at least 195 degrees in the center. Cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes.