BBA Challenge - Anadama Bread

One of my favorite cooking books is Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I recently discovered a group who was baking their way through this amazing compilation of bread and decided to give it a try!  The BBA Challenge was brought to us by Nicole of Pinch My Salt.  

Anadama Bread is the first recipe of the book.  It's an old New England Bread that appears in many books on bread.  I've tried it in the past and didn't care for the consistency or taste, so passed on making this when I initially bought The BBA.  I believe that previous attempts with different recipes went south because the soaker of corn meal was only a few hours and/or an overwhelming amount of molasses was used.  After letting the soaker rest overnight, the cornmeal had an appealing fragrance and was fluffy.  

The recipe was very easy and straight forward, no unusual ingredients or instruments needed to make this.  The dough was amazing, supple and easy to knead by hand (since the hubs has yet to come through on his "I'll buy you a new KA mixer" proclamation which convinced me to sell my trusty mixer back in AK, LOL).

Since I couldn't find my normal sized bread pans, I split the dough into 5 small loafs.  The finished bread definitely turned my opinion of this bread around.  It wasn't dense, dry, or overpowered by the molasses.  

My only complaint was that I couldn't remember what the heck I did with my stupid bread pans so that we could enjoy this with the BLTs we made for dinner last night!  

Pan de Sal

One of my mother's favorite breads is filipino pan de sal. As the name suggests, it means salted bread. Pan de sal today, is often more sweet than it is salty. This modern pan de sal seems to have made this evolution to make up for the lack of quality ingredients after WWII. My mother isn't fond of the 'new' pan de sal, so this weekend, after a conversation about it, I decided to have a go at making it her way.

Pan de Sal (courtesy of my mother)

1/3 cup lukewarm water
1 tsp sugar
2 packets of active dry yeast (fast rise won't work)
1 tbsp (yes, I did write tablespoon) of salt (we used coarse Korean sea salt, measured the 1 tbsp first, then crushed it with a rolling pin)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 extra large eggs
1 cup hot water (not quite boiling)
5 cups (or more - we used 5.5 cups) of bread flour (or any hard wheat flour)

Step 1 - in a small bowl dissolve the yeast and the sugar into the tepid water, allow to rest until the yeast becomes foamy.


Step 2 - in a mixing bowl, add the eggs, salt, and mix until combined with a whisk or an electric mixer. Using a pouring container, slowly add the hot water to the egg mixture and mix until all the water is added.


Step 3 - add the foamy yeast mixture to the egg mixture and blend. Then add 5 cups of flour adjusting with more if the dough mixture is sticky.

Step 4 - using a dough hook (or your hands), knead the dough until smooth, adding flour as necessary. The dough should be smooth to the touch.


Step 5 - transfer to a bowl and let raise until doubled, about 1.5 hours in our 72ºF kitchen.


Step 6 - after dough has doubled, roll out into a long rope and cut into 16 equal pieces. Form into rolls and place on a greased baking sheet. Allow rolls to proof for 45 minutes to and hour, to about 1.5 times their original size. Preheat oven to 450ºF.


Step 7 - place baking sheet in lower third of oven and spritz the rolls and walls of the oven with water. After a minute passes, open and spritz the rolls and oven again, allow rolls to bake at high temperature for 7-10 minutes, until they are starting to turn brown.

Step 8 - reduce the temperature to 375ºF and bake until golden brown, approximately 10-15 minutes more. Rolls will be golden brown on the bottoms and feel somewhat light rather than heavy.


Step 9 - remove from the oven and allow to cool 5-10 minutes before serving.

Mom indicated the rolls were extremely close to what she had remembered getting from her neighbor when she was a little girl in Manila. She did say many people like to roll the pan de sal in old bread crumbs after forming rolls, but she preferred them plain, with just melted butter. They were pretty good - saltier than any other bread I have ever made, but not so salty that it was overwhelming.

Breadchick's Dark Onion Rye

This was supposed to be Dark Onion Rye, courtesy of Breadchick from The Sour Dough - this month's Bread Baking Babes host, however, dark rye flour wasn’t available here, so I had to go with what they had which was just “rye flour.”

The idea of trying this rye bread (along with being bestowed the title of 'Bread Baking Buddy'!) excited me. I’ve been on the sourdough bandwagon for some time now. When I moved here, I retired my 11 year old starter that I had made during my first year of graduate school back in 1996 because I couldn't take it through security with me. Can you imagine trying to explain it to TSA? When I first moved to Akron that year, I had very little money for entertainment, so I bought myself “Bread Alone” by David Leader. The bread gods must have been smiling down at me, because the creation of my first rye starter was a complete success. I baked a loaf or two every week, freezing the starter when I’d be away for long periods like visiting family or doing field research.

It was sad to see such a great starter go into the annals of my baking history, but I told myself that this would give me the opportunity to try different starters. When I came to Alaska, I purchased Peter Reinhart’s “Crust and Crumb” after totally LOVING his “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.” I started with his wheat flour barm and never made it to the rye starters. His barm was consistent, lively, and had great flavor. I’ve been using it for nearly a year now for breads, bagels, and pancakes. It wasn’t until I saw what the Bread Baking Babes were doing this month that I decided to venture down the rye starter path once more.

I mixed up Breadchick’s sourdough starter, and diligently coddled to life this past week. There was a fine wine like aroma that was less acidic and more 'rich' than my wheat barm starter.

Yesterday morning I made the sponge and let it sit out for just over 10 hours. Last night I pulled together the dough. I did make one other substitution, I used malt barley syrup instead of molasses. The overall dough looked lighter than what Breadchick had pictured, but that could be the difference in the flours.

I let it proof until doubled which was less time than indicated, so I decided to throw it into a well-floured towel lined bowl and let it retard in the refrigerator overnight for the final proof. Not only would this let me have just-baked bread for lunch today, but the time in the refrigerator would probably let the flavor develop even more.

This morning I pulled out the boule, turned it out onto a parchment lined pan, slashed it and allowed it to come to room temperature (about 1.5 hours) while the oven was heating.

I sprayed it with water and put it into the 400º oven and followed Breadchick’s instruction of baking 20 minutes followed by 25 minutes at 375º. I rotated the pan a few times to make sure the baking was even. I left this to cool before going to work:

When I came back for lunch it was gone. All of it… Apparently the dog decided it was time to practice his ninja skills. I can assure you that he’s usually a well-behaved freak of nature, as well behaved as those can be anyways, but sometimes my creations excite him to the point where he forgoes all knowledge of politeness and obedience and decides stealing something tasty is worth dealing with my anger. Evolution is a funny thing, however, because it granted him the ultimate trump card – uber super cuteness (how can I be mad at that?):

Looks quite please with himself, doesn't he? Luckily he has the iron constitution, if you get my drift, and the onions in the loaf will only torment us with a bad case of gas instead of a vet visit. I have to take Kramer’s word for how good it was, there was nary a crumb left. So maybe next week we’ll try this again and actually get to sample how it tasted. Thanks for the recipe, it smelled fantastic throughout all stages, I’m sure it will taste just as fantastic when we finally get to try it!

Croissants - Day 2

Today continues the saga of croissant making. So far my comment on the croissant recipe in Tartine by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson is two thumbs up – the dough felt almost exactly like the dough we used at the bakery, except there wasn’t enough of it to make 100’s of croissants. Those interested in giving this a try, please head over to fellow Daring Baker Veronica’s site – Veronica’s Test Kitchen.

If you want fresh baked croissants for dinner, this recipe can be completed over one very long day. If you are looking for morning croissants, then I would suggest two days (more on this later).

Before I get started, please let me qualify the following information with a quick disclaimer. I’ve said this before, I will say it again, I suck at remembering to take pictures of the steps, especially when its 2 am. It takes 100% of my mental capacity just to remain upright and operating complicated machinery (aka oven) and sharp (knife) and blunt (rolling pin) objects.

With that said, I took the frozen dough out around 6 pm the night before – I knew that I was going to be up at 2 am to be sure I could get to work with croissants without being horribly late. The entire recipe of dough would have been too large for me to roll out in one shot, so I halved the dough along the width, put what I wasn’t going to use in the fridge, and rolled out the dough to 12 x 18 rectangle, cut the rectangle into thirds along the length and then into halves along the width – giving me a dozen triangles to roll.

Following the instruction in the recipe, I rolled the triangles from the base to the tip and placed them on parchment lined baking sheets. I had warmed the oven to 100ºF on my oven thermometer and then turned off. I put the baking sheet on a cooling rack that was sitting on my baking stone when the thermometer read 90ºF and slid a boiling pot of water into the bottom of the oven to create a steam box.

I repeated this with the second half of the dough but rather than putting it in the oven, I manufactured a ‘steam box’ out of my kitchen sink using a rectangular pan turned upside down, another cooling rack for the baking sheets of croissants to sit on, and a large garbage bag. I blocked the drain enough for the water to flow out slowly and filled the sink with hot water until halfway up the sides of the rectangular pan. I put in the baking sheet with the croissants on the cooling rack, and then anchored the garbage bag tautly on each side with canned goods, to slow the heat and steam as it escaped from the sink. This was around 3 am – and I wasn’t thinking ‘Ohh photo op!” at the time – I’m sure I’ll build this contraption again sometime and take pictures of it :).

Here’s what the croissants looked like after proofing and their egg wash:

Here’s what the finished product looked like:

I made it to work, only 45 minutes late, but I don’t think anyone cared, other than having to wait for me to show up :). The taste was spot on to the crispy-flaky croissants with the soft buttery insides. My only complaint is they were a little tough – i.e. hard to pull apart – probably from working the dough more than it needed. I will definitely make this recipe again, so that issue may eventually go away.

Like most laminated doughs, this recipe probably takes the home baker two days to complete from start to finish. Because not everyone is willing to wake up at inhumane times, like I am I did throw 4 just rolled croissants (non-proofed) into the freezer. They froze with little expansion, which I was worried about considering how active the dough felt. I did not bake them yet, but when I do I will post here. I don't see any reason why pulling the frozen croissants at 10pm, putting them on a parchment lined sheet and letting them thaw in the refrigerator wouldn't work. Another consideration would be to pull them out frozen and proof them longer in a steam box at a slightly higher temperature. We made croissants from scratch as well as made them from IQF (individually quick frozen) un-risen product when I worked at the bakery, with the latter used to make cafe sandwiches. The IQF took 45-60 minutes to go from frozen to ready to bake in a 114-120ºF rack proofer. Either way, I have 4 to test out and sometime in the next few weeks, when I am ready to look at a stick of butter again, I'll give both a try and post the findings!

Baking Frenzy

WARNING – this post is long.

I am a freak – that’s all that can really be said. I go through days of being so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, then flip-flop to days where I can’t sleep. I think my internal clock is broke – and the warranty was up a LONG time ago!

So why am I a freak? Well, I went on a baking frenzy last night. Don’t be fooled by how innocent that sounds – its not innocent at all hehe!

My evening started with dinner – chili dogs. I only mention this because it’s the first time in my 34 years of existence on this Earth that I had Hormel canned chili, or canned chili of any kind for that matter. Now, I prefer homemade chili – I am somewhat obsessive about how I make mine, I dice brisket and rump roast into small cubes, soak beans overnight, etc – yeah, I guess there are many reasons I am a freak, but I digress…. Hormel chili isn’t something I would eat on its own, however smothered on a hot dog sitting on a nice potato bun, topped with cheddar cheese, its pretty darn good!

Back to the topic, I recently joined the Daring Bakers, and looking back at past challenges, I thought it would be cool to make my dear hubby some hot buttered pretzels. At the same time I figured it would be nice to surprise one of my French co-workers with something other than Pain au Levain so I decided to try my hand at the recipe from the croissant challenge after getting seduced by the pictures from that challenge. So yeah, my hands were quite full. When my husband asked me what I was doing, and I told him what I planned to accomplish - he gave me the same type of look one gives a crazy person as they slowly back away from them...

I started with the pre-ferement for the croissants:

After mixing this up, it was time to throw together the ingredients for the pretzels. I like the fact that it all goes into the bowl at the same time, making it an easy surprise snack to fit into a multi-step/multi-day baking adventure like croissants! When the dough was ready to proof it looked like this:

While this was proofing away, I turned my attention to measuring out the ingredients for the croissant dough. I have made croissants before, but on an industrial scale, where we measured ingredients in pounds. Since I always had access to these crispy crusted-soft inside buttery pockets of heavenly delight, I never had a need to make my own. Since moving to AK, I tried to scale back the industrial recipe several ways, but couldn’t get it to work to my satisfaction. Seeing the results from this former challenge, I figured I would give it a try since the pictures of the completed challenge looked close to what we used to make at the bakery.

After 2.5 hours, I scraped the pre-ferment into the mixer bowl, added the yeast and mixed until combined, added half the milk slowly and mixed until it looked like something out of a bad science experiment. I mixed together the pre-measured dry ingredients, and added them slowly to the yeast mixture, alternating with the remainder of the milk. I had to resist the urge to add more milk, to incorporate the ‘cornmeal’ like bits at the bottom of the bowl, after the requisite mixing time had elapsed, but I let the dough rest for its 15-20 minutes and when I started up the mixer it quickly incorporated into the rest of the dough. I’d have pictures of this, except it was insanely late (or insanely early – I don’t remember). The finished dough proofed for an hour before getting pressed into a rectangle 2” thick, wrapped, and put in the fridge.

Meanwhile, back on the stove, the pretzel dough had finished its rise. I turned the dough out of the bowl, gently pressed it into a rectangle, then cut it into halves until I had 8 pieces. I rolled each piece, shaped, dipped (I used malt barley extract instead of sugar in the wash), and placed on the sheet pan.

They sat around basking in their pretzel glory for 15 minutes, waiting for the oven to reach 500º. I didn’t think until after I salted all of them about topping them with other tasty goodness – next time! After baking, each was lovingly brushed with melted butter and all but two were devoured by my husband. He didn’t even let the dog have a bite LOL! Here’s what I was able to grab pictures off before they met their fate.

Four pretzels wondering what happened to the 5th - do you think the one on the bottom right looks worried?:

The pretzels were soft, light, and had an airier texture than I had expected. The taste was pretty good, though it reminded me more of pizza dough than pretzel:


A close-up of the star snack of the evening (near morning - note the daylight still present at 11pm):

This morning (when I woke up 2 hours after I went to bed), I rolled out and turned the croissant dough – turning it 4 times. It now resides in my freezer, waiting for the 24 hours to pass, when they will reach the culmination of all their glory (hopefully). Stay tuned!

Rosemary Focaccia

Cooking is one of the ways I unwind. Luckily I have plenty of friends who willingly consume the fruit of my labor so I don’t have too!

I’ve had a hankering for focaccia recently; its not something one can easily find in Alaska. I think back to last year, during this time, when I would buy the best rosemary focaccia.

The local gourmet store in Akron made many breads and pastries of its own, but ordered in a number of different artisan loaves from Mediterra Bakehouse in Pittsburgh, PA. One was a 1 ½” gorgeous focaccia, sprinkled with rosemary and sea salt. It was a soft aromatic pillow of goodness. It sold fast, especially during grilling season.

I haven’t made focaccia before, I don’t know why, as I’ve tried many styles of bread. Last night I figured I would take the plunge and use up the remaining rosemary my friend brought back from the lower 48. A luxury such as fresh rosemary isn’t something that should go to waste!

I looked at the recipe options I had, I opted for trying out the focaccia recipe from Peter Reinhart’s Crust and Crumb. I halved the recipe for my first attempt; I didn’t want to tempt any bad baking mojo. I did a few minor substitutions: adding ½ cup of white whole wheat flour; using barm in place of poolish (needed to adjust the water to get the correct consistency), and I use active dry yeast vs. Reinhart’s penchant for instant yeast – while measuring out ingredients, I ‘wake up’ the active dry yeast with a portion of the required liquid.

I put all ingredients minus the oil and water into the bowl of my stand mixer, put the dough hook on and started mixing. I added the oil and water, and then supplemented with extra water until the dough achieved the consistency that Reinhart described. I kneaded with the mixer for approximately 15 minutes total.

After a three hour rise, the dough was stretched to fit a parchment lined pan brushed with oil, topped with fresh rosemary and dimpled. I placed the dough into a bag and let rise for 1 hour before putting in the fridge to retard overnight.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to pull the dough from the fridge for the requisite 2 hours prior to baking. I preheated the oven to 525ºF and went back to bed for one and a half hours! When I finally crawled out of bed for the day I took the pan out of the bag, sprinkled some kosher salt on top and started baking.

The bake time in Reinhart’s C&C was 5 minutes at 550ºF and then 25-30 minutes at 425ºF. After about 15 minutes, I found that the focaccia had browned more than I expected. It still didn’t ‘sound’ like it was done, so I covered loosely with foil, turned the heat to 350ºF and baked an additional 5 minutes. Since it was my first attempt I would rather have slightly under baked bread than over baked bread.

The final bread ended up being darker than I expected, but it didn’t impact the flavor at all, the crumb was denser at the bottom vs. the top, but for my first attempt I was quite pleased.

The flavor was great! Salt and rosemary is one of those perfect combinations of flavors. I took the fruit of my labor to work and everyone devoured it. All in all I will definitely make this again – probably as the perfect partner to the pasta dinner I am making for my husband when he finally comes home from taking his final semester of finals at school!

Sesame Semolina Bread and more!

I recently added “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” to my cookbook library. For the beginning baker, this book takes a lot of the intimidation factor out of baking bread. The authors break down the basics and successfully weed out the minutia, leaving only the bare minimum of effort needed to produce a pretty decent loaf of bread.

I have tried the first master recipe, with predictable results. I found that I am too tempted to put ‘more’ work into this approach than required, I’ve been baking for years, I can’t help it! I find working with bread dough therapeutic...

In the middle of last week I mixed up a batch of the semolina master recipe. Three days later, I shaped some of the dough using a technique from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” and it turned out nice. The before shot is below, I need to become faster with the camera for “after’ shots, because if I wait too long, the bread starts disappearing on its own!

The flavor of the bread was mild, almost sweet, with a very light yeasty flavor. The crumb was soft, and the crust was chewy with a nutty flavor from the sesame seeds. It made very good sandwiches. I am going to bake off a bigger loaf in a few days to re-evaluate the flavors that develop from the semolina.

What I probably will do is keep either the artisan boule master recipe or the peasant loaf recipe on hand at all times, as the dough at this stage not only makes a fast, easy, fresh loaf of bread, it also makes a convenient pate fermente used for many other recipes I make.

I will continue to try other master recipes in the “Five Minutes a Day” book, because you never know what gems lie in hiding within the covers of a book unless you’ve taken the time to go through it all!

--------------------------
The other thing I did this weekend was finally get to use my new batch of sourdough starter for the first time. When I first moved to AK, I bought Peter Reinhart's "Crust and Crumb" (C&C) because I thoroughly enjoyed "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" (TBBA). I tried the barm starter recipe then, and had inconsistent results with it. Looking back, I believe it was due to my less than vigilant adherance to the starter's schedule (i.e., Day 3's ingredients didn't necessarily fall on day 3).

This time around, with the exception of halving the formula, I followed the recipe and schedule as written, and as each day passed, the aroma and activity of the started developed. I knew from the smell of the starter on the final day that I had hit the jackpot! It was bubbling happily and had a sweet acidic smell. The barm formula uses residual yeasts found in the flour, air, and raisins (raisin water is used on Day 1). It has a tangy flavor that is not overbearing like some rye starters I have fostered in the past. This is what it looked like before I went on my sourdough spree:

Again, I am not much of a photo taker, I promise to improve, because pictures are worth more than any number of words I could offer here; but I added Pain au Levain, Sourdough Bagels, and Sourdough Pancakes to my list of achievements this weekend, much to the disappointment of my vacuum :). I went sourdough crazy and the results were amazing. Peter Reinhart pairs the Barm starter with a San Francisco Sourdough recipe in C&C. I tried that previously and found it to be marginally acceptable. The crust was GREAT, but the crumb was dense and the bread heavy and a little too sour for my liking. This time around I used the barm starter to replace the mild starter called for in the Pain au Levain recipe. The results were fantastic! The crust was reddish brown, crispy and chewy at the same time (if that is possible). The bread was great warm and at room temperature. I am pleased with the results and find the flavor of this bread much more satisfying and reminiscent of country bread than any Pain de Campange recipe I have tried.

Because I wanted to keep the volume of starter left over at a manageable level, I also mixed up a batch of sourdough bagels from C&C. I remember making bagels as a little girl, well maybe not specifically, but I remember not having fun because it took too long and had too many steps! With age I have gained patience, as well as a love of all things bread, so this time around I was surprised at how easy it was to mix up the dough, shape and retard the bagels, boil them and then bake them. The longest part of the process is the mixing of the dough. Shaping them took no more than 10 minutes. They retard, covered in plastic wrap, in the refrigerator overnight. I pulled them out an hour before I was ready to bake them to bring them up to room temperature, while preparing the water to boil (I used the boiling instructions from TBBA).

Once the water is up to temperature, all it takes from having dough rings to fresh, warm, tasty bagels is 15 minutes - tops! The bagels were boiled 1 minute on each side and drained, topped (optional), and placed on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I baked them at 500 ºF for approximately 10 minutes, turning the pan after 5 minutes to ensure even baking. After letting them cool for a few minutes, I sliced into one and when I saw the texture of the crumb, I knew I had scored! The outside was shiny, slightly crispy and chewy - the inside was soft, light, and had the texture you'd expect to find from a bagel made in a bagel shop. I buttered one up and gave it to my husband, who was floored by the results. He ate 2 more before the morning was out, and that was AFTER having a short stack of sourdough pancakes!

I love tangy pancakes. The difference between using buttermilk and normal milk (or water) in boxed mix is amazing. I had previously tried the sourdough pancake recipe from C&C with crepe like results. Somewhat discouraged, I promised myself I'd give these babies one more shot someday. Yesterday I did and I figured out what I did wrong - I learned to read somewhere between September 2007 and March 2008! It is important to completely read through a recipe at least once before trying it. No amount of experience substitutes for this. Back in September I added the baking soda/eggs to the sourdough batter instead of the other way around. I am certain that this caused my less than stellar results. The batter back in September looked deflated and dead, where as this time around it actively bubbled and looked happy (if batter can). The results were amazing - a tangy pancake that wasn't overly cakey. The outside is a little chewy, most likely a result of the malt in the starter. My husband said he preferred Aunt Jemima, but ended up eating 5 of these pancakes, drenched in maple syrup. I am sure if I keep cooking them, he'll forget all about Aunt Jemima :).