Ever wondered how to cut an epi?

Just in time to impress your friends and family with a lovely epi, or sheaf of wheat, loaf at a holiday dinner, I posted a step-by-step lesson in how to cut an epi. It is actually simple once you have seen it done and it offers a less common alternative to the dinner rolls we have been baking here this month.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | epi | kitchenMage

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Beth: Honey wheatBerry Bread Recipe

He’s as sweet as Skamokawa honey
Just like honey from the bee.
Tupelo Honey, with apologies to Van Morrison

Sometimes it is, as the kids say, all about the boy.

We all know people who have done odd things for love: run up multi-thousand phone bills, changed names and careers, moved to a city they would never have considered otherwise, or tried to replicate a mass-market loaf of bread.

Um, yeah.

Although Kevin once referred to me as one of the technicians here, I am truly a member of the magical improvisation class – hence the kitchenMage name. It’s just that I study theory natively and, having been in the kitchen since I was tippy-toe to a flour bin, I have learned many aspects of theory well enough to look technical even while making it up as I go along. (note to kids: this is a handy skill, useful in many areas of life: cultivate it)

Sure, I use recipes... every now and then. Sometimes I even use the same amount of the various ingredients as the person who wrote the book. Not always, though — I often use recipes only to provide a rough outline, which I gleefully color outside of. Truth be told, I have had to force discipline on myself to solidify a recipe long enough to post it here.

As you might imagine, I am not a huge fan of deconstructed "famous recipes." I am not likely to buy most prepackaged food, why on earth would I want to go to the effort of creating my very own homemade version of that stuff?

But then there was the boy.

This person, who shall remain 'nymless, was raised on Oroweat Honey Wheat Berry Bread, developing a deep and abiding affection for the stuff. I can see why: as commercial sandwich loaves go, it's pretty good. Dense but not heavy, a hint of sweetness and a rich taste of grain, it is particularly good toasted with a smear of butter and honey. So while it just kills me to pay three bucks a loaf for sandwich bread, I did. For quite a few years.

Then Oroweat started making a fluffier version — wider slices, a bit more yeast, lighter color and flavor. Sold it in two-packs at Costco at a fairly reasonable price. Just one problem: it tastes like cheap, fluffy bread you buy in two-packs.

Now the old stuff — the good stuff — is hard to find and closer to $4 a loaf when you can lay hands on it. Clearly, something had to be done and about five years ago, I decided to. That's a long time to work on a single recipe, but it was worth it.

There is, after all, the boy. And he likes it.

kitchenMage’s Honey wheatBerry Bread
This recipe makes two large (slightly over 2 pound) loaves or ~18
US Volume metric Volume US Weight metric Weight
water 3 cups 800 ml 24 ounces 675 grams
Wheat berries 3/4 cup 175 ml 5 ounces 140 grams
Milk, room temp 3/4 cup 175 ml 6 ounces 170 grams
Whole wheat flour 1 cup 235 ml 4 1/2 ounces 125 grams
instant yeast 1 tablespoon 15 ml 3/8 ounce 12 grams
Honey 1/4 cup 60 ml 3 ounces 84 grams
Butter 1/4 cup 60 ml 2 ounce 56 grams
Bread flour 6 1/2 cups 1525 ml 29 1/4 ounces 820 grams
salt 1 tablespoon 15 ml 1/2 ounce 15 grams

Note: Each batch of wheat berries I get seems to cook in a different amount of time and absorb a different amount of water. This means that, more than many bread recipes, you may need to adjust the flour on this each time you make it. I add ~5 cups to start and then sprinkle more in as it mixes in the kitchenAid. Most of the time, I end up using ~6 1/2-7 cups, but your mileage, as always, may vary.

Preparing the wheat berries
Combine wheat berries and 3 cups of water in a medium sauce pan. Cover and set aside to soak for an hour. After an hour, leave pan covered and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until wheat berries are soft and popping open. The water level will be reduced by ~1/2 cup and the wheat berries will be fat and soft. Let cool and prepare for use in dough — see sidebar for more information.

Do you like your wheat berries smooth or chunky?

There are two distinctive states of wheat berries: smooth and chunky. You need to decide which form you want your wheat berries to take and prepare them differently based on your desired results.

On one end of the continuum, there is the nuts-and-seeds style of bread, with fairly intact wheat berries. While I like this effect occasionally, particularly when making rolls (add a smidge more yeast, too), the berries have a tendency to stick out of the dough and aren't what I usually want from this bread.

Totally opposite this is the Oroweat bread that set me on this quest. This bread, oddly enough, has no discernible wheat berries, something which I always attributed to superior industrial wheat berry smooshing technology — I think I pictured something involving oompa loompas — but now I know the truth. There are no wheat berries in their bread! In fact, the first ingredient is cracked wheat! Go figure.

Lacking superior oompa-loompa based technology, the easiest way I have found to smoosh these babies is with an immersion blender. A regular blender works reasonably well, but I was less impressed with the results from the food processor.
In any case, let the cooked wheat berries cool to body temperature, ~100F (38C) and then smoosh, or not, to your heart’s content.

Mixing the dough
In mixing bowl, combine wheat berries, milk, yeast and whole wheat flour. Mix until well combined, cover and set in a warm spot until bubbly, 20 - 30 minutes.

Add the softened butter, honey and 5 1/2 cups of bread flour. Mix until it forms a shaggy mass. Continue to add flour, a tablespoon or two (or more at first), until the dough stops readily absorbing it. Mix for another minute, two if mixing by hand. The dough will still be a bit rough. Cover and let rest on the counter for 20 minutes.

If you are using a mixer: Add salt. Use the dough hook and mix it on medium for ~5 minutes, adding more flour a tablespoonful at a time, if needed, until the dough is fairly smooth. Turn it out on a well-floured counter and knead for a few minutes, until the dough is like a baby's bottom — given the wheat berries, perhaps it’s a baby with diaper rash. (sorry)

If you are making the dough by hand: Add salt. Spread a cup of flour on the counter and knead for 4 - 5 minutes, adding more flour if needed. Knead until the dough is, um, ready as described, perhaps a bit too graphically, above.

Roll the dough in flour, put it in a clean bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured counter, divide in half and shape into loaves. Grease two loaf pans. Put the shaped loaves in the pans and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

Preheat oven to 375F (175C). Bake bread for 45 minutes or until golden brown (~195F/90C internal temperature). Turn out of pans onto cooling rack for at least an hour.

Complete flickr set of kitchenMage's Honey wheatBerry Bread

Technorati: Food recipe baking bread artisanal artisan bread baking whole wheat wheat berries sandwich bread kitchenmage

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Beth: Summer Breads - Pesto Rolls

Around my place, summer means casual food that can be grabbed on the run, or taken to impromptu parties and late night bonfires. Like tomorrow night's solstice bonfire, or tonight's impromptu birthday celebration. (Not that the birthday is impromptu, but the celebration is.)

Summer is also when my herbMage aspect emerges in full bloom to fall upon the bounty of seasonal herbs, especially basil. Don't get me wrong, I love most herbs but I have a particular soft spot for basil. I am guessing that many of you share this particular fondness; basil seems to always have plenty of dates for summer parties.

These rolls are one of my favorite summer breads. Easy to make and infinitely variable, they don't need to be sliced or buttered, making them perfect for those casual summer picnics and parties where cutlery is superfluous.

The dough is relatively simple, although it does use a starter, and the extra few minutes it takes to fill, roll, and slice into rolls is well worth it for the payoff. I usually make my first batch of these babies in early June and keep making them until the freeze kills the basil…or later if I managed to freeze pesto.

kitchenMage's Twirled Pesto Rolls

Ingredient | Volume US | Volume Metric | Weight US | Weight Metric
Starter:
water| 1 cup | 235 ml | 8 ounces | 450 grams
bread flour| 1 cup | 235 ml | 4 1/2 ounces | 125 grams
whole wheat flour| 1/2 cup | 112 ml | 2 1/4 ounces | 62 grams
instant yeast| 1/4 teaspoon | 1-2 ml | 1/4 ounce | 2 grams
Dough:
water| 1 3/4 cups | 350 ml | 14 ounces | 392 grams
bread flour| 5 cups | 1175 ml | 22 1/2 ounces | 630 grams
instant yeast| 1 1/4 teaspoons | 8 ml | <3/8 ounce | 10 grams
olive oil| 3 tablespoons | 45 ml | 1 1/2 ounces | 42 grams
salt| scant tablespoon | 15 ml | 1/2 ounce | 15 grams

pesto for filling| 1 cup | 235 ml | 8 1/4 ounces | 232 grams
parmesan cheese (optional)

Notes:
If you don't have a favorite pesto recipe, I'd recommend Susan's pesto as a starting place.
I posted a flickr set with a number of photos if you want a more visual how-to than what follows. I did not link them here because they seem to work better taken in order. So click already!

Mixing the starter
In mixing bowl, combine starter ingredients and mix until well combined. Cover and let rest on the counter for about two hours until it is very bubbly. (You can shorten this to ~20 minutes or wait as long as 4 - 5 hours. You can also refrigerate the starter for 24 - 48 hours after it bubbles.)

Mixing the dough
Add water, 4 cups of bread flour and yeast to the starter and mix well. Add the oil and mix until it is integrated. Sprinkle in the additional cup of flour as you go — you may not need all of it, you may need a little more. (As we all know, my flour lives in a fog valley and yours does not, so they weigh differently. They would weigh differently in any case, but that is my excuse.)

When the absorption of the flour starts to slow down, turn it out on a well-floured counter, cover with a towel and let rest for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the salt on the dough and knead until firm yet supple (like a Chippendale's dancer's butt). This is basically a baguette dough and it feels like it – smooth and neither tacky or dry. When it is done it feels good to knead and I think, "this is what bread dough should feel like!"

Roll the dough in flour and place it in a clean bowl. Cover the dough and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

When the dough has doubled, turn it out on a lightly floured counter and flatten into a rectangle. You are going to roll this out into a 12 x 24 rectangle and it will take a few cycles of rolling and resting (that Chippendale's reference just hangs there…begging to be used) to accomplish this. Roll the dough out until it starts resisting and springing back, then let it rest for 5 minutes and repeat.

Other fillings

I love these rolls filled with pesto but that is not the only thing you can use. Almost any very thick mixture will work for filling so feel free to experiment. If you think that bread would taste good dipped in it, then it will probably be a good filling. You can even include bacon if you must have that touch of pig.

Many sauces can be made the right consistency for filling by reducing the liquid (often olive oil) used to make it. I have been wanting to make a paste version of my favorite roasted red pepper sauce (mostly garlic, roasted red peppers and rosemary) but seldom remember it when I am in a store that has the peppers – let me know how it is if you try it.

I have also made these with deconstructed pesto: brush the dough with olive oil, scatter liberally with torn fresh basil, pine nuts and parmesan cheese, then roll, cut and bake as described.

Place the dough on the counter so that the long side is parallel to the counter edge. Spread pesto on the rectangle of dough, leaving an inch uncovered the long edge that is further away from you. Brush the exposed edge with water. Roll up the dough starting on the side closest to the counter edge and rolling away from you. The water brushed edge will be the last part to be rolled up, pinch the edge to seal. You should now have a 2 foot long cylinder of dough. (don't you dare bring up the Chippendale's now!)

Cut the rolls into 1 1/2" - 2" sections (my three fingers are about 1 15/8 inches wide so that's how tall my rolls are) and place in a lightly buttered baking pan. When I last made these, I had 15 rolls, which fit into two glass pie pans.

Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour. Bake in a preheated 400°F/205°C. Bake bread for 25 minutes or until golden brown (~195°F/90°C internal temperature). Cool rolls in pans for 15 minutes and then place on rack to finish cooling.

Optional: If you want a bit of melted parmesan on top of the rolls, use a vegetable peeler to shave off little pieces onto the hot baked rolls and return them to the oven for a couple of minutes to melt.

Variation: This recipe can also be made into two loaves of bread. To do so, divide the dough in half before shaping and then roll into two rectangles (~9 x 14) before filling and rolling. Don’t cut the loaves into rolls and place the loaves on a parchment lined baking sheet to proof and bake.

Sources and inspiration: The bread recipe is based on Peter Reinhart's polish baguette (BreadBaker's Apprentice) and while I had the idea independently, I must note that Jerry Traunfeld's Herbfarm Cookbook has a rolled pesto loaf in it. This last bit makes me happy that I could come up with the same thing as Mr Traunfeld because as Daniel Leader is to Susan, Jerry Traunfeld is to me. sigh

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | pesto | rolls | summer breads

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Breads for Breakfast and Brunch

I've never been a breakfast person. Or, perhaps more accurately, I never been big on eating breakfast. A cup of coffee and a newspaper is all I want when I get up. But give me an hour or so for my belly and taste buds to wake up and I can match a lumberjack sausage for sausage, flapjack for flapjack, and biscuit for bagel. Consequently, I'm a huge fan of brunch.

Early summer is the perfect season for brunch, morning temperatures are perfect for sitting outside on the patio or by a pool eating strata, noshing on sausages, and drinking Mimosas or Bloody Mary's. The combination is hard to beat. But you've got to have some sort of bread, so we've come up with a trio of quick breads for that lazy summer morning with a few good friends.

Susan's Savory Cheese & Scallion Scones
Makes 8 large scones

I came up with this recipe back in 1993 during a severe scone craving when there was no butter in the house. They're a snap to prepare and are really versatile. Serve them warm from the oven with dinner instead of rolls or bread--plain, buttered, or with cream cheese. Or split and toast in the toaster, spread with cream cheese and thinly sliced ham or turkey for a satisfying breakfast on the run, light lunch, or terrific after-school snack. They also freeze beautifully if you happen to have any left over (hint: the recipe can easily be doubled). Defrost at room temperature and heat at 375 degrees in an oven or toaster oven for about 5 to 8 minutes. If you're in a hurry, you can defrost them in the microwave before reheating.

Half & half will give you richer scones with a slightly nicer texture, but milk works quite well, is lower in fat and calories, and is usually always in the fridge. Either way, these are very moist and are healthier for you than traditional scones made with butter and/or heavy cream. You can also substitute Neufchatel cheese for the cream cheese, but I don't recommend using fat-free cream cheese. Fresh baking powder is essential. And as always, I urge you to seek out locally grown and organic ingredients whenever possible.
The optional egg glaze will give your scones a beautiful shine and dark golden color. Look for locally produced, farm fresh eggs at your farmer's market or natural foods store. You won't believe the difference compared to commercial eggs. The yolks are sometimes so dark they are a gorgeous deep orange, and the eggs actually taste like eggs! Enjoy.

2-1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon + 2 teaspoons baking powder*
1 teaspoon salt
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (I use sheep/goat milk)
4 ounces cream cheese, softened in microwave 15-30 seconds (you want it very soft)
4 large scallions (green onions), green & white parts, chopped
1 cup half & half or whole milk
1 egg
Optional egg glaze:
Beat well with a fork:
1 egg & 2 Tablespoons milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine 2-1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

Add cheeses & toss gently with a fork until combined.

Add scallions & toss gently with a fork until combined.

Beat half & half (or milk) with egg and gently fold into dry ingredients, mixing lightly until a soft dough forms. Add up to 1/2 cup additional flour if the dough is too sticky.

On a floured surface, gently pat dough into a circle approximately 1-inch thick. The key to tender scones is to handle the dough with a light touch and as little as possible. With a sharp knife (I use a large serrated knife dipped in flour) cut the circle into 8 wedges and place them on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. (I can't imagine life without my commercial half-size sheet pans.)

Brush tops and sides of scones with egg glaze if desired, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm, or cool completely and refrigerate or freeze in an airtight container.

*Make sure it's fresh! I prefer Rumford brand, as it does not contain aluminum and always gives me excellent results.

kitchenMage's Quick and Flaky Biscuits
Makes 12 - 15 biscuits.

Biscuits are a perennial favorite. You can eat a fresh biscuit about 30 minutes after you decide you want one. (I believe this is the landspeed record for homemade breadstuff.) Hot out of the oven, a biscuit is simply layers of delicate, steaming flaky near-pastry. Add a smear of butter and a dollop of jam and it could be dessert! Biscuits are also a perfect recipe for teaching small children to bake. They are that easy, plus, tiny child hands can be very gentle, which helps with the flakiness.

Ingredient | US volume | US weight | Metric
Flour | 2 1/4 cups | 10 1/8 ounces | 285 grams
Salt | 3/4 tsp | 1/8 ounce | 4-5 grams
Sugar | 1 tablespoon | 5/8 ounce | 18 grams
Baking powder | 4 teaspoons | 5/8 ounce | 19 grams
Butter, very cold | 1/3 cup | 2 5/8 ounces | 75 grams
Milk, very cold | 1 cup | 8 ounces | 225 gram

Preheat oven to 450°

Place flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in food processor and pulse for a few seconds to combine.

Cut cold butter into small pieces and add to food processor. Pulse half a dozen times and check for the size of the butter pieces. Repeat if necessary until the butter is in pieces roughly the size of peas.

Put flour mixture in a mixing bowl and add the cold milk. Toss together gently until barely combined. I use the little white plastic tool in the picture to lift the dough from the side of the bowl and dump it on top of the rest of the dough.

As soon as the dough holds together, turn it out on a lightly floured counter. Gently "knead" the dough a few strokes until it is a mostly a cohesive ball.

Roll the dough into a rectangle 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick, depending on how tall you like your biscuits. Cut into 2 inch circles, you should get 12 - 15, and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake at 450° for 8 - 10 minutes. Butter and eat while still warm.

Kevin: Butter Popovers
Makes six large popovers or 12 small.

Actually, these are Rose Beranbaum's popovers, based on a recipe in The Bread Bible. These are the best popovers I've ever eaten, the butter adds richness and tones down the strong eggy flavor most popovers have. If you don't have a popover pan, use a muffin pan and be sure to only half-fill the cups.

1 c Wondra flour (must be Wondra)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 c whole milk — at room temperature
2 eggs — at room temperature
4 tbsp butter — melted

Heat oven to 425F 30 minutes in advance. Place one oven rack on the bottom level and the other on the second level (this avoids having the popover rising into the other rack).

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and sugar. Slowly add milk using an electric mixer on low. Add eggs one at a time, thoroughly mixing after each addition. Add two tablespoons of butter to batter. Transfer to pitcher for pouring.

Brush popover cups with butter then distribute remaining butter evenly among the cups.

Heat popover pan in oven for 3 minutes. Fill each cup halfway with batter.

Cook popovers on the second rack for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 350F and continue cooking 20 - 35 minutes until well puffed and brown. Do not open oven for at least the first 20 minutes. Six - 10 minutes before popovers are done, use a small, sharp knife to poke a slit in the top of each popover and allow steam to escape.

When done, remove popovers from the pan and cool on a rack.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | quick breads | scones | biscuits | popovers

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Beth: Potato Bread

When theKid was a young'un, I faced a challenge that I am sure is common to parental units across the country: white bread lust.

For reasons perhaps best explained by marketing, a lot of kids — even those who usually make sane food choices—seem to prefer bland, white bread. Sandwiches, toast, pretty much anything has to be white bread, but especially sandwiches. And kids eat lots of sandwiches. (hmmm, kids, sandwiches, Kevin, sandwiches... interesting....) Not very healthy and awfully boring. The white bread — not Kevin!

Then there was the cost of a decent loaf of white bread, which was simply exorbitant. Yet, even as a single mother on a tight budget, the affordable white bread in the shiny primary-color dotted bag was just too awful to contemplate. (The only thing I ever Wondered was who was buying that stuff!)

Whole Wheat Potato Bread

Potatoes have many positive effects on bread: yeast loves it, bread is softer and stays fresh longer, and bread dough with potatoes does not have to be mixed as long as bread without potatoes—amazing but apparently true! One of the more useful effects however, is an increased tolerance for whole wheat flour in the dough.

I used two cups of white whole wheat in one of my experiments and, with a few minor adjustments, I think this recipe would do nicely for anyone who wants a whole wheat take on this bread. As with all of bread baking, pay attention to the feel of the dough and adjust the ingredients where they seem to need it. Here is what you need to do differently, and why:

New first step: Mix the water, white whole wheat flour and yeast, cover and let it sit for ten minutes. This insures that the heavier whole wheat flour is totally hydrated before you start mixing the rest of the dough.

The white whole wheat flour absorbs more water, so add a little. I'd suggest a quarter of a cup. You may need to add a bit more when you are adding the rest of the flour, if it seems too dry to absorb all of it.

Let the bread proof until it is actually doubled in bulk. As you can see from the photo of the side by side white and white whole wheat loaves, I underproofed mine a bit. (I was nervous about it falling and it looked done. Oh well, live and learn.)

You can probably substitute more white whole wheat for white, although at some point you might need to add a little more yeast or a tablespoon of gluten if you have it around. The potatoes make this dough pretty forgiving.

Having sandwich bread that I was willing to eat, let alone feed theKid, meant making it myself. Fortunately, I knew how to do this, although, since I'd rather have my sandwich on a roll, standard loaves weren't in heavy rotation before then. Another saving grace was that theKid was not old enough to have kids at school telling her that homemade bread was, like homemade clothes, 'uncool.' Lacking a freezer to store a second loaf meant that I usually had to bake more than once a week, usually with the help of a toddler standing on a five gallon bucket of flour. Good times.

I started sneaking in bits of leftover cooked cereal, mashed potatoes, rice, and other things that seemed to have a complementary flavor and texture. This was surprisingly effective and had the bonus of helping me cut down on wasted food, which mattered a lot on my very tight budget.

Potato bread—soft, almost billowy, yet chewy enough to have some substance—was one of my favorites. Fresh herbs add a lovely depth to the flavor; rosemary and thyme are particularly good. This also makes wonderful dinner rolls; I like them with soup because they hold together well when dipping.

These days, I only bake bread for theKid when she makes the trek from theCity to evenTinierTown and it's been a long time since I had to sneak anything into her bread. I still love potato bread, though, and since I can never seem to make the right amount of mashed potatoes it's something I can make fairly regularly.

kitchenMage's Potato Bread
water | 2 cups | 475 ml | 16 ounces | 450 grams
bread flour | 5 1/2 cups | 1070 ml | 20 1/4 ounces | 570 grams
instant yeast | 2 teaspoons | 12 ml | 1/4 ounce | 7 grams
mashed potatoes | 1 1/4 cup | 350 ml | 8 ounces | 225 grams
butter | 2 tablespoons | 30 ml | 1 ounce | 28 grams
all purpose flour | 1 cup | 235 ml | 4 1/2 ounces | 125 grams
salt | 1 tablespoon | 15 ml | 1/2 ounces | 15 grams

Notes:
I based this recipe on mashed boiled potatoes with nothing added and used the water from the potatoes in the bread. If you want to do this, measure the water and raw potatoes then cook. When the potatoes are done, do not drain them, just mash them in the water. Then measure the mixture again and if it's not quite the same, add water until it is.

If you are using leftover mashed potato, you will probably need to add a little extra flour to make up for additions to the potatoes, such as milk or butter. You will have to judge this when you are making it.

In mixing bowl, combine water, potatoes, yeast and flour and mix until well combined. Add the butter and mix until it is integrated into dough. The dough will still be very soft. Cover and let rest on the counter for 20 minutes.

Add the salt to the dough when you do the next step.

If you are using a mixer: Use the dough hook and mix it on medium while you sprinkle in the all-purpose flour a tablespoonful at a time. When the absorption of the flour starts to slow down, turn it out on a well-floured counter and knead until the dough is smooth and supple, but no longer tacky.

If you are making the dough by hand: Spread the cup of all-purpose flour on the counter and knead for 4-5 minutes, adding more flour if needed. Knead until the dough is, as Kevin would say, smooth as a baby's...um, never mind, we got labeled as an adult site by one of those net-filtering software things because I said "bread p**n" once. Geez.

Roll the dough in flour, put it in a clean bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

Turn the dough out on a lightly floured counter, divide in half and shape into loaves. Grease two loaf pans. Put the shaped loaves in the pans and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

Preheat oven to 375°f / 175°c. Bake bread for 35 minutes or until golden brown (~195°f / 90°c internal temperature). Turn out of pans onto cooling rack for at least an hour.

This last picture? Just a bit of truth in blogging. Just in case we put up a convincing front that it is all we just make a recipe up in fifteen minutes and bake one loaf and it is perfect and our kitchens are always clean. As if!

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan <| bread baking | potato bread | sandwich bread | white bread

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Beth: noKnead Bread

As the winter of 2006 was closing in, a lot of people were discovering an old approach to making bread. Writing in the New York Times, Mark Bittman described how to make a "no-knead bread" using a very wet (or "slack") dough that is allowed a long, slow rise and then baked in a covered, preheated dutch oven. The results were impressive: bread with a beautiful rustic, open crumb and a near-shatteringly crisp crust.

With 78,000 Google hits for "no-knead bread" there are no doubt thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people who overcame their fear of yeast, baked their first loaf of bread, and were thrilled with what they created. They have reason to be proud too. The pictures are gorgeous, and more than a few people describe the crust singing as it cools, which is always a good sign.

I think this is great. Anything that gets people in their kitchens, particularly into scary territory like yeasted bread, is wonderful. Every time I come across a web site where someone has a picture of their very first loaf of bread I smile. More bread bakers makes me happy.

As someone who has been baking bread regularly for decades, however, this recipe is not quite such a huge revelation. I figured out long rise, cold-fermented, slack dough a long time ago and know how to reliably get crispy crust. Perhaps understandably, I was not in a huge rush to try the recipe. In fact, it took me all the way until February to try it, and then I only did it because Susan twisted my arm. Really hard.

The magic behind NoKnead Bread

Reliably turning out great bread at home requires you to master a technique or two and control the proofing and baking environment. This recipe shortcuts a few of these critical aspects of making good rustic bread, making it easier to create a loaf you will be happy to eat fresh out of the oven. While you will probably end up using variations on the original recipe, there are a few things to keep in mind about why this approach works so well:

The rustic open crumb of artisan bread requires slack dough, which can be a hassle to knead and work with. Treating the dough like a batter takes care of that, while the long rise allows for slow, but adequate, gluten development.

Concentrated bottom heat gives the bread more oven spring (rise) and a crispier crust. Baking stones, not preheated dutch ovens, are the usual solution to this problem, although it doesn't deal with the next thing...

Home ovens don't provide the steamy environment required for truly great bread—hence the steam pans, ice cubes, spraying water in the oven for the first few minutes of baking, and so on. By trapping the dough's moisture in the covered dutch oven, you can skip the initial steam creation rituals and let the dough steam itself.

I baked two batches before I wrote about it on kitchenMage and then I wrote: So, what do I think? Well, truth be told, it is great food blog bread. It is very pretty, no doubt about that. Visibly crisp crust. Beautiful open crumb. Yep. That's some gorgeous bread. Photographs beautifully, too. It is also dead simple to produce bread that pretty. The slack dough, long ferment, and baking method combine to make a very forgiving recipe. Served still warm with a slather of butter, it's an impressive loaf, especially for someone who seldom, or never, bakes.

That's not bad…but then I had to go on: Well, except in one aspect. It tastes like...not much. It's not even bad enough to be notable. Flavorless, gummy, and an hour out of the oven the crust starts to toughen.

Ouch! (but wait there's more...) I summed up this bread thusly: Bread to make you believe in the Atkins diet.

So clever. So witty. (So should have shut up.)

So when Kevin and Susan said we absolutely, positively, had to do noknead bread for this site I was a bit nonplussed. If nonplussed means freaked out. There was whining and wheedling, bitching and moaning, and all sorts of carrying on.

I called an executive meeting, at which they reminded me that two was more than one and I was outvoted. I begged and said they could call me a snob on the site if they wanted. They laughed.

Worse, they made me go first!

Bummer. To quote a teenager I know, "sucks to be me..."

This forced me to seriously examine what I didn't like about the recipe and find a way to fix it. So, what was wrong? Well, from my perspective, the bread has three significant down sides:

• Boring, bland, blah. All white flour meant the bread lacked flavor. The salt in the recipe needed to be doubled. Did I mention the boring white flour?


• The long rise at room temperature gives the yeast time to digest a lot of the sugars and enzymes that are being broken out of the flour, reducing the flavor. A lot.


• The covered baking dish often results in a moist, somewhat gummy interior, especially in the center bottom.

The second was easy to fix. I use cold fermentation for bread all the time; clearly this would have to be done that way. A bit of experimentation was all it would take to find the right balance of time and temperature.

The last seemed to be a matter of less covered baking time, maybe with adjustments to time and temperature. (hmmm, time and temperature, I detect a theme…)

The first of these, however, offered me one of those double edged opportunity/danger situations. A quick search online demonstrated that there were already been a lot of variations on this recipe, some more successful than others, in the wild. Herbs, sourdough, chocolate chip (hmmm, chocolate, that helps anything!), mushrooms, cheese… You name it, someone has tried it. Interesting, but this could take a long time and much experimentation and I was on a deadline.

Closing in on the date for this post, I was still playing with ideas in my head, not in my kitchen where I needed to be, when I came here to check on comments and found inspiration instead.

You see, two of our most dedicated bakers, Judy and oopsydeb, were talking about Farmgirl's Oatmeal Toasting Bread—one of my favorites—and that made me think of my cinnamon swirl version of Susan's recipe and one thing led to another and I finally went to the kitchen and seven experimental batches later, I give you…

kitchenMage's little bit Twisted, kinda Nuts, noKnead Oatmeal Toasting Bread
(with apologies to Susan)

ingredient US volume | Metric Volume | US weight | Metric
oatmeal 1/2 cup | 118 ml | 2 ounces | 56 grams
brown sugar 2 tablespoons | 30 ml | 1 ounces | 28 grams
boiling water 1 cup | 236 ml | 8 ounces | 224 grams

cold water (or ice) 3/4 cup** | 177 ml | 6 ounces | 168 grams
whole wheat flour 1/4 cup | 59 ml | 1 ounce | 28 grams
bread flour 2 1/4 cups | 532 ml | 10 3/4 ounces | 300 grams
instant yeast 1 1/2 teaspoons | 8 ml | scant 1/4 ounce | 5-6 grams
cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon | 3 ml | 1/8 ounce | 2-3 grams
nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon | 3 ml | 1/8 ounce | 2-3 grams
vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon | 3 ml | 1/8 ounce | 2-3 grams
salt 2 teaspoons | | 3/8 ounce | 10 grams

Filling
nuts, chopped 1/2 cup | | 2 ounces | 56 grams
cinnamon sugar A few tablespoons or so…it's sprinkling, how exact do you want?

**To measure ice without a scale, pour 2 cups of cold water into a 4 cup measuring cup and add ice until it measures ~2 2/3 cups. Smoosh the ice cubes flat with the water surface, it should then measure 2 3/4 cups. Adjust until it does. Or buy a scale already. Really!

Mixing and fermentation
In a mixing bowl, combine oatmeal, brown sugar and boiling water. Stir well. Cover bowl with clean towel and let cool.

This mixture needs to be no warmer than room temperature before you can continue. How you achieve this is a bit different depending on whether you are using ice or cold water:
Cold water—let the mixture cool to lukewarm, 30-45 minutes and add water.
Ice—wait 10 minutes, add the ice and stir until it melts.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined. The dough will be thick enough to scoop a large spoonful and have it stay relatively intact—it's very similar to the texture of well-cooked oatmeal.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled in bulk. (This took 3 1/2 hours in my 70° kitchen.)

Refrigerate dough overnight (at least 6 hours).

Shaping and final rise
The next morning, remove dough from the refrigerator and let it warm on the counter for an hour or two. It will still be cool to the touch.

While the dough is warming, chop nuts and mix cinnamon sugar if you don't have some on hand (my standard cinnamon sugars is ~3 parts each brown and white sugar to 1 part cinnamon). Also, cut a piece of parchment paper and place it in the container in which the dough will rise.

Flour the counter and scoop dough onto it.

The filling is layered into the dough with two tri-folds — like folding a letter to go into an envelope — first in one direction, then the other. Start by nudging the dough into something resembling a rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with a quarter of the nuts and cinnamon sugar. Fold one third of the dough towards the middle, sprinkle with a little more of the goodies. Fold the other third over.

Let the dough rest for a few minutes. It should relax back into a rectangle, more or less. Rotate the dough a quarter turn and repeat the topping process.

Gently place the dough on the parchment and let rise until doubled in bulk. This may take a long time (4-5 hours).

When the dough is about half-risen, put the covered baking container in the oven and preheat it at 450F (230C) for at least 45 minutes, although an hour is better. (I used a 2 1/2 qt, 7 inch wide Calphalon saucepan.) If you have a baking stone, place the pan on the stone to heat.

Baking
Once the dough has doubled in size, place it in the baking pan by lifting the corners of the parchment with the dough on it. Lowering it into the baking pan and cover. Bake for 30 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 400F (205C) and uncover the pan. (If you have a stone, remove the pan from oven and finish baking on the stone.) Continue baking until crust is dark brown and the loaf sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom, approximately 30-40 minutes. An instant read thermometer should register 210F (99C). Let cool completely on rack.

Not surprisingly, this makes excellent toast.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | noKnead bread | oatmeal bread

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Beth: Pizza crust 2

Just a quick note to talk about the 'wetness' of my crust. I've talked with a few folks about their experience and have come to a couple of conclusions.

First, I underestimated you all and I apologize for that. I had this really wet dough and thought I'd adjust it a bit for sane people. So I reduced the water from 1 3/4 cups to 1 1/2, tweaked the rest a bit and published it.

What a fool I am.

You all clearly are not sane! Anyone who doubts that can go read the comment thread on my first pizza post, down towards the end where the subject turns to pickles on pizza and sandwiches. Grilled pineapple sandwiches. That was just the beginning.

Also, I know my dough is wetter than what people describe, even with the decreased amount of water. I made several batches and it was pretty darned wet. Then I was talking to one of our breadies and it dawned on me.
I live in a fog valley at the edge of a rain forest.

Seriously, we get 120 inches of rain a year here in evenTinierTown. That's ten feet. Ten feet!

Why would this matter? Well, flour is absorbent and my air is wet. I'm guessing that this means my flour, thus my dough, is just wetter than most people's, even given the same measurements.

So for those of you who live in a drier climate - meaning everyone except Ariel the mermaid - feel free to add a bit of extra water (1/4 cup | 2 ounces | 56 grams) to get that fog valley effect. You may want to add a smidge of extra salt or swap olive oil instead of some of the additional water.

Then again, you may want pickles on your pizza...can't help you with that.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan <| bread baking | TAGNAME

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Beth: Pizza Dough

Anyone who has been reading my writing for long probably knows that, while I think recipes have their place, I tend towards a somewhat improvisational approach to much of my cooking, including bread. After three decades, I possess a certain confidence when it comes to judging dough by feel. While this makes it simple for me to adjust, or even create, recipes on the fly, it means I am starting from a disadvantage here since I haven't written a lot of recipes down.

When I realized this had to change, I started by writing up what I knew of my pizza dough off the top of my head:

"Measure" 3/4 cup of water into bowl, pour about ~1/2 tsp yeast in my palm to measure it, toss that into water, stir. Add a couple of scoops of flour (~1 1/2 cups) and mix. Add more flour a little at a time until it feels right.Let it rest for a few minutes. Drizzle in some olive oil and sprinkle on some salt. Then knead it for a couple of minutes adding enough flour to make a very soft dough. Walk away again for a few minutes, come back and knead a few more minutes. Fridge. Bake.

Not very useful, is it?

My next thought was to reverse engineer some directions for what I normally do by feel. I made a few batches of crust, weighing as I went along and came up with something that resembled a pizza crust. Then I read Kevin's recipe and started wondering about what I'd come up with.

Dough: rest and motion

How would you like a simple technique that gives you better bread with less work?

Here it is: Step away from the dough.

Not forever mind you, just for a bit. After mixing the dough, but before kneading it, put your feet up and have a cup of tea. Come back in half an hour. (I know it has been long enough when my arms feel rested enough to knead the dough.)

This resting period, called an autolyse (aut-oh-lees), gives the flour time to fully hydrate. During this time, glutenin and gliadin - the two proteins in flour that combine to form gluten molecules—bond. Kneading time is reduced substantially because the flour is fully hydrated before you start, and gluten bonding has already begun. Kneading flour also causes oxidation, resulting in bleaching, along with loss of beta-carotene and a bit of flavor, so this improves the flavor of your bread as well.

Salt, which inhibits hydration and gluten development is often left out until after an autolyse, as is any old dough. These ingredients are incorporated while kneading the dough after the autolyse.

Less work for better bread—this is truly a transformative addition to any bread baker's bag of tricks. Some might call it magical.

See, my dough is wet. Not just a little wet, really wet.

To grab an example, Kevin's pizza crust uses ~10 oz of liquid to ~18 oz of flour, whereas I use 13 oz of liquid to roughly the same amount of flour. Like I said, it's wet.

Don't let that scare you away, though. While this dough is a bit sloppy to work with and requires a bit of faith the first time you bake it, it's not as slack as the infamous no-knead bread everyone—maybe even you—is baking. Because this dough is so wet, it is more extensible (stretchy) and tolerant (resistant to breaking down) than a lot of other recipes. Better yet, and a critical payoff to this approach, is that it is incredibly tolerant of delay, which you can plan to fit your schedule.

This dough also employs cold fermentation, which is when a bit of magic happens. During the first fermentation of any bread dough, enzymes are broken out of the flour, releasing sugars and flavor. Normally, with bread rising at room temperature or warmer, these sugars are gobbled up by the yeast so you only get a hint of those flavors in the resulting bread.

Not so with this technique. Cold dough means the yeast is sleeping (shhhhh) and can't eat a darned thing! All those lovely sugars that give bread its flavor and beautiful caramelized crust. are yours to enjoy when the bread is baked. Keeping the dough cold also makes it a bit easier to work with, as I wrote about while experimenting with the very wet no-knead bread. (and it even rises slowly, as you can see from this picture of dough that was refrigerated for about 36 hours)

I usually make this dough the night before I want to bake it. It takes about 10-15 minutes (spread out over an hour or two) after which the dough is refrigerated until shortly before baking. The dough needs at least half a dozen hours to ferment after mixing, and can tolerate up to 3 days before baking. Unused dough freezes well too, (see my notes on freezing at the end of this article)

Finishing the pizza takes an hour or so from when you hit the front door after work. This is mostly determined by the time it takes to heat your pizza stone. If you freeze your crust as I describe below, you can even defrost a frozen crust in that same hour. That makes this a great crust for people who are juggling work, kids, blogging, and a social life.

kitchenMage's Overnight Pizza Crust
ice water 1 1/2 c | 355 ml | 12 oz | 340 g
bread flour 4 c | 0.95 l | 18 oz | 500 g
instant yeast 1 tsp | 11 ml | 1/8 oz | 3+ g
olive oil 2 tablespoons | 30 ml | 1 oz | 28 g
salt 1 tsp | 5 ml | 1/4 oz | 8 g

(These directions are for mixing by wand, err, I mean hand. Parenthetical directions are for those of you who are using a stand mixer.)

Mixing the dough

Important: Water temperature matters—the colder, the better. About 15 minutes before starting, combine 1 1/2 cups of water and add a handful of ice cubes. By the time you are ready for it, there will be very cold ice water waiting. Remember to remove any remaining ice before measuring. If you have room in the freezer, you can put the measured flour in it to chill for that same 15 minutes.

In mixing bowl, stir flour and yeast together just to distribute yeast. Add ice water and mix to combine into wet dough, about 1 minute. (mixer: use paddle attachment on low for 30-60 seconds) It will look like sort of like thick, lumpy pancake batter. Cover and stick back in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Remove from refrigerator, drizzle oil on one corner of dough, drop salt on top of the oil, and stir to combine. Turn dough out on well-floured counter and knead for a couple of minutes. (You can add more flour if you need, or want a substantially thicker crust—I do at times—but this is better with less so give it a shot.) Place dough in clean bowl, cover and return to refrigerator for at least 5-6 hours, preferably overnight. (The dough can stay refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

Baking the pizza

When you get home from work, turn on the oven as high as it goes to get the stone really hot. Make sure the stone is in the oven (or is that just me who forgets?) It takes about an hour to thoroughly heat the stone. Fortunately, this is about the same amount of time it takes to finish preparing the crust, toppings and assembling the pizza—even allowing for interruptions from the small people. You can even toss a salad together.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and turn out on floured counter. Divide dough in half (or thirds for smaller pizzas) and refrigerate the portion you will not be using.

With well-floured hands, shape each portion of dough into a flat disc as large as possible without tearing the dough. When the dough starts to shrink back immediately after stretching, let it rest on counter for five minutes before continuing with shaping it.

With a bit of tweaking, this is a fairly versatile crust. If you like cracker-thin pizza, use less dough and stretch it thinner. (Amusingly enough, this is one of the few doughs I make that I can get a good windowpane from.) For thicker, breadier pizza, use a little more dough and stretch it less. (If you like your crust even thicker, go ahead an use more flour, starting with an extra 1/4 cup.)

When the crust is about the right size, place it on a parchment sheet, cover and let rise until you are ready to top it. If you turned on the oven when you took the dough out of the refrigerator, this should be another 30-45 minutes. It will not rise substantially, but it should warm to room temp and poof just a bit in spots.

In honor of theKid, my toppings for this pizza are Canadian bacon and pineapple. She usually adds black olives but I was out. Oh well. I'd say a 12" inch pizza takes 6 ounces of Canadian bacon, 2/3 of a can of pineapple, and a handful of olives. (feed the rest of the pineapple and olives to the kids who are helping you make it)

My standard marinara, which I make in my largest stockpot using cans of crushed tomatoes and herbs from the garden, goes on first. (Sorry there's no recipe for this, but Kevin's tomato sauce looks like it would work just fine if you need one.) Next, I put on the pineapple and olives so they will be underneath the meat and cheese. Half the cheese is next. If I have parmesan, I might grate some over the pizza at this point. Otherwise, I am a mozzarella purist. Following the first part of the cheese is the meat. By leaving the meat partially exposed amongst the cheese, you promote browning on the edges, which is both pretty and flavorful. Finish off with more mozzarella.

(Kevin and I are going to have a throwdown one day about the relative unholiness of each other's pizza toppings. He has been known to snark about pineapple, while I simply can't fathom cheddar cheese on pizza!)

Carefully slide pizza (still on parchment) onto the hot stone. Bake at 500-550 degrees (hotter if your oven does it) for 3-4 minutes then check to see if the pizza needs rotating for even baking. Continue baking until cheese is melted and bottom of crust is brown and of desired crispiness, usually another 4-5 minutes, depending on how carried away you got with the toppings.

Freezing dough

This dough freezes nicely, although I don't know what is up with forming them into little balls first. I shape dough into 5 inch disks so they thaw quickly, leaving you with just a bit of stretching before your crust is ready to top and bake.

When I am in a hurry to thaw a crust, I take advantage of the preheating oven to kick-start my dough by placing a wooden rack over the burner where the heat vents, and putting the peel with the crust on it on top. Once the peel is warmed a bit (about 10-15 minutes), you can move it to a counter to finish it's mini-rise while the oven finishes heating.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | pizza

(my apologies for the wonky image formatting, i don't usually use Blogger and Kevin has this spiffy custom template and I am confused! with any luck, Kevin will come along and fix it before I wake up...and this will all have been a dream...)

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