Thing Eight: Bread
Jun. 4th, 2012 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badseed1980There might be several bread-related entries over the course of this project, but I definitely wanted to write this one up because it involved a small amount of experimentation on my part, and some plotting and pondering about the future.
I went to a friend's birthday party on Saturday from late afternoon through just about midnight. It was a cool, rainy, gloomy day, and with plenty of time before the party, I decided to bake some bread to bring with me. When I was a little kid, my dad had a copy of The Tassajara Bread Book, a bread-and-baked-goods cookbook written by Edward Espe Brown, a Buddhist monk out in California. It was delightfully hippie-ish and entertaining to read. Brown's approach to bread-baking is hardly scientific. He measures in volume, not weight, and makes no comment about protein-to-starch ratios in flour. He talks more about the all-important ingredient of love, and about how you must remember that bread dough is a living thing. This is not a good book for a good bread baker to learn how to perfect their loaves. It is, however, a great book for an intuitive, by-feel, make-it-up-as-you-go-along-type cook like me to get an introduction to making bread.
The basic recipe, Tassajara Yeasted Bread #1, is a whole wheat sandwich loaf that uses nonfat dry milk to lighten the bread up a bit, honey to add sweetness, and olive oil to keep it moist for a bit longer than homemade bread will usually last. It's a good recipe. It demonstrates the steps very well. The bread is good for slicing, and really does make an excellent, hearty sandwich. But...I didn't want to bring sandwich bread. I didn't want to bring a loaf-pan-shaped loaf, either. I wanted a free-form loaf, with a serious crust. I wanted a very basic bread, with flour, water, yeast, and salt, untainted by additions. Well, one addition: I added in a little vital wheat gluten, since I had all-purpose white and whole wheat flour, not bread flours. To help inspire me, I also pulled out my browsed-through-but-as-yet-unused copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day.
Now, I wasn't about to try this wholly-new-to-me method (slow rise, wet dough, and really designed for all white flour) for the first time when I intended to serve this bread to people besides my own household, but I did take some ideas from the book about baking the bread. So, here are the basics of what I did.
1) Proofed yeast in lukewarm water, added half the flour (1/2 white, 1/2 whole wheat). Mixed this "sponge" and let it rise for a while in the oven, where I'd turned the heat on briefly and then turned it off again.
2) Added salt and the rest of the flour. Kneaded. Kneaded some more. Kneaded a bit more than that. Yes, I know there are many no-knead bread recipes out there. Or I could get a bread machine and let it do the work. I like kneading bread. It gives me a chance to really feel the dough, to get to know it, to learn its behavior and characteristics.
3) Popped it back in the oven to rise again. Took it out, punched it down, and back in the oven.
4) Cut the dough in half (it was a two-loaf recipe) and shaped each half into a boule. Sprinled cornmeal on my big cutting board, put the loaves on there, and let them rest and rise for a bit longer. Dusted the tops of the loaves with white flour. Slashed the tops. Slid them onto the pizza stone. Poured a cup of water into the broiler tray.
5) Brought out two GORGEOUS loaves of bread. Let them cool on a rack. Brought them to the party to serve with good butter. Only one got eaten, which means I got to bring the second loaf home to stick in the freezer for later! This was my best yet, I think. I'm really proud of it.
Now I'm seriously considering trying the ABIFMAD method all the way, with the wet dough that lives in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks. I think, though, that I should probably get the book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day by the same authors, since I really do prefer to have most of my grain intake be in the form of whole grains, and that book has recipes with more of a whole grain focus.
I should have taken a picture of the bread before I posted this, but I didn't have time before the party. Sorry!
I went to a friend's birthday party on Saturday from late afternoon through just about midnight. It was a cool, rainy, gloomy day, and with plenty of time before the party, I decided to bake some bread to bring with me. When I was a little kid, my dad had a copy of The Tassajara Bread Book, a bread-and-baked-goods cookbook written by Edward Espe Brown, a Buddhist monk out in California. It was delightfully hippie-ish and entertaining to read. Brown's approach to bread-baking is hardly scientific. He measures in volume, not weight, and makes no comment about protein-to-starch ratios in flour. He talks more about the all-important ingredient of love, and about how you must remember that bread dough is a living thing. This is not a good book for a good bread baker to learn how to perfect their loaves. It is, however, a great book for an intuitive, by-feel, make-it-up-as-you-go-along-type cook like me to get an introduction to making bread.
The basic recipe, Tassajara Yeasted Bread #1, is a whole wheat sandwich loaf that uses nonfat dry milk to lighten the bread up a bit, honey to add sweetness, and olive oil to keep it moist for a bit longer than homemade bread will usually last. It's a good recipe. It demonstrates the steps very well. The bread is good for slicing, and really does make an excellent, hearty sandwich. But...I didn't want to bring sandwich bread. I didn't want to bring a loaf-pan-shaped loaf, either. I wanted a free-form loaf, with a serious crust. I wanted a very basic bread, with flour, water, yeast, and salt, untainted by additions. Well, one addition: I added in a little vital wheat gluten, since I had all-purpose white and whole wheat flour, not bread flours. To help inspire me, I also pulled out my browsed-through-but-as-yet-unused copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day.
Now, I wasn't about to try this wholly-new-to-me method (slow rise, wet dough, and really designed for all white flour) for the first time when I intended to serve this bread to people besides my own household, but I did take some ideas from the book about baking the bread. So, here are the basics of what I did.
1) Proofed yeast in lukewarm water, added half the flour (1/2 white, 1/2 whole wheat). Mixed this "sponge" and let it rise for a while in the oven, where I'd turned the heat on briefly and then turned it off again.
2) Added salt and the rest of the flour. Kneaded. Kneaded some more. Kneaded a bit more than that. Yes, I know there are many no-knead bread recipes out there. Or I could get a bread machine and let it do the work. I like kneading bread. It gives me a chance to really feel the dough, to get to know it, to learn its behavior and characteristics.
3) Popped it back in the oven to rise again. Took it out, punched it down, and back in the oven.
4) Cut the dough in half (it was a two-loaf recipe) and shaped each half into a boule. Sprinled cornmeal on my big cutting board, put the loaves on there, and let them rest and rise for a bit longer. Dusted the tops of the loaves with white flour. Slashed the tops. Slid them onto the pizza stone. Poured a cup of water into the broiler tray.
5) Brought out two GORGEOUS loaves of bread. Let them cool on a rack. Brought them to the party to serve with good butter. Only one got eaten, which means I got to bring the second loaf home to stick in the freezer for later! This was my best yet, I think. I'm really proud of it.
Now I'm seriously considering trying the ABIFMAD method all the way, with the wet dough that lives in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks. I think, though, that I should probably get the book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day by the same authors, since I really do prefer to have most of my grain intake be in the form of whole grains, and that book has recipes with more of a whole grain focus.
I should have taken a picture of the bread before I posted this, but I didn't have time before the party. Sorry!
