Julie and Julia

Went to see Julie and Julia last night. LOVED it! Really inspired you to cook and blog and so here I am. Not much bread inspiration provided per se. In fact you only see her (both hers) buying bread, not baking it. I think it might be time for me to try making Jan's bread. But now I can't find the recipe. Anyone know where I can find it...

Cruel Twist of Fate

It's been so long since I've been baking bread that I have had much of anything to bread blog about. But I have been continuing to see my Dad weekly. We have a routine now that goes... arrive in time for lunch at the Freedom Village lunch counter, short financial discussion or dr's visit, grocery shopping, and dinner at a suburban chain restaurant then drive home. The restaurant thing is a bit of a negotiation each time but we seem to be in a rotation of Carrabas, Outback, and Bonefish. I think they may even all be owned by the same chain.

So this week Outback came back up to the top of the list again. Anyone eaten there? Remember their bread? Know where this story is going? For those of you who have sworn off chain restaurants, Outback serves a signature loaf of warm dark brown bread.

After a semi-painful dinner in which my Dad sent almost everything back to the kitchen and then didn't really eat much of the newly perfected dish, we of course asked for a box to take the rest home. As I'm boxing up the steak my Dad says "oh and put the bread in there too." "Oh, you like this bread do you?"

I couldn't resist. I confronted him about not liking my bread. He feigned lack of memory. Or said he didn't remember it that way. Or something. The conversation concluded with my Dad declaring that "it was a long time ago". Gah!

Well I'm still not making him bread, but now I'm mad I let that stop me from being enthusiastic about my bread baking. Now excuse me, I have to go bake some bread. And it's not pumpernickel.

Acceptance

Ugh. I guess I've finally accepted that making food for my Dad really may not ever be something he will enjoy. I think Jen's right about nonagenarians. But it makes me a little sad.

So I think I'll keep baking for me. Try to find an everyday multi-grain bread recipe I can adopt. And if I really need an enthusiastic audience, I'll try out the recipes in the 'baking for dogs' chapter. I'm not sure it's possible to bake something bad enough to be rejected by Maisy. After all, she joyously eats stale bread off the sidewalk after it's been stepped on by tourists and turned into mush by the rain.

And I will admit that I kind of like blogging. I could stand a little more interactivity though. :) I guess we'll just go with a slightly more random selection of topics. But still a good dose of bread as I try to follow my own bread path towards something other than pumpernickel.

Denouement?

I was chatting with Jan last night and she asked how the bread project from the weekend went. The bread turned out great. But the reaction I got from my Dad was roughly "i don't want any bread".

Ok, so he didn't exactly say I don't want any bread, but that's what he meant. It was more like "i don't really eat much bread". This was after I had pretty much forced him to taste the bread. There was also a very obligatory sounding "very good". My Dad is nothing if not polite. :)

So I promised Jan a little self-analysis on the blog, since it seems clear that my making bread for Dad only appeals to one of us. And it really was very well intentioned. And I did learn how to bake bread (for the most part). And I still have the impulse to bring him a little something homemade when I visit each week. I guess I should just accept that it's at least 50% for me. There's not much else I can do for him that gives us both a little enjoyment. While taking him to the Dr. is very useful, it's not super fun.

That places us squarely at the "and what now?' point of this project. I see three options:
Option 1- keep going on bread making for myself and search for a recipe and routine that can create my everyday bread.
Option 2- start exploring stuff to make for my dad that he'd actually receive enthusiastically.
Option 3- The END

Really they're all independent decisions in some way. Could do options 1 and 2 but stop blogging. Could end the bread baking and focus my energy on proteins that travel and reheat well. (I jokingly suggested homemade gefilte fish. Do not joke about this with a NY Jew. It leads to disappointment.) Could give up on the idea that taking my Dad food is useful. Could keep blogging on option 1 or 2 and silently pursue the other.

LOVE some feedback! Worth keeping the blog going? (hello silent readers...) If so, keep bread as the theme or follow the "feeding Dad" path? Or bail on the blog and keep plugging away at feeding Dad? Just become a personal baker? Your thoughts?

The Moment

I've been gone from the bread blog for a while, but now's the moment to return to bread baking. Starting up a new consulting practice has been a little consuming, but I think I've got it under control. Now I go to visit my Dad on Mondays, and work from home when I need to otherwise. This would seem to point towards Sunday bread baking.

So tomorrow's going to be the moment in which I attempt to make good on the mission of Towards Pumpernickel and deliver a loaf of black bread to my Dad. And it's the beginning of new efforts towards integrating bread baking into a life routine. I was away from bread baking long enough that I needed to buy some commercial bread and it just seemed wrong.

Today I'm going to make the bread start to finish. Ideally I'd like to try baking the shaped loaf on Monday morning before I go. But I don't think I'll start there. I want to know I'll have a loaf to take with me. Now entering, Towards Pumpernickel stage 3.

Validation

Yup, my take on the 3rd try has been validated.
From Davina... "The breat is AMAZING--just perfect! Yay! "
See, I didn't even fix the typo. :)

Going to see Dad on Monday. I will definitely make the bread on Sunday night. True test!

Third Time's a Charm!

Russian black bread #3 is now in the record books. Received (by me) with much fanfare. Old adage "third time's a charm" is now confirmed. (or "third time lucky" for you Brits)

Made the recipe using All Bran cereal instead of straight wheat bran. Perfect middle ground between the prior two recipes. Finally got the right texture. And no extra bran in the teeth afterwards! I thought maybe the sugar in the cereal would make the bread sweet. Not at all. It just perfectly rounded out the flavor. I don't personally think of russian black bread as a favorite, but I really like this. Have we arrived "At Pumpernickel"? Hmmm....

The bread fairy has done her work. We'll have to see if Davina agrees.

Bread Fairy

On Saturday night I had a great girls night out. We went to The Capital Grille and I got all excited when the bread basket came and there was a raisin pumpernickel prominently displayed. I had to try it immediately, and I have to say it's not half bad with a stoli doli. :)

That led to a conversation about this bread project with my two friends; one who has been actively involved (Davina) and the other who knew nothing about it (Sue). Very ironic that it worked out that way since Davina is the one usually on some lo carb thing avoiding bread, and Sue is an unabashed bread lover, maybe even her favorite food. So I took it as genuine interest when she started asking questions about the ins and outs of the project. Not that I was going to be shy in talking about it; i've written 27 posts so far even though I think the number of both readers and comments is probably under 10. It seems I'm ok with just waxing on and on about this.

Really my Dad was pretty uninterested when I tried to talk to him about it. He did show some more interest when I actually arrived with bread. But to be fair I had him admitted to the hospital the next morning because he was so weak, in part from lack of appetite. I'm happy to say that he's quickly gained back 5 lbs of the 10 he lost while on the drugs that sent him to the hospital and he's definitely eating again. So it seems the time is right to deliver the next loaf.

Davina called me the "bread fairy". She described the fun of discovering fresh baked bread at her door at random moments. I totally LOVE being called the bread fairy. I might even claim it for my own use - self-declared bread fairy. Could even show up as my user name or new handle on some online dating site. :) Hope my Dad comes to see me as a bread fairy too.

Pumpernickel round 2

It's been a while since I baked some bread so it was good to get back to that. I've been with my Dad who was back in the hospital and then moved to a rehab center. In all this his appetite is way down and for a while I thought I'd missed my window. But happily he reports that now he's off the bad cancer drugs, his appetite is coming back. Yay!

So as soon as I got home, I wanted to try the pumpernickel again. My cuisinart did better with a single loaf and got it partially kneaded. But it bogged down again. Luckily at a much later stage. This time it may have been my fault for not adding enough flour prior to trying to knead. I seem to have misjudged when one can consider this dough to be riding the blade and cleaning the sides of the bowl. The recipe called for a 15 minute rest before kneading and after that the dough no longer seemed like it had enough flour. I also used less wheat bran but I'm not sure how much impact that had.

Anyhow I just finished it up by working in the remaining bread flour as I kneaded it by hand. Had a very nice rise. This time the texture was different. Can't decide if it was better. There was more gluten development and the bread was more open and less grainy. So I don't think I really need to try the recipe adding vital gluten. I just need to make sure and knead it fully and allow a full rise. It didn't have that problem with feeling like there was too much bran, but it also seemed much more like a generic pumpernickel rather than a black russian bread. Possibly that was because I reduced the onion powder (i found it a little overpowering before). Probably because I cut the wheat bran in half. I think it would still be worthwhile to try it using All Bran cereal, rather than the plain wheat bran.

On to round 3.

Diving In

How many of you thought I'd nail the perfect pumpernickel on the first try? Just me? No, not even me. But all things considered it was not bad. I predict 3rd time will be the charm. :)

I was worried that the recipe might be too big for my food processor and that proved to be true. When the kneading should have been starting, my cuisinart was grinding to a halt. It was still very sticky as you can see from the dough left in the work bowl when I pulled the dough. Had to knead it by hand! As you know, I haven't been doing any hand kneading. So the odds that I underkneaded it are very high.



Despite that, the loaves turned out pretty well. Got an ok rise, with a medium crust. The flavor is pretty good too.



I would prefer more chewiness which was mentioned in the recipe intro. Also I think it has too much bran. I felt like I had traces of residual bran in my mouth after I ate it.

Next time...
1- Halve the recipe to make one loaf at a time. My cuisinart should be able to handle that.
2- Reduce the amount of wheat bran.

Next next time...
1- possibly play with adding some gluten
2- maybe try All Bran instead of straight wheat bran

But I'm open to suggestions! If you have ideas about what to play around with, I'm all ears. But I'm no longer a pumpernickel virgin.

Rye Flour Revealed

As I'm getting things organized for my black bread baking, I decided out of curiousity that I would check out my pumpernickel flour. I opened the bag up and thought, huh, that looks just like the stone ground rye flour that I have. So I went and got that bag to compare. Yup, they look and feel almost identical. In fact the pumpernickel seems a bit more finely ground than the stone ground rye. Hmmm.

So then I decided to open up the medium rye flour for comparison. Wow, what a difference. Much less grainy. About half way between a white flour texture and the other two. That explains why some the rye recipes I tried that were intended for medium rye didn't do too hot with the stone ground rye. Big difference.

Maybe I'm getting a little more understanding of the baker blogger who said there were no standards for rye flour and it varied by brand quite a bit. My pumpernickel and medium rye is from King Arthur and my stone ground rye is from Hodgson Mills. I'm sure there could still be real differences in how the pumpernickel and stone ground rye bake up (i don't think i can tell the difference between bread flour and all purpose by look and feel). For now though, I'm just going to hope I have discovered a way to effectively get pumpernickel flour without mail order!

Psyching up for Pumpernickel

That's right, I'm getting ready to try pumpernickel. Actually I'm getting ready to try making russian black bread. That's really my Dad's favorite. Not that he cares.

I was visiting him for Easter and thought I'd mention the bread project. I hoped to get some feedback about preferred flavors and textures of bread. I told him what I was doing with the project and he was totally unphased, uninterested, and inappropriately lacking a reaction. Kind of a deflating response really. But I guess my Dad's never been a big talker, and maybe actual bread will get the reaction. I really hope I haven't missed my window of opportunity on that too. He seems to have lost his appetite over the last month. Maybe this will tempt it back?

I did manage to confirm...
1- Yes, black bread is favorite
2- Prefer heavier breads
3- Don't like anything too sweet
4- Prefer more rustic texture to even
I had to persevere when he tried to change the subject to closed-end bond funds, but I got the info!

Now I've worked this first black bread attempt a bit too much in my mind. Been searching for alternative recipes but all online recommendations seem to lead back to two recipes, one of which is in my Bernard Clayton book. So that's the one I'm going with. All the shopping is done for the gajillion ingredients. The mail order pumpernickel flour arrived. Only one ingredient question remains - what does he mean by "whole bran cereal"? I've seen adaptations that use All Bran, and ones that seem to just drop the word "cereal" and use "wheat bran". Hmmm. Well I won't give up on this recipe if it's not the great success the first time around. I'll blame it on being a bran novice.

Just a little bit of rye

I've been a bit remiss in posting about my success with rye. Maybe that's because it was only a little bit of rye. I went for a recipe that specified stone ground or dark rye, and only a small percentage of the flour at that. It also used a sponge which I got to try for the first time.

For anyone not familiar with a sponge, it's really a quicker, single use starter. Or at least that's how I think of it. You put a small amount of flour and water together with your yeast and you let it ferment for several hours. It's supposed to look quite bubbly when it's ready to be used in your recipe and it comes together faster than building a true starter that you can continue to grow. It kind of reminded me of the technique for the no knead bread; as if the whole dough for the no knead bread is kind of treated like a sponge to develop the flavor and gluten.

The bread was called an "old fashioned rye" which may be a bit of a misnomer. It's from a whole grain bread book with lots of other rye breads. This one was really more like a very flavorful country boule. Texture entirely like a light french style bread with soft interior, with the rye really just adding extra flavor. Makes sense since it was mostly bread flour.

Of course I don't have pictures; again. This is extra pathetic because I even moved the digital camera down to a drawer in the kitchen to avoid this. At least the bread was good.

Rye = FAIL, take 2

This was actually worse than the first rye failure. The first failed rye at least had a nice flavor. This time, not so much. I could describe the fail in detail, but too depressing. So I've been trying to determine what the big problem is. And I've got a theory.

As I've been looking at different recipes etc. I've learned that there are different types of rye flour. One good description can be found on The Fresh Loaf, a community site for serious home bread bakers. Sometimes recipes specify what kind of rye flour to use, but the recipes I was using didn't. I've been using stone ground rye. As someone explained in that post, it's the most commonly available in the US. However, it may not the be most commonly assumed in recipes. Once I started exploring a bit more, I realized that Bernard Clayton seems to mean medium rye when he says "rye flour". And only rarely does he specifically indicate stone ground rye. This seems to be very personal based on what brands of flour the recipe writer buys. Apparently there are no standards for rye flour. So medium rye or stone ground can vary a lot by brand.

So I'm going to try two things. First i'm going to try some recipes that specify stone ground rye. Second I'm going to buy some medium rye and some pumpernickel flour so I can start experimenting. Ok, I already have ordered them from King Arthur with my lovely gift certificate. Maybe I should just try a recipe for pumpernickel using pumpernickel flour. No screwing around with more vague rye recipes. When the pumpernickel flour arrives anyhow.

Cheater Rye Success

Despite the advice doled out by friends on what to expect from a rye dough, I decided to see for myself. So I kind of cheated and used a rye mix from Hodgson Mills. It's intended for bread machines but can be used for oven baking. And all the proportions of flours are pre-measured for you. I suspected that might be one of my problems, since I'm not measuring by weight. And it's sized for one loaf, so that might also be a bit easier on my food processor motor.

I adapted the instructions to the typical method employed with my food processor recipes. I put all dry ingredients into the food processor, including the yeast. Cut the butter into the dry. Then poured in warm/hot water until the dough formed a ball that cleaned the sides, then 45 seconds of machine kneading. When the dough came out it was stickier than a white bread but still totally manageable as a ball of dough. Tada. Mission accomplished?

The bread turned out nicely. In fact I really like the flavor. Although it was marketed as having the flavor of deli rye, I have to disagree. It had neither the texture or flavor of deli rye, but it had a really nice multi-grain flavor with good rye notes and a teeny bit of sweetness. Definitely no rye sour flavor. It was not chewy really, so perhaps could have used more kneading, but I think the texture is fine for a heavier whole grain bread.

The ingredients were different than my first take at rye bread... unbleached white, a little malted barley flour, whole grain rye flour, whole grain wheat flour, sugar, vital wheat gluten, soy flour, caraway seeds, and salt. I guess that explains the flavor profile. I did also buy some vital wheat gluten since it seems to keep popping up in whole grain recipes.

Well now that I've had a successful rye dough experience, I'll try going back to recipes that will lead me soon towards pumpernickel. But I'd use this mix again - the marketer in me would just rename it.

Get moving

I've spent the last few days at the Brandywine Hospital. My Dad suddenly was going to the hospital on Sunday morning and I drove up to be with him. Luckily it wasn't life threatening. All that time sitting around waiting, doing nothing at the hospital gave me time to think.

I had better get this bread project moving towards pumpernickel pronto. By the time I come up with a really enjoyable loaf, I still want time to replicate many times for my Dad. And given the unpredicable nature of things, that means I should speed things up. Not that I'm going to skip lots of steps. Just lets get those steps going in rapid succession.

Rye, take 1

As I said, it was time for rye. And my confidence was bolstered by recent successes. But the wisdom of my "work up to the pumpernickel" philosophy was brought home to me with my attempt at onion rye.

I got the recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I was drawn in by the description of it as an easy rye bread recipe. It did not turn out as I hoped. The flavor was a nice oniony taste. But it had an incredibly tough crust and it didn't produce a good rise. The slash marks I put on before putting it into the oven didn't budge at all and looked exactly the same when the loaf came out.

As to what went wrong...so many options, so little time. Might have kneaded too long or too little in the food processor. This recipe was written only for the food processor so I didn't think I'd run into that type of problem. Might not have let the dough rise long enough?

I don't think I'll try this one again right now. Chalk it up as a learning experience and move on. I'm pretty sure that it will be a learning experience once I have a more successful rye experience to compare it to. What does a good rye dough feel like?

Redo and leftovers

I decided to try the no-knead recipe again with the wheat flour. Not that I've eaten all the bread from the last loaf, but it gets stale pretty fast.

Turns out that my big problem from before must have been the water problem. I was much more careful this time. My first mix showed the dough to be dry again. But I just added a smaller increment of water and was careful to only add enough to make the dough sticky. Turned out much better since I didn't have to keep working the dough. More tender crust, better rise.

Now I have nice fresh bread to eat. So what to do with the stale bread? Too much for the dog or toast. The answer: Tuscan bread soup! Very good stuff. Basically a variation on tomato soup with croutons. Consult Daily Soup cookbook.

Going Shopping

Having a birthday in the midst of a bread project is a great opportunity! I'm now armed with a gift card for both Sur La Table and King Arthur flour. So cool.
When I saw the catalog from King Arthur in my mailbox today I thought, "wow they've got great list management. How did they know I'd be so happy to get this right now?". Then I figured out it was a gift. Did I say "so cool"? When did I get so excited about flour?
I definitely need to order some pumpernickel flour. I think it's time to start trying rye breads. It's time.

Almost replicated

No-knead wheat is generally a success I think. A few noticeable differences with my prior version...
- similar texture inside but a little denser.
- thicker crust
- a little saltier

I suspect some of the texture changes were related to the wetness of the dough and the extra handling I had to do during shaping as a result. It really was wetter than the white dough; the dish towel that the dough rose on was quite damp afterward. Can't figure out the saltiness part. I'm really not sure that using some wheat flour should really have this much impact, so I'm going to assume it's more about the water and technique that created the changes.

Happy that the crust still did it's crackling thing. But wow, do I need a decent bread knife. It's actually dangerous how the knife kind of slides right off. Watch your fingers!

The Doubts Creep In

I'm back from my job-hunting trip to Boston. What better way to make you feel like you're home than to resume the bread baking. So my first day back I decide to see if I could replicate the success of the No-Knead bread. And I threw in a small twist of replacing some of the white flour with wheat.

So I simply enough mixed up the batch with 1/3 wheat flour, 2/3 bread flour. When I mixed it up the dough was a little dry. It's supposed to be sticky and it wasn't. So I added a little more water and thought I'd probably gauged the amount well. In fact I remember thinking, hey I've learned some things!

Well 24 hours later, I'm thinking I've still got a lot to learn. The dough is just too sticky and loose and I really couldn't get it into what I would really call a "ball". But I don't know if that's due to too much water or the wheat flour or letting it sit too long. (It calls for 18 hours, but due to birthday party hangover it went 24) So then in the process of trying to shape it, more flour got added but that still didn't really make that much impact. Hmmm.

Well I'm going ahead with the rest of the process and we'll just see how it turns out. Not really sure at all what to expect. Any of you who would like to attempt a diagnosis on the dough without pictures, please weigh in. Can't do pictures with a hangover.

The First Bread Tasting

I was very excited to have friends over last night for a bread tasting! The idea was to get the newly baked bread consumed by friends, and get some constructive suggestions from those that are bakers. There were two different breads to taste, compare, comment on etc. Of course that sets up the head to head battle. Although it wasn't terribly competitive. One won hands down.

I had a Cuban bread and the famous No-Knead bread. No-Knead bread easily turned in a definitive victory. Really I never envisioned that this project would produce bread of that quality. Ever.

Jan and Charles were ready to go out and buy an expensive oven to replicate the bread until I said that the fancy oven didn't have anything to do with it. It was the Le Creuset dutch oven that provided all the magic. And it was magical. So I promised Jan and Steph that I would repost the recipe for the No-Knead bread. Now let me say a little more about it.

It had an awesome crispy crust that wasn't too thick, with a lovely holey moist, and slightly chewy center. Like the best restaurant bread you get. When i took it out to cool, it started making a crackling sound. That made me a little worried thinking maybe my bread was collapsing, so I immediately started searching around on the web. Turns out, that's a very desirable trait; much sought after by bakers. Who knew! I even found other blogs of people who said "i never knew i could make bread this good. It even crackled!" So there... I'm not that original but neither is my experience some crazy outlier.

It seems like the special technique aspects of the the bread are thus. First it's got a high water to flour ratio that allows it to develop without kneading if left alone for 12-18 hours. The second big trick is that it's cooked in a heated dutch oven. Apparently this simulates somehow a commercial baking oven. Like having hot oven tiles all around and with steam trapped in there as long as the lid is on. Or that's the way I internalized what I read about it. Really if you have the slightest interest in baking, and you have a good heavy dutch oven, you should try this at least once! If I wasn't headed towards pumpenickel, I might just concede that I'll probably never make better bread than this and happily stay here. Oh, and get a new bread knife. That old cheap knife that was perfectly ok on soft bread could not stand up to the perfect loaf as Charles so rightly pointed out.

I feel a little bad for the Cuban loaf. Really if I hadn't made the other bread, I would have been pretty happy with how it turned out for my first loaf made without any fat. The pictures were in the prior post... very pretty dark brown blossom. Can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the No-Knead. And it was all gone pretty fast so no leftovers to photograph either. I guess I'll have to do it again, if not for photos then just to prove that I can.

Beyond Sandwich

Well the family hit the road this morning and I've been making bread ever since I finished cleaning up. I have friends coming over for a "bread tasting" tonight. (Well some think they're just coming for a drink) So I decided ahead of time I would make two types of bread, neither of them sandwich loaves. I made Cuban bread and am also revisiting the no knead bread. And just to be safe, I bought a baguette as back up!

The Cuban bread is done, so I'll focus on that one. It's a really fast bread. Superquick rise, supposedly only 15 mins from knead to shaping. It took me a little longer than that, but still only about 25. It actually does it's 2nd rise in the oven as it warms up from cold.

This was my first time working with water/steam in pursuit of a chewier/crustier crust. This recipe called for brushing with water before going into the oven and then also having a pan of water below while it baked. Produced pretty loaves with a very dark crust. Sadly I missed the part where it said to grease the sheet or use parchment. So the bottom adhered VERY strongly to the baking sheet and I could get it off to cool. I had to scrape them off after they had cooled. So no nice crusty bottom after that. But the top stayed pretty crusty and is also somewhat chewy. I wonder how much that problem affected the loaf overall...

We'll see how it compares to the no knead once we have the bread tasting!

Btw - if anyone knows how to move photos to later in a post using a Mac, please let me know. User error i'm sure!

Cuisinart wheat

Yay, back to baking bread. The project lives!

I wanted to have some bread for Bev and Nick when they arrived. So I thought a wheat version of sandwich bread would be a good choice. So I made the Cuisinart recipe for Classic Wheat.

Got to play with some variations on the white sandwich loaf; it was about half all purpose and half wheat flour. The white loaf I found really easy to judge the liquid/dry balance by adding a little flour at a time. But this recipe had you put in all the flour and then slowly add liquid. I found this to be a little harder. I added too liquid and then had to go back to add more flour in. But it was easier to figure out since I could compare to the prior loaf. I worried that maybe I ended up kneading too much since I had to let it run longer to get the right ball of dough but it doesn't seem to have mattered. Not sure if any of this was because of the wheat flour, but nothing all that obvious to me.

I also got to shape the loaf and fix some of those problems from the last time. Definitely worked better to shape it using the jelly roll method. And since Jackie asked, I've provided a photo this time!

So how did it taste? Well this was the quote from Nick... "I like it Auntie. I really like things that don't taste like anything!" So it was good as a learning experience and practice, and it's still nice fresh bread. But flavor-wise I'd make the white bread again instead or try a new recipe.

PS - Turns out that this bread is tastier once toasted.

All Systems Go!

Woohoo! Oven is fixed! Need I say more?

Waiting

Even the best of intentions cannot keep a bread baking blogger in good form without access to an oven. So I've taken a little break. But the parts for the oven arrived and now I'm just waiting for the repair guy to show up today! Two big springs for the oven door and a new locking mechanism. I did get a call from A&E repair to tell me I was scheduled at the end of the route and possibly the guy might arrive a little after the window. Not great, but at least pretty good customer service to call and tell you ahead of time.

Think I might have a wheat bread dough ready to go if I can figure out the timing. Would be nice to have some fresh bread cooling when my sister and nephew arrive this afternoon. It's not Irish soda bread, but might go fine with corned beef and cabbage, a little butter slathered on top. Yum.

Food Processor learning

I'm starting to discover that a large percentage of baking books don't include instructions for making their recipes with a food processor. A lot only cover a stand mixer and/or by hand. Of course some highly referenced bread baking books do document a master recipe/technique that relies on a food processor exclusively (see the Best Bread Ever). I've decided to try a wheat bread recipe developed by Cuisinart. Recipe designed from scratch for the food processor.

One things that's very cool about the processor is that the kneading time is almost always 45 or 60 seconds. Superfast. What I've also found is that new high end Cuisinarts now have a dough kneading setting. Apparently with a dense dough, standard models can stall and you have to give the motor a rest. The dough setting moves at a slightly slower rate to avoid stalling.

Who knows, maybe I'll decide I can't live without a stand mixer. Maybe I'll become a food processor devotee. Anything could happen! Of course, that would require me to bake some actual bread. :) Soon, soon.

No neighbor

I had real expectations of bread baking this week. Then I discovered that my neighbor had left town for the week. So I think that's that for this week. No oven. If I'm really desperate, maybe I'll make dough here, and take it with me in the car to my Dad's on Friday and bake it there. Sounds like a lot of work. :(

By the way, I did find another suggestion about proofing bread. Boil water in a measuring cup or small bowl and put it into the microwave with the dough. Don't turn on the microwave, just use it as nice place where the warmth and humidity from the water can be sealed in with the dough to rise. Nice idea.

More investigations on proofing

This has been a weekend without any bread baking. But I have been doing more research on bread making technique and recipes as I try to decide what loaf to make next.

First I talked with Jan about some of my dilemmas. I'm always so impressed how often she bakes her go-to loaf of bread. One thing she keyed me into was that in order to find a warm spot to proof bread, she heats up her over for a minute and then turns it off. Sticks the dough in a earthenware bowl that she's warmed up with warm water and then dried. And this creates her nice proofing environment in her oven. I may try this method even though I have the proof setting on the oven. Need a second pan filled with water to go into the oven is annoying enough to me that the proofing setting might not fly for me.

I also followed Aimee's advice to check out Cook's Illustrated. They have a lot of nice short articles about exactly the kind of technique questions I've been asking. One thing I noticed is that they recommend all purpose flour for food processor versions of some recipes where they use bread flour for the stand mixer version. Interesting... not sure how universally applicable that is but worth understanding. They even have an article on what true pumpernickel bread is. Could throw many new questions into the hopper, but I'm not going there yet!

They also suggest the "warm up the oven" method of Jan's for proofing. Although they don't know her "warm up the bowl" trick! There was also a nice little tip about knowing when you've really reached the rise you're looking for. Suggests that you can put a rubber band around your proofing container that shows the original level of the dough when you first put it into the container. Then it's easy to eye ball whether it has doubled. Love this idea.

But of course more knowledge leads to more questions and dilemmas. If I use the earthenware bowl for proofing, then it requires more guess work to see if it's risen the right amount given the shape of a bowl. If I use a plastic proofing container with straight sides, then there's no earthenware to warm up. I guess maybe I'll just try both. Wonder if my plastic container is safe in the oven at 100 degrees. Argh, and then we're back to the beginning.

Lovin Oven

It looks like we're actually about 10 days from having an oven. Boy, this is turning into more a project set back than expected. Two repair guys later and parts have been ordered. I was wondering how much it costs to buy a range/oven because the repair is pretty expensive. So I did a little research.

Found the oven closest to mine in the current KitchenAid line up. Higher MSRP than I would have guessed. But more important, in the process though I found a manual for the oven and have discovered all kinds of useful things about my range!

First I found that I have a InstaWok grate. The burner with the highest setting has a grate over it that can be flipped upside down to hold a wok. Never heard of such a thing before but sounds pretty cool. Might inspire next round of kitchen gadget shopping.

Also discovered that the "easy convect" setting on the oven will do the translation from a regular recipe to convection cooking and change the temp and time for you. You just enter the conventional settings. This seems very dicey to me. It lumps baked good together and adjusts them all the same. I guess it's better than my guess work, but I'd rather have those very hard to come by explicit recipe instructions for convection cooking. Luckily my Complete Breads book does have that!

I also have a bread proofing setting. Apparently the oven proofs bread at 100 degrees. Is that standard? I certainly never have bread rising at that temp otherwise. I guess you have to cut down the time? It also says to put a pan of hot water on a lower rack while you're proofing. I wonder how necessary that is. Will dough really dry out if you proof it covered in the oven without the water?

More questions than answers today. I'll keep investigating.

Over the hump

It feels good to be over the hump of the first loaf. Having done a little tasting, I'm very pleased with myself, but not sure where to go next. I see 4 logical next steps...
- try the no knead bread again
- make the first loaf again with bread flour instead of all purpose to see how it changes
- make another easyish white loaf that's more french/italian in style
- make another sandwich loaf that uses wheat flour too

So I'm asking my friends who bake bread (probably the only people who will read this blog), what do you think will help me learn baking technique best? What sounds like the obvious next loaf to you? Comments and suggestions please!

No-Oven Bread

I've switched from no-knead bread to no-oven bread. How do you make bread without an oven? You visit the neighbors, bread dough in hand!

My sister's coming to visit tomorrow and I really wanted to have some homemade bread. So I went with something I could make today (so that ruled out no-knead bread). I went back to the only bread I've ever successfully made before. It's an american-style white bread that's good for sandwiches and toast. It's from a pretty old bread-making book by Bernard Clayton, New Complete Book of Breads. It was redone about 10 years ago and has nice explicit instructions for using a food processor withe each recipe. The recipe I used was aptly named "My First Loaf".

The instructions were pretty straight foward and the food processor worked great! I did kind of hold it down to keep it from dancing across the counter. Apparently nothing wrong with the yeast I used in the no knead bread - same source here.

One thing that I'm not sure if I got the water to the 120 degrees that was specified. I really have no idea, so I kind of guessed what "hot" would be. Thinking maybe an instant read thermometer is really required. I was hoping to skate by without more equipment. Also I don't think I really shaped the loaves quite right - maybe not long enough since theys seem fatter/exploding in the middle.

But wow, the smell of bread baking was awesome. The benefits of being a good neighbor! I guess Davina also deserves some bread. :) The recipe ends with the perfect note: "If this is your first loaf, stand back and admire your creation." And I did.

No Bread

It seems a little early in the project to be running into dough that doesn't even make it into the oven. Or maybe now it's the exact right time now that I think about it. No knead bread will not be getting baked today for two reasons.

1- The oven door isn't fixed. Silly me for thinking appliance repair could assess and repair on the same day! Crazy!

2- The dough looks wrong. The woman's day article includes photos and my dough doesn't really look like it was active enough. They also talk about the moisture content alot and I'm guessing that I didn't add enough water. I may also have a room that's too cool. I think I'll just let it keep working on the counter now that I can't bake it. See what happens, maybe it's just slow. Of course this will just be for learning purposes. Not sure why - see #1.

Instead of actually doing any baking I just did more learning today. Found a book on Amazon that give explicit instructions about using the food processor to make whole grain dough. Did I not mention that I don't have a KitchenAid stand mixer? I'm going to give the food processor a shot before spending $200+ on a mixer. That said, I love shopping for kitchen gadgets and may give in eventually just for the fun of it.
I also found that King Arthur flour does baking lessons. Might see if I can make that work. They even got some online ones. Thanks to Howie for directing me to the site.

Maybe next time I'll have actually baked some bread!

Two Day No Knead Bread - day 1

I haven't managed to get the oven door fixed yet but the repair guy comes tomorrow. So I'll be ready for him with some dough. It was so cozy today with all the snow outside so I decided to pick the beginner loaf that would require two days anyhow. I really wanted to make some progress today.

I figure a no knead bread is a good starting place since it removes one of the things you can get wrong! Apparently Mark Bittman of the NYT got inundated after he published an article about this bread. Then it also got reprinted in a step by step version by Woman's Day . Gets raves but also apparently can be screwed up.

I was surprised how little yeast is in it. Only 1/4 tsp. I guess that's because it works overnight. So I mixed the ingredients together and what was supposed to be a sticky dough was not. I'm just using basic all purpose flour. So I added some more water. Hope it wasn't too much?

Now I leave it on the counter for 18 hours and see what happens.

"Towards Pumpernickel" The Project

After a couple weeks of helping my friend Howie with ideas for his next food project, it finally dawned on me "wait, i'm the one who isn't working. I should be doing this!" In truth I'm working on an idea that I've taken a false start at before - making my father the dark russian pumpernickel that he really loves. It's hard to find good versions. Whole Foods has one, but only sometimes. And there's not much I can do for my Dad, so I just cook stuff he likes.

I'm not really sure I've got the baker gene at all which will add to the challenge. I think of myself as more of a cook. I've only recently gotten comfortable modifying recipes or attempting to cook without one. But this is still the exception for me. I went through a summer of trying to learn pie making once. Made some really good fillings. Got the best reviews on my pie crust when I used refrigerated pillsbury crust without telling anyone. I do know enough to realize that I probably need to learn the basics of making bread first, before trying more complex whole grain varieties.

I've only ever made one type of bread successfully, and that was a recipe designed for first time bread bakers. I'll probably make that again as a good first step to jump in and start trying to learn to bake. Dough always seems a little daunting to me. My first goal will not to psych myself out and let it intimidate me. Might also try the "no knead" recipe that Mark Bittman has promoted as good non-threatening opening act.

Today I finally replaced my loaf pans which were lost in my last move. Starting the blog I'm now publicly declaring that I'm doing this so I can't bail out. Now I'll get the oven door fixed and we'll be off and running! Goal: pumpernickel good enough for Dad.