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I am baking bread like a madwoman lately, mainly Jim Lahey's no-knead recipe from The New York Times. We're total converts who now have two Dutch ovens to make two loaves at a time.
One loaf was delivered to neighbors today, who got very excited.
At long last I achieved a loaf with oven spring! Made with Shipton Mill No. 1 flour. I gotta say, this is damn good.
more of a cake, and a variant on the usual banana bread. the 3/4 beet mash combined with 1/4 banana and altered spicing tastes subtly different to people who have no idea what's in it (a neighbour i gave it to shared it with her partner without disclosing the presence of his hated vegetable, and he thought it was standard banana bread), but i can taste the beets clearly. the batter is more wet, so the oven time is increased, and the loaf is much more dense than banana.
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar plus 2 tbsp.
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 mashed banana
1 cup boiled or roasted milled beetroot
ground allspice, cinnamon, cloves
either a couple of hours or the night before, boil or roast a few beets and peel off the skins, then allow to cool. i had leftover cooked beets that i needed to use up. since i was making applesauce at the same time, i had my food mill out and ran the beets through it when cool to put in the bread. the coarser you mill the beets, the more texture will be present, of course.
grease and flour one loaf pan, preheat oven to 350° f. sift flour (technically this calls for pastry flour, but i use whole wheat flour mixed in or all on its own, with no trouble), soda and salt into a big bowl and add the spices you want (i vary the banana bread spices all the time, but tried to use more common beet-appropriate flavours here). beat the eggs with the sugar (i reduced the sugar from banana bread, as it seemed appropriate), mash the banana, then add it and the milled beets along with the melted butter to all the other wet ingredients. combine all that goop without destroying your kitchen, pour it into the pan, and bake at 355° f for about an hour. as usual, if an inserted toothpick comes out with no attached unbaked goo, the cake is done. i generally test it at the 50-55 minute mark, then leave it in the oven after turning the heat off.
variations: i made one loaf as above, and one with cooked, milled apple instead of banana and changed the spices a little, but probably only to diminish the cloves and add nutmeg. i can't recall, exactly.
Where the 1st edition was not too edible. My 2nd attempt at baking and it came out much better.
Modified recipe from here
We had not eaten lunch and the ladies gave use a couple of pieces of bread - one with butter. It was delicious.
Made two larger baguettes from the same batch. Dough was slightly wetter and rose a bit more. So satisfying.
Baguettes! If I could just get rid of those huge rips down the sides they'd be perfect...I know why it's happening but I can't do much about it.
Tried something new, made the sponge by boiling a cup of flour in a
cup and half or so of water. Let it thicken, tossed in a teaspoon of
yeast with some more flour and let it sit for about 6 hours. Finished
the dough and cut it while it was still rising and put the wash on it
at the same time. Let it rise a bit more then tossed it into an oven
at 475F (convect) with a few ice cubes for steam and turned the heat
down to 400F. Let the bread reach an internal temperature of 200F and
pulled it out to cool.
Focaccia Bread
Recipe from this book only I have the 8th edition.
I stray a little from the recipe but not enough to call it my own.
~2.5 cups of bread flour (plus extra for kneading)
2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 package of yeast
1/4 c plus a 1tbs of olive oil
1 c very warm water (I heat mine on the lowest setting on my electric kettle and let it cool for a couple minutes)
Toppings
Freshly grated parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup)
Kosher salt
3 or more cloves of fresh chopped garlic
Fresh herbs if you have them (I like rosemary)
I start my bread in my food processor which has a dough blade, you could use a mixer or do it by hand. If doing it by hand, be sure you kneed the dough really well as indicated below.
Place 1 c of flour, sugar, salt and yeast into mixer. Add water and oil, blend thoroughly. It will be quite soupy. Slowly add in remaining flour 1/2 a cup at a time. I have never needed more than 2.5 c total, including the first cup added, but the book recommends as much as 3 c. Mix until dough is blended and comes away from sides. Dough will be soft but not terribly sticky.
Lightly flour your work surface and kneed for about 5 minutes. (If you are doing the whole thing by hand, make it 10 mins. of kneeding) Dough should be smooth and elastic. Form into a nice tight ball.
Oil a large bowl. Place the dough in bowl, turning it around in the oil so all sides are covered. Place dough smooth side up, cover bowl with a damp towel and allow to rise for 1 to 1.5 hours. Dough should double in size. Check dough by pressing fingers in about a half inch. If dimples stay, the dough should be good to go.
Preheat oven to 425
Punch down dough.
I have cooked this bread in 1-13x9 casserole dish or in two bread pans (1/4 dough each) and a 9x9 brownie pan (1/2 the dough). You could break them up in similar ways, or in individual muffin pans or just shape them flat on a cookie sheet. Whatever works for you. I find that darker metal pans give a nicer crust than glass or lighter metal.
Oil pan(s) with olive oil. Spread dough across bottom of pan. It will be quite thin, but will puff up with baking. Puncture with fork all around. Brush top of bread with more oil, sprinkle on all your toppings and allow to sit for about 20 mins.
Bake as follows:
1-13x9” pan: bake for 10-12 mins at 425 or until you start to see some browning on top. Turn pan if needed. Bake for an additional 5-7 mins at 500 degrees.
2-9x9” pans or 4-bread pans or any combo of the two: bake for 8-10 mins at 425, rotate pans around oven and bake for another 5-7 mins at 500 degrees.
However you cook them, you want a nice bubbly melty top and a golden color
Move pans to wire rack to cool.
The book claims it makes 24 servings because the writers are high on crack. I would say that it makes 12 good servings if served as a side dish or fewer servings if you are like me and find bread to be a perfectly acceptable meal.
House-made breads from grissini, herb-flecked focaccia to crostini are accompanied by a trio of thick and creamy spreads including a blend of balsamic and olive oil, hot pepper sauce, and an incredible milky thick spread made of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and pear.
The balsamic and olive oil was almost as thick, rich and aromatic as hazelnut butter.
The pepper sauce was bright, fruity and licked with fiery heat.
But it was the Parmigiano and pear spread that took my breath away. It was as voluptuous as whipped soft serve ice cream that's milky sweet, and pleasure inducing as clotted cream. I didn't know if it was gauche to pile an inch of the spread on the bread, or to scrape the bowl clean like it was a pot of ice cream, but I couldn't help it. It was so good.
Chef told me that he sometimes uses the Parmigiano-pear sauce to finish a steak or pasta dish. I know what I'll be ordering very soon.
It's soup kind of weather and the best thing I can think of to make with soup is a batch of Rosemary bread. I just pulled these out of the oven a little while ago and I am just so proud of the ears! Look at them! I've not had ears like that since I worked in the bakeshop and we had nice hot steam injected ovens and decks. I used to be a very good slasher of the dough and thought I had lost it..but it seems to be back (perhaps just for a fleeting moment, but I'll take it).
Teller's bakery, Agrippas Street, Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem, Israel
Blogged at apinnick.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/tellers-bakery-in-mahan...
all 5 cygnets now take bread from your hand which is great,this is carolyn's hand who took me in car to ackers pit for 10mins,she's looking after me
It is delicious.
We'll need:
- Stale bread, cut up into small pieces. If you don't have stale bread, don't make bread pudding.
- I use a milk/half-and-half mix in a 1:1 ratio, enough to fill a mixing bowl with the bread until only the top layer of bread is not covered, then squish things down with your hands a bit to get things under "water".
We'll also need chopped up savoury bits. In this case:
- 100gr cherry tomato
- two paprika
- a third of a block of extra old cheddar (we're making bread pudding, this doesn't have to be finest of the finest. Just flavourful enough. Cracker Barrel works fine).
- some savoury spices: salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder, and mixed italian herbs
- also, because we had some left over, about a cup of purple basil
And finally:
- three eggs (depending on how much bread you have, you may want more or fewer)
Preparation is about as easy as it gets: mix bread and milk/cream. Let it stand for about 10 minutes, then mix it with your hand while squish-crushing the bread. It should let you do that. If the bread's too hard, let it sit another 10 minutes. Mix everything else into the bread/milk/cream mixture; again, this is hand work. A mixer will just turn it into a homogenous boring nonsense.
Let's bake that to perfection:
"pour" (but more like scoop) the mixture into a tin --I used a bread tin in this case because I wanted to eat slices of bread pudding-- and then bake this in the oven at 180C for anywhere between 45 and 60 minutes. I like to cook mine covered for half an hour, then uncovered for the remaining 15-30 minutes. Once the pudding looks golden brown on top, and risen more than you thought it would, turn off the oven, and then with the door open leave the bread pudding in the oven as it cools down. When the oven's cooled down to the point that it's merely warm, and sticking your hand in doesn't make you want to pull it back out, take out the pudding and set it somewhere to cool down further on its own (being fully away that that tin IS still going to be super hot).
When it feels warm enough to handle, carefully remove the bread pudding from the tin (it should have firmed up, but can still easily break up), and then either serve and eat immediately (serving optional), or have it cool down further. The longer you leave it alone, the more it will compact, to the point where after about an hour you can cut slices, and if you refrigerate it overnight it will have become an amazing, dense, rich flavoured consistency that is perfect for cutting off slices and frying them up in a skillet for breakfast, lunch, or next-day-dinner.
An important note: if you are impatient, you will completely destroy the pudding when you take it out: the cooling process actually sets the pudding to a "just firm enough" consistency, so trying to get it out of the tin too early means you end up with a near liquid running off everything. Don't be that person.