MELLOW BAKERS: CORN BREAD

Posted in Breads by sallybr

Have you ever had to run from one side of the airport to another to catch a flight, and managed to enter the plane just before they shut the doors? That’s how I’m feeling about this bread – the last one to complete the May series of Mellow Bakers! With only one day to spare, here I am, bringing you corn bread…

When thinking about corn bread my mind floats towards iron skillets and bacon. However, Hamelman’s corn bread has nothing to do with that American classic. It is in fact a “regular”, yeast-leavened bread, with corn meal in the dough. The dough is also leavened with a poolish, a mixture of flour, water, and yeast that pre-ferments for 12 hours. In typical Hamelman’s fashion, the dough is mixed very briefly, then folded once before the final shaping. The corn meal imparts a nice yellow tone to the dough, but also makes it feel a little rough.

This is a very nice bread, open crumb, delicate flavor… Two thumbs up!

If you want to see all other bakers’ take on Hamelman’s corn bread, click on this link…

For those following the Mellow Bakers adventures, the month of June brings Vermont Sourdough (my default bread), pizza (I definitely look forward to comparing Hamelman’s dough with my favorite), and a bread made with beer and roasted sprouted barley (no idea where I’m going to find that :-(). Stay tuned, or… join the fun and bake with us!

16May2010

MELLOW BAKERS: MICHE POINT-A-CALLIERE

Posted in Breads by sallybr

One more small step in the very long journey of the Mellow Bakers, working their way through Hamelman’s book Bread. I was looking forward to this one, a classic European-type bread, leavened exclusively by a whole-wheat sourdough starter. The term “miche” means a very large, round loaf, and Point-a-Calliere is its place of origin, the initial settlement that later would turn into Montreal. To preserve the dimension of my waistline, I made mental apologies to Hamelman, and cut the recipe in half, turning it into a “demi-miche“…

Once a very stiff sourdough starter is prepared, the recipe is quite straightforward: mix high extraction whole-wheat flour with water, starter and salt, fold it two or three times over a 2.5 hour period, shape as a round loaf, let it rise for another 2.5 hours. It is a tricky dough to handle, very moist, it did not gain body until the last folding cycle. The bread is then baked in a very hot oven, with steam during the initial stage of baking.

The recipe doesn’t mention anything about slashing the surface before baking, but I followed the footsteps of my fellow bakers, and cut a few slashes on mine. However, they were barely noticeable when the loaf came out of the oven. This is a flattish bread, with reasonably open crumb – in fact, the crumb was a lot more airy than I expected from a bread with such a high proportion of whole wheat flour.

Great flavor, that should get better and better as the days go by. We shall put this statement to test in the next few days…. if my demi-miche can make it, that is… 😉

Check other Mellow Bakers’ take on this bread by following these links to Lien’s blog, Joanna’s, and our host Paul.

12May2010

PIERRE NURY’S RUSTIC LIGHT RYE: BOUGNAT

Posted in Breads by sallybr

I’ve browsed the pages of Leader’s “Local Breads” countless times over the past year, but taking part in “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” challenge prevented me from indulging in many other bread books. Once the challenge finished, I felt excited to attack other projects, but also somewhat paralyzed. Not anymore: last weekend I dove into my first Local Breads recipe, a three-day project that led to a couple of delicious loaves of a rustic, toothsome bread.

PIERRE NURY’s RUSTIC LIGHT RYE
(from Local Breads)

Levain (sourdough starter)
45 g firm sourdough starter
50 g water
95 g bread flour
5 g whole wheat flour

Mix all the ingredients until they form a stiff dough, trying to incorporate all the flour into it. Place the dough in a container, marking its level with a tape or pen. Allow it to ferment at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours, until it doubles in volume. This recipe will make more levain than used in the bread.

Bread dough
400 g water
450 g bread flour
50 g rye flour
125 g levain
10 g salt

Pour the water into the bowl of a Kitchen Aid type mixer. Add the bread and rye flours, stir with a spatula until it begins to form a dough. Cover the bowl and let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.

Uncover the bowl, add the levain (only 125 g of it) and the salt, and start kneading with the dough hook on medium speed for 12-14 minutes, or until you have good gluten development (do a windowpane test). Transfer the dough to a slightly oiled bowl and keep it at room temperature for 1 hour. Scrape the dough into a floured surface and fold it a couple of times to induce gluten development. You can see how to fold the dough by clicking here. Repeat the folding again after 1 more hour. After the second folding cycle, let the dough rise for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature until doubled in volume. Transfer to the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours.

After 14 hours, my dough looked like this….

“Shaping” and baking
Remove the dough from the fridge 3 hours before baking. Heat the oven to 450F and place a baking stone (or tiles) on the middle rack.

Heavily dust the counter with flour, scrape the dough onto the counter, and open it gently into a 10 inch square shape, trying not to deflate it too much. I like to mark the dimensions on the flour, to have an idea of how much to open the dough.

Transfer each piece to a rimless baking sheet covered with parchment paper, stretching the dough to about 12 inches long. Let it fall naturally, without worrying about a precise shape. If baking both loaves at the same time, separate them by at least 2 inches.

Bake with initial steam for 20 to 30 minutes, until a dark walnut color develops on the crust. Let the loaves cool on a rack for at least an hour before slicing.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

for a detailed discussion on this particular bread, visit this link

Comments: The recipe was quite involved and challenging, but the gods of Bread were on my side and things went smoothly. A dough with this much water (in baker’s terms it’s called a high hydration ratio) is tricky to deal with, but extra flour on the work surface helps. As some of the bakers in The Fresh Loaf put it “it feels like you’re making pancakes” when transferring the “bread” to the baking sheet. It’s impossible to shape it, so don’t even try. Lift it, gently stretch it (it will almost stretch itself as it’s lifted), place it on the baking sheet and transfer it to the oven. It’s a delight to witness its impressive oven spring (yet another fancy term to indicate that the dough rises a lot during baking).

The crumb almost made me shed a few tears… I know, I know… it’s pathetic, but bread make’s me emotional! (In a good way.) 😉

I am submitting this post to Yeastspotting….

8May2010

MELLOW BAKERS: GRISSINI

Posted in Breads by sallybr

The Mellow Bakers challenge scheduled three breads for May: grissini, miche Point-a-Calliere, and cornbread. Today I jump-started myself by baking the grissini, which I’ve never made before. It was easy, in that I kneaded the ingredients in my Kitchen Aid for a few minutes until they formed a smooth and supple dough. After an hour at room temperature I divided, stretched and rolled the dough into sticks that went into the oven for 20 minutes. Piece of cake… 😉

I only made half the recipe, because neither my husband nor I are too crazy about breadsticks. I love bread, and I love crackers, but grissini have a personality conflict: they’re not quite sure what they are, bread or crackers. Still, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn a new method in bread baking.

Here’s the dough at the end of rising…

Divided into 12 equal pieces….

… that are formed into sticks, some left plain, some rolled in parmiggiano-cheese with a little black pepper

After baking, they’ll keep for several days in an air-tight container….

Comments: They were fun to make, but perhaps a bit too bland. The variations proposed in the book might be better (roasted garlic or cheese in the dough, instead of just used to roll the sticks before baking). If I make these again, I’ll use the alternative method of opening the full dough in a large rectangle and cutting the individual sticks from it, which will considerably reduce the time to stretch and roll each stick.

You can see how some of my fellow Mellow Bakers made their grissini by following these links….

Abby, from Stir it! Scrape it!

Anne Marie, from Rosemary & Garlic

Steve, from Burntloafer

Looking forward to miche Point-a-Calliere, a close relative of the amazing Poilane bread….

4May2010

GOLSPIE LOAF, from the Scottish Highlands

Posted in Breads by sallybr

Different breads evolve around the world in harmony with the native cultures and environments: flat breads like Indian naan and Ethiopian injera, French baguettes, English crumpets, and the salt-less Tuscan bread. People everywhere bake bread with their local grains and flours, and according to their preferred diets. If I had money and time I’d travel the world and experience each one in person. Instead, I take virtual trips by baking the world of bread in my own kitchen. This past weekend I made a Golspie loaf from the Scottish highlands, based on an old grain called “bere“. Of course, this grain isn’t easy to find, but in his masterpiece “The Handmade Loaf” Dan Lepard created a recipe that mimics the original, using rye sourdough starter and whole wheat flour. Don’t be put off by its looks: Golspie is not the Jonny Depp of the Bread World, but it has the personality and charm of Sean Connery in his prime.

The Handmade Loaf is a must have book for bread bakers, and I highly recommend that that you get your own copy of Dan’s book. Because I bake so many of its breads, it’s unfair to the author to post all the recipes, and for Golspie I’m just providing the the basic formula, which I slightly changed from the original to introduce a small amount of white flour.

GOLSPIE LOAF FORMULA
(adapted from Dan Lepard)

75% rye levain
62% water
100% flour (3/4 whole wheat + 1/4 white)
25% bread flour
2% salt
0.5% instant yeast
coarse oatmeal (enough for dusting the loaf)

Comments: The dough is made with minimal kneading (a couple of 10 second-kneading cycles), allowed to rise for an hour, shaped into a circle, and placed in a springform pan (around 8 inches in diameter), coated with coarse oatmeal. Just before baking, score the dough all the way to the bottom in a cross-pattern that later allows cutting it into its characteristic quartered shape.

Some photos of the process of making Golspie….

The dough is rolled out in a circle..