MELLOW BAKERS: BEER BREAD WITH ROASTED BARLEY

Posted in Breads by sallybr

Taking the Mellow Bakers Challenge in the mellowest possible way, I made the last bread of June in the first week of July… 😉 This was a slightly more complicated recipe, as it required roasted barley – not just the grain, mind you – but “malted barley“, not very easy to find, unless you have access to a beer brewery. Following the footsteps of other bakers, I decided to make my own, and it was a fun (and successful) project! I highly recommend that you read Susan’s article about malt and its uses in bread, she did a great job explaining it all.

For Hamelman’s Beer Bread, you need a poolish (made the day before), roasted barley, beer, flour and commercial yeast. The malted barley gives the bread a beautiful reddish tone, and the beer a flavor that is surprisingly delicate for such a hearty-looking bread. To allow me to bake it early in the morning, I retarded the dough overnight after the final proofing.

Comments: Making malted barley seems intimidating at first, but once again I asked the help of an expert, and brought Dan Lepard to the rescue. His book, The Handmade Loaf, has clear instructions on how to do it. Here is a quick summary of it…

THe process starts by soaking the grains in water, for 2 to 3 days, keeping them in a cool place..

Then, the grains are rinsed, spread over a damp paper, covered, and kept for 4 days in a cool place, until the sprouted portion is twice the size of the grain. Aren’t they cute? 😉
(click to enlarge)

Finally, the sprouted barley is thoroughly dried (for 12 hours or so), and either roasted for a few minutes and ground (to make this bread), or dried at 50 C for several hours and ground into a powder (to make malt powder, and use in any bread that benefits from it).

Follow this link, so you can read about all my fellow bakers who stuck to the plan and had this bread made last month… 😉

4Jul2010

A GOLDEN SANDWICH BREAD

Posted in Breads by sallybr

The past couple years of sourdough baking turned me into a wild yeast purist, to the point that using commercial yeast feels like cheating. So, it’s time for a confession: I cheated last weekend and used commercial yeast to bake my bread. However, instead of penance, I got a beautiful, golden loaf to enjoy the rest of the week! 😉

SEMOLINA SANDWICH LOAF
(from Daniel Leader, Local Breads)

300 grams water (1 + 1/2 cups) at 70 to 78 F
5 grams instant yeast (1 tsp)
500 grams fine semolina (durum) flour (3 + 1/4 cup)
15 grams granulated sugar (1 Tbs)
50 grams extra-virgin olive oil (1/4 cup)
10 grams sea salt (1 + 1/2 tsp)

Pour the water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the yeast, flour, sugar, olive oil and salt and stir just until a rough dough forms.

Use the dough hook and mix the dough on medium speed (4 on a KitchenAid type mixer) until it is very smooth and elastic, about 9 minutes. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled container, cover and leave to rise at room temperature until it doubles (1.5 to 2 hours).

Optional: go for a run during this time and come back to find out that 1 hour and 10 minutes later your dough is about to walk out the door to greet you).

Grease a loaf pan (8 1/2 x 4 1/2) with oil. Lightly dust the counter with semolina flour, place the dough on it, and shape it as a loaf. Insert it into the pan, with the seam side down. Dust the top lightly with semolina flour, and cover the pan. Let the loaf rise at room temperature (70 to 75 degrees) until it crowns just above the rim of the pan, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (my loaf got there in only 45 minutes – must be the phase of the moon 😉

Bake in a 375 F oven until the loaf pulls away from the sides of the pan, and the crust is golden brown – 35 to 45 minutes.

Carefully remove the bread from the pan, and cool it over a rack for at least one hour before slicing it. Marvel at the beautiful, golden crumb, and…..

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I highly recommend this recipe if you are new to bread making. The dough handles very well, and has impressive oven spring, baking into a gorgeous loaf that rises way above the pan. The semolina flour allows the bread to last slightly longer than most homemade breads would – just store it at room temperature, inside a paper bag. Slightly toasted slices are delicious as part of a sandwich or just spread with jam or butter.

I am submitting this post to Susan’s Yeastspotting… make sure you stop by on Friday to see her weekly collection of breads.

ONE YEAR AGO: Tomato Confit with Arugula and Zucchini

23Jun2010

MELLOW BAKERS: PIZZA! PIZZA!

Posted in Breads by sallybr

My second recipe for the month of June in the Mellow Bakers Challenge is Hamelman’s pizza dough. I was anxious to try this one, to compare it with my favorite recipe, that you can find here. Hamelman’s dough uses a biga – a pre-ferment of flour, water, and yeast – that is incorporated in the final dough, together with a small amount of additional yeast. Apart from that, the recipes are quite similar.

Last week we had a small pizza party at home, and Hamelman’s method was put to the test. It passed with flying colors, or… should I say… ballooning colors!

In the Summer, we avoid turning the oven on, so we use our grill as an improvised oven, placing unglazed tiles over its grids, and cooking the pizza on them. This is not a grilled pizza, simply a regular pizza baked inside the grill. Once you get the temperature right, it works like a charm, each pizza will be ready in about 7 minutes. My husband was the one who had the idea for this “oven-grill-method”, yet another evidence that I won the jackpot when I married him.

So, what’s the verdict? This dough deserves to share the first prize with my default recipe – excellent texture and flavor. The only thing that prevents me from placing it ahead of Fine Cooking, is the 2 hour rise with a folding cycle after 1 hour. That makes it slightly more complicated to have pizza on a weeknight. But, it is a minor detail, and I will definitely be making this recipe again and again during the weekend.

I remind everyone that we are not supposed to share the recipes for our Mellow Bakers Challenge, so if you are interested, consider buying Hamelman’s book “Bread”, where all these recipes will be waiting for you… 😉

That evening, we made 8 pizzas, this one was particularly tasty: sauteed cremini mushrooms, roasted yellow bell peppers, and smoked mozzarella. Pizza parties are a lot of fun!

Many Mellow Bakers have already enjoyed their pizzas, if you want to see their report, jump here.

One year ago: From Backyard to Kitchen….

19Jun2010

LOCAL BREADS: AUVERGNE RYE WITH BACON

Posted in Breads by sallybr

Auvergne rye, also known as “baguette aux lardons” is, simply put, bread with bacon bits all through the crumb. Bread… and…. bacon. I know, I know… unless you are a very committed vegetarian you are salivating already.

The recipe comes from Daniel Leader’s Local Breads, and requires the preparation of a very stiff sourdough starter made with both whole wheat and regular flour, and a final dough with a small amount of rye, which, in my opinion, always gives a sourdough bread a touch of depth hard to achieve with any other flour.

Yes, those brown spots are pieces of bacon…. 😉

AUVERGNE RYE WITH BACON
(Local Breads)

Sourdough starter build
45 g stiff sourdough starter
50 g water
95 g bread flour
5 g whole wheat flour

Mix everything together, forming a stiff dough. Allow it to ferment at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours, until doubled in volume.

Final dough
280 g thick cut bacon
350 g water
450 g bread flour
50 g white rye flour
125 g starter (you will not use the full amount made)
10 g salt

Cut the bacon in 1/2 inch pieces and cook over medium heat. Do not let it brown, just cook until most of the fat is released. Drain over paper towels and dice finely.

Mix the water, bread flour, and rye flour in a large bowl, let it stand for 20 minutes. Add the sourdough mix (remember: only 125 g of it!), bacon, and salt. Knead with a Kitchen Aid type mixer on speed 4 for about 8 minutes. Ferment the dough for 1 hour, fold it a couple of times, place it to rise for another 2 to 3 hours.

Cut the dough in 4 equal pieces, shape as baguettes, and retard them in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.

Remove the baguettes from the fridge 3 hours before baking. Heat the oven to 450F, slash the baguettes and bake them with initial steam, for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool over a rack for a couple of hours before slicing them.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: The recipe makes 4 baguettes, but I chose to make two baguettes and a larger, batard-type loaf. I haven’t yet perfected the shaping of my baguettes, in part because I end up baking round loaves a lot more often, and rarely practice this elusive shape. But, what really matters – the taste – was superb! You would think that so much bacon in the dough could be overpowering, but quite the contrary, they had a very mellow taste. I was pleasantly surprised by how copper-colored the crust turned out, probably due to the bacon fat playing its magic. The smell was intoxicating, even our dogs were restless… 😉

Note to self: This bread would be a very good match for a bowl of chili…

I am submitting this post to Susan’s Yeastspotting….

8Jun2010

MELLOW BAKERS: VERMONT SOURDOUGH

Posted in Breads by sallybr

This bread was my choice to begin the month of June in the Mellow Bakers group project. It’s also one of our favorite breads, that I bake several times per month. Hamelman’s book has three variations for this recipe, all delicious and easy to make, as long as you are not sourdough-starter-phobic. 😉 One of the great things about this group project is its only rule: be mellow. At first, I was wondering should we bake all three variations plus the two other breads this month? But Paul, the wise originator of the group, reminded me that when in doubt, ask yourself “what’s the mellow thing to do?” So, I picked one, the Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain, which is similar to a bread I’ve already described here. No matter how many times I make one of Hamelman’s Vermont sourdoughs, whenever I open the oven and see the loaf, I feel like a teenager whose first boyfriend just rang the front doorbell…

This type of bread is absolutely perfect for a Croque Monsieur….

But, complying with the mellow aspect of this post, no photos were taken after the croque monsieur was ready… we were too busy enjoying them and thinking about our times in Paris… Good memories! I promise to post about my favorite Croque Monsieur & Croque Madame recipe in the near future, consider this just a teaser…

Check my friends’ take on Hamelman’s sourdough by following these links:

Oggi…..

Kuchelatein….

Paul…

Joanna’s blog...

Steve’s blog…

Anne Marie’s blog…

and Cathy’s site….