Recent Blog Entries

It started simply enough.  I needed to make bread this weekend for sandwiches this week.  Since I hadn't gotten my starter out of the refrigerator and activated soon enough, it had to be a yeasted dough.  And there are so many formulas to try in BBA . . .

After taking stock of time requirements and ingredient availability, the winner was Reinhart's Multigrain Extraordinaire Bread, a successor to his Struan bread.  With a few modifications, as it turned out.  Cornmeal was on hand, although not the coarse polenta grind.  No wheat bran, but I figured that substituting 1 cup of whole wheat flour for the white flour ought to get me fairly close.  No brown rice, either.  However, there was some whole flax seed available, so why not crush some of that and put it in the soaker?  Perhaps most unusual, I actually had buttermilk in the refrigerator.  That doesn't happen often.

So, the soaker was constructed with crushed flaxseed in place of the missing wheat bran.  Note to self: next time try using the blender to chop or grind the flaxseed.  It has to be easier than using the mortar and pestle.  (I don't have a grain mill on hand.)  The following day I put together the rest of the dough pretty much per instructions, other than substituting in whole wheat flour for one of the 3 cups of bread flour and omitting the brown rice.  The dough was stickier than I anticipated and absorbed nearly a cup of flour during the recommended 12-minute kneading.  Toward the end of the kneading, the gluten was becoming very well developed.  Has anyone tried using an autolyse with this recipe?  It seems that it might cut down on the time required to knead the dough.

The dough was nearly doubled in about 60-70 minutes of bulk ferment and then shaped into loaves and put into pans for the second ferment. The baking instructions had about the widest latitude that I have seen for recommended baking time: 40 to 60 minutes for loaves in pans.  When checked at 45 minutes, the internal temperature was about 175F, so back into the oven for another 10 minutes.  At the second check, the internal temperature was between 185F and 190F.  They also had a nice hollow sound when thumped that was missing at the first check. 

Observations: 1) This bread is fairly forgiving of modifications.  Replacing 1/3 of the bread flour with whole wheat flour doesn't appear to have had an ill effects on texture or flavor; I should probably admit to enjoying whole-grain breads to all-white varieties.  2) The addition of the flaxseed lends a nice crunch in the finished bread.  3) This bread is sweet!  That isn't a complaint, although probably the brown sugar or the honey alone would be adequate for sweetening.  I think dropping the brown sugar entirely and adding a tablespoon of dark molasses in combination with the honey would make for an interesting flavor.  4) Even with all of that sugar and honey, the bread really didn't develop a dark crust.  Apparently the 350F temperature isn't high enough to drive a lot of caramelization on the crust.

All in all, a very pleasing outcome, especially in view of the liberties that I took with the ingredients.  And yes, today's sandwich at lunch time was delicious!

I'm trying to make a few improvements here to make things easier for the non-techy user. You'll notice I've installed TinyMCE, a javascript-based editor. I think this will help most folks, but if you don't like it you can go into your account settings and turn it off.

I've noticed a few quirky things about it, like that you must have a chunk of text selected before the link button activates. It also is a little weird about deletes, at least in Camino.

Which reminds me: TinyMCE doesn't work in Safari, so Mac users will need to use something else. I recommend Camino. It is a lighter weight version of Firefox. I use Firefox all day when I need to get work done, but when I am browsing for pleasure I use Camino.

Please send any feedback you have about the recent changes I've made to me, either via the feedback link or by posting your thoughts on the site.

On the topic of bread, I baked Rustic Bread and a Whole Wheat Bread last weekend. I'm not sure how much baking I'll get in this weekend. Hopefully some.

My wife purchased a copy of BBA as a birthday present some weeks back and I finally got around to using a formula from the book; in this case, the New York Deli Rye sandwich loaf. It is a definite keeper. I have been admonished to put a big star next to that particular formula.

The bread is a wonderful base for a corned beef and swiss cheese sandwich, to start with. We'll keep experimenting and see what else works, too. The onions in the bread are a a delicious complement to other savory flavors, but somehow manage not to overwhelm the other components.

Since it was my first attempt for this formula, I made sure to follow the instructions closely. I opted out of the use of caraway seeds, since my wife does not enjoy that flavor. Next time I may try either dill or fennel seeds, since it seems either of those would make a good flavor complement.

The use of commercial yeast, brown sugar and buttermilk in the formula were a bit surprising. I think that the buttermilk (and the shortening) contributed to the finished bread's moistness. For the next attempt, I will probably skip the yeast. My starter seems to have plenty of boost, so the yeast really isn't necessary to ensure an adequate rise. I do need to follow some of JMonkey's recommendations for increasing the sourness of the starter. Mine is more mild than wild in the flavor department, even with having refrigerated the second build of the starter overnight. A longer, cooler rise with no commercial yeast would probably increase the sour flavor.

The other thing that I should have done was keep a closer eye on the dough during the final rise. When I came back in from some outdoor chores to check on it, it was almost 2 inches above the edge of the pan, instead of the recommended 1 inch! Warm day plus commercial yeast--who'd have thought it? Anyway, I got lucky in that there aren't tunnels and that the bread holds together instead of crumbling in the middle of the slice, like some other over-risen breads that I have made.

All things considered, this was a very satisfactory experiment with a new recipe. And it will definitely be back for an encore.

Have made this 3 times for my cafe and it sells rapidly. Blueberry and cream cheese combination is a new flavour combinatiion for New Zealanders. I drizzle a little lemon juice icing over the braid which adds to ita appeal. Thank you for the recipe as muffins are becoming passe