The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Multitasking in the Kitchen

This past Friday I came home with plenty of goodies from the Farmers' Market.    With my haul, I planned to make mozzarella, ricotta, jam, and pie, at the very least.

Since I was going to make mozzarella, I figured I should make pizza for dinner.  So I'd also need to make pizza dough.

And we were out of bread, so I needed (or kneaded, ho ho ho) to make a couple of loaves of bread, too.

That, plus whatever sanding/applying joint compound stuff I did in the bedrooms. 

My problem was I didn't really start any of this - the baking/cheesemaking part - until after I'd picked up Alex from school.  I felt like I had PLENTY of time.

Ha.

So first, I threw together a batch of pizza dough.  While that was resting, I started my bread dough.  Just a simple white bread.  Something like this one.  And while that was rising, I got going on the mozzarella.

I used a half gallon of fresh goat's milk and one and a half gallons of whole milk for this mozzarella. 

I only took two pictures because once I got going on the actual kneading balls of very hot cheese curds, I didn't have time to clean off one hand and take a picture.  I'm still very messy in my cheese-making.

But I was very pleased with the batch.  I got a LOT of curds, and when I scooped them out of the whey, they were beautiful to behold:

 

I haven't made mozzarella since last summer for some reason, and it kind of took me a bit of time to get back into the swing of it, but eventually I found my curd-kneading rhythm going again, and all was good. 

Except that while I was doing all the cheese stuff, I forgot about the pizza and bread doughs in their bowls on the dining room table.  I just punched down the pizza dough, and since I was probably near a crucial temperature-watching stage with the cheese, I punched the bread dough down, too, and hoped I'd be done with the cheese by the time the dough rose again.

Oh, and I'd also (I don't even know when I did this, but it clearly happened) cooked up a package of very thinly sliced turkey bacon to use on the pizzas.  It smelled good.  Alex and Julia kept coming into the kitchen, starving, of course, since I don't ever feed them a decent meal, and asked for just one more piece of the bacon.  Fine.  Eat it.  I'm up to my elbows in hot curds.

And I was still kneading curds when the bread dough BEGGED to be baked.  So I fired up the oven (okay, I turned it on) and rather than mess around with shaping a couple of nice loaves for my 9 x 5 inch pans, I formed the dough into one long log-like thing, diagonally on a sheet pan.  When it had risen enough, I slashed it a few times down the length of it, sprinkled some kosher salt on top, and slid the whole thing into the oven.  About 50 minutes later, it was done. 

And it was big.  Nearly the full length of the baking sheet.

I finished up the curd-kneading at some point after that, and by then the pizza dough I'd divided into 6 or 8 balls before setting them in their olive oil bath had morphed back into one giant blob of dough.  So I tore gently pulled it into four pieces and made stromboli out of them, with chopped spinach (from a box of the frozen chopped stuff - I'm cleaning out my freezer) and the turkey bacon, the fresh mozzarella, a little tomato sauce, and the few remaining slices of roast beef I'd bought earlier in the week for sandwiches.  I was going to make calzones or pizza, but in the end, I just rolled things up and baked them that way. 

Sadly, I have no pictures of them.  But they tasted pretty good.

I'd hoped to make jams and pie that day, too.  HAHAHAHAHA.  Not gonna happen.  So I put that off for Saturday....

When Creative Outlets Collide

Several (or more - I've lost track) weeks ago I got it into my head that it would be fun to make braided rugs.  I've got all sorts of fabric stockpiled from when I used to quilt a lot, and I "inherited" fabric from my late maternal grandmother, who also quilted and sewed clothes for us when we were little and appreciated home-made clothing.  She also knitted and crocheted and drew and painted and played piano.  Oh - and she also made some rugs.  There was a great big braided rug under the kitchen table, for one...and I remember she also dabbled in rag rugs - the knotted kind that are shaggy on top and bumpy on the bottom. 

Anyway, I thought - hey!  I know how to braid!  I'll braid some rugs! 

Of course, all this burst into my head after we'd started the whole Renovate the Bedrooms project, when all my big green Rubbermaid Totes O' Fabric had been dragged into the kids' room and stacked BEHIND a ton of other stuff.  Stuff I'd need to move waaaaay out of the way in order to access my fabric stash.

But no matter.  I was determined!  I was inspired!  I was probably procrastinating about something, too, so naturally I was very enthusiastic about THIS new idea and less so about whatever else I should have been doing.

So one day I heaved and hoed (ho'd?) and managed to drag those Totes O' Fabric into the hall and down two flights of stairs into the basement, where I'd decided to set up shop. 

I lead a kind of nomadic creative life in this house.  I would love to just have one room for ME and all my Totes O' Stuff, but alas, that ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, I got the totes downstairs, and set up a banquet table to work on.  I also brought down my jewelry-making stuff so I could dabble in that as well.  And my sewing machine.  The ironing board and iron were already down there so I could keep Bill appropriately wrinkle-free for work.

I dug through bushels of fabric - cottons, cotton blends, corduroy, satin, velvet, and wool.  Aha!  Wool!  That's what they braid rugs with, right?

I also discovered - to my delight - that I had a more varied supply of wool than I'd thought.  All I could really remember were lengths of dark gray, red, and a medium gray pinstripe - wools I'd used back in college when I decided I could make some clothes for myself.  I also ended up making some really warm quilt tops out of some of the scraps.  I have no idea what happened to any of that stuff - the skirts or the quilts.  It was all several lifetimes ago....

Anyway, so all I thought I had were two grays and a red.  They'd look nice together, but I kind of wished I had more splashes of color.  Turns out I did.  There were other blacks and grays...some blue and black large-square gingham pattern...and a yellow that my grandmother had used decades ago to make me a cape/poncho kind of thing - it buttoned up the front and had slits in the sides for my arms - and a matching beret. 

So, in short, I had more parts of a rainbow than I'd thought.  Good. 

And so I washed my wools.  And dried them.  In the dryer.

Yes - I did.  Because if there were any dyes that might run, I wanted them to run NOW, and not some day in the future when they were braided with other colors and running might result in black dye bleeding into yellow.  And I wanted the wools to go ahead and shrink if they wanted to.  But do it NOW, while you're all separate, and not later, when you're braided together into one size and come out later fit only for a doll house.

That was my reasoning.

And as they came out I folded them all neatly and stacked them in color-coordinated piles and placed them on top of a tote.

And I moved on to denim.

Because I ALSO had thougth it would be cool to use denim for a rug.  And I'd been saving old jeans, lower-leg portions of the kids' pants (once holes in the knees had convinced me to transform the jeans into shorts) for SOMETHING.  Didn't know what, but maybe a quilt?  I didn't know.  I just stashed them.  Because I am genetically predisposed to do so.

Anyway, after I'd washed all the jeans (not that there was any dye left to run anywhere), I started in with the scissors.  I cut up leg after leg after leg, ridding myself of seams and zippers and waistbands.  But not the back pockets.  For whatever pack-rat reason, I have saved all the back pockets.  For something.  SOMETHING.

And once all the legs had been trimmed of hem and seam and waistband, I started in on the cutting them into strips part of my program.

I cut a variety.  Mostly strips that were either two or three inches wide and as long as the leg it had come from.  I made some even wider, for variety.  I ended up with lots of shades of blue, in lengths that ranged from Bill's extremely long legs down to tiny lenghts Julia had outgrown.

Then I folded them for braiding.  Not that I was even necessarily going to braid them.  I'd become sidetracked by weaving.  But whatever - I folded them the same - outer edges in to the center, and then fold those halves together like a book.  I ironed fold after fold after fold.  I gave some of the shorter lenghts to Julia so she could mess around with them, too.  I also stitched three of the longer short ones together so she could practice braiding - something everyone should learn to do, of course.  I'll teach Alex at some point, I'm sure. 

Anyway, once I'd got all my lenghts ironed, I kind of stopped. 

Yes.  That's right.  Production ground to a halt, as they say somewhere.

Rug-making is on hold until I have a bit more elbow room down in my little corner of the basement.  I have nowhere to work on a project.  I WILL - I confiscated the two sliding doors from the closet Bill and I shared before the closet was chopped in half to make a doorway to Alex's bedroom.  And I'll make me some tall sawhorses and use those doors as my work table.  But at the moment, there's no space for it.

BUT.

I did start with the weaving.  Just to see what it would look like.

And I am in love.

I took some of the short lengths and wove them together, and here's what I have:

 

I used the darker denims for one direction, and the lighter shades for the other.  Can't you imagine this on a larger scale?  And it's reversable!  And pretty rugged, too.

I like it.

So I can't wait to make something bigger. 

Which is why I will be oh, so happy when the bedroom project is done.

Anyway, that's where I am with the whole rug-making idea.  I'm in limbo.

But the whole weaving fascination is alive and well and busy in my head.

I remember a loooooooooong time ago - I think I learned this at my cousin's farm house in NH - oddly enough from my older male cousin.  I think.  I don't know.  Maybe I need more gingko biloba or whatever that is so I remember this stuff better.  But somewhere, some time ago, I learned to weave on a little makeshift loom.  I think I learned it while we were visiting the farm, and maybe when we got home, my father made me a small wooden loom frame thingy so I could weave my own stuff.  I remember weaving with yarn, and I think I made some sort of...flat, woven thing of yarn.  I don't remember much else.

BUT - hey, wouldn't it be cool to make myself a BIGGER frame and weave me some rugs? 

So that's another project percolating.

But for now, it's all still on hold until the other projects - projects that affect ALL of us and not just the projects that satisfy my artsy side - are the main priorities.

So I did this instead.

We needed bread, and I made enough dough for four loaves.  I baked three of them in standard loaf pans...

And here's what I did with the other quarter of dough:

 

I cut it into 16 pieces, rolled each one into a snake and wove them all toghether.  The edges are kind of messy looking - I didn't really know how to finish it, so I kind of looped the ends under each other.  I should have trimmed them all to the SAME length first, but live and learn.

Then Julia, who wanted to help, brushed the top with melted butter...

And into the oven it went.

We had it with dinner.

Alex, in particular, loved it.  I don't know if he loved the bread itself, just because it's homemade bread, or if he loved the pattern, or what.  Doesn't matter, as long as we're all content and well-fed.

Of course, next time, I'm thinking I could sprinkle salt and pepper and herbs on top...maybe some minced onion and garlic...freshly grated romano cheese...oh, the possibilities!

And Speaking of Pizza Dough...

I made a double batch of my favorite home-made pizza dough the other day, just because of this contest and all the different approaches take when making pizza at home.

I got this recipe from the Providence Journal ages ago, when Chef Brian Kingsford - either a former or current chef at the time - at Al Forno Restaurant was interviewed about grilled pizzas.  He shared this recipe with the paper and I am sharing it with you:

Al Forno Grilled Pizza Dough

2 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast

2 cups warm water

2 1/2 teaspoons salt

5 cups flour

That's it.

Just four simple ingredients.

And here are the instructions, with my photos and my own commentary in italics and parentheses:

Mix yeast and warm water in a large mixing bowl. 

 

Allow to foam.

  

Add salt and then mix in flour with a dough hook.

  

 

 

Add more flour if necessary so dough is not sticky.  (I finished mine on the counter by hand.)

 

 

Allow to sit in bowl for 15 minutes in a warm spot.

  

Punch down

 

 

and separate into five balls of 7 1/2 ounces each.  Use a kitchen scale.  (I just cut it into 8 pieces approximately the same size and formed those into balls.)

  

  

 

 

Soak in oil bath for 30 minutes or more.

 

 

  

 

 

 

~~~

After the 30 minutes are up, you're ready to stretch out your dough and make a pizza. 

  

The olive oil bath makes the dough unbelievably soft and smooth to work with. 

 

You still need to be gentle so as not to poke holes in it,

 

but if you work quickly and carefully,

 

you'll have a lovely blank dough canvas on which to create your own work of pizza art. 

 

I like to bake mine in the oven for 10 minutes at about 475-500 degrees F before adding any toppings - I find it helps prevent the crust from getting soggy.

 

And as for what to put on the pizza?

 

That part's up to you.

 

Softer Bread than Before!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about this savory Sweet Potato Bread that I'd experimented with. 

Well, yesterday I was baking bread - made one rather rustic batch and I knew I needed to make something soft and squishy for my husband's sandwiches.  I had sweet potatoes, so I thought I'd make another batch of bread with them.  But I wanted to play with it again, and so I left out the herbs and spices, and added the remaining half cup of ricotta cheese I had in the fridge from the Easter Pies I'd made over the weekend.

I'm happy to report, the bread is EVEN SOFTER AND SQUISHIER THAN BEFORE!  I also remembered to brush the tops of the loaves with melted butter right after they came out of the oven, cover them and let them sit for half an hour like that, to soften the top crust.

My husband made a sandwich with the bread last night and paid the questionably ultimate compliment:

"It's almost as good as Wonder Bread!"

Well then.  I can sleep at night now.

Pita Bread

 

One of the suggested accompaniments to the "Rockin' Moroccan Salsa" I posted the other day was fresh pita bread.  I didn't have any in the house, and I didn't want to go back out to the store, and as I thought about what I could use instead, the outraged voice inside my head told me not to DARE substitute something else, but to just go on and MAKE my own pita bread already!  So, of course, I did.

For the recipe I referenced Flatbreads & Flavors, by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford.  I've had this book for years, possibly ever since it was published in 1995.  Subtitled "A Baker's Atlas," this fun and fascinating book takes the reader/baker around most of the globe, sharing recipes for a huge variety of flat breads and crackers, along with typical local accompaniments.  For instance, travel with Duguid and Alford to Beijing and learn to make not only these soft, round breads called bao bing, but also either Mushu Pork or Four-Thread Salad, and then use one or both as a filling for your breads. 

I knew they'd have a recipe for pita bread.

Sure enough, on pages 181-183, in the EasternMediterranean section of the Flatbreads & Flavors, I found a recipe for Pita, also called khubz (in Arabic) or baladi (in Egypt.)

The ingredients are simple - yeast, water, flour, salt, and olive oil.  The initial preparation is just like any other basic yeasted bread - combine yeast and water, add flour, then salt and olive oil.  Combine, knead, cover and let rise.  After that, you just divide the dough into pieces, roll them into flat rounds, and the either bake in the oven or cook on a griddle.  Both methods offer the opportunity to see these flat circles puff up like balloons - an experience that's fun for both kids and.  I know I enjoyed it!

Here are the ingredients (and measurements) from Duguid & Alford's book.  My one alteration is in italics:

2 teaspoons dry yeast

2  1/2 cups lukewarm water

5 to 6 cups hard whole wheat flour, or 3 cups each hard whole wheat flour and hard unbleached white flour, or unbleached all-purpose flour.  (I used 5-6 cups unbleached bread flour)

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

There are instructions for making pita either in your oven or on top of the stove.  I made mine on a griddle that covers two burners, so that is the method I'll share here.  Instructions from the book are in normal type, my notes or alterations are in italics....

You will need a large bread bowl...a cast-iron or other heavy griddle or skillet at least 9 inches in diameter, and a rolling pin.

 In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water.  Stir to dissolve.  Stir in 3 cups of flour, a cup at a time, and then stir 100 times, about 1 minute, in the same direction to activate the gluten.  Let this sponge rest for at least 10 minutes, or as long as 2 hours.

I used my KA stand mixer with the dough hook. 

 

 

 

 

 

And after a couple of hours, here's what the starter looked like:

Sprinkle the salt over the sponge and stir in the olive oil.  Mix well.  Add more flour, a cup at a time, until the dough is too stiff to stir.  Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic.  Rinse out the bowl, dry, and lightly oil.  Return the dough to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until at least doubled in size, approximately 1 1/2 hours.  (The dough can be made ahead to this point and stored, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.)

Again, I used a stand mixer instead of my arm power.  Because I'm a wuss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you think the dough is finished rising, poke a finger in the dough, down to your first knuckle at most.  If the dimple fills in quickly, your dough still needs to rise more.  If it doesn't fill in, or maybe fills in just a little, and slowly, your dough is ready to go.

To cook the pitas on top of the stove:  Preheat a 9-inch or larger griddle or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat.  When hot, lightly grease the surface of the griddle with a little oil.

Meanwhile, gently punch down the dough and divide it in half.  Cover one half and divide the other half into 8 pieces.  Flatten each piece with well-floured hands, then roll out one at a time into circles less than 1/4 inch thick and 8 to 9 inches in diameter.

 

I went with the "Alternative" described below, and made twice as many - but smaller - breads.

 

I also didn't try all that hard to make circles.  They tasted fine anyway.

 

I did, however, roll them out nice and thin.

 

Oh, and this is right about when Julia decided she wanted to help.  Or maybe, now that I think about it, I summoned her to help because she was bothering Alex and all the yelling was getting on my nerves.  I gave Julia a small rolling pin and let her vent her frustrations with that and some dough.  It always works for me.

  

  

Hers were a little thicker than they were supposed to be, but I kept my mouth shut.  She still had the rolling pin. 

 

Eventually, like I'd hoped, her good humor was restored.  She continued to roll out the small breads while I got some going on the griddle.

 

 

Gently put one bread onto the griddle.  (Sorry about the poor quality of this next batch - lighting's terrible over my stove.)

Cook for 15 to 20 seconds, then gently turn over.  (About now is when you want to summon your kids, spouse, friends, neighbors - anyone you want to wow with your amazing baking skillz...make them watch the breads puff up.  They'll be spellbound.  Or cynical, like my almost-7-year-old son was.  He watched.  A bread puffed up.  He went back to whatever he'd been doing before.)

Cook for about 1 minute, until big bubbles begin to appear.  Turn the bread again to the first side, and cook until the bread balloons fully. 

To help the process along, you can press gently with a towel on those areas where the bubbles have already formed, trying to push the air bubble into areas that are still flat.  (This is a technique that will quickly improve with practice.) 

The breads should take no more than 3 minutes to cook, and, likewise, they shouldn't cook so fast that they begin to burn; adjust the heat until you find a workable temperature. 

Wrap the cooked breads in a large kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft while you cook and roll out the rest of the dough in the same way.  There is no need to oil the griddle between each bread, but after 4 or 5 breads, you might want to lightly oil the surface again.

Alternatives:  You can, of course, make smaller breads by dividing the dough into smaller pieces.  The rolling out and cooking method and times remain the same.  Children particularly love smaller pocket breads.

Makes approximately 16 pocket breads, 8 to 9 inches in diameter.  (Or twice that amount of pocket breads about 4 to 5 inches in diameter.)

 

~~~

Fun, fun, fun - and easy.  The pita breads kept for several days just wrapped in the towel.  I've got 4 left, and I'll be baking those later til they're nice and crisp, and serving them with guacamole and a wild mushroom pate I'll be posting in the near future.

But for now, go forth, and make pita!  Have some fun!

Savory Sweet Potato Bread

 

I had a few of these. 

It was this past Saturday, and I was spending pretty much the whole day in the kitchen.  I baked potato bread, prepped the blueberry crumb cake ingredients for this past week's Tuesdays with Dorie, and baked the coconut butter thins for NEXT week's Tuesdays with Dorie (it's my turn to pick a recipe, so I figured I should have my post ready in PLENTY of time for a change), and since I was in such a baking mood, I found myself looking around the kitchen for other innocent bystanding foods to throw into my stand mixer and pop in the oven.

I'd had four russet potatoes, and I cooked all of them, originally intending to bake four loaves of bread.  But...they'd also be perfect for a batch of gnocchi, which I hadn't made in a long time...hmmm...well...what about those sweet potatoes just sitting there?  They don't seem to have any plans....maybe I'll just bake them and I'll figure out some use for them later.  So I did.

Later, after the cookies were baked and the potato bread dough was rising, I thought, well, I could make a sweet potato bread, right?  That would be cool.  I checked in a couple of baking books for a recipe, but all I found (and I admit, I didn't look through EVERY book because that wouldn't have left me any time to cook anything else that day.) were sweet things like quick breads, or biscuits.  And those weren't what I was after. 

So next I went to the computer and did a quick search but mostly kept finding recipes with some kind of SWEETNESS component - like the actual sweet potato wasn't enough.  I stopped looking because I didn't want to look any more, I wanted to make something.  I figured I could wing it.

So I took the potato bread recipe and messed around with it a bit, and you know what?  I produced a couple of really nice loaves of bread, if I do say so myself.  And now it's time to share.

Here's the list of ingredients I used:

1 cup vegetable stock (because I had some and needed to use it up)

1 cup hot water

1/2 cup cold milk.

2 T yeast

1 medium-large sweet potato, baked, cooled enough to handle, and peeled.

2 T unsalted butter

2 tsp sugar

1  1/2 T salt

6-8 grinds of pepper (I didn't measure it - it's probably about 1/8-1/4 tsp.)

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp dried sage

5  1/2 - 6  1/2 cups flour

And here's what I did:

I combined the vegetable stock, water and milk in one container and stirred in the yeast.  (the hot water and cold milk and stock balance out the temp so it's not too hot or too cold.  Like the baby bear's porridge, it's just right.

  

   

 

Then, while the yeast was proofing, I mashed together the sweet potato, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, thyme, and sage.

 

And then I tasted it, which was stupid, considering the amount of salt I'd included.  So if you make this, and you want to taste it, don't be like me.  Leave the salt out til after you've tasted it.  Or, even better, just whisk the salt into some of the flour you'll be using instead.  Just to be safe. 

Next, I combined the yeast mixture with the sweet potato mixture in my KA stand mixer (the bigger one - I use the 6 quart for breads) and about 5 cups of the flour.  Once everything was blended, I set the speed on 2 and let it go for a while.

 

Probably about 10 minutes.  At that point I added additional flour, a little at a time, until the dough was just about in a ball.  It wasn't completely all pulled away from the sides, but I like to work the dough by hand toward the end anyway.

   

And I have to tell you, this was one of the best feeling doughs I've worked with in a while.  It was soft and cohesive and elastic...really nice to knead.  Kind of sticky, partly because hey, it's dough, and also because of the sweet potato, but not as sticky as the regular potato bread dough can be.  Less starch in the sweet potato makes for a less sticky bread dough.

 

After a few minutes - five or so, I think - of kneading, I put the dough in a greased bowl, covered the bowl with plastic wrap, and left it to rise. 

 

I didn't keep track of how long it took to rise.  I was doing other things - probably making the gnocchi at that point.  It probably took around an hour or so to double - it wasn't any faster or slower than, say, the regular potato bread.  At least, not that I noticed.

 

Once the dough had doubled, I rolled it out of the bowl and onto my lightly floured work surface.

 

Kinda pretty, isn't it?  With those patterns?

  

I divided my dough into two balls and let them rest a bit on the counter while I greased a couple of loaf pans.

   

I flattened the balls and shaped them into loaves and set them in the pans to rise until they were about an inch or so above the tops of the loaf pans.  (Sorry - no pictures of that part)  Then I popped them into a 375 degree F oven and baked them for about 50 minutes, rotating the pans at about the 30 minute mark.

They smelled wonderful while they baked.  Here's what they looked like when I pulled them from the oven:

 

Here's a slightly better shot, except that it seems I was standing slightly bent over to my right while I shot the picture.  No idea why, though with all the children and cats clamoring for my attention at any given moment, I could have been leaning over to pretend to listen to one of them while I was taking the photo.  Like I said, no idea.

 

Pretty, aren't they?  Not overly organge, but with a kind of golden glow about them.

 

 

 

(I found myself leaning in, closer and closer, not so much for the pictures, but so I could inhale more of the fresh-baked-bread perfume....)

And I didn't even slice into one of these til the following day.  How's that for restraint?

 

  

You can see little flecks of sweet potato and dried thyme here and there.

I'm really pleased with this loaf.  The texture is soft, the crumb is tight and dense enough not to tear apart too easily.  The flavor?  It's NOT sweet.  Just what I was going for.  Nothing stands out, flavor-wise.  I don't specifically detect anything - it doesnt yell CUMIN AND CORIANDER at me, for example.  But it has...something.  A nice savory back flavor.  Kind of warm and friendly, perfect for all sorts of sandwiches.  Or toast with your over-easy eggs in the morning.

I hope you'll give this one a try and let me know what you think. 

I figure if a stronger flavored bread is desired, you can up the quantities of herbs and spices - or, of course, come up with your own.  I'll probably increase the amounts of cumin and coriander next time around, just to see how that goes.  But overall, I think this is a lovely bread and a nice use of an extra baked sweet potato, should you have one kicking around.

Printable version of this recipe here!

Country-Style Loaves with Cornmeal, Cilantro and Black Pepper

 

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

I am addicted.  Not that I wasn't a carb junkie before, but this bread banishes Atkins and South Beach from my vocabulary for EVAH.

Anyway.

Hang on, I'll be right back.  I need more toast....

Okay, I'm all set now.  Please excuse the crumbs.

Several days ago, when I made Alex's cookies and this 600 thread count ULTRA SOFT bread, I also started proceedings for this bread.

But first things first.

The recipe comes from Bread Alone, by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik.  The subtitle promises "Bold Fresh Loaves From Your Own Hands."  This recipe - for "Country-Style Hearth Loaf With Cornmeal, Cilanrto and Coarse Pepper" (found on pages 72-74) - delivers on that promise.

To begin, you need to make a poolish.  A poolish, sometimes called a "pre-ferment" is simply a starter.  A launching pad, if you will, for the yeast and flavor development.  A poolish is in the same family as a sourdough starter, but isn't necessarily something that is kept alive for years and years.  It's a short-term starter.

For that, all you need is flour, water and yeast.  (In this case, that's 1/2 cup water, 1/2 tsp dry yeast, and 3/4 cup flour - I used 1/4 cup white whole wheat (King Arthur) and 1/2 cup all-purpose.)

You mix them together and let them sit and  ferment.  The yeast wakes up and starts consuming the flour and giving off carbon dioxide, creating that lovely bubbly effect.  Ideally, you want this to go slowly.  We're not rushing things here.  The book recommends a "moderately warm (74-80 degrees F) draft-free place" and tells us this fermentation process can take anywhere from 2 to 10 hours.

 

 

I let mine sit all day.  And the, by the time I actually HAD time to do anything with it, dinner was over and I really wasn't in the mood to make the dough.  So into the fridge it went, and it sat there until two days later, because the next day was taken over by beer brewing and risotto-making.

 

And here's how it looked:

 

Now it's time to make the final dough.  Here's what you need:

2  1/2 cups water

1/2 tsp dry yeast

1  1/4 cups stone-ground cornmeal (use what you have available in your part of the world)

1 T sea salt

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (actually, I'd recommend doubling that if you want to taste it in the final product.  I didn't taste it at all at this amount.)

2 T coarsely ground black pepper, or to taste

3 1/4 - 4  1/2 cups 20% bran wheat flour (or you can use about 25% whole wheat blended with 75% all-purpose, which is what I did.)

 

Okay.  First, combine the poolish, water and yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer.  Then stir in the cornmeal...then the cilantro, pepper, salt, and enough of the flour to "make a thick mass that is difficult to stir."  (Of course, if you're using a stand mixer, there is no difficulty in stirring, but this book is written as if you're doing this by hand.  Which is fun, too.)

 

At this point, add the flour a little at a time (1/4 cup or so) and knead (by hand or by mixer) until the dough is soft and smooth.

 

Shape the dough into a ball and place it in an oiled bowl.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and set in a moderately warm, draft free place (like the poolish) until the dough has doubled in volume.

 

  Once it has doubled in volume (if you poke your finger in the dough about a half inch, the indentation stays; the dough doesn't spring back any more), deflate it, then form it back into a ball, put it back in the bowl and let it rest about 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes are up, deflate the dough again and divide it in two.  Knead each of them a bit and form them into round loaves.

Line two bowls with well-floured towels (and I can't stress the "well-floured" part enough - if you don't saturate the towels with flour, the dough will end up sticking, and...well...you'll see.)  Place the loaves smooth-side down in the bowl and dust the top sides with flour.  Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel (I just folded the corners of the towel up and over and sprayed it with some water) and let it rise until it increases about 1  1/2 times in volume.

 

 

 

Now.  While the loaves are rising, start preheating your oven.  The book recommends baking these on a pizza stone or on tiles on the bottom of your oven.  I didn't - my stone isn't big enough for two loaves and I didn't want either loaf to feel left out, so I just baked them on a cookie sheet.  But still, you want to be sure your oven is HOT.  450 degrees hot.  So preheat it longer than the usual 20 minutes or so.  Place a rack in the center of the oven.  Too low and the bottom crusts might burn.

Also, get a spray bottle with water ready.  Spraying the inside of the oven helps create a nice, crispy crust.

Okay, here's the tricky part.  But first - see how nicely the dough rose?  Lovely and puffy and round.

 

"Gently invert the loaves from the baskets or bowls onto a floured board or peel so they are right side up."  That's what the book says.  I didn't use a peel, I gently inverted them right onto the baking sheet.  And as I was doing so...the dough stuck to the towel and pulled...and flop went the lovely puffy loaf.

 

So, like I said before, SATURATE the towel with flour, so that such an aesthetic tragedy will not befall YOU. 

I did better with the other loaf, as you can see below.

 

Then, before you put them in the oven, you want to score the loaves (slice shallowly) with a VERY sharp knife or razor blade.  This allows steam to escape and preserves the shape of the loaves.   If your knife isn't VERY sharp, it will pull on the dough and possibly deflate the lovely puffy loaves.

Into the oven they go, and with your water bottle, spray all over the inside of the oven (avoiding the light bulb - it could burst) to create steam.  Shut the oven door, wait 3 minutes, and spray again.  After that point, bake the loaves for 20 minutes or so and then reduce the heat to 400.  Bake "until loaves are a rich caramel color and the crust is firm, another 15 to 20 minutes." 

 

Cool them completely on a wire rack.

 

One thing I want to mention.  The book, Bread Alone, is far more specific with regard to temperatures then I have been in this post.  In most bakeries, temperature is monitored closely - the temp of the room, the water, the flour...and calculations are made to keep the dough at optimum temperature for a slow rise and, as a result, a better flavor.  I didn't take the temperature of anything.  But I made sure not to use warm water or to let the poolish or dough sit in too warm an area.  The warmer the temperature, the faster the bread will rise, and though, in the case of bread, the sooner I can have a slice the better, allowing more time for all the fermenting and rising will result in a far superior loaf.  So go slow.  It's definitely worth the wait.

I used the full 2 tablespoons called for, and I wouldn't change that a bit.  I loved the peppery flavor, and the crunch from the cornmeal.  I didn't taste the cilantro at all, like I mentioned earlier, so I think when I make this again I'll double the amount.  Or not.  The bread was pretty damn good as it was.

Give this loaf (or these loaves) a try.  You won't be sorry.

  

Indiana Basic White Bread

 

I was looking through various bread books yesterday.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to make, but we were out of bread, or almost out, so I needed to bake something.

I actually found two recipes, in two different books, that I decided to make.  The first one I found will be posted another time (because it's not done yet - it's a two-day process), so today I give you the second one.

 

Now, I've made soft white bread before.  See here and here for example.

But THIS bread, according to my husband (the soft white bread afficianado in residence), is THE SOFTEST BREAD ever to grace a sandwich.

So if you're in search of the ultimate in edible yeasted softness, you might want to give this recipe a try.

Indiana Basic White Bread comes from a paperback volume by Mary Gubser entitiled America's Bread Book.  To be honest, this is probably the first recipe I've used from it.  I'm not even sure where I got it - maybe from my mom, or Bill's mom, or maybe I picked it up somewhere when I was in my first major bread-baking obsessive period about 12 years ago.  Who knows.  But there it was, at one end of the shelf.  And so I opened it.

The chapters are divided by region of the United States, and then subdivided by state.  Because I live in RI, that was the first section I looked at, and, not surprisingly, there were several recipes for jonnycakes and one for New England Brown Bread.  

Not what I was looking for.

I flipped through the pages, just looking for something plain and simple, and in the "Ohio Valley" section, I found this recipe for Indiana Basic White Bread on pages 238-239.

And yes, it's very basic. 

(My notes are in bold italics below.)

Ingredients:

4 packages active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

2 1/4 cups warm milk or potato water (I used the milk)

2 1/2 tsp salt

3 T sugar

1/4 cup melted butter (unsalted)

7-8 cups unbleached white flour

And here's what you do:

In a small bowl combine the yeast and water, stirring until dissolved, and set aside.  Combine milk, salt, sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl.  Blend well and add the yeast mixture.  (I dissolved the yeast in the water and some of the milk, then added that to the rest of the milk in my mixing bowl. 

I whisked the melted butter and sugar together

and added them to the milk/water/yeast.  And I mixed the salt with the first 3 cups of flour added to the bowl.)  Beat in 3 cups of flour and gradually add sufficient flour to make a soft, workable dough that pulls away from sides of the bowl.  Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and resilient, about 10 minutes.  Round into a ball and place in a warm buttered bowl, turning to coat the top.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and a towel and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. 

 

Knead down, re-cover, and let rise again, about 30 minutes.

Turn dough out on a floured surface and divide into 3 equal portions.  Knead each, cover, and let rest 10-15 minutes.  Butter three 8-inch loaf pans.  Shape dough into loaves and place in pans.  Cover and let rise to tops of pans.  (I used my 9 x 5 loaf pans because that's what I have.  I formed two loaves, and then cut the remaining third of the dough into small pieces, rolled them into balls and put them in the loaf pan.  I wanted rolls, kind of.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Bake loaves about 35 minutes.  Turn loaves out on wire racks to cool.

 

 

We had about half of the lumpy loaf with chowder that I made that night for dinner.  Most of one loaf is also gone now, and the other loaf is in the freezer.

It's great for cold sandwiches or grilled cheese sandwiches or toast.  Or, if you're my husband, it's soothing just to sit somewhere quiet, with a blankie, and rub the bread against your cheek. 

I suppose I shouldn't have shared that part.

Anyway - if you want to try another soft white bread recipe, this one's a nice one!

Potato Bread

This batch was for Bill.  He wanted a soft bread, something good for sandwiches.  And I had potatoes.

The recipe is from one of my favorite bread books, George Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker, on pages 51-53 (at least in the edition I have).  I made one little minor change to the recipe, which I've indicated below.

Mr. Greenstein had this to say about Potato Bread:

Long before the invention of modern yeast, potatoes and the starchy water in which they are boiled were used to leaven bread.  Today we use the potatoes and their boiling water for the flavor and tenderness they impart to the finished bread.  Potato breads keep exceptionally well in the bread box or refrigerator and can be frozen.  Friends in the Midwest still compete at fairs and food shows,  justifiably proud of their potato breads, some of which come from family recipes handed down through the generations.  My father often spoke about potato breads that were baked in Europe when he was a young man.  Although we now have potato flour, starch, and instant flakes available for baking, I like this recipe using fresh mashed potatoes and the water in which they cooked.  You can use instant mashed potatoes but you do not get the benefits of the potato water.

This recipe provides two loaves of soft but substantial bread,

just perfect for sandwiches or toast. 

Shall we?  Mr. Greenstein's instructions are in bold, and my commentary is in italics throughout the recipe.

Here's what you'll need:

1 medium potato

 2  1/2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup warm water*

2 packages active dry yeast

2 T unsalted butter or shortening, at room temperature (I used butter)

2 T sugar

1/3 cup skim milk powder*

5 to 6 cups unbleaches all-purpose flour

2 tsp salt

Flour, for dusting work top

Vegetable oil, for coating bowl

Shortening, for greasing pans

Water or melted butter, for brushing loaves (I'm not sure why - it wasn't mentioned in the instructions)

    *I substituted a quarter cup of warm 2% milk for the water and skim milk powder.

Got everything ready?  Okay, let's make some bread.

Wash and thoroughly scrub the potato, then cook in the boiling water until soft (approximately 10 minutes) (actually, it took longer than that with my potato, fyi).

Drain, reserving 2 cups potato water.  Peel the potato, mash, and set aside to cool.  Extra potato water can be refrigerated and used in any yeast recipe for added nutritive value and tenderizing power.  (I boiled off a bit too much water, so I just added a little plain water to the potato water to make it 2 cups even.)

 

Dough

In a large bowl sprinkle the yeast over the 1/4 cup warm water (in my case, the warm milk); stir to dissolve. 

Stir together the cooled mashed potato and butter and add to the bowl together with the 2 cups reserved potato water. 

 

 

 

Add the sugar, milk powder (unless you're me) 5 cups flour, and salt.  Stir until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl, adding more flour 1/4 cup at a time if necessary.

 

(And you might want to WAKE UP, JAYNE and switch to a dough hook before you go any farther.  Duh.)

Potato dough will remain a little sticky.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead, adding more flour if necessary, until the dough feels smooth and elastic (8 to 10 minutes). 

(I used my stand mixer for the whole kneading process.)

Rising

Transfer the dough to a clean, oiled mixing bowl and turn to coat. 

Cover and set aside until the dough doubles in volume. 

 

Punch down, cut in half, shape into two balls, and allow to rest, covered, for 10 minutes. 

 

(tick tock tick tock)

Shaping

Press down each ball and shape into a pan loaf. 

 

Place into 2 greased 8- or 9-inch loaf pans, cover, and set aside to proof until the breads come up above the tops of the pans. 

 

Dust with flour and cut a deep slash down the length of each loaf.

 

Baking

Bake in a preheated 375 degree F oven until the bread has a hollow sound when the bottom is tapped with your fingertips (about 50 minutes). 

 

The sides should feel firm.  If necessary return the bread to the oven for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.  If using tiles or an oven stone, finish the bread on them for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.  Remove from the pans and let cool on a wire rack.

 

When cooled to room temperature, slice - and enjoy!

 

Clemen-Thyme Dinner Rolls

 

I made these little rolls to go along with my Curry Ginger Carrot Bisque last night.  It was probably a mistake.  I love bread.  Too much.  These are yummy.  And therefore, dangerous.

But I digress.

While I was thinking about these rolls, before I actually started proofing the yeast, I was thinking about these lovely, soft, rolls my mom made years ago - savory, but with a little lemon zest in them.  They were very tasty, and I couldn't find a recipe, so I kind of winged it.  I was also influenced somewhat by the recent kugelhopf I made for this week's TWD recipe.

I also didn't have lemon zest.  Limes?  Mmmmmm...no.  But I had a bowl of clementines...one of them would do nicely.

Okay, on to the dough.

1 T dry active yeast

1  1/2 cups milk, warm to the touch

3 T sugar

4  1/2 - 5 cups All Purpose flour

1 egg

1/2 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature, but not mushy

1 T salt

Zest of one clementine (or a lemon, if you prefer)

1 tsp dried thyme

First, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk and let the mixture sit a few minutes, until the yeast becomes frothy.

Pour that into the bottom of a bowl (stand mixer bowl if you've got one) and to that, add about 2 cups of flour and mix, using the dough hook, until combined.

Add in the egg, and combine, scrape the bowl down, set the mixer speed on medium and add the butter in pieces, one at a time, waiting for the first piece of butter to be thoroughly blended in before adding the next.

Once the butter is all mixed in, add another 2 cups of flour, the salt, thyme and zest, and mix on medium speed until the dough comes together in a ball.  Add more flour, a bit at a time, if needed, to keep the dough from sticking to the bowl. 

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead a couple times, then place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk.

 

Punch the dough down and let it rise a second time.

 

 

Now comes the fun part. 

Cut the dough in half and set one half aside.  Roll out the other half until it's a rectangle roughly 18" long by 8" wide.  Trim the edges so you've got nice clean edges and angles.  Then slice into four pieces lengthwise, then into six rows width-wise.  You should have 24 little squares or rectangles. 

Brush the tops with melted butter, and then make little stacks of five and place them on end in muffin tins.

Or, you could make little balls of dough and put three in each muffin section.  (no action prep shots of that, sorry)

OR, you could cut a sections of dough, roll it into a snake, and tie that into a little knot.

   

Cover your little creations with a dish towel and let them rise about 45 minutes, or until nice and puffy.  Preheat your oven to 400 F at this point, and brush the tops of your little rolls with melted butter.  When the oven is ready, put the pans in the oven and bake about 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve with a bit of butter, and a nice bowl of soup on the side. 

Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Sourdough Rolls

 

So, were you wondering what became of the garlic?  Here's your answer!

I love the combination of garlic and rosemary.  I especially like it when combined with a leg of lamb roasting in the oven, but I'm not overly fussy.  Ground lamb would work, right?  So I made these rolls to have with the Moussaka the other night.

Actually, I roasted the garlic over a week ago.  I had 16 heads of garlic that I sliced in half, laid out on some foil on a baking sheet, drizzled with olive oil, covered with more foil, and baked at about 350 for an hour or so. 

I let the garlic cool a bit

before squeezing it, now soft, sweet, and golden, into a bowl. 

Then I poured all the garlic into my food processor

and pulsed it til I had a relatively smooth paste. 

I froze most of it and kept some in the fridge for near-future use.

~~~~~

The day before I made my rolls (and moussaka), I added some flour and water to my sourdough starter to get it activated.

The day OF the baking, I made a batch of basic, easy sourdough bread - a 2-loaf batch. 

While the dough was rising, I went out to the garden and picked a few sprigs of rosemary and rinsed them in some water to get rid of any dirt or bugs. 

Then I picked the leaves off of the slightly woody stems and chopped them up into little pieces and mixed them with some of the roasted garlic paste.

Here's the dough after the first rise.

 

Gorgeous, isn't it?  I locked the bowl into place on my stand mixer and, using the dough hook, stirred it down.  Just wanted to share with you the lovely gluten strands pulling away from the side of the bowl....

   

Cool, huh?

I added the remaining flour and baking soda, and kneaded the dough by hand until it was - as they say - smooth and elastic.  I divided it in half, shaped one into a loaf and put it in my lightly-greased loaf pan.  The other half was patted flat on the counter and gently stretched and pressed into a vaguely rectangular shape.

 

You can see where this is going, right?  Next thing I did was to smear the garlic/rosemary mixture on the dough...

 

And then - yes - I rolled it up tightly...

 

Just like when I make cinnamon rolls.

 

I sort of pinched the edge against the rest of the roll, then sliced it into 16 pieces.  I placed them all in a greased 10" cake pan and let them rise for about half an hour before putting them into a 400 degree oven.

 

After 35 minutes, they were done. 

 

And I served them, still warm, with dinner.

Here's a shot of them - and the loaf of bread - on my dining room table, along with other bits and pieces of the day. 

 

They were pretty good - everyone liked them.  I think next time I'll add more of the garlic/rosemary mixture and maybe mix in some grated parmesan as well. 

They did, however, go very nicely with the moussaka.

Summer Focaccia

Going away party/dinner for Joe, our nephew, who was being sent to Afghanistan the following Monday

PLUS

Surplus of summer squashes

EQUALS

This post.  A bit after the fact.

~~~~~

I wanted to bring something...I knew there would be chowder and clamcakes...and so this is what I came up with. 

P.S.  Bread dough rises really fast when it's like 90 degrees outside and 400 or so (it seems) in the kitchen.

The basic dough recipe is adapted from"Schiacciata alla Fiorentina" in The Italian Baker by Carol Field and can be found on pages 294-297.

From the book:

Schiacciata, which simply means squashed or crushed, is the word Florentines use for the flatbreads that other Italians call focaccia or pizza.  At the Il Fornaio bakery on Via Matteo Palmieri in Florence, I watched as the bakers shaped schiacciate as big as a small pizza and as small as an hors d'ouvre, but to me they were at their most appealing as 6-inch disks topped with brilliant strips of red and yellow peppers, ribbons of zucchini, or almost translucent slices of ripe tomatoes dusted with tiny basil leaves, and all glossy from a wash of local olive oil.  They are wonderful eaten cold for lunch with a salad; take them on picnics, too, or serve them with a platter of cold meats.

* When I made this, I tripled the recipe, because I'm crazy that way.  I'm always worried there won't be enough for everyone.  But I'm just giving the measurements for one batch.

Ingredients:

2  1/2 tsp (1 pkg) active dry yeast or 1 small cake (18 grams) fresh yeast

1  cup warm water

1/2 cup milk

2 T olive oil

2 1/2 T lard, at room temperature (I used vegetable shortening)

3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

Olive oil for brushing the tops

Salt for sprinkling the tops

Toppings - thinly sliced vegetables, grilled or sauteed to intensify the flavor.  Garlic or garlic paste.  Cheeses.  Whatever sounds good.  You get the idea.

Stir the yeast, water and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer; let stand until creamy, 10 minutes.  Stir in the oil, and lard with the paddle.  Add the flour and mix at low speed about 2 minutes.  Change to the dough hook and knead 4 to 5 minutes.  Add the salt and knead another 1 to 2 minutes.  The dough will climb up the collar of the hook, and you will have to stop several times to push it down.  The dough should be smooth, velvety, and softer than bread dough but firmer than croissant dough.

First Rise:

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, 1 to 2 hours.

Cut the dough into 6 pieces (approx 5 oz each) on a lightly floured surface  

and shape into balls using the pinkie edges of your hands as they (your hands) move in opposite but parallel directions on either side of the ball.  Hopefully this slideshow will help give you the idea.

Let rest under a towel for 15 minutes. 

Dimple the doughs,

spreading each into a circle, and let rest under a towel another 15 minutes. 

Dimple tops with oil and sprinkle lightly with salt.  Place the dough circles on parchment-lined or oiled baking sheets or baker's peels sprinkled with cornmeal.

Second Rise:

Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Topping.

Dimple the dough again with your fingertips, stretching it as you go.  Sprinkle with salt and brush with oil. 

Mist water very lightly over the top to cover and trap the oil (I totally forgot to do that) and then cover with the topings of your choice.

(like fresh ricotta, garlic paste, sliced tomatoes and basil leaves)

(or grilled slices of zucchini and pattypan squash and sliced scallions - all from the garden)

(grilled red onion and fresh ricotta - my personal favorite)

Or any other combinations of those basic ingredients.

Brush the tops with oil, sprinkle with salt, and brush or mist lightly with water.  (Again - the water?  Forgot all about it.)

Baking.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F at least 20 minutes before you plan to bake.  Bake the 6-inch schiacciata 18 to 20 minutes.  Immediately brush the surfaces with oil.  Serve hot, or cool on racks to room temperature.

** A word to the wise.  My kitchen, by this point, was a HUGE mess, because not only was I making all these, but I also decided, in my heat-induced insanity, to stuff and fry a bunch of squash blossoms.  Because hey, why NOT fry and bake at the same time when it's 90 outside

and the humidity is at, oh two thousand percent.  (And yes, my window has streaks and splatters.  It was a messy day.)

So anyway, like I was saying - the kitchen was a huge mess - every surface was covered with baking sheets of focaccia or dirty bowls or the flour/egg wash/cornmeal bowls I had out to dredge and fry the squash blossoms...anyway, when it came time to start putting the baked focacce on a platter to bring to the other house, I had no where to set up.  Well, I could have used the dining room, but I wanted everything in the kitchen.  Why?  My brain was melting.  I couldn't see past those four walls. 

And so.  Because I wasn't REALLY thinking, I set the lightweight wooden/bamboo/wicker/whatever it is tray on top of my cannister of flour on my work table.  And I started laying some of the focaccia, overlapping each other because I'd made 19 or 20 or so, at ONE END OF THE TRAY. 

I'm sure anyone who's ever been on one end of a see-saw and their elementary school friend on the other end decided it would be funny to jump off can see where this is leading.

Yes.  It's leading to >SPLAT!< on the floor.  Two of my three ricotta/garlic paste/tomato/basil beauties landed face down on the tile.

Sad, huh?  I show this photo to point out that mistakes will happen to us all, and to implore you to use the common sense I was clearly lacking in that moment and DO NOT balance your tray on your flour cannister and the start loading things on it AT ONE END ONLY!  You can see the chaos and destruction that will result.

Ah well.  The other remaining focaccia (or schiacciata) were safely loaded on the tray and transported to the party, where they were apparently enjoyed by all who tried them.

And the good thing about making way too many?  Sometimes you get sent home with half of the leftovers.

So go on, harvest something from your garden, slice it, grill it, make some dough, and put it all together.  It's well worth the time and effort, I promise.  And hey, if you start in the morning, these should be ready to eat for lunch!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Something had to be done.  We've been picking zucchini on a daily basis now, and so far we've been using everything in savory dishes...grilled zucchini, for example.  But there's only so many times a week (or a day) we want to eat it after a while, so I said I'd make zucchini bread to use up some of the excess.

I know I mentioned this before somewhere in this blog, but many years ago I used up a TON of zucchini from someone's garden by making 17 different kinds (yes, seventeen) of zucchini bread, all pulled from the various cookbooks I owned at the time.  I ended up with 23 loaves.  I froze most and gave some away. 

One of the more memorable recipes was for a Chocolate Zucchini Bread.  It wasn't a sweet bread, not like, say, a carrot cake.  It was moist, and flavorful, and utilized a cup of shredded zucchini per loaf. 

I looked and looked, and found the recipe in the book Fast Breads!  by Howard Early and Glenda Morris on pgs. 66-67.  The recipe is actually for a Chocolate Potato Bread, but in a couple of paragraphs after they original recipe, they suggest substituting a cup of zucchini for the potato. 

And since we had a bunch of zucchini, I figured I should make more than just one loaf. 

So I made four. 

 

So in the photos, you'll see HUGE amounts of the ingredients, but keep in mind the list of ingredients below is only for ONE batch.  Just figured I'd mention that, just in case.

So here we go with the recipe.

Wet Ingredients:

1 C shredded zucchini

3/4 cup skim milk

1/2 cup oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

(By the way, if you want to see all of the pictures like these two, head over here.)

1 oz melted or grated unsweetened chocolate (I grated mine right into the bowl of wet ingredients)

Dry Ingredients:

2  1/2 cups unbleached flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

What to do:

Combine the wet ingredients.

Combine the dry ingredients.

Mix together the dry and wet ingredients. 

Pour into a greased medium-sized loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes.

Let the bread cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan.

And enjoy!  I gave one loaf to our friends across the street, froze two, and we're in the process of eating the other one.

And the zucchini is still coming.  There will be more zucchini recipes to come....

Soft White Bread

(Adapted from a recipe by Bernard Clayton.)

I've posted a couple of bread recipes lately - one post was entitled "Gooder than Sushi" Bread and the other was a simple French bread recipe, or Pain Ordinaire.  Both are made from rather lean doughs, with little or no fats included in the ingredients.  This tends to produce a chewy bread that is best eaten the same day it's baked.  The "gooder than sushi" description came from my 6-year-old son, who absolutely LOVES sushi, but (that day) liked the bread even more. 

I got an email about the "Gooder than Sushi" bread from Susan, who had made a batch of the bread but wasn't as impressed by it as Alex was.  She mentioned that it was just dry and chewy, and asked if maybe she had done something wrong when she made it.  I told her no, that's the way some breads are, but it got me thinking that I should probably find and post a nice, easy recipe for a softer bread.

So here it is.  I made a few ingredient changes, based on what I had on hand at the time, and I think it came out pretty well.  The loaves were soft and stayed that way for the few days they each lasted.

Ready?

First thing you'll need to do is grease two 9" x 5" loaf pans and set them aside.

Now get out your ingredients...You will need:

1 cup hot water

1/2 cup milk

2 T sugar

2 tsp salt

2 T dry yeast

approx 6 cups all-purpose or bread flour

2 T unsalted butter

2 eggs

To Start:

Combine hot water and cool milk, add yeast and sugar and allow yeast to bloom.

Mix salt and flour together.

Once yeast has bloomed, add in a couple cups of the flour/salt mixture - and the eggs and butter (I left this out when I originally posted - sorry!!!!) -  stir to combine.  Gradually add in more flour until the dough is stiff (or pulls away from the sides of the bowl if you're using a stand mixer.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured and knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.  (If you want to see a series of shots of me kneading dough, you can go here.)

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Allow the dough to rise until doubled in bulk.

Punch dough down, re-shape into a ball, and place back in bowl to rise again until nearly doubled in size.

Punch dough down and divide into two pieces.  Shape into balls and let them rest for a few minutes to allow the gluten to relax.

Press each ball down into an oblong shape about the length of your baking pan,

and then roll tightly into a baguette shape and seal the edges together. 

Fold the ends under a bit and place in the pan, seam side down.

Repeat with the other ball of dough.

Cover the pans with a lightly greased piece of foil or plastic wrap, or with parchment or wax paper (you don't want it to stick)

and allow the dough to rise until it's well above the edge of the pan (a good inch or so).

While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake the loaves about 30 minutes or so, until golden brown.  Tap the bottom of a loaf if you're not sure - if it sounds hollow, the bread is done.  If it doesn't, bake another 5-10 minutes.

When the bread comes out, allow to cool at least half an hour before slicing. 

If you want a soft crust, brush the tops of the loaves with melted butter

and cover for half an hour while cooling. 

The butter will soak in and keep the crust from becoming crispy.  (It may look a little wrinkly in the process.)

This bread is soft and moist and great for sandwiches, toast, or just a smear of butter

A loaf will keep, wrapped with plastic, for several days (if you don't eat it all the first day.)  If you won't be eating both loaves right away, wrap one snugly with plastic and then with foil and freeze it until needed.

Enjoy!

Printable Recipe!

Big Chicken Sandwich

So, what do you do when you've got a loaf of bread that looks like a really big bagel?  And you've got some leftover beer can chicken? 

You make a really big chicken salad sandwich.

First, you pick all the chicken off the bones and chop it up, and make your favorite chicken salad recipe.  I made mine with scallions, mayo, a little celery, salt and pepper. 

Next, I sliced my bread in half and drizzled it with a healthy amount of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Then a generous layer of red leaf lettuce...

and then the chicken salad.  Pile it up!

Now, on the top side of the bread, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic again, and then smear it with some gorgonzola dolce...

The gorgonzola dolce adds a sharp bite, but there's also a sweetness to it that works nicely with the balsamic vinegar.

Now put the sandwich together...

And start slicing it up.

Depending on appetites, this sandwich would feed anywhere from 2 to 6 people.  More if you're having something else along with it.

Anyway, that's what we did with the bagel-like couronne. 

In case you were wondering.

Pain Ordinaire Careme (A Daily Loaf)

On one uncomfortably hot day at the end of June, I baked bread and made two batches of cheese.  No, I don't know why I must do these things, but do them I must.  If you want to read about the cheesemaking part of it, take a look over here.  If you want to read about the bread-baking part, stay right where you are.

This is another recipe from Bernard Clayton's book.  I wanted to make some baguettes to go along with the cheeses I would be making and decided to try out this recipe.

According to the book, the recipe makes four baguettes, boules, or couronnes.  I made 3 slightly smaller baguettes, and two different couronnes. 

Here's what Mr. Clayton has to say about this recipe:

The great eighteenth-century French cook and founder of la grande cuisine, Antonin Careme, wrote of grand dishes for princes and kings, yet he created an ordinary loaf of bread that has been passed down from one generation of bakers to the next for more than 175 years.

Careme, who has been called the cook of kings and the king of cooks, wrote:  "Cooks who travel with their gastronomically minded masters can, from now on, by following this method, procure fresh bread each day."

This excellent bread is made with hard-wheat bread flour to give the dough the ability to withstand the expansion it undergoes when it rises more than three times its original volume.  Baking at high heat provides the oven-spring that makes possible the formation of a large cellular structure, the distinguishing characteristic of pain ordinaire.

Shall we begin?  (My own notes are in italics.)

Ingredients:

6 cups bread or unbleached flour, approximately

2 packages dry yeast

2  1/2 cups hot water 120-130 degrees F)

2 teaspoons each salt and water

Baking Sheet or Pans:  1 baking sheet, teflon or greased and sprinkled with cornmeal, or 4 baguette pans, greased.  (I used a 3-loaf baguette pan lightly greased and dusted with cornmeal, and one baking sheet lined with parchment and sprinkled with cornmeal.)

By Hand or Mixer: (10 mins)

The early part of this preparation, beating a batter, can be done by an electric mixer.  However, don't overload a light mixer with this thick batter.  If by hand, stir vigorously for an equal length of time.

Measure 3 or 4 cups of flour into the mixing bowl and add the yeast and hot water.  The mixer flat beater or whisk should run without undue strain.  The batter will be smooth and pull away from the sides as the gluten develops.  It may also try to climb up the beaters and into the motor.  If it does, push it down with a rubber scraper.  Mix for 10 minutes.  When about finished, dissolve the salt in the water and add to the batter.  Blend for 30 seconds or more.  (I was a bit leery about the higher temp for the yeast, (usually it's 105-115) so I reverted to my usual method of dissolving the yeast in very warm water and then adding some of the flour to it.)

 

 

Kneading (10 mins.):

If the machine has a dough hook, continue with it and add additional flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough has formed under the hook and cleans the sides of the bowl.  If it is sticky and clings, add sprinkles of flour.  Knead for 10 minutes.

If by hand, add additional flour to the beaten batter, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring first with a utensil and then working by hand.  When the dough is shaggy but a solid mass, turn onto a work surface and begin kneading with an aggressive push-turn-fold motion.  If the odugh is sticky, toss down sprinkles of flour.  Break the kneading rhythm occasionally by throwing the dough down hard against the countertop - an excellent way to encourage the development of the dough.

(I did a bit of both - I used the machine until the dough had reached the shaggy mass point, and then I kneaded it by hand the rest of the way.)

Here, for your entertainment, is my "aggressive push-turn-fold" routine:

 

 

(I've skipped food processor instructions - if you want them, shoot me an email and I'll send them.)

First Rising (2 hours):

Place the dough in a large greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature for 2 hours.  The dough will more than treble in volume - and may even be pushing against the plastic covering.

 

(If prepared with a new fast-rising yeast and at the recommended higher temperatures, reduce the rising times by about half.)

Second Rising (1  1/2 hours):

Turn back the plastic wrap and turn the dough onto the work surface to knead briefly, about 3 minutes.

Return the dough to the bowl and re-cover with wax paper.  Allow to rise to more than triple its volume, about 1  1/2 hours.

Shaping (10 mins)

The dough will be light and puffy.  Turn it onto the floured work surface and punch it down.  Don't be surprised if it pushes back, for it is quite resilient.

 

Divide the dough into as many pieces as you wish loaves.  One-quarter (10 oz) of this recipe will make a baguette 22" long and 3" to 4" in diameter. 

(Since my baguette pans are shorter than 22", I reduced the amount of dough per baguette to 8 ounces.  I shaped 3 baguettes and divided the remaining dough into two balls approximately 13 oz each.)

Allow pieces of dough to rest for 5 minutes before shaping.

For boules or round loaves, shape the pieces into balls.  Place in cloth-lined baskets (bannetons) or position directly on the baking sheet.  For baguettes, roll and lengthen each dough piece under your palms to 16" to 20" , and 3" to 4" in diameter.  Place in a pan or on a baking sheet or in the folds of a long cloth (couche).

(The way I learned to make baguettes is slightly different.  I rolled the dough out to about a foot in length, then flattened slightly, then rolled from the side nearest me to the other side, pinching the seam and then rolling out to just under the length of my baguette pan.)

This loaf's characteristic couronne or "crown" can be made in several ways.  One is to flatten the piece of dough, press a hole through the center with your thumb, and enlarge the hole with your fingers.  Another is to roll a long strand 18" to 24" and curl into a circle, overlapping and pushing together the ends.  Yet a third way is to take 2 or 3 shorter lengths of dough and join them together in a circle, not overlapping top and bottom but pressing the ends together side by side into a univorm pattern - this one will be irregular but attractive.

(I made one couronne in the first manner suggested above.  To me it looks like an enormous bagel.)

(For the other one, I felt rather creative, so I divided that piece of dough into thirds, rolled them out and then braided them together and shaped the braid into a circle.  I should have planned a little better - the portion where the two ends of the braid are joined looks a little sloppy.  Sorry about that!)

Third rising (1 hour)

Cover the loaves with a cloth, preferably of wool, to allow air to reach the loaves and to form a light crust.  Leave at room temperature until the dough has risen to more than double its size, about 1 hour.

Preheat:

Before preheating the oven to 450 degrees F (very hot) 20 minutes before baking, place a broiler pan on the floor of the oven or bottom rack so it will be there later.  Five minutes before baking, pour 1 cup hot water into the hot pan.  Be careful of the burst of steam - it can burn.  I use a long-handled cup to reach into the oven when I pour.

Baking/450 degrees F/25-30 mins.

Carefully move the loaves in baskets and in couches to the baking sheet.  Make diagonal cuts down the lengths of the long loaves and tic-tac-toe designs on the boules.

Place on the middle shelf of the oven.

The loaves are done when a golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes.  Turn one loaf over and if the bottom crust sounds hard and hollow when tapped, the loaf is done. 

(If using a convection oven, reduce heat 50 degrees.)

Final step:

Place on a rack to cool. 

One of the exciting sounds in the kitchen is the crackle of French bread as it cools.  Crackle away!

Spread with butter and enjoy with any dish.

(Or you can serve it with some freshly made ricotta...)

Two Crumpet Recipes

"And tho' there's no tea-supping and eating crumpet - it's a fine life!"  - (from the musical Oliver!)

I knew the word long before I knew the food.  English muffins were not an uncommon thing, but I don't really remember having crumpets at all as a child.  And when I bought them in the store one time, the just looked, well, weird.  Holes on one side...do you slice it in half, like an English muffin?  No...you just toast them and butter them and eat them.  Oh, okay.  And they were good.  And that was that.  Years ago.

Much more recently, Jen of Alien Spouse asked me if I'd ever tried making crumpets.

Hm!

Well, no, I hadn't.  But I knew right then that I would be doing so in the very near future.

I had a lovely morning of baking this past Sunday - two different batches of crumpets (from two different recipes) and the Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake for this week's Tuesdays With Dorie post.  So much fun. 

Why two different batches of crumpets?  Oh, because I'm just silly that way.  Having never made them, I really didn't have one I could vouch for, and instead of just trying one, and maybe not liking it, and then wondering if it was the recipe or just me, I figured if I tried two of them, then I'd really KNOW.  If that makes any sense.

I pulled recipes from two books - cookbooks that had sat on my mother's mother's bookshelves when she was alive, and had moved to my mom's shelves, and now reside on mine, since my mother downsized.  Recipes are marked with narrow strips of paper or thin cardboard; words written in my grandmother's hand - "Pease Pudding" and "Rock Cakes" and so on....

First version comes from the book Great British Cooking: A Well-Kept Secret by Jane Garmey, originally published in hardcover in 1984, and in paperback in 1992. 

Ingredients:

2  1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup water

1/4 oz active dry yeast (1 pkg)

1 tsp sugar

salt

2 T oil

Note - In order to make crumpets you will need 3 or 4 circular cookie cutters.  If you don't own any, a good substitute would be to remove both ends from an empty can that is approximately 3 inches wide and 2 inches deep.  (I used 4 cookie cutters ranging from around 3  1/4 to 4" in diameter.)

Sift the flour into a bowl and stand it on top of the stove. 

Heat the water in a saucepan over low heat until it is lukewarm.  (I just used lukewarm water from the tap.)    Take out 3 T of water and mix with the yeast and sugar in a cup.

Make a well in the flour and pour in first the yeast mixture and then the remaining water and a pinch of salt. 

Beat hard for 3 minutes, cover the bowl and stand it in a warm place

until the dough is well risen.  (This should take about 45 minutes.)

 

Beat the dough down and add a little warm water to turn the dough to a batter consistency.

(Eventually, I added a real lot of water in order to get it to what I considered a batter consistency.  And just so you know (if you don't already) it's not easy to incorporate water into a yeast dough.  The yeast dough behaves like a junior high school clique and it's really hard for the outsider (the water) to become a real member of the group.  It can be done - it just takes determination.)

Grease a pancake giddle or a large frying pan with a little of the oil.  Place the cookie cutters on the griddle or frying pan and when the oil is hot, pour in enough dough to reach about 3/4 inch high.

(It's me again.  At this point in my crumpet-making, the batter was still on the thick and doughy side.  It was too thick to cook properly (in my opinion) and it also cooked up too big, as you will see.)

Cook them for a few minutes until the bottoms are brown, the tops have become solid and holes have appeared all over the surface.  (If your batter isn't thinned enough, you won't get the holes like you're supposed to.  You'll get some around the edges, but not all through like you should.)

(I saw those holes and was all excited.  But my excitement was premature, as the holes never appeared in the center area - just around the edges.)

(If the batter is too thick this will not happen and you should add more water to it.) (Yes.  I can vouch for that.)

Remove the rings,

turn the crumpets (crumpets?  They look more like English Muffins to my silly American eyes.)

and cook them for about 2 more minutes before removing them from the heat and draining on a paper towel. 

(See what I mean?  Um...London, we have a problem.  These look like damn good English muffins.  Thomas would be proud.  But they ain't crumpets.  See how the tops browned like that?  And flattened?  That's not what they're supposed to look like.  There should still be visible holes that run all the way to the other side and stop there only because that was where the batter first hit the pan.)

Repeat this process until you have used up all the dough.

(I didn't repeat the process EXACTLY.  Like I said, I finally thinned the batter so that it really was a batter and not just a loose dough...and I used less of it in the rings...but even when I got more holes appearing on top, they still flattened out when I flipped them over.  Finally, with the last two rings, I just didn't flip them at all.  Because I was irritated, and I wanted there to be crumpet holes!)

Anyway, here's the whole batch.

They still look like English muffins to me, except for the pale half-cooked two on top there.

We sampled them, and, as I expected, they were rather disappointing.  But I believe some of that had more to do with my inexperience in making them than it did with the recipe.

Here's one of the English Muffins crumpets, after I split it open with a fork.

Okay, yeah, we've got some nooks and crannies, all right.  But that wasn't the plan.  And look at all the gummy dougy part that just stuck to the fork.  I realize it's not been toasted yet, but still.

It's still not all that appealing, is it?

Toast the crumpets and serve with lots of butter.

Makes 12-15.  (I got 10, but I was using some larger cutters, too.)

I even took a "pretty" shot of a toasted one (one of the thinner ones), just...well...because.

(Okay, and we don't have a toaster at the moment, so I've been using the oven as a sort of palatial toaster when needed.  It works just fine.  But this batch of crumpets did NOT.  Look how blah and gummy they are inside.  Well, if you can't tell, trust me - they were.  Even my daughter, who loves bread products more than she loves her pink sparkly shoes, handed her half of the greasy blob back to me and shook her head with a look of polite disgust.  "I don't like it." 

~~~~~

Okay, so...next batch.  At least I've learned a bit about how the consistency of the batter is supposed to be, right?  Maybe I'll have better luck with these next ones.

The next recipe comes from A Taste of London: World Famous Recipes With Nostalgic Photographs by Theodora Fitzgibbon.  It was published in 1975 and appears to have gone out of print.

Ingredients:

1 lb (4 cups) plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 pint (2 cups) warm milk

1 heaped teaspoon dried yeast

2 tsp warm water

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Sift the flour into a basin and add the salt. 

Heat the milk until tepid then dissolve the sugar in half of it, and sprinkle the yeast on top.  (Do not make the milk too warm for you will kill the yeast.) 

Leave for 10 minutes or until it froths up, then add to the centre of the flour with the rest of the warm milk and beat very well for 5 or 10 minutes. 

Cover and leave to rise in a warm place. 

(The book doesn't say how long to leave it, or how much you want the dough to rise, so I just go by the usual bread-making "until doubled in bulk" rule of thumb.)

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the warm water

and add to the risen dough, then leave, covered, to rise again.  (Sorry - no photo of that second rising.  It looked a lot like the first one.)

If you have 3-4 inch plain rings (as discussed earlier, I used cookie cutters ranging in size from 3  1/4 to 4 inches in diameter), then lightly grease them, also a griddle, or a heavy frying pan, and heat them up as you would for pancakes or drop scones. 

(Pancakes are the key here, at least they were to my brain at the time.  I know about pancakes.  I know about how the bubbles create holes all over the upper surface of the pancake while it's on the griddle, and so this kind of switched on a lightbulb in my head.  Not just the fact that crumpets are supposed to have holes like that, but also - what it means in terms of the cooking status of your food.  You want to cook these pretty much all the way through on the first side, and just kind of finish them off, color-wise, on the other.  The thinness of the batter is key - I had to add a fair amount of water to the dough/batter after that second rise to get it to the right consistency), and associating it with pancake batter helps, mentally.  At least it helps me.)

Put the rings, if using them on to the hot griddle or pan, and drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture into them or into the pan. 

(Okay, here we go again.  I did that...)

(And here are the first bubbles forming around the edges...and I didn't fill them as full this time, either.)

(And now we've got some bubbles in the middle...)

Let it cook until the top is set and full of holes, and the bottom a pale biscuit colour. 

(Bingo!)

(Isn't that lovely?  Look at the CRATERS!  And within them - more little holes!  Yay!  And - I know it's hard to tell in this shot, but if you look at the edge on the lower right, the color is more yellow than white.  This is where the surface has dried during this initial phase of cooking.  Most of the top is still white, but just let it sit there a little longer, and eventually the whole top of the crumpet will look kind of dry and off-white.  THAT is what you're looking for.)

Remove the rings, if using, turn the crumpets over and let them dry out for 2 minutes on the other side. 

Regulate the heat, especially if using electricity, so that the giddle does not become too hot and burn.  (What I ended up doing, once I got the hang of the whole thing, was to lower the heat on the back burner use that half of the griddle for the finishing off.  I kept the front burner at a higher heat (it's also the "power burner" on my stove) to do the initial cooking.  That worked out nicely.)

   

Remove the crumpets with a cloth, and let them cool on a rack.  When serving, toast them lightly on both sides and serve with butter on the top side (with the holes).

Makes about 12.  (I think, by some strange quirk of fate, that I ended up with more than that.  Hard to say - these were so much better, we all ate a bunch before I could count them.  These - when toasted - were crisp on the outside, and slightly chewy inside, and deliciously buttery throughout.)

~~~~~

Okay then!  That was actually a lot of fun for me - no, really.  I like to compare recipes, for one.

(True story - years ago, some friends of my parents had a bumper crop of zucchini.  I said I'd make zucchini bread.  I'd never make zucchini bread before, so I didn't know which recipe to use.  I looked through all my cookbooks (no internet way back then) and found, if I remember right, 17 recipes.  Yes.  SEVENTEEN.  So I figured out how much flour and sugar and zucchini and whatever else I'd need to make one batch (which, in some cases, actually meant two or three loaves) from each recipe.  I ended up with twenty-something loaves of zucchini bread.  Gave some away.  Froze some.  Tried them all.  I have no idea, now, which recipe was the best.  Or which cookbook it might have come from.  And I don't care.  It was just a lot of fun - that insane marathon of zucchini bread baking.)

And, while I think the yuck factor in the first batch was MOSTLY my doing, I also think that, even if I'd done it all correctly, I'd still like the flavor of the second batch better.  Maybe it was the milk in the dough.  Or the fact that the first one only called for a pinch of salt and the second one had a whole teaspoon.  Granted, the second batch had nearly twice as much flour and would need more flour, but, using that logic, the first batch should have had at least half a teaspoon of salt - not just a little pinch. 

And so, if I were to recommend one version, it would be the recipe from A Taste of London.

And - if you are toying with the idea of making them at home, I say - DO IT!  It's fun. They're yummy.  Look on the whole thing as an adventure.  One well worth the journey.

Especially slathered in butter.  With a nice, hot cup of tea.  Served on some of your great-grandmother's (if I remember that correctly) inexpensive china with the pretty pansy faces.

It's a fine, fine life.

Potato Rye Bread with Onion and Caraway

 

I've added a new category - I might also include links to it under the recipe categories. 

The category is "Learning from Mistakes" and I'm including it because in baking and cooking - just like in every other facet of life, we make mistakes, and the best thing to do with a mistake is to learn something from it.

I made this rye bread last month - right after the whole  Corned Beef Project had been completed.  (If you want to read about the entire project, go over on the right and scroll down until you find that heading.  It was about a week and a half long project that I plan to repeat again next year.)  Anyway - I figured I'd make a loaf of rye so I could make a Reuben sandwich for my husband with some of the leftover corned beef.  We had sauerkraut in the freezer, I had cheese, we clearly  had the corned beef, and I could whip up a Thousand Island Dressing easily enough.  All that was needed was the rye.  And I figured rather than just go buy a loaf somewhere, I should (not could, but should) make it myself.

I found a recipe in one of my bread books, I prepped all my ingredients, I took pictures all along the way as I made the bread...it smelled amazing baking in the oven.

And it came out flat.  Flat like an onion and rye loaf of focaccia.  Not exactly the way it should have come out.

And so I was rather irritated with myself because I know I can successfully make a loaf of bread.  So what did I do wrong?

Once I sliced into it, I saw the problem - there was very little lift inside.  It would have been easy to say "well, that's because it was so heavy.  The onion mixture weighed it down."  Except that I couldn't blame the onions.  Really, it was probably because I didn't knead it long enough.

Scratch that.  No "probably" about it.  I rushed one of the most important parts of the bread making process.  And that's why my bread baked off the way it did.

So, lesson learned.  Don't rush the kneading.  Duh.  I know better.  But sometimes we all need reminders, don't we?  At least I do.

And that's the lesson in this post.  But on the good side, the bread tasted fabulous, and I made an awesome, albiet skinny, Reuben for my husband, which he couldn't finish, so I had some, and yeah, it tasted really good. 

Here's the recipe, and pictures, and you can see, at the end, how the bread came out, because I didn't let the gluten develop enough, which meant there wasn't enough structure to support the bread as the yeast did its work to make the dough rise.  Sort of a house of twigs, rather than bricks.

Enough analysis.  Let's bake.

The book I used is Secrets of a Jewish Baker by George Greenstein.  One of the cool features of this book is Chapter Ten - "Twelve Menus:  A Morning of Baking."  Each menu includes about 4-5 different bread recipes, sometimes all yeasted, sometimes a mix of yeasted and quick.  Each menu or program takes somewhere between 2-5 hours to complete, depending on the kinds of breads made.  The programs are all lessons in time management as well - ordinarily when we make bread, we make a loaf or two of A bread.  Or a batch of muffins or a quick bread.  But in the same time frame we might use for that one recipe, instead, if we prep well and pay attention to what we're doing, we can produce multiple loaves.  Pretty impressive, no?

Anyway.  I didn't do a whole morning of baking menu.  I just used the recipe for "Potato Rye Bread with Onion and Caraway."  Why this one?  For one thing, it didn't involve making a sour starter, which I would have had to do the day before.  I wanted the bread for that evening.  This bread is something you make in one day.  Also - I had potatoes and onions because I'd bought more than enough for the Corned Beef and Vegetable dinner.  And I had Caraway seeds because of the Irish Whiskey Soda Bread I'd made for that same meal.  So I was all set.

Here's what you need:

1 medium to small yellow onion, minced

2 T caraway seeds, or more to taste

Pinch salt

Vegetable oil or olive oil, for sauteing

1 cup warm water, preferably potato water

1 pkg active dry yeast

1 medium to small potato, mashed (about 1/2 cup mashed potato)

1 T sugar

1 T shortening

3 T milk powder (omit for nondairy bread) (I didn't use any because I didn't have any.)

2 cups rye flour

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1  1/2 tsp salt

Flour, for dusting work top

Vegetable oil, for coating bowl

Rye flour or cornmeal, for dusting baking sheet.  (I used cornmeal) 

And here's what you do:

Scrub the potato.  Cook, quartered, in 2  1/2 cups boiling water until soft (about 10 minutes).  Let cool, then peel and mash.  (Save the water - you'll use it in the recipe!)

In a small skillet over medium-low heat, saute the onion, caraway seeds, and the pinch of salt in the oil just long enough to soften the onion. 

Set aside.

DOUGH

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the mashed potato, sugar, shortening, milk powder (if used), flours, and the 1  1/2 tsp salt. 

Stir with a wooden spoon until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.

(I used my stand mixer and the dough hook.  Unfortunately, I didn't let it run long enough.  Also, I didn't look through the other directions for this recipe - Mr. Greenstein also gives separate measurements and directions for use with a stand mixer.  Another lesson learned.)

Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead.  If the dough is moist and sticky, add more all-purpose flour 1/4 cup at a time.  Knead until elastic (5 to 8 minutes).  The dough will be softer than usual because of the rye flour, and it will tend to feel sticky.

(When using the dough hook and stand mixer, once the flour is incorporated, use the first setting and beat until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.  Add more all-purpose flour if needed.  Should be about 5-8 minutes.  Turn out onto floured work surface, knead a bit...

 

 

and shape into a ball.)

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and turn to coat. 

Cover and allow to rise until doubled in volume (45-60 minutes). 

Punch down, shape into 1 or 2 rounds, and allow rest, covered, for 15 minutes.Knead in the reserved onion mixture.

SHAPING

Shape into 1 or 2 round loaves.  Place on a rye flour or cornmeal-dusted baking sheet.

Proof until doubled in size. 

Dust the tops with additional all-purpose flour and cut decorative slashes.

BAKING

Bake with steam in a preheated 375 degree oven for 35-45 minutes.  (For the steam, I just squirted water into the oven with a spray bottle.  There are better methods, but I didn't use them this time.)  If 1 large loaf is made, allow for additional oven time.  The bread is done when tapping the bottom with your fingertips produces a hollow thump.  Let cool on a wire rack.

It looks kind of nice from above...

And here you can see that it rose to a majestic inch and a half in height.  Actually, it sort of slumped down to that, because it was taller after the second rise.

But we've already gone over all of that.

And despite the obvious flaws, it still made some yummy sandwiches.

Corned Beef Project: Day 8 - Royal Hibernian Brown Loaf

This one is from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, but I found this sort of recipe - a brown soda bread - in just about all of the bread books I was looking through.  I didn't find the American version until I checked in with King Arthur.  And it makes sense - raisins would be more likely used for special occasion breads, holiday breads.  And I don't even know if raisins were all that common an ingredient in Ireland long ago.  I kind of doubt it.

Here's what Mr. Clayton had to say about this recipe:

     "The Irish national loaf is brown soda bread, and this version from the Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin is one of the best - and richest.  The hotel serves the bread warm and thinly sliced.  Its richness comes from a generous portion of butter and eggs.

     It is a striking loaf when it comes from the oven, unfolded like a giant blossom along cuts across the top."

So anyway - this is not a particularly sweet bread, although there is a bit of sugar in it.  The rather coarse texture reminds me of cornbread, and the flavor is dark and hearty and no-nonsense.

Ready?  Here's what you will need:

2   1/2 cups whole wheat flour, stone ground preferred

1 cup all-purpose flour, approximately

2 T sugar

1   1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

1 egg

1   1/4 cups buttermilk, room temperature (I used a tablespoon of white vinegar plus enough milk to bring it up to a cup and a quarter)

And here's what you do:

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F twenty minutes before baking.

(Directions for using food processor follow, because that's what I used.)

Attach the steel blade.

Place the whole-wheat flour in the work bowl and add the sugar, soda and salt. 

Pulse to blend.  Drop in the butter

and pulse 2 (or more, if needed) times to cut it into small pieces.

In a bowl beat the egg and buttermilk together.  Pour the mixture through the feed tube.

Turn the machine on briefly to allow the flour to absorb the liquid.  Let stand for 3 minutes to allow the flour to fully absorb the buttermilk.

Add 1/2 cup white flour through the feed tube, and turn on the processor only long enough to mix in the flour.  The dough is not to be kneaded.  Remove and feel the dough.  If it is wet, add more flour, but frugally.  Scrape from the bowl and pat into a ball with the hands.  Sprinkle with flour if necessary to control the stickiness.  (I used about 3/4 of a cup of the flour.  It will vary, depending on temp and humidity in your kitchen.)

Shape into a plump round ball. 

Pat down the top slightly, and with a knife or razor blade cut a half inch deep cross on the top.

Place the loaf on the baking sheet, and bake until it has browned and has opened dramatically along the cuts, about 45 minutes.

Remove the bread from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool before cutting into thin slices.

 

Although it can be frozen, it is better freshly baked. 

Like I said, it's not all that sweet - but it's flavorful with a hearty texture, and I think it will make a nice accompaniment to out dinner tonight.

Corned Beef Project: Day 8 - Irish Whiskey Soda Bread

Could also be called American Irish Whiskey Soda Bread, because of the addition of carroway seeds and raisins (or in this case, because I was feeling wild and daring, I used half currants and half golden raisins).  The recipes I found for Irish Irish Soda Breads didn't have these extras.  I'll post one of those recipes as well.

Soda breads (which use baking soda for leavening instead of yeast) are quick and easy to make, so if you're new to breads and hesitant to mess with yeast (which you shouldn't be), give something like this a try.

Anyway - I made two breads yesterday during my prepping frenzy.

First up, this recipe, which I found in The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook on page 79.  The notes say

"Here's another American version from Michael Jubinsky.  This one contains baking powder to help with the leavening and is flavored with Irish Whiskey."

The first recipe I'd looked at (on page 78) was for "American Irish Soda Bread" - and the only reason I didn't make that one is because it calls for cornstarch, and, surprise surprise, I'm all out.  So I went with the other one.  And I'll be perfectly happy to stick with this one, because it is delicious.

Here's what you need:

4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

3 T sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

4 T (1/2 stick) butter (cut into small pieces)

1   1/2 cups raisins (or in this case, half currants and half golden raisins)

1 tsp caraway seeds (optional)

1 T Irish whiskey (or water)

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk (or, if you're brain-dead like I am at times, and you don't HAVE any buttermilk, you can substitute the following - put one tablespoon white vinegar

or lemon juice in a measuring cup and add enough milk to bring it to one cup. 

Let it sit for about five minutes so it can curdle slightly - yes - that's kind of what happens when you sour milk - and you can use this in place of buttermilk.  It's not an exact match, but it will suffice.)

And here's what you do:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine and blend thoroughly the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda in a bowl.  (I used my food processor.)

Cut or rub in with your fingers (or pulse), the butter

until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

In another bowl, mix the raisins with the whiskey or water. 

Blend these and the caraway seeds (if you choose to add them) with the flour mixture.

Beat the eggs and stir all but one tablespoon (reserve in a small bowl) into the buttermilk.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir onlly enough to combine the two.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface.  Knead it 8 to 10 times until it comes together as a whole.

 

Form the dough into a round ball and place it in a well-greased, 8 inch round cake pan or casserole dish.

Brush the top with the reserved egg.  Cut a 4 inch cross in the top of the dough with a sharp, floured knife.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a wire rack. 

I wish you could smell this. 

I really do.

Slice thin and serve with butter and jam.

Go make some.  You know you want to.

Quick Onion Flat Bread

I tried out this recipe to accompany the Leek and Potato Soup I made the other night.  It's pretty simple to make, it cooks quickly, and is pretty tasty.  It's more like a biscuit than a bread in texture, and I think an improvement to the overall flavor would be to mix some of the the minced, sauteed onion into the dough in addition to scattering it on top.  That's just my opinion.

Okay, here's what you'll need to do.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F.

Mince 1/4 cup of onion.

Saute onion in 2 tablesoons of butter until golden.  Set aside.

Combine the following dry ingredients:

1  1/3 cups unbleached flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 tsp baking powder.

And combine the following wet ingredients:

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water and 2  1/2 T vegetable oil.

Add the wet mixture to the dry and combine to form a rough dough.  Knead it on a lightly floured board for about a minute,

then pat it out to about a half inch thick on a greased pizza pan or a parchment lined baking sheet.

Beat an egg with a tablespoon of water and brush the surface of the bread with it.

Distribute the onions over the bread and then sprinkle with a teaspoon each of poppy seeds and sesame seeds.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. 

Serve right from the oven.  Perhaps accompanied by a bowl of Leek and Potato Soup.  Just a thought.

    

Easy Herb Batter Bread - (the first bread I learned to make)

My mom belonged to a local garden club when I was a kid - and well beyond that, actually.  They did a lot to make the town look nice - the trees planted along main street were their doing, for instance.  "Project Beautification" is a program I seem to remember...

Anyway, another project one year was a little cookbook called Indian Run Gardeners Cook Book.  The name "Indian Run" refers (if memory serves) to a little brook that runs parallel to part of Route 108 near Old Mountain Field.  All the members of the club provided a menu and at least one recipe for that menu. 

Here's the cover of my copy. 

 

The books were "bound" with green yarn looped through the two holes in the side.  Yesterday I went crazy looking for my book.  I was scanning my cookbook shelves, just looking for that green yarn.  Couldn't find it.  It's a skinny book, so I thought it was just hiding.  But no...not where it should be.  Not where it might be.  WHERE WAS IT????  I felt a sense of panic.  This is a little snippet of my childhood, this little book.  It represents, on some level, a lot of who my mother was to me at that time.  The cooking and the gardening parts of her. 

It's not that I needed the bread recipe it contained.  I have it written down elsewhere, and I could probably recreate it from memory if I had to.  But I wanted the book itself.  I wanted to scan the cover and a couple of the pages into the computer to use in this post.  But beyond that - IT SHOULD BE HERE - WHERE IS IT???

I finally found the poor thing.  The green yarn is gone.  The front and back cover are separated from the stapled body of the book.  The whole thing was shoved to the back of a shelf, hidden by bigger hard-covered books.  I was so glad to find it.  No matter how many other stuffed animals she has, Julia wants her pink elephant at bedtime, and if the elephant's not in her bed, the house is turned upside down and inside out in order to find the pink elephant.  That's kind of how my search for this little book felt.

Anyway.  You can see the year at the bottom of that page above.  1977.  I don't remember what time of year the book was put together, but anyway, I was about eleven or twelve when it was "in production." (yes.  so you can do the math.  yuck.)

And for whatever reason, I was called upon to do an illustration for the book.  I had taken art classes for some time, maybe that was why.  I don't remember.  But here it is:

I don't know how PC it is now, but of course it's a nod to the name of the club, the name of that brook, and so that is what I was asked to draw.  I think it's funny.  The fact that this probably wouldn't be done now...that the whole thing would be done on a computer and photos of the club members and maybe scenic shots of the towns and gardens would fill the gaps in between text passages.  The book would be spiral bound and would have plastic-coated cover pages.  Very polished and professional...but lacking a bit of the charm of the pre-computer age.

This is my mom's page:

The little hand-written measurements beside the typed ones are mine - I must have halved the recipe for some reason at some point. 

This, as I said in the post title, is the first bread I learned to make.  I can see in my mind the brown earthenware bowl with warm water in it...the dry yeast sprinkled on top.  I remember mixing the ingredients with a wooden spoon, and the smell of the yeast and the herbs blending together.  And I remember the sense of surprise and satisfaction when the dough doubled in size - just like it was supposed to!  I did it right!  And, best of all, I remember the taste of that first slice - always cut sooner than recommended, well before the loaf had cooled.  This is a taste of childhood, of home, and of memories of warm kitchens on chilly afternoons over all these years.

I've moderned things up a bit - I used my monster toy - my 6 qt Kitchenaid Mixer - instead of a bowl and a wooden spoon.  But no matter how you combine ingredients - the aroma will be the same.  Swoon-inducing.

Shall we?

The first thing you want to do is assemble the ingredients.  Here we have all the small things - left to right in the back row - yeast, sugar, salt and shortening.  Front row - dried oregano, dried thyme, and fresh basil.  I didn't have any dried.  If you're switching between dry and fresh, the equivalency ratio is about a teaspoon of dry to a tablespoon of fresh.  The flavor is more concentrated in the dry so you would need more fresh to compensate, as I did in this case.  Fortunately, we still have a ton of basil out there.

The other two ingredients are water and flour.

You put two cups of warm water into your mixing bowl, and sprinkle the yeast on top.  Whisk the yeast in so it's all combined with the water.  Then leave it alone for a bit.

You want to give the yeast time to prove that it's still active.  Those bubbles in the picture above are just froth from when I whisked the yeast and water together.  They will pop. 

Now yeah, there are still bubbles, but they're not all because of me any more.  See that thicker looking section of tan?  That's the wet yeast, and it's producing some of these bubbles now.  Once this has happened, go ahead and add in the other "small" ingredients except for the salt.  (Salt can kill or slow down the yeast, so add that along with flour next.) 

Now, yesterday when I was doing all this, I had just made some coffee and Bill asked if I wanted to go outside and look at what's still growing.  So, mugs of coffee in hand (and me with a camera, just in case) we went outside and looked around.  We still have tomatoes, zucchini, various peppers, and a VERY late-bloomer of a giant pumpkin.  I figured the batter would be okay for a few minutes without me.

And it was - it was more than okay - it was pretty busy, actually.  Here's what I saw when we came back inside:

Pretty cool, huh?  I hadn't even fully combined it yet - you can see the chunk of shortening up on the top left behind the paddle.

Stir that down...

and then add the flour...

Two cups first (and the salt)...

and so on, a cup or so at a time...

until

it looks like that.

Now, push the mixer speed up a notch or two and let it run for a few minutes to develop some of the gluten.

It's never going to look like dough - as the recipe tells you, it's a batter bread.  It's not going to develop the same structure and texture as a bread that you knead.  Just keep that in mind.

Now that it's all combined nicely, you want to scrape the batter into a lightly oiled bowl,

cover it with plastic wrap,

and set aside to rise.

The recipe says to let rise until doubled in bulk - about 40 minutes.  So I wrote down the time when I covered the batter, and kept an eye on the clock.

40 minutes later (give or take a minute)...

and you can see through the plastic that the batter has expanded.

See?

Next, you want to stir it down...

like so, and then scrape it into a standard (9 x 5 x 5) loaf pan (which you have lightly greased first) and cover.  (* It's probably a good idea to lightly oil the plastic wrap you cover the batter with, because otherwise when you remove the plastic before baking, the plastic will pull the batter and wreck some of the height and structure.  I should know, heh heh.)

Here it is before you cover it.  You should also preheat the oven at this time.  375 degrees F.

The top of this batter should look better - smoother and higher than it does.  Remember what I said about not wanting your plastic to stick?  Here's why.  It's still got some height, but it could look a little better.  Oh, and that pan?  That's not dirty - it's seasoned.

Put the pan on a rack in the middle of the oven and set your timer for about 25 minutes.  Some ovens run hot, others run cold...you want to check on it before anything unfixable happens.

Here's mine at about the 25 minute mark:

You can see the lovely height it has now - when it goes into the oven, all the little pockets of air inside expand with steam from the moisture in the batter.  So in addition to the rising the batter does before it goes into the oven, the sudden exposure to heat gives it that extra boost.  The top is golden, but the sides are still white and the whole thing is rather squishy inside.  If you took it out now, it would collapse on itself.  And it wouldn't be cooked.  So you'd have a lump of gush with a pretty hat on it.

I let mine go for another 20 minutes all together, and when I took it out, here's how it looked:

The crust is a nice brown now, and the sides (though you can't see them in this shot) are browned too. 

Here's the very top, close up:

Don't you wish you had a scratch-n-sniff monitor screen right about now?

And here's a view from below:

Another thing to keep in mind when you're trying to decide if the bread is ready to come out of the oven is the bottom of the loaf.  If you think it's ready, tip the bread out of the pan (onto your hand with an oven mitt on it or something - don't burn yourself in the process!)   You want to tap the bottom of the loaf with your fingers, and if it sounds hollow, you're good to go.  It's also a tactile thing - the bottom should be crusty - not quite as crisp as the top because it's been sitting inside the pan amid all the heat and humidity...but it should feel firm and finished.  If you tap on it and you don't feel a crispness, if it feels and sounds more like you're tapping a hunk of cheese, then put the bread back in the oven.  You need to bake it longer.

Now, the hardest part for me - ALWAYS - is waiting the right amount of time before slicing it.  If you slice into it right away, you'll be tearing the bread rather than slicing through it.  The innards are still steamy and damp, and they'll just stick to your knife.  So you're supposed to let the bread cool.

This is far easier said than done if, like me, you lack willpower in the presence of starch.

I waited as long as I could, and then I cut a slice:

It was still kind of wet inside, and there was some pulling against the blade, but not too, too badly. 

Want a closer look at the inner structure?  Here -

Structurally it's weaker than homemade bread from kneaded dough.  The shortening and sugar in the batter help soften it as well.  I'm thinking it I'd let the mixer work on it longer, more of the gluten would have developed.  So next time I'll let it go for a while.  But still - it's a batter, not a dough.  It's wetter and softer.   

Alas, I have no more pictures of the bread.  In fact, I have very little of the bread left at all.  My family (me included) descended on it like vultures on a zebra carcass, and there's only a little bit remaining wrapped up on the counter. 

The bread makes excellent toast to go along with your eggs over easy, in case you were wondering. 

You can change the herb combination if you want - one time I put in Bell's poultry seasoning - it was like a slice of Thanksgiving dinner.  You can also leave out the herbs all together and make a nice loaf of white bread. 

Anyway, this is the first kind of bread I learned to make.  It was easy, and yummy, and I've made a lot of it over the years.  If you've never made bread before, give it a shot. 

Your house will smell fabulous.

Printable Recipe!

OktoberFeast - Part 2 - the Onion Cake

As I mentioned yesterday, we had a dinner of German food this past Saturday night.  In my previous post I talked about the sauerkraut my husband made.  Next up is his mother's mother's onion cake recipe.

We found this recipe in one of the notebooks I "inherited" when my mother-in-law passed away almost five years ago.  The other recipes before it were various cookies - such as all the holiday cookies that she made every year and sent out to family.  There were also a few bread and cake recipes - all hand-written.

Let's begin.

Bill's Grandmother's Onion Cake

1/2 pkg dry yeast

1/2 cup milk (approx.)

1 egg

4 T butter (room temp)

1  1/2 C flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 lb onions, cut into thin strips

2 T bacon fat

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour cream

2 T bread crumbs

a bit more butter

You'll also need an 8" round cake pan, lightly greased.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The recipe itself is written in a very abbreviated form - just the ingredients and a few lines of instruction regarding the dough, the filling, etc.  I've added my own two cents' worth to the mix.  Let me know if you have any questions.

1.  Warm the milk a bit and put that in the bottom of a bowl.  Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes.

If the yeast is still good, you should start to see little bubbles appearing and the mixture will start to become foamy.  At this point, add the eggs, the butter, and about half the flour.  I used a Kitchenaid mixer with a dough hook, but you can also stir this together in a bowl with a wooden spoon.  If you're using the Kitchenaid, add the salt and the rest of the flour and set at a medium speed.  Knead the dough in this manner for about ten minutes or until the dough is smooth.  If the dough keeps sticking to the side of the bowl, add a little more flour.

* Don't put the salt in directly with the yeast - salt can kill the yeast, or at the very least, put a hurtin' on it, and if that happens - flat bread.  Or cake, in this case.

If you are mixing the dough by hand, keep adding flour until the dough is too thick to stir.  Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface and and knead until smooth and shiny and springy to the touch.

2. When the dough is ready, place it in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, set the bowl in a warm spot and let the dough rise until doubled in bulk. 

I set mine on a little table near a front window.  The front of our house faces south, and the sun was pouring in.   Perfect.

3.  While the dough is rising, get working on the filling.  First thing, if you haven't already, you need to slice the onions.  I used my food processor - mainly to keep all the onion and onion vapor contained and keep my eyes from watering so much.

Next, melt the bacon fat in a skillet (you can use butter if you don't have any bacon fat handy) and add the onions. 

Add the teaspoon of salt and saute the onions until they are soft and golden.  I was kind of in a hurry, so I moved the onions into a strainer and spread them out a bit so they'd cool faster.

 

After the onions have cooled, place them in a large bowl and add the eggs and the sour cream.  (In this next picture, you'll notice that I have added more than two eggs.  I had doubled the recipe when I took these pictures on Saturday.)

Mix well...

...and set aside.  Preheat the oven to 375 (F).

4.  When the dough is ready...

(If you poke the dough with your finger or knuckles, and the indentation stays, your dough has finished rising.  That's what that little dent is in the picture above.)

...turn it out onto a lightly floured surface...

...and while you're at it, take a close look at what's been going on...

See the stretchy, fibrous-looking parts there in the middle?  Those are evidence that the gluten in the flour is working properly and your final product will have structure. 

Press the dough into your lightly oiled 8" cake pan...

If the dough seems like it doesn't want to stay stretched out to fit the pan, it helps to kind of spread your fingers a bit as you press down on the dough.  Like when you make a pizza, you need to convince the dough to stretch out bit by bit.  If you try too hard, you'll tear it.  So take your time.  And if it's not perfect (mine certainly isn't) - don't fret.  It will all be okay.

Next, sprinkle the breadcrumbs on the dough - this helps absorb some of the liquid from the onion mixture.

And then pour the onion mixture on top. 

Dot with a bit of butter and place the pan on a rack in the middle of your preheated oven and set a timer for 25 minutes.

Nope.  Not ready yet.  You're looking for golden brown.  But look how nicely it's rising!

I think I had to bake mine for about 45 minutes, but my oven runs a bit cold.  Just keep checking every five minutes or so until you get the golden brown color you want.

Let the cake cool in the pan for about fifteen minutes or so.  You might need to run a knife around the edge of the pan - I used an up and down slicing motion so as not to pull on the edges of the cake. 

Next, hold the pan and...how do I explain this...you kind of jerk the pan up a bit - you're trying to loosen the cake from the bottom of the pan.  Keep turning the pan as you do this until the whole thing is loose. 

Now, you need to get the cake out.  You can either place a cooling rack (or your hand, or a plate) on top of the cake and quickly invert it, and then flip it back right side up onto another plate or flat surface.  Or you can gently ease a spatula under the edge of the cake, lift it out and put it on the rack to finish cooling.

Whichever way you do it, be committed to it.  No guts; no glory.  He (or she) who hesitates could have a broken cake.

Anyway...here's what one of mine looked like:

Ours was about room temperature when we served it.  I cut it into 12 wedges - it's pretty filling; you could even do 16 wedges. 

The eggs and butter give the dough a soft, rich texture.  The mix of sour cream and egg combined with the sauteed onions is lush and delicious.  It's a cake, yes, but it's savory.  And to add to the confusion, Bill's uncle told us this was served after dinner, with coffee. 

Well, we served ours along with dinner, and that seemed agreeable to our guests, and that was all that mattered. 

Let me know if you make this - and let me know how it turned out and if you liked it. 

(It occurred to me that this would also taste really good with half mushrooms and half onions...I'll have to try that some time.)

Next up - the Sauerbraten.