Category Archives: Bread

Half Wholegrain Sunflower Sesame Sourdough

Half Wholegrain Sunflower Sesame Sourdough

The inspiration for this sourdough comes, not unexpectedly, from Maurizio Leo. If you love baking sourdough bread and don’t follow Maurizio’s blog or Instagram, or have his James Beard Award-winning book, you’re missing out on the best information out there on both the science and the art of sourdough. I’ve learned most of what I know about bread making by following and reading those who have done it before and better than me, and encourage you to do the same.

This particular bread is a remix of two of Maurizio’s recipes – his Fifty-Fifty Wholegrain and Sunflower Sesame Sourdough Breads. I’ve made each of them separately several times, and been delighted with the results, with the Sunflower Sesame getting some of the highest praise from my small cadre of bread tasters that any bread has ever gotten. (If you know me, it’s all about the praise…)

If you follow my instagram, you may be aware that I’ve been working my way towards the perfect 100% home-milled wholegrain sourdough loaf, and that my most recent attempt yielded a fine tasting but denser loaf than I’d like. It may have been the fact that I’ve been using a particularly thirsty Rouge de Bordeaux heritage grain that demanded more water than the recipe had allotted it, and added in things like walnuts and dried cherries before perfecting a plainer loaf first. I’m not giving up, but I am taking a break until I finish up my supply of the Rouge, after which I’m going again for the 100% using a varietal yet to be determined.

In the meantime, I decided to up the percentage of wholegrain in the ever-popular Sunflower Sesame Loaf, which is about 30% wholegrain, by using Maurizio’s Fifty-Fifty loaf as the base. I did adjust the total quantities to make them easier to deal with and tweaked the water to account for the black sesame seed soaker and honey. In this smaller 50% percentage, my heritage wholegrain appeared to behave itself and I ended up with an 80% hydration (considering the honey as hydration, since it’s mostly water), not-too-difficult to handle, lively yet sturdy dough. (Thank you, King Arthur…)

I baked this bread according to Tartine’s method, which starts with a 500 degree F preheat, then lowers to the same 450 degree F baking temp that Maurizio uses. I don’t know how much difference this makes, but my oven temp drops quite a bit when I leave the door open while I score my bread, so it makes me feel better to start at a higher preheat temp.

If you want to try making this bread, and have any questions or need a little coaching or encouragement, feel free to reach out to me. This sourdough thing takes a village.

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Half Wholegrain Sunflower Sesame Sourdough

Ingredients

Levain

  • 48 g Active Sourdough starter
  • 48 g water
  • 24 g white bread flour (I use King Arthur Organic)
  • 24 g wholegrain flour (I used finely home-milled Barton Springs Rouge de Bordeaux)

Inclusions

  • 35 g black sesame seeds
  • 35 g boiling water
  • 130 g sunflower seeds

Autolyse

  • 450 g white bread flour
  • 450 g wholegrain flour
  • 630 g water

Mix and Add

  • 35 g honey
  • 60 g water
  • 18 g fine sea salt

Topping

  • white sesame seeds

Instructions

Levain

  • Mix levain ingredients using 78 °F water until all flour is incorporated. Loosely cover and let sit for 3 hours till active.

Inclusions

  • Mix the black sesame seeds with the boiling water in a small bowl. Let cool, then cover and set aside till bulk fermentation.
  • Toast sunflower seeds on a large baking sheet in a 350 °F oven for 8-10 minutes. Watch closely! Cool and set aside till bulk fermentation.

Autolyse

  • After your levain has sat for 1-2 hours, mix autolyse ingredients in a large bowl using wet hands and a bowl scraper to fully incorporate the dry ingredients. Loosely cover and let sit near your levain till levain is ready.

Mix Dough (desired temp 78 °F)

  • After 3 hours, check levain for readiness using the float test. If it's ready, it's time to mix your dough.
  • Check autolyse temperature – if it's too high, use cooler water in the mix, and vice versa if it's too low.
  • Add the levain, honey, salt and half the water to the autolysed dough. It will come apart, but then come should come together easily. If it's too wet and shaggy, hold back the rest of the water. Otherwise, add the other half of the water and continue to mix till dough comes together.
  • Use slap and fold technique on an unfloured bench with wet hands to strengthen the dough. Transfer back to the bowl, cover loosely and start the bulk fermentation.

Bulk Fermentation

  • Allow dough to ferment for about 3 hours, during which you will perform 5 sets of stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals. At the first stretch and fold, incorporate the black sesame seek soaker and sunflower seeds as follows – Spread 1/4 of the seeds evenly over the dough, performing one stretch and fold. Rotate the bowl a quarter turn, spread another quarter of the seeds on top and perform another stretch and fold. Rotate again and repeat, then rotate and repeat one last time with the last remaining quarter of the seeds. Cover dough.
  • Repeat stretch and fold sets every 30 mins for a total of 5 stretch and fold sets. After the last stretch and fold, let dough rest for the remaining hour of bulk fermentation.

Divide, pre-shape and shape

  • At the end of bulk fermentation, confirm your dough is ready to pre-shape. It should have bubbles on top and the sides, dome downward at the sides of the bowl, and feel elastic and strong. If it needs more time to achieve readiness, give it what it needs.
  • When the dough is ready, gently scrape it onto a clean bench and divide equally using your bench knife. Using your bench knife and a moist hand, shape each piece into a smooth round. Let rounds rest for 30 minutes, uncovered.
  • Prepare your proofing baskets by placing cloth liners and dusting them lightly with rice flour. Spread and even layer of white sesame seeds on a sheet pan or clean towel. Dry your bench for shaping.
  • Dust the top of your rounds with flour, flip over flour side down on the bench and shape into either a batard or a boule. After shaping, quickly roll the top side in the seeds so they stick. (If you need to spray a bit of water to moisten it, do so) Gently transfer to the prepared proofing basket, seam side up. Place basket into a clean, reusable plastic bag and put in the fridge for an overnight proof. If the dough does not come to the top of the basket, allow it to sit another 30-60 minutes at room temperature to achieve some height, then bag and transfer to fridge.

Bake

  • Preheat your dutch oven in a 500 °F oven for at least 30 minutes.
  • Immediately before baking, remove one bread from the fridge. Evert onto parchment paper and score. Gently drop into the preheated dutch oven, cover and transfer to the oven. Reduce the oven temp to 450 °F and bake for 20 minutes, then remove the lid. Continue to bake for another 20-25 minutes till internal temp is 206-210 degrees F and crust is a rich, golden brown color. Cool on wire rack at least 1-2 hours before slicing. For the second loaf, raise the temp to 500 and preheat your dutch oven again for 15 minutes, then repeat as above.

Pretty Darned Near Absolutely Perfect Bagels

One of the challenges with making bread is that I want to bake more bread than my husband and I can eat. At best, it takes us a week to get through a loaf, slicing, freezing, thawing and toasting our slices one by one. When the sliced bread in the freezer piles up, I make breadcrumbs. Even with that, we still struggle to finish up what’s in the freezer before I want to bake bread again.

My reason for not eating as much bread as I make is that I’m always on a diet. This is not the issue for Mr TBTAM, who can eat as much bread as he wants and still weighs the same as he did the day I married him. But the bread he wants on a daily basis is not my artisan sourdough, though he does enjoy it immensely whenever he makes a sandwich. The bread he wants and eats on a daily basis is his morning bagel.

Not just any bagel, mind you. The right kind of bagel. The perfect bagel. Dense, chewy, flavorful, not too well-done, not too pale, and not too large. With everything bagel topping.

In New York City the perfect bagel is to be found in only one place, and that’s Absolute Bagel on Broadway at 108th street. For almost 30 years, once a week on a weekend morning, Mr TBTAM would arise at 6 am to ride his bike to Absolute before the block-long line started to form out front, returning home with a half dozen everything bagels, still warm in their paper bag. Once, he and our friend Noel undertook a bagel hunt, venturing into far-off Brooklyn is search of a more perfect bagel than the Absolute bagel. It was not to be found, although the bagels at the Bagel Hole came close to their Absolute benchmark.

Now that we’re living back home in Philly, Mr TBTAM has yet to find his perfect Philly bagel. Not that he hasn’t tried, and he’s tried quite a few – Whole Foods (“so-so”), Famous Deli (“up there, one of the best so far”), Bart’s in Powelton (“up there with Famous, but not quite there”), Kismet in Reading Terminal (“pretty good”), Kaplans in Northern Liberty (“in the middle”), Spread on South Street (‘pretty good, I think”). He has high hopes for New York Bagel on Haverford and City Line Ave, based on recommendations from several friends and a distant memory of liking their bagels 30 years ago, but has yet to make the schlep.

The bagels he grew up on were from Rollings Bakery, located at that time on 5th Street in East Oak Lane, now relocated to Elkins Park. Imagine a soft but chewy bagel with a firm but pliant crust. Now sit on it. That was the old Rollings bagel. The current Rollings iteration is no longer misshapen and squashed, and just as delicious as the old Rollings bagel, but for some reason, they don’t satisfy Mr TBTAM anymore. I suspect it’s because Absolute bagel has ruined him for any other bagel.

Quite a long prelude, but necessary so that you might understand why a bagel-making undertaking on my part might be pretty high stakes in this family. But, remembering my oft-recited mantra “How hard could it be?”, I decided it was time to try. So I made a dozen bagels using Claire Saffitz’s recipe in the NY Times, mixing in a bit of home-milled heritage wheat with heritage bread flour from Sunrise Mills.

Imagine my shock and delight when Mr TBTAM declared my very first batch of bagels to be as good as the bagels at Absolute! Though the man has never lied to me, even to make me feel good, I just could not believe it. So I foisted a few bagels onto my daughter and mother-in-law, who loved them as much as did my husband!

I, on the other hand, was not satisfied. The bagels I made using Saffritz’s recipe were delicious, but the crust was just a little too hard for my liking. My recollection of the Absolute bagel crust is that it’s dense and chewy, but pliable and even a tad squishable, though not squishy. The bagels I made did not squish much when pressed, if at all. Something was still not right. So I dove deep into the bagel making rabbit hole, reading about boiling and baking times, and exploring a multitude of bagel recipes.

Turns out that the reason one boils the bagels is to set the crust and keep the bagel from puffing up like a loaf of bread when it hits the oven, allowing it to maintain that bagel shape we know and love. The longer one boils the bagel, the thicker and denser the crust becomes, making it more resistant to the rising bagel innards, leading to a flatter bagel. As for baking times, I found this among other recipes, which recommended a much shorter 15 minute bagel bake. Hmm….

I was looking for a chewy but not too chewy crust that was pliable. Not sure if the small amount of optional whole wheat I was adding in to my flour might be the culprit, I left it out. Then I shortened the bagel boiling time from 1 minute (but probably closer to 1 1/2 minutes given I was floating 4 bagels at a time in the boiling water) to 45 seconds, working with at most one or two bagels at a time, aided by the Timer on my Iphone clock app. I then tweaked my baking time – half my bagels went in at 450 for the 20-25 minutes Saffrtitz recommends, and the other half went in at 450 for 15 minutes. Worried they’d be undercooked, I checked the internal temp after taking the 15 minute bagels out of the oven – 200 degrees. Just right.

Bingo! The combination of a 45 second boiling time and 15 minute baking time got me as close to an Absolute bagel as one can get without schlepping up to 108th and Broadway. Chewy crust with a satisfactory, but not too squishy squish when pressed. Delicious, with a dense but not too dense interior.

I’m now making bagels weekly! The dozen I make barely satisfies my family’s needs once I’ve given my husband his half dozen and the deliver the rest to my daughter, her husband and my mother-in-law. This just makes me SO happy…

I’ve thought about trying sourdough bagels next, but these bagels are much easier to fit into my life than sourdough. I do plan on adding back the home-milled whole wheat flour next week, just because I think I can. And trying out King Arthur Lancelot High Gluten Flour, as the higher the gluten content, the chewier the bagel.

Other than that, I’m not making any changes. Because these are pretty darned near absolutely perfect bagels.

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5 from 1 vote

Pretty Darned Near Absolutely Perfect Bagels

This recipe will get you as close to an Absolute Bagel as one can get without schlepping up to 108th and Broadway. Modified from NYT cooking recipe by Claire Saffitz. (I highly recommend you read that recipe and watch Claire's video)
Servings: 12 Bagels

Ingredients

Dough

  • 2 tbsp Barley Malt Syrup
  • 7 grams Active Dry Yeast (1 packet or 2 1/4 tsp)
  • 540 ml Lukewarm water (105 – 110 degrees)
  • 885 grams High Protein Bread Flour
  • 17 grams Kosher salt

Boiling and Topping

  • 1 tsp Baking Soda
  • 1/4 cup Barley Malt Syrup
  • Bagel toppings (Everything, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, salt, dried minced onion)

Instructions

Prepare the Bagel Dough

  • Whisk 2 tbsp barley malt syrup into 120 ml lukewarm water into a small bowl. Add the yeast and stir till dissolved. Let sit until the mixture foams, about 5 minutes.
  • In a large bowl, whisk together the bread flour and salt and make a well in the center. Pour in the yeast mixture and the remaining 420 ml water. Mix, using your hands and a bowl scraper, until the dough is shaggy. Knead it in the bowl till it's a solid mass, then turn it out onto a clean counter and continue kneading till there are no dry spots and the dough is stiff but very smooth and still slightly sticky (15 mins or so).
  • Gather the dough into a ball and place it in a large, clean bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let rise at room temperature until it has doubled in size, 1½ to 2 hours.

Divide, Pre-Shape and Shape the Bagels

  • Using your fist, punch down the dough and turn it out onto a clean work surface. Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, cut the dough into 12 equal 120 gram pieces.  
  • Pre-shape each piece into a tight ball by gently flattening the dough out onto the work surface. Then, working your way around the circle, pull the edges towards the center, pinching them shut to form a tight dumpling-like pouch. Turn it over, seam side down, and cupping your hands around the dough, drag it in a circular motion to form a tight, high dome. (Watch this video from KA for technique) Repeat with all the pieces, then cover them with a damp towel and let rest for 5 minutes.
  • Line two large rimmed baking sheets with lightly oiled parchment paper. Working one piece at a time, roll your hand in the center a few times to create a bulb at each end. Then, switch to two hands and roll outward to about 12 inches of even thickness throughout. Now, wrap the rope around your open hand, overlapping the ends over your palm, then flipping your hand over to roll the ends together to seal and form the bagel. (Watch this video from Maurizio of the Perfect Loaf for technique.)
  • As you form each bagel, place it on the parchment-lined baking sheet, evenly spacing six bagels to a sheet. When you’ve formed all the bagels, cover each baking sheet with a piece of plastic, followed by a damp towel and transfer the baking sheets to the refrigerator. Chill at least 4 hours but preferably overnight.

Boiling the Bagels

  • Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit with a rack in the center. Fill a large, wide pot or Dutch oven oven halfway with water and bring to a boil. Set a wire rack next to the Dutch oven. Set your various bagel toppings on small plates next to the wire rack. Set the timer on your phone to 45 seconds.
  • Add 1/4 cup barley malt syrup and 1 tsp baking soda to the boiling water in the pot, skimming excess foam as it forms. Remove one sheet pan of bagels from the fridge and place it on the counter near the stove as possible. Working quickly, drop 1 to 2 bagels gently into the boiling water, then immediately start the timer. At around 20 seconds, gently flip the bagels using a large slotted spoon, and at the 45 second mark, gently remove the bagels from the pot and place them on the wire rack. Repeat until you've boiled 6 bagels, waiting if need be between batches to maintain a steady boil.

Topping & Baking the Bagels

  • Discard the parchment sheet from the baking pan you used to store the bagels in the fridge. Gently dip each bagel into its chosen topping, and arrange them spaced equally back on the now bare baking sheet. Place the sheet into the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes, turning the pan 180 degrees after 8 minutes to assure even baking. Remove to a rack to cool.
  • Repeat the boiling, coating and baking process with the second sheet of bagels from the fridge. Let the bagels cool completely on a wire rack before eating.

Banana Bread (with Chocolate Bits)

I’m generally not a fan of bananas eaten anything other than in vivo, ie., peeled and popped into the mouth, fresh but not too ripe. I don’t like them in ice cream, oatmeal, cereal, cakes or even in fruit salads. Certain foods, in my opinion, just need to be enjoyed one-on-one, you know?

But last week, in my mother-in-law’s kitchen, a few over-ripe bananas were calling out not to be wasted, so my daughter and I decided to make banana bread. I figured that since others were there with us that evening, I would be under no obligation to eat the thing I was making, and my daughter and I would have a little kitchen fun, which we did.

To my surprise, I loved this bread! Perhaps it was the scattered chocolate, or the lack of large banana pieces to turn me off. Or the use of melted butter rather than oil or room temp butter.

Whatever.

This bread is moist, flavorful and keeps well in the fridge. It’s delicious eaten warm or even better, toasted and topped with a schmear of cream cheese.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread

I love that this recipe can be made entirely by hand, using just a whisk, fork and rubber spatula. This recipe is adapted from The Kitchn Website, which unfortunately left out a step in their instructions (forgetting to tell us when to add the sugar.) But the entire post is otherwise well worth the read, and the accompanying pics are great.
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Ingredients
  

  • softened butter for greasing the pan
  • 8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 medium, very ripe bananas
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3 ounces good dark chocolate, shaved or chopped into irregular sized small piece

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F with rack on bottom third of the oven. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of an 8×5-inch loaf pan, then line with parchment paper, letting the excess hang over the long sides, and lightly grease the paper too.
  • Whisk melted butter and sugar in a medium sized bowl. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time. Whisk in milk and vanilla. Peel the bananas, slice and add them to the bowl, mashing them in with a fork or pastry blender, leaving pieces as small or large as you like (I like them small and few in number.) If you want an entirely smooth batter, mash the bananas separately, then add to the batter.
  • Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl, then gently fold them into the batter using a rubber spatula just till combined. Do not over-mix. Fold in chocolate pieces.
  • Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake at 350°F for 50-65 minutes, checking with a toothpick or cake tester starting at around 50 minutes (Mine took 60 minutes, and could have gone another 5 minutes without harm.). This is a very moist cake, more likely to under- than over-bake.
  • Cool bread in the pan on a wire rack for a least 10 minutes before removing from pan, then cool another 10 minutes before slicing.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

No-Time Bread

The thing about sourdough bread is that it takes TIME. Time for the starter to wake up, time for the leaven to develop, time for the gluten to form and time overnight for the flavor to develop – the tart, rich aromatic flavor that tells you “this is bread, the way bread was meant to be made”.

But what do you do when you have everything you need to make bread except for time – the one ingredient you can’t pluck out of your larder, or run to the store to pick up at the last minute ?

If you’re like me, you search for a fast bread recipe. And guess what? I found a great fast bread from Faith Durand and her team at Kitchn. The recipe takes advantage of your Kitchen Aid and a microwave to move things along, and adds a touch of sugar for encouragement and a bit of vinegar to modulate gluten development, resulting in a surprisingly lovely rise. From start to finish in under 2 hours!

Let me admit right up front – this is NOT going to be the most flavorful bread you’ve ever made. You are not going to wow your fellow bread-making friends with this bread, or become famous at your farmers market selling this bread.

What you will do is create a perfectly lovely, surprisingly light and well-risen loaf of plain white bread, with a lovely crunchy thin crust. If you make it in a loaf pan and slice it thin for sandwiches, I suspect you’ll find yourself thinking of Wonder Bread, or the Italian bread served before your meal at your local Trattatoria. It’s not the main show or the centerpiece of your table, but a strong supporting actor, more than fine enough to dip into good olive oil or to stand alongside an amazing bowl of homemade soup or pasta. Toasted and spread with butter and jelly, this bread is a delight. Use it to sandwich your husband’s amazing chicken salad and you’re in heaven.

But the best thing about this bread? You can think about making it at 4 pm and have it with dinner at 6.

NO TIME BREAD RECIPE

I can’t improve upon the great pics and video accompanying this recipe at the Kitchn website, so I’m just gonna send you there. Stay tuned, though, I’m experimenting with making a fast bread using whole wheat, and when I get it right, I’ll post that recipe.

Red Fife Country Sourdough

Tartine Basic Country Sourdough made with Red Fife Whole Wheat

If you noticed an absence of bread on my Instagram feeds of late, it’s because I’ve been experimenting with heritage grains in my sourdough bread. And let’s just say the results, until now, have not been not exactly picture worthy. Low rise, dense crumb, and a rock-hard crust. Reminds me of my days working in a summer camp kitchen, where I frequently overcooked the dinner rolls. My kitchen mates took to calling them hockey pucks and treated them accordingly by shoving them with push brooms across the bakery floor. Bigger than hockey pucks, my heritage grain breads were more like a discus, and while I was tempted to toss them across the room accordingly, I dumped them in the trash instead.

The problem with my heritage bread was, I believe, three fold. First, the whole wheat flour I was using was like a water sponge, and I wasn’t adjusting my hydration accordingly. Second, it’s a whole grain flour, meaning it has parts of the wheat berry, that while healthy, have sharp edges that cut through the forming gluten network. A good sourdough rise needs both high hydration and great gluten formation, and I was failing on both counts. Third, I was using a new recipe I’d never tried before, and now I was adjusting that recipe by using whole grain flour. Too many variables to introduce at once.

I decided to take a step back to the recipe that never fails me – Tartine’s Basic Country Bread – and ease my way a little more slowly into heritage whole grains. The Tartine loaf has 50% whole wheat in the levain and 10% in the final flour mix. I decided to really take it slowly and use the heritage flour only in the final mix.

For the levain, I used a whole wheat mix that I made one day while consolidating my pantry – equal parts Hechkner’s, King Arthur sprouted and One Degree sprouted whole wheat. For the final dough I used Red Fife Heritage Whole Grain Wheat Flour from Gianoforte Farms in upstate New York. I purchased the flour at GrowGrains NYC in the Union Square Farmers Market, a fabulous source for locally-grown grains and flour.

What is Red Fife Wheat?

Red Fife wheat, named for the farmer Dave Fife who first grew it on his farm in Peterboro Ontario in 1842, was once the dominant wheat used in Canadian baking. Legend has it that Fife first obtained the wheat from a friend who had accidentally dropped his hat into a load of the wheat sitting on a ship from Ukraine in the Glasgow Harbor. Finding the kernels in his hatband, he shipped them off to Fife, who planted them with success.

Red fife was the dominant wheat in Canada until the early 1900’s, when it was supplanted by new species cross-bred for disease resistance. It disappeared into plant breeders seed collections until 1988, when it resurfaced as part of a “Living Museum of Wheat” at a historic Grist Mill in Keremeos, BC. Since that time, production has grown, and Red Fife is now one of the darlings of the heritage grain and artisan bread movement not just in Canada and the US, but around the world.

More on Red Fife from The Canadian Encyclopedia

To make my bread, I needed to sift my whole grain Red Fife Flour to remove the larger sharper parts of the grain that threatened my gluten network. (Not quite what bread makers call High Extraction Flour, but a step in that direction.) I know – this defeats the whole purpose of using whole grain wheat, which is to get the health benefits of the entire kernel. But rest assured – the kitchen strainer I used didn’t strain out all the good parts – just the larger, sharper parts, which I can use later as a coating on my breads or as a topping for my oatmeal.

Other than that one step, I followed Tartine’s recipe and method, adjusting my timing based on the temperature, making both a boule and a batard. (See this previous post to learn how I do it.) The result was a delicious bread with a fabulous rise, an aerie crumb and a chewy crust.

I’ve ordered a set of mesh flour sieves from Breadtopia, and plan next to try my hand next using Red Fife in a 50% whole wheat loaf. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Tartine Basic Country Bread with Red Fife Wheat

Don’t even think of making sourdough bread for the first time using just this blog post, as this is an extremely abbreviated version of the technique. If you really want to learn how to make this sourdough, you are best off working directly from Chad Robertsons’ book Tartine Bread. If you don’t want that kind of initial investment, the NY Times Tartine Bread recipe is a nice way to start. (That’s how I got hooked.).

Leaven (7 am Saturday)

  • 25 grams active starter (My starter is fed with sprouted rye)
  • 200 grams warm (78 degree) water
  • 200 grams of a 50/50 blend whole wheat (mixture described above) and bread flour (King Arthur Artisan Bread Flour)

Disperse the starter in the water, then stir in the flour till there are no dry parts. Cover and let rise till ready. I kept my leaven at about 80 degrees in a home-made proof box – an unplugged microwave with a pyrex cup filled with boiling water and a thermometer sitting next to the leaven, refreshing the water every hour or so – and it was ready in less than 6 hours. if you keep your leaven at cooler temps, you can prepare the leaven before bed and let it develop overnight.

Note that you’ll only be using about half the leaven in the final dough. The rest can serve as your starter in the future. Alternatively, halve the amounts of flour and water in the recipe above and use it all. Just remember to save your unused starter.

Mix and first rise (1 pm Saturday)

Before measuring it, sift the red fife wheat to remove the larger bran particles. Save these for dusting your bannetons.

  • 200 grams leaven
  • 900 grams white bread flour (I used King Arthur Artisan Bread Flour)
  • 100 grams sifted Red Fife whole wheat
  • 700 grams warm water (80 degrees) + 50 grams more (added with the salt)
  • 20 grams sea salt

In a large bowl, disperse 200 grams leaven in 700 grams of warm water with your fingers. Whisk the flours together and add to the water/leaven till there are no dry bits of flour.

Let dough autolyse (rest) 45 mins. After the rest, lightly stir the salt into the remaining 50 grams of water (it does not need to dissolve) and add to the dough using your fingers. The dough will come apart, then come together again.

Let rise for 3-4 hours, turning every 30 minutes. (Here’s a video I made of the amazing Sarah Owens teaching us how to turn our dough during the rise.)

Pre-shape, Rest and Final Shaping (4:30 pm)

Pull dough out of bowl onto a very lightly floured surface. Pre-shape, rest for 30 mins, preparing bannetons while the bread rests. Perform final shaping. (Here’s another video of Sara Owens making bread that shows her shaping technique, which is what I use.) Place bread into bannetons, cover and proof overnight in the fridge.

Score and bake (Sunday 7:30 am)

Preheat a bread cloche or covered dutch oven in an oven set to 500 degrees. When the oven temp reaches 500 degrees, take the bread out of the fridge, lightly dust the surface of the dough with rice flour and turn out gently onto a sheet of parchment paper. Score as desired.

Uncover the dutch oven or cloche. Holding the parchment paper, gently lower the bread onto the cloche or hot dutch oven. Cover and bake for 20 mins. Remove the cover and bake another 20-30 mins.

Lift the bread out of the pot onto a rack to cool. Let the bread sit and sing for at least an hour, and ideally for 2-4 hours before cutting into it.

Spelt Sourdough Sandwich Loaf

Mr TBTAM makes a mean sandwich. Perfect little combinations of meat and cheese, sometimes tuna salad, always topped with either fresh roasted peppers or some red pepper relish, just the right amount of mustard or mayo, and a perfectly placed lettuce slice.

He is quite proud of these sandwiches, so proud that he will often stop his lunch preparations to find me so he can show me the freshly cut edge of the masterpiece he is taking to work tomorrow morning. At this point I am required to ooh and aah and if I am lucky, he will make me a sandwich as well.

As much as he loves my thick sourdough boules, I know what Mr TBTAM really wants me to make is a sandwich bread. So when this spelt sourdough sandwich loaf from Maurizio Leo’s website The Perfect Loaf caught my eye this week, I knew I had to try it.

The Perfect Loaf is an award winning blog and the online bible for sourdough obsessives like myself. Maurizio, a software engineer turned bread baker, is truly going for perfection. Each recipe catalogues his trial and error efforts at finding just the right combo of freshly milled flour, water and salt to get that perfect slice of bread. I can lose myself for hours among his recipes, videos, photos, and musings about sourdough bread making.

I have to admit I was quite nervous about trying this bread. Spelt is one of the ancient wheats, the other two being Emmer and Einkhorn. Spelt is healthier (higher in protein, zinc and tryptophan, lower in gluten) and more flavorful than modern wheat, but its gluten performs much better than that of Einkorn and Emmer. However, Spelt is notorious for its wet, hard to handle dough, so you cannot just substitute it one for one for modern wheat in a bread recipe. You have to adjust your hydration accordingly, something you can only do by trial and error. Which means a fair amount of failure till you get it right.

Fortunately, Maurizio has done all that hard work for us, playing with multiple levels of hydration in one degree increments until he got this spelt bread loaf just right. A little OCD, perhaps, but I for one am grateful for it! I’m awed at his diligence and perseverance and grateful for this recipe.

I was so happy to see the oven spring on this loaf I was literally dancing around the kitchen! On second thought, however, you don’t really want a pan loaf to spring this much. I think I could have proofed it a bit longer in my box or scored it to control the spring a bit and keep the loaf more level. Or perhaps it’s simply that my pan is so shallow – only 2.75 inches tall. I’m gonna’ get me a deeper pan for my next try.

This bread has great flavor and a lovely texture. Not too wet, not too heavy – just right. I need a better bread knife to get prettier crumb cuts, but I think you can see its got plenty of nice little air pockets.

Mr TBTAM decided he could not wait for lunch tomorrow to taste this bread. Since I had two nice marrow bones just finishing stewing in a pot of cabbage borscht, we decided to christen the bread with marrow. Heaven.

SOURDOUGH SPELT SANDWICH BREAD

I modified Mauritzio’s recipe to a total dough weight of 1200 grams to fit my 9.25″ x 5.25″ x 2.75″ loaf pan, and reduced the hydration to around 70% at his advice to spelt newbies.

Levain

  • 5 g mature starter (my starter is a 1:2:2 starter/rye flour/water)
  • 35 g water
  • 35 g spelt flour

Mix ingredients in a clear jar. Cover and let sit out overnight at room temp (mid-70’s right now)

Dough Ingredients

  • 605 g Spelt Flour (I used Arrowhead Mills)
  • 413 g water
  • 32 g honey
  • 32 g olive oil
  • 14 g salt
  • 76 g levain
  • Rolled oats, sesame and poppy seeds (Optional Topping)

Technique

  • In the morning, mix mature levain in a large bowl with flour, honey, extra virgin olive oil, salt and water till the dough comes together in a shaggy mass. (If working with spelt for the first time, hold back about 10 grams of the water until you are sure you need it – this can be a very wet dough, and different brands of spelt can behave differently. The amounts above worked fine for my flour.)
  • Stretch and fold for 4-5 mins till smooth and elastic. Cover for a 3 1/2 hour bulk ferment, performing 4 stretch and folds – the first after the first 15 mins, then every 30 mins thereafter for three more folds – then let the dough rest for the remainder of the ferment time.
  • Pre-shape dough into a taut round on an unfloured countertop using wet hands and a dough scraper, then rest uncovered for 20 mins.
  • Lightly grease the pan with oil. Shape dough on a floured surface. If using a topping, spritz top lightly with water, roll in topping on a cloth towel, then place in the pan seam side down. Cover with plastic wrap and let proof 1-2 hours at room temp. (Confession – I had dinner plans and so I put the bread into the fridge in a plastic bag overnight, during which it did not rise much, then proofed it in the morning in my microwave proof setup* for 2 hours, where it rose to a perfect proof.)
  • Towards end of proofing, place a metal pan on the over floor and preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • When your dough is fully proofed, unwrap and place on rack in middle of the oven. Pour boiling water or toss a handful of ice cubes into the metal pan, spray water several times into the oven chamber with a handheld spray bottle and close the oven door. (My bread was quite moist from the microwave proof, so I did not spray the oven.)
  • Drop the oven temp to 425°F and bake for 20 minutes, then remove steaming pan (careful!) and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes. When the bread looks well colored on top and the interior temp registers around 205°F, remove the loaf from its pan and finish baking in the oven directly on the oven rack for 5 minutes for more color. Remove fully cooked bread from oven and let cool 3-4 hours before slicing.

*MICROWAVE PROOFING BOX
Place your bread into the microwave with a large mug of boiling water then close the door. Don’t turn it on! (You can unplug to be on the safe side.) Monitor the temp so it does not go too high. Replace the boiling water as needed to maintain optimal temp.

Monday Evening Bread Bake

It’s all in the timing.

If you plan it just right, you can see a play, eat with friends, and get a lot of work done, including a full day at the office, all while making sourdough bread.

I started this loaf late Sunday morning, using my own modification of Tartine’s Country Bread recipe.

After mixing the leaven, I worked at the dining room table on charts and labs from last week’s busy office hours, then let the leaven continue to mature on the kitchen counter while we headed up to An Beal Bocht in Riverdale to see a wonderful production of Every Brilliant Thing at their Poor Mouth Theater (Aiofe Williamson was brilliant herself! ), followed by a rousing traditional Irish music session and a late lunch in the cafe with Paula and Tony.

When we got home at about 6 pm, I made the autolyse, mixed the bread and began the first rise with folds every 30 mins between completing even more charts and reviewing even more labs. (Did you know that for every hour seeing patients a doc spends another two in the EMR documenting and such? Welcome to my weekend…)

By 11 pm, I was tuckered out. The bread had finished its second rise and was shaped and proofing in the fridge.

Today, while my bread sat in the fridge gathering its tangy flavor, I was at the hospital by 7 am for grand rounds, followed by a morning full of patients, and more charting, patient calls and meetings in the afternoon.

Home by about 6:30 pm, I set up the Dutch oven to preheat, then scored and baked the bread while we ate a delicious dinner of leftover chili from Saturday night’s dinner. By 10 pm, the bread was cool enough to slice

and for Mr TBTAM to make tomorrow’s lunches before going to bed. I’ll store the rest of the loaf cut side down on the bread board for another day or so, then slice it up and store it in the freezer for the rest of this week’s lunches. If Mr TBTAM doesn’t eat it all tonight….

Bottom line – If you do it right, sourdough bread making can fit into the busiest of schedules. It’s all in the timing.

I Want to Be Her

Okay I admit it. I want to be French. And live in both New York and Paris. And spend my days making sourdough bread and amazing food and writing and filming about that. Just like Marie Constantinesco, whose charming web series “My Life in Sourdough” has captured my heart and my imagination.

My Life in Sourdough tells the story of Jeanne, a young French woman living in Brooklyn and traveling back and forth to Paris, who loves to cook and eat (and somehow stays thin). Failing to find love with the men she is dating, Jeanne gives her heart to her sourdough starter Fluffy and finds true love in making bread. Which I totally get, although for me its more like having an affair with my sourdough, since I’ve already found true love. Which may explain why I have yet to name my starter. Which is probably as bad as not naming your first child…

Anyway, each episode of My Life in Sourdough is accompanied by a filmed recipe. And there are tips for sourdough making. And videos with the likes of David Lebowitz. And shots of Parisian cheese shops and markets. I mean, this series has managed to capture five of the things I most dearly love – food, sourdough, bread, NYC, and Paris – in a series of small, beautifully filmed, tiny bites.

I’ve only seen two episodes and a few trailers so far, and am doling them out to myself slowly, to make it last. In between, I’m following Marie on her instagram account and still can’t get enough of vicariously living a life of sourdough, NYC and Paris.

Did I mention I want to be her?

Tartine’s Basic Country Bread

I think I finally got this sourdough thing down.

Check out this boule made using Tartine’s Country Bread recipe, the holy grail of sourdough. It’s the first sourdough recipe I ever tried, and now the best I’ve ever made.

For those of you as new to this whole sourdough thing as I was just 6 months ago, Tartine is the bakery run by Chad Robertson in San Francisco, turning out small batches (only 240 loaves a day) of what many say is the best bread you’ll ever taste. Following in the footsteps of bakers like Nancy Silverton at La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, Chad helped to put artisan sourdough on the map beyond San Francisco. By graciously sharing their expertise, he and others have inspired a whole crop of bakers across the nation and around the world who are making artisan sourdough bread. (Check out this UK local bakery just opened by a 15 year old baker and her dad who make sourdough using a starter “blossomed from a single apple in our garden”.) Add in folks passionate about using locally grown heritage grains to make healthier, more digestible bread (yes, gluten ain’t so bad if you make it right) and you’ve got a movement to bring healthy bread back to the masses.

I’m still in love with Jim Lahey’s No knead yeast bread, and if my time is limited, it’s my go to, never fail me bread. But given a free weekend and time to fold and shape, I’ll be tweaking my sourdough. I can’t wait to see what kind of rise I can get in the warmer weather, and I want to start using heritage grains, adding things like olives and sun dried tomatoes and cheese to my breads, and playing with the starter and leaven to get a sweeter flavor.

From what I’ve seen and am learning, sourdough bread baking is a never-ending journey. So stay tuned.

Requisite Crumb Shot

Tartine’s Basic Country Bread

Don’t even think of making the bread for the first time using just this blog post. But Robertson’s recipe make two loaves, and I wanted to have my own one-loaf version and also record my experience making this loaf. I’ve also added little tweaks that work in my kitchen, so I’ll remember them next time. (Welcome to sourdough, the perfect bread making technique for those with OCD.)

If you really want to learn how to make this sourdough, you are best off working directly from Chad Robertsons’ book Tartine Bread. If you don’t want that kind of initial investment, the NY Times Tartine Bread recipe is a nice way to start. (That’s how I got hooked.).

To make this loaf, I started the leaven at about 8 am, then packed it loosely in the car to allow it to ripen on the ride and at the cottage (temps were in high 60’s – very low 70’s). After dinner, I mixed the bread and did the first rise and folding for 3 hours. I rested and shaped the dough around 10:30, then placed it in a covered basket in the fridge and went to bed. I heated the oven, scored and baked the bread starting about 7:30 am the next morning.

My traveling leaven and bread making supplies

Make the leaven (Saturday 8am)

  • 1 tbsp starter (My starter is fed with sprouted rye)
  • 100 grams warm (78 degree) water
  • 100 grams of a 50/50 blend whole wheat and bread flour

Disperse the starter in the water with your fingers, then stir in the flour till there are no dry parts. Cover and let rise at a coolish temp overnight or for 8-10 hours. I had temps in the high 60’s to very low 70’s, Robertson recommends 65 degrees.

Mix and first rise (Saturday evening starting about 7 pm)

  • 100 grams leaven
  • 450 grams white bread flour (I used King Arthur)
  • 50 grams whole wheat flour
  • 350 grams warm water (80 degrees) + 25 grams more (added with the salt) I used Brita-filtered water from the fridge pitcher + a little warmer water straight from the tap to get it to the right temp.
  • 10 grams sea salt

This is a 75% hydration dough. In a large bowl (mine was ceramic), disperse 100 grams leaven in 350 grams of warm water with your fingers. Whisk the flours together and add to the water/leaven till there are no dry bits of flour. It will be quite thick – but not to worry you are adding more water in a bit.

Let dough rest 30 mins. (Robertson says 25 -40 mins). After the rest, lightly stir the salt into the remaining 25 grams of water (it does not need to dissolve) and add to the dough using your fingers. The dough will come apart, then come together again.

First (Bulk) rise

Let rise for 3 hours, covered with a tea towel moistened with warm water after each turn. Every 30 mins give the dough a turn, becoming gentler as the dough becomes more billowy and aerated to avoid pressing out the gases.

Here’s video I made of the amazing Sarah C Owens turning her dough at a sourdough class I took with her on Far Rockaway last month.

When the dough is risen and ready, it’s time to pre-shape, bench rest and final shape it.

Pre-shape, Rest and Final Shaping (10:00 pm)

Pull dough out of bowl onto a very lightly floured surface. Fold the four sides of the dough onto itself, incorporating as little dough as possible into the dough. Roll the dough over, folded side down, and pull it around, tucking it under as you go to make a neat round package with a nice tight skin. Let it rest for 30 minutes to allow the gluten to loosen up for the final shaping,

Now slip the bench knife under the dough, flip it over and shape into a boule shape using a series of folds as you’ve learnt them. An explanation of this is beyond the scope of this post, but here’s a great video that shows pretty much exactly how I pre-shaped and final shaped my dough. (Shaping starts around 2:45 min.)

Using the bench knife, flip the shaped dough seam side up into a pre-floured unlined banneton, cover loosely with plastic wrap and then a tea towel and place in the fridge over night. You can use a cloth lined banneton if you prefer, but you won’t get those nice flour lines.

Score and bake (Sunday 7:30 am)

Preheat a covered dutch oven in an oven set to 500 degrees. Take out and uncover banneton, letting it sit on the counter while the oven preheats. When the oven temp reaches 500 degrees, lightly dust the surface of the dough with rice flour and turn out gently onto a sheet of parchment paper. Score as desired. I used kitchen shears to score this loaf, having left my bread lame (a hand held razor blade thingy) at home in NYC, and was pleased with the results.

Carefully pull the hot dutch oven out and uncover. Holding the parchment paper, gently lower the dough boule scored side up into the dutch oven. Cover, turn the heat down to 450 degrees and bake for 20 mins. Remove the cover and bake another 30 mins.

Lift the bread out of the pot onto a rack to cool. Let the bread sit and sing for at least an hour, and ideally for 2-4 hours before cutting into it.

What I learned from making this loaf

  • I can make one loaf of Tartine bread at a time.
  • It’s much easier to work with lower than higher hydration dough
  • I think I need to check my oven thermostat, and if it’s correct, keep it at 500 degrees the whole bake – while the top caramelized nicely, I expected a darker lower crust and bottom.
  • I may try Jim Lahey’s trick of dusting the bread with wheat bran – it darkens very nicely.
  • I LOVE SOURDOUGH!

Healthy, Low Calorie Cauliflower Breadsticks

Do you think whoever named the cauliflower plant knew that one day we would evolve into overweight, carbohydrate-overloaded, gluten-intolerant creatures, who, in searching for a suitable lo-carb substitute would find their holy grail in that crucifer whose name is homonymous with the ground product of the very thing we both crave and shun?

Think cauliFLOUR.

Then go grind up a head of cauliflower in the food processor (or be lazy like me and buy Trader Joes riced cauliflower), steam or microwave it for 10 minutes, strain out the liquid in a tea towel, pour into a large bowl and add two egg whites, 1/4 cup hemp or flax seeds, 1/2 low fat grated cheese (Trader Jose’s Lite Mexican Blend works perfectly) and a tbsp of minced fresh herbs (I used thyme, rosemary, basil and oregano). Spread out onto an 8 x12 inch rectangle on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake it in a 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, toss a little more cheese atop and bake 5-10 mins more and Voila! You’ve got a delicious, healthy, low calorie, if somewhat floppy breadstick. I cut mine using a pizza cutter while still warm, and got 32 cracker size pieces at 25 calories apiece. (If you want yours crisper, after cutting them, turn the oven off and put them right back in for 1-2 hours to crisp up as the oven cools down.)

I served these tonight to accompany Cream of Mushroom Soup. The flavors complemented each other well.

Bread – Let it Sing

Listen closely.

That crackling sound you hear is the bread “singing”.

It’s why you should never cut into a piping hot loaf of bread fresh from the oven, tempting as that may be. Let it rest and sing for awhile as it finishes the process of baking all by itself.

Here’s what Jim Lahey has to say about singing, in his book My Bread, which is where I get my bread recipes and technique –

Just after you take a loaf out of the oven, something strange often happens: it begins to make wierd noises, a rapid-fire crackling sound, one pop after another. This “singing” as some bakers call it, is especially loud and obvious in the professional bakery, where dozens of loaves may be pulled out of an oven at the same time and placed together in a basket. They become kind of a snapping chorus. The singing lasts for several minutes – the temperature of the room will determine how long – as the bread cools.

This singing is evidence of the last phase of cooking, which takes place out of the oven- and is why you should always given a loaf time to cool before slicing it. The exterior of the loaf is very dry at the moment it’s removed, but the interior is still wet. During cooling, the two elements of the bread start to even out somewhat, although the crust will remain brittle and the crumb soft. The crust is shrinking and cracking. Steam escapes through the cracks, which is the racket you hear, as it forces its way through, while the crumb solidifies. At this moment, the bread seems alive.

I know its a romantic idea, but it’s how you get to feel when you fall in love with a simple, but beautifully baked rustic loaf.

So wait till the song is over before you cut into that loaf of bread. It’s well worth the wait.

Einkorn No Knead Artisan Bread (and a primer on ancient wheat)

All wheat is not the same.

What we now call wheat is actually the product of hybridization and cross breeding of wheat species to increase crop yields, ease harvesting, decrease costs and scale up production. As a result, where there were once just 5 or so species of wheat, there are now literally thousands, which genetically, may be virtually unrecognizable to ancient grains from which they are descended.

Allow me to introduce these so-called ancient grains to you now:

  1. Einkorn Wheat (14 chromosomes / Diploid): The first known wheat ever cultivated by humans (circa 3300 BC in Europe) is Einkorn Wheat, which has just 14 chromosomes (diploid) and has a hull. Einkorn has great flavor, and has higher lipid, protein, vit E, lutein and carotenoids that modern bread wheat, and may be better tolerated by those with gluten sensitivities. (But not Celiacs, who should avoid all wheat, ancient or otherwise).
  2. Emmer and Duram Wheat (28 chromosomes / Tetrapoloid): About 10,000 years ago, Emmer Wheat appeared in the Middle East, as a product of natural cross breeding of Einkorn with wild goat grass (Aegelops speltoides). Emmer is a hulled wheat, has a lower glycemic index and is higher in protein and anti-oxidents than typical bread wheat. Some varieties may be lower in minerals than bread flour. Durum wheat is a domesticated form of emmer used for pasta and is a naked wheat (no hull).
  3. Ancient Bread Wheat and Spelt (42 Chromosomes / Hexaploid): Sometime before biblical times, it is thought that Emmer bred naturally with a durum wheat grass called Aegrolops squarosa to yield Triticium aestivum, a higher yield and better baking species that we call “bread wheat”. It is a naked wheat (no hull). Spelt is another hexaploid species that probably formed a little later than bread wheat, and has a hull.  Spelt has similar gluten, and is higher in protein, lipids, and unsaturated fatty acids and minerals when compared to bread flour. It is lower in fiber than bread wheat, and I am told that it does not make as good a bread.

The hexaploid bread flour species are genetically pliable, having 42 chromosomes with thousands of genes available for natural selection and breeding by man. Still, by the mid 18th century, only 5 species of bread flour were being grown in Europe, and until the mid-20th century, most bread flour was pretty similar.

But beginning in the latter part of the 20th century, aggressive modern breeding practices began that created literally thousands of different varieties of hexaploid bread and durum wheat. Much of the breeding was done to improve crop yields and battle environmental scourges such as drought and pests. Some have made wheat easier to process, but dependent on man-made assistance from pesticides and irrigation. Still other breeding may have been done to improve the nutritional content of wheat. But virtually none of the new wheat varieties was ever tested in humans before introduction into the food supply.

While we know how these species perform on the farm and in the wild, what we don’t necessarily know is how they may affect the humans who ingest them. The question now being asked by many is this – In selecting for things like crop yield, harvest ease and bakeability, have we created wheat species with genetic and nutritional profiles that are unfriendly to our bodies? We are not just talking gluten sensitivity here. We are talking glycemic index, fat and protein content, vitamin and mineral profile. Not to mention the effects of the additives food manufacturers add to baked goods to improve shelf life, taste and other qualities that will increase their appeal to consumers.  Many of us are asking if the symptoms we experience such as bloating, weight gain, skin rashes, headaches, allergies, joint pains – in the absence of identifiable disease – may in fact be the result of sensitivities to the proteins found in modern wheat.

Not everyone is waiting for answers. Instead, they are turning back to the ancient grains nature created before modern man got his mitts into Triticum’s genetic pool. American farmers are belatedly joining their Eupropean counterparts in growing Einkorn, Emmer and Spelt, as the demand from consumers for these grains begins to rise. Some of us are enjoying using Farro – the wheat berries of Einkorn, Spelt and Emmer – in salads and side dishes. Others are using the flours of these wheat species to make their own breads and pastas. The anecdotal evidence seems mixed on whether or not there are really any health benefits to using ancient wheats. We know they cannot be used by those with true gluten allergy.

My interest in the ancient grains comes from reading Wheat Belly, cardiologist William Davis’s program for eliminating wheat from the diet to lose weight. I’m still reading it, and have not tried his program – if I do, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, like many, I see no reason not to try these ancient grains. Farro for sure has already won me over.

This recipe is my attempt at seeing what kind of no-knead bread I can coax from Einkorn flour.

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EINKORN NO KNEAD ARTISAN BREAD

Readers of this blog know well my enthusiasm for Jim Lahey’s No knead bread making techniques, made famous by Mark Bittman of the NY Times. (If you don’t, stop right now and go to my previous posts about this technique, and learn it first before trying this recipe.) For this Einkorn bread loaf, I used a recipe from Jovial Foods, makers and distributor of Einkorn Flour.

It was an interesting experience. Einkorn flour has an almost baby powder-like silkiness and consistency, and is clearly a more moist and fatty flour than standard issue modern bread flour. One needs to use 5 cups of flour to get a similar size loaf to Lahey’s, and this flour ain’t cheap. The dough is much stickier and harder to work with, so make sure your board is well floured and use a dough scraper rather than your hands when forming the bread round.

The Jovial bakers do not use Lahey’s cloth technique (probably because the dough is so wet), or let the dough rise a second time before baking. I did both, and next time will avoid since it really was a mess, and the Jovial chefs state it is not necessary.

The results?

First and foremost, there is no such thing as a not delicious home made bread, and this was no exception. The bread is flavorful, moist and dense with a hard crust, and it is just lovely toasted.

But I have to say that it disappoints when compared to the incredible results I get with Lahey’s technique using regular flour. The crumb structure is more cake than bread-like, and I miss the big air pockets and incredible crunch that regular bread flour gives.

I’m going to give it one more try, avoiding the second rise and cutting back a bit on water (which I admit I upped a bit to get the dough to look more like Lahey’s.) The recipe below is exactly as I will make it next.

EINKORN NO KNEAD ARTISAN BREAD

Ingredients

  • 5 cups (600 g) of Jovial Einkorn Flour
  • ¼ teaspoon (1 g) dry active yeast
  • 1 teaspoon (6 g) sea salt
  • 1¾ cups (410 g) of warm water

Instructions

  1. Whisk flour, salt and yeast together in a large mixing bowl (Do not use a glass bowl, as the dough will darken if exposed to light).
  2. Add water and combine using a wooden spoon or spatula (dough will be wet).
  3. When the flour is incorporated, push down sides of dough and flatten the top.
  4. Cover the bowl with a large plate and let rise for 12-14 hours.
  5. In the last half hour of the rise, preheat a covered ceramic or cast iron Ditch Oven in the oven to 500°F.
  6. Turn out the dough on a heavily floured work surface. Using a dough scraper, fold the dough ala’ Lahey (See video here), nudging and tucking the dough into around shape.
  7. Plop the dough right into the pot, cover, lower the heat to 450 degrees fahrenheit and bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake another 15 minutes to darken the crust.
  8. Lift the loaf out of the dish and place on a cooling rack.
  9. Let cool for at least one hour before slicing.
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More Einkorn Links

Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread

Summers in the mountains means bread.

I rarely make bread at home in New York City. Not that I couldn’t. After all, this bread is easy enough to make, and despite it’s long rise time, requires very little of my attention.

But thinking about making bread does require, for me at least, a relaxed, open mind. And the inward assurance that in 18 hours I will still be available to move the bread on to it’s second rise, and then to it’s baking. Coordinating that with my schedule in the city makes the bread making feel like a chore and not the joy it is when I undertake it here at the cottage. Here, the day and the next lay ahead of me, open and lazy. The only things on my must do list today are a morning lake trail walk and if its warm enough, a swim. Maybe a bike ride into town to the farm stand market to hunt for inspiration for dinner.

I put this bread up to rise last night at 10, just after we arrived. This morning we read, then I put the bread out for its second rise around 1. We stocked the beach locker with clean towels and then went to town for lunch and to check out the local shops for the first time this season, stopping to hear some bluegrass on the porch and chat with friends outside the Common Ground. After that, I came home and baked the bread while Mr TBTAM cleaned the gutters and mowed the grass and I read some more. By 5 pm the bread was done. It’s in the bread box now, awaiting tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch.  The salmon is marinating, we’re drinking wine and getting ready to start a fire. (Obviously it was too cold to swim today…) Tonight will either be a scrabble or a card game, and something made with the peaches I found at the farm market for dessert.

As I’m thinking about it now, bread making gives a kind of structure to an otherwise completely unstructured existence here on the mountain. It doesn’t depend on the weather (though it may vary a bit depending on temperature and humidity), and needs no one but me to make it happen. If we have company, as we will for much of the rest of the summer, I can adjust the timing accordingly, or make the shorter rise version. But every weekend will have it’s loaf at some point.

The bread making is a touch point for me, a way of grounding myself and transitioning from the hectic overdriven life in the city to the lazy days in the country. It gives me a sense of having accomplished something without demanding that I actually do very much at all.

And it tastes amazing.

NO-KNEAD WHOLE WHEAT BREAD

This recipe is from Mark Bittman, inspired by Jim Lahey’s now legendary No-Knead bread making technique. Before making this bread, watch this video of Mark and Jim making this bread together, and this video of Jim teaching Mark for the first time how to do it. Even better, read Jim’s book, which was what I read today while my bread was rising. And read my previous blog post on my experience making this amazing bread.

This was my first try at making a whole wheat no-knead bread. The results were fantastic – a light, tasty, moist and chewy interior with a crunchy crust. Not as hard and thick and crunchy as Lahey’s white bread crust, but this may have been because I mistakingly baked the bread at 450 degrees instead of the recommended 500 degrees Fahrenheit. (Lahey seems to go back and forth between these two temps a lot – find which is best for your oven and stick to that). 

I went to whole wheat flour looking for something healthier. To that end, my next foray will be to the land of the heritage wheats.  I ordered some Einkorn flour today, and will see what kind of no-knead bread I can coax out of it next weekend.

Stay tuned.

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 2/3 cups bread flour
  • 1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp yeast (Active dry or instant)
  • 2 cups water.

INSTRUCTIONS

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour in water and mix well with a wooden spoon. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel, and let rise for 12-18 hours at room temp till well-risen, with a bubble foamy top and the beginnings of darkening color.

Scrape out onto a well floured surface, and with floured hands fold over ala’ Lahey. Place seam sides down on a clean non-terry towel generously dusted with wheat bran or corn meal. Fold the towel over top the bread and let rise another 4 hours, till doubled in bulk.

During the last half hour of the rise, preheat a 4-5 quart cast iron or ceramic french oven on a pull out shelf in a 500 degree Fahrenheit oven.

Open the oven door, pull out the shelf and take off the pot lid. (If your shelf does not pull out, take the entire pot out and place on top of the stove or on a heat proof counter to accomplish the next steps, but work quickly.) Gently place the bread-filled cloth onto an outstretched palm and walk over to the pot. Remove the lid and lay the bread, seam side up, into the pot. (Watch the videos for this technique.) Shake the pot a bit if you need to settle the dough into place. Place the lid back on and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15-30 minutes to develop the dark, almost burnt crust. Remove pot from the oven and remove bread from the pot. Let the bread “sing” as it cools for another 15-30 minutes before even considering cutting into it.

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More TBTAM Bread Making 

Time Makes a Better Bread – and A Better Bread Maker

Jim Lahey Bread 2

I”ve been making Jim Lahey’s bread for about four years now.

My first attempt was in New York City during Hurricane Irene, when I knew I’d be home for at least 24 hours with nothing to do but make this bread. which has a 12 to 18 hour rise, followed by a second two hour rise prior to baking.  The result was delicious, though a little flat.  But hands down the best bread I’d ever baked.

no-knead-bread first attemps
My first attempt at Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread

I decided to try making bread during weekends at our cottage in the Endless Mountains, and immediately gravitated to Mark Bittman’s speedier version of Lahey’s recipe. The shortened 4 hour rise time allowed me to start the bread first thing on a Saturday morning and still have it ready by lunchtime.

That bread making schedule made us some very pretty breads and served us well on many a Saturday lunch.

Bittman speedier no-Knead bread

But not really.

You see, we often did not roll into the driveway of our cottage until very late Friday evening, especially if traffic was bad getting out of New York City. By that point, the thought of bread for tomorrow’s lunch was nowhere near my consciousness – all I wanted was bed. Next morning, by the time I got up and thought of bread, it was way too late to start a loaf if we were planning to do anything else that day.

So the sad truth is, though I like to think I did, most weekends on the mountain I did not make bread.

bread

This summer I got smart and took off a bunch of Friday afternoons. Now we leave earlier from New York City (1 pm is the latest if you want an under 4 hour trip), and I work using my laptop and cellphone hot spot while Mr TBTAM drives. The result? One evening, I actually found myself sitting on the front porch on a Friday evening with a glass of wine at 6 pm!

This got me thinking – why not start the bread now instead of in the morning? After all, Lahey’s original recipe has an overnight rise.

The first phase of the recipe is so easy that I have it memorized and can get the bread set up to rise in 5 minutes. I can even start it at home while we’re packing up the food, and let it start to rise in the car while we drive! Next morning, I can sleep as late as 9 am and still have time to finish the second rise and bake it before lunch, leaving me a free afternoon to hike or swim or kayak.

If I want the whole day free, I set an alarm for 5, set up the second rise and head back to bed till 7:00, at which point I get up, heat the oven for a half hour while I shower, then bake the bread from 7:00 to 7:45 am. After cooling (an absolutely essential part of the process), the bread will be done by 8:15 am, and I have a full day to play.

My early morning bread making schedule

Somewhere along the line, I bought Lahey’s book and learned the actual science behind his bread. This brought home the reality of why this longer making bread is just a better bread than Bittman’s speedier version. The overnight rise is really a short fermentation, and the bread attains a wonderful sourdough-like taste. The crust it forms is thicker and the bread sturdier yet still soft – ie., better gluten. Lacey’s book also taught me to respect the rest after baking, during which the bread “sings” as the steam escapes, and never, ever to cut into the bread till it has cooled.

A big advantage of the overnight rise for me is that it is not as temperature dependent. It can get really cool up here on the mountain, and there were times I put the bread in the car and drove to a sunny spot to get a decent rise from Bittman’s speedier rise recipe. But when the yeast have 12 or more hours to do their thing, temperature seems not to be as critical. (If it’s going to be a really cool night, I do increase the yeast just a teeny bit as insurance.)

Speaking of temperature, I’m still wondering just how hot I can go when baking this bread. Bittman’s original article says 450 degrees, but in the NYTimes video Lahey says “500, even 515” degrees, and in his book, he says 475 degrees. (The bread pictured here was baked at 475 degrees.)

Lahey’s pics of the bread making process in his book are invaluable. I also strongly recommend watching this video from Mark Bittman to understand just how wet this dough is. Over time, I’ve gotten the confidence to know that if following the recipe exactly on a given day yields bread dough that’s a little too thick, I can add water and make it “just right”. This is the sort of skill that only comes with time and experience.

So try this bread. Then try it again. And again. And again.

With time, and sooner than you think, you’ll be making one amazing loaf.

Jim Lahey Basic Bread

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More No-Knead Links 

Bittman’s Speedier No-Knead Bread with Olive Oil

As much as I love Jim Leahy’s no-knead bread, the reality is that by the time I get my act together to start making it, it’s too late to get a rise by the time I need to serve the bread.

Enter Bittman’s recipe for speedier no-knead bread. With a rise time shortened from 8 hours to 4 hours, you could conceivably have it ready for lunch, which was my plan for Saturday at the cottage. Unfortunately, that would require getting up before 9 am. Too much wine with dinner Friday night nixed that idea. I decided to make the bread anyway, starting at around 10 am on Saturday, figuring we’d eat it at some point during the weekend.  As you’ll see by the recipe below, I accidentally modified it by adding some oive oil to the dough, which I think was not such a bad thing,

Now we’re eating it toasted for Sunday breakfast. Given how delicious it is, there’s no way we would have had any left for today’s breakfast if we had it for lunch yesterday.

I think it all worked out for the best, don’t you?

Mark Bittman’s Speedier No-Knead Bread with Olive Oil

I have trouble finding instant yeast, so this recipe uses active dry yeast, which I proofed before using. If you use instant yeast, as Bittman does, you’ll add it to the dry ingredients and increase the water by 1/4 cup. (The Fresh Loaf has a good post on the differences between these two types of yeast.) If you don’t want to proof your yeast, eliminate the sugar. 

I mis-interpreded Bittman’s ingredient list for “oil as needed”, and added about 2 tbsp of olive oil to my dough. (He meant to use is to oil your working surface.)  On researching what I might have done, it appears that oil strengthens the bubbles in the rise and increases the storage life of bread.  In this case, it also gave the bread a chewier texture, more like a sourdough.  I like that.  

In retrospect, I should have cut back the water by that amount, which explains why my dough seemed so loose – however, it remained easy to work with, so I don’t think I hurt anything. Next time I make it, I’m going to increase the oil to 1/4 cup, which seems to be the norm in bread recipes with oil, and cut back the water accordingly. If you try it first, let me know how it turns out. 

Yields: 1 loaf

Ingredients

  • 1 packet active dry yeast
  • ¼ cup warm water
  • A pinch of sugar
  • 3 cups bread flour (I used King Arthur’s)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 1/4 cups water

Directions:

1. Dissolve the yeast in ¼ cup warm water. Add a pinch of sugar. Once the yeast starts to foam, it is ready to use.

2. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Add dissolved yeast, 2 tbsp olive oil and 1 1/4 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest about 4 hours at about 70 degrees.

3. Pull dough out of bowl – it will be shaggy, but will come away in one piece if you work gently enough. Plop in onto a lightly oiled work surface (I use a large wooden cutting board) and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes more.

4. While the dough is resting, put a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (I use a Le Creuset round French oven) in the oven (lid on) and heat to 450 degrees fahrenheit.

5. When the dough has rested for 30 minutes, carefully remove the now very hot pot from oven. Slide your hand under the dough and drop it into pot, seam side up. Unless the dough is crawling up the sides of the pan (in which case you can shake the pan once or twice to drop it in) don’t worry if it falls a bit off center in the pot. It will straighten out as it bakes.

6. Cover with lid, put back in the oven, and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.