breads

by

Kneaders Bakery and Cafe, cookbook review

Having spent most of my time in the Northeast (with a sprinkling of visits to California and Hawaii), I had never heard of Kneaders Bakery and Cafe until I received a review copy of the 25 year anniversary book.  Founded by couple Colleen and Gary Worthington originally in Utah, Kneaders started with artisan bread production, but eventually offered soups, sandwiches, breakfast, and desserts. Today, locations can be found in Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas. 

I believe most of the items in “Kneaders Bakery and Cafe: A Celebration of Our Recipes and Memories,” by Colleen Worthington, are inspired by their menu but are not necessarily the exact recipes.  For example, Dave’s BLT Sandwich tells you to use Kneaders sauce, which is explained as a mixture of mayo/mustard/sour cream, but no exact ratios are provided.  The recipe for the olive bread comments that it is commercially made with a levain but the published version swaps in instant yeast for ease.  Personally, I dislike getting a recipe that isn’t actually the recipe. I wanted the real one for good reason. Obviously this isn’t an issue for people with access to the real thing. And honestly, most people will be satisfied with easier recipes if it gets them 80% of the way there.

Anyway, the chapters here are:

  • Breakfast,
  • Salads,
  • Sandwiches,
  • Soups,
  • Drinks,
  • Dips and Spreads,
  • Stuffings and Croutons,
  • Cakes and Trifles,
  • Cookies and Bars,
  • Pies and Puddings,
  • Sweets and Treats

Here are some of the recipes you’ll find:

  • Raspberry almond muffin tops,
  • Baked breakfast scones (cranberry orange white chocolate, dark chocolate cherry almond, apricot hazelnut vanilla bean),
  • Buttermilk caramel syrup,
  • Pecan pancakes,
  • BLT macaroni salad,
  • Creamy broccoli salad dressing,
  • Ciabatta muffuletta sandwich,
  • Gourmet picnic sandwich (made with a variety of cheese and cold cuts),
  • Artichoke portobello soup,
  • Irish stew,
  • Pumpkin curry soup,
  • Turkey curry chowder,
  • Chocolate hearth bread,
  • Hot cross buns,
  • Sesame semolina bread,
  • Easy chocolate bake box mix hacks,
  • Basic chocolate cake from scratch,
  • Master chocolate cake from scratch,
  • Tres leches cake,
  • Peanut butter cookies (with peanut butter cups),
  • Blueberry sour cream pie,
  • Pineapple hand pies

I noticed that about a third of the book are sweets, which is great of if you have a sweet tooth.  Some of the recipes depend on Kneaders products.  For example, the recipe for lemon ricotta souffle pancakes asks for Kneaders Homestyle Buttermilk Pancake Mix.  And then, the pumpkin trifle recipe wants Kneaders Pumpkin Bread.  I think most of the product mentions can be substituted with items locally available to you and still be delicious, but the texture and/or flavor might be slightly different.

Since New England is returning to bread baking weather, my initial recipe test was for rosemary focaccia bread, which is simply made of yeast, sugar, water, salt, butter, fresh rosemary, and all purpose flour.  Instructions are fairly standard for a slightly enriched dough, and it makes two small rounds.  The loaves are baked on a sheet pan in the oven, no instructions for steaming or dutch-oven baking provided. As such, the loaves didn’t develop a crackly crunchy crust.  (No shade to a softer crust, but I am curious to bake one large boule in the dutch-oven… but that is an experiment for another day.)  Was this like focaccia?  Hmmm, I’m going to say no to that, but it did make very nice soft sandwich slices that reminds me more of white bread.  (Oh, that’s another thing to try: making this without rosemary in a loaf pan specifically for sandwiches.)  I think the “focaccia” in the name is mostly due to the rosemary.  While focaccia doesn’t require any herbs, I think a lot of people tend to think of them together.  

I shared the bread with my mom who absolutely loved it, so I’ll be re-making this again soon.

The second recipe I made was the low-fat onion spread.  It’s made from cottage cheese, light cream cheese, lemon juice, roasted red bell peppers, salt, black pepper, and green onions (aka scallions).  It’s pretty easy to put together.  You blend most of the ingredients, but mix in the scallions toward the end.  The cottage cheese I used was a bit watery so I think the spread came out thinner than intended (if I am go to by the photo in the book).  Originally, I ate it on some toasted whole grain slices but the flavor combo was subpar.  The spread was good, and the whole grain bread I had was good, but I found that the earthiness of the bread didn’t balance the onion flavor well.  Though I didn’t take a photo of it, I ended up making turkey sandwiches with the rosemary focaccia bread and the onion spread.  That was leagues better.  

The only thing I didn’t like about the spread was the color. It was noticeably pink from the blended red bell pepper. It’s such a silly thing to be weirded out by. I might try an orange bell pepper next time and hope for the best.

The real complaint (as someone who loves her kitchen scale) is that none of the baking recipes, except one, have weighed measurements.  The jalapeno cheddar bagel is the only recipe with gram measurements, probably because it was written (submitted?) by their corporate executive baker.  But since this is a U.S. cookbook, I’m not surprised.  Just mildly disappointed, so you can consider this complaint to be minor.

Overall, it’s a good cookbook.  There are no surprises, and nothing too exotic.  Most of the recipes are not very complicated either.  If Kneaders Bakery is something you grew up with or have in your life, this cookbook probably has a place on your shelf.

Disclaimer – I kindly received a copy of “Kneaders Bakery and Cafe: a celebration of our recipes and memories” by Colleen Worthington from Shadow Mountain Publishing this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  This book is available for purchase through your favorite retailer, and will be released on October 3.

by

The Best of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, cookbook review

I know that I’ve been making a lot of sourdough bread these days.  Like this one:

But that doesn’t mean that I’ve renounced yeasted breads.  I just didn’t feel inspired until I got to preview a copy of “The Best of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”, the latest in the series by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François.  The content itself is not technically new.  Instead, inspired by all the baking that happened in the early days of covid-19 pandemic lockdown, this book is more of a “greatest hits” from their previous publications.  This is not a bad thing!  As someone who appreciates their work but isn’t looking to add all of the previous books on her already overflowing bookshelf, “The Best of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” hits all the right notes for me.

The recipes are broken down by:

  • The master recipe
  • More basic breads
  • Classic shapes with master and basic doughs
  • Loaves from around the world
  • Pizza and flatbreads
  • Gluten-free breads
  • Enriched breads and pastries
  • Natural sourdough starter (levain)

The master recipe is based on all purpose flour, but there are tips on using bread flour as well as a strong white dough recipe which uses bread flour.  Examples of other recipes you’ll find are:

  • 100% whole wheat dough
  • Deli-style rye bread
  • Vermont cheddar bread
  • Bagels
  • Pizza margherita
  • Focaccia with onion and rosemary
  • Gluten-free crusty boule
  • Gluten-free brioche
  • Challah
  • Cinnamon rolls
  • Honey-glazed doughnuts

The recipe I couldn’t resist: Buttermilk cinnamon-raisin bread.  Cinnamon-raisin bread was a favorite of my mother when I was growing up, and therefore my childhood favorite.  It’s not that I’ve never made it, but strangely enough, I think I’ve only made it a couple of times.  The Bread in 5 version is made from water, buttermilk, yeast, salt, sugar, raisins, and all purpose flour.  The overall concept of the Bread in 5 recipes is that you’re mixing a high hydration dough (meaning you’re making a sticky dough with a lot of water), and letting time take the place of kneading.  The authors say that the high hydration means you can’t overproof the dough, which lets you keep the dough in the fridge, waiting to be used, longer than traditional recipes.  They recommend putting the dough in the fridge for at least a day, for better flavor, but say that the dough can be used after the initial 2 hour rest period.

Afterward, you shape your dough and bake.  I just made simple loaves.  I’m not very good at shaping bread (even after all this time), and I’m even worse at it with such a sticky dough.  I did try, but ended up just dumping it into a lined loaf pan.  It still looked good when all was said and done.  More importantly, how did it taste?  Very good!  The only thing I was surprised by was that my crust was on the chewier side of things.  I wasn’t baking with steam, so I wasn’t expecting a crust like when I make sourdough.  But I thought I’d end up with a crust that was softer than what I got.  I’m not sure what contributed to the crust texture.  I’ll have to try one of the other loaf bread recipes in the book to see if it happens again or not.  It might be because this recipe didn’t have any oil, but it might not be.  (I may try the yeasted Thanksgiving cornbread with cranberries next – although it’s a mixture of cornmeal and all purpose flour, it is also without added oil.)

Overall, I love the range of recipes here.  I also love that all recipes are given in volume and weighted measurements (both US and metric).  The recipes are generally easy to scale up/scale down as your household requires. Personally, when I bake bread, I always weigh the main ingredients where I can (especially since I’m often halving a recipe) but I know that isn’t everyone’s process. Better yet, this means that the book will appeal to anyone looking to make bread in their own kitchens since it covers the most popular types of bread, and is easy to follow along without requiring any special equipment.

Speaking for myself, I’m still working from home. My office building continues to be closed due to Covid-19. These recipes are really easy to put together before my work day starts, or during my lunch break. And then I can bake whenever it’s convenient. There’s no real reason for me to buy a loaf of bread, when I can make it myself. (Also, for the most part, I don’t like store bough bread anymore except for certain things like burger buns.)

The book releases next week (Oct 12th)! I recommend grabbing a copy. I hope others can find comfort in homemade bread like I do.

Disclaimer – I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.

Reference Links:

https://artisanbreadinfive.com/

https://zoebakes.com/

https://www.instagram.com/breadin5/

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250277442/the-best-of-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day

by

Baked to Perfection, cookbook review

It’s weird to think but nonetheless true… I know more people who are gluten intolerant than I know people who are lactose intolerant. I have two friends who most likely have Celiac disease, and know two other people who seem to have developed digestion issues with gluten over time.

My brother in law was the first person I knew who went gluten free back before it was a trend. I remember how limited his choices were for bread, and pasta was pretty much a no-go. Rice noodles were sometimes a passible option. I remember experimenting with mochi cakes back then, but it was generally easier to pick recipes that had a low flour content and just convert. For example, these days, I’ll often bake a burnt Basque cheesecake as a gluten free dessert. There usually a couple of tablespoons of flour in the recipe but I’ll replace it with cornstarch. No harm done.

But when that fourth person in my circle went gluten-free, I thought that maybe it was time to go back to exploring gluten-free baking. That is where “Baked To Perfection, Delicious Gluten-Free Recipes With a Pinch of Science” by Katarina Cermelj comes in. The cookbook covers all general items that you’re likely to bake at home.

(Whoops! My thumb is in the way!)

The chapters are:

  • Gluten-free Baking Basics
  • Cakes
  • Cupcakes and Muffins
  • Brownies
  • Cookies and Bars
  • Pies, Tarts, and Pastries
  • Bread; Breakfast and Teatime Treats
  • Around the World

Some things that I really appreciate about this book? There’s a handy chart of gluten-free flours, their protein content, water absorption capacity, and whether it’s considered a starch or a protein flour.  (Successful GF bakes depends on a good balance of starchy and protein heavy flours.) Two DIY blends are offered, but Cermelj writes that she tested a variety of (UK) grocery store blends.  There’s also a table of percentages of flour in typical bakes, like brownies are about 9% and shortcut pastry is 54%. If you’re unsure about GF baking, you’re more likely to find satisfaction in your results from a recipe that is not heavily dependent on flour.

I also appreciate that Cermelj only uses two binders, xanthan gum and psyllium husk.  Their basic function is for elasticity and for flexibility.  Xanthan gum is in most of the recipes while psyllium husk is for bread. If bread isn’t your thing, then xanthan gum is the only binder you need to stock in your pantry.

Some recipes that I really want to try are:

  • Raspberry traybake
  • Peanut butter-stuffed chocolate chunk skillet cookie
  • All butter crust
  • Plain sweet shortcrust pastry
  • Roasted butternut squash and cheddar flaky pastries
  • Strawberries lemonade tartlets
  • Artisan dark crusty loaf
  • Proper boiled and baked bagels
  • Quick and easy flat breads
  • Vanilla French crepes
  • Extra flaky scones
  • Victoria sponge cake
  • Lamingtons

I didn’t want to buy a ton of ingredients for this review, but I’m also weird enough to have tapioca startch, millet flour, psyllium husk, and xanthan gum on hand. I ended up making the Shiny Top Brownies recipe, and the Seeded Buns recipe.

For the brownies, I only had to purchase a GF blend. I didn’t go with either of the DIY blends as technically I did not have the ingredients on hand for them. Since I’m in the US, I didn’t have access to to the store brands that Cermelj has used. I decided to go with Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free All-Purpose flour. (I did not use Trader Joe’s Cassava Cauliflower Blend Baking Mix as that had baking powder and salt mixed in.) The other ingredients for this recipe are dark chocolate, unsalted butter, eggs, light brown sugar, Dutch processed cocoa powder, xanthan gum, and salt. For the chocolate and cocoa, I used Guittard and Drost brands, respectively. Conversions can be a funny thing, but I baked this in my 8×8 glass dish, at 320F, for 28 minutes, aiming for a fudgy texture. In hindsight, I should have baked a few minutes longer because I was baking in a glass dish. The resulting texture was more gooey than fudgy. Did I get a shiny top? Yes!

Cermelj explains that the sugar must dissolve in the eggs as much as possible. She says that if you add water, you can say goodbye to the shiny top. And she is mostly correct. What she fails to mention (or maybe didn’t even realize), the shiny top hinges on the sucrose structure in sugar according to the at-home experiments done by Adam Ragusea. All of Cermelj’s brownie recipes use sugar as the only sweetener so she might not have considered sugar alternatives. Other than that, it’s a good brownie recipe. Nothing about it, texture or flavor, gives away its gluten-free status.

But again, due to it’s low flour content, brownies are easier to make gluten-free. Gluten-free bread, on the other hand, is notorious for being crumbly, dry, unpleasant tasting, or all of the above. The seeded buns appealed to me because of the simplicity of ingredients: yeast, sugar, water, psyllium husk, tapioca starch, millet flour, brown rice flour, salt, and seeds. Brown rice flour was the only item I was missing, and I didn’t mind buying it because I was running out of white rice flour anyway (I use rice flour on my banneton when making sourdough bread). Even though I’ve worked with psyllium husk before, it was such a long time ago that I forgot how much of a gelling agent it was.

The biggest hiccup I had was that the color of my final product did not look like the book photos. I’ve re-read the recipe a couple of times, and I can only assume that it was the oven temperature that might have been the culprit. The book gives 230 C, but I have to work in Fahrenheit. I chose 450 F, but perhaps 445 F or even 440 F would have been better. The buns, while fully cooked, were pale on the exterior. But at the end of the day, it’s texture and flavor that matters. The buns did not disappoint in those regards! The bun flavor is equivalent to a white bread, and great for general purpose. Texture came pretty close to regular bread. It didn’t fall apart after baking, and it chews like bread. It’s not identical to regular bread, but it’s darn pretty close.

Overall, I’m happy with this cookbook! Is it the only gluten-free baking book I need? Very, very possible. Since I still have the Trader Joe’s flour around, I think the next item to make is the plain sweet shortcrust pastry. Oh! Or maybe the chocolate variation. I might even bake this weekend. (I’m just not baking it in time for this review.)

If you like baking and you have gluten-free requirements either for yourself or for someone you know, I highly recommend this book. If you’re in the US, the only hiccup is that you need a kitchen scale for the recipes here. Everything is in grams, even the water measurements. Since I make a lot of bread, I bought a kitchen scale a long time ago.

Oven temperatures will have to be converted with help from an online calculator. You’ll probably have to go a smidge up or a smidge down in temperature to accommodate your oven. For example, my oven only offers temperatures in intervals of 5. 230 C calculates to about 447 F. I had to pick between 445 F and 450 F for the seeded buns.

For me, these are extremely minor issues. I think the excellent results and approachability of the recipes is what matters most. So, ten out of ten, I totally recommend!

Disclaimer – I kindly received a copy of this book from Bloomsbury Publishing for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  

Reference Links:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/baked-to-perfection-9781526613486

https://theloopywhisk.com/

https://theloopywhisk.com/baked-to-perfection-gluten-free-cookbook/

https://youtu.be/qpF5B_jHZrw (Adam Ragusea’s video about the secret to brownie skin)

by

Unofficial Slow Cooker Summer Challenge

For the last couple of weeks in the Boston area, it’s been a little hot and a little humid.  It hasn’t been bad enough to be considered a heat wave.  When I take my late evening walks, it’s actually quite comfortable.

But when it’s that time of day to cook a meal, the stove is the last thing I want to use.  This makes me a little sad as making soups and baking things in the oven tends to be my default cooking style.

(Grilling is not something I’ve done on my own.  However, I’m determined to change that this year.  I’ve dug out an old charcoal grill left by a previous housemate that I will finally clean out and use.)

So, I’ve been playing with my slow cooker some more and I’m going to try using it as my main cooking method this summer.  I might as well.  I’ll be working from home for the rest of the summer (and likely for the rest of the year).

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

I’ve done a sweet Italian sausage/tomato sauce/bell pepper recipe.  Most of this batch went to some friends, but I kept what I couldn’t fit in the container.  It was pretty good, and something I’d like to re-visit with some changes.  While I like Italian sausages, I am health conscious, and try not to eat a lot of sausages in general.  (Having said that, I do several pre-cooked sausages in my freezer right now because I can’t afford to be picky shopping during a pandemic.)  I think the next version will be to make my own meatballs and cook in the same sauce.

Quick breads actually do pretty well in a slow cooker.  The cornbread in the photo was a slow cooker recipe.  And this weekend, I made my favorite sourdough discard banana bread in the machine – it was delicious.

If you’d like to make my sourdough discard banana bread, take a 6 quart slow cooker and line it with parchment.  Drop the whole batter in.  Cook on high for 2 hours, with a tea towel lining the lid.  The towel makes a huge difference for making baked goods in a slow cooker.  It keeps any condensation from falling onto your product.

I’ve actually been slowly working on a rotisserie-style chicken in a slow cooker for the past year.  I think I’m finally getting the hang out it.

I have a lot chicken bones in the freezer waiting to be turned into stock.  I think I’ll try my sourdough recipe in the slow cooker (yes, the texture will be altered COMPLETELY but if it still yields a tasty bread, I won’t complain).  I’ll have to figure out a good vegetable side dish to make because I don’t always want a salad even though it’s the summer.  I will NOT be braising any cabbage though.  It’s fine in the colder weather but the one time I made braised cabbage in the summer, several flies found their way into my apartment.  I think that’s the one downside of slow cooking in the summer.  Flies will find their way to you depending on what you’re cooking.  The last two times I made chicken, a fly found its way into the house (although, one fly is still better than the several from the cabbage round).

I’ll also take this opportunity to revisit cookbooks I have (Martha Stewart’s Slow Cooker and The Easy Asian Cookbook for Slow Cookers), but I’ll probably draw most of my inspiration from whatever I have available.

I guess we’ll see how it goes.

In case you missed it, my favorite banana bread recipe can be found here:

https://awesomesauceeats.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/how-to-stop-wasting-flour/

by

How to Stop Wasting Flour

How to Stop Wasting Flour (when making sourdoughs)

This is something that’s been bothering me since the beginning of quarantine when everyone couldn’t find yeast to buy and started their own sourdough projects. So much so that I felt a need to write about it.  People are making a sizeable quantity of sourdough starter and then throwing away the discard because they’re following a recipe exactly.  Or getting so overwhelmed by discard that they give up making sourdough completely.

So, there’s the obvious solution – googling recipes for sourdough discard.  This is fine.  This is great!  I do it all the time.  But there are still a couple of suggestions I have that further stretch your sourdough discard, and you’ll have no waste at all.

 

Suggestion #1 – Stop being pedantic

The world of sourdough is a lot more flexible than you realize.  If you don’t want to do the experimentation, there’s a good chance someone has already done it for you and even documented it on the internet.  

For example, I love the Foodgeek Youtube channel.  He often posts experiments that I hadn’t realized I needed answers to.

 

 

Suggestion #2 – Make less starter

The recipe I was originally given makes 400g of starter, and the bread recipe needs 160g of starter.  It’s a lot more starter than I need for one loaf of bread.  So, if I’m going to make a loaf of bread, I only make 200g of starter.  And that gives me 40g of starter to seed my next loaf.  Realistically, I only make bread about once a month.  I feed my starter every week and store in the fridge between feedings because that’s the flavor I like best.  So, if I’m not planning to make bread, I only keep 100g of starter on hand.  That’s 300g of flour and water that I am not wasting.

Another Youtube channel I like is Bake with Jack.  Jack prefers to use the “scrapings” of his starter which would mean no discard at all.  I don’t trust myself to do this but I’m also not making bread regularly enough for this method.  But you do you.

 

Suggestion #3 – Freeze your discard

This has been game changing for me.

If I’m keeping 100g of starter on hand and only need 10g of starter for each feeding session, I still have 90g of starter that becomes the discard.  Guess what?  I freeze it.  I have a spare jar where I’ve marked where 1 cup is.  Every time I have discard, I’ll stir to knock out the extra air, and place it in my discard jar.  This jar lives in the freezer.  When I accumulate 1 cup of starter, I can then make my favorite sourdough banana bread recipe.  It takes me about 4 weeks to build up 1 cup of discard.  This way, I don’t get annoyed at feeding my sourdough starter.  And I don’t get tired of making sourdough bread, or making any recipe using discard.  

You don’t have to make banana bread.  In general, the discard recipes I’ve seen use .5 cup, 1 cup, or 1.5 cups of discard.  I say make markings for all three on your discard jar if the jar doesn’t come with its own volume markings, and then bake with the discard whenever you see fit.  If you have a favorite recipe using discard, then just tailor your freezer storage around it.  

And bonus, if anything should happen to your starter, you will always have a backup plan safely stored in the freezer.

 

 

On that note, here’s my favorite banana bread recipe…

  • ½ c sugar
  • ½ c oil of choice (I use avocado oil for its mild flavor) 
  • 3 large ripe bananas (does not need to be fully ripe with a black peel, and you can even use under-ripe if needed)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 c sourdough starter (thawed if previously frozen)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1½ c unbleached all purpose flour  
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 6 Tbsp chopped walnuts
  • 6 Tbsp chocolate chips, semi-sweet or dark

 

In a mixer, beat your egg and bananas.  If your bananas were slightly under-ripe, let this sit for 30 minutes.  Why?  I learned from Stella Parks that there is an enzymatic reaction where egg yolks will convert starches into sugar thereby ripening your banana for you.*  So I now like to make this my first step.  You don’t have to use a mixer, you can do this by hand but I like how well the mixer mashes the bananas for me.

Preheat your oven to 350F.  Prep a loaf pan.  I will usually use a piece of parchment inside a 9×5 loaf pan.  You could use butter or non-stick spray.  You can probably use a slightly smaller loaf pan if that’s all you have.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

Mix in the sugar and oil into the banana mixture.  Then mix in the vanilla.  Mix in half of the sourdough discard.  When it’s mixed in, add the other half and mix.

Add your dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.  When it’s almost combined, turn the mixer off and switch to a spoon/spatula.  Add in the nuts and chocolate chips, and handmix until combined.

Bake this for about 60 minutes or until a cake tester/toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool completely, and then serve.

* = https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/09/how-to-rapidly-ripen-a-banana-without-baking.html

 

Please note, this post is about sourdough discard from a starter that is past its infancy stage.  I have not fermented my own starter completely from scratch.  All the sourdough starters that I’ve worked with was discard from an existing starter, and I was just perpetuating it.

I hope you find this post to be helpful.  Let me know what you think or if you have a favorite sourdough discard recipe that I should try out.

by

Almost No-Knead Sourdough, a Kitchen Conclusion

I haven’t done a “Kitchen Conclusion” post in a long time (oops) but I have a lot of thoughts right now, so I figured I’d share publicly so that others can feel better informed before attempting this recipe from a very well know food publication.

First of all, I don’t consider myself an expert bread baker.  Or an advanced bread baker.  Or an intermediate bread baker but I think everyone I know in real life would argue against that, so I’ll compromise and say that I’m a “beginner to intermediate” bread baker.  (Interginner?  Beginmediate?)

Simply put, I know just enough about bread baking to recognize when I’m doing something wrong or when there’s something wrong with the recipe I am using.

I have a sourdough recipe that I’ve made a couple of times and liked.  I still need to work on my shaping technique but that’s a user issue.  And even though I have a recipe I like, I still like to explore other recipes.  It’s how I learn.  So when I wanted to make sourdough bread this weekend, but realized that the timeline of my tried-and-true recipe wasn’t going to work with my schedule, I took that as an opportunity to experiment with a different recipe.

That was when I remembered that America’s Test Kitchen recently posted on Instagram their Almost No-Knead Sourdough.

I copied the recipe before it went behind a paywall.  I used the weighed measurements which are a little weird but anyone who bakes bread regularly should be using weighted measurements.  Honestly I don’t mind that the recipe is in ounces as opposed to grams since my kitchen scale can do both but WHO ON EARTH DEVELOPS A RECIPE WITH A THIRD OF AN OUNCE?!

Anyway, I’m reposting it for you even though I don’t like to repost things out of copyright respect.  But if I’m going to talk about this recipe in depth, then you need all the details.

18 1/3 ounces King Arthur all-purpose flour
1 ¾ teaspoons salt
12 2/3 ounces water, room temperature
3 ounces mature Sourdough Starter

Whisk flour and salt together in medium bowl. Whisk room-temperature water and starter in large bowl until smooth. Add flour mixture to water mixture and stir using wooden spoon, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until dough comes together, then knead by hand in bowl until shaggy ball forms and no dry flour remains. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for at least 12 hours or up to 18 hours.

Lay 12 by 12-inch sheet of parchment paper on counter and spray generously with vegetable oil spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured counter and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam side down, to center of parchment. Pick up dough by lifting parchment edges and lower into heavy-bottomed Dutch oven. Cover with plastic wrap.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and place loaf or cake pan in bottom of oven. Place pot on middle rack and pour 3 cups of boiling water into pan below. Close oven door and let dough rise until doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with your floured finger, 2 to 3 hours.

Remove pot and water pan from oven; discard plastic from pot. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or sharp knife, make one 7-inch-long, 1/2-inch-deep slit along top of dough. Cover pot and place on middle rack in oven. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Bake bread for 30 minutes (starting timing as soon as you turn on oven).

Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and let cool completely before serving.

And here’s the clip of the recipe they shared on Youtube.  Skip to 4:15 to go to the recipe.  The first four minutes are about making your own starter, which I did not need to do since I was using my existing starter.

 

So…

No offense to ATK or to Dan Souza, but I have no idea which bread recipe they were using on the show because it DEFINITELY IS NOT the published version.  I wish I had photos or videos of my experience to show as proof but I had no idea I was going to have very strong opinions about this recipe.

To be transparent, there were two things that I did differently that would not have changed the experience for the worse.  I mixed my dough for 5 minutes with a dough hook in my KitchenAid at the start instead of mixing until shabby ball formed.   All this should have meant was that my dough would be ready in 12 hours, not more, and even possibly a little less time.  I swapped about 2 to 3 ounces of King Arthur all purpose flour with a whole grain flour from a local source.  Theoretically, it would make my dough drier than what the recipe intended because the germ and bran that are present in whole wheat flour can absorb more liquid.  For the record, I did not add any extra water.

After 12 hours, my dough had risen beautifully and was double in sized.  So far, so good.  Or so I thought.  When I turned the dough out to knead 10-15 times, I couldn’t!  The dough that came out of the bowl was nothing like what is shown on the show.  It was quite wet and stuck like crazy.  The only way I could knead it was to use the slap and fold technique.  It was my salvation.  It didn’t take long to shape a ball with this technique, but it’s outside the scope of the recipe.

If you need it, here is an example of the slap and fold technique, which I think was made famous by Richard Bertinet.  (At least, that was who I learned it from back in the days when his first book “Dough” was published.)  You can skip to 1:40 to see it in action.  You can see how sticky a Bertinet dough is.  It is nothing like the ATK video.  This is basically what I had.

 

By this time I was done with kneading, it was almost 9pm.  Rather than shape it, move it to a parchment sheet, and then letting it rise for the final time in the dutch oven, I chose to do my final shaping in a banneton and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Because this was a very wet dough, I knew it was going to need the physical support of a banneton for any success. Also?  I wanted to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

On the plus side, it meant I got to work with my banneton.  The last time I used it, I screwed up my shaping which meant my dough stuck to the banneton like crazy.  I have since watched many videos from “Bake with Jack” and learned what I did wrong.

In the morning (aka “This Morning”), I took my banneton out of the fridge.  My dough hadn’t risen as much as I thought it would.  At this point, I let this sit in a “cold” oven for an hour with a pan of just boiled hot water next to it, much like the original ATK instructions.  When the hour was up, everything looked good to go.  I carefully turned the dough out onto a parchment sheet, and it looked lovely.  (THANKS JACK FOR THE SHAPING TUTORIALS!)  I scored it with the sharpest knife I had and proceeded with the rest of the recipe.

The thing I learned next?  Do not use a cold start oven method when using a wet dough.  That lovely looking dough I had?  Gone.  I wish I took a photo of it before it went into the oven.  It grew out instead of growing up, spreading out mostly where I had scored the dough.

Now, I know some modern ovens don’t lend to cold start oven method very well, but that is not my oven.  I have done cold start oven bread recipes before with standard instant yeasted doughs without issue.  I’m 100% positive it was the hydration level of the ATK recipe that caused my bread to not look like Dan’s loaf.

I also think that the cold start oven method with a wetter dough caused my crust to be softer and chewier than expected.  If you don’t like a crunchy crust, then this might be the preferred method for you.  But if you want the classic crust usually associated with a sourdough, this is NOT it.  You will be disappointed.

While my bread does look much like the one in the official Instagram post, it looks nothing like the bread in the video.  FYI, I baked for the full amount of time per the recipe instruction.

Last observation, when it comes to sourdough, people like their open, irregular crumb.  This is still not that recipe.  My crumb, while not dense like a standard yeasted dough, was not as open as I would have liked.

When all is said and done, the bread tastes fine.  But I’m still going to officially declare this as a recipe fail.  It did not work as expected.  It looked nothing like what was on the show.  Anyone with less bread baking experience is going to freak out trying to make this, and think they did something wrong.

Even though I know ATK will never notice my little blog, if they ever should:

Dear ATK, 

Please re-develop this recipe!  

 

Reference Links:

https://medium.com/@mattsamberg/and-now-for-something-completely-different-15edf4740de2

https://www.abreaducation.com/content/baking-bread-with-whole-wheat-flour

https://www.bakewithjack.co.uk/

View at Medium.com

by

Holiday and Celebration Bread in Five Minutes a Day, a cookbook review

Bread is something I dabble in regularly but not with any mastery and I’m ok with that.  But maybe because I’m an average bread baker that I have very, VERY few recipes that I remake.  I’m always experimenting.

And while I’ve made no-knead breads before, I never got around to making anything from the “Bread in Five Minutes a Day” books by Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg, even though I remember their first book on the best seller list.

Well, that’s finally changed.  I recently received a copy of their newest book, “Holiday and Celebration Bread in Five Minutes a Day.”  While the book focuses the more decadent breads (think ricotta-stuffed savory doughnuts and king cakes), it starts with the basics (like a white bread master recipe and Pullman sandwich loaf).  Here are the chapter titles to give you a better idea:

  • The Master Recipe
  • The Basics
  • Small loaves, rolls, and buns
  • Flatbreads
  • Challah and babka
  • Gooey, sticky goodness
  • Doughnuts
  • Christmas breads
  • Easter Breads
  • Celebration and Brunch breads
  • Fancy stale bread
  • Flaky dough
  • Quick jams and fillings

The recipes I really want to take a closer look are in the challah chapter: whole grain challah, tahini swirl bread, and coconut chocolate twist.  I would have made some challah as my first recipe out of the book except that I’m completely without eggs in the house, and I keep forgetting to pick some up.

For the purposes of this review, I made the buttermilk bread recipe.  Overall, it was very straightforward.  I chose to use my mixer instead of hand-mixing just to get everything mixed well.  Then, I let it sit on the counter, covered, for two hours before popping it in the fridge.

I chose to halve the recipe so I didn’t have to cut off half of the dough for baking.  Also, two loaves of bread is too much for just 1 person (and I still have challah to make in the near future).  When it came time to bake, I pulled it out of the fridge, shaped it, and let it sit for 90 minutes.

So, the method (not the concept) is new to me.  I’ve made no knead breads where you use a scant amount of yeast and just let it sit for 16 hours.  Francois and Hertzberg are using a fairly normal amount of yeast, and letting it develop gluten on its own at two different temperature ranges.

The buttermilk bread recipe was pretty sticky, even when cold, which I feel is common for no-knead breads but feel free to correct me.  But I’m not sure if the other recipes in the book are just as sticky.  While I recognize the benefits of a high hydration dough, I personally find it a little intimidating to work with.  I’m pretty bad at shaping dough to be begin with, and a sticky dough just makes it harder.

Having said that, I really do like the general ease of this method.  It just requires some forethought.

As for the buttermilk bread itself, I really liked it.  It gave me a sense of Wonder Bread nostalgia (the bread my mom used to buy), even though I know it’s not like Wonder Bread at all.  To be fair, I can’t do a side by side comparison, as I haven’t eaten Wonder Bread since I was probably in high school (… and high school happened a long time ago.  lol!)

Overall impression of the book?  I highly appreciate the variety of recipes.  The recipe layout is easy to read – it’s a grid with volume, weight in ounces, and weight in grams.  The photos look appealing – really clean, soft light, no weird HDR, and no weird retro photos.  I fully recommend this book to anyone who wants to make bread at home.

In fact, I think I’ll peruse the previous books in the series.  I bet I missed some fantastic sounding breads.

Disclaimer – I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.

 

Reference Links:

https://read.macmillan.com/lp/holiday-and-celebration-bread/

https://artisanbreadinfive.com/

https://zoebakes.com/

by

An everyday batter bread (recipe post)

Fact:  I can’t buy bread from the market anymore.  Specifically, I can’t buy bread from the bread aisle.  If it’s from the bakery section of the market, that’s ok.  But manufactured bread?  I just can’t!  Even the smell of the bread aisle has become unappealing to me.

I’ve been making my own bread fairly consistently for the last four years.  Manufactured bread just doesn’t measure up in fragrance and flavor.  I used to post about my bread attempts but eventually stopped because I only make the same two recipes nowadays.  First and foremost is a spelt version of Richard Bertinet’s basic bread recipe.  I’m very capable of making this.  I don’t even need the recipe on hand anymore.  Mix four ingredients together, work the dough for about 10 minutes, let it rest and rise until doubled in volume, shape, let rise again, and bake.  Simple.

I am still bad at shaping this dough, but that’s another story.

The second bread recipe I use a lot is a white batter bread from Bread Made Easy by Beth Hensperger.  What makes a batter bread recipe different from a basic bread recipe?  Laziness Time.  A batter bread is just that – you mix everything into a batter.  There’s no kneading.  There’s no working the dough for 10 minutes.  You just mix it until it’s a shaggy thing (like dough with a bad hair day?  or like oatmeal gone very wrong?), plop it in a loaf pan, let it rise just the one time, and then bake.

Batter breads lack complex flavor without help.  Basic bread recipes can attribute part of its flavor from the double rise.  I’ve read that three or four rises total taste even better, but who has the time for that?  Beth Hensperger’s version adds a touch of ground ginger which is deliciously amazing and you might not know it was there if you hadn’t been told.

But… I only like it in the white bread version.  I’ve tried making a whole wheat version, a spelt version, and a spelt version without ginger.  The variations didn’t satisfy me much.

And then I came across Home Baked by Hanne Risgaard.
DSC00853 Continue reading →

by

My favorite breakfast treat

Let me say this upfront, this recipe is adapted from “Sesame Street B is for Baking.” It’s a cookbook for baking with kids. Originally, I got this book so that I could bake with my niece. To be honest though, I don’t think my niece has seen this book since I first got it. (In my defense, I think my niece prefers to help in the kitchen if it’s her dad doing the baking.) Regardless, I love this book so far. I’ve made a few recipes in it, and I have every intention to try some more, but I always come back to the same breakfast recipe… “the Good for Me, Good for You Oatmeal Muffins.”

I’ll admit – I am the kind of person who wakes up hungry.  So, on weekdays, I need to make sure that breakfast is already there and waiting for me in the mornings.  I’ve modified the recipe a little, so let’s call my version “Spelt Quick bread with Raisins and Oatmeal.”

Continue reading →