Today was a fun day, featuring a thoroughly informal and just as thoroughly entertaining class on how to make bread.  Eight friends and acquaintances received a lesson on making a honey whole-wheat bread.  Two of them thought that they would just observe but we had them up to their elbows in flour along with the rest of the group in no time flat. 

It was raucous and messy and fast-paced.  Lots of questions (good ones!) and lots of interest.  At the end, we helped Joan clean up her kitchen and get things put back to rights.  Afterward, everyone took their shaped and panned dough home for the final rise and baking.  I've already seen a couple of FB posts.

The format was simple.  Everyone brought their own utensils and I supplied the ingredients since I need to clean out the pantry anyway.  I had a sheet with the recipe and instructions printed up for each student, along with another tip sheet that, among other things, referenced TFL.  I had everyone weighing and measuring after a minimal intro, then used the autolyze time to go into a bit more detail and field questions.  There was one bobble, mine, while assembling the final dough, in that I forgot to have them put the butter in the dough.  So much for practicing mise en place!  Anyway, it was a good opportunity to demonstrate that just about any mistake is recoverable and that adjustments are inevitable even without mistakes.

We used the time for the bulk ferment to munch on a loaf of Sweet Vanilla Challah that I had brought along for that purpose, along with the demo loaf of the honey whole-wheat that I had prepared in advance.  Bonus discovery of the day: challah smeared with Nutella and coconut butter is way more than just good.  Next time you're in Florida, pick up a jar of the coconut butter.  Just sayin'.

Some pictures:

I'm pretty sure that at least one or two will use this as a launch pad for further baking on their own.  Even if it doesn't become something that they choose to do consistently, they at least have the knowledge that they can make bread on their own.  And that it can be a lot of fun.  That's a good thing to have.

Paul

 This is my version of bread which became very popular in Japan some years ago.  Apparently some Italian restaurant in Tokyo started serving this some years ago and it became so popular,  other restaurants and bakers followed suit, so did home bakers.

 It’s basically basic French lean dough made with small amount of yeast and long, cold retardation, filled with young green soya beans or young broad beans and  Pecorino or Parmesan.  It would’ve be  more ‘Italian’ if you use broad beans, but 'edamame' (枝豆 = young soya beans) version seems to be slightly  more popular there; a sort of French got married to Italian by Japanese matchmaker. :p

  My verson uses same dough as my regular baguette dough (Hamelinet poolish baguette).  To that, I add about 60-70g young soya beans (frozen. Defrosted) and 30-40g Parmigiana Reggiano (chopped small) by scattering them over the dough when letter-folding the dough twice to shape it into a pave just before the dough goes into the final proof. 

Sometimes I bake it large like that, in that case in a pre-heated Pyrex casserole with a lid on for 20 minutes @ 240C and another 20 minutes without a lid @ 200C, like this......

(Using a Pyrex casserole upside down, the lid as a cover)

Other times, I cut it into 6 small pieces, like petite paves (no need to shape. just cut it with sharp bench knife),  bake them for 10 minutes @ 240C with steam on hot baking stone and 10-12 minutes more without steam @ 200C, as it's always done in Japan.  (For some reason, they seem to think that sort of roughly cut small rolls, like petite pave are called ‘rustique.’  Another case of something lost in translation….:p) 

And these are how they look like….

A large pave

This large one was for my friend, so no crumb shot, but here’s the petite pave version I baked a few weeks ago for ourselves…..of which I only remembered to take a photo after I sliced into the last remaining piece. Blame my brain….

Note :  You can adjust the amount of soya/broad beans and cheese to your liking, of course, but please try not to  over-load with cheese too much.  Cheesy note is supposed to be in the background of this bread as a contrast to bring out the delicate sweetness of flavour and aroma of young beans, not to overwhelm it.  The beans are in the leading role and the cheese is there to support it.

 lumos