In continuing my mission to bake my way through The Bread Bible, I had the opportunity to try the recipe for Whole Wheat Walnut Raisin Bread. I was a bit worried it would be a bit advanced for my skill level, but I was baking it for my dad, who needed to transition to whole wheat bread to aid in his recovery from intestinal surgery.

The first thing that made me nervous was plumping the raisins, something I had never done before. But, a quick Google search led me to completely cover them in boiling water and set the timer for an hour as I worked on the dough. I drained them in a collander and then on a papertowel, trying to get them as dry as possible, but now I'm wondering if one shouldn't keep them a little moist so the finished loaf doesn't dry out....? At any rate, I hand mixed them with the walnuts and set aside.

I found the dough to be pretty easy to knead and not nearly as nubby as I thought it would be. However, it did seem to be rising very slowly.

Since the formulae called for a two- to two-and-a-half rise to double in bulk as opposed to the usual hour, I assumed this was normal. At any rate, the dough eventually reached the doubled point, a little over two hours after being set to rise.

This is where some mild difficulty began. The first fill-and-roll went fine.

The second, not so much.

I had a hard time keeping all the walnut pieces and raisins in the dough, though eventually I got there. 

I then cut the dough into three pieces, but (and I’ve already tried this recipe again), the middle piece inevitably ends up with far more filling. And, much to my disappointment and frustration, the dough began to tear over the filling in the middle boule:

I wasn’t sure if this was ok or not—on the one hand, I’d certainly seen boules like that in stores and whatnot, but on the other hand, the other boules felt more sturdy. Still, after about forty minutes of futzing around with it, I decided to just let the three boules sit for their second rising and learn by doing when the time came.

Scoring them also proved to be a bit challenging. 

When they did come out of the oven, they came out really, really dark. I thought they were burnt, but they ended up tasting ok.

The second time I tried this formulae, I moved the oven rack (on which I have a square stone) to the second-to-the-bottom place, and that seems to have solved the problem. I’m wondering if I shouldn’t leave it there for my other loaves. That being said, sure enough the raisins that were poking out of the middle were burnt and fell off.

Fortunately, the rest of the filling stayed within the loaf, even after slicing. Since this was my first time baking a yeast bread with filling, I counted this as a success. 

I was, however, concerned about a small moist streak you can see on the bottom right-hand side. It didn't effect the taste any, and the texture wasn't noticably different, but all the same inconsistency worried me. 

Continuing my journey though The Bread Bible, I finally had both the flour and the time to move on to the third recipe, onion rolls. Since the basis of the rolls are the previous French white recipe, which with I've had repeated success, I'm not going to bother explaining that process. If interested, you can see my first attempt at that pain ordinaire here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25195/pain-ordinaire-bread-bible

Onion rolls made me so nervous I actually put off baking them for a bit. My trepidation arose from two facts: First, other than Betty Crocker casseroles and slow-cooker stews, I'm not much of a cook at all, so the onion cream really intimidated me. Second, I didn't generally like onion rolls (or so I thought, until I gave this recipe a spin), so I wasn't even really sure what they should look or taste like in the end. I was hoping my husband's penchant for onion bagels would get me through, though of course a bagel isn't a roll, so who knew how helpful that would be. 

In the end, I sucked it up, reminded myself you don't learn by not trying, and plunged in. First, I prepped the onion-cream filling: 

I couldn't help but think that perhaps I was wrong about onion bread--after all, how could anything, especially a bread, made with this much butter and heavy cream possibly be bad tasting? 

But then, my love of butter and cream probably verge on unhealthy...but I digress. 

The butter melted, I poured in the cream, it simmered, I stirred, and so it went. I watch a lot of Food Network and decided that cooking the onions "until clear" was a good place to start. Of course, the clarity was difficult to assess with the cream in there, but I pressed onward nonetheless. 

This is the mixture before I reduced it: 

And this is the mixture reduced (or, at least, what I thought was reduced; by all means, any cooks out there feel free to chime in and offer some tips): 

I should mention that I was, in fact, pleased with the French bread dough: 

While the onion mixture cooled, I made the rolls using a neat trick I got off a Betty Crocker forum:  

(i.e., making squares, then tucing the corners in underneath, pinching the seam, rolling gently a few times for shape, and voila! A roll!). While this trick does work well, I'm still hoping that Santa brings me a food scale this year because getting even dough divisions continues to be difficult and I'm worried on day I'll come across a recipe it really impacts. 

I used kitchen shears to cut an X into the dough, as instructed, and smushed down my fingers in the middle pretty deep. This is where I got concerned--it didn't seem as though there was enough room for 1 tablespoon of onion filling, let alone two. Still, I pressed onward: 

They really did seem rather overstuffed at this point, and I was getting more and more worried. 

Surprisingly, however, by the time they were ready for the oven, I had run out of the filling: In they went, and the results were I think pretty ok.

On the one hand, I learned the importance of letting the "legs" of the roll surround the filling because it really bakes the filling in. The roll portion came out lovely, I must say, but I was kind of disappointed that the onion filling wasn't more integrated into the bread. Ultimately, it seemed more like a topping, but that might be how it's supposed to turn out. The oninons were also very wet and only a little blackened. I notice on onion bagels, the onions on top at least are charred. 

 Still, my hubby and I did eat them pretty quickly, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't bake these again to work on filling technique before moving on to the flatbreads listed next. All feedback welcome! 

Bolstered by my success in baking White Mountain Bread, I finally had the time and the flour to attempt the second recipe in Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible, French bread, or Pain Ordinaire.

Things began auspiciously enough with a beautifully smelling, light, spongy and almost fluffy slurry.

Since I proofed the yeast in a glass prep bowl, I actually ended up adding the slurry to the two cups of bread flower and salt (as opposed to adding the flour to the slurry; I guess Mom was right about me never following instructions). This didn’t seem to ruin anything, however, and I proceeded to mix the batter into a dough using my trusty and deceptively strong wooden baking spoon.

Just when I thought my arm would tire, (I always mix by hand, partially because using my hands is my favorite part of baking bread, and partially because I use the kneading and mixing process as a way to justify putting melting pads of butter on the warm, oven-fresh bread I’ve baked. All that mixing has to burn off some calories, right?), the “shaggy dough” Hensperger described seemed to form.

I found, however, that I only needed to use 2 ½ cups of all-purposed flour (which I should add here is bleached, though this doesn’t seem to make too much of a difference in taste or texture).

With that, I rolled the dough into a ball and tucked it into an olive-oil shmeared bowl to rise.

I was happy to see that it did, though I worried about the lumpiness of the post-risen dough.

With that, I deflated the dough by gently turning it out on to the table. It let out a satisfying little pphht sound and gently exhaled upon hitting the surface. Knowing I have a tendency to over-work dough (which has resulted in an almost too-tight and compact sponge in the past), I resisted the temptation to sink my fingers into the dough and start kneading.

Instead, I grabbed my dough slicer (super handy with inch measurements on the side) and did my best to create three equal portions. Since I don’t have a food scale, this always gets a little tricky, but I thought I did pretty well.

Covering the hopeful little dough boules with some plastic wrap, I put them back in the laundry closet on top of the dryer to rise.

Forty minutes later, I saw that—clearly—I had not done as well of a job creating equal boules as I would’ve liked.

Still, they looked and smelled delicious, the oven and stone were preheated, and I had loving brushed on the nice egg glaze.

I used the whole egg with two tablespoons of water, even though in the introduction Hensperger does suggest just egg whites for French breads.

It was time for one of the most difficult parts of bread baking: The Transfer.

And naturally, this is where things went a little awry. Despite having sprinkled my peel with what I thought was a liberal amount of cornmeal, the boules stubbornly clung to the wood. I shaked, and shimmied, I scotched the peel, terrified of collapsing the three boules I had worked so hard to shape until finally, worried about the heat escaping from the oven, I nudged the boules in with my thumb.

While the boules didn’t collapse, one of them did seem to crack on the side (see below, on upper left-hand side) as a result.

But, all in all, they looked gorgeous and smelled even better. We gave one to our new neighbors, who seemed to enjoy it, froze one (using both plastic and foil, which I have to admit, does seem to keep it tasting a bit fresher after thawing), and made it through the third in two days. Which is why I don’t have any pictures of the crumb. It was even, uniform, light and fluffy.

One of the best wedding gifts my hubbilicious and I received was Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible. After reading the introduction and first chapter, I decided to follow in Hensperger's footsteps and do what she did, twice: teach myself more about the craft and art of bread baking by baking every recipe in a bread book, in order. And so it began, on August 14th......

When I first opened the oven door, my heart sank. Surely, these loaves were far too brown. A quick tap on the upper crust of the left loaf yielded a reassuringly hollow sound, but also the discovery that the crust was, as feared, rock hard. Which would be great, if I had attempted an artisan bread, but I hadn't. This was white bread. It was supposed to be pillowly soft and offer an airy, slightly-sweet cushion for peanut butter and jelly or crisp up in a toaster into a perfect bed for melting butter. The warm, unmistakable smell of baking bread that had gently settled in the house like a blanket seemed almost mocking. I sniffed once while taking the loaves out of the oven; it didn't smell like burnt bread. Placing the loaves on the rack, I stood over them and fretted. 

I laid them on their side, remember what I'd read about that way, the cooling would be even. My husband, meaning well, said, "Don't the crusts usuually soften up?" I was forced to reply with a grumpy, "Yes," not bothering to explain that most of the time, that wasn't a good thing. 

So, I turned off the oven, returned to the couch where we'd been watching TV, and waited. 

Or, at least I appeared to be waiting. What was really going on was a step-by-step analysis of what I had done. 

Thinking about it, the formula had seemed a little strange to me, as the liquid base of honey, melted butter, water, salt and one single cup of flour seemed to create a batter similar to pancake batter. Maybe that wasn't what it was supposed to be like at all. Maybe that's where it all went wrong. 

After adding the flour, using the maximum of the six cups stated in the recipe, I had turned to kneading. I remember thinking that although the dough was a bit sticky and difficult to shape, it did feel right by the end. 

Once I coated it (using olive oil), I of course put it in a bowl to rise and covered it with plastic wrap. Normally, I use a damp towel to raise my dough, but I deferred to Hensperger's expertise. I found the rising to be very successful. 

I really enjoyed shaping this dough, although I recalled that I had worked it quite a bit. Was the sponge going to be too dense and compact? The loaves hadn't felt heavy when I put them on the rack, but then again, I "dumped" them out rather quickly as the pans were, of course, hot. And what if the crust did soften? Didn't that mean the bread had gotten soggy? Wasn't that a bad thing....? 

Perhaps my "lightly floured surface" was too floured. But honestly, it had really felt ok. I'm not a master baker by any means, or even an amateur one, for that matter, but I did generally trust my instincts when it came to baking my bread. The dough had been firm, pliable, perhaps a touch sticky but not too bad....heavy, but not dense.....flexible.....it had that wonderful earthy smell of clean yeast.....

And finally, they were put in the pans. I did know I felt the dough was a bit lumpy, but assumed it would kind of smooth out. 

And then, of course, they had come out. 

Unable to stand it anymore, I finally decided to just cut into the bread. I was terribly nervous. Flour wasn't getting any cheaper and, in a rather literal sense, I couldn't really afford to make too many learning mistakes. The bread hadn't quite cooled, but had that last layer of warmth that begs one to eat it. 

To my relief, the crust had softened (this was not how I had felt when the same thing happened to my ciabatta last year; the irony did not escape me). The crumb looked much better than my worried mind might have otherwise made it. 

In fact, the entire loaf looked, smelled, and felt wonderful. My sprits cautiously began to rise like yeast in warm sugar water. My husband, a fan of the heel, took the first bites. Hardly an objective reviewer, but I knew him well enough that I could watch his face and see how the loaf had really turned out. 

He seemed to really, really enjoy it! I took a closer look at the crumb. 

.....I tried a piece, putting a doomed pat of butter upon it. Took a bite and.....VICTORY!!! It was everything warm, fresh-baked bread should be. Soft, chewy, not soggy, and glorious in its simplicity. As promised, we gave a loaf to our neighbor from Poland, who said it reminded him of bread he got at home. A few days later, he made a point to tell me he enjoyed it. But I didn't need his compliments, appreciated though they were. I knew, because I had enjoyed perfect toast for the past three days. 

Well, time passed in that way it does and soon I had two loaves ready for the oven: 

I trimmed the parchment paper (which burned to a crisp, by the way, any tips on avoiding that in the future?), wished them well, and gently slid them on the stone. 

Twenty minutes later, I pulled out these: 

As you can see, they were far darker than I'd wanted. The recipe stated they should be a "pale golden," and I got, well, flour-ed brown. They came out crispy enough and the crust had some crackle, and the bottom sounded hollow enough. 

But alas, it wasn't long before they were soft. I wondered if I shouldn't have tried spritzing them or something. 

Still, when it came time for stew, the crumb was ok in the loaf we ate (haven't tried the second one yet), though not as bubbly as I had expected: 

So, that's my ciabatta adventure. I'll definately try again, as I'm a tad disappointed in these loaves. Any tips for next time would be greatly appreciated. 

1:52 p.m.:

Well, the dough has risen once and, as instructed, I have shaped it into two "irregular ovals," or at least what I hope are irregular ovals. Now they are sitting atop parchment paper, hopefully doubling in size again, waiting to be transferred to my pizza stone on the bottom of rack of the oven, which I will turn on to pre-heat in about 10 minutes. Here they were, just before I covered them:

So, there they are. I've never baked bread on parchment before, so here's hoping I can slide these on to the stone and not ruin the shape.

Niggling worries: The dough did have some bubbles, but I don't know that I would call it "bubbly." It is elastic, certainly, but awfully sticky. Since the recipe says the dough will be sticky, I suppose this is alright, but I am a bit worried. Ok, time will tell.....literally.....

Update to follow!

After 27 hours it was finally time to feed my starter....1 cup of regular, all-purpose flour seemed almost anti-climatic after the long day of anticipation and worry. Maybe it was the dry milk, but it just didn't look like it had obtained the yogurt consistency I needed. Before unwrapping the plastic, I couldn't help but worry: was there really yeast fermenting in there? I was only barely decent at creating the magic that was bread using store-bought insta-active-dry yeast; was I over-reaching by trying to create my own....? Neer one to dwell on potential failure, I embraced my "Go down fighting" attitude and took the plastic off....no movement...gentle shake of the glass bowl...JIGGLE!!!! It was thick!!! It was gloopy!!! It was not the thin, watery concotion I had mixed yesterday! I had successfully completed step one!!! 

Bolstered by this victory, I carefully measured out the cup of flour. 

I didn't have a plastic spoon, so I used my red, can-withstand-the-fires-of-hell Kitchenaid set icing spatula. The recipe said to "blend" it in until it was smooth, but I was so worried that mushing everything around would separate the milk from the water from the yeast (if there was any even in there yet) I more or less gently folded some in....and quickly found it was getting sticky....suddenly, with far more than half a cup to go, I was doing more scraping than stirring. Out of blind faith, or perhaps just to avoid losing my nerve, I steadily folded in the rest of the flour. 

Here's what I was left with, after getting out as many lumps as I could: 

It's not the greatest picture, but it's almost a dough in and of itself. Now I'm waiting for it to get bubbly. I hope I know when to use it...two to four days...I know I'll be checking every day.

******UPDATE*****: Complete and utter failure. :-( I came home on Day 3 and found that I grown about four to six different types of mold. It was not fun to clean up, either. So, for now, active dry yeast in a jar it is. 

The following are some photos of breads I've bakes since last winter. It's fairly obvious I'm just learning and a bit timid (i.e., I could stand to leave the bread in longer for browning, but I'm always gripped by this abject terror that the bread will burn). I'm mostly posting these so I have a kind of pictoral catalougue of my attempts and can see how I'm (hopefully) improving with practice and over tiime.

This was my first loaf of sourdough bread. A bit pale, and not particularly crusty, but it was actually shockingly good and had a definate sourdough taste.

 This is an Italian bread I made about two weeks ago. I was happy with the taste and the way the Rosemary stuck to the crust, but again, it went soft and seemed a bit pale.

This is a fresh honey wheat loaf I made. It's a bit darker than the picture shows (I have my Blackberry set to auto flash). I would have liked much, much, much more honey taste in it, but the recipie already called for 1/3 of a cup. Also, I was a bit disappointed with the wrinkle on top. Still, though, not awful at any rate.

My other pictures apparently are bmps, so I can't seem to upload them.

The following is my bread manifesto:

I do not ever ever bake bread for money, unless I am seriously and quite literally faced with homelessness. I'm far too selfish to turn this corner of reprieve in my life into a job.

I will never put myself in a position for anyone to turn baking bread into work or labor for me.

I will always make sure every loaf, roll or breadstick that comes from my hands is made with love and the excitement that comes from sharing something good and showing love in a tangible way. The ability to bake bread from scratch by hand is, after all, to some degree a gift and one that should be shared. (Granted, whether or not I have this gift is still debateable).

Someday I will make a baguette. I don't have a pan for it, and probably not the oven, either. I have been reading and re-reading the recipie and studying it like it was a final exam in the class of Life. I don't believe I am ready yet...perhaps when I've finished this semester of law school. But someday, I will make a baguette.  

After that, and only after that, I will attempt to make a challah bread.

I must also make another sourdough again, though I'm not entirely sure where that fits in and it might depend on how law school goes.

And finally, before I die, to celebrate a personal and deep victory of my own, I will make a croissant. Well, probably six or a dozen, because that's usually what the recipe calls for. I shall be exceedingly careful as to who I chose to share the croissants with, as well. The ones that turn out, anyway. It's not the kind of patience, care, precision, and effort one puts in for just anyone, after all.

There is something almost primal about home-baked bread.

For millennia, mostly women (but I'm sure some men too) across every single continent have engaged in a fairly painstaking process of patiently grinding wheat or corn into flour, finding and adding just the right amount of water, and kneading, kneading, kneading until, finally, on a flat rock in the sun or atop an enclosed fire somewhere the cornerstone of the human diet was finished. How could they have known how much water to add, or that one must knead and not beat or grind the dough? Perhaps bread was born within us and simply came out.

Maybe it emerged in the form of a baguette, or a tortilla, a loaf, a pita, a crust or a stick, but it was bread and it was being made every day by somebody somewhere.

Humans engaged in this long process, over and over again, for their children, their mates, their communities or themselves. To celebrate, to mourn, to barter or to heal. In honor of their religion and sometimes, even, bread was made to renounce religion. Bread was at once precious and yet universal. It was for the rich to enjoy, the poor to need and the destitute to yearn for.

Environment, time and later wealth would play their defining roles, of course.

In France the nobles feasted on croissants, a rich bread because it required eggs for browning and a scandalous amount of butter.

Meanwhile, in Tuscany, the bread had to last and was often stale. Not to be denied any pleasure, the Tuscans soaked the leftover slices of the long, narrow loaves in olive oil and topped with basil and tomatoes and re-warmed the bread over the fire. Today, you can pay up to $25.00 for a plate of that--only we call it bruschetta and the bread isn't usually stale (though it may have been deliberately left out overnight to harden for authenticity).

French toast, or as I grew up calling it, arme ritter (poor knight) was fed as a dessert dish to knights. It contained key ingredients wealthier noblemen were likely to have, such as milk and eggs. As such, it was considered a bit of a luxurious dish and by serving it the noblemen were paying the knights proper respect...that being said, it was also appealing because it was a dish that was still relatively cheap to provide. In fact, French toast is sometimes called "The Poor Knights of Windsor."

Rich, poor, warring or at peace....everyone ate or at least needed bread. Of all the foods in the world, it is bread that became synonymous with currency the world over (lettuce is a distinctly American term).

All of which is well and good, of course, and lends to a deep sense of comfort when baking bread, but doesn't have a whole lot to do with why I bake it.

No, I think it would be far more accurate to say that I love dough more than I love baking bread.

I love the dough.

I love the way yeast proofs in warm water, as though the water, at just the right temperature, was holding some eternal secret of life and by adding the yeast and waiting I discovered it. Dough is love, and love is the essence of life.

I love how it transforms from a sticky, gooey sludge into a smooth, warm and elastic dough with just a bit of patient coaxing from my fingers. That my small, weak and unskilled hands could produce such an strong but elastic substance amazes me just a little bit each and every time.

I especially associate yeast dough with love. Like love, yeast dough is pliable but strong, but also requires just the right amount of attention to become something life-sustaining. Given too much kneading or water or flour, it can be ruined in an instant and become stiff, dry or cracked. Sometimes, just sometimes, like particularly strong love, if the dough has become too watery and is getting away from the baker, it can be fixed by slowly and carefully adding flour.

Both yeast dough and love can be coaxed, cajoled, rolled, folded and rocked into shape, but never, ever forced.

You have to truly feel the dough to understand it, and if you are only going through the motions you may end up with bread that is edible, but not bread that is also joyous. Yeast dough, like love, will give back whatever you put into it, and if you don't pay attention you will end up with nothing but a useless, heavy mass and a lot of wasted time you can never get back.

Yeast dough is warm from the inside out and, without even touching it, yeast dough can grow and grow until it doubles or triples in volume and can seem unstoppable. Anyone who has ever secretely loved another can surely relate.

The warmth of yeast dough doesn't come from an oven or a grill, but emanates gently from within it. Cover the bowl, come back in an hour or even just twenty minutes and--magic!--twice as much dough as there was before.

And like love, even punching it down a bit and reshaping it won't stop the way it will grow from within.

Some breads, just like some loves, need a bit more attention even when they're in the oven.

A baguette, for example, has to be perfectly misted while baking.

A challah bread (and is there any bread that celebrates life, family, love and tradition more? And no, I'm not Jewish, but it really is one of the richest breads in so many ways) won't settle for being shaped but must be braided.

The quietly demanding sourdough requires no less than at least three days of your time for the starter and, even then, can be a bit fickle.

And the croissant is a downright diva, demanding days of preparation and folding process akin the welding and hammering that goes into a genuine Samurai sword (only slightly less than 100 layers). It is a deceptively innocent-looking bread that requires a remarkable amount of skill.

Yes, some breads require the attention of a lover, others are as demanding as children, still other are as low-maintenance and accepting as an old friend, and still other breads ultimately require the patience, work and understanding that love for family and in-laws are exceedingly likely to require.

But all of them, if done properly, are unquestionably worth every second.

Naturally, after taking a golden-brown or spice-speckled or rich dark bread out of the oven, I'll treat myself to just a bit of it.

I'll allow myself that first moment of basking in the rich, comforting warmth of the oven, still lazily lingering within the welcoming center of the loaf. And I'll revel in the barely-there hint of sugar or natural sweetness that is woven tightly amidst the magical sponge of flour and yeast.

When the mood strikes me, sometimes that gentle, warm center is hugged by a protective crust with just enough crunch to turn that very first bite into an experience of its own, a sharp but simple contrast of texture that elevates the flavor exponentially.

But after that, really, the bread becomes almost a thing of the past. Baked, the loaf is now something that I take pride in having made and while I genuinely look forward to sharing with others, something is gone. I am forced to confront the fact that the towel-wrapped testimony to my secret baking obsession is not why I ever began making it in the first place.