Maybe it's more of a pain au je ne sais quoi...

After seeing Shiao-Ping's post, "Pain au levain with wine," (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13989/pain-au-levain-wine-60-hydration#comment-86360) and Yozza's wine bread with sesame (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13949/winebaking-part-ii-what-happened#comment-86222) - and simply the sight of their absolutely gorgeous breads, I had no choice but to try it again!  Yozza had excellent recommendations, and Shiao-Ping seemed to have a resounding success with her sourdough starter;Yozza's seemed excellent, as did hers...   Unfortunately, I have never really liked sourdough, so on her recommendation of an alternate starter I tried a slightly different formula...  

Admittedly, I'm an amateur - this was simply improv on my part, probably foolhardy.  Here goes:

I've had great luck with the technique I first learned in Rose's Bread Bible - the method of letting a sponge rise beneath a flour mixture - so going off of some elements of Yozza's bread and Shiao-Ping's sourdough, I tried a variation, though in a smaller loaf.  

Starter:

80 g flour

110 ml warm water

1 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp yeast

Flour mixture, well mixed: 

120 g flour

4 g salt

1/2 tsp yeast

1/2 tsp sugar

And: 20 ml semi-sweet red wine (12.5 %), allowed to "breathe" at room temperature for 2 hours.  

(With the proportion of wine to water, I was trying to imitate Yozza's ratios.)  

In a midsize bowl, I mixed the starter until smooth and soupy, then sprinkled about half of the flour mixture on top and allowed it to ferment for approximately 2 hours, until the starter bubbled through the flour.  

At this time, I measured the wine and set it aside (I wanted to achieve the wine taste, but worried about the potential problems it might cause with the yeast, so I thought that perhaps letting it "breathe" at room temperature during the rising time would balance it out).  

After 2 hours, I began to mix by hand the rest of the flour mixture.  Then, I slowly added the wine.  It made for a very sticky dough, but very elastic and similar to what I have had in a semolina torpedo, with lots of gluten strands.  But there was no purple tone to be seen, and I wished I'd begun with more wine... So with the recklessness of a beginner I mixed about 25 g of flour with a further splash of wine into a paste, and gently kneaded this into the dough.

I allowed the dough to rise on its own at about 70 degrees F, until a depression in the dough rose back on its own.  Then, I softly stretched the dough, like I have with ciabatta, and shaped it into a rectangular loaf.  It was quite sticky, but manageable.  Here's the shaped loaf:

I let it rise for about an hour, while preheating the oven to 230 degrees C (all we have on our oven).  Then, after dusting it with flour, I popped it in on the lowest rack

, with steam.  After ten minutes, I removed the steam and reduced the temperature to 205.  After ten more minutes, the loaf had browned nicely on top, and the thermometer read an internal temperature of 208 F.  

The result:

And taste verdict: not at all bitter, as I had found my previous wine boule!  Not art, exactly, but enjoyable.  The crumb:

Chewy, though it had only a few of the iconic ciabatta holes.  But not nearly enough salt!  The wine taste didn't come through at all, so I am thinking that for the next experiment I'll substitute far more of the hydration with the wine, and adhere far more to the stretching process of some sort of ciabatta-type bread.  Any thoughts, suggestions, advice?  Thanks to Shiao-Ping, Yozza, and everybody!

(p.s. If anybody is interested or bored, there's more pictures of our continuing stages of winemaking on my blog: http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com/)

A while ago I posted a question about the possibility of baking with wine - whether it could be done, what the tricks might be, and general anybody-know...  I received so much helpful tips about procedures, and recommendations of the Vinafera wine flour, and links and ideas.  User yozzause had the excellent idea of adding wine to a recipe I was familiar with, and using a starter, so I finally, finally worked up the guts to try that...  

I took a very basic formula for a honey wheat germ bread I'm quite familiar with.  I didn't want to use up all the resources in our pantry, so I made it in a very small proportion.  Essentially, I went with white flour, active dry yeast, a bit of vital wheat gluten and a little bit of wheat germ, honey, butter, and moisture – I replaced half the water with red wine. 

I had been advised that the alcohol present in the wine could inhibit yeast development, so I attempted to burn away the alcohol on the stovetop; simple enough.  It’s quite a basic recipe of mix, knead, rise, shape, proof, and bake, and it went normally – a good rise on the dough and the loaf, and a fine oven spring. 

Argh! But I was so disappointed!  Usually, this bread has a nice, wholesome, slightly sweet taste with the flavor of some wheat without the heaviness, and I’d hoped to contribute a bit of the red wine flavor.  Best part: purple dough!  I loved the crimson touch.  Worst part: bitterness!  Though the crumb was soft and quite normal, the taste, once rested, was pretty harsh to me.  I skipped that one.  Inexplicably, my husband liked the bitterness!

But I’m wondering whether the bitterness is an inevitable product of adding alcohol to a recipe, or whether I did something wrong, or if this was simply the wrong recipe – anybody have any thoughts?  Suggestions?  Again, thank you all, for everything!

p.s.  I did find this recipe for an ancient Roman bread made with must, the early juices of fermenting wine, and I think perhaps I’ll try that, and I thought others might be interested too!  The site has a number of ancient and medieval breads:  http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/roman/fetch-recipe.php?rid=roman-mustacei

Hello, everybody!  

This begins with a resounding thank-you to user jannrn for asking a question and giving me an excellent idea...  A week ago, I posted about my Greek Fennel, Yogurt, and Honey Bread, and sweetly Jan told me she liked the photographs but hated fennel (I'm really the only person I know who does!).  She asked about alternate flavors, which got me to thinking...  

Here is a picture of the original fennel bread:

But after Jan's comment, I decided to experiment in a couple of ways with its basic formula, which is available on the old post too.  As before, these recipes are for individual loaves, but easily multiplied

My husband, David, adores onions (he could eat them like apples), so here:

For Love's Sake Onion Bread

Ingredients:  

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

3/4 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered onion soup mix (a huge thanks to floydm's onion braid for this idea!)

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

2 oz. warm water

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1 onion 

Instructions:

First, prepare the onion-yogurt blend.  Place 1 cup yogurt and 1 onion (but reserve slices for topping) in a food processor.  Blend well, until mixed.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, sugar, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, soup powder, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the onion yogurt blend.  Reserve the rest of the yogurt blend as a fantastic dip/spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and arrange onion slices on top as desired.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius.  Enjoy!  Trust me, it sounds strange, but the yogurt-onion blend is amazing!

Or: Harvest Apple and Spice Bread

(okay, I know this bread looks really stupid and like a first grader made it.  I got dumb and silly, but it was still so tasty!)

Unlike David, I love actual apples.  Moreover, we have the dried fruit resulting from ten or so pounds of them (an unexpected and enormous present from our neighbors), and I'd better use some up.  So...

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

dough enhancers: 2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten, pinch of ginger, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 cup total yogurt (2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt for dough)

1/2 ripe red apple

2 oz warm water

2 tablespoons chopped dried apples, plus extra for decoration

First, blend the yogurt with the 1/2 apple until very smooth.  

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, honey, and dough enhancers in water, and allow to autolyze.

Add salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, the rest of the flour, and 2 oz. + 2 teaspoons of the apple-yogurt blend.  The rest make a pretty good spread!

Knead for 15 minutes, until the dough is elastic and will not break if stretched.  

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and allow to rise, covered, for 1/2 - 2 hours or until doubled.

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a boule.

Allow to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Before baking, brush with milk and decorate with bits of dried apple, though you don't have to make it as dumb-looking as mine!

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Celsius. Hope you like it!

This, by the way:

is the original crumb from the fennel bread, and I had identical results with the onion and apple variations, including the satisfaction!  And thanks again to Jan for the idea!

Hello, everybody!

So, here in Hungary, it seems like everybody's got a farm, and coextensively a vineyard.  My husband David and I don't, but we do have an incredibly kind old neighbor who's teaching us to make our own red wine. It's so much fun - picking our own grapes, grinding them, removing stems...  Like so:

Naturally, in gratitude I've baked him lots of bread.  We're not quite done, but in approximately two weeks we will have (for $50) 150 litres of red wine!  Which leads me to my question:

I've seen and read a number of beer bread recipes.  But obviously, we've got plentiful wine...  Are there any breads which call for a splash of wine in the dough?  It seems like it would be possible, but I've never seen any; I'm still a student baker, so I don't know if there are any chemical or taste-related reason for this.  Does anybody know, and if wine bread exists, any ideas?  

Thanks!  

Erzsebet

Also, if anybody is interested in other pictures and a diary of our winemaking process, it's on my blog -http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com

Hello, everybody!

So, here in Hungary, it seems like everybody's got a farm, and coextensively a vineyard.  My husband David and I don't, but we do have an incredibly kind old neighbor who's teaching us to make our own red wine. It's so much fun - picking our own grapes, grinding them, removing stems...  Like so:

Naturally, in gratitude I've baked him lots of bread.  We're not quite done, but in approximately two weeks we will have (for $50) 150 litres of red wine!  Which leads me to my question:

I've seen and read a number of beer bread recipes.  But obviously, we've got plentiful wine...  Are there any breads which call for a splash of wine in the dough?  It seems like it would be possible, but I've never seen any; I'm still a student baker, so I don't know if there are any chemical or taste-related reason for this.  Does anybody know, and if wine bread exists, any ideas?  

Thanks!  

Erzsebet

Also, if anybody is interested in other pictures and a diary of our winemaking process, it's on my blog - http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com

Hello to all the bakers and Loafers!  I'd posted about 5 months ago about my upcoming camping journey around the Mediterranean, and received so much wonderful advice...  I can't thank everybody enough for their kind, helpful ideas, or begin to tell all the traveling tales.  

Apart from a broken camp stove (aaah!) I did discover a number of fantastic, unique local breads, but I will have to wait to post some pictures and descriptions of those (though I promise I will!)...

But as I'm sure so many of you can imagine, now that my husband and I have returned to our home in Hungary, I'm enthralled just to have an oven again!  Every day has featured me dancing around a new bread, and it's been a blast - but it's high time I share a bit!

Though my husband, David, disagrees, I think this recipe has been my favorite new bread thus far...

Greek Fennel, Yogurt, and Honey Bread

I unearthed this recipe in The Bread Book, by Sara Lewis, which my little brother's girlfriend gave to me last December.  I'd never heard of it, but I very much enjoy the breads it's offered.  Both my husband and I try to eat as healthily as we can, so I admit this recipe has been somewhat modified, and though sometimes this leads to problems I was entirely satisfied, and if fact declared it my best ever!  Multiple times! 

On our camping trip, we spent a month in Greece, between beaches and ancient ruins, and found a lot of fabulous flavors - yogurt featured prominently, as did spices like fennel, anise, and sesame.  This evoked it for me...  It's very sweet, with a dense but extremely soft crumb, and a soft, pliable crust, and filled with the flavor of the fennel seeds and a tad of citrus.  

These ingredients, by the way, are scaled down to an individual loaf, for me, because my husband doesn't like sweet breads, but it's easy to multiply as desired. 

Ingredients:

165 grams flour

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1-3 teaspoons honey (all depending on your personal taste for sweetness)

(dough enhancers I utilized):

2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten

pinch of ginger 

1 teaspoon lemon juice

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons fennel seeds

2 oz. + 2 teaspoons yogurt (warmed to room temperature)

2 oz. warm water

Extra honey, milk, and fennel seeds (to glaze)

Instructions:

Whisk a little bit of the flour, yeast, honey, lemon juice, and water in a large bowl to autolyze for 3-5 minutes.  

Add the fennel seeds and yogurt and blend well to distribute the seeds.

Add the salt and the rest of the flour and knead with floured hands on a well-floured board.  With the large proportion of honey, the dough will be extremely sticky at first, but after ten minutes of kneading it tends to become smooth.  Knead for 15 minutes, or until the dough is elastic and does not break if stretched.  

Allow dough to rise in a covered bowl until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  

Remove dough from bowl and give it several soft kneadings and envelope turns.  On a lightly greased baking sheet, shape into a spiraled loaf, like a cinnamon bun.  

Allow loaf to rise for 45 minutes or so, while preheating the oven to 210 degrees Celsius.  

Lightly glaze loaf with milk, sprinkle with extra fennel seeds, and drizzle with honey, especially in the creases of the spiral (yum!).

After rising time, bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until shiny and golden brown, with an inner temperature of 205 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Allow to rest and cool - and enjoy!

p.s. if anybody would care to look at some travelogue accounts and photographs of our Mediterranean trip, as well as here in Hungary (currently how we are making our own wine), my blog address is http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com...

Hello to all,

I've read book reviews here, on Amazon, and other places about apparent errors that were noted by readers in Jeffrey Hammelman's and Daniel DiMuzio's otherwise wonderfully rated books. Both of these books are published by Wiley, and I was surprised and bothered that Wiley hadn't posted Errata pages for either of these books.  Dan's book only came out this past February so one can possibly excuse the fact that there isn't an Errata page for that one, but Jeffrey Hammelman's book was published in 2004, so it's hard to find an excuse for that.

I contacted Wiley and after several emails back and forth they essentially told me that there weren't Errata pages because no one had brought any errors to their attention. When I pushed them on this they elaborated somewhat further and this is what they said:

"Thank you for contacting Wiley Technical Support.

When errata is reported by a customer we escalate the issue to the editing department of that title. It is the decision of the editing department to post an errata page, or to update an errata page that is already posted.

We appreciate our customer feedback when an error is identified. If you have any errors to report please use the "Ask a Question" section of our customer service website to report the error."

The Wiley URL for doing this is:

http://wiley.custhelp.com/app/ask/

So, if you want to take the time and trouble to do this, surely it will benefit all of us who are struggling with what we may not realize are errors in these or other bread baking books published by Wiley.

Of course it remains to be seen whether or not Wiley will actually follow up on such information or if they were just paying me lip service.

Best regards,

Mitch

There'll be a better write-up on my blog,
mentalexperimental.org, but I wanted to thank Floyd for a good starter recipe. I'm still working on modifying this one. I think that I have the general consistency of the bread down that I want, but I want a bit more tang. I think that there may have to be a sourdough component to really get it where I want it to be. But that's a completely new bread.

This is Floyd's recipe with a few modifications. The first is adding a bit more sour cream. The second was adding cheddar cheese instead of chives. The third is the addition of half & half in the dough and the mashed potatoes.

I think that getting a stand mixer will help me with this type of bread the most. I mixed for 8 or so minutes on speed 2 and then folded twice during the bulk fermentation, giving it an hour at the end to come to full bulk. The crumb is light, fluffy, and very tender.

I'm writing the recipe on the blog now. I wanted to share the photo because I'm so proud of how this one turned out. :)

There's a wonderful bakery in Boone, NC called Stick Boy Bread Co. (http://www.stickboybread.com/); check it out!