bread

I just got Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and intend to make many of his breads over the next few weeks. It's slightly unfortunate timing, since it'll be Passover in a month and then summer in a few more weeks (I'll wait, impatiently, until fall to put up a sourdough starter), but that just means I need to make as much bread as possible each weekend.

My first loaf was the pane siciliano, made with semolina flour. The nine-year-old promptly dubbed it "the best bread I've even tasted;" he'll be getting sandwiches made from the batard loaf this week. I'm going to try adding some whole grain flour to the recipe in the future.


I made a triple batch of his pate fermente on Thursday. One pound went into this bread; the other two are frozen for future use. The bread dough is made with the pre-ferment, high-gluten bread flour, semolina flour -- the nubby kind you make pasta out of -- a little honey and olive oil, salt, yeast and water. I kneaded, fermented, and shaped on Friday. It was an extremely flexible dough, stretching out like a baguette with no springing back at all. It went into the fridge overnight to proof. (I was out of sesame seeds, and the nine year old doesn't like them anyhow.)

I baked it this morning in a very steamy oven. (I preheated the oven to 550 degrees, with a cast iron skillet on the floor. I poured in simmering water and closed the door quickly, twice. The oven was incredibly steamy, despite no additional misting of water). When the bread went in, I turned the heat down to 450. After 15 minutes, I separated the breads, because they were touching; ten minutes later, they were done (205+ on the thermometer.)

Unanimous verdict? Yum.

For next time:

• Try replacing about a third of the flour in the pre-ferment with King Arthur white whole whole wheat.

• The batard loaf is a little small for sadwiches;maybe make one large batard and one spiral next time? It also should probably be slashed; it split some on the side.

• After 15 minutes in the oven, take the bread off the pan entirely and put them directly on the rack. The middle load stayed white and soft on the sides because they didn't get enough direct heat.

Today I made Norm's recipe for Irish Soda Bread. Discussion here and elsewhere has me convinced that his Americanized version is more appropriately called Spotted Dog.

Norm's Spotted Dog (Soda Bread)

I made 4 loaves. Two loaves were in 7" cake pans, but I used 1 lb 5 oz of dough instead of Norm's suggested 1 lb and 2 oz. The other two were in square pans a little larger and I guesstimated 1 lb 10 oz each. Otherwise I followed Norm's formula to the letter. Mixing was done by first mixing the shortening with the flour, and then adding the remaining dry ingredients, mixing again, and finally the buttermilk and water. I did this by hand using a dough whisk. Since I had 4 pans in the oven at the same time I baked at 350 convection (my oven's thermostat is on the low side so this is not as bad as it seems). Towards the end I even cranked it up to 375F convection to get some more browning. Start to finish (cooling time not included) a little over 1 hour.

Norm's Spotted Dog (Soda Bread) Crumb 

Never made this before, nor tasted it before. The crumb came out really nice and soft, but I think it could have used a little more raisins. Tasted delicious with a little (lot) of butter on top! Thanks Norm. 

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures 

I got a comment asking what I meant by proofed Starter. What I mean is you take your sourdough starter out of the refrigerator and feed it and wait until it warms up and is frothy.

This assumes you have some starter and know what I'm talking about.

If you don't you can create your own starter but you should give yourself a couple of weeks to get it going.

You can buy sourdough starters online or you can get some free from Friends of Carl  

http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/.

I just pulled some yougurt bread out of the oven (see attached photo).

I really didn't measure anything, I just poured the largest part of my starter which I've had out (not in refrigerator) for about a week (feeding it 2-3 times a day). I just started adding flour to it until it came together and estimated about how much salt it would take (never forget the salt).

I stuck it out in the garage at about 50 degrees to retard (slow down the rising).

My starter was so exuberant at being out of the refrigerator and being fed reguarly that it just about tripled in volume in about eight hours so I folded it to reduce the volume and stuck it in the refrigerator until morning.

It was back up to the same volume so I turned it out and formed it on a floured board. I didn't want to wait while it got back to room temp (I was a little worried I'd over proofed it) so I stuck it in a cold cast Iron dutch oven and stuck it in a cold oven and baked at 350 degrees for a hour then checked on it.

As expected it had taken this opportunity to rise but had not started to brown at all so I set the oven for 450 degrees and gave it andother 30 minutes.

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