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,

I just shaped my boules for the Roasted Onion and Asiago  Miche from the BBA.  Problem is, I don't have room in my fridge to put both baking sheets in?!  It's almost 2pm here in LA, and they've now been sitting out for about 30 minutes after shaping.  Can I bake them tonight??  Should I be waiting for them to double??

Thank you!!

Yesterday, on the "Crispier Crust" thread, Eric posted a picture of Susan from SD's latest Onion-Poppy seed bread which looked absolutely gorgeous. I have searched for the recipe but cannot find it. Does anyone have that recipe? Susan? Eric?

Thanks for any help. I would love to be able to give it a try.

Jessica

One another thread, they are talking about your first bread book. The BBA as we call it was my first purchased bread book. It was a great introduction to bread making and I progressed with every new loaf. As I read along here I became distracted with other bread types and haven't been browsing as much recently. The other day I was comparing notes on bagels and since I use Reinhart's water bagel formula and method as my go to, best ever method, I had the book open. As I turned the pages I came across this bread, and knew I had to make it as soon as possible.

Anything with lots of cheese, green onions and chives and topped with roasted onions, well you know it's going to be great! Here are the proof and out of the oven shots and I'll come back with a crumb shot later. I plan on freezing one loaf for a day and bringing it with the other Turkey Day  items.

It looks great in person and smells wonderful. Thank you Peter!

Added crumb shot: This is a very aromatic bread with a very nice flavor of cheese and onion. The chives and scallions chopped and blended into the dough along with the 8 Oz of Asiago cheese really make a statement. The roasted onions on the top, above the cheese seemed to get a little well done but they taste great! I heartily recommend this bread for a full flavor meal. The texture is soft and delicious.

The author recommends not using a KA mixer with this dough due to the size of the batch and gives directions for hand mixing. I was able to easily able to mix and knead (hook) in my DLX. I think I could of doubled the batch with out any trouble.

Eric

Proofed and ready to bake

The Kansas City Star has an article in their food section that features a different at-home cook every week.  This week's featured cook, who grew up in Bavaria, shares her recipe for zwiebelkuchen, an onion tart.  She uses frozen bread dough as the base, more for convenience sake than anything else, but notes that her family made it with rye bread dough.  So, in celebration of Oktoberfest and in recognition of all of the rye bread posts recently, here is a link to the article with the recipe:

http://www.kansascity.com/819/story/839442.html

Mini, put your bib on before reading!

Paul

Norm's Onion Rolls

Onion Crumb

First off I have to say, stop what ever you're doing now and run to a store to pick up some dry onions so you can make these up tonight. This is an amazing recipe and your home will smell like heaven of roasting onions. Norm, I wish I could shake your hand in person. This is a home run (sorry about the Mets) and the recipe you posted worked perfectly for me, first time. I made a dozen batch and was planning on sharing with the next door neighbors but the sun got in my eyes and I didn't get to it lol.

There are several versions of this recipe on the site and I think I should show the link that I believe was corrected by the baker himself. This batch uses 32 Oz of flour and will make 12-4Oz rolls just like the ones shown above. For clarity, here is the recipe as I made it.

One last thought. Be sure to save the water from hydrating the onions and use it as part of the dough water. The improvement in flavor is amazing. To be honest I forgot that step until I was about to mix the dough. The water had so much aroma I threw the whole liquid part out and started over with the onion water. It only cost me an egg and a small amount of oil and yeast. It was well worth the extra effort.

I hope you enjoy this gift from our friend Norm.

Onion Roll Recipe -- per Norm

Topping:
1/4 c. dehydrated onion flakes
1T poppy seeds
1/4t salt
1T oil

Soak the onion flakes in boiling water until they're fully hydrated, then drain and add other ingredients; set aside until you need them. (BTW, according to Norm, you can also use this same topping for bialys). SAVE THE ONION WATER FOR USE LATER IN DOUGH

Dough:
32oz bread or first-clear flour (I used bread flour)
16oz water Use all of the water from hydrating the onion plus make up to 16 Oz.
1.5oz beaten egg
1.5 oz sugar
0.5 oz malt syrup/powder
1.5 oz vegetable oil
0.6oz salt
0.3oz active dry yeast (or equivalent cake/instant yeast) (2 teaspoons IDY)

1. Mix the water/malt/yeast and egg/oil separately; blend dry flour salt and sugar in mixer or by hand;

2. Add the liquids to the flour/sugar and hydrate well. This is a very stiff dough that will work either your back or your Kitchen Aid very hard.

3. Knead for about 10 min until the dough is very smooth and elastic, then set aside and let rise until doubled in bulk.

4. Turn dough, which will be incredibly silky, onto a dry board (no additional flour) and punch down, shape into 3-4 oz boules and let rest, covered, for at least 20 min.

5. Norm suggests spreading the topping onto the work surface and then pressing the boules flat into discs about 1/4"-1/2" thick. This works fine IF you let the dough rest, covered for at least 20 minutes as Norm suggests.

6. Preheat the oven to 450, Cover the rolls and let fully proof until about doubled in size. Just before loading into oven, press a dimple with your thumb in the center. Bake on parchment with a light spritz of water into the oven until they're nice and brown -- 20 minutes in my oven on a sheet pan.

Hello Folks, this is my first post on The Fresh Loaf, altough I have been reading and trying out recipes for a long time.

I wanted to share a very easy recipe for Sourdough Onion Rye, which is an adaption of pretty much everything I have learned from this site. It's really quite easy to make and comes out fine every time, so good luck and please give me feedback, I would love to hear about your experience.

The Starter

I use a fairly wet "batter" style sourdough starter. I keep it in the fridge and refresh it after I use it and then let it sit out for a while. Right now I am living in Zambia, this starter is therefore infested with Zambian yeast - I wonder if there is a difference? In any case, it's pretty active and works really well.

The Flour

I love reading the discussions about the various types and properties of flour, and how important a specific type of flour is for one recipe or another. In Zambia, we get two types of flour: Bread Flour and Cake Flour, that's it. I use Bread Flour and it works great. Rye flour is harder to come by, I get mine from a local bakery that imports it from South Africa. I have no idea exactly what kind of Rye it is, it looks sort of a like a medium extraction. I have learned not to worry too much, it all comes out tasting pretty good.

The Recipe

The night before baking, start the poolish.

about 1/2 cup starter

3 cups bread or all-purpose flour

1 cup Rye flour

2 cups of water.

Mix it all together, cover and let sit overnight.

The Next Morning.

Add to the poolish:

3 cups of flour as before

1 cup of Rye, as before

1 large (raw) Onion, finely chopped

(Optional) 1 Tablespoon Dried Dill

1 Tablespoon Salt

3/4 Cup water.

Mix well and let sit for twenty minutes.

This makes a pretty wet dough, one of you scientists can figure out the hydration. Because of the rye flour its quite sticky. I find the best way to mix it is to just get my hands in there and squish it all together.

After it sits, knead for 10 minutes. You will need to use quite a bit of flour as the dough is very sticky. After kneading cover and let rise until doubled, about two hours.

After rising, dump the dough onto a well floured surface and cut in half. Stretch each half **gently** into a ball, then **gently** stretch into a loaf shape. You don't want to squish the air bubbles. I find the "envelope" method of shaping just a bit too vigorous.

Transfer the the loaves onto baking paper, cover and let rise for about an hour.

Sourdough Onion Rye - Ready for the Oven

Meanwhile, preheat your stone and your oven to 450/220. Then transfer your loaf onto the stone, I use the back of a cookie sheet as a peel. When the loaf is in the oven use whatever steam method you prefer, I simply toss a cup of water into the bottom of the over and shut the door. Bake for about 25 minutes, turn the loaf once. I have a very small oven, so I can only bake one loaf at a time.

Take the bread out, and let it cool for as long as you can, and then enjoy! Also makes great toast!

Sourdough Onion Rye - The Finished Product

Your feedback greatly appreciated

Cheers!

Thanks, Norm, for this recipe. Boy, are these good! This is the first recipe in a long time that tempted me to stray from straight sourdough!

I think I should have used convection for the last half of baking. And I should probably smush them down more and give them a bit more room on the sides next time.

You can see that I started out with 15 two-ounce rolls and now have only eight left, and they just came out of the oven! Mmmmmmm.

Susan from San Diego

Half-baked Onion Rolls

Norm's Onion Rolls

Here's the link to Norm's recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6245/another-one-norm-onion-rolls#comment-31799

I've only ever learned to make plain bagels, and I want to branch out into onion (& maybe garlic) ones. I'm wondering a few things:

Onion bread: Onion bread made with semi-sour starter.

 Sorry for the poor photo quality, but I'm so thrilled with myself, I had to share.