sandwich loaf

This was very easy and tastes better than your average sliced bread... It looks cool too!

 

Ingredients: (for white dough)

• 2 cups bread flour
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups water

Ingredients: (for beet dough)

Do the same as the white dough in a seperate bowl, replacing the water with beet juice. To obtain beet juice, I shredded 3 pounds of fresh beets, loaded the shreddings into a mesh bag, and squeezed  out the juice. I recovered about a cup, so I added water to make 1 1/4 cups. 

Instructions: (remember you are making TWO doughs)

1. Add all the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt) into two bowls and stir with spoon for about 15 seconds.
2. Add water to one bowl and beet juice to the other bowl. Stir for about 1 or 2 minutes.
3. Cover the top of the bowl loosely with plastic wrap.
4. Let sit on counter top for about 12 to 16 hours (I ussually do this for about 13 hours), the dough will look all bubbly on the top when done rising.
5. Generously sprinkle flour the top of your clean counter top or a cutting board (don’t worry about using too much flour, it won’t hurt it).
6. Slowly pour the dough from each bowl on to the floured surface, using the silicone spatula to help it peal off the sides of the bowl.
7. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and rub your hands together with flour.
8. With you hands, gently stretch each dough out to a rectangle shape.
9. Lay the beet dough on top of the white dough.
10. Roll up the dough from one end to the other.
11. Place the dough into a lightly greased bread pan (seam side down).
12. Let dough rise till it is a bit above the top of the bread pan (about double in size or 1 to 1.5 hours).
13. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
14. Place bread in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
15. Remove from oven, dump bread out on a cooling rack or your counter top and allow it to cool.

There is a delicious flavor from the beets...somewhat salty, a bit savory, and a smidge of sweet. The deep cherry red color emitted from the crust, but inside it lost the red component and is a boring brown. I think I'll try the beet dough on the outside next time.

Does anyone know why this happens?

For some reason I wanted to make a loaf with a purple swirl... probably because purple is not a standard bread color, and I am not a standard bread man.  I tried this recipe and it turned out good. Just divide the recipe in half, and make two seperate doughs. For one of the doughs, replace the water with an equal amount of liquid from boiled red cabbage. I took a head of red cabbage, shredded it, then cooked it with 2 cups of water in a large pot for 30 minutes. Strain the liquid out, let it cool, and use it to make the purple half of the dough. 
Ingredients: (total for both doughs)

• 4 cups bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/4 cups water

Instructions: (remember you are making TWO doughs)

1. Combine all the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt) in the large bowl and stir with spoon for about 15 seconds.
2. Add water to the bowl and stir for about 1 or 2 minutes (it won’t look that good but that doesn’t matter).
3. Cover the top of the bowl loosely with plastic wrap.
4. Let sit on counter top for about 12 to 16 hours (I ussually do this for about 13 hours), the dough will look all bubbly on the top when done rising.
5. Generously sprinkle flour the top of your clean counter top or a cutting board (don’t worry about using too much flour, it won’t hurt it).
6. Slowly pour the dough from the bowl on to the floured surface, using the silicone spatula to help it peal off the sides of the bowl.
7. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and rub your hands together with flour.
8. With you hands, gently stretch each dough out to a rectangle shape.
9. Lay the purple dough on top of the white dough.
10. Roll up the dough from one end to the other.
11. Place the dough into a lightly greased bread pan (seam side down).
12. Let dough rise till it is a bit above the top of the bread pan (about double in size or 1 to 1.5 hours).
13. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
14. Place bread in the oven for 30 minutes.
15. Remove from oven, dump bread out on a cooling rack or your counter top and allow it to cool.

No detectable flavor from the cabbage, but the color just begs, "eat me!"

 

This weekend has been a smorgasbord of baked goods.  Friday afternoon i mixed together a poolish with the intentions of making poolish baguettes the following day.  I let the poolish sit out until it was nice and bubbling then retired it to the refrigerator for the next day.  I removed the poolish from the refrigerator and brought it to room temp while I prepared the main dough. 

I was working off of Peter Reinhart's poolish baguette recipe from BBA.  I sifted the wheat flour to remove the bran, i'm not sure if my sieve was fine enough to remove all the bran but it removed a large proportion of it.  I'm going to be a bit lazy in my blogging tonight and just post a few pictures, which will not include crumb shots because the crumb turned out piss poor.

I had to find something to do with the left over bran i sifted from the wheat flour.  I decided to make bran muffins, which I have never made before but thought i would try.  The recipe was a crap shoot a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  I used a small portion of wheat flour to AP added some sugar some molasses, yeast, and buttermilk and an egg.  I topped the muffins with oats and baked them in a 350 degree oven until a toothpick came out clean.  I can't say I've ever had a bran muffin so I have nothing to compare them to, they seem to taste fine.  

I caught an episode of Diners Drive in's and Dives earlier this week, Guy Fieri happened upon a restaurant that featured cranberry and wild rice french toast.  The two ingredients seem like such an odd combination to me and I had to try it.  I pieced together a recipe and made a large sandwich loaf with a smaller free form loaf to go with it.  Needless to say, I can't wait for breakfast in the morning, I just wish I had some fresh maple syrup to go with it.  

As if this wasn't enough for one day, I decided to make sandwich loaves for the upcoming week.  The loaves are basic white loaves from The Bread Bible.  I don't eat a lot of white bread but this will have to do this week until I can make some whole grain loaves.  

Nope, not done yet.  The poolish baguette recipe calls for 7 ounces of poolish, which leaves a substantial amount for another application.  I am tossing around the idea of making a poolish pizza crust tomorrow, although I am still uncertain about a recipe at this point.  I have also decided to start the bread baker's apprentice challenge tomorrow.  I have already made quite a few of the recipes in the book but I will chalk that up to practice.  At any rate, I have the soaker for Anadama bread sitting on the counter top now, another post to follow.

 

Happy Baking,

-Matthew 

White Sandwich loaf before pre-shape

White sandwich loaves final proof

Finished sandwich loaves

Crumb Shot

C

Mixture of the day's bake

Crumb shot of cranberry wild rice bread

I liked the Buttermilk-Whole-Wheat-Bread which I baked just a couple days ago so much that I decided to continue with 100% whole wheat. The Buttermilk-Whole-Wheat-Bread was very soft and light, I have never seen a whole-wheat bread like this.

I adapted the recipe I used the last time. It was, for my taste, somewhat to sweet and it lacked a real crust. And I decided to substitute the buttermilk by a yoghurt-water-blend, because that's what I always got on hand here. (Whereas plain buttermilk is often hard to get.) And I increased the hydration by a lot. And I used this time a preferment, with sourdough - In order to get a deeper, less sweet flavor.

A lot of changes, you see. I wasn't to worried that anything could go wrong, because I think the reason why this bread came out so light is, first of all, proper kneading, and secondly, some acidic dairy products.

Yoghurt-Whole-Wheat-Bread

Preferment:
20 g mature culture
175 ml water
250 g whole-wheat flour (I always use home-ground flour)

Final dough
580 g whole-wheat flour
25 g vital wheat gluten
17 g salt
1 teaspoon dry yeast
20 g honey
30 g butter
150 g yoghurt (I used 3% fat yoghurt)
320 + 100 ml water

 

1. I mixed the ingredients of the preferment and kept it over night in a warm place (I put it into the microwave, with the door a little bit open - this way, the light stays on and I get a temperature of ~81° F)
2. The next morning, I let the remaining flour autolyse for an hour. (I mixed the flour with the gluten first, then with all of the yoghurt and 320 ml water.)
3. Then I mixed the preferment and the flour-water-dough with the remaining ingredients (not the last 100 ml water though) and I kneaded it by hand using the Bertinet method for 15 minutes. While kneading, I incorporated another 100 ml of water. The gluten was perfectly developed, even better than the last time.
4. first fermentation: until doubled, it took me about two hours. Then I degassed the dough very well and shaped it into a boule again.
5. second fermentation: until doubled, it took me about 1.5 hours.
6. I divided the dough into two pieces, preshaped them and let them rest for a couple minutes. then shaped them into sandwich loaves, rolled them in rice flour (I use whatever I've got on hand . . . coarse wheat, bran, oats . . .) and put them into bread pans.
7. final fermentation: until the loaves reached well over the edges of the pans, about one hour.
8. I slashed the loaves and put them in the 220° C hot oven and steamed well. After 20 minutes of baking, I took them out of the pans and baked them until done on a baking sheet. (another 20 minutes.) I covered the loaves with aluminium foil for the last ten minutes.

I think the bread had about as much volume as the last time, I'm very pleased with that. It has quite a sour flavor. It's definitely a good flavor, but for my taste it's somewhat to sour for being a sandwich bread. I will change something about that. The bread did well with the higher heat and I think that I'll bake this kind of recipe in these settings in the future. It still didn't have a crunchy crust, but that's not what I'm looking for in a sandwich bread either. I will reduce the amount of water somewhat, because it simply was harder to shape with a hydration of 86 % and the result wasn't significantly better. Maybe something around 75-80% the next time? I'm happy with the reduction of sugar though!

I think, the next time I'll bake this bread with a yeast preferment and simply add a little of sourdough to the final dough. Or should I include some whole rye for a deeper flavour? I'd like to experiment with some further additions to the dough, like soaked wheat chops or some seeds (incorporated in the dough when the gluten is developed). I'll do some more experiments, I promise!

Salome