White bread

I was eating a bowl of Cream of Wheat for the first time in ten years. That is the only inspiration for this loaf. I think a souerdough starter would work well with this recipe. 

Whip up a 75% hydration Biga with 2 c bread flour, let it chill in the fridge 24 hrs. For the final dough, combine 1.5 c bread flour, 1.5 c ap flour, .75 c farina, 2 tbps kosher salt, 1.5 tsp instant yeast, the biga torn up, and about 1.5 c water. Mix with paddle until combined, switch to hook and knead for 5 min. Let dough rest 2 min, then knead another 3 min. Transfer to large oiled bowl. Stretch and fold every 20 min for an hour. Shape into loaves and refrigerate for 12-24 hrs. Bake at 450F for 15 min then 400F for 20 min.

This makes a killer mozzarella and tomato sandwich!

 

 

Austrian Easter bread, farmer's recipe

 

It is that time of the year again, where I can't wait for the taste of sweet bread with smoked meats, hardboiled eggs and

freshly grated horseraddish. It is very traditional to eat this kind of bread for the Easter holidays, some even put raisins

in it and there is a much softer almost no crumb version out there. Oddly everyone seems to fancy the contrast of

meat/radish/horseradish on a very sweet bread, but only for the holidays. It is a tradition,what can I say. My mom

scored this recipe from a farmer and she called me very excited to try this. I thoght it was about time to not only soak in

so many wonderful reciped but share a somewhat special and different one. So this is the 2nd year I have a go at it,

I have gotten a bit tired of the neverending sourdough fermentation times and my inability to keep track of time.  

This although is very different , it is a straightforward bread, you do not need a lot of time for it, and since it is so

enriched it does not benefit from long fermentation periods. I forgot how much fun it is to work with live yeast and

the sensational rise you get out of it, i doubt there can be a good sourdough version of this bread it is jsut perfect the way it is:

If former easterbread disappointed you because it was too soft, too little crust for you then you really

should try this it will reward you with a mouthwatering smell in your kitchen and a great aftertaste for your tastebuds

besides it is a LOT of fun to work with such a potent dough without all the wait usually included :)

 

Ingredients:

1000 g of bread flour

500ml of milk ( regular version, no skim milk )

130g of softened butter

1 lemon ( organic )

40g of live yeast

6 tablespoons of sugar

1 tablespoon of salt

lard ( from the pork )

 

 

I got very lucky these days finding the right kind of flour, more so because it is also very cheap it seems to have

an extreme tendency for perfect gluten development. Here bread flours are marked W700 this one is marked the

same way but milled a bit rougher than all the rest and binds very well. I recommend flour just like that.

 

 

To get started warm up the milk just a tad over handwarm, take a small bowl and dissolve first the sugar then

the live yeast in it. It is important to work with warm milk be careful to not get it too hot to kill off the yeast.

I followed a little discussion some time ago on sugar/yeast yes no.... All you need to do 

is take 2 bowls add yeast into it once with sugar, once without and observe. I always add the sugar it helps

your bacteria much faster along the way :) Let me prove that point, i started halfway with the bowl,

5 min later....

If you do not have live yeast I believe the correct formula is 2/3 dry yeast and 1/3 instant yeast instead

of the ammount of live yeast:

 

Pour the yeast and rest of the milk into the center of the bowl add the softened butter and one skin of a zested big lemon

be generous when you grate your lemon , add the salt and knead by hand, it is a fun dough to do so, once the dough is

firm and it should be firm, add one scooped table spoon of pork lard it will make the dough very silky and tasty.

I do not recommend omitting the lard and lemon since these 2 ingredients are what make this bread so special....

In the meantime put your oven on 180 degree Fahrenheit. As I mentioned before this dough does not benefit from

long fermentation and that is exactly the fun part for a change. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at

least to double( better triple ) in size within an hour at room temperature, the dough should be warm from the warm

milk still and smell sweet/lemon like, an awesome smell :). Here is my dough not even after 40 min, it tripled:

 

Knead the dough down to original size, a technique I almost never see in American recipes but very common here, is to do

exactly that, a double rise. Since time is no issue we can help the process along with our oven at 180F( 80celsius). Once the

dough is kneaded down divide in 3 parts and generously slash an X on top. Since this dough is highly active, try getting some

surface tension onto it as described in Peter Reinhards BBA. I kind of failed here a bit as you can see later. I didnt have a

baking stone nor did I find the right rack as I baked at my friends house. I would definitly use a stone if i I had one there...

There is no need to prepare the oven for hearth baking whatsoever even for phase 2:

 

 

I had to wait maybe 10 minutes till this happened at only 180 . Guess I did not build up enough surface tension.

Once doubled in the oven slide out the rack and cover the breads with a 50% egg yolk 50% milk mixture, crank up

the oven to 370 degrees Fahrenheit /  180 degrees Celsius

and slide the bread right back in, no need to wait till it reaches that temperature. Wait until the bread is golden

brown and makes a hollow sound when tapped.  I use hot air surround fan setting, if you do not have one

add 10 degrees.

 

Here is a shot of the final result, last year I had the height a bit better under control, you can also make the surface

more even when shaping, I did not bother it gives the bread a rustic look, and it is a farmer's recipe after all.

 

Here is a comparison shot the next day between an enriched sourdough I created ( curd cheese as enrichment/

pumkin seeds) You can see there definitly is a crumb and crust on this bread, much different than the storebought

ones that feel and taste like sweet Mc Donalds buns. This is one of the few breads that once taken out does not

benefit much from being toasted it will stay fresh quite a while and goes great with jam but also with the ingredients

I mentioned within the introduction. A special tip would be butter/hardboiled egg and some grounded horseraddish on top.

If you decide to make this bread I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did. Submitted to the YeastSpotting page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our last visit to my parents in Germany I chatted with my sister-in-law who lives in Switzerland - about bread.

She tried to make the Zopf many families enjoy in Switzerland on Sundays, but she couldn't reproduce the flaky texture which is so typical.

After a bit of research I found a recipe on www.schweizerbrot.ch which worked very well for me, and this Zopf has become quite popular with friends and family.

It is essentially like a Challah without sugar and goes well with all sorts of sweet toppings, as well as cheeses.

As flour you can get a special Zopfmehl in Switzerland, which usually is a blend of white spelt (10% to 30%) with plain white flour.

I used 20% spelt.

Here the formula:

Ingredient	Weight	Percent
white plain flour	800g	80%
white spelt flour	200g	20%
milk	300g	30%
water	300g	30%
egg	60g (1 large)	6%
butter	120g	12%
fresh yeast	30g	3%
salt	20g	2%
yield	1830g	183%

Mix ingredients without butter first, and work until gluten is somewhat developed.

Add butter and work the dough until it is elastic, smooth and makes a nice windowpane test.

Let double in size (this took about 1 hour at 23C), fold and let rest for another 30 minutes.

Divide and shape into a braid (I usually make 2 braids from this amount of dough, the recipe source suggests one big 2-strand braid)

Put ther braid(s) onto baking perchament, apply eggwash, let rest for another 15-30 minutes, egg-wash again.

Bake on lower shelf in pre-heated oven at 200C for about 50 minutes (depending on size, my half-size braids need about 45 min).

Part of the bread got eaten before I could take a photo, here is part of the remains (Iwill post a better picture when available):

The crumb is flaky as it should be when you tear the bread:

Enjoy,

Juergen

 

Thanks to Yippee for her recipe, I managed to do this soft white milk loaf. Obviously I didn't read the instructions properly and end up with 1 loaf of bread which I could have split into 2. Anyhow, I believe I will make this bread again.

I can't find the link to upload the picture here, somehow it disappeared on me occasionally. But here's my link to what I was referring to. I will try again to upload the picture the next time.

www.foodforthoughts.jlohcook.com

Necessity is the mother of invention (or at least tweaking), right? It certainly is around here! I came to TFL (naturally) to find a solution to my problem: there was no more sandwich bread in my house. This is about as big a problem as no running water. My middle child is addicted to peanut butter sandwiches, and since she has a limited number of "healthy" foods she likes, we encourage her to eat them. (She's autistic; trying to get her to eat food she doesn't like/want is... well, next to impossible. Frankly, I'm just happy she eats anything but hot dogs and fruit snacks.) My usual recipe takes 4-5 hours, depending on the temp of my kitchen that day, and that just wasn't gonna cut it today. I needed something fast and simple.

I did a search for "basic white sandwich bread" and came up with a bunch of results, but near the top of the list was this post, with its GUMP Bread recipe. It had no comments, so no tried-and-true reviews or try-this adjustments, so I took it entirely on faith. The list of ingredients looked right, in proper amounts for a high-hydration sandwich loaf, so I figured how bad could it really turn out?

I made some adjustments for personal preference... butter for oil, regular milk for powdered milk and water, and flax seed for wheat germ. That last because I'd run out of wheat germ, not because I have something against it. And because I didn't have smaller loaf pans, I decided to make it all one loaf in my rockin' huge 9x5 Paula Deen stoneware loaf pan. These things are wicked deep and heat so evenly... I love them. I really do. And I thought to add vital wheat gluten because I'd heard it makes white bread do something interesting. (Very scientific, I know. LOL) So once I'd settled on all my ingredients and my loaf size, etc., I set about actually making the thing...

Procrastinator's Sandiwch Bread

• .25c butter
• 2c 1% milk
• 2tbsp granulated sugar
• 2tsp kosher salt
• 5c bread flour
• 4tsp instant yeast
• 1tbsp vital wheat gluten
• 2tbsp ground flax seed
• more milk for brushing
• 1tbsp 7-grain cereal

1. Melt butter in microwave in a large measuring cup or bowl. (1 min on HIGH for me.)
2. Add milk and heat to lukewarm. (1 more min on HIGH for me.)
3. Add sugar and salt and stir to dissolve.
4. Combine flour, yeast, gluten, and flax in a large bowl/the bowl of a stand mixer.
5. Add liquid and mix to "shaggy mass" stage.
6. Knead by hand or mixer until elastic. Dough will NOT clean bowl or form a ball; this is fine.
7. Let rise until double, about 30 mins.
8. Shape into a loaf, and put in greased 9x5in pan.
9. Preheat oven to 350F; let dough rise 20-25 mins.
10. Brush with milk and sprinkle 7-grain cereal on top, then score loaf as desired. (I always do mine diagonally, corner to corner.)
11. Bake for 25 mins uncovered, with steam, then cover with foil and bake another 20-35 mins, until internal temp is 190F.

Now, since I really like how this turned out texture-wise, I intend to try cutting the yeast to about 1tsp, maybe 1.5tsp, and do an overnight rise in the fridge. Or somewhere else equally cold; this is Michigan, I'm sure I can find somewhere to put it this time of year! I think it'll really improve the flavor. But then it wouldn't be a procrastinator's bread, it'd just be a tasty sandwich loaf. I think I'm okay with that. ;)

 

Edited To Add: the pictures I completely forgot about...

Nevermind the foil. I like softer crust, so I let the loaf steam itself soft-ish for a few.

Crumb shot. It's very fine and tender, but it still has more flavor than that crappy Wonderbread. :P

Crumb close-up.

Recipe from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Bread - White Bread Chapter





I have an interesting bake last night.  This bread is very very tasteful,  with the caraway seeds,  brown sugar, and orange zest.  The taste is exceptional.  Somehow, this reminds me of gripe water that we give to babies.  Very very refreshing taste...if you are one of those that like caraway seeds,  try this...

Ingredients:

3/4 cup water
2 tbsp brown sugar
Zest of 1 orange, grated
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 package yeast
2 cups of bread flour


1.    Boil water, sugar, orange, butter and caraway seeds for 3 minutes.
2.    Mix 1 cup of flour, yeast and the boiled ingredients (after cooled).
3.    Knead well and let it rise for 1 hour.
4.    Add rest of flour slowly and knead well.
5.    Shape into loaf pan and let proof for 1 hour.
6.    Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 1 hour


This bread is so easy to eat,  we had ate 3/4 loaf in the morning.  Eat it plain or just put tuna,  taste just as a good...