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My grandmother cooked professionally. I may have mentioned this before on these pages. She was not the "trained in culinary school" type of cook, she was a professional in the sense that a poor woman would be paid to cook in the home of a wealthy woman. As part of the whole "American Dream" experience for my family (a belated American dream perhaps as my ancestors were in America before the War for Independence) she cooked for many years in the home of the president of the university from which my brother and I obtained our undergraduate degrees.

But as I have also said before, there are cooks and there are bakers and my grandmother was most definitely a baker. Curiously, she never baked bread during the time that I knew her. She may have spent her youth churning the stuff out and by the time I was inhabiting the planet she was pretty enthusiastic about the stuff that she could buy from the bread man. Interestingly, though, she did a lot of work with the 4-H and county extension office and was a well known judge for bread. In fact, when I was just a kid, every bread attempt I made was subjected to her expert judging. (I've discussed this with the doctors at "The Place" and they feel this explains a lot of things.) I always appreciated it.

 She was a stickler for measuring ingredients. I have a perfectly clear memory of making a simple frosting with her and she poured in a "smidge" of vanilla directly from the bottle. She warned me quite sternly that I was NOT to do that until I was as old as she. I am now that old.

 She also was the kind of person who enjoyed writing recipes. She wrote them to the very best of her ability to the standards of the day (at least the standards for writers for home cooks) so as my exploration of old recipes continues I realized that I had some long neglected recipes written by the very best source of all. No "butter the size of an egg" or "handful of flour" for her - these were all written with precise volumetric measurements and instructions that anyone with a reasonable grasp of basic baking skills could follow. The apple didn't fall from tree, eh? I cannot calculate a baker's percentage without wondering what she would think of the kid now. She enjoyed learning new things and I'm sure she would have embraced the whole thing as eagerly as I.

 When I retired her mixer (which is almost as old as my mother and which is still carefully stored in my house) about 20 years ago to buy the Kitchen Aide I couldn't help but think that she would have been pleased that I could go out and buy whatever mixer I wanted. I wonder what she would think of My Precioussss (which is the only mixer I have owned that can tackle her "Brown Christmas Cookie" dough) - I bet she would have gotten a big kick out of it.

 While "my teacher" is the voice in my head, she is the beat of my baking heart.

She died too young - a victim of the lingering effects of bovine tuberculosis. She never saw my brother or me graduate from that university whose president she fed. So all of you who judge me harsh when people speak with near religious fervor of the goodness of un pasteurized milk must grant me some leeway.  You now know what that stuff cost me.

 So I present one of her yeast based recipes. With volume measurements and no fancy modern techniques.  As she wrote it.

I'll give a warning though, this is real Pennsylvania Dutch cooking and has been condemned by the American Heart Association. But it is good...

Moravian Sugar Cake

2 pkgs. Active dry yeast

1 cup warm water (110 F. to 115 F.)

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs (well beaten)

1 ½ cups melted butter (use ½ cup for top of cake)

1 cup hot mashed potatoes

5 to 6 cups sifted flour

1 ½ cups light brown sugar

3 teaspoons cinnamon (more or less)

Soften yeast in the warm water (my note: see, she even knew that you didn't need to "proof" the yeast - just dissolve it - remind you of anyone?), let stand 5 or 10 min. Mix together the sugar, salt, eggs and 1 cup of the melted butter. Gradually beat in the mashed potatoes, add 1 cup of the flour, beat until smooth.  Stir in the yeast and beat enough of the remaining flour to form a light dough. Cover. Let rise in a warm place until doubled. About 2 hours. Divide dough into 3 portions and press evenly into 3 9-inch square pans. Cover, let rise until doubled. Make indentations about 1 inch apart in dough in each pan and spoon sugar mixture into each depression. Drizzle remaining ½ cup butter over top of dough. Bake at 350 F. for about 20 minutes.

The picture below shows the finished cake. They do have a sort of "craters on the moon" look (which is how they are supposed to look.)  They taste best if one makes sure to get that extra butter in the holes filled with sugar.

The pans that I baked in were my grandmother's - still doing yeoman's work in my kitchen.

Happy Baking!

 Sometimes I get giddy - and that isn't a pretty sight.

But I had just survived a week in a city that had its coldest recorded temperatures ever and departed from the airport like a traveler fleeing a disaster zone - no restrooms in the terminal - no lights on the jetbridge (a big "thank-you" goes out to the helpful gentleman who downloaded the flashlight app on to his iPhone!)  A little cold in what should be a warm place and things go haywire. While sitting in what can only be described as a stress position on a regional jet, I tried to escape from the reality of the situation by thinking about bread. I came up with the idea to make two batches of panned bread with different sweeteners.

My theory was that they would be two different colors and I could make a pretty loaf or two by combining the doughs in creative ways.

Arriving home to greet the new lunar year - the year of the Rabbit - I did have to confront the reality that my feng shui advisor tells me my kitchen is now in situated in a very inauspicious direction and I should eat out every meal and avoid turning on the oven.

Just this moment I'm thinking that is good advice. Although at the time I didn't allow it to stand in my way.

I went back to 10% of the total flour in the pre ferment and that flour being freshly ground triticale, but vowing to use more local ingredients decided to make one batch with 3 oz of honey and the other batch with 3 oz agave nectar instead of molasses .  Both of these are truly local.  The agave nectar was a deep brown in the bottle and claimed to taste like molasses - so I thought it would be a good substitute for the somewhat less local molasses, and would turn the dough a darker color.

Which is why my friends, I don't trust myself to improvise.

Both batches were the exact same color - so my little plan of a "pretty loaf" was pretty much gone. The doughs were pale - like a standard white loaf colored only by hints of the pre ferment.

Of course, they didn't taste bad, but they lacked the nice molasses flavor of my earlier loaves.  Local - schmocal - this Dutchie wants her molasses!  It is a taste not everyone enjoys, but I grew up on the stuff.  I could eat it straight from a spoon.

To tell the truth, I would be hard pressed to tell the taste of the bread sweetened with honey from that sweetened with agave. They were both nice white breads with mildly sweet flavor.  I consider that if I could get my hands on strongly flavored honey, like chestnut honey (which, of course would not be produced locally) I might have a different taste on my hands, but alas my access to this is limited just now and well, if I'm going to go non-local - I want my molasses!

The general formula is below.  Just use honey - or agave for all of the sweetener.  See earlier blogs for the technique.  It doesn't change.

But the lack of the strong molasses flavor did do one thing - it allowed the flavor of the grains to come through.  If you look at the original formula and how it has evolved, I've taken some care to reduce the yeast and slow down the overall fermentation process.  I'm sure that this has had some impact not only on the flavor but on the crumb  - still generally a fine grained tender crumb - which I hope to see when I bake the real original vs. my original vs. my final - which will come in the next so many weeks - or next year depending on my feng shui situation.  (See, it's getting the fermentation "right" - which means right for the style of bread you are baking.) The true original would not have survived the lack of molasses - it would have had no depth (but still would be better than some of those things they sell in the supermarket).  My current version could stand on its own.  I had to wonder, though, if I had "over molassesed"  the whole affair and obscured all that hard work on getting the fermentation "right" for this style of bread.

I also began to think  (because I apparently  I do this kind of thing) about adding a little of that brown color back - not with the color of the molasses but with whole grain.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood", but unlike Mr Frost, I may well have the opportunity to travel both.  It is only some grain, yeast, salt and other ingredients - and that most precious one of all - time.

I've been wanting to make this Hamelman bread for a while. I was hoping that the wheat germ would bring nutty wholesome flavors and the oil would soften the crust some.

I wasn't disappointed by the results, except for the crumb. I was careful in my non handling of the dough and it looked good before baking but I must have man handled it when transferring and inverting the three loaves.

The flavor is good and it's going to make a good sandwich later tonight.

Eric

I've been a long time viewer of this wonderful bread site and after much consideration I thought I'd post my own message. The bread bug has bitten me hard and I've been afflicted for the last 3 years attempting to make beautiful and tasty bread. The bread in this post is made in my backyard oven on wheels.  It's a Mugnaini oven put on a trailer which my uncle and I built about a year ago (Mar 2010).  Since building, I've thoroughly enjoyed the process of bread baking or pizza making as well as roasting delicious chickens, legs of lamb, and standing rib roasts.  After building the oven, my significant other and I attended a hearth bread making school at Quillisascut Farm in the state of Washington. It was a wonderful experience with great people and instructor that stepped us through the art of breadmaking in an Alan Scott design wood fired oven. 

I've attached a picture of the oven in backyard.

The bread made was adapted from Hamelman's Multigrain Sourdough, using sesame, flax, and sunflower seeds.  I've made this bread a couple of times and baked in my kitchen oven using a pan filled with lava rocks to create.  In this case, I doubled the home recipe, and baked outdoors, using a hot wet towel in a roasting pan, with hot water poured in the pan to create steam.  Met an artisan baker at the huge bread conference last fall in Las Vegas who recommended this technique.

This is picture of steam rolling out of oven after about 10 minutes prior to baking.

After loading oven with bread, I had to take a peak.  I know I should've waited, but it didn't seem to affect the bread.

Picture of loaves.  Roasting pan with wet towel seen on right side of loaves. Dark spot on left side of photo.

I baked the loaves approximately 30 minutes.  The oven floor was 500-550 degrees when I started.  The last two pictures are the finished products.  I share a lot of the bread I make with my Mom and Dad, neighbors, or other family members.  When I finished I had two construction guys at the house and after cooling the bread for an hour or so, shared with them.  I always get excited to cut into the bread to smell the aroma and taste.  The work crew and I love this bread's nutty flavor and aroma.

Hope you enjoyed looking.  Question?  I left the wet towel in for entire 30 minutes.  Can you over-steam bread?  I know from many of the books about baking bread, it states to steam first 15 minutes.  I didn't want to open oven again, so I left inside.  Thanks for viewing.

Scot