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This wonderful bread made with sugar pears, unbleached all-purpose, whole wheat and rye flours, is based on Sandra Avital's (Le Pétrin) recipe for "Pain Rustique aux Poires".

This makes GREAT toast.

More detailed description and recipe here: Pear Bread (etherwork.net/blog/?p=1311)

-Elizabeth

(Yes, I made this by hand. Yes, the dough is exceedingly sloppy....)

Sandra Avital's (Le Pétrin) recipe is here: Pain Rustique aux Poires (sandrakavital.blogspot.com/2008/12/pain-rustique-aux-poires-pour-stphane.html) - recette en français

This is my version of the recipe from HERE 'Im having trouble getting this to go directly to the recipe, in search type Crusty Greek Country Bread'. I have never made a bread containing goats milk, I thought this a good choice instead of the water called for in the recipe, and I have to say what a very pleasant surprise.  It turned out just as I hoped it would.  The flavor with levain and goats milk was delicious and I've never tasted anything like it before.  It had a sweet creamy taste from the goats milk and duram flour with the added nutty flavor from the sesame seeds.  The crumb was just as I wanted just open enough, I coated the egg wash on extra heavy and all the way down the sides to hold an extra heavy sprinkling of the sesame seeds.  This bread will be outstanding toasted or for sandwiches, whatever way you choose to enjoy it.

Sponge: set aside to rise for 2 hours.

208 gm liquid levain - 100% hydration

84 gms scalded and cooled goats milk - 

62 gms Bread flour

Dough:

671 gms Bread Flour

240 gms Duram Flour - You have your choice of flour combinations - Duram is one of my favorites 

420 gms Scalded Goats Milk - cooled

2 Tbsp. Honey

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil

1 Tbsp. Sea Salt

Adding the sponge, I used mechanical and hands with my KA and a combination of Stretch and folds. 

Glaze: One whole egg with 2 tsp water and wisked till foamy - 1/2 cup sesame seeds -

 two round linen lined baskets were used for proofing and then turned onto parchment paper on paddles and slid onto hot oven stone.

Preheat oven and stone 450F convection setting for one hour

Because the loaves were heavily coated with glaze I only spritzed my oven after putting in my loaves....no steaming device was used.

Baked for 45 minutes adjusting my oven temperature from 450 convection off 10mins. reducing down to 425 and 375F.

                      Sylvia

The Corona mill isn't a grain mill, it's a corn mill. Got that?

Catalog page circa 1929.

I'll admit it took me a long time to figure this out. I've been aware of these mills way back in the early 1970s when I used to subscribe to Mother Earth News magazine and dreamt of a life of subsistence farming to replace the suffocating suburban lifestyle of a twenty year old. Buy whole wheat in bulk and grind your own flour for pennies!

To this day, people buy these things and then complain at how totally useless it is for bread flour.

“I bought this for the sole purpose of making bread flour. I got it, set it up, put some wheat into it, tightened basically as far as it would go, and the berries came out almost exactly as they went in. Plus, there were little iron filings from the burrs mixed in. Great.”

reported an unhappy customer on Amazon's Weston Cereal and Multi-Grain Mill customer review page.

The original Corona mill was developed by Landers, Frary and Clark of Connecticut some time before 1900 and was apparently sold worldwide. In 1951, a company, LANDERS Y CIA. S. A., was formed in Columbia to make these for home nixtamal production. It still produces this ancient cast-iron, hot tin plated mill along with Columbian rival Victoria, and the Mexican-made mill Estrella. These three mills are virtually identical, the Estrella being painted rather than tin-plated. There are many other brands of the same-design corn mills and I believe those are made in China (note the rubber pad on the upper part of the clamp).

  
Victoria and Estrella mills.

I've been making more tortillas and other pan breads lately because summer weather makes oven baking a sweaty pain in the ass. I had been using dried masa harina and the result is much better than store-bought tortillas. Realizing that GMO corn is the norm these days, I went looking for organic masa harina and didn't have any luck. I can get whole organic corn from my local co-op for only about $0.50 a pound if I buy it in 25 lb. bags, so why not get one of those cheap mills and make the good stuff myself? Ebay has new Coronas for $64.29, Victorias for $60.24 and the Estrella for $58.99, including shipping. Shipping is a killer for these heavy cast-iron mills.

I found a used Corona for $24.50 with $8.99 shipping. I later found the all-time best deal at Amazon for a new Victoria Corn Grinder at $34.99 with free shipping (I had been searching for 'grain mill' and missed it).

My dirty and scuffed Corona mill of unknown vintage.

When I received it, I took it apart and washed it in hot soapy water. The scuff marks didn't disappear, and I found a bit of rust inside. I lightly oiled the whole thing with food-grade mineral oil (baby laxative). The grinding burrs show little, if any, wear. Perhaps it was originally owned by someone who expected to make bread flour with it!

There's just one Mexican grocery in the county where I live, so next time I was in the area, I picked up some reddish blue whole corn and a little package of Cal (slaked lime). I tried grinding some of the untreated dry corn and the mill was a lot stronger than I expected! Corn meal, grits or polenta is easily ground with by adjusting the coarseness of the grind. A few days later, I made some fresh tortilla masa.

Rinsed whole corn.

Rather than explain the whole nixtamalization process, there's a video on Youtube of the Alton Brown's excellent show "Tort(illa) Reform" that was written by professionals.

I used the recipe from that show for my masa. I've seen similar nixtamalization recipes on the net for tamales and posole that require longer cooking times than for tortillas.

Finished fresh masa. The wet corn went through the Corona so easily. No metate for me! The nixtamal smell is a lot less strong than when using dried masa harina. My kitchen lights don't show enough of the blue spectrum.

Then I made some extra-large sopes.

I hand-formed the very thick tortilla. Cook on a medium hot pan for about 30 seconds, then flip over and cook the other side for about 1 ½ or 2 minutes.

Remove the tortilla from the pan, flip it most-cooked side up and form a little lip around the edge. Return the tortilla to the hot frypan and spread with refried beans.

In another pan quickly fry a bit of good-quality mozzerella, string cheese or Oaxaca cheese. I used a not-so-good quality mozzerella here and it spread like butter.

Add shredded lettuce to the sope and top with the fried cheese. My cheese turned to glop.

Finally, add salsa, onion and chopped tomato.

Tortillas made from fresh masa taste and smell much better than ones made from dried masa harina, which in turn are much better than store-bought corn tortillas.

I've since made great peanut butter with my Corona, and expect that I can do from-scratch falafels by grinding soaked chickpeas. If I wanted to make my own tofu, it would be great for grinding soybeans. The home-brewing crowd uses these to crack malted barley for beermaking. Survivalists tout these as necessary items to have on hand for the ever-impending collapse of civilization.

I saw that flour-mill maker Retsel offers stone grinding-wheel kit for Coronas for only $29.95, but I still don't think the fit of the Corona mill is precise enough to get good flour from them. It's corn mill, remember?

Image: Chipati with chickpea, potato and spinach stew.

I wrote a story in the WaPo on a wood-fired baking class at King Arthur Flour with Jeffrey Hamelman. Here's the companion recipe on flatbread, which has a hydration of 66%. It seemed appropriate given the long thread launched by Bhutan Baker.

Summer is a great time to make this yeast-free flatbread, which takes minutes to cook on top of the stove. The recipe calls for chapati flour, a very finely ground whole-wheat flour that is available in Indian markets. You can use regular whole-wheat flour, but it must be sifted to remove any large particles of bran.

MAKE AHEAD: This dough is best made in the morning for use later in the day. The balls of dough can be refrigerated in a lightly oiled resealable plastic food storage bag for 2 or 3 days; let the dough come to room temperature before rolling. The flatbreads can be wrapped in aluminum foil and reheated in a 400-degree oven for about 5 minutes.

Makes 12 flatbreads

Ingredients:

3 cups (400 grams) whole-wheat flour or chapati flour, plus more for the work surface (see headnote)

Scant 1 1/4 cups (265 grams) water

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil, plus more for the bowl

1 1/2 teaspoons (8 grams) salt

Directions:

Combine the flour, water, oil and salt in a bowl until they come together into a mass. Let sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes while the flour absorbs the water.

Lightly flour a work surface. (All-purpose flour can be used for this; if using whole-wheat flour, make sure it has been sifted to remove any large bran particles.) Transfer the dough to the work surface and knead for about 5 minutes by pushing down on and spreading the dough and then turning it over on itself, being careful not to rip the dough. It should be smooth and elastic. Form it into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 8 to 12 hours.

About 45 minutes before you want to bake, spread out the dough on a lightly floured counter and form into 2 logs. Cut each log into 6 equal pieces. You should have 12 pieces of dough that weigh about 2 ounces each; evenly distribute any leftover dough as needed.

Shape each piece into a ball. Let the balls rest for 30 minutes at room temperature under plastic wrap.

Place a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat; cover with a lid. (Alternatively, invert a wok over a burner for cooking on the underside of the wok.)

Liberally flour a work surface. Flatten a dough ball and dust it lightly with flour, then use a rolling pin to roll it out as thin as possible (7 to 9 inches in diameter), rotating the disk to keep it even.

Image: dough rolled out nearly paper thin.

When the skillet is smoking lightly, gently lift a disk of dough. Place it in the skillet and cover immediately. Cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then flip the dough. Cover and cook for 30 seconds. (If using an overturned wok, simply place the bread on top of the wok and flip it when ready.) The breads will bake in 2 minutes and should be blistered and dark in spots.

Remove the flatbread and cover with a towel or aluminum foil to keep it from crusting over. (Dot it with butter and fold it in half if you like). Serve warm. These can be made in advance and stored in a resealable plastic container.

Recipe adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman, a master baker and bakery director at King Arthur Flour.

This version was posted on my blog at ChewsWise.com

Image: Flatbread stuffed with beets, goat cheese and cilantro