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Day 3 - The last day of the Conference - as I arrived, was happy to be greeted by dew-kissed apples in the orchard,

and another beautiful, sunny breakfast :^)

 

There were also fresh, wood-fired bagels – my goodness, we were spoiled with all of the fresh, lovely food we were presented with!:
 

***

The morning passed quickly, being very absorbed in Scott Mangold’s class, “Test Baking with Local Wheats for Home and Bakery”. Scott is a very good teacher and gave very practical advice on the testing process, and conveyed his considerable level of skill and experience as he assessed locally-grown wheats, whose properties could be unknown or vary from season to season.

MC (farine-mc.com) has (so kindly!) written a detailed post about Scott's class, found here:
http://www.farine-mc.com/2012/09/scott-mangold-test-baking-with-local.html

Assessing rise and spread of doughs made with two different local, whole-wheat flours:
                              

The baked breads: I got to taste two of them – both were good, and but my favorite was the bread made with Red Russian wheat - I sure do hope I come across that variety of wheat someday, for baking ; its flavor was exquisite :^)

 
Four varieties of local wheats tested: Renan, Hedlin Farm's Bauermeister, Camas Red Fife, and Red Russian

A close-up of one of the loaves:

***

After the morning class, one last walk along the colorful path from the Sakuma  Auditorium; so many pretty flowers :^)
               

***

We were treated to another great meal, a lasagna lunch (yummy and from Patty Pan catering), before saying our good-byes or departing for tours that had been scheduled for the afternoon.

This year’s Kneading Conference West was, just like last year, great fun and a fantastic opportunity to get together with so many other generous people, interested in bread and grains, and willing to share their knowledge and experience; I sincerely hope this Conference continues as an annual event at WSU.
Many thanks to the hard-working organizers, instructors/presenters, volunteers and caterers for making it such an educational and enjoyable event to attend!

:^) breadsong

Previous posts: Kneading Conference 2012 - Day 1
                          Kneading Conference 2012 - Day 2

1971, when I was a student, I traveled with my best friend, Andrea, through England, Cornwall and Wales. We didn't have a fixed itinerary, we just followed our nose to places we had read or heard about.

We didn't stay in hotels (only once, and that was as dusty as it was expensive), we preferred B&Bs, always looking for interesting old buildings. We slept in grand manor houses, rustic inns, cozy farm houses, and even a water mill from the sixteenth century.

People always complain about the English food - I never had a really bad experience, I would always find something I liked, as long as it started with "apple" and ended with "pie"!

We often ate in pubs, having sandwiches with cheddar and chutney, and I was delighted to try the different beers.

With all these fond memories in mind - no wonder I wanted to try master baker Dan Lepard's Alehouse Rolls. You will find it in his book "Short and Sweet", or here.

I had just bought Newcastle Brown Ale at the Bangor commissary, and thought this was very appropriate for British rolls.

The dough is made with a hot beer soaker - ale and oats are brought to a boil, with butter and honey added to the hot liquid - and the rolled oats are toasted.

It also has some whole grain flour, to make the rolls even heartier (and give health conscious bakers a better conscience!)

Dan Lepard has a nice, minimalistic approach to working the dough, he handles it gently, kneads it very briefly, and allows it to develop while resting (autolyse).

As a psychotherapist this method appeals to me a lot: give the patient dough the means and time to develop, without pushing and hectoring - and it will grow just fine!

I chose rye as whole grain flour, and had to add a little more water to achieve a soft, slightly sticky dough. Instead of letting the dough rest for a final 30 minutes on the counter, I did what I usually do - and put it to sleep overnight in the fridge.

This cold fermentation of the dough fits much better in my schedule than doing it all on one day. Though I like baking in the morning, I don't want to get up in the wee hours, so I prepare everything the day before, and only have the shaping and baking left to do.

Having to choose between large sandwich rolls (à 235 g a piece) or smaller dinner rolls, I opted for the more petite version - 12 rolls à 92 g.

The recipe suggests rolling the rolls first over wet kitchen paper towels and then in oat flakes. I didn't read the instructions thoroughly, and, therefore, dunked only the tops in the oat meal.

Whereas the giant sandwich rolls have to bake for 20 minutes at 210º C/410º F, and then some more at reduced heat, my little rolls were golden brown after 26 minutes (without reducing the heat.)

They tasted just as good as they looked, a semi-soft crust with a little crunch, and a hearty, somewhat nutty flavor.

And, since I am a stickler to etiquette, I didn't dream of pairing them with anything else but traditional Newcastle Brown Ale!

Having had such a wonderful time at last year’s Kneading Conference West, I jumped at the chance to attend this year’s event and be immersed, once again, in all things grain. It was really good to see friendly faces from last year and meet new people – so many interesting, and interested people to chat with, and learn from!

***To see some wonderful write-ups of this event, and more pictures, please see these posts:
Floyd’s http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30236/kneading-conference-west-part-1
Floyd’s http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30241/kneading-conference-west-part-2
MC-Farine’s http://www.farine-mc.com/2012/09/kneading-conference-west-2012.html
Naomi Duguid's  http://naomiduguid.blogspot.ca/2012/09/notes-from-skagit-valley.html
Rhona McAdam’s http://reallygoodwriter.com/food-festivals/kneading-with-a-k
Teresa from Northwest Sourdough's http://www.northwestsourdough.com/discover/?p=3199
Teresa from Northwest Sourdough's http://www.northwestsourdough.com/discover/?p=3237


Washington State University’s Mount Vernon extension, where the event was held, is located in the beautiful
Skagit Valley and is an ideal location for this event – lovely fields and orchards, conference spaces and labs –
and the staff there are such gracious hosts! Here is the extension’s director, Dr. Steve Jones, serving up some yummy pretzel samples,
freshly-baked in Andrew Meltzer’s class:  

More sharing of good bread: a gorgeous wood-fired miche someone brought; check out the brick pattern imprinted on the bottom during the bake :^)

 
      I regret I didn’t get to taste this: 

We enjoyed some pretty amazing company: Keynote Speakers Naomi Duguid and Andrew Whitley;  so many great instructors, volunteers, bakers, millers, and maltsters;  old, and new friends;  and also, enjoyed very delicious ‘tastings’, accompanied by glorious and perfect late-summer weather…

...a lovely orchard apple, ripening in the September sun  



***
The conference opened with Naomi Duguid’s keynote address, “Bread Over Time”.
Naomi talked about looking back – how we are standing on the shoulders of peoples’ determination, creativity, labor and achievements in the absence of technology, in using grain - a rich and difficult resource - to survive; and discussed respect and how we may be able to give grain-based foods value again by getting back to local grains, individual varietals with local, distinctive flavors – so we might know where our grain comes from, recognize the effort it takes to produce food from grain, have a commitment to a piece of our bread’s production and a relationship with those that have a part of producing it. MC-Farine has captured so well Naomi’s address!:
http://www.farine-mc.com/2012/09/naomi-duguid-bread-over-time.html




***

The next session I attended was “Whole Grains: We Need the Whole Story” presented by Bob Klein, Tom Hunton, Cliff Leir, and Andrew Whitley. The panel discussed milling methods and that ‘whole-wheat’ might not mean ‘whole-grain’.
As part of this panel discussion a video was shown that described (and I hope I’m paraphrasing correctly) “A wheat kernel may be more than the sum of its parts – it’s a system – all pieces are designed to work together; how can we outsmart a well-designed seed?; we may not have all of the science yet to know what phytochemicals we may be missing when we exclude certain parts of the grain from our flour”.
It was noted “what’s in the mixing bowl may not be usable by our bodies” and how study is needed to determine how long fermentation may help make the nutrition in the grain more available to us.

Bob Klein, of Community Grains, presented an example of product labelling that might help the consumer understand what they were purchasing:

I remember seeing coffee beans for sale at a market once, which listed on the package, the place and elevation where the beans were grown, along with the name of the farmer that grew the coffee. That packaging, as with this labelling from Community Grains, causes me to think of the people behind the product :^)

There was discussion too, on how to improve consumers’ perception of whole grain flour, perhaps by emphasizing freshness, that the product was produced with integrity, the product’s good/distinctive flavor and by creating more positive connotations of the product with better description (describing a bread as “golden” instead of “brown”, for example).

***

In Julie Richardson and Laura Ohm’s class, they were preparing some beautiful pies and tarts; these were peach and plum with raspberry – pleated pie and pastry perfection! (a picture of baked ones coming up, next post): 

                                  
         
                                  
                                                                                                                                

***

In the afternoon, we enjoyed a Skagit Valley Tasting - incredible beer from Skagit Valley Malting, delicious goat cheese from Gothberg Farms, and crispy, flavorful, hand-crafted crackers from Dawn Woodward, of Evelyn’s Crackers:

And from the gorgeous gardens, a yellow poppy,
catching some of the last of the day’s sunshine :^)

***

After the beer, cheese and cracker tasting, and a extremely tasty wood-fired-pizza dinner (thanks to Mike Dash of Rolling Fire Pizza, and Mark Doxtader of Tastebud Farm), the day ended with a talk given by Richard Scheuerman about the heritage of grain-growing and the agricultural history of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Pacific Northwest, illustrated with beautiful artwork
(really lovely botanical drawings of various heritage grains): 

Richard talked about the biodiversity of the grains that used to be grown in the Puget Sound region and explained these grains were landrace grains, strains with rich genetic diversity that adapted over time to the locales in which they were grown. I thought I heard Richard say some of the historical varieties he researched are now being grown at the WSU extension (I hope I heard correctly), because if that is the case, isn’t it wonderful the ‘terroir’ of some of those Pacific Northwest grains is being preserved? :^)

Continued with next post: Kneading Conference West 2012 - Day 2

Last year's event: Kneading Conference West 2011

I am lazy sometimes. Well, most of the time in the last few weeks. Family still has to eat, though, and after fajitas were a hit last night, I threw the rest on a basic 75% hydration pizza dough thusly:

Yay for chicken, bell peppers, onions, and cheddar pizza. :D