mhjoseph

Real Jewish rye bread uses clear flour for the non-rye component (see Secrets of a Jewish Baker). For those that don't know, clear flour is what remains after the first extraction and still has a lot of the dark outer parts of the grain and has a high protein level. This is what makes the loaf firm. I have some on hand and have been thinking about trying this method using it. Rye bread has been my culinary Mt. Everest and I haven't attempted it yet. One of the best Jewish rye bakeries in the world is down the street from me and I'm afraid that I not going to be able to meet my own expectations. From the pictures that I've seen posted though, I think that I may be able to come close. Zoe, do you have any thoughts on using clear for the AP in the recipe. Marc I used the Hodgson Mills Rye(the box doesnt specify if its light or dark). I let it rise about 1hr( while I preheated the oven). I baked it at 425( convection). ← I just looked at the bread you are comparing it to at: http://www.dimpflmeierbakery.com/ I think you might be looking for a bread made with more rye? They bake their breads in a loaf pan so they can get away with more rye, less gluten. You might try that and see what you think. Once you add more rye you will have a very loose dough and will need to use a pan to bake it. I'm still amazed at how fluffy your bread turned out! If anything I have been having conversations with people on how to get their breads to be fluffier! Was your kitchen particularly warm while the dough was resting? Did it seem to be rising faster? One hour seems just about perfect for this bread and I've never described this loaf as fluffy. The flours and the rest time are all spot on! You may want to reduce the rise time next time so it doesn't develop as much loft. Wow, I never thought I'd sy that!!! Thanks this is very interesting. Zoe ←

There's this Cusinart Brick Oven which is a table top model that might be what you are looking for: Cusinart Brick Oven

Funny you should say that as it's exactly the last thought I remember before I fell asleep last night! ← Good luck with the banneton, I've had mixed success with it but in general I find the dough a little too wet to make a lasting impression on the bread. But, I've learned not to discourage people from trying things with this dough, they often make discoveries I wouldn't have! Let me know how it goes! Zoe ← Well the experiment was a success. I shaped the loaves and put them in the banneton last night and refrigerated them until this morning. I baked directly out of the refrigerator and they look spectacular, except one loaf got a little misshapen. I'll see how they taste tonight but I have high expectations. Sorry about the poor photography but you'll get the idea: Marc

Wow, that looks fantastic. I think I'm going to take it a step further when I do this tonight and proof the loaf in a banneton if it's not impossibly wet. Marc ←

The house is pretty cold at night, we've been having single digit temps at night and I set back the thermostat to 65 at night. I've never tried overnight proofing out of fridge before. I'm anxiously awaiting your results. Marc Hi Marc, Great question! I do believe you will have the same good luck with our dough. In fact I wonder if this won't solve many of the problems of over handling while shaping, because it will have such a nice long cool rise. Very interesting indeed! If I understand correctly you also were wondering about leaving the dough out all night at room temperature? It is worth a try, but I suspect that it will over proof and will have no oven spring? I've never tried this so it would be a good experiment. As soon as I leave this computer I'm going to shape a loaf and then set it to rise in the refrigerator. I'll report tomorrow what I come up with. Thanks for the inspiration! Zoe ←

Hi Zoe, I have a question. My usual method in baking artisan type breads is to retard the shaped loafs overnight and bake them cold out of the fridge first thing in the morning (in a preheated oven of course). I have no problem and get great oven spring. This fits my schedule very nicely and I would like to adapt this method because it works for me. If I shape the loaves the night before and either put them in the refrigerator or leave out at room temp, which is about 65F this time of year, do you think I'll have a problem? Thanks, Marc

Kosher Italia has some more exotic choices.

This may sound gross, but it is really simple and delicious. We put the whole chicken along with onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes and the seasoning of choice in the crock pot with no water. It is left on the low setting for the day or as little as 4-5 hours. Moisture is generated from the ingredients during cooking and even the white meat is juicy and tasty. The current issue of Cook's Illustrated has a similar recipe except that they don't use a crock pot, but a dutch oven placed in the regular oven. I thought their technique was overly fussy, you can just dump in the ingredients and go. A friend mentioned that they even start out with a frozen chicken (the Empire frozen ones that Costco carries.)

I've always been of the opinion that almost anything taste great right out of the oven.

I made the recipe, baking today from dough that's been in the fridge since Wednesday. They look gorgeous, I am saving them for guests tonight so I can't cut them open yet. Sorry about the blurry image, I took it on my Treo, but you get the idea. The dough was quite wet and hard to work with. The boules spread out a lot and I thought they would be too flat but there was tremendous oven spring. I baked them 40 minutes out the fridge as the recipe called for.

I've been using the Pizza Neapolitan recipe from the Bread Bakers Apprentice. Following the instructions pretty closely, it is extremely easy to make thin, something I was never able to do before.

I live in Cleveland, not Detroit, but the principle is the same. I don't want to pay the shipping for Intelligensia so I roast my own which isn't much more difficult than making popcorn and costs half the price. Go to Sweet Maria's to find out everything there is to know about home roasting.

Well, I tried it tonight and it was quite good. The next time I would make a thinner crust, the first pie burned a bit on the bottom so I overcompensated on the next one and ended up sticking it under the broiler to melt the cheese.

In today's NYT Mark Bittman does a pan fried pizza that looks really promising. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/dining/0...html?ref=dining (Registration required as usual) Tell me what you guys think. By coincidence I made pizza dough last night and it's fermenting in the fridge for tonight's supper and I plan to give it a try.

It opened in the last few days in Woodmere on Chagrin Blvd. a few doors east of Trader Joe's. It's no got no big surprises, but it's pretty cool having the whole catalog right there in front of you.

Yes, we own one and use it constantly. My wife is Persian, and although I do most of the cooking, she approves of the rice as does her family. (I've become a pretty decent Persian cook, along with the other ethnic cuisines I've picked up).

Click here: http://tinyurl.com/2b785w Makes great tahdig, but the machine is very manual. No automatic shutoff or anything. BTW, here's another one that I found: http://sadaf.com/store/product709.html I can't voucher for it though. mj

I have never used kosher gelatine, but I have used agar agar in place of gelatine in desserts made for my Muslim students. Agar agar is a seaweed. You can buy it in Asian stores, in "leaves" or in powder form. Hope that helps. ← Kosher gelatine can come from either agar agar, or animal or fish bones so you have to be careful of you are buying. There is some useful information here.

I agree with Zoe that you can be very creative and do great bread in a bread machine. I regularly make dough for all kinds of "artisan" breads from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice and "Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine" in the machine and shape and bake manually. You can manipulate the times for longer fermentations and make pre-ferments in the machine and come back hours later to make the finished dough. The biggest limiting factor, which makes me wish for a KA, is being able to only make two loafs at a time. I do find that you can knead six cups of flour in slack dough even though the manufacturer recommends no more than 4 1/2.

Potatonik (see "Secrets of a Jewish Baker", George Greenstein for recipe)

No, no, no that's $15 for 50 lbs.

What a great idea. I'm about 60 miles from Amish country, I never though about it.

The reason I mentioned adding vital wheat gluten for challah is that I've baked challah with both KA All Purpose and KA Bread Flour and I find the the texture with Bread Flour is more to my liking, not that the All Purpose is by any means bad. I'm trying to determine if adding the gluten is going give me the same product as bread flour would. The Montana Wheat looks interesting but if I can't get it locally the shipping charges will kill you. I just priced out flour from another mill in the midwest and shipping was more than the flour. Your opinion of Sir Galahad is encouraging.

I found a local source for 50 lb. bags of King Arthur flour from a bakery wholesaler who is willing to sell to me, a home baker. The price is $15 something, half the price compared to 5 lb. from the supermarket. My question is which flour to buy, I don't want to buy more than one bag at a time but I have various needs and want to find one that will suit them all. Here is the selection: King Arthur Conventional Flours. My baking consists of mainly artisan breads (incl. sourdough), pizza and challah. I'm thinking that if I get Sir Galahad with 11.7% protein, which is best suited for artisan loafs and add vital wheat gluten when I need a higher protein level which I prefer for challah, that will give me the most versatility. Will that work as well as a flour that is milled for higher protein content or am I missing something here? Thanks, Marc

I read opinions in different books covering all of the possibilities, all-purpose vs. bread flour, organic vs. non-organic, all white vs. rye or whole wheat, spring water vs. tap water, etc. I used KA Organic All-Purpose because I had some on hand and it worked out fine for me but I don't know if it's necessary. I have to admit that I cheated a little and seeded the first feeding with a few grains of commercial active dry yeast. I figured that I'm after good taste not necessarily purity or authenticity. The flour in the Costco stores in my area are all bleached flour which I want to avoid, but is a good dollar value.