The Bread Topic (2009 – 2014)

[Kerry Beal]

I have a question. If one is using a wood fired oven for bread, and making say baguettes or french loaves, would you still use steam and how would accomplish that in such an oven?

Funny I was just wondering the same thing - being that I want to start baking some stuff in a Big Green Egg.

[Marlene]

I have a question. If one is using a wood fired oven for bread, and making say baguettes or french loaves, would you still use steam and how would accomplish that in such an oven?

Funny I was just wondering the same thing - being that I want to start baking some stuff in a Big Green Egg.

Did you get an EGG for home, Kerry? My wood fired pizza oven will be arriving this morning, hence the question.

[Kerry Beal]

I have a question. If one is using a wood fired oven for bread, and making say baguettes or french loaves, would you still use steam and how would accomplish that in such an oven?

Funny I was just wondering the same thing - being that I want to start baking some stuff in a Big Green Egg.

Did you get an EGG for home, Kerry? My wood fired pizza oven will be arriving this morning, hence the question.

Funny you should mention that - I'm working on it. I'm buying a demo at the Eggstravagansa in Niagara. I'll get possession of it on September 18th - going to kill me waiting!

[Marlene]

This is my new wood fired oven

The first bread experimentAs a first experiment, this was both a success and a failure. I made bread in the oven today.

We heated the oven to 600 and then let the temperature fall back to around 450. I had two separate baking stones in, one round and one square. I have already determined I need one long rectangular stone I think. Especially for bread.

Anyway, a bad shot of the bread baking. I put a small pan of water in the oven and I misted the loaves and the walls with water when I put them in

You can see where the smaller loaf was off the edge of the stone and came in contact with the floor. It burnt fairly quickly.

Out of the oven.

The one on the right is almost perfect, the one on the left I had to take out before it was cooked as the bottom was burnt so badly

As in this badly

The one on the right fared somewhat better, as it got a bit charred, but I think it's edible. About halfway through baking, I put a second stone under this, a cool one so the top could finish cooking without burning the bottom anymore.

I got a pretty decent oven spring, and a beautiful blistered crust that comes from a cold rise in the fridge overnight.

So, I'm not sure how to handle the burning on the bottom. For sure, a one piece rectangular stone, probably thicker than the stones I have now. I cant use a cold stone or the bread will stick to it. I could perhaps turn the oven down even further to 350 maybe. But for pizza? This could be interesting.

Flour or cornmeal on the peel doesn't help because the flour on the bottom of the bread or pizza is going to burn almost immediately. BUT, I need flour or cornmeal on the peel to ensure that the pizza or bread slides off the peel easily. I'm not quite sure yet, but it will be fun experimenting.

If the weather holds, we'll be doing pizza tonight.

[Kerry Beal]

How about doubling up with two stones?

Or in the Oakville Pottery supply place there is 18 by 28 by 3/4 inch thick kiln shelf that might just do the trick.

Lovely top crust by the way!

Edited August 14, 2010 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Marlene]

How about doubling up with two stones?

Or in the Oakville Pottery supply place there is 18 by 28 by 3/4 inch thick kiln shelf that might just do the trick.

Lovely top crust by the way!

That's what I was thinking, Kerry. Where is the Oakville Pottery Supply? I could have don stop by there this week.

[Kerry Beal]

How about doubling up with two stones?

Or in the Oakville Pottery supply place there is 18 by 28 by 3/4 inch thick kiln shelf that might just do the trick.

Lovely top crust by the way!

That's what I was thinking, Kerry. Where is the Oakville Pottery Supply? I could have don stop by there this week.

Here you go.

[Marlene]

Thanks Kerry!

We did pizza in the oven, and taking a suggestion from one of my members, it went much better.

Taking Ron's suggestion to get the stones up off the oven floor, we improvised by using the rack that came with the oven and laying that on the floor, then laying the two stones on top of the rack. The oven was heated to 600 degrees. This was much much better. And each pizza took about 4 minutes. I did notice that since the stones were of different thickness, one pizza over the other cooked faster on the bottom. Just another reason to get a full rectangular stone for this.

Don's pizza. Sort of a kitchen sink pizza. Salami, ham, bacon, jalepenos, red peppers and onion. He wanted more cheese. Oops, next time.

Ryan's usual. Green peppers, onion, red peppers and jalepenos and pineapple.

My bacon and pepperoni. Apparently it had all the cheese that Don wanted.

Crust underneath A slight char, but not bad at all.

I used the neopolitana dough from American Pie. I liked it, and it's easy to work with. But my fallback dough is still the dough from Ratio. I was pretty happy with this over all. But have I mentioned that making pizza, leaves one's kitchen as a total disaster area?

I had planned to make more bread dough up for tomorrow, but they are calling for thunderstorms all day. I may try bread again this week, but then I may wait until we get on the hunt for a proper grate and rectangular stone for this. But so far, I'm feeling a lot happier about this than I was with the bread this morning!

[robirdstx]

Yesterday, I made up my first batch of bagels using Reinhart's recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice and put them in the fridge overnight to retard.

This morning I cooked the first ones and they are wonderful! This one was sprinkled with a little kosher salt before going into the oven.

[Isabelle Prescott]

Those bagels look delicious. I want one now with my cup of coffee. I've made bagels before but not from that recipe.

What I'm looking for now is a good rye bread recipe. I made some this week with a recipe that calls for beer instead of water for the liquid. The bread is OK but not great.

Yesterday, I made up my first batch of bagels using Reinhart's recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice and put them in the fridge overnight to retard.

This morning I cooked the first ones and they are wonderful! This one was sprinkled with a little kosher salt before going into the oven.

[Kerry Beal]

Those bagels look delicious. I want one now with my cup of coffee. I've made bagels before but not from that recipe.

What I'm looking for now is a good rye bread recipe. I made some this week with a recipe that calls for beer instead of water for the liquid. The bread is OK but not great.

Good rye bread recipes are found in Secrets of a Jewish Baker.

[heidih]

Member Pille showed an interesting traditional Estonian rye bread in her first post of her food blog here and if you scroll down to post #134 she describes the method. I have had it on my "to make" list for a long time.

[andiesenji]

I'm so glad this topic popped up again today. I have been trying out some prepared mixes from The Prepared Pantry and have had some excellent results, which were totally unanticipated.

I think most members know that I am usually devoted to making things from "scratch" (sometimes carrying it to ridiculous extremes) but I also like to try some of the "convenience" mixes, as long as the results are good.

I've tried any number of commercial mixes from the grocery stores with little more than mild appreciation.

Several months ago I was alerted to this online vendor and began trying some of the mixes and was astonished at most of the results which are often as good as, if not better than my usual recipes.

I've carefully read the list of ingredients and there are no "mysterious" ingredients with incomprehensible names, just good basic ingredients. The quality has to be good because the flavors are exceptional.

This morning I baked the Anadama bread in my Sunbeam bread maker and it is very tasty. The aroma while it was baking made me salivate.

I've also tried several of the cookie mixes but since this is a bread topic I will hold off on those.

I also got the English Muffin mix (as well as the English Muffin Bread Machine mix) and the muffins baked on an electric griddle turned out beautifully and the flavor and texture were outstanding.

My most recent order consisted of the following:

Ordered:

1 M64-1 San Francisco Sourdough Gourmet Bread Machine Mixes (A Single Pack) $2.99

1 M02-1 English Muffin Bread Machine Mixes (A Single Pack) $2.99

2 M55-1 Anadama Bread - Bread Machine Mixes (A Single Pack) $2.99

1 M54-1 Buttermilk Wheat Bread Machine Mixes (One Pack) $2.99

1 M91-1 Red River Valley Settlers Multi-Grain Bread (Makes one two-pound loaf) $2.99

2 M95-1 French Bread Machine Mix - (Makes one large loaf) $2.99

1 M96-1 Summerhill Irish Potato White Bread (Makes one two-pound loaf) $2.99

1 M17-1 Country Farm White Bread Machine Mixes (A Single Pack) $2.99

1 M94-1 Summerhill Irish Oat Bread (Makes one two-pound loaf) $2.99

1 M97-1 Summerhill Irish Potato Wheat Bread (Makes one two-pound loaf) $2.99

These were all on a "featured" special price (I got an email) and some are still on the discount list:

Features mixes.

I think these mixes, particularly the ones that have ingredients that you don't use very often, are a bargain when discounted.

It's nice to have something on hand that you can pop into the bread machine with just water and butter or(I use coconut oil with excellent results), the included yeast, and have a loaf that always turns out well. They all work on the "basic" program.

I hope it is needless for me to say that I have nothing to do with this vendor, other than being a customer.

Today I'm ordering some that I have not yet tried.

The Black Russian Gourmet Bread and the Old World Sourdough Whole Grain Bread Mix. I'm told it is different from the San Francisco.

[Kerry Beal]

Playing with some naan in the past couple of days for an upcoming event and trying to get the right recipe. I'm really happy with the batch I made tonight. I did it on a pizza stone on the BBQ.

[janeer]

Those bagels look delicious. I want one now with my cup of coffee. I've made bagels before but not from that recipe.

What I'm looking for now is a good rye bread recipe. I made some this week with a recipe that calls for beer instead of water for the liquid. The bread is OK but not great.

Good rye bread recipes are found in Secrets of a Jewish Baker.

I will second this. Secrets of a Jewish Baker provides excellent recipes and instructions. The "Corn Bread," what he calls his "best bread" and what is really a rye and contains no corn, is outstanding.

[robirdstx]

Today I made Vienna Bread using Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe. I baked one of the loaves on a stone and the other in a loaf pan. They are still cooling, so I haven't sliced into them yet, but I was wondering if anyone could suggest how best to store these loaves. There are only two of us, so I was thinking of slicing and freezing the pan loaf but am not sure how to keep the other loaf fresh until we use it up. Since the bread is enriched, would it keep best in plastic at room temp?

[robirdstx]

And here's a photo of the crumb on the Vienna Bread. This is one very tasty loaf. I don't think we will be having a problem with it going stale after all!

[Aloha Steve]

There are only two of us, so I was thinking of slicing and freezing the pan loaf but am not sure how to keep the other loaf fresh until we use it up. Since the bread is enriched, would it keep best in plastic at room temp?

Lovely looking crumb. Keeping almost any bread, in any way past the fourth day usually does not work very well.

What I do with two loafs is cut each loaf in half, if large and only you two are going enjoy, maybe even into 1/3s.

Keep the 1/2 or 1/3 or what ever amount you'll eat in 3-4 days time and freeze the rest.

Note that the frozen pieces will last about 30% less time, then the freshly baked piece.

Someone here says something like refrigerate after the third day that what toast is.

Edited September 6, 2010 by Aloha Steve (log)

[robirdstx]

Lovely looking crumb. Keeping almost any bread, in any way past the fourth day usually does not work very well.

Thanks Steve. I ended up storing the partial loaf overnight in a ziploc bag with as much air pushed out as possible and it was still moist this morning. Made great toast! This bread is going to replace the Reinhart BBA White Bread recipe I have been using for sandwich bread. I like that this bread has a bit more chew to the crumb.

[Stephanie Brim]

Supposed to be breadsticks of the soft and squishy variety, but I didn't get the stuffed shells made that they were supposed to go with and, thus, this particular yeast dough has ended its life as sandwich rolls.

[suzilightning]

it's that time again - approaching u.s. thanksgiving so it's time for oatmeal bread and portugese sweet bread. we never ate the bread with the meal but it went into the oven when the turkey came out so we had bread for sandwiches later when we were picking nuts and making the fruitcakes.

tried something different this time and took one of the blobs, formed it into a rectangle, spread it with some of john's spread then covered it with johnnybird's famous outrageous toast dope and patted in some golden raisins. baked it and that is what we have been having, toasted, for breakfast - johnnybird's famous outrageous toast doped portugese sweet raisin bread.

[janeer]

it's that time again - approaching u.s. thanksgiving so it's time for oatmeal bread and portugese sweet bread. we never ate the bread with the meal but it went into the oven when the turkey came out so we had bread for sandwiches later when we were picking nuts and making the fruitcakes.

I have been trying to make good, soft, squishy Portuguese sweet bread--the kind you can buy everywhere in Rhode Island--for years, without success. do you make this kind and, if so, what is the secret to the texture? Every recipe I try (including one from a former Portuguese co-worker and PR's) is all wrong. Thanks.

[suzilightning]

actually my bread isn't like the squishy Hawaiian King rolls you can buy around here. it has a nice crust from the amount of sugar that goes into the basic recipe.

you might have success with something like a potato bread recipe with about 1/2-3/4 cup sugar added.

sorry i can't help more - though i can send you some of the rolls if you want...

[Big Mike]

My favorite bread right now is a no-knead ciabatta.

Dump it into a bowl and mix tonight, tomorrow dump it out onto a piece of parchment paper with some cornmeal, shape, proof, bake. The stuff is fool-proof, I'm a total convert.

I'm still in love with Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice though, even if the methods are a little involved.

[Big Mike]

Here's the result of the bread I was talking about in the last post

It kicks butt. So good, love to dip it in olive oil. Normally I would sneak a little rye flour into the mix but I was out. It does make a huge difference in the final flavor.