The Bread Topic (2016–)

[Barrytm]

On the Eastern Coast of the US ,   they have had white whole wheat for years.  BTW,  I know it is more work, but home milled white whole wheat is even better than the stuff on the shelves.  Though,  you would then have to track down winter white wheat berries -  and they can be a little hard to find and a flour mill.   I only point that out because  I have made 100% home milled white whole wheat for a number of people, and have never had anything but positive feedback. When using home milled red whole wheat, it is more of a grassy taste then actually bitter - I think the bitter may come from the age of red whole wheat on the store shelves.   

[Anna N]

Five grain fruit bread from Le Pain Quotidien. I really like this bread. It has sesame, flax, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, rolled oats and golden raisins. I am guessing they are counting the oats as the fifth seed? I think it would work just as well without the raisins if one were inclined to forgo the sweetness although I liked it.  It uses a pâte fermentée.

[ElsieD]

@Anna N  That bread looks amazing.  I love grainy bread with fruit in it, toasted, with just butter on it.

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[David Ross]

Well, until two weeks ago I considered myself a failure at making bread.  There was that time about 10 years ago where I used Julia Child's baguette recipe and it turned out ok as I remember,  but tried as I did, I just couldn't bake a decent bread.  Well I came upon some of the recipes that are out there aka no-knead artisan style breads.  But I changed it quite a bit to make it my take on the no-knead easy method.  After just a few changes to the recipe, I think I've come up with a winner.  At least baking three loaves in a week and going through scads of butter to slather on slices tells me I may have finally hit on a winner.

 

I doubled the amount of yeast, added some sugar and have been using King Arthur Bread Flour rather than all-purpose and I think that has made a difference from earlier loaves.  I also increased the baking times by about 10 minutes in each of the two baking stages.  The first stage you put the bread in a heated large cast iron pot, (I used my biggest Le Creuset), for about 35 minutes.  Then the cover comes off and the bread bakes another 20 minutes or so.  I was amazed at the airy pockets and the crisp crust. Last week I made it with some pesto folded into the dough and it turned out very delicious. 

 

3 1/2 cups bread flour

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. yeast

1 tsp. sugar

1 1/2 cups water (115-120)

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl until combined.  At this point I took another turn from the recipe.  It recommends covering in plastic wrap and letting it sit at room temperature for 8-24 hours.  Well I didn't want my little dough baby to be held back by cling film, so I put it in an oiled large Tupperware cake holder, (putting the cake holder upside down), then loosely covering it with the lid.  It expands yet has some air to breather.  I've let the dough rest for as little as 8 hours and as long as 24 and the results were the same.

 

Then you heat the oven to 450 and put in your big old pot.  Let it preheat and then gently put in the bread dough.  That's been a bit tricky so I'm going to experiment with that some more.  Then bake for about 35 minutes covered.  Then off with the lid and another bake of about 20 minutes until it's as darn golden brown as you want.  I use my meat slicer to get consistent, thick slices.

 

 

 

 

 

[JohnT]

@David RossThat is a fine looking crumb structure for a Ciabatta. Your hydration is very high and, together with the long rising time, you really are making a Ciabatta! Great loaf!

[lindag]

13 hours ago, David Ross said:

 

 

Then you heat the oven to 450 and put in your big old pot.  Let it preheat and then gently put in the bread dough.  That's been a bit tricky so I'm going to experiment with that some more.  Then bake for about 35 minutes covered.  Then off with the lid and another bake of about 20 minutes until it's as darn golden brown as you want.  I use my meat slicer to get consistent, thick slices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The method I use is a variation of one learned from CI.  Put the dough onto a large sheet of parchment and drop it into that very hot pot.

[ElsieD]

@David Ross  Great looking bread.  You let if rise just the once?

[David Ross]

9 hours ago, JohnT said:

@David RossThat is a fine looking crumb structure for a Ciabatta. Your hydration is very high and, together with the long rising time, you really are making a Ciabatta! Great loaf!

Thanks for the kind words.  I'm probably going to be baking one of these once a week for many years to come.

[David Ross]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

@David Ross  Great looking bread.  You let if rise just the once?

There were two rises.  The first is the long one.  Then I punched it down, shaped the loaf and let it rest for only 15 minutes, so you couldn't really say the second one was a true rise.

[David Ross]

4 hours ago, lindag said:

The method I use is a variation of one learned from CI.  Put the dough onto a large sheet of parchment and drop it into that very hot pot.

Thanks so much I'll do that next time.  I didn't like the fact that when I handled the dough and put it in the hot pot it lost some rise.  But it did still rise well during the bake.  I use a similar trick with parchment when baking a pizza, so I'll use the parchment next time. 

[Anna N]

 

Seeded, white pullman loaf  mixed in the Thermomix. I am still on the fence about this one. I chose to use only two seeds --sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.   It makes nice toast and is mild enough to not overwhelm a filling. Might need more salt then I gave it. Might improve by adding the seeds much later in the kneading process so they are not quite so ground up. Might be better as a simple loaf rather than an Pullman loaf.  Just thinking out loud. 

 

[Anna N]

 

 Buttermilk (actually yogourt) bread

done in the Thermomix and successfully baked in the Cuisinart steam oven. 

[Shelby]

17 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

 Buttermilk (actually yogourt) bread

done in the Thermomix and successfully baked in the Cuisinart steam oven. 

Nice!!!!

 

Have you made this recipe before using the CSO?

[Anna N]

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Have you made this recipe before using the CSO?

No.  It's a new recipe for me altogether. 

[lindag]

18 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

 Buttermilk (actually yogourt) bread

done in the Thermomix and successfully baked in the Cuisinart steam oven. 

Did you 'steam bake' that lovely loaf?

[ElsieD]

18 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

 Buttermilk (actually yogourt) bread

done in the Thermomix and successfully baked in the Cuisinart steam oven. 

 

@Anna N  Anna, where do you find your thermomix bread recipes?

[Anna N]

13 minutes ago, lindag said:

Did you 'steam bake' that lovely loaf?

 I used the bread function at 400°F. 

[lindag]

1 minute ago, Anna N said:

 I used the bread function at 400°F. 

And did you need to cover it for part of the time to avoid over-browning?

[Anna N]

13 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Anna, where do you find your thermomix bread recipes?

I find them all over the Internet. Here  is the buttermilk recipe but I replaced the buttermilk with yogurt and some additional water to bring it up to 180 g and a reasonable level of liquidity. 

 

I just use Google and type in "bread  in Thermomix".   I like sites where the recipes have a review of some sort but I also read over the recipe and ask myself if it makes sense. Not all of them do. I find the Australian Thermomix sites to be the most useful to me. 

[Anna N]

5 minutes ago, lindag said:

And did you need to cover it for part of the time to avoid over-browning?

 Yes I certainly did.   It's still annoys me immensely that one needs to do that. 

[Anna N]

 

  Three rather poorly shaped batards from Uri Scheft's Breaking Breads. Baked in the CSO ( Cuisinart steam oven) on a cast aluminum plate from a now defunct Griddler. 

[Duvel]

Reinhart's "Poor man's brioche" for Sunday morning toasts ...

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

12 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Reinhart's "Poor man's brioche" for Sunday morning toasts ...

 

 

 

I first thought you meant something entirely else by "toasts" but then I looked at the bottle and saw tea.

 

[Duvel]

23 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I first thought you meant something entirely else by "toasts" but then I looked at the bottle and saw tea.

 

Yeah, those times are over. But that bread would be nice - heavily buttered - with smoked salmon and a glass of MR ...

 

Damn, it's only 10 am

[Chris Hennes]

With the release of Modernist Bread imminent, it's time to revisit my bread-baking skills. For years I've basically only made the basic loaf from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, with an occasional kick over to Reinhart's Pain à l'Ancienne (which I consider the finest bread in my arsenal). Last night I took it into my head to dig through my old bread cookbooks and make something a bit faster. Which is to say, it was 8pm and I wanted to be eating fresh bread by midnight. Prior to the release of the other two books, my go-to bread book was The Bread Bible: Beth Hensperger's 300 Favorite Recipes -- so last night I pulled it off the shelf and made the Oatmeal Bulgur loaf:

 

 

Obviously is much more of a sandwich loaf than the artisan-style loaves in the other books, but I did in fact have it out of the oven at something like 11:55pm. I enjoy the texture, and it really does make a good sandwich.