BBA Challenge - Focaccia!

I can't believe this worked.  


For Bake-A-Palooza Spring (er, summer) 2010 I decided to make a bread.  At previous BAPs, we stuck to sweets, until last spring when I broke out the Herbed Savory Cheesecake from Cookwise, which turned out to be a huge hit.  As I've been working through the Bread Baker's Apprentice, I decided it would be good to give the focaccia a try.  I'm really only somewhere in the Cs, but I wanted to do something savory but cinnamon rolls were next on the list... so I just picked something that sounded good :)

This bread was surprisingly easy, and I do think the fact that I was able to use the weekend to work the dough was definitely advantageous... not to mention the fact that the entire State of Florida is a giant proofing box right now (90+F and 100% humidity).  The dough rose beautifully.  


I started the poolish on Friday evening, letting it sit for about 3 hours before I covered it with a damp towel and aluminum foil and refrigerated it.  I pulled it out to get back to room temperature after Saturday morning's shoot with Ben & Kathy.  After it reached a reasonable temperature and all of the ingredients were combined by hand (i.e., with my bare hands - no utensils or mixers involved!), I did a series of three foldings and risings on the marble countertop in the kitchen.  This dough did not take any kneading at all.  


The herbed oil was made from fresh rosemary, oregano, thyme, and basil that I have growing here at the house. I followed the instructions and did two sessions of dimpling and oiling before putting it into the oven, which was heated to a ridiculous 500F.


When it came out, it was just beautiful and smelled great.  I was so excited that I finally achieved the correct crumb that I had to point it out to half of the attendees.  :)  It was a favorite at Bake-A-Palooza, even if it did turn my kitchen into a furnace.  In June.  In Florida.  Oy.

Ciabatta (Take Two)

Weeellll... I seem to have a hard time following directions.  At least following really specific directions.  The bread was very tasty, but not neccessarily ciabatta-y. :)

To start out, you have to make the poolish one day ahead.  Check.  Poolish made - yeast, flour, water.  So far, so good!  Then you let it ferment for a couple hours and then put the poolish in the fridge overnight... oh dear.  Problem number one:  I was overcome by bedtime before I managed to put it in the fridge.  Doh!  Oh well, we'll just go with it and see what happens.  The poolish looked fine in the morning (was still bubbling and hadn't collapsed onto itself), so it went into the fridge for the day.

Upon returning from a long day of work, I took the poolish out to adjust to room temperature and got everything ready for the rest of the dough-making.  After a good amount of time, I combined the poolish and remaining ingredients and began the rising and shaping process that seems to be pretty specific to ciabatta.  I thought that I had read and followed the directions well enough to not screw it up, but I guess not.  Besides, by the time the last rise had rolled around, it was already coming up on 11pm (someday I really will give this bread thing a try on the weekend!).  At that point, all bets are off as far as direction-following is concerned.  I think part of the problem is that usually I scan a couple recipes, get the basics, and then wing it... I know enough about creaming butter and sauteing garlic that I don't usually read the recipe instructions, so it's really hard for me to focus on every single detail in the directions.  Apparently the details matter in the world of bread!  :)

Anyway, the resulting bread was really quite flavorful (actually tasted similar to knedliky to me) and had a beautifully soft, springy texture inside and a nice, crusty outside, but it didn't have the signature airy crumb of ciabatta.  Well, at least I can say that I tried.  Twice.

Bo and I had this bread with some fresh chevre from Sweet Grass dairy in southern Georgia and some local garlic cheddar made from raw milk.  Hooray for the farmers' market!

BBA Challenge: Brioche!

I had a lovely and productive weekend at home... the weather was nice so i opened all the windows and doors and had a serious spring clean and garden preparation.  Part of the weekend included some time making the "Middle Class Brioche".  Brioche is a soft, slightly sweet bread heavily enriched with butter and eggs.  There are varying degrees of the flour to butter ratio, so I decided to go with the 'Middle Class' version, which has two sticks of butter in the dough (about a 2:1 ratio flour to butter), along with five eggs.

This recipe only took one day to make and was surprisingly easy.  I opted for the loaf-shape for my first try and ended up with three small loaves but would like  to experiment with other shapes next time.  The resulting bread was soft, light, and buttery.  Very flavorful with a pleasant yellow-ish color from the eggs.

I was delighted to finally try making it and to discover that it was not that difficult, so it will probably be showing up in other places in the future.  I saw a recipe for brie wrapped in brioche with a fruit chutney somewhere...  Oh, yeah.  That's what I'm talking about.  Bring it on!

And about two weeks straight at the gym afterwards.

BBA Challenge: Artos - Greek Celebration Bread

I was ready for this bread to be an epic fail, but it at least looks alright so far.  I was unable to decorate the dough with the cross-shape; the dough I had reserved for that simply wouldn't cooperate, so I made it into two small boules and threw them into the oven.  I tried a bite of one and it seems to be lacking something.  I'll have to read through the recipe again to make sure I didn't miss anything.  I think I will be adding the glaze to the loaf, as the mini-loaves seem to suggest that it could use all the help it can get!

The recipe called for spices, raisins, nuts, lemon or orange zest (I used orange) and honey for this particular loaf (Christopsomos), which should give it a unique flavor.  It was a poolish recipe, so I used "baker's math" to up the formula for poolish so that I'd have enough for this dough as well as the next poolish recipe in the book - Ciabatta.  Right now that's chilling in a pre-proofing state and hopefully I can get that baked tomorrow.

On top of working with these two breads, I also managed to make palak paneer (with from-scratch paneer) for dinner, dirty up and then wash at least three sinkloads of dishes, and cleaned up a bit around the house.  No wonder I'm exhausted. 

Would love to hear about others' experiences with this bread!

ETA: Salt.  I think there was an issue with the salt.  Maybe next time I should try two batches - one by the book and one with a little extra salt and honey.  I'm not sure at this point whether I used the recommended amount or not... maybe i missed it all together?

Intro and BBA Challenge #1 - Anadama Bread

Greetings and welcome! Hopefully this blog will be an exploration of food and photography... and maybe a little bit about life too. We'll see ;)

I've just received a copy of the Bread Baker's Apprentice by the bread guru Peter Reinhart, so I thought I'd join the BBA Challenge and work through the book systematically and post my progress. It's a very thorough book with about 100 pages of instruction in the beginning (which I love - I really enjoy those cookbooks that are half textbook, half recipes) and beautiful photographs throughout. Check out pinchmysalt.com for the rundown of how the challenge works. It happens to be one of my favorite blogs as well!

First bread in the book: Anadama Bread

It's cooling as I'm writing this and I'm doing my best to not break into it too early. I am on day three of this process, so I suppose waiting a few more minutes isn't too terrible...

This bread is made with a cornmeal soaker, which I started two days ago. You whip it up and let it sit overnight to release the goodness in the cornmeal. Then the next day I assembled the rest of the dough, which included molasses along with the standard bread ingredients. I used about half whole wheat bread flour and half unbleached all-purpose white flour... I now realize that I probably should've used the whole wheat flour for the sponge instead of using the white flour at that stage, but I don't think it's a major crisis.  I never achieved the 'windowpane effect' with this dough, so I was a little concerned, but fortunately the bread turned out just fine.

After shaping the loaves last night, I placed them in the refrigerator to bake today. I had to let them proof for about four hours before putting them in the oven (since they came from the cold fridge, they had to be warmed back up to room temperature and then proof, hence the four hours as opposed to one or so). The smell of bread in the house was just lovely, and now that I've pulled them out to cool, they look great. I'm counting down to the moment I can try some :)

One thing about the book that doesn't jive with me is the fact that Reinhart discusses using plastic wrap or other coverings in the detailed pages in the first section of the book, but in the recipes only mentions using plastic wrap. I would classify myself as a "plastiphobe" when it comes to things in my kitchen or things I'm going to eat or drink in general, so the last thing I wanted to do was put plastic onto the dough. Instead, I have some heavy cotton dinner napkins that I bought specially for bread baking and placed a wetted napkin over the dough. When I had to refrigerate the dough overnight, I also covered it with foil to make sure that the cloth (and therefore dough) stayed moist. It seemed to work out just fine, so that's what I'll go with in the future.

WHOA! I just tried the first slice and I can't believe this came out of my kitchen! It's light and fluffy with a little grit from the cornmeal on the crust adding a nice texture, a bit of flavor from the molasses, a pretty light brown color, and somehow a little buttery. I might add a pinch more salt next time, but this is just great! I'm not so sure I want to share....