5 minute bread

There are a few books that have changed my life.  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes is quickly making it's way on to that list and from the reviews on Amazon you can see that a number of other home bakers have been equally impressed.

The recipe is based off of no knead techniques which requires a very wet dough and a very long first rise.  The really brilliant step that this book takes is to create a larger batch of dough that lives in the refrigerator after it first rises.  By doing this, you can remove a bit of dough from the fridge every time you want to make bread and, depending on the variety you are making, you will have fresh bread in as little time as a hour.  The other thing the book points out is that most bread dough is similar in make up, no matter the type of bread you are making.  The differences in bread often come from shaping, rising, and cooking time.  So with the dough in your fridge you could make a french loaf, a baguette, or a pizza.

My only real complaint with the book is that I feel like it could have been a pamphlet that gave me almost all the same information.  The basic technique is described in just a few steps with the rest of the book being very subtle variations.  The book also includes recipes for salads and sandwiches that use specific breads that seem unnecessary.  I understand the desire to stretch the material to fill a whole book but you can also find a lot of the information on their website.

I've made a lot of loaves of bread over the past few years and the breads produced by this technique are the most enjoyable.  I've been able to consistently produce a crispy crust, chewy crumb, and beautiful holes when sliced.

The only ingredients are flour, salt, yeast, and water for most recipes

Just mix everything together and that is all the real work

After rising

After shaping

First standard loaf

Attempted a baguette

As a side, if you are looking for storage containers for bread rising or storing dry ingredients you should check out a restaurant supply store.  Prices at restaurant supply stores are usually much less expensive, they have impressive selection, and quality items.  Though these stores are designed for restaurants and businesses to place wholesale orders, most stores are open to the public.

Bread: An intro

I'm not sure how or why I started baking breads.  It may have been inspired by a bakery that LJ and I use to frequent often when we lived across the street from it.  It was possible to eat breakfast (downtowner cinnamon roll), lunch (focaccia or bialy plus a cookie) and dinner (grilled cheese made on their rustic sourdough loaf) all from the bakery.  It got to the point that when we went in for lunch the girl behind the counter (referred to as the Vinman's girl when we saw her outside of the bakery) would reach for our usual choices before we even said anything.

We eventually moved away but we had become hooked on quality bread.  I've spent the last five years trying new recipes, figuring out how to create steam while the bread bakes, and increasing the thermal mass of the oven to keep the temperature up.  I get upset when people are not tolerant of gluten.  I wish there was some place they could go to gain tolerance so they could enjoy the chewy goodness of a quality baguette.

Often when I share my baked goods with others they seem convinced that the skills to create something similar are beyond their reach.  Baking, like most skills, is something that only takes time and practice to develop (I found reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to be very helpful in driving this point home in my own life).  I hope my future bread posting inspires you to develop this skill yourself.

As a teaser here are a few photos from past baking projects:

Salt bagels

Rustic loaf

Roasted garlic and rosemary ciabatta rolls

Pita bread and cracked wheat sandwich loaves

Dinner Rolls

Friends of ours from high school organize a yearly "Friends Thanksgiving" every Veteran's day weekend.  For the past couple of years LJ and I haven't been able to attend because of my work schedule but since I have become dependently wealthy and temporarily retired, we didn't have any excuse were able to attend this year.

I knew I wanted to bring some bread so I did some quick Googling and settled on these wheat dinner rolls.  I followed the recipe to the letter and was very pleased with how they turned out.

Proofing the yeast

After the dough rose I rolled it out.  I used my bench scraper to measure 1 inch strips.

The pizza cutter worked perfect for cutting the strips.

We only own one muffin tin so I free formed the rest.

The ones in the tin had better color

I'm considering trying something similar to make cinnamon rolls

Rye Bread: First Attempt

I feel like it is important to show cooking failures or mistakes on this blog when they happen because learning from mistakes is the best way to learn.  Often times the fear of failure is what keeps us from trying something new which is unfortunate because if we are unwilling to try new things we will never learn new things, which in turn will keep us from becoming proficient at those things and eventually mastering them.

With those thoughts in mind I attempted to make my first loaf of rye bread.  I am not a fan of rye (other than on a Reuben) but I met someone while volunteering on the farm who really enjoys it and I wanted to trade him a loaf of bread for some garlic he had.  I am a big fan of Simply Recipes when looking for guidance in making something new in the kitchen.  They had a straight forward recipe that I cut in half since I only needed one loaf and did my best to follow it to the letter. Other than the few rye specific ingredients (molasses, cocoa powder, caraway seeds) the recipe was a pretty standard bread recipe.

My loaf looked perfect when it went in to the oven:

However it had too much oven spring while baking and exploded through the middle.

Though the bread wouldn't be something that could be sold on a shelf because of it looks, it did taste great.  After it cooled I sliced and bagged the loaf.  I packed it to the farm on my bicycle the next morning where it was shared with the entire staff who seemed to enjoy it (though they may have just been humoring me, it is a very supportive environment).

For my next attempt at rye I am going to try a different recipe and see how the end result varies from this experience.  This attempt was not a failure.  It was a learning experience so that future loaves will be closer to perfection.

Greek Week: Pita bread

Now that things are slowing down on the farm, I am finding myself with an extra free day in my week.  I decided to use the free time to make some pita bread that I could use later in the week with falafal and gryos (posts to come soon).  LJ may even whip up a batch of hummus.

Pita bread is incredibly easy, even if you've never baked bread before.  The ingredients are flour (I use a mix of bread and wheat flours), sugar, salt, olive oil, yeast, and water.

Like with most breads, you start off by blooming the yeast, so I added a tablespoon each of yeast and sugar to a cup and a half of warm water in my mixing bowl, where I let it sit for about five minutes to activate.

I then mixed in four cups of flour and a tablespoon of olive oil using the dough hook on my mixer.  You will also need to scrape down the side of the bowl to fully incorporate the flour.  After the dough had come together in to a ball I added two teaspoons of salt.

Next I kneaded the dough with my mixer for about ten minutes, until it was nice and elasticee (sp?).

I covered the bowl with a kitchen towel and allowed it to rise for about an hour and a half.  I then pulled the dough out of the bowl, placed it on the counter, and pressed it down with my finger tips to deflate it.  After that, I cut the ball in to ten or twelve smaller pieces and rolled each one between my hands and the counter to form a tight ball.  You can vary the size of these balls depending on how large you want your finished pita to be.

I covered the dough balls with a towel so they wouldn't dry out while I worked through the rest of the steps.  I had preheated the oven to 400F with my baking stone on the lowest rack.  The pitas could be baked on a normal cookie sheet as well.

I rolled out one ball at a time with my rolling pin until the dough was roughly circle and about a quarter inch thick.  The thinner the dough the crispier the pita will turn out which isn't always ideal.

When using a stone you do have to bake each pita separately but they cook up quickly so it isn't a huge issue.  I slid the dough on to the stone and baked on each side for about two and a half minutes.  The pita will puff up so after you flip it (I recommend tongs for the flipping) you will want to depress the bread pillow.  If you do not deflate the pita the bread will be too crispy.

After baking and cooling all the bread, I bagged it and tossed it in the freezer for use later in the week.  Fresh pita can start to mold after a few days (because of the lack of delicious preservatives) so storing it in the freezer is a good idea if you don't have a bowl full of hummus ready for it.

For reading all the way to the end of this post you have been rewarded with a video of the pita puffing.  This is in real time and the video starts right after I put the bread on the stone.