The Farmhouse Bakery

New Equipment

2012-01-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

Coming home on Friday I stopper at Pickers, a local indoor flea market. Wandering around I found a Zojirushi BBCC-X20 2lb bread machine. I have lusted over one of these for a long time but at over $200 I've balked.

So imagine my surprise on asking the price to be quoted $25.00. Whipped out my wallet and paid cash before they could change their mind. Machine is super clean and does not look like it has had much use at all.

So today took it for a test run with Max's flax seed artisan bread. Think I got the dough just a little wet but the end result looks inviting.

Certainly find this machine quieter than my West Bend machine. Remains to be seen which one is the best, but since I use my machines a lot, will probably alternate for a while. Will make baking challah easier as I usually bake four loaves at a time, but can only get two loaves from one machine. So now I can make two batches of dough simultaneously.

Special Challah

2011-09-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

You know from previous posts that I bake challah for Temple B'nai Sholem in New Bern. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come up at the end of September and early October.

Tradition for High Holy Days is for the challah to be round, symbolizing the cycle of life. I was able to find a wonderful example of how to weave a round challah at http://www.ou.org/shabbat_shalom/article/woven_round_challah/. This was the result - a wonderful intricate round loaf.

Apart from this I have a new recipe that I have been experimenting with. It's Clay's Multi-grain Sourdough Sandwich Bread from King Arthur Flour. In place of sourdough I have substituted the Italian Winter Biga that I mentioned in the last post. The mix requires more water than the recipe calls for 1/4 cup in place of 2/3 cup. The grains are Bob's Red Mill 5 grain cereal. Creates a great, long lasting sandwich bread.

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVING FUN!

2011-06-24T07:24:00.001-07:00

Just realized it's almost two years since I last posted - where does the time go? Still bake two or three times a week however. Earlier this year my bread machine finally failed after several years of weekly use. Not bad for a machine bought used at a resale shop. Would really like a Zojirushi but they are beyond my budget. Did find a West Bend two blade machine that is similar and bakes a rectangular loaf. Much more affordable on Amazon so that is my replacement.

Most recently I've been working with biga.Nearly titled this post The Biga the Better but thought better of it. Once again, Linda Eckhardt and Dianna Butts' book Rustic European Breads for the Bread Machine has been my inspiration. They have an Italian Winter Biga that is simply:

1/4 tsp bread machine yeast
3/4 cup water
1 3/4 cups bread flour

Add the yeast, water, flour and mix by hand until hydrated in a large plastic container. Cover and let sit for a minimum of ten hours. If you don't use it all, refrigerate the balance for up to two weeks and use as a starter for another batch later.

They have four recipes using this biga!

Como Bread - based on 3C bread flour and 1/2C of whole wheat for 1 1/2lb loaf, this classic northern Italian bread is moist and chewy inside with a crisp crust and keeps well just wrapped in a tea towel. Direct substiution of rye flour for the whole wheat makes an interesting alternative.

Pane All'uva - an Italian raisin bread with a similar texture to the Como Bread. For variety, I have substituted cranberries or chopped dates for the raisins, as well as golden raisins for regular. My personal favorite is the chopped dates.

Ciabatta - this has become my 'go to' recipe for both ciabatta bread and also for a ciabatta roll that I make by cutting the dough before the final rise into rectangles about 4 inches each side.

Raisin in the Rye Rolls - a wonderful combination of dark raisins with rye, these rolls can be eaten plain or with a smear of butter. The book recommends mashing 4ounces of goat cheese, Stilton, or mozzarella with 2 -3 tablespoons of creme fraiche or fresh cream and spreading this mix on the the split roll and adding additional raisins. Have not tried this but it should be excellent.

Jewish Rye bread is my current nemesis. Rustic European Breads has a recipe that looks good but every time I bake it the top collapses. Otherwise, it is a well flavored rye with caraway seeds and a great texture. Toasts well after the first day. Yesterday I found a recipe online for Rebecca's Jewish Rye Bread on food.com. The two recipes are similar except for the addition of some whole wheat flour and gluten with dried onion flakes as an option. Still get a top collapse but much less than the other recipe.

Today is a baking day, four Challah for the local Jewish Temple and a Como bread for the weekend. Until my next post don't forget - Friends don't let friends eat Wonder Bread.

I've Been Busy

2009-08-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

I'm continuing to bake my standards, sourdough bread, orange and cranberry muffins and sourdough cinnamon buns. And I still bake four challah every four weeks for the local Jewish Temple. I was on a bread baking forum recently and found a reference to Brother Juniper's Santa Rosa Struan, which is a struan baked in a bread machine. Some further research found this was published in Rustic European Bread from your Bread Machine by Linda West Eckhart and Diana Collingwood Butts. Straight to Amazon.com and they had several used in very good condition. The book arrived Saturday.

Turns out that the struan is one of Peter Reinhart's recipes, when he was running Brother Juniper's Bakery in Santa Rosa, CA. Interesting co-incidence since I was a tester for Peter's latest book (due out soon).

Anyway, had a yearning for baguettes and there is an interesting recipe for Pain a L'ancienne -(that's French for old fashioned bread if anyone is interested) in the book. Has some rye flour in the mix and starts with a sponge made the night before. Very easy to make and got two nice baguettes. Crust was not as crisp as I would have liked. May need to be more aggressive with the steam when baking next time. Good texture and taste.

Here's a photo of the finished product:

Happy baking!

Miserable Weather

2009-03-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

This has been a miserable weekend with rain and low temps both days. So it was a bake weekend! Two batches of sourdough cinnamon buns for the freezer, a batch of three fruit marmalade with molasses for the cupboard and savory muffins for a breakfast meeting next Tuesday.

I still play with Peter Rheinhart's new recipes. Latest was to make the multigrain struan with Bob's Red Mill Ten Grain cereal as the cooked cereal, substituting two cups of whole wheat flour for the same bread flour with two tablespoons of gluten, and molasses for the honey. Made two loaves of this last week and two of the multiseeded bread.

Revived the sourdough starter today so tomorrow will be two sourdough loaves and a batch of cranberry/orange sourdough muffins.

Still trading bread for eggs with the two guys across the road. They sell their surplus eggs at a Farmer's Market and keep on trying to get me to sell bread there. But do I reaaly want to get up at 3:00am on a Saturday morning to bake? I'm too much of a perfectionist to want to sell day old bread at the Market. Perhaps I should take samples to the market and test the waters for artisan bread. Now if I could just take orders there and deliver later in the week. I do have one regular customer however. I bake challah for the local Jewish Temple, four loaves every four weeks. I use a bread machine recipe for this, Peter Rheinhart's recipe uses far too many eggs!

First Post for 2009

2009-01-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all. This past weekend the Farmhouse Bakery was in full swing. First off was to try the Easy Crusty Bread recipe from the December/January issue of Mother Earth News. This is a basic simple dough, flour, salt, yeast and water. After mixing it's put in the refrigerator to retard and used as needed by cutting off a piece and shaping into a boule. Made enough dough Friday for four loaves and baked two on Saturday. Took one to our neighbors that are our source for free range eggs. Not a bad exchange.

Also on Friday I refreshed the sourdough starter that had been languishing in the refrigerator for some weeks. Nancy Silverton's method is to feed three times in a day, so Saturday morning found me with a great renewed starter. Began two loaves of her sourdough bread. This has become my staple sourdough recipe, a great crust and chewy texture. This is a two day recipe where the loaves are shaped and placed in bannetons overnight in the refrigerator to retard and develop flavor. Sunday they were taken out of the refrigerator, allowed to finish rising and baked.

With an excess of starter I also baked a set of Orange/Cranberry muffins. See my post of August 17, 2008 for that recipe. It makes a wonderful fruit flavored muffin with oatmeal as an added benefit.

Finally I baked Peter Reinhart's Holiday Bread recipe. This is another of his test bakes for his new book. A rich egg and butter dough that I made into a stollen since I had some marzipan paste in the freezer. Used a 50:50 mix of raisins and cranberries as the fruit.

Playing Catch Up

2008-12-30T09:12:00.000-08:00

The Holiday Season sort of got in the way of regular posts, so this is the catch up for the past six weeks or so. I've worked on two more of Peter Reinhart's test breads, a Struan and a Challah recipe.

Struan

Struan is a soft, enriched multigrain bread. It has corn meal, oats, wheat bran and cooked grain. My cooked grain of choice is bulgar wheat, but you could use brown rice, quinoa, millet or couscous. This is a picture of the dough before it went in the refrigerator for the overnight slow rise.

This made two pan loaves. Not as much oven spring as I expected, but a nice, dense wholegrain loaf nevertheless. This is the finished product.

Challah

What an interesting recipe. Makes a very soft enriched dough with a great golden color from 8 egg yolks! Finished up with four challah and one soft pretzel. Photos will have to wait as the loaves are currently in the freezer. They will be taken to Temple B'nai Shalom for use in the Shabbat services.

Other Breads

Along with the testing, I also made several batches of bagels, a pannetone, and several harvest grain ciabatta. The ciabatta recipe came from the King Arthur Flour website. All in all we had no shortage of homebaked breads for the holidays.

Chocolate Cinnamon Babke

2008-11-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

This one didn't even last 24 hours out of the oven! This is the third of Peter Rienhart's test recipes and what a great one it was. Starts with a rich dough with four egg yolks, butter and sugar. This ferments for about 2 1/2 hours then gets rolled out into a square, about 1/8 inch thick. A mixture of chocolate, cinnamon and butter is spread over and the whole lot is then rolled into a log. I chose to join the ends of the log so it looked like a large donut with about a 2 inch hole in the middle. This can be a same day bake but I elected to hold it overnight in the refrigerator. After a final rise the loaf was baked at 300F for about 70 minutes. I tested the internal temperature and took it out when it reached 190F.

This is what it looked like out of the oven:

And then the final test - cut and eat!This would make a great alternate to a coffee cake or cinnamon buns. The combination of chocolate and cinnamon is a wonderful flavor.

Bagels

2008-11-16T08:17:00.000-08:00

Peter Reinhart's recipe this week was for bagels. Now I'll be the first to admit that I have only baked bagels once before so a bagel baker I'm not! But anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Recipe was very straight forward, and like most of Peter's recipes calls for an overnight in the refrigerator for the dough. Shaping was the big bugbear and as you will see in the photos, not a good job of joining the ends. Bagels were shaped before putting in the refrigerator.

Next day, pulled the bagels out, and after they got back to room temperature, boiled them in simmering water for 1 1/2 minutes. Then dropped the still wet bagels into poppy seeds for a garnish. 16 minutes in a 450 degree oven and they were done.

Took some over to some friends with cream cheese and lox. Wow! Were they great - good tight crumb and real chewy texture. Their verdict? "Three thumbs up". These will be a try again recipe.

Testing, Testing, Testing

2008-11-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

Managed to get a spot on Peter Reinhart's testing panel for his new book in production. Wow! Do I feel honored. This past week was the first recipe, a pre-fermented French Dough. Basically it is flour, salt and water with a little yeast, mixed together then allowed to proof slowly in the refrigerator. Mine stayed in for 30 hours. The result can be formed directly into loaves, or used as a dough enhancer for a 'same day' French bread. I obviously can't and won't share the recipe, but I will share some photos of the finished product. The baguettes were particularly good and I will certainly use this recipe for baguettes in the future.

The baguettes and boule baked directly from the preferment.

Two batards baked using the preferment as a dough enhancer.

Mash-based Seed Culture

2008-10-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

This week I spent time making Peter Rheinhart's mash-based seed culture. Mash is a partially cooked whole wheat flour and water mixture that partly gelatinizes the starches. This is then successively mixed with more whole wheat flour and water over 5 - 6 days, in a similar fashion to creating a sourdough starter. The final is a mother starter at 75% hydration that can be used directly in making a whole wheat loaf. This is a wonderfully vigorous starter as seen in this photo.

Today was bake day. Last night I finished refreshing the mother starter and made a whole wheat soaker. This is a mix of whole wheat flour and milk at 87% hydration. It is covered and left at room temperature over night. The starter and soaker are combined with a little more flour, brown sugar, salt, oil and yeast. Peter Rheinhart describes this as his 'epoxy' method because you are mixing essentially equal quantities of two pre-doughs, just like mixing an epoxy adhesive. The photo below right is the soaker just before combining.

The final combination felt good after kneading - no added flour or water other than a small amount of flour used for dusting. Rising went well and the dough was split into two 2lb loaves. A second rising in the pans, then into the oven they went.

Here's the finished product, just out of the oven. Not as much oven spring as I get with the multi-grain bread, but to be expected as this is a 100% whole wheat where the other has some regular bread flour. Tried one piece, tight crumb but good texture. So chalk up another success.

Multigrain Loaf

2008-09-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Today I finished a multigrain loaf from Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads" . I've been playing around with his recipes for some months now, and generally find them to be somewhat dry. So I decided to try one of his transitional recipes that have some regular bread flour to lighten the texture. This one has whole wheat flour, cornmeal, rolled oats, wheat bran, flax seed and a cooked grain. For the cooked grain I used Bulgar wheat. The grains are all mixed together with buttermilk and left overnight as a soaker. The bread flour goes into a biga that is refrigerated overnight.

When the soaker and biga were mixed together with the remaining ingredients this morning I had a dough that was wetter than usual, so I added a little bread flour to make a soft and slightly sticky dough. Then the dough went through a five minute autolyse and final kneading. First rise was in a ball, then shaping to a batard for the final rise.

Here is a photo of the finished product. Moist and chewy, it has a nice crust and crumb. This will definitely be on my regular recipe list.

Too Much Starter?

2008-08-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend found me with an excess of starter. So it was muffin time. Here is my recipe for my all time favorite muffins, moist, flavorful and with a useful amount of fiber.

Ultimate Cranberry Orange Muffins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or line with paper cups for 12 muffins. I use large silicone muffin cups that make a 6 double size muffins.

Combine in a large bowl:: 1 cup all purpose flour; 1 cup oatmeal; 1/2 cup sugar; 1/4 cup brown sugar; 1 tspn baking soda; 1/2 cup dried cranberries; 1/2 cup candied orange peel cut into 1/4 in pieces
Combine in another bowl until well blended: 1/2 cup orange juice; 1/2 cup vegetable oil; 1 egg; 1 cup sourdough starter

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients gradually, stirring only enough to moisten and bring to an even consistency. Spoon evenly into the muffin tins. Batter should come almost to the top.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes, until done. Remove immediately from the tin and cool on a rack.

A Follow Up and Some Equipment Notes

2008-07-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Follow up:

Last Thursday and Friday's bakes went well for the most part. The sourdough ciabatta turned out well and the sourdough cinnamon buns were fantastic. Moist and chewy, not like the commercial buns that often turn out to be dry. The two loaves the next day were also good. I think I have the basic sourdough recipe down now. The sourdough waffles for breakfast were a really nice change and we have two more lots in the freezer now for sometime later. The only disappointment was the challah. Came out of the oven looking very nice, with a crisp brown crust and a nice yellow crumb, thanks to the use of some saffron. But turned out to be dryer that I like, possibly over baked, so will reduce the time in the oven when I try again.

Equipment:

I Thought that a few notes on what equipment I use might be an idea. My bread machine is an Oster Model 5844. This will make up to a two pound loaf and I use it primarily for dough making for rolls and pizza dough.

My sourdough breads are first mixed in a Kenwood Chef stand mixer with 5 quart bowl and a dough hook. My favorite for proofing is the plastic Kenwood bowl or I use a recycled 1 gallon ice cream pail. A four pound capacity kitchen scale and various measuring cups are used for measuring ingredients.

Proofing the final loaf is done either in a pan, or especially for the sourdoughs I have two brotforms and four bannetons. For the non-bakers, brotforms are a spiral wound willow basket that leaves a really attractive marking on the bread and can be seen in this first photo.

Bannetons are similar in that they are round wicker baskets with a linen lining. Both make the loaf shape commonly referred to as boules.

Along with the usual loaf pans, I have a two section baguette pan as well. I use a large rectangular baking stone in the oven and a metal bakers peel to transfer the loaves in and out of the oven. I use a regular home oven in which I often put a pan of water to provide steam inside the oven. For loaves that need to be scored or cut before baking I use a single sided razor blade.

Back at it

2008-07-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

I've been baking sourdough now for about two months. Previous attempts over the past two years were mediocre to say the least. It wasn't until I found a copy of Nancy Silverton's Bread from the LaBrea Bakery in a local thrift store that I managed to create a really good sourdough starter. So far I have mastered the basic sourdough and ciabatta recipes. Entered one sourdough loaf in a recent baking contest and the judges felt it was good enough for a second place. Lost out to a Swedish sweetbread.

Went away for the last weekend, so the sourdough starter was consigned to the fridge. Took it out on Tuesday and refreshed. The recipe for refreshing makes nearly 1 gallon of starter! So today was a bake day!

Made three ciabatta loaves and started two sourdough and two challah loaves. They are both two day processes, so will finish tomorrow. Also have a batch of sourdough cinnamon rolls on the go, and enough starter put aside for sourdough waffles for breakfast tomorrow.