Archive for the 'bread' Category
Today I baked bread. It wasn’t planned, I just did. My inspiration? Not wanting to go out to the store. After 2 weeks of the plague, this being the third weekend, I’m the only one the flu is still clinging to. And with very little voice and a sore throat, I wasn’t in the mood to brave Sunday shoppers, or even take off my PJ pants to run to the bakery. But I really wanted bread. White bread. Good white bread. Anything grainy seemed too ambitious to chew, swallow and digest. I was berating myself for not stirring up a batch of no-knead bread yesterday, but flinched at the thought of its thick, crusty exterior anyway. And then it occurred to me while making coffee – If I’m going to be around the house all day, why not just stir up some old-fashioned white bread dough? Like people used to do when corner stores weren’t open 24 hours a day?
More importantly, it occurred to me that W will never ever remember one of us running to the store to pick up a bag of bread. But he will remember coming home from the dog park to a house filled with the smell of baking bread on a Sunday afternoon. There really is no comfort like it.
This loaf? Nailed it on the first try. It seems wordy at first, but is the sort of thing you can make once, and then every other time after that it could not be simpler. I can imagine easily scattering it with cinnamon or cheese before folding and tucking it into the loaf pans. (They’re just 4″x8″ pans, available anywhere that sells baking pans – and often at garage sales or Value Village for about a dollar.) If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at a traditional loaf – give this one a go. I plopped everything in my stand mixer and let the dough hook do the work, then brought it out and kneaded it myself a few times, just for good measure, and because it felt so nice and smooth. If you do this, don’t flour the countertop – it should be nice and tacky, but won’t stick to the counter. Promise. Some people dump on the flour for extra insurance, but then your dough absorbs too much and can be heavy and dry. All these measurements were perfect. The resulting loaf has a divine crumb and golden, soft crust. Perfect for kids, or grown-ups with sore throats.
Also? It means we have bread for the week. (Or the next few days, anyway.) Homemade bread that’s perfect for sandwiches and toast in the morning.
Your yeast should get foamy – if it doesn’t, toss it.
Mix in half the flour. Just like making paper mache paste.
Then add the rest of the flour and the salt – it needs a buffer so it doesn’t kill the yeast.
Add some soft butter too. It’ll look shaggy.
Then cellulite-y. It needs to be nice and smooth. Don’t worry about it being sticky at this point – you want it to be tacky.
Let the dough hook – or your hands – go until it’s smooth and elastic. Knead it a few times on the countertop if you did it in the mixer – and don’t add any more flour (unless it’s really too wet).
Put the ball of dough back in the bowl (no need to wash it out and oil it – in fact I find the dough harder to work with when it’s all oily) and cover with a tea towel.
Walk away. Forget about it for an hour or so.
Divide the dough in half and pat each piece into a rectangle a bit bigger than a standard piece of paper. No need to be exact here.
Fold it in thirds like a letter, then place seam-side down in the pan, tucking in the ends. Not sure why Julia does it this way, but I can’t argue with the shape of that loaf.
Cover with the tea towel again and leave for another hour or so.
And then bake. Really, it’s not a whole lot of effort, all told. Especially for the reward of two beautiful, freshly baked loaves, that probably cost under a dollar to make.
This may just be my new Sunday thang.
Julia Child’s White Sandwich Bread
2 1/2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
7 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
Pour 1/2 cup of the water into a bowl (preferably that of a stand mixer) and stir in the yeast and sugar. Let sit for 5 minutes, unit foamy. (If the yeast doesn’t do anything, toss it out and buy fresh yeast.)
Add the rest of the water and 3 1/2 cups of the flour. Stir until well blended. Add the rest of the flour, the salt and butter and stir with the dough hook (or by hand) until well combined and shaggy. Continue to knead (I let the dough hook go for about 8 minutes, poking it down once in awhile) until it’s smooth and elastic. You could do this by hand, too. If you used the dough hook, turn the dough out onto the countertop and knead a few times to make sure it’s evenly smooth. Doesn’t it feel great?
Shape it into a ball and put it back into the bowl. Cover with a tea towel and let it sit for 1 – 1 1/2 hours, until it’s doubled in size.
Butter two 4″x8″ loaf pans. Punch the dough down (love that part!) and pat each piece into a rectangle that’s about 9″x12″ – or a bit bigger than a standard piece of paper.
Starting at a short end, fold it in thirds, like a letter. Place seam side down in the loaf pans, tucking the ends in. Cover with the tea towel again and leave them for an hour, until they puff right up out of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 375°F and put the rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the loaves are honey brown. Immediately turn the loaves out of their pans and onto a rack to cool.
Makes 2 loaves.
March 04 2012 | bread | 29 Comments »
This is what you do when once again you’re completely out of hours, and your intention to FOR SURE THIS TIME bake fancy fruit-studded loaves to bring all your friends and neighbours in the days before Christmas has once again fallen flat on its face. Honestly, don’t you know yourself yet?
It occurred to me that the wonderfully easy, rustic and crusty no-knead bread could take on additions like cinnamon and raisins, or herbs and cheese, or figs and walnuts. So I made a loaf, just to see. It fused fast to the pot – something that has never happened before – so much so that I had to chisel and soak its bottom from the bottom of the pan.
So for round two I used a piece of parchment, which worked brilliantly – not only did it contain the floury mess on the countertop, it looked quite charming in the pot itself, especially after the bread had baked and the parchment turned crackly and pale golden. Don’t skip it, unless you love doing dishes.
It turns out this is perfect for after Christmas too – for those midwinter mornings when preheating a large, heavy pot in a 450F oven to bake a crackly round loaf seems like a Very Good Idea.
Fig & Walnut No-Knead Bread
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for dusting
1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped dried figs or raisins
1/4-1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted if you like
1 tsp. cinnamon (or a good hefty shake)
In a large bowl stir together the flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Add the figs, walnuts and cinnamon and stir to sort of combine – the cinnamon will be streaky. That’s OK. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a plate and let it rest on the countertop for 18-24 hours at room temperature.
The dough is ready when its surface is wet looking and bubbly. Put a piece of parchment on the countertop and scrape the dough out onto it; dust the surface generously with flour and fold the dough over itself a couple times; sprinkle again with flour and cover with a tea towel. (Make sure it’s not terry cloth, which will stick.) Let it sit for another hour or two, or even three or four.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450°. Put a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. Pull the pot out of the oven, lift up the dough on the sheet of parchment and drop it into the pot. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 10-15 minutes, until crusty and golden. Remove from the pot and cool on a wire rack, or eat warm.
January 06 2012 | bread | 31 Comments »
I woke up early this morning, and finding myself downstairs in the kitchen in the dark surrounded with half cleaned-out cupboards and drawers and a sink more than full with dirty dishes, I opted to make muffins. Breakfast is important, right?
Also, that half jar of mincemeat in the fridge was far more pressing than total kitchen reorganization. (I do this every holiday week – decide to overhaul the kitchen or bedroom or basement, or all three. Most often my gumption runs out after I’ve taken everything out, and before I put it all back away.)
Mincemeat is one of those things that -unlike chocolate and cheese and wine- does not translate well to any season beyond Christmas. Namely January. Eating mince tarts in the middle of January just does not taste the same as the middle of December. But what else do you do with all that mincemeat?
Bake muffins!
They won’t come out tasting of mince tarts, but of themselves – moist and fruity and wonderfully spiced. You can add chopped apple or pear and pecans or walnuts too, if you like. And if you have a little more than a cup of mincemeat, or a little less, don’t sweat it – they’ll still work.
And the house will smell wonderful when everyone gets up.
Mincemeat Muffins
Gourmet, December 1997
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup canola or other mild vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 cup all-fruit mincemeat
1 small tart apple, cored and chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 400°F and line twelve muffin cups with paper liners.
In a largish bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In a smaller bowl (or Pyrex measuring cup) stir together the milk, oil and egg, and add it to the flour along with the mincemeat. Stir until the batter is almost combined, then add the apple and nuts and stir just until blended. Don’t worry about getting the lumps out.
Fill the muffin cups almost full and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden and springy to the touch. Serve warm.
Makes 1 dozen muffins.
December 29 2011 | bread and breakfast and snacks | 6 Comments »
I have a baguette secret. And a browned butter secret. I’m sure they’re not secret to those who know about them already, but for those who don’t, I’ll totally share.
On Tuesday when I made cheddar & ale soup for CBC, I also made fresh baguettes that required under an hour from start to out of the oven – but what everyone couldn’t stop talking about was the browned butter to go with. That show on which I watched Michael make ale soup? He also made no-knead bread, with browned butter – made spreadable. Because really, browned butter makes everything better – cookies, brownies, popcorn – but bread? Freshly baked? Slathered with browned butter – whipped and creamy, not a melted puddle? Hell yes.
Here’s what you do: take a slab of butter. Melt half of it in a small saucepan on the stovetop. Once it’s melted, leave it there until it starts to turn nutty and golden – you’ll see the foam change colour.
Take it off the heat and let it cool a bit. Then whip it with the rest of the butter. Use beaters. It will be all lumpy at first, but will then turn soft and whipped and spreadable. And nutty and browned.
You’ll need freshly baked bread to go with it. Here’s a recipe my friend Brooke shared awhile ago – a quick baguette you mix and knead and bake all in under an hour. True story.
Quick French Baguettes
adapted from the amazing Brooke of Cheeky Kitchen
1 1/2 cups very warm water
1 pkg. yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp.)
2 Tbsp. sugar
3-4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
Preheat the oven to 425F. Fill a shallow cake pan with water or ice and put it on the bottom rack, and make sure another rack is in the middle. In a large bowl, whisk together the warm water, yeast, and sugar. Set the bowl on top of your preheating oven for ten minutes. Add half the flour and the salt, then add more flour a half cup at a time until you have a soft dough. Knead it for a few minutes, until it’s smooth and elastic. (You can totally do this with the dough hook on your stand mixer, if you have one.)
Cut the dough into four pieces and roll each into a long, thin rope. Twist two together to make two baguettes and set them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Let it sit for another 15-30 minutes on top of your warm oven.
Bake on the middle rack of your oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden and crusty.
Makes 2 loaves.
November 03 2011 | bread | 19 Comments »
We drove out to Aldersyde this afternoon to visit Tony and Penny at Highwood Crossing Farm. W was ecstatic to have the chance to meet the very people who grow his very favourite food – oatmeal. Which he would opt for a bowl of anytime over most anything else. Tony and Penny and the friends who help them out on their farm grow oats, flax, wheat, rye and other grains in rotation, and cold press organic (non GMO) canola and flax oils. They stone grind their flour, make pancake mix and power grains – a truly whole-grain breakfast cereal made with hulled oats, millet, sunflower seeds and flax – and bake enormous batches of granola every Monday using rolled oat flakes, whole flax and sunflower seeds, cold-pressed canola oil and amber maple syrup. It was baking day today, and we could smell the granola in the oven, wafting from a little building in the field as we got out of the car.
In their house, Penny made little rhubarb galettes, from a recipe on the cover of Good to the Grain, by Kim Boyce. They were phenomenal, with a sweet-crunchy crust made with cornmeal and in Penny’s version, oat flour. Lucky for us, Smitten Kitchen posted the recipe, as did Whitney in Chicago. So if you don’t have the book, there you go. She didn’t, by the way, do the hibiscus thing. I don’t think. Penny? Are you reading this? I didn’t detect any floral notes, and I’m generally super sensitive (not in an allergy way, in a my-great-aunt-used-way-too-much-lavender-way) to flowery things in my food.
She told me she makes and freezes them unbaked, then slides them in the oven whenever she wants them. Très genius.
She also made flax muffins for W, who immediately introduced himself, with a handshake, as a scientist. Who knew? She brought out plasticine and played with him. She’s awesome that way.
He went ahead and adopted them. I would.
I do love sitting at kitchen tables – or nooks, crannies, islands – and chatting about food. Especially over food. We talked about farming and cooking and beans and organics while W inspected every square inch of their house (from the bathroom: MOM! YOU HAVE TO COME CHECK THIS OUT!), and Tony took W for a ride out to the field in a golf cart. And Penny sent us home with a homemade flax loaf. Which we ate slabs of for dinner with spinach salad and rhubarb ice cream.
And now every morning when W eats his oatmeal we’ll be able to reminisce about the nice people -Aunt Penny and Uncle Tony, right?- who grew it for him. Talk about priceless.
June 27 2011 | bread | 9 Comments »
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