Motorcycle, Wind in Her Hair, Baker

Somewhere in the first 50 pages the author mentioned something about being one of two kinds of bakers. I cannot even remember what the other baker was called. I just know I am the baker he described on a motorcycle with the wind in her hair. Yep, that's me. And in case you don't know, I just had a baby. He was five weeks old when I baked my bread. My older two knew I was occupied, and proved it to me. So I did not exactly take the author's advice on baking without distractions. Impossible. I did my best and planned to bake on a day the Hubs was home, to juggle baking nursing, and the older two boys. But my steps were all rushed. When I realized my butter was not room temperature, I sat it in the sun by the pool. It was 79 degrees at my house, and that butter was room temperature in minutes.


















The yeast was what really messed me up. For a motorcycle, wind in her hair, baker I should have found instant yeast rather than use active dry yeast. I bought the kind in the jar that needs to be proofed with sugar. When the two teaspoons of yeast were measured from the yeast proof, I probably took too much froth, or bubbles, and not enough yeast. My dough never really bubbled after 60 minutes. So, I took my dough outside and sat it by the pool. I exchanged the towel covering for cling wrap. I hoped with the sun's reflection from the water and cling wrap, perhaps the dough would start to bubble. After nearly two hours it poofed, but it did not look quite like the book. This was the first indication this bread baking was definitely taking a motorcycle ride, with wind in it's dough.


















About this time, my husband had all kinds of comical things to say with his dry sense of humor. They were so funny I had tears in my eyes. But if you are not of the motorcycle baking persuasion, you might not find them funny. If you want to know what he said, you will just have to come to my house and hear them in person.

I started kneading the bread by hand. I let my five year old join in, but we threw it in the Kitchen Aid after several minutes. The bread had reached the right temperature but was not passing the window pane test. Soooo, we let the bread knead in the mixer for a few minutes. Still the right temperature, but we failed the window pane test again. So we kneaded. Then Hubs kneaded. Still we failed the window pane test. Did this have something to do with the yeast? Who knows. But I went back and reread Kendra's post, and decided that it was safe to move on, even if we did fail the window pane test. But before we moved on, I wanted to show you all my interpretation of the motorcycle, wind in her hair, baker in San Diego. Yes, that is me with my dough, on the closest thing we own to a motorcycle.
























I proofed my bread over night because it took that long to rise. Again, I blame this on my failed yeast attempt. I noticed the bread had this risen look on top, but it was still moist and oily on the underside. So every few hours I would flip the whole loaf and then that side would rise. Now don't ask me how but it would not stay risen on the underside. So I did this a few more times until we got this far, and I called it quits. After all, I was expecting company from this sweet family and we still had to finish cleaning house.



















Finally, I threw the bread in the oven, and figured I had a pretty good chance it might just turn out. And voila!
















When Naturally Caffeinated Family arrived, we polished off nearly two loaves in one day, between the four adults and three older boys. The bread tasted fresh and dense. The maple was not too heavy. I shared all of my calamities with them, as well as the Hub's comments, and they laughed, too. So that is it for this motorcycle ride!!!

Precisely Pleased!

I like to sew, but am not a fan of patterns. Same with food.. love to cook, but don't love recipes. I tend to just throw stuff together, whatever I can find, and hope for the best. I am a "git 'er done" type, not so much a "details" gal as they say. I prefer to use the word efficient.

But, I plan to take a different approach to being a half-baked beauty! (We'll see how long it lasts!) I figure, with all the time it takes to do these recipes ("formulas" as the book calls them), then I had better do it right and be able to actually enjoy the bread of my labor! So, I read the first 100 pages, made sure I had the correct ingredients, broke out the scale and the thermometer, blasted a little Lady Antebellum, and went to town. And, turns out, following the rules really does get you somewhere. I'm very happy with the results. The bread was much lighter and airier than I expected, and I didn't love the first bite I tasted. But, the flavor really came out in the second slice, and I really like the crust. I think if I make it again, I'll add in more molasses for just a little more flavor.

I will skip the play by play since TMM covered it perfectly! But, I had to post the evidence that I did in fact attempt to be as precise as possible! Notice the 6.0 on the scale! (I zeroed it out to account for the weight of the bowl.)

Here's the finished product! I made two regular loaves and two mini loaves. Breaking them up like this kept them from cresting over the top of the pan, but I figure it tastes same. (Just realized when I wrote that sentence that I guess I didn't quite follow the rules perfectly. Typical!)

We promptly (after the hour cooling period of course) enjoyed the bread with a little Turkey Meatball Soup. Delicious! I love soggy bread, so even though the "crumb" is a little fluffier/lighter then most dipping bread, I still soaked it in the broth anyway. Yummy!

Honey I Blew Up the Kitchen

Since the hubby and kids were otherwise occupied, I decided it would be a good opportunity to complete the baking challenge and try my hand at Anadama Bread. It took the better part of the day and my kitchen is a wreck, but it did turn out beautifully.

Let me start by sharing, I am not an accomplished baker. I've made bread in the bread maker, but mostly stuck with recipes that involved tossing a couple of ingredients in, pushing the button and walking away. This was going to take considerably more effort.

The book we are working out of is called The Bread Baker's Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart. I suppose I should have been diligently reading to understand the concepts, formulas and art of bread-making. In my own true fashion, I hastily bought the book on Amazon when Buffy announced our first challenge, and then promptly turned to p.108 to dive in.

From Bread

Let's begin with my cast of characters.

From Bread

When I am working with a new recipe and not sure of my abilities, I tend to over compensate with my ingredients. I went to four different stores in search of the perfect cornmeal and molasses, because, according to the recipe, the cornmeal must be coarse grain, and the lighter the molasses the better the flavor. By-the-way, I got that ginormous package of yeast for less than $4 at Costco. I keep it in my freezer and it will last forever.

Anywho... the first step was to start the night before and make a soaker. That part was easy enough. Here's my soaker after a night of soaking:

From Bread

The next morning, my first step was to combine some of the flour with other ingredients, cover and let it ferment for an hour until the "sponge begins to bubble." I don't know what a sponge is (guess I should have read more), but I followed along as best I could. After an hour and a half, my "sponge" looked like this:

From Bread

I deemed it "bubbly". Then the recipe called for adding the rest of the flour and remaining ingredients and mix until they form a "soft, slightly sticky" ball. So I dumped the ingredients in my trusty Kitchen Aid and started mixing. After watching an incalculable amount of my flour go flying up in the air, out of my mixer, and all over my counter top, I concluded I should have taken a little more precaution in adding the dry ingredients.

From Bread

I took some more flour and tossed it in, hoping to make up for what I lost. The next step was to knead the dough and since my countertop was suddenly pre-floured, I decided to go it by hand. After 10 minutes, my dough had not yet passed the "Window Pane test", so I threw it in the mixer with the hook and let is knead for 2 more minutes. We were still failing the test but I decided to move on.

Next up was to lightly oil a bowl, add the dough and cover until it doubles in size, ~90 minutes. It started out like this: (I used too much oil, I think)

From Bread

And after a few errands and 2.5 hours later, it looked like this:

From Bread

From here, the next job was to divide in the dough into three loafs, shaping them as shown on page 81.

From Bread

I had a hard time with this. I didn't understand the "working from the short side" business and wasn't sure I rolled my dough properly.

From Bread

Nonetheless, I got the job done and put the loaves in the bread pans where they need to "proof" again. It's not obvious in the pic, but I didn't divide equally very well. The loaf in the stoneware pan is much bigger.

From Bread

I threw cheesecloth over my loaves and ran out to knock out some more errands. When I returned two and half hours later, I saw my loaves had poufed up nicely and were ready for baking.

From Bread

After baking for ~45 minutes (turning once, half way through), the timer went off and the bread was done. I worried that my bigger loaf would need longer, but all of it cooked fine and was well above the suggested temp of 180. I popped them out of the pans and left them on the rack to cool for another hour(!).

From Bread

When I finally got to sample the fruit of my labor, I was very pleased. The flavor was delicious - moist and slightly crunchy, thanks to my coarse corn meal. Now that I've made it, I'm sure regular corn meal would be fine.

I'm glad it made three loaves. That means I've got one to enjoy, one to save, and one to share with a friend who just had a baby! Despite some hiccups along the way, it turned out beautifully. Now if only there was a kitchen fairy who could come along and restore my countertops to their former glory...

From Bread

Til next time...

Kendra
aka The Meanest Momma

First Round, Fabulous!

I finished and tasted this first recipe late tonight. It was a crazy whirlwind of prepping and baking many things these last 24 hours. But the Anadama bread was DELISH!

I found Polenta, regular yeast and used the Molasses found at Target ~ not too refined. The flavor wasn't strong at all. I had wanted to use butter but forgot to take it out and ended up choosing the shortening. The percentage is so small, I doubt it made much taste difference.

To begin, I did use my Kitchen Aid. However, I was not confident enough to continue because the dough seemed too soft during the kneading. So I ended up doing it on my counter top and adding much more than the 20.25 oz of flour (probably about 1/4 to 1/2 cup more.)

I'll leave the photo-chronicling to my more accomplished friends. Here are a few snapshots of the final product!

side, top and "inside" views


~rw~