Raisin Bread

Whoops, we're already on to corn bread! I forgot to link up to my rain bread post, so if you're still interested, check it out!

Sweet and Sticky Resolutions

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” — Mark Twain

Like many people, after the gluttony of the holidays, I resolved to eat better and exercise more. But on the second day of 2010, I decided to make cinnamon buns.

They were supposed to be baked in December, so really, I was just upholding an outstanding resolution. Right? Does this mean I’ve already broken my new year’s resolution? Perhaps. But I think I’ll just redefine “eat better” to mean eat quality, homemade foods lovingly prepared. Sounds good to me.. anywho, let’s see how it went, shall we?

Click to read the rest on my blog ...

Bagel-rific

I was excited to see our challenge was a bagel recipe. I love bagels!

And I blogged all about it, over on my blog. I hope you don't mind that I posted it there. Hop on over to read about my Bagel-rific baking experience.

ps- I have a tip for a local source for hard-to-find ingredients for my local friends



~Kendra
The Meanest Momma

It's All Greek to Me

I tackled the "Greek Celebration Bread" this weekend and am ready to report my results.

Approach Taken:

My palate is pretty simple, and I'm not a big fan of dried fruits, so I stuck with the simplest of options when making this bread. I opted to use the poolish and I made the simple Greek Celebration Bread without attempting any of the more complex or fruit variations.

Observations:

I made my poolish (simple and easy) the day before and let it sit out to ferment. The book says 3-4 hours, but mine was out much longer as we went out in the afternoon and I didn't get to put it in the fridge til much later in the evening.

For my citrus flavoring, I opted to zest a lemon - I didn't have any orange or lemon extract and one .50c lemon was way cheaper than a $6 or $7 bottle of extract.

When mixing my dry ingredients and adding my poolish - I once again blew up my kitchen. Flour flew everywhere and curses were uttered. Not appropriate, I know, but I beg forgiveness, especially since the Redskins were playing while I was attempt to bake.

I tried to augment the batter by adding more flour, but have no idea how much I lost. I was going for the "soft, but not sticky" ball, but I fear my dough fell on the sticky side. Even after 12 min. of kneading in the mixer, my dough ball was very tacky. Tried the windowpane test and failed again. I got closer, but it didn't seem windowperfect. None-the-less, I soldiered on.

After reading RW's post, I got bold and made some deviations. Instead of one giant loaf, I decided to make 3 smaller boules. I wasn't sure about the glaze, so I halved the recipe and only glazed one of the boules.

I'm not sure my boules doubled in size before I put them in the oven, but I was ready to bake and threw them in. They definitely took less time since they were smaller. After the initial 20 minutes, I think they only baked another 10 or so (maybe 15?). Here's how it turned out:

The glaze certainly adds visual appeal

The two I didn't glaze

A view of the inside

Outcome and Lessons Learned:

#1 - My bread turned out looking nice, but I agree with RW, the glaze didn't do much for me. I glazed one mini-boule, but only seeded half of it.

#2 - The combo of spices sounded and smelled appealing, but wasn't a big hit with either hubby or I. He reported he doesn't like allspice (or cloves ... or nutmeg - who knew?), so he wasn't wowed by the flavor, though he did give his approval to the texture. I kinda agree. The spices were okay, but didn't blow me away and I'm not sure what sort of meal I would serve this bread with/for - the sweetness seems to say it is more of a dessert bread, but it wouldn't be my first choice. The texture of the bread did turn out pretty well.

#3 - In the future, make sure you use the $#@!$% pouring shield when adding a bunch of dry ingredients at once. Seriously, if I flour bomb my kitchen again I'm gonna... well I don't know what I'm gonna do - hopefully I've learned my lesson now.

That's it for me - I look forward to hearing what the rest of the half-baked beauties thought.

Kendra aka The Meanest Momma

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