A few weeks ago, the lovely Ms. K had a potluck at work, and she asked me if I could make something for her to share with her co-workers. A few days earlier, I had made some homemade hummus that really turned out well, so she requested some of that plus something to dip into it.

I decided that this was a great opportunity to give the Lavash crackers in Bread Baker’s Apprentice a whirl. The dough is pretty simple, and it’s the same one that’s used to make pita bread. It’s a really supple dough and feels wonderful to work with.

The key to successful cracker-making is consistent rolling and getting the desired thinness. I started out with a double batch of dough and figured that it would make two half-sheet pans of crackers. I divided the dough and rolled it out on an oiled silpat. The dough kept springing back, so I gave it a fair amount of time to rest.

Once I had it rolled out to cover the silpat, I decided to sprinkle a little Pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika from Spain) on half of it and some sesame seeds on the rest, and then I cut the sheet into smaller segments so that the finished crackers would be well-defined. I popped the tray into the oven, and much to my alarm, instead of browning and crisping, the crackers began to puff and were more bread-like than cracker-like.

So, instead of making a second tray, I decided to divide the remaining dough again and roll the halves out as thinly as I possibly could. I then turned to sesame seeds, kosher salt and cumin seeds to garnish. In the meantime, I continued to bake the first sheet of lavash until it was golden brown and then I spread the crackers out on the cooling rack. They did crisp up a bit as they cooled.

I then popped the first sheet of thinner crackers into the oven. They browned gratifyingly without too much unwanted oven spring, and the resulting flavor was excellent. The sprinkling of salt was probably the most crucial flavor and texture element, transforming an otherwise OK cracker into something special.

Ms K took the crackers and hummus into work, and her co-workers were somewhat astounded. One even said, “I didn’t know you could make crackers!” I guess my sweetie found herself an elf, but I don’t think we’ll be moving into a hollow tree anytime soon.

I’ll definitely make crackers again - the difference in flavor is well worth the extra effort.

Here you can see the difference between the think crackers and the thick crackers. Both were well received, but I liked the thin ones better.

In a change-up from my usual yeast breads, this one’s a quickbread, and it’s also the Bread of the Month (BOM) over on the Facebook Artisan Bread Bakers group.

I took a quick look at the recipe, and despite its claim to be good for chocolate-heads looking for a fix, I thought that its mere 1/3 cup cocoa wouldn’t be too much for me and my limited chocolate tolerance. I was also concerned about Kathleen, since too much chocolate gives her agita. I also decided to make a couple of unauthorized additions – dried cherries plumped in Maker’s Mark and some white chocolate chips. Cherries always go well with chocolate, and I had the chips on hand and thought that they’d provide a color contrast in the bread.

I began by pulling out my copy of The Modern Baker. I bought it last week and hadn’t baked anything from it yet, so I figured that there’s no time like the present. One of the things about that book that slowed me down a bit was Maglieri’s use of volumetric measurements for flour. I had to go to the front of his book to determine that he was using the spoon and level method, not scoop and level. I decided to grab my 1/2 cup measure and validate my recollection that 1 cup of AP flour by this method would weigh 4 ounces. I did the spoon and sweep on the first half-cup – two ounces! The second was the same, so I threw caution to the wind and made sure I had 6 ounces of AP flour. I then measured out the spices, salt and baking powder. A half-teaspoon of fresh nutmeg seemed like a lot, but I went with it. I also measured out the cocoa and made a note in the book of the weight per cup so I would have it handy. The recipe said to sift the cocoa only, but I decided to sift all the dry ingredients figuring that it would mix them better without adding any time or dishes to the task.

I next moved onto the wet ingredients. For some reason, as I was doing my mise, I kept forgetting about the butter, so I had to pull a stick from the freezer, measure and toss it in the microwave. I also realized that there was no vanilla in the recipe, so I decided to add some. I beat the eggs, whisked in the sugars, added the sour cream, butter and vanilla. So far so good – time for the dry stuff.

I used the whisk to begin incorporating the dry, but decided that it was catching too much batter and might develop too much gluten, so I tossed in my additions, grabbed a silicone spatula and began folding. The batter finished coming together and I transferred it to the prepared pan.

After 35 minutes in the oven, I checked the bread and found it still liquid in the center. Since the recipe stressed vigilance, I checked it every three minutes to avoid over-baking. It turned out that the bread took something like 55 minutes to finish, probably because of the extra mass from the add-ins and the moisture in the cherries. Had I realized this, I probably wouldn’t have plumped the cherries or I would have set the oven a touch lower to prevent the very slight over-browning that I got in the corners of the finished loaf.

Once the finished bread cooled, I sliced it and was pleased with the finished product. Not too chocolaty, not too sweet, and I think the cherries added a very nice touch. In retrospect, I think I’d have left out the chips, but might have included some finely chopped hazelnuts. All in all, it’s a tasty bread and the finished loaf had a nice even crumb without tunneling. Plus, I now know a little more about how to work with the book so it’s a win all-around.

Note: I do have photos of this bread, I just haven’t finished processing them yet.

Well, I’m so far behind in my write-ups, I’ve decided to go in reverse order until I catch up (catch back?) with where I should be.

My latest bread out of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice is the Sicilian Bread. Aside from how Reinhart chose to form it (in an S-shape) it reminded me of what we used to call Semolina Bread back in Brooklyn – a loaf that’s slightly crustier outside and slightly more dense inside than an Italian bread, completely encrusted in sesame seeds. Yum.

Making this bread proceeded over three days, as per the book. On the first day, the recipe called for making a Pâte Fermentée, literally “fermented dough”. Basically, it’s a dough that you either make ahead or retain from an earlier batch that’s allowed to ferment so that it develops more complex flavors. I decided to make a double batch so I could move along with the baguette recipe as well.

On the second day, I assembled the dough for the Sicilian Bread by adding high-gluten flour, semolina flour and more salt, water and yeast to the Pâte Fermentée and kneading until the gluten was well developed. I then let it rise. The book suggested that it would take about 2 hours to double, so I went about my business and when I returned to the kitchen, the whole mass was about to spill out of the bowl. I think my instant yeast may be a bit hyperactive. It’s a new jar, so that wouldn’t surprise me.

Given that the dough was over-developed, I decided to allow it to degas a bit while forming it into a batard and then a baguette before extending it into a long rope to be rolled into the decorative “S”. I misted it with spray oil, covered it with plastic and stuck it in the fridge to proof overnight.

On the next day, I took the loaves out of the fridge to warm up and finish proofing. Once they had finished proofing, I sprayed the loaves with water (instead of brushing) and applied a heavy coat of sesame seeds. Unfortunately, I still had a bread pudding in the oven, so I had to wait about another 20 minutes before I could put the loaves in. Of course, during this time, they over-proofed again. Regardless, I plowed ahead, stuck them in the oven, filled the steam pan and did the obligatory mistings.

The loaves browned nicely, and the seeds turned a satisfying golden brown. Unfortunately, since they overproofed, I didn’t get the oven spring I was looking for. The loaves crackled as they cooled, and the finished bread had a crumb that was a bit more closed than I would have liked. The flavor was very pleasant, and the color was a mild yellow. I think I’ll up the proportion of semolina flour next time to get the more golden hue I’m used to, and more of a semolina flavor.

That said, the loaves were tasty and satisfying, and I think the “S” shape is kinda nice.

98% Whole Grain Challah

While I was in Upstate New York, I went to a wonderful bakery called Wild Hive Bakery in Clinton Corners – basically about 15 miles NE of Poughkeepsie. (Look for an upcoming post.) One of the great things I bought there was a whole grain challah. It was super-delicious, although I found it to be a bit expensive. The bread was even approved of by my relatively picky niece and nephew who are in second grade and kindergarten respectively.

I thought I needed to try making something similar, and lo and behold, there’s a recipe in Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads. I decided to use some of the micro-milled flour I brought back from Wild Hive – specifically what they bill as pastry flour, but is really a finer grind of their regular flour with the same protein content, not the <10% that’s typical of most pastry flours.

The recipe called for making a soaker of flour, water and salt – this came out relatively wet, so I suspected that the flour may have had a lower protein content than most whole-wheat flours, but still higher than pastry flour, which would have produced library paste with that much water added. The biga incorporated flour, yeast, water and one egg plus five egg yolks. I was glad to have had exactly six fresh farmer’s market eggs, although I did regret not having used them for fried eggs. The biga also looked a tad wet, so I wound up adding about another 1/4 cup flour to get something I could knead.

I fridged the biga, left the soaker out and hit the hay.

The next day, I pulled the biga from the fridge, did the epoxy-style thing with the soaker, added the extra flour, yeast, oil and honey and mixed up the dough. It was clearly still way too wet. At this point, I decided to hedge my bets and decided to add a bit of high-gluten white flour to dry the dough and get it to come together. Then I kneaded it in the machine (I’ve run out of patience for Reinhart’s preference for hand-kneading) until it window-paned, and then set it to rise until double.

Once it was doubled, I divided it into six pieces to form into one large six-strand braid. Once again, I was left puzzled by the instructions in the book – Reinhart called for 10-inch strands, but I couldn’t see how this would make a nice loaf, so I extended them out to about 18 inches.

I then proceeded to try to follow his instructions for a 6-strand braid. I fully failed to get it, so once again, I turned to YouTube.I was very happy to find a video that made the process very clear. Many, many thanks to Maya Sophia for coming to the rescue. Here’s her video.

I brushed the loaf with egg wash, sprayed a piece of plastic with oil and left it to proof until it had doubled in size. Then I washed it again, and sprinkled it with sesame seeds.

Next I baked it as per Reinhart’s instructions and wound up with a beautiful loaf with a wonderful soft texture and a deep golden-brown crust. I gave half the loaf to my downstairs neighbors and kept half for us. My fiancée thought it was wonderful, and our friend Sean also thought it was great. When I get my business going, I plan on making this style of loaf a regular item.  Every now and then I make a bread I’m really proud of – this was one of those times. I’ll have to make it again with local flour and play with it a bit, but I’m certain I can produce predictable results.

A couple of weeks ago, before my trip to New York, I gave making the Ciabatta out of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice a whirl. I thought the results were tasty, but the crumb was wrong and I promised to myself a do-over.

Since I thought I had figured out the issue with the bread, I decided to up the ante and do the 100% whole grain ciabatta out of Whole Grain Breads as well.  Or, in short, I decided that I’d be inundated in bread and that since I was heating up the oven, I might as well get two bakes for the price of one.

The night before, I set up the pre-ferments for both breads and hit the sack. I chose to use some of my whole wheat sourdough starter for the full-grain loaf, and all commercial yeast for the white loaf. In the morning, I first assembled the white dough and decided to retard the whole thing in the fridge for a bit. I was sure to make certain that the dough was wet enough so that I would have to rely on gluten development to bring it together, not a too-low hydration. Sure enough, the dough came together in the mixer and looked a lot more like the doughs I had seen on the net.

I did the lift and fold and the dough stretched and flopped gratifyingly. I then transferred it to sprayed parchment on a sheet pan so I could move it off of my work area to proof.

In the meantime, I decided to get going on the whole wheat ciabatta. I assembled the two pre-doughs and threw caution to the wind by using the stand mixer. Reinhart goes on at length about preferring hand kneading, but I tend to prefer letting the machine handle the wet doughs. I wound up having to add a touch more water to get a similar looseness to the white flour, and sure enough, it came together with a similar amount of kneading. I guess this makes sense since the bread starts with two stiffer pre-doughs that both benefit from autolyse – the process where water with no mechanical action creates gluten in flour.

I stretched and folded the whole wheat dough and left it to proof, and took a bit of a break before returning to the kitchen.

Both doughs proofed nicely, although the wheat seemed to be lagging a bit behind it’s more processed cousin. I divided the white dough into three loaves and set them up to proof on my improvised tea-towel couche. I then turned to the oven and set it up with a  steam pan and baking stone, and set it on almost-as-hot-as-it-goes. The oven gets hotter in the self-clean cycle, but alas, you can’t use that setting to bake. I decided to let the wheat loaf sit longer undivided so that it might rise a bit more.

Once the white loaves were proofed, I did the parchment and semolina thing and transferred them to the oven. I also added water to the steam pan, and got more of a show than I usually get – man that water danced around! I then dropped the temp to 425 and sat back to watch the show – excellent oven spring.

The loaves baked pretty darn quickly, and it was a challenge to rotate them without letting all of the heat out of the oven.  I wound up pulling them after only about 30 minutes total and set them to cool.

I decided to drop the oven temp a bit but not turn it off while I divided and formed the wheat loaves. Since the weight of dough in that recipe is smaller, I divided it into two loaves. The second proof went fairly quickly and I was able to crank the heat back up and transfer them into the oven in less than an hour. The baked pretty quickly too.

You can see from the finished photos that the white bread had an appropriately open crumb, much better than the first go-round. The finished wheat bread had a moderately open crumb – I’m not sure what to do about this except maybe to retard the second proof in the fridge and bake the next day.

My tasters were pretty positive about the bread, although I thought that the bottoms of the white loaves may have been a little too dark – next time I might heat the stone to a slightly lower temperature. All in all, the second go-round on the ciabatta was pretty darn successful.

You can see all of the re-done ciabatta on in the Ciabatta Take 2 set on flickr.

I’ve still got one more Hudson Valley post upcoming, about my visit to the Wild Hive Bakery in Clinton Corners, NY. I’ve also got bread postings on Cinnamon Rolls, the return of the Ciabatta with special guest star whole wheat, and an improvisational Chocolate Babka derived from the cinnamon roll dough. I’ve posted pictures for these in my Breadpocalypse collection on flickr and the narrative is forthcoming.

The original and greatest campus of the Culinary Institute of America is located in Hyde Park, NY, overlooking the Hudson River just a few miles south of the FDR mansion, library and gravesite. I gently cajoled my friends into jettisoning the kids (who are wonderful, but who have very pedestrian tastes in food) and having dinner at one of the restaurants at the CIA. We decided on the St. Andrew’s Cafe because I’m interested in seeing their version of farm-to-table, and because of its lower price point relative to the French and Italian restaurants on campus. I also wanted to check out their bakery café to see the breads on offer.

That evening, we pulled onto campus, found the garage and made our way to the restaurant via the main building, which houses the other two restaurants and the bakery. Alas, due to the weather, the café and the bookstore closed early so we trooped on to dinner.

We had an early reservation (7 PM) so that we could get back home before the kids got into too much mischief. (My friends kids are so well behaved that their version of mischief is leaving schoolwork on the dining room table.) The restaurant was slow, as it was a snowy Tuesday. The students working the front of the house quickly took our coats and showed us to our table. Our waitress (also a student) appeared quickly, but she seemed shy and somewhat uncomfortable. We had some questions about the prix-fixe menu, as it appeared that some first courses and mains were only available a la carte. Alas, she wasn’t terribly sure. She then asked us about drinks, which was reasonable, but we hadn’t had a chance to review the menu and decide on wines. I told her that we’d like to decide on our food before ordering.

When she reappeared, we had a couple of questions about the menu, which sent her scampering back to the faculty member supervising the dining room. She then reappeared and answered our questions in a tone so hushed we could barely understand her.

We ordered, and I had a question about one of the by-the-glass wines, a NY red called “Eaten by Bears”. This sent her scurrying off again, and she returned with a description of the wine that turned out to be not quite correct. I only learned this when the faculty member dropped by our table to give me more info about the wine. It turns out to be from a small winery, Cereghino-Smith, run in party by Fred Smiith, one of the members of the 70’s/80’s band Television. It’s a meritage of slightly different grapes than our server described. No great shakes, and the wine turned out to be delicious.

I ordered the charcuterie platter as a starter, and a pulled pork shoulder that was wrapped in caul fat to hold its shape and then sautéed briefly, accompanied by caramelized onions, roasted Brussels sprouts and a small potato terrine.

One of my friends had the crab cake starter, and the other a braised cabbage croquette sort of thing. They both had the duck confit, which was served with a polenta cake and some vegetable that I honestly can’t recall.

I was surprised that the menu didn’t list the provenance of the ingredients, but they are all supposed to be from the Hudson Valley.

One funny moment – our server came by with added cutlery for our starters, and she had laid the forks down backwards. A few moments later, she reappeared and adjusted them into their correct positions. I’m not sure if the prof nudged her or if it was one of the other servers who delivered the various dishes from the kitchen, or if she realized her mistake herself. She may even have seen me switch mine, and swung back to switch my friends’.

I found the charcuterie board to be very tasty, with mostly cured hams on offer, although there was one slice of house-made sausage. It was accompanied by a generous green salad. My friends enjoyed their starters also.

When the second course arrived, I dug in with gusto. The pork shoulder was tasty, but slightly dry. It was a B+, and the sauce drizzled around the onions and Brussels sprouts didn’t really unify with the pork. The sprouts and the potato terrine were spectacular.

My friends enjoyed their confit and their sides. I didn’t get a chance to taste any as we all stopped talking and started eating.

Our table was cleared flawlessly by the servers, and our waitress reappeared to take our dessert orders. I had the apple tart, one of my friends had a chocolate caramel torte, and my other friend had the white chocolate cheesecake. The chocolate torte was the standout of the bunch, with a crisp crust and a thin layer of rich, ganache-like filling. I found the cheesecake unexceptional, and the apple tart could have used a more robust crust and less sugar.

There was also one sour note during the dessert course. One of my friends asked for a decaf black tea, and a cup with a paper bag of Lipton appeared. We sat there stunned for a moment, and I beckoned our server to return. My friend J, who is normally kind of shy, asked what the other choices were. We all chimed in that Lipton was simply not OK considering the level of quality they were trying to achieve.

The check contained a comment card. We took a few moments to give sincere feedback (and words of encouragement for our shy but sweet waitress) including my take on the pork dish (too dry, too big, not well unified with the sauce) and an attempt at lighthearted feedback on The Great Lipton Incident. “What’s next, Folgers? Horrors!”

All told, the check was about $140 for three, including four glasses of wine and coffee or tea with dessert. I’d say that was a pretty good value, although my friends thought it was pricey for the Hudson Valley.

On the way out, I went over to the professor who was in charge of the dining room to ask him a few questions about the breads made on campus. Given my experience at SCCC, I assumed that the bread might not appear until mid-morning. Wrong. Apparently the bread classes start at 3 AM. I guess they want to shake out the people who can’t hack the timing of being a baker. This is also why I’m hoping to build a business model that avoids the whole o-dark-thirty thing, although I will pay my dues if I need to.

Since I was asking him about bread and we were discussing local products, he pointed me towards two local businesses. The first, Sprout Creek Farm, makes artisanal cheeses. It turns out that my friends are familiar with the farm, since their daughter does a program there where she gets to interact with and milk the goats. Alas, I didn’t have a chance to visit, but I now know where it is because I passed it on my way to the Taconic when I drove down to Queens to visit some friends.

He also told me about Wild Hive Bakery in Clinton Corners, NY, which a bit east of the Taconic Parkway along Salt Point Turnpike. Basically it’s northeast of Poughkeepsie. I’ll have more to say about Wild Hive in a bit.

I’d definitely take the opportunity to visit another CIA restaurant given the chance.

The next day, I went back to the campus with my friend P to check out the bakery and the bookstore. They had a really beautiful loaf that they called a Peasant Bread (though I was assured it contained no actual peasants.) It was a dense whole grain wheat/rye sourdough with a solid but pliable crust. The thing was only about 10 inches in diameter, but had to way at least 2 pounds. I got a banana Danish for myself, and P had a sweet scone, which we ate later during a Starbucks stop.

We had the bread that evening with one of my friends’ specialties, a nineteen (or maybe nine) bean soup with kielbasa (the regular kind). Their son, a happy-go-lucky fifth grader asked for the heel and proclaimed the bread super tasty. Their daughter went for an inside piece and decided she really enjoyed the sour flavor and dense texture. P, J and I all found it to be really, really tasty. It was also great as toast for breakfast the next two days, and was fully devoured before it even had a chance to go stale.

I didn’t have a chance to taste the sweet scone, but the banana caramel Danish was a tall item, shaped rather like a very thick piece of toast with layers of caramel and mashed banana. It wasn’t overly sweet, and the puff pastry was perfect. It’s a good thing they’re 3,000 miles away or I’d want one every day.

I did a few baking set-up items today, but never even turned the oven on. My first order of business was refreshing Harold, my biga-style levain (starter). He was already a week long in the tooth before I left, and when I got home, he was still looking and smelling OK. The new edition of Harold is currently proofing on the kitchen counter.

The second order of business was making a new poolish for another run at ciabatta. My first attempt was a bit too soft for my taste, and the crumb was a little too closed. The poolish is currently retarding in the fridge, and will be ready for use in the final dough tomorrow.

Since I was making ciabatta, and I also purchased a pile of local flour in Upstate New York, I figured taking a run at a whole-wheat version might pay off too, so I pulled out Whole Grain Breads and set up the whole dough, since the technique in that book is different. The difference is almost certainly so that all of the whole grain flour has a chance to hydrate during the overnight retarding.

So, tomorrow I should be churning out four loaves of ciabatta, two white and two wheat. Stay tuned for details!