Bread Makes The Meal

Well, Mobius' suggestion for a cinnamon raisin bread sounded like a great idea. I have a few different recipes. I was going to take the Everything Bread recipe and alter it enough that I could list it out here without worrying about copyright violation. Unfortunately, that was under the assumption that the alterations would keep the recipe decent enough for it to be worth listing. So here's what went down: I didn't have raisins, so I found the "Cinnamon Swirl" recipe rather than the "Cinnamon Raisin" recipe. Not a problem. It called for honey, and Herself was using the honey at work, for her tea, so we didn't have it. Not a problem, I thought, for honey I can just use white sugar, right? I now think that was a mistake. Then, there were instructions to add two eggs with the flour after proofing the yeast. I'm still not sure what eggs do for the dough, but for better or for worse I decided to leave them out. Next, the instructions said to...

Well, I would have posted something last night, but I was feeling pretty ill, and Herself ... let's say gently suggested ... that I call it a night. Today I'm staying home, so here's yesterday's entry. Everything Bread says, "Stir [the sourdough starter] once a day for the next three days." So yesterday, I stirred it the once. It was bubbly and gloppy, just what it's supposed to be. I came out to check on it this morning and saw this: Or in close-up: Which I think is exactly how it's supposed to look at that stage. So I'm happy. (Note: I hope the picture quality is improved; I'm taking pictures with the actual camera rather than with my phone camera.) We're just about out of sandwich bread (the Amish White from Everything Bread ). But on the other hand if I had made two loaves, one would be hanging around forever in the freezer. I just go ahead and make it every week anyway. I might make the biscuits again as well, or maybe use my...

So I made my starter after dinner. What I like about Everything Bread is that it gets really detailed, even with long-term recipes like a sourdough starter: Mix this, do this on the next that many days, take out so much and use it for pancakes or something ... she's really good. With something I've never done before, that style of writing gives me a lot of confidence. This isn't, strictly, a "make it from scratch" one that kind of waits to pick up whatever yeast spores might be floating in the air. I used a cup of flour, a cup of water, and an eighth of a teaspoon of baking yeast. It looks bland now: but I'm sure over the next week we'll see interesting developments! Herself is a bit skeptical, but willing to let me work with this as long as (a) it doesn't get in the way (it won't) and (b) the cats won't get into it (ha!). She's going to love the rye bread. So am I, I hope. I got a promise from my mom this evening - she's going t...

Herself and I were out from 7:00 AM until after 9:00 PM yesterday, and when we got home I was way too exhausted to write anything. Apologies. I'm not sure I like The Complete Book Of Bread & Bread Machines , the cookbook that my neighbor gave me the other day. It's got lots of pretty pictures in it, but there are two big faults: Although it gives recipes for bread made from sourdough starters, it doesn't tell you how to keep the starter going. Surely that's the point of having a starter? It has a lot of descriptions of traditional regional breads, but It Doesn't Give All The Recipes . What's with that?? So instead, I'm going back to the Bilderback. Everything Bread has a good-looking sourdough starter recipe, and a rye bread made with it. In keeping with the best sourdough blogs :-) I'll post pictures as the starter develops. According to the recipe, the starter takes about two weeks to develop; but don't worry—I'll be baking (and pos...

What I made today (I thought I had pictures but I don't see them on the camera) was just a plain Amish white bread. Lots of sugar to get the yeast kicked up, a fairly short rising time - just barely an hour - the bread is soft, noticeably crusty but not hard, just a little bit of sweetness. Perfect for sandwiches. What's your favorite sandwich bread? So Esteis likes the idea of a dense, heavy bread. I was looking for the opportunity to start a sourdough starter. Herself likes rye bread. So when I combine all three of these, I come up with: German Rye Bread. I actually have a new bread book that a neighbor gave me - thanks, Stacy! - which has a very interesting-looking description. So I'll get the ingredients together and get the starter going in the next days. This should be very interesting (if the cats don't get into it)! God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread. Edit: I couldn't find the pictures. And updated the text to reflect that th...

This morning I finally got to make the buttermilk biscuits I've been hoping for the last two days. As I guessed, they took only a while to make (the recipe was ready by the time the oven was done preheating) and they were done in 17 minutes (the recipe said 15 - 20, I split the difference). I think I must have done something weird with it though, maybe with the butter; the biscuits looked and tasted good, but I thought maybe they were a little chewy. Herself agreed with me, too. She had them with butter; I had them plain. Biscuits aren't supposed to be chewy, are they? Maybe a problem with cutting in the butter. You could tell I haven't made biscuits for quite a while. So there it is, I've now made the Buttermilk Loaf and the Buttermilk Biscuits - both good but with each their own problems. I'll try them again, later. God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread . Edit: Added a picture.

By the way, I got an answer from The Source (of the Buttermilk Bread recipe, that is) about why I got the clumpy spots in my buttermilk bread. Leslie says, "There should be no mixing issues if you kneaded vigourously for 8-10 minutes...by hand or machine. There is no way something will not get mixed in at that rate. It looked more like uneven baking, and/or undercooked dough, at least from the picture. You can take its temp if you're not sure about doneness." So maybe a thermometer is called for? I've never stuck a thermometer in bread before, only meats. I'm not even sure what temperature I should be looking for. I also had the thought that there was quite a bit of dough there (the recipe called for 4 - 6 cups of flour and 2 of buttermilk for one loaf). Maybe next time I'll try splitting it into 2 smaller loaves?

So I had every intention of making my sister's scone recipe tonight. I was going to do it either right after dinner, or else late at night after my wife went to bed, as a surprise for breakfast tomorrow morning. Oh well. There were problems with New Jersey Transit , and I had to go and pick my wife up after work, about an 80 mile round trip. We didn't get home until well after 8:00 tonight. We had fast food for dinner (I know, I know - we were both exhausted) and she went to bed by 9:00. I was tired, but figured I'd push myself to do the scones anyway. Preheat the oven to 400 °F. Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, egg - no eggs. At 10:00 at night, no eggs. Hmf. Deep breath. Oh well, let's see if the "Everything Bread" recipe calls for eggs. "Buttermilk Biscuits," hmm ... Nope! No eggs! (Well, one egg, to coat the top of the biscuits. But I can skip that part. I can get away without being fancy.) Thank you Leslie! Up the oven to 4...

I didn't get to make scones last night, as I had planned. Maybe tonight. We went to the summer carnival at our church instead - it was lots of fun, but I came back soooo tired. A friend of mine pointed me to a poem called Graduation Speech , by Charles W. Pratt. I had to read it two or three times through. It's got good pictures - mixing bread dough early in the morning, letting it rise under cover, punching, shaping, proofing in the pan. That's one of the things I enjoy about bread - watching it, smelling it, waiting for it. And then, when it's ready for me, and I'm ready for it, the first taste - a little piece of heaven in itself. So that's my thought for today, such as it is. I'll try and make the scones tonight. God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread .

So I noticed something strange when I came by the blog this evening. The search bar, picture, and other "gadgets" (so called) are supposed to be floating off to the right of the blog entry. And in fact, that's what they're doing on the "About Me" page. But on the home page, and each of the individual blog entries, they're stuck at the bottom. This is most impolite, and I will have to correct this. So apologies if the formatting of the site occasionally looks strange or different over the next short while - I'm experimenting with ways to force the side bar back to the side where it belongs. We'll hopefully have things back to normal quickly. Edit to previous night's post: So I looked at the individual posts and eventually figured out the problem. The picture of "clumpy spot bread" was apparently wide enough that it was trying to push the sidebar off the page. I narrowed the picture, and there you go—back in business. Excelle...

So I started using Sunday's buttermilk bread this morning making PBJ for my wife - only to discover it's got clumpy spots (see one up toward the top left?). I must say, this is the first time this has ever happened to me - though I know exactly what's going on. It seems the dough didn't get mixed well enough and the yeast didn't distribute evenly. So now I have to think what I could have done. Maybe pour in the buttermilk more slowly? There was a lot of it, after all. On another note, I got a hankering for scones yesterday and put out a call for a quick recipe - and got one from my youngest sister this morning! So now I might be making some after I get home tonight. Yum! My sister says the trick is to cut in the butter with a stand mixer. The problem is, we don't have a stand mixer at home. Will a regular beater work as well? What do you think? And do you have a recipe for scones, or biscuits, to share? I found another great bread quote from Miguel Ce...

So, I've liked baking bread for ages. I think I got it from my mom. Certainly I have great memories of watching her bake bread when I was a child. And I've always got so much satisfaction out of watching (and smelling!) the yeast come alive, and feeling the dough give under my hands - not to mention the taste and smell of it warm out of the oven. Could there be anything more satisfying? I think not. But I hadn't really done any baking since getting married five years ago—so I was really happy last Christmas when my wife gave me The Everything Bread Cookbook , by Leslie Bilderback (whose website, having discovered it, I now intend to fully explore). It took a couple of months, but I started in on it, learned a few interesting things—and then, today, got a new idea. I've thought about blogging before, but I always thought, "What do I like enough, do well enough, think about enough that I could write about it once or twice a week? And today it came to me. I m...