Simplicity Gone Sour

Over the holidays I was given a small bit of someones Sourdough Starter. I've always wanted to make good sourdough but all my starters have left me lacking for rise, and all my recipes have left me lacking for flavor. Fortunately my girlfriends father is a bit of a Sourdough officianado and has been (quite successfully apparently) making good sourdough for some time.

Since I've never had much luck with sourdoughs (and since I was mildly inspired by Mikes post) I decided that the best way to go was to keep it simple. I read a bunch of recipes for sourdough and settled on the following:

two cups starter
some oil (to keep the dough from sticking mostly)
a small bit of sugar (to get the yeasties going)
and a smaller bit of salt (for flavor)
and enough flour to make a dough (I made mine fairly soft as I was afraid of too dense a loaf)

I mixed it all up, kneaded, covered, and walked away. I checking in on it now and again and after about two hours it had doubled. I loafed it, scored it, put it on the stone, and waited about 20 minutes until it started to puff up.

Now this is where I strayed from habit. Rather than pre-heating the oven, I put the bread in at the same time I turned it on (someone suggested it and it didn't seem like a bad idea at the time). The total bake time turned out to be something like an hour and a half, unfortunately I pay attention to the bread more than I do the time...

I'd say I learned two things from my this try at sourdough that probably apply to all breads, but seem to have particular importance to sourdoughs; first, start with good ingredients (starter!) second, be patient.

Decorative Beer Bread

For Christmas this year I went to Molly's house to meet her family (well, the whole family) for the first time. Since I had the whole day before off, I decided to embark on a slightly more ambitious bread project both to impress the family and to see if I could yield any kind of positive result.

My goal was to make a bread basket, from which all the components were actually made of bread. That's right, the basket, the bowl for the dip, and of course the bread; all made from bread. I opted for two types of bread for some contrast in color and texture. The base bread (the basket and the bowl) were beer-bread made from a home-brewed stout. The filler bread was a an onion-herb white loaf. For the dip I opted for a cheesy-beer spread (same stout as the
bread).

I made the onion herb loaf first and baked it into small long loaves to be sliced and put in the basket. Since I made entirely too much I made a wreath bread also (basically an Epi in a ring). While this was rising I put together the beer bread. This I made by soaking some oatmeal and cracked rye in the beer, adding some hot water and then the rest of the ingredients to make the dough.



To make the basket I rolled out a piece of dough, pizza crust style, and twisted some long thin dough-ropes to make the basket walls, then I added the handles (flat pieces of dough folded over). The bowl was just a simple round loaf rolled in oats. I baked the basked and the bowl separately and then put them together after they came out of the oven.

My apologies for not providing a more exact recipe, I just don't use them... The basic idea for the breads follows, but you'll have to fill in the details yourself:

Beer bread:

Put your beer in a bowl, add some grains (I like to use grains complimentary to the beer e.g. oats to stout, cracked wheat to hefe, barley to ale, etc...) let it soak until the grains are soft.

Add hot water to bring it up to yeasty temps and add your yeast.

add an egg and maybe some oil (I don't know, like 1/2 cup maybe)

add some white flour (preferably a high-gluten) and then more wheat until you have bread dough.


Herb Bread:

Warm water and oil (maybe a total of 3 cups liquid)

Stir herbs of your choice into water (I used onion, oregano, basil, salt and pepper, and some garlic)

Add Flour until you have a bread dough.

They all get baked the same start oven at 450, immediately drop temp to 400 when bread goes, dump some water in the oven and leave it alone until it's done.

Whole wheat makes me forgetful

Yesterday I got whole wheat flour as an after-thought to buying all purpose flour. Then I left the AP behind at the check-stand and came home with only three bags of candy instead of four. At this point any normal person would have given up and maybe done something not food related for the rest of the day, but really it was that or I was going to have to go outside and punch someone.

The puff pastry straws/sticks is a test sampler - my first time making puff pastry dough by hand. You see my mother is Chinese. (So is my dad. So am I.) My mother and her friends like to scrunch up their noses at the sight of butter, sugar, and chocolate. But they LOVE puff pastry blossoms with chocolate inside. Yes, I'm serious. This Sunday I'm tasked with making said blossoms for their weekly gathering, and I'm really sick of buying puff pastry from the store. It's never on sale, and I hate buying stuff that's not on sale. Did I mention I'm Chinese? Also, I have a deep suspicion about prepared food in freezers. Once it's frozen, it can hide a dead body. So I used one stick of butter for about 3-4 cups of flour. The sticks turned out pretty well, though a little bland because I forgot to sprinkle sugar on top. Then my mom ate about half the batch, and I ate a few more, so now we just have a handful left.

Also remembered to bring home the rack of lamb with me from the grocery store, so the oven was on for like an hour. Not wanting to waste energy, I used about a cup and a half of the whole wheat flour to make dill biscuits. But then I forgot the butter for the biscuits, and they came out fine, just not as ... buttery. The dill came from my backyard, about four short twigs. I smeared some hummus on this morning and ate them.

Lastly, because the oven is turned off the residual heat takes some time to dissipate, I started a loaf of whole wheat olive bread. Then I forgot about it. So when I woke up this morning, I fed the fish, did some dishes, watched the latest episode of glee, and then "job searched." And then I thought, that's strange, why did I leave the cookie sheet out of the oven? (I keep cookie sheets in the oven, okay? It's hard to find places to keep stuff when you keep on buying more stuff.) So here it is, over-risen whole wheat olive bread. The olives are from Trader Joe's, though really I should go with Kalamata next time.

Happy, Mike?

Impulsivity and Beer

I have a confession... I have never really baked bread. However, Chef M. informed me that since I purchased a fancy stand mixer (an impulse buy made while in the midst of studying for the bar) it is time that I learn.

Like the stand mixer itself, my first post is the result of an impulse. I was making dinner for a new friend, in my new apartment, and I had not yet tested the oven. Rather than potentially waste the turkey and goat cheese lasagna I was making, I decided to throw together a quick batch of beer bread. Yes, I know this is cheating, as it's not real yeast bread, but I figured Chef M. would forgive me because there's yeast in the beer.

This may be the easiest thing I have ever baked. 3 cups self-rising flour, 1/2 of sugar and one 12 oz bottle of mirror pond.

Mix the ingredients together:
Then put them in the oven at 375 degrees for 50 minutes. Remove, brush the top with a couple tablespoons of melted butter, then put it back in the oven for three minutes.


That's it. You have bread. And that bread tastes like beer. Can you imagine anything better?

(P.S. The lasagna was also pretty awesome.)

Simplicity

Sometimes the beauty of a thing comes from its simplicity. Likewise, sometimes the skill of an artisan is best exhibited by the grace with which he undertakes the simplest aspects of his art.

It was with these ideas in mind that I undertook my first entry into our little community. I decided to make French bread because to me this is bread in its most basic form. Two parts flour to one part water with a pinch if salt and a little bit of yeast. Just those four ingredients. Still, done well, French bread can have all the flavor and character of more complicated breads. This loaf turned out nicely. The crust is crunchy without being too hard and the crumb is moist and spongy. Allowing the dough a second rise gave this loaf a nice flavor.

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Challah

Greetings friends and vast internet readership,

First off, thanks to Chef M. and the ladyfriend for creating l'Eucharistie. In addition to being a space to write and read about baking bread, this blog will be a space for our community of friends. Even though we are now scattered across the country, bread is one of the things that still ties us together.

With this blog's emphasis on friendship, it is absolutely fitting that my first post be about challah. It was this time of year about a year ago when I learned how to make it. The San Francisco summer was changing to fall, and I was going through a graduate school rough patch. My friend Colin and I jokingly referred to it as my malaise, which made me crack a smile because the title made it feel European and just about dramatic enough. At that time I was so crabby and unhappy that I was lucky to still have a friend, much less one who would make jokes in an effort to cheer me up.

One day mid-malaise, Colin proposed a very welcome distraction: his sister Charlie would spend an afternoon teaching us the family challah recipe. We headed to Berkeley and entered Charlie's apartment, instantly smelling the brisket in the oven. The kitchen counters were cleared off; we had flour and eggs at the ready. We spent the afternoon mixing and kneading and braiding dough, and then enjoyed a fantastic family dinner. We ate, drank wine, talked, and laughed for hours. I remember walking back to the BART station with Colin at the end of the night, each of us carrying our extra loaves of challah. We took the long way, chatting as we strolled down the quiet North Berkeley streets in the dark. I remember feeling a little tipsy and a lot grateful for his and Charlie's care and friendship.

Challah is a sweeter, but not desserty, bread. It is rich, eggy, and has a firm enough texture that you can use it for sandwiches. I recommend making it with the dough hook on a stand mixer if you can because the dough is elastic and and a formidable challenge for most handmixers or biceps. I'm not at liberty to share Colin and Charlie's family recipe, but there are a ton of recipes online. Here is a picture of the loaf I baked for a celebratory brunch we had in the office this week - I am happy to report that I made some new friends by sharing this gift from an old friend.

Let the Baking Begin

Yesterday I received a most thoughtful gift from a most thoughtful friend. She sent me theTartine Bread book by Chad Robertson and Eric Wolfinger.

As though this wasn't enough, the book came inscribed.

I took this as a sign that my friends and I needed a place to share our experiences baking bread. So, I started this blog as a forum for us to share our recipes and experiences so that we can learn and grow as bakers, even while great distances separate us. Everyone, please post your photos, experiences and recipes. Feel free to involve your friends so that we may grow our community in search of that perfect loaf.