Recipes, yeast bread

[Delmonico]

French and Italian Bread are pretty much the same, most bakeries make French bread a a longer skinnier loaf than Italian.  This is one of the most simplest breads to make.  It also makes a fine pizza crust.

The times will vary much more with sourdough than with comerical yeast, your starter may be more or less active than mine and temeratures will affect the time more than with regular yeast, but the extra time is well worth it.  I most often start my sourdough the night before and bake on a day I'm going to be around most of the day.  Being slower though it won't take over your kitchen as fast as regular yeast well if you forget about the bread or get called away on an errand or at least most of the time.  

2 cups sourdough starter
2 cups of warm water
about 12 cups of flour
a pinch of salt (optional: salt will slow down the action of yeast)

a dab of lard
a couple double pinches of cornmeal
1 egg for a glaze (optional)

The night before baking, put the starter and the water in a large bowl, use one much larger than you will need, this will prevent escapes, if things work faster than you expect.  Mix in two cups of flour and cover and keep in a warm place. (I said warm, if it gets too warm it will work faster.)

In the morning it should be foamy on the top, add a couple more cups of flour and the salt if desired, this should be enough to make a soft dough, but thicker than a batter, this is often called a sponge.

When this rises up a couple of inches, (1-3 hours) work in enough flour to make a stiff, almost dry dough, cover and let rise till double. (1-3 hours)   Punch down the dough and seperate into 2-3 pieces.  Roll them out by hand into long loaves the size desired.

Place these on a cookie sheet that has bee slighly greased and sprinkled with cornmeal.  This will keep them from sticking.  Cut three diagonals across the loaves with a sharp knife.  (I never figured this out, but the recipes call for it and the store-bought ones have it.)  Take the white of the egg and mix well with about 2 parts water with one part egg white.  This makes a glossy slightly browner crust.  

Let rise till double, coat again if desired and bake at 400 for about 35-45 minutes.  Let cool on the sheet before removing.

The times is why I maintaine a active starter and replace it when it gets weak, I have a fresh starter and I made this in about 5 hours last night.  One will find out that a kitchen about 80-90 degrees works well, when it is cooler I put it in the oven with the light on.  In the summer my family gets upset when I turn off the air and bake bread if they are home.
For Pizza crust, just roll it out after it rises to double.

[Singing Bear]

Ain't period correct or baked in a Dutch oven with coals (although it probably could work), but I finally perfected my recipe to make homemade bread with that storebought texture.   Thought some might be interested. 

I cut the whole wheat 1 part to 2 parts of unbleached bread flour and
use a bread machine to do the kneading, then bake the bread in the oven.

Wet Ingredients (which has to be put in the breadmachine pan first)
1 1/8 C water.  I use a Pyrex measuring cup and simply fill it to the top.
1 T turbinado sugar
2 T crystalized cane juice (you can find this at any health food store)
2 T powdered milk (I use Milkman)
1 T canola oil

Dry Ingredients
1 C whole wheat bread flour
2 C unbleached bread flour
3 T wheat gluten
3 T Honey flavored wheat germ
2 tsp yeast.  I've been using breadmachine yeast, but regular yeast should work fine since the baking is going to be         done outside of the machine anyway.

Drop one tablespoon each of wheat gluten and wheat germ between each cup of flour.

My machine will knead, rise, knead, rise in about 1 1/2 hours.  I take the dough out when there's 15 to 20 minutes left on the timer and do the second rising in the oven. 

Spread the dough out on a floured cutting board and only knead it (I punch it down and fold it only a couple of times) into shape for a bread pan, not a loaf pan.  Big difference in price.  Place the dough in the bread pan and put in the oven with the light on.  The light provides enough heat to help the dough to rise.  Allow to rise 30 to 40 minutes or till the top of the dough is a half pan high.  Anymore than that and there'll be to many "bubbles".  Set your oven temp to 350 and bake for 25 minutes.   The dough will rise just a little bit more while the oven is heating up.  It's okay.

Reason why I went this route is that most commercial breads contain high fructose corn syrup and lots of additives and salt.  The only "processed" ingredients in this bread is the powdered milk and wheat germ.   Turbinado sugar and cane juice are about as natural as it's gonna get for what they are.   Btw, the sugar can be reduced to as low as 1 tablespoon.  We just happen to like our bread just on the sweet side. 

It's the wheat gluten that "softens" the bread.  I found most breadmachine recipes makes for a fairly "crumbly" bread.  I wanted something more....elastic, where a bread slice will tear instead of break.   Also, I wanted more control over the rising, oven temp and baking time.   Because of the content of the gluten, make sure no family members are allergic.  Seems there's a growing tendency towards gluten allergies.

Hope y'all like this one.  My family loves this bread. 

Moderators note, this is a bread that would have been made in the 19th Century, would be easy to do by hand and bake in a dutch oven.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Its been out awhile, but I recently saw this on a morning TV show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

Recipe: No-Knead Bread


Published: November 8, 2006

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

The Minimalist: The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work (November 8, 2006)
Readers’ Opinions
Forum: Cooking and Recipes

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Here it is on youtube.



Here is a variation.

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=4748&bdc=56976#topOfPage

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[Delmonico]

Sourdough French Bread

One of mine:

French and Italian Bread are pretty much the same, most bakeries make French bread a a longer skinnier loaf than Italian.  This is one of the simplest breads to make.  It also makes a fine pizza crust.

The times will vary much more with sourdough than with commercial yeast, your starter may be more or less active than mine and temperatures will affect the time more than with regular yeast, but the extra time is well worth it.  I most often start my sourdough the night before and bake on a day I'm going to be around most of the day.  Being slower though it won't take over your kitchen as fast as regular yeast well if you forget about the bread or get called away on an errand or at least most of the time.   

2 cups sourdough starter
2 cups of warm water
about 12 cups of flour
a pinch of salt (optional: salt will slow down the action of yeast)

a dab of lard
a couple double pinches of cornmeal
1 egg for a glaze (optional)

The night before baking, put the starter and the water in a large bowl, use one much larger than you will need, this will prevent escapes, if things work faster than you expect.  Mix in two cups of flour and cover and keep in a warm place. (I said warm, if it gets too warm it will work faster.)

In the morning it should be foamy on the top, add a couple more cups of flour and the salt if desired, this should be enough to make a soft dough, but thicker than a batter, this is often called a sponge.

When this rises up a couple of inches, (1-3 hours) work in enough flour to make a stiff, almost dry dough, cover and let rise till double. (1-3 hours)   Punch down the dough and separate into 2-3 pieces.  Roll them out by hand into long loaves the size desired.  One can also make round loaves out of it..
 
Place these on a cookie sheet that has been slightly greased and sprinkled with cornmeal.  This will keep them from sticking.  Cut three diagonals across the loaves with a sharp knife.  (I never figured this out, but the recipes call for it and the store-bought ones have it.)  Take the white of the egg and mix well with about 2 parts water with one part egg white.  This makes a glossy slightly browner crust. 

Let rise till double, coat again if desired and bake at 400 for about 35-45 minutes.  Let cool on the sheet before removing.

The times is why I maintain a active starter and replace it when it gets weak, I have a fresh starter and I made this in about 5 hours last night.  One will find out that a kitchen about 80-90 degrees works well, when it is cooler I put it in the oven with the light on.  In the summer my family gets upset when I turn off the air and bake bread if they are home.

[Delmonico]

Czech Style Sourdogh Bread

One of mine:

In the 1870's the CB&Q railroad owned a lot of land in South East Nebraska and they sent agents over to Europe to find buyers for it. A lot that settled south west of Lincoln, my hometown, were Czech, so I have had a lot of exposure to this type of cooking.

Talking with some of the local Czech Historians I have done some back engineering and came up with what we think is a recipe that would have been similar to what the Czech who settled here in South East Nebraska would have made, in the 1870's.

About a quart of sourdough starter
4 handfuls of rye flour
white flour (about 4 handfuls)
lump of lard about the size of a medium chicken egg
1/2 handful of brown sugar
double pinch of caraway seed

Put the starter in a crock bowl the night before, stir in the brown sugar and a handful of white flour. Cover with a towel.

In the morning mix in the rye flour, lard, caraway seed and enough white flour to make a workable dough. (Rye bread will be stickier than other bread dough’s) Let rise till doubled.
(A good starter will not take more than 2-3 hours at the most)

When it has doubled in size punch down and form into round loaves (2 or 3) I place mine in a greased 15 inch skillet. Let rise till doubled and bake in a medium hot oven for 35-45 minutes.

Cool on a towel or rack and spread the tops with melted butter.

I have decided in my not always humble opinion that this is the best bread in the word for a meat and cheese type sandwich.

I have to do a bit more searching when buying the rye flour, I do not use stone ground flour if I can find steel ground flour. I do this to honor the Czech who settled in this region. They are credited with bringing the steel roller mill technology to this area from Central Europe. It seems wrong to use stone ground flour in it.

By the turn of the century there were a lot of small flour mills in Saline County, grinding both rye and wheat. A popular product was a 50/50 mix. The white flour was a luxury back in the Old Country because of the climate and type of wheat used then. The 50/50 mix makes a light product that tastes a lot like the heavy breads made with pure rye.

Although I am not of Czech descent many of my friends are and I have been told I am an Honorary Czech several times by Czech folks who have eaten some of this rye bread. If ya do sourdough give this a try.

Vita Vaas
(Welcome Friend)

[Delmonico]

Sourdough cinnamon rolls

Cinnamon rolls (Makes 12 )

Take about a quart of starter and add a handfull of flour and a handful of brown sugar and let work over night.  Add two cans of cow and a hunk a lard about the size of a small chicken egg.   Add a couple or three beaten eggs and other couple handfuls of flour and mix into a sponge.  When good and bubbly add enough flour to make a stiff dough and let rise till doubled.  When about doubled, melt a 1/2 pound of butter. 

Punch down the dough and divide in half, roll out about 1/4 inch thick and about 18'X12' cover all but one of the 12' ends with melted butter, cover well with brown sugar, add a bunch of raisins over that if desired and sprinkle well with ground cinnamon, add a pinch of clove if desired and roll up to the unbuttered end and seal.  Cut rolls about 2 inches think and place in 14 inch deep duch oven or 15 inch skillet. (Cast iron of course)  do the other piece and add. 

Let rise till doubled and bake in a hot oven.  If baking these in the duch oven outside make sure you use less heat on the bottom than normal to prevent burning the butter and sugar.  Will be done in 35-45 minutes. 

One can add a frosting by adding a bit of milk to powdered sugar and making a thick paste to pour over.  (Yes powdered sugar is PC but was expensive)  One can also use granulated sugar and make a grainy frosting, (this was more common in the 19th century.)

[Delmonico]

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