Whole Wheat (and friends) Bread

As those of you who know me are doubtless already aware, I (Emily) consider myself a baker above all other culinary titles. I love light and fluffy muffins, chewy chocolate chip cookies, and the occasional richer-than-J.K. Rowling chocolate cake. However, there is no way to deem oneself a true baker, in my humble opinion, without being able to bake bread.

I grew up with parents who baked bread-- not every day or every loaf, mind you, but they baked. I'm sure they would have baked more often if not for my sisters and me taking up so much time. I have time. It's nice. So I do bake basically every loaf of bread I eat. And now you can too.

Also, before we begin, a recommendation: The Tassajara Bread Book. In my opinion, Edward Espe Brown is to bread as Mollie Katzen is to vegetarian cuisine--entirely irreplaceable. His book was first published in 1970, but my parents got me a new 2009 edition for Christmas. It's worth the buy; the cookbook practically reads like prose. My recipe is based closely on Brown's, but it's got its own zest.

This will be a long entry. Bread making is not so very complicated if one knows what he or she is doing, but it does take a good bit of explanation, so if you crave that fresh-out-of-the-oven aroma, just bear with me. (It's worth it--I promise.)

Ingredients (all proportions for 2 loaves-- can be easily halved or doubled)

• 3 cups wrist-temperature water
• 1 1/2 TBS yeast
• 1/4 sweetener (honey, molasses, brown sugar, or a mix. I like molasses for this bread)
• 3/4- 1 cup dry milk (not essential, but it makes a sturdier loaf)
• 2 cups white flour
• 3-5 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for kneading
  
• at least 1 TBS salt-- depends on your taste. I usually have closer to 1 1/2 TBS
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds

Procedure

• Put the water into a large bowl. I don't have the bread bowl I will someday have. A plastic or glass mixing bowl will do, but if you have a big ceramic bowl so much the better. Sprinkle the yeast in, and mix in the sweetener and dry milk.
• Add the white flour a cup at a time, followed with 2 cups of the whole wheat flour (you'll add the rest later). Stir after each cup is added, and after 4 cups are in beat it 100 times or until smooth. Brown says that at this point the mix should look like "a thick mud," and I couldn't agree more.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel and leave it for 45 minutes or so. Try to put it somewhere warm, but if you're in Minnesota in March, well...I at least try to stick it in a sunny spot.
  
• Add the salt and the oil, folding them both in. At this point the sponge (what you've put together so far) will be a nice big glob. You don't want to mess that up, so as you're folding don't cut through the dough.
• Add the oats in the same way, and some of the sunflower and sesame seeds, then begin mixing in the rest of the whole wheat flour. The less you cut through the dough the stronger it'll be, so add the flour in 1/2 c.-1 c. amounts, gradually incorporating. Add at least 2 cups of flour--more, if the dough seems too sticky. Then dump it onto a clean, floured counter top for kneading.
• There are many ways to knead, but most people (myself included) push the dough down and out with their palm-heels. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but basically you want to work the dough for 10 minutes, kneading and folding and turning and so on. You'll probably need to add more flour to the dough, the counter, and your hands. The dough will get stretchy and steady, gradually growing smooth. I like to add some of the sunflower and sesame seeds while kneading, but I don't know if real bakers would advise that.
• Scrape any last bits of bread dough from the bread bowl (if they seem stuck, using a bit of the detached dough works well) and spread a little oil around it. Put the kneaded dough back into the bowl, turning it so that the surface is coated lightly in oil. Cover the bowl back with the plastic wrap and towel and let it rise again for 50-60 minutes.
  
• Now the yeast is really at work. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down, cover it back up, and let it rise for another 40-50 minutes. Oil two bread pans.
• Time to shape the loaves. Dump the dough onto the counter and cut it in half. Take each half and knead it briefly, then roll it into a log. Try to pinch the seam together. Put each loaf into a pan and use the backs of your hands to press it in, flattening it. Cover the loaves and let them rise for 20 minutes while you pre-heat the oven to 350°F (sometimes 325°F, depending on your loaf pans).
• Before you put the loaves into the oven, score them a couple of times with a very sharp knife.
• Bake for about an hour, until they're golden brown and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
• Remove from the pans and let cool as long as you can resist. An hour is good. I usually last about 10 minutes.
  
• If you don't think you'll need your second loaf for awhile, wait until it's completely cool and wrap it first in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. It'll keep well in the freezer.

So now it's on you! Make the bread your own! Take out the oats and add millet (or another cup of flour). Sub pumpkin seeds or wheat bran or...well, the possibilities are endless, and they'll probably all taste amazing. Say goodbye to the bread aisle.

Foccacia!

Ok, so call me a blog hog, but the boys are being lazy and I have ambition to post. It's winter, and winter is major bread-baking season for me.

This particular baking adventure of sorts came up last weekend when I watered my little rosemary plant in the living room and the smell made me smile. Plus, since my little rosemary plant was getting sorta big, I wanted to prune it. I added the caramelized onion topping purely because we had leftover caramelized onions from another meal; you are in no way obligated to caramelize onions specifically for this bread.

Focccacia is sometimes referred to as a flatbread, but I don't see it that way. There's yeast in it, and it puffs up significantly by the time it's done. It's awesome plain, dipped in olive oil, or sliced in half to serve as sandwich bread. This recipe came originally from the Rebar Cookbook, but I've altered it to suit my purposes (namely, a bag of whole wheat flour close to expiration and a consequent effort to deplete it).

Two-Topping Whole Wheat Foccacia

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups wrist-temperature water
  
• 1 TBS yeast
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 1/2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (note: you could try using more whole wheat flour/less white, but for a light bread like foccacia I preferred to stick with mostly white)
• olive oil to drizzle over the top
  
• 5 minced garlic cloves
• 2-3 TBS minced fresh rosemary (you could use dried, but fresh is better)
• salt (I used sea salt-- a coarser one like rock or kosher would probably be better)
• black pepper
  
• 1/4 cup caramelized onion
• 1/4 cup feta cheese crumbles

Procedure

• Put the water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle the yeast and sugar in. Let it sit until fragrant and foamy, about 5 minutes.
• Mix in the salt and olive oil.
• Add flour one cup at a time (I alternated white and wheat). If the dough gets too stiff to mix in the bowl, don't worry about it. Just dump it onto a floured counter and start the kneading process.
• Knead for 8-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Clean out the bowl of any clinging bits of flour and coat it with a thin layer of olive oil.
• Dump the kneaded dough into the oiled bowl, roll the dough so all surface gets oiled, and let it rise, covered, for 1- 1 1/2 hours, until it's about doubled in size.
  
• Punch the dough down and let it rise until it doubles again (this should take less time than the first rise). This is a good time to mince your garlic and rosemary.
  
• Pre-heat the oven to 350°F and oil a cookie sheet (preferably one with short sides-- but we're not talking a brownie pan here). Dump the dough onto the sheet and coax it outward to meet the edges of the sheet.
• Toppings! Drizzle olive oil generously (or not-so-generously, depending on your preference) over the surface of the bread, and follow it with some salt and pepper. This is where the foccacia splits, if you're choosing to follow the two-flavor recipe. Sprinkle the garlic and rosemary on 2/3 of the foccacia and the onion and feta on the other 1/3. (Obviously you could do it half and half too-- I just had appropriate proportions for 2/3-1/3).
  
• Use your fingertips to poke little dents all over the bread and let it rise for about 15 minutes.
• Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the bread is puffy and the garlic is golden.

Also...off topic, but in the interest of full disclosure, and because Bozzie wrote a pointed comment on my last post, I will just say that I am also writing a fantasy story of sorts and the stuffed eggplant (as well as any other middle eastern/Mediterranean recipes I might put up here) are based on my city of Gabrilim. But I also love middle eastern food for its own sake, so this isn't to say that I wouldn't be cooking middle eastern without my story. The story just gave me a little nudge in that direction. Anyway, enjoy the foccacia!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread!

Happy Weekend to all!

Weekends are a really precious commodity here in the realm of AmeriCorps employment. I'm so busy trying to get my hours during the week that, even if I (Emily) have time to cook or bake elaborately, I don't often have time to blog about it. But on a Saturday I have time to bake and blog and it's lovely.

This is a recipe I associate exclusively with autumn. I don't remember when my mom first started making it, but I was pretty young. When I acquired my own kitchen last fall, I asked her for the recipe and found, to my delight, that it was not her creation but my favorite preschool teacher's. I was a rather hyper child, but Harriet at the Richmond JCC totally understood me. She'd get me to follow her around on errands and stuff. My three-year-old memory has nothing but fond associations with her. And I don't think she'd mind me sharing this recipe with the world. So, without further adieu....

Harriet's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients
Note: I am giving all of these for a one-loaf batch, but the recipe my mom gave me actually makes two, so feel free to double this. I just don't want to take up more freezer space, so I made one loaf. It freezes beautifully though.

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 cup oil
• 3 TBS water
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (I am lazy and use the canned stuff, but I'm sure if you use your own it'd be even better!)
• 1 3/4 cups flour (part whole wheat ok)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• a dash of nutmeg
• about 1/2-1 cups chocolate chips (or mini chocolate chips)

You can also make this bread without the chocolate chips. Increase the spices and add 1/3 cup raisins and 1/2 cup walnuts, if you like.

Procedure

• Preheat the oven to about 300°F to 325°F. My oven's a bit wonky and I found 300 to be too low. More on this later.
• Beat the eggs and sugar together and add the oil, water, and pumpkin puree. Your mixture should look wonderfully orange.
• Again, it says to mix all the dry ingredients separately, but I just throw them in with the wets. Either way, mix everything together. Taste a bit and add more spices if that seems wise.
• Stir in the chocolate chips. The batter should be thick at this point.
• Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for about 1 1/4 hours, until a knife comes out mostly clean. The chocolate chips will obviously get all over it. As I said, this is where it gets complicated. I found 1 1/4 hours on 300°F to be far from sufficient and ended up turning it up to 375°F or so. But experiment. I certainly wouldn't put it over 375, but it might be better to start it around 325 or 350, depending on the strength of your oven. These can also be made as muffins. One loaf should equal 12-18 muffins, depending how big you make them. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
  
• Let cool on a wire rack. Or, if you're like me, cut into it right away and get crumbs everywhere. It might turn out crumbly. That's ok. It still tastes awesome. Enjoy! And I highly recommend milk.