Simple French Bread

Yesterday I made what will be at least for now the last loaf of challah and moved on to a new style of bread. Up until now, the breads I have been making are sweet breads. The bread I made before the challah was quite sweet, and challah's taste is in part defined by being very sweet. Then around three or four hours before I went to bed, I started a loaf of simple french bread.

The process is quite simple. Mix a teaspoon and a half of yeast with seven cups of flour, two teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of brown sugar and a cup and a half of water. Stir it until it forms a nice ball, then kneed it for fifteen minutes. Then rise, kneed, shape, put in plastic bags on top of cooking sheets and let sit in the fridge overnight. Then when you get up, pull them out of the fridge and let them warm up for an hour or two. Heat the oven to 475 and prepare for baking. Score the top of the loafs just before you put them in, and cook!

The interesting thing about this process, opposed to say the other loafs of bread I've made, is the retarding. Retarding is a way to enhance the flavor of bread. In this case, by putting it into the fridge. This forces the yeast to slow down the production of CO2, meaning that in the 8 hours I left it in the fridge it rose as much as it did in the first 30 minute long rise!

I also did a different shape for my loaf this time, a longer shape more suited to sandwiches. As this picture demonstrates, it went quite well I'd say!
(picture coming)

More Challah

Just a small update today.

Again, today I made a loaf of Challah. Unlike the last loaf, I made it around 2-3pm. This time, I was experimenting with the egg wash. Last time, I didn't get it very thick or get complete coverage. I made twice as much of the wash, and made sure to get compete coverage. On the downside, I left it in the oven a bit to long. So the crust was a tad thick, and it split. Part of the way you tell when Challah is done is by checking to see if it's about to burst.

Over all, quite happy with it. The middle is still a tad bit undercooked still. I think next time I'll try making two smaller loaves. I'll probably need as much egg wash again, but hopefully the loaves will be more fully cooked.

Challah, Try Number One

I am aware that it is technically Tuesday, but I started this loaf of bread Monday night at around 11pm. I originally thought that it would only take around 3-4 hours, and it ended up taking 5 hours from start to when I write this. This was the first loaf I made entirely by hand. Normally I let the bread machine do the initial mixing and rise. This time, I used a spoon (metal; I really need to get a wooden spoon!) to mix the ingredients into a rough ball, then kneaded it until it was ready to rise by hand. This recipe came from the bread book my aunt got me. As with the other recipe I have tried from that book, I was surprised by just how good the end result was.

Challah is an easy bread to get wrong, and rather hard to get right. That said, this loaf came out right. The color, interior form, the crumb, and the crust all ended up exactly as they should be. The big secret with challah is just how many eggs go into the finished loaf. With this recipe, it ended up being five. Two whole eggs, two egg yolks, and another yolk brushed on the outside just before cooking. This is very important. The yolk on the outside is what gives it the nice, dark color and the proper taste. I had to use a paper towel, and as the picture shows while this does work, it doesn't quite give full enough coverage to get the coloration right.
(Picture coming tomorrow)
The taste and crumb were also spot on. The taste should be eggy and sweet, but not overpoweringly either. Likewise, the crumb should be clearly layered from the braiding. Each strand should be separate, and when pulled apart should cleanly break into pieces from each strand.

This was, overall, the best loaf of bread I've made. I got every part of it right. Sure I need to do a bit of work on my challah, but it's appearance and things that will get better with practice. Until next time!

Machine Bread v. Handmade Bread

When I went to make bread yesterday, I discovered that I was, tragically, out of milk. A quick ride to the local store fixed that, but left me too drained to make actual bread. However, I remembered that I did, in fact, have a bread machine! Now, bread machines are not as simple and easy to use as one would first think. To begin with, the bread machine just requires tossing the materials into it and pushing a few buttons.

Now, the crumb of the bread is as good if not BETTER then the bread I make by hand. However, the crust is much worst. It is not only thicker, tougher, and less tasteful, but if it's left in the cradle of the bread machine for more then a minute or three, it gets soggy.

Now, with handmade bread the trick is to make sure you don't make the dough to dense. I am getting it just about right, but still have a bit of work to do on it. With that said; I'm finally happy with the process of making bread itself. Starting on Monday, August 9th, I will be making more then just this same basic recipe. Now, this loaf was just a bit undercooked. Not to the point of being un-eatable, or even tasting bad. But enough that it was noticeable if I looked for it.

I'm still experimenting with scoring the top, as well as dusting the top with flour. I think I have
finally found a pattern I'm happy with, and the dusting of bread is both aesthetically pleasing and doesn't hurt the taste.

Topped with a bit of the home-made jam from my last post, it is VERY good bread. Probably my favorite loaf yet. Tomorrow will be one more loaf of this recipe, then starting Monday I'll make my first weekly attempt at a loaf of Challah. See you then!

Jam!

As you may have noticed, this blog hasn't been updated in nearly a week. That's because I've been in Olympia, visiting family and friends. I had scheduled my time fairly close, and set aside Sunday to spend time with my mom. Well, today we made Raspberry Jam.

If you've never had home-made jam of any kind, you might assume it's just about as much better then store bought as anything else is when made fresh, at home, with fresh supplies. But store bought jam does not come close to fresh, still hot jam on fresh, home-made bread. Starting the jam was slightly delayed, due to the presence of kittens. They've born of a feral cat, and just under 3 months old. And of course, because they're kittens, they're adorable.

Once we got that out of the way, we got straight to making the jam. 8.5 cups of sugar, 6 pints of berries. Crush the berries in a BIG pot until you have exactly 6 cups of crushed berries, then start heating them. Once you start heating them, mix an entire package of pectin into the berries. You have to keep stirring it the entire time unless you want it to burn. The steam coming off the crushed fruit is rather scalding, and the splatters can burn you. When stirring and heating, the berry mixture will look like this.

The rolling boil will be more energetic, though, looking more like this.


Once you get the jam looking like this, it's time to pour the sugar in. Then bring it back to a rolling boil, like you see above. Keep it there for exactly 4 minutes, then pull it off and start pouring your jam into your jars. It's important to fully sterilize the jars beforehand, as well as make sure they're dried so the moisture doesn't prevent a good seal from forming. We put ours in the dish washer, then dried the necks with clean cloths. Then, taking a ladle, the jam should be scooped into the jars. Wipe the rims to make sure they're clean, then put the lids on them. Here's the jam being ladled into a jar;

And finally, a picture of what it looked like when we were all finished! Fresh, hot jam is truly amazing :D