Category: bread

I’m not sure how I do these things, but yet again, I baked a loaf of bread that ended up mutilated. Oops.

I decided to bake bread this morning because the last half of the loaf I bought was run through with mold, and my current fund shortage eliminated the possibility of a trip to the market. Besides that, it’s a grey, 50 degree day here in Boston, and it seemed a good day for baking. And I even decided to try a new recipe.

I’ve avoided Margaux Sky’s Beautiful Breads and Fabulous Fillings before now because her recipes always seem to call for so many ingredients. Plus they make enough dough for four loaves of bread at a time, and using 18 cups of flour at once seems decadent to me. But this time I decided to go for it. I decided I could do the math and quarter the recipe. We had milk AND half and half AND eggs in the refrigerator, which never happens, so it seemed almost destiny. Margaux Sky’s Basic Whole Wheat Bread here I come. Except not.

Continue reading Bad bread, bad!

Last week I found this random recipe for Greek Saffron biscuits. I am new the world of saffron, but I love Greek food, and these sounded pretty good. Apparently, they are these religious holiday-related biscuits that are only made on this Greek Island called Astypalaia. The ladies of the island of course harvest local saffron, and they make these only once a year or something, and they’re special. They also are supposed to take something like seven hours. I do not have seven hours of baking patience, especially not these days. So I decided to modify a little. Call it sacreligious if you will. This version is probably not the way they are supposed to be, but they were still good. Ignore the fact that they are shaped a little like poo.

These are meant to be baked for five hours at a low temperature, until all the moisture has been baked right out of them and they are presumably rock hard. This seems to make them last longer or something? I don’t really like rock hard biscuits. I baked them for less time. I also couldn’t find whole-fat cottage cheese at the hippy mart, because it’s the freaking hippy mart. How many times to I have to say it: They have nothing I need, ever, at the hippy mart. The only change I might make to this in the future would be to add a ton more salt, because I like things salty. But as they are these are very unique savory biscuit treats.

Continue reading Astypalaian Biscuits, sort of

I have been having dreams about baking bread for a week, and yesterday I finally had some time to do it. I wanted to try something different, something inspired by one of my new cookbooks, Margaux Sky’s Beautiful Breads and Fabulous Fillings. This cookbook, though…this cookbook I have some problems with. Every single recipe calls for Lowry’s Lemon Pepper. And for some kind of crazy complicated sauce. Everything looks beautiful, but when I sit down and read the recipes, I realize I don’t want to go to all the trouble. I suspect that this book will serve mostly as inspiration, which is exactly what it did yesterday. I didn’t even end up using her basic bread recipe, because it called for all kinds of stuff, like half and half, that I just didn’t have in the house. Simple is my bread-making motto.

Instead, I tried another new bread recipe: Jamie Oliver’s. I couldn’t find the recipe on his website, but it was published in The Return of the Naked Chef (which was the first grown-up cookbook I bought). Reading through the recipe, my first thought was it seemed to require a lot of yeast. A lot. But as a novice bread maker, I went ahead and followed directions. I added a lot of yeast. And I ended up with monstrously large bread. I actually shouted out when I opened the oven door and realized it had expanded to three times its size!

I also ended up with some pretty delicious bread. The crust is near perfect. The cheese formed a lovely ribbon of melty salty goodness straight through the middle. The olives did decide to take a trip down and out through the sides of the bread, but the olive taste suffused the rest of the loaf, and when you do get the occasional meaty kalamata bite, it’s a bit heavenly. I will definitely be making this bread again, though I might cut back on the yeast a bit. Or a lot.

Continue reading Mozzarella Olive Bread

I don’t know why it got into my head that I wanted to make English Muffins. I kept seeing various blog postings about making them, and it seemed intriguing. Plus everyone kept saying how easy it was, so it seemed a natural for a dough newbie like myself. Oh, and I love English Muffins; they are a long-time breakfast staple in my world. How awesome would it be to have English Muffins I made myself? Well, I’m not entirely sure what I did wrong, but they are not so awesome, as it turns out.

I ended up with non-nooked and crannied, dense and heavy, burnt-on-the-outside-and-uncooked-in-the-middle English Muffins. It was such a sad moment! It was the first time I’ve ever had to throw away half of what I had just cooked! I have a few guesses about what I did wrong: the skillet I used probably wasn’t heavy enough, and I think I should have chosen a different recipe. I also didn’t give the dough a second, 15 minute proofing rise, which might have improved them a bit, though I’m not entirely sure what that does.

What I was left with is certainly not inedible. In fact, they are pretty tasty. They just aren’t what I think of as English Muffins. I will definitely be trying this again.

Continue reading Making English Muffins isn’t as easy as I thought.

I don’t know why I got it into my head that the Lahey/Bittman No-Knead Bread wasn’t real bread, but I became determined, after making two or three knead-free loaves, to make a more traditional loaf. I wanted to see how they compared, and to better understand how this No-Knead phenomenon actually worked.

Where else to go for a traditional, basic bread recipe but The Joy of Cooking. I know some people who shun this omnipresent kitchen staple of a cookbook, for being too basic, too boring, for being (how could they say it!) actually wrong. But I love my copy. Whenever I’m cooking something new, I first consult with Irma, just to get a handle on the basics. I suppose it’s true that I rarely follow the recipes from the book word for word, but the book helps me lay a nice foundation. It’s comforting, somehow, sitting up there on my shelf, full of instruction on just about any food item in existence. Obviously, I’m going to check in with The Joy of Cooking before I make my first loaf of “real” bread.

After reading page after page about using the right materials, and measuring properly, and kneading, and scoring, and batards, and couches, I finally felt ready to make some bread.

Continue reading I’m making real bread; or, Laura Kneads Some Dough

Yes, yes, yes, everyone and their mother has made the Jim Lahey/Mark Bittman No-Knead Bread. Everyone has written about it. I have already made the bread three times, so what the hell am I writing about it now for? Well, because I didn’t write about it before. I didn’t even have a food blog when the recipe was making the rounds, and I think we’ve already covered that I’m a bit of a joiner.

What’s bumming me out now, though, is the stupid New York Times. I know Mark Bittman wrote a follow up article, full of tips and hints and changes he’d heard from other cooks around the world. I read it weeks ago, but because my mind is a sieve, I couldn’t remember what any of those tips and hints were. And the New York Times wants me to pay $5 for the privilege of reading it again! Those bastards. I am not paying $5 to read it again. Does anyone remember any of those tips and changes? I’m sure I could spend some time scouring the interwebs, but it would be nice if I had them all in one place…

Continue reading The Ubiquitous No-Knead Bread