Bread Baking Babes; bread in a pot

Another month, another Bread Baking Babes Bread. This month by the lovely Karen Baking Soda ("Bake my Day"), she picked a bread that is baked in a pot. A clay pot is one option. I know of several people who have baked bread in the so called "Römertopf" (or his cheaper brother "Schlemmertopf"), that were quite a rage for experimental cooks in the 70's. My mother was one of those cooks and we had all kinds of meals from this pot. I could smell it all the way up in my attic room when it was Schlemmertopf-day once again. I never got to like it. Meals that I would have loved when made in a normal pan or dish, got an awful taste from being prepared in this clay-pot and I wasn't the only one at home that felt this way.

But this was all a long time ago. My mother died 21 years ago and a few years ago I found that the notorious clay pot was still hiding in a cupboard at my parent's house, so I took it with me to use for baking bread in it. But when it got here... it went back into the cupboard, my cupboard this time. I never found the courage to bake bread in it, because of the memories from this "Topf". But then there was this month's challenge from Karen and finally I stood up to it and bake in this clay devil.  I though it would be a clever idea to minimize the dough touching the clay, plus I heard Karen's story of having to hack her bread out of the pot, so I used baking parchment on the bottom and enough flour around the edges. The recipe and the cloche instructions worked really good and as I used all white flour, I was sure the kids would love it.

The bread turned out very nice; puffed up nicely, good crumb. But for me the bread had this familiar taste and smell of the past. Especially in some spots where it came through real strong. I tried to ignore it. But even the kids with their love for white bread started to complain about the taste. We persevered, but it was just a too nasty taste, so we fed the last slices to the chickens. They didn't mind the taste, but hey they eat worms too. I can't decribe it really what it tastes like, a combination of clay, iron and the taste of a dentist's treatment. Is this just my topf? Maybe, but I will never trust these pots again. Next time I'll take this wonderful recipe Karen selected and bake it in a iron pot, I'm sure that will be a perfect bread. Thanks Karen for taking my hand and bake in this traumatizing topf for the first time... and the last time too, clearing out my cupboard this way, cause now I know I just still hate this pot! It's going to the second hand shop asap.

But this recipe rocks, bake it in your choice of pot/pan and become our Bread Baking Buddy. Bake, tell, post and send your details to Karen, who's kitchen of the month, so she can add your bread to a wonderful round up. Deadline 29th of this month.

Shepherd's Bread

(makes 1 loaf that fits in a “Römertopf/Schlemmertopf”)

(PRINT recipe)

Sponge (takes 2 hours)
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 cups tepid water (230 ml)
1 cups unbleached ap or bread flour (140 g)
1/4 cup sugar (50 gr)

Dough (first rise 2-3 hours, second only 15 minutes!)
½ tsp active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
1 ½ tsp salt
4 TBsp olive oil
2 ½ - 3 cups bread flour (I used about 430 g)
a little extra bread flour (for kneading if necessary and for the bowl)

1. Prepare the sponge: In a large bowl mix yeast plus ½ cup of the flour and the sugar using a large whisk. Add remaining ½ cup of flour and beat hard until very smooth, 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let stand at room temp until soft, spongy and pleasantly fermented, 2 hours.

2. Prepare the dough: Using a wooden spoon, beat down the sponge. Alternatively, beat down the sponge in the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. In a measuring cup, stir the yeast into the warm water to dissolve. Add the yeast, warm water, salt and olive oil to the sponge and beat well. Add the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating vigorously until a soft dough is formed that just clears the sides of the bowl.

3. Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead about 5 minutes until a smooth dough is formed. Will be firm yet springy and resilient. Adding only 1 tbs flour at a time to prevent sticking. Place the dough in a floured deep container, dust the top with flour, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise at cool room temp until tripled in bulk, 2.1/2 - 3 hours.

4. Shaping: Again turn out the dough on a clean surface. It will be slightly sticky from the long rise. Knead in about 1/4 cup more flour to make a firmer dough, about 1 minute. Shape into a tight round ball. Pull the ends tightly to the center of the loaf to form a smooth bottom and sides. Mist the surface with water. Using about 2 tbs of flour, heavily coat the top surface.
Using a serrated knife, slash the top surface decoratively, no more than 1/4 inch deep to allow steam to escape and to allow room for the dough to expand.

Cloche instructions:
Sprinkle the dish with flour and place the dough ball in the center of the dish. Move the dough around to cover the bottom and up the sides a bit with flour.
Cover with the cloche dome/bell and let rest at room temp 15 minutes. Before placing in the oven, rinse the inside of the cloche bell with water, draining off excess drips.
Place back over the bread and place in the preheated 425F oven.
Bake 10 minutes. Lower thermostat to 400F and bake a further 25-35 minutes. Remove the bell after 30 minutes of baking to allow the loaf to brown thoroughly.

Remove and cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

If you'd like to use your bread baking stone or tiles; let rise a second time for 35 minutes then use same oven setting but don't lower the temp. and bake until the bread is golden brown, crisp and sounds hollow when tapped.

(Source: “Bread for all seasons” by Beth Hensperger)

Scones for the Avid Bakers Challenge

For this month Avid Baker's Challenge we got a recipe with a long name: "Big-batch scone mix a.k.a. scrumptious scones for hurried people" from "The Weekend Baker" by Abigail Dodge. I don't think I've made scones before. I ate them on several occasions and saw them being made on quite a few cooking programms on the BBC. So I know they have to be fluffy and flaky and are not to be overworked when making the dough.

I didn't make the big batch, but just made enough for 8 scones. Making the larger badge is very handy when you want to bake them more often, but as I didn't want to do that at this point I made a small batch instead.
I choose the orange zest/cranberry version and that was really delicious. I'm not sure if they meant to rise more, but they were lovely buttery and tasted like orange cake (maybe even better!). I also liked the fact that you just cut the dough in wedges. I saw scones being cut out with a round cutter on tv, and then you'd have to rework the left overs which doesn't do the scone texture much good.

One (maybe) handy tip for handling the dough. As it was very sticky and hard to handle, I placed the dough on a large piece of parchment paper and shaped it into a round by lifting up -one side at the time- and pressing the dough together and in shape with care. (Hope you can follow that) Anyway that worked for me.

I certainly will make some more scones in the near future, because they were eating with love by the whole family. As usual I substituted the dairy (buttermilk/butter) with soy yogurt(with some lemon juice added)/veg. margarine. Can't wait to find out the next challenge....

Bread Baking Babes have a beer

Another Bread Baking Babes adventure, from Canada this time. With our multi-talented Babe Natashya, she invited us to bake a meal-in-one-bread, it has got delicious  soft crumb, meat, onion, cheese ánd some beer inside. What more can you wish for? When you smell it as it's baking you really just want to eat it right away. And I must say as good as it is cold, it's just twice as good warm! So toast or grill some slices when your bread has cooled.. YUM!  You can use whatever sausage meat you like or that you can get your hands on. You can also experiment with the cheese or beer, although Natashya gives extra points for Canadian beer.

I used some beef sausages, and a mix of cheeses: Parmigiano and some Dutch farmcheese. We normally don't drink a lot of beer, so I had my choice between "Kriek" (a cherry beer), dark brown sweet beer, Mexican beer (don't know where that came from) and Guinness. I went for the last one, that I've baked with before and that turned out very good. I halved the recipe and made one loaf, as I didn't have enough sausage for two breads. You really have to make this too if you start to drool when you smell baked onion and melted cheese. Don't hesitate and bake this wonderful bread with us and become our Bread Baking Buddy. bake, write, post and send your details to Natashya. Deadline 29th of this month.

Granville Island Beer Bread

(makes 1 loaf)

(PRINT recipe)

Night before:

85 g bread flour

85 g tepid water

⅛ tsp instant yeast

Baking day:

177 ml beer (room temperature)

2 TBsp olive oil

1 ½ TBsp dried onion flakes

2 tsp instant yeast

¾ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground pepper

2 TBsp sugar

280 - 320 g bread flour

2 small sausages, cooked and in small pieces

1 1/2 cups grated (Monterey Jack) cheese

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl for the pre-ferment the night before, cover with plastic wrap and set aside till next day.

The next morning add in the room temp. beer, olive oil, dried onion flakes, 70 g of bread flour, instant yeast, salt, pepper and sugar, and mix all these ingredients together till well blended.

Mix in another 105 g of flour. Start to knead the dough with the dough hook and continue to add a little flour till the dough becomes smooth (a little on the tacky side). Knead the dough for about 8 minutes, then place into a lightly oiled bowl, turn the dough over so all the sides are lightly coated. Cover with plastic and let rise for 1 hour or till it has doubled in size.

Sprinkle a little flour onto a flat surface and flatten out the dough. Divide the sausage pieces and 1 cup of the cheese over the dough, roll it up and careful knead it in. Cover dough with plastic wrap and allow to rest for another 15 minutes. Afterwards shape into loaves and place onto a cornmeal parchment lined cookie sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour. Using a sharp knife score the dough about a inch deep. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese on top of the loaf. Bake in a preheated 350ºF/180ºC oven for 30-35 minutes or till a thermometer places into middle of loaf reads 180ºF/93ºC. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

(This bread is sourced from CookingBread.com)

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 Bread Baking Babes  en "Biertjuhhhh....."

Het maandelijkse bakavontuur van de Bread Baking Babes, deze keer vanuit Canada. Onze meervoudig getalenteerde Babe Natashya nodigde ons uit een Canadees brood te bakken waar een heel maal in verstopt zit: zachte kruim, vlees, kaas, ui én bier! Wat wil je nog meer. Als je het brood begint te ruiken tijdens het bakken, loopt het water je al in de mond, heerlijk die ui- en kaasgeur. Het brood is lekker koud, maar twee keer zo lekker als je het warmt, dus toast of grill het kort voor je een sneetje eet, dat is nog lekkerder. Je kunt naar eigen smaak en koelkastinhoud varieren met de soort worst, kaas en bier die je voor dit brood gebruikt. 

Ik heb zelf twee kleine runderbraadworstjes gebruikt en twee soorten kaas: Parmezaanse en licht belegen boerenkaas. Veel bier hebben we niet in huis, maar ik had de keus tussen Kriek, bruin bier, Mexicaans bier en Guinness. Die laatste is het geworden, ik had al eens eerder Guinness gebruikt voor een brood en dat was toen erg lekker.

Ik heb het halve recept gemaakt (het recept hieronder is dus voor 1 brood), omdat ik niet genoeg worstvlees had voor twee broden. Dit brood is echt een aanraden als ook bij jou het water in de mond loopt als je warme kaas en gebakken uien ruikt. Dus bak met ons mee en wordt onze Bread Baking Buddy. Bak, schrijf, publiceer en schrijf naar Natashya. Deadline 29 april.

Bierbrood van Granville Eiland

(1 brood)

(recept PRINTEN)

De avond voor het bakken:

85 g brood bloem
85 g lauw water
⅛ tl droge gist

de volgende dag:
177 ml bier (kamertemp.)
2 el olijfolie
1 ½ el uienvlokken
2 tl droge gist
¾ tl zout
¼ tl vers gemalen zwarte peper
2 el suiker
280 - 320 g (sterke/brood) bloem
2 kleine (braad)worsten, gebakken en in stukjes
± 150 g geraspte kaas

Doe alle ingrediënten voor het voordeeg de avond voor het bakken bij elkaar in een mengkom, meng goed en laat het afgedekt met plastic staan tot de volgende dag.

De volgende ochtend voeg je het bier, olie, uienvlokken, 70 g bloem, gist, zout, peper en suiker erbij en meng je alles tot een homogene massa. Voeg nog 105 g bloem toe en begin het deeg te kneden. Voeg meer bloem toe om het deeg hanteerbaar te maken. Het moet een glad deeg worden met een beetje plakkerigheid. Bol het deeg dan op en leg het in een licht ingevette kom, dek af en laat het ongeveer 1 uur rijzen of tot het verdubbeld is.

Leg het deeg op een bebloemd oppervlak en druk het plat. Verdeel de worst en 100 g kaas erover, rol het op en kneed het kort door. Dek het deeg af met ingevet plastic en laat het 15 minuten rusten.
Vorm nu het deeg tot bijv. een vloerbrood, dek het nogmaals af met ingevet plastic en laat het een uur rijzen. Verwarm ondertussen de over voor op 180ºC.

Maak met een scherp mes een inkeping in de lengte en strooi de rest van de kaas erover. Bak het brood in de oven op 180ºC oven 30-35 minutes of totdat een kernthermometer ongeveer 93ºC aangeeft in het midden van het brood. Haal het brood uit de oven en laat het afkoelen op een rooster.

(Bewerkt naar een recept op CookingBread.com)

ABC - yummy rolls

A great recipe this month for the Avid Baker's Challenge: Rolls!! Rolls are always very well received here, they're good and easy to have in stock (freezer) and very handy as a lunch bread to take to school. These rolls were delicious.

First thing I had to do find out what "half and half " was. We know a "half-om-half" here in the Netherlands, but that's half beef mince and half pork mince. But it became clear quickly of course. I substituted this half cream/half milk with 'oat cream' to get a dairy free version. This contains less fat, so the rolls probably differ from the original recipe.
I added the poppy seeds in the dough, had some standing by to sprinkle on top, but that was not really necessary. Without an egg wash they fell off very easily too. So I would omit the top seeds the next time.

I happen to have a caketin that had exactly the same size as stated in the recipe. It seemed way too big. I've baked 16 pull-apart rolls before in an 8"x 8" (20 cm x 20 cm) tin and that worked fine. But after baking they had filled the tin fairly decent. The rise took a little longer, but they had a lovely ovenrise as well. Fantastic rolls, soft and velvety, maybe not as fluffy (because I didn't use cream/milk), but delicious.
Also a great way too to use egg yolks, as I'm always saving egg whites for angel food cakes.

Here you can find the original recipe!