Bread baking Day #46

Although I'm a pretty faithful participant of the Bread Baking Day event initiated by Zorra, I missed the last two editions without it even crossing my mind... must have had a lot of other things on my mind I guess. But this time I'm glad to be able to participate again and give you my entry.

This month the Bread Baking Day is hosted by Noor from "Ya salam cooking" and she asked us to bake a bread from a place we would love to visit. Well that needed some thought. There are so many places I still would love to visit: Egypt to see the piramides, New York to feel tiny between the sky scrapers, Australia to see Ayers Rock and visit my sister, South Africa to experience the wonderful landscapes, New Zealand to visit the Lord of the Rings spots, North America to see the Rocky Mountains, South America to drive through Patagonia, ... the list is endless really.

A country that has been a wish for long too is Iceland, for it's unique landscape with vulcano's, plains, hot springs. I somehow have always seen myself riding a horse over the plains there... though that'll never happen, as I don't know how to ride a horse and I'll never will as I'm extremely allergic to horses. But a Jeep will do too. So I finally decided on Iceland. Now for a recipe... and what better place to look than the books by Beatrice Ojankangas, that specializes in recipes from countries to the north of us. There I found a lovely recipe, light and fluffy, with some texture and perfect for sandwiches. Thanks Noor for this wonderful theme and for letting me dream again about the beautiful world around us.

Grofarbraud
(Icelandic multi-grain bread)
(makes 2 loaves)

(PRINT recipe)

1 cup cracked wheat/bulgur (or mix it with flax seed, millet, sesame seeds)
500 g boiling water
4 tsp dry active yeast
2 TBsp light or dark brown sugar
1,5 tsp salt
2 TBsp vegetable oil
5 to 6 (about 700 - 800 g) cups bread flour

Topping: mixture of flax seeds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds

Put the cup of bulgur (or mix) in a large bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Stir and let it stand for over hour.

Place the yeast, sugar, salt and 600 g of bread flour in a large bowl. Add the cooled bulgur/seed soaker and the oil and stir it in. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes. Start kneading the dough with your dough hook in the machine (or by hand) and add enough extra flour to make a souple and elastic dough, that cleans the sides of the bowl. Shape into a ball, place in a greased bowl and cover. Let rise until doubled (about 1 - 1,5 hours).

Divide the dough in two equal parts, shape them in torpedo shapes. Make the seed mixture (enough to coat the two loaves) and spread them on a flat surface. Wet the top of the loaf and press it into the seed mixture. Repeat with the second loaf.

Place both loaves on a baking sheet with baking parchment, leaving space betweem them so they can rise. Cover with greased plastic and let rise until almost doubled.

In the meantime preheat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC, preferably with a oven stone in the oven.

Make some diagonal slashes on top of the loaves. Slide them onto the hot baking stone (or in the middle of the oven on the sheet) and mist the oven with water or pour some hot water in a also preheated metal tin on the bottom of the oven to create steam. Bake them for 30-35 minutes until brown and done.

(adapted from: “The great Scandinavian baking book” - Beatrice Ojakangas)

Happy Chinese New Year

Today it's the start of the Chinese New Year. The coming year is the year of the Dragon, which is my Chinese sign. And although I really don't believe in Astronomy and signs, it gives me a great excuse to publish this wonderful dragon that I shot at the Confusius light Festival in Haren.

Mellow Bakers in Januari ....All Breads baked!!!

This is the last month of the Mellow Bakers Challenge: Baking "Bread" by Jeffrey Hamelman. All done!

It all started April 2010 and 84 recipes later we've reached the conclusion. A wonderful book with great recipes and technics to understand, make and bake bread. It still is -in my humble view-  thé book to purchase when you want to understand how to and bake good bread. My book had it hard, it fell apart during this challenge. The middle part fell out, and however much I glued, it never really stayed put. Lost some of the colour pages that came loose, but it's still sort of together, so I can keep on baking from it. And here are the last breads from this book (all baked a few years back):

Semolina Bread. Here I found out I went wrong. The semolina (durum) bread (page 135) I baked in June last year, was the bread I had to bake this month. So I place the Semolina bread (page 171)here, that I should have used in June.

Semolina (durum) bread with a whole grain soaker. I had to use a little more water to get a good dough. As said before, the use of soakers are really a great way of adding grains and so on to your breads. Love the crunch of the millet.

Five grain levain. A great loaf, though personally I prefer the 5-grain bread with pâte fermentée (p.129).

Roasted garlic levain. A beautiful loaf as well, soft garlic taste and a great accompaniment for soup or stew. Lovely oven rise.

And that's it, done. We can applaud ourselves :) All the breads can be viewed HERE.

Rumour has it that the next Mellow Baker challenge will be baking through the entire book by Dan Lepard "The handmade loaf". I think I'll bake along again. I have the book, I like the book, did bake a few recipes (not many) from it already, I think I'll give it a go. So the Mellow Bakers story will be continued....

Bread Baking Babes and a timesaving bread

 This month our talented Babe Ilva came to the rescue with a recipe from Cuba. An easy loaf and  a time saving bread too, 'cause you don't have to preheat the oven and let the bread rise. Yes really, you just shove it into a cold oven! As ovens can differ a lot from one to another, the outcome can be a little different as well. My loaf didn't get as "deep golden brown" as stated in the recipe, even though I baked it a little over 60 minutes. I think my oven heats up rather slow. But nevertheless it was a wonderful white loaf of bread, our kids loved it! Fine crumb, so really perfect for toasting too.

So fresh bread with little effort and less time, now you All want to bake it right?! Become a Bread Baking Buddy, bake, tell us what you think about this bread, blog and sent all your details to Ilva, so she can gather all the breads in a post. Deadline 29th of this month.

Don't forget to check out the other babes to get inspired! Links in the side bar.

CUBAN BREAD
(two loaves)

(PRINT recipe)

1,2-1,4 litre/ 5-6 cups of bread or AP flour
2 packages dry yeast, I used 50 g fresh
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
500 ml/ 2 cups hot water
sesame or poppy seeds (optional)

by hand or mixer (15 mins)
Place 4 cups flour in a mixing bowl and add the yeast, salt and sugar. Stir until they are well blended. Pour in the hot water and beat with 100 strong strokes, or three minutes with a mixer flat beater.
Gradually work in the remaining flour (using fingers if necessary), 1/2 cup at a time until the dough takes shape and is no longer sticky.

kneading (8 mins)
Sprinkle the work surface with flour. Work in the flour as you knead, keeping a dusting of it between the dough and the work surface. Knead for 8 minutes by hand or with a dough hook until the dough is smooth, elastic, and feels alive under your hands.

rising (15 mins)
Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and put in a warm (26-37°C/80-100°F) place until double in bulk, about 15 minutes.

shaping (4 mins)
Punch down the dough, turn it out on the work surface, and cut into two pieces. Shape each into a round. Place on the baking sheet. With a sharp knife or razor, slash X on each of the loaves, brush water, and, if desired, sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds.

Baking (205°C/400°F; 45-50 mins)
Place the baking sheet on the middle shelf of a cold oven. Place a large pan of hot water on the shelf below, and heat the oven to 205°C/400°F. The bread of course, will continue to rise while the oven is heating. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the loaves are a deep golden brown. Thump on the bottom crusts to test for doneness. If they sound hard and hollow, they are baked.

(source: Bernard Clayton's “New Complete Book of Breads”)

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Bread Baking Babes met een snel brood

Deze maand is onze mega-getalenteerde Babe Ilva de keuken van de maand en zij gaf ons een tijdbesparend brood uit Cuba. Eenvoudig en snel, omdat je het brood geen eindrijs hoeft te geven, je start het brood in een koude (ja KOUDE!) oven, dus geen voorverwarmen. Omdat ovens natuurlijk verschillen en de mijne blijkbaar niet zo woest snel opwarmt, kreeg het brood niet de donkerbruine korst die het recept beschreef en die je bij de andere babes  kan zien, ondanks dat ik het brood langer -iets over een uur- heb laten bakken. Maar lekker was het brood wel, een keertje weer helemaal wit geeft blije kinderen. Hoewel ze nooit zeuren over volkoren trouwens.

Ik heb overigens maar 1 brood gebakken (het Engelse recept hierboven gehalveerd), maar je kunt het eenvoudig verdubbelen om twee broden te bakken.

Nou dat klinkt toch alsof je het zelf wilt bakken, hè?!  Bak, vertel en blog erover en stuur je gegevens naar onze keukenprinses Ilva, dan kan zij de broden verzamelen zodat we de eindresultaten bij elkaar kunnen zien. Deadline 29e van deze maand. Bezoek voor inspiratie ook de andere Babes (links in de zijkolom).

CUBAANS BROOD

(1 brood)

(recept PRINTEN)

± 385 g broodbloem
2 tl droge gist
1 tl zout
1 el suiker
235 g water
sesam- of maanzaad (optioneel)

Met de hand of mixer (15 min.)
Doe 280 bloem in de mengkom, voeg de gist, zout en suiker toe. Roer door. Giet het water erbij en meng dit (met een lepel of de k-garde van de mixer) ongeveer 3 minuten. Werk langzaam de overige bloem erdoor, 70 g per keer tot het deeg samenkomt en niet meer plakt.

kneden (8 min.)
Kneed met de hand op een bebloemd werkvlak. Of met de deeghaak van de standmixer ongeveer 8 minuten tot het deeg glad, elastisch en veerkrachtig is.

rijzen (15 min.)
Leg het deeg in een ingevette kom, dek af met plastic en laat het op een warme plek rijzen (ongeveer 15-30 minuten) tot het verdubbeld is.

vormen (4 min.)
Duw het deeg terug en vorm het tot een bal. Leg het op een bakplaat (met bakpapier). Optioneel, maak het deeg vochtig en bestrooi met sesam- of maanzaad. Snijd een kruis in de boven kant van de bol.

Bakken (205°C - 45-60 min.)
Schuif het bakblik in het midden van een koude (!) oven. Zet een blik of pan met heet water onderin de oven en zet de oven op 205°C. Het brood zal nu verder rijzen terwijl de oven opwarmt. Bak ongeveer 50 minuten of tot het brood bruin is. Bak langer of korter, afhankelijke van de snelheid waarmee je oven opwarmt. Klop op de onderkant van het brood om te horen of het gaar is (moet hol klinken). Laat afkoelen op een rooster.

(bron : Bernard Clayton's “New Complete Book of Breads”)

Another "commitment"

I was way too late with the last Mellow Baker post, I am writing my BBBabes post at the last day (minute) lately and I totally forgot the existance of Bread Baking Day (how did that happen?) for two months...so I sure don't sound like a person who needs another challenge to do in blogland, right?! So what do I do?
Of course I jump and take on another chore to do once a month: The Avid Baker's Challenge, 1 book a year, 12 recipes, 1 a month. A baking challenge started by Hanaa and this madness of finding more to do started last night, when I was sleepless for hours and tried to clean my reader (didn't yet), so I visited my lovely and talented fellow babe Karen Baking Soda, who posted about such a wonderful bundt cake. I got inspired. She baked the recipe of this month "Nut Crusted chocolate-banana swirl cake", without the nut crust, without the banana, I just had to laugh, so funny. So yes Karen it's all your fault :). Did I tell you I love bundt cakes? I have way to many bundt pans and love to bake in them.

I noticed the recipes for 2012 are from "The weekend baker" by Abigail Dodge. A book that I happen to have and - shame on me- only baked from it once, for some reason it just didn't work for me when I got it. I haven't bought a book for a while now, 'cause I have just too many that I have never or hardly baked or cooked from. And it was my plan to use the books that I have more this year... so what better opportunity to follow up on my good intentions and step on the ABC bus and give it a go for a year to start. Unfortunately for you all there won't be lots of recipes, which is logical when there are more that a few recipes baked from one book. I you like what you see you can always buy it. This means a little easier on me to, cause I don't have to type the recipes and translate them as well.

Then I read that entries had to be posted on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd of the month.
Sjeez late again, but nothing to do about that, but take the butter, eggs and milk out of the fridge, turn back to bed for an hour to get warm again and bake as soon as everyone is out of the door early this morning. And so I did.

And look at that, I think it looks fabulous :).

The Nut crusted chocolate-banana cake (with nut crust and with banana). As I make diary-free versions of everthing I bake (if possible) I used vegetable margarine and in stead of the buttermilk, I make  'sour' milk, by adding lemon juice to rice (or oat) milk. (this because we have a son with cow milk allergy). Because Dutch buttermilk  and even more so my sour milk concoction is quite thin (thinner than US buttermilk), it was all a bit liquidy and that had me worried for a second. But it was all spot on and came out  great. Even my marbling -which always looks strange or doesn't look marbled at all when I do it-, wasn't too bad.

Update: I forgot to tell you how it tastes! That's what it's all about isn't it. DE-LI-CI-OUS. Such a great combination chocolate and banana. Even our youngest, who hates bananas, ate it in a flash. Smells wonderful too. A winner!!