Bread Baking Day 2012

And yes today is World Bread Day, an event taken care of by Zorra. I didn't like to enter my 'Russian Rose' for this WBD, because the most fun in it (for me) that there are so many different kinds of breads entered. Therefor I baked a different bread for this occasion, which is one of my personal favorites. 

First of all it's a pullman loaf. I just love bread that comes out of this square pan, it just looks so cute. I still find it exciting when the lid is taken of and you see the loaf perfectly snugg in the corners with a golden colour. And apart from that easy to slice and fit into lunch boxes! 
Second it contains lots of seeds, not only for health, but I just love the taste of them. Next is the use of part white, part whole flour, so it's a bit lighter to eat. The dark colour is from both dark malt powder, malt syrup and a little carob powder. Some use carbo as a substitute for chocolate, so I you don't have it, you can also use cocoa powder. Carob is a bit more subtile and just give the lightest hint of chocolate goodness. Love it.  So there you have it one of my favorite home breads for this Bread Baking Day. Have fun baking and have a great World Bread Day! Thanks Zorra, I'm looking forward to the round up already.

Lien’s dark pullman loaf
(1 pullman loaf)

(PRINT recipe)

2 tsp dry yeast
400 g bread flour
200 g whole wheat flour
10 g salt
10 g carob powder
25 g dark malt powder
2 TBsp malt syrup
30 g vegetable oil
2 TBsp sesame seeds
2 TBsp poppy seeds
2 TBsp flax seeds
40 g almond flakes
40 g pumpkins seeds
40 g sunflower seeds
360 - 400 g water

A large pullman pan: 13" x 4" x 4" (33 cm x 11 cm x 11 cm)

Place all ingredients (not all the water at once) in the bowl of a stand mixer. Start kneading with the dough hook. Knead until the dough is supple.  Add enough water to make a dough that isn’t too wet, but may still be a little sticky.
Shape into a ball  and place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until almost doubled. This takes about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC.

Lightly grease your pullman pan. Shape the dough into a log that fits into the pan. Cover the pan (or just close with the greased lid) until it has risen to 4 cm under the rim. Place the bread in the oven with the lid closed (I like to place it directly on the stone) and bake for 20 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 200ºC and bake for another 15 minutes. Now take the lid off (carefull it’s hot!) and bake for another 5 minutes.
Invert the loaf on a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing.

(recipe by Lien)

Bread Baking Babes on Bread Baking Day

In October the posting day of the Bread Baking Babes happens to coincide with the annual Bread Baking Day. And for that reason Tanna decided that the buddies were allowed to bake and post along with the Babes on this same date. Yes you got it Tanna from "My Kitchen in half cups" is head chef of this month. For her is was all about shape.. and I bet about filling too! 

So the dough and filling was up to us. I twisted the dough a little by adding some Kamut flour and I made my own sweet filling. And my o my this filling was so good, I ate several spoonfulls even before the dough was ready, dangerous stuff! Anyway it turned out pretty and totally delicious. I love the zebra print these slices have. I baked the bread in a ring vorm, so it's a little higher, but a free formed loaf probably looks a bit more like a rose in stead of a daisy (like mine does), as you will discover when you check out the other loaves from Babes and Buddies.

Let you imagination run free and choose your own filling savory or sweet and you'll have people begging you for more. Thanks Tanna for this wonderful recipe idea!

Russian Rose

(Sweet version: 1 large round loaf)

(PRINT recipe)

dough
500 g white bread flour
100 g kamut flour
2 tsp dried yeast
20 g wheat germ
10 g sugar
10 g salt
50 g vegetable oil
± 300 g water

filling
200 g hazelnuts, roasted
100 g dried figs, soaked in water for 20 minutes and dried
2 TBsp Fra Angelico liquor
100 g butter, unsalted, roomtemperature
75 g dark brown soft sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
grated zest of 1 lemon

Make the dough by placing all ingredients in a large bowl, add the water carefully as you start mixing and knead with the dough hook. Use the dough hook 2-3 mins. on low speed and 2-3 mins. on medium speed. Dough should be supple and not sticky to the touch. Add water or flour if dough is too stiff or too loose (respectively). When dough is ready, spray a bowl with oil and gently put the dough in the bowl. Spray a little more oil on top and cover. Let rise about 40 minutes to an hour.

In the meantime make the filling by placing all ingredients for the filling in a foodprocessor and pulse until the nuts are finely ground and all is made to a paste.

Lightly flour (or grease) your work area. Flatten the dough gently with your hands. Roll the dough as thin as you can using a floured rolling pin. When rolling out the dough, try not to lift and move it too much. You can try and gently pull the dough to stretch it thin like with Strudel.

Apply a thin layer of your filling on top of the dough (leave the edge clear). Slowly, tightly and very gently roll the dough into a roulade (pinwheel ). You will now have a very long roulade. Take a sharp chef's knife and cut the roulade lengthwise.

Place the two halves crossing each other (open roulade layers facing up) to create and X shape.  Gently pick up the two ends of the bottom half, cross them over the top half, and place them back down. Continue this process, taking the two bottom ends and crossing them over the top until all the roulade has been used. You now have a two strand rope shape. If for some reason some of the open roulade layers are pointing down or sideways, carefully turn them so they are facing up. Gently pinch the ends to seal. Look at the braid. If one end looks a little thinner make that your starting point. If not, just start from either end.  Slowly and very gently, roll the braid sideways (horizontally) without lifting your hands from the table. You should keep those open roulade layers facing up. Pinch the end delicately. The end result should look like a giant snail shell or a very large cinnamon bun. Carefully pick up the braid and place in the prepared springform ring. Keep it flat on the parchment.

Cover. Let rise until the braid hits three quarters the way up the springform.  Depending upon the temp in your kitchen this may take from 20 to 40 minutes.

Bake at 210ºC (410ºF) for 5-10 min, lower oven to 180ºC (355ºF) and bake for another 20-30 min. There should be a decent amount of oven spring.  The bread should rise above the springform edge. When the bread is out of the oven lightly brush olive oil or butter on top and sides. Let cool on a rack.

(adapted from:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19320/caucasian-bread)

ABC bread

 Wonderful challenge for this month's Avid Bakers: Bread. Always a joy to bake that. Honey Oatmeal Bread is on the menu. We love oats, so that's great and the kids (and I) love to eat some white bread every once in a while.

I made some changes to the recipe:
- I used just 1 tsp salt, because I always just use 1 tsp for breads with about 500 g of flour. This bread even used less flour, so the 1,5 tsp salt that was in the recipe is just way too salty for us.
- I also used less yeast (about 1 1/2 tsp instead of  2 1/4 tsp). Less yeast means a slower rise, and that not only gives more taste, but also more control over the dough, as I'm not the kind of person who watches their dough like a hawk every ten minutes. I just take a look when I remember I was baking in the first place, so it's nice the dough takes it easy as well.
- I used bread flour instead of AP, cause of the weakness of our AP-flour here in the Netherlands. (Our AP-flour is better for use in cakes, cookies ecc.)
- When all the ingredients were kneading, I saw it was too wet. So I had to add about 60-80 g more flour to get a dough that could be shaped.

Honey Oatmeal Bread

All a lovely give-me-another-slice-kind-of-bread, moist and great taste. The oatmeal is totally invisible because it was soaked before adding.