Mexican Chocolate Pumpkin Cookies (PS they are Vegan)

Festive-looking Vegan Cookies

     A couple of months ago, Jake sent me a link to a cookie contest for the LA Times.  The winner would be published in the newspaper and it seemed like a good way to begin trying to publish recipes.  Last year, Jake and I experimented with making Vegan cookies and came up with several good ones.  Applesauce Oatmeal, Tofu Mint Chocolate, Banana Peanut Butter and my favorite, Mexican Chocolate Pumpkin.  I brought in the cookies to my coworkers, who are not Vegetarian, let alone Vegan, and to my surprise, they loved the cookies.  They raved about them, and still ask me to make them whenever the topic of cookies comes up.  It turns out, this was one of those contests where you could vote 10 times per day; every day until the contest ended.  My friends and family spread the word and everyone voted quite a bit, but alas, I did not win the contest.  There were people with thousands of votes, which doesn't really seem like the most honest or truthful way to hold a contest.  (I recently went back to the link and saw that someone had commented on my recipe with kind words about Vegan cookies http://latimes.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?p=V&c=21592&s=5686339&i=1&m=X#SD.)

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     Vegan baking, is actually very easy.  The items to replace are the eggs and butter and milk chocolate.  The butter is easily replaced by Earth Balance buttery sticks (which taste almost identical to butter)or margarine, and the eggs can be replaced by a number of things, pureed pumpkin, applesauce, tofu, banana, or a store-bought egg replacer.  It's also very easy to find chocolate that is not made with milk or other animal products.  The best part about Vegan baking, is that you can eat the dough or batter along the way without worrying about salmonella from the raw eggs.  That way, you can adjust flavors along the way, ensuring that you will have a cookie to your liking in the end.  Salmonella has never stopped me before with dough, but with Vegan baking, I can eat the dough without getting a stomach ache.  

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     I made 4 batches of these cookies and gave them to my coworkers wrapped in plastic and tied with ribbon for a holiday present.  Most of them ate all the cookies within minutes of receiving them, and my Vegan coworker Crystal was very pleased as well.  These cookies aren't overly sweet, and can be made on the chewy under-baked side because there is no fear of raw eggs. 

Vegan Mexican Chocolate Cookies with Pumpkin

By Jake J. Thomas and Kaitlin Fasse

1 Earth Balance vegan buttery stick
1 cup evaporated palm sugar
¼ cup organic pumpkin puree
¼ tsp each of vanilla extract, baking soda, nutmeg and salt
2 cups of flour
1 ½ packages of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate, chopped into small pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Bring the buttery stick to room temperature and cut into tablespoon sized pieces. Cream the butter in a mixer (on speed 2 or 4) with the paddle attachment for a few seconds. Add the palm sugar and continue whipping on speed four until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

3. Add the pumpkin, vanilla and nutmeg and continue to mix until combined.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients ½ cup at a time to the wet ingredients and continue to mix until combined. Once combined, check the consistency of the dough by pinching it to see if it holds its form (you can taste it at this point too!). Add more flour if needed.

5. Add the Ibarra chocolate and mix until the chocolate is dispersed throughout the dough.

6. Using an ice cream scoop (or two spoons), scoop out balls of dough and place on a baking sheet (no need to grease it). Flatten the balls a little with the back of a fork.

7. Bake the cookies for 12-16 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through to ensure even baking. Take the sheet out and let cool for about 3 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool entirely. 

 

Challah!

Video by Jake J. Thomas

Featuring Julia Fogelson, Caroline Carpenter, Jake J. Thomas,

and of course, Luck.

    

     While flipping through all the various baking books I have, I came across Challah several times.  I have always admired this bread, the way it is beautifully browned with pale seams and the gorgeous braided pattern it is baked in, but have never attempted to make it.  I think I have been intimidated by it in the past but after making it, I know that it looks more difficult than it actually is.  While I was thinking about making Challah, my friend Julia messaged me and shared a Challah recipe with me from her friend, and asked if I would make it with her.  I was very excited to do it, especially when she mentioned that she liked to add dark chocolate nibs.  After confirming plans with Julia, I came into the kitchen to discover that Caroline was also in a baking state of mind and was getting ready to make an apple pie.  It was the first apple pie she had made by herself but had been watching her mom bake them since as long as she could remember.  I helped her with which pie crust to make and started to get excited about making the Challah and having two wonderfully sweet baked goods to eat later that cold, rainy night.

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     I should probably mention that Julia and Luck are seriously in love with each other.  Luck was so excited to see Julia, and was jumping around in circles, smacking her tail into the cabinets, doors, and legs of everything in her radius (even though Jake had walked her about 15 miles earlier that day).  After they said hello and got reacquainted, Julia and I set out to make the Challah.  The recipe we used was from one of Julia’s friends and was a very relaxed recipe, so different from the one I had seen in Martha Stewart’s cookbook.  The recipe said things like “after the yeast is partying,” ”let cool until doesn’t burn your finger,” and “mix in the salty eggs” and I was excited to try it out.  The bread is prepared in a similar fashion to other breads I have made, but the dough was incredibly sticky.  I hoped that no one was noticing the difficulty I was having kneading the dough but I started to panic a little bit.  Luckily, Julia was busy with Luck and Caroline was playing the guitar and by the time they came into the kitchen to check on the dough, I had incorporated enough flour to get it under control.  We set the dough to rise, and Caroline showed me how to play dominos.

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     After letting the dough rise again, and adding the chocolate nibs, I kneaded the dough until it was smooth; not too dry, not too sticky.  We divided the dough in half and got ready to braid.  Julia divided her half into four pieces, rolling each into a log shape.  Then she attached them all at the top and began to braid, taking the far right strand, placing it over two, and under one, and repeating until the end where they are all pinched together.  We brushed them with egg wash and put them in the oven.  When the Challah was done, we immediately sliced into it and burned our fingers eating the delicious eggy, doughy, soft, sweet bread.  It was wonderful, and still good the next day (although there was hardly any left).

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Challah Recipe
Adapted from Julia's Recipe

2 cups milk
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar per
2 packages active dry yeast
4 eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp. salt
6 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 egg beaten with 2 Tbsp. cold water
Poppy seeds if desired
Dark chocolate bits

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Melt butter, milk, and sugar in a saucepan over low heat until homogeneous.

2.  Transfer the milk mixture to a large bowl.  Dissolve the yeast and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes until it is activated.

3.  While the yeast cultures, whip up the eggs and salt in a separate bowl.  Once the yeast is cultured, add the egg/salt mixture and mix to combine.

4.  Add the flour, one cup at a time and mix until mostly combined.  Empty the bowl onto a well floured board and sprinkle a layer of flour on top of the dough. Be prepared to use up to 2 cups of flour to knead the dough.

5. Knead until fresh to the touch, not too sticky or too dry.  Add the chocolate bits and knead until fully incorporated and evenly distributed. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

6.  Punch the dough down, and transfer back to the cutting board to cut in half.  Separate each ball of dough into 4 logs.  Braid by attaching the four logs at the top and pulling the far right strand over two and under the last.  Continue doing this until you have reached the end, pinch the ends to seal.

7.  Place the braided dough on a lightly greased cookie sheet and let rise another 30 minutes.  Mix the egg wash and apply to the bread, making sure to get in the cracks of the braid.

8.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, and checking to make sure it is baking evenly and not burning.  Remove from the oven and slice immediately, or let cool and store in plastic wrap.

Biscuits

 Video by Jake J. Thomas

    

     I have to say, that one of my very favorite baked things to eat is a biscuit.  When made correctly, they are fluffy, full of flaky layers, buttery, and warm.  They can be dense little bricks though too (which I have made several times).  I have made this biscuit recipe before, but this is the first time that the biscuits turned out to my liking.  I'm not sure if it's because I have been in the bread zone, or if the weather was the perfect in temperature and humidity, or if I was just lucky, but whatever the reason, I did not make little bricks this time.   

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     My friend Eileen's dad's girlfriend Louise, (phew) makes the absolute best biscuits I have ever had.  Eileen brought them into work one day, wrapped up in a kitchen towel inside of a basket. They were towering little sculptures of flour and butter, and were as light as a feather.  Maybe I was channeling Louise's Southern roots when I made the biscuits this time, or maybe it was just luck.  The word biscuit refers to different things in North America than it does elsewhere.  A biscuit is a cookie of sorts every where but in the US which is why the root of the word means "twice baked" (as they are first baked and then dried) implying a hard, brittle texture that varies greatly from the light fluffy biscuit in North America.  Maybe that's why I made those little bricks before...

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     Biscuits are delicious eaten straight out of the oven, while they are still burning your fingers, with butter, with jam, with peanut butter, with cream cheese, under sauce, over cobblers, eaten cold, eaten hot, eaten lukewarm, eaten as dough...as long as they aren't little bricks, they are good with just about anything.

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Finished Biscuits

#47 Flaky Biscuits

From the Tassajara Bread Book

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

[Makes 12 biscuits]

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine flours, baking powder, and salt.  Cut butter into dry ingredients with a pastry cutter, two knives, or rub gently between hands until pea-sized pieces are formed.

Make a well in the center and add the eggs and milk.  Beat the eggs and milk with a fork until smoothish.  Then continue stirring with the fork, gradually incorporating flour, until all moistened.

On a floured board, knead the dough just enough to bring it together.

Roll the dough into a rectangle 1/2 inch thick.  Fold in thirds.  Turn dough a quarter turn, and repeat rolling and folding.  Repeat once more.  (The rolling and folding make a flakier biscuit).

To make the biscuits, roll out the dough again to a 1/2 inch thickness.  Cut into rounds with a floured cutter or glass.  Place on an un-greased sheet, and bake at 425 degrees for about 8-10 minutes until the bottoms are browned lightly and the tops are slightly golden.  Keep an eye on them--they get dry if over baked.

Technically, this is still considered baking...

The baked/stuffed pumpkin

     On a long rainy Saturday, when I had planned on making pasta with tomato sauce for dinner, Caroline came into the kitchen with her laptop and a recipe recommendation for a baked/stuffed pumpkin from her mom.  (I am working backwards a little bit, as this was before Thanksgiving and I was getting into a autumn mood).  It sounded great, but needed some tweaking as it was not a vegetarian recipe.  We immediately started to brainstorm about what we could fill the pumpkin with.  Roasted vegetables, cheese, lasagna noodles, pine nuts, potatoes; we were really getting into it.  We decided on garlic breadcrumbs (like the recipe called for), roasted butternut squash, sauteed onion, chard, carrots and celery, wild rice with black beans, and layers of mozzarella, Parmesan, and Gruyere cheese, with creme fraiche, and herbs.

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  While this recipe certainly takes a while, it is well worth the wait.  First, the pumpkin needs to be cleaned and the guts need to be removed (I really hate this part, it feels like pulling hair out of a drain, but it's worth it), we saved the seeds and roasted them which was a nice snack while we waited for the pumpkin.  The first layer was the wild rice with the black beans.  Next we laid down the sauteed garlic, onion, carrots, celery, butternut squash, and swiss chard.  Then we added the breadcrumbs with garlic.  In between each layer, we added creme fraiche in addition to Gruyere, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese as well as salt and pepper, sage, thyme, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  After all of the layers are put into the pumpkin, it needs to bake for two hours.  The smells pouring from the oven are like the songs of the sirens to Odysseus; it is almost impossible not to pull it out of the oven and start devouring it.  Again, luckily we had those roasted pumpkin seeds.

 

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     Once the pumpkin was finally ready, we were so excited and could not wait to scoop it out. It was delicious, savory, warm, spicy and complex, everything we hoped for and more. I knew that this dish would be a wonderful vegetarian addition to the Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house, so I emailed my mom the next day telling her all about it. I ended up making the stuffed/baked pumpkin for Thanksgiving and it was a hit! I believe this will be a new addition to the standard Thanksgiving traditions.

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130704456 

Stuffed Baked Pumpkin

Adapted from NPR

by Caroline Carpenter, Jake J Thomas, and Kaitlin Fasse

1 or 2 sugar pie pumpkins, cleaned and gutted (save the lid)

1 cup wild rice

1 can of black beans

1 onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

garlic, to taste

small bunch of Swiss chard

1 packaged of pre-cut butternut squash

4-5 pieces of stale bread, cut into squares and toasted with garlic

Creme Fraiche

Grated Mozzarella, Gruyere, Parmesan

minced thyme and sage

salt and pepper

nutmeg, cinnamon (or cinnamon sticks)

butter.

     

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 with the rack on the lower third.  Wash and clean the pumpkin, remove strings and seeds.  Rub butter on the inside of the pumpkin and lid and salt and pepper generously.  Place on a baking sheet or pan and set aside.

2.  Cook the rice, following package directions and combine with one can of   beans.

3.  Saute the onions, carrots, celery, chard and garlic.

4.  Toast the breadcrumbs with garlic for a few minutes in a pyrex baking dish.

5.  Set the pumpkin on the baking sheet and begin to assemble.  Start with the rice and beans, add the onions, carrots, celery, chard, butternut squash, and garlic, then the breadcrumbs.  In between each layer, add the cheese, creme fraiche, herbs and salt and pepper.

6.  Finish with a layer of cheese, place the lid back on the pumpkin and bake for about 2 hours, checking on it occasionally. If desired, remove the lid to brown the cheese on the top.

7.  Carefully remove the pumpkin from the oven.  You can either scoop out of it, or cut it into slices like a pie.

Enjoy

Breakfast-For-Dinner

Video by Jake J. Thomas

     Working all week in a job that has absolutely no creative aspect to it really depletes me, and by the time the weekend rolls around, all I want to do is go for a hike and bake. Making something with your hands is so satisfying and the sense of accomplishment you feel after creating a baked good is not quite the same feeling you get after booking an order. This weekend, Tassajara bread #4 was on my list. Usually, I try to do all the grocery shopping for the weekend on Friday so that I don’t have to go out to the store like all the other poor saps that work M-F 9-5. So on Friday, I headed to Trader Joe’s to find a couple of cheap meals that would still be satisfying for the cold weekend ahead. I decided on their 17-bean soup mix with bread, and French toast with potatoes.

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     I remember always being very excited when we got to have breakfast-for-dinner as kids. My mom usually made pancakes, which were normally reserved for birthdays, overnight guests, or other special occasions. Having those pancakes for dinner made the meal special and we usually got to sit in the living room and eat off of TV trays while watching TV. Every other night, we ate dinner at the table, with placemats and napkins and the no-TV-while-eating rule was strictly enforced. Even now as an adult, breakfast-for-dinner still feels fun, especially because as someone who prepares half of the meals, I know how cheap and easy breakfast-for-dinner is. I wanted to incorporate my baking project into every meal possible, so I thought instead of pancakes, I could make a good loaf of bread to turn into French Toast. The next bread on my list in the Tassajara bread book was yeasted bread #4, White Egg bread. Believe it or not, I have never made French toast (maybe because I come from a pancake family) but what I do know about French toast is that it is best made with thick slices of soft white bread that can hold the egg mixture. Tassajara Yeasted Bread #4 White Egg Bread, seemed to be a good match.

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     After an incredibly stormy night, when the lightening lit up the whole sky and the thunder shook the entire house, the morning was wet and fresh and the sun created steam that rose from our rustic wooden deck. It felt like a good day to bake.  Being my third bread from the Tassajara bread book, I felt more confident than usual in my ability to execute these loaves. The process went just fine, the kneading is getting easier (see video by Jake J. Thomas above) and I am able to recognize things like the batter needing more flour because adding eggs creates more moisture. I am starting to feel the process more, and trust my instincts, something, that is not always easy to do. These loaves turned out to rise very high and to be very moist and fluffy on the inside. The bread made great French Toast (thanks to Jake) and since each Tassajara bread recipe makes 2 loaves, I decided to bring some to my parent’s house while we were visiting for Thanksgiving. We made great sandwiches, stuffing, and a crouton layer in a baked pumpkin dish so I would say I am learning how to use all that I make or buy pretty well. I have realized, that when you spend the time making something by hand, it is that much harder to waste or throw it away. When you create something, you find creative ways to consume it in entirety.

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#4 White Egg Bread

From Tassajara Bread Book

2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

2 packages dry yeast

1/4 cup honey

1 cup dry milk

2 eggs, beaten

4 cups unbleached white flour

4 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter

3 cups or more unbleached white flour for forming the dough

approx. 1 cup white flour for kneading

Proceed with the directions for recipe#1 (see And So it Begins blog), adding the beaten eggs after stirring in the dry milk.

Everything's Better in a Bread Bowl

The finished bread bowl in all it's glory

On Halloween, Jake and I decided to take Luck for a walk on the opposite side of town, on a path that runs right alongside the coast.  Although Santa Cruz is a small town, it is rare to see someone I know when walking this particular walk, and I felt much like a tourist, taking in all the unfamiliar sights, smells, and sounds.  Jake and I have a tendency to talk about food when we are walking and some of our best culinary ideas have been born this way.  It was a chilly fall day, one of those days in October when you can feel the crisp soon-to-be-winter chill running through your blood.  This kind of weather flips a switch in me, and I almost always want to have my idea of a perfect meal for dinner; soup sprinkled with cheese and a crusty bread to sop it all up with.  I had decided I wanted to make a lentil/bean soup, something hearty and warm and then somehow the topic changed to bread bowls.  Maybe it was the combination of the seagulls swarming, the cold wind, and the feeling like a tourist that reminded me of getting a bread bowl on Pier 39 in San Francisco as a child. Whenever we would go out to restaurants for dinner, I would almost always get the soup of the day.  I always hoped it would be clam chowder, which was my favorite, although I never ate the clams.  I mentioned to Jake that a bread bowl would be the perfect thing to have for dinner with our lentil bean soup and started to talk absentmindedly about buying a round loaf and making bowls for us for dinner.  Then Jake reminded me of the fact that I am exploring the world of bread making and suggested that I try making it myself.

 

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    We discussed what would make a good bread bowl, what qualities the bread itself would need to have, and what kind of soup or stew would work in a bread bowl.  We knew that the lentil/bean soup would be thick enough and would work nicely in a bread bowl, but we needed to put some thought into the bread bowl itself.  The bread would have to be tight on the inside with no large air pockets, it would have to be sturdy and would have to be baked in a round boule shape.  I figured using a bread recipe that I had already made several times would be a good idea and that I could alter the recipe a little to make it more solid by adding more flour and baking it a little longer.  I decided to use the French Baguette recipe that I have made many times from the book, French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano.  After figuring out the logistics of the bread bowl, Jake and I started imagining all of the wonderful creations we could make with bread bowls, the unexpected and expected pairings of bread to fillings, bread bowls for every meal including dessert, and the different types of bread we could use for different desired effects. I couldn’t wait to get home to try it out especially because at this point my toes, nose and ears were completely numb.

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            I immediately started the bread bowl when we got home, eating Sour Patch Kids, Lemon Heads, and Red Hots until I had developed sores on my sour taste buds.  The French Baguette recipe is fairly simple, and I think it was the first bread I had ever attempted to make.  The baguettes are a little bland and somewhat sturdy, so I knew they would work perfectly.  I made two batches of dough, because I was worried the bowls wouldn’t be deep enough.  Once I pulled them out of the oven, they looked like a bread bowl that even Andre the Giant couldn’t finish (R.I.P.).  We made the best of it and ate as much as we could while watching Beetle Juice which I had purchased that day for $8 in the bargain bin at Blockbuster.  Overall, I think that the bread bowls turned out pretty well and were surprisingly very simple to make.  Next time, I will make a regular batch of dough so that I don’t have to skip two meals the next day.  The best part of this whole experience was that the concept of making bread bowls brought up so many different recipes that I would like to try; caramelized fruit in a sweet brioche bowl, mixed green salad with vinaigrette in a sourdough bowl, pumpkin soup in a rye bread bowl.  I think this winter is going to be a creative one full of bread bowls of every kind. 

http://frenchwomendontgetfat.com/content/baguettes

And so it begins...

The first two of many to come from the Tassajara Bread Book.

This is going to sound cheesy, but ever since I started this project, I have noticed a change in myself when I bake.  A peaceful, grounded feeling overwhelms me as I start to pull out the flour and mixing bowls from the cupboard.  The familiar feeling of the dry soft flour running through my fingers soothes me, the way a zen garden might.  The moisture-filled heat escaping from the oven alleviates the pain in my lower back from sitting in an office chair in front of a computer all day.  The heady smell of the yeast dissolving in warm water reminds me of the process that is about to start.  Once you have spent a good amount of time dedicated to baking bread, you can begin to recognize the patterns in the steps that you take.  As you become less and less worried about doing what the recipe says, you can understand more of the why and less of the what.  You can learn why you dissolve the yeast in hot water, why you add sugar or something sweet to the yeast mixture, why you have to spoon the flour into a cup to measure it.  Once you understand why you are doing what you are doing, you know what step is coming next and you don’t have to worry about scurrying back over to the cookbook for guidance.   Another reason that baking is appealing to me is the slowing down it requires and how forgiving the process is.  It takes time to make bread from scratch and it gives you time as well.  Unlike cooking, you don’t have to keep your eye on the food or the clock the entire time you are preparing it.  When you bake bread, you really only have to watch the clock while it’s baking in the oven.  This slowing down gives you time to study and feel the ingredients, more so than a stir-fry or a casserole might, and also gives you time to study the methods. 

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The Tassajara Bread Book opens with a detailed outline of the basic recipe to make bread by hand. Most of the remaining recipes in the book draw from this recipe with several or few alterations of ingredients or steps.  I read this mother recipe many times trying to memorize the steps and hopefully give myself some room to understand the process.  Recipes can be incredibly helpful, but they can also hinder the spontaneous creativity that arises when cooking or baking.  I have always been one to follow a recipe to the letter, hardly altering anything at all, but have started to feel more confident in my ability to make substitutions and additions as of late. I hope to gain a deep understanding about bread and the process of making it, so that I can feel confident enough in what I have learned to create my own recipes.   

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So now it begins.  I cracked open The Tassajara Bread Book and got to work. The first recipe in the book is the Tassajara Yeasted Bread, the basic recipe from which all others will follow.  It was very important to me to get this bread just right.  First you dissolve the yeast and then stir in the sweetening and the dry milk.  Then you add about half of the sifted flour and beat for 100 strokes with a wooden spoon.  Lesson number one:  I have wobbly weak arms that will be toned by the end of this project.  Making bread by hand is a physical job and it’s not easy. I had to take about seven breaks, during which I found it necessary to sigh loudly, and swing my mixing arm around like a pitcher. Then you let the bread rise for 45 minutes.  I have found that the method of feeding the yeast some sweetness causes the bread to rise rapidly and to great heights, which is very exciting.  Then you fold in the salt and oil and an additional 3 cups of flour (taking aforementioned breaks if necessary).  Next is the process of kneading.  Lesson number two:  Kneading is not the hardest part of making bread by hand, see lesson one above.  This time around, I actually felt like I was kneading the dough correctly, not just pushing it around the cutting board, losing half of the dough due to extreme stickiness.  I could actually see what kneading was doing, I could see that I was winding up the dough, creating a spring.  I folded the dough in half towards me, then pushed out on the top fold with the heels of my hands with gentle force while rocking forward with my whole body.  Then I turned the dough a quarter turn clockwise and repeated the steps.  After kneading for about ten minutes, you let the bread rise until doubled, punch it down, and then let it rise until doubled again.  Next you shape the loaves and put them into the baking pans.  Lesson number three: rolling the dough into a log before putting it into the pan, makes an even smooth loaf of bread that looks like one you would buy in a store.  It also makes the inside of the bread springy and spongy and light.  Then you let the bread rise for about 20 minutes, brush them with egg wash and cut slits in the top and bake for nearly an hour at 325 degrees.  Lesson number four:  Thumping on the bottom of the loaf will tell you if it is done baking.  If it sounds hollow, it’s done, if there is hardly any “thump” and all sides of the bread are not a deep golden brown, keep baking.  Lesson number five: There is arguably nothing better than homemade bread.

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One down, one hundred and seventeen left to go.  Think of all the lessons I will learn! 

#1 Tassajara Yeasted Bread

From the Tassajara Bread Book

3 cups lukewarm water (85-105 degrees)

1 1/2 tablespoons dry yeast (2 packages)

1/4 cup sweetening (honey, molasses, or brown sugar)

1 cup dry milk (optional)

4 cups whole wheat flour (you can substitute 1 or more cups unbleached white flour if desired)

4 tsp salt

1/3 cup oil or butter or margarine

3 cups additional whole wheat flour

1 cup whole wheat flour for kneading

Dissolve the yeast in the water.

Stir in the sweetening and dry milk.

Stir in the 4 cups of whole wheat flour to form a thick batter.

Beat well with a spoon (100 strokes).

Let rise 45 minutes.

Fold in the salt and oil.

Fold in an additional 3 cups flour until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.

Knead on a floured board, using more flour (about 1 cup) as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the board, about 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth.

Let rise 50-60 minutes until doubled in size.

Punch down.

Let rise 40-50 minutes until doubled in size.

Shape into loaves and place in oiled pans.

Let rise 20-25 minutes.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg beated with 2 tbsp water or milk).

Bake in a 325 degree oven for about 1 hour, or until golden brown.

Remove from pans and let cool--or eat right away. 

 

Bread-Arrogance leads to burnt loaves

A picture of the convertible-top loaf eater as no finished product could, or would be photographed.

            One of the books that was recommended to me was “The Complete Book of Breads,” by Bernard Clayton Jr.  Flipping through the book reminded me that there was almost no end to the different bread-creations one could make.  Every single kind of bread or baked good that you could think of was in this book and I was having a hard time choosing one to help me prepare for the project I was beginning.  One of the other breads that I had baked called for buttermilk, but of course, you can’t just buy a small container of buttermilk that contains a cup or two.  You have to buy an entire quart, which will inevitably go bad before you have the urge to bake something else with buttermilk.  It’s the stuff that Larry David turned into Seinfeld episodes.  One of my goals in the kitchen is to make just enough, but not too much.  I have yet to achieve this goal when making pasta.  I hate leftovers and almost never eat them even though I have the best intentions to do so.  I should have learned from my mother who wastes almost nothing, and eats leftovers every single day for lunch, but there is something about eating a less-tasty version of the thing you had the night before that turns me off completely.  So it was my goal of not wasting that led me to make the Buttermilk Bread from The Complete Book of Breads.  That and the fact that I remembered buttermilk bread makes the perfect sandwich bread; something that I learned from my dad whose ideal lunch staple is a ham and cheese sandwich on buttermilk bread.  On rainy days in the winter when I was a kid, I can remember sitting at the table in the dining room, my dad, sister and I each playing a game of solitaire, eating sandwiches that required the help of a beverage to wash the bread out of the roof of our mouths.

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One of the things that I liked most about “The Complete Book of Breads” upon first sight was the layout of the recipes.  On the left hand side of the recipe are the titles of the step in the recipe (kneading, first rising, preheating, etc) along with the time needed to complete each step.  It makes for a very easy recipe because instead of wasting your time reading through the entire paragraph to find out which step you are on, you can zero right in on it.  I wish that I could say that the perfect layout of the recipe led to the perfect loaf of bread, but unfortunately, that is not true.  Everything was fine in the process of making the dough and letting it rise and placing it in the loaf pans with the egg wash and sprinkling of poppy seeds and sesame seeds, but the last crucial step of baking, the baking itself, was where it all went wrong.  I knew it would happen eventually.  It was only a matter of time before I would open the oven to pull out a loaf and it would be a failure.  But, my bread-arrogance pushed that thought into the back of my mind and tricked me into thinking that my flour creations would always turn out just right.  It’s the miracle of bread making; it can turn the average humble baker into an overly confident braggart.  Almost every time you bake a loaf, you are witnessing something truly amazing and it is easy to confuse the stunning nature of bread with the stunning nature of the baker.  I was starting to feel confident about this whole baking thing after having successfully pulled off Focaccia and the no-knead bread several times and after listening to the compliments that came with these successes. 

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            I had an audience as it was baking; Jake, Caroline, Luck and I were hanging out in the kitchen.  It was a beautiful sunny day when the rays of light were pouring in through the skylights and the hardwood floor was warm and the smell of the bread baking in the oven provided the perfect aromatic experience, until it started to smell a little bit like something was burning, and only 15 minutes into the 40 minutes of baking the recipe called for.   I pulled the loaves out after about 10 minutes more, thinking that there must have just been some food scraps on the bottom of the oven that were burning, and that it couldn’t be my perfect loaves burning.  Sure enough, when I pulled them out, they were burnt.  And not just a chestnut brown burnt, but burnt to the color of French roast coffee grounds.  My heart sank, I was embarrassed, and sad that I had spent the whole day nurturing those loaves only to have them die a premature death.  Jake, being the sweetheart that he is, said, “Look, they aren’t too bad, let’s just cut off the top!”  We cut off the top and realized that the crumb was almost cooked through, that it was just a really soft loaf on the inside.  It was salvageable, but not what I had hoped and expected when I put the loaves in the oven.  There I was, standing in the kitchen, in my apron with oven mitts still on, ready to cry.  I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, but Jake, being a supportive person and also a problem-solving oriented man, asked me to think about how I could avoid that in the future.  I snapped back at him, “I followed the recipe exactly, so I don’t know how!” and left the room to sulk in the privacy of the bedroom. 

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Then I heard Caroline calling from the kitchen, yelling about something.  I walked into the kitchen and saw Luck with the convertible-top loaf clutched between her paws on her bed, chomping with a great sense of urgency.  I had to laugh, it was hysterical, and apparently the loaf wasn’t as bad as I thought if Luck would eat it.  She is a picky eater, choosing to eat only tomatoes and butter and not carrots or lettuce.  It was at this point, that I apologized to Jake for being short with him, and thought about how I could prevent this from happening in the future, largely by trusting my own senses (of smell for one thing) against what the recipe called for.  I knew that that egg wash should have had water or milk in it, I knew that the oven was about 25 degrees too hot, and that the rack should be on the lower third, contrary to what was in the recipe, but I didn’t follow my baking instincts.  Overall, it wasn’t too horrible of a baking experience because I learned the valuable lesson that a baking/cooking instinct should not be ignored in favor of a recipe.  Also, Luck was pretty happy about her mid-afternoon snack, and in the end, I did use that buttermilk.

Luck reminiscing about the bread consumed.

Here is the recipe for Tassajara Bread #2 Rye Oatmeal Bread, that I made after the burnt loaves which turned out quite lovely.

#2 Rye-Oatmeal Bread

From the Tassajara Bread Book

3 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 tablespoons dry yeast

1/3 cup molasses

1 cup dry milk

2 cups unbleached white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour

4 tsp salt

1/3 cup oil

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 1/2 cups rye flour

whole wheat flour for kneading

Proceed with the directions in recipe #1 (see And So it Begins blog).

Knead, Machine, Miracle

The perfect crust Boule in all it's glory

Can you believe that bread machines exist?  You just put all the ingredients into this odd vessel and turn it on, and it just churns out a perfect loaf of bread, baked and all?  It sounds like something from The Jetson’s, although, if I had my choice, I would prefer that hair styling machine that Judy and Jane always experimented with.  I imagine that besides all the time one waits on dough to rise, the biggest deterrent in making bread by hand is the process of kneading.  The first few times I tried to seriously knead, I got very frustrated with the amount of dough that stuck to my hands and my wrists, with how much flour was flying everywhere, and by the amount of dough that was stuck to the cutting board.  I gave up on kneading, and have been relying on the trusty dough hook of my Kitchen Aid mixer ever since. After committing to this project, I knew that would all have to change.  None of the recipes in the Tassajara bread book call for a mixer, opting instead for stirring the dough 100 times with a wooden spoon, and then kneading the dough for about 10 minutes.   Is kneading all that necessary to making a good loaf of bread?  Dare I say it?  Does one need to knead?

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Part of my research for this project has been getting to know more about baking bread through various cookbooks.  I stumbled upon a book at the library called, “My bread. The revolutionary, no-work, no-knead method,” by Jim Lahey and decided to check it out.  Without reading through the book, I chalked it up to a gimmick, something that would prove to be worthless to me and my journey of baking bread ahead.  After I picked up the library book, I didn’t even look through it until 2 days before it was due at the library.  Once I did crack it open, I was pleasantly surprised.  The book is written by the owner of Manhattan’s Sullivan Street Bakery, which opened in 2006 and is renowned for it’s gourmet Italian no-knead bread.  Not only are there several recipes for wonderfully unique crusty boules, but the book also includes sandwich recipes, pizzas, banana breads, Panini and other wonderful delights all collected together in a beautifully photographed book.  I was sorry that I hadn’t given this book enough attention when I still had my two weeks with it from the library. 

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The no-knead method is possible due to the 12-24 hours that the dough is left to rise, or to put it professionally, the extended fermentation of the yeast.  Basically, you mix together the water, yeast, salt and bread flour until it is just combined and very sticky, and then you cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise for 12-24 hours depending on what temperature it is in your home.  Then, you take the dough out of the bowl and nudge and tuck it into a ball on a well-floured work surface.  Next you place the dough on a well-floured tea towel and fold up the corners of the towel.  At this point, you let the dough rise another 1 to 2 hours, making sure to preheat the oven and a heavy pot to 475 degrees a half hour before the dough is done rising.  Then you carefully remove the pot from the oven, dust the dough with more flour, and flip it into the pot.  Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and cook for 15 to 30 minutes more.  Once it is a deep chestnut brown color, remove the bread from the pot and place on a rack to cool thoroughly. 

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The no-knead bread from a different angle

This bread is unique every time you make it.  Every time the bubbles and cracks are different; every time the dusted flour on the loaf bakes and browns to a slightly different color than the last time and every time the bread literally sings a different tune of snaps crackles and sizzles as it comes out of the oven.  It feels like a small miracle every time you pull it off.  The process feels dangerous at times; the fragility of the slack dough, the porous nature of the ceramic pot, and the extreme heat of the oven.  My first impression of this technique and this cookbook was way off.  What I judged to be a lazy gimmick, was actually a technique that allows for imperfection and a different gourmet result each time.  I still think that kneading dough is necessary in most cases; that the touch and warmth of human hands are very important and connect us to the food that we make, but this book is a very interesting spin on the process of making delicious bread without relying on an expensive space-age-looking bread machine.

Air pockets courtesy of the extended fermentation process

http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/history
http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/recipes