I'm reading a new cookbook. Local Breads is the kind of book I love to read. Written by a baker who owns his own shop and teaches at a culinary institute, it is part text book, part cook book, part memoir and all yummy. Well, at least, I hope it's yummy. I haven't made anything out of it yet--we're still only on our third date.
In the book, he talks about american breads and how we don't put enough water in our breads. Apparently he's watched European artisan bakers add lots of water and then knead a dough for 20 minutes to give the flour a chance to soak up all that water. It's frankly counter to what I do right now, which is to keep adding as much flour as my dough can handle. I can't wait to try some of his recipes in my own kitchen! For tonight, I've got rye dough rising, and it's a little wetter than I usually make it, so we'll see how it turns out.
The other fun thing we did tonight was shell a bunch of peanuts we have from several opened packages, and we used 3 cups of them to make peanut butter. It's so easy! 3 cups of roasted peanuts in the food processor, with salt to taste (we put 1/2 tsp total), and process until it's as creamy as you like it. It took quite a while. All the youtube videos I could find have people adding oil and honey, but we just used peanuts and salt, and it turned out great. Now we have a pint jar of peanut butter in the cabinet with the perfect amount of salt (I think storebought is too salty, but the no-salt-added needs some, you know?) I think next time we may re-roast the nuts a bit to darken up the peanut butter.
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It's a little later this evening, and I thought I'd add that the wheat/rye bread I made is fresh out of the oven. I've just had a steaming slice with delicious grassfed cultured butter and that chewy warmth is perfect on a cold rainy night like tonight. Nothing beats homemade bread :)
5 comments:
I don't know about it being an American vs European issue. I add enough liquid that the dough is a horrible sticky mass after an initial good mixing of the ingredients (for a loaf using about 3 cups of flour, this means about a third cup more liquid than it seems like the flour can handle- though that measurement depends on your flour, of course) and then let it set for about half an hour. Then kneading it is less messy, and after all the rises is very manageable.
This creates a softer loaf. An American loaf, I will add, nothing frou-frou European about it.
-Brian (PS just found your blog today, following your GMO facebook link)
Hey, what's wrong with frou-frou bread?:) Watch out, because I think resting your dough is a french concept called autolyse, so you might be more frou frou than you think! I didn't know you baked. Is it a regular thing or just for fun on occasion?
The French did not invent the concept of letting the dough rest. I did, and I named it 'letting the dough rest'. I use a bread machine to do the initial mixing and kneading, and then to give myself more control, do the final knead(s), rise, and bake on my own.
When I first got a bread machine way back in ~1992 -a time in grad school when we were astonishingly poor- I swore I would use it faithfully until it had paid for itself. Then I priced the ingredients of hand made bread vs the cost of a store bought loaf, and found that economies of scale must go into the production of store bread. Thus, ever since I am unable to buy store bread, as the bread machine has yet to pay for itself, and bake a few times a week. Until we fled the country I got blue ribbons at the County fair!
I'll remember that when I write my first baking cookbook. *Ahem* "At this point you will let your dough rest, a concept invented by the obscure and largely unknown baker Brian Zring, in order to produce a softer loaf which will be far from frou-frou." (And people will wonder at the nationality of your name, a typo protecting your true identity for all time.)
I've never used a bread machine, which may make my loaves much more affordable :) Does it do the baking for you if you let it?
I've used my bread machine enough that its added cost is only about a dime per loaf. It's the ingredients that get you, using cheap non-fancy stuff (no stone ground flour, organic eggs, etc.)I estimate my ingredients cost ~$1.50 per loaf. Use good flour, butter, and eggs, and add anything else (vanilla, etc.) and it's at least double that. You can get usually find a cheap loaf of bread for at least $1.50, and almost always less.
Thus, I can't compete with Wonder Bread on cost. Homemade bread tastes better, but economies of scale can't be argued with. It's not cheaper than store bought.
The bread machines can bake, but you don't have enough control for my wants. So these days I use my bread machine essentially like a tabletop mixer with a dough hook, it mixes and does the first knead. It means that the first hour and half's work is mostly hands off, and thus makes it easy to fit into a busy day.
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