Posts Tagged ‘bread bible’

Every year I say I’ll make something for St. Patrick’s Day and I never do. Last year the most I did was put a few drops of green food colouring in beer. I’m happy to say that I finally made soda bread, something that has been on my to bake list for awhile. And the bread was almost as simple as adding food colouring to beer. Honest.

This version of soda bread is souped up and deviates from tradition with the added butter, whiskey soaked raisins, and sugar. If you like the taste of scones or biscuits, then you need to try this bread. And don’t skip making the Irish whiskey butter, it really adds something to the bread.

I think I may also have gotten drunk off of the whiskey fumes — it was pretty strong! I usually shy away from raisins being in baked goods, but I didn’t mind them in the bread. I would probably omit them next time just for simplicity.

Recipe here

With all the bread baking I do, I have never made a loaf of white bread. There are many more interesting breads to make than something so…plain.

My tastes have changed since I was a kid and would refuse to eat whole wheat bread. Rye, pumpernickel and whole wheat are one of my top bread choices nowadays. If I buy white bread it’s usually destined for breadcrumbs.

This is the Basic Soft Sandwich Loaf from The Bread Bible. If you do enjoy white bread, you’ll like this bread. It’s very buttery and when toasted it has a crumbly crisp nature to it. This would be a fabulous sandwich bread for tea sandwiches of the sort. I usually look for a heartier bread so I don’t think this recipe will make it on my routinely bread baking schedule.

Unfortunately I can’t find the recipe online. But if you’re a bread fan, you should get this book anyway. The only downside to this book is that there aren’t many whole grain breads.

I’ve been wanting to make challah for the longest time. The last time I had it, I was in a synagogue with my then boyfriend celebrating his brother’s bar mitzvah.

This is the first bread I’ve made in a long time since the disaster that hit my unit. It felt nice to have the smell of fresh bread coming out of the oven. This challah was from The Bread Bible and it is a dairy challah which is a brioche. I made a huge batch of this bread and the challah was huge. Here’s my hand for comparison:

I forgot to cover the bread with foil so it came out with a deep deep brown colour and thankfully it didn’t burn. I’ll have to re-visit brioche again and make a smaller loaf — this one was just too big for 2 people.

Recipe here

Working my way through The Bread Bible looking to try a new recipe I came across beer bread. It looked interesting and it was a “quick” bread (no sponge overnight). I used Rickard’s Red for the beer. The dough is very soft and it was easy to shape into a boule (which I haven’t mastered so they all look misshapen). It browned really quickly, about 15 minutes in so I had to cover it with aluminum foil so it wouldn’t burn.

There’s no beer flavour and the bread is nice, but Movie Man and I agreed we probably wouldn’t make it again. Mainly because we only stock good beer, and because the recipe uses almost a whole bottle, it becomes a pricier bread.

With our new panini press, I thought a nice Italian bread would work so I tried the Ciabatta from The Bread Bible. Ciabatta is a very wet dough and as the paddle was whirring in my stand mixer I wondered if this gloopy thin dough would turn into bread. The dough is supposed to triple within 2 hours and it took me almost 3 for mine to triple. My place is cold and I thought a mug full of boiling water would help. I’m sure it would have taken 6 hours if I didn’t have the hot water.

I used wet hands to work with the dough so the it wouldn’t cling to me. Inverting it was a bit tricky as it’s a very soft dough but I managed to throw it down on my Silpat. You’re supposed to push the sides together so it’s at a width of 4.5 inches. I’d try to push it into place and then later during the rising it would spread. I think it’s probably from working with wet hands and a slick surface. I think it might hold it’s shape if it was on a different surface. When I went to check to see if it was done, there was a nice shatter of crust when I stuck my digital thermometer in.

Mine came out 1/2 an inch flatter as it’d spread when I tried to push the sides of the dough up. Through some Googling it seems this ciabatta is big favourite of many people. It’s got a nice crispy and chewy crust and the crumb is very light. We’ve eaten about half of this bread already! In the book it says unbleached all-purpose flour is better than bread flour because of the lower protein content. Canadian unbleached all-purpose flour is supposed to perform like bread flour, so I’d like to try this again with bleached flour and see what the difference is.

Recipe here.

I had been holding off on writing a review until I tried more recipes. Looking at my notes, I’ve made 8 recipes out of the 150 in The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum which doesn’t seem like a lot at all. However, I’ve made 7 in the last 4 months which by my standards makes me a bit carb crazy.

I received this book as a Christmas present. Even though I asked for the book, I knew it would be daunting. Having bought Rose’s Christmas Cookies it prepared me for her preferred method of baking (going by weight instead of volume) and her detailed instructions. It’s true, if you follow the directions exactly, it’s almost guaranteed to turn out wonderfully. Do remember to check out her errata, it’ll save you heartache from the recipe not turning out after all that work. I think it’s great that she has a blog to update corrections regularly.

While I learned how to make bread from this book, I don’t know if I’d recommend it for other beginners learning to bake bread. It’s a bit intimidating for someone who is uninitiated in bread baking to read through all of the information, tips, and the recipes that usually take 2 days to prepare and bake. If you don’t mind Beranbaum’s thoroughness, then this is a fabulous book. It’s also great for people who already bake bread and are looking to delve deeper.

I like how the recipes have alternate mixing methods so if you don’t have a mixer, you can do it by hand. The pointers for success provides very helpful information and gives understanding to the method. The recipes that I have tried have all been repeat worthy and sensational. The brioche is to die and the pizza dough is something that will be made often in my household. If you’re looking for whole grain recipes, you’ll want to find another book. Few of the recipes in here include only small amounts of rye or whole wheat flour, for the most part it’s all white flour.

I love this book and it’s started me on the path to not buying store-bought bread as often.

Sometime in the middle of November I was baking bread so often I wondered if I could make it without buying storebought bread.  With the exception of some pitas for a party, I was able to pull through.  I’m giving myself a challenge of trying not to buy store-bought bread this month.  The amount of bread that we eat as a couple is pretty ridiculous so I’ll probably be making 2 loaves of bread a week.

Be prepared for even more bread this month.  Don’t worry, there will be plenty of cookies this month as I try and figure out what to make for my very large family.

Above is a picture of Movie Man slicing some Basic Hearth Bread for cucumber sandwiches when I had a friend over for some tea.

Clearly, the bread looks better than my cookie decorating skills.

The bread posts continues…

When I remembered I had some bananas in the freezer I thought of making banana bread. Then I got a glimpse of the banana feather loaf recipe from The Bread Bible and decided to make that. This is not the typical banana bread that’s cake-like. This is a real loaf of bread that is excellent for toasting or slathering some butter on. It makes a nice small loaf and was eaten pretty quickly with just the two of us here.

When I first got my mixer I knew I would be making bread, but I didn’t think it would be this often. Since August I’ve made 5 breads out of The Bread Bible. I’ve spoiled Movie Man with fresh baked bread and he gives me this sad look when the homemade bread is almost done.

The bread above is the “Levy’s” Real Jewish Rye Bread. I didn’t have bread flour so I used all-purpose flour…bleached and it still turned out fine. Maybe because Canadian flour is hardier? I’ve heard that all-purpose can be used in lieu of bread flour.

There aren’t any caraway seeds in this bread either, I opted to leave them out so I wouldn’t have to put another dent in the wallet.

I think my obsession with bread is getting a little scary. For the past few days I have been dreaming about dough and loaf pans. I’m sure part of this is due to agonizing over what to register for at Williams-Sonoma. Do I get the plain ones or the non-stick Goldtouch ones that Cook’s Illustrated gave praise to? In the end, I ended up putting both on the registry, the more the merrier. Will it all fit in our small space? That might be the tricky part.

I have made this grilled focaccia bread from The Bread Bible twice this week. Twice in 3 days actually. It’s good, it’s one of the few breads that I can make in the same day (most of the breads suggest popping the sponge in the fridge overnight for the most flavour), and it’s easy. I like how I can use the grill which is perfect for a hot summer’s day and the bread is small enough for 2 people to finish off in a day. There’s a step where you slide the bread off a baking sheet and put it straight on the grill for grill marks, then place it on the sheet to finish baking. I find that the grill marks get lost once it goes back on the pan and I’m thinking it’s an unnecessary step.

I plan on making the Challah from the book as it’s been on my list for the longest time. Sour dough is also on my list of things to do including making the starter from scratch. I’m not sure if I want to be that committed though…sour dough starter is more effort than taking care of fish. I won’t buy starter either, I want the full experience.