Meringues

According to the internet meringues take 15-18 minutes to bake.  Or maybe 45.  Or maybe 2 hours at 225 and another hour with the oven off and the door cracked open so they coast down.  But the differences don't matter too much, right?

I made meringues.  Piping was done with a plastic bag so shaping was hard.

I think meringues must have been a major luxury before electric mixers.  So much work to do by hand!  Fortunately for my arm, I mostly stood there and held a mixer while it turned egg whites into fluffy deliciousness.

6 egg whites = many meringues

Poof!

Nathan blowtorched this round

Bonus picture of a fancy dinner cooked by NHS tonight

Plain white bread

I've been continuing to work on getting good crusts from my breads.  The way I'm doing this is by using the same dough and making a loaf with it each day.  For high hydration I'm using a no-knead dough; for additional moisture I'm putting a pan in the bottom on the oven before baking and filling it with boiling water.

The cool thing about this dough is that I went a full week without using more yeast.  I put the no-knead dough into the fridge overnight, then pull it out in the evening when I get back from work.  I take about a quarter of it and put it aside, then split the rest in halves, roll them in flour (it's sticky!) and put them on the counter or in the oven to warm up.

The remaining dough goes back in the bowl with an additional cup of warm water and a bit of flour.  It sits on the counter until the dough dissolves slightly in the water and starts to smell of yeast.  Then I add more flour and water until I get the consistency I want, and an appropriate amount of salt.  That becomes the dough for the next day!  I let it sit out until it looks happy and yeasty, then cover it and put it back into the fridge for a day or so.

I did notice that the yeast became less active over time.  This isn't a full starter, so I would probably add yeast periodically to refresh it if I wanted to do this for more than a week.

Pretzels!

Some friends came over with food-grade lye and we turned out some unbelievably tasty real pretzels.  Can't wait to make more and take them to work!

Ingredients ready

So ready

Artsy angle by Adem

Almost ready to knead

Sasha with the lye

Bam!

Pretzels.

Made some bread.  Was pretty stoked.

 Recipe approximately from smitten kitchen.

Matcha Cookies

Nathan: "I like matcha cookies."
Rachel: "I don't like matcha."
Nathan: "But Greg and I like matcha cookies."
Rachel: "Okay, I'll make matcha cookies."

Recipe:
http://www.humblebeanblog.com/2013/03/matcha-sable-cookies/

Nailed it

Halloween cookies.  They're supposed to look like this:



And instead they look like this:

Aw yeah.

Recipe here: http://www.marthastewart.com/356428/ladies-fingers#Halloween%20Cookie%20Recipes|/275516/halloween-cookie-recipes/@center/1006805/halloween-recipes|356428

If you want to cheap out and use frosting for the fingernails it may be worth applying the frosting after baking.  Just a thought.

"I would pay money for this" bread

Today I pulled out 2/3 of my bowl of no-knead dough from the fridge, set it to rise, and then patiently waited almost an hour for it to bake to crusty perfection.  The result was beautiful and delicious.

Blurry picture.  Sorry.

Reviewers said such lovely things!

"I would pay money for this bread"

"Holy mother of god"

"Oh my god this is amazing"

"I think I just ate a loaf and a half of bread in fifteen minutes"

That last is essentially true--two loaves disappeared in under 20 minutes.  The first loaf was gone in five.  

Pre-empting the comments: yes, my camera is bad.  But look at that floury, beautiful crust!

This was a great success.  I'll be making more tomorrow.  Nothing else to say here.

This weekend in baking

Two set of whole wheat loaves: buttermilk whole wheat and molasses whole wheat.

The buttermilk recipe said I could divide the dough in two before baking.  This was not a good idea.  I got two very flat loaves, because I really only had enough dough for one loaf.

No pictures of the molasses bread, but it is the tastiest bread I've made relative to effort.  I've made it three or four times, always to great reviews.

Last but not least a tasty no-knead bread with a hint of sourdough tang.  I wanted to get back to working on making crusty breads.

Delicious, open crumb.  Beautiful.



Recipes:

Buttermilk whole wheat
The neat trick for this bread is to mix the flour and water and let it sit for five minutes before fully mixing and kneading.  This lets the whole wheat flour absorb enough water that you don't have to fight it through the whole process of kneading.

Molasses wheat: Here are the ingredients.  Use half of the whole wheat, half of the white flour, and everything else to make a thin batter and beat it together.

Pictures courtesy of Adem, who did the mixing so I could wield a camera

Then add in the rest of the whole wheat, beat it again, and add white flour until you have a kneadable ball.  Remember that the amounts of flour are approximate.

 No-knead bread

Simple sandwich bread

In a loaf pan this bread would be perfect for sandwiches; as a plain loaf it's begging to be used for french toast or slathered with butter and jam.

Hardest part: getting a nice crust.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 c white flour
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp sugar
2/3 c warm water
4 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp yeast

Directions:
Mix sugar into warm water and sprinkle yeast over the top.  Vary the amounts of sugar and yeast by how sweet you want the bread to be and how long you want it to take to rise.
Let proof until it becomes frothy.
Stir together dry ingredients.
Pour in olive oil.
Add yeast-water mixture, mix, and knead.  Add flour as needed if the dough is too sticky.
Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled in size (about 1 hour).
Press down gently, shape, and place on your cornmeal-covered baking tray or in a greased loaf pan.

Heat oven to 350F about 20 minutes before baking, with a metal container of some sort on the bottom rack.
Five minutes before baking boil 1/2 c - 1 c water and pour into the container at the bottom of the oven.  Shut the door and let the oven fill with steam.
Right before baking, take a very sharp knife and slash the dough diagonally a few times.  Stuff it in the oven, set a timer for 30 minutes, and don't open the oven again until that time has passed.  The steam is important.
Remove and enjoy!

Lemon Thyme Quick Bread

I found another Rachel posting on the internet about bread and decided to try out some of her quick bread recipes. This one is a sweet lemon thyme bread that is basically a muffin or cupcake.

I'm considering getting a real camera soon.

Hardest part: zesting and juicing a lemon; mincing thyme. Really not hard.
Most time consuming part: 45 minutes of baking.
Half-life of completed loaf: 20 minutes.




Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk
1 tbs minced fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tbs lemon juice (~juice of ½ lemon)
1 tbs grated lemon peel

Glaze:
½ cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tbs lemon juice

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350° F
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine milk and thyme. Microwave, uncovered, on high 1-2 minutes or until bubbly; cover and let stand until cooled to room temperature.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with reserved milk mixture. Stir in lemon juice and peel.
Pour into a greased 9×5-in. loaf pan. Bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.
In a small bowl, combine glaze ingredients until smooth; drizzle over bread.

Whole Wheat and Walnuts

I decided to follow up the recent complicated breads with a very simple whole wheat bread.  This was a full whole-wheat loaf with honey and butter.  The walnuts are kneaded in after the first rising.

It's so cute and golden!

The key to making the whole wheat dough workable was to proof the yeast, stir in the flour, and then let it sit fro five minutes to absorb some of the water.  This made it much easier to tell if I had the flour-water balance right as I was kneading it.

Walnuts everywhere

Recipe to be added later.

Orange, Walnuts, Pesto and Rye

Last night was a perfect night for baking.  A couple of friends came over after dinner to chill; Forest got the task of making pesto bread, while I tried my hands at rye for the first time.

"Add a cup or so of white flour to make it stop sticking," they said.  "It shouldn't need more than two cups," they said.

This Swedish bread is called Vortlimpa.  It has a hefty serving of rye flour and two cups of dark beer--I used an oatmeal stout.  There is molasses and butter in the bread, and more molasses (mixed with water) is brushed on top during baking.  This made it sticky even the next day.  I would probably leave that step off in the next loaf to make it easier to wrap up and transport.

Baking this loaf is a bit of an ordeal.  30 minutes at 400F, then a further 45 minutes at 325F.  I baked it for the last 45 minutes at 350F so I could bake other loaves at the same time; I also moved the vortlimpa to the bottom rack for those 45 minutes, with the other breads above it.

The recipe says to prick each loaf many times with a toothpick so that the steam doesn't cause it to rise too much.  Another variation would be to treat it as a normal loaf and slash the crust a few times to let it rise higher.  That might make a less dense bread and a nicer crust.

Anyway, here's the result: two loaves of rye bread, shiny and dense!

The next bread was a pesto bread--Forest raided our many basil plants to make fresh pesto, then rolled it up into a jelly roll-style loaf.  It went into the oven above the vortlimpa and turned out light and fluffy in the middle with a nice spiral of pesto.

Late in the night I decided to make a quick batter bread and whipped up an orange-walnut bread with orange juice and orange zest.

I'm slowly starting to remember about process pictures.

Three breads later, I turned off the oven and went to bed.  The rye bread got good reviews and also doubles as a weapon in a zombie apocalypse, the pesto was half gone when I got home from class today, and the orange walnut bread was a nice summery surprise in the morning.

Recipes

Vortlimpa

Ingredients

2 cups stout or dark beer
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cups dark molasses
2 packages dry yeast
3 cups medium rye flour
2 cups bread or all-purpose flower, approximately
Zest of 1 orange
1 tablespoon ground or crushed fennel seed
1 tablespoon molasses mixed with 2 tablespoons water

Process

Heat the beer, salt, and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted.  Remove from heat, add the molasses, stir, and let cool to lukewarm.  Stir in the yeast.

Measure 1.5 c rye and 1/2 c bread flour into a bowl and add the stout mixture.  Beat well by hand or with a mixer.  Add the orange zest, fennel seed, and remaining rye.  Stir and work the flour into the dough until it forms a rough, shaggy mass.

Knead for about 8 minutes, adding white flour as needed until the dough stops sticking and you can work it properly.  As with most rye breads it will be sticky to start.

Let rise until doubled in size, around 1.5 hours.

Cut the dough in half, then roll each half into a long, slender cylinder, 12"-14" long.  Let them rest for 15 minutes before baking.

Baking: 30 minutes at 400F, then 45 minutes at 325F.  Halfway through, turn the loaves and brush them with the molasses water glaze.

Orange-Nut Bread

Ingredients

2.5 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup shortening, room temperature
1/4 cup fresh or frozen orange juice
3/4 cup water
1 egg
3 tbsp grated orange rind
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sugar mixed with 3 tbsp orange juice

Process

Sift together the dry ingredients; cut in the shortening.  Add the orange juice, water, and egg.  Mix just enough to dampen the dry ingredients.  Add the grated rind and chopped walnuts and mix well.  Pour into pans (makes one large or two small loaves) and let rest for 5 minutes.

Baking: 1 hour at 350F.  After 50 minutes take the loaf out and spoon the sugar-juice mixture over the crust, then return to the oven until the loaf tests done.  They are done when the crust is a golden-brown color and they test done with a knife.

Pesto Bread

Ingredients

5-6 cups white flour
1 package dry yeast
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 c hot water
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup pesto

Process

Pour two cups of flour into a mixing bowl and add all other dry ingredients.  Blend, then pour in the hot water and 2 tbsp olive oil.  Beat to combine.  Add the remaining flour until you get a shaggy ball of dough.  Knead for 8 minutes.  Let rise for 40 minutes to an hour, then divide the roll in half and spread each half into a rectangle.  Spread olive oil over each rectangle, then spread pesto.  Roll the dough like a jelly roll and place in loaf pans or on a baking sheet.  Let rise 40 minutes after shaping.

Baking: 40 minutes at 375F.

Chopped Apple Bread

Ratings

Aesthetics: 5/5

Active time: 4/5

Difficulty: 2/5

Tastiness: 5/5 if you like sweet stuff

Modifications:
I left out the nuts in favor of raisins.

Reason for baking: a goodbye for a coworker who likes raisin bread.

Recipe from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Bread. Also available at King Arthur Flour.

INSTRUCTIONS

Chopped Apple Bread is a hodgepodge of dough, apples, and nuts-a wonderful mix that produces a handsome and delicious loaf that makes marvelous toast. When everything is chopped in pieces spread before you on the table you might wonder how it can produce something as orderly as a loaf of bread. But it does.
I found the recipe first at Mrs. London's Bakeshop in Saratoga Springs, New York, and then had its goodness confirmed in the Jaarsma Bakery in Pella, Iowa. The only difference it that one version is made with pecans and the other, watlnuts. In Pella this is called "Dutch Apple-Pecan."
The apple mixture will become part of the dough after the first rise. --------so wrote Bernard Clayton about this recipe.


Dough
6 1/2 to 7 cups bread or all purpose flour
2 packages dry yeast
1 tbsp salt
1/2 c. dry milk
2 1/2 c. hot water (120 to 130)
3 tbsp shortening


Apple Mix
2 c. apples, chopped into 3/4 inch cubes
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 c. walnuts or pecans, chopped into pea size pieces
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon


2 medium loaf pans, greased.


In a mixing bowl combine 3 cups flour with the dry ingredients. Pour in the hot water and stir in the shortening. With strong strokes, beat the batter 100 times by hand, or for 2 minutes with a mixer.
Add flour 1/2 cup at a time, to make a dough that can be lifted from the bowl and placed on the work surface.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface, for 10 minutes.
Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and set aside to double in volume, about 1 hour.
Punch dough down. Place on a floured work surface. Roll and press the dough into an 18 inch square, about 1/2 inch thick. Let the dough rest for a few moments.
Spread the chopped apples uniformly over the surface of the dough. Pour the beaten eggs over the apples. Add the nuts. Sprinkle on the sugar and cinnamon. Fold the dough into a package. This will be the last time there will be a semblance of order in preparing the bread. Using a dough scraper or large knife, chop the dough with random blows into pieces about 1" in size. Uniformity is of no great consequence. When the apple dough has been well chopped, toss or scoop the pieces into the prepared loaf pans, two-thirds full.
Cover the pans with wax paper, and put aside to rise slightly above the edge. about 40 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375. Bake about 45 minutes or til a rich golden brown. Test for doneness with a cake tester. If it comes out clean and dry, the bread is done.
Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Carefully, bread is fragile while hot.