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Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: Light Wheat Bread

Nicole — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:28:36 +0000

This soft, light sandwich loaf is the 18th bread I’ve baked for The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge. Yes, I’m slowly but surely plowing through the book, and although there are still 28 breads ahead of me, I am confident I will finish the book…eventually!

Mr. Reinhart’s Light Wheat Bread was definitely a crowd pleaser – easy to make, easy to eat, and not too bad to look at, either. The proud loaf that came out of my oven puts store-bought sandwich bread to shame and the simple formula is perfect for beginning bread bakers.

Although I have many fond memories of my mom’s homemade whole wheat bread, the truth is that I grew up, as many Americans did, eating sack lunches filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on store-bought sandwich bread. And while I do bake a lot of bread, I still find myself grabbing loaves of whole wheat bread off the supermarket shelf for sandwiches. I hate doing that. Store-bought breads can’t hold a candle to homemade, and most of them are so filled with additives and preservatives they can hardly be classified as bread. So I am really trying to get in the habit of baking sandwich loaves on a regular basis again. With a little planning, and some extra freezer space, it should be manageable.

I know I won’t convince all of you that it’s feasible to bake your own sandwich breads every week. But I do believe that every one of you should try baking your own bread at least once. It’s not difficult. Yes, it does take time, but most of that time is hands-off, allowing you to do other things around the house – watch a movie, do laundry, spend time with your family, or just lounge around in your pajamas (I’m a big fan of baking bread in my pajamas). Do you ever spend an afternoon at home on the weekend? I bet you can fit some bread baking in there and even have fun doing it.

So let me tell you a little bit about this light wheat bread. It’s called “light” because whole wheat flour only accounts for about a third of the total flour in the recipe – the rest is unbleached bread flour. While it’s not even close to 100% whole wheat bread, it’s heartier and more flavorful than a white sandwich loaf. The ingredients are simple: bread flour, whole wheat flour, honey, salt, powdered milk, yeast, butter and water… and the dough is easy to mix and knead by hand. The dough was a pleasure to work with, and as you can see from the photos, it rose like a champ. The formula produces only one loaf, but next time I’ll probably double it. Sandwich bread freezes beautifully so it’s always nice to have an extra loaf to pop in the freezer.

Although I don’t reprint the recipes from Mr. Reinhart’s book, Deb at Smitten Kitchen wrote about this bread last year, including the recipe. If you’re a beginning baker this bread is a great place to start, and I encourage you to give it a try yourself.

If you’re following along in the challenge, the recipe can be found on page 181 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The next bread is Marbled Rye, which will be the first rye bread I’ve ever made. Exciting!

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first bread formula in the book. You may also visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group.

If you haven’t already, you might want to bookmark the BBA Challenge Page. From there you can see which breads are coming up soon, find answers to Frequently Asked Questions, visit and/or add yourself to our World Map, see the BBA Challenge Blogroll, and check out the continually updated slideshow of BBA Bread photos from our ever-expanding group of bakers!

Light Wheat Bread from other BBA Bakers:

Two Skinny Jenkins
Italian Food Forever
I Can Do That
Texas Farmer’s Hot Stove
The Other Side of Fifty
Of Cabbages and King Cakes
The Yumarama Bread Blog
Bewitching Kitchen
3Sheik
Salt and Serenity
Round the Table
Susie’s Home and Hobbies
Goth Panda
Ährelich Gesagt
Pete Eatemall
Gourmet Hotdish and Other Culinary Disasters
Fake Ginger
In Good Taste
A Tiger in the Kitchen
Eating is the Hard Part
Bread Experience
Make My Day

Please enjoy this slideshow of Light Wheat Bread photos from members of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge Flickr Group:

Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: Lavash Crackers

Nicole — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:58:13 +0000

Flatbread is the star of this week’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge post, and these lavash crackers were fun and easy to make, beautiful to look at, and absolutely delicious. I have tasted the soft version of lavash before, but was completely unfamiliar with crackers like these. The dough is very similar to pita dough, but it is rolled thinner and baked longer than pita. The crackers can be left plain or adorned with salt, seeds and/or spices – I chose to use everything. While not quite as crisp as traditional American crackers, the flavor was outstanding and they would make a perfect accompaniment to your favorite dip or spread.

I decided to give my stand mixer a rest and mixed and kneaded the dough by hand for a change. I first mixed flour, salt, yeast, honey, oil and water with a wooden spoon until a ball of dough formed.

Then I transferred the shaggy mass of dough to a floured board and kneaded it for about ten minutes.

The dough was rather firm and took a bit of elbow grease to knead. But as you can see, it was nice and smooth after ten minutes.

It mostly passed the windowpane test. If you look closely you can see that it’s tearing in spots in the middle, but it was good enough for me.

Although I sometimes forget (or just decide to skip it), I did remember to check the dough temperature this time. It was a couple degrees cooler than it should have been, so I knew the dough would take longer to rise and planned accordingly.

I placed the ball of dough in a greased bowl and turned it once to coat both sides with oil. Then I covered it and let it ferment at room temperature. The book recommends a 90 minute fermentation, or until doubles in size. I planned on at least two hours since the dough was cool and the room wasn’t very warm.

After two hours, the dough didn’t quite look doubled, but I poked it with my fingers and it didn’t fill back in and I took that as a sign that I could move on.

Now we get to the fun part! I love rolling out dough, even when it’s a bit stubborn. I had to let the dough relax a few times before it finally submitted.

I eventually got it rolled out into a big, thin sheet. Now it needed to be transferred to a baking sheet and I was a little nervous about how that would work!

But the task wasn’t as daunting as it seemed, although the dough did shrink up and thicken a bit. I trimmed off the excess so that it fit in the baking sheet perfectly.

My favorite part was decorating the sheet of cracker dough. I used plain sesame seeds, toasted sesame seeds, nigella seeds, paprika, hot smoked paprika, cumin seeds, poppy seeds and kosher salt. I thought the stripes looked really cool!

Finally, I cut the crackers diagonally into long strips before putting the in the oven and baking until crisp.

After the crackers cooled, I broke the long strips by hand into even smaller pieces. They were beautiful and tasted great!

The dough for lavash crackers can also be used for regular pita bread. I make pita bread at home fairly often, and I think I will use this dough next time I do. The crackers had such a wonderful flavor, I can’t wait to see how the pita turns out!

Are you ready to give lavash crackers a try? The recipe can be found on page 178 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The next bread in the challenge is Light Wheat Bread, and I’m really looking forward to having some homemade sandwich bread in the house again!

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

Lavash Crackers from other BBA Bakers:

Please enjoy this slideshow of Lavash Cracker photos from the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge Flickr Group.

Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: Kaiser Rolls

Nicole — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:25:19 +0000

We’re back to the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge! Today I’m sharing my experience with the 16th bread in the challenge: Kaiser Rolls. I enjoyed these rolls so much I’ve made them twice already! Like many of the breads in the book, these rolls do take two days to make, but they aren’t difficult and I found that they were both easy and a lot of fun to shape.

Kaiser rolls, also called New York hard rolls or Vienna rolls, are known for the distinctive star pattern on the top of the roll. The traditional method for achieving the classic kaiser roll shape requires a series of overlapping folds that intimidates me quite a bit. Luckily, the book offers a couple of other options for creating beautiful kaiser rolls.

The first of the easier shaping options is to use a special kaiser cutting tool that stamps a star pattern right into the top of the shaped rolls before they are proofed. While this method appears to be the easiest, it requires the purchase of the specialized tool and quite frankly seems a bit boring. The other option is to make a knotted roll. The knot method appeals to me because it looks easier than the folding method, but is more hands-on than the stamping method.

Most commercial bakeries make these rolls using the faster direct-dough method, but Mr. Reinhart’s version uses a pre-ferment to improve the flavor, texture, and color. The pâte fermentée, or old dough, is mixed up on day one and allowed to ferment slowly and develop flavor in the refrigerator overnight (or longer).

The following morning, or whenever you are ready to make the rolls, the old dough is taken from the fridge, chopped into pieces, and mixed into the new dough.

The dough ingredients should be quite familiar at this point in the challenge: bread flour, salt, diastatic malt powder (or barley malt syrup), instant yeast, egg, oil, and water.

The ingredients can be stirred together by hand (I like to use a wooden spoon or dough whisk), or with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer. They should be mixed until the ingredients form a ball and there is no loose flour in the bottom of the bowl – a bit of extra water can be added if needed.

As I decided to knead the dough in the stand mixer, I switched to the dough hook once all the ingredients were well mixed. I might have accidentally added a bit too much water at the beginning because my dough was fairly wet and sticky, but I never mind starting with a sticky dough. It’s easier to knead extra flour into a dough if it’s too wet than to add extra water if the dough is too stiff.

I kneaded the dough for about 7 minutes, adding small amounts of flour until the dough seemed right – soft and supple, tacky but not sticky. I checked the gluten development using the windowpane test, and it looked great.

I placed the kneaded ball of dough into an oiled bowl, turning it once to coat both sides with oil in order to prevent the dough from drying out during the bulk fermentation stage.

According to the book, the dough temperature after kneading should be between 77 and 81 degrees F. It was close, but a little on the cool side. My house was also fairly cool, so I knew there was a possibility that the two hour fermentation time might need to be extended a bit if the dough hadn’t doubled in that time.

However, the dough appeared to have doubled after two hours, so I continued to the dividing and shaping phase.

The dough can be divided into 6 pieces for larger rolls, or 9 pieces for smaller rolls. I decided to divide it into 8 pieces – it just seemed easier to divide the pieces into an even number. I used my scale to make sure they were all close to the same weight so the rolls would be uniform in size.

As the dough was divided and measured, I pre-shaped the pieces into rounds and let them rest for ten minutes. The resting period is important because it lets the gluten relax, allowing for easier stretching and shaping.

Next it was time to shape the rolls into knots. Using my hands, I rolled a ball of dough into a rope.

I tied the rope into a simple knot, leaving a bit of length at each end. As you can see, the rope shrunk as I tied the knot. Luckily, the dough is elastic and it was easy enough to stretch it and complete the shaping. To finish the knot, I pulled the right end of the rope up and over, and tucked it into the center. Next, I took the left end of the rope and pulled it down and under, pushing it through the bottom of the knot and up into the center.

It’s hard to show the process using photos, but this is what a knotted kaiser roll will look like. The little nub in the center is from the left strand that was wrapped under and pushed up through the center of the knot. Some of mine ended up with the little nub in the center, some didn’t. The process was simple to learn using the photos and instructions in the book, and once I completed the first one, I breezed through the rest without any problems.

The shaped rolls were placed on a baking sheet, covered with plastic and allowed to proof at room temperature for about an hour and 15 minutes.

They were supposed to double in size, but I’m not sure if mine quite made it. I was tired of waiting and my oven was pre-heated and ready to go, so I decided to bake them anyway.

Right before placing the tray in the oven, I sprayed the rolls lightly with water and sprinkled seeds on top. The first time I made the rolls, I used only poppy seeds, but this time I topped some with poppy seeds, some with sesame seeds, and a few with both.

The rolls were baked for about 25 minutes, until the internal temperature reached 200 degrees. The crusts were thin and crisp, and the insides were soft – perfect for a sandwich roll!

We used the kaiser rolls for these delicious pulled pork sandwiches made by my friend Amanda. If you’d like the recipe, head over to What We’re Eating – you won’t be disappointed!

Are you ready to give homemade Kaiser Rolls a try? The recipe can be found on page 175 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The next bread in the challenge is Lavash Crackers…something a little different!

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

Kaiser Rolls from other BBA Members:

Kaiser Rolls from Two Skinny Jenkins
Kaiser Rolls from Italian Food Forever
Kaiser Rolls from The Other Side of Fifty
Kaiser Rolls from My Hawaiian Home
Kaiser Rolls from I Can Do That
Kaiser Rolls from Bewitching Kitchen
Kaiser Rolls from The Yumarama Artisan Bread Blog
Kaiser Rolls from Something Shiny
Kaiser Rolls from Texas Farmer’s Hot Stove
Kaiser Rolls from 3Sheik
Kaiser Rolls from Salt and Serenity
Kaiser Rolls from Butter ‘n Thyme
Kaiser Rolls from Goth Panda
Kaiser Rolls from Round The Table
Kaiser Rolls from Gourmet Hotdish and Other Culinary Disasters

Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: Italian Bread

Nicole — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:09:36 +0000

The new year is about to begin and I’m determined to get back on track with The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge! I’ve fallen way behind many of my fellow BBA bakers, but the great thing about this challenge is that we each set our own pace, and even though I’ve fallen behind, I can pick right back up where I left off and continue working toward the goal of finishing all the breads in the book. And since I am behind several of the others, there are plenty of people I can turn to for help or advice!

Today, I’m writing about the 15th bread in the challenge: Italian Bread. I actually baked and photographed this bread months ago, so bear with me as I try to remember the details of the process – luckily I took lots of photos. One thing I do remember is the wonderful flavor of this bread. I gave a loaf to my friend Caron for her birthday, and she shared a buttered slice of the still-warm bread with me in her kitchen. There’s nothing like sharing bread and butter with a friend!

Peter Reinhart’s Italian Bread is soft and delicious with a thin crisp crust that softens slightly as the bread cools. It is wonderful sliced and served with butter, but I think that this bread really shines as a sandwich loaf. I will definitely be making the Italian Bread again, but next time will form the dough into smaller torpedo rolls for meatball sandwiches.

Just like the French Bread, this formula employs a pre-ferment to extract maximum flavor from the simple ingredients. For the French Bread, the pre-ferment was pâte fermentée, but the Italian version is biga. The biga is made the day before you want to bake the bread (or up to 3 days earlier). It’s a simple mixture of flour, a bit of instant yeast, and water. The biga forms a dough similar in consistency to what the final dough will be. It’s kneaded, allowed to ferment at room temperature for a few hours, then placed in the refrigerator overnight.

The following day, you will remove the biga from the refrigerator cut it into small pieces one hour before starting the Italian Bread, so that it can come up to room temperature. The pieces are then mixed with some flour, salt, sugar, yeast and malt powder.

Next you add the liquid ingredients: olive oil and water. The instructions are to mix all of the ingredients, adjusting with extra flour or water as needed to achieve a dough that is slightly sticky and soft, but not too sticky. This is where you just have to reach in and feel the dough, and use your best judgment!

The instructions are to mix all of the ingredients, adjusting with extra flour or water as needed to achieve a dough that is slightly sticky and soft, but not too sticky. This is where you just have to reach in and feel the dough, and use your best judgment!

The first time I felt the dough, it seemed too dry and tough. I decided to add a tiny bit more water.

But this dough seemed way too sticky and soft. Solution? Add a bit more flour!

I finally ended up with a dough that seemed to fit the Mr. Reinhart’s description, so I switched to the dough hook and kneaded it until it was slightly tacky and supple.

To check if it had been kneaded enough, I used the windowpane test (which is rather hard to photograph alone, by the way). It passed with flying colors, so it was ready to ferment.

I placed the ball of dough in an oiled bowl, turning it once to cover, then let it ferment at room temperature (covered) for close to 2 hours.

As you can see, the dough definitely doubled in size!

Next, I dumped it out onto a lightly floured surface, to divide and shape the dough into loaves.

Normally, I use a scale to weigh the pieces, ensuring that I end up with loaves of equal size. Apparently, I was feeling lazy this day. And as you can see, the dough isn’t exactly evenly divided. Oh well.

Following the instructions and photos in the book, I gently shaped the pieces into bâtards (torpedoes). It’s important to be gentle with the dough during the shaping process, as you don’t want to degas the dough too much.

Next, I transferred the loaves to a sheet of parchment on my peel. I’ve had pretty good luck using parchment instead of cornmeal or semolina. It’s less messy, and the parchment slides right off the peel onto the baking stone. The problem I did have, was placing the loaves too close together. I just wasn’t paying attention.

As you can see, the loaves are already touching, after proofing for an hour. But I knew if I tried to move them at this point, I was going to have problems. I decided to just let them bake together.

The final step before baking, is scoring the tops of the loaves with a knife or razor blade. I used a razor blade. The loaves were baked in a preheated 500 degree oven that had been prepared for hearth baking. This means that a baking stone and an empty pan were placed in the oven before preheating. When the oven is heated, the loaves are placed directly on the stone, hot water is poured in the hot pan, and the oven door is closed immediately. The steam from the water and the direct heat from the baking stone help promote oven spring and a crisp crust.

As you can see, the loaves were beautiful despite the fact that I let them proof and bake too close together. This really was some wonderful tasting bread, and I’m so happy to finally share it with you. I also want to send out a big hug and thank you to the lovely Janice of Round The Table, who sent me part of her stash of diastatic barley malt powder, an ingredient I was lacking for this bread and the next one coming up.

Are you ready to give homemade Italian Bread a try? The recipe can be found on page 172 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The next bread in the challenge is Kaiser Rolls, and they are both fun to make and delicious! I’ve made them once before, but plan on making some more (and taking photos) for our New Year’s Day football gathering.

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first recipe in the book. But first, please visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group!

Italian Bread from other BBA Challenge Members:

Italian Bread from Goth Panda
Italian Bread from Round the Table
Italian Bread from Pete Eatemall
Italian Bread from The Yumarama Artisan Bread Blog
Italian Bread from Of Cabbages and King Cakes
Italian Bread from Joelen’s Culinary Adventures
Italian Bread from Two Skinny Jenkins
Italian Bread from Susie’s Home and Hobbies
Italian Bread from The Other Side of 50
Italian Bread from Italian Food Forever

Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge: French Bread

Nicole — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:19:43 +0000

So it turns out that I have fallen a bit behind on The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge. Life doesn’t always cooperate with bread baking and blogging, and that’s the reason I’ve encouraged everyone to bake at their own pace and take breaks as needed. Well my break is now over, my husband is home from Iraq, and I’m ready to jump back in and share some bread with you!

Bread #14 in the book is French Bread. After the huge success of the focaccia, I was a little worried that my baguettes would disappoint. I’ve never made a basic French bread, and it’s so easy to pick up great-tasting baguettes from our local bakeries, I wasn’t sure it would be worth the effort. But, as usual, Peter Reinhart proved me wrong. This bread wasn’t that difficult, and it had an amazing flavor!

This French Bread formula uses a large amount of pâte fermentée, or pre-fermented dough. As we’ve learned from earlier breads in this challenge, the extra step of using a pre-ferment really doesn’t take much effort, but makes a huge difference in the final outcome. It only takes a few extra minutes of hands-on time, and you’ll be amazed at the wonderful flavor that develops. You simply mix up some flour, yeast, and water a day or two ahead of time, and let it hang out in the refrigerator.

For the pâte fermentée, I blended bread flour, all-purpose flour, salt, yeast, and water. I kneaded it like any other bread dough, let it ferment at room temperature for an hour, and then stuck it in the fridge overnight. The next day, I let the pâte fermentée come to room temperature before using it in my French Bread dough.

When using a pâte fermentée or biga (the Italian equivalent), the pre-ferment must be chopped up into pieces so that it can be mixed more easily into the final dough. I simply dumped it out onto a floured surface and cut it into pieces with my bench scraper.

Next, I combined more flour, salt, and yeast with the pieces of pâte fermentée in a mixing bowl.

Water was then added and the dough was mixed with the paddle attachment in my stand mixer until everything came together and a coarse ball was formed.

I then switched to the dough hook and kneaded the French Bread dough until it was soft, pliable and tacky. I had to add small amounts of flour as I was kneading in order to achieve that state. I also ended up kneading it longer than the book suggested in order for the dough to pass the windowpane test. Because of the extra kneading, my dough temperature was higher than it should have been. The book says the dough temperature should be between 77 and 81 degrees F, but mine registered at 85 degrees F. Ooooops.

Next, I placed my slightly warm ball of dough into a greased bowl, turned it to coat both sides with oil, and let it ferment at room temperature. I knew that the dough was going to rise faster than I wanted, but the book specifies that if this happens, you can degas the dough and let it rise a second time.

Sure enough, my dough doubled in record time!

So I kneaded it gently and then placed it back in the bowl. Just for fun, I checked the temperature again. It had dropped and was now within the range it should have been originally.

I let the dough ferment for about another hour, and it once again doubled in size.

Now for the fun part! I dumped the dough back out onto my flour board so I could divide it into three pieces which would eventually be shaped into baguettes.

I usually weigh my dough so that I end up with equal pieces, but I was lazy this time and just eyeballed it.

I obviously didn’t do a very good job of guessing the weight of the dough since I ended up with three different sizes (next time I’ll go back to using my scale)! Before shaping the baguettes, I first pre-shaped the pieces into batards and let the dough relax for a few minutes.

Unfortunately I didn’t photograph the baguette-shaping process, but you can see the process more clearly in this video. After shaping my baguettes, I nestled them in between the folds of a floured couche, seam side up, and let them proof at room temperature for about an hour.

After the baguettes were properly proofed, I gently transferred them to a piece of parchment paper on the back of a sheet pan. I was thinking that I could just slide the baguettes and parchment onto my baking stone using the sheet pan instead of messing with semolina or cornmeal.

Next, I slashed the baguettes using a razor blade. I’m still not completely confident in my slashing technique, but it wasn’t too bad.

To prepare the oven for baking, I preheated to 500 degrees with a baking stone on the middle shelf and an empty pan on the top shelf. The pan on the top shelf is allowed to preheat with the oven so that I can pour hot water in it to create steam after the loaves have been placed on the baking stone. The steam allows for a better oven spring as the loaves are allowed to grow a bit more before a crust is formed.

When the oven was ready, I tried to slide the baguettes and parchment paper onto the stone. Unfortunately, the baguettes rolled rather than slid, and I ended up with a mini disaster as the baguette were all upside down and in the wrong places and I was dealing with a 500 degree oven. I was able to save two of them, but the third ended up being baked upside down and halfway off the baking stone for a few minutes (I was able to move it after the crust had started forming). The results were two nicely shaped baguettes and one slightly curved baguette. But they all looked much better than I had anticipated!

The only thing that concerned me was the color. I thought that they were a bit too pale and wonder what I could do differently to get some better caramelization in the crust. But the flavor of this bread was magnificent and I will definitely be giving it another try soon!

Are you ready to give homemade baguettes a try? The recipe for French Bread can be found on page 168 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. The next bread in the challenge is Italian Bread and it’s a good one! Meatball Sandwich, anyone?

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first recipe in the book. But first, please visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group!

French Bread from other BBA Challenge Members:

French Bread from Big Black Dog
French Bread from Gourmet Hotdish and other Culinary Disasters
French Bread from Ahrelich Gesagt
French Bread from Goth Panda
French Bread from Pete Eatemall
French Bread from Salt and Serenity
French Bread from Round the Table
French Bread from La cuisine d’Hélène

Herbed Focaccia from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

Nicole — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:00:01 +0000

Ok, let me come right out and say this. This focaccia was the best I’ve ever tasted in my life. Period. Like many of the formulas in the book, this one takes two days to make. And although it’s more labor and time-intensive than other focaccia recipes I’ve tried, I’m pretty sure it’s the only one I will ever make again.

This is the 13th bread I’ve made for The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge (with 31 more to come) and it has moved up to the top of my favorites list. Honestly, I didn’t think I could love any bread more than the salami and cheese-filled Casatiello. But I was wrong. Foccacia, I love you.

There are two different formulas for focaccia in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, both of which take two days to make. So why does it take so much time to make a great focaccia? As many of you have learned from following along with my bread baking, long, slow fermentation of the dough is key to developing maximum flavor. This can be achieved by using a pre-ferment such as a poolish (like I used for the ciabatta), or by refrigerating the dough overnight (the bagels were a good example of overnight fermentation).

I chose to make the Poolish Focaccia, for no other reason than I just like to watch the bubbles form in the poolish. Also, I like to say the word ‘poolish.’ A poolish is simply a combination of flour, water, and a small amount of yeast. It gets mixed together to form a batter-like dough and is allowed to ferment at room temperature until it gets nice and bubbly.

Here is my poolish after mixing:

and then a few hours later:

As you can see, the poolish increases in size and starts bubbling away. If you stand and watch for a minute, you can actually see bubbles form, grow, and burst. It’s alive! Now once it’s nice and bubbly you want to put the poolish in the refrigerator for a long, slow, overnight ferment. You can let it hang out in the fridge for up to 3 days and continue with the focaccia whenever you are ready.

Ready? Ok, take the poolish out of the fridge one hour before you want to make the dough so it can warm up a bit. For the focaccia dough, you will be adding more flour, yeast, water, olive oil and salt to the poolish.

I stirred the dough up with a spoon until it formed a wet, sticky dough.

Then I kneaded it for 7 or 8 minutes using the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid mixer. Once I had a smooth, sticky dough, I stopped kneading and dumped it out onto a bed of flour. Doesn’t this remind you of my ciabatta? It should, because I used too much flour on the board for the ciabatta and for some reason didn’t learn from my mistake!

So the next step is to dust the dough liberally with flour and then pat it into a rectangle. This was as close as I managed to get. It’s almost a rectangle!

Now for the stretching and folding. Again, this should seem familiar if you saw my ciabatta post. After letting the dough relax for a few minutes, I coated my hands with flour and stretched the rectangle out. It’s supposed to be twice its original size. This time I brushed most of the flour off the top of the dough before folding.

Next, fold one side of the dough in towards the middle then brush the flour off again.

Then fold the other side over, letter style. Now I’ve completed one “stretch and fold.”

I covered my dough and let it rest for 30 minutes and then repeated the stretch and fold process two more times, allowing the 30 minute rest each time. As you can see, the dough grew during the process! But now it’s time to let it grow even more. I covered it and let it ferment at room temperature for one hour.

While the dough was fermenting, I made a garlic herb oil using fresh garlic, basil, rosemary and parsley. I also added a bit of crushed red pepper. Hold on, you’ll see what I do with the oil in a minute.

After an hour, the dough had doubled in size and was ready to go in the pan.

I lined my rimmed half sheet pan with parchment and spread olive oil (not the herb oil) all over the bottom. I gently lifted the dough off the counter and spread it out on the parchment. Not as easy as it sounds! As you can see, the dough didn’t hold it’s rectangular shape very well.

I drizzled some of the herb oil over the top of the dough and started dimpling it with my fingers, gently spreading the dough out in the pan.

The dough didn’t quite reach the edges of the pan, but I wasn’t worried because it still had some growing to do!

I covered the pan and let it proof for about an hour and a half. As you can see, the dough definitely filled the pan!

Next, I drizzled even more herb oil over the top.

Then I dimpled the dough all over with my fingertips again.

Before putting the focaccia in the 5oo degree oven, I sprinkled the whole thing lightly with coarse salt. The focaccia baked for about 20 minutes, and I rotated the pan halfway through baking. Although the oven is preheated to 500 degrees, it gets turned down to 450 after putting the bread in the oven.

Here is the resulting bread:

The crumb was beautiful!

And the flavor and texture were out of this world!

I can’t wait to make this focaccia again and try some different toppings. I loved the herb oil, but can’t wait to try it with cheese and olives, among other things. I might even make a thick crust pizza using this dough. It is absolutely amazing!

The recipe for Poolish Focaccia can be found on page 164 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

The next bread in the challenge is French Bread! I can’t wait to tell you about the beautiful crusty baguettes that came out of my oven last weekend. Yes, I have been baking bread faster than I’ve been able to write about it, but my blog posts will soon be caught up to my baking.

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first recipe in the book. But first, please visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group!

Focaccia from other BBA Challenge Members:

Tomato Parmesan Focaccia from Lovin’ from the Oven
Herbed Focaccia from The Yumarama Bread Blog
Caramelized Onion and Cherry Tomato Focaccia from I Can Do that
Focaccia with Feta, Tomatoes and Pine Nuts from MustangTerri
Herbed Mushroom and Cheese Focaccia from Texas Farmer’s Hot Stove
Herbed Focaccia from Bewitching Kitchen
Herbed Focaccia with Tomatoes and Blue Cheese from Nico’s Blog
Sun Dried Tomato Focaccia from Goth Panda
Herbed Focaccia from Something Shiny
Focaccia with Caramelized Onions and Parmesan Cheese from Culinary Disasters
Herbed Focaccia from The Other Side of Fifty
Focaccia with Peppers, Olives and Feta from Pete Eatemall
Caramelized Shallot and Golden Raisin Focaccia from Pink Stripes
Grape and Walnut Focaccia from Eating Out Loud
Raisin Focaccia from Eating is the Hard Part
Blue Cheese, Pepper, Steak and Mushroom Focaccia from Joelen’s Culinary Adventures

Homemade English Muffins

Nicole — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:17:21 +0000

Have you ever thought about making English Muffins from scratch? If not, maybe you should! They are surprisingly easy and lots of fun to make. You might not know this, but English Muffins are baked on a griddle rather than in the oven. Since I am somewhat obsessed with watching things bake and have a tendency to plant myself on the kitchen floor in front of the oven glass, I love that these get baked on a griddle where I can get up close and personal!

I’ve made english muffins several times over the years, but this is my first time using Peter Reinhart’s recipe. Yes, this is another installment from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge and it’s another great one! Although sourdough english muffins are my favorite, these plain white muffins were outstanding! Like many of the bread formulas in the book, this one calls for buttermilk, and I think that’s what made them so great.

The dough is very basic: flour, salt, yeast, a bit of sugar and shortening, and buttermilk. Just mix it up in a bowl and then knead it until soft and smooth, tacky but not sticky. It’s very important that the dough is not too stiff. This is my dough after kneading:

And a little more than an hour later, it has risen nicely.

Next, I divided the dough into six equal pieces and shaped them like dinner rolls. I was careful with dough, taking care not to completely deflate it as I was shaping the muffins. I placed the balls of dough on sheet of parchment that had been sprinkled with cornmeal. Then I sprinkled cornmeal over the top of the dough, too.

I covered them with plastic and let them double in size, which took about an hour.

I’ve found that the easiest way to bake the muffins is on a big electric griddle. The temperature is easily controlled and you can bake the whole batch at once. If you don’t have an electric griddle, you can use a stove top griddle, or whatever frying pan you have handy. Cast iron works really well. I heated my electric griddle to 350 degrees and I also preheated the oven to 350 degrees in case the muffins needed to be finished in there for the last few minutes.

When I placed the muffins on the griddle, they spread out just a little bit. This is what should happen if your dough is soft enough.

Next they started puffing up! It really is a lot of fun to watch the transformation up close!

After about 7 minutes, the bottoms were nice and brown and it was time to flip them over. This is when they really start to look like english muffins!

After they had cooked for another 7 or 8 minutes, I quickly transferred them to a baking sheet and into the oven for about 5 minutes, just to ensure that the middle was completely baked through.

Don’t they look perfect? The hardest part is allowing them to cool for 30 minutes! But like all bread, this is a crucial stage in the process. The bread just isn’t finished until it has cooled a bit.

But I didnt wait too long! The muffin was still slightly warm when I split it with a fork, buttered it, and topped it with blackberry jam. Delicious!

But my favorite way to eat an english muffin is toasted with nothing but a little bit of butter (ok, maybe a lot of butter).

Important: Put those knives down! English muffins should always be split with a fork if you want the signature nooks and crannies. Push the fork into the side of the muffin, working your way around until it has been punctured all the way around. Then gently pull it apart.

The recipe for these english muffins can be found on page 157 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. If you don’t yet own the book, there are several wonderful English Muffin recipes floating around the internet. I’ll link to some of them at the bottom of this page.

But first, here are some English Muffins from other BBA Challenge Members:

English Muffins from Ährelich Gesagt
English Muffins from Susie’s Home and Hobbies
English Muffins from Two Skinny Jenkins
English Muffins from The Other Side of Fifty
English Muffin Loaf from I Can Do That
English Muffins from Big Black Dog
English Muffins from Bewitching Kitchen
English Muffin Loaf from The Yumarama Bread Blog
English Muffins from Of Cabbages and King Cakes
English Muffins from Round the Table
English Muffins from Joelen’s Culinary Adventures
English Muffins from My Hawaiian Home

Thank you Mr. Reinhart for yet another wonderful bread! And thank you everyone who is participating in The BBA Challenge with me, it’s been so much fun so far and we have many wonderful breads still to come!

The next bread in the book is Focaccia and I’ll let you in on a little secret: I made the Focaccia last week and it is my new favorite bread from the book! Simply amazing. I’ll be sharing it with you soon!

Want to Join The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first recipe in the book. But first, please visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group!

English Muffin Recipes from Around the Web:

English Muffins from Baking Bites
Sourdough English Muffins from Wild Yeast

Peter Reinhart on Bread

Nicole — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:38:09 +0000

BBA Challenge: Cherry Pecan Celebration Bread

Nicole — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:05:08 +0000

And here comes number eleven!

That’s right, I’m still plugging away at The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge and the next bread up is Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread. But since Mr. Reinhart gave us the option of choosing different dried fruits and nuts, I decided to celebrate cherry season and use tart dried cherries and pecans in my bread.

Although it is definitely a gorgeous loaf worthy of a celebration, this bread was surprisingly easy to make! No unusual ingredients for this one, just bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt, buttermilk, eggs, butter, water, lemon extract, dried tart cherries, and pecans.

First, the dry ingredients and wet ingredients (except water) are mixed up separately, then combined in one mixing bowl.

I stirred everything together with my trusty wooden spoon, then added enough water to make a soft dough.

Ok, perhaps I added a bit too much water. Don’t panic if this happens, remember that you can always knead in some extra flour during the next step!

Now for the kneading. I decided to give my mixer a day off, so I kneaded this dough by hand on my board. A kitchen counter or smooth tabletop also makes a good kneading surface, you don’t need a pastry board to knead bread dough! But I have one, so I use it. I sprinkled it with a good amount of flour before scraping the sticky mess of dough out of the bowl, floured up my hands, and got to work!

It took about eight minutes of kneading by hand, before I ended up with a smooth, pliable, slightly tacky ball of dough. You really need to make sure that it’s not too stiff at this point, because the nuts and fruit still have to be kneaded in!

I roughly chopped the nuts and cherries before kneading them in. I think this was the first time I’ve ever kneaded dried fruit and nuts into a bread dough by hand, so I was a little unsure about it. I just kind of flattened out the dough and dumped the whole mess on there.

It wasn’t as hard as it seemed. Just be persistant, and it will get incorporated eventually!

Now it’s time for bulk fermentation, the stage where you let the yeast do it’s work and let the ball of dough double in bulk. I cleaned out the mixing bowl, oiled it, and placed the dough inside, rolling it once to coat it with oil. Now, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for about 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in bulk. If you have a warm house, you will want to check the dough early, because it will rise faster.

Here’s my dough about an hour and a half later. I guess I had some happy yeast!

Now it’s time to divide the dough. For this, I use two important tools: My bench scraper and my digital scale!

Since this is a celebration loaf, it will be shaped into a double braid. There will be a large three-strand braid on the bottom and a smaller three-strand braid on top. This means we’ll need six pieces of dough. Three pieces will be 10 ounces each (for the larger braid) and three pieces will be 4 ounces each (for the smaller braid). Using a scale makes it simple!

Next, the balls of dough need to rolled out into ropes. The book specifies the lengths you need, so a ruler comes in handy at this stage. The larger pieces are rolled to about 9 inches long, while the smaller pieces are about 7 inches long. As you can see, the ropes are thicker in the middle and tapered at the ends. This technique is what helps to form a nice looking braided loaf that is thicker in the center and tapered at the ends.

And now for the braiding. Just like for the challah, I started my braid in the middle and worked out to each end. There are detailed instructions for braiding on page 84 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

After you have braided both the large rope and the small ones, you will place the small braid on top of the large one, making sure it is centered.

Next, brush the entire loaf with an egg wash and let it proof (rise) uncovered at room temperature for about an hour and a half, or until the loaf nearly doubles in size.

After it has doubled, the loaf is carefully brushed with a second egg wash.

Finally, it is baked at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes, until the loaf is a deep golden brown and sounds hollow when it is tapped on the bottom of the loaf. The internal temperature should be between 185 and 190 degrees. Kind of looks like a roast bird from this angle, doesn’t it?

Although I accidentally baked mine for about ten minutes too long because I forgot to set the timer for an additional five minutes and then got distracted by twitter for fifteen minutes, I was really pleased with this bread!

Like many of the others participating in this challenge, I’m ready for a break from sweet breads and was kind of dreading making another one. But this bread was both beautiful and delicious! And pulling such an amazing loaf of bread from the oven really did fill me with a sense of accomplishment.

I’m glad that I decided to use the tart dried cherries and pecans in this bread, they worked really well together. One thing I might change if I make this bread again is the fruit/nut ratio. I think it could have used a little less dried fruit and perhaps a handful of extra nuts. I think I’ll save the cranberry walnut version for Thanksgiving, it will be perfect for leftover turkey sandwiches!

Interested in making this bread? The recipe can be found on page 154 of Peter Reinhart’s amazing book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

For those of you who are participating in The BBA Challenge, here are some questions: How did you like the Celebration Bread? What type of fruit or nuts did you use? Did you shape it into the double braid or did you choose a different shape? Would you make it again?

And remember, if you wrote a blog post about the Celebration Bread, or have photos available online, please leave a comment and share your link!

The Next Bread

Next we will be making English Muffins! It will be nice to have a break from sweet breads for a little while and I love homemade English Muffins!! The English Muffins are different from the other breads we’ve made so far because they are ‘baked’ on a griddle, rather than in the oven. The instructions begin on page 157 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Good luck and happy baking!

Want to Bake Along With Us?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first recipe in the book. But first, please visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group!

Celebration Bread from other BBA Challenge members:

Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread from Susie’s Home and Hobbies
Cherry Walnut Celebration Bread from Round the Table
Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread from I Can Do That!
Cranberry Apricot Celebration Bread from 3Sheik
Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread from Ahrelich Gesagt
Strawberry Walnut Celebration Bread from A Stove with a House Around It
Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread from Something Shiny
Peach and Pecan Celebration Bread from Pink Stripes
Cranberry Apricot Walnut Celebration Bread from Pete Eatemall
Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread from Bewitching Kitchen

Sweet Skillet Corn Bread with Bacon and Fresh Cut Corn

Nicole — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:31:54 +0000

Can you believe I’ve made it through the tenth bread in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge? I was a little surprised to see a quick bread recipe in the book, but I’m really happy that Mr. Reinhart decided to include this corn bread.

It’s sweet and dense, without being too heavy. The slices were crispy on the outside, but very moist inside. The sweetness of the fresh cut corn is nicely balanced out by the salty bacon on top. I pretty much loved everything about it!

Of course I’m from California and I grew up eating a fairly sweet corn bread.

This isn’t a corn bread that needs a bowl of black-eyed peas. It doesn’t even need butter. This corn bread can stand alone. Although it’s probably sweet enough for dessert, I actually enjoyed it most for breakfast. But it also paired nicely with the braised short ribs my sister and Aunt prepared last week after falling under the spell of The Barefoot Contessa.

But the thing about this ‘quick bread’ recipe is that it isn’t so quick. It requires you to soak some coarse-ground cornmeal in buttermilk overnight. You also have to saw the kernels off a few cobs of corn and fry up some bacon before you can proceed with the recipe. But that is a small price to pay for such a big reward!

The recipe said to use a 10-inch round cake pan for the bread, but I prefer corn bread baked in a cast iron skillet. I preheated my 10-inch skillet in the oven and poured in some of the leftover bacon drippings and swirled them around. The book actually instructed me to do this, but you know I would have done it anyway. After pouring in the batter and hearing that satisfying sizzle, you sprinkle crumbled bacon over the top and gently press it in before returning the skillet to the oven.

The only problem I had with the recipe was the cooking time. My corn bread took about 45 minutes to bake through, not 30 minutes as the book suggested. Everyone else had the same issue, so it wasn’t just my oven. Make sure you keep that in mind if you’re going to give this one a try. And really, I think you should give it a try. The recipe can be found on page 151 of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

For those of you who are participating in The BBA Challenge, here are some questions: How did you like the Corn Bread? Did you make any changes? Would you make it again?

And remember, if you wrote a blog post about the Corn Bread, or have photos available online, please leave a comment and share your link!

The Next Bread

Next we will be making Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread. We have the option of using other types of dried fruit or nuts, so I’m actually making Cherry Pecan Celebration Bread. The instructions begin on page 154 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I have to tell you that I’m ready to get past these sweet breads, but at least I’ll get some more practice braiding bread dough! Good luck and happy baking!

Want to Bake Along With Us?

There are several ways for you to join in the fun! First of all, you need a copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Read the first section of the book carefully, as this will prepare you for the bread recipes in the second section of the book. Then just jump in and bake some Anadama Bread, which is the first recipe in the book. But first, please visit The BBA Challenge Page for more details on how to participate in the group!

Corn Bread from other BBA Challenge members:

Corn Bread with Bacon from A Stove with a House Around It
Corn Muffins with Bacon from matchirman on Flickr
Corn Bread with Bacon from The Missing Piece
Corn Bread from MustangTerri
Corn Bread with Bacon from A Tiger in the Kitchen