Easy Peasy Whole Wheat Bread

If you search for "things that have to be made with a KitchenAid", bread comes to the top of the list. This is, of course, not true (unless you're making brioche), but it sure is much easier. And this recipe couldn't get much easier.

Like all bread, this takes time. Try it some weekend. If you start it at breakfast, you'll have fresh from the oven, fluffy 100% whole wheat bread by lunch time.

The key to making the bread fluffy, instead of dense, is adding vital wheat gluten. Adding this protein helps make up for what whole wheat flour lacks--the ability to hold onto air bubbles. You can usually find it in the bulk section at your super market. Bob's Red Mill also sells a packaged version.

Note: stand mixer not required, but these directions call for one.

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100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
makes 1 large loaf

Ingredients:
1.5c warm water
1.5t active dry yeast (1 packet)
pinch of sugar
3T oil
2T honey
3.25c whole wheat flour
3T vital wheat gluten
1.5t salt
milk or cream for brushing

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, or in your liquid measuring cup, mix the warm water, yeast and sugar.
2. Put the remaining ingredients except milk/cream into the bowl of your stand mixer.
3. When the yeast is bubbly, add it to the stand mixer and mix with the paddle attachment until the dough just comes together. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes.
4. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, rest for 2 minutes, knead for 5-7 minutes, or until the dough passes the windowpane test.
5. Let the dough rise someplace warm for 1-2 hours, or until doubled in size.
6. Gently fold the dough down (don't punch!! unless you like dense bread...), then shape it into a loaf in a greased, lined 9x5 loaf pan
7. Rise an additional 30 minutes to an hour, or until the bread has crested over the top of the pan. (It won't rise much more in the oven.)
8. Brush the top of the loaf with milk or cream, and bake for 45 minutes at 350°F. I also brushed the tops 10 minutes and 20 minutes into baking, so the top was nice and shiny.
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We ate this with a salad and homemade split pea soup. There's something so satisfying about an entirely homemade meal.. I can't wait until our balcony garden produces enough veggies for a homegrown, homemade meal!!

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Book Review: The Bread Baker's Apprentice

This was the first cookbook I owned. I think it speaks to my preferences in culinary creations. Because I live in a dorm, and the kitchen is so far away from my room, I prefer baking. When I bake, I mix the batters and the doughs in my room and ferry them to the kitchen all ready to go. It's very rare that I forget something important since usually all I have to bring is a baking vessel and my batter.

Unfortunately for me, I don't have the metabolism of an 18-year-old male. I can't eat a whole pan of brownies and not suffer dire consequences. At some point, I realized I had to stop baking dessert and start baking more wholesome and more savory goods. My sister had recently made bagels, so I gave it a go.

Cinnamon swirl bread, and a glass of milk sitting on BBA.

Now, I don't recommend that anybody start with bagels. However, if you think yeast is scary, making bagels will flush that right out of your system--the shaping, boiling, topping and flipping are all a lot more intimidating than throwing some yeast in with your flour.

After Tastespotting bread recipes for a while, I read about the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, to bake through Peter Reinhardt's entire book in order, and blog about each recipe. No big deal, I thought to myself. I can do that. So I bought it. And I read the first section on the hows and the whats of bread making. And I made the first recipe--Anadama bread.

A Breakfast Treat

If you happen to have cinnamon swirl bread on hand, this is a great way to get rid of bananas. (You shouldn't need help getting rid of your cinnamon swirl bread.) It's also a great way to surprise a sleepy cinnamon-loving man in bed.

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Broiled Bananas on Toast

Equipment:
Baking tray
Broiler
Knife
Tongs OR heat-proof finger skin

Ingredients:
slices of cinnamon swirl bread
banana (sliced lengthwise)
cinnamon sugar

Cinnamon Swirl Bread/Homemade Bagels

Cinnamon Swirl Bread with the Bread Baker's Apprentice open in the background.

I've been slowly working on baking my way through Peter Reinhardt's Bread Baker's Apprentice. I definitely haven't been going in order, nor have I made much progress, but the recipes I have made have been delicious.

Since Valentine's day is coming up, I decided I better make some of D's favorite foods. I'd say his two favorite ingredients are probably garlic and cinnamon, so I decided to make one goodie with each.

He recently bought me two brand spanking new loaf pans, so those were obviously going to factor into the equation. Since cinnamon + loaf pan = cinnamon bread, I knew exactly where to start. I don't want to reprint the recipe, because you should really check out the book but here are the basics:
1. Make a lightly enriched white bread dough (some eggs, sugar, fat, etc. but not a lot), with about a teaspoon of cinnamon in the dough. (Too much cinnamon will slow down the yeast. Don't worry, there's plenty more in this recipe.) Knead in chopped nuts in the last two minutes if you want. (Reinhardt's recipe calls for raisins, but really, who likes raisins???)
2. To form the loaf, roll the dough into a rectangle a few inches narrower than your loaf pans and fairly long (12-16 inches long). Sprinkle the topside with cinnamon sugar and then roll the dough tightly, pinching the end shut to create a seal.
3. Bake as instructed. When the loaves come out of the oven, brush the tops with about 1T melted butter per 2 loaves, and sprinkle with any leftover cinnamon sugar to make a nice delicious crust.

That's an awesome bread knife in the foreground. I'll post on knives soon.

Yum!! We finished about a third of a loaf as an evening snack.

Yes, all of those slices (and more) went into our belly immediately after this photo was taken.

Next task: garlic.

Baguette Pieces

I made baguettes for the first time last year, but they go stale so quickly and it's really hard to freeze them. They're good for a nice treat, or if there are a lot of people around. I've been trying to stock D up for a week home alone, so that didn't really make sense.

They look like mini loaves of bread!

Instead, I decided to make baguette pieces, like I'd had at the Cheeseboard (also known for their incredible pizza). I have no idea how they get the pseudo-square shape to their baguette pieces that's just perfect for sandwiches. Mine turned out round and very small, but they're perfect for two small sandwiches.

To make them, I just took my favorite baguette recipe and split the dough into rolls instead of loaves. The shaping method is a little tricky and took me a while to get right (I used it to make my homemade bagels, too!), but it makes really nice round rolls.

I forgot to slash these rolls as well but they seemed to turn out just fine anyways. D said some of them were a bit dense, but many of them split and developed gorgeous crusty ears all on their own. I would suggest slashing them, if you remember. Don't worry if you forget, though!

Before making these, I recommend testing the seal on your oven. You have to steam bread to get it crusty and if your oven doesn't seal well, it won't work. Do this by heating the oven up and either tossing cold water onto the oven floor or tossing it onto a preheated pan. Close the oven door immediately and wait five minutes.

If you open the door after five minutes and it feels like a summer day in New York City (aka a blast of steam hits your face) then you're good. If it's dry as an Arizona summer day, look at the notes at the bottom for alternate steaming methods.

The directions below don't require a stand mixer. If you have one, feel free to use it; you probably won't need to knead the dough for as long.

Total time:
30 minutes to make the dough
1.5-2 hour rise
15 minutes shaping
30-45 minute rise
30 minute bake
= 3.25-4 hours total time, 50 minutes active time

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Baguette Pieces
makes 16 small pieces
adapted from Steamy Kitchen


Ingredients
4.5c bread flour
2t instant yeast
2t salt
1.5c warm water (approximately 110°F)

In a pinch...

... you can use ground up popcorn instead of coarse cornmeal.

Over the holidays I made some baguettes, but unfortunately forgot to pick up polenta (i.e. coarse cornmeal) from the store while I bought ingredients. The polenta keeps the dough from sticking to the pizza peel (or back of baking tray) while it rises. It makes it a lot easier to slide into a hot oven!!!

I also think polenta gives the bread really great flavor. It's even better with pizza crusts. Try it next time you make a crusty loaf of bread! (I'll post a recipe at some point.)

We scrounged through the pantry to find suitable replacements, and after trying to quickly make bread crumbs, considering oatmeal, and even looking at some Malt-o-Meal (before realizing it was brown sugar flavored), I realized that popcorn might work.

We used D's dad's coffee grinder to grind up some kernels (I wouldn't do this on a regular basis--it kind of wears on the grinder), and voila--coarse cornmeal.

What are some of your substitution tricks?

Dill Rolls

These rolls were very popular with D's parents

D's grandma, Kate, makes famous dill rolls. I've never tried them, but at least three months in advance of Christmas, D was already excited about having them for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, Grandma Kate didn't make dill rolls this year, and much of the family was left sorely disappointed.

When we got back to D's house from Christmas dinner, I made a version of dill rolls. We called G. Kate, and she didn't have the exact recipe, but we got enough to make a good first attempt.

My baking pans weren't quite big enough—the rolls merged!

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Imitation G. Kate Dill Rolls
makes 24 rolls

Honey Oatmeal Bread

At some point in the last year, I decided I wanted to figure out yeast. This may seem ambitious, but with no thermometer, no guidance and no prior experience, I conquered the beast.

I started with bagels. In retrospect, that was probably a poor idea, seeing as bagels are basically an extra complicated version of bread. They weren't great, but they were edible and that was certainly a boon.

Next, I moved on to cinnamon rolls (actually, Alton Brown's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls, which are divine). I think the gooey cinnamon made up for any shortfall in my bread baking skills. This is definitely a great first recipe with yeast! If you're nervous about yeast, or have had bad experiences in the past, try it.

Finally, I tried my hand at bread. I chose it because I had the ingredients on hand, and had been trying to figure out a way to use them for about a month. I've baked it probably 10 times, with several variations. Here I'll give you the basic recipe along with step-by-step instructions for the novice bread baker.

Honey Oatmeal Bread

(from Lanier B&B)

Yield: 3 loaves

Ingredients:

1/8 cup active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water (105°-110°)

1 1/2 cup quick (or rolled) oats

3 cups warm water

1/3 cup melted butter

1 3/4 tablespoons salt

3/4 cup honey

7 1/2 cup bread flour