Part of this whole experiment is removing those mystery processes between ground and belly.
Last Election Day I tried making a loaf of bread and was pretty impressed by the result. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted like jogging shoe, but I actually made bread!
Since then, I’ve wanted to make good bread. Recently I was at my local used bookstore and found a book called The Tassajara Bread Book
. I was convinced it was a small press, never-be-able-to-find-another-copy-of-this-great-book, but here it is on Amazon touted as the best bread baking book ever.And it is.
I’ve baked several loaves of their basic bread recipe (using fresh ground flour) and have found it to be good, but not perfect. Earlier this week I made a few changes to the recipe and the two loaves (yes, their basic recipe is for four, so this is smaller too) and it turned out perfect. The recipe looks something like this.
3 cups of Water
0.5 cups of Honey
1.33 cups of Powdered Milk (the next time I make it I’ll try leaving this out)
4 cups of flour
1 Tblspn of Dry Active Yeast
Whisk these ingredients together and leave for an hour to rise. Then add (by folding, not stirring):
1 stick of Butter (melted)
0.5 cups of Honey (if you don’t have my sweet tooth, leave this out)
1 Tblspn of Salt
6 cups of Flour
When the dough becomes too dense to stir, knead it on a floured tabletop until it no longer sticks to the table.
Let rise an hour, punch down. Let rise another hour. Cut into two pieces and place into bread pans or roll into balls. Let rise for 30 minutes. Cook in a 325-350 degree oven for 50 minutes.
See, this blog isn’t always about growing wheat. ;)
2 comments:
I bake and I brew - beer, wine and mead. One comment that has been made to me is because I cook/brew by "feel" rather than method, it gives me an up on getting good product.
Contrary-wise, my bread machine bread tends to be pretty iffy, because if I don't poke at it and adjust the process there's no accounting for what's going to happen next.
So my advice as you embark on what are sure to be a wonderful adventure, is don't be afraid to get your hands, nose, mouth into what you're working with and worry less about the technical. After all, the people you're trying to emulate didn't use meters or guages either.
kathy
My wife likes to tease me that I am way too complusive about following recipies and measuring everything perfectly. While that is true whenever I try to cook something new, after a couple of successful tries I loosen up quite a bit and just start adding ingredients from memory and by eye. I already feel like I'm getting the hang of how the bread comes together enough to start fiddling around. Baking especially seems to involve so many environmental factors (like air temperature and humidity) that recipies are really guidelines anyway. So many say add flour until the dough is right.
My bread machine has worked pretty reliably, although it sometimes leaves undercooked spots in the bread. But I have always been careful to stick carefully to the recipe book that came with it. And then, I think I've used it to make pizza dough more than I have to actually cook bread....
Post a Comment