pastry-son

Bastille Day Baguettes

2007-02-12T00:23:00.000-08:00

My new starter needed testing, so test it I did! I decided to create one of my Cheese Board Collective Works recipes. But which one? English muffins? No, I just made Berkeley Buns a couple of weekends ago. Cheese rolls? Not confident enough in my starter for that yet. Baguettes? Sure, but I want something more interesting.

Then bring on the garlic!

Bastille Day Baguettes
(Makes four baguettes)

- 4 cups bread flour
- 1.25 cups cool water
- 1.33 tbsp. kosher salt
- 1.5 cups sourdough starter

And now? The really short recipe!

Mix flour and water. Add starter and salt. Knead. Form into ball, put into bowl, and let rise for four hours.

Form into four baguettes the length of the long side of a baking sheet. Put parchment on two sheets and lay a baguette along the inner edge of the long sides of your prepared sheets.

Make yourself a proofing chamber. I used garbage bags!

That's a chopstick for the tent pole. Let rise for two to three hours. I stuck a bowl of boiling water in the proofing chamber with the baguettes and swapped it our for freshly boiling water every half hour to forty-five minutes.

Oven? Four hundred fifty degrees. Time? Thirty-five to forty minutes. Anything else? A pan of water on the floor of the oven, mist the baguettes before you stick them in, slash 'em if you want, and change racks and change it front to back halfway through.

What makes them Bastille Day Baguettes? There are four cloves of garlic in each baguette, and they're brushed with garlic-soaked olive oil after they come out of the oven.

Which Step Am I On?

2007-02-09T02:21:00.000-08:00

Did this blog have a six-month rising time? Or is it too late? Like my first starter, is it lurking in the back of the Internet's fridge, growing green stuff?

I am uncertain. But I do know this - despite the high-handed analogies I may kick around, a very real sourdough starter has just reach maturity. And on Sunday, it shall be tested.

Whole Wheat Treats

2006-07-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

I've never much been concerned with my diet. I've been blessed with a metabolism that can handle anything I throw at it and leave me lean as a rail. I get a decent amount of exercise ("decent," in this context, is relative to the American norm, so it's not saying much at all). But after visiting my father and getting filled to the brim with meat and beer, I realize that things are slowing down. I developed a temporary tummy.

So I grabbed the bag of whole wheat flour my dad offered me, left over from making some bread at his place, and made a few things. The first was a batch of whole wheat rolls that had onion and garlic and a cheddar center. The second was whole wheat Salzbrot rolls; basically the same thing as the above, only replacing the garlic with curry powder.

Both were delicious, though the garlic-onion-wheat combination was a bit weird. One of the reasons why I've not baked in a bit is that I've got work, which technically means I don't have time, but only because I've grown to like breads that take a full day or two. A quick(er) bread, one that's done in three hours or less, is something I can handle.

In other food-related news, my uncle has given me two great gifts. The first was the leftover burgers he made, ground in his house from equal parts chuck and sirloin. The second was a tip on hard-boiled eggs, that tip being to steam them instead of boiling them. Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life. And Mark's managed both.

Avocado Bread

2006-05-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry, folks, no picture. Our digital camera's memory card insists that it is full of pictures that it does not in fact contain. But imagine, if you will, a dark brown batard (And I mean torpedo here; it looks like it could sink a submarine) which when cut open reveals an oh-so-pale green interior. The flavor is just plain bread, but the crumb is springy and moist. Here's what I did; it was incredibly haphazard, so anyone interested in a more detailed, possibly more professional recipe, leave a comment.

Makes one loaf (Hence all the fractions)
BIGA
- 1 1/4 cup flour
- 3/4 cup lukewarm water
- 1/3 teaspoon active dry yeast (approximated)

I proofed the yeast in the water for ten minutes, then whisked in the flour.

DOUGH
- The biga
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1/4 cup lukewarm water
- 1/3 cup active dry yeast (approximated)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ripe avocado
- A quick squeeze of lime
- Additional flour

The remaining flour got sprinkled over the biga to form a blanket before I covered the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. This blanketed biga sat around at room temperature for an hour and a half before I had to go to bed, at which point it got exiled to the fridge.

The next night I got home from work, and picking up Jian, at about six forty-five. I didn't have time to let the biga return to room temperature, so I got to find out what working with cold dough was like. I proofed the second batch of yeast and threw that in the bowl with the oil, salt, and sugar, and stirred in the flour blanket and all until it was cohesive. The kneaded the heck out of it for about three minutes, my hands freezing, before I let it rest under an overturned bowl while I cut up the avocado.

At this point, I had no idea what would happen. All I knew was that I wanted the bread greenish, so I put the avocado flesh in the center of the bowl. On a whim, squeeze about a teaspoon of lime onto it, thinking that, like in guacamole, the citrus would help keep it from browning. If this was the case in my bread, I never found out.

I kneaded the avocado in for about eight more minutes, throwing handfuls of extra flour on until it was dough-like again. Once it was smooth and elastic, I threw it in an oil bowl, covered it, and hurled myself out the door to go to my meeting for my weekend job, conveniently held from seven-thirty 'til ten-thirty on this happy Sunday night.

Upon my return I was happy to see that, yes, the dough was still green, and yes, it had risen, and risen well. I shaped it into a torpedo, gently rolling and tucking the oily dough into itself to draw the outside taught and sealing a seam in it. I then laid it on parchment on an upside-down baking sheet and draped plastic wrap on top of it.

Anxious to see how it would bake, as well as needing to go to bed soonish, I preheated the oven immediately, giving it forty-five minutes because of the stone inside. If the bread rose any more, I couldn't really tell, though I'm pretty sure it had gotten more chubby. I sprayed it with water and it baked at 475 degrees for five minutes and 425 for twenty. It's smooth and dense, a good meal-type bread.

THING I LEARNED
- Avocado flesh doesn't lend any flavor to bread, but perhaps avocado oil would; a bit pricey, though

What's my motivation?

2006-05-13T02:47:00.000-07:00

I've not baked in a bit, despite having two opportunities to do so in the last two days. I'm uncertain of why I failed to take advantage of my free time, aside from a general listlessness that may be due to anything, from my not-quite-blossoming career to the messiness of my apartment.

In any event, I believe it would be best for all of us if we didn't expect glories to come singing out of my oven any time soon. Until then, gentle readers, I bid you a fond farewell.

I WANT TO BAKE SOON. BLARGLE.

2006-05-11T02:44:00.000-07:00

Soon. I'll decide what soon, and I'll make the poolish/biga tomorrow for bakering on Friday. Yes. I can do this.

"More . . . intensity!" (Cherry and Egg Fougasses)

2006-05-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

I made two full batches of Fougasse in the same night, seperated by an hour and a half. One was made with cherry-pomogranate juice, and the other had some egg in it. The verdict? See my subject.

I'm not dissatisfied; far from it, I love both of them. The changes are just too subtle for my taste. The cherry left more of a tangy aftertaste than an actual flavor, and the egg Fougasse was certainly richer, but only by a small margin. Experimentation, however, was just one of the reasons for making two batches in one night. The practical one was that I wanted to use most of my poolish; the recipe creates about six cups worth, and throwing out two-thirds of that made me a bit sad the last time I made Fougasse. The last reason was so I could give some to my aunt, uncle and cousin while still having lots for myself and Jian.

Trader Joe's sells a number of juices that would be quite good in this recipe. The next one I'm going to try is their one-hundred percent blueberry juice; being a deep, dark indigo, I think it'll make the Fougasse look GREAT. As for the egg variation, I think I just might have to throw another egg in there, even though this batch had two whites and three yolks.

Baked Potato Buns

2006-05-02T03:54:00.000-07:00

As soon as I saw this recipe, I was in love. This is EXACTLY the kind of bread I like to make, the kind that is definitely, without a doubt, FOOD. Not a side dish, not complementary appetite-ruining fluff given to you in a cute little basket. It's a grab-it-and-eat-it, mealtime, I-honestly-don't-want-anything-else FOOD.

It was a bit more complicated than I'm used to. I've never gone farther than cheese-onion-curry, when it comes to breads with a bunch of extras. But this was surprisingly easy, especially with all the time I got from having to wait for my biga [a pre-ferment, designed to let the yeast grow and develop some more flavor]. I threw it together, and whilst it fermented for a few hours, I boiled and mashed some red creamer potatoes. Then both the smashed taters and the biga went in the fridge overnight.

The day of baking, the biga needed an hour to return to room temperature, and in that time I also left out the sour cream to warm up, 'cause I needed to proof [i.e., awaken], the rest of my active dry yeast. Then I fried the bacon, collecting the fat as I did. That was when I had a problem, which you can read more about on my other blog. Then I chopped the chives, cubed some cheese (My creative addition!), and made this.It smelled rich and, well, meaty as it baked. The scent was incredibly thick. And they are tasty, tested by myself, my lady love, and our lord and master, Bartleby.

THINGS I LEARNED:
- Boil the potatoes in advance, so the potato water can be used in the biga.
- Remember, the mashed potatoes need to be room temperature too.
- Perhaps cottage cheese next time? Or maybe just a thinner sour cream; this one was too thick.
- Less bacon; I think it became overpowering.
- Pepper!
- Stick to the recipe's loaf form; that way, the cheese forms pockets inside the loaf, instead of oozing down the sides

SWEET! (Fougasse)

2006-04-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Just so you know, the SWEET! is not a matter of degree, but rather one of pronunciation.
I got this recipe from the Foppish Baker. I've found that it's not all that sweet, but that doesn't stop it from being delicious. As her post on Sweet Fougasse says, it's just as satisfying as a croissant or brioche while remaining vegan, though I find thinking of it as a bread, rather than a pastry, helps.

And that's actually exactly what I had in mind when embarking on this adventure: Bread, not Pastry. However, to this end, I've made only one significant change to the recipe posted by Foppish, and that was omitting the oil and confectioner's sugar on the crust. But it's still tasty to eat on it's own, and it settles nicely in the tummy.

I also baked it a whole day earlier than stated in the recipe. I was worried after pulling the poolish (for the un-savvy, a poolish is a pre-ferment, used to develop both yeast and flavor) out of the fridge, for I had extended "overnight" to encompass seventeen hours. The smell didn't help; while not unpleasant, it was distinctly reminiscent of the early stages of sourdough starter. But this wasn't the Main Reason why I baked early. That title belongs to the fact that it had risen enough to give my pillow competition.

Which brings me to my next point: my yeast continues to live! It's been, oh, I don't know, three months or more since I bought it, and after my last bread turning into a dry cake I thought it had finally perished. But Lo! with only three-quarters of a teaspoon, I got THIS!
Light! Fluffy! And certainly not dry!

And the flavor turned out wonderful, making me wish I'd gone ahead and let it ferment in the fridge the extra night the recipe calls for. Ah well.
THINGS LEARNED:
- Yeast Lives (that was meant to be like "Jesus Lives," or "Frodo Lives," not like Rain Wet, Cat Furry, Dog Barks)
- Have a bit of faith and try the recipe the way it's written the first time through, THEN make your changes
- Speaking of changes, next time . . . eggs! Yeah, I know, that'll make mock-Challah, but I'm still gonna do it!
- Perhaps trying the Neapolitan Bread Foppish and I spoke of? Might be a bit too much of an undertaking . . . (Oh, and be sure to check out the POM Blueberry Fougasse post on which said conversation is commented)
- More ceramic tile to cover a whole rack in the oven. A couple of the dough wedges were hanging of the edges of the current stone. Fortunately, they baked before drooping too much.
- Approximate measurements can work, but I should replace the tablespoon I'm currently unable to locate anyway.

On Starters

2006-04-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

I've successfully created one, count 'em, ONE starter. It began with rye and water left to ferment for forty-eight hours, then it was fed with white bread flour. I've used it about four times, twice on straight sourdough, once on sourdough-Salzbrot, and once on cheese rolls. I think it's pretty successful, though one of the baguette batches was so sour it couldn't be eaten plain. But in the shadow of this single working starter are the corpses of three other starters.

The first was the Bitch, named from the starter of Andy Last-Name-Unknown, a real-life character in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. She was my test run, and predictably died, from an excess of mold. I believe my wide, shallow container gave the poor gal too much surface area. Then came the triplets. There's ol' whitey, who I think of as the Bastard, and then there was wheat, who was sadly unnamed, and corn, who was justly unnamed. The Bastard's record you know from the above, but wheat just wasn't used before his container turned pink, a sign of badness. Corn, on the other hand, was vibrant, active, and above all, original. And then, using him, I made the Worst. Bread. Ever. Which I blamed entirely on him.

So now it's just me and the Bastard. After being pampered with daily-to-every-other-day feedings, he's getting put in the fridge for dormancy. Originally he was a wet starter, about the consistency of thick pancake batter, but after the too-sour-sourdough, I made him firm, about a firm as dough itself. I've read that this tends to make starters milder, since it gives the ickle creatures an abundance of food but takes away some of their mobility (i.e., water). I've yet to make a bread with the modified starter, so we'll see how that turns out.

And I'm sorry, but I ate all the carrot bread before I took any pictures again. It's not quite where I wanted it to be, anyway. I think I'll do some night baking sometime this week. Wish me luck.