Handmade breads for home
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Saturday is Hand Made Bread Day! I don’t know who makes these things up, but it’s good timing for the holidays.
In the past we’ve had bread recipes from Chad DeCrow of the Farmer’s Market and Three Fools’ Cafe, Kim Holcomb of the Farmer’s Market and now Amanda Johnston is baking at Amanda’s Bakery and Cafe in the Kress Center.
It doesn’t have to be horrendously hard, but it does require paying attention. That’s half the fun! The mixing, kneading, rising. Because you have to wait on the dough a couple of different times, plan for something to do (housework? brush the cat? play “Dancing with the Stars”?).
Kneading is a technique of folding over the dough and pushing it down over and over. This is necessary because the gluten in the flour, when rubbed together becomes elastic and helps the bread both rise and set. The dough should be kneaded on a floured surface. If the dough is soft or sticky, add more flour and knead until it shines and has an elastic feel. If you over-knead the dough, it will be tough.
See photos of each step at http://myrecipe.org/top/detail/91, along with a nice dinner roll recipe
Of course, if you had a shiny new Artisan Quality Kitchen-Aid stand mixer (stainless steel) with the handy-dandy dough hook (hint, hint Santa) then you wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Kim Holcomb is wearing so many hats these day’s she doesn’t know which end is up! But she did find time to send a lovely recipe that she served up to the public last month.
Kim said, “This moist, chewy bread with a heavenly aroma was a hit at the Lyon County Historical Society’s ‘Step Back in Time’ at the Richard Howe House. The day wasn’t a good one for butter, perhaps because of the impending rain, but this bread is good by itself, as many happy munchers testified.”
Kim tweaked this recipe from the Cooking Light collection. She says that for a multigrain bread try Bob’s Red Mill, Quaker’s, or if you’re in a natural food store with bulk items, any 7-grain or other multigrain cereal. Yay!
KIM’S MULTIGRAIN BREAD
1 3/4 cups water
1 1/4 cups multigrain hot cereal
2 tsp. instant yeast
1 2/3 cups water
2 Tbsp. honey
1/4 cup plain fat-free or low-fat yogurt
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil or olive oil
2 1/2 cups bread flour, divided
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 cup rye flour
2 tsp. salt
1/3 - 1/2 cup mixed seeds (flax seed meal, poppy seeds, sesame, sunflower)
Vegetable oil or olive oil
Bring 1 3/4 cups water to a boil, add cereal and cook, stirring until the water has been absorbed. Cover and let cool.
Mix together yeast, 1 2/3 cup water, honey, yogurt and oil.
Setting aside one cup of bread flour and mix the remaining flours, salt and seeds together in a mixing bowl. Add yogurt mixture and seeds and stir the dough until well mixed. If you have a heavy duty mixer, use the dough hook to do this.
Mix in the cooked cereal either with a spoon, by hand or using a mixer — whatever works best. Knead dough for about 10 minutes. Add more whole-wheat flour as needed to make a soft dough that’s not too sticky. This dough should not become dry, and will remain a bit tacky.
Coat a bowl with vegetable oil, put in dough and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about one hour. Kim says if your kitchen is cold, this might take a little longer.
Press air out of dough, and move to floured countertop to shape. To shape this like a sandwich loaf, first create a rectangle and then roll it up from one of the short ends, and tuck the edges under. Place in a lightly oiled pan, seam side down, cover with the plastic wrap again, and let rise until doubled (about an hour). Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Uncover dough. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from pan; cool on a wire rack. If you leave the bread in the pan to cool, the sides will get wrinkled and soft.
Kim says the finished loaf will yield about 16 good slices.
WHOLE WHEAT ROLLS
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (110 degrees)
1/2 cup instant dry milk
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
Butter (or nonstick spray) thirty 2-inch muffin forms. As we learned last week from the Riverside 4H people, if you use too much oil, the edges of your bread will fry. So, watch it!
Add yeast and 1/2 cup of warm water to a small bowl. Stir this until the yeast is dissolved then set aside. Pour the dry milk into a large mixing bowl along with the remainder of the water, the egg, butter, sugar and salt. Blend these ingredients well.
In a separate bowl combine the two flours; blend well. Beat 2 cups of the flour mixture into the liquid mixture. Next, add enough of the flour to make the batter thick. Knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes. Divide the dough among the muffin forms, filling them about 2/3 full. Cover and let rise until the dough has doubled in size (about an hour).
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for twenty minutes or until the rolls brown. Cool on a rack to keep them from becoming soggy.
How about parmesan garlic sticks? Take your basic white or Italian herb bread recipe, add adding 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese and one teaspoon minced garlic (or to taste). Divide the resulting dough into 8 portions and roll each into a rope. Trim to desired length. Place on lightly greased baking sheet. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle generously with more grated Parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes.
Back in 2005, Helen Nixon shared this recipe. It’s so good it bears repeating!
MS. HELEN’S DILLY BREAD
1 pkg. dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup cottage cheese (small curd)
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. minced onion (dried)
2 tsp. dill seed
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. butter
1 egg
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cup flour
Soften the yeast in the water. Heat the cottage cheese to lukewarm, whisking to break up any lumps. Combine cottage cheese, sugar, onion, butter, dill, salt and egg in a mixing bowl. Add yeast. Mix in the flour a bit at a time until dough is stiff, mixing well after each addition. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about an hour). Punch dough down, knead 4 or 5 times and turn into a well greased 8-inch round baking pan or a 2 quart casserole dish. Let rise again for 30 to 40 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes until golden brown.
Bread machine mixes — rye, English muffin, buttermilk wheat — are tasty too, and you can take it to the dough stage in the machine, then shape it into a loaf (round, batard, rolls) to finish baking in the oven. Few people will know the difference!
Enjoy handmade bread day, which is just in time for Thanksgiving. Next week We’ll have a special holiday food column for you, and the week after that I have our annual Christmas Cookie Challenge! Do you have some nifty Christmas cookies (or Hanukkah, Id al Adha, or Kwanzaa) that you would like to share with everyone?
Talk about it with your family over Thanksgiving and send that fabulous recipe to me by Nov. 26. The address is Murphy’s Menu, The Emporia Gazette, P.O. Drawer C, Emporia or e-mail to murphysmenu@yahoo.com. Let’s get cooking!