French baguettes

This year one of my Christmas gifts was a baguette pan from my daughter Nikole.  Today I made a couple of loaves with the directions and recipe that came with the pan.  It was a little time consuming as the dough raises twice, rests once and then raises again after shaping.  It was a pretty easy recipe, kneaded in the stand mixer with the dough hook. The pan has small, closely spaced holes and a pan of water is placed in the oven to create steam during cooking. 

Williams Sonoma's Crusty French Bread

2 cups warm water (100°)

1 tsp sugar

3 1/4 tsp dry yeast (I used quick rise)

5-5 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp salt

1 egg white slightly beaten with a pinch of salt

Combine the warm water and sugar in a small bowl and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Add the yeast and stir gently to mix then wait 5 minutes for it to get foamy.  Place 4 cups of flour and the salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and run the mixer on low to combine.  Slowly add the yeast mixture and combine on low for one minute.  Raise the mixer to low-medium and mix with the dough hook for 10 minutes adding the remaining flour 1/4 cup at a time.  (I used an additional one cup for 5 cups total.).  The dough should be elastic and pull away from the side of the bowl. 

Remove the dough from the mixer, knead for one minute and form into a ball.  The directions say to knead on a lightly floured surface but I did not flour my counter top and  my dough did not stick  Place the dough into a bowl in which a dusting of flour has been added.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap.  I covered the plastic wrap with a kitchen towel and placed it in a warm spot in the kitchen to raise until double (45-60 minutes)  When done with the first raise the dough is removed from the bowl, punched down and kneaded a couple of times, reshaped into a single ball and placed back in the bowl for the second raise.  The bowl is again covered with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel.  Allow to raise until double, about 20-30 minutes.

When the second raising is complete, turn the dough out and punch down again.  Divide the dough into two equal portions and form into two balls.  Allow to rest for five minutes.  I covered my dough with a kitchen towel.  Line the baguette pan with a kitchen towel that has been dusted with a small amount of flour.  Shape each dough ball into a long loaf with tapered ends.  The loaf should be about as long as the pan.  Repeat with the second dough ball.  Fold the extra toweling back over the dough and let it raise 20 minutes in a warm place. 

Once raised, remove the towel with the formed baguettes from the pan.  The directions said to spray the pan with cooking spray.  I brushed on a thin layer of  my homemade pan coat.  Then use the towel to roll the dough back into the pan.  Use a knife to make 3-5 shallow (1/4 inch deep) slashes on the tops of the loaves at a diagonal.  brush the surface of the loaves with the egg white/salt mixture. 

Place the pan in a oven that has been preheated to 425°.  The rack should be at the bottom 1/3 of the oven and a pan of boiling water should be placed on the oven floor or the lowest rack.  I used a cookie sheet on the bottom rack and the bread one level higher.  I placed the empty cookie sheet  in the oven, added the hot water and then place the baguettes in the oven.  The recipe calls for them to bake for 30-35 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped.  I baked mine for 30 minutes. 

foamy water, sugar and yeast

dough ball ready for first raise

covered with plastic wrap and my new kitchen towels from Caitlin

shaped baguette on towel on pan

towel edges folded over

ready for the oven

all finished

the inside of the loaf

       
I thought the bread turned out great.  The outside was chewy, the inside was softer with great flavor.

baguette pan

What a great gift.  Thanks Nikole!

homemade one hour white bread

I recently found a bread recipe that I was anxious to try.  It is a fairly quickly made bread with few steps and few ingredients.  It turned out great.  It is a white bread, baked as a round loaf on a baking sheet instead of in a pan.  I have tried it a couple of times now and the bread was consistently good each time.  I did decide to make three slightly smaller loaves instead of two.  The bread has a great crust, is slightly chewy with a soft texture.  It makes great toast, either in the toaster or toasted on a sheet in the oven and it freezes well.

The process couldn't be easier.  I used my stand mixer with the dough hook to mix and knead the dough.  I used quick rise yeast that is added to the dry ingredients and then the warm liquid is added so no proofing is necessary.  Once mixed and kneaded the bread is shaped into loaves and allowed to raise for 25 minutes.  There is no second raising.  The loaves are slashed across the top and baked for 25 minutes.  The whole process takes about an hour.

Homemade one hour white bread

5 1/4 cup bread flour

4 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbsp quick rise (instant) yeast

1 1/2 tbsp oil

2 cups warm water (100-115°)

Place the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast  in the bowl of the mixer.  Combine the water and oil and add to the dry ingredients.  Using the dough hook mix for five minutes.  Remove the dough and knead it a few turns to make a smooth ball.  Divide the dough into two or more pieces and shape each into a round or oblong loaf.  Place on a greased or parchment lined baking sheet and cover with a dish towel.  Let raise 25 minutes.  Preheat oven to 350°.  Bake breads for 25 minutes.  When making three loaves I put two on one sheet and the remaining one on a separate sheet and I bake one sheet first and then the second.  There was no noticeable difference between the bread that baked first and the bread that had an additional 25 minutes to raise while waiting for the first sheet to finish baking.

Source: adapted from here

Shared here:

Tasty Tuesday 

breadsticks...or help! my bread didn't raise

Some in my family are Olive Garden fans.  Caitlin and I in particular like their Zuppa Toscana.  Their nearest restaurant is 90 minutes away so we don't often get there but when we do we usually have the soup, salad and breadsticks.

Olive Gardens has published some of their recipes on the web and we make Zuppa at home now.  I have been eating more soup lately and have been thinking a breadstick would be the perfect accompaniment.  Olive Garden makes a great breadstick.  A check of their website did not have a breadstick recipe but there are lots of copycat recipes out there.

I decided to try the Todd Wilbur recipe.  Todd Wilbur has written cookbooks and been on television with his copycat versions of restaurant favorites.  I am kind of a novice bread baker but recent attempts at whole wheat bread and pumpkin dinner rolls were successful so I was game to give it a try.

I have tried this recipe twice now.  With my first attempt I had already added the yeast to the water when I realized that I did not have enough bread flour.  All of the other recipes used all purpose flour but Todd felt that the bread flour was essential for this recipe.  I decided to go ahead, using the small amt of bread flour that I had and supplementing with all purpose.  The bread  dough was kind of stiff and didn't raise very well but I shaped it and baked it and vowed to try again after picking up some bread flour at the grocery store.  The breadsticks, once baked tasted okay, they were kind of dense but they had good flavor.

So attempt number two at  the Todd Wilbur copycat breadsticks was yesterday.  I followed the recipe using the requisite bread flour and set my dough to raise.  Nothing happened.  It did not raise.  90 minutes later I had the same lump of dough sitting in the bowl.

Google is my friend so I googled 'my bread didn't raise' and there were tons of hits.  Apparently I am not alone in the bread not raising department.  I picked several of the top sites and read thru the comments from people trying to help others with their bread issues and I learned a lot.

By far the most common suggestion was that it could have been dud yeast.  I checked for expiration date on my jar of yeast and mine was good.  And besides it worked not too long ago and I keep it in the refrigerator.

Another frequent comment was about the temperature of the liquid and the need to proof the yeast.  I have to admit that guessed on the temperature but I did proof the yeast and mine did get foamy.

There were some suggestions about how to rescue my dough so that I could still use it.  The method I chose was to make another batch of dough and cut up the 'bad' dough and incorporate it into the 'new' dough.  But first I did a bunch more reading.  Here are some things that I read.

• One commenter suggested that too much flour would make the dough stiff and it wouldn't raise as well.  hmm...my dough was stiff.
• One commenter suggested too much water when proofing the yeast could affect the raising.  hmm...my recipe called for more water than was suggested.
• One commenter suggested that she was a professional baker who still sometimes had trouble with raising dough and more often it was the recipes that used water instead of milk that failed to raise for her.   Did I want to try milk?
• There was an ongoing discussion about percent hydration and complicated formulas for how much liquid to flour ratios that was a little over my head but was interesting to read.
• One commenter suggested that maybe the house was too cool to encourage bread raising.  Probably not my only problem but I was trying to bake bread in an old farmhouse during a blizzard.
• One commenter recommended that she mixed her ingredients to wet her flour and then let is sit covered for a bit before she needed it to let the gluten start to form.  I could try that.
• And then the conversation in the comments turned to substituting one yeast for another.  I took another look at my yeast (rapid rise) and the recipe (active dry).  Hmmm.  I thought rapid rise yeast was just a faster form of active dry but it turns out that it is used in different ways.  You add it with the dry ingredients instead of proofing it and adding it with the liquid.
• There was also some discussion about the fat used but that discussion was from people from New Zealand(?) and they have different names for their fats apparently.  I decided not to worry about the half a stick of butter in my recipe just yet.

So here is what  I decided to do.  I would make another batch and when incorporating the last ingredients I would add the cut up chunks of 'bad' dough.  I would add the yeast with the dry ingredients and withhold part of the flour (I thought I would start with 1/2 cup less) and add it in if it seemed that the dough was just too sticky to work with.  I would check the temperature of the water.  I would let the dough rest for 20 minutes once the 'bad' chunks were incorporated and then knead.  And I would try to warm up the kitchen during the raising.

And it worked.  The breadsticks came out better than the first batch.  The dough raised both the first raising and the second raising once they were shaped.  The finished product was lighter and had a good flavor.  Were they perfect?  No.  Will I at anytime soon be competition for Olive Garden?  Not hardly.  I have a double batch of breadsticks that will last me a  while.  But I will try them again.  My shaping needs some work.  My breadsticks  are short and fat and more resemble a hotdog bun than a breadstick.  So I have some things to work on.  But I have a few in a cute storage jar in the pantry and a bunch more in the freezer.   I might by active dry yeast and give Todd's recipe another try but for how I will use up my rapid rise in this adapted recipe.

Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks

2 Tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp rapid rise yeast

2 1/2-3 cups bread flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter

1 cup plus 1 Tbsp warm water

2 Tbsp melted butter 

1/2 tsp garlic salt

Combine the flour and the butter in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mix to incorporate the butter.  Add the yeast, sugar, and salt  and mix briefly to combine.  Add the warm  water and mix  until all of the dry ingredients are moist.  Remove the paddle attachment, cover the bowl and let it rest 20 minutes.  Attach  dough hook and knead for 10 minutes.  Let raise covered 60-90 minutes or until double in size.  Shape the dough by portioning into 12 or 13 two ounce pieces and roll between your hands or on the countertop to make a 7 inch long breadstick.  Place on a  parchment lined baking sheet and  cover and let raise another 60-90 minutes.  Bake 400° for 12 minutes.  When you take them out of the oven brush immediately with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic salt.


Recipes:

Todd Wilbur's recipe
Google search sites here, here, here, here and here.

Linking up with

Between Naps On The Porch

                                                                                                

whole wheat bread

Recently another blogger posted her recipe for whole wheat bread and I gave it a try.  I am kind of a novice baker and I thought this recipe was pretty uncomplicated.  It didn't require a lot of time to raise.  I mixed it up in the stand mixer and let the dough hook do all the kneading.  It makes two loaves.  I thought that it had great flavor and texture.  And it is great toasted.

Whole wheat bread

2 3/4 cups hot water

4 Tbsp oil

4 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp salt

6 cups whole wheat flour, divided

2 tbsp active dry yeast

Mix the hot water, oil, honey and salt in the bowl of the stand mixer.  Add 2 cups of the flour and mix.  Then add the yeast and mix again.  Lastly add the remaining flour and knead with the dough hook until all the flour is incorporated and you have a slightly tacky dough.  I let the dough rest covered in the bowl of the stand mixer.  I removed the bowl from the stand and took out the dough hook and covered the bowl with a dish towel and placed it under my undercounter lights where it is a little bit warmer for 40 minutes.  After 40 minutes the dough will be larger in size but does not have to be doubled.  Put the bowl back on the mixer and reinsert the dough hook and use the mixer to punch down the dough.  Remove the dough from the mixer and place it on a floured surface.  Divide the dough into two parts and shape each part into a loaf.  Place each loaf into a greased pan and cover with dish towel and let it rise again for another 40 minutes.  While the bread is raising preheat the oven to 350 .   Bake the loaves for 36 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool completely.  Do not refrigerate.

source: adapted from here