Rustic Candied Walnut Loaf

Sometimes you need some "stuff" in your bread. I'm usually not a huge fan of bread with chunks of stuff in it, but I felt it was time to finally give a loaf a try. I came across a recipe for Caramelized Walnut Bread and knew it was the one to experiment with.


It's a very hearty bread with a fair amount of rye and whole wheat flour in it. Along with the candied walnuts, it's a very satisfying slice. I whipped up some butter with orange zest and honey to spread on the bread which was a fantastic addition.

I could obviously still use some work on my bread scoring, and I slightly over floured the top of the bread, but it was delicious non the less. This bread utilizes an overnight preferment, so plan ahead. But that also means it will last several days and still taste great.

Caramelized Walnut Bread
Adapted from cookingbread.com

Ingredients

The night before:
1/2 cup bread flour
1/2 cup dark rye
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

Day of:
1 1/2 cups bread flour
3/4 cup dark rye
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon salt

Caramelized Walnuts:
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoon water
1 tablespoon butter

The night before combine the "Night Before" ingredients together and mix. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit on the counter for 12 - 16 hours.

The next morning place the chopped nuts onto a cookie sheet and bake in a 250F oven till lightly toasted (or toast on a medium warm dry skillet on the stove – but keep an eye on them). Then set aside to cool. Pour the sugar and water into a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil till the mixture comes up to a 240F (I didn’t take the temp, but it was boiling rapidly and starting to color and foam) . Add in the toasted nuts. Keep the saucepan on the heat and continually stir till the mixture turns a golden brown. Remove from the heat and add in the butter and mix. Pour mixture out onto a silpat or grease parchment paper to cool. Set aside.

Add the "night before" mixture into a large bowl. Pour in the water and stir. Add in the rye, whole wheat flour and instant yeast. Mix together until well blended and the mixture is smooth. Allow to rest for 10 minutes uncovered.

Add in salt and slowly add in bread flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until it becomes too hard to mix. Pour the mixture out onto a floured surface and begin to knead in the rest of the flour. Knead for 8 - 10 minutes, you want the dough to be on the sticky side. If you need to add more flour do so with just a tablespoon at a time. Pour a little oil into a clean bowl and add in the dough. Turn over a few times to very lightly coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 1/2 hours or until double in bulk.

After the dough has risen pour out onto a flat surface. Flatten out the dough with your fingers to release some of the gas – but keep it relatively gentle, you want to retain some of the air in the bread for a nice soft crumb. Add the caramelized nuts on top and knead just till blended. Cut dough in half and shape into two balls. Sprinkle some cornmeal or flour onto a piece of parchment paper and place the loaves on top. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour or until doubled.

Remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle a little flour on top. Score the top of the bread with a sharp knife. The loaves will be going into a 450-degree, preheated oven with a baking stone on the middle rack and a cast iron pan or broiler pan on the bottom rack. To create some steam. Once you place the breads into the oven pour about a cup of hot water into the hot pan and close the door. Bake for 30 -35 minutes or the internal temp is approximately 205-210 degrees.

Submitted to YeastSpotting at Wild Yeast

The Return of Fresh Baked Bread

I finally made some real bread again. Having missed it for so long, I wanted to make sure we had fresh bread all weekend so I planned on making two different recipes. In addition to finally trying the Jim Lahey/Mark Bittman No-Knead Bread that finally gave the confidence to countless home bakers to jump into the yeasted bread fray, (which I’ll blog soon – it’s easy and good) I also wanted to tackle a more substantial bread. I chose a recipe from Jeffrey Hamelman because of how much we like his bagel recipe – it is the only one to best Grandpa’s NY bagels. Hamelman’s Rustic Bread recipe looked like a good counter to the all white flour of the No-Knead bread we baked. It is not a 100% whole wheat bread but the recipe does incorporate enough whole wheat and rye flours to give the bread some serious substance. He uses 10% Whole Wheat and 10% Rye, which would have been great, but unfortunately, I did not have rye in the house so I used 20% whole wheat.

In order to get all of this baked over the weekend and still hang out with the wife and kids (and finally do my taxes) I put together a schedule that started with mixing the pre-ferments for both recipes Friday night. Early Saturday afternoon I mixed, folded, rested, and shaped the doughs, and then baked both loaves later that afternoon. The No-Knead bread was broken into about an hour after it came out of the oven – we couldn’t wait any longer, we’ve been without for so long. We gave the Rustic Bread an appropriate rest and tore into it on Sunday.

Both bread ended up fantastic. The No-Knead bread (you’ll see photos soon) wasn’t gorgeous, but had fantastic crumb. The Rustic Bread had a hearty, but not overwhelming crust, a slightly denser, but very enjoyable crumb structure and wonderful taste. I have been eating it all week, sliced, toasted and covered with cream cheese and orange marmalade. Decadent I know, but an awesome breakfast.

I look forward to making this again with the rye flour and maybe working on my shaping and scoring.

Rustic Bread

Adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman

50% pre-fermented flour
Makes 2 large loaves

Overall Formula:

Bread Flour	1 lb, 9.6 oz	80%
Whole-wheat flour	6.4 oz	20%
Water	1 lb 6.1 oz	69%
Salt	.6 oz	1.8%
Yeast	.06 oz, instant	.6%
Total Yield	3 lb, 6.7 oz	171.4%

Pre-Ferment

Bread flour	1 lb (3 5/8 C)	100%
Water	9.6 oz (1 ¼ C)	60%
Salt	.3 oz (½ T)	1.8%
Yeast	1/8 tsp, instant	.5%
Total	1 lb, 10 oz

Final Dough

Bread Flour	9.6 oz (2 ¼ C)
Whole wheat flour	6.4 oz (1 ½ C)
Water	12.5 oz (1 ½ C)
Salt	.3 oz (½ T)
Yeast	.06 oz instant (½ tsp)
Pre-ferment	1 lb, 10 oz (all of above)
Total	3 lb, 6.7 oz

1. PRE-FERMENT: Disperse the yeast in the water, add the flour and salt, and mix until just smooth. At 60 percent hydration, it will be stiff and dense, but add water if necessary to correct the hydration. Cover the bowl with plastic and let stand for 12 to 16 hours at about 70°F. When ripe, the pre-ferment will be domed and just beginning to recede in the center.

2. MIXING: Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl except the pre-ferment. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes in order to incorporate the ingredients. As the dough is coming together, add the pre-ferment in chunks. If necessary, correct the hydration by adding water or flour in small amounts. Finish mixing on second speed for about 21⁄2 minutes. The dough should be supple and moderately loose, with moderate gluten development. Desired dough temperature: 75°F.

3. BULK FERMENTATION: 21⁄2 hours.

4. FOLDING: Fold the dough twice, once after 50 minutes of bulk fermentation and again 50 minutes later.

5. DIVIDING AND SHAPING: Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces. Preshape lightly into rounds and place on a lightly floured work surface, seams up. Cover the rounds with plastic. When the dough has relaxed sufficiently (10 to 20 minutes), shape into round or oval loaves, place them either into floured bannetons or between folds of floured baker’s linen, and cover with plastic.

6. FINAL FERMENTATION: Approximately 11⁄4 to 11⁄2 hours at 75°F.

7. BAKING: Invert the risen loaves onto the loading conveyor or peel. Slash the desired scoring pattern with a blade. Presteam the oven, load the bread, and steam again. Bake at 450°F. Open the oven vents after the loaves show color, in order to finish the bake in a drying oven. Loaves scaled at 1.5 pounds should bake for 35 to 38 minutes.

Submitted to Yeastspotting over at Wild Yeast

Finally - Some Good Old Fashioned Sandwich Bread

I swear I have been planning to make sandwich bread for the family for about 9 months now. I had this dream of delicious and healthy bread, whole grains, and no preservatives. This was going to be the perfect bread for PB and J, swiss cheese sandwiches, and toast with butter and jam. As it turns out - all true.

I finally got around to making sandwich bread, and I took the advice of Susan from A Year in Bread and Farm Girl Fare (whose recipe I used) and baked three loaves at once. After they cooled, I put two into the freezer and we ate one of them throughout the week.

The bread is quite good, definitely better than the store bought alternative. It was a bit weird for me, having only baked crusty "artisan" breads as of late, to make a soft-crumbed and soft-crusted sandwich loaf. It came out just like sandwich bread. I'm not sure why that was so odd to me, but for some reason it was.

The original recipe uses a combo of flours including some white whole wheat. I didn't have enough of that in the house so I subbed some organic dark rye instead and it worked great. The dough handles very well, and really is not a lot of effort for the end result - three large loaves of healthy, delicious sandwich bread for your family.


Honey Wheat Bran Sandwich Bread
Adapted from A Year In Bread

4 cups | 568 g all-purpose flour
2 cups | 290 g bread flour
1 cup | 122 g oat bran
1 cup | 109 g wheat bran
1-1/2 Tablespoons | 17 g instant yeast
2 Tablespoons | 30 ml canola oil or melted butter
1/3 cup |102 g honey
5 cups lukewarm milk (about 85 degrees F)
4 cups | 453 g white whole wheat flour
1 cup | 155 g rye flour2 Tablespoons | 30 ml salt

Mixing and fermentation
In a very large bowl, stir together the all-purpose flour, bread flour, oat bran, wheat bran, and yeast. Pour in the canola oil, the honey, and then the milk. Mix well, then continue to stir vigorously. Stir in the rye flour, and then slowly add 1 cup of the white whole wheat flour at a time, until you've added 3 cups, or until you have a soft, slightly sticky dough. This should take a few minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 6 or 7 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to your hands or the work surface. This is too much dough for me to knead in the stand mixer, but it kneads easily by hand.

Place the mixing bowl over the dough, and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Remove the bowl, flatten out the dough with your hands, and sprinkle about half of the salt over it. Begin kneading the salt into the dough. After a few turns, sprinkle on the rest of the salt and continue to knead for 5 to 7 minutes, until the salt is completely incorporated and the dough is soft and smooth.

Place the dough in a large plastic straight sided container with a snap-on lid. With masking tape or a felt tip pen, mark the spot on the container that the dough will reach when it has doubled in volume. Set it somewhere that is preferably between 70F and 78F for about one hour. During the winter, I put it in the oven with the oven light on. Ideally, the dough should also be between 70F and 78F - you can check with an instant read thermometer.


Shaping and final rise (proof)
Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flattening gently with your hands to break up any large air bubbles. Divide the dough into three equal pieces.

Shape the dough into loaves and dust the tops with flour. Place loaves seam side down in greased loaf pans.

Cover the loaves with a damp tea towel and let them rise for 45 to 60 minutes. The dough should rise well above the rim of the pans, and when you lightly poke it with a floured finger it should spring back just a little.

Bake in a preheated oven (on a stone if you have one) at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until the loaves are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow if tapped (you can carefully pop one out of the pan and put it back in if it's not quite done). Remove immediately from pans and let cool on a wire rack. Wait at least 40 minutes before cutting into a loaf, as it continues to bake while cooling. Store at room temperature or freeze in zipper freezer bags. Make sure loaves are completely cooled before sealing in bags.

Cool Weather = Warm Bread

Now that the weather has finally started to cool off, I haven't been afraid to heat the oven up. While I haven't branched out into anything new and exciting, we have been enjoying some of our favorites. I've been trying to keep a batch of 5 minute a Day dough in the fridge so we have bread or pizza whenever we want. The go-to bread dough lately has been 6 cups unbleached AP flour and 1/2 cup dark rye flour per batch. We'll get three or four small loaves, or two larger boules out of this. This is also enough for a loaf or two of bread and several small pizzas. Just for fun I've thrown in a few pics of our current favorite bread (and one semolina boule), proofed in the brotform.



I've been enjoying venturing into new bread territory, but I still can't recommend Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day more highly. Especially for anyone out there who has been intimidated by yeast breads in the past, it really is so easy. Just pick up the book and a baking stone and you're in business.


HARPER and JACK <-- Harper was sitting on my lap as I typed and wanted me to type this for her.

Revisiting Rye

We wanted to have some more peasant loaf type bread this week so I made up another batch of rye bread. This time I had the caraway seeds (thanks Mom) - the house smelled wonderful when this loaf came out of the oven.

Rye Bread - Sans Caraway Seeds

An early attempt at a free form rye loaf. The bread was good. We tend to like the peasant loaves - something with some rye, whole wheat, semolina, wheat germ, flax etc. Keeps life interesting. I thought I had taken more photos of different shaped loaves but I guess not.