Last week was Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and I was having 12 for dinner on Friday night.  In addition to preparing dinner I was also making  5 round sweet challahs. One was for my dinner, one was for my niece to take back to college to share with her friends and 3 were to take to my aunt’s house for Saturday lunch. 

Since it was still quite warm out, I thought I’d make an icy cocktail to get the New Year off to a proper start.  I made
Electric Lemonade.  I highly recommend this cocktail for any family gathering.  Family love and harmony will be flowing after everyone drinks one of these.  I was planning to serve a feta-mint dip (recipe below) and crackers with drinks.  Since I’m a little behind schedule in the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge, this was the perfect opportunity to start getting caught up, as Lavash Cackers were up next for me.  The recipe seemed fairly straight forward and no overnight fermenting was required.

The dough for these Armenian crackers uses bread flour, salt, yeast, honey, vegetable oil and water.  After 10 minutes of hand kneading I had a supple stretchy dough.  Into an oiled container it went for about 90 minutes until it doubled in size. Then it was time to roll the dough out.   I had already been warned by Carolyn of Two Skinny Jenkins  to roll the dough thinner than the recipe specifies, if you want really crisp crackers. 

 I divided the dough into 3 pieces and began rolling each into a large rectangle.  The dough is quite elastic and resisted being stretched out at the beginning, so I covered it with plastic wrap and let the gluten relax for about 10 minutes.  After that, it rolled out very easily, with no tearing at all.  I transferred the first piece to a parchment lined baking sheet.

Since I was serving these with a feta mint dip, I thought I’d season them with Dukkah, an Egyptian spice blend.  It contains finely ground hazelnuts, pistachios, sesame seeds, cumin, corriander and salt.  I order it on-line from www.crousset.com, a Quebec retailer.  You could also make it yourself.  I have posted the recipe below.  It is very versatile. 

Once the dukkah mixture went on, they looked a little bare, so I added sesame and poppy seeds and a touch of kosher salt.  After I finished  sprinkling the first piece with spices, I realized I had forgotten to spray the dough with water first.  I pressed the spices in with my fingers and hoped for the best.  I remembered the water on the next two pieces of dough.  I was really surprised at what a great glue water is.  Below is a picture of two finished crackers.  The one on the left had water sprayed onto it before adding the spice mixture and the one on the right has no water sprayed before adding the toppings.  The water really does help the toppings to stick.

The finished crackers were crisp and delicious.  I’m not sure how soon I’d make these again, since there are so many wonderful crackers available to buy, but they certainly had the wow factor.  My 11-year-old niece was very impressed that you could actually make crackers.  She thought crackers only came from a box.

Feta-Mint Dip with Yogurt 

This recipe comes from the September 2002 issue of Cook’s Magazine.  I always make a double recipe as it seems to disappear very quickly. 

1 cup plain yogurt (low fat is ok)
½ cup mayonnaise (light is ok, but DO NOT use fat-free)
2 ½ ounces feta cheese, crumbled (1/2 cup)
¼ cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 medium green onions, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

  1.  Place yogurt in a cheesecloth-lined colander set over a bowl.  If you have no cheesecloth, a flat bottomed paper coffee filter works equally well.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours.  After yogurt has drained, discard liquid in bowl.

  2.  Process all ingredients in food processor, fitted with chopping blade, until smooth and creamy, about 30 seconds.  Transfer dip to serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until flavours are blended, at least 1 hour.  Serve cold with crudités or pita chips or crackers.  This dip can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

 Dukkah

 Warning:  Dukkah can easily become an obsession.  The more you eat, the more addictive it becomes.  Serve with warmed pita and extra-virgin olive oil.  Dip pita into olive oil, then into dukkah and eat.

 ½ cup hazelnuts
½ cup shelled pistachios
1 cup sesame seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place the hazelnuts on a baking sheet, and bake for about 5 minutes, or until fragrant. While the nuts are still hot, pour them onto a tea towel. Fold the towel over them to cover, and rub vigorously to remove the skins. Set aside to cool.

 2. Place pistachios on baking sheet and toast for about 5 minutes in   preheated oven.  Set aside to cool.

 3.  In a dry skillet over medium heat, toast the sesame seeds until light golden brown. Pour into a medium bowl as soon as they are done so they will not continue toasting. In the same skillet, toast the coriander and cumin seeds while shaking the pan or stirring occasionally until they begin to pop. Transfer to a food processor. Process until finely ground, and then pour into the bowl with the sesame seeds.

4.  Place the cooled hazelnuts and pistachios into the food processor, and process until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.  Do not over process.  You do not want nut butter. Stir into the bowl with the spices. Season with salt and mix well.

I have been looking forward to making Kaiser Buns for quite a while now, ever since my Kaiser Roll Cutter arrived in the mail from King Arthur Flour last month. There’s something so old-fashioned and exiting about getting a package in the mail, even if I did send it to myself.  Usually there is a time lag of about a week between when I order it and when it comes, so I have forgotten all about it and still get that “Ooh, a package for me!” thrill. 

The kaiser buns are a two day affair, making a starter dough on day 1 and the final dough on day 2.  In this case the starter dough is a “Pâte Fermenté”, which is simply a mix of bread flour, all-purpose flour, salt, yeast and water.  This dough is left to ferment in the fridge overnight.  This slow overnight process creates certain enzymes that contribute to better flavour texture and colour in the final kaiser bun.  The next morning I took my Pâte Fermenté out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.  Then I added it, along with the remaining dough ingredients (bread flour, salt, barley malt powder, yeast, egg, vegetable oil and water) to my Kitchen-Aid mixer and got to work.

I’m firmly convinced my Kitchen-Aid mixer read my mind.  As I started mixing the dough for the kaiser buns, I thought, “I really need to begin mixing my doughs by hand, to learn the feel of them better”.  Within about a minute of thinking this, my Kitchen-Aid took off at warp speed, then slowed down to a trot and then quit all together.  When I tried turning it on again, at low speed, it gasped, spun one or two revolutions and then shut down again.  It was dead.

Well as they say, “Be careful what you wish for!”  The kaiser dough came out of the mixer and hand kneading commenced.  After about 8 minutes I had a supple dough that was still tacky but not sticky.

The dough went into an oiled container and was set aside for the first rise, approximately 2 hours or until it doubles.  I think it must have been quite warm in my kitchen because after 90 minutes, I had this:

We had the option of making 6 larger buns or 9 smaller ones.  In a never ending (Losing) battle to consume less bread I decied to make 9 smaller rolls, figuring I’d never just eat half of a large roll, but maybe I could stop after just one whole small roll.  The dough was rolled into little balls and then covered to rest for 10 minutes.

Next it was time to make the kaisers using my new cutter.  I pulled it out of the drawer and looked at it carefully.  Then I looked at my balls of dough.  I quickly realized that the cutter would not work for small rolls.  It was too big and would not make a proper cut on my small buns.  So, onto Plan B, forming my buns into little knots.  The instructions and photos in the book were very easy to follow.  First roll out the dough into an 8 inch strand.

Next tie it into a simple knot.

Then, take one tail and bring it and bring it up and over the loop and tuck it into the center hole.

Then take the other tail and bring it under the roll and poke the tail up through the center hole.

The knots are then placed on a cornmeal coated, parchment lined baking sheet.

The knots are sprayed lightly with oil, covered with plastic wrap and left to rise for 45 minutes.  Then we are instructed to turn the rolls over and let rise for a further 45 minutes.  When I picked up one of the rolls, I noticed there was cornmeal on the underside.  I did not want the top of my buns to have cornmeal on them, so I ignored this suggestion and let them continue rising, without turning them over, for a further 45 minutes.

After the second 45 minute rising period, they had doubled in size.  I decided to egg wash them instead of spraying water on them as suggested in the book, as I wanted them to have a shiny finish.

Then I sprinkled them with poppy seeds, sesame seeds and a touch of kosher salt.

Into a 425 degree oven they went and were done after 14 minutes.

For bottom crust freaks, here is a shot of the underside.

For crumb freaks, here is a shot of the inside.

They were tender, a little sweet and the perfect sandwich roll.  For dinner that night we hade grilled salmon and chipotle mayo sandwiches.  Sorry, no picture as they got gobbled up too quickly!

I have a confession to make.  I cheated on Peter Reinhart.  Last week’s bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge was the ultimate French Bread, baguettes.  My results were mediocre and truthfully I was a little disappointed.  I really struggled with shaping and scoring the baguettes.  This week’s bread is Italian Bread and the shaping and scoring of the loaves is somewhat similar to French Bread.

I thought that if I could actually watch someone do it, rather than just read instructions in a book, I may have a better chance of success this week.   I surfed the web and came upon a video of Chef Danielle Forrester on Julia Child’s PBS series, making baguettes.  As I watched the video, I have to admit I was somewhat shocked to see how roughly she handled the dough.  She slapped it with her palm and really pressed hard on the seams as she formed her loaf. 

This was surprising to me because Peter Reinhart emphasizes handling the dough gently, lest we accidentally degas the dough.  But Chef Danielle just exuded power and confidence, and frankly, I was seduced.  I wanted to try slapping my dough around too.  So while I used Peter Reinhart’s recipe,   I followed Chef Danielle’s method for shaping my Italian bread.  The shape for an Italian bread, incidentally is called a Batard, (literally “Bastard”)  which is a torpedo shaped loaf, measuring 6-12 inches in length

This is a two day bread, where we make a starter on Day 1 and let it rest overnight in the fridge.  On day 2 the starter is incorporated into the new dough and the loaves are formed . This recipe made either 2 large torpedo shaped loaves (batards) or 9 smaller hoagie sized rolls.  I opted for the 2 large loaves.  After the dough fermented at room temperature I began forming my loaves.  

Dividing the dough into 2 pieces I formed each into a batard.  First the dough is flattened into a rough rectangle and then it is folded into thirds, letter style.  The flattening and folding is repeated 2 more times for a total of 3 times in Chef Danielle’s method, whereas PR only does this once.  Then a groove is formed down the center of the dough, using the side of your hand.  The top edge of dough is folded two thirds of the way down and the seam is sealed with the heel of your hand. The folding and seaming is repeated two more times for a total of 3 seals.  Peter Reinhart’s method only calls for 2 seals.  I must admit the surface tension of my Italian loaves seemed greater using Chef Danielle’s method. 

After forming the batards, the dough proofed for about one hour while I preheated the baking stone and oven to 500 degrees.

After an hour the loaves had grown to almost 1 1/2 times their original size.  They were ready to be scored.  After watching Chef Danielle’s sure and steady scoring method one more time, I slashed swiftly and with purpose. 

I decided to transfer my loaves into the oven one at a time rather than both at the same time.  Loaf one went onto the peel and slid easily onto the baking stone, retaining its shape.  I felt like a pro.

The second loaf slid in alongside the first and I added boiling water to the steam pan and quickly shut the oven door and turned down the temperature to 450 degrees.  The loaves were golden brown and crusty after about 15 minutes.  The slashes opened up beautifully and I was so impressed with my artistry!

While the outside was crusty and golden, the inside crumb was tender and soft.  After the loaves had cooled we sliced them up and toasted them on the BBQ and devoured them with diced tomatoes from the farmer’s market, garlic, olive oil, basil and salt.

In Week #14 of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice, we tackle the ultimate French Bread, the baguette. In the introduction to this bread, Peter Reinhart says, “As with most hearth breads, another key to the success of this bread is handling it gently, retaining as much gas as possible during shaping in order to promote large, irregular holes in the crumb…. This large, open crumb is one of the signs of a properly handled artisan loaf.” 

The novice bread baker might read this and think, “Hmm, that’s interesting.”  However, those of us on Week #14 of the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge will start sweating, with memories of our old nemisis the Ciabatta bread, still fresh in our minds.  My finished Ciabatta bread was good but did not have those characteristic holes that bread freaks live for.  The baguette is another challenging bread.  It is not for the faint of heart. 

If you are planning to make baguettes, I highly recommend watching this video.  It is from the PBS video series Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs and it features Chef Danielle Forestier making baguettes.  While Peter Reinhart’s instructions are good, I am a visual learner so the video was very helpful for me.  It was interesting to watch and then compare her method for forming the baguettes with PR’s .  She was way less gentle with the dough.  Unfortunately, I only discovered the video the day after I made my baguettes, but it will be helpful for when I form my Italian loaves.

To make a proper artisan baguette, you need to start with a pre-ferment.  A pre-ferment is a dough or batter made beforehand and used in bread dough.   Pre-ferments enhance the taste of bread by extending the fermentation time, creating more complex flavors and enhancing the texture of the final product. There are several types of pre-ferments.  In the baguette we make a “pate fermentee.”  Basically we make the dough on day one, let it ferment overnight in the fridge and on day 2 make a second batch of dough, adding the first batch as the pre-ferment.  So far so good. 

Here is my pate fermentee, cut up into small pieces to hasten the process of bringing it to room temperature after spending all night in the fridge.

Next we make the dough one more time, and this time we add the pate fermentee to the new dough so that we have a double batch of baguette dough, enough to make 3 large baguettes.  Several times, in the recipe we are warned against working too roughly with the dough, lest we “degas” it too much.  The first step is to form each piece into a batard (torpedo shape).  This basically involves patting each piece of dough into a rough rectangle and then folding it letter style, into thirds, to form the batard.  The edge of your hand is used to form a seal.  Then the batards rest for 5 minutes.  

Here are my 3 batards.

Next the baguettes are shaped by using the side of your hand to make a trough down the center of the dough. 

The dough is folded again, letter style and a seam is formed.  Then the dough is rolled, gently back and forth until the desired length is reached.  I got a little carried away with my rocking and rolling and rolled out my baguettes to an impressive 20 inches.  Then I realized that my oven only measures  16 inches across.  Ooops!  I gently compressed my loaves down to 16 inches.  Then I carefully transferred them to my homemade couche.  A couche is a piece of cloth that is used to support the baguette during it’s final proofing.  I used an old cotton apron and it worked perfectly.

I covered the baguettes and let them rest for 45 minutes. While they were proofing I had a momentous decision to make.  Do I chance transferring the baguettes to a peel and slide them into the oven onto a baking stone or do I play it safe and bake them on a sheet pan, thus eliminating the scary slide into the oven.  Daredevil that I am, I decided to go for the baking stone and attempt the slide.  I set up my oven as shown in the book, with the baking stone on the bottom floor of the oven and the steam pan on the rack above.

Then came the scary part.  Slashing the dough!  I had purchased a french lame (a special slashing blade).  Peter Reinhart is very detailed in his instructions about slashing the bread.  He instrusts us to cut on an angle, not straight down so that the blade is held almost parallel to the bread, much like slitting open an envelope.  I was so nervous to do it that I think my slit was too tentative and not forceful enough.  It was more like a gash than a slit.  Plus, I discovered the next day that I was holding the lame upside down.  The curve should face down, not up.

I prepared my peel with cornmeal, carefully transferred the baguettes to the peel, opened the oven, closed my eyes and gave a short jerk with my arm to get the baguettes from the peel onto the baking stone.  When I opened my eyes, I was horrified to see 3 “S” shaped baguettes staring back at me.  I tried as best I could to straighten them out but they were odd looking baguettes.

I added hot water to the baking pan to create steam in my oven and sprayed the oven walls twice, at 30 second intervals to create even more steam.  I forgot to turn the oven temperature down and as a result, my baguettes got way too dark on the bottom before the top was sufficiently browned.  In hindsight, I think I should have had the steam pan on the bottom of the oven and the baking stone on the middle rack for more even browning. 

My baguettes definately had personality.  However, they the lacked large irregular holes in the crumb that are the hallmark of a stellar baguette.  Oh well, something to strive for.  They made delicious sandwiches for dinner with grilled lemon-rosemary chicken and chipotle mayo.

This week in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge I baked Foccacia Bread, on my gas BBQ!  I could try to impress you and say that the reason I baked it on the BBQ is because I wanted to challenge myself, culinarily speaking.  And you just might believe me.  However, I can not tell a lie, (well, actually I can lie, and quite coinvincingly too, but I guess that’s not something one should brag about!) I made the Foccacia on the BBQ because my oven died.  Well to be more accurate, I wore my oven out.  Before I get to the baking of the foccacia, here is the story of how I wore my oven out.

I am  up at my cottage on the lake.  Last weekend we hosted a family reunion for my side of the family.  This is the fourth one we have held here.  We try to do it every three years.  The first was in 2000, followed by 2003, 2006 and then again this summer.   With parents, siblings, spouses, children, cousins and aunts and uncles we numbered 41 this year.  It was a 4 day extravaganza, complete with our own version of the Amazing Race, a spaghetti eating contest, two swim marathons, bonfire with s’mores, and lots of games and activities organized by various family members.  I had arranged to have the meals catered as I did not want to spend the entire time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.  However, we have many talented bakers in the family, so we did the desserts ourselves.

We have a “Family Cookie”, originally made by my paternal grandmother (Bubbe).  She never wrote the recipe down and so her daughter (my Auntie BeBe) watched her make the cookies one day in the 80’s.  She wrote down everything her mom did and measured all the ingredients to get as accurate a recipe as possible.  Since that time, my sister Bo and I have been making the cookies at least twice a year.  Although we have the same recipe, our Bubbe Cookies turn out completely differently.  The Bubbe Cookie is a poppy seed cookie.  These are not  thin delicate poppy seed cookies.  They are thick and hard, much like a mini hockey puck.  They are not too sweet and are perfect with a cup of tea.  They are also fantastic for long driving trips as each cookie takes a long time to eat and they’ll keep you alert while driving.  Our family and everyone who I have introduced them to over the past 30 years, loves them.

Of course I had to bake Bubbe Cookies for the family reunion.  I baked 1000 Bubbe Cookies.  I made little gift bags with a dozen Bubbe Cooies in each to give to every family member when they arrived.  That accounts for about 500 of the cookies.  The other 500 were piled high in a jar and left on the coffee table for snacking.  I also baked 60 lemon coconut cookies, 75 oatmeal toffee sour cherry cookies and 60 skor bars.  I made all these the week before the reunion and froze them.

Bubbe Cookies

Lemon Coconut Cookies

Oatmeal Toffee Sour Cherry Cookies

Skor Bar Cookies

Most of my family knows about my participation in the BBA challenge. Some casual requests from various family members about cinnamon buns and bagels had me wondering how I could produce them, fresh and hot from the oven without having to spend the day before covered in flour and elbow deep in dough.  I decided to make the cinnamon buns and bagels the week before and freeze them, unbaked. The cinnamon buns were on the menu for Saturday breakfast, so I removed them from the freezer on Friday night, placed them in baking pans and left them to proof on the counter overnight. I fell fast asleep and in the morning, all I had to do was bake and glaze them.  Needless to say they were devoured within minutes of coming out of the oven despite my screaming that the Bread Freaks Bible (The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Cookbook) says that the cinnamon buns must cool for at least 30 minutes before eating.

The bagels were planned for Sunday brunch so on Saturday night I removed them from the freezer, transferred them  to parchment lined baking sheets, covered them with plastic wrap and let them proof all night in the fridge.  Come Sunday morning they were ready for boiling and baking.  I made 24 poppy, sesame and salt and 24 cheddar jalapeno.  They were a huge hit. 

So, to recap, in one short week  my oven produced 1000 Bubbe Cookies, 60 Lemon Coconut Cookies, 75 Oatmeal Toffee Cookies, 75 Skor Bar Cookies, 24 Cinnamon Buns, 24 Sticky Buns, 24 Poppy-Sesame-Salt bagels, 24 Cheddar Jalapeno Bagels and 3 large challahs.  A lesser oven would have died right in the middle of the family reunion weekend.  My considerate oven waited to die until the day after everyone left.  I had planned to use this week to catch up on my BBA baking as I’m a little behind (I wonder why?).  When I preheated the oven to make dinner it would only heat to 125 degrees F.  I think I heard it say, ” I’m on strike.” 

Somewhere, deep in the recess of my brain I recall a fellow BBA challenger talking about baking bread on their BBQ.  I remembered that they used empty tuna cans, turned upside down, to raise the baking stone off the BBQ.  I went back over old posts and found the reference.  Heather of Bodacious Girl  saved the day.  (http://www.bodaciousgirlblog.com/2009/06/bringing-your-kitchen-outdoors.html).  

The Foccacia recipe in the book is a two day procedure, making and shaping the dough on day one, followed by a night of fermentation in the fridge to allow the wonderful flavours to develop.  It is quite a wet and sticky dough but I resisted the temptation to add more flour. Memories of screwing up my ciabatta loaf by adding too much flour were still fresh in my mind.  After forming the dough it is placed on the counter for a 5 minute rest.

Then the dough is gently stretched from each end, to twice it’s original length.

Then the dough is folded into thirds, letter style and allowed to rest for 30 minutes.

This stretching and folding procedure is repeated twice more, followed by an hour rest on the counter.  While the dough rested, I prepared an herb oil to top the Foccacia with.  I heated about a cup of olive oil in the microwave for about 45 seconds, just until it was warm.  I aded 2 cloves grated garlic, and about 1/2 cup fresh chopped mixed herbs (basil, italian parsley, thyme, oregano and rosemary).  After an hour of resting, the dough is transferred to a parchment lined baking sheet, coated with oil. 

Then the fun part begins.  About half of the herb oil is poured on top and then, using your fingertips, dimple the dough and spread it to almost fill the pan.  Then the dough is covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight (or up to 3 days).  Mine was left in the fridge for 2 days.

To prepare the BBQ for baking, I turned 4 empty tuna cans upside down and placed my baking stone on top of the cans.  The tuna cans act as protection for the baking stone, raising it up off the direct flame.  I turned on both burners of the BBQ and let it pre-heat on high for 30 minutes. 

I do not have a thermometer on the BBQ so I was really guessing about temperatures.  I turned down both burners to medium heat and placed the foccacia (still on the baking sheet) onto the stone.  I closed the lid and waited.  After 5 minutes, I could not stand it anymore, so I lifted the lid for a peek. 

After 5 minutes of baking.

Not much was happening, so I closed the lid and waited another 5 minutes.  Then I checked again and the bottom was beginning to brown while not much had changed on top.  I was concerned that the crust would burn before it was cooked through so I turned down the heat to low on  both burners, rotated the pan 180 degrees and closed the lid for another 10 minutes.  After a total baking time of 20 minutes, the Foccacia was done.  Internal temperature registered 200 degrees.

A peek at the bottom crust revealed crispy goodness.  While the foccacia cooled, I decided to go for a run as I realized I would be doing more than tasting this bread.  We sliced into it and had our first piece with a glass of Proseco and peach nectar.  The crumb was not as open as I was expecting but the crunch from the bottom crust was addictive.  The aroma and flavour from the herb oil were unbelievable.  I love this bread.

The remainder of the bread was sliced horizontally and we made fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil panini sandwiches for dinner.

 In week 12 of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge we visit English Muffins.  I have long been a fan of Thomas’ english muffins, famous for their nooks and crannies, which are excellent at storing lots of melted salted butter.  I figured that homemade english muffins would beat the Thomas’ version hands down.  Peter Reinhart promised big holes, like the professionals get, if we can work with the soft dough and grill them at just the right time, catching them on the rise. I was up for the challenge.

This dough came together very easily, but I have to admit I was surprised that the recipe only makes 6 english muffins.  All the other recipes from the book have  yielded gargantuan breads.  The dry ingredients, (bread flour, sugar, salt and yeast) are mixed with a bit of butter and some milk and kneaded in the mixer for about 8-10 minutes.  Then the dough is set aside to ferment, until it doubles in size, about 60-90 minutes.

It was a very warm day and as usual, I was multi-tasking and didn’t quite catch the dough at the ” just doubled” stage.  It looks like it tripled!  Oh well, no harm done, or so I innocently thought.  I weighed the dough and divided it into 6 equal pieces, and formed the little boules.

The balls of dough are then lightly oiled and sprinkled with cornmeal, covered with plastic wrap and left to rest until nearly doubled in size.  I have to admit, this was an instruction I struggled with.  I had a really hard time knowing when they were nearly doubled.

It reminded me of going to the optometrist and getting your eyes examined.  My very first optometrist was my dad.  He’d put those lenses in front of my eyes and say, “Is this better, or is this better?”, while he changed the magnification only infinitesimally.  I could never tell which one was better but I was always too embarrassed to say so.   Truthfully, I just thought he didn’t know what he was doing but I never wanted to make him feel bad, so I just lied and picked one.  It was only after he died, and I had to go to another optometrist that I realized that my dad wasn’t a bad optometrist after all.  I experienced this inability to tell the difference at my new optometrist too.  Sorry dad, it was me not you!!

Now you look at these two pictures and see if you can tell if they are nearly doubled in size.  The one on top  is just after I formed the boules and the one below is after 90 minutes of proofing, when I figured that, they looked almost doubled.

Then it was time to cook the muffins.  English muffins are baked in a frying pan or cooked on a griddle and then finished in the oven.  I gently transferred them to the pan and cooked the first side over medium heat for about 5 minutes until they were golden brown.  They are supposed to spread out on their own but mine still looked like little balls so I helped matters along and squished them gently with a spatula.  Then I flipped them over and cooked the second side.

Once the second side was done they went into a preheated oven for an additional 5 minutes, to finish cooking the inside.  After letting them cool for 30 minutes, we split them open with a fork.  Fork splitting, apparently gives english muffins their characteristic nooks and crannies.  The moment of truth…

Even with the fork splitting, the nooks and crannies were absent.  I’m not quite sure where I went wrong.  I suspect that I over fermented (first rising) as well as over proofed (second rising) them.  Peter Reinhart says that if you catch them “on the rise” you will be rewarded with the nooks and crannies.  I think my muffins went past the rise and I missed my opportunity.  I also suspect that since my little balls did not spread out on their own, that my dough was not wet enough and if there were any air holes inside, I may have squished them when I pressed down with my spatula.  However, I toasted them and slathered them with salted butter and American Spoon sour cherry preserves and they were very tasty, but not as good as Thomas’.

Although I was a little disappointed with the results, it was still a worthwhile exercise as  I was reminded the other day of one of the reasons I began this challenge.  I was reading a book review of Marion Cunningham’s “The Breakfast Book” on epicurious.com.  In the book Marion says, “Cooking is one of the legacies we can leave to the future, and I would like to be remembered for my baking. We all know we’re not immortal, but after I’m gone, I would like my son and daughter to be able to say, ‘Our mother made real yeast bread for breakfast.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself!

P.S.  My sons and daughter loved the english muffins.

The day I made bread # 11 in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, in late July, I was expecting 12 guests for the weekend at my cottage.  It’s not quite as daunting as it sounds, as I learned a long time ago, that when weekend guests ask what they can bring, assign them a meal.  So I was going to make Friday night dinner and Sunday brunch and had assigned Saturday lunch to one friend, Saturday cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and dinner to two other friends.  So all in all, I was in good shape.  Or so I thought, until I woke up Friday morning with a headache, fever and canker sores in my mouth.  Luckily I had my niece here visiting from New York and she rolled up her sleeves and helped me bake.

First we tackled the challah dough that I had made the day before and fermented in the fridge overnight.  We needed to braid 2 loaves for Friday night’s dinner.  My niece was keen to tackle the 6 strand challah I had seen on a youtube video.  So we brought the laptop into the kitchen and after several attempts, braiding and then unbraiding, she mastered it. 

I must say, you learn a lot about a person when you braid bread with them.  What my niece lacks in the way of fine motor and visual perception skills (sorry Sam), she more than makes up for in determination.  She was not about to let this bread get the best of her and after about 30 minutes, she had successfully braided it.  I have to admit, that I have tried to do the 6 strand braid myself, about 3 times now and each time I failed, gave up and did a basic 3 strand braid.

After the challah was in the oven, we made the cranberry walnut celebration bread.  To be perfectly honest, I was not that keen on making this bread.  We have been doing so many enriched breads and I was kind of tired of them.  From reading fellow BBA challenger’s blogs, I gathered I was not alone in feeling this way.  Oggi at “I Can Do That” talked about “celebration fatigue” and I know just what she means.  However, I signed on to this challenge and I’m committed to bake each bread, in order.

I decided to incorporate some whole wheat flour into this bread.  I used about 4 ounces whole wheat bread flour and the balance (9.5 ounces) was white bread flour.  Although the recipe called for orange extract, I used orange zest instead.  I also toasted my walnuts first.

The dough comes together fairly easily.  Dry ingredients are put in the mixer bowl and wet ingredients are added and kneaded for about 5 minutes on medium speed with the dough hook.  It is a soft and pliable dough.  I decided to knead in the cranberries and walnuts by hand.  it seems as though you will never incorporate them all, but finally, they are all crammed into the dough.

Then the dough is set aside to ferment and double in size, about 2 hours.  While it was fermenting I prepped the rest of my dinner.  (For anyone interested, I made London broil on the BBQ, dilled green bean salad, roasted potatoes and a tomato, basil and purple onion salad with a balsamic vinaigrette.)  The directions in the book call for doing one large braid and then topping it off with a smaller braid, sort of a double decker braid.  My head was pounding and I did not have the brain capacity to do the math necessary for getting the proportions correct, so I just did a 3 strand braid and coiled it into a circle.

The loaf proofed for about 90 minutes and grew quite large.  I egg washed it and baked it for about 50 minutes.  I set it out to cool and after about an hour my guests started arriving.  I had planned to serve the bread toasted for breakfast on Saturday morning but everyone who came in smelled and then saw the bread and wanted to taste it.  Slice by slice, it disappeared.  My mouth was so sore, I did not even taste it, but everyone said it was delicious!

I can’t leave you wondering about  how the rest of the weekend turned out.  I spent the entire day in bed on Saturday, knowing that lunch and dinner were taken care of.  By Sunday morning I hade a sore throat and no voice but had 24 bagels, proofing in the fridge, waiting patiently to be boiled and baked.  I wisely decided that I should not handle any food as I was so filled with germs.  I wrote out the instructions and had my friends do the work.  They were thrilled to be making the bagels and marveled at how simple it was and how delicious they were.  I think I may have sold a few more copies of the book!