recipes

Get Your Malt On

These baguettes were made with a small amount of diastatic malt powder. Perfectly good bread is possible without malt, but in some cases it can help your bread be just that much more lovely.

Malt contains several enzymes; the most significant to bread bakers is amylase, which breaks down the starch in flour into simple sugar. Sugar is important for two primary reasons: it is what yeast eats (so fermentation would not be possible without it) and caramelization of sugar contributes greatly to a rich crust color. Most white flours have malt added at the mill, and even when they do not, both amylase and simple sugars are present naturally in wheat flour, so you can get fine results without adding more malt to the dough at mixing time.

However, when dough has a long fermentation, the yeast consumes a lot of sugar, since it grazes pretty much constantly. This means there is less sugar left over for caramelization of the crust, so the crust color might be paler than you’d like. For doughs with preferments (such as the poolish used in these baguettes), where a portion of the flour is fermented over several hours, the addition of amylase in the form of malt can make the crust a bit nicer. You might also add some to your dough if you are baking with unmalted flour.

[Read more…]

Ciabatta del Giorno

I made today’s ciabatta with a little more water than usual. I expected this would result in a more open texture, but it didn’t, perhaps because I mixed it a little too long. Take-home #1: all other thing being equal, higher hydration leads to a more open crumb. Take-home #2: all other things being equal, more mixing leads to a finer, more closed crumb. (You can see this effect dramatically in these baguettes.) Take-home #3: all other things are never equal.

I will say, however, that however open or not open the crumb, it made a pretty good sandwich with prosciutto, sopressata, mozzarella, basil, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar.

[Read more…]

Bake a Better Bread Stick

I’ve said it before: I love grissini. These thin, dry bread sticks are a perennial crowd-pleaser — rustically beautiful, always whimsical but never frivolous, a snap to make and (literally) to eat. Their flavor is eminently versatile, subject to the baker’s inclination — the toss of a fennel or sesame seed here, the grind of a pepper mill there. I’ve made them plenty of times, sourdough or straight, and they’ve been toothsome and quick to disappear every time.

These are better, and I have the numbers to prove it.

I would not presume to say that the addition of ground flaxseed and a bit of rye flour to the dough make the grissini taste better, as that is a matter of, well, taste. My taste says they taste pretty fine. My daughter’s taste says so, too.

But even if you disagree with our taste (and I don’t think you will), numbers don’t lie. Consider these numbers:

[Read more…]

Pear Frangipane Brioche Tarts

Have I mentioned that I love brioche? OK, so it’s rich and sweet and buttery and I don’t recommend eating it every day. On the other hand, it is rich and sweet and buttery. And it’s easy to make it even better with the addition of things like frangipane, which is… rich and sweet and buttery and almondy. (See? Even better.)

Frangipane is essentially a baked almond pastry cream. In school we learned to make it by combining vanilla pastry cream, a cooked custard that can be used without further baking, with almond cream, which is not pre-cooked and lends a lighter, cake-like texture. There are plenty of other frangipane recipes out there if you don’t want to use this two-part process, but the pastry cream and almond cream can also be used on their own, so they’re nice recipes to have, and you can vary the proportions of each depending on the texture you want your frangipane to have (more almond cream for a puffier frangipane). Zoe Bakes has a great photo tutorial on making pastry cream.

[Read more…]

Sourdough Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but around here it’s getting pretty warm, and that means grilling. And that means you’ll be needing some buns.

I already have a great bun recipe, but I wanted some that are sourdough-leavened (since my starter has been feeling a bit neglected lately) and that contain a hefty portion (about 84%) of whole wheat. These were an experiment that turned out rather well. They are definitely soft (from the honey and the butter), but a bit denser — and more flavorful, if you ask me — than your average hamburger bun.

In case your grill is still buried under a foot of snow (I’m so sorry!), the buns are good for sloppy joes, too.

These go to Zorra (1x umrühren bitte) and Rachel (Tangerine’s Kitchen) for BreadBakingDay #28, Buns.
[Read more…]

Seeded Multigrain Sourdough — It Is What It Is

This is a bread we made in class (way back in the halcyon bread days, before butter and sugar commandeered my educational life).

I modified the formula to use liquid instead of stiff levain. I removed the small amount of instant yeast, and increased the fermentation and proof times accordingly. I used a different seed mixture and slightly increased the amount of whole grain flour. I added an autolyse (rest period after fours are mixed with water and starter).

So is this the same bread we made in class? Here I turn to G. W. F. Hegel, who said, “Identity is the identity of identity and non-identity.” That clears things up nicely, doesn’t it?

[Read more…]