BBA - Multigrain Bread Extraordinare

It's been a while since I've made or posted a bread from The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. No bread making means there hasn't been any bread around here, so no sandwiches. No toast. No grilled cheese. Pretty sad.

That's behind us now as I made these lovely rolls a few weekends ago. This is a two stage bread, with the soaker made the first day and mixed with the rest of the ingredients to make the bread dough. As with all breads in this book, the flavor was rich and deep. Definitely a repeat-worthy bread.

I'm baking through The Bread Baker's Apprentice with the Slow & Steady subgroup of the BBA challenge. There are a lot of talented bakers in our little group, including Nancy (of Corner Loaf), Cathy (of The Tortefeasor), Jessica (A Singleton in the Kitchen), Melissa (of From Laptop to Stovetop), Kayte (of Grandma's Kitchen Table), Sarah (of Blue Ridge Baker), Di (of Di's Kitchen Notebook), Margaret (of Tea and Scones) and Natalia (of Gatti Fili e Farina. We even have Nicole of Pinch My Salt (she started the BBA challenge) baking with us. You should join us! We're flexing our bread making muscles and surprising ourselves with all the types of bread we've mastered.

BBA - Marbled Rye Bread

I'm baking with the Slow & Steady Subgroup of the Bread Baker's Apprentice group, and I'm behind. Most of them are poised to start the panetone, and I have three loaves to make before that one makes it to my to do list. I jumped ahead and blogged about the pain a l'ancienne for my bread baking anniversary, but I baked this loaf about a month earlier.

For some reason, this loaf had me procrastinating. I think it may be because I knew my swirling skills are sub par, plus I'm not a fan of caraway and to me, rye bread tastes like caraway. So when I finally made this bread, I left out the caraway and found the flavor to be excellent. My blogging and tweeting pal Kayte passed on her expertise (this loaf is the new favorite at her house) and that of our friend Nancy. Their collective advice practically guaranteed my success with this loaf. Based on their advice, I used the cocoa to color the dark rye, and I used honey as the sweetener in the light rye. This gave me a great visual distinction between the two ryes and made the swirl seem more dramatic. And the swirl? It was easy and I wondered why I put off making this delicious bread for so long.

The Slow & Steady group of the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge consists of Nancy, Cathy, Jessica, Melissa, Kayte, Sarah, Di, Margaret and Nicole of Pinch My Salt. Nicole started the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge but now she's baking at a slower pace and we feel thrilled and honored to have her join our group.

Pain a l'Ancienne & Happy Bread Baking Anniversary to Me

A year ago, I was a bread baking failure. I could kill yeast faster than squashing a bug. I could produce the least risen, toughest, densest bricks, suitable for home building or weight lifting. But a loaf of bread? Nope, not a chance.

My first pan of rolls still looks beautiful to me

Then I saw a post by Anne that gave me hope. She gave us her neighbor's recipe for quick dinner rolls and all but said it was idiot proof. I was hooked. I was still in the midst of the Great Kitchen Reno so all cooking was done on the grill, all dishes washed in the bathroom sink. It took me more than six months to get up my nerve and it was the result of deciding to join the Bread Baker's Apprentice event and finding it was closed. I wondered if I'd ever learn to make yeast breads. Then I remembered Anne's rolls, and I made them. They worked. They smelled amazing while baking. I ate an astonishing number of them, froze some of the dough and baked it as garlic rolls. I was so excited I could have issued a press release, but I wrote a post instead. Nancy invited me to join the Slow & Steady Subgroup of BBA, and I did.

A year has passed since that fateful night when I made Anne's rolls. I've tackled bagels, pizza dough, brioche, focaccia, French and Italian breads, challah, ciabatta (the first was a fail so I made it twice), English muffins and more. Every step of the way, I had this book by my side:

I love this book. Not to be overly dramatic, but Peter Reinhart changed my life. So to celebrate my first year as a bread baker, my year of yeast if you will, I made Pain a l'Ancienne. This is a classic bread that is basic as it gets: flour, salt, yeast and water. That's it. Those ingredients, the bread baker's basic four, ferment over night in the fridge after kneading. The next day, I let the dough come to room temperature and finish doubling before shaping the loaves. I saved half of the dough to make pizza for dinner another night. My loaves ended up much longer and skinnier than I planned, but they baked up incredibly crisp and crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. We loved this bread! We ate it with some flavorful olive oil and both found it impossible to resist. M. said that if I hadn't told him I made it, he would have thought it was from Paris. That's his highest form of praise.

A year ago, I never would have imagined I would have been capable of making all the wonderful breads we've enjoyed this year. I never would have believed I would stop buying bread, insisting on making all of our bread. I couldn't have known that the rare failure wouldn't discourage me but would make me analyze the reasons I failed before making the recipe again.

Many of you have given me tips, advice and encouragement over the last year, and your kind words and support have meant more to me than you'll ever know. I especially want to single out Nancy and Audrey, who both encouraged me to join the S&S bakers. And Anne, without whose recipe I probably would still be labeling myself as a bread making failure not a bread baker, will always have a place at our table and a spot in my heart.

Yup, I made pain a l'ancienne. It was no big deal.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

I don't want to say something polarizing like "Who doesn't love cinnamon bread?", but really, who DOESN'T love cinnamon bread? And if you sneak a little cocoa into the swirl like Dorie Greenspan does, all the better in my book.

I made this a week before leaving on my vacation, and I had no raisins in the pantry. Being lazy and cheap (my main drivers), I passed on making a run to the store to buy some. I thought about adding chopped pecans, but again, I'm lazy, so I didn't.

This lovely, rich yeast bread didn't need either raisins or pecans. It was delicious without. I used instant yeast (my eternal gratitude to Tracey for posting the link for a yeast conversion calculator). I mixed the dough more like the technique in The Bread Baker's Apprentice than in Baking From My Home to Yours (dump most everything in the mixer with the dough hook and turn it on--you can do this when you use instant yeast as it doesn't need to proof).

I mixed the dough, let it rise and shaped it in the evening and let the shaped loaf rise in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I pulled it out an hour before baking to take the chill off, then baked it as Dorie suggested. I highly recommend breaking up the preparation this way as you can have warm cinnamon bread for breakfast without having to get up at 4 AM. Finally, I brushed the hot-from-the-oven loaf with butter and coated the top with cinnamon sugar, a suggestion from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

The resulting loaf was delicious, familiar yet even better than traditional cinnamon bread. It was almost as good as the BBA cinnamon bread I made last year.

If you want to start a riot, bring just one loaf of this delicious bread into your office.  Swarms of my coworkers made it to the break room after the last crumbs had been devoured, and they were deeply disappointed.

Many thanks to Susan of Food.Baby who chose this recipe for all of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers to make this week. It's from the book Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Susan has the recipe up on her post.

P.S.:  Have you entered my giveaway? You can find it here.
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Lethally Delicious is on vacation! I'll be back in a couple of days so responses to comments may be a bit delayed.

BBA - Ciabatta Redemption

Back when I had been baking bread for, oh, a month, we were entering the "C"s of the Bread Baker's Apprentice, and ciabatta was quite an undertaking for an absolute yeast novice like me. I read the instructions over and over and over and over, followed them diligently, and was rewarded with these monstrosities:

Yeah, I know. I was truly devastated. I doubted my ability to learn to bake yeast breads. Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs (one of my favorite bloggers) offered advice, but I was too scared to try this bread again. So to bounce back, I made bagels, which had been made before I joined the group. Where the ciabatta had been stressful, the bagels were fun. I've made many more recipes from the book with success, but I've never recovered from my ciabatta fail.

Last week, I made the focaccia again, and the stretching and resting that I found so enjoyable and therapeutic reminded me of the ciabatta. The ciabatta had stretching and resting. Why had it been such a different experience? I decided I would attempt the ciabatta again using Nancy's advice and see what happened. No matter how it went, I wouldn't let it stress me out.

And it didn't. I found it to be relaxing and fun. This time, I made it with 2% milk instead of water and I added the optional olive oil. I paid attention to how the dough was during the mixing and added a little more milk when it cleared the bottom of the bowl when it shouldn't have. I didn't get the sought after "holes" in the bread but it was delicious, crusty and smelled amazing. Nothing at all like my first attempt. It's inspired me to retry some other recipes that were disappointing. I'll let you know how that goes!

BBA - Light Wheat Bread

This is one of the last breads from the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread that we'll make before they get more difficult. I dread the second half of the book, with its sourdough starters and pan ancienne. An easy part-wheat bread I can handle.

Or not. The first time I made this, it looked like a bowlful of worms. I added additional water, tried kneading it by hand, and finally gave up. Bread making is enjoyable. When it doesn't work, I shrug it off and start over. I think it was the gluten flour. I've never successfully made a loaf that contains gluten flour.

But this one was successful when I switched to bread flour. So successful, in fact. It rose perfectly, gave me some oven spring and looked glorious. It even tasted wonderful, with its part white/part whole wheat lending tenderness and bite. I used butter in place of the vegetable shortening, and brown sugar instead of honey, and I liked the flavor of the loaf. All in all, it was a subtle loaf, so it played well with other foods.

If you like bread and would like to get better at making it, check out The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart. It's a book that changed my life, and I'm not exaggerating. Peter is aware of our little blogging group; check out his blog post where he mentions the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge.

BBA - Lavash Crackers

My first foray into making flatbread or crackers was making this delightful crisp rosemary flatbread that I saw on Tracey's Culinary Adventures. It was so easy and delicious and played to my laziness.

But I was still eager to try Peter Reinhart's lavash, given the photos in the book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's a tiny amount of dough, and the recipe calls for rolling it out paper thin. To accomplish that, I borrowed a trick from Ad Hoc At Home and used my pasta roller to get it paper thin. I could have read the newspaper through it had I been required to do so.

But that was truly too thin, and it made the lavash difficult to work with and made twice what the recipe was supposed to yield. It also went from raw to deep brown in about a minute.

I topped mine with a variety of twigs and seeds (zaatar, ras el hanout, sesame, kosher salt and dehydrated onion). All of the flavors were good in their own way, and the lavash was so fragile that it shattered when you bit into it. But it was good nonetheless, and it disappeared quickly.

Although it was good, I doubt I will make this one again. I've made Tracey's flatbread repeatedly, but this one is just too high maintenance.

Make sure you check out the other members of the Slow & Steady subgroup of the Bread Baker's Apprentice event (and they are Nancy (of Corner Loaf), Cathy (of The Tortefeasor), Jessica (A Singleton in the Kitchen), Melissa (of From Laptop to Stovetop), Kayte (of Grandma's Kitchen Table), Sarah (of Blue Ridge Baker), Di (of Di's Kitchen Notebook), Margaret (of Tea and Scones) and Natalia (of Gatti Fili e Farina). 

BBA - Kaiser Rolls

Times are tough in the Lethally Delicious kitchen. I'm off work until January 5th. I know that sounds like a good reason for a big celebration, and I don't disagree. But it also means fewer people to dump share my baked goods with. But these Kaiser rolls, the next bread in the rotation for the Slow & Steady subgroup of the Bread Bakers' Apprentice blog event, don't create a gifting dilemma. The recipe yields a few rolls suitable for making sandwiches, not enough for sharing, but perfect for the freezer.

Even though it took 2 days, this recipe wasn't that hard, and I again tried, unsuccessfully, to screw it up. I was eager to make these because of the swirly tops, and I bought a Kaiser cutter to ensure a perfectly swirly top. My advice: don't bother with the cutter. Make these by hand as Peter Reinhart does in the book. Some of my swirls didn't and some did but only in the center of the rolls. I would have liked a shinier crust, so I'd advise you to use an egg wash in lieu of spraying the rolls with water before they go in the oven. This would also make the seeds stick to the rolls better. I'd also spray the walls of the oven with water a second time for a crisper crust.

Now I need you native New Yorker Kaiser roll purists to look away for a moment.

You could substitute some garlic butter for the vegetable oil, or use fruity olive oil and herbs d'Provence, or top them with caramelized onions. I know I've finally gone mad but these things all sound good to me.

While these were good, they didn't approach these or this or even this for flavor. So I probably won't make them again unless I do some flavor variations.

Next up:  Lavash crackers (I know! I can hardly wait!)

BBA - Italian Bread

I am officially a bread snob. Even though I felt like making a sandwich the other day, I couldn't do it. See, we didn't have any bread in the house. I don't buy bread anymore. It just doesn't measure up, even to my pathetic loaves, and certainly not to the loaves that fill me with pride and disbelief.

So I jumped ahead of our Bread Bakers' Apprentice posting schedule and made this several weeks ago. We needed bread. The preparation was similar to the French bread we recently made. I had heard rumblings that this bread wasn't as good as the French, but I thought it was pretty great, especially in a sandwich. Even though this was a hearth bread (like the dismal ciabatta fail a while back), I didn't freak out.

I used my Italian olive oil and let it rest in the fridge for a couple of days to build flavor. Right after I made this one, I bought a lame (for slashing the loaves) and a peel (for transferring the loaves to the oven). I still naively believe that the right tools will solve all my baking problems.

This bread comes from the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. Next up: Kaiser rolls!

BBA Rewind - Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

I mean, bagels aren't made at home. They're made at the eponymous bagel shop. Usually they're big and doughy, and after eating one, you feel like you ate your pillow.

Peter Reinhart's bagels from The Bread Baker's Apprentice do not fall in this category. You make them in your own kitchen, no magic or special equipment needed. Nor do you feel like you swallowed a rock.

I know it sounds like science fiction, but it's true.

I made these the day after we lost Allie, and I made them because I thought it would give me something to occupy myself with, something I had looked forward to doing. See, it was the bagels I saw on some of my favorite blogs that made me consider doing something as crazy as buying a book about bread and making the recipes.

I tried to screw up. I was quasi-successful the first time, except I threw in the towel when I realized I had under-hydrated the soaker, tried mixing more water into the dough, and quickly saw it wasn't going to work. The dough went in the trash and I started again.

Even the second time, my brain wasn't completely engaged and I mixed the yeast in with the flour, salt etc. to add to the soaker. I put the soaker in the fridge while we ate a late lunch, but rescued it after a half an hour and proceeded with the recipe, even though the soaker was chilled. I then rested the portioned dough in the barely warm oven for over an hour, enough for the little balls of dough to swell up considerably, making it hard to peel them off the parchment for shaping. I used the rope method, not the hole punch after seeing so many comments about flat bagels when using the hole punching method. But they floated immediately, and off to the fridge to sleep they went.

While drinking my coffee the next morning, I brought a pot of water to a boil, tossed in the baking soda, and boiled the little darlings a few at a time. They looked pathetically scrawny, and I worried that they wouldn't turn out.

After baking, they looked like this:

But I still worried. What if they weren't fully baked?? 10 minutes in the oven doesn't seem like enough time. I needn't have worried. When I cut into one, this is what I saw:

Toasted and spread with butter, it was divine.

I wish I thought to take a beauty shot, but I was too intent on eating it while it was hot. I knew you'd understand.

BBA - French Bread

This week's Bread Baker's Apprentice was a marathon, not a sprint, and a hearth bread, too. I wasn't smart enough to be filled with angst over it, given the miserable fail of my last attempt at a hearth bread. In fact, I interrupted the preparation of this bread so many times, with the dough going in and out of the fridge over a period of days that I wouldn't have been surprised if it failed.

It didn't. It was the ugly duckling of French breads, but it was crisp, deeply flavorful and yes, had holes inside. (imagine me skipping to work the day I made it!) My slashing left a lot to be desired and I mangled it getting it from the cloche on to the baking stone, so it wasn't the most beautiful looking bread, but it was delicious and, yes, authentic. My coworkers loved having fresh French bread for breakfast. Peter Reinhart's steam technique gave it an amazingly crunchy crust. I wish I could speak coherently about this bread, but I'm so blown away by its success that I can't!

The victims after the slashing

Make sure you check out the other members of the Slow & Steady subgroup of the Bread Baker's Apprentice event (and they are Nancy (of Corner Loaf), Cathy (of The Tortefeasor), Audrey (of Food From Books), Jessica (A Singleton in the Kitchen), Melissa (of From Laptop to Stovetop), Kayte (of Grandma's Kitchen Table), Sarah (of Blue Ridge Baker), Di (of Di's Kitchen Notebook), Margaret (of Tea and Scones) and Natalia (of Gatti Fili e Farina). I know they will be able to hold themselves together and describe their breads more eloquently than I am able to.

BBA - Focacci-aaahh

Some books change your life. They help you find your calling, open your eyes to social injustice, heal your inner wounds or push you beyond what you thought you were capable of. I recently read a book like that. The book? Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. While I'm not quitting my job and joining the Peace Corps, it has made it possible for me to do something I never thought possible: make very good bread. Bread that people can't resist. This was one of those recipes.

I had a lot of trepidation about making this particular yeast dough. It called for stretching out and folding the dough repeatedly, like this ciabatta that was a resounding failure. But I should not have worried. This dough came together easily and stretching and folding it over 30 minute intervals was so relaxing.

I made the dough several days before I needed the focaccia, so I let it sleep in the fridge, allowing the flavor to develop. If you want to smile whenever you open your refrigerator, stick a sheet pan of focaccia dough in there.

I made the mistake of not measuring the olive oil to spread over the pan before stretching out the dough to rise, and I probably used twice what the recipe called for. There was some olive oil pooling in the corners, and the baked focaccia had a oiliness on the bottom that wasn't unpleasant, but it would have been nicer without it. I used my "good" olive oil from my adopted tree in Italy and it gave a wonderful flavor to the focaccia.

This bread was a delight to make and eat. It requires frequent intervention, but not a lot of hands on time. It holds well in the fridge before you bake it off, and a longer hold deepens the flavor.

When making the herb oil to brush on the top, I didn't want to go to the store (again) to buy fresh basil, so I used dried spices. How I have kicked myself over my laziness. But I will make it again, and I will use fresh herbs. And I will caramelize onions and garlic. And I will again thank Peter Reinhart silently as I marvel over how a yeast-phobe like me could bake such an extraordinary treat.

If you want to tame your inner (yeast) demons, buy the book and join us in baking through it. I'm blessed to be part of the Slow & Steady Subgroup of the The Bread Baker's Apprentice group, and it's a delightful group of bakers discovering their yeast muses.

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Lethally Delicious is on vacation, but we'll be back in a few days.

BBA Rewind - Artos; and Guess Where We're Going on Our Vacation

I never finish anything. Not cleaning the house. Washing the dishes. The laundry. The filing. Cleaning out my closet. The only reason I get through our audit at work is the paralyzing fear of failure.

So it is indeed peculiar that I am determined to bake all of the breads in The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. But it was no surprise that, with so many other deadlines looming before our vacation, that I decided to "make up" Artos bread. The group baked this bread before I joined, and I've been meaning to give it a try. With its heavy dose of aromatic spices, it made the house smell amazing. Nancy tweeted that it was great with the optional glaze so I made it with it and the sesame seeds. This bread was so fantastic that, with the deadline of catching a flight (with intermediate stops at the post office, vet, and--don't ask-- the Apple store) hanging over me and not the first item of clothing in my suitcase, I felt compelled to complete this post. So it's a short one with one takeaway...

AMAZING BREAD

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Lethally Delicious is on vacation! I will have limited access to the Internet so may not be able to respond to comments for a while. We may go here...

As well as a large city nearby. And we may go here, too:

As well as a large city nearby.

Any idea where we're going?

BBA - English Muffins

The next recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice agenda is English muffins. I pick these up at the grocery store from time to time, and I'd never given any thought to making my own. I normally pick the whole wheat ones, and initially planned to sub some whole wheat flour when I made them. I forgot to make the substitution, so mine were made with white flour.

To make English muffins, you simply make a basic bread dough, let it rise, divide it onto 6 supposedly equal pieces, let it rise again, and then cook them on a griddle. Who knew English muffins were made on a griddle?! Since I don't own a griddle, I stole borrowed one from my friend Susan. She's in New York for a wedding and I'm on cat patrol. I left some cinnamon crumb muffins in her freezer so I think she won't mind.

Peter Reinhart says to cook them on the first side until they're almost burned, but mine wouldn't get that browned even after I left them on the griddle 4 minutes longer than the recipe suggested. Next time, I won't do that since it made one side tougher than the other. After cooking on both sides, you finish them off in the oven. And then you have to wait 30 minutes before breaking in to them. Except I waited ten minutes and then attacked.

They were good! They had a much lighter texture than commercial English muffins, and a heady yeasty flavor that I loved. I think next time, I'll let them proof in the fridge over night to develop the flavor.

These were one of the most fun things I've ever made! They're very easy and reasonably fast. If you made the dough the night before and let it proof in the refrigerator, you could serve fresh English muffin sandwiches with eggs and cheese for breakfast...but I enjoyed mine with butter.

If you'd like to see more breads from our fantastic group of bakers, visit the Bread Baker's Apprentice Slow & Steady subgroup: Nancy (of Corner Loaf), Cathy (of The Tortefeasor), Audrey (of Food From Books), Jessica (A Singleton in the Kitchen), Melissa (of From Laptop to Stovetop), Kayte (ofGrandma's Kitchen Table), Sarah (of Blue Ridge Baker), Di (of Di's Kitchen Notebook), Margaret (of Tea and Scones) and Natalia (of Gatti Fili e Farina).

P.S.: I made these again after writing this post, but took them in a different direction. Instead of butter, I used orange olive oil, I subbed about 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour, and I used buttermilk this time. I made them 2.5 ounces so they wouldn't be such a big bready muffin. They were terrific! The olive oil adds a wonderful fragrance without making them oily (or even adding a detectable olive flavor). Now I want to try them again with hazelnut or walnut oil.