BREAD baking

[GLC1968]

Grey - yes, it's almost fool-proof...and I can attest to that (being a bread making fool myself)! It's this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-...538133&sr=8-1#

Besides the basic boule, I have made the whole wheat (that was supposed to be cooked in a pan - it didn't turn out), the herb bread variation on the boule, and the rosemary onion focaccia. Both of the last two were amazing!

[Christopher]

this should be re-titled the Yummy Bread Thread!

I make sourdough from a home-made starter that's about 18 months old and lives in the fidge in an old mayo jar. I had authentic San Francisco Sourdough starter but found it a bit fragile (it died!) and not as sour as my starter. My loaves take about 36 hours to make, and I find the dough very stiff to work so only make one loaf at a time. The resulting bread isn't as good as SF sourdough but it is far better than anything I can buy around here. I use ~1/3 rye and 2/3 hard Canadian flour and bake the loaf in a cast iron pot.

That 'Artisan Loaf' book sounds great, I am still using 'Beard on Bread'. I want to try German Rye Bread, uses 100% rye and hardly rises. Sometimes I make challah and very oily Italian bread, and make my own pizza bases (very satisfying). Sometimes I use molasses instead of sugar to proof the yeast and a bit of walnut oil to add interest to the taste. Oh, and chopping up and adding fresh chilies to white bread works great.

[ZenSojourner]

*still waiting for her baking peel*

In the meantime - you know that dipping sauce you get for foccacia (or at least foccacia-like) bread in the snootier Italian restaurants?

How the heck do you make that stuff? I've never found any pre-made that was any good, and attempts to date to make it myself have been unsuccessful.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

*still waiting for her baking peel*

In the meantime - you know that dipping sauce you get for foccacia (or at least foccacia-like) bread in the snootier Italian restaurants?

How the heck do you make that stuff? I've never found any pre-made that was any good, and attempts to date to make it myself have been unsuccessful.

My DH just likes to use our salad dressing for that bread dipping.
Our favorite salad dressing:
make a cruet of dressing using the Good Seasons dry dressing mix from an envelope. But use extra virgin robust flavored olive oil, and some good balsamic vinegar. Then I also add a couple teaspoons of freeze-dried 'salad herbs' that I keep in the fridge after opening.

ZS: a tip about the peel....don't wash it by soaking it with water! People keep saying their wood peels are warping/cracking when washed, etc.
Oh but you are getting the non-wood peel, right?- then no problem.

What I do is: when I shape the loaf/loaves, I then let them 'rest' by putting a sheet of parchment on the peel and sprinkling the parchment with some corn meal- I lay the loaves on that. When time to bake, I just slide the loaves, parchment and all, right on to the hot baking stone and bake. (The parchment is good for about two baking sessions.) When done, it's easy to again slide the peel under the parchment and remove bread parchment and all. The bread seems to come right off the cornmealed parchment with no problem, and my peel actually never gets doughy or needs washing- my Stone stays clean too. If each parchment piece is used twice, the parchment roll will last a l-o-n-g time.

I used to make lots of many kinds of bread 20 years ago- sourdough, w.wheat, pastries, white loaf bread....making it the old fashioned way with a couple of risings. But I never got such yummy chewy/stretchy bread with a crisp crust as from the basic boule recipe in the Artisan Bread 5 Minutes book! It's exactly the way I love my bread to be and I never got it that way before.
One thing though- the basic (using 6 1/3 cups flour) really only makes 3 very modest sized loaves bread- not 4 as they claim. 4 to a batch comes out too tiny, and 2 to a batch are too large and don't rise as well. 3 seems just right!

[GLC1968]

Lisa - I wonder if our books are different versions? I could have sworn that my recipe says that the basic boule makes three loaves, not four. I'll have to look again when I get home tonight. If so, that would be REALLY odd, don't you think?

I don't wash my peel. I just wipe it clean and so far, with enough corn meal, it's fine. Same for the stone - which is actually a pizza stone and it also works great. I'd love to get a long square one so that I can make different shaped loaves, but so far the round has kept me busy enough. What benefit does the parchement serve? Do you still use cornmeal with it?

Oh, and ZenSojo - before I got my peel, I was just using a cookie sheet with no lip. Worked like a charm! I got the peel just because it's hard to make cookies when your cookie sheet always has a new loaf of bread sitting on it!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Lisa - I wonder if our books are different versions? I could have sworn that my recipe says that the basic boule makes three loaves, not four. I'll have to look again when I get home tonight. If so, that would be REALLY odd, don't you think?

I think I remember reading on their BLOG that the recipe should read 3 instead of 4 loaves. I bought my book used- its from 2007. Maybe they updated it in a later printing?

What benefit does the parchment serve? Do you still use cornmeal with it?

Yes, I use cornmeal on the parchment, all on the peel. The parchment enables me to slide the two loaves of puffy bread right off the peel and onto the hot stone (paper and all) with minimal jostling of the loaves- helps to keep them from collapsing what little amount they have risen after the 'rest'. The bread bakes on the parchment, on the stone.
Very convenient, and I use each parchment piece twice before it gets brittle.
Doesn't stick to the bread either.

[CarefreeSpirit]

Yum that olive bread looks delish! Can you truly make bread in 5 minutes (not counting rising and baking)? I may have to purchase this book. I can just smell the fresh baked breads coming out of the oven.