Grandma's Bread

Its been a long time since I've made a regular loaf of bread, not to mention white bread. This is my grandma's recipe. She has made bread all her life. She is 89 and still making bread-but now with a mixer!

For 2 loaves:

1 T. yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water

2 T. butter

2 tsp salt

2 cups water

2 T. honey

6 cups white flour

Add water, honey, salt, yeast mixture, butter, and 2 cups flour. Beat until well mixed. Add rest of flour and knead for 10 minutes. Rise until doubled. Rise in pans. Bake 325 for 30 minutes.

Notes to self:

I kept the dough a little more sticky by using 5 1/2 cups flour, not 6. Didn't knead for 10 minutes, only about 4 minutes. Also, baked it in a steam oven, just to experiment. Didn't seem to make a significant difference!

5 minute a day artisan #1

Most darling little loaf ever.

Dough is mixed and placed in fridge for future use.

I love the blisters in the crust-result of spraying it with water and baking in steam oven.

Dough was stiffer and easy to work with.

Perfect crunchy crust.

Crumb was chewy and moist, however; could be airier in my opinion.

From fridge to table in 1 hour. That would be the huge bonus.

Next trial: wetter dough to compare crumb.

Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day. A year or so ago, I tried this one but I wasn't happy about the results. However, it was in the early days of making artisan bread and I just memorized the recipe and didn't pay attention to the baking techniques!! Thankfully, my sister told me that hers turned out great. So, I figured I needed to give it another try and do it right!! By the way, this dandy little loaf went to a friend for her birthday. All I had to do was pull off a chunk of dough from the batch in the fridge and the bread was done an hour later...ready for delivery!!

Final Artisan Multi-Grain Sourdough Round

Description:

11 inch round, crispy thin crust, chewy moist crumb

Recipe:

1 cup rye starter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

2 tsp SAF instant yeast

1 T. agave nectar

2 1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups white wheat flour

1 1/2 cups white flour

Mix ingredients and knead for a few minutes. Let rise until doubled.

1-Fold dough: stretch out into rectangle, fold bottom up, fold sides over, fold top down. Mold into a ball.

2-Place in floured dish (10 cup bowl, large banneton/brotform) smooth side down, seem side up. Rise one hour or until it reaches top of bowl.

3-While dough is rising, prepare the oven: a half hour before baking, heat oven to 425 with baking stone on rack and pan with sides on bottom rack.

4-After dough has risen, turn out onto flour dusted bread peel or side less cookie sheet. Slide onto bread stone. Score top of round with serrated knife.

5-Wearing long sleeves and gloves (to avoid steam burns, just in case) quickly pour 1 cup water onto bottom pan for steam effect and shut oven door fast to keep in steam. After about 30 seconds, spray oven walls with water. Do this a few times within the first few minutes of baking.

6-After 15 minutes, take steam pan out of oven, it should be dry. Bake bread for 30 minutes total. Cool bread on rack.

The result of new techniques

Its ugly but this loaf tastes great. I used my rye starter and King Arthur recipe but instead of 5 cups white flour, it was 2 cups white wheat and then enough white flour till dough was right consistency. It was still sticking to the bottom of the bowl during kneading. It took about 3 hours for first rise. Only about 45 minutes for second rise. Oh, and this was one big loaf instead of 2 small rounds.

1- Steam needs to be in the oven for the first 12 minutes of baking. For the perfect crust, crunchy but thin.

a) techniques heard of: soaked towels in pan on bottom shelf

b) add 1/2 cup water to hot pan on bottom shelf after putting bread in oven

c) spray sides of oven every 30 seconds for the first 5 minutes, in addition to pan of water on bottom shelf

d) spray dough with water before baking and have pan of water for steam (this works fine, maybe a thicker crust)

2- Folding the bread before proofing.

a) for a round: shape dough into long rectangle, fold bottom up, then one side in, then the other, then the top up and over in half. Place in evenly floured (with a seive) baneton or bowl.

3- Steps for baking.

a) place pizza stone in oven 15 minutes before baking time

b) 5 minutes before baking time place pan on bottom shelf w/out water

c) flour or cornmeal the peel (I used a flat baking sheet, great)

d) turn out the proofed loaf from the bowl onto the peel

e) slide loaf onto stone

f) get long sleeves and gloves on and quickly pour 1/2 cup water onto hot pan for steam...sizzle

4- For next time

a) use too little than too much flour when mixing dough, that worked nice

b) spray the bowl before flouring and use a sieve to sprinkle flour in bowl

c) score the dough with knife on angle like big smiley face from side to side-saw this technique, want to know how it turns out!

d) pour 1 cup water onto hot pan, not 1/2 cup

e) spray sides of oven first 5 minutes

f) take pan out after 15 minutes

g) the house stinks from the preheated pans with nothing in them, yuck!

h) I want airy crumb, maybe its not possible with whole grain?

The perfect bread making book

Still haven't found it! I'm usually sitting in B&N thumbing through bread books. Tonight was King Arthur's multi-grain cookbook. I want it, actually. Because it uses rye, spelt, and barley. All grains I have in my storage. However, half the book consists of dessert recipes. So, I passed it up for now. But, out of the books I looked at today, I gathered more on technique. Came home and made a few notes to try for the future. Folding and baking and a few new techniques for making the steam oven. So, there you have it.

Compare the Crust

Picture A: Loaf was sprayed with water and steam baked.

Picture B: Loaf was sprayed with water and baked like usual, no steam.

steam baked

I am so psyched! I baked my sourdough rounds in a steam oven today. They are so good. The crust is crunchy and thick and the crumb is chewy and moist...I just placed a pyrex baking dish full of water on the bottom rack while I heated the oven. I originally had it cranked up to 450 (to get the steam going), then lowered it to 350 for the bread. After about 5 minutes of baking I realized the baking temperature was supposed to be at 425. So I turned it back up. Who knows if the temperature changes have to do with the way it turned out. Just in case, I have to document it for my own sake. Artisan, I am getting closer! Oh, and I did one cup less white flour and replaced it with 1/2 cup ground white wheat. Taste is wonderful. So, this loaf has rye flour, white flour, and white wheat flour. King Arthur Sourdough recipe.

A pocket full of Rye?

I happily purchase my 25 pounds of rye to add to my grain storage. The crazy thing is, my only intention in using the rye was to make sourdough starter...good thing it turned out. I have loved it so much that my wheat hasn't come out of storage for over a month. That's okay...it has a long shelf life. For now, its fun to explore an old grain and think that somewhere out there in the history of time, perhaps rye was the main squeeze.

Sourdough Rye

Oh how I love you, sourdough. Quite a unique marriage: sourdough meets rye. This is made from a rye flour starter. Taken from Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions. I gathered about 3 different sourdough recipes and used the rye starter for each one. King Arthur's sourdough recipe was the only one worth repeating, in my opinion. And, I believe that is because it calls for additional yeast rather than just the yeast that is developed in the starter. This picture is of the pre-baked loaf. Isn't it lovely?