Funky Whisks

I’m a lucky girl, I was given the mama and the baby:

Whisks

My second attempt at sourdough bread is the simplest of breads: French Sourdough.  It has 4 ingredients.  4.  Four.  Just one more than 3:  Flour, Water, Salt and Sourdough starter.  How do 4 simple ingredients come together to produce something so very wonderful? Its a culinary miracle.

It starts as all sourdoughs do, with the culture refresh.  Since my attempt at cinnamon-nut bread, I have learned some things…namely that I did the refresh exactly WRONG the last time.  After an informative chat with mom and dad, I now know how to do it right:

Sourdough Refresh:

1. Transfer culture from the storage container to a large mixing bowl.
2.  Add 1 1/4 cups water to the culture, and just enough flour to bring it to a thick pancake-batter consistency.  Air on the light side with the flour first, then add flour as needed while whisking.
3.  When it is thoroughly mixed, let it sit for 1 hour on the counter.
4.  After the hour, remove the amount of culture needed for the recipe  (2 cups here).  Put the rest back in the washed and dried storage container.

Sourdough Refresh

Before the first 12 hour proof, 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water are added and mixed in.

Then after the 12 hour proof, and before the 8 hour proof add 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water.  That’s fairly easy to remember.

First and Second Proofs

After the 2nd proofing step, a lot of bubbles have been introduced by our friendly microbes.  Now its time to add the rest of the ingredients and mix/knead it all together.  At this point, another addition of flour, plus the rest of the water and salt (which is dissolved in the water) are added to the dough in your mixer.  Once again I’ll remind you, HOLD ON TO YOUR MIXER.  Unless you have one of those mixers that sits on the floor and that you can make enough cookies for 400 teenagers in, your mixer will lurch along the counter as it mixes the dough.

Mix in about 1 1/2 cups of flour and the remaining 3/4 cup of water with 1 1/2 tsp of salt dissolved into it.  Mix on low for 2.5 minutes to incorporate the new ingredients.  At this stage, if the dough is to wet and gummy, add more flour.  If you don’t add enough flour, it’ll come out of your mixer looking like paste and will stick to your hands in a way you can’t even imagine.

The CLAW

And by the way, I’m just slightly OCD about having my hands clean so this was more than a little bit torturous!  Needless to say, I did not add enough flour in the mixer.  A problem to be fixed next time!  After another 8 minutes mixing on high in your mixer, transfer to a floured work surface.  At this stage, knead in enough additional flour (likely more than another cup) so the dough is smooth, firm and not sticky.  Using a bench scraper is the key here.  When it starts to stick, just work the scraper under it, then reflour the surface.

Kneading the Dough

The recipe makes enough for 2 loaves, so split it in half and weigh each half on a kitchen scale to ensure an even split.  Once you have 2 even halves, roll around to make a couple of nice loaves.  Put them into lightly oiled bread loaf pans and to ensure even rising and a good shape, push the dough into all the corners of the pan with your knuckes.  Set a kitchen towel over them and let them rise for 2-4 hours, or until they’re 1-2 inches above the top of the pan.

And before you bake them, brush the tops with a little oil to promote nice browning and give them a good slash across the tops.  One good slash right down the middle.

Cook at 375F for 20 minutes, then put foil over the top to prevent the top from getting to dark.  At this time, insert a probe thermometer so you can take them out RIGHT WHEN THEY HIT 203F.  I have been told this temperature many times.  Apparently my bread will explode if the temperature is off either way.

4 simple ingredients - 1 amazing result

But with results like these, who’s to question it?

Yummy

]]> http://doctordomestic.com/2009/06/21/sourdough-2-simple-french-bread/feed/ 3 http://doctordomestic.com/2009/06/07/sourdough-attempt-1cinnamon-raisin-nut-bread/ http://doctordomestic.com/2009/06/07/sourdough-attempt-1cinnamon-raisin-nut-bread/#comments Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:37:28 +0000 Becky http://doctordomestic.com/?p=652 A couple of weeks ago, we went out to visit my parents over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.  I was on a bit of a culinary mission:  obtain sourdough culture from parental units.  I took a jar of home-made strawberry rhubarb jam as a barter offer.  It worked, and I came home with a container full of yeast, bacteria and flour.  What a lucky girl I am!

I should perhaps back up a bit.  I guess I haven’t mentioned that my parents (more specifically my dad) has jumped in to the hobby of sourdough bread making.  Yes, a man who at one time couldn’t find the milk in the fridge without the help of his teenage daughter, is making bread from scratch, from cultures he maintains with loving care.  I love the unexpected changes the years can bring.

Its truly amazing I haven’t started doing this culturing thing years ago.  I mean, if there’s one type of cooking that translates from the lab to the kitchen – its culturing microbes!  I have personally maintained cell cultures in the lab for 8+ years.  It has become second nature in my working hours, so I really hope that my mad culturing skills will come home with me after working hours!

OK, enough with the back story, lets get down to some bread making.  I pulled out my sourdough culture, which had been sitting undisturbed in the fridge for the past 2 weeks.  I poured off 2 cups of it for use in this recipe.  With the rest of it, I added water (about 2.5 cups) and flour to bring the culture back to its previous texture.  In case you’re wondering, the texture is roughly that of thick pancake batter.  I transferred the refreshed culture back into my cleaned storage container and put it back into the fridge.  I unfortunately didn’t have a lot of culture left after I removed the 2 cups for the recipe, but I’m hoping the remaining yeast will repopulate the culture.

Refreshing the Culture

To the 2 cups of liquid culture (that’s how it is referred to by the cookbook), I added 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup water.  I whisked those ingredients together and let them proof for 12 hours.  This is your overnight step.

.

Did I mention that this bread takes about 25 hours to make?  Oh yea, it takes about 25 hours to make.

After 12 hours, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Dr. Domestic headed into the kitchen to stir in another 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water.  Sound familiar?  This second mixture proofs for 8 more hours.

Second Proofed Culture

And in case you’re wondering, proofing is optimally done at about 70-72F.  This stuff IS specific.  More science than cooking, really.

8 hours later, I mixed in all of the goodies.  The goodies include: Milk (3/4 cup), cinnamon (a LOT of cinnamon – 1/4 cup), raisins (1 cup), finely chopped walnuts (1 cup), sugar (2 T) and salt (1 1/2 tsp).  I combined the goodies with the proofed culture in my KitchenAid Mixer and mixed it up.  I then added 2 cups of flour (in two stages) and mixed on Med-High for about 6 minutes with the dough hook.

This is not the most pleasant stage of the bread-making process.  Your mixer will NOT like this.  It will get hot, and tired, and eventually try to commit suicide by throwing itself off of your counter-top.  Really.  You must stand there and keep it on your counter because that much dough (4+ pounds of it) knocking around your mixer will cause it to walk all over the place.

At some point, my nice floury, smooth bread dough ball turned into a gluey mass.  I don’t know when or why this happened.  But I took this as a hint to start the hand-kneading.  I turned it out onto a counter-top and kneaded in another 1 1/4 cup flour.

Forgive me for lack of good pictures at this step.  I was in a huge hurry and covered head-to-toe in flour.  It was a bit stressful.

And after 8-10 minutes of hand-kneading, when you’re good and sweaty, you’re done.  The dough is then split in two, because this recipe makes TWO LOAVES.  And do yourself a favor and actually weigh the dough so its truly evenly divided.

Roll each piece out separately into rectangles, about the width of your bread loaf pans and 1/2 inch thick.  Spread over one half of a mixture of 2 Tbsp cinnamon and 1/2 cup sugar.  The other half is of course for the other loaf.  Roll up the dough and place it in a loaf pan.

Bread Loaves Before Final Rise

The loaves now proof from anywhere from 2-3 hours in a warm room to longer (5-6 hrs) in a cooler room.  I opted for the longer rise because I went and made social plans for tonight without thinking through the ramifications for my bread loaves.  I called my mom in a panic to make sure I could let them rise longer than 3 hours and she told me it’d be fine.  Yes, I still need motherly reassurances!

Loaves after Final Rise

When we got home tonight, the loaves (which had been in our cold basement) were still a bit flat, so I did the “bouncing” technique for inducing a final rise.  Basically, instead of pre-heating the oven, you put the loaves in a cold oven, then heat it.  This extra heating time apparently helps give the loaves a bit of…well…bounce.  It did seem to help tonight, at least a little.

The loaves were cooked at 375F for 25 minutes, then covered with foil.  They then continued to bake at 375F until they reached an internal temperature of 203F.  Yes. 203F EXACTLY.

Baked Bread

Too bad I somehow can’t transmit the smell of freshly baked cinnamon bread over the internet.  Really too bad.

I turned the loaves out onto a cooling rack, where they sat overnight under a tea-towel.  One unanticipated problem I experienced was that some of the cinnamon sugar kind of melted out and burned to the side of the loaf.  Woops.  Maybe I’ll just use less cinnamon sugar next time.

And as for the final taste and texture?  Taste – good. Texture – a bit dense, not surprising with the sub-optimal conditions I used!

Boy was this one exhausting!

I’m not posting the recipe for this one quite yet because to be completely honest, I was working off of a copy my dad made out of their cookbook, and I didn’t have both pages of the recipe.  Umm, this could explain a few things…  If/When I redo this one, I promise to do a better job and I will post the actual recipe.  You can gather the gist of it from this post.

First up, a recipe with such an irresistible title that I couldn’t not make them: Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chunk Muffins.  Mmm, just saying that makes my mouth water.  Peanut Butter…Chocolate Chunk…Muffins.

What I like about these muffins is that they’re not pretending to be anything they’re not.  They don’t have fruit or fiber or shredded vegetables in them.  They are un-frosted cupcakes, and we all know it.  I found the recipe at a wonderful blog 17 and Baking.  And she apparently found the recipe at Baking Bites.  Do you see?  These muffins have spread like a virus.

And now, because you can look at either of the above link for the recipe, here are my photos and the beautiful, tasty end products.

Like any classic muffin, you first separate the wet and dry ingredients, then mix them all together into a nice, thick batter.

Now does this ever happen to you? Muffin recipes always say they’re going to make 12 and then they have more than enough for 13?  I think its because I’m not eating enough of the raw batter.

And then, after 20 long minutes, they’re done.  And gorgeous.  Do you like my industrious use of Halloween cupcake wrappers?

You know what I actually like best about these muffins (besides the peanut butter! and chocolate chips!) is that they aren’t too sweet.  In all seriousness, they really aren’t like cupcakes.  Their flavor is subtle, yet delicious.

My second baking undertaking from the internets is this No-Knead Dutch Oven White Bread from Baking Bites.  I was interested in trying this recipe because I own what I have been told is a perfect dutch oven for bread making.  My sister-in-law and her husband gave us our beautiful green Le Creuset dutch oven as a wedding present last year.  They told us that they frequently use it to make bread.  I filed that little fact away in my brain until I came upon an appropriate recipe.

Unbaked Bread Stages

I followed the recipe on Baking Bites very faithfully, messing with bread is way to adventurous for me.  However, I did have to make a small substitution.  I only had Active Dry Yeast on hand and not the Instant Dry Yeast called for in the recipe.  I searched the all-knowing internets for the answer to my dilemma.  The answer is to substitute 1.25X Active Dry Yeast for the amount of Instant Dry Yeast called for in a recipe.

For this recipe, 3/4 tsp Instant Dry Yeast is indicated.  Multiplying 0.75 X 1.25 = 0.935.  So I used a scant 1 tsp Active Dry Yeast.

I’m so glad that PhD has come in so handy for my cooking.

In the above photo, the stages are (from upper left clockwise around): (1) mixed dough brushed with oil (2) dough after 14 hour rise (3) dough after butter is stirred in (4) dough after final rise, before baking.

After the final rise, pour the dough into a piping hot dutch oven, as the recipe indicates.  The heat of the pan keeps it from sticking.  No sticking is a wonderful thing.

Baked Bread

Well HELLO GORGEOUS!!  And the smell?  Beyond.  Fabulous recipe and quite easy to boot!

Beef with Spinach and Naan

We are being hit with a pretty random relatively serious Winter storm today.  Its the end of March and there is ice and snow on the ground.  But I’m not complaining, because to me, this is the absolute best kind of day to stay inside and cook warm and comforting food.  I had all the ingredients at the ready to make Indian Beef with Spinach from my new book “Quick and Easy Indian Cooking“.  I love Indian food and I usually make up recipes on my own.  This leads to very mixed results.  So sometimes I like to follow (gasp) and actual recipe.  I picked this Madhur Jaffrey book up in Denver last weekend and have been just itching to try out some of the delicious looking recipes.  My one complaint with the book upon first inspection is that the way she makes the recipes “quick” is by using a pressure cooker for many of them.  Well, that’s fine and dandy if you have a pressure cooker, which I do not…yet.  So since its a cold and dreary day, I decided to go the “Slow and Easy” route and use my slow-cooker instead.

As usual, I assembled all of my spices first.  Here we have (in powdered form on the right) cayenne, garam masala, coriander and cumin.  The whole spices on the left are cinnamon, cloves and cardamom pods.  Some bay leaves and salt round out the seasonings.

The Spices

The next step was to assemble and very finely chop (in the food processor) the aromatics – garlic, ginger and onion.

The Aromatics

Next, heat up the oil in a frying pan, add the whole spices and warm through in the oil.  Then add the finely chopped (almost a paste) aromatics.  Cook in the oil over high heat for about 5 minutes.

Cook the Aromatics

Now here’s the point I start to diverge from the recipe in cooking methods.  I placed a pound and a quarter of stew beef in the slow cooker along with a box of thawed and drained spinach.  I added water (2 cups) and the spices and stirred together.  Then I added the cooked aromatic mixture on top.  Stir through to combine, place the lid on the slow cooker and allow to cook over low for about 6 hours.

Assembled in the Slow Cooker

Then it was onto the bread.  Fresh Naan.  Why not try this out on a cold-snuggle-inside-kind of day?  Also in Denver, I had picked up the book “Bread” which looked to me to be the perfect beginner’s book for baking bread from scratch.  The book has several types and categories of bread, including flat-breads which is where I found the Naan.  I assembled and mixed the ingredients using my Kitchen-Aide mixer with the dough-hook attachment.  It appears to have worked perfectly and saved me 10 minutes of kneading by hand.  When most of the ingredients have mixed together, stop the machine and work the dough with your hands in the mixing bowl to incorporate all of the ingredients/crumbs that have accumulted at the bottom.  Once the dough has come together completely, turn the machine on low and allow it to “knead” with the dough hook for 9-10 minutes.  Now you can’t walk away from it during these 10 minutes because it occasionally needs assistance if the dough starts “riding up” the dough hook or if the dough seems to be stuck in the same position for a while.

Bread Dough in Mixing Bowl

I used the full cup of milk that the recipe called for and ended up with a beautifully tight and elastic dough.  Let this rise for 3-4 hours in a bowl covered with a towel, until about doubled in size.

Naan dough, pre-rise

After allowing the dough to rise for 4 hours, it was divided into 4 segments and rolled into 1/4″ X 6″ X 10″ flat breads.  I did take pictures of this process, but due to some very frustrating technical difficulties, many of my photos were erased.  Boo.  The naan was then baked under the broiler for about 2 min per side on a baking sheet.  Do NOT turn your back on the broiler…EVER.  Or else, you will end up throwing away your first bread like I did.  But the attention is worth the effort.  Nothing beats fresh bread, hot out of the oven!

Fresh Naan

This bread is slightly crusty on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.  It also soaked up the brothy portion of the Beef and Spinach beautifully.

This dish was tasty but not perfect.  The naan was a perfect accompaniment because of the soupiness of it.  Also, it was a bit oily for my taste.  If I make this recipe in the future, I will omit about 1/3rd of the oil and reduce the volume of water.

Problems aside, it was a wonderfully warm and filling meal on this icy and snowy Kansas day.  Our home smells of Indian spices and fresh bread, and that alone is priceless!

Spicy Comfort Food

Prep Ranking #5: Got all Day??
Tastiness Ranking: 6 out of 10

Recipes (along with my suggested alterations) after the jump.

Beef or Lamb with Spinach
from “Quick and Easy Indian Cooking” by Madhur Jaffrey

1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 inch piece ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
6-8 cloves of garlic, peeled
6 Tbsp oil (I would only use 4)
3 Bay leaves
10 cardamom pods
8 whole cloves
2 2-inch segments of cinnamon sticks
1 1/3 pounds stewing beef or boned shoulder of lamb, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 to 1 tsp cayenne pepper (I used 1/2 tsp and it was spicy but not overpowering)
1/2 tsp garam masala

Instructions: (altered by me to use a slower cooker instead of a pressure cooker)

Using a microwave, defrost the frozen spinach until just warmed through.  Transfer to a clean, dry, lint-free kitchen towel and squeeze all excess moisture away from the spinach.  Set aside.

Combine the onion, garlic and ginger in a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade.  Pulse until the aromatics are very finely chopped, nearly to a liquidy paste.  Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the cinnamon sticks, cloves, cardamom pods and bay leaves to the hot oil.  Stir for a minute to warm the spices.  Add the chopped onion mixture to the hot oil and cook over high heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes.

In a 3-4 quart slow-cooker, combine the beef or lamb, the drained spinach, the ground spices and 2 cups water (I would alter this to 1.5 cups water).  Stir to incorporate the spices.  Once the onion mixtures is cooked, transfer the contents of the skillet to the slow cooker.  Stir again to combine thoroughly.  Cook on low heat for about 6 hours.

Nan (or Naan)
from “Bread” by Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno

2 tsp dry yeast
1 cup milk
4 cups AP flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3 Tbsp plain yogurt
2 Tbsp melted ghee or unsalted butter

Instructions: (using a large mixer fitted with the dough hook)

Sprinkle the yeast into 1/2 cup milk in a small bowl.  Whisk together and let stand for 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, combine the flour and salt in the mixer bowl.  Run on low for 5 seconds to combine.  Lower the mixing bowl and make a well in the flour.  Pour into the well the dissolved yeast, sugar, yogurt and melted butter.  Start mixing on low to combine the flour with the other ingredients.  Add the rest of the milk slowly until the dough comes together.  At least once or twice, remove the mixer bowl and ensure that all the flour and crumbs from the bottom of the mixing bowl are incorporated into the dough ball.

Once the dough has come together, begin “kneading” the dough by running the mixer on low for 10 minutes.  Watch to make sure the dough doesn’t get stuck and “ride up” the dough hook.  After 10 minutes, the dough should be firm, smooth and elastic.

Turn out into a clean, large bowl.  Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for 3-4 hours or until doubled in size.  After the rising time, punch down the dough to remove large air bubbles.  Let rest for 10 more minutes.

Divide the dough into 4 equal portions.  Roll out each portion on a lightly floured surface until it is a 6 inch round, 1/4 inches thick.  Pick the dough up and stretch into an oval with your hands until the dough is 6″ wide and 10″ long.  Repeat for all 4 portions of dough.

Meanwhile, heat up the broiler on high and allow the baking sheet to heat for at least 2 minutes in the oven before cooking the bread.  Making 1 or 2 breads at a time, bake under the broiler for ~2 minutes per side (the time totally depends on your oven and the distance from the broiler to the bread – Keep and eye on it!!!).  Once both sides are lightly browned and the dough is puffed, remove from oven transfer to a wire cooking rack.  Stack breads to retain warmth once they are cooked.