100% Whole Wheat Wizardry

This was a baking choice born out of necessity. I had but only whole-wheat flour left in my pantry, so I was forced to play my hand all whole-wheat.....I am seeing now as I proceed through more and more recipes that, while the basic recipe formulation for bread is a relatively precise art, there is a broad depth of options for the adventurous baker when put to the task. You can really freely mix and match different ingredients to suit your taste and palate. Basically in all the many loaves that I have now baked, there hasn't really been any catastrophes. I thought for sure that this all whole-wheat bread would end up feeling and tasting like a block of cement, but in the end it turned out (thanks to some great advice) very moist and delicious.

The Wail of the Whole Wheat: Death, Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

The Starter Sponge

-230g Whole-Wheat Bread Flour (use medium grind flour if you can find it)
-4g Yeast
-1 cup Water

Combine ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover with cling film and let rise for 4 hours.

The Dough


-120g Whole-Wheat Bread Flour
-5g Salt
-2g Yeast
-28g Honey
-28g Pureed Soaked Raisins
-85g Cooked Rice (any type)
-The Entire Starter Sponge

Combine all these ingredients and form a dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. The final dough will feel slightly firmer than a bread made with white bread flour, this is normal. Place the dough in a clean bowl and let rise for 2 hours or until it doubles in size. After rising shape the dough into your desired loaf shape. I placed mine in a round breadform, but you can simply put the dough on a baking sheet. Cover with a plastic bag and let proof at room temperature for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 450 F and turn the proofed dough onto a floured baker's peel. Slash the surface of the dough with a serrated knife to encourage expansion. Place an empty baking pan on the bottom most shelf of the oven. Slide the dough onto your now hot baking stone and throw 1 cup of water into the pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the crust is evenly dark brown.

Save The Kaiser!

Alright.....I have returned. I think Summer is not always the best time to plan regular bread making sessions. There is far too much to distract the fledgling baker/sausage maker from his appointed task. One strays too easily from their focus, lured in by sun soaked activities and general bon temps. I did however make time to bake rolls.....Kaiser rolls or Kaisersemmel to be specific. I recently returned from a great trip to Toronto and I would like to dedicate these rolls to all the great Kaisers in that fine city. Apparently every rad rocker from the seventies and eighties ended up in Toronto and I was having a love in with all of them care of my Hawkwind t-shirt. Best random run-in has to go to the 62 year-old recovered methamphetamine addict who waxed poetic about the history of his favorite drug/Motorhead/Lemmy/Diabetes/mortality and spiritual awakening all in the space of 5 blocks! Pretty amazing Toronto....pretty amazing.

Onwards and upwards to the bread arts. Kaiser rolls are named after Franz Joseph I of Austria (who by the way had a pretty amazing mustache). Kaiser is the German word for emperor and these rolls truly are the royalty of the little breads. Kaisersemmel are very popular in Austria and Germany and are most commonly eaten with soups and liberally covered with butter or as sandwiches. They are easily identified by the 5 slashes on their top surfaces radiating out from the center. I did not actually do the slashes on my rolls but I am sure you can forgive me. The rolls can optionally be sprinkled with poppy seeds, sesame seeds or even caraway, for extra crunchiness.

Austro-Hungarian Riffage: Hawkwind, Space Ritual (1973)

The Recipe!!!!

Kaisersemmel


I was pretty loosey goosey with the quantities when i made this bread so these are just rough approximations. I also weighed the ingredients out in order to start making my recipes more flexible in terms of quantities.

Starter
-100g Unbleached Bread Flour
-60g Lukewarm Water
-4g Yeast (I used fresh yeast but you can use any type, just put more in if using fresh)

Mix the ingredients in a bowl, cover and let rise for 2 hours.

The rest...
-200g Unbleached Bread Flour
-3g Salt
-6g Honey
-4g Yeast
-120g Water
-10g Soft Butter
-Optional seeds for sprinkling

Add ingredients to starter and form a sticky dough. Turn the dough out on to a floured kitchen counter and knead for 10 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball, place in a bowl, cover with cling film and let rise for 30 minutes. Place the dough onto your counter again and flaten it out to a rough rectangular shape. Cut the dough into 8 equal sized pieces.

Lightly shape each piece into a ball by cupping the dough on the counter and moving it in a circular motion.

Not even close to the same sizes.....

Place the rolls on a nonstick baking sheet or a sheet lined with parchment paper, cover loosely with a damp cloth and let rise for 10 minutes. Beat 1 egg white with an equal portion of water. Paint this onto the surface of the dough and roll them in a shallow dish filled with your choice of seeds (I used sesame). This would also be the time when you cut the 5 slashes on the top surface of the bread. I forgot to do this, but if you are feeling more awake than I was....get into it.

Place the rolls seed side facing down onto you baking sheet, cover with a plastic bag and let rise for 20 minutes.

Pre heat you oven to 400 F and flip the rolls so the seeds face up. Bake for 15 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

My camera is taking pictures with a weird off color strip on the top of the images, sorry....time to invest in a new one.

Lazylady

Sorry everyone, I've been somewhat busy as of late and haven't been able to bake bread or grind some pork. I will be back on the production train very soon.

Future posts will feature Kaiser rolls, potato bread, egg bread and a gluten-free recipe! Also I will be picking up my beautiful new sausage stuffer this week, so look for the sausage recipes to start up again.....

Waiting room music: Belzebong, Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves (2011)

Workin' hard? or hardly workin?

Rosinenbrot

You may have noticed the new logo. I had the day off today and decided to put my rusty graphic design skills to good use. I also decided to take the time to make a loaf of Raisin Bread. Now I am not much of a sweet tooth, however I do have a soft spot in my heart for a toasted slice of cinnamon raisin bread with lots of butter. So we will take a turn on the sweeter side of the bread arts and since it has been so sunny and warm (finally), I will make a dessert bread. I guess it is pretty culturally appropriate for me, since cakes, pastries and all things sweet and buttery are a well-known (and much celebrated) part of Austrian cuisine. Apple Strudel is possibly the most perfect dessert ever imagined and I guess points to the very simple and less complicated nature of most Austrian sweet things. I feel raisin bread is a perfect ode to that no frills sense of baked aesthetic.

Soul Thrashing Black Bakery: Skeletonwitch, Beyond the Permafrost (2007)

Day 1

So I had a really good recipe for this bread from the superlative "Crust and Crumb" by Peter Reinhart, but I've decided to go rogue on this one and just make up my own recipe. It may be a bush-league move on my part, but I am going with it.

-1 cup Unbleached Bread Flour
-1 cup Cold Water
-2 tsp. Yeast
-1 tbsp. Honey

Combine the yeast and honey with water and mix thoroughly. Let the yeasty water stand for 10 minutes to start up the fermentation. Add the flour and make a wet dough. Cover with cling film and let sit in a warm place for a few hours, then refrigerate overnight.

-2 cups Raisin (any kind will do, I used golden raisins)
-1/2 cup Steel Cut Oats
-Water

This step can be done the night before or a few hours before you plan to make the dough. Soak the raisins and the oats (in separate containers) with enough water to cover by a few centimeters. Cover and let sit in the fridge if you are preparing these the night before. The soaking will help the oats soften for the bread making and the raisins will benefit from the extra water by not burning on the surface of the dough during baking.

A picture of my beard
(cause i forgot to take one of the dough)
Bread rhymes with beard..... 

Day 2

Baking day has come. Some of the more intrepid amongst you may have taken note that the previous few entries involved breads that required numerous days to prepare and ferment. This extra preparation time may seem a bit much for the casual baker, however I will say that it has yielded far more flavorful bread. This doesn't mean that recipes I provide with shorter fermentation times produce terrible bread, more that the ones with longer production schedules will produce breads with that little bit of extra love. That being said this raisin bread is a quick 2-day affair (even possibly 1 day if you use some baking powder) and since it is packed full of raisin/cinnamon/sugar flavor you don't need a long fermentation time, because those strong flavors would overpower the subtle ones gained through fermentation (run-on sentence?....take that English education).

The Dough

-The Starter from the previous day (removed from the fridge at least 1 hour before)

-3 1/2 cup Unbleached Bread Flour (possibly more depending on wetness of dough)

-2 cups Soaked Raisins

-1/2 cup Soaked Steel Cut Oats

-1/4 cup Sugar

-1/2 tsp. Salt

-1/4 cup Unsalted Butter (softened)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. This kneading process will be pretty sticky and messy at first, but be advised to just stick with it (bad puns anyone....!?!) and the dough will start to smoothen and form into a nice (but still wet) dough. Now place the dough in a bowl, cover and allow it to sit at room temperature for about 45 minutes, then transfer the bowl to the refrigerator for 1 hour to firm up. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and flatten it out into a flat rectangular shape. Dont' be too forceful as to not remove all the nice gases that have built up inside.

Next you will mix together 1 tsp. of cinnamon with 4 tsp. sugar to make....cinnamon sugar! Sprinkle generously over the top surface of the flattened dough.

I found the macro function on my camera!

Now that the dough has been loved by sugar and cinnamon, you need to reform the dough into your bread shape. If you have a bread pan you can easily just roll up the dough from one end and plonk it (if I keep up with that kinda speak I will be wearing custom made trucker hats and calling everyone "bruva" in no time.....) inside your (greased) pan. I do not own one of these pans so I will do it another way. I rolled up the dough half way from both ends and then pinched it all together to form what I would venture to call a ball. It looked like this.

Take that dough ball and plonk (!) it into your lightly floured breadform or board (if you do not have one) and cover with a plastic bag and let it proof for a few hours or until it has risen to twice its volume (roughly).

Preheat the oven to 475 F and place an empty roasting pan on the shelf beneath your baking stone. After the bread has risen and everything looks as it should, turn the dough out onto a floured baker's peel. Cut slashes into the surface of the dough to help the dough bloom or expand while in the oven (also called oven spring). Slid the dough into the oven and throw 1 cup of hot water into the roasting pan. Let the bread bake for 5 minutes at 475 F, then turn down the temperature to 400 F and bake a further 30-40 minutes depending on the size of the loaf.

The bread is ready when it has turned a dark brown and is hollow sounding when thumped. This loaf was very eager to expand. The bloom was out of control and the bread nearly double in size inside the oven!

A picture of the bread this morning after cutting into it. Delicious.

The Master of the Five Grains

Title.....terrible reference to an 80's fantasy novel and Megadeth.............nothing to do with bread.

Ok, I am going to post another bread I made using the famous sourdough starter. I am putting a hold on the sausage making for a time, until I can eat through the back log of wieners in the freezer. With Summer here and a recently aquired BBQ, I am sure I will prevail over the abundance of ground pork occupying the icebox. So onwards and upwards with another session of leavening.

Todays feature bread will be a German style 5 grain loaf. Germans and Austrians are pretty nuts about their whole grains and seeds. I don't think you could pass off what we call store bought bread in either of those countries very easily. Gooey, chewy, soft plastic bread is not going to cut it with the Germanic type. Whole grain, hearty bread is the fast track to any Bavarian or Tyrolean you might hold dear to your heart. This particular recipe has five grains: Rye, Brown Rice, Corn, Oats and Flax. Two seeds in this dough are more important than the others. The flax seeds come from the linen plant and are full of linoleic enzymes which are very good for digestion. The other important grain is the cooked rice. It will help the final bread retain some precious moisture and keep the bread from turning into a brick. Make sure you cook the rice thoroughly, even slightly past done, to ensure the bread isn't hard on the teeth.

Grain Elevator Music: Electric Wizard, Black Masses (2010)

5 Kernbrot

Firm Starter (made a day in advance)
-1 Cup Unbleached Bread Flour
-1 1/4 Cup Sourdough Starter

Combine flour and starter, form into a firm dough and let sit in a covered bowl for 3-4 hours in cool place. Refrigerate overnight

Dough
-Firm Starter from day before
-4 2/3 Cups Unbleached Bread Flour
-1 Cup Coarse Rye Flour
-1/2 Cup Cooked Brown Rice (You can substitute with Rice Flour, but the bread will be less moist)
-1/3 Cup Polenta
-1/3 Cup Rolled Oats
-1/4 Ground Flax Seeds
-2 1/2 Tsp. Salt
-1 Tbs. Honey
-2 1/2 Cups Cold Water
-3 Tbs. Whole Flax Seeds (optional to sprinkle on surface before baking)

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Turn the dough out onto a slightly floured surface and knead for 15 minutes till you form a smooth surfaced dough. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with cling film and let stand in a cool place for 4-5 hours to ferment. Refrigerate overnight. Remove the bowl from fridge the following day and allow the dough to warm for at least an hour before using it. Divide the dough into 2-3 pieces and form into bread shapes. Place the loaves into breadforms or on a slightly floured board and cover with a plastic bag. Allow 3-4 hour proofing in a warm place then refrigerate overnight. Remove bread from fridge at least 1 hour before baking. Pre-heat oven to 475 F. and place an empty baking pan on the shelf below your baking stone. Turn the risen loaves out onto a floured bakers peel and slash the surface of the bread. I forgot to do this....but now is when you can brush the surface with water and sprinkle on some flax seeds. Slide the loaves into the oven and throw 1 cup of warm water into the baking pan. Bake for 5 minutes at 475, the turn down the oven to 450 F and bake for another 25-35 minutes until the crust is dark brown and hollow sounding when thumped.

This sourdough starter keeps on producing very flavorful breads with near perfect air pockets in the crumb. This bread is perfect with just butter, as well as most tart jams and marmalades.

Naturally Leavened Rye Bread

Having put so much effort into capturing, feeding, growing and loving my natural yeast friends, I will now put said 5 day starter into action producing a sourdough rye loaf. I guess all things that take a long time are worth the trouble, because in the end that extra time and effort will translate into (in the case of bread) FLAVOR. Now I have already eaten the bread that I am going to describe today and let me tell you.....it was amazing. Crazy good flavor, slightly sour crumb with a full rye flavor accented by the caraway seeds throughout. Future/Present me would like to congratulate Past Tense me for a job well done. Congratulations.

The Sweet Sounds of Rye: Irma Thomas, Sweet Soul Queen of New Orleans: The Irma Thomas Collection

Step One

Rye Sponge Starter

-1/2 Cup Rye Flour (coarse if possible)
-1 Tbs. Wheat Bran
-1/2 Cup Sourdough Starter (see previous post)
-1/2 Cold Water

Whisk together all ingredients in a bowl until well combined. You are looking for a very wet dough starter. Cover bowl with cling film and let sit in a warmish place to ferment for 4-5 hours. After fermenting, refrigerate bowl overnight.

Step Two


Firm Starter

-1 Cup Unbleached Bread Flour
-1 Quantity Rye Sponge Starter

Remove rye sponge starter from fridge and allow 1 hour to warm up. Combine bread flour and starter and form a relatively firm dough starter. Do not overwork the dough just enough to combine and make firm. Place starter back into the bowl and cover with cling film. Let ferment for 3-4 hour then refrigerate overnight.

Step Three


Dough

-1 Quantity Firm Starter
-4 Cups Unbleached Bread Flour
-1 1/4 Cup Rye Flour
-2 1/2 Tsp. Salt
-1 Tbs. Molasses
-1-2 Tbs. Caraway Seeds
-2 Cups Cold Water

Remove Starter from fridge and allow 1 hour to warm. Break firm starter into pieces and and combine thoroughly with all ingredients. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and slightly stretchy. Place the dough in a covered bowl and allow to rise at room temperature for about 3 hours. Divide the dough in to two pieces and form into loaves. Since my brother and sister-in-law were kind enough to bring me two Brotforms (linen-lined wicker baskets) from France, I was able to proof my bread in a fancier way than I normally do. This is what they looked like before proofing.

This is the longer loaf after it was turned out onto a peel and slashed for baking.

Place the formed loaves into floured baskets, cover in a plastic bag and proof at room temperature for 4 hours. Refrigerate overnight.

Day Four


Baking


Remove the loaves from fridge 1 hour before baking. Preheat oven to 475 F and place an empty baking pan on the shelf under your pizza stone. Turn out dough from basket onto a floured baking peel. Slide dough onto pizza stone and pour 1 cup warm water into baking pan. Bake loaf for 5 minutes and then turn down oven to 450 F. and bake a further 25-35 minutes until dark brown and hollow sounding when thwacked. Remove from oven, cover with a towel and let cool on a rack

The crumb on this bread was very special.

Perfect sized air pockets and super delicious.

Day Five Sourdough Starter

Ok so back in time again.....

I have been really busy and unable to get around to writing these entries as they happen. Don`t worry everything has been done sequentially on my end and things are looking good. As I stated in my day four entry, your starter is ready and capable of rising bread now, but it will greatly enhance the final flavor of your bread if you give the starter one more day of refreshing or feeding. You are going to add a large amount of extra flour and water at this point and you may need to transfer your starter to a larger container.

Sourdough Tunes: Black Sabbath, Master of Reality (1971)

Day Five
-4 cups of Unbleached Bread Flour
-3 cups of Cold Water

Add these ingredients to your existing starter and combine thoroughly. Transfer the mix to a larger container (if necessary). Cover container loosely and let ferment for four hours in a cool place. After four hours put the container in the fridge and it will be ready to use anytime you need to make bread. It is generally advised that you feed or refresh the starter every two days.....im not running a bakery so that seems a little over the top. I am going to give the starter a feed every week instead and see how it goes. The starter can also be frozen and stored for up six months. When you thaw out the starter be sure to feed it three times over a period of three days before using it.

Think of sourdough as a good pet....

Day Four Sourdough Starter

This is not sequentially day four anymore (more like six), but the blogger thingy wasn't working so I could'nt post it on the actual fourth day.

Lets go back in time....

Day 4

When I looked at my starter the magical active fermentation had started. There were signs of slight rising of the dough on the sides of the bowl, as well as lots of little bubbles on the surface. It smelled pretty weird, not so much sour as slightly weird sour.....not a smell I am familiar with. So at this point your job is to remove half the starter and add a refreshment batch of flour and water. The half that you remove can be saved and given to a friend to start their own sourdough. If you leave the yeast sitting inside the same starter for too long they will run out of food and get tired and stop producing nice flavors for you. Feeding or refreshing consists of adding to the starter to make double it own volume in fresh flour and water. The flour and water refresher is made up of ratio of 4 parts flour to 3 parts water. This might seem like a pretty wasteful process and one that requires alot of flour, but from this point on you can store the starter in the fridge and not feed it until you remove part of it to make bread.

Sourdough Tunes: Saint Vitus, Born Too Late (1987)

Day Four

-2 cups of Unbleached Bread Flour

-1 1/2 cup of Cold Water

Remove half the starter and discard (or share with a friend). Add flour and water to remaining starter and combine thoroughly. Cover bowl with cling film and let sit in a cool place for 24 hours. 

Day Three Sourdough Starter

When I checked my starter tonight, there was a large slick of dark brownish liquid on the top of the dough. I have no idea if this good or bad. It smelled fine, slightly sourish and wheaty. Im thinking so long as it doesn't turn orange i'll be ok. I was expecting the beginnings of active fermentation but there wasn't much to be seen. Still ill hold out until tomorrow, when I expect the yeasties will start to show themselves through serious gas emission. Im going to do another addition of flour and malt today, my fledgling microbes need food after all. Tomorrow i will start to remove part of the starter and top up with more flour, this process of removal and feeding is what will keep this starter alive for years (if I am diligent). There exist starters that have been kept alive for as long as 50 years (even longer in some cases), essentially a starter will keep on living so long as it has food and doesn't get killed by excessive heat. If you place a starter in the fridge the yeast particles go dormant and will stay like that until you warm them up again.

Sourdough Tunes: Kittens, Bazooka and the Hustler (1997)

Day Three
-2 cups of Unbleached Whole Wheat Flour
-1 tsp. Powdered or Liquid Barley Malt Extact
-1 1/2 cup Cold Water

Add these ingredients in to you previous mix and combine thoroughly. Cover bowl with cling film and let sit in a cool place for 24 hours.

Day 3

Day Two Sourdough Starter

Day 2 of the birth of the sourdough beast. So the watery dough mix that I prepared sat nicely for 24 hours and fermented ( I hope). There were no real signs yet of active fermentation, but there was the beginnings of a little puddle of ethanol goodness on the top of the dough. When yeast eats sugar it produces two things, carbon dioxide and alcohol, so it is normal if you get a wiff of a beery/alcoholish smell when you lift the plastic wrap.....that smell tells you science is at work. Apparently when the European colonists (Germans/Austrians included) came over to the new world, they would skim this alcohol residue of the tops of their fermenting sourdoughs and trade it with the native indians. Sounds believable, but ill file that under "internet science". So anyways your dough should be basically looking like it did the day before, but believe in your little yeasty friends that they are hard at work converting sugars, multiplying and venting gases.

Sourdough Tunes: Sleep, Holy Mountain (1992)

Day Two 

-1 cup of Unbleached Bread Flour

-3/4 cup of Cold Water

-1 tsp. Honey

-1 tsp. Molasses

Add the new ingredients to your previous mix, stir well with a whisk until you form a nice, slightly liquid dough. Cover with cling film and let sit in a cool place for 24 hours. 

Day 2

Tomorrow the action really heats up......fermentation.

Im Back!!!!! Day One Sourdough Starter

Alright, the move is finally complete and my kitchen stuff is out of the box. My new kitchen digs are pretty sweet and far larger and sunnier than my old place. Back to bread making. I squeezed in a quick sausage making session mid-move to provide some sweet meats for a birthday party, but i haven't really had a chance to do any bread. Im feeling like sourdough right now, I had a really good spelt/rye sourdough loaf from an organic farm near Morin-Heights, so im going to make a natural starter or barm starter. In this starter im going to let naturally occurring yeasts all around us find a nice home in my dough sponge and produce a lovely fermenty sourdough flavor.....in 5 days from now. So its going to be a daily caring session for my starter until she's ready to make beautiful bread. Sourdough is used very frequently in German breads as it goes very well with rye and makes for a far more complex flavored crumb......im a big fan. 

Sourdough Tunes: Death, Human (1991)

Day One

-1 cup Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour

-1 cup Raisin Water (1 cup of  raisins soaked in 2 cups water for 15 minutes, from that strained water take 1 cup)  

-1 tsp. Honey

-1 tbsp. Barley Malt Powder or Liquid (found in beer and wine making stores and some health food or bulk food stores)

Mix ingredients thoroughly in a clean glass bowl (or any other type of bowl except aluminium), cover with cling film and let sit in a cool place for 24 hours.

Day 1

Moving

I am in the middle of moving to new apartment, so I have my baking/sausage making kit spread between 2 places.....Ill be back in May.

Kürbiskernbrot (Pumpkin Seed Bread)

So not to entirely ignore the German speaking, Schnitzel making, former Hapsburg ruled country of both my parents birth, I am going to make an Austrian style pumpkin seed bread. Austrian food has a lot in common with German food, but is also influenced by Hungarian and Slavic cooking, remnants of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. This being said I think Austrian bread can claim a unique place in gastronomy because of its use (in its slightly stale form) in the creation of every Austrians favorite comfort food.....the dumpling or Knödel. Dumplings however are not what inspired this particular bread, rather it was my father's search for/stubborn insistence that pumpkin seed oil should be cheap, easily found and plentiful here in Montreal, just as it is in his native Austria. Its not. I've looked. You can find it, but it is pretty pricey and can usually be found in a health food store or your local Hungarian/German butcher (??!!!!). So as ode to the elusive (affordable) pumpkin seed oil in Montreal, I propose this Kürbiskernbrot.


Pumpkin Bread Tunes: ACDC, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976)


Kürbiskernbrot Recipe:


-2 1/2 tsp. Dry Active Yeast
-1 cup Lukewarm Water
-3 tbs. Honey
-1/2 tbs. Pumpkin Seed Oil or Olive Oil
-1 1/3 cup Unbleached Bread Flour
-2/3 cup Rye Flour
-1/3 cup Cracked Rye Seeds (soaked 24 hours in advance) (optional)
-2 tbs. Gluten
-1 tsp. Salt
-1/4 tsp. Ground Allspice
-1/4 tsp. Ground Coriander
-1/4 cup Toasted Pumpkin Seeds


I decided that since this was going to be a pretty flavorful bread, I didn't need to make a starter (read LAZY). Combine the yeast, water, oil and honey in a bowl and mix well. Let the yeast mix sit for 10-20 minutes until it starts to froth. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients and form a moist dough. Knead the dough until it becomes relatively smooth and stretchy, but don't over work it (5-10 minutes). Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth or cling film. Let rise in a warm spot until double in size. Remove dough from bowl, knead briefly and form it into a loaf. Place it back into a bowl or a banneton (if you have one) and rise again till double. A banneton or brotform is a wicker basket, sometimes lined with linen, used to give the bread shape and some texture while proofing. Flip the dough onto a lightly floured baker's peel and cut slashes into the dough's surface. I use masa flour for the dusting on the baker's peel, it seems to slide off better with it. Put the bread into a 450 F. oven for 30-40 minutes. During baking i have been throwing a little bit of water on the bottom of my oven every 2 minutes or so. The water and steam it creates has been helping the bread to form a nice yielding crispy crust. Take the bread out when is sounds hollow to the tap.

The Great Black Forest Banger

Im calling today's sausage a Black Forest Banger inspired by the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Its a tasty pepper and coriander sausage with a good hit of garlic. I hope these are good, apparently Baden-Württemberg has the most Michelin starred restaurants (52 of the total 190) in all of Germany, so I have alot to live up to. Baden-Württemberg is famous for black forest ham (not to mention snail soup and Spätzle), which is a cured and cold smoked ham seasoned with pepper, coriander and garlic.

Baden-Württemberg Block Rockin' Beats: Toner Low, Toner Low (2006)


Black Forest Banger:


-1 kg Coarsely Ground Pork Shoulder
- Natural Pork Sausage Casings
-4 tbs. Chicken Stock, White Wine or German Lager
-1 Egg
-3 Cloves Garlic (crushed into a paste)
-2 tsp. Salt
-1/2 Tbs. Sugar
-2-3 tsp. Ground Coriander Seeds (toasted in a dry frying pan till fragrant)
-2 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
-1 tsp. Caraway Seeds

After stuffing the sausages I like to place them in a bowl and let them sit overnight uncovered in the fridge, it helps the casings dry out and shrink slightly. If you have room its even more ideal if you can hang the sausages in the fridge overnight.....smart even.

Black Forest Banger

Farmer Style Rye (Bauernbrot) Baking Day

The sourdough starter from two days ago is smelling nice and sour(kinda like fermenting beer), so I am ready to make the dough.

Bread Making Tunes: The Sword, Warp Riders (2010)

Farmer Style Rye Recipe:

-1 Portion of Sourdough Starter (see previous post)
-2 cups Whole Wheat Bread Flour
-3/4 cup Rye Flour
-4 tbsp. Vital Wheat Gluten
-100g Cracked Rye Seeds (soaked for 24 hours, then drained)
-1 tbsp. Caraway Seeds
-1 1/2 tsp. Salt
-1 tbsp. Olive Oil

Combine dry ingredients with sourdough starter and form a moist dough. Keep some extra rye flour on the side in case the dough is too wet. Knead dough thoroughly until dough is smooth and has a slight spring back.
Place in a bowl, cover with cling film or a damp cloth and let rise to double in size. Punch down dough and form into loaf. Let dough rise again while you pre-heat your oven to 450 F. Flour top of the dough, cut slashes and bake for 20 minutes at 450 F, then turn down oven to 350-400 F. and bake till hollow sounding when tapped.

Farmer Style Rye (Bauernbrot)

Today I put together a simple sourdough starter for a farmer style rye bread. Rye bread comes in many forms and is near and dear to the hearts of every Germanic bread eater. Rye breads range from the very dark, moist and slightly sweet pumpernickel to the Jewish-American white rye loaf often served with smoked meat or pastrami sandwiches. The most common rye breads we find are the mixed flour breads (Mischbrot), blending the rye flour with white or whole wheat flours to create lighter rye loaves. Rye breads are very commonly made with a sourdough starter and this, combined with its denser and moister crumb makes for bread that keeps well for a long time. Rye breads typically also include ground or whole spices, such as caraway and often have additions of coffee, molasses and cocoa.

Starter Song: Tiger B. Smith, Tiger Rock (1974)

Im going to leave this starter out for two days to try encourage some nice sour fermentation in the dough. Sourdough starters typically are cultivated over a week and longer and require feeding and care...Im just going to wait two days and add some vinegar if its not sour enough. Ill try out a long term sourdough starter later, when it gets a little warmer.

Farmer Rye Sourdough Starter:

3/4 cup Rye Flour
3/4 cup Bread Flour
1 1/2 cup Water
2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast
2 tsp. Brown Sugar or Honey

Combine water, yeast and sugar in a large bowl, mix well and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Add Flour, mix to form wet dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit in a warm place for 2 days.

I am planning to add some cracked rye seeds for extra flavor and texture. Before adding the seeds to the dough you need to do a few things to prepare them. Firstly you need crack the seeds open. I don't have a grain mill, which would make this process very simple, so I am using my mortar and pestle to crack the seeds. You don't need to pulverize the grains into a powder, the idea is just to crack open the outer shell of the seeds. The next step is to place the cracked seeds into a non-reactive container and soak them with water for 24 hours.

Bamberg Style Sausage

Today I have made a German style sausage. It is nicely spiced with cardamom, mace and white pepper which for me, is a killer combination. I am a big fan of both cardamom and mace and look for any excuse to use them in my cooking. Some of you may not be familiar with these spices, so i will give a brief explanation of what they are and how they can be used.

(from the Encyclopedia Britannica)
Mace, spice consisting of the dried aril, or lacy covering, of the nutmeg fruit of Myristica fragrans, a tropical evergreen tree. Mace has a slightly warm taste, and a fragrance similar to that of nutmeg. It is used to flavour  bakery, meat and fish dishes. In the processing of mace, the crimson aril is removed from the nutmeg that it envelops and is flattened out and dried for 10 to 14 days; its colour changes to pale yellow, orange, of tan.

I love mace and I think of it like the more flavorful cousin of nutmeg. I use it a lot in curries and dishes lamb. I have a great recipe for a non sweet lamb korma that gets finished with ground mace and it would'nt taste the same without it.

(from the Encyclopedia Britannica)
Cardamom, also spelled cardamon, spice consisting of whole or ground dried fruit, or seeds, of Elettaria cardamomum, a herbaceous perennial of the ginger family. The seeds have a warm, slightly pungent, and highly aromatic flavour somewhat reminiscent of camphor. They are popular seasoning in South Asian dishes, particularly curries, and in Scandinavian pastries.

You might think that these seem like pretty exotic spices for a pork and potato central European country like Germany, but you can thank our friends in the Hanseatic league for their world spanning importations. They are also responsible for the existence of the popular Berlin snack the currywurst. The trading of the Hanseatic league brought to Germany and most northern European countries a great new variety of spices and foodstuffs from around the world.

So back to the sausages.

Sausage Stuffing Sounds: Saviours, Crucifire (2006)

Bamberg Style Sausage

-2.2 kg Coarsely Ground Pork Shoulder
-12 Thick Slices Smoked Bacon (finely diced)
-1/2 cup Milk 3.25%
-1-2 Large Eggs
-2-4 tsp. Salt (to taste and depends on the saltiness of the bacon)
-2 tsp. Ground White Pepper
-2 tsp. Ground Mace
-2 tsp. Ground Cardamom
-1 tsp. Marjoram

After stuffing the sausages I like to place them in a bowl and let them sit overnight uncovered in the fridge, it helps the casings dry out and shrink slightly.

Enjoy
-Mark

Sonnenblumenbrot

Its my mom's birthday today and I baked her a Sunflower Seed Bread.

Baking Tunes: Pentagram, First Daze Here

Recipe:

Starter
-1 cup Luke Warm Water
-1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
-2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast
-1/4 tsp. sugar

Combine ingredients in a bowl and form a wet dough. Cover bowl with damp cloth or cling wrap and let sit for 24 hours.

-3 cups Unbleached White Bread Flour
-1/4 cup Vital Wheat Gluten
-2 tsp. Salt
-1/2 cup Raw Sunflower Seeds (plus extra to cover top of bread)

Combine starter with flour and form a rough dough. Let sit for 5 minutes then knead thoroughly and combine with sunflower seeds. Place in a dry bowl, cover and let rise till double in size. Turn out dough onto a floured baker's peel. Slightly moisten top of dough and cover with sunflower seeds and carefully cut slashes in dough.
Place in preheated 450-500 F oven for 20 minutes, then turn down to 400 F for another 15 minutes till hollow sounding when tapped.

Enjoy
-Mark

Sunday Night Whole Wheat

Today I am making a whole wheat country loaf. I've modeled this recipe on a base bread recipe from Julia Child, with a few changes. I made a starter yesterday and let it ferment over night. I basically make the same starter for every bread, substituting the type of flour to reflect the bread i am making. While I don't have enough experience making bread to tell the difference, I am led to believe that a bread made with a "sponge" starter like this one makes for a better flavor.

Baking Tunes:
-Acid King, Busse Woods (1997)
-Blitzkrieg, A Time of Change (1985)

The recipe for the Starter:
-1 cup Unbleached White Bread Flour
-1 cup Tepid Water
-2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast
-1/4 tsp. sugar
-1 cup. Cold Milk (added 24 hours after)

Here is a picture of the pizza stone that I use when ever I baked anything. It's pretty dark because I have had it for about 4 years and use it a lot. It is very vital to use one of these to help bake your bread properly. Not only is it helpful in providing consistent heat from the bottom of the bread, it also gives the bread a smoky flavor you would normally only get from a wood burning oven. It will also help keep the heat near the bread more stable in cheaper, less reliable ovens like mine. Do not clean it or take it out of the oven while still warm because it may crack (let it cool down in the oven). You can find one of these at any kitchen supply store or order one online.

Ok so here's the recipe for the Whole Wheat Country Loaf:

-1 Starter (see above)
-21/2 cups Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour
-21/2 cups Unbleached White Bread Flour
-3/4 cup Rye Flour
-1/4 cup Vital Wheat Gluten
-4 tsp. Salt

Mix starter with flour and salt and form a rough dough. I do all my bread mixing and kneading by hand, you can use a mixer like a Kitchen Aid if you prefer. Let sit for 5 minutes to allow moisture to absorb. Knead dough till smooth or close to smooth. Place in a dry bowl, cover and let rise to double its size in a warm area free of drafts. Punch down dough and knead briefly to redistribute yeast. Rise again in bowl till doubled in size. Now I transfer the dough to a floured bamboo bowl and I proof the dough for an hour on it to give the surface a little textural character (jury is still out on whether its worth it or not). Flip the dough on to a floured baker's peel or whatever you are going to use to transfer the dough into the oven. Then I lightly flour the top of the dough and cut slashes in the surface to allow for expansion. Bake in a 450-500 F pre-heated oven for 20 minutes, then turn down the heat to 400 F for another 15-20 minutes till nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped. Let cool before cutting.

Enjoy
-Mark

Saucisse!!!

So in the spirit of this being a blog about both bread and sausage making I have produced some fine sausages. While bread making is pretty simple and can be pulled off with minimal equipment (i.e. just an oven), sausages making will require at minimum something to help stuff the casings. I used a Kitchen Aid with a sausage making attachment kindly lent to me by my brother and sister in-law. I have in the past tried using this device to both grind and stuff the sausages, however it is not a very convincing grinder (I get the meat ground at the butcher). It will stuff the sausage, but it is not very user friendly. My local butcher is holding a used Italian made sausage stuffer that I hopefully will purchase in the near future. So on to the recipe.....

I kind of came up with this recipe on the fly. Its not really culturally specific, its more of a "things i have in spice rack" and "greatest hits of my flavor palette" type of sausage. Lets call it the Wrangler.

The Wrangler
-1 kg Pork Shoulder (coarsely ground)
-Natural Sheep or Pig casings
-1 Egg
-60 ml Beer, White Wine or Chicken Stock
-1 tsp. White Pepper
-2 tsp. Salt
-1 tsp. Ground Mace
-1 tsp. Ground Cardamom
-1 tsp. Marjoram
-1 tsp. Ground Coriander Seeds
-4 Red Chilies (finely chopped)
-3 Cloves Garlic (finely chopped)

The Wrangler

Baking Day

Well the beast has risen. The dough seems to be pretty stable and should make for a good bread. I have risen the dough twice to double its size and will bake it on a stone for 30-40 minutes at 450 f.

CABBAGE RYE BREAD
The Recipe:
-1 Starter (see previous post)
-4 cups Bread Flour
-2 cups Rye Flour
-4 Tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten
-2 Tbsp Sugar
-3 tsp Salt
-1 Tbsp Fresh Thyme leaves
-2 tsp. Yeast
-2 cups Scalded Milk
-400g Chopped Cooked Cabbage or Sauerkraut

So here they are, two loaves of Cabbage Rye Bread. The lower one has caraway seeds on it and the other was left plain with a dusting of flour.

Enjoy
-Mark