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SFBI – Whole Grains Workshop – Day 3

Today we baked a sesame flame, a “crown of the great valley” (whole wheat with sunflower meal and flax meal), a prairie bread (whole wheat and a lot of seeds and totally yummy), a Finnish rye and a “two castles rye loaf” (two loaves attached at the end).

The variety was in itself very exciting because it made it clear that using whole grains it is possible to bring to your bakery (or to your home baking) a diversity of colors and tastes which will attract even people who do not particularly care about nutritional benefits.

I learned for instance that you can have green bread by using good quality pumpkin seeds which will not turn brown in the oven.

I also talked with Didier about the difference between bread baking in the US and in France and he said that the main thing to remember when baking with French flour using a US formula is that you have to use 4 to 5 % less water. That is because French flour is lower in protein. French wheat has been engineered for longer fermentation times while in the US, wheat is engineered for speed.
For the rest, I won’t elaborate much more tonight as I got home late and need to go to sleep. But I’ll be back tomorrow with more news from SFBI in San Francisco!

SFBI – Whole Grains Workshop – Day 2

What a day again! In incredibly hot weather (and the lab isn’t air-conditioned) we baked millet bread, corn bread, 100% whole wheat bread, oatmeal pan bread and flax seeds bread. I particularly adored the millet bread. Very easy to make and extremely tasty and light. Didier said that it is a good bread to bake for a restaurant as it can be sliced and put in a bread basket where it adds a beautiful touch of yellow offsetting the brown of other breads’ crusts.

I will make it at home when I get back and post the recipe then. Meanwhile, speaking of Didier, our instructor, if I had to sum up his advice to us in two words, I would just say: “More water!”. Whenever he passes by a mixer and checks the consistency of the dough, those are the only two words he utters, to the point that we now look at each other when he comes by and almost mouth them with him.
Of course it has been very hot these past two days and the whole grain flours we are using are pretty thirsty to begin with but still I have a feeling that “more water” is Didier’s mantra and when I see him add one or two cups full of water to a dough that looks perfectly hydrated to me and when I see the dough absorb the water and become all the better for it, I tell myself that I have much to learn – which is why I am at SFBI this week. 🙂
Anyway Steve B. requested more info on the shaping of the pear buckwheat bread and since the corn bread we made today got shaped in exactly the same way as the pear buckwheat (at least right to the point when it was ready to get into the oven), I took a few pictures along the way. I hope they will be descriptive enough. If you still have questions, please let me know. 
Like the corn bread, the pear buckwheat bread is pre-shaped into a tight ball, then it rests 20 to 25 minutes (longer of course if the room temperature is cold). It then gets flattened into a disk.

One side of the disk is folded over like this:

Align Center

Then the other side gets folded. It is essential that the two folds overlap and that a triangle be formed.

Then the two sides are gathered at the bottom:

And, lastly, the bottom part is folded over:

The only thing left to do at that point is to flip the bread over and tuck in the sides to make it puff up a bit in the middle:

After proofing and right before baking, the loaf can be shaped either into the pear buckwheat bread:

or into the corn bread:

SFBI – Whole Grains Workshop Day 1

Wow, what a day! We baked 5 pear-buckwheat loaves, 8 semolina fennel golden raisins breads and 5 wheat germ baguettes, all gorgeous and delicious. Neighbors and family flocked to the house when I came back and whatever is left over will go into the neighbor’s freezer for all to enjoy over the weeks to come (our freezer is too small).
Our instructor is Didier Rosada. He started learning about bread at age 15, worked for Club Med, got his Master Baker’s degree and now works in a large bakery in DC, consulting and teaching in various schools and bakeries. In English, his French accent is music to my ears; in French, he speaks with a lilting accent which brings back many memories of childhood summers in the southern France.
The day started with a class on whole grains which taught me a lot. Most important is this piece of advice: always reserve some of the water quantity specified in the formula as water absorption varies greatly from flour to flour, even within the same brand and type. Sometimes you’ll use it all, sometimes you’ll have to add more, sometimes you’ll keep some back.
The real and only test is the consistency of the dough.
I also learned that a bread with a large amount of whole wheat flour is best scored before the proofing. Otherwise the dough might collapse. Also with whole wheat, cuts need to be more perpendicular to the sides of the dough to give a round cross-section. Same with rye.
Finally (for tonight because in fact I learned much more than that today) I learned that it is best to use a specialty flour in a preferment (as opposed to the final dough) as you get all the benefit of the flavor and still get the strength of the bread flour (in the final dough). 
More tomorrow!

For more on SFBI, please refer to the Institute’s website.

Seedy Quick Bread

A friend from France is visiting for a few weeks and I am taking her to some of my favorite haunts. Right now we are in Southwest Florida where we haven’t been back since Hurricane Charley devastated it in 2004. Charley changed the landscape radically. It also wreaked havoc with many lives as some of the residents have packed up and gone, leaving behind boarded-up storefronts and empty houses. One can only wonder at their whereabouts and hope that they were able to start over somewhere else.
This sorry state of affairs and the slow pace of the tourists’ return haven’t helped expand the choices in the bread aisle at the local supermarket. Even the so-called whole wheat bread looks suspiciously pillowy and the list of ingredients is none too encouraging. What’s a determined baker to do? Bake of course! And since time was of the essence (breakfast was looming), I decided to make a healthful quick bread.
With the few ziploc bags of seeds I had brought from home as well as the flours and foil pans that could be found at the supermarket, I was all set to go. This seedy loaf was indeed very quickly made. Sourdough, it ain’t but, as quick breads go, it is excellent. If more convenient (for instance if no foil pan is to be obtained), it could be made into muffins or scones. With the ingredients listed below, I made one regular pan loaf plus a small round loaf which was the equivalent of four big muffins. We were pretty hungry and, as you can see, breakfast took precedence over picture-taking…

Since even a determined baker doesn’t travel with her kitchen scales, I am listing the ingredients by volume instead of weight as I usually do. Sorry about that…
Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unbleached all-purpose
  • 1 cup whole-wheat flour
  • 1 tbsp aluminum-free baking powder
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 1/2 cup of milk
  • 1 tbsp olive oil (a more neutral oil might be better but I only had olive oil)
  • 2/3 of a tsp of salt
  • 1/4 cup poppy seeds
  • 1/4 cup rolled oats
  • 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
  • 2 tbsp roasted unsalted pumpkin seeds (for topping)

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 425 F/218 C
  2. Mix all the dry ingredients (except for the pumpkin seeds)
  3. In another bowl, mix the milk, the oil and the egg
  4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the liquid ones
  5. Stir until the dry ingredients are just incorporated
  6. Spoon into an oiled foil bread pan (since I had too much dough for the pan and the dough was stiff enough to hold by itself, I shape the leftover into a round loaf which I flattened lightly and scored in an X pattern. I placed it in a square foil pan to bake along the loaf)
  7. Top with pumpkin seeds
  8. Bake for 30 minutes
  9. Remove from the pan as soon as possible and set to cool on a rack.

Hungry Ghost Bread

A friend from West Hartford, Connecticut, took me the other day to this enchanted bakery located in Northampton, Massachusetts. I say enchanted because it looks like a bakery from a fairy tale. It occupies a quaint little brick house in front of a grassy patch and when you step in, you travel back in time. The bakers are at work right in front of you, you could extend your arm and check the consistency of the dough. Some are cleaning baskets, others are shaping boules, another yet is stoking the fire in the great brick oven. The smell is heavenly. This is how bread has been made and sold for centuries.

I had tried to contact the owners a few days before to see if I could meet with them but my email came back as undeliverable. The day we went being a Saturday, I didn’t pursue the interview idea as I could see things were in full swing at the bakery and all hands were needed. So if you’d like more details about how the bakery came to be and what philosophy is behind it, check out the website, including the Boston Globe article, as it contains a wealth of information.
As for me, I can tell you the breads we bought and tasted were astonishing. All made with starter, some of them tasted like nothing I ever had before as the flavor combinations were uniquely delicious. My friend bought a spelt loaf which unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of. She gave me half of it though and it was exquisite. Chamomille flowers had been mixed in the dough, giving the spelt a deep honey flavor.

We didn’t get to try the double wheat boule pictured above but it took a lot of self-control on my part (and the memory of my full freezer and of the dough rising at home in the refrigerator) not to purchase it on the spot. Another time…

We did buy this beet bear paw, which tastes like vegetable soup baked into rye and wheat. Although not for the faint of heart, it was extremely good-looking and very good (albeit a bit salty).

As for this handsome semolina-fennel loaf, it looked and tasted exactly as it should with an airy crumb and a delicate licorice aftertaste. We had it for breakfast with honey the day after and it was a big hit with the family.
Stay tuned for more breads on another visit. Meanwhile if you already know the bakery or if you have a chance to go and check it out yourself, please let me know which breads you tasted and which ones you liked best. I will make room in our freezer and go back for more!