Saturday, March 27, 2010

#19: Marbled Rye

Last Sunday I made three different breads from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Maker's Apprentice: #1 - Anadama Bread, #15 - Italian Bread, and #19 - Marbled Rye Bread. Of the three, my favorite was the Marbled Rye, mostly because the spiral pattern in each slice was so beautiful.

When I was a youth, one of my chores was to make breakfast in the morning for my family. One morning I accidentally confused the rye and wheat containers while making whole wheat pancakes and the pancakes ended up with a greenish tint and a funny taste.

Unlike my rye pancakes, the finished loaf of Marbled Rye had a pleasant taste, with the rye providing a more subtle flavor. I used the bread in both a roast beef sandwich and later as a PBJ and both times the bread was tasty.

The kids didn't appreciate the bread as much as my wife and I did.

#1: Anadama Bread

This is the second time I've made Peter's Anadama recipe. Both times the loaves looked beautiful. The small bits of cornmeal gave the crumb a unique texture and the color of the bread belied the presence of wheat flour, of which there is none.

Another hit with the family!


Monday, March 22, 2010

#3: Bagels

The last time I tried bagels was just over a year ago. At the time I bought a 50# bag of high-gluten flour and frankly I haven't made a huge dent in it. Bagels are pretty simple to make but I often forget to start them until it's either too late in the evening or too late in the weekend.

Last Saturday I started these cinnamon raisin bagels in the evening and then boiled and baked them Sunday afternoon after retarding them in the refrigerator overnight. The only adjustment I would definitely make is to reduce the amount of raisins to 1 or 1 and 1/2 cups instead of 2 cups. Oh yeah, and I would probably not brush them with butter and sprinkle sugar on them. Just a sticky mess.

The family loved them!

Friday, March 19, 2010

#6: Challah

It was a lot of fun to make this loaf. I shaped it with a 4-braid which proved a little tricky until I understood the 4-over-2, 1-over-3, and 2-over-3 process. Turns out that after each step, the number assigned to the strands resets.

One thing that I found fascinating about this bread was that after it baked, the strands of the bread were all fused together so you couldn’t differentiate the strands in a slice.

The family enjoyed it. Success!