Yogurt Commons Bread

Over the years I've made modifications to the Commons Bread. Recently I've wanted more fiber in my diet but I still prefer the taste of the white flour over whole wheat. Psyllium husks seem to do the trick quite nicely. I've also started to make labneh, or yogurt cheese, and used the whey in the bread. I found that it changed the texture of the bread really nicely, and I even feel like it even keeps the crumb of the bread moist for longer. Since I don't always make labneh or have whey on hand, just plain yogurt does the same thing.

SLOW

Experience cook 4 hours

Novice cook 4 hours

3 cups flour (450gr)

¼ tsp instant yeast (yes, really, that's all!)

1¼ tsps. salt (12gr)

1½ cups water

½ cup yogurt or liquid whey

1 tsp psyllium husk powder

Mix the flour, yeast, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the water and yogurt to thoroughly blend into a very wet dough that'll look more like a sticky batter. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm place for at least 12 and preferably up to 24 hours. It’s ready for the next step when the surface is dotted with bubbles. It is crucial that the dough be kept warm, otherwise the little bit of yeast won't be able to propagate in your dough - if you don't have a warm place, put in the cold oven and turn on the light; this should keep it plenty warm to rise. If you don't have a warm place at all, the key is to watch for the little bubbles on the surface, which will take longer to appear in a cold place.

Flour a work surface and dump the dough out onto it, cover and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, layer a bowl with some parchment paper - when the dough has finished rising you will pick up the whole thing to deposit into your hot dutch oven.

Using only enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, shape it into a ball and deposit it into your parchment-lined bowl. Cover and in the same warm place, let rise for about 2 hours. When ready, the dough will be more than double in size.

Put a large cast iron pot or Dutch oven (cocotte) inside to heat (I use a 1 3/4 quart CorningWare dish) and turn on the oven to heat to 450°F\230°C. 

When the dough is ready, remove the pot from the oven, lift the parchment-lined dough out of its bowl and into the pan. Shake the pan to settle the bread evenly. Cover with the lid, and bake 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is nicely browned. Cool on a rack.

Same-Day Commons Bread

I love this bread. It's a variation on another bread recipe I quite like, what I like to call the Commons Bread, but this version is much quicker and makes loaf-type bread.

1 slice = 80g

~174 calories per slice

SLOW

Experience cook 4 hours

Novice cook 4 hours

3 cups flour (450gr)

¼ tsp instant yeast (yes, really, that's all!)

1¼ tsps salt (12gr)

1½ cups water at 125 to 130°F

1. Mix the flour, yeast, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the hot (this is key) water to blend - dough should be a bit wet, add water if it looks too dry. What you’re looking for is wet, shaggy, sticky dough, but not so wet as to be batter. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and let it rest in a warm place for 3 hours. It’s ready for the next step when the surface is dotted with bubbles. It is crucial that the dough be kept warm, otherwise the little bit of yeast won't be able to propagate in your dough - if you don't have a warm place, put in the cold oven and turn on the light; this should keep it plenty warm to rise. Conversely, wait until you see the tell-tale dotted and bubbled surface before moving to the next step.
2. On a clean board, turn out the dough. With a dough scraper slathered with oil, lift and turn the dough 12 times. Then, using the scraper, flatten the dough into a ½" thick rectangle on your board. Lift and folder over first ⅓ of the dough towards the middle, then the opposite ⅓ on top of the first. With the scraper, lift the ends and fold them onto each other to form a ball. You'll likely need to oil the scraper again, and then lift the ball onto waxed or oiled parchment paper and set into a cold bread pan.
3. Once the dough in its pan, cover with a damp tea towel and set on top of the stove. Let rise for 30 minutes. The heat from the warming oven will help with this final rise. Heat the oven to 450°F. Heat with an empty bread pan in the oven. 
4. After the 30 minute rise, turn the dough into the hot bread pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Makes about 850gr.

Staffordshire(ish) Oat Cakes

Plain old oats, you say? Nay, I reply! The I make them, these make the most surprisingly light, lacy crepes with just a little sponginess in the middle and a lovely chewy/crispy edge. You can also increase the amount of batter you use per cake to make a thicker galette, which is more usual. While traditionally eaten with eggs and sausage, or peanut butter and jam - which I recommend - they are also a delight with Indian or Ethiopian food, used like an injera bread to scoop up the saucy delicacies and eat with your hands.

1 cup (115g) oat flour (in Scotland = fine oatmeal) 
½ cup (75g) whole wheat flour 
½ cup (75g) white flour 
1¼ tsp (6g) dry active yeast 
1 tsp (8g) salt 
Warm Water half and half water and milk at no more than 110°F and no less than 105°F. How much you ask? It depends on texture. Prepare 3½ cups, but see Step 3 to see how much should go in.
vegetable oil or lard for frying

1. Thoroughly mix together the three flours, yeast and salt in a bowl.
2. Heat the water.
3. Make a well in the center of the mixture and slowly stream in the water/milk mixture, stirring well with a wooden spoon, until the batter is well combined and is the consistency of thick double cream. (NOTE: You may not need to use all of the water; a batter that is too wet won't cook evenly, leaving you with soggy centers.)
4. Cover the batter with a damp, clean tea towel and set aside for 1 hour to 4 hours, to allow the gluten in the batter to develop.
5. To cook, heat one teaspoon of oil or lard in a frying pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add a ladleful (⅓ cup) of the batter mixture and swirl the pan to coat the bottom of it in a thin layer.
6. Fry the oatcake for 1 to 3 minutes (for me it's 2 minutes at setting 7), or until golden brown. The edges will start to curl up when it just starts to colour.
7. Flip the oatcake and fry again, or until golden-brown on the second side.
8. Set the oatcake aside on a warm plate and keep covered, add a little oil to the pan and repeat until you've used up the batter.

Commons Bread

When my mother introduced brown bread to the family diet, she started something. I've eaten all sorts of different kinds of breads, some baked in outdoor rustic wood-fired ovens, some baked by my grandmother in her conventional electric oven (when she baked her 'pain de ménage'), from different kinds of grains, some herbed, some sweetened, baguette, olive oil, you name it. Never, ever would I have imagined that amazing bread could be made at home with a minimum of effort. This is a strange recipe. If you decide to try it, and I recommend that you do, follow the instructions to the letter, no matter how odd or wrong they appear to be. You'll end up with a beautiful, rustic round of bread with a crisp crust and a pleasantly chewy sponge. The only down side, and in my opinion it is a minor one, is that it takes 12-24 hours to make, because the dough needs so much time to rise. The wait is well worth it!
You can also leave the dough for an additional 24 hours and it will develop a sourdough flavour.
I originally called this my Wonder Bread, but I've changed the name to Commons Bread, in honour of reclaiming the commons for the people, to live a happy, really real, sustainable life. Bread, as a basic food, is a great place to start simplifying and making available to everyone the ability to make good, sustaining, satifying and nutritious food. Vive la Révolution! :)

ADDENDUM: turns out bread is far more interesting, versatile and sensitive than I ever thought. I'm starting some experiments that may change/clarify this recipe or create brand new ones. I'll save my notes here.

ADDADDENDUM: I have been making this bread in a much simpler format. Turns out that water temperature is a major factor, and it's possible to have same-day results within 4 hours instead of 24. This quicker version is available here.

ADDADDADDENDUM: I suspect size and shape of bowl is important. For some reason my bread hadn't been as lofty as it sometimes has been and I couldn't figure out why. I'm still not sure, but I've switched bowls. I had been doubling the recipe in a larger bowl but recently it's only been the two of us, so I went back to making just one loaf at a time. I made one in the large bowl I was using to mix the dough for two loaves and the bread came out more flat and dense than I would like. I randomly thought it was silly to dirty a large bowl so I went down a size. My next three loaves, all done singly and several days apart, have been gorgeously lofty with lots of bubbles inside and with that lovely soft, custardy texture I like so much about this bread. I'll have to see if I can figure out the dimensions of this bowl.

1 slice = 80g

~174 calories per slice

SLOW

Experience cook 4 hours

Novice cook 4 hours

3 cups flour (450gr)
¼ tsp instant yeast (yes, really, that's all!)
1¼ tsps salt (12gr)

2 cups water (can substitute 1 cup water with 1 cup liquid whey from strained yogurt)
Your Options: Cornmeal, wheat bran, or extra flour, as needed

1. Mix the flour, yeast, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the water to blend (see NOTE). What you’ll have is wet, shaggy, sticky dough, but not so wet as to be batter. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let it rest in a warm place for at least 12, and up to 24, hours. It’s ready for the next step when the surface is dotted with bubbles. It is crucial that the dough be kept warm, otherwise the little bit of yeast won't be able to proliferate in your dough - if you don't have a warm place, put in the cold oven and turn on the light; this should keep it plenty warm to rise.
2. Flour a work surface and dump the bread out onto it. Sprinkle over a little more flour and fold it once or twice. Upturn the bowl it was rising in over it and let rest 15 minutes.
3. Using only enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, shape the dough into a ball. Sprinkle some flour onto a piece of parchment paper, and lay the dough on it, seam side down, and dust with more flour. Cover again with the upturned bowl and let rise, again being mindful of the temperature it's in, for about 2 hours. When ready, the dough will be more than double in size.
4. Heat the oven to 450°F\230°C. Put an 8-quart/2-litre cast iron pot or Dutch oven (cocotte) inside to heat. When the dough is ready, remove the pot from the oven, turn the dough into it, seam-side up (The parchment paper makes this pretty easy). Shake the pan to settle the bread evenly. Cover with the lid, and bake 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is nicely browned. Cool on a rack.

NOTE: When I mix my dough, I add 1 cup of water and blend that in, then start to add water averaging about a half cup. We live at sea-level next to the ocean in a temperate rain forest, and when the humidity is high, I needs up to a quarter of a cup less water - my marker that I have enough water is simply when all the flour has been taken up into the dough.

Originally published Monday, April 5, 2010

Multigrain Bread

I think I may have found my ideal multigrain bread recipe. The combination of the reconstituted whole grain meal and flax seeds makes it moist and flavorful - I wonder if I could make a delicious, high fiber bread pudding with it? That is, if it lasts long enough to be old enough to use!

1 1⁄4 cups multi-grain hot cereal mix

2½ cups boiling water

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting work surface

1½ cups whole wheat flour

4 Tbsps maple syrup (or honey)

1⁄4 cup (2oz/58gr) butter, melted and cooled slightly

2½ tsps instant yeast

1 Tbsps salt

½ cup raw sunflower seeds

1⁄4 cup flax seeds

½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats

1. Combine cereal mix in bowl of standing mixer and boiling water in your main mixing bowl; let stand, stirring occasionally, until the mixture cools to about 100°F and resembles thick porridge, under 1 hour.
2. Whisk the flours together in a medium bowl.
3. Once the cereal has cooled, add the maple syrup, the melted butter, and the yeast and stir to combine until it forms a ragged ball covered in dry flour. Pour everything out onto a clean surface and knead - the dough will still be quite sticky, but keep kneading until all the flour has been taken up and dough is just clammy and firm. Return the ball to the mixing bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let rest 20 minutes.
4. Combine the seeds and pour onto your work surface, as if you were spreading flour. Turn the dough onto the seeds, sprinkle it with the salt, and knead for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until the seeds and salt are all taken up by the dough and well distributed throughout, the dough becomes a taut ball, and it springs back when you pinch it.
5. Grease a large bowl and place dough inside; cover ant let rise until doubled, from 45 to 60 minutes.
6. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and heat to 375°F. Grease two 9 by 5-inch loaf pans. Transfer the dough to a very lightly floured work surface and pat into a 12 by 9-inch rectangle; cut the dough in half, roll each piece to make a 9" long log and roll in the oats OR to make buns, divide the dough into either 9 or 16 equally-sized pieces and wedge together in a 9x9 inch pan. Cover again with well dampened cloth and let it rise until it doubles in size, about 30-40 minutes. Bake until the internal temperature registers 200°F on an instant-read thermometer, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the loaves from the pans and allow to cool on wire racks before slicing, about 3 hours.

Source recipe: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/detail.asp?docid=7535

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I'd been looking for a good recipe for whole wheat bread, and I think I found it. Whole wheat bread recipes tended to taste too strongly of whole wheat and be more dense than I like, and thanks to http://www.cooksillustrated.com/, I think I've figured out why and, also found out what bread dough should feel like. More in the Instructions for the recipe on that! I've made a few changes to their recipe and am really pleased with the result.
NOTE: It is pretty sweet. I reduced the 3 Tbsps. of syrup to only 2.

2 1⁄4 cups bread flour, plus extra for work surface

1 1⁄3 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsps salt

2 Tbsps (1oz/28gr) butter

1 cup milk

1⁄3 cup water

2 Tbsps maple syrup (or honey, or agave syrup)

2 1⁄4 tsps dry active yeast 

1. Adjust oven rack to low position and heat oven to 200°F. Once oven temperature reaches 200°F, maintain heat 10 minutes, then turn off oven heat.
2. Mix flours and salt in a large bowl and create a well in the middle. In a pot, melt butter, add milk, water, and maple syrup and heat to 110°F. Remove from heat immediately and allow to cool - the pot will continue to heat the liquid, and you want it to be no greater than 110F or it will kill the yeast. Pour the 110°F liquid into the well, then add yeast to the liquid. With a wooden spoon, start mixing the flour and the liquid/yeast together. When it thickens, use hands to combine everything. Now this is important: the dough will be quite sticky to start - just rub your hands together to get the dough off and keep kneading in the bowl. Once in coalesces into a ball, pour out any remaining flour from the bowl onto your work surface, and keep kneading the dough to incorporate it all. And this is my real discovery about making bread - do not add more flour than this or the bread will be tough. Just knead the bread until it stops feeling sticky, and starts to feel smooth, slightly warm and damp, like someone whose palms are sweaty. If the ball feels dry and floury, then you've used too much flour. Another test is to lightly pinch the dough, and if it bounces back, it's done. Kneading should take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes.
3. Place dough in a very lightly oiled bowl, rubbing dough around bowl to lightly coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap OR a (very) damp cloth; place in the warm oven until the dough doubles in size, 40 to 50 minutes.
4. Form the dough into a loaf by gently pressing the dough into a rectangle, one inch thick and no wider than the length of the loaf pan. Next, roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn the dough seam side up and pinch it closed. Place the dough in a greased 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan and press gently so dough touches all four sides of pan.
5. Cover with plastic wrap OR (very) damp cloth; set aside in a warm spot until the dough almost doubles in size, 40 minutes. Heat the oven to 350°F, placing an empty loaf pan on the bottom rack. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.
6. Remove the plastic wrap/cloth from the loaf pan. Place the pan in the oven, also pouring heated water into the empty loaf pan; close the oven door. Bake until instant-read thermometer inserted at an angle from the short end just above the pan rim into the center of the loaf reads 195°F, about 40 to 50 minutes. Remove the bread from the pan, transfer to a wire rack, and cool to room temperature. Slice and serve.

Ciabatta Bread

This is my first attempt at making Ciabatta and, although the result was good, the original instructions were not very good, and I'd like to experiment with other recipes, just for fun. This is one of these recipes that take a long time! I didn't read the instructions carefully and missed the fact that the bread had to rise a second time for 90 minutes, and I was making the bread for a sandwich for a birthday party we were going to, and I barely had time to make it! But I persisted, just because I said I was going to make it and I would not have been satisfied with just buying something, and even though I panicked I was able to make it with, literally, 5 minutes to spare!

Biga (starter)

1⁄4 tsp instant dry yeast

1 cup water, at body temperature

1 1⁄4 cups flour

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.
2. Mix in flour by hand and stir just until there are no lumps. The mixture will be very wet and sticky.
3. Cover and refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

Bread

1 tsp instant dry yeast

3 Tbsps milk, at room temperature

2⁄3 cup water, at body temperature

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 1⁄3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1⁄2 tsp sea salt

cornmeal, for baking tray

1. Stir the yeast and warm milk together in the bottom of the bowl of a standup mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the warm water, oil, and the starter, and mix with the paddle until blended (or the dough can be mixed by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon but be forewarned, it is very sticky).
2. Switch to the dough hook and add flour and salt, kneading on low speed for 2 minutes, then, increasing to next speed up, knead for 3 minutes. Slap the dough with your hand in the bowl, until it feels stretchy and springs back (it will be too sticky to knead on a work surface).
3. Place dough into an oiled bowl, cover bowl with plastic and set in a draft-free, warm area to rise for about 90 minutes. The dough should have lots of big air bubbles visible when ready.
4. Measure out parchment paper that will fit into a large baking tray and liberally and evenly sprinkle with cornmeal (do not put in baking tray yet - the baking tray has to heat up in the oven before putting the bread on). Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll up into a cylinder (like you would for a loaf or bread), but then stretch and pull the flexible dough into a rectangle about 20 inches by 8 inches. Cut dough in half and place each on parchment-lined baking tray. Cover loaves gently with a slightly damp tea towel and let rise another 90 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 425°F and place a baking tray upside down in oven to heat. Remove the hot tray from the oven, and slide the parchment with the bread onto hot tray and return to the oven quickly. Spray tops of loaves with a little water, close oven quickly and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, spraying again with water after 10 minutes. Remove the bread from the tray to cool before tearing or slicing.