M is for mom - and a giveaway!

Every mom loves homemade goodies. In fact, as many a Mother's Day breakfast in bed has shown, moms (seem to) love homemade not-so-goodies.

My mom is no longer around, and theKid stopped eating carbs for a while so I suppose that if I want homemade bread, I have to make it myself.

I am counting on the rest of you, however, to get out there and make some bread for mom. You've got two days so you can start now and have plenty of time.

Even better, there's a prize in it for someone. (I bet I have your attention now. See how you all are?)

Here's the contest:

Bake bread for mom. If your mom is not available for whatever reason, bake the bread you would bake if she was coming over. Get creative and don't forget to knead some love into it!

When you are done, post a photo of your bread to the A Year in Bread group on flickr. Susan and I will select a winner based on criteria yet to be determined - the bread we would most like to eat ourselves, creativity, the best expression of loving mommy - we'll know the winner when we see it. (None of that random number stuff here, we are totally subjective!)

We're putting this up a bit late (Susan called me from the Bonding Suite and asked if I could post it since she's stuck in the barn with the cuteness.) so the deadline is a full week after Mom's day is over: May 18th at midnight.

What do you win? Well, only the very first A Year in Bread t-shirt.

What's that you say? You haven't seen our t-shirts? Well, that's because the very first one is going to the winner here, after which we will open up the store to everyone.

But if you want to be really cool, and get your shirt before everyone else - and I do mean everyone, Susan and I don't even have ours yet - you will win one. You know you want to.

Ready, breadie? Get baking!

Remember, post your photos on A Year in Bread at flickr to be eligible for the prize!

Technorati: Food | kitchenMage | baking | bread | contest | mother's day | bread baking | giveaway

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obsessions: oat flour

Before.

Organic rolled oats.

After

Organic rolled oat flour.

Process in food processor for a minute or so. Substitute for about 1/3-1/2 of the flour in recipes that aren't dependent on gluten, like scones or pancakes. You may need to increase the liquid in some recipes just a bit, although it is not consistent.

Technorati: Food | oats | baking | bread | kitchenMage

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We're Still Here - And Still Baking!

Rumors of A Year In Bread's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Just think of our unaccounted for absence in bread baking terms. The yeast isn't dead - it's more like the dough is fermenting really, really slowly. And when that warm and crusty loaf finally does come out of the oven, it'll be better than ever before.

In the meantime, things don't look as good for this little guy. We may be big proponents of baking everything from scratch, but we couldn't help feeling a little deflated at this news. Word spread quickly, but just in case you haven't heard. . .

There has been a sad passing. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes.

If this made you smile for even a brief second, please rise to the occasion and take time to pass it on and share that smile with someone else who may be having a crumby day and kneads it.

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Question Of The Day:Can A Sandwich Loaf Be Bread Porn?

Fiddling With Farmhouse White: Susan's New Honey Bran Bread

You may have noticed that it's been a little quiet around here at A Year In Bread. We didn't plan to all go MIA at the same time, but sometimes life and all its busyness get in the way of bread blogging. Two of us actually have good reasons for our absence. Beth has been diligently meeting deadlines for her upcoming cookbook about cooking with kids, and Kevin snagged himself a job as the new Cooking For Two guide at about.com. A big congratulations to them both! And our sincere apologies to those of you who left comments asking us questions that were never answered.

Meanwhile I'm still using the same old excuses: lambing season, new construction, and the usual craziness of life on a 240-acre farm full of critters. I've also been trying to recover from the sticker shock of skyrocketing wheat prices - and, as they continue to climb, realizing that this is a really bad time to be in the middle of building a wholesale bread bakery. Crap.

Of course we're still posting regularly on our personal food blogs, too: Beth is at kitchenMage, Kevin is Seriously Good, and I have Farmgirl Fare and In My Kitchen Garden.

We definitely slipped off of our baking schedule during the past few months, but the good news is that even though our 'year' is technically over, A Year In Bread most definitely is not. We're still up to our elbows in powdered gold flour and plan to stay that way. In fact, the rising cost of bread means that now is a better time than ever to vamp up your own bread baking efforts. Homemade bread will always cost less and taste better than storebought (except for those brick-like beginners' loaves, but our goal is to keep you from baking any of those).


A Little Bran & It's A Whole New Loaf - That's The Beauty Of Bread

So stay tuned and check back because we have lots of delicious plans on the rise, including my overdue 'small breads with cheese' post (to go with Kevin's Gougères and Beth's Onion Cheddar Breadsticks), the latest takes on my popular Farmhouse White, plus bread baking tips and tricks, book reviews and giveaway contests, bread-related news and sites from around the world, and of course plenty of the bread porn so many of you crave. Who knows, we might even get to those sourdough starter lessons we've been promising you for months. Whatever happens, you know it'll be lots of fun.

Are you ready, breadie? Then come bake bread for another year with us!

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Beth: Onion Cheddar Breadsticks Recipe

When I was a young'un, I moved from "Baja Oregon" to a very small coastal town in southwest Washington. A town where the locals joked, in some cases bragged, that, upon arriving, you should turn back your clock 20 years - to the '50s. (um, no) A town where, in the only 'ahead of their time' moment I witnessed there, they hated Calif…er, Baja Oregonians with a vengeance.

Well, mostly.

Some folks (read: young men, sadly, with an emphasis on the young) were utterly fascinated by the strange creature in their midst and vacillated between semi-awe and hormonal stupidity. The strange creature, being a child of the coolest artistic little beach towns in Baja Oregon, thought this was mildly amusing behavior for about 15 minutes.

I arrived in late-spring and my first summer there was, to put it mildly, not my best year. Two things saved me that wet, foggy summer. The first was a job at the local pizzeria, where Gina, a wise-cracking New Jersey girl — everyone swore we were sisters — taught me to toss rounds of dough high in the air and, much harder, catch them again. She also let me play with the brick oven. I loved Gina.

The second bit of salvation arrived one night when a guy I had dated a few times introduced me to his best friend's girlfriend saying, "Stay away from her." (um, no) When we got away to the bathroom (maybe this is why we go in pairs) we discovered we had both gotten the same marching orders. We broke up with the guys and have been best buds ever since. Duh.

This bread, made in loaves, was Becky's favorite. I baked some every week or so for years and years. Then Becky and I lost touch. I also mostly stopped baking this bread. Both sad things.

I recently found Becky again via the marvels of the Internet and invited her down to visit. The first thing she said, after a huge hug, was, "Did you make my favorite bread?" Of course, I had. And an extra loaf to take home. I believe she turned to her husband and said, "told ya!" but I may be imagining that part.

Onion Cheddar Breadsticks

Ingredient US Volume Metric Volume US Weight Metric Weight
onion diced 1 large
olive oil for cooking onions
instant yeast 4 1/2 tsp 23 ml 1/2 oz 14 g
water 1 1/2 cup 350 ml 12 oz 335 g
bread flour 6 cups 1.45 liters 27 oz 750 g
milk 1 cup 235 ml 8 oz 225 g
butter 1/4 cup 60 ml 2 oz 55 g
cheddar cheese grated 2 cups 475 ml 9 oz 250 g
salt 2 tsp 10 ml 1/2 oz 15 g

Notes:
This bread can also be made as loaves or dinner rolls. Shape the dough as desired, let rise until doubled in size and bake ~20-25 min for rolls, ~40-45 min for loaves.

Half an hour before mixing the dough scald the milk (or bring it barely to a boil in the microwave if you prefer), add the butter and set aside to cool.

Chop the onions into small pieces. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Pour in enough olive oil to barely coat the bottom of the pan. Add the onions and sauté for 5-10 minutes, until they start to brown around the edges and look like this. Scrape the onions and oil into a bowl and set aside to cool. (This accomplishes two things: brings out wonderful complex flavors in the onion and reduces the amount of water in them. Compare the amount of onions before and after cooking. The amount of flour you need depends partly on how much water cooks out of the onions. Go figure.)

In mixing bowl, combine water, yeast, 2 cups of bread flour and mix for about 1 minute, just enough to make a wet mess. Set aside to rest until the milk is cool.

Have a cup of tea and come back in half an hour.

Mixing the dough
Add the cooled milk/butter, onions, and cheese to the mixing bowl along with 3 more cups of flour. Mix well, adding the last cup of flour a bit at a time until a softish dough forms. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for twenty minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured counter and knead by hand for 7-10 minutes. (If you are using a machine, mix on medium for ~3-4 minutes, adding some of the last cup of flour if needed, before turning out on floured counter and kneading for a minute or two.) The dough should be smooth and elastic.

Place dough in clean bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Shaping breadsticks

Divide dough in half, set aside one piece. Stretch the dough into a rough rectangle, letting it rest if the gluten is too tight and it springs back.

Cut dough into 3/4 inch wide strips using a knife, pizza cutter (they roll easily), or, my favorite, a plastic putty knife. Place breadsticks on a parchment lined baking sheet, either straight or twisted. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

Baking
Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Bake for 15 minutes. They should be golden brown, but will still be soft. They crisp up a bit as they cool and are best within a couple of hours of baking.

Note:
I just said these were best eaten the same day they are baked — maybe nabbed while still warm and eaten while running away from the baker. This is a fairly large recipe, however, because I usually make these for parties... meaning that I almost never bake them the same day as they will be eaten. I bake the day before or, if earlier, I freeze the baked breadsticks. They are small enough to go directly from the freezer to a 350F (175C) oven for ~5 minutes to thaw and crisp them up before serving. The room temperature ones only take a minute or two to warm up.

Flickr set: Onion Cheddar Breadsticks

Technorati: Food recipe baking bread artisanal artisan bread baking kitchenmage breadsticks breadsticks for becky

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Kevin: Bite-sized Bread - Gougères Recipe

In casting about for a topic for February we somehow came up with bite-size breads with cheese. Go figure. However, having arrived on that topic the first thing that occurred to me was gougères.

Gougères are savory Pâte à choux puffs typically made with cheese, usually gruyere, but other cheeses are sometimes used. I frequently make them for parties because they keep easily for a day in the fridge (or a month in the freezer) and reheat beautifully in the oven.

Making this dough can be intimidating the first time because it's unconventional. But in fact it's easy and fast. Choux is a bread (pastry) leavened with steam. A wet dough, as it heats up the liquid in it turns to steam and causes it to rise and forming large internal bubbles which are stuffed with something sweet in the case of eclairs and profiteroles. According to Wikipedia:

A chef by the name of Panterelli invented the dough in 1540, seven years after he left Florence, along with Catherine de' Medici and the entirety of her court. He used the dough to make a gâteau and named it Pâte à Panterelli. As time passed, the recipe of the dough evolved, and the name changed to Pâte à Popelin, which was used to make Popelins, small cakes made in the shape of a woman's breasts. Then, Avice, a pâtissier in the eighteenth century, created what was then called Choux Buns. The name of the dough changed to Pâte à Choux, as Avice's buns looked similar in appearance to choux, which is French for cabbages. From there, Antoine Carême made modifications to the recipe, resulting in the recipe most commonly used now for profiteroles.

The recipe below is based on one by Thomas Keller, the owner and chef of The French Laundry. But I've tweaked it and the inclusion of prosciutto is completely my own (albeit obvious) idea.

Prosciutto Gougères
Makes about 24.

Ingredient US volume Metric volume US weight Metric weight
prosciutto 6 thin slices
water 1 c 236.6 ml 8 oz 225 g
unsalted butter 7 tbsp 105 ml 3.5 oz 100 g
kosher salt 1 1/2 tsp 7 ml -- --
ground mustard 1 tsp 5 ml -- --
freshly ground white pepper 1/2 tsp 3 ml -- --
all-purpose flour 1 1/4 c 295 ml 6 3/8 oz 183 g
large eggs 4 - 5 ea
gruyere grated -- -- 5 oz 142 g

Heat the oven to 450F/230C.

Slightly cook prosciutto in a skillet over medium heat — about 10 seconds per side. Then coarsely chop by hand, you should have about 1/3 cup lightly packed.

Mix the mustard, salt, and pepper with the flour. In a medium saucepan, combine the water and butter and bring to a boil. Add all the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium, and stir, smearing and cutting through the batter, for 2 minutes, or until the mixture forms a ball and the excess moisture has evaporated (if the ball forms more quickly, continue to cook and stir for a full 2 minutes).

Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle and beat for about 30 seconds at medium speed to cool slightly. Add 4 eggs and continue to mix until completely combined and the batter has a smooth, silky texture. Stop the machine and lift up the beater to check the consistency of the batter. The batter in the mixing bowl should form a peak with a tip that falls over. If it is too stiff, beat in the white of the remaining egg. Check again and, if necessary, add the yolk. Finally, mix in 3/4 cup of the Gruyere and chopped prosciutto.

Line a pair of baking sheets with parchment paper, (or Silpat if you have one). Fill a one-gallon heavy plastic bag with the batter and snip off a bottom corner. Pipe the batter into 1-tablespoon (15 ml) mounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches (5 cm) between the gougères. Sprinkle the top of each gougère with about 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) of the remaining grated cheese and bake for 7 to 8 minutes (my oven needs 10 minutes), or until they puff and hold their shape. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F (175C). and bake for an additional 20 to 25 minutes to a light golden brown color.

(Note: Unless you have a convection oven, I recommend cooking these in two batches, if you have a convection oven you may be able to cook both sheets at once.)

Technorati: Food recipe baking bread artisanal artisan bread baking kevin gougeres appetizer bite-size bread

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Susan: Cozy Breads For Cold Winter Days Recipe Roundup On FoodieView & Focaccia, My New Favorite Flatbread

My First Foray Into Focaccia

Up until the other day, I'd never made focaccia. When I decided to test my friend Stephen's Quick Rosemary Focaccia recipe for an article I was working on, I realized that not only had I never made focaccia, but I'd never even eaten it. I know, I know, where have I been? I have no idea. Probably too busy eating pizza. You know I love homemade pizza. What I know is that after devouring large hunks of this rosemary focaccia for three meals in a row (yes, I ate it for breakfast, and no, I didn't have it with my meals, it was my meals), I am ready to embark on a focaccia making rampage.

Stephen warned me that focaccia purists may scoff at his crowd-pleasing, quick and easy version which is mixed in the food processor* and shaves hours off the traditional resting times, but I couldn't stop eating it. Warm from the oven, at room temperature the next day, or reheated in my beloved little toaster/convection oven - this stuff is good.** It also freezes beautifully. And the smell of the rosemary-infused dough that permeated every nook and cranny of The Shack while it was rising was wonderful. I'm pretty sure I followed Stephen's recipe exactly, except I scattered a few handfuls of pecorino romano over the focaccias along with the rest of the rosemary just before baking. I also skipped the egg wash. Next time I'll try using only half the amount of yeast.

Apparently there are all sorts of ways to enjoy focaccia - not to mention all sorts of toppings you can put on it before baking. But so far I have yet to get past splitting a warm hunk in half and tucking in a couple of slices of Irish Shannon, my new favorite cheese.

As soon as I find some nice organic grapes I plan to try the focaccia recipe in Local Breads, my new favorite bread book by my favorite bread baker, Daniel Leader. Kevin made it last year when we each chose a different straight dough Italian bread from Local Breads and said it was the best focaccia he's ever tasted. I already have my eye on a couple of other interesting focaccia recipes in some of my other cookbooks as well, and one of these days I'll have to take the time to make a truly traditional version, such as this one by Dan Lepard, as demonstrated by Fanny on Foodbeam.

Stephen's quick rosemary focaccia is just one of the recipes included in my Cozy Breads For Cold Winter Days article for the Recipe Roundup, a new weekly feature written by various food bloggers on FoodieView. I tried to offer something for everyone, from tasty quick breads that are ready in under an hour to impressive yeast breads that are perfect for beginners. Many of you will recognize some of my own favorite bread recipes. You'll find all of the FoodieView Recipe Roundups here, and you can subscribe to them via e-mail here.

FoodieView is a neat site run by some really nice foodies that makes "good food easy to find, whether you're dining in or dining out." Check out the restaurant guides for nine major cities (more will be added) or search through over 1 million recipes from places like Cooking Light, Eating Well, Gourmet/Bon Appetit, Fine Cooking, Food Network, Sunset, and Saveur. The neatest part about the FoodieView search engine is that you can narrow down your search criteria by ingredient, dish, cuisine, special considerations (gluten free, low carb, vegetarian, etc.), sources, and more, including famous chefs.

As for me, I'm off to check out Michael Chiarello's Country Focaccia With Blue Cheese & Lavender Honey recipe, see if I can locate a source for organic semolina flour so I can try making Jamie Oliver's favorite focaccia, and work my way through some of the other 4,793 hits my FoodieView search for 'focaccia recipe' came up with.

Are you a focaccia fan? I'd love to hear about your favorite recipes and ways you like to eat it. I'm already drooling over the thought of focaccia sandwiches piled high with slices of juicy heirloom tomatoes from next summer's garden. (It's gonna be a long six months waiting for them.) Beth tormented me the other night with a description of the dinner she'd just made: lamb burgers with blue cheese and shallots on homemade focaccia. Yum.


Stephen's Quick Rosemary Focaccia Ready For The Oven

Move over pizza. There's a new flatbread on the farm.

* A word of warning: This is a soft and sticky dough, especially if you haven't added quite enough flour to it. Do NOT reach into the food processor bowl and try to grab the finished blob of dough with your bare hands while the blade is still buried in it. Yeah, ouch. Not that I think you would ever do anything that stupid.

** A technical note about Stephen's recipe: It makes two 8" - 10" round focaccias. I didn't realize until they were ready to go into the oven that there was no way they were both going to fit on my baking stone at once. Fortunately it's winter, so I just popped one into the oven and set the other out on one of the chest freezers on the covered porch next to the kitchen, protected by a large upside down bowl since Smudge the cat (who lives on the porch) was very interested in it. If it had been summer things would have been a little tricker, as I don't usually have enough space for an entire unbaked focaccia in my fridge. If both won't fit in your oven at once and you don't have a cool spot to put the second one while the first one bakes, you might want to halve the recipe.

© Copyright 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where you're allowed to eat rosemary focaccia and chocolate cake for breakfast.

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