How To Get a No Knead Bread Book for a Dollar

And the giveaway winner!

Thanks to everybody who entered our recent giveaway for a hardcover copy of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It's been lots of fun to read all your comments and opinions about the no knead bread phenomenon. And the winner is. . .

Doreen!
I love making no-knead bread and have been making it since the summer of 2007 using Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day as my method/recipes of choice. I have given away several copies of zoe and jeff's book to family and they love it too. I also have Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes A Day and love it too!!! I'd love to win a copy though, I would give it to a friend of mine.

Congratulations, Doreen! Please e-mail us at ayearinbread AT gmail DOT com with your shipping address so we can send you your book.

Beth and I are already planning some more great bread book giveaways, but in the meantime, all of you no knead bread fans might be interested in a special little offer from Fleischmann's Yeast—a copy of The Bread Breakthrough by Nancy Baggett for just a dollar.

Nancy Baggett is the author of Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads, as well as over a dozen other cookbooks. The Bread Breakthrough is a 48-page book that includes 8 of Nancy's favorite no knead bread recipes, with full color photos of each.

You can order a copy here (click on 'website' in the drop down menu at the top of the page for The Bread Breakthrough order form to appear). Or, iff you have trouble printing out the form, simple send your name and mailing address along with $1 for shipping and handling to:

Fleischmann's Bread Breakthrough
Offer 29737
P. O. Box 5207
Clinton, IA 52736-5207

Limit one recipe book per name, address or household, while supplies last. Sorry, but I don't know if they'll accept international orders. You can read more about The Bread Breakthrough recipe book in this article on Grit magazine's website, which includes a recipe for Kneadlessly Simple Easy Oat Bread.

© 2010 AYearInBread.com, the kneadlessly addicted to bread baking blog where we're in the middle of another snowstorm here on the farm, and I just cooked up a big pot of soup, which means as soon as I finish clomping around outside doing chores, it's time to bake some bread! A batch of Farmhouse White is definitely on the agenda, but I also have a hankering for some of those crusty Four Hour Parisian Daily Baguettes I love so much. With temperatures expected to plunge to zero this weekend, I think I'll just crank up the oven and keep it cranked!

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Are You a No Knead Bread Baker?

Win a Copy of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day!


Grilled Mozzarella on Susan's No Knead Italiano Bread

It's been over three years since 'no knead' bread practically took over the world. Who knew one little article in the New York Times would have such a global phenomenon, but it definitely did. The most wonderful thing to come from this craze? A whole slew of people who were inspired and unintimidated enough to start baking their own bread. Woohoo!

I wrote about my experiences with Jim Lahey's original no knead bread recipe that appeared in Mark Bittman's New York Times column—including how and why I quit baking it in a Dutch oven—on Farmgirl Fare back in December 2006. Jim, who is the founder of New York's famed Sullivan Street Bakery, (finally!) has a new book out called My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method.

Here at A Year in Bread, we each made some sort of no knead bread during the second month of our first baking year in 2007. Kevin decided to try making some No Knead English Muffins, Beth came up with a beautiful Little Bit Twisted, Kinda Nuts, noKnead Oatmeal Toasting Bread (which was inspired by her Cinnamon Spice Pecan Swirl version of my popular Oatmeal Toasting Bread), and I took the ingredients I use to make Italian sausage and created No Knead Italiano Bread, which makes fabulous grilled cheese sandwiches.

In 2007, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois came out with a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking, which now has a whopping 200,000+ copies in print. We somehow missed the five minute bread craze, but food bloggers all over the world are still writing and raving about the technique and recipes in this bestselling book.

Jeff and Zoe have now written a second book called Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients, which adapts their super-fast method for the health-conscious baker. Many of the recipes are even 100% whole grain.


Beth's Little Bit Twisted, Kinda Nuts, noKnead Oatmeal Toasting Bread

Beth and I both received review copies of this new book from the publisher, and we're looking forward to doing some test baking from it soon. In the meantime, we're giving away a hardcover copy of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day to one A Year in Bread reader!

Just leave a comment in this post telling us something—anything—about no knead bread. Are you a big fan? Did you start baking bread because of it? Have you come up with your own personalized no knead bread recipe that you just can't stop baking? Do you have a favorite recipe from, or something to say about, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day? If you've written about no knead bread on your own blog or shared photos on flickr, you're welcome to include a link in your comment.

One entry per person please. We moderate comments, so if yours doesn't show up right away, there's no need (ha ha) to leave another one. You can enter through next Wednesday, January 27th, and we'll choose and announce a random winner on Thursday or Friday. Please check back to see if you've won, especially if we have no way to get a hold of you (for example, if you have a blogger profile, is it public and does it list your correct e-mail address?). Sorry, but the book is being sent from the publisher and can only be shipped to a U.S. address.

Good luck! We can't wait to hear what you all have to say about no knead bread.

© Copyright 2010 AYearInBread.com the book loving bread baking blog where one of our goals this year is to bake more recipes from our dozens of beautiful bread books!

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Wordless Wednesday: English Muffin Love

English muffins and crumpets: an (almost) shared recipe

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Christmas Tree Bread

Wouldn't this be a delightful sweet bread to find on your table Christmas morning? It's a breeze to make, and you can use your favorite sweet bread recipe. Even small children can help; rolling balls of dough and arranging them into a tree is a great way to keep small people occupied while you do other prep work in the kitchen.

Instructions, and my quick spicy adaptation for any sweet roll recipe over at kitchenMage: How-to shape Christmas tree bread.

Susan and I wish all of you the happiest of times with your family, lots of good food, and some really great bread. See you all in the new year for another Year in Bread.

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Wordless Wednesday:What's Proofing in My Kitchen Right Now

Original recipe here, this simple sourdough version coming soon.

© Copyright 2009 AYearInBread.com, the bread ba—oops! Wordless Wednesday.

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(almost) Wordless Wednesday: What Are you Baking For Thanksgiving?

Susan's Carrot Herb Rolls Recipe

I think these are going on my Thanksgiving table this year. How about you? What are you baking? Leave a comment, with a link to the recipe if you have it posted.

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Friday Favorites:Janneke's Whole Wheat Seeded Bread Recipe

Janneke's Whole Wheat Seeded Bread

Welcome to Friday Favorites, where A Year in Bread readers guest blog about their best bread recipes. If you bake a Friday Favorites bread at home, we hope you'll come back and share your experiences with us in the comments section of that post.

Click here to find out how you can become a Friday Favorites guest blogger. You'll find links to all of the previous Friday Favorites recipes at the end of this post.

This week's guest is Janneke, who says she has been "baking bread for some years now but have seriously been improving my baking skills after starting to read your blog this summer. Thank you for the bread making tips - I had so much fun baking with you. Now I make bread every other day in as many variations I can." (We love it when we're to blame for newly acquired bread baking addictions.) Janneke is a student at the university in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and writes about her European- and Mediterranean-influenced cooking at Limonana. She recently made her first sourdough starter.

Last summer I started trying all types of bread recipes - from fresh pita and Jerusalem bagels to Lebanese holy breads, beer breads, crusty white loaves and focaccia. Since it’s not easy to find whole wheat flour where I live, I left whole grain baking aside until I received a kilo of whole wheat flour as a gift. This might sound funny to some people, but to me it was a great present - though I ended up needing more than that first kilo for this experiment. The flour was ground by an old-fashioned but still operating Dutch windmill, so I knew it was good flour that deserved to be treated well.

Baking with white flour is different from baking with whole wheat, so I had some experimenting to do. I started by making a whole wheat bread the same way I make my white loaves, but the bread turned out very dense and heavy. I read somewhere that you should soak the flour in water overnight before using it to make the texture soft, but this trick didn't have the result I was looking for either. The seeds I glued on the crust of this loaf did add to the taste - toasted sunflower seeds are delicious.

For the third try, I decided to add some all-purpose flour and Italian 00 flour* to get a more soft and airy interior. Unfortunately I did not really look at the clock, and when the bread was halfway through its second rise I had to run out to an appointment. I wrote a detailed instruction list with a time table for my boyfriend to finish the bread, but he also lost track of time so the second rise was stretched to over 2 hours. It also baked a little too long in the oven, and I forgot to add salt (don’t forget salt, it’s really not tasty without it).

I did feel that structure-wise I was going in the right direction, so I went for another try. This time I made sure I did not have any appointments, and all the ingredients were present. I used the same quantities of flour, added salt, and decided to 'glue' a combination of seeds on the crust again.

It turned out to be my best bread so far, so I did not let go of the recipe and made it part of my routine. I love the lightly sweet and delicate yet full taste of the bread - and the soft interior with its thin crust covered in seeds.



Janneke's Whole Wheat Seeded Bread
Makes one small loaf

This is a versatile everyday bread, and I love to eat it with butter and homemade plum jam. If, like my boyfriend, you're more into a savory breakfast, try it with a scrambled egg. We also enjoy it for lunch with tahina and salad, and it makes great sandwiches.

1 package instant yeast (7 grams - 1/4 ounce - 2¼ teaspoons) or 14 grams fresh yeast
200 ml (1 cup minus 2 Tablespoons) lukewarm water
1 Tablespoon honey
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup 00 flour (Italian fine flour)*
1 egg

Seeds (poppy, sesame, sunflower)

1. Empty the package of yeast in 200 ml of water, add honey and stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve. Let this mixture stand until the yeast becomes active and crawls out of the cup.

2. In the meantime, put the whole wheat flour in a wide bowl and add the salt.


Porridge-like Mixture Before the First Rise

3. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and stir briefly until you have a porridge-like substance. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set aside in a warm place for one hour or until doubled in size.


After the Mixture Has Doubled in Size

4. The mixture should look all bubbly and full of air. Press it back with your wooden spoon, and work it into a ball, still with the spoon. Add a handful of 00 flour and mix until incorporate in the mixture. Continue this until the mixture is to hard to handle with the spoon, then use your hands.


Tucked in and Ready for the Second Rise

5. Fold, press and knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it is soft and flexible. Continue to add flour until it is no longer sticky.


After the Second Rise, Ready to be Covered in Seeds

6. Dust a baking tray with polenta or flour, form the dough in a ball and place on the tray. Cover with the damp cloth and set aside for another hour or until doubled in size.

7. Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.

8. Beat an egg with a little bit of water. Brush the dough lightly with the egg wash and cover with the seeds, then let the bread stand for another 10 minutes before placing it in the oven. Be gentle, don’t slam the door on it, we don’t want to lose all the air and softness we build up in the second rise. The egg wash will give the bread its shiny crust and will also work as 'glue' for the seeds.

9. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned. Check if the bread is ready by knocking on the bottom; the sound should be hollow.

10. Let it cool on a wire rack.

* 00 flour (doppio zero) is a highly refined Italian flour. In Italy, flour is classified as wither 1, 0, or 00, and refers to how finely ground the flour is and how much of the bran and germ have been removed. There is no one agreed upon substitute for 00 flour. Some people mix cake flour and all-purpose flour. In her book, The Italian Baker, Carol Field recommends that you mix 1 part pastry flour with 3 parts all-purpose flour. And many people simply use unbleached all-purpose flour.

Previous Friday Favorites:
Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread
Marielle's Overnight Bread/Burger Buns/Cinnamon Roll Dough
Kelli's Pain au et Noisettes ou Pacanes for the People
Beth's Fauxcaccia
Jennifer's Reliable Food Processor Challah Recipe

A Year in Bread Recipe Index

© Copyright 2009 AYearInBread.com, the seedy bread baking blog where we think the secret to achieving world peace just might start with sharing homemade bread recipes—and freshly baked bread—across the miles.

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Friday Favorites:Jennifer's Reliable Food Processor Challah Recipe

Challah: Messing with Tradition


Welcome to Friday Favorites, where A Year in Bread readers guest blog about their best bread recipes. If you bake a Friday Favorites bread at home, we hope you'll come back and share your experiences with us in the comments section of that post.

Do you have a great bread recipe you'd like to share? Click here to find out how you can become a Friday Favorites guest blogger. You'll find links to all the previous Friday Favorites recipes at the end of this post.

This week's guest is Jennifer, a Yiddishe supermama of four in Ontario, Canada who blogs her bread obsessions at Adventures in BreadLand and has actually grown her own poppy seeds for challah. She writes about everything else at Adventures in Mama-Land.

Can I help it if one of my 2-year-old’s first word was "dough?" Actually, that was a few months ago; he’s just now starting to be able to say the harder part: "challah."

As a religious Jew, and as a homeschooler, baking challah with my kids is more than just another fun activity. It's a doorway to non-stop conversations about traditions, customs, holidays.

Think you’ve eaten challah? I guarantee you haven’t.

The word “challah” actually refers to the part that you don’t eat. A law going back to the days of the Jerusalem Temple says to set aside an egg-sized blob for the priests every time we bake bread. The law is still on the books, but today the separated piece, the actual challah, is just tossed into the oven and burnt.

Another misconception: challah is often defined as egg bread, but eggs are not essential. Bakeries here carry “water” challahs, which aren’t sweet, and “egg” challahs, which are richer. I don’t like either one; I make a sweet but eggless challah instead.

So how did the word “challah” come to mean the rich, delicious Shabbat (Sabbath) loaves? I like to think that, just as the lump of dough is set aside, the sweet, special bread is set aside for us as a taste of something spiritual and unique.

Would it taste as good on a weekday? Perhaps, and certainly challah’s many non-Jewish fans seem to love it. But there’s something special about marking the passage of another week by making and eating bread together.

We say a blessing in Hebrew when separating the extra piece after the first rising, before we form the loaves. Except for during the High Holidays, when we use round loaves, I usually braid mine. I like a four-strand braid, rather than the more traditional three-braid. Maybe I just love being able to pick my own challahs out of a lineup. It’s a lot fancier-looking, and my 4-year-old is into fancy. She loves watching me braid.


Braided Loaves: My Daughter's on the Left, Mine on the Right

As for her own challahs, I picked up a great trick a couple of years ago that works with a wide range of ages:

Spray a loaf pan with oil. Break off a small ball of dough and hand it to the child to roll around for a couple of minutes. Then, have her toss it in the pan. Give her a second piece and do the same. You know your own kid’s attention span; keep going as long as you have dough and an interested child, placing each ball in a different spot, preferably touching other balls of dough, in the pan.

After not very long, the pan will be filled with little balls of dough. Rise and bake according to your recipe you’re using. The blobs will merge to create a lovely intricate braided look she’ll be proud to show off, and pull apart for easy consumption at the Shabbat table.

I’ve heard that separating challah is one of three special mitzvot (commandments) given specially to Jewish women. Perhaps that’s because a woman will include her kids in the rituals of breaking off the piece, saying the blessing, sharing out the dough, rolling and braiding it, connecting them to thousands of years of tradition.

Plus, what kid wouldn’t want to mess around with dough and come away with a delicious warm challah loaf?



Jennifer’s Reliable Food Processor Challah
Makes 1 big loaf or 2 small loaves

The WET stuff:
1/3 cup oil
1 2/3 cups water (you probably won't need all of it)

The DRY stuff:
3 Tablespoons “dusting” flour
5 cups flour - a mix of all-purpose and/or bread flour, with perhaps a bit of spelt (I love this with 1 cup of spelt)
1/3 cup sugar (I’ve never had any luck substituting honey, though it works for me in other recipes)
1½ Tablespoons kosher salt
1 Tablespoon instant yeast
¼ cup “spare” flour – set aside, just in case!

The STEPS:
1. Combine oil and water in a 2-cup measure. Set aside so oil will rise.

2. Sprinkle “dusting” flour into an extra-large (non-zip) freezer bag. Close bag top, with air inside (it’ll look like a balloon), and shake flour around to coat inside of bag.

3. Add remaining dry ingredients (except ¼ cup spare flour) to food processor and process with steel blade to combine.

4. With food processor running, slowly pour oil/water mixture into dry ingredients (oil will pour first; you probably won’t use all the water).

5. Continue pouring slowly until mixture pulls away from sides of bowl and forms a “ball” that moves around the machine in one clump.

6. Continue processing for 30-45 seconds. One of two things may happen:
a. If mixture gets gloppy & starts clinging to sides – add a sprinkling of flour.
b. If mixture crumbles and doesn’t hold together – slowly add a bit more water.

7. When a nice “ball” texture is achieved, process for an additional 30-45 seconds.


Here's what happens if you're lazy and leave it in the food processor to rise. Messy: don't try this at home!



8. Dump dough into floured freezer bag, knot top and set aside to rise (2-8 hours) OR rest in fridge overnight or longer; bring to room temperature before continuing.

9. Preheat oven to 375°. The longer it’s hot before bread goes in, the better.

10. On floured table, gently divide dough – how many loaves do you want? Do not knead at this point! Try to encourage your kids not to overwork the dough, but don’t go crazy if they want to pound it. They’ll still love the end result.


Round Loaves for Rosh Hashanah

11. Shape each portion into a “loaf”. Be creative: braids, snakes, balls, whatever!


Fancy Six Braids for a Special Recipe

12. Set finished loaves on parchment paper in tinfoil or regular pan best-suited to desired final shape. Sometimes I rise braids in a loaf pan for a formal rectangular bottom. Sometimes I just let them sit on a cookie sheet for a casual look.

13. Spray finished loaves with oil, cover with plastic, and let rise 1 to 1½ hours.

14. Brush loaves with beaten egg if desired.

15. Sprinkle with: poppy, sesame, streusel*, whatever!

16. Bake for 30 minutes at 375°. Large loaves and those in loaf pans may take longer; upend the loaf after 30 minutes and check that the bottom is firm, dry and brown. It should make a hollow “echo” sound when tapped with knuckles.

17. Remove from pan as soon as it’s cool enough to handle and cool on a rack so the bottom doesn’t get soggy.

* Streusel topping: ½ cup flour, ½ cup sugar, add oil and mix until crumbly. Add cinnamon if desired. Perhaps not authentic, but if it looks like streusel and tastes like streusel, it IS streusel.

Previous Friday Favorites:
Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread
Marielle's Overnight Bread/Burger Buns/Cinnamon Roll Dough
Kelli's Pain au et Noisettes ou Pacanes for the People
Beth's Fauxcaccia

A Year in Bread Recipe Index

© Copyright 2009 AYearInBread.com, the traditional, yet non-traditional bread baking blog where everything definitely tastes better if it's braided—or coiled into a snake and topped with streusel.

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Calling All Breadbakers!

Beth's Onion Cheddar Breadsticks (recipe here)

We're making a list and checking it twice...

Do you bake bread and write about it on the web? Post bread porn photos somewhere? If so, please drop a link in the comment section.

To make this easier for us, please make the link as focused on bread as possible, meaning if you write about food in general and have a 'bread' tag or category, link that. Same for flickr, if you post bread photos with a tag, or have a bread set, link to that.

Please make the link text match the site name, and add descriptions after the link.

As an example, my links would be:
kitchenMage: Bread
kitchenMage's Bread flickr set
A Year in Bread (where I write about bread with my Breadie BFF (BBFF) Farmgirl Susan.

I know this is a wide open offer, but we trust y'all to behave. That kid sitting next to you, however, has shifty eyes that keep sliding to 'bread porn' - not sure I trust them!

I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone's sites.

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Slacker Sunday: Friday Favorites: Fauxcaccia

Welcome to Friday Favorites, where A Year in Bread readers guest blog about their best bread recipes (also sometimes known as Slacker Sunday if we're posting one of our own favorite recipes). If you bake a Friday Favorites bread at home, we hope you'll come back and share your experiences with us in the comments section of that post. Click here to find out how you can become a Friday Favorites guest blogger, and click here. You'll find links to all the previous Friday Favorites at the end of this post.

Susan wrote about Parisian Daily Bread, which this bread is based on, early in our first year, when we dedicated an entire month to Daniel Leader's wonderful book, Local Breads. Leader was generous enough to let us post the complete recipe from the book, with detailed instructions, and help on shaping beautiful baguettes (something many of us struggle with, even after decades of baking). You can find that recipe here: Parisian Daily Bread.

That recipe has been my go-to quick baguette since the first time I made it in the summer of 2007. It is often the companion to a market salad of whatever is fresh at the Farmer's Market this week, a role that used to be filled by focaccia when Don and Kitty of The Inn at Crippen Creek Farmsold bread at the market. I missed the focaccia that was left after dinner; it was perfect with sandwiches and other summer weekend fare.

One day I decided to add a generous dollop of olive oil - okay, a couple of huge glugs - to a batch of Parisian Daily Bread. The dough loosened up enough to make a flatbread, maybe a little too flat, but the result was not bad for a quick lamb burger. Since then, I have tweaked the recipe a bit and developed the laziest ever method of making bread I really like. I have no idea what it qualifies as technically, but I call if fauxcaccia.


Fauxcaccia Recipe

Ready in a few hours, this not-quite-focaccia is great for those busy days when you crave fresh bread. Squash the dough a bit flatter as it rises for sandwich bread or let it rise higher for slices to accompany dinner. This version is a quick hack and assumes a certain comfort with making bread by feel. You may want to take a peek at Susan's post if you want more specific instructions on this bread.

Ingredients | US volume | metric volume | US weight | metric weight
water - 1 1/3 c | 315 ml | 10.6 oz | 300 g
instant yeast 1 tsp | 5 ml | .2 oz | 5 g
flour 3 1/4 c | 770 ml | 17.6 oz | 500 g
olive oil 1/3 c | 80 ml | 2.65 oz | 75 g
sea salt 1 1/2 tsp | 7 ml | .4 oz | 10 g
fresh rosemary, chopped 1 tbsp (optional)

Combine flour, yeast and water in mixing bowl. Stir until well combined. Pour olive oil in a pool on the edge of the dough, add salt to the oil. Cover the bowl and let it rest 20 minutes.

If you are making dough in stand mixer:
Mix on low for about a minute, until the oil and salt are incorporated. Increase speed to med-high and beat for 5-6 minutes, until dough is sort of silky and smooth. Cover bowl and rest for another twenty minutes. Turn on low for about 15-20 seconds, just enough to knock the air out of the dough and give it a spin or two.

If you are mixing by hand:
Stir dough until the oil and salt are incorporated. Continue stirring vigorously for another minute or two, then turn out onto a lightly floured counter. Knead for about 5 minutes, cover and let rest for 8-10 minutes. (If your arms don't take the workout, you can knead for a couple of minutes, rest for 5 minutes, and repeat a few times. It's pretty forgiving dough.)

Shape the dough:
Once you are finished kneading the dough, shape into a rough rectangle. Place a sheet or parchment paper on a baking sheet and drizzle a little olive oil on it. Place the dough in the middle of the parchment, drizzle more olive oil on top of the bread. Gently poke the dough all over, starting at the center and working out to the edges, careful not to poke all the way to the baking sheet. Continue to do this for the first half hour or so of rising time.


Preheat the oven to 450. If you have a pizza stone, place it on the middle rack and preheat for at least 30 minutes.

Let the dough rise until it has increased in height about 50%. The surface should be a little bit dimpled and rough from your fingers and have a thin coat of olive oil, you may need to brush on a bit more. You can sprinkle a bit of coarse salt or more rosemary on top, too. It makes a pretty loaf.

Bake for about 20 minutes still on the pan, even if it is on the stone. Otherwise, the oil will make a mess.

Let cool completely on rack. (I sometimes brush a little more olive oil on the bread when I take it out of the oven so the crust keeps that lovely sheen.)

Previous Friday Favorites:
Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread
Marielle's Overnight Bread/Burger Buns/Cinnamon Roll Dough
Kelli's Pain au et Noisettes ou Pacanes for the People

A Year in Bread Recipe Index

© Copyright 2009 AYearInBread.com, the laid back bread baking blog where tardiness is perfectly understandable—but a meal without homemade bread is grounds for some serious disappointment.

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Friday Favorites : Kelli's Pain aux Raisins Secs et Noisettes ou Pacanes (Bread with Golden Raisins & Hazelnuts or Pecans) For the People

A one rise, homemade and healthy bread recipe that goes from start to serving in under two hours!


Kelli's Pain aux Raisins Secs et Noisettes ou Pacanes

Welcome to Friday Favorites, where A Year in Bread readers guest blog about their best bread recipes. If you bake a Friday Favorites bread at home, we hope you'll come back and share your experiences with us in the comments section of that post. Click here to find out how you can become a Friday Favorites guest blogger, and click here for last week's Friday Favorites recipe: Marielle's versatile, overnight bread dough that you can turn into sandwich loaves, hamburger and hot dog buns, or even cinnamon rolls. Happy baking!

What could be more satisfying than the simple yet magical process of baking your own bread? Baking bread and sharing it with others of course. And this week's Friday Favorites contributor, Kelli Martin Brew, shares her homemade bread in a big way.

Kelli and her family live in the Blue House of the Gainesville Catholic Worker in Florida, one of 150 Catholic Worker communities around the world 'dedicated to living the social dimension of the Gospel by serving and living with the impoverished, struggling for social and economic justice, and working for peace.'

You can read more about they do on the Gainesville Catholic Worker blog, or even follow along with the Gainesville Catholic Worker on Facebook. Kelli, an organic gardener for 25 years and committed locavore, also keeps a personal blog, Our Local Life . . . What We Need Is Here, where she writes about everything from preserving local produce and keeping chickens to Sunday Inspiration and current affairs. I loved this recent post about serving food at the Blue House's 'free café.'



My family lives in a house of hospitality, and our particular mission is to get healthy, delicious food to folks who most need it. We usually bake around 36 loaves of bread a week for guests who come to our 'free café,' and for day laborers with whom we share breakfast each Friday at several local labor pools.



Our challenge is to pack as much nutrition into our bread as we can—while making it soft and tasty enough to seem familiar and attractive to folks who may be used to (and possibly prefer) Wonder bread over whole wheat.



I recently spent some time in Paris visiting my student son (lucky me!) and found myself craving a good, solid, chewy loaf of bread after all the croissants and pains au chocolat I had indulged in. I found just what I was looking for at a fancy-schmancy boulangerie near the Arc de Triomphe.

When I got home, I worked up a recipe that is pretty darn close. I substituted pecans (our local nut) for hazelnuts, but kept the pretty, golden raisins. It’s been a hit!





Kelli's Pain aux Raisins Secs et Noisettes ou Pacanes
(Bread with Golden Raisins and Hazelnuts or Pecans)
Makes 3 to 4 loaves

On special occasions we serve this bread with homemade honey butter, but it's moist enough to be delicious on its own. Because we're always in a hurry, the bread only rises once. We also use Rapid-Rise yeast* to speed along the process. [Editor's note: You can substitute an equal amount of instant yeast and let your dough rise a little longer.]

6 cups whole wheat flour, preferably organic
2 Tablespoons Rapid-Rise yeast*
2 Tablespoons salt
4 Tablespoons sugar
4 cups (32 oz) very warm water
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans or hazelnuts
1/4 cup flax seeds (optional, but we like to add these when we have them; they're good for you!)
5 - 6 cups white all-purpose flour (this amount may vary), preferably organic

1. Place the whole wheat flour, yeast, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl and whisk together.

2. Add the warm water and whisk until the flour is completely incorporated.

3. Stir in the raisins and nuts (and flaxseed if using).


Before Adding the White Flour

4. Add enough white flour to make a stiff dough; in our humid climate, that's between 5 and 6 cups. It varies, so add just enough so that the dough no longer sticks to your hands.


Well Kneaded Dough

5. Knead vigorously for 5 to 10 minutes, additional flour as needed to prevent the dough from sticking.

Telling someone to knead for a certain amount of time seems like giving directions by suggesting one 'walk five minutes and turn left.' It all depends on how quickly you get from point A to point B. With bread, how much dough you’re working with also factors into the equation.

We usually make 12 loaves at a time, and that amount of dough needs a little more work before it’s thoroughly kneaded. So how do you know when it’s ready? Experienced bakers can feel it in their hands, but there’s a great way to double check!






Pinch off a small piece of dough and powder with flour (so your fingers won’t stick). Then slowly flatten and stretch the dough as if you were making a thin pizza crust.



If the dough is well-kneaded, you should be able to poke the stretched dough gently with your finger without tearing the dough. This is the best way I know of to tell when bread dough is ready to move to the next stage.

6. Divide the dough into four pieces (or three if your loaf pans are large), shape them into loaves [see this post for step-by-instructions on how to shape pan loaves], and place them in four greased baking pans. Let rise for 30 minutes.

The climate in our home varies wildly from season to season—warm and in the 80s during the summer, and in the 50s and much drier in the dead of winter. We’ve found the easiest way to make sure our dough rises in a timely and predictable manner (because people are waiting for us) is to place it in a warm oven to rise.

Our oven’s lowest temperature is 170° F, and that seems just right. Just heat up the oven, turn the oven off, then place the bread in to rise. For us, 25 minutes does the trick. [You can read more about bread baking basics, including how to tell when your dough has risen enough, on Susan's Farmhouse White Basic Sandwich Bread Recipe post.]


Risen and Ready to Bake

7. After the loaves have risen, preheat the oven to 350° (take your loaves out if you let them rise in the oven), then place the loaves (back) into the oven when it has heated up. Bake until browned on bottom and top — for us it's about 25 minutes.

8. Remove the loaves from the pans, let them cool on a wire rack, and try your best to wait 30 minutes before slicing into them because the bread continues to bake after you take it out of the oven.

*From Wikipedia: Rapid-Rise yeast is a variety of yeast (usually a form of instant yeast) designed to provide greater carbon dioxide output to allow faster rising at the expense of shortened fermentation times. There is considerable debate as to the value of such a product; while most baking experts believe it reduces the flavor potential of the finished product, Cook's Illustrated magazine, among others, feels that at least for direct-rise recipes, it makes little difference. Rapid-Rise yeast is often marketed specifically for use in bread machines.

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Friday Favorites: One dough recipe, many breads...

A versatile, overnight bread dough recipe using a sourdough starter that is perfect for sandwich loaves, hamburger rolls, hot dog buns, and even cinnamon rolls!

Welcome to our delicious new series, Friday Favorites, where guest bloggers share their best bread recipes. If you bake a Friday Favorites bread at home, we hope you'll come back and share your experiences with us in the comments section of that post. Click here to find out how you can become a Friday Favorites guest blogger, and click here for last week's Friday Favorites recipe, Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread. Happy baking!

This week's guest is Marielle, who writes about fabric arts, parenting, homeschooling, and, of course, food at maricucu.

A note from Marielle: These instructions are pretty long and detailed, but the process itself is quite simple and easy to do. I have three children 5 years old and under, and I don't have an abundance of time. If you can read a recipe, you, too, can make this bread!

Here's my routine:
1. Take out starter, weigh sponge ingredients, dump and mix. Go to sleep.
2. Mix dough before breakfast and let it rest while I eat.
3. Knead dough, let it rise.
4. Shape, pan and let it rise again.
5. Bake, cool and store.

You will need to have a sourdough starter already on hand—I used this easy tutorial to make mine.

I've been baking bread for quite a while—ever since I picked up a packet of yeast forgotten in my mother's pantry when I was a teenager. Nothing brings out the oohs and ahhs from nonbakers like the yeasty whiff of fresh bread. But I never strayed from same day bread. No poolish, biga or sponge recipes for me. I avoided sourdough recipes like the plague.

Then, a couple of years ago in an effort to offer something a bit more healthful to my young kids and husband, I ordered Laurel's Bread Book and read it from cover to cover. I was sold, whole wheat all the way! Yeahhhhh, not so much. I produced 100% whole wheat, slightly bitter, slightly fluffy bricks. Healthful as all get out but bricks nonetheless. So I put away the book and went back to buying whole wheat bread from the store.

Fast forward to this year when I developed an interest in growing my own starter. I know, you're probably thinking, A total green-behind-the-ears-with-regards-to-sourdough thinks she can grow her own starter? What can I say except that ignorance is bliss? I found the tutorial and wonderful method on breadtopia and actually had a growing starter in days, a thriving one in a few weeks. But how would I use it?

Another google search and I found Sourdough Mike and his conversion spreadsheet. One evening after the kids had gone to sleep and I finally had my brain cells to myself, I tweaked King Arthur's Classic Sandwich Bread to include a portion of white whole wheat as well as my now bountiful starter. The outcome was delicious—a hearty light wheat bread with a substantial yet tender crumb. My family loved it so much I started making hamburger buns from the same dough, and in a fit of inspiration, cinnamon rolls. Oh yes, cinnamon rolls.

Basic Dough (makes one loaf)
Adapted from King Arthur Classic Sandwich Loaf

300 grams of starter - (I'll show you how to make this from your measly 1/2 cup of fridge starter)
70 grams whole milk
230 grams unbleached all purpose flour - (My all purpose flour is naturally high in protein so it's more along the lines of a bread flour. If you're buying a flour at the grocery store, buy bread flour.)
1¼ teaspoons table salt
2 tablespoons of honey/sugar/brown sugar/maple syrup - (I use honey but you can use whatever you'd like)
4 Tablespoons butter/oil - (I usually use canola oil but sometimes do butter.)
2 teaspoons instant dry yeast - (I use SAF brand that I get in bulk at BJs)

Note: You'll notice that my bread recipe uses both sourdough starter AND yeast. Most sourdough purists would revoke my membership and whip me with a wet noodle for muddying the recipe with yeast. Truth is I could make the recipe without yeast but it would involve a much longer rise time (about 4-5 hours for each rising period) and time alas is short around here. Fortunately by letting a sponge ferment overnight I still get the benefit of a cool rise that builds flavor and just use the yeast the next day to speed up the last two phases.

First let's build the sponge. Doing an overnight soak with the starter will soften the bran in the white wheat flour, get a jump start on gluten formation and improve the bread's taste as well as shelflife. All that for being lazy! About that white wheat flour. White whole wheat flour IS whole wheat but since it's ground from a lighter wheat berry, the flavor is a bit more mild and the texture a bit more refined than traditional whole wheat flour.

The night before I bake bread I stir the starter down and weigh it all out except for about 2 tablespoons. Pour that in the bowl (I use a dough bucket). Then feed the 2 tablespoons of starter that's left in the jar 75g of water and 65g flour. Stir and put back in the fridge. It's ready to hibernate until next week.

Back to the starter in the bowl/bucket. Since I make 5 loaves at a time I need more starter than I have after I've fed it that morning. The great thing about The Borg, aka the starter is that it's insidious. A little bit of starter will colonize a whole bowl of flour/water mix in just a few hours producing a bowlful of starter. So I subtract the starter's weight from what I need. Do a little math, subtract the starter's weight from the 300g.

Since starter is equal parts flour and water, add half water and half flour of the remaining weight needed. Sounds complicated but it's not. You'll likely have 130 grams of starter but you need 300 grams total. You'll need an additional 170 grams. Just add another 85 grams of water and 85 grams of white whole wheat flour then stir. See? Simple.

Now for this recipe I also add the milk to make the batter a bit more fluid and easier to stir the next day. Stir again and cover loosely. Air is necessary for the yeast to multiply. Leave it on the counter and remind your family that the bubbling mix the counter IS NOT trash and if they want to eat they need to keep their hands and toys off (that might only be necessary around my home).



So you've been snoozing and that hardworking starter has been digesting enzymes all night long while aligning the gluten strands to make some amazing bread. I'd say the trouble of feeding it has been well worth it. My dogs don't do anything for me in return for the food they get. They're just cute and bark loud when the mailman drops by. Lovely huh? The sponge will look like this in the morning.



If I had used white all-purpose flour instead of whole wheat the growth would have been even higher so be sure to leave enough room for the starter to expand. Nothing like waking up to your starter oozing out of its jar like some scene out of The Stuff. Stir down the sponge. I use a butter knife to stir because it's easier than a spoon but one day I'm going to buy this Danish dough whisk just for the job. Now add the honey, salt, yeast and oil. Stir it well. The oil will want to separate but just keep stirring, it will eventually incorporate.

Add about 3/4 of the flour in the recipe. At some point the dough may be too stiff for your utensil so just dig in with your hands. Continue adding flour until the dough is just slightly sticky but still holds together. Instead of kneading, cover the mix and set it aside for 20 minutes. Why? Because flour doesn't hydrate instantly. If you were to add enough flour for the dough to be smooth right now you'd end up with a dry crumbly dough later on as the flour absorbs the moisture slowly. If you let it rest (this step is called autolyse) then the flour will hydrate and your dough will be much easier to knead later.

When the dough has rested, dump it out and knead for 6-8 minutes or until it smooths out, is just barely sticky and forms a smooth ball. Put the dough back in the bucket and let it rise until doubled for 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending on your room temperature. The dough is ready for shaping when a floured finger poked into the top does not fill back in or fills in slowly. Dump out the dough and press out the air bubbles with your fingertips.



You want to flatten it evenly and then roll it into a log for the loaves. Pinch the ends to seal and place in a well greased loaf pans. My favorites are the Chicago Metallic ones onthe left but I also use the pyrex ones when I need more than two loaves.



For the hamburger buns I press the dough out into a large circle about an inch thick. Cut out buns with a 3-inch cookie cutter and set on a parchment lined baking sheet. I don't like rerolling dough so I just cut them very close together and when they rise, they will round out. No need for perfection. The taste of homemade bread is the artistry. Let the dough rise covered (or like me in the oven with the light on for warmth) for another 1 to 1/2 hours until doubled. The same finger poke test works well to test the dough for doubling.



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and remember to take out the bread if you let it rise in the oven. Bake the loaves for 30-35 minutes and the buns for approximately 25 minutes. Some say the bread loaves are done when they sound hollow if thumped underneath. I take the temperature and it's done when the internal temperature is 190 degrees. Take the loaves out of the pan and let them cool before slicing.



I hope you enjoyed our family's favorite everyday bread recipe. I have more detailed instructions on my blog, including lots more photos and instructions on making the cinnamon rolls here:
Bread Baking Day Part 1
Bread Baking Day Part 2
Cinnamon Rolls

Previous Friday Favorites:
Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread

Knead more bread? Check our recipe index for links to all the recipes posted on A Year in Bread.

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Friday Favorites:Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread Recipe

Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread

Welcome to our delicious new series, Friday Favorites, where guest bloggers share their best bread recipes. If you bake a Friday Favorites bread at home, we hope you'll come back and share your experiences with us in the comments section of that post. Click here to find out how you can become a Friday Favorites guest blogger. Happy baking!

Our first Friday Favorites contributor is Anne Willhoit, who lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington state and shares 'recipes, explorations in the home made, and occasional rants' on her wonderful blog about eating locally and sourcing your ingredients close to home, Small Potatoes.

I've been on a quest for the perfect oatmeal bread recipe for awhile. I think that I have finally found it, and now it's the bread that I wake up with every morning.

When we moved to Bainbridge Island, I finally felt like a local the day I casually ordered Blackbird Bakery's toast and jam. All of their pretty pastries out front distract the frugal customer or visiting tourist from the island's best kept secret tradition—oatmeal toast and jam.

I've tried so many different recipes. I've searched the Internet and consulted the ladies at the baking circle. My mom has listened to me rant and even mailed me her best guesses. I've hounded friends who have known people who worked at the bakery. ("All I can tell you," one lady told me, "is that it takes two days.") I've gathered clues, experimented, and really, the only shame in this process is that we've had to eat a lot of just okay toast.

And now, I've stumbled upon the most delicious accident. One morning, I misjudged the time that I had to fix breakfast and had to rush out the door hungry, leaving an almost cooked pot of steel-cut oats on the counter. When I got home it was a gloppy mess, but I hated to waste so many oats. I wondered if there was a bread that could be made with leftover, cooked oatmeal. There, in King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking, was the answer to my quest! The recipe below is a loose adaptation from a recipe titled "Irish Porridge Bread."

While not exactly like Blackbird's, it's delicious enough to hold us over until we can decode their secret. This recipe is now our daily bread—it truly makes mornings better. Toasted with jam or under a fried egg, it really can't be beat.



Anne's Oatmeal Toasting Bread
Makes 1 two-pound loaf or 2 small one-pound loaves

This bread is both hearty and light. More than just a simple vehicle for jam, it could almost be a complete meal. If you omit the vital wheat gluten, it will be tasty but will crumble all over your toaster. [Editor's note: Gluten is the mix of proteins in flour that provides the structure and texture of bread. It does this by forming long strands as you knead the dough. Because there is a substantial quantity of oats—which do not contain gluten—in this recipe, adding some vital wheat gluten helps this bread hold its shape. Look for vital wheat gluten—also sometimes called gluten flour—in the bulk section of natural foods stores.]

To make fresh 'porridge':
Bring 1½ cups (12 oz.) water to a simmer. Add 1/2 cup (3 oz.) steel-cut oats. Simmer on low, covered, for about 25 minutes.

For the bread:
1½ cups / 5 oz leftover steel-cut oatmeal, room temperature
4 Tablespoons / 2 oz unsalted butter
1/4 cup / 2 oz light brown sugar
1¼ teaspoons / .25 oz salt
1 cup / 3.65 oz raw old-fashioned (not quick) rolled oats
1/4 cup / 1.2 oz oat bran
2 cups / 10 oz bread flour
1/4 cup / 1.2 oz nonfat dry milk (If you prefer to make your porridge with milk, omit this.)
2 Tablespoons / .5 oz vital wheat gluten
2 teaspoons / .25 oz instant yeast

1. Melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar and salt. Stir this into the leftover porridge.

2. Put the rolled oats, oat bran, bread flour, dry milk, vital wheat gluten, and yeast in a large bowl.

3. Stir in the porridge mixture.



4. Knead by machine or hand for about 10 minutes. This is a very sticky dough. You may need to add more flour so that you can move from sticky towards tacky, which is desirable.

5. Place the dough in a clean oiled bowl. Cover with a cloth, and let the dough rise for 1 hour.

6. Flour a work surface. Gently flour the dough and fold over about four times. Dust with flour if the dough is sticking to your hands. (If making multiple loaves, divide the dough now into equal pieces.)

7. Fold the dough in half, pinch the seam, and gently roll into a loaf shape the length of your pan. The dough will be stiff. If needed, pinch the seam with moistened fingers.



8. Place in greased loaf pans. You want the ends of the loaf to touch the short ends of your pan (so it will rise evenly.)

9. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and a towel. Let dough rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

10. Dust the top with oat bran, if you like.

11. Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes.

Notes:
—To double the recipe and make 2 loaves, start with: 3 cups water and 1 cups uncooked oats. This will result in 3 cups of cooked oatmeal, which is your goal.

—If you've made fresh oatmeal, go ahead and stir the butter, brown sugar, and salt into it. Cool your oatmeal down to below 120°F, before proceeding with the recipe.

—This bread freezes well. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator to retain moisture.

Knead more bread? Check our recipe index for links to all the recipes posted on A Year in Bread.

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Wordless Wednesday: Gluten strands

sliding in under the wire...

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