Daily Bread: Starry Polish Cottage Rye

That's more like it. Above is Leader's Polish Cottage Rye, a nearly perfect bread made from a combination of a rye sourdough and wheat bread flour. This loaf was everything I could have hoped for and more: crackly crust, deep flavor, and soft, moist, irregular open crumb.

The dough is wet enough to require proofing in a bowl, basket, or banneton, which will make it more difficult to do at the bakery, but I think it's worth it. This loaf proofed in a napkin-lined colander, which left an unexpected starry pattern even through the cloth.

Weekly Bread: Polish Cottage Rye

This week's sandwich and toast loaf--a dark dense whole wheat version of the Polish Cottage Rye from Local Breads, with a handful of wheat berries tossed in. It could have baked about 5 minutes longer, but it was late and we were tired. This recipe always makes an exceptionally pretty loaf.

Rice is Nice, but...

Bread is life.
In Uganda, one thing that came up a lot was the concept of a staple food. In Africa as in pretty much anywhere else, starch is the central defining feature of regional diet. Bill Buford mentions this in Heat, speaking of the polentoni and the mangiamaccheroni who populate the different regions of Italy.

In much of Africa, the staple starch is cassava, known also as fufu or manioc. In much of Uganda, it is matoke, steamed plantains. Rice is also common, though imported. Because food is tied to regional identity, and because this is reinforced for school children learning about exports and imports, the question 'What is your staple food?' is a fairly common one. For me, coming from New York, food crossroads of a wealthy country, the question took some thought. Is starch, in fact, the bulk of my diet? Or is it steak? Chicken? Do I prefer rice? Polenta? Maybe a new starch every night?
The answer I decided to give was wheat. I'm not sure if I eat more bread than rice by volume, or what I'd prefer under the other elements of my dinner, but I know how I feel about bread. I make it by hand, seek out special ingredients for it, plan meals around its leftovers, and seek it out everywhere I go. Bread is the starch that truly captures my cultural imagination, the metaphorical if not literal stuff of my life. Bread is places, bakeries and ovens, bread is the wheat fields waving in their endless American abundance. In this way, wheat, and by extension bread, is staple. It is my regional identity and all else is a kind of garnish.

It can't be that simple, of course. The real signifiers of my New England regional identity are apples, maple syrup, sweet corn, berries, and ice skates. But somewhere in the great mush of American identity, wheat is the base, and bread is our common understanding of how to eat. (Think, for example, of restaurants...it's a rare place, and usually an 'ethnic' one, that dares to skip the bread basket, or dares to charge diners for it. My grandparents were famously devoted to the bread basket, going into excruciatingly embarrassing and retrospectively hilarious shock when a restaurant failed to provide at least some crackers.)\

Bread is central, and making bread is also central--to my self-perception as a nurturing, capable, crusty post-hippie child. It is transformation and validation and it is delicious. Which is all code for--making bread is one of my greatest pleasures, and having enough time to make it is rare this season. Daniel Leader's recipe for Pane Genzanese (Pane di Genzano, Genzano Country Bread) has become my staple recipe for soft, crusty white bread. It is good every time, and keeps well, but last night's loaf was especially perfect, having avoided the usual frozen-and-impatiently-underthawed fate of most of the bread I bake. I only regret that I have a woozy cold and couldn't really smell it baking. But look at that crumb structure. I guess the fact that I obsess about crumb and hole structures and think anyone else will care means bread is definitely my staple food.

Pane di Genzano in a Basket

I'm blogging on deadline here, or more specifically writing a paper on deadline, thus not supposed to be blogging, but I thought you might like to see some pictures of my first successful attempt at getting pretty ridges on my bread. This is Pane di Genzano from Local Breads, proofed in a breadbasket, or 'makeshift banneton.' I just dusted hell out of the basket with flour and hoped that its sharp ridges wouldn't become a problem. They didn't, and the result was rather lovely.
I also tried out the whole wheat version this time--it was very soft and wet but not unmanageable at all. I formed it into long, sort of shapeless loaves, like this one.
It baked very quickly, almost burning, and the taste was good, a little more complex than the white in the one side by side tasting I did.

Ciabatta

Another casualty of the shrinking of my home population has been a decrease in our consumption of bread. Even when we were five, I often found it hard to convince the roommates to use up any bread that was older than just out of the oven fresh. Part of this may have been the packaging--things in old plastic bags are hard to find and sometimes harder to find appetizing. We do a lot of toast.

Still, now that there are just the two of us, the problem has magnified. I've taken to keeping bread in the refrigerator, wrapped up in the same old plastic bags. I make bread less often, and I make a lot of garlic toast. It works out. Sometimes I get so excited about the stale bread recipes (mmm, pappa al pomodoro) that I actually run out of bread, and then it's finally time to make more. After a little refrigerator-emptying early stuffing experiment, it was that time.

(I should mention that my family Thanksgivings are structured in such a way that I have no part in cooking or serving them, I just occasionally make a dessert. So my early and late stuffing experiments are completely gratuitous, I don't have some fancy occasion to cook for, I just like stuffing. Come back later this week, though, because I do have an impressive cake planned, which I'll blog about as I move through the stages.)

I made two breads. The first was a fairly uneventful ricotta bread, a fortified yeast bread from Local Breads. The second, inspired by this post, was the ciabatta recipe from the same book. I think Local Breads is a great book, and I've had a lot of success with his recipes, but one thing I don't appreciate about the book is that he simply refuses to give hand-kneading instructions for many of the wetter doughs, saying that they are better in a mixer and that is that.

That leaves me...nowhere. Of course, I understand that mixers help out a wet dough...they reduce the sticky hands and minimize the urge to add more flour. However, I don't have a mixer, and people have been making breads with wet dough since before mixers were around. I usually just wing it, and if my crumb is sometimes a little tighter (more water, more open crumb), I deal. I try very very hard to avoid using more flour, I wet or oil my hands, and I just get pretty sticky. Sometimes it works better than others. I expected trouble from this ciabatta, but it was a dream. Sticky, yes, but it had a lot of body, and right from the beginning it was like kneading a real entity, rather than a shapeless misery.

Everything went perfectly. I sliced the dough into irregular roll sizes with a pizza cutter, baked, and then we ate a lot. Very few leftovers of these. I'd like to keep experimenting with this recipe. The post referenced above, the one that inspired the ciabatta-fest, is from the blog of baking guru Rose Levy Berenbaum. In another example of internet democracy in action, my comment on the post received an almost immediate reply from Ms. Berenbaum, and the subsequent responses received several more thoughtful insights. I have actual real friends who don't respond this quickly, let alone international cookbook writing stars. I really do appreciate it, Ms. Berenbaum. Scroll down to the comments section of her post to read the discussion with me and other contributors.

Pain de Campagne

It's been a while since you all got a look at some bread.
Feast your eyes. Very simple Pain de Campagne from Local Breads, made with all white flour with a touch of semolina because that's all I had (shame). I had my usual timing problems (i.e. not being home for nine hours straight, or in this case getting home too late to let the refrigerated dough thaw the two hours Daniel Leader wanted me to thaw it), and bread can't be rushed, so these aren't perfect loaves, but the interior texture is very good indeed, soft, with uneven holes. Almost more of a sandwich bread texture than a pain de campagne, but I have no complaints...dreaming of pappa al pomodoro in a day or two.

L'Shanah Tovah

I'm going with h's this year. Next year, in Jerusalem, it may be spelt L'shana Tova. Or I might have a Hebrew keyboard. If I were in Jerusalem, where the felafel may or may not be made by Jews.

While I'm here in Brooklyn, though, my plan is to stop with the spelling and just have a lot of people over to dinner to eat sweet things and round things and start 5759 together. So that's what we did.

The dinner menu was a little unorthodox, but there were plenty of sweet things and plenty of round, for a sweet year come full circle. For those wondering why certain foods are traditional on Rosh Hashanah, and even those who think they know, there's a great post about holiday foods usual and unusual here.

Appetizers:
Stuffed Mushrooms (Bittman)
Olive Tapanade (Bittman)
Lupini Beans
Cornichons
Brightly colored olives
Cucumbers and Radish and Tomato, sliced by the lovely Nicola
Meal:
Amanda Hesser's grandmother's macaroni and cheese, with tomato, from Cooking for Mr. Latte
Portuguese Fisherman's Stew, from Jasper White's Summer Shack book
Challah and Pane Genzanese
Desert:
Aunt Ida's Honeycake, by Jessica
Haagen-Daz Honeybee Ice Cream, which is delicious and may save all fruit on earth
Apples and Pears and honey

For the first time, I managed to invite more people than the table can hold, so it was a spread out affair. I loved that everyone was gleefully comfortable and made themselves very very at home, but next time I'd like to make sure that everyone can eat at the table together, it feels nicer. So if somehow you don't get invited to the next dinner party and you find out and feel left out, know that you'll be coming over soon, or just invite yourself the next day. We will make you sweet and round. And Matt's been muttering about tapenade-filled grilled squid, so don't miss out.

What do you see in the Rye?

Don't the markings on this loaf of Polish Cottage Rye just remind you of something...
Eyes and a nose? The fairy king brandishing a carrot? A tornado? Thoughts?

As I mentioned last time I made this bread, the dough is fairly sticky, so I decided that this batch would be best made in my new-old mixer. In retrospect, that wasn't the best idea, as I don't have a dough hook and so the mixture climbed right up the beaters and into their sockets. Cleaning job aside, though, the mixer handled the stiff dough very well, and the resulting product was easier to knead by hand. Definitely considering investing in a dough hook if I can find one that will fit this old mixer.

Pane di Genzano Returns

One of the wonderful things about bread baking is that, especially in an uncontrolled home environment, the same recipe turns out something different every time. The whole experience, from starter to kneading, varies with temperature, time, flour content, human error, and many other variables.

I have made this Pane di Genzano a few times now with a few recipes, and while it has been different every time, it has never disappointed. It's moist, light bread, with a near-burned rustic crust (check out the patterns the dish towel made on this one), and some heft. Perfect for soup-sopping and bruschetta making, or just eating.

This loaf was started with the liquid levain, the dough incorporated one cup whole wheat flour, and now that I remember it, I actually made only half the starter, planning on a smaller loaf. Forgot about that when it came to dough mixing, though. This is a forgiving recipe. It rose overnight in the refrigerator, and I baked it on Wednesday morning.

Success is a Fickle Mistress

After reviving my starter from its sullen, vacation-ignored oblivion, I decided to stroke its ego by having another go at the Polish Cottage Rye from Local Breads. This was going very well--the liquid levain is back at peak--until I got around to the actual kneading.

Because rye flour contains far less gluten than wheat, the book offers many tips to strengthen rye taste without sacrificing all rising. The first step is the creation of a special rye sourdough, in my case a spin-off of liquid levain, where the starter is refreshed with whole rye flour exclusively. Then the entire batch that is created is added directly to the dough, an unusually high proportion of starter to flour in the final dough, at least by French levain standards. But this is Polish rye, so French standards are not under discussion.

I mixed up all the recommended ingredients (substituting a cup of whole wheat flour for one of white) and was about to turn the mess out to knead when I noticed that it looked suspiciously wet.

...we interrupt this post to report in awe that it has just gone dark in my office, at 10 am, except for the ominous glow of clear skies far to the west. Weather is so much more extreme out here on the harbor, and the rumble I just heard confirms my hunch that we are in for a mother of a thunderstorm...

Here's the thing: these days, common wisdom holds that bread dough should be wet, the wetter the better, that's what helps it rise high and be full of light irregular holes. This is good to understand, but in this case, it screwed me up. I refused to recognise an unworkable dough when I saw one, and wasted a lot of time scraping dough off my hands in huge clumps and cursing. I ultimately wound up under-kneading, adding more flour, over-proofing, and coming out with an ugly but very respectable loaf. In fact, a really good one (curse you, wet dough). It's done a lot of duty already as bruchetta base and sopper of tomato soup. Incidentally, Alice Waters' tomato soup? Excellent, don't bother to strain.

The rain has just started sheeting down. I want to curl up in an armchair and stare out over the harbor. It's incredible.

Reviving the Starter

It's been so hot lately, and I've been so run off my feet, that turning on the oven and making bread just hasn't been that possible. But on Thursday, with a pile of transcription work to do and no other reason to leave home, I decided it was time to see if my much-neglected starter still had any life.

Refreshed overnight, it was at full strength, and did a great job raising these little boules, the basic pain de campagne from Local Breads. This, at least in this incarnation, is a soft-textured sandwich bread, with surprising lightness for a sourdough raised loaf (at least one of mine). It should probably have been wetter (I think I'm buying very absorbent wheat flour) but it was a pleasure to revive not only the starter but the process, and get back to baking.

Polish Cottage Rye

Now that's more like it. In fact, let me immodestly say that this might be the most beautiful loaf of bread I have ever made.

It so far surpasses the Silesian Light Rye that there is no comparison. Sometimes it's just luck, but here I feel like it is the recipe and luck, and good ingredients. It did the sourdough refreshment and the first major rise in the refrigerator, which in this weather is probably very good for it, and everything just went off perfectly. Ramona got to watch my ridiculous bread-dandling ritual, and I got to pull that sexy little loaf out of the oven. Unlike parenting, I imagine, there is a point when you can really just tell that it's going to be a good one. I still want to try making this from a german rye sourdough, but I'm not bothering with that light rye again. Might, might, try the darker Silesian rye, but quite honestly, this one being another of the triumphs from the mostly spectacular Local Breads, I could just keep on making it.

And the best part? No yeast. Just sourdough. That makes me feel so magical (not that yeast isn't magical enough, but there's something about a sourdough).

Silesian Light Rye (Chleba)

No pictures. The camera is still in the shop. You'll have to rely on my brilliant powers of essay*. The oven, however, works just fine, and turned out a very nice batch of Silesian Light Rye from Local Breads on Saturday. This rye is very light indeed, more of a rye-tinged sandwich bread (it's also fluffy from a mid-process addition of yeast).

I'm starting to warm up to work on the Czech and Polish rye section of the book, but I haven't made a rye sourdough yet, so all my breads are a little less intensely rye than the book suggests they might be. For now, I'm just refreshing my stiff levain with rye according to the instructions in the individual recipes.

This batch was two short fat free-form loaves, kind of like spread batards, topped with caraway. I forgot to score it until they'd been in the oven a little while, so the score marks were more like slice marks, as the top crust had already formed. Still, it spread some. The loaves were golden, pleasant, and unremarkable. I have a batch of the Polish Cottage Rye in the refrigerator now, hopefully it will have a bit more character, although, as noted, it's partly my fault for refusing to get a rye sourdough going.

*I'm thinking of writing some book reviews. Would that interest anyone?

Sunflower Seed Levain

I am not an accomplished photographer. This probably doesn't come as news to anyone reading this blog. I am working on improving my game, but recently experienced a major setback. Shame shame shame. I broke the lens on Libby's camera, which she so generously allows me to use to record my baking. I did it, appropriately enough, with the handle of a spoon and a wildly overenthusiastic gesture. Luckily, the lens is replaceable and the camera is unharmed. Still, I felt very shamefaced, and was struck with that merciless incredulity that breaking things often inspires (see earlier post on Mr. Coffee's demise).
However, even if I can't take fancy pics, I really can bake, and I warmed up my stiff dough levain and got back on my bread stick the other day. For this sunflower seed levain, I followed the variation on the classic pain au levain from Local Breads. The sunflowers are soaked overnight for eight hours as the levain is refreshed, and then are added directly to the dough.

Everything went smoothly here, although I did need to add more water to the dough. This is a trick that bread books avoid, and in fact it's pretty complicated, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, and can really feel when the dough is too heavy and needs loosening. The fact that I have this much finesse at 8 am just makes me more impressed with myself. This must be why I bake bread. I get so impressed with myself.

This dough was plenty loose, slightly sticky, and did its first rise in the refrigerator. My faithful assistant and Celtics-loving house husband, Jill, pulled it out, and by the time I got home from work, the dough was ready to shape and proof.

It's still warm in Brooklyn, and so it proofed quickly and easily, went into the oven, and came out perfect. King Arthur Bread Flour, you are expensive, but you make a real difference. The crust and texture are perfect, I think it is a little undersalted, though. Sure is good-looking.

End of Week Baking - Flop Poilane and Semolina Mushroom Toast

No particularly fancy breads on the table in the last few days. I took another stab at the Poilane-inspired miche from Local Breads, and again it was kind of a flop. In an attempt to make long-rising bread happen on a school night (never the best idea), I set a series of alarms and napped as the wet and sticky dough sped through its rises. This plan worked well enough until around 2am, when the 570 degree oven I had turned on burned a little flour on the baking stone and caused Libby to wake up and turn the oven off. When I came into the kitchen a half hour later and threw the bread in, I only noticed the lack of preheating too late. I turned it right back up again, but the oven spring was more or less negligible. It tastes ok, but it just isn't anything special.

In an effort to console myself, I went back to the quick and easy last night, with Semolina Raisin Sandwich Bread. This one is quick and infallible and makes good toast, sandwich, and bread pudding bread. No glory, but fast gratification. Here it is toasted with mozzarella and mushrooms.

Pane Genzanese

One of the lovely things about reading a lot of food writing is that the eventual cumulative effect is that of an extended conversation. The foodie/chef world is a fairly small one, and the same reviews, enthusiasms, and questions come up frequently, often with illuminating differences.

So it was that I was caught dorking out in bed, chortling to myself over having found a new recipe for the Genzano Country Bread I've been making, a recipe from a writer with very different preoccupations, style, and skills than Daniel Leader, but another devotee of this very bread. Jeffrey Steingarten, in his collection of essays It Must Have Been Something I Ate: The Return of the Man Who Ate Everything, devotes a chapter to the Pane Genzanese, along with the Roman pizza bianca. Steingarten's recipe has similar quantities to Leaders, but a somewhat different method, and very detailed instructions.

Leader's version starts with a biga, a starter fueled by a small amount of sourdough. Steingarten's begins with a small yeast-based poolish that ferments for 12 hours, followed by a starter based on the poolish, and then finally followed by the bread itself. Both authors seem to feel the bread can't be properly made without a mixer.

Lacking a mixer, I have to hope they're wrong. I did have to oil my hands a fair amount, but Steingarten's slow and bit-by-bit instructions allowed me to achieve an incredible result, a huge, almost burnt, crusty and very moist bread, the kind sawed into quarters for sale in Italian bakeries.

Every bread baking is different, depending on day, flour, temperature, rising times, and retardation (that means putting it in the refrigerator. shut up.). Still, from my informal comparison, I'd say Steingarten's technique takes it. At least so far. I'm looking for more recipes.

The loaf was huge, but it was meant to be even larger. Jill and I absconded with a fair chunk of it for a little pizza.

Genzano Country Bread, White

There is something awfully intriguing about the Genzano Country Bread. I just made it again and it was an entirely different animal. First off, I made it with just white high gluten flour (King Arthur bread flour has gone up from $3.49 to $4.99 at Fairway, by the way). I used a tablespoon each of stiff sourdough and liquid levain, along with the yeast. Although I had originally planned to, I didn't decrease this time either because I was worried about the strength of the sourdoughs, which were both a few days out from being refreshed. Due to time constraints, I did some more fast and loose timing maneuvers using the refrigerator. I refrigerated the biga for about 12 hours after a quick six-hour ferment, and then did the two risings in the fridge as well, each for about 10 hours. After that I just shaped it, wrapped it in bran, and proofed for an extra hour before putting it in the oven. I baked it in the preheated dutch oven, which worked really well (no control this time, but I can tell it made a difference). Because it was a big loaf, I took it out into the regular oven for the last five minutes to make sure all the crust got browned.
This might be one of the most handsome loaves I've ever made, and it has the flavor of a sourdough and the squishy ('normal' Libby says') texture of a yeast bread. I think this recipe holds more for me in the near future. Meanwhile we have this enormous loaf to deal with.

Genzano Country Bread/ Pane Casareccio di Genzano

I was intrigued by this recipe in Local Breads, but put off making it for a while because the size of the loaves and the wetness of the dough were a little intimidating. Also, even though I've tackled the Pane di Altamura with dubiously good results, bread with a government stamp (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) comes with a little chip on its shoulder. Dare to make me, it says. And really, what do I have to lose? So started the process, and almost immediately, life got in the way.

Pane di Genzano starts with the creation of a biga naturale, a short-term sourdough starter fueled by a few tablespoons of my existing liquid levain. I got that going on Saturday morning, using the last of the flour in the house, a mix of Wild Hive bread flour and whole wheat pastry. Left it to ferment the recommended 8-12 hours and went out to the library, the farmers market, etc... At 5pm, I took myself off to learn a new tour(Times Square). I thought this training would be a matter of a few hours, but it soon turned out that I was actually leading a second tour in the West Village immediately following. What with one thing and another, ghost tours and upwards of forty Canadian teenagers, I didn't get home until nearly midnight, and wasn't about to start bread then. So I tossed the biga bowl into the refrigerator and hoped for the best. The next morning I had to be in Carroll Gardens by 11 am with a load of pain au chocolat (more on this later), so the biga continued its patient wait.

At 3pm on Sunday, bread production finally began. I mixed the dough, which includes nearly a cup and a half of the starter. It is supposed to be a very wet dough, so much so that Daniel Leader doesn't even give hand-kneading instructions. Mine, while sticky, was manageable, probably because I had used whole wheat flour in the starter, which absorbs much more water. If I was in a fever of authenticity, I probably would have added extra water, but I wasn't about to complain about being able to handle the dough. The recipe also called for a small amount of commercial yeast at this point. I added it, but I think in future I'll reduce the amount.

Mindful of my evening plans, I stuck the dough into two quart yogurt containers to ferment and took them along with me to Paper Beats Rock. As soon as the reading was over, I took them out right there in the bar and punched them down. I am the crazy lady with dough in her bag.

I then walked downtown to meet Matt, and took the alarmingly expanded dough to his house, getting it set up to proof right before the yogurt containers exploded. Miraculously, even after all the abuse and despite the fact that I baked it on metal pans instead of my baking stone, the bread came out beautifully, with a hard dark crust and a sweet soft, slightly irregular crumb.

A beautiful example of another home baker's slightly less interrupted take on Pane di Genzano can be found here.

Two Yeast Breads

Many of you may have noticed that serious bread baking seems to take place largely on Wednesday and Thursday, the days I don't go in to work in Red Hook. Yesterday was no exception, I came home early in the morning and set up two (moderately) quick yeast breads, a version of Rose Levy Berenbaum's Jewish Rye Bread and a raisin Semolina Sandwich Bread from Local Breads. Both are soft, sweet, forgiving breads, good for breakfast and dinner and for eating by the fistful. They are a tribute to the pleasures of having a few hours around the house, basic methods, basic ingredients, big return.

Buckwheat Bastards, Second Round

A second take on Daniel Leader/Eric Kayser's Buckwheat Batards, from Local Breads. What with Passover and all, the roommates were starting to take note of a lack of bread, so I got it together and made two kinds in a day. This batch of dough was a little dryer than my first attempt, probably because of the whole wheat bread flour. It was, therefore, easier to handle and shape, and I think came out as well or better. After thinking about the great crust on the no-knead breads, I decided to try an experiment and bake a kneaded bread in the dutch oven. The results were encouraging, though not decisive. On the left, the control, bread baked with steam on a stone in the open oven. On the right, the same bread baked in the heated dutch oven. Both look great, but the difference isn't that noticeable. Continued investigations to follow.