Taking Time for Craft

This past Thanksgiving my little family and I packed our bags and left our southern California home for the Grand Canyon.  Having always been fascinated by the romance rail travel, we decided that instead of driving, we’d take Amtrak’s Southwestern Chief, a passenger train that runs between Los Angeles and Chicago.

I had no idea what a prophetic choice it would prove to be. 

When you take the train from LA, you depart from Union Station, one of the city’s architectural treasures in iconic mission and art deco styles.  Artisan Malibu and terra cotta tile bid you adieu, reminding you that no matter where your travels take you, there’s no place like home. 

Josh and our daughter aboard the Southwestern Chief

The moment we stepped aboard the train, we set out to explore.  My daughter, already a seasoned air traveler at age five, was absolutely fascinated by the shower in our room, which used the same cozy cabinet as the commode.  “Let’s be sure to put the toilet lid down before we shower,” she suggested. 

We burned off more of our giddy curiosity exploring the lounge car and observation deck.  Returning to our small bedroom, we played Uno, we laughed, and we marveled at how smooth the ride was. Soon, our charming steward, Fred, came by to introduce himself, offer us a cup of freshly brewed coffee and let us know that the dining hostess would be by to collect reservations for the dining car. 

Seriously.  Dinning reservations.  I love it!

After a Thanksgiving turkey dinner in the dining car, a shower in our room and a story on our bed, our little girl pulled herself up into her bunk and snuggled in with wide eyes and a wide grin. She looked the way that I felt. 

We arrived the next morning in Flagstaff at 6 am to snow on the ground and a balmy 6 degrees F outside. 

Now what are the odds that the only place open and within walking distance is one of the best coffee houses you’ve ever been to?  As it turns out, in Flagstaff, the chances appear to be pretty good. 

From the folks at Macy’s European Coffeehouse, who roast their beans, grown on small farms using traditional methods, to those at Diablo Burger, who make some of the best burgers we’ve had using only local, grass feed beef, our journey to the Grand Canyon held one unexpected gift after another.  These are people that appreciate craftsmanship.  For every coffee house that roasted its own beans, there stood opposite it a pub that brewed its own beer.

It’s congruous with the feeling you get on board the train.  It’s not fast and it’s not impersonal.  The journey lets you experience the land as you move through it.  There is time to make a connection with the country and your fellow travelers.

In our quest to go faster and acquire more, we often lose the opportunity to savor life and connect with others.  We live in a disposable society, but don’t we yearn for something of substance – for sustenance?  For me, it starts with a good loaf of bread, but where else might a more artisanal approach be applied?  It’s simply about savoring the process and respecting the materials.  It’s about producing something of quality and value, and in so doing, making a connection with those around you.

Pop! Goes the Corn Muffin

A quick blast of heat gives these sweet treats craggy peaks.

Today my daughter’s kindergarten class is celebrating Thanksgiving with the requisite pilgrim/native American feast. 

Being the dutiful and somewhat over-enthusiastic mom that I am, I got up early this morning to bake off a couple of batches of corn mini muffins as our contribution.  (There’s nothing like a quick bread – which must be mixed and baked off in one fell swoop – to make you appreciate the more leisurely processes of yeast breads.  At least the latter lets you sleep.)

Corn bread is simple, with a straightforward mix and bake.  Still, being a fledgling baker, I have yet to have a baking experience that hasn’t taught me a lesson.  

The first batch of corn muffins baked
on the 350 degree stone

This morning, it was the lesson of the super hot baking stone.

For my first batch of mini muffins, I’d only just preheated the oven to 350 degrees before throwing the first pan into the oven.  Since I store the stone in the oven, I’d forgotten it was even IN there before I opened the door to put the muffins inside.

The first batch of muffins baked up fine, nothing wrong with them, but certainly nothing special either.   Maybe they were a little anemic in color and loft.  I didn’t think too much of it, but as I scooped out the batter for the second batch, something I’ve read came back to me.

The second batch of muffins, baked
on a 500 degree stone

I paused my scooping to crank up the oven as hot as it would go (500 degrees on mine) to get my baking stone super hot.  In all of my studying, this seemed to be key.  Get the stone super heated, then as soon as your bread goes into the oven, back the heat down to the prescribed baking temperature – in this case, 350 degrees for the muffins.

Wow - don’t you just love when an experiment pays off?

What a difference.  The quick blast of heat that the muffins received when the baking tin hit the hot stone was enough to pop them up sky high.  You can see in the pictures that they are practically climbing over themselves to reach out of the tin, cracking on the way up.  Not only were they proud and majestic, but the bottoms emerged from the tin beautifully toasted. 

Of course, the reward for early baking is starting the day with a fresh goodie.  I brewed a cuppa English Breakfast, slathered some tart strawberry jam onto a hot corn muffin, and sat down to wait for my little pilgrim to wake.

Love Gone Sour

When Lady Gaga wrote “Bad Romance,” it must have been in the throws of trying to make a sourdough starter – that delightful little piece of magic dough that gives loaves of sourdough bread their wonderfully tart taste.

After all, a starter flirts…it promises…it excites and enthralls…then it unexpectedly leaves you.  You remain: cruelly disappointed and wondering what you did wrong.

 

Yet even the brokenhearted ultimately try to love again.  

I like to think that the silver lining behind all of my false starts is that, every time I failed to get a little something going, I at least developed a clearer sense of what might work better next time.  Now, after months (MONTHS) of trial and error, I finally (FINALLY!) have viable starters going.  No matter which recipe you use (a Google search will yield dozens), here's what I found helped put the magic into my relationships with these little balls of dough...

The magic of diastatic malt powder:  obvious 
activity on day 3 of a developing starter

1. The steroid for starters:  diastatic malt powder.  For me, this was the solution for levains that never seemed to activate.  After reading about it in Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads, I ordered some online from King Arthur Flour and put a half teaspoon or so into new starters during the first phase Since then, the starters have clearly demonstrated the level of activity I expected, when I expected it. 
2. To cover or not to cover.  There seems to be two schools of thought here, but I found that leaving the starter on my countertop with a piece of plastic wrap lying loosely over the bowl worked best – by far.  Even once a completed mother starter was covered tightly to go into the fridge, venting it once after the first hour or two to release any carbon dioxide seemed to be important.  I imagine those poor, oxygen-starved yeast and bacteria suffocating in carbon dioxide.  I don’t know if that’s what happens, but that’s what I picture.
3.  Stir, stir, stir.  Literally – during each phase of development, stirring my mixture three times a day made a difference between a developing starter that demonstrated the activity I expected and something that seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder.

In the end, what each of these little tricks helped me solve for is my hideous lack of patience.  Maybe my past starters would have worked had I given them more time.  But I’m not a patient woman.  I need BIG, explosive signs that my love is appreciated and reciprocated.  I never was one to sit by the phone waiting for him to call me.  Clearly, nothing’s changed.

Harry Grabsch's Brioche

Here, at last, is the post I intended when I wound up with Trouble Comes in Threes. It’s a tribute to my grandfather and the bread he baked when I was a kid.

Opa, hubby Josh, me and Oma

Not too long after my parents’ divorce in the early 80s, my mother, brother and I returned from California to Virginia, where we moved in with my grandparents for a year while my mom prepared to provide for my brother and me.

What I tend to recall from that period isn’t the pain of a family splitting apart – though of course it was there – but the camaraderie and comfort of living with my grandparents afterward. We’d always been close, but that experience cemented our bond.

During that year, it was on very special weekends that my grandfather would hoist down the ceramic mixing bowl that he kept on top of the refrigerator. I imagine he kept it up there because it was the only place it would fit. Opa was a big man, and a big, thick bowl suited him. In my memory, it was about 18 inches in diameter and weighed 10 lbs before you put anything in it. (Who knows how big it really was.)

What he would mix up in that bowl – his massive frame leaning into it to stir and knead, glasses falling down onto the bridge of his nose – was some of the most wonderful bread I’ve ever had. All of the egg, butter, milk and honey in those brioche loaves gave them a fabulously decadent flavor, a beautiful pale yellow hue, and the smell…it was heaven.

When the loaves were done, Opa would slice off a piece and hold it out silently – a sacred offering. As you took it and ate it, he’d eat his own piece, never taking his eyes off of your reaction. He showed his love in his cooking, and he wanted to share that little moment of bliss with you

As a kid, bread that sweet and soft was an outright miracle. It was so good, that you pretty well knew that any other adult that happened by would take it away from you. I must have adopted some sort of protective stance, shielding the bread with my body, to prevent just such interference.

Opa's bread

More than twenty-five years later, I sit here with a loaf of Opa’s bread baking in the oven of my sunny California kitchen. (Yes, I made my way back over the years, this time in the company of my husband and young daughter). Opa won’t see this house, nor did he get to meet our daughter. But the aroma of his bread in the oven is enough to evoke his spirit for my daughter to experience.

If you’d like to try Opa’s bread, the recipe is below. It’s perfect for beginners and guaranteed to endear you to your family. It’s absolutely wonderful for breakfast, toasted, and spread with a little more butter or honey (or both).

Harry Grabsch’s Brioche
Makes two 12” loaves
2 packets (or 4.5 t) of active dry yeast
½ cup of lukewarm water
6 cups flour all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼ lb (1 stick) of butter, melted
1 cup of milk (any kind – soy, whole, skim, rice - will work)
½ cup of honey
2 eggs, beaten

Dissolve the yeast in the water and let it sit for about five minutes until it “blooms.”

Meanwhile, mix together the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix the milk, melted butter, honey and eggs together and add that wet mix and the bloomed yeast to the flour mixture. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together for a few minutes in the bowl using a wooden spoon. Once the mixture has come together some, dump it out onto a well-floured surface and knead for five to ten minutes. It’s ready when the dough has smoothed out and begins to feel more elastic.

Put the kneaded dough into a buttered bowl. Opa used to cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough do its first rise on the counter over a couple of hours. I tried covering the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and placing it in the refrigerator over night. (To prevent the wrap from sticking to your dough as it rises, spray it with a little Pam before covering the bowl.)

Then next morning, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit on the counter for 2-3 hours or until it comes to room temperature. Then, split the dough into two with a bench scraper. Knock down each piece of by gently pressing it out on the counter. (You want to give the yeast access to more sugars without removing all of the nice air that you’ve worked so hard to get into the loaf.) Shape the dough into loaves, and place it into two 12” buttered loaf pans.

Let the loaves rise again on the countertop covered with a towel until doubled in size. Be patient. These are heavy loaves and it will take a while, especially in the winter. Mine took over two hours. You’ll know their ready when a finger pressed lightly into the surface leaves an indentation.

Once they are doubled in size, you may opt to glaze your loaves with a little melted butter – this gives the crust a deeper warm brown tone once the loaf is baked and adds to the overall decadence.

When you’re almost ready to bake, preheat your oven well to 400 degrees. After you place your loaves in, turn the temperature back to 375 and let them bake for about 30 minutes.

When they are done, they will make a hollow sound when you thump the bottom of the loaf (yes, you should take it out of the pan before thumping). Again, be patient on the cooking time – you don’t want pale, anemic looking loaves – don’t be afraid of the rich caramel color the tops will develop. When they are done, remove the loaves from the oven and allow them to cool completely – if you can wait that long. I never can.

Trouble Comes in Threes

This started out as a sentimental post about my morning spent baking my grandfather’s signature bread.  I’d even gotten out a picture of him to share with you.  Unfortunately, the post is not going to finish as I’d intended.

Opa’s bread is a really decadent enriched loaf, flavored generously with butter, honey and a couple of eggs.  Although he baked it in a loaf pan and never referred to it as such, it’s really a brioche.  As a child I eagerly ate slices completely unadorned as soon as the bread had cooled. 

But as you’ve undoubtedly deduced, today's loaves - one intended as a hostess gift for a Halloween party – didn’t come out well. 

I considered not posting a blog after my horrible showing.  In the end, I decided in favor of giving you more visibility into the experience of learning to bake – ugly crusts and all.  Maybe it’ll help me remember the lessons next time, maybe it’ll encourage my fellow novice bakers, maybe it’ll give you a good snigger.

Don’t get me wrong - the loaves survived.  But they emerged from the oven ugly enough that they were no longer appropriate as the gifts they were meant to be.

What started out well quickly unraveled during the glazing step near the end of the final rise.  (Gah!  Even now it galls me to think of it - how could I have gotten so far only to fail then???)  I can identify three key errors that led to my homely loaves:

The light spots in the loaf are where the towel tore away pieces of the surface - the stripes are a result of the undiluted yolk glaze.

1. The glazing error²:  my first glazing error was that I didn’t dilute my egg yolk with a little water before brushing it onto the loaf.  As the loaf baked, rather than adding a uniform warm shine to the crust, the streaks created by my pastry brush got darker and more pronounced as the bread baked.  My loaf became striped (and not in some cool, intentional way).  If that weren’t enough, my second glazing error was that I got impatient and applied this undiluted glaze before the loaf was completely finished rising, then covered the loaf back up with a towel.  When I pulled the towel off the loaf...well, do I even have to say it?  Some of the surface of the loaf came with it.  Draaaaat! 
2. The knocking error:  I was afraid the breaks in the loaf’s surface created by The Glazing Error would affect the ‘pop’ (or final rise burst) the loaf would get when it hit the heat of the oven.  Ha!  You know what really affects your pop?  Losing your grip on the panned loaf and dropping it.  One of my loaves fell about a foot and knocked hard against the baking stone I was placing it on.  Now that takes the air out of your loaf.  I watched in alarm as my loaf deflated. 
3. The real error:  In the end, the real error I made was lack of focus.  Because we needed to get to the party, I didn’t pay as much attention to the process as I need to – especially with my limited experience.  It led to some poor choices that resulted in two really ugly loaves of bread.

What I salvaged from the day was this:  having now reminisced about my beloved grandfather’s bread, I’m ready to go again tomorrow morning.  Eager as I am, I may even start tonight to see if an overnight rise in the fridge doesn’t enhance the flavor.  Look for the results tomorrow…if it turns out to be another list of lessons learned, let’s hope they’re new ones!

Baking, Books and Boston Brown Bread

Baking, Books and Boston Brown Bread

This morning Hi-Rise's Boston Brown Bread is in the oven from Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking. This is labeled as a ‘Beginner’ recipe in Maggie’s book, and as a quick bread it probably should be. Still, I found myself over-thinking the use of the word “batter.”  I could tell that my mixture wasn’t as wet as it should be, but how much milk to add? I settled on a consistency not unlike toothpaste:

I can’t wait for it to come out – the molasses in the batter leant it a warm root beer flavor that will go beautifully with some nice black tea this morning. The cans you bake it in give it irresistible charm.

Getting out Maggie’s book made me think about the resources with which I’ve armed myself to learn to bake. While we wait and see how this brown bread comes out, I’ll share my favorites thus far.

Good to the Grain
As I mentioned in the first post, this is the book that started my journey. I was interested in baking with more whole grains, and Kim Boyce’s straightforward yet wonderfully creative recipes make it a perfect place to begin. There is enough detail on technique and rationale without making baking daunting. Everything I’ve baked out of this book has turned out (seriously – small miracle) and everything has been delicious, even to my five-year-old.

Artisan Baking
What I’ve learned from Maggie’s book thus far is that I’m not an artisan baker. Yet. I think my mistake with this one was starting with advanced recipes, which is why I went back to the beginning this morning. What is really wonderful and inspiring about Maggie’s book is its survey of some of America’s most authentic artisan bakers and their bakeries.

Whole Grain Breads
For my first Peter Reinhart purchase I opted to skip The Bread Baker’s Apprentice and go instead to this volume. I’m not sure about the wisdom of that choice…it’s perhaps like going straight to the black diamond ski slope when one has never skied before. Still, Peter’s experience at instructing comes through, and it’s from this book that I learned most of what I’ve learned in the past month about grains and the chemistry of baking. Also, Peter’s instructions for creating a whole wheat or whole rye sourdough starter are wonderfully detailed for folks like me that need a lot of guidance.

The Fresh Loaf
It’s not a book, and for that, in many ways it’s better. thefreshloaf.com is a wonderfully supportive and vibrant forum for amateur bakers. There’s a broad mix of both novice and experienced bakers with a little something to learn from each of them. The lessons are a great place to start for a good foundation in the basics of bread baking. Thanks floydm!

Perfect timing. The breads are out of the oven and they look and smell wonderful, bursting roughly out of their shiny cans. Who can resist that? Impatient as I am, I can’t wait until they cool to taste it. (Another lesson to learn.) This version isn’t steamed, it’s baked, which makes it a touch easier to execute. I couldn’t get it out of the can in one piece – next time I’ll line the cans with parchment paper. That doesn’t deter me. As I slice into it, it’s still lovely and moist inside with a nice crispy crust on top. Overall, it’s quite like a muffin. The molasses flavor is mellow and just slightly sweet, and the mix of rye, corn, whole wheat and all-purpose flours give it a really hearty body.

That’s it for baking, books and Boston Brown Bread this morning. The tea is ready too, and I’m ready for breakfast!  

Now that's what I call breakfast.

The Search for Sustenance Begins

I’m going to make an earnest attempt at baking really good bread.

It’s not that I haven’t tried before.  But the loaves I’ve produced in the past have had more in common with pieces of sporting equipment than anything you’d want to ingest.  Truly – I can’t stress this enough – I’m an absolutely hideous baker.  Years ago, acknowledging this short coming led me to the conclusion that baking bread was best left to the experts. 

But an epiphany at the neighborhood supermarket six months ago has forced me to reconsider this position.  There in the bakery, surrounded by the best loaves the store had to offer, I felt bereft.  Where were the whole grains?  Where were the airy, soft interiors nestled inside of a chewy/crispy curst?  Where was the character?  And where – WHERE - was the lovely warm aroma? 

I looked around the store in alarm - had anyone else noticed what was missing?  No one seemed to notice anything amiss.  Perhaps I was overreacting.

But soon thereafter, I happened to have the pleasure of hearing Kim Boyce talk about her new whole grain baking book, Good to the Grain at a local culinary school. 

Ha!  I wasn’t alone! 

There were others that felt that something intrinsic is lost in the industrialization of bread.  (It’s not for lack of trying, but the truth is that bread in its most authentic form is something that simply doesn’t travel well through space or time.  It’s best produced locally and eaten quickly.) 

But back to that evening at the culinary school…the most important lesson I took away from that night was this:  after trying my hand with a few of the recipes, it felt remotely possible that I might one day produce a loaf of bread that I’d actually serve.  Emboldened by Kim’s confident assurances and inspired by her creativity with whole grains, I returned home that night determined to try again.

And thus, I began – and so I’ll continue…

I am going to attempt to learn to bake a variety of very good breads this year.  I think to do that to my satisfaction, I need to work on the craft daily.  So that’s what I’m going to do every morning, and I’ll document the experience here.

(Don’t worry.  I’m not going to bake my way through Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.)

Wish me luck.  Join me if you’d like and how you’d like.  I’d love have some company for the trip.