Mike and Arron--Thanks for your comments on the mixer bowl size's relationship to the amount of dough. I've always thought that an ideal home mixer would have attachments that allowed for smaller and larger projects. It would save money and precious kitchen space. When I brought home the second used bread machine, I initially had no idea where I would put it, but I was able to stash it on the counter in a long narrow space that I'd not find a way to use. I still have to move it to use it, but at least it's out of the way.
Aaron--none of the Ginsberg recipes that I've baked require steam. The last bread said to brush the top with water. I settled for spritzing it well with water.
I did in the past bake some breads with steam, but I'm not sure that I did it properly, and a pan that I used developed a problem from the salt in west Texas waster. I'd like to try the steam again. I had bought a set of iron barbecue steamers (long narrow--about 2 inches wide--cast iron with grilled tops. These were recommended by someone on the now defunct KAF baking circle, but I didn't get a chance to try them. Maybe it's time to see how well they work. I also recall someone who would throw ice cubes into a hot iron pan. Ice cubes might work well with these.
When I was trying to use steam, I was also letting the bread rise in a basket and turning it out onto a cornmeal lined paddle, which I would then try to get it to slide off onto a pre-heated stone in the oven. I became tired of 1)deflating the loaf, even a bit, and 2)cleaning up the mess that the cornmeal left in the oven, especially after I had an oven that could not have a liner on the bottom.
What I would do now is use parchment, as I do for pizza. I'm going to have to try all of this again, although I've decided my next bread is going to be two loaves in regular pans so that I can stick one in the freezer.
I have two old (pre-Whirlpool) KA mixers. I have my original which is a 4.5 quart but will fit a 5 quart bowl. I was making a batch of stiff bread and it started to smoke. It still works but smells like smoke when I use it. I also have a hand mixer of the same vintage that came with two beaters, an immersion blender attachment, and a dough hook. It actually works and is a nice alternative to pulling out my stand mixer.
I asked for a bigger one for father's day and was given a five quart which is not significantly bigger but has a more powerful motor. It still overflows with anything more than five cups of flour even though it was rated to nine cups (says it on the manual). The engine will handle bigger loads than the 4.5 but it still overflows.
Interestingly at the restaurant they have a 10 quart which is what I use most of the time. It is not a KA or Hobart. I believe it's a Vollrath which I'd never heard of before. While it will mix 10 lbs of bread dough if I try to do it on anything other than low speed it shuts down and has to be reset.
Then there is the 35 qt Hobart! But the bowl, by itself, weighs a ton let alone filled with dough. So unless I need it (like for 35 lbs of challah) I don't use it. The restaurant uses it exclusively for making pita.
We have fish periodically, my wife usually has orange roughy in a lemon-butter sauce and I have salmon in butter. (She doesn't care for salmon.) I've been adding some dill and occasionally some rosemary to it.
I've got a 4 1/2 quart KA (from the early 70's), so when I get to that one I'll be able to report on how well it works. I've heard from several people with larger capacity mixers (like the Anksarsrum) who said they had problems with smaller batches.
I haven't decided on an order yet for the 78 recipes in TRB, so I will probably be skipping around a bit, as it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to make two similar recipes back-to-back. A fellow BBGA member contacted me to say he was having some problems with a couple of Ginsberg's recipes, I may try one of those soon.
I think I'm doing the Munich Penny Rolls next, just because they're rolls not loaves, and Ginsberg says they have a thin crisp exterior. (My Holy Grail of breads remains the rolls I had in NYC around 25 years ago, with a crust like an eggshell and a creamy interior. I think they had some rye content, too.)
I'm in a peculiar position, as the kneading spiral on my 7-qt mixer works better with big batches. (I'd love to know if someone with the small Cuisinart mixer has better success.) The used bread machine--for mixing and kneading only, as I don't let the dough rise in it--gave me a cheaper option than investing in a smaller mixer. I preferred the texture of the bread that was kneaded in the Zo than the first loaf, where I was constantly having to stop the mixer and adjust the dough.
I might try mixing with the paddle before switching to the dough hook, which is what I do with all of the other breads I bake.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by
BakerAunt.
They were very good. I salted and peppered them, sprinkled on a little marjoram, nutmeg and flour, let them sit for a half hour, then seared them in a little butter on medium heat for 2-3 minutes, then flipped them over, covered the pan, reduced the heat and let them finish cooking until they were above 145 degrees. That kept them nice and moist and gave me a nice base for the pan sauce.
This is a pan sauce I'll make again. (And I might do that tomorrow, I bought two packages of these pork chops. They're thin ones, about 4 ounces, and were 88 cents each, but you can't often buy your protein for less than a dollar a serving.)
On Thursday, I again Baked the Yogurt Rye Bread from Ginsberg’s book, but this time I used full-fat Stonyfield yogurt that I bought on our grocery run yesterday. I also mixed and kneaded it in the Zo bread machine, which worked much better than my mixer for this smaller amount of dough. The dough baked into the same sized loaf, still about 3 ¾ inches high. I’ll slice it tomorrow, as we have already eaten the first loaf I baked. (As I noted, it is a small loaf.)
I saw something on an episode of Chopped this week that I haven't seen very often on competitive cooking shows.
In the dessert round one of the competitors cut his hand badly with less than two minutes in the round. He hadn't finished plating all four of his dishes and leaving ingredients off the plate will often get you chopped. While the medic was attending to him, the clock kept counting down. With under 30 seconds to go, he was still being attended to, so his opponent finished plating his foods for him. (All he had to do was move two bowls of ice cream onto the plate.)
As it turned out, the guy who cut his hand won the competition, he almost certainly would have lost had his opponent not finished plating for him. I hope they invite the guy who lost back for another competition, sportsmanship deserves recognition.
Once you've got a starter well-established, it can be pretty tolerant. I know people who've forgotten they had a starter and found it at the back of a refrigerator shelf weeks or months later and it bounced back just fine.
I'm in the last few days of building my rye starter, so it hasn't gone in the fridge yet. It's pretty active at this point, I refreshed it around 10 PM last night and by 10 AM this morning it had doubled. It has an interesting but fairly pleasant sour aroma.
I think if you've got a week or so when you'll be at home, you can probably build a rye starter using Ginsberg's protocol, then stick it in the fridge. A day or two before you're ready to bake, take a small amount of the starter, mix it with some rye flour and warm water, and let it sit on the counter for a day, it should be ready to go.
I've saved up all the discards, they're in the fridge. I'm planning to use them for some of the Ginsberg recipes. (Right now I'm thinking of trying the Munich Penny rolls next, I've ordered some rye malt and will toast it to produce red rye malt--lightly toasted).
There's no beer in the Old Milwaukee bread, though I think there are a few of Ginsberg's recipes that do use beer in them. I'm not a beer drinker, but I think that Old Milwaukee beer is still on the market.
Making 78 rye recipes is likely to produce rye bread fatigue here, so I'm thinking I may do 2 or 3 then take a break of a week or two. I may have to try a few new non-rye recipes just for a change of pace, too. Maybe I'll try Hamelman's wild yeast raisin bread recipe again, last time I got the wrong kind of mold on the top of the raisin water and had to throw it out. Debbie Wink says that sometimes happens, raisins can have several types of mold spores on them, including Botrytis cinerea, the grey mold responsible for 'noble rot' in Sauternes dessert wines.
That bread looks great, Mike, and it's good to know that it tastes great as well.
I'm going to try toasting a piece of my Yogurt Rye Bread and see if that gives it more flavor.
I have two of the deli rye pans, and I use them for some breads, particularly my Limpa bread.
I plan to bake the Yogurt Rye again today. I bought full-fat Stonyfield yogurt yesterday on our shopping run to the next town. I was surprised that Walmart had it. At 7g saturated fat per cup (250g), I won't be snacking on it, but I will use the remainder to try making my own yogurt with 1% milk, so the remainder won't go to waste. I have a yogurt maker (the little jars).
I'm curious to see if the added fat makes a difference. Ginsberg did not specify a type of yogurt or what its fat content should be. The bread has no additional added fat. I'm also wondering if the buttermilk I'm buying does not have enough of the LAB to give the tang. The buttermilk that I cultured, using 200 ml of it to 600 ml 1% milk never thickened. I prefer Dean's, but I cannot get it in a half gallon. I also note that it now is 2% fat per cup rather than the 1.5% it was.
I'm also planning on using the Zo, since as I noted above, I had to keep stopping the mixer to pull the dough together, and that got aggravating over a 10-minute kneading session.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
King Arthur used to sell a 'deli rye' pan, with sides that sloped out sort of like a trapezoid, but it looks like they no longer have it. I thought it was a Chicago Metallic pan, but they don't seem to have it on their site, either. Specialty pans come and go, I guess, I've got several that nobody seems to carry any more. (And I've got two large glass pans that I broke the lid to one of, but the French maker no longer makes that size.)
The main reason I bake most of my breads freeform is that I prefer a crust that has some body to it.
Report on Old Milwaukee Rye (The Rye Baker pps 98-101):
The recipe made two loaves. Although Ginsberg recommends a football shaped loaf, I made more of a cylindrical one, because that way the slices are more uniform in size. The loaves are about 11 inches long with a cross section of about 5 inches by 3 inches. The finished loaf weighs 696 grams or about 24 1/2 ounces.
This dough came together quickly and looked and felt quite a bit like gingerbread, not at all sticky. It rose well, though a little slow, that might have just been the kitchen temperature. It baked a little faster than the recipe called for, but that may have been due to how I shaped it.
The caraway seeds on the outside didn't stick very well, I may not have had enough egg in the egg wash. And I remembered why I generally don't put caraway seeds on the outside, they get very hard and stick in between my teeth.
The bread is fairly dark on the inside, due in large part to the molasses. There's a noticeable aftertaste from the molasses, but it is not an unpleasant one. I think that may fade a little over time, when the loaves came out of the oven the molasses odor was much stronger.
We think the bread is very tasty as a sandwich bread, it would probably make excellent Reubens, too. It reminds me a bit of the rye bread I get in the Amish store in Iowa.
It toasts very well and I think it would pair quite well with stronger toppings, like an apple butter. I think there's a good chance I'll make this bread again.
Followup: It tastes even better on day 2.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by
Mike Nolan.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.
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Love your buns, Len!! I've not baked your recipe in my bun pan, but rather shaped them into rounded, dinner size (smaller) buns. They rose fine and were delicious. I've also never used buttermilk, I just use water, for any of my hamburg/hot dog/sandwich buns, but I'll try it next time. I just bought a fresh bottle of Kate's Buttermilk yesterday; I usually make my own by replacing what I used with 2% milk and letting it sit out in a warm kitchen for the day. I buy a bottle at the store only every 5-6 months. I have not noticed any difference over the many years I'be been doing that.
Looks like it is very similar, it uses a sponge, has molasses, an oil (Ginsberg uses butter), and an egg. Ginsberg has you make football-shaped loaves, I made ones that were more of a cylinder so that the slices will be about the same size, which is better for sandwiches. The loaves are cooling, the molasses smell is still pretty strong, I'm hoping it fades a bit. The caraway seeds aren't sticking to the outside very well, I may not have had enough egg in the egg wash.
When we were living in Chicago in the 70's, there was a packaged rye bread at the store that was a fairly ordinary rye bread, until you put it in the toaster. Then something magical happened, probably a result of the Maillard Reaction. It developed a complexity that was completely absent before toasting. I would toast and eat several slices at a time. I still consider the toast test to be the ultimate way to judge rye bread.
Report on Sauerkraut Bread (The Rye Baker pps 212-214):
This recipe made two loaves about 7 inches in diameter and 3 inches high. The baked weight was 787 grams (27 3/4 ounces.)
I wound up adding a bit more flour than the recipe called for, I think I mis-measured the water, but the dough came together fairly well. However, the dough weight was still a little less than what the recipe suggested, so maybe I worked less flour into the dough during shaping.
It slices better after sitting overnight.
I didn't have Polish sauerkraut so I used what I had, the kraut isn't overly assertive but it does add to the aroma of the bread when toasting it and the flavor is reminiscent of sauerkraut that has been cooked with sausage.
I tried it in a Reuben sandwich, the flavor of the baked sauerkraut clashed a bit with the raw sauerkraut, and I think the biggest challenge with this bread might be figuring out what foods pair best with it.
It tastes good toasted with a little butter, but the sauerkraut flavor probably wouldn't pair well with things you normally spread on toast, like jams. I probably would not make this bread unless I had a specific meal I wanted to make that the sauerkraut taste would pair with.
For comments on the preparation of this recipe, see Sauerkraut Rye Comments
Followup: I tried a slice with some cheddar cheese spread on it today, it was very good. Either the sauerkraut has mellowed or it pairs quite well with the cheese spread.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.
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