Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

Like any cookbook, there are good recipes and ones that aren't so good in the KAF Whole Grains book.

I ran the KAF 100% whole wheat sandwich bread (with walnuts and sunflower seeds) through my recipe analyzer, it comes up as quite moist, around 73% hydration. I'd probably recommend adding up to a half-cup of flour to it. It's also on the sweet side, which helps to explain the wide variance in rise times, especially if your kitchen is cool, so an osmotolerant yeast like SAF Gold might help.

In the absence of the KAF Whole Grain Bread Improver, I'd suggest adding 2 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten and replacing 2 tablespoons of the water with vinegar. If you have diastatic barley malt, I'd suggest adding a teaspoon of it as well.

[Mike Nolan]

I love rye breads, even throwing a 1/4 cup of rye flour in a white bread recipe adds a nice flavor to it. I used to get a very good coarse pumpernickel flour when I was on site at my company's HQ in Tennessee, but now that I'm retired I probably won't be making that trip. I probably should buy another bag of rye berries and grind it myself.

There's a new professor at the department of Agronomy and Horticulture who is from Germany. He's been disappointed with the bread he finds here, so my wife had me make some of my honey wheat bread and she took a loaf of it to him today. I hope he likes it.

If he asks for something more like a German black bread I'm hoping he has some recipes for it, because I haven't been able to make anything like the black bread we had in Germany. As I understand it, it is baked in a brick oven for a long time, like 18 hours, which causes the flour to caramelize even on the inside and turns it dark, and that might be difficult to replicate. Adding caramel coloring, cocoa or coffee to turn it dark is a kludge.

Personally, I prefer breads that are not baked in a loaf pan, it gives more character and substance to the crust, and you can play with the shape a lot. (Shape has a surprisingly significant impact on the taste of bread, something many authors tend to ignore.)

[BakerAunt]

Although KAF has a very nice Whole Grain Baking book, I have always suspected that the recipe developers do not really like whole grains and/or expect that other people will not. They really want to cover up the flavor. I know that for some people whole wheat has a rather strong taste. I recall Wingboy from the KAF Baking Circle telling us that in taste tolerance he came in low on the bitterness scale, whether it was bread or beer, so some people are probably prone genetically to respond more negatively to whole wheat's assertiveness. (Another example is cilantro, which to some people tastes like soap.) Orange juice is, of course, one way of helping to tame it, as is using white whole wheat flour.

Why do we always assume that whole grain has to mean just whole wheat flour? My husband and I like whole wheat, but lately I've been discovering for myself that adding other whole grain flours can give a nice complexity, as in my experimentation with Antilope's basic recipe.

I have been using 1 tsp. of the Gold yeast with 1 1/4 tsp. of the regular yeast in that loaf. It started as a way of using the Gold yeast more, since I do not do that many sweet rolls or coffee cakes. However, I do get a somewhat higher rise with that combination.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Ah, so you tried this recipe this time:

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/king-arthurs-100-whole-wheat-sandwich-bread-recipe

My first thoughts, and others will doubtless chime in: there is a lot of yeast (a Tablespoon) and a lot of sugar (5 Tbs. honey, molasses, or maple syrup). I wish that Cass (Kid Pizza) were posting; I'm sure that he would have some thoughts about that.

I don't know if you used the "Whole Grain Bread Improver." I've never used it. However, in this week's Baking Thread (Jan 7), S. Wirth provides a link to do-it-yourself whole grain bread improver, that is from Bookbag, a member of the original KAF Baking Circle. However, I'm thinking that an adjustment with the yeast and sugar might be the place to start.

Note: to post a link, when you are on the computer page for the KAF recipe, highlight the "address" in the top bar on your computer that shows the page. Press Control + C on your keyboard. That will copy the link. Then come to the Nebraska Kitchen page, go to where you will post, press Control + V on your keyboard, and it will paste the link into your post.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

Although I don't hunt myself (I get too impatient and have trouble standing still that long), I know a lot of people who do (my wife works at the Ag college), and I know that rite of passage quite well, as I grew up in deer country in NW Illinois. We would get a lot of hunters coming out from Chicago, many of them clueless. I wondered if some of them knew which end of a rifle the bullets came out of.

There's an old story about a farmer who was tired of having his cattle shot during deer season, so he painted COW on the side of them with whitewash. Didn't help.

And there's an even more extreme rite of passage among bow hunters when they get their first deer.

Tell your granddaughter congratulations!

Too many people just turn venison into sausage or burger meat. A venison roast is delicious, though it is so lean you often have to coat it with fat (like bacon strips) or bard it.

[chocomouse]

Aaron, I'm anxious to hear how your sausage turns out. Mike, I married into a family of hunters, and have eaten a lot of venison sausage in my lifetime. We always took our deer to a butcher (not always a professional, trained butcher, it might be just another hunter who learned how to process the meat, and enjoyed doing it and earning extra money) and got roasts, steaks, ribs, stew meat, hamburg and sausage. It seemed that each butcher used a different recipe for the sausage, and there was some "competition" for who had the tastiest concoction! They usually had a "hot" and a "mild" version, and I recall they added some ground beef or maybe pork to the mix since venison is so lean. Tonight we actually had venison steak from my grand-daughter's first deer, which you probably know is a right-of-passage in some parts of the country.

[BakerAunt]

Today, I continued my experimentations with Antilope's Vienna bread, working off of the ingredient variation that I posted as a reply to Rascals about that recipe. I followed what I did in my 2 January experiment, but this time I further reduced the salt to 1 1/2 tsp. I also substituted in 1/2 cup of barley flour for that much AP flour (it's now down to 1 cup). I did add an additional Tablespoon of buttermilk, as the dough seemed a bit dry after the first 8 minutes of the cycle. I had not added the butter yet, so I was conservative. It made a softer dough than before, but still easy to handle. I again used the Emile Henry baker. I have a beautiful looking loaf. I will post an addendum here tomorrow once we have cut into it and I can comment on texture, as well as the whole wheat-rye-barley combination.

Addendum: The bread has a slightly chewy crust and a light interior crumb reminiscent of store-bought bread. The nice crust I've been getting on these breads is due to the Emile Henry long baker, which also keeps the top from overbrowning from the honey. I like the substitution of the 1/2 cup barley and may try increasing it to 3/4 cup next time. I do not detect any issues in texture or taste by the decrease in salt, although that may be why the bread is of a softer texture.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

It's because both are a complex blend of naturally occurring substances.

Milk contains water, fat, proteins, lactose (milk sugar), minerals, pigments, enzymes and compounds called phospholipids.

Egg white contains water, proteins (including albumen and mucoproteins) and globulins.

In both cases, several of those compounds have sodium in them. There are other naturally occurring elements in eggs as well, notably sulfur in the yolk.

Some of it is based on the type of animal, some cows produce a milk that is higher in butterfat, for example. There are at least two breeds of hens that produce an egg that has a blue shell.

Eggs that are high in riboflavin (Vitamin B2) can have a greenish tint to the egg white.

And it is also somewhat affected by diet, corn fed hens tend to produce yellower egg yolks, for example, and high-omega eggs come from chickens that have been fed a diet specifically designed to produce omega-3 and related fats in eggs, though I think most of that is in the yolk.

But there's only about 62 mg of sodium in a large egg, most of that in the egg white. So if you're watching your sodium intake, unless you're eating 4 dozen eggs a day (like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast), it is probably not something to worry about.

Interestingly enough, when I was looking at almond milk the other day, it actually has more sodium than cow's milk does, though there is very little sodium in almonds, 1 mg in a cup of almonds. I'm guessing they add it (along with things like vanilla) to make it taste better.

[Mike Nolan]

At 4 1/4 ounces/cup, 4 cups or 17 ounces of flour and 1 teaspoon of salt works out to about 1.18% salt by baker's percentages.

Of course, just like how you measure flour makes a difference, your teaspoon measure could be off by 10-20%. (I've got a digital scale that measures is milligrams, 5687.5 milligrams of salt is a teaspoon.)

Remember wheat flour has some sodium in it and so will other ingredients, like milk or egg.

As I have said before, when I did some tests on several bread recipes cutting the salt to 1% did not appear to have a noticeable impact on either flavor or texture/crumb.

[Mike Nolan]

I know several people who make their own sausages. Some of them are deer hunters and that's what they do with the deer they get during deer hunting season. (A terrible waste of venison, IMHO.)

But when I've had their sausage, it actually tasted saltier than the store ones.

[chocomouse]

Good question, Italiancook! I don't pre- cook any of my veggies (onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, well, dehydrator-dried!, broccoli, artichokes, etc). I also do not pre-bake the crust. I make the sauce from tomatoes from my garden, and garlic, oregano, basil, thyme - whatever catches my eye on the spice racks. I layer the dough, sauce, meat, any veggies except the onions and peppers, and then mozzarella and cheddar cheese. The sliced onion and bell peppers go on top of the cheese, and then it is all sprinkled with some sort of pizza seasoning. One of my most favorite Christmas gifts ever was a Lodge pizza pan. Large, about 12-14 inches diameter, heavy, almost too heavy for me to lift - but makes a perfect crispy crust. We like a thick crust, but it's gotta be crispy on the bottom and edge. I have only eaten pizza in a "pizza parlor" once in my over-70 years (Mike: ever go to Buffo's, in Highwood?), a highly rated pizza place in a suburb just north of Chicago, and have once-in-a-while tasted pizza at office parties - the home-made version is so much better! The dough, the toppings, the cripsness, minimum salt, no grease! Does anyone make their own sausage? I'm thinking about that as a way to further reduce the salt. I've checked Penzey's seasoning mixes, but the first ingredient listed is salt! But I don't have a good formula for the spices and herbs to use. I'd love some suggestions.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure what you meant, Aaron, but a teaspoon of salt is about 5690 milligrams (2300 mg of sodium), not 12.

Some aromatics need to be added later in the cooking cycle because they either dissipate if added too soon or turn bitter if cooked for a long time. Vanilla is always added at the end, and basil will turn bitter if added too soon. By contrast, bay leaf needs to be added early in the cooking cycle, because it has to be cooked a long time to extract the flavor.

Onion if added early will caramelize and turn sweeter, if added towards the end it retains more of the sharp ohion flavor.

Salt is a complicated ingredient, it has culinary purposes beyond just flavor. Because it is hygroscopic (it absorbs water), it affects the food it's added to. For example, it is commonplace to 'sweat' vegetables like zucchini or eggplant by sprinkling them with salt to extract the moisture. What I don't know is whether if you then rinse them off if that removes most of the salt. I'll have to do some research into that.

Similarly, adding salt to bread dough will tighten the dough considerably. Kidpizza/Cass is one of many bakers who recommend waiting until towards the end of the mixing cycle to add salt to bread.

[Mike Nolan]

Most bread recipes are usually between 1.25% and 2% salt (baker's weight, ie, compared to the weight of the flour). A few years back I did some experimenting and found that you can cut the salt down to about 1% before you start to notice much change in either texture or taste.

The no-salt challah I made yesterday was rather bland, Peter Reinhart's challah uses about 1.4% salt.

The cinnamon rolls I made yesterday called for 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a recipe that used 150 grams of flour, so it was already only at about 1% salt. I cut that to 1/8 teaspoon and couldn't tell the difference in taste at all. They might have been a bit more puffy, but I don't consider that a bad thing in a cinnamon roll!

Paddy's Clonmel Kitchens Double Crusty Bread recipe, which I use to make Vienna bread, has 2 teaspoons of salt in about 32 ounces of flour, or about 1.25% salt (though it does have an egg, so that adds some sodium from the egg white.) I may try making it with just one teaspoon of salt.

And of course there is a little sodium in wheat flour, too.

[Mike Nolan]

Most of the cooking schools teach cooks to add salt several times throughout the cooking process, it's no wonder that their recipes are incredibly salty! Alton Brown, whom my older son adores, is one of the worst offenders. Some people, myself included, often refer to the Culinary Institute of America as the Sodium Institute of America.

It cracks me up to see something labeled as 'healthy' in the store and then see that it has 900 or more mg of sodium per serving. I'm especially leery of the 'low fat' versions of foods, because they often have higher salt content that the regular versions. (I guess it needs more salt to replace the fat taste.)

Graham Kerr, who many of us may remember from the Galloping Gourmet shows back in the 70's, had a heart attack and subsequently revised and republished a lot of his recipes to lower both the fat and salt content. But I don't think those later books sold as well, because they were a bit preachy.

[Mike Nolan]

Lincoln has a lot of pizza places, too, but everybody seem to copy Valentino's (which started in Lincoln) and most if not all use a sauce with garlic in it. We've taken to ordering pizza with NO sauce but a double or triple helping of tomatoes.

Onions don't really sweat that much on pizza, but fresh mushrooms do. (Canned ones are already cooked, so they don't sweat as much.) I like green or red pepper on my pizza, my wife likes pepperoni. Both of us like artichoke hearts on pizza. I'm looking into ways to be able to make pizza and stick to my low sodium diet. A light hand on the cheese and making my own sauce may work.