Polenta Asiago Bread

[BakerAunt]

Yesterday (Nov. 4), I baked Polenta Asiago Bread from the fall 2015 issue of Sift. It had some problems, and I found the identical recipe posted at KAF, with a lot of comments that it does not work well:

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/polenta-asiago-bread-recipe

Although my husband was reluctant to try it, based on the cheese smell, I explained that the cheese would not be that strong in the finished bread, and when he had some, he deemed it acceptable. It is tasty. It has a lot of open crumb.

The bread barely rose over the top of the pan, and it collapsed a bit in the center. It's not the full rise pictured in the slice in Sift, but it does resemble the picture of the bread on the KAF website, which was braided. It struck me as perhaps too little dough for the 9x5 pan, but given how wet it was, I'm glad that I used that size.

A number of people in the reviews commented that the recipe needed a lot more flour than stated. Curiously, KAF kept pushing back against the negative reviews rather than troubleshooting. The suggestions were cook the polenta longer or be sure you use bread flour. People said that they DID use bread flour, and KAF bread flour to boot.

I will likely try this bread again, but I do not believe the answer is adding more flour. I will cut the 1/2 cup of water in the second part of the recipe to 1/4 cup. I suspect part of the problem with this bread is that coarse ground cornmeal varies a lot. Perhaps it would work better with a specific cornmeal designed for polenta, but how many of us have access to that? KAF does not sell it. I had to order the wholegrain coarse grind cornmeal from Bob's Red Mill. I plan to try the recipe again in the coming weeks, as I still have Asiago cheese, not to mention plenty of coarse cornmeal. When I do, I'll report back.

In the meantime, if any of you have suggestions about the recipe, please reply here.

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[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I again tried baking the Polenta Asiago Bread, from Sift (Fall 2015), p.69. This time, instead of course-ground corn meal, I had polenta (corn grits) from Bob's Red Mill. The polenta definitely cooks to a different consistency from the course ground corn meal, and I now believe it is essential to this recipe. I initially held back half the water, but it seemed dry enough that I went ahead and put it all in. Kid Pizza had suggested to me that I also hold back the oil initially as it can interfere with gluten development. I waited until 13 minutes into the 30-minute cycle to add it, and I put it mostly around the sides. During one of the bread machine's pauses, I turned the dough over to make sure that it would get incorporated. At the end of the kneading cycle, the dough seemed a tad sticky, so I hand kneaded in another tablespoon of bread flour before letting it rise. The rise took longer, as the house is cooler than usual today, but the dough rose well. I easily divided it into three pieces, which I formed into long rolls, and I let it rest covered for 10 minutes (usually a good idea with bread flour). I then braided it and placed it in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan to rise for 45 minutes. The pan looked a little large for the dough. Due to the coolness of the house, I gave it an additional 15 minutes as a warmer location. It did not rise as high as the rim of my baking pan. I baked it for 35 minutes to a temperature of 198F. It did not have much additional oven spring. I think that the polenta is heavier the course grain corn meal, and that held back the rise; on the positive side, it did not collapse. Taste Note: The texture has less of the larger holes. I still prefer it toasted.

So, coarse-grind cornmeal will produce a wet, hard to handle dough, so if using it (as Sift specifies), hold back some of the water. If using polenta, which the original recipe specifies, the dough can be shaped more easily, but it will not rise as much--and also not collapse. If I were ever to bake this bread again, I would likely try it in an 8x4 inch loaf pan.

[Mike Nolan]

I've added asiago cheese to the Austrian Malt Bread recipe and then baked it in the canape bread tubes that Pampered Chef (and others) sell, it was very good. (It takes about 12 ounces of dough to fill one of those tubes.)

[BakerAunt]

Hmm--I still have a bit of the asiago cheese left. I also have canapé bread tubes. Maybe an experiment with the Austrian Malt Bread is in order.

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