[Mike Nolan]

The main reason I switched to the Pullman pan was because I was concerned the batter would overflow my 8 inch bread pan, but at this point I like the size of the resulting bread and the next time I bake it I will use the Pullman pan.

I did put a pan of water on the rack below the Pullman pan, just to make sure the oven was fairly moist. Don't think it is necessary when using a Pullman pan with a lid that seals fairly well, but it certainly didn't hurt things.

On my list of things to try at some point is a rye recipe (not one in the Ginsberg book) that is supposed to be baked/steamed for many hours in a double-walled lidded pan with water in the outer layer. I can't find such a pan anywhere, but I think if I use my big Pullman pan and put it in my big roaster with water in the bottom and the lid on the roaster, that may be close enough.

[Mike Nolan]

Baked beans and brown bread is not a low-carb meal, that's for sure, but it was tasty!

The first time I made Boston Brown Bread, I think I used a jello mold, the second time I used a stainless steel utility crock, but I really like the shape I got from the Pullman pan, it made it easy to slice, too.

[Mike Nolan]

Report on Boston Brown Bread (Ginsberg pps 90-92):

This is a quick bread not a yeast bread, though it seems odd to describe anything that bakes for 3 hours as 'quick'.

The recipe said to bake it in an 8 inch bread pan, but the dry ingredients alone nearly filled up that pan, and I was concerned that after I added 2 cups of milk and 3/4 cup of molasses that it'd spill over the top, so I put it in my 4 x 4 x 13 Pullman pan. It has a lid so that simplified sealing it in the pan, too.

I forgot to weigh the finished bread.

I did put a pan of water below the bread just to make sure the air was a bit steamy.

I like the fact that the slices are 3 x 4, which is a good size for a slice. If I make it again (and that seems likely), I'll do it in the Pullman pan again.

Doing it in a sealed pan is a lot simpler than trying to find a way to steam it, and the taste is very good. We had it with Boston Baked Beans, and it was a great pairing. (That pairing, as I recall, gives you all 9 amino acids, which would make it a complete protein source.)

I tried a slice with some cream cheese, it totally changes the flavor profile of the bread. I liked it, my wife wasn't as fond of it that way. I don't know how well it would toast, it might fall apart in a regular vertical toaster.

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[Mike Nolan]

At dinner last night, we got to talking about the rye project, and specifically Boston Brown Bread.

I hadn't really looked at Ginsberg's recipe, he doesn't put the loaf in a pot to steam, but he does have you seal it in the pan with foil and bake it at 200 degrees for 3 hours. I've made Boston Brown Bread twice, the biggest challenge was figuring out how to steam it.

This may be the next Ginsberg recipe I try, Boston Brown Bread and Boston Baked Beans for supper tomorrow sounds good to me.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight we had leftover pizza and some salad.

[Mike Nolan]

My guess is you could simplify the recipe, maybe make a simple flying sponge with 50 grams of flour, 50 grams of water and 5 grams of yeast and let it sit for an hour or two. I like the idea of having both white flour and whole wheat flour, I think whole wheat would add good texture and flavor to pita.

Peter Reinhart has a recipe in American Pie for carta di musica pizza crust that behaves like a pita, you bake the dough on a stone long enough for it to puff up like a pita then take it out before it starts to get brown or crisp, let it cool (it will deflate), separate it along the outside edges into two pieces, and use it as the crust for two pizzas. If one part comes out a bit too thin, he suggests baking it further and using it as crackers. I haven't tried this yet, though.

[Mike Nolan]

This is what tonight's pizza looked like before it went into the oven.

I made a slight change to my Roman dough recipe, this one had:

8 ounces bread flour
2 ounces semolina
1 ounce whole wheat flour
1 ounce corn meal

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[Mike Nolan]

I made another sheet pan pizza. We had a friend over to help us eat it, then I baked off 3 of the fan tan cinnamon/maple rolls for dessert.

I was going to post a photo of the pizza before it went into the oven (I've posted several after baking shots), but my phone and gmail aren't talking to each other tonight.

[Mike Nolan]

I wonder what would happen if you pre-gelatinized some of the flour using the tangzhong method?

[Mike Nolan]

Is that one tablespoon of flour per egg or one cup of flour?

Beating egg yolks with a little sugar is fairly commonplace, some call it 'ribboning' the yolks. Adding a little water would probably keep it from getting so stiff.

Egg whites and sugar is meringue. Egg whites are already about 90% water.

[Mike Nolan]

This link to a BBGA member's posts to Fresh Loaf on pita (among others) may be interesting.

Pita Recipe

[Mike Nolan]

I've got 3 peels (the 3rd came with something else and is still wrapped, I may gift it at some point) and I haven't decided if I prefer a wood one to a metal one; but the thin crust pizza I've been making for the past several months is rectangular and is being made on the bottom of a 16x22 pan, so it wouldn't fit on any peel I've ever seen.

[Mike Nolan]

I found a place on Etsy where they sell baking steels in a variety of sizes, including 16 x 22, which is about the same size as the 3/4 sheet pans I have that I use a lot. $100 including shipping, but before I order something like that I need to think through where I'd store it when it isn't in use and how to care for it, since it isn't rustproof

The pizzas I've been making on the bottom of my 3/4 sheet pans would fit on that steel, but there's no way to slide it on. I suppose I could try building it on a sheet of parchment but I'm not sure how to slide that onto a hot steel sheet. I haven't found anyone who makes rimless cookie sheets that large yet. Ordering it from a steel fabricator is really expensive.

[Mike Nolan]

The only other pita bread recipe I see on the site is a 'pocketless pita' recipe. I think there are two threads carried over from the KAFBC that give a bunch of recipes for dips that you can use pita with, but neither of them have MrsM's pita recipe.

Zen said she had captured the recipes from the final KAFBC, but I couldn't get in contact with her to ask her to send them to me, if I had them I could probably find some way to organize them. But if the information was buried in a thread, it may be lost.

My wife doesn't remember what recipe she used to make pitas, either, she did say that while they were good, she didn't think they were worth the effort, especially since we were doing it during the summer and it really heated up the kitchen.

[Mike Nolan]

We had Reubens using some of my new batch of sauerkraut, which is 2 1/2 weeks old and getting really good. We each had two sandwiches on the Jewish Bakery Pumpernickel and one on the Provençal rye bread. I didn't notice much difference between the two breads, my wife says the Provençal rye bread is a little too sweet for a Reuben.

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