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I use buttermilk a lot on quick breads and a little bit on yeast breads. I don't think buttermilk needs to be scalded, the culturing seems to take care of the enzymes that cause problems. I try to limit the buttermilk in yeast breads to 1/2 the liquid -- advice from Laurel's Kitchen Bread cookbook, said that using all buttermilk would make the bread too tender and soft to rise properly. However I didn't confirm this with an actualy experiment.
I notice a change in taste from using buttermilk in yeast breads but I like it. Its just slightly sour. I don't notice a change in quick breads.
I made Mediterranean White Bean and Vegetable soup with Fennel from "366 Delicious Ways to cook Rice, Beans and Grains" by Andrea Chessman This is a very tasty soup but the vegetables dominate the soup, with the beans an after thought. I made this with out any salt, but it tastes best with a grilled cheese sandwich or cheese pizza to add salt and fat.
I cooked this in two parts in the slow cooker, first cooking the beans and then heating it up with the vegetables and herbs.
BakerAunt,
The Laurel Kitchen Breadbook has the opposite problem. They were saying that one problem with kneading the dough well is that it tended to mellow the whole wheat flavor, also the flavor could be lessened by adding an acid ingredient like buttermilk. I liked a more mellow flavor and made a concerted effort to be sure my dough was well kneaded.I just added my Very Easy Whole Wheat Focaccio to the recipe list. This is a very forgiving bread, if the dough is wet it ends up with a coarse texture and lots of holes, if the dough is drier it has a tighter crumb.
I bought the KAF Whole Grains book and was not terribly impressed by it. One of my favorite bread cookbooks was "In a Baker's Kitchen" which introduced me to sponges. Have you tried making corn breads? I like the Southern spoonbreads but these are rich in eggs and cheese.
I measured 2 cups of flour with a one cup measuring cup, sifted, spooned and leveled with a knife.
I then measured 2 cups of flour with a two cup measuring cup, sifted, spooned and leveled with a knife.
The two cup measuring cup has about a tablespoon less flour. This was such a useful cup, and a present besides but now I wonder how accurate it is.
The discussion of accuracy in measurements earlier made me want to mention it.Is your heart set on backing a loaf of bread in a bread pan? I can give you a very easy whole wheat bread recipe that I use for pizza and focaccio loaves. I bake it in a medium cast iron frying pan and it only gets a couple of inches high as a bread, and flatter as a pizza. But its tasty particularly sprinkled with rosemary and very forgiving of mistakes.
I am following all the conversations about salt, and while I try hard to be good, I pick up a lot of sodium from cheese and crackers and tortilla chips.
My normal English Muffin recipe has 1 teaspoon of salt to 4 cups sifted whole wheat flour. I think this is just over 1% by weight. Can someone give tell me a more exact %, and whether I should reduce the salt.Chocomouse;
Please tell me more about your Lodge Pizza Pan. I've admired it in stores but never used one. Do you preheat it like a pizza stone, or do you put it in the oven cold? I've used cast iron frying pans for deep dish pizza and love the handleI baked chocolate orange scones on Monday January 8th, and cheese pizza on Wednesday January 10th.
Blanche;
WHat sort of breads do you like to eat? to cook? I normally just buy sandwich bread, but I bake muffins and scones out of whole wheat. I've made apple crisp out of whole wheat, and I've made apple crisp without any wheat flour by using ground oatmeal.
If you are just trying to avoid white flour, you can eat more corn -- Southern cornbread and Mexican Tacos are wheat free. Northern cornbread can be made with half whole wheat flour and half cornmeal. Southern spoonbread is also all cornmeal.
It isn't a bread but rice is gluten free.I really recommend Laurel's Kitchen Bread Cookbook for all whole wheat recipes and advice on making those breads. I find it easier to make relatively flat breads like focaccio and English Muffins and baking flat quick breads like biscuits and scones, and cornbread in 8x8 and 9x9 pans.
Since the doughs are relatively heavier it helps to spread them out instead of forcing them to rise high. Also using eggs makes the dough rise better since beaten eggs add structure.
A light whole wheat bread requires greater care than a white flour bread, for example I find that scalding milk is optional for a white flour bread, but a whole wheat bread made with nonscalded milk doesn't rise as high as one made with scalded milk.
I find the drippings from roasting chicken is notably salting even if I use salt-free flavoring, the brine which the store adds to the chicken gives more than enough salt to the drippings,
I am not surprised at the salt in the prepared food, but is there enough salt in bread to affect your diet?BakerAunt;
The two pot roasts were both delicious and I ate them with rice and a green vegetable which allowed their flavor to be undiluted. A friend came by New Year's day to participate in the tasting process. The tea is strong enough to add real flavor, its a rich smoky taste when drunk as a beverage. I found that the onions in the slow cooker were noticeably browner, and the beef itself somewhat more tender. The pot roast in the pressure cooker had a little less flavor and was slightly tougher. The differences were minimal. I think both roasts could have used more flavor and I should have just cut up all the orange peel and half the orange and thrown it in, instead of just grating the zest for a more subtle flavor.
I noticed the recipe called for "white balsamic vinager" which I didn't remember at the grocery store so I put in a herb and lemon vinager instead.
Both versions left the onions soft and soggy and unfit for anything other than sauce. I'd like to try another pot roast with other vegetables to cook down to a puree -- tomatoes, carrots, celery, parsley, garlic and onions would give an Italian tone to a pot roast.
I am finding that cold pot roast can be thinly sliced and gently warmed up. At the moment I'm eating this with left over rice, but it would go well with mashed potatoes.I would use a pressure cooker for a pot roast again but I wouldn't use it on any vegetable that I didn't plan to reduce to a pulp.
On January 4th, I baked cranberry scones to take to work and today I baked sugarless apple scones. I'm going to a party tonight and the hostess is diabetic so I wanted to make something she could taste.
The nice thing about it being so cold is that I can preheat the oven for an hour or longer while I am mixing the batter and I don't feel guilty at all.
I had the oven at 400 + degrees for a couple of hours yesterday as I reseasoned a cast iron griddle. I had sanded off by hand almost all the seasoning on the inside of the pan and was now baking on a very thin coat of oil. Removing the seasoning with sandpaper and steel wool is a messy job but the old seasoning was thick and lumpy and annoyed me. -
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