Posts Tagged ‘Bread’

Danish Ryebread – Rugbrød

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

With my family visiting for a few weeks I really had a craving to make a true Danish Rye bread.  I didn’t want them to have to bring any, and I had yet to find something I liked locally after Blakey’s bakery closed a few years back. I have scoured the Internet and my books for recipes, but none have really hit the spot or had quite the right ingredients – some had caraway seeds, some no whole rye kernels. I finally just tried putting rye flour and rye kernels together and got some decent results. That meant more research and I was able to find a few key points that led me to my final recipe. The Pullman pan with cover and to cook the bread low and slow. This post got me quite a bit of the way there.

After purchasing the pan I tried two times to make the right bread. The flavor was right and cooking time probably a little on the short time (3 hours at 300F), but the loaves looked like they had collapsed. I mixed up the following recipe and raised the temp to 325F for 3 hours and 20 minutes and it came out beautiful! I really tried to model this recipe after the coarse types of rye bread in Denmark like “Skovmandsbrød”.

  • 2 cups sour dough starter (100 gram rye flour, 100 gram boiled rye kernels, 150 grams water, 1/4 tsp yeast – sit out for 48 hours covered)
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 3 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 2 tbsp flax seeds
  • 1/2 cup non-roasted sunflower seeds
  • 3 cups boiled rye kernels
  • 6 cups rye flour
  • 2 tbsp molases

The flour and rye kernels are all from Mississippi Market. I boil the rye kernels because the end product comes out too hard with the rye kernels left unsoaked and the boiling process makes them nice and soft quickly. I basically cover them in water and bring them to a boil and quickly turn off the heat. Then let them cool and use both the water and the rye kernels in the bread. I let the dough sit for almost two days, until it’s both completely inflated and deflated – it seemed to help with the rise. If I didn’t the bread rose unevenly in the oven in a V-shape. Reserve 2 cups of the dough for the sourdough starter and the rest will fit beautiful in the Pullman pan.

It has taken me quite a while to get this right as I started on the post in June, but finally I can eat a real Danish style rye bread for lunch!

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Pizza Sandwiches

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

One of the things I occasionally miss from Denmark, are the pizza sandwiches that are made by your local Turkish-family owned pizza joints all over Denmark. They’re essentially calzone pizzas that are light on sauce. Cooked at high heat the outter shell is much like a large pita bread that is cut open and filled with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and yogurt dressing. I wanted tomake some similar to this as Nicholas had requested pizza for dinner.

The bread part of this I’ve posted multiple times so I’ll just post the ingredients and no method around it.

  • 4 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 3/4 cup of graham wholewheat flour
  • 1/2 cup gluten
  • 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp yeast
  • ~2 cups warmwater

I didn’t want to attempt making the tangy yogurt dressing today, so I decided to make a tomato salsa that would add a little of the dressing feel.

  • 4 seeded and then chopped roma tomatoes
  • 1 large shallot finely diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1`handfull cilantro leaves chopped
  • juice of 1 lime
  • pinch of kosher salt
  • pinch of fresh ground pepper
  • 2 tbsp olive oil

Mix all the ingredients together in a large enough container and put it in the fridge for an hour to allow the flavors to develop.

Split the pizza dough into 6-7 pieces and round them out. Roll them out flat and try to be a little consistent with the shape so it is easier to form the calzone. Once the dough is rolled out put your toppings on. I went very simple and only added some salami and shredded mozzarella cheese. Only fill one side of the dough where it will make the most uniform folded over piece. Once you fold over the dough you could use a fork to make the edges come together – I braided the sides by folding over the dough a little bit at a time. Was quite easy to do.

The calzones went on the grill for about 2 minutes on each side until they were browned but hopefully not burnt. Once cool enough to touch cut them open at the folded edge and fill. Our fillings were shredded lettuce and the tomato salsa. Below are a few progression pictures.

If I had to make the yogurt dressing I would try to get some greek yogurt (non-sweetened, no vanilla). I’d add lime juice, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and fresh chopped oregano to it.  Maybe a little buttermilk to get the consistency more like a dressing.

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Smoked baby back ribs, fresh made pita breads, and grilled asparagus

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Ribs in smokerRibs and Asparagus I got 3 slabs of baby back ribs last night that I left in a apple juice and spice marinade overnight. I took them out at 8am this morning and dried them off. Put some basic bbq spice and a light dusting of ground chipotle. By 10am they went into the Bradley smoker with applewood bisquetes. They smoked all the way until 5pm where I took them out and put some bbq sauce on them and finished them on the grill. They were pretty tender but a couple more hours at 200F would have made them fall off the bone.

Melissa brought home some asparagus that we seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled. Super tasty.

I also made another batch of pita breads and didn’t fuck it up this time by putting them between wax paper after rolling them out. The result was of course much better as they didn’t have wax paper attached to them ;) Similar recipe of 4 cups bread flour, 1/2 cup graham wheat flour, 1/4 cup gluten, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp yeast, ~2 cups water. After about 4 hours of rising I shaped them roughly into 14 pita breads. I still roll them a little thin if they were to be used as pita breads for filling with salad and meat.

Dough cut into random 14 pieces Grilled pitas

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Thin-crust pizza and flatbread

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Pizza Pizza Pizza Pizza Pizza Pita/Flatbread

Lots of pictures of tasty pizza today. I actually set out to make some Pita/Flatbread yesterday, but never was able to do so. It was also sort of an experiment to see if a dough without much yeast would not turn out too dense – turns out it didn’t make that big of a difference but I’ll be adding more next time and cut down on the time it sits in the fridge. I first made the flatbread and was surprised how uniformly it rose in the oven. It was way too big to be a regular pita bread, but more like a lebanese flatbread I usually buy at Holy Land Deli.

The basic dough I used for this batch was a mix of bread flour, semolina, whole wheat graham flour.

  • 3.5 cups of bread flour
  • .5 cup of semolina flour
  • .5 cup whole wheat graham flour
  • .25 cup wheat gluten
  • 1.5 tsp kosher salt
  • small pinch of bakers yeast
  • ~2 cups of warm water

Mix all the dry ingredients in the mixer first, then add water slowly to make the dough come together. Knead in the machine until a small ball of the dough passes the window pane test. I let the dough sit in the bowl on the counter for an hour and then put it in the fridge overnight.

When I finally got around to making dinner tonight I realized I had to make more than just a few pieces of flat bread. I wasn’t looking to do just plain pizza as I had found an interesting recipe that didn’t use tomato sauce while searching for recipes involving Nando’s peri-peri sauce. I found this Nando’s Chicken Pizza recipe. It uses a roasted red pepper cooking sauce as a pizza sauce. I remembered that I had a Trader Joe’s Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup, which seemed like a good substitute for tomato sauce. It actually was a little too soupy and didn’t really have much flavor on the pizzas, but could have been worse.

For the pizzas I used a mix of Cossetta’s pepperoni sticks, some regular salami, and some chicken thigh meat cooked with salt, pepper, and oregano. Trying to keep it simple so the pizza only had sauce, cheese, and one kind of meat. Everything was topped with fresh-grated Asiago cheese.

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Quick flatbread on the grill

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

I wanted to have some fresh bread for today’s Easter lunch at my mother in laws. I only had about 4 cups of regular flour left from my 25 lb bag from Sams Club, so I had to add a few other types of flour to get to the right volume for my mixer.

  • 4 cups regular flour
  • 1/2 cup semolina flour
  • 1/4 cup gluten
  • 1/2 cup wheat bran
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp dried yeast
  • ~2 cuos of lukewarm water

Mix until it passes the window pane test. I let it rest and rise for about an hour. Split the dough into about 5-6 pieces and stretch flat. Cooks really quickly on the grill. The wheat bran made the bread less boring and the semolina made the bread really chewy! Passed the test because Nicholas was eating it all afternoon.

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Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day – Master Recipe

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

DoughLast week Duncan was asking me where to buy a good baking stone and commercial food-grade containers so he could get started making some breads out of “Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day”. This reminded me that I had the same book and really hadn’t tried any of the recipes in the book. While we do have Superior Products locally, I by far prefer going to Hockenbergs to browse the isles upon isles of food related paraphernalia.

I’ve had quite a few baking stones over the last 7 or so years I’ve been here. Most of them have cracked way too quickly. The last one I got about 4 years ago from Hockenbergs, and it’s still going strong despite the abuse I put it through. It’s been in the 550F degree oven for hours and the 600F+ grill without cracking. That’s with water, pizza sauce, and more getting dropped on it in my quest to make great pizza and bread. It’s thick and sturdy, which you would expect of a pricier baking stone. I also have a fairly large stock of various sized food-grade containers. I found one that fit perfect for the first recipe in the book – a 5 quart square lidded bucket.

Oven Spring
The recipe is straight forward, but I instantly questioned the amount of salt and yeast when I saw the recipe. While I like my breads less saltier, and usually err on the side of caution this recipe called for a full 1 1/2 tbsp of salt.

  • 3 cups of warm water
  • 1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 tbsp dried yeast
  • 6 1/2 cups of unsifted flour

I decided to go with the amount of salt anyway, to see where the recipe would go. The recipe just calls for mixing the ingredients together and letting it sit for 2 hours before putting it in the fridge for 2-14 days. Much like Bittman’s No-Knead bread that has been blogged to death. I’ve tried that recipe a few times before, but never really cared for the texture of the final bread even though the taste was good. I let the dough rise for the length the recipe called for and put it in the fridge until I was ready to make a loaf a few days later. Upon mixing it together I thought it was very dry, but at least that subsided after the initial rise.

The day of baking I removed half of the dough and let it come to room temperature, before shaping it and turning the oven on to 450F. I put a pan in the oven and put some warm water in it to generate steam in order to get a good oven spring. Bread Interior

It was pretty well done after about 30 minutes. To my surprise the oven spring was very good for the bread. I haven’t had this good of an oven spring since I was experimenting with some sour dough breads a few years back. As you can see from the picture to the right the interior is very nice and airy.

Besides having way too much salt, this bread was very tasty. Crunchy and chewy exterior with soft light interior. The other thing that impressed me was the piece of bread that was left over the next day was still as soft as the day before. Exterior was still chewy and the interior was not dry at all.

As I’m writing this I’m eating the bread that came out of the second half of the bread. After 4 days in the fridge the bread is pretty sour without being sour dough. I actually prefered the flavor of it after just 2 days in the fridge. Without cleaning the cointainer I’ve started a new batch already, where I cut the salt down to 1 tbsp. Hopefully this will turn out much more like I want, and I’ll make sure to bake all of it after two days instead.

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10 minute breakfast rolls

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

I’ve done these a few times before in some way or shape, they’re really simple and originally I got the idea from Mads. I wanted my rolls to have a decent shape and look like Ciabatta bread.

Before baking They really do take less than 10 minutes to make as there’s no kneading involved – just mix the ingredients and let it sit. Mads’ recipe calls for letting them sit in 24-48 hours in the fridge for the flavor to develop, but I didn’t get started until late last night. So I let the dough sit out overnight.

The list of ingredients is short and don’t have exact measurements because the mix just has to feel right. Not too wet and not too dry – much like a Ciabatta dough.

  • 2 cups of warm water
  • ~3 1/2 cups of bread flour
  • 1/2 tsp dried yeast
  • 1 tsp salt

Pour the water in a 4 qt bowl and add the salt. Drizzle the yeast on the surface of the water and let it sit for a minute. Mix in the flour cup by cup to make sure the dough doesn’t turn out too dry. Let the dough sit overnight on the counter – or if you have more time place for 24-48 hours in the fridge.

Enjoy! In the morning turn the oven to 400F and pour the dough onto a floured surface. Cut it into 6 equal pieces and shape them by stretching the surface and pinching the dough on the back. I put my rolls on a silicone matt to avoid using oil to get the rolls to slip off the cookie sheet.  Once the oven is warm the rolls go in and sit for 20-22 minutes until just starting to brown.

Enjoy with butter! More pictures are available.

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