Irish Soda Bread

I've made other recipes for Irish Soda Bread before. Beard on Bread comes to mind, my first bread book and one I still go back to from time to time for a few favorite recipes. Soda bread is a nice fast bread, something to go to when you want something really quick. Made with chemical leavenings, you just mix the dough and bake. But in many ways it seems closer to a biscuit or scone than a bread. Also, it is a bread that has abysmal keeping properties. So you need to eat it quickly as you make it. Still, it can be nice on occasion so I was anxious to try Hamelman's recipe.

To be brutally honest, I was fairly disappointed with the results. To be fair, this is a brown soda bread while the recipes I've made in the past have been white soda breads. This added a heaviness to a bread that is already somewhat stogy. Nonetheless, it quickly found its way into the trash.

I went back to the description of Irish Soda Bread in Baking Illustrated to see if I could come up with some techniques that would rescue the recipe. (Often I find Cook's Illustrated explanations are more valuable than their actual recipes, particularly if you don't agree with their goals.) Based on ideas from this book, I made several changes to the bread. First, I adjusted the flours for a higher protein content. I used 3.6 ounces of whole-wheat flour and 4.3 ounces of KA's all purpose flour. I added 2.6 ounces of wheat germ as a replacement for the wheat flakes hoping to recover some of the lost flavor. Next, I switched to 1/2 Tbs soda and 1/2 Tbs of cream of tartar from Hamelman's suggestions. Finally, I baked the bread in a dutch oven with the lid on for half the time.

While I had some hope for these changes, the results were still disappointing. Perhaps, the bread was a little better, but not much. In the future, I'll go back to white versions of Irish Soda Bread and avoid this one. This recipe gets a thumbs down.

Semolina Bread with a Soaker and Fennel Seed

Hamelman's book contains four recipes for semolina or durham bread. Under breads made with yeasted pre-ferments, there are two recipes—Semolina Bread and Semolina Bread with a Whole-Grain Soaker; there is a recipe Semolina Bread under levain breads; and, under straight doughs, there is Semolina Bread with a Soaker and Fennel Seed. In many ways I wish these breads had been combined in the Hamelman Challenge. They would have provided and interesting contrast for these three methods. However, that wasn't the case. Only the last of these breads was included this time around. (Perhaps I'll go back and compare loaves when the other breads are introduced later in the challenge.)

The recipe for this December was a straight dough with a soaker. This makes it possible to complete the loaf in one day. However, Hamelman give the option of retarding the bulk fermentation overnight, dragging it out for another day. I tried the recipe both ways but saw no real advantage to the overnight fermentation. The only confusion about the recipe was how long to soak the grains in the initial soaker. Hamelman doesn't give a time. I went with 4 hours, the time Hamelman suggests in the earlier recipe for Semolina Bread with a Whole-Grain Soaker.Also, I found Hamelman's baking times were longer than needed.

Since I'm not a big fan of fennel seeds, I also made the bread with and without the seeds. Finally, I made some smaller (3/4 pound) boules in which I included additional seeds, King Arthur's Harvest Grain Blend. For the blend, I added the combined weight of millet and wheat flakes. I added these to the soaker using and equal weight of additional water but reduced the final water so that I didn't change the total hydration for the bread.

All the breads worked well. I actually like the fennel better than I thought I would, but I really can't see eating this bread with anything else. The bread with the added seed blend was particularly nice. This is a favorite, but it is a nice bread.

Ciabattas

Hamelman's book contains three recipes for ciabattas, Ciabatta with Stiff Biga, Ciabatta with Poolish, and Ciabatta with Olive Oil and Wheat Germ. The Hamelman Challenge lumped all three together giving participants the option of making one or more as desired. Since I love ciabatta, I made all three.

All three loaves are quite similar, particularly the first two loaves. These are good, rustic loaves with lots of character and flavor. The crusts were blistery. And while certainly not thick, I wouldn't call the crusts particularly thin as does Hamelman. Nor did I notice that great a difference in the aroma of the second recipe. For me at least, the first two recipes were pretty much interchangable though I lean ever so slightly to the second recipe.

The Ciabatta with Olive Oil and Wheat Germ was an interesting variation. While I would describe myself as a bit of a purist when it comes to ciabatta, the added wheat germ was not overwhelming and was nice for a change. The addition of olive oil was nothing unusual, but quite good if you use a good oil.

With ciabatta, I typically use it as is or as a sandwich bread. As such, three loaves is more than need at any one time. Moreover, these loaves were a bit short to cut vertically for sandwiches and two tall to cut horizontally. So I was curious how when the dough would handle other shapes thinking more shapes, more uses. One variation that I made was what Hamelman calls ciabattini. These are 2 to 3 ounce rolls. I made both round and oblong ciabattini, both of which worked very nicely. These also freeze very well. (And I have a better chance at finding space for several small loaves than one big one.)

As another variation, I took dough for a couple of loaves and baked the focaccia style in 9 inch cake pans. I put a tablespoon or so of olive oil in the bottom of each pan and then the dough. I coaxed the dough out to fill the pans a couple of times as it went through it final rise. On one loaf I sprinkled grated fontina cheese (shown above). Both of these worked very nicely.

As a final variation, I took the dough for one loaf and baked it in a loaf pan. I didn't get quite the rise or open crumb that I would have preferred, but this gave an excellent sandwich loaf.

Overall, these were three great recipes. In the future, I would probably go for the poolish recipe and leave out the wheat germ, but all are great. I found ciabattini the most useful shape, but the dough worked well however I shaped it. Just be gentle with it.

Brioche

This is a bread I've made many times before and never tire of. Eating a slice of brioche is almost like eating a slice of cake. Indeed, the famous words of Marie Antoinette "Let them eat cake" are said to be a mistranslation of "Let them eat brioche."

There are numerous good recipes for brioche. Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice has three of varying richness, Rich Man's Brioche, Middle-class Brioche, and Poor Man's Brioche. All are excellent. Shirley Corriher's CookWise contains two Ultimate Brioche recipes, one for bread-like brioche and one for cake-like brioche. And if you are looking for things to do with brioche, there are a number of variation to be found in Baking with Julia. So it should come as no surprise that I was eager to try Hamelman's recipe.

Brioche is a wonderfully versatile dough. When I did the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I used brioche to make pigs-in-a-blanket and Julia Child's variation on Beef Wellington among other things. I have the pans and have made the traditional brioche loaves or têtes before, but I find that shape isn't particularly useful. So this time around I began with a pullman's loaf shown above. The dough was placed in the pan in pieces, hence the segmentation you see. When done this way (an experiment), the loaf pulls apart easily as pieces, but can be sliced as well. This made great sandwiches, but I also ate a lot of it out of hand. I also used it to make cinnamon toast, eggs-in-a-basket, and bread pudding. French toast is also an obvious possibility. The dough handled pretty much as Hamelman said it would (although I didn't have his religious experience). It is a long but straightforward process.

The recipe makes quite a lot and seemed to be near the limit of what I would want to put in my mixer and more than I really need at one time. The second time around, I cut the recipe back by a third. This still made a lot of brioche to play with, about 36 ounces. I went to Baking with Julia for ideas and ended up using three recipes contributed by Nancy Silverton. I used 8 ounces to make the Savory Brioche Pockets. I took 1 ounce balls of dough and rolled them out into circles, added the filling, put another circle on top, crimped the dough, brushed with an egg glaze, and baked. The filling can be pretty much what ever you want making this a great general purpose recipe. (Silverton's recipe calls for potatoes, goat cheese, and asparagus which is what I used, but there is no reason to stick to this.)

I used 18 ounces to make a pan of Pecan Sticky Buns. I skipped the lamination step (using brioche and additional butter to make a simple laminated dough) but the results were plenty rich without the added butter. (The original recipe, which is quite involved, is extraordinary, the best sticky buns I've ever had or am likely to ever have.) The remaining dough went to make a few Twice-Baked Brioches, little brioche rolls with an almond cream topping. That's quite a lot of product considering I was only using 2/3 of the original recipe.

Overall, Hamelman recipe is great, but then there are numerous other excellent recipes for brioche. How can you really go wrong with a dough that is so very rich? And so versatile?

Another favorite!

Horst Bandel's Black Pumpernickel

This is an extremely interesting loaf to make, but one that I'm not likely to repeat. It was certainly the most complex bread I've made thus far, a bread with a preferment and two soakers. I made this loaf a single time, which for me, is quite enough. While I can appreciate this bread, overall it really isn't to my tastes.

The ingredient list was problematic as it calls for rye meal, rye berries, and rye chops among other things. I used King Arthur's pumpernickel flour as the rye meal. My rye berries came from Whole Foods. The rye chops I made by putting rye berries in a food processor. This took a while and gave both the chopped pieces and rye flour. As has become my habit, I mixed the high gluten flour by adding vital wheat gluten to KA's bread flour. Also, I used regular molasses rather than black strap molasses.

When I began mixing the dough, it seemed too dry so I added 4 ounces of water. As it turned out, I was too hasty. Over the course of mixing the bread, I needed to add in an additional 10 ounces of flour to get the right consistency. Keep in mind, the recipe makes a 4 pound pullman's loaf, so the additions, while not desirable, were not a drastic as they might seem.

Following the recipe, the loaf was baked, left in the oven over night, and went through another day of resting before it was cut. The loaf pulled in slightly from the pan, so was easy to remove although quite a bit of moisture accumulate in the pullman pan.

The loaf was quite dark, darker than any loaf I've made, but I wouldn't describe it as almost black as did Hamelman. The loaf was also quite dense. This is a loaf to be sliced thin and served with a strong cheese or sausage, something that can stand up against the bread.

Overall, I learned a lot in the process, and I'm glad I made the bread. I can certainly appreciate the quality of the bread. But, overall, this isn't the kind of bread I crave. I'm afraid, that despite the effort, most of the loaf went uneaten.

Country Bread

Editorial Note: It has been a while since I've posted anything. I've still been baking, taking notes and pictures, and occasionally writing my blog comments out by hand for later postings. However, this isn't the same as writing the posts while they are fresh in my memory. For this I apologize.

The country bread recipe is a very nice, straightforward bread that is easy to make. It would be an ideal starting point for a beginner. There are no surprises here. Just follow the recipe. I maded this a couple of times. On both occasions, I shaped the loaves as fendu or split loaves. (You can see this better in the second picture.) I find this very easy to do, and the finished loaf is a useful shape. Moreover, I don't have to mess with slashing the loaves.

This was quite similar to the rustic bread, the next recipe in the book and a loaf that was baked earlier in the challenge. Frankly, I slightly prefer the rustic bread as it has a slightly more complex flavor due to the addition of a small amount of whole-wheat flour and whole-rye flour. There is enough of each to add flavor but not dominate the overall taste of the bread.

For the second preparation, I added 20% fresh asiago cheese to the bread as per the cheese bread recipe. This is shown in the second picture. You can see a bit of leakage at the bottom of the loaf.

All said and done, this may not be may absolute favorite, this is a good, solid recipe that is well worth repeating.

Challah Revisited

Please note, the corrected amount of yeast for this recipe for the home cook is 9 grams of dry instant yeast. I have revisited this recipe using the Hungarian Ring as shown. This proved to be considerably more difficult than the star. With any braid, including the star, the strands tend to rise against each other giving a more even loaf. With the Hungarian braid, the individual strands stand out. If they are ill-formed, they remain ill-formed throughout the rise and baking process.

Rolling out the 4-foot outer ring was also a task. I repeated had to stop and allow it to rest. I had used an overnight retard. Hamelman suggest that this makes rolling the bread easier. I hate to think what it would have been like without that rest.

Also, as you can see, I had some difficulty sealing the interior pieces to the outer ring. During the cooking process, they tended to release, stand-up, and then overbrown.