Potato Rosemary Bread: BBA

For Day #28 in the BBA Challenge, we made Potato Rosemary Bread. Mmmm...just the thought of this combination makes me drool.  If you're looking for a good use for leftover mashed potatoes, this is about as good as it gets.  This bread goes really well with leftover turkey and dressing and I imagine with most anything especially Italian food.

I've really been looking forward to making this bread. I love that it has fresh rosemary in it. I started growing my own herbs this year in my container garden so it was particularly satisfying to be able to use fresh rosemary that I picked from my garden. Now, I just need to keep the herbs alive through the winter.

Potato Rosemary Bread
Makes: Two 1-pound loaves or 18 dinner rolls
Recipe can be found here

 

Paul, from Yumarama Artisan Bread Blog, made this bread a couple of weeks ago and posted a link to some helpful instructions from King Arthur Flour on how to roast a garlic for the most effective flavor and highest yield.  You might enjoy these instructions as well. 

Eventhough the formula states that the roasted garlic is optional, you don't want to skip it.  The aroma is heavenly - not to mention the flavor it adds to the bread.

Making the Biga (refer to page 107)

For detailed instructions on making the biga, refer to the Italian Bread post.  The potato rosemary loaves only use 7 ounces (or 1 1/4 cups) of the biga so you should have enough left over to make Pugliese, the next bread in the BBA Challenge.

Mixing the Dough

Remove the biga from the refrigerator 1 hour before you plan to make the bread and cut it into about 10 small pieces. Cover the pieces with plastic wrap and let them sit to take off the chill.

Stir (or mix) together the flour, salt, black pepper, and yeast.  Add the biga pieces, mashed potatoes, oil, rosemary, and water.

Stir this mixture for 1 minute, or until the ingredients form a ball.  Add more water or flour as necessary.

 

Kneading the Dough

Transfer the dough to a counter sprinkled with flour and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and supple.  It should be tacky but not sticky.

 

Flatten the dough and spread the roasted garlic over the top.

Gather the dough into a ball, dust with a little flour and knead it by hand for 1 minute.

 

Fermenting the Dough

Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl.  Roll it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

 

Ferment the dough at room temperature for about 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

 

Shaping the Loaves

Remove the dough and divide it into 2 equal pieces if you're making loaves or 18 equal pieces if you want to make dinner rolls.  I opted to make two yummy loaves.

Shape each piece into a boule (refer to page 72).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with cornmeal.  Place the dough on the parchment and make sure the boules are separated so they will not touch even after they rise.

Proofing the Loaves

Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Proof at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

 

Baking the Loaves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with the oven rack on the middle shelf.  Remove the plastic wrap and lightly brush the loaves with olive oil. You don't need to score the loaves but you can if you like.  I decided to score one loaf and leave the other unscored just to see the difference.

Place the pan in the oven and bake the loaves for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking.  It will take about 35 to 45 minutes to bake the loaves completely.

 

Rotate the pans after 10 more minutes, then repeat until the loaves are a rich golden brown all over.  The loaves should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

If the loaves are fully colored but appear to be too soft, turn the oven off and let them bake an additional 5 to 10 minutes longer to firm up.  My loaves were browning a little too soon so I turned the oven off.  It worked great!

Remove the finished loaves from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before serving.

This is the hard part.  These loaves smell so good you want to eat them right away.  However, my taste tester and I refrained from eating them before they cooled.  We decided to go see some Christmas lights while we were waiting on the loaves to cool.

When we got back, the loaves were ready to eat.  We dipped them in olive oil with freshly ground black pepper.  Mmmmm....delicious!

 

Thanks for joining us this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge. The next bread in Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge is Pugliese (page 222 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice.). This bread also uses a biga and mashed potatoes.



Happy Baking!
Cathy

 

Portuguese Sweet Bread: BBA

Today in the bread-baking blog, we're making Bread #27 - Portuguese Sweet Bread.  This dough is so flavorful, I wanted to make cookies out of it instead of bread.  It uses some of the same flavorings that my favorite Holiday sugar cookie recipe uses, but it's an enriched yeast bread.  Delicious!  I loved making this bread but it took all day and most of the evening to do it.  Don't let that scare you - most of the time is spent fermenting and proofing the dough, so it really is just a matter of timing. If you plan to make this bread, be sure to start early in the day. It's definitely worth it!

It just so happens, that the  Artisan Bread Baker's Group chose Portuguese Sweet Bread for the Bread of the Month this month. That worked out great since I was already planning on making it for the BBA Challenge. I like it when that happens!  The Bread of the Month virtual bread-baking party started at the beginning of November and runs through the end of the month so you still have time to bake this delicious bread. Click here for details.

Portuguese Sweet Bread
Makes: 2 Loaves

Recipe found on page 215 of the Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.

Ingredients:

Sponge

• 1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 64g) unbleached bread flour
• 1 T. (.5 ounce or 14.18g) granulated sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp. (.25 ounce or 7.08g) instant yeast
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces or 114g) water, at room temperature
  

Dough

• 6 T. (3 ounces or 83g) granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. (.25 ounce or 7.08g) salt
• 1/4 cup (1.25 ounces or 35.44g) powdered milk
• 2 T. (1 ounce or 28g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 T. (1 ounce or 28g) vegetable shortening
• 2 large (or 94g) eggs
• 1 tsp. (.17 ounce or 5g or 5ml) lemon extract
• 1 tsp. (.17 ounce or 5g or 5ml) orange extract
• 1 tsp. (.17 ounceor 5g or 5ml) vanilla extract
• 3 cups (13.5 ounces or 382g) unbleached bread flour
• Up to 6 T. (3 ounces or 84g) water, at room temp
  

Egg Wash

• 1 egg, whisked with 1 tsp. water until frothy
  
  

Directions:

Making the Sponge
Make a sponge by stirring together the flour, sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Then add the water and stir until all the ingredients are hydrated and make a smooth batter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough ferment at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the sponge gets foamy and seems on the verge of collapse.

Making the Dough

To make the dough, combine the sugar, salt, powdered milk, butter, and shortening in a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of your electric mixer. 

Mix in the sponge and the flour.  Add water as necessary to make a very soft dough.

 

Kneading the Dough

Knead the dough by hand or use the dough hook on your mixer.  I decided to knead it by hand.  I don't like to miss out on this part.

 

The finished dough will be very supple and soft, easy to knead, and not wet or sticky.  In other words, perfect!  It will take about 15 minutes to achieve the right consistency. This is because dough with high amounts of fat and sugar takes longer to develop the gluten.

 

Fermenting the Dough
Lightly oil a larger bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl. Roll it around to coat it with oil and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Ferment the dough at room temperature for 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

 

Shaping the Boules
Remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into 2 equal pieces.

 

Form each piece into a boule (refer to page 72).

 

Lightly oil two 9-inch pie pans and place 1 boule, seam side down, in each pan.

Proofing the Loaves

Mist the dough with spray oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Proof the loaves at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, or until the dough fills the pans fully, doubling in size and overlapping the edges slightly.  I proofed my dough for 7 hours and it still didn't completely fill the pan but I decided to bake it anyway at this point.

See that little dent in the left side of the loaf?  I dropped the extract bottle on it.  Don't ask!

Gently brush the loaves with egg wash.   Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

 

Baking the Loaves
Bake the loaves for 50 to 60 minutes. After about 30 minutes, check the loaves and if necessary, rotate 180 degrees for even baking. Due to the high amount of sugar, the dough will brown very quickly.  It will get darker as the center gradually heats through, but it will (should) not burn.

The final color will be a rich mahogany brown.

 

Cooling and Serving the Loaves

Remove the bread from the pans and place on a wire rack to cool. The bread will soften as it cools and will become a very soft, squishy loaf.  Let it cool for at least 90 minutes before slicing or serving.  Man, that's the hardest part!

Here is the cooled and sliced loaf.  Delicious!

Thanks for joining us this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.

The next bread in Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge is Potato Rosemary Bread (page 219 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice). I'm looking forward to making this flavorful and delicious bread.


Happy Baking!
Cathy

Poolish Baguettes: BBA

Moving right along... It's Day #26 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge and we're making Poolish Baguettes.  As the name implies, these baguettes are made with an overnight poolish. 

According to Peter Reinhart, "in the Coupe du Monde bread competition, the poolish baguette is now the standard that all countries must replicate."  These baguettes, created by Bernard Ganachaud, are made with a medium-extraction flour that isn't available in America.  This type of  flour is slightly higher in ash content and bran than regular bread flour.  It is similar to clear flour which is whole-wheat flour that has been sifted once (instead of the usual twice) to remove the bran and germ. 

Obviously, we don't have this special flour, so we'll replicate it by sifting whole wheat flour once to remove the bran.  According to the commentary in the book, this should provide the right amount of fiber and ash. I'm using home-milled whole wheat flour so this experiment will be fun!


Poolish Baguettes
Makes: 3 Baguettes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (7 ounces) poolish
• 1 3/4 cups (8 ounces) whole-wheat flour, sifted
• 2 cups (9 ounces) unbleached bread or all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons (.37 ounce) salt
• 3/4 teaspoon (.08 ounce) instant yeast
• 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 cups (9 to 10 ounces) water, lukewarm
• Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

Directions:

Making the Poolish (get the list of ingredients here)

For the step-by-step instructions for making the poolish, please refer to the Ciabatta post. Remove the poolish from the refrigerator 1 hour before making the dough to take off the chill.

Making the Dough

Pass the whole wheat flour through a sifter or strainer, sifting out the bran.  Sift as much of the flour through the strainer as will go and set aside the bran that remains in the strainer for another use - for example, making the Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire.

Stir together the flours, salt, and yeast in a mixing bowl or in the bowl of your electric mixer.  I didn't use a stand mixer for this bread.  I just used a mixing bowl.  Add the poolish and  1 1/8 cups of the water and stir with a large spoon until the ingredients form a ball.

I started out with a wooden spoon, then switched to the danish dough whisk.

Transfer the dough to a counter sprinkled with flour. Knead for 10 minutes, sprinkling more flour as necessary.  The dough should be soft and pliable, tacky but not sticky.

Fermenting the Dough

Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to ferment at room temperature for 2 hours or until it doubles in size.

Remove the dough and knead it lightly for 1 minute.

Return the dough to the bowl and cover it again.

Ferment for additional 2 hours at room temperature or until the dough doubles in size again.

Shaping the Baguettes

Sprinkle flour on the counter and gently transfer the dough to the counter.  Divide it into 3 equal pieces using a metal dough scraper.  Try not to degas it anymore than necessary.

Shape the pieces into baguettes, as shown on page 74, or for detailed instructions on making baguettes, refer to the post on French Baguettes.


Proofing the Loaves

Prepare the loaves for proofing.  I'm using the couche method.  Refer to the Ciabatta post for detailed instructions on using a couche.

Proof the baguettes at room temperature for 50 to 60 minutes, or until they are about 1 1/2 times their original size.

Baking the Loaves

Prepare the oven for hearth baking.  Make sure to have an empty steam pan in place.  Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.  For more detailed instructions on hearth baking, refer to the post on Pain À l'Ancienne Baguettes.  

Score the baguettes.  I used a serrated knife, but it was a bit too big and the slashes didn't work very well.  I recommend using a lame for scoring these baguettes.

The method described in the book is to dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with cornmeal and transfer the dough pieces to the peel or pan.  Then, slide the loaves onto the baking stone to bake.  Instead of using this method, I decided to bake the loaves in a special baguette pan so they would keep their shape. Mags at The Other Side of Fifty had mentioned this pan on her blog and I decided to give it a try.

For detailed instructions on hearth baking, including using the steam pan and spraying the oven walls with water at 30-second intervals, refer to the post on Pain À l'Ancienne Baguettes.

Bake the loaves for 10 minutes, rotate for even baking if necessary, then continue to bake for 8 to 12 more minutes.  The loaves should be a rich golden brown.

Remove the bread and cool on a rack for at least 40 minutes before slicing or serving.

Here is a shot of the crumb.  Looks pretty good.  Tastes great also.  I like these baguettes!

 

 

Thanks for joining us this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.

The next bread in Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge is Portuguese Sweet Bread. 

Happy Baking!
Cathy

 

Pizza Napoletana

This week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, we made the 25th bread in the challenge: Pizza Napoletana. Wow! Have we really made that many breads? My, how time flies while you're having fun, as the saying goes...

I love making pizza! I've been really psyched about trying this one.  I agree with Peter Reinhart's contention that it is the crust, not the toppings, that make a good pizza.  For some time now, I've been on a quest to find Pizza Nirvana, and I do believe this pizza crust has earned a place on my list of favorites.

Some of my other favorite pizzas are: Bread Machine Deep Dish Pizza prepared in a bread machine and baked in a La Cloche, No Knead Deep Dish Pizza made with a mixture of all-purpose and Semolina flours and baked in a 9" x 13" pan, and Brick Oven-Style Pizza made with a poolish and baked on a baking stone.

According to Peter Reinhart, "the single biggest flaw in most pizza dough recipes is the failure to instruct the maker to allow the dough to rest overnight in the refrigerator.  This gives the enzymes time to go to work, pulling out subtle flavor trapped in the starch.  The long rest also relaxes the gluten, allowing you to shape the dough easily, minimizing the elastic springiness that so often forces you to squeeze out all the gas." 

This Pizza Napoletana is similar to brick oven pizza in that it utilizes a poolish but it seems to have a smoky flavor.  Or, maybe it's because I rolled the dough too thin and it got a little burnt on the bottom. I don't know, but it sure was good!   All I know is that pizzas made with a poolish are so much better that there really is no comparison. I really liked this pizza and so did my taste tester.


Pizza Napoletana
I used the pizza dough from the Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.

Before we get to the pizza crust, let me tell you about my favorite pizza sauce.  I've also been on a quest to create a homemade pizza sauce that is worthy of all of these wonderful crusts.  I found a combination I like.  It has a little kick to it which my sons and I really enjoy.

Here is my go to pizza sauce recipe. It's a combination of a couple of different recipes. It makes enough to top several medium pizzas.

My Favorite Pizza Sauce Recipe

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (you can add more if you like)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, undrained (or you can use fresh tomatoes if in season).
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil (or use dried basil if you prefer)
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (I usually add a little more because I like the flavor)
  
  

Directions:

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon olive oil to pan. Add onion; sauté 3 minutes or until tender. Add garlic to pan; sauté 30 seconds. Stir in wine; cook 30 seconds. Add tomato paste, oregano, black pepper, salt, crushed red pepper flakes, bay leaf and tomatoes and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes or until thick. Then stir in basil and vinegar and cool. It took about 30 minutes for my sauce to thicken. It also cooked down a good bit. This makes a chunky sauce so if you prefer a smooth sauce, you can puree it in the blender. I like it either way but my taste tester prefers the sauce smooth so I usually puree it.  Feel free to experiment.


Now on to the pizza crust....


Making the Pizza

On the day you want to make the pizza, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator 2 hours before making the pizza. 

Dust the counter with flour, and then mist the counter with spray oil.  Place the dough balls on top of the floured counter and sprinkle them with flour; dust your hands with flour.  Gently press the dough into flat disks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches in diameter.

Sprinkle the dough again with flour, mist it again with spray oil, and cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap or a food-grade plastic bag.  Let rest for 2 hours.

Baking the Pizza

45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lowest rack of the oven.  At least that's where it works best for my oven.  Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500 to 550 degrees).  I baked the first pizza at 550 degrees and it burned a little bit so I lowered the temperature to 500 degrees for the second one and that seemed to work out better.  If you don't have a baking stone, you can use the back of a sheet pan, but don't preheat the pan.

Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or cornmeal.  I used cornmeal.  Make the pizzas one at a time.  Dip your hands, including the backs of your hands and knuckles, in flour and lift 1 piece of dough by getting under it with a dough scraper.


I'll just let you know right now that I didn't shape the pizza exactly the way the book describes.  I still don't have the hang of stretching the pizza in the air and then tossing it. I did stretch it in the air a little bit, then finished stretching it on the counter.  I didn't need a rolling pin, I just used my fingers to spread the dough out.  

When you've stretched the dough enough (about 9 to 12 inches in diameter), lay it on the peel, making sure there is enough semolina flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide.  Or, you can do what I did and place the dough on parchment sprinkled with cornmeal then transfer the whole thing to the peel.  I find that much easier to manage.

I parbaked the first pizza crust for a few minutes before adding the toppings.  I didn't parbake the second pizza and we could definitely tell the difference.  We like it parbaked much better!

Lightly top the pizza with sauce and then with your favorite toppings.  In addition to the yummy pizza sauce, I topped my pizza with onions, green peppers and mozzarella cheese.

Slide the pizza onto the stone and close the door.  Wait 2 minutes, then take a peak to make sure it is baking evenly.  If necessary, you can rotate the pizza for even baking. The pizza should take about 5 to 8 minutes to bake.

 

Cooling and Serving the Pizza

Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board.  Wait 3 to 5 minutes before slicing and serving, to allow the cheese to set slightly.  This was the hard part!  But we managed.

 

Now it's time to enjoy some of this yummy pizza!

Thanks for joining us this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge!  And, a big thanks to Nicole at Pinch My Salt for getting us started on this journey.  We're learning a lot and having loads of fun!

The next bread in Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, is Poolish Baguettes. 

 

Happy Baking!
Cathy