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

 

Making Brioche: BBA Challenge

We made brioche for Day 4 of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.


Brioche is an enriched bread made with a good number of eggs and lots of butter. There are three different versions of brioche to choose from in the book depending on the amount of butter-to-flour ratio you want to use.

It seems that a lot of the other bakers in the challenge are making the rich man's or middle class version so I chose to make the poor man's version. Somebody needs to look out for the little guy...might as well be me. Plus, this version uses less butter and eggs than the other two versions so it's a more practical bread in my opinion. It's still very tasty and rich but not overly so.



I've made the Rich Man's Brioche before from the recipe in Peter Reinharts' Crust and Crumb. If you would like to see the results, check out this post. I actually think I like the poor man's version better. I'll have to try the middle class version next time so I can compare all three.

Here is an interesting account of Brioche found on ---Food Timeline, June 7, 2009.

"Brioches originated as soft and light white loaves, enriched with butter and eggs, much much less so than those we know today. They were baked without moulds. Looking at Chardin's beautiful paintings of brioches you can see that he has quite clearly defined the notches round the base of his cottage-loaf-shaped confections, which are handsome and tall but not tidy like a moulded cake. So I think that in the eighteenth century, and at the time of that poor, foolish Marie Antoinette is supposed to have said, when told that the people of Paris were rioting for bread, qu'ils manget de al brioche', the composition of the cake must have been simply that of an enriched bread much like that of our own Bath buns and Sally Lunns, so made at that period without benefit of moulds or tins, although paper bands were sometimes wrapped round them for baking. Certainly it would not be possible to bake today's liquid brioche mixture or crust for a fillet of beef or a large sausage then the brioche mixture is made with fewer eggs and less butter, or it would be impossible to handle." ---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David [Penguin:Middlesex] 1977 (p. 497)

According to Mr. Reinhart, there are countless formula variations for this bread. Some versions are immediately fermented and then shaped and baked, while some require overnight chilling. The poor man's version requires a sponge, but no overnight chilling. It's a very easy dough to work with.

I like the flour to butter ratio in this version. The other versions are almost too buttery for me. Mostly because when I consider all that butter, I think about what it would do to my arteries. However, anyway you choose to make it, this is a very delicious bread.

The poor man's version can be made in one day and the dough doesn't require refrigeration before shaping. A definite plus in my book!


The sponge

 

The dough

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Brioche

When placing the shaped brioche into the fluted mold, you only fill the molds 2/3 full.  The proofed dough should almost fill the mold or loaf pans.

Then, you'll gently brush the top of the loaves with egg wash.

I decided to freeze the fluted brioche. We sliced the sandwich loaf. In fact, it's almost gone.

We had our slices toasted with butter and cinnamon sugar. Boy was it good! My taste tester says it tastes like a croissant. I'm sure it would also taste good toasted with jam.


Thanks for joining me this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge. Next time, we're making Casatiello.


Happy Baking!
Cathy

Making Bagels: BBA Challenge

It's Day 3 of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge! Today, we're making bagels. You can make any flavor you like but I decided to make the cinnamon raisin bagels - yummy!

This bagel recipe uses the sponge technique to give the bagels a better flavor and texture. It also helps the bagels to freeze and thaw better. This method takes 2 days due to the extended fermentation time and the time needed to retard the bagels in the refrigerator before baking, but it's definitely worth the extra effort to fit it in your schedule.

I've made bagels before using a different recipe and technique and I wasn't too impressed. However, I really like the method outlined in the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's easy and the bagels taste great!

For a different type of bagel that uses a variation of this formula, check out Sourdough Bagels on My Mind.

"According to folklore, bagels were invented in seventeenth-century Austria as a tribute to the wartime victories of King Jan of Poland, and were modeled after the stirrup of his saddle. They were a bread for the masses, popular also in Germany and Poland, but they were introduced into the United States by German and Polish Jewish immigrants, so we think of them as a Jewish bread. Now, because of the softer steamed versions, bagels have once again become a bread for the masses." -- Peter Reinhart The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Let's get baking!

If you're following along with us, refer to page 115 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice. In this section, Peter Reinhart provides a very good commentary on different techniques for making bagels. I didn't realize how many different schools of thought there are for making bagels. I just know I like them.


The Sponge

 

 

 

 

The dough

 

 

 

Shaping the bagels

Retarding the bagels in the refrigerator

You can check to see if the bagels are ready to be retarded in the refrigerator by using the "float test". Fill a small bowl with cool or room-temperature water. The bagels are ready to be retarded when they float within 10 seconds of being dropped into the water.

Take one bagel and test it. If it floats, immediately return the test bagel to the pan, pat it dry, cover the pan, and place it in the refrigerator overnight (it can stay in the refrigerator for up to 2 days). If the bagel does not float, return it to the pan and continue to proof the dough at room temperature, checking back every 10 to 20 minutes or so until a tester floats. The time needed to accomplish the float will vary, depending on the ambient temperature and the stiffness of the dough.

My test bagel floated within 10 seconds. It was pretty cool!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bagels after being retarded in refrigerator overnight.

 

 

 

 

Ready to bake the bagels

Let the bagels cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes or longer before serving.

 

 

 

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


Stay tuned for Day 4 of the Bread Baking Challenge:

Next time, we'll be making Brioche. Depending on which version you want to make, you'll need plenty of eggs and butter. I've made the middle-class brioche before and it was so rich, I'm going to try the Poor Man's Brioche this time.


Happy Baking!
Cathy

The Bread Bakers Challenge

A group of bread bakers around the world answered the call to bake all of the breads in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. The Bread Experience joined with them in this crazy adventure. There are 43 breads in the book and we baked one bread every week. Each bread is unique and offers a different level of bread baking experience. We shared our progress each week in this blog.

This is how it started: http://pinchmysalt.com/2009/05/14/the-bread-bakers-apprentice-challenge-has-begun/.

The challenge is over, but I had fun baking all of the breads in the book.  It was a wonderful experience baking along with other bakers around the world.  A big thanks to Nicole of pinchmysalt for starting the challenge.

Check out my Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge archive to see all 43 of the breads

Happy baking!

Cathy