Cranberry Walnut Yeast Bread

Decided to do something different for Thanksgiving bread - I usually do a sage bread - and thought Cranberry Walnut would be nice. After completing this direct method bread (mix, rise and bake without a long ferment) I found what looks like a great (even better) recipe with a longer ferment time - here. Looking forward to when I have the leisure to try it.

I took out the cinnamon, but decided against it

Halve and sweeten 2 cups of cranberries (I used 2 tbs each of white sugar, light brown sugar and honey with 1/4 cup warm water)
Add the zest of one orange, and let the mix sit while you make your dough.

Proof 3 tsp of active dry yeast in 1/2 cup warm water and 1 tsp sugar

Once the yeast starts to ferment, add 1+ 1/2 cups warm water, 1 tsp salt, 4 tbs butter

Add a bit at a time: 2+1/2 cups flour, 2 cups whole wheat flour, 4 tbs ground flax seed (flax meal)(optional)

Add the cranberries and 1 cup chopped walnuts. Knead the dough lightly for one or two minutes, adding a dusting of flour as needed.

Oil the top of the dough ball and set the dough aside to rise for an hour or more.

Divide dough into two rounds and place on a parchment covered baking sheet to rise again for an hour or so.

Slit the dough to form a square, brush with an egg wash and place in a 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes, check for doneness; return to oven for up to 10 minutes if needed but lower oven temp to 350.

Dinner's not quite ready - still have to cook that turkey!

The Two-Day Bread

 Two-Day Bread

I've posted bread and pizza on the blog before, and I've always been fascinated with bread and how there are so many different tastes and textures, some of which depend on using different ingredients like milk or butter or molasses or eggs or whole wheat.  But what always puzzled me was how flour, yeast, salt and water could result in such different products.

A few years ago I bought a couple of bread baking books by Peter Reinhart.  To be honest, the author was just a little too precise and technical for me.  He listed ingredients in grams and percentages of the total weight.  He required one to construct a kind of brick oven to insert in the kitchen oven and most of the recipes involved using some form of a "pre-ferment" like a 'biga" or "poolish" or "pate fermentee".  These preferments were to be made a day or two or three ahead of time - before making the actual loaf, which would require several hours in itself.

I don't usually know what I'm going to do this afternoon, let alone tomorrow, so planning on Monday to make bread on Wednesday just seemed like too much of a commitment.  Besides, I am impatient and need immediate gratification.  I want my daily bread today, not on Thursday.  I admit I fooled around with a couple of the recipes, but was not impressed with my skill or my results.  I reverted back to making my dough the way I always did: three mugs of warm water, three packages of yeast, a teaspoon of sugar, three teaspoons of salt, three tablepoons of olive oil (optional) and enough flour  to make dough...but never measured exactly.  (King Arthur All Purpose and I mixed in some Whole Wheat when I wanted to be a little healthier, usually about 3 parts white to 1 part whole wheat).

Yesterday I was making dough for pizza and decided to make my version of a "poolish" - basically a sticky, wet dough to set aside in the fridge.  I made my dough as usual but before mixing in all of the flour, took out about two cups of what was at that point a batter, a little thicker than pancake batter, and set it aside to ferment.  It then went into the fridge overnight.

I then took the remaining batter, added more flour to make dough and turned it into some great pizza and a calzone last evening.

Today I took the preferment out, let it warm to room temperature, added a mug full of warm water, a teaspoon of yeast, 3/4 teaspoon of salt and gradually added more white and wheat flour and beat it by hand till I had to take it out of the bowl to knead it.   The only oil I ued was to coat the dough in the bowl before letting it rise.  I let it rise for an hour and a half, then formed rolls and one large loaf.  Let it rise again for 30 minutes or so, brushed it with milk, and sprinkled it with sesame seeds (thanks to Bob who gave me a huge bag of the stuff), and baked them all in a 475-500 degree oven (my oven is so imprecise - did I ever mention that we bought it for like $275 from Sears Dent and Scratch Store 12 years ago?  We've recently looked at stoves and they have too much electronics, some have burner grates that are a disaster waiting to happen and they are like $800 to $3,000 and that's just a beginning...).

Anyhow, after 30 - 35 minutes the bread emerged looking like an Artesian Loaf, (did I say that right?)
I could not help it, I ate a roll with some butter while they were still hot.  While yesterday's pizza crust was excellent, the texture and flavor of today's bread were even better - crunchy on the outside, airy on the inside, and with a nice nutty flavor, thanks to the whole wheat and sesame seeds.

I will definitely try this method again when I feel I can make the commitment.  I may even look through the bread books again and try to do it more precisely.  But chances are that I will wing it as usual and hope for the best.  It usually works out.

Turkey Stuffing and Dinner Rolls

Spent the afternoon making rolls and stuffing.

The stuffing is a bread (whatever kind I have, air or oven dried and cubed), ground beef, pork sausage (breakfast sausage) mixture that is a tradition in our family. Sorry no chestnuts here.

I am making extra stuffing, because you can never have enough of a good thing. The problem with stuffing cooked outside the bird is that it does not get the flavor from the turkey. So tomorrow, after stuffing the turkey, I will see how I'm going to handle the extra. Maybe pour some turkey drippings over it while cooking.

I used butter, oil, 1 large onion, 2.5 lb. ground beef, 1 lb. sausage, about 8-10 cups of bread cubes, 4 eggs, salt, pepper, Scarborough Fair (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) and, this year a little Bells Seasoning.

Oil and Butter

I start with a little oil and butter in the skillet and add the chopped onion. Let it cook until translucent - don't brown the onion. Add the ground beef and saute until the pink is gone. Don't over cook. Remove the meat and saute the sausage. Set aside the meats with pan drippings.

Saute Onion

Sausage and Ground Beef

Saute the Beef

And the Sausage

Cube up dried sliced bread or rolls or breads that have been dried in the oven. Add the meats with pan drippings, eggs, salt, pepper, herbs and spices and mix together.

Bread Chunks

New This Year - An Old Fashioned Spice Mix

Toss the Meats and Bread With the Egg and Herbs

And on to the rolls.  I've done bread dough before, so won't go into it. (see side bar for links to bread posts)

It Makes Me Happy When the Dough Rises Nicely

Forming Bread Knots

A Little Egg Wash to Make the Sesame Seeds Stick

Sage Is Nice With Turkey Too

Sesame

Sage

Two Rolls Are Already Missing
(Me and My Sis Couldn't Resist)

Love to Make Bread

Give us today our daily bread:

Well, I don't bake daily, but today seemed like a good day for bread.  As I've said, I really don't use a recipe, so I will have to get Leon to make a video of the baker at work one of these days.

White Pizza Night

 Last night was White Pizza Night.  Starting with my pizza dough made with King Arthur Unbleached and a little Whole Wheat.  Started with a couple of coffee mugs of warm water, a package of yeast, olive oil and salt.  After an hour and a half to two hours: Isn't that beautiful?

Getting the fillings and toppings ready:  Ricotta and spinach with some parmesan cheese, salt, pepper.

Eggplant drizzled with garlic infused olive oil, salt pepper and oregano, then oven roasted.

Onion and mushrooms oven roasted with olive oil.

I divided the dough into four pieces:

I flatten them out on the counter top with enough flour to keep them from sticking.  I don't twirl.  (Well, maybe some years ago, at the disco.)

Two of the pizzas got stuffed with the ricotta mixture and some fresh mozzarella.

The folded pizza or calzone was sealed using the Florentine Tapestry method (I made that up).  See the sealed edge of my calzone.

See the edge on the Florentine Tapestry

Put steam holes on top, then bake in a preheated HOT oven - 450 to 500 degrees

This pizza has eggplant and drizzled with more olive oil.

I recently acquired some nice asiago cheese, so grated some and put it on top.

The other pizza has the roasted onion and mushroom mixture and the asiago too.  I really shouldn't bake all of these at once, because my little 11 year old, $245 "Sears dent-and-scratch oven"* is not meant for such tasks, but I am not known for my patience.  So in they went.  If I could crank the oven to more than 500 degrees, I would have.

Here they are, waiting for everyone to dig in.  The calzone oozed out some of the filling.

Taste test:  Everyone thought they were tasty.  The onion and mushroom was a good combo.  I thought the eggplant needed something - a little more salt maybe;  I had a piece with some of the ricotta filling that had oozed out of the calzone and that was exactly what it needed: eggplant and ricotta pizza, yum.

*bring out the red robe, the crown and the bouquet of roses now

Pizza Rustica di Pasqua (Easter Pizza) and Braided Egg Bread (Easter Bread)

Pizza Rustica

There are almost as many recipes for Pizza Rustica di Pasqua as there are Italian families in America.  Some are more a rich cheese bread which look absolutely delicious on google and others, the "rustica" or rustic are savory pies.  None that I viewed on the internet are quite the same as what my grandmother and my aunts used to make and that I've made for many years myself.  As it is quite "heavy" and not cheap to make, I suggest cutting the recipe down to 2/3 or less. Exact proportions of the filling are not that important. One of my cousins said her mom's pie weighed 30 pounds, but I think that was an exaggeration.

Aunt Stella's recipe for the pie filling called for the following (but you can use less for a smaller pie)
  ~ 3 dozen boiled eggs, quartered (I used 2 dozen)
  ~ 2 pounds of capocollo, (a deli ham with hot pepper) (I used 1 pound),
  ~ 2 pounds of formaggio fresco, a fresh "basket cheese" somewhat like farmers cheese that you can likely only get at an Italian market around the Easter holiday. (I used 1 pound)
  ~ 6 beaten eggs. (5 for a smaller pie)

  

Crust:
Every crust recipe I found on-line called for butter as well.  For a large pie use:
3 1/2 cups flour (plus 1/2 cup for kneading and rolling)
6 beaten eggs
1 stick of soft butter (not melted) plus a little salt.  (tsp)

If making a smaller recipe use:
2 1/2 cups flour (plus 1/2 cup for kneading and rolling)
5 beaten eggs,
1/2 stick of soft butter plus a little salt

I use the 21 inch rolling pin (actually a 1 1/4 inch diameter dowel) which allows you to roll out a thin crust large enough to cover the bottom of the roasting pan.

Combine the flour, beaten eggs and butter and salt in the proportions that you choose. Mix, then knead until a dough comes together; knead for 5 or 10 minutes till smooth and evenly mixed, then wrap the ball of dough with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 or 15 minutes.

Divide the dough slightly unequally and roll out the larger portion in a rectangular shape thin enough to line the bottom and sides of a large or medium size roasting pan (depending on the flour proportions you chose) for the bottom crust.  Lay it into the pan.

Put one layer of sliced capocollo on the bottom, (some recipes use a combination of Italian meats like salami, mortadella, prosciutto, etc. but our family recipe uses only capocollo).
Then one layer of boiled eggs quartered and placed closely together in rows down the length of the pan.

Cut slices of fresh basket cheese and place them on top of the boiled eggs . Continue to layer more capocollo, more boiled egg quarters, more formaggio fresco (basket cheese) and end with a layer of capocollo.

Pour the beaten eggs on top (the egg will drizzle into the pie) and then roll out the remaining dough into a rectangular shape large enough to cover the pie with a top crust.
Trim any excess around the edges and use this to make a cross or design on the top (optional)
Pinch the edges, brush the crust with egg wash (egg beaten with a little water) and bake at 350 for an hour and a quarter - to an hour and a half.
The crust should get golden brown.
Let it cool before cutting into it.

This is the original "breakfast sandwich" but it comes with a warning: Distribute generous portions to all your friends and relatives because after three days you will be sick of this version of ham and eggs, guaranteed.

Sweet Egg Bread - Pane di Pasqua

Well, there is no recipe for my bread so I'll wing it like I do when I make it.  This non-recipe will make two large (pizza pan size) or four medium size breads on two sheet pans (see photo).

I started with 1/2 cup warm water and 1 or 2 packets of yeast (or 2to 4 tsp), and a little  flour to get them started. (Adjust amount of yeast depending on quality and ambient temperature. Add up to 1/4 cup honey or sugar and this will feed the yeast in a big way)

Meanwhile I warmed up 3 cups of milk in the microwave - (NOT HOT) (you can use 2 cups milk and 1 cup water) and softened (NOT MELTED) a stick and a half of butter

I added 3/4 cup of sugar (sometimes I use less, especially if I use honey in the yeast mixture) and 4 eggs to the milk and beat them in, added this to the yeast mixture along with the butter and then added some flour, 2 generous teaspoons of salt.

I beat the mixture with a wooden spoon and I kept adding flour until a dough began to form.  Lose the spoon and use hands to knead while adding a little flour at a time, until the dough is no longer sticky but can be kneaded into a smooth ball.  This is a soft dough.

Brush with oil, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours in a large bowl or pot, till doubled in volume.

Depending on how many and how large you want your loaves, divide the dough into that many pieces. Divide each of those into three and roll into "ropes".  Braid the three ropes for each loaf and form into a ring, a half circle, or whatever shape you like.

Place one or more raw eggs or raw colored eggs into the braid (I used only one because a) we will get tired of eating hard cooked eggs real soon and b) it is easier to slice the bread without the eggs int the way). Let rise for 1 hours or so and brush with egg wash.  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425 for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 375. If using 2 racks, move the top breads down and the lower ones to the top for more even browning. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or so - depending on your oven, the number of breads in the oven, etc. until the top crust is golden and it taps "hollow" and the edges and peaks are nice and brown.

As you can see, I got distracted and forgot to set the timer to lower the oven.  A little powdered sugar helps cover up the burn.

We get to keep the burnt one, the rest will go to friends or family - maybe.