The Bad With The Good

   I've been itching to make bread that incorporates fun ingredients like oats or seeds. I found a recipe for potato oatmeal bread and had to make it. It was a pretty quick recipe, in fact it could have been ready in a few hours but I like to make it fresh in the morning before work so I let it rise overnight instead of just one hour. A little extra rising never hurt anyone :) Flour, yeast, salt, dry milk, brown sugar, oats, butter and some warm water. Recipe called for 2 "mealy" potatoes. Not sure what kind those are, but I used 3 small red potatoes instead (peeled). Boil the potatoes and mash them up, add them to the mixture and knead for 5-10 minutes. Turn out on a floured surface and form a loaf. Coat a bowl with oil/butter and let the dough rest for an hour or more until doubled in size.
   Side bar: I had a lot of sourdough starter in my fridge that I've been feeding since day one of the bread project. I thought I would start making a few sourdough recipes - each recipe makes 3 loaves - and then send them home with friends and coworkers. So I took a cup of my starter and prepared one recipe of dough. Sourdough is the most fun to knead. It gets really stretchy. I oiled a glass bowl and let the sourdough rise overnight next to my potato oatmeal dough.
   This morning I woke up at 5:30 after only hitting the snooze button once. I was too excited to see what my dough had done! Much to my dismay, the sourdough had not risen and was hard as a rock. I could barely make a fingertip impression. (I probably didn't feed the starter as I should have and let it sit in the fridge for too many days at a time without any attention). It was like a dough football. Trash. The oatmeal bread, however, looked perfectly risen with air bubbles in it, nearly tripled in size. Very nice. Even if your dough is surprisingly huge after the rising process, kneading it again will always reduce the size quite a bit. I folded it a few times, just until it shrunk enough to fit in a loaf pan. I coated it with water as the recipe called for and sprinkled the oats on top. 30 minutes at 425 while I did my hair and makeup would be just enough time.

   The house filled with the aroma of bread - which it the best way to start your day in my opinion. I peeked in the oven window when the timer went off and it looked tall, golden and beautiful. I stuck a knife into the center. It seemed done to me so I pulled it out and set it on a wire rack to cool. By the time Ian and I were dressed and ready, the loaf had cooled enough to cut. Oh my word it was amazing. Slightly chewy but not undercooked. Ian was frantically looking for apple butter to slather all over his slice. We found a jar in the pantry that we "imported" from Alaska last summer. Yu-um.
   The only thing I'll do differently next time is coat the dough with egg instead of water so the oats stick better. By the time I got it out of the pan, in my carrier and to work, most of the oats had fallen off. This recipe was quick, easy and delicious. Fuss-proof other than the boiling and mashing of the potatoes. It will definately go on my "go to" list for good bread. Oatmeal bread also makes great sandwich bread.

Swirly Girl

   Today's flavor - cinnamon raisin swirl. This is one of the most delicious loaves so far. The starter quadroupled in size in the fridge over night. After kneading it down, I still had enough dough to make two loaves. I mixed in the raisins and butter and worked with the dough for about 10 minutes. At first the raisins were just falling out of the dough but the longer I kneaded it, they began to fold in. I split the dough in half and set one chunk aside. With a wooden rolling pin, I flattened the first chunk into a 7x15 strip about a 1/2 inch thick. On the side I sifted the cinnamon and brown sugar together. With a pastry brush I basted the strip with egg and sprinkled the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat. Rolling one end in lengthwise, I created a spiral roll, pinched the ends and tucked them. I did exactly the same with the second chunk and set the loaves side by side to rise over night.
   To my surprise, this morning the loaves had risen so much, the plastic bowl I covered them with overnight was no longer resting on the counter! They were huge! I actually had to transfer one loaf to another baking sheet and bake them seperately. As soon as I got to work, people stopped me in the hallway. "What is it today?" No sooner did I get the lid off and cool the loaves when a  line formed in my office. One by one they cut a slice and endulged. Eight woman hovering around my desk with a napkin in hand, eyes closed, mouths stuffed with cinnamon raisin swirly goodness. They began placing requests for next week's flavor. HUGE SUCCESS!

Bread Bomb

   In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I chose a recipe from an Irish pub cook book for Irish soda bread. It seemed simple enough - flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk. No yeast though, so this is my first experiment with "leven bread". It doesn't really rise and you should not incorporate a lot of air into the dough during the kneading process. I mixed the ingredients together last night and let the dough sleep in the fridge. This morning I took it out and placed it on my pastry mat to knead it ever so slightly, as the recipe called for. It was kind of dry at first and very lumpy, but then the situation turned sticky. With doughy fingers I fumbled through the pantry for some flour to dust the mat.  The dough remained super sticky though. I formed two small loaves (I had made a double recipe of dough to ensure everyone at work had an opportunity to taste it) and placed them on a greased cookie sheet. I baked as directed for 25 minutes. To check if they were done, the book noted to "Knock on the loaf(ves). If they make a hallow sound, they are done." They did infact sound hollow so I moved them to a wire rack to cool and then to my baked goods container to tote them off to work.
   I sent out the routine e-mail letting the office folks know there was bread available. Note: I had not yet cut the first slice. Three girls from the DNA lab came down with paper leprechaun masks - very cute and festive - to endulge in the holiday bread. About 3 slices into it, we discovered it wasn't fully cooked. Actually it was really mushy in the middle. I took the loaves down to the break room, where there is an oven, and baked them an additional 20 minutes. I cut into a loaf again and it was still gooey. I baked them ANOTHER 20 minutes. At that point the crust was hard as a rock - too hard to cut - and the inside tasted like playdough. Ugh! I'm so bummed. For the first time, I am throwing my bread in the trash. ::sad face:: The only thing it would be good for at this point is digging out the center and making figurines, as children do with their food.

With A Twist

   I had a request in the office last week for cheesy bread. There's only a few things I love more than bread and one of them's cheese. So why not put them together? You can use all-purpose flour for basic cheese bread. Add yeast, water and honey for the starter. Although my starter didn't rise nearly as much as it usually does with bread flour. I'm not sure if that was it or my water was too warm for the yeast. Sometimes if it's too hot, it will kill the yeast and your dough won't rise, but that's usually only if it's boiling. So with my small lump of dough, I added cheddar cheese, dijon mustard, cayenne pepper and some more yeast and flour. I left it alone for about 4 hours, hoping it would double in size...but no such luck. I was really bummed out! I thought I had my first "ruined" recipe. I decided to make little twists with the dough since the loaf would look kind of pathetic that small. I grabbed at the dough, pinching off chunks the size of tennis balls. I rolled each one out long and thin, and then brought the ends together, twisting them into interesting bread sticks. The amount of dough made just enough for one cookie sheet of cheesy bread twists. I covered it with plastic wrap and let them rest over night. They did puff up a little, which made me happy. By morning some of the twists were even bumping up against each other. I seperated them just a bit and then popped them in at 350 for about 25 minutes.
   Anyone who has ever ordered a cheesy bagel twist at Dunkin Donuts would say my twists look very similar. They actually tasted similar too, although the cayenne pepper and dijon mustard gave it a tiny little kick that was a perfect variation. I loved them. I did get some feedback that they need to be eaten warm. Unless I can serve them right out of the oven, I'll have to reheat (10 seconds in the microwave seems to be perfect). Also, if baking for a crowd, I would double the recipe.