Even easier than 1-2-3 bread

One of my earliest posts on this blog was 1-2-3 sourdough bread, which consisted of 1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour (hence 1-2-3) and a pinch of salt.

^ I added flax seeds to this batch, which are the dark spots you see in the picture

It was easy to remember because you just had to add water in a ratio of 2/3 of the flour by weight.  I found 125g starter, 250g water, and 375g flour to make a decent-sized loaf.

The only problem?  This bread takes at least three days to make.  One to two days to revive the starter, and one to two days for the dough to rise.  I haven't had the patience for it lately.   

Recently a friend of mine was putting together a gift basket for another friend whose daughter is in the hospital.  She asked for bread and she needed it two days from then, so I knew I wouldn't have time to make a sourdough.

I made this bread instead.

It is super easy.  Even easier than my 1-2-3 loaf, because it doesn't require starter, and you can estimate two of the ingredients.

I think I'll call it "1-2 bread."

You will need:

375g All-Purpose Flour (I like King Arthur)
250g water
1 teaspoon-ish of salt
1 teaspoon-ish of instant or active dry yeast

1. Measure out the flour first and then add the water.

2. Measure out roughly one teaspoon of salt and add to the flour and water.  Use a teaspoon if you like, but you don't have to.  Most people think with baking you have to measure everything.  With bread, the only thing that is important is the hydration (i.e., the ratio of flour to water by weight).  Anything that significantly changes this ratio needs to be measured.  For everything else, you can wing it. 

3. Measure out roughly one teaspoon of yeast.  If you want to bake your bread in just a few hours and don't mind sacrificing flavor, by all means add two teaspoons of yeast instead of one.  Since I don't have that kind of time all in one big chunk, I like adding less yeast and letting the dough rise for a really long time- 24 hours.

4.  Mix everything up by hand.  It is really important that you use your hands because you can tell by touch whether it needs more water and that all the flour and water have been integrated into the dough.

5. Let the dough sit for 10-15 minutes.  This lets the dough relax and absorb a little more water.   You will see there is a huge difference in the texture between the first time you mix the dough, and after you have let it rest.

Pre-rest:

After 10 minutes, re-shaping the loaf:

^ see how smooth the dough is now?

6. Cover with cling wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight. 

7.  In the morning, remove the dough from the fridge (it will not have risen noticeably) and let the bowl sit on the counter during the day.  This is where you will see the big rise.

^ after 9 hours on the counter

 8.   That evening, punch down the dough, re-shape it, and transfer to a piece of parchment paper.  Cover with an oiled piece of cling wrap.

9.  Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and insert your dutch oven or pizza stone to heat up while you wait about 45 minutes for your loaf to go through the second rise.

10.  Remove the cling wrap, score the loaf in a pretty pattern, and transfer the loaf and parchment paper to the dutch oven and close the lid. 

11.  Bake 25 minutes, then remove the lid.  Bake another 5-10 minutes, depending on how it looks and sounds.  Is the crust really hard already? Take it out; it's done.

12.  Let it cool and listen to the fun crackling sounds the crust makes as the air is escaping.  Fun!

^ this loaf will be great for sandwiches

Since the little girl's name begins with L, I thought it would be fun to personalize this loaf:

^ I made several loaves for this batch and experimented with different scoring patterns for each

I hope you enjoy trying out this easy, no-fuss recipe!

Bacheofe a la Saveur

I'm glad that title didn't scare too many of you off!

This weekend in DC was like a microcosm of the month of March itself: sometimes rainy and cold, sometimes sunny and warm.  It doesn't know what it wants to do.  But it was sunny enough on Saturday that we were out and about running errands, and then rainy and cold enough on Sunday that this delicious Alsatian stew was just the thing to warm us up.

What is Bacheofe?  Also spelled baeckeoffe, backenoff, or baekaoffa, it's a wine-simmered Alsatian stew with meat and vegetables interwoven with potatoes.  The name means "baker's oven," because (according to Larousse Gastronomique), housewives would assemble the stews on Monday morning and drop them off at the bakery to cook in the residual heat of the ovens to be retrieved in the afternoon.  The neat thing about bacheofe is the thin rope of dough around the rim that seals the top to the dutch oven.

I came across bacheofe in Saveur magazine, hence the title "a la Saveur."  The author's version includes a bacon lattice on top, which I couldn't resist.  You can find the recipe here: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Bacheofe-Alsatian-Stew.  It takes two days, so plan accordingly.

You will need:

Day 1:
1 lb boneless beep chuck, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 lb boneless pork shoulder, same treatment
1 lb boneless lamb shoulder, same treatment
kosher salt and black pepper
3 cups (one bottle) dry white wine.  I used a sauv blanc but a gewürztraminer or other sweet German wine is more typical
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
2 tsp juniper berries
5 cloves garlic, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 medium carrots,sliced
2 medium yellow onions, sliced
2 small leeks, sliced
2 sprigs thyme

Day 2:
1/4 cup duck or goose fat
3 lbs yukon gold potatoes
1 lb thick-cut bacon
1 cup flour
5 tbl water

1. Place beef, pork and lamb in a bowl (I used a large glass baking dish) and season with salt and pepper.  Add the wine, parsley, juniper berries, garlic, bay, carrots, onions, leeks and thyme.

 Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until day 2.

2. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Rub an enameled dutch oven with the duck fat so it has a nice thick coating.

3. Slice the potatoes into thin slices and layer them with the marinated meat and vegetables, remembering to season in between each layer.

4. Make sure the last layer is potatoes.

5. Mr. Bread Maiden getting fancy with his photography.

6. Place your bacon slices on top of the potatoes.  Doesn't that look pretty?

7. Pour the left-over marinade over the bacon.

8. Now comes the tricky part: making the dough.  In a small bowl, add the flour.  Pour the water over the flour and mix together until it just forms a dough.  If it can't absorb any more flour, don't force it.

9. When the dough forms a ball, flour a clean surface and knead the dough a little bit.  If it's not malleable, let it rest for about 10 minutes until the dough relaxes.  Roll or squeeze the dough into a snake.

10.  Wrap the dough around the rim of the dutch oven.  Place the lid on top.

11.  Bake in the oven for 3 1/2 hours.

12.  Remove the dutch oven from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes.  Break the seal using a knife or plastic spatula (if using an enameled dutch oven) if you need to.

 

Many recipes said the point of the dough rim was to create a tighter seal akin to a pressure cooker.    However, my lid came right off with no resistance.  I don't think it made a difference.  We pronounced it quite tasty.

Butternut squash, white bean and bacon soup

We interrupt this bread blog to bring you one of my favorite recipes ever: butternut squash soup. It is so delicious, so healthy and filling that I had to share it.

I found it on Grubarazzi but made several changes.

You will need:

1 pack of bacon
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large butternut squash, peeled and chopped
box of cherry tomatoes or can of chopped tomatoes
2 cans cannellini beans
1 bunch sage
2 springs thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
pinch of red pepper flakes
4-6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper

1. fry up the pack of bacon in a large saucepan. Move the crispy bacon to a plate to cool.  Leave the drippings in the pan.

2. Fry the onion in the bacon drippings until they are golden and translucent, about 5-10 minutes.

3.  Add the garlic and butternut squash and fry for about 5 minutes.

4. Add the broth and bring to a simmer.

 5. Add the herbs, beans, tomatoes and spices.  Let the vegetables soften, about 45 minutes to an hour.

 6.  Chop up the bacon and add to the soup.

 7. Turn the heat off and let the soup sit.  When the soup has cooled enough to handle, blend in batches.  Taste and season as needed.

I hope you like this soup!  I served it at a party and got rave reviews.  The beans provide a great heft to the soup instead of milk, a roux or heavy cream, which makes it great for people who can't process gluten or lactose.

Rosca de Reyes Part II: Three Kings' Buns!

I love making bread for the kids I teach at Sunday school because they love it and it gives me a chance to bring a little more of the daily life and traditions surrounding the Biblical lesson into the classroom.

The older I get, the more interested I am in the customs and habits of the people in the Bible.  They seem more real to me when I think about foods they might have eaten.

For example, I made challah, as well as unleavened challah, to teach the kids about the Israelites' escape from Egypt.  Ok, so it wasn't technically matzo, but the kids really understood the lesson more deeply by seeing what unrisen bread looked like and could feel and taste it.

I also like exploring the way different people around the world celebrate the same holiday in different ways.  This Sunday is Epiphany, or Three Kings' Day, which depending on your brand of Christianity either celebrates the day Jesus was baptized or the day the three Wise Men came to visit the baby Jesus.  Regardless of faith, people often celebrate by eating a Kings' Cake or Bread with fruit and nuts.  Any holiday that involves food is a holiday I can support.

Traditional King Cakes have a fun surprise- little trinkets or beans are hidden in the dough before it is baked, and are said to bring good luck to those who find the trinket in their piece.

One of my first posts on this blog was a Rosca de Reyes, a typical Mexican Epiphany bread.  While the recipe I ultimately used was a Chilean Christmas bread, I really enjoyed seeing the parallels.

Since I was making this bread for my Sunday School class of 5-10 year olds, I decided to make Rosca de Reyes buns so each kid would get the same size piece.

I slid a whole almond into each one.  Shhhh... I'm going to tell them I only put an almond in one of the buns.  That way they will be surprised when they all find one!

For the full recipe, here is my post from a few years ago.  Check out the sweet paint color in my Austin kitchen.  I miss that place.  It only took an hour for my cold butter to hit room temperature.  In January.

Once you get to step 8 (let the dough rise 1 hour), head back over here to find out how to make the Rosca buns!

For this part, you will need:

2 egg yolks
candied lemon (optional)
coconut flakes (optional)
Butter for greasing your baking sheet or parchment paper
15-20 whole raw almonds (can also be blanched)

 1. When your bread has doubled in volume, punch it down and weigh it using a kitchen scale.  I wanted buns about 80 grams in weight, and based on my calculations I would get 17 buns.  That seemed like a good number.

2. Cut each piece to the desired weight.  This dough is extremely sticky so you will need wet hands which you will want to wash frequently since the dough will want to stick to them and make a mess.  Transfer each ball to a greased baking sheet.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

3. Let the buns rest for about ten minutes before reshaping.  Count out your almonds and lay them next to your baking sheets.  Your hands will be sticky and you won't want to reach into the bag with sticky hands.

4.  With wet hands, gently tuck an almond under one or all your buns, pulling the dough from the sides of the bun down and around the almond so the top of the bun becomes smooth.  Return to the baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap.

5. Once the buns have risen for about half an hour, you can decorate them.  I used a yolk wash, candied lemon peel, and dried coconut flakes.

Just take two egg yolks and mix them together to make the yolk wash.  Couldn't be easier.

6. Press the candied lemon peel into the buns, then cover with the yolk wash.

I also added the coconut flakes to some of them.  I thought that would add a festive touch.  Since I'm guessing most of the kids in my class do not like coconut, I left most of them plain.  If I make them again for a party, I will probably put coconut on all of them.

7. When the oven is ready, bake them for about 20 minutes, rotating them at 10 minutes. 

8.  I was a little confused because this bread was soft when it came out of the oven and didn't "thump" like my breads usually do.  But they are done, don't worry!

This picture is funny because it looks like I lined them up from lightest to darkest.  The two buns in the bottom right corner are the ones with coconut.

The verdict?  These are GOOOD.  I haven't made them since 2009.  I think this could become an Epiphany tradition for me. 

Thanks for looking and happy baking!