R.I.P. Xam

It takes time. I know that, of course. Still it took from mid-June when his time on earth was done until now- early October- for me to be able to write a post in honor of the bread baker's dog, Xam on what I think of as his blog.

He lived a long time for a big black lab...15 years in fact. He was in pretty good health until about Christmas time when we noticed he was having trouble breathing now and then. The vet confirmed that and said that a valve that regulates breathing had worn out. Over the next six months it grew gradually worse, although some of the time he still seemed like a young dog, especially when we took walks. Even that changed about March or April. The walks became shorter although he still loved to be out in nature.

I still bake bread, although I don't blog about it as much...most of the bread is just slight variations of ones I've posted before. When the house smells so good with the fragrance of warm bread I know that Xam is with us in spirit, tail wagging, ready for his taste of what is fresh out of the oven. I carry his enthusiasm for life and good food with me as a gift. Thank you Xam for all the good years.

Friendly Fun Fougasse

Bread Baking has been low on the list of priorities of late. The last post here was in August and it is already October 5. I've been reading a lot of bread recipes but not baking. Time to change that. Some days the words just don't flow, so if this post seems to need something, believe me I feel that way, too...maybe some salt?

A few months ago I was lucky enough to be in Seattle at the same time that Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups was visiting. She kindly asked me to join her when she met with Lynn of Cookie Baker Lynn. Lynn lives in the Seattle area so she knew of great chocolate places as well at a wonderful bread store/cafe'.

One of the fun things to do with bloggers is to exchange goodie boxes. Cookbooks are a fun thing to send and receive. Recently a cookbook found it's way to me from Lynn and I had a great time looking at all the recipes. Today I finally had time to make one of the breads in the book. The book is called Basic Baking: Flavored Breads by Linda Collister. There are dozens of delightful breads. I decided to start with the Bacon and Walnut Fougasses in the Mediterranean Flavors section. Thank you Lynn!

I've never made fougasse before but have long been intrigued by the way that you slash the bread in a sort of herringbone or ladder shape. It is a kind of flatbread, similar to foccacia. I liked that the crust was not too thick or firm and that some crust formed in the slashed areas.

This is the time of year when the walnuts are falling fromt he tree and making a loud thunk when they hit our deck. Walnuts are a great fall ingredient and since the gougasses are flat, the walnuts get toasted while baking. The walnut flavor was just strong enough, but the bacon flavor was faint in the four I made with bacon. It's possible that it would be better with a different kind of bacon than the one I found in the fridge.



Walnut Fougasses (some with Bacon)
Makes 8 pieces

“These attractive, oval, individual loves come from Provence where, these days, they are made plain or flavored with olives, herbs, charcuterie, or even candied fruit. Use top-quality bacon…”

I changed the recipe a bit by using whole wheat flour for some of the flour and by using dry yeast instead of cake yeast. If you wish to you cake yeast, e-mail me and I’ll send you the recipe for using compressed cake yeast.

1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
5 oz. rindless bacon, finely diced
2/3 cup walnut pieces, coarsely chopped
3 cups unbleached white bread flour
1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 package active dry yeast – I used quick rising yeast
1 ¼ cups lukewarm water, divided
1 egg beaten
3 tablespoons olive oil
extra flour, for dusting
extra oil, for brushing
several baking trays, greased or lined with silicon baking mats or parchment paper

Heat the oil in a skillet, add the bacon, and saute’ until golden and crisp, but not hard. Drain on paper towels, then combine well with the walnuts. (If your bacon is very fatty, you can probably skip the extra oil in the pan…I did)

Put the flours in a large bowl, mix well. Remove one cup and set aside. Mix the salt into the larger bowl of flour, then set that aside, too.

Sprinkle the dry yeast over ¼ cup of the lukewarm water in a small bowl. Let sit 10 minutes to hydrate and proof.

Make a well in the center of the flour/salt mixture. Into the well pour the yeast mixture, the rest of the lukewarm water (1 cup), the beaten egg and the olive oil. Gradually work in the flour to make a soft but not sticky dough. Use additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, from the reserved one cup to make the dough the right consistency to knead.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead thoroughly for 10 minutes, adding additional flour from the reserved flour if needed. When finished dough will feel fairly smooth, very elastic, and silky.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn it over so the entire surface is lightly coated with oil.

Cover with a damp cloth and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size – about 1 ½ hours. Punch down the dough, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in the bacon and nuts until evenly distributed.

Weigh the dough and divide into 8 equal parts.

Using a rolling pin, roll each piece into an oval about 8 ½ by 5 by ½ inch. With a sharp knife, cut about 8 slits in a herringbone pattern in each oval. Arrange them, spaced apart, on the baking trays.

Lightly cover the baking trays with a damp cloth and let rise at cool to normal room temperature until doubled in size – about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Uncover the fougasses and lightly brush with oil. Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

I made half of these with only the walnuts because I thought we were out of bacon, but later discovered that we had some bacon, so the second batch of 4 were made with the bacon. Although they were fine with just walnuts, the bacon added an extra dimension. Next time I would use a different kind of bacon...something drier and more intensely flavored. If you want to omit the bacon, I would add some herbs to add additional flavor…perhaps some minced fresh rosemary or parsley.

These are nice because each fougasse is a good size for one person and the slashed make they interesting visually, too. I didn’t pull at the rolls once the slashes were made to open up the holes for the first batch without the bacon, so they closed up a bit during the second rise. Sweetie liked them that way, but I like crust so I made the spaced larger for the bacon ones which gave a better crustiness around the slashes in those loaves. You can make them either way depending on how much crust you like. You can also omit the whole wheat flour and use only white flour as the original recipe suggests. I like the additional grain flavor that the whole wheat flour adds, but all white flour would be more refined.

These are fun loaves to make due to the visual interest, the nice crust and chewiness. They make a nice addition to the bread basket and are especially nice warm, with some good butter. They taste lovely toasted, too.

I've been missing the weekly wonderful event that is Yeastspotting at Susan's Wild Yeast...no time to even go there and drool over the bread being baked by the fantastic bakers featured there...so it's nice to have an entry again...and time to bake bread. Here is the URL for Susan's blog :http://www.wildyeastblog.com/

A Sourdough Rye Boule

For the initial post in this blog devoted to baking I thought I'd tell about a nice sourdough rye bread that a baked a while ago. Not sure why I never posted about it on my other blog, Feeding My Enthusiasms, but it never happened.

So you may be wondering why I don't post it there now. Why is another blog needed? Well, I kept getting comments that I should rename my blog Feeding My Bread Enthusiasms and that I was doing a lot of bread posts, so it seemed like a good idea.

I'll still post to Feeding My Enthusiasms, but will concentrate on baking here, especially bread baking.

Last fall I created a local wild yeast sourdough starter using the yeast collected on the skins of some grapes grown down the hill where I live here in Northern California.


Some more yeasts from the air were collected as the starter became more and more sour over time. It is a very specific, local, delicious starter. At some point I used some of the original starter which I named Sukey, to start a whole wheat starter called Polly. They are both still going strong months later and have opened up a whole new world for me of freshly baked bread.

Becoming familiar with different flours has been part of the fun. Rye has a distinctive and fairly strong taste, especially if you use dark rye flour as I did for this bread.

For some reason, the cool, rainy weather inspired me to make some rye bread. A slice with a steamy bowl of soup is so comforting. I started by looking at recipes online and by spreading out at least half a dozen cookbooks that had rye bread recipes so that I could explore the world of rye breads.

I wanted to try making a bread with a sponge and since rye goes so well with a sour taste, this seemed like the one to try a sponge with. I guessed on the proportions…no actual recipe to credit here, but I had looked at about a dozen different rye bread recipes before starting…amazing how different they are, too. Some had more salt, some had more rye flour, some had cocoa or molasses, some had a larger proportion of bread flour, some had oil, butter, and/or milk added.

The Swedish versions had orange zest, too. Obviously rye bread is a delightful canvas for creativity. The sourdough starter added it’s own flavor. It also kept it fresh longer. If you don’t have a starter, make it anyway…the recipe has directions for making it with dry yeast from the store. You’ll still get a nice, sour rye flavor from the sponge.

This bread benefits from a number of risings. The sour flavor becomes stronger and the crumb becomes fine. If you like caraway seeds in your rye bread, by all means knead some in during the shaping, or sprinkle some on the egg wash. If you are still undecided about making rye bread, be assured that this one makes excellent toast, too. Isn’t that reason enough?

Rye and Whole Wheat Round

Sponge:
½ cup each: rye flour, whole wheat flour and unbleached bread flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sourdough starter (I used Polly)
1 cup spring water or filtered water, not tap water

Dough:
1 tablespoon barley malt syrup (molasses can be used instead)
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup each: rye flour, whole wheat flour and unbleached bread flour
additional bread flour, by tablespoon, if needed, to make dough firm
and some for flouring the kneading surface

Sponge: In a large bowl, combine the flours and salt. Add the sourdough starter and the water and stir to completely combine. (If not sourdough starter is available, sprinkle 2 teaspoons active dry yeast over ½ cup warm (100 – 110 degrees F) water. Stir and let sit 10 minutes, then add to the flours. Adjust the water to an additional 1 ½ cups.) Cover with plastic wrap, leaving a vent, and set in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 ½ to 2 hours.

Dough: In a stand mixer bowl (KA with dough hook if possible), put the sponge. Add the barley malt. Mix the three flours together with the salt, then add to the mixer. Mix on low or medium low speed until combined. If mixer has dough hook, continue to knead with mixer until smooth and elastic. If no dough hook, turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 – 10 minutes.

Place kneaded dough into an oiled bowl that is large enough to hold twice the amount. Turn dough over to coat both sides with oil. Place plastic wrap over dough, leaving a vent, and set in a warm place to rise until double in bulk, about another 2 hours.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead a few minutes to release any large gas bubbles. Shape into a ball, pulling dough under as you shape. Place on parchment paper, smooth side up, cover with a cloth or plastic wrap and let rise until double in bulk, about an hour.

With a single edge razor or very sharp knife, cut a few slashed in the loaf. Paint loaf with a mixture of one egg yolk and 1 tablespoon milk.

Place in preheated 350 degree F. oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and paint again with the egg wash. Return to the oven and bake another 25 to 30 minutes, or until crust is deep golden brown and loaf sound hollow when tapped.

Let cool at least 15 minutes before slicing…longer is better if you can resist the wonderful aroma of fresh bread.

Makes one large loaf.