Challah and Whole Wheat Lean Bread

I promised a few weeks ago that I would share some recipes for the breads that I learned in the first unit of pastry school. I've been a bit delinquent, but here are two:

1. Challah, on Cookkosher.com

 

2. Whole Wheat Lean Bread on The Nosh Pit at the Jewish Week

Follow the links for recipes and more, by yours truly. Happy baking!

This Week in Pastry School

I'm back...and I have more photos of delicious breads! This week we moved in to complex breads, with starters and sponges and poolishes. What this means, is that a portion of the dough is prepared a day, a few days or even a week in advance, and left to rest and develop flavors, before being used in a recipe. The most common of these is a sourdough starter, but there are in fact many types.

First up - Multigrain bread! This bread is filled with wonderfully healthy things like oats, flax and sunflower seeds. This recipe was made with what's called "pate fermente" or old dough, which is just how it sounds - a piece of dough left for 24 hours.

Next up is a fougasse - a traditional French flatbread, similar to focaccia, cut to resemble a leaf shape. It is brushed with a light coat of olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, and is crispy and chewy and delicious. 

This here is a white sourdough loaf, The sourdough is a starter made of flour and water that is left to develop for at least a week before use, for extra complex flavors.

This beauty is a crown made of rye sourdough rolls, filled with sunflower seeds and topped with some decorative oats, flax and sunflower seeds. We made two sourdoughs, one with white bread flour, used in recipes like the loaf above, and one with rye flour, used here.

These are more rye sourdough rolls, that are a little denser and richer, and filled with the oat-flax-sunflower seed mix instead of just straight sunflower seeds. It should be noted that no rye breads or rolls are actually 100% rye flour, but really a mix of rye and bread flours. All rye would be inedible. 

This is a loaf of whole wheat sourdough, shaped in to a cylinder shape. In case you were wondering, a slice of this, fresh out of the oven, with a touch of butter on it, is basically heaven. Also, lunch.

Not pictured: rosemary bread - which I actually have a loaf of in my freezer but have yet to try,  olive bread - which I did not eat because I hate olives and pita bread - which I devoured too quickly to photograph. Yep, I've been busy!

I promise, I will share some bread recipes soon - just wanted to share these delicious photos first.

This (Last) Week in Pastry School

So I've been super busy in the kitchen the past couple weeks, but I've yet to share any of that with you. 
So without further ado, here are the things I've been churning out of the oven recently. 

 

Pan de Mie - a French sandwich bread

Lean whole wheat loaf

Rye rolls with caraway seeds

 Challah

Whole wheat Pullman rolls

French baguettes

 "Epi"s

So, I've been busy - and that's just one week! I'm not intentionally leaving out recipes, but everything I have is in grams - and since the majority of my audience is American, I don't know how much help that would be. If there is a specific recipe you want, let me know!

Be back soon with more delicious food (and recipes!)

Butternut Squash Bread - Two Ways

I love cooking seasonally. Using what I find on the supermarket shelves, produce that is really at it's peak - nothing frozen or canned. Lately there has been a butternut squash on my dining room table almost constantly - I'll buy a new one as soon as I use the old one. And when I made this recipe for butternut squash bread, I only needed about half the puree. So I made another one - but I changed one key ingredient, to conduct a little experiment.

Conquering Fears with Fragrance

Sometimes, things are not what they seem.
Sometimes a tall, leafy tree in your front yard can end up causing pain, damage and months of complications. Sometimes an ugly, cheap purple gown can signify years of hard work. Sometimes a bowl of bubbly yeast can result in a hard, inedible yeast cake.
And, as I learned last year, sometimes a recipe labeled bread, is more like a (delicious) cake.
But recently, I discovered that some things labeled cake, are in fact a lot more like bread.
This lemon-scented pull apart coffee cake is a soft, sweet, delicately iced and fragrant...bread. Yes it contains things like lemon...cream cheese...lots of sugar....but this still remains decidedly - bread.
"Bread?!" you must be thinking. "Bread has to have yeast!" And though I am now a wise, college-graduated adult living in the real world (read: parents' basement), I don't think my diploma grants me the powers to overcome my all-consuming fears of yeast, and the many times its failed me.
But since I apparently have no capabilities for rational behavior, I used yeast. And it worked! It rose! It baked! It was more than edible! I think I've used up my daily quota of exclamation points! Also - cream cheese glaze!
Now, why this is called "lemon-scented" is something that quite escapes me. Why is it not lemon pull apart coffee cake? Is the scent of the lemon stronger than the taste? Should we start calling all things flavored a certain way "scented." Am I now going to be drinking coffee-scented beverages every morning. Just kidding, I don't drink coffee. Sorry for being so difficult. I guess spending two hours in the rain today has messed with my head.
But one thing about this - ahem - cake, that makes it especially fragrant is the step of rubbing the sugar and lemon and orange zests together before adding it with the other ingredients - it really infuses the whole loaf with the lemon scent flavor.
Now, I'm not going to jump out of my seat and recommend that you make this asap. Because - it was difficult. Multiple steps, complicated processes and not such clear instructions - especially with the stacking of the layers. So, if you're a little more advanced and think you can take this on, by all means go for it. But if you're more of a kitchen novice, think twice before you try it out.

Tip of the Day: Always make sure to read through a recipe start to finish - ingredients and instructions - before beginning with your ingredients. You may miss a crucial step needed advance preparations, or realize you need an ingredient you're missing.

Recipe: (from Leite's Culinaria)
Dough:
2 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 envelope (2 1/4 tsps) instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
4 tbsps (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1/4 cup (2 ounces) water
1 1/2 tsps vanilla
2 eggs

Filling:
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsps lemon zest - about 3 lemons
1 tbsp orange zest
4 tbsps (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, melted

Icing:
3 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp milk
1 tbsp lemon juice

Dough:
Melt the butter and milk together. Add in the water and set aside until just warm. Mix in the vanilla.
Mix 2 cups of the flour, sugar, yeast and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Pour the milk mixture over it and mix with a spatula until all the dry ingredients are incorporated.
Turn the mixer on, and add the eggs one at a time until incorporated. Add in 1/2 cup of flour and mix, then another 2 to 3 tablespoons until the dough is smooth and soft.
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until no longer sticky.
Cover the dough in a large bowl and let rise 45 to 60 minutes - it should double in size.

Filling:
Mix the lemon and orange zests and sugar together with your fingers, and set aside to allow the mixture to combine well.

Roll out the dough into a 20 by 12 inch square.
Brush with the melted butter and cut crosswise into 5 strips.
Sprinkle the first piece with the sugar mixture, stack another on top and continue sprinkling and stacking until all the pieces are used.
Slice the stack in half and layer them side by side to create a longer stack of pieces.
[This isn't remotely what the original recipe said, but this is the only thing that made sense to me.]
Place into a oiled 9x5 loaf pan - don't worry, it shouldn't fill the pan at this point.
Cover and let rise 30 to 50 minutes. Don't worry, it may not fill the pan at this point either.
Bake on 350 F for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden brown.

While baking, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, milk and lemon juice until combined. You can heat the mixture if desired to make the ingredients incorporate together better.

Let the cake cool 10 to 15 minutes in the pan before inverting. Coat with icing while still warm.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

A few weeks ago, I was confronted with an entire spare loaf of challah one Sunday. I could have frozen it, of course, but I already had a challah in the freezer, and, if you saw the size of my freezer, you would know I certainly couldn't get another one in. So instead I thought aha! Bread Pudding! I've never actually made bread pudding before, but since I knew it started with a loaf of bread, how hard could it be? Turns out...not hard.
Start out, like I did, with a loaf of challah bread (or another similar bread). I cut it in to sort of cubes.
Then, in a sort of baked french toast way, you make the liquid it soaks in. This one has melted butter, eggs, milk, vanilla and sugar. Sounds healthy, right? And that's before the chocolate is added.
So after layering the challah and chocolate chips, I pour the mixture on top and let it sit to absorb before I bake it, about ten minutes.

Then I stick it in the oven, but tightly covered with foil. My guess for that reason is because everything is already cooked - i.e. the challah - we don't want it to burn before the egg mixture bakes.
We let it bake uncovered for the last ten minutes to get a little brown, and then let it cool.

All that's left after that is the chocolate ganache drizzle. I couldn't possibly give you my recipe for that, because I just mix the chocolate and cream (except I used soy milk instead of cream and it was delicious)

Overall, my first foray in to bread pudding was good, except I wouldn't really call this dessert. Minus the copious amounts of chocolate in this recipe, it's more of a breakfast/brunch food than dessert. I wouldn't really want this after a big meal - it's dense and eggy and bready - and while I'm not sure if those last two are real words, I think you know what I mean. Right?

Tip of the Day: Every dish will cool down quicker on a metal cooling rack. If you don't have tht, find something that will raise the dish off the counter so air can circulate underneath.

Recipe: (adapted from FoodNetwork.com)

4 cups milk, warmed (I used soy, any will do)
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 loaf challah bread, cubed
1 cup chocolate chips
chocolate ganache

Mix the milk, melted butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla together.
In a 9x13" dish lay 2/3 of the challah cubes down and sprinkle with half the chocolate chips. Top with remaining challah and chocolate chips.
Carefully pour the egg mixture over the challah, covering evenly.
Let stand 5 to 10 minutes, until most of the mixture is absorbed.
Wrap the dish tightly with foil and baked on 325 F for 50 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes until browned. Remove and let cool.
Drizzle with chocolate ganache - I made mine out of soy milk and semi-sweet chocolate.