Bread With Jam

Category: Lessons Learned

  • Kaiser Rolls


    If I were going to teach someone to bake bread by giving them some “how not to” lessons, today would have been a good day to begin.

    I made the dough yesterday by using what I learned from reading three different recipes, and then used none of them. I substituted egg-replacer for eggs, and almond milk for cow’s milk. Then I miscalculated the measurements of the sugar and salt by an order of magnitude and compensated for the inadequate amount by guessing.

    Next, while preparing the evening pizza, I forgot that I left the dough sitting on the kitchen counter top covered with an “unbreakable” Corelle porcelain plate.

    I woke around 3 AM wondering what I had done with the dough. If I left it on the counter top, it probably leavened to the point where it would lift the plate right off the bowl.

    Sure enough, I turned on the kitchen light to see tiny shards of broken porcelain all over the floor, and the dough looked like The Blob That Ate Kansas City. I was more upset about the dough than the plate.

    Anyway, I cleaned up the mess and punched down the dough so it would re-hydrate, turned on the oven and eventually shaped the dough into small loaves placed on an oiled 13 inch pizza pan. After an hour or so of final rise, I put them into a 425 convection oven for 20 minutes and this was the result.

    They’re cooling now. Mary and I sampled one and declared it was quite suitable! Next, Kummelweck rolls!

    Posted by Picasa

  • Today’s Bagel is Brought to You By the Letter C

    Baking is so much different than cooking. With cooking, you can pretty much throw anything into a pot, let it simmer, taste it now and again, maybe with a glass of wine or two, and adjust the seasoning as you go along. With baking, you really need to focus on technique, and precise measurements.

    Yesterday I made the dough for baking some bagels this morning. Reinhart suggests the following steps:

    • Mix the dough
    • Let rise
    • Shape into bagels
    • Proof
    • Retard in the refrigerator
    • Just before baking, bring them up to room temperature
    • Boil
    • Bake

    Sounds pretty simple. However, I did it differently. Given that I needed to get out of bed at 3:30 to get them baked in time for work, I elected to leave the dough at a cool room temperature (about 65 degrees) for the night. So, basically, I’ve let the dough proof quite a bit before shaping them into bagels early this morning.

    First off, the bagels are cinnamon raisin with walnuts. My sister likes walnuts in her bagels. (She isn’t anywhere around here, so what difference that makes, I’m not sure…) As a result of the overnight proof, the dough was quite soft. My attempt to roll the dough into a “snake” was an issue because the walnuts and raisins created holes and cavities in the dough. As a result, I basically squeezed them into shape. The wrap-around-the-hand-and-roll-together step wouldn’t work. So, again, the ends sort of got squeezed together.

    During the boiling and baking process, half of the bagels separated at the seam, forming the letter C as a result.

    I’m reasonably confident they will taste OK. But next time, I might actually follow the directions.

  • Baker’s Percentage (BP)

    Nothing like starting off a blog by referencing another. But it is a good one.

    Professional bakers often use Baker’s Percentages (BP) to simplify their recipes. There are a number of good reasons for this. Here is a good starting point for understanding the hows and whys of this technique.

    May your bread always rise.

    — jam

  • Introduction

    Greetings!

    I’ve been posting a lot of my bread recipes in another blog that has been dedicated to my vegan life style. It occurred to me that some of my vegan friends may be getting bored with such an abundance of “non-vegan” centric topics (bored with bread?! Is that possible?).

    Further, I have some friends that aren’t necessarily vegan (alas, it is true), that would like to see more of what I’m doing with bread.

    So! This is my first post. You may notice the name, Bread With Jam… my initials are jam. Get it?!

    Of course, not all bread need be served with jam. Not if it is good bread. And after all, that is the point.

    Enjoy!