Bread Oven

My wife knows I always love to get cooking related gifts. And with all the bread making we've been doing lately she went out and got a great gift for my birthday a couple weeks ago. This is something I have been wanting for a long time but haven't taken the time to go out and get. I'm talking about unglazed quarry tiles to make a bread oven!

These tiles came from a local flooring store in town. It is important to use unglazed tiles to avoid any offgassing of various chemicals used in the glaze during heating. The store even looked up the MSDS (material safety data sheet) on these tiles to make sure there was nothing toxic in them.

Of course I tried out some of our 5 minute bread dough as soon as I could. The tiles worked perfectly!


One of the reasons I wanted the tiles to replace my standard pizza stone was the size. The tile lined oven has enough room to bake more than one loaf at a time. And the pizza stone was too small to bake a large pizza like the one shown here.

Believe it or not, the
Roasted red peppers and kalamata olives were great together.


See how nicely it fits int he oven?


The 5 minute dough makes great pizza crust!

My forray into 5-minute bread

I'm sure you've heard about the book 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day' by Zöe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg. There methods have some similarity to the no-knead bread method - like no kneading - but there are some significant difference. A high hydration dough is made simply by mixing the ingredients and storing the dough in the fridge for up to two weeks. Actually waiting a few days before baking improves the flavor immensely and it makes for quick work to make all kinds of bread creations. I've been playing around with the basic recipe (1.5 T yeast, 1.5 T salt, 3 C water, 6.5 C all purpose flour) and having some fun making breads and more.

The dough you see on the peel below was made with the basic recipe but I used 1.5 C whole wheat flour and only 5 C of all purpose flour. I cut off a pound or so of the dough and pulled it into a ball forming a skin on top by stretching the dough underneath.

After raising for a couple of hours, the boule was dusted with flour and scored in a scallop shape.

Here's the result after about 25 minutes in a 500 °F oven on my pizza stone.

I was very pleased with the texture. The crust was chewy and not too hard and the inside was moist and tender. There was a distinct flavor of the whole wheat flour but it was not tough at all when used in this small proportion.

Here's another one in a batard shape. This dough had 2.5 C of whole wheat flour and 4 C of all purpose flour.

It baked up nice. It still maintained a pretty tender texture inside but it was more wheaty than the prior batch of dough.

You can do all kinds of things with this dough. Here is a flatbread I made with the whole wheat dough. I just stretched it out, brushed it with extra virgin olive oil and topped it with some good Bulgarian feta cheese and kalamata olives.

It didn't last long!

Please stay tuned for more bread escapades.

Homemade Pita

If you love pocket bread as much as I do you will probably try to make it at some point. It's really not hard and it's magical to watch. The dough puffs up in the oven when it bakes to create the pocket inside.

This pita is made with a dough from the wonderful Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. The recipe makes a wonderfully soft dough that works perfectly for pita or pizza. Here is her recipe.

Unbleached all purpose flour - 3 cups plus 1/4 cup (16 oz, 454 g)
salt - 2 tsp (0.5 oz, 13.2 g)
instant yeast - 2 tsp (6.4 g)
olive oil - 2 tbsp (1 oz, 27 g)
water - 1 1/4 cups (10.4 oz, 295 g)

The dough should be kneaded very well. We used a kitchen aid with the dough hook and kneaded it for 10 minutes. Key to getting wonderful flavor is to let the dough rise long and slow in the fridge. Once kneaded the dough is covered to keep the air out and placed in the fridge. Let it rise slowly. After one night we let the dough rise on the counter then put it back in the fridge for another day. You can keep the dough for up to 3 days chilled. If you have the time the long slow fermentation creates a wonderful flavor.

After the dough has risen as long as you like, divide the dough into 12 equal balls and flatten them slightly. Cover them with plastic wrap and let them rest for 20 minutes. The dough will relax and make it easy to roll out.

Roll out your dough into rounds about 1/4 inch thick. If you like a thicker, more bready pita roll them thicker. I found using my pasta roller machine makes the pita with a consistent thickness. I rolled them up to setting 4 on my machine. Once rolled out let the dough rest for another 10 minutes before baking.

You must have a pizza stone or a cast iron skillet to make the pita. You can do it on top of the stove but I have found best results using a stone in a 475 °F oven. Preheat your stone for about an hour before baking. Slap the dough onto the stone being careful not to let it fold or have air pockets underneath. To get a consistent puff you want the entire bottom of the dough round to be in contact with the hot stone. See how the pop up after a minute or so? The steam insides puffs them. Bake for about 3 minutes or until you just start to see them begin to brown. I bake two at a time and place them on top of each other under a towel as they come out of the oven. After they have cooled for a couple of minutes I gently press them down to flatten them. They probably would flatten by themselves though. Be careful not to burn yourself from the steam inside.

See how nice they turned out?



A wonderful pocket inside.

Talk about a clash of cultures. How about a middle eastern pita with kimchee inside?

Whole Wheat Onion Sourdough

I felt in the mood to bake some bread. This was very similar to the whole wheat onion sourdough no-knead bread I made last fall. The proportions were probably a little bit different. It rose better this time and came out with a very nice texture. The crust was PERFECT baked in my Le Creuset iron pot. I split it quite deeply right down the middle just before baking and it sprang open just beautifully.

Whole Grain Sourdough goes perfect with Chicken Soup

On a cold winter day there's not much better than a hot bowl of chicken soup and a big hunk of homemade bread. More about the soup later. Let's talk bread. I haven't made any in quite a while and I was missing it. My sourdough starter has been sitting in the fridge neglected for a while. Earlier this week I got some out and started feeding it with whole wheat flour. As you saw in my last pizza post, the starter was going great after only a day or so. Power to the yeast! Those buggers really are hard to kill.

I like to make a pretty wet preferment before I actually add all of the flour for the bread. I don't really know why I do this but it works. I add most of my flour at first and let it ferment for at least an overnight stint if not longer. Then I mix in a bit more flour to get to the dough consistency I want. I believe this gives the yeast a fresh boost of food for the dough to rise. I wanted to make a 100% whole wheat bread with whole grains. This is a challenge because 100% whole wheat breads usually don't rise that well and end up being very dense. Again, this is because there is less gluten and the sharp edges of the whole wheat chaff cuts the gluten strands that do develop in the dough. That's why commercial whole wheat breads are usually made with at least 50% white flour. Anyway, here is my preferment after sitting for 12 hours overnight. It was made from about 1 cup of my sourdough starter, 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup each of whole kamut grains, whole spelt grains, and steel cut oats. This was just mixed well together, covered with plastic and allowed to ferment.

The next morning I added 1.5 cups more whole wheat flour and 1 tbsp of salt. I always add my salt after the preferment so as not to inhibit the yeast. After the first ferment there's a good healthy colony growing and it is much less likely to be inhibited by salt. This dough was kneaded by hand gently for about 5 minutes until the newly added flour and salt were well incorporated. The dough was shaped into a ball and placed in a bowl covered with plastic until almost doubled. I let it sit for about 2.5 hours. It could have risen more, certainly. The dough was shaped into a wide oblong shape and allowed to rise for another 1.5 hours. Here is the dough ready to go in the oven. I have scored the top. I was a little impatient. This could have risen even more. The dough is still a bit on the wet side.

I like to bake my bread using a covered iron pot like all of the no-knead recipes suggest. This helps keep the steam in. So, I let the dough rise on a piece of parchment paper and then it's easy to lift and place directly in the heated pot without deflating the dough. It was baked at 500F for 30 minutes with the cover, then an additional 15 minutes at 450F without the cover. Here's the result just out of the oven. It is a nicely shaped loaf. You can tell it has much less oven spring than a white flour bread. I think next time I'll let it rise even more before baking.

The crust is perfectly browned and crisp.

Here's the inside. I was pretty happy with this. It was not big and airy. As a matter of fact it was kind of dense but certainly not a brick! Inside it was soft and moist. The whole grains were crunchy. It had a very nice whole wheat taste - more intense than a commercial whole wheat bread. It was perfect dunked into the chicken soup.

Ok, so much for the bread. I know you're interested in my soup as well. For this soup I used 6 chicken leg quarters. I cooked the chicken and made the broth in my trusty pressure cooker. All I did was take about 2 quarts of water, a good amount of salt, the chicken, and lots of seasonings. I threw in bay leaves, cracked black pepper, a cinnamon stick, dried oregano, dried thyme, some sezchuan peppercorns, a couple of cut up carrots and some celery stalks and leaves. I always keep a bag of celery trimmings in my freezer just for this. This was brought up to pressure and cooked for about 20 minutes. After cooling the broth was strained out and the chicken was deboned. I defatted the broth. To make the soup I softened some onion, carrots, and brussel sprouts in a big pot. I added a cup or so of frozen peas. The broth was added along with the chicken pieces. This was simmered for about 10 minutes just until everything was cooked and all the flavors integrated. Some more salt and pepper to season to taste and it was ready. By the way, the very subtle hint of cinnamon from the broth was wonderful with this.

Sacrifice for your bread

The first time I made no-knead bread a month or so ago I didn't have an iron pot or a ceramic La Cloche to bake it in. So I baked it on my pizza stone covered with a pyrex bowl. Of course I have never used this mixing bowl in the oven before so my brain didn't even think that it would be 500 degrees hot when I grabbed it with my bare hands to plop it on top of the bread. I got some nasty burns on my fingers that are only just now about healed. Lesson Learned. I was so happy to get my Le Creuset pot for xmas as this is perfect for making no-knead bread in.

I took some liberties with the steel-cut oats no-knead bread from the breadtopia website. I actually started this bread a couple days ago. I'll first list all the ingredients then I'll tell you how I put it all together.

~0.75 cup sourdough starter
1.5 cups water
0.75 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 cup unbleached all purpose flour
0.5 cup steel cut oats
1.5 tsp salt

At 9:45 pm Friday evening I mixed together the starter, 1 cup water, 0.5 cups each of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. This was mixed well, covered with plastic, and allowed to sit at room temperature. My starter was directly out of the fridge and had not been refreshed so I wanted to give this bread time for the starter to come alive.

The next day around 1:00 pm I mixed into the wet bubbling starter mixture another 0.5 cups of water, 1 cup of all purpose flour, 0.25 cups whole wheat flour, the steel cut oats and the salt. This was mixed well and allowed to sit out at room temperature for an hour. At that time I slightly kneaded the dough (ok, so maybe not completely no-knead). I simply folded the sticky dough over onto itself a couple dozen times right in the bowl. I didn't want this dough to ferment too fast so I put it in the fridge for a nice overnight slow rise.

This morning at 6:00 am I took the dough out of the fridge and let it warm up. I scraped the dough out onto a lightly floured board, gave it a few turns and shaped it into a ball. This was plopped onto a piece of parchment paper and placed in a bowl. I covered it with a plastic bag and left it to do it's thing. After 3 hours it had risen nicely. I heated up my Le Creuset in a hot 500F oven. Now I had been warned that the phenolic knobs on the Le Creuset are only rated oven proof up to about 350-400 degrees so I took the handle off before heating it. Once heated the bread was baked according to instructions - first 30 minutes with the lid on, then slightly reduce the temp to 450 and bake for another 15 minutes. The bread turned out great.

The handleless Le Creuset lid, however, was a bit unwieldy. As I was wrestling it off the pot at the 30 minute time it slipped and immediately seared a nice brand into the side of my hand. Sacrifice for the bread, I say! Two for two is too much. No more. I immediately went out on the web in search of a replacement knob. I found a Le Creuset stainless steel knob for $10 and promptly placed my order.

Fargo Sourdough

Remember the pizza I made a while back? I made it from the discarded starter I was feeding and building up to make my first batch of home made bread using my own culture. No commercial yeasts here. I actually made the bread on Thanksgiving day but am just getting around to blogging about it. Bread is alive! That's what I love about it. I am proud to have been able to leaven my own bread using yeasts from my local environment. It turned out with so much flavor from the long fermentation that I will definitely be doing this again. Here's the story of my Fargo Sourdough.

On Tuesday evening I took a cup of the active sourdough sarter and mixed it with 3 cups of flour and two cups of water. I mixed it well, covered it, and left it to ferment. After 22 hours, this is what I got. A wet dough sponge that was frothy and bubbly.

To the bubbly sponge, I added 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of salt, 1 and 1/2 cups of water and about 7 cups of flour. This was mixed together and allowed to rest for about 30 minutes.

Once the dough had a chance for the moisture to permeate the newly added flour I tipped it out onto the counter and kneaded it by hand for about 10 minutes until it was smooth and elastic. This was shaped into a ball and placed in a well oiled large bowl. definitely be doing this again. It was covered with a plastic bag and placed in my cool basement to rise overnight. The next morning, after about 10 hours, the result was a well risen dough that reached to the top of the bowl.

The dough was gently tipped out onto the counter being careful not to deflate it too much. It was divided into four and shaped into loaves. They were covered and allowed to rise for about 2 and a half hours. The dough was placed on a peel, slashed, and baked on a stone in a 450 °F oven two loaves at a time.

In order to provide the right texture to the crust and get maximum oven spring you need to have a humid oven at the beginning of baking. This is difficult to control in a home oven. I have good luck by first throwing a half cup of water onto the hot oven floor just before adding the bread. I then load the dough onto the baking stones and add another cup of water thrown onto the floor. After a few minutes I add another cup of water and then let it bake until the crust is nicely browned - about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the loaf.

The result was wonderful if I do say so myself. The crumb was not too big but certainly big enough. The crust was chewy and flavorful. The interior was still moist and soft. The bread was not sour like San Francisco sourdough. I guess Fargo flora are less acidic than that from the west coast. I like to think that my Fargo sourdough is more akin to traditional French sourdoughs. At least the bread was spot on what I hoped for.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Onion No-Knead Bread

If you haven't heard about the no-knead bread craze popularized by a New York Times article last year, you are missing out. Dirt easy to make and wonderfully crusty and delicious, no-knead bread is very amenable to modifications. Of course for my first attempt I couldn't do just a simple white bread. I had to doctor it up. The basic recipe ingredients for the standard bread are:

3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 cup water

That's it! Just mix it up, cover it with plastic, and let it rise for about 18 hours. Fold the dough a few times and let it raise in a bowl with a floured towel inside. Let it rise again for a couple of hours. Pop it into a hot cast iron pot in a 500 degree oven. Bake it for 30 min covered and 15 minutes at 450 degrees uncovered.

For my bread I substituted one cup of all purpose flour with 1 cup of whole wheat flour. I added 1/2 cup of dehydrated onions and 1/2 cup of my sourdough starter that I have been culturing for a couple of months. I was very pleased with the results. It has a terrific chewy crackly crust and a soft moist interior. I let the second rise go for 2.5 hours but it probably could have risen even more.

For video tutorials on the no-knead bread method (and lots of other good information about bread) check out the breadtopia web site.