BBB - Brunkans långa (the short version)

One of the many reasons why I like to bake as a buddy with the Bread Baking Babes is because of all the different and new varieties of bread we bake. It's great to try a new recipe and have six or seven other ladies bake it ahead of time so you can see what it's supposed to look like, read about the challenges or add a new recipe to your growing repertoire. Görel from Grain Doe was this month's host of the challenge and chose to bake a Swedish bread called Brunkans långa, or Brunkan's long bread.

When I read the recipe I was hesitant to participate. Five days? Graham flour? I mean, I had the five days but I didn't have the graham flour*. Plus it's a sourdough which can be tricky. Well, not really but it's tricky for me because I am lacking severely in this one area: patience. (Well, and perhaps humility...) And with sourdoughs you have to have patience. I already get antsy when I have to let a dough sit overnight, let alone five days.

But a challenge is a challenge and I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't be able to let it go. So while I prepared the ingredients, the other half went off to the store to find graham flour. I chose to divide the recipe not in half, but in four since I was going to do some additional baking. It resulted in a long enough loaf to feed three for lunch and a rather large heel for me to toast and munch on the next day (I love heels!!).

I cannot explain how much I love this bread. For one, the smell and texture reminded me of the Belgian loaves that my grandma Pauline liked so much. Sweet, slightly moist and extremely flavorful, the bread keeps well even after several days. Also lovely toasted...but then again, what bread isn't?

Görel's original recipe is here: http://graindoe.blogspot.com/2010/09/bbb-brunkans-langa.html. It makes for two rather large loaves, no less lovely for their size. If you want to bake a smaller version, you may want to use the following recipe. I figured it would no longer be called "långa" since it suffered severly in size, so I called it "shånga". Since "långa" means "long", I've decided that "shånga" means "short". (Actually, kort means "short" in Swedish from what I understood, but that doesn't sound half as much fun. I am totally making this up and sure hope shånga is not some dirty word or a gross insult!

(Not) Brunkans shånga
For the sourdough: 
Day 1, morning:
Mix 0,42 cup (60g) graham flour with 0,5 cup (120ml) water.
Cover with cling film and leave at room temp.
Day 1, evening:
Add 1 heaping tablespoon (15g) graham flour and 1 tablespoon (15ml) of water.
Mix, cover with cling film and leave at room temp.

Day 2, morning:
Add 1 heaping tablespoon (15g) graham flour and 1 tablespoon (15ml) of water.
Mix. By now, the sourdough should be a little active (bubbly). If not, add a teaspoon of honey, some freshly grated apple or a teaspoon of natural yoghurt. Leave at room temp.

Day 3, morning:
Feed the sourdough with 1 heaping tablespoon (15g) graham flour and 1 tablespoon (15ml) of water .
Mix, cover with cling film and put in fridge.

Day 4
By now, the sourdough should be ready to use. If you don’t want to use it right away, you can keep in the fridge if you feed it as above a couple of times/week.

For the bread: 
0.7 cup of water (150ml)
2.1 cup high protein wheat flour (281g)
0.5 cup of graham sourdough starter (see above) (94g)
1 teaspoon of active dry yeast (3g)
2 tablespoons of dark muscovado sugar (38g)
1 teaspoon of honey (7g)
1 heaping teaspoon of sea salt (8g)

Mix all ingredients except the salt. Work the dough in a stand mixer for 10 minutes or by hand for 20. Add the salt. Knead the dough for 5 minutes more. Put the dough in a oiled, plastic bowl and cover. Rest the dough (and yourself, if you have a minute) for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes: fold one side of the dough against the center of the dough, then fold the other end inwards, finally turn the whole dough so that the bottom side is facing down. Cover the bowl, place it in the fridge and let the dough rise overnight.

Day 5
Set the oven temp to 480 F (250C). Leave the baking stone in if you use one. Pour out the dough on a floured table top and shape it into a loaf. Place the dough seam side down on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and place another parchment paper or a damp towel on top.  When the oven is ready, put in the sheet or shove the parchment paper with the loaves onto the baking stone. Put a small baking pan with 3-4 ice cubes on the bottom of the oven. (The water releases slowly which is supposed to be better.) Lower the oven temperature to 350F (175C) immediately after you have put in the bread.

After 20 minutes, open the oven door and let out excess steam. Bake for 35 minutes or until the loaf has reached an inner temp of 208F (98C).

Cool on wire.

*According to Wikipedia:Graham flour is not available in all countries. A fully correct substitute for it would be a mix of white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ in the ratio found in whole wheat. Wheat comprises approximately 83% endosperm, 14.5% bran, and 2.5% germ by mass. For sifted all-purpose white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ having densities of 125, 50, and 80 grams/cup, respectively, one cup of graham flour is approximately equivalent to 84 g (~2/3 cup) white flour, 15 g (slightly less than 1/3 cup) wheat bran, and 2.5 g (1.5 teaspoons) wheat germ.

Pogacha - bread from the Balkans

The first time I came across this Balkan bread was in someone else's kitchen. Asija, the Bosnian lady who I knew from work, had made some sarma for me to try and I stopped by her place on the way home to pick it up. Before she handed me the enamel pan, she asked me what kind of bread I was going to eat these stuffed  cabbage rolls with. "It has to be a good bread so you can sop up the sarma sauce. Any other bread will be a catastrophy." Asijah had the most serious look on her face, waiting for me to answer. When I told her I wasn't sure if I had any bread at home at all, she put the pan down, threw her hands up in mock disgust and told me to wait right there.

Asija's sarma

At first, I thought I may have misunderstood her. Wait here? For what? Asija grabbed a small bowl from the counter and reached for the flour container. After putting several cups of flour into the bowl, she walked over to the fridge, bowl in hand, and added a glug of half-and-half and a scoop of sour cream in the bowl. Her hands were moving so fast I had a hard time registering the ingredients, but back at the counter she added yeast, salt and a little bit of oil to the bowl and proceeded to knead. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh her hands rolled the dough, kneading it into a soft, silky matter. Quickly she patted it into an oval, cut three lines across the top, wrapped it in plastic and handed me the whole package. "Proof for one hour, when you get home bake it at 350F until done. Then you can eat the sarma," she grinned. Time past? Not even five minutes!

When I arrived home, I baked the loaf and it was the prettiest, silkiest, loveliest white crumb I'd seen in a long time. What a great bread! It sopped up the sauce very well and held its shape. I jotted down the ingredients as best as I could remember and vowed to soon make this bread again.

The next time I saw pogacha mentioned was when I was researching ajvar for my Ethnic Idaho blog. Ajvar is a lovely vegetable spread made with roasted red peppers, garlic and eggplant. Spread on a slice of pogacha bread, it is a great way to bridge the distance between lunch and dinner. Since I had just tested several recipes for ajvar and was blessed with plenty of it, I decided that this was a great time to bake another pogacha!

Pogacha

Ajvar and cream cheese on pogacha

4 cups of flour

1/2 cup of half-and-half
1/4 stick of butter
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon of yeast
1/2 cup of sour cream
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Measure the flour out in a bowl. Put the half-and-half in a cup, add the butter and warm in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute: the milk should be warm but not boiling hot. Stir in the sugar and set aside to cool to lukewearm. In the meantime mix the yeast with the flour, then add the half-and-half/butter mixture. Slowly knead four or five times, then mix in the sour cream, the oil and the egg, each one separately until well incorporated into the dough. Finally knead in the salt and continue to knead until the dough comes together and is smooth and silky. Cover in an oiled bowl, and rest until doubled in size. Punch down, shape into a loaf or bake in a loaf pan, slash three times horizontally and bake in an 350F oven until golden brown, approximately 45 minutes.

Pogacha, the Balkan beauty!

Cool on a rack, slice and enjoy with a good stew or something else that requires a good sop-up bread. This bread also toasts nicely.

BBD#33 - Torrijas de vino

Oh those girls (and boys) from Bread Baking Day......I am so glad the weather is finally turning into something a bit more agreeable, because I've missed these baking challenges. This month's recipe is Bread with Booze, hosted by Baking Powders, and wouldn't you know it......

I've only recently begun enjoying wine again and, as it happened, had a bottom of Barefoot's Muscato wine in the fridge. It's a very sweet, almost dessert-ey kind of wine. Together with several slices of day-old bread on the counter and a couple of eggs, I made something I had been wanting to try for years: Spanish torrijas de vino.....sweet wine soaked pieces of French toast.....yum! This dish is great for dessert, served with some freshly cut fruit, or as a breakfast item for an early morning start.

Yesterday I baked bread for our monthly ladies dinner. It's an eclectic but wonderful group of women who meet to eat, greet and laugh. A lot. I kept one loaf for breakfast this morning and by the end of day had only half a loaf left. It was perfect for this dish! You really want bread that has lost some of its moisture so that it soaks up the wonderful flavors of the sweet wine. Remember to save the wine you soaked the bread in so that you can reduce it to a syrup afterwards.

Torrijas de vino
Half a loaf of day old bread, preferably baguette or something else with a crust

1/4 cup of sweet white wine 
1/4 cup of warm water
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 large egg
3 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons of honey
Powdered sugar

Cut two inch slices off the bread, preferably at an angle so you get a nice large piece. Mix the wine and the warm water with the sugar and stir until the sugar is melted. Pour into a bowl large enough to soak the bread in. Beat the egg in a separate bowl.

Place the bread one side down into the water/wine mix, then turn over so that the bread soaks through. Take it out and coat it in the beaten egg. Melt the butter in a skillet and place the soaked pieces of bread in the pan, and fry them golden brown on both sides. Place on a plate with some paper towels to soak up most of the grease.

In a separate sauce pan, add the remaining water/wine and stir in the honey. Slowly stir and reduce by half to a syrup. Place the warm torrijas on a plate, pour the syrup over the bread and dust with powdered sugar. Eat warm. The slight tang of the wine combined with the honey syrup and wonderful eggy bread is an absolute must to try!

BBB - Portuguese sweet bread

The sweet smell of Portuguese bread is filling my kitchen while I type this post. It's lemony, sugary and promising....it's going to be a good one. Sweet, eggy, lovely breads like these are dangerous for me to bake. Dangerous because I'll stand at the counter, slathering butter on a slice of still warm bread, take a bite and dream away.........and before I know it, half the loaf is gone and I am slightly nauseous from all the eating.

For this month's Bread Baking Babes, Tanna chose this lovely sweet Portuguese bread. What a way to start my day! The bread is easy to make (remember to make the sponge the day before) and will toast up lovely if you don't eat the whole loaf in one go. I chose to make a loaf according to instructions, and one pan loaf, so I could slice it and make toast for the next couple of mornings.

Sweet Portuguese Bread
For the sponge
3/4 cup of bread flour
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup potato water (I didn't have any so used water with a pinch of mashed potato flakes)

For the dough
6 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cups of brown sugar
Lemon zest of one medium lemon
1 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, room temp.
1/2 cup of milk, room temp.
4 1/2 cups of bread flour

Mix together the sponge the night before baking the bread. Leave sitting at room temp 8 to 12 hours (overnight).

Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add zest and salt and beat. Beat in each egg separately and completely; mix will appear curdled. Stir in milk and sponge.

Stir in 2 1/2 cups flour and beat vigorously (in a stand mixer it would clear the sides of the bowl, by hand lifting the spoon up should stretch the dough about a foot.) Add remaining flour to make stiff dough. Knead 5 minutes or more to incorporate all the flour. The dough should be smooth, soft and very supple with a slight stickiness. Looks a little like very thick cake batter or a brioche dough.

Shape into ball, oil bowl and dough ball. Cover and allow to rise about 2 hours, should almost or triple in size. Divide into two pieces. Shape both as a boule, or shape for loaf pan or cake tin.

Allow to rest 20 to 30 minutes before final shaping. Use a skinny rolling pin or a 1 1/2 inch dowel to make indentations in the dough. Allow to rise an hour to 2 hours; more than double in size.

Before placing in the oven brush with egg wash if you want that beautiful glossy finish. Bake at 350° for approximately 50 minutes. After 35 minutes or so, check to see if the top is not burning or getting too dark. If so, then tent with aluminum foil.

Brush with melted butter when hot from the oven. Try to refrain yourself from cutting into the loaf until it's cooled down sufficiently. Good luck......I failed miserably and cut a big chunk of bread out of the round loaf, slathered it with butter and stood at the counter with a happy-go-lucky greasy grin on my face.....

BBD #32 - Italian Bread......Meet the ciriole!

Summer's been brutal here in Idaho. One day it's hot, the next day it's hotter. The dough mixer, the oven, even the flour has been looking at me, wondering when I was going to put them to good use. Sorry guys!! Not in a hot minute, I am.

Until I saw this month's Bread Baking Day challenge - Italian bread. Andrea from the Family & Food & Other Things blog announced this month's baking theme and I was immediately sold. Today's the last day to submit my entry so I took it as a sign....Time to strip down to the bare minimum and get into that hot kitchen!

Ciriole is a typical roll from Rome. It has a crunchy crust and a lovely crumb on the inside, perfect for sandwiches or a quick snack. It was easy to make, fun to roll and even better to eat......nothing beats fresh bread with good cheese and a homegrown tomato!

Ciriole
7 cups of bread flour
3 cups of water, warm
3 teaspoons of instant yeast
1/3 cup of olive oil
3 teaspoons of salt

Mix the flour with the water and the yeast, knead for a good ten minutes by hand or by mixer. Add the olive oil until integrated into the dough, then add the salt. Take the dough out of the mixer and hand knead for about five minutes until the dough has come together and is pleasant and soft to the touch, but springy....

Rest in an oiled bowl and cover until risen, about 3/4 of its original size. Punch down, rest for a couple of minutes and cut into 100 gram pieces. Roll into balls, cover and rest for five minutes.

Preheat the oven to 420F.

Roll each piece into a rectangle with a rolling pin. Put your hand on the bottom edge and carefully roll the dough into a cylinder, as if you were rolling croissants. Repeat with the other pieces, then cover for the last rise. Depending on the heat of your kitchen, this can be as quick as fifteen minutes. The dough is ready to bake when the rolls have risen to about 1/2 of their original size and the dough does not quickly spring back if poked with a finger.

With a sharp knife or a razor blade, score the bread once lengthwise. Place on a sheet pan or baking stone and bake crunchy and golden in about twenty minutes. The bread will "sing" when you take it out of the oven! Cool on a rack.

BBB - Potato Bread with Chives

As soon as the Bread Baking Day Challenge hits, I know it's only days until the Bread Baking Babes publish their monthly recipe. They were the first challenge I participated in and I find it most rewarding.

So, too, this month's Bread Baking Buddies. Sara from I Like To Cook came up with a potato bread with chives for us to bake. Oh, how I love potato bread! It is moister, more pleasant to work with and always comforting. It is reason enough to boil an extra tater or two for dinner, so that the leftovers can be processed the next day in a lovely loaf of bread. But what I didn't have were chives, so I set out to meet my friend Lynn at the local nursery. She was going to look at trees and I would look at eh...chives. Kind of the same thing, only different.

Back home, I had the chives, the flour but no boiled potatoes or soy milk. Oops. I don't care for soy milk so "cheated" by using real moo juice and potato flakes. It worked like a charm! The dough rose beautifully and was bubbly, soft and light. For some extra texture (I like chewy crusts) I proofed the bread in a banneton and baked it in a pre-heated enamel Dutch oven, lid on, in a 450F degree oven. The smell of the bread, the look and the taste definitely say Spring!

Half of the bread was gone by evening, and tonight I made leftover steak sandwich with two slices of the chives bread.....yummm!!!!!

Potato Bread with Chives

from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson

"The addition of mashed potatos gives this bread a moist, dense texture and delicate flavor that is accented by that of the chives. This bread is best eaten slightly warm from the oven on the day it is made. It is also good toasted."

2 1/4 tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar or pure maple syrup
2 Tb corn oil
2 tsp salt
1 cup cold mashed potatos
1 cup soy milk or other dairy free milk
5 cups unbleached all purpose flour, plus more for kneading
2 Tb minced fresh chives

In a large bowl, combine the yeast and 1/4 cup of the water. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes, then stir in the remaining 3/4 cup of water, the corn oil and the salt. Mix in the potatos, then stir in the soy milk. Add about half the flour, stirring to combine, then work in the remaining flour to form a stiff dough. Transfer to a lightly floured board.

Lightly flour your hands and work surface. Knead the dough well until it is smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes, using more flour as necessary so the dough does not stick. Place in a large lightly oiled bowl and turn over once to coat with oil. Cover with a clean kitchen towel or lightly oiled piece of plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours.

Meanwhile, lightly oil a large baking sheet and set aside. Punch the dough down and knead lightly. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface, sprinkle with the chives, and knead until the dough is elastic and the chives are well distributed, 3 to 5 minutes. Shape the dough into one large or two small round loaves and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly and cover with a clean damp towel or lightly oiled plastic wrap. Set aside in a warm place and let rise again until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400'F. Use a sharp knife to cut an X into the top of the loaf or loaves. Bake on the center oven rack until golden brown, 35 to 45 minutes, depending on size. Tap on the bottom of the loaf or loaves - if they sound hollow, the bread is done. Remove from the sheet and let cool slightly on a wire rack before slicing.
 
 

BBD#29 - Baking In A Pot

Spring is here! I've already spent some considerable time (and money) working in my garden, building new beds, amending the soil and trying to figure out where and when to plant the huge amount of vegetable seeds I seem to end up with every time I go to the garden section of the store. How does that happen? Does a girl really need eight different types of green beans? (eh..yes!)

Cathy from The Bread Experience is announcing this month's Bread Baking Day challenge: baking bread in pots. Since I've already been cleaning, filling and planting pots, I might as well bake in one too!

The "pot" I chose is a red terra-cotta clay pan from Spain. I usually use it directly on the stove or as a salad bowl, but had never baked in it before. And to stick with the spring theme, I picked something to do with the fresh spinach from my garden: smoked turkey and spinach rolls!

Smoked Turkey and Spinach Rolls
4 cups of flour

1.5 cups of warm water
.5 cup of warm milk
1 heaping teaspoon of active dry yeast
1 heaping teaspoon of kosher salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon of butter
16 slices of smoked turkey slices
1 package of Boursin cheese
2 cups of fresh spinach leaves

Add the milk and the warm water to the flour, sprinkle the yeast on top and mix the dough once or twice. Now add the salt, the egg and the butter and knead the dough into shape: add a tablespoon of flour if the dough is too wet, or a tablespoon of milk if it's too dry. Knead for a good five minutes or until the dough is soft and does not stick to your hands.

Rest the dough in an oiled container, covered, in a warm spot until the dough has doubled almost in size. Lightly flour the kitchen counter, pat the air out of the dough and stretch or roll it into a rectangle.

Layer the smoked turkey slices shingle-wise on top of the dough. Put half of the Boursin on top of the turkey, then layer the spinach leaves on top. Distribute the rest of the cheese over the spinach, then roll the dough into a jelly-like roll towards you. Pinch the seam and carefully cut the roll into equal sized pieces (2 inch each). Grease your pan (you can also use a muffin pan for individual rolls), and place the rolls with their cut side down in the pan. Cover and rise for about 20 minutes in a warm location.

Heat your oven to 350F and bake the rolls on the middle rack for about 30 minutes or until golden-brown. These rolls are good warm or cold.