Goth Panda

Have I really baked twenty breads already for the BBA Challenge? It doesn’t seem possible.

These past few breads have been sandwich breads. Last week I posted to the BBA Challenge Google Group asking if anyone had any tips for slicing sandwich breads, because I have problems slicing them even and thin enough to make good sandwiches. Most of the advice I got back was about getting a better bread knife. I ordered a new one this week and I’m happy that I got it in time for this bread. I think this bread is the first I managed to slice adequately. We made excellent peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with it tonight.

This bread starts with an overnight soaker of cornmeal, oats, and wheat bran with water. I couldn’t find wheat bran at my local grocery store, but I did find Bob’s Red Mill natural raw wheat germ, which the internet assures me could be substituted for wheat bran.

The next day I added my soaker to the dry ingredients:

I added the rest of the ingredients, including the one ounce of cooked brown rice that I did indeed just cook for the bread. I made leftovers that I plan to use later in the week, though.

I started kneading in the KitchenAid and it quickly became apparent that I would need to add more flour.

I added more flour, alternating with kneading spurts. Then I took the dough out of the KitchenAid and finished kneading it by hand, adding even more flour. I’m not sure how much I ended up having to add, but it seemed like a lot.

I set it aside to rise.

As strange as this may seem, so far in this challenge I had never had to retard the dough in the refrigerator because I needed to go out or do something. I have always been able to work straight through the recipe. But this time, I needed to go out in the middle of the first rise, so I waited until about an hour in and put it in the fridge. It looked like this:

It has been cold here this week, so it was taking a while to rise anyway. When I got back, it was definitely risen enough – almost but not quite overproofed. I should probably have put it in even earlier.

I shaped it while it was still cold, and as a consequence, the second rise took a while.

Usually my second rises for the challenge breads have taken much less than Peter Reinhart says they will (probably since we have been baking throughout the summer). But this one took even longer than the full 90 minutes, and probably could have been proofed a little more.

This bread tastes very good, and since I’ve gotten a little better at my slicing, makes delicious sandwiches. I think next time I make it I would use part white whole wheat flour, since there are lots of extra “multigrains” but the recipe still uses plain bread flour. I’m also happy it uses honey instead of molasses. For some reason this challenge is turning me off of breads with molasses in them. I might be substituting honey for molasses in the upcoming recipes. This bread gets 4.5 stars.

Oh, people. We finally have a BBA Challenge disappointment here at Goth Panda.

The first bit of evidence:

What happened here? I think the pan sizes for these loaves, like last week’s Light Wheat Bread, should be revised from 8.5″ loaf pans to 9″ loaf pans. I weighed each dough before dividing it, and each one weighed almost 32 oz. which would make each loaf almost two pounds. But I didn’t think of this at the time, and so followed the recipe’s directions.

Which is how I ended up with this:

I also had to bake the bread for about ten minutes longer than the recipe stated in order to get the right internal temperature. The interior swirl didn’t turn out too badly:

And the crumb was nice:

But this bread also fails on taste. It doesn’t taste enough like rye bread. And I didn’t like the slight taste of molasses, either. This is the first recipe from the Challenge that I wouldn’t recommend.

This morning wasn’t a complete waste, however. For the first time, I fried dough. I made Apple Cider Doughnuts:

This recipe gave me no end of trouble, since I didn’t add enough flour. I think I made a mistake converting the flour from cups to ounces. When I had mixed all the ingredients, I had more of a “batter” than a “dough.” But since I’d never made doughnuts before, I wasn’t exactly sure what the dough should look like. I considered throwing it all away and starting again. But I ended up adding flour until it looked right and could be cut out with my doughnut cutter. Then I dropped them in hot oil and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Then I put them in my cake stand.

Seriously, if you like to bake desserts or muffins or really anything that fits in a cake stand, you should totally get a cake stand. Everything looks so much nicer in a cake stand.

So in conclusion, doughnuts are awesome and BBA Marbled Rye, not so much. I need some more doughnut recipes to try. I am thinking maybe a nice glazed yeasted doughnut, to tide us over until we can get back to the justly famous Britt’s Doughnuts in Wilmington, NC.

Unlike the last time I posted about two breads at once, I did not actually bake both of these in one day. I am just behind in posting. I baked the wheat bread last weekend and the lavash crackers the weekend before that.

I had never made crackers before. Here’s my dough, mixed and kneaded – by hand, since P.R. says this one is no good for the stand mixer. This dough was actually fairly easy to knead, and I enjoyed throwing it around a bit.

There wasn’t a lot of dough, so I put it in one of my measuring cups to rise.

This looks more like it got wider than taller after 90 minutes. I went ahead and used it anyway.

I rolled it out on the counter and then laid it out on the sheet pan with parchment. I had problems rolling it out. Although I could get it very thin, the dough kept catching when I would turn it and fold over itself. You can see the ripples.

I liked the alternating toppings idea, so I used it myself. From left to right, we have kosher salt, smoked paprika, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and then the same sequence over again. I also cut the crackers with a pizza wheel before baking them.

These were pretty easy, and very good. I served them with hummus the next day to guests. I put them in a plastic bag overnight, but I think that was probably the wrong thing to do. The crackers didn’t remain as crisp as I would have liked. I wonder if keeping them in a paper bag would have helped.

I’m not sure I would make these again, but I might try another kind of cracker. I’ve been looking at cheese cracker recipes that might be in my future. I give these 3.5 stars.

Last weekend, I pressed on with the Light Wheat Bread. Now my light wheat bread was going to be very light, because I used KAF White Whole Wheat flour, which happened to be what I had hanging around my kitchen.

Here are my ingredients, ready to mix. I have been mixing with the dough whisk, and then at the end mixing by hand. Then kneading with the stand mixer for a few minutes, but ending kneading by hand. I don’t know why, but it does make me feel better about the dough to put my hands on it throughout the process.

I checked my dough’s windowpane and took its temperature, and then put it to rise in my dough bucket.

I didn’t do a bad job this time. At least I got to it before the lid was almost blown off.

I shaped it and popped it in a loaf pan for a second rise. I used a 9″ loaf pan. The recipe says the loaf is two pounds, which to me means using a 9″ loaf pan, although the recipe says to use an 8.5″ one. I was wondering about this before I made the recipe, and then I saw several of my fellow bakers had a problem with the pan size. So I decided to go with my gut and use the larger pan.

The bread crested in less than 90 minutes – I think it was even less than an hour.

I baked it for 30 minutes, and then turned the loaf. I checked it after fifteen more minutes, took its temperature again, and it was done.

This bread was very good, and would make an excellent everyday sandwich loaf. With the white wheat flour, I don’t think anyone would even know it wasn’t white bread. I give it 4 stars.