Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Beer Rolls

Rolling in Dough

Beer Rolls

No one in my family is a big bread eater. I probably eat far more bread than anyone else and that's mostly in the form of sandwiches (which I love — shut-up Beth). But the holidays seem to call for bread and, in particular, those soft dinner rolls your mother used to buy and finish baking.

I've made these slightly sweet, tender, and buttery rolls in the past. Unfortunately I had no idea what recipe I've used in the past, so I decided to use Rose Berenbaum's recipe from The Bread Bible. Rose let me down. Alternatively, I screwed up. At any rate, the dough was so soft I couldn't get any loft, it simply spread out like a pancake. The rolls tasted fine, but looked terrible. Not something I wanted on a holiday table.

Click to enlarge

Because I had other commitments I didn't have time to experiment, so I decided to fall back on a recipe I developed a couple of years ago. I knew these would look great and taste great — and besides, I hadn't made them in a while. Also, they make great little turkey sandwiches.

I was trying to make a beer bread. I thought whole wheat would play well with the beer, but I didn't really want a whole wheat bread. I wanted the flavor as an ingredient. Besides it's sometimes tricky to get a good rise out of whole wheat (the fragments of bran tend to cut the gluten strands) and I certainly didn't want to repeat the pancake experience. I added honey because beer and whole wheat tend to be a somewhat bitter and I chose a dark porter to get a strong beer flavor.

Whole Wheat Beer Rolls
Makes 16 rolls.

Ingredient | US Volume | Metric Volume | US Weight | Metric Weight
instant yeast 1 1/2 tsp | 7 ml | -- | --
honey 2 tbsp | 30 ml | -- | --
porter beer warm, flat 1 1/2 c | 255 ml | 12 oz | 337 g
bread flour 1 1/2 c | 350 ml | 7 1/2 oz | 220 g
whole wheat flour 2 1/4 c | 530 ml | 11 oz | 330 g
butter melted and cooled 1 1/2 tbsp | 22.5 ml | -- | --
salt 2 tsp | 10 ml | -- | --
egg 1 each
water 1 tbsp | 15 ml | -- | --

Using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, combine 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) yeast, bread flour, and sugar. Whisk the honey into the beer, then, with the motor running on low, add the beer. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit for 1 hour. This is called a poolish.

Click to enlarge

Combine 2 cups whole wheat flour and remaining 1 teaspoon of yeast. Sprinkle flour over over poolish, sprinkle salt over flour, and recover bowl with plastic. Allow to ferment for 4 hours. The poolish will break through the flour cover — not a problem.

Using the dough hook. Mix together the flour into the poolish then add melted butter.
Knead for four minutes at medium speed. The dough should be slightly sticky but should clear the bowl. Add additional flour if needed and knead for another 2 - 3 minutes. Dump dough onto a floured board and knead another minute or two until dough is fairly smooth and resilient. Allow to rest 5 to 10 minutes.

Clean and dry mixing bowl and spray with a nonstick spray. Shape dough into a ball and place seam-side down in bowl. Spritz top lightly with cooking spray and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in bulk — 60 to 90 minutes.

Punch down dough and turn out onto floured board. Lightly knead dough and form into a flattened ball. Allow to rest 10 minutes.

Using a dough scraper cut dough in four equal quarters. Set three quarters aside and cover. Shape remaining quarter into a flattened ball and divide into four quarters. Shape each quarter into a ball and place on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Repeat for remaining dough, cover, and allow to rise until rolls double in bulk.

Heat oven to 400F/205C.

In small bowl, beat together egg and water. Brush rolls with egg mixture and bake on middle oven rack for about 25 minutes. Watch closely to avoid overcooking.

Cool on a wire rack.

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Friday, September 28, 2007

Sandwich Rye Bread

Click to enlarge.

A few years ago I made a sourdough rye bread using wild yeast that I captured and cultured. I made a decent bread from it, albeit rather tough and coarse, but I already had a sourdough culture I was caring for and decided I didn't need twins in my life. Nevertheless, I do love a good sour rye bread for sandwiches and so I eventually got around to coming up with a good sandwich rye.

You can find the recipe at A Year in Bread.

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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Loafing

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Cheese Quick Bread

Cheese Bread

This month we’re doing quick breads at A Year in Bread. A quick bread is one that uses something other than yeast for leavening, typically a chemical leavener. Biscuits are quickbreads — unless they’re sour-dough biscuits. Muffins are quick breads. Cornbread is a quick bread. Even popovers are quick breads, although they rely on eggs for leavening.

You can find the complete article and recipe at A Year in Bread.

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Focaccia

Click to enlarge.

I was about 12 or 13 the first time I tried baking bread. I produced two whole wheat bricks. I tried again a number of times over the following few years but without any great success. I did produce some decent English muffins — although nothing as good as those I made using the No-knead Bread Dough.

Then in 1981 I'd just gotten out of school and while I was trying to find a real job I decided to make sandwiches and sell them door-to-door at offices...

You can read the complete post at A Year in Bread.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Popovers with
Strawberry Conserves

Popping Fresh

Popovers

My mother believed that three practical skills were essential for all civilized human beings regardless of gender: cooking, sewing, and something I can’t remember (so I'm probably not as civilized as she would wish). Consequently I was the one who sewed all the badges on my scout uniforms and at one point I borrowed a sewing machine, learned to use it, and made curtains for a house I rented, I even got hooked on embroidery, briefly, in my late 20s and did some small pieces as gifts (I think I still have a half-finished dragon and a rather tacky parrot in a basket somewhere). There's something indefinably soothing about embroidery and if I had any sense I'd cook a bit less and sew more. But I don't.

Cooking really stuck. When I was about six she taught me to make Jello, eventually I graduated to making brownies and the like from mixes and by the time I was 14 I was cooking entire meals on occasion. Today I make my living cooking (and writing about cooking and food issues).

Kissing don't last; cookery do! ~ George Meredith

There's a certain hubris in cooking a special meal (as I have each Mother's Day for years) for the woman who taught me to cook. Simultaneously, it is entirely appropriate to present your mentor, the master you learned from, with your best efforts. And, in fact, I'm a better cook than she is.

Perhaps this isn't surprising because she is a skilled and accomplished teacher (she taught at the University of Tennessee while I was growing up) as well an accomplished and skilled cuisinier. So I learned as much from her failures as her successes — because she insisted.

When I was a child we would sit down to a meal and rave about it. In response she'd note how she'd subbed skim milk for half and half because that's what she had and the dish should have been richer had she used half and half. I suspect that was largely a way of deflecting complements, but in doing so she taught me to examine my cooking critically. And over time, I learned her particular cooking faults and how to avoid them.

As usual, this Mother's Day, I fixed brunch. We had Cheshire quiche, asparagus with Mayonnaise Nicoise, and popovers with strawberry conserves and Devon Cream, It was all good, but the popovers and conserves were especially tasty. Mouth-achingly good.

Strawberry Conserves
Makes 1 pint.

1 lb strawberries
1 c sugar — separated
1/4 c Cointreau

Wash and stem strawberries. Cut berries in half or quarters (depending on size) place in a bowl and mix in 1/2 cup sugar and Cointreau. Cover and leave sitting on counter for 24 hours. Stir once or twice.

Pour juice into a small sauce pan over low heat and add remaining sugar. Heat, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Add berries and simmer for 30 minutes. Cool and pour into a sterile jar.

Butter Popovers
Makes six large popovers or 12 small.

Bread Bible

<1 c Wondra flour (must be Wondra)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 c whole milk — at room temperature
2 eggs — at room temperature
4 tbsp butter — melted

Heat oven to 425F 30 minutes in advance. Place one oven rack on the bottom level and the other on the second level (this avoids having the popover rising into the other rack).

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and sugar. Slowly add milk using an electric mixer on low. Add eggs one at a time, thoroughly mixing after each addition. Add two tablespoons of butter to batter. Transfer to pitcher for pouring.

Brush popover cups with butter then distribute remaining butter evenly among the cups.

Heat popover pan in oven for 3 minutes. Fill each cup halfway with batter.

Cook popovers on the second rack for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 350F and continue cooking 20 - 35 minutes until well puffed and brown. Do not open oven for at least the first 20 minutes. Six - 10 minutes before popovers are done, use a small, sharp knife to poke a slit in the top of each popover ad allow steam to escape.

When done, remove popovers from the pan and cool on a rack.

Adapted from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.
These are the best popovers I've ever eaten, the butter adds richness and tones down the strong eggy flavor most popovers have.

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

No-Knead English Muffins

No-Knead English Muffins

Click to enlarge.

I've been making English muffins for many, many years and although I've produced some superior muffins, I've never produced something as good as what I want. In fact, I've never produced something close to what I want. However, I'm getting closer and, in fact, I now know the characteristics required to achieve that ultimate goal.

You can read about my experiment and discoveries at A Year in Bread.

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Saturday, April 21, 2007

Reuben Braid

Waiter! There's Something in My Bread!

Reuben Braid

We have been amazed at the response to A Year in Bread, the blog Farmgirl Susan, kitchenMage, and I started a month ago. We seem to have tapped into a deeply pent-up desire to learn how to make bread — witnessed by the number of comments each post generates. But it's not just newbies to the bread world, old hands at the baking game are also logging on and offering their thoughts, insights, and tips. I confess that the three of us feel like proud parents.

About the time it started up, I got a press release on About Professional Baking: The Essentials by Gail Sokol. The timing was propitious so I asked them to send me a review copy (albeit with no promise to review it, or that the review would be positive if I did). The PR agency decided to take a chance and sent me a copy.

Click to view larger image

Note: this is not the review I didn't promise to write. Instead, as I paged through the book I found a recipe for something called a Reuben Braid that captivated me. It consisted of rye bread dough, rolled out, and then folded over the standard Reuben sandwich ingredients. This I had to try. Then Andrew at Spittoon Extra announced that the next "Waiter, there's something in my..." would be about bread. Clearly the planets were aligned and a couple of days ago I made it.

It's good. Not great, the buttery crunchiness of a properly grilled Reuben is impossible to beat, but this would be a great sandwich at some sort of sporting event party such as the Superbowl. It's easy to make and one sandwich will feed six big appetites. Making two of them wouldn't be much harder.

I may yet review the book, and my impressions of it are fairly positive so far, but I need to make another two or three recipes first. In the meantime, here's the Reuben recipe.

Rueben Braid
Adapted from About Professional Baking.

Click to view larger image

Bread:
2 1/4 c warm water
3 tbsp olive oil
22 oz (4 1/2 c) bread flour
5 oz (1 c) rye flour
1 3/4 tsp instant yeast
2 1/4 tsp kosher salt
Filling:
1/3 c mayonnaise
3 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp finely minced onion
2 tbsp sweet pickle relish
8 oz thinly sliced corned beef
4 oz sliced Swiss cheese
1 c well-drained sauerkraut
Egg Wash:
1 egg
1 tbsp milk

In a medium bowl mix together 18 ounces of the bread flour, all the rye flour, and the yeast.

Combine water and oil in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, run the mixer at low and gradually add flour mixture until blended. Switch to dough hook and continue mixing, adding up to another 4 ounces of the bread flour until a soft dough forms. Cover the bowl and allow to rest for 10 minutes, then uncover, add salt, and knead at medium speed to incorporate salt. Continue kneading for a total of about 6 minutes.

Click to view larger image

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead a few more times. The dough should be smooth and elastic, but not sticky. Form into a ball.

Clean and dry the mixing bowl. Spray lightly with cooking spray, set the dough in the bowl, seam-side down, and lightly spray with cooking spray. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in bulk — about 1 hour. Heat oven to 375F.

Punch the dough down, re-cover the bowl, and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Turn a half sheet pan upside down and coat the bottom with cooking spray. Turn dough out onto pan and roll out to a 15 x 10 inch rectangle.

Click to view larger image

Mix together the mayonnaise, ketchup, onion, and relish. Spread on dough lengthwise leaving 2.5 inches uncovered. Layer dressing with corned beef, cheese, and sauerkraut. Using kitchen shears, cut uncovered edges into 3/4 x 1 inch wide strips. Fold edges over the filling and braid together the strips. Slide bread onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Mix together egg and milk and brush on bread. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until nicely browned.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

A Year in Bread

A Year in Bread

Pizza Dough

Today Susan, Beth, and I launched A Year in Bread. A Year is a blog dedicated to baking bread (and rolls and buns and even pizza). You can read the official story of how it came into being on the site, as well as what Susan and Beth have to say here and here. Please, go check out the blog, the three of us have been planning and working on it since the first week of January, and we're proud parents

I baked my first brick loaf of bread when I was 12 or 13 years old. Although not an outright disaster, the bread didn't rise more than an inch or two and had an atomic weight close to uranium.

I've no idea what I did wrong, but I tried a couple of more times with only a bit more success before giving up. You would have thought I'd learned my lesson. Nope. Some 18 years later, during a period between jobs, I decided to sell sandwiches make from fresh-baked croissants for a living — despite not having made anything more complicated than pancakes in the meantime. Oddly enough, although the business was an inspired failure, I managed to bake some extraordinary croissants — as good as anything I'd had in France.

Nevertheless I was relieved to find a real job so I could quit getting up at 4:00 in the morning to proof the croissants and then again at 6:00 to bake them and make sandwiches. Not to mention no longer spending every evening from 4:00 until 8:00 making the croissants so they could chill until 4:00 the next morning when I started over. That was 25 or so years ago and I haven't baked a croissant since. In fact, it was 10 years before I baked bread again.

Then I baked a loaf or two a year for a while until, in 1995, I bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. That made the difference. My time as a croissant baker had made me reluctant to spend the effort required to properly mix and knead bread. Keep in mind, for the croissants I was mixing and kneading enough bread — by hand — every day to make 50 or more croissants. (In fact, at Christmas that year I was making over 100 croissants on some days to fill special orders.)

With a stand mixer to do most of the mixing and kneading I started making more and more bread. These days I make bread about every three weeks. That serves almost all of my needs (except that I still like eating croissants and I'm still not making them) as well as bread I make for clients. These days I think nothing of making a loaf of bread, and I've learned enough so that even when I'm busy I can fit it into my schedule.

At the moment I have pizza dough undergoing its second fermentation (second rising) in preparation for my first post. We decided on pizza as the first thing to tackle because it's universally popular and an easy and forgiving bread. And because nothing so transforms this simple food as using good homemade dough.

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Friday, November 25, 2005

Beer Bread II

Beer Bread, Take 2

Beer Bread Rolls

Some months ago I made a loaf of beer quick bread. It was mighty tasty but had the drawback of all quick breads -- no real structure. This made it unsuitable for uses like sandwiches because it would fall apart. Nor was it a candidate for rolls, although muffins would have been doable. At any rate, what I wanted was a yeast-based beer bread.

When Thanksgiving came rolling around I decided beer rolls would be good with dinner as well as for making turkey sandwiches so I set out to craft a such a bread.

I wanted a whole wheat bread because I thought it would play best with the beer. But it's sometimes tricky to get a good rise out of 100 percent whole wheat (the fragments of bran tend to cut the gluten strands) so I needed to add some bread flour to increase the bread's lightness. I added sugar because beer and whole wheat tend to be a somewhat bitter and I chose Killian Red as the beer thinking it would be hearty enough to stand out and yet not overwhelming. Here's the recipe I came up with:

Whole Wheat Beer Bread
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp sugar
12 oz warm beer
2 1/4 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c bread flour -- separated
1 1/2 tbsp butter -- melted
2 tsp salt
1 ea egg
1 tbsp water

Using the paddle attachment thoroughly combine yeast, whole wheat flour, 1 1/4 cup bread flour, 2 teaspoons salt, and sugar. Add butter to warm beer and, with mixer running, pour beer into dry ingredients. As the dough forms swap paddle attachment for dough hook.

Knead for six minutes at medium speed. The dough should be slightly sticky but should clear the bowl. Add additional flour if needed. Dump dough onto a floured board and knead another minute or two until dough is fairly smooth (it won't be as smooth as a white bread) and resilient. Allow to rest 5 to 10 minutes.

Clean and dry mixing bowl and spray with a nonstick spray. Shape dough into a ball and place seam-side down in bowl. Spritz top lightly with cooking spray and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in bulk -- 60 to 90 minutes.

Punch down dough and turn out onto floured board. Lightly knead dough and form into a flattened ball. Allow to rest five to 10 minutes.

To make a loaf, shape dough into a rectangle that will fir in a 9" x 4.25" greased loaf pan. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in bulk.

To make rolls, using a dough scraper cut dough in four equal quarters. Set three quarters aside and cover. Shape remaining quarter into a flattened ball and divide into four quarters. Shape each quarter in to a ball and place on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Flatten each ball. Repeat for remaining dough, cover, and allow to rise until rolls double in bulk.

Heat oven to 425F for loaf or 400F for rolls.

In small bowl, beat together egg and water. Brush loaf or rolls with egg mixture and bake on middle oven rack. Rolls will need about 25 minutes, the load will need about 40 minutes. Monitor closely to avoid overcooking.

Cool on a wire rack.
The rolls turned out beautifully and were good with dinner as well as making great little turkey sandwiches. But there are a few things I would change the next time I make this.

First, I think I would use 2 tablespoons of honey instead of sugar and reduce the amount of beer by that amount. Mix the honey with the beer before adding to dry ingredients.

Second, I'd use a stout or porter instead of lager or ale in order to get more assertive beer flavor.

Third, the rolls were getting dry by day three and I think substituting oil for the butter might extend the shelf life another day.

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Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Sourdough English Muffins

Hiram Done Good

English Muffin

After reading the paper on Sunday mornings, I do my chores. For years this has meant vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, washing clothes, and watering plants. For the past year every other Sunday has included an additional chore -- feeding my sourdough starter.

Although I've occasionally gone as long as three weeks between feedings, every two weeks has proven ideal for my starter. I have to keep a reminder set in Outlook both because it's a bi-weekly event (meaning beyond my ability to remember) and because if I use the starter before scheduled feeding the schedule changes to every other Sunday from that point, whatever the previous schedule may have been.

Feeding involves mixing a cup of starter with a cup of water and two cups of flour and then returning it to the refrigerator in its glass canister. However, this means the base starter never warms up to vigorous activity.

When I pulled out the starter on Sunday to make the calzone I decided to completely refresh it by bring the entire mixture up to room temperature, feeding it, and giving it a day to work. While I was at it, I figured I'd make the sourdough English muffins I've been meaning to make in addition to the calzone dough.

So I did just that. I warmed up the entire batch of starter, fed it well, and gave it a day to revitalize. I made the calzone dough and the English muffins using a recipe I found at Annes Recipes.

Sourdough English Muffins Recipe

English Muffins


1 pk yeast
1/2 c lukewarm water (90F to 105F)
1/2 c basic sourdough starter, room temperature
1/3 c instant nonfat dry milk
2 1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 c lukewarm water (90F to 105F)
3 to 3 1/2 c all-purpose, flour
Cornmeal

Proof the yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Thoroughly mix in starter, dry milk, sugar, and salt. Stir in remaining water. Add 3 cups flour and mix at low speed with paddle until smooth.

Swap paddle for dough hook and knead at medium speed for four minutes, adding additional flour as necessary. Dough should be somewhat moist and slack. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead another two to three minutes.

Transfer dough to greased bowl, turning to coat all surfaces, cover with plastic and let stand in warm draft-free area until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Lightly dust work surface with flour, punch down dough, and turn out onto surface. Roll to 1/2 inch thickness and cut into 3" rounds. Line a pair of baking sheet with wax paper and dust with cornmeal. Place rounds on baking sheet, dust tops with corn meal, and cover with plastic wrap. (Note: rounds should be at least 3/4" apart.) Dough scraps can be kneaded back together, rolled out, and additional rounds cut.

Let muffins rise until almost doubled -- about an hour.

Heat a griddle over medium low heat. Lightly brush with butter. Depending on griddle size, transfer four to eight muffins to griddle using a spatula. Cook muffins on each side for about seven minutes until browned. Transfer to a wire rack and cool. Makes about 12 muffins.
The muffins are great. Very chewy with a nice sourdough tang and although they weren't as holey as commercial muffins, they were much more so than any English muffins I've made in the past. Hiram done good.

Hiram? That's the starter's name.

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Monday, October 17, 2005

Prosciutto Bread

Heaven Scent

Prosciutto Bread

I read recently that the most popular sandwich in the US (discounting hamburgers, I assume) is ham. Although I presume most people eat of some sort of processed ham on some sort of commercial bread in their sandwiches, even some of those products aren't bad. And when you branch out into less common hams and handcrafted breads you can create some really spectacular sandwiches.

Such sandwiches can be as simple as a couple of slices of Prosciutto or Serrano ham on a single crust of country bread -- perhaps with a slice of Manchego or Fontina. This is best enjoyed standing in a tavern in Spain or Italy, but it's good at home too. Grilled country ham on a biscuit is a breakfast mainstay in the South. Fresh baked ham on a good sour rye with German mustard and sliced dill pickles is wonderful on a picnic. And I think my favorite ham sandwich is a Black Forest ham Panini with Bierkase on my own sourdough bread. A light brush of olive oil on the bread before grilling really sets it off.

The last bread book I bought was The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum has a recipe in it for a Prosciutto Ring. Right off the bat I liked the sound of it. Reading further I discovered that it's brushed with bacon fat before baking. Ham and bacon and fresh baked bread? Sounds like a ham sandwich lover's dream!

Prosciutto Ring

2 cups + 3 tbsp bread flour
1 tbsp malt powder (or 1 tbsp sugar)
3/4 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
3/4 tsp salt
1 c water (70F -90F)
3 oz Prosciutto, 1/8" thick -- cut into 1/2" pieces
4 tsp bacon fat, lard, or butter -- melted

Using the whisk attachment, thoroughly combine flour, malt, and yeast. Add salt and mix. (Note: the salt is added after mixing to avoid it coming into direct contact with the yeast.)

Swapping to the dough hook, add water to bowl and combine with flour at low speed (#2 on a Kitchen Aid) until moistened. Increase speed to medium (#4 on a KA) and knead for seven minutes. Add Prosciutto and mix in on low. Dough should be slightly tacky but not sticky. If it is too sticky add a bit more flour and knead in, if too dry, spray with a bit of water and knead in.

Dump dough onto a lightly floured counter, shape into a ball, dust lightly with flour, and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rest for 20 minutes.

Place baking stone or a baking sheet on the bottom shelf of the oven and a baking sheet on the bottom of the oven. Heat oven to 450F.

Roll dough into an 18" rope, form into a ring, overlapping ends by two inches on a sheet of parchment paper or Silpain sheet. Cover with a large bowl or oiled plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in bulk -- about one hour.

Transfer bread on Silpain or parchment to stone or baking sheet. (Use a peel if bread is on parchment.) Toss half a dozen ice cubes into the pan on the bottom of the oven. Brush with melted bacon grease.

Bake for 15 minutes, remove Silpain or parchment, and rotate bread 180 degrees. Bake another five minutes and reduce heat to 400F. Cook another 10 to 15 minutes. Turn oven off, prop open door, and leave the bread in the oven for five minutes.

Remove bread from oven, brush again with bacon fat or butter, and allow to cool completely.

Note: I ended up adding almost an additional half cup of flour to the dough to get the texture right.
If ever, in a moment of aimless wondering, pondered what heaven might smell like, I know. It smells like a combination of bacon cooking and bread baking. And if you could eat heaven, it just might taste like this bread.

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