Making Focaccia Bread with Rosemary

Years ago my mother got sourdough starter from San Francisco. It was supposedly over 100 years old at the time. She kept it going by feeding it and using it regularly. When I got out of college and was on my own, she gave me some of the starter. Now I'm a grandma and the starter is about 140 years old.

Today I made focaccia bread with the starter. The recipe won't be so easy to share because I can't give you the starter.

Many cookbooks today have recipes for short-term starters - such as mixing 1 tsp active dry yeast with 1/2 cup warm water and 1/4 cup of flour. Stir this together and leave it for about an hour. It should be bubbly and good to use at that time.

Here's how I made the focaccia:

• Stir 1 tsp active dry yeast into 1 cup warm water and let sit for about 10 minutes.
• Put 3/4 cup sourdough starter in the mixing bowl.
• Add the yeast mixture and 3 T olive oil. Stir together well.
• Add about 3 - 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 3 T finely chopped rosemary leaves, 2 tsp coarse sea salt.
• Change to the dough hook when needed.
• Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead a little by hand.
• Put dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 1/4 hour.
• Turn risen dough onto oiled cookie sheet with sides (11 X 17) and flatten it to fill the pan.
• Allow to rise again about another hour.
• About 30 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 425.

If you have a baking stone, that really helps this bread cook well. When bread has risen, use the tips of your fingers to dimple the dough.

Drizzle the bread with 2 T extra virgin olive oil and 1 to 1 1/4 tsp coarse sea salt.

Put sprigs of fresh rosemary all over the surface.

Put bread in oven and spray the oven walls with cold water from a spritzer bottle three times every three minutes during the first 10 minutes of baking.

Bake in total for about 20 - 25 minutes. During the last 10 minutes you can put the bread directly on the baking stone (I always forget to, but it crisps the bottom).

Toasted Pine Nut Bread from Hensperger

Dylan and I were adventurous today. We made bread with toasted pine nuts! This recipe is from Hensperger's book: Bread for All Seasons. It's almost March and this is one of the March recipes.

First you preheat the oven to 325. Spread 1 1/2 cups pine nuts in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. Toast in the oven for 12 minutes, stirring once during the process. Don't let the nuts get dark. Remove from the oven and cool.

Sprinkle 2 packages of yeast and a pinch of brown sugar over 1/4 cup of warm water. Let it stand for about 10 minutes to begin proofing.

Put the pine nuts in a blender or food processor with 1 cup whole-wheat flour and process until it's like coarse meal.
It should look like this mixture below.

In the mixer, combine 1 cup warm water, 2 T brown sugar, 1 cup warm milk, 2 T of butter, melted, and the remaining 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Beat about 1 minute. Add the yeast and the nut flour mix. Beat another minute. Then gradually add flour - about 3 - 3 1/2 cups - about 1/2 cup at a time until a soft dough forms.

Turn the dough out and knead it until firm and springy, adding as little flour as possible. Place in a greased container and allow to rise for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Divide the risen dough into two portions. Form each into a round. Place the loaves seam side down on a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise again - about 50 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425. Slash the tops of the loaves with sharp knife. Don't make the cuts more than 1/4 inch deep. Put the loaves in the oven and immediately turn the oven down to 400. Bake for about 40 - 45 minutes.


The is a rich, tender, interesting bread. We ate half a loaf for dinner.

The Challenge of Challah

We had a lot of eggs and decided it would be fun to make challah. I looked for the egg-iest recipe I could find. Most of the recipes I found called for two eggs. The way we did it was with four eggs. I think traditionally challah has no milk products in it but I didn't have good vegetable oil so I used half butter and half oil.

After I made this bread, one of my friends who is Jewish, told me that Challah has seven ingredients and usually seven eggs. Next time I'm making it by her recipe!

Here's what we did:
1 cup water
1 T sugar
1 T honey
1 T active dry yeast

• Pour the water into mixing bowl and stir in the honey and sugar. Add the yeast and one cup flour and let this proof for about 10 minutes.

4 eggs
3 T oil
3 T butter, melted
1 T salt
5 1/2 - 6 1/2 cups flour

• Beat the eggs until light.
  
• Beat in the oil and butter.
  
• Add this to the yeast mixture.
  
• Blend in the salt and gradually add the flour, 1/2 cup at a time.
  
• Knead the dough both with the dough hook and by hand for 3 or 4 minutes.
• Put the dough in a greased bowl and allow to rise until doubled - about 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
• Cut the dough in half. This makes two smaller loaves.
• You can divide each half into three or four strands for braiding. I haven't ever braided four strands so I did that, following a diagram in a 30 year old cookbook.
• Again allow the bread to rise until doubled.
  
• Then brush surfaces with an egg wash made of 1 egg mixed with 2 tsp water.
• Bake at 350 or 35 - 40 minutes.
  

Dylan likes to pick the eggs we use.



Here he's pouring the egg mixture into the yeast mixture.



The braided loaves go into the oven.



I planned to take a picture of the two loaves but when I remembered to do it the next day, my family had eaten all of one loaf and had sliced into the second one. Here's what's left. We used the challah for French toast on Sunday morning - it was scrumptious.

Norwegian Rye Bread

Dylan and I seem to be on a rye bread kick lately. So today we made Norwegian Rye Bread from A World of Breads by Doris Casella.



2 packages yeast
1/3 cup warm water
2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup molasses
2 T caraway seed
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 cups white flour
2 cups rye flour
2 cups whole wheat flour

With those ingredients, I'm sure you can imagine that this is a dark bread.

• Dissolve the yeast in the water.
  
• Heat the buttermilk (I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds).
  
• Add salt, molasses, caraway seed, melted butter and dissolved yeast to the buttermilk.
  
• Blend these ingredients and then start stirring in the flours gradually.
  
• Knead the bread until it is smooth and elastic.
  
• Place in buttered bowl to rise. Takes about 1 1/2 hours.

• When the dough is doubled, turn it out onto a floured board.
  
• Divide it into 2 parts. Shape each into a loaf and place in a buttered loaf pan.
  
• Cover and let rise until doubled again - about 1 1/4 hours.
  
• Brush the top of the loaf with melted butter.
  
• Bake in a 325 oven for 45 minutes until done.

It's beautiful and tastes rich and delicious.

Parmesan Pull-aparts from Gourmet

Clearly I've been on a roll kick, inspired by Gourmet's issue this month. These are the only rolls that don't appear in the pictures in the magazine, but they sounded so good, I decided to try them sight unseen!

Here are the ingredients (which you can also find on Epicurious)

2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp honey (I use the honey from my own beehives)
2/3 cup warm milk
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus 2 T for sprinkling
1 1/4 cups grated (with a rasp) Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 tsp salt
3 large eggs
5 T unsalted butter, cut into T pieces and softened
1 T water

• First you grate the cheese - lots of it.

• Stir together the yeast, honey, and 1/3 cup warm milk in mixer bowl and let stand until the yeast starts to foam.
  
• Whisk together the flour and the grated cheese and the salt (see picture above).
  
• Mix into the yeast mixture along with the remaining 1/3 cup milk at low speed.
  
• Increase the speed to medium and beat in 2 eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each.
  
• Beat well, about 3 minutes until a soft dough forms.
• Beat in the butter, one T at a time, until the dough is elastic, about 2 minutes - this is where I had trouble. The butter just didn't want to beat in. I changed to the dough hook, but that made it more difficult - see the picture below. I ended up going back to the paddle, which was what Gourmet recommended, but it was difficult because the dough was solid and in the shape at which I usually use the hook. The butter mixing was very difficult.
• Put the dough in a greased bowl, sprinkle it with the remaining 2 T flour, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
  

• When the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured surface and cut it into 12 equal pieces.
  
• Roll each into a ball.
  
• Arrange the rolls in a buttered 9X2 inch round cake pan and cover with a non-terry kitchen towel.
  
• Allow to double - 1 - 1 1/4 hours.

• Preheat oven to 375 with rack in the middle.
  
• Whisk together the remaining egg with 1 T water and brush over the tops of the rolls.
  
• Bake until golden brown - 20 - 25 minutes.
  
• Loosen edges of rolls from pan with sharp knife (this is to take care of cooked egg gluing it to the edges of the pan).
  
• Invert rolls onto a rack, reinvert and cool for 20 minutes.

These are DELICIOUS - well worth the frustration with the butter mixing in (or not, as the case may be).

The Best Waffles Ever!

The best waffles ever are in the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook - this book is chock full of great bread recipes, but my favorite pancakes/waffles are in the early part of the book. The recipe makes a large quantity, but halving it, which I do all the time, easily feeds four people.

Here it is (already halved for you):

2 cups King Arthur (naturally) Unbleached all-purpose flour
2 T sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 stick butter, melted

• Mix the dry ingredients together thoroughly
• In another bowl, beat the buttermilk and eggs together until light
• Add the melted butter
• Blend only until the dry ingredients are mixed in - only 20 seconds or so
  

Cook on a preheated waffle griddle (or pancake griddle if you are making pancakes).



I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to put the batter on the griddle for each waffle.


My well-used (and thus not lovely) waffle baker with the batter on it.

The finished waffles and the cookbook.


My grandson, Dylan, the best waffle eater in the world!

Potato and Rye Vienna Twist - Part Two

The potato dough is on the left; the rye dough is on the right.

• When both doughs have doubled in size, gently turn them out onto a floured surface.
  
• Divide each dough into 2 equal parts.
  
• Roll each part into a 14 inch roll.
  
• Take a roll of rye and a roll of the potato dough and twist the two together, pinching the ends together.
• Place the twists on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover and allow to rise until doubled.
  

Previous to putting the bread in the oven, mist the bread with water and sieve them all over with 1 to 2 T flour. Note: I used 1 T and it was almost too much. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 35 -40 minutes.

Cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing. The slices will be part rye and part potato dough.

Potato and Rye Vienna Twists - Part One

This must be one of Beth Hensperger's favorite recipes because she put it in both Baking Breads: Old and New Traditions and in The Bread Bible. Making this loaf involves making two types of bread at the same time.

For the potato dough, you have to cook a potato and then puree it. Here's that part of the recipe:

1 unpeeled 6 ounce russet potato, washed and cut into large chunks
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
7/8 cup warm milk
4 T unsalted butter at room temp
1 T sugar
1 large egg at room temp
1 1/2 tsp whole aniseed
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 - 3 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour or bread flour

You cut the potato up and put it in a pot. Cover the potato with water and bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pan, and cook the potato for 20 minutes. Drain the potato, reserving 1/4 cup potato water. Puree the potato with a food mill or an electric mixer. This was Dylan's first experience with a food mill. He thought it was just amazing.

At first it's hard to turn the handle of the food mill while the potatoes are in big chunks.


Then it gets faster and easier! He thought this was great!



He likes to look at the flour on his hands when he is chief kneader.

• In large bowl, pour in the reserved 1/4 cup of potato water.
  
• Sprinkle the yeast over the potato water and stir until smooth.
  
• Add the potato puree (2/3 cup), milk, butter, sugar, egg, aniseed, salt, and 1 cup of flour.
• Beat until smooth, about 1 minute.
  
• Add 2 1/2 cups more unbleached flour and beat until smooth - about 3 minutes.
• Knead dough either with dough hook or by hand until smooth and springy.
  
• Put in greased bowl to rise.

Seven Grain Honey Bread

Today Dylan and I baked another of my favorite Hensperger recipes from my falling-apart-at-the-seams copy of her Baking Bread: Old and New Traditions.
The recipe calls for seven grain cereal and I only had five grain but I used it and hoped for the best.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups boiling water
• 1 cup seven grain cereal (I used five-grain cereal)
• 1 1/2 T active dry yeast
• pinch sugar
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup warm buttermilk
• 1/3 cup local honey (as a beekeeper, I was thrilled to use my own honey from my backyard bees)
• 3 T corn or other vegetable oil
• 2 T unsalted butter, melted
• 3 eggs (we were almost out of eggs and had only two but I soldiered on)
• 1 T salt
• 4 1/2 - 5 cups unbleached bread flour.

And here's what you do:

• Pour boiling water over the cereal and allow to stand for 1 hour
• Proof the yeast in the warm water with the pinch of sugar (about 10 minutes)
• In a large bowl, combine the buttermilk, honey, oil, butter, eggs, salt, and 1 cup flour.
• Beat hard until smooth
• Add the cereal mixture and the yeast
• Add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time until the dough clears the sides of the bowl.
• Knead the dough until it is soft and springy (about 3 minutes), adding flour as necessary
• Let rise in a greased bowl covered with plastic wrap for about 1 t0 1 1/4 hours
• Turn dough onto work surface and divide into three parts.
• Make round loaves - I have round baking pans - they are actually called pudding pans - and I used those
• Let rise about 30 to 40 minutes
• About 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 375.
• Bake until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped about 35 - 40 minutes.

Dylan's favorite part is licking the beater!

Here are the three loaves. I'm lucky they came out at all. I had baked rolls in my convection oven at 375 and thought it was still on when I put the loaves in the oven, but actually I had turned it off.

When the timer went off for me to take the bread out, I realized the oven wasn't even on, the bread was pale blonde and although it had achieved "spring" in the oven, it wasn't done in any way. I left the bread in the oven, turned the convection back on at 375 and baked it for another 20 minutes.

Despite the rocky baking experience and the lack of one egg, the loaves turned out pretty. They are a little softer than I would have imagined and the loaf on the left in the group picture shows the indentation from the cooling rack.

Gourmet's Rye Walnut Rolls

Today I made Gourmet's Rye Walnut Rolls in this month's magazine on page 87. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because at my house we were all out of eggs by the time I got finished and I couldn't do the egg wash at the end. We also didn't have any onions (tomorrow is grocery day) so I used the lone shallot - a rather large one - that I had.

Regardless, my family loved them.

Here's the recipe:

1 medium onion, chopped (1 cup) (I used a large shallot)
1 T salt, divided
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups whole milk
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 T honey
5 1/2 cups all purpost flour
1 cup rye flour
1/2 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
1 large egg beaten with 1 T water for egg wash (didn't have this)
1/4 cup nigella or poppy seeds (didn't have this either so tried black sesame seeds - which I did have!)

• Line baking sheets with parchment paper ( I didn't have any so I sprayed Pam on the baking sheets! - I was out of everything.)
• Cook onion with 1/4 tsp salt in oil in a 10 inch skillet over medium heat until softened - 4 to 5 minutes
• Drain onions in a sieve over a bowl, reserving the oinons.
• Stir milk into the onion oil in the bowl
• Stir yeast, warm water and honey in large bowl and allow to start to ferment
• Mix flours, pepper, milk mxture and the remaining 2 3/4 tsp salt into yeast mixture until soft dough forms
• Knead the dough until elastic and smooth (about 6 minutes).
• Pat dough into a 9 inch square and sprinkle with onions and walnuts (see picture below)
  

(note: the little hands belong to my grandson and chief kneader who helped me)

• Fold dough over to enclose filling and pinch edges to seal
• Knead to distribute the walnuts and onions for about two minutes.
  
• If anything peeks out (see below) just push it back in.
  

• Allow dough to rise until doubled
• Halve the dough and cover one half with plastic. Roll the other half into a 12 inch log and cut it into 12 pieces.
  

• Roll each piece into a ball and place it on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart
• Allow to rise, covered with a non-terry kitchen towel for about another hour
  

• Preheat oven to 375 and brush each roll with egg wash. Sprinkle seeds on the rolls (I used olive oil but the seeds didn't really stick. You can see how they looked at the end in the first picture).
• Bake 20 - 25 minutes and cool 20 minutes before eating

These smelled scrumptious while baking and turned out great - thanks, Gourmet, for focusing on rolls this month. Here's the third good recipe so far.