A Tale Of Two Breads

Crunchy Cornmeal and Semolina Bread

As with many home bakers who experiment with artisan bread baking, I usually have some unusual odds and ends in my kitchen. You know – you buy some of this whole grain or some of that, then you have a little leftover, so you stick it in the freezer to keep it fresh until the next time, and before you know it, three-quarters of the freezer has been overtaken by Ziploc bags of whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, wheat bran, pumpernickel flour, semolina… you get the picture. As someone who has precious little freezer space to begin with (that side-by-side refrigerator with the slender doors for my cramped little kitchen seemed like such a sound idea at the time), I thought it was time to find ways to use up some of the stockpile.

My husband is a big fan of toast. (I am not so much, but I can appreciate a nice lightly browned crunchy-chewy slice of bread schmeared with some nice salty Irish butter.) With his love of toast (and an empty bread shelf) in mind, I decided it was the perfect time to mix up some bread.

Now, confession time. I have a lot of difficulty making sandwich breads. I use the wrong size pans sometimes and often I overproof the loaves. Whatever one can do wrong when making sandwich bread, I apparently do it. I’m a pretty skilled freeform artisan bread baker, but just give me a bread pan and rest assured, it’ll turn out flat, no matter how promising it looks when it goes in (or comes out of) the oven. In spite of this, I gamely attempted a couple of sandwich loaves from the King Arthur Flour site.

The first one I baked was the Crunchy Cornmeal and Semolina Bread. I tried mixing it using the manual method as described because my stand mixer is currently out of commission, and the dough was waaaaaaay too sticky to mix by hand, even with heavily oiled hands. So no, I did not knead it for the full 6 to 8 minutes, but settled for manhandling it until it came together as best as I could, using a bowl scraper and trying not to lose too much dough between my fingers. I omitted the sesame seeds as those were something from my freezer I actually had managed to already use up. The finished loaf was tasty even if it wasn’t as tall as I had envisioned. It toasted up very nicely too!

Crunchy Cornmeal and Semolina toast, buttered with peanut butter

The second loaf was the PDQ Onion and Rye Bread. This one was not a yeast bread, but was leavened with chemical leaveners instead – baking soda and baking powder. As you might imagine, the texture was more like a quick bread. The version I used was from The King Arthur Flour’s Baker’s Companion and differs from the recipe on their site slightly. Instead of the Rye Flour Blend and Deli Rye Flavor listed on the site, I used 1 ¾ cups (7 ¾ ounces) of rye flour (from Arrowhead Farms) and ¾ cup (3 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour. My book calls for 1 ½ teaspoons of salt (rather than 1 teaspoon). I used a slightly smaller amount (2.8 ounces, not 3 ½ ounces as listed in the book) of “Golden Baking Onions” (actually French’s French Fried Onions) because that was the size of the container of onions. The book version has an additional ingredient not listed on the website, which I included: 1 tablespoon of vinegar or dill pickle juice; I used pickle juice. Lastly, the website version instructs you to sprinkle Artisan Bread Topping on top of the loaf. In the book version, you reserve ¼ cup of the French fried onions to sprinkle on top instead. One caveat – the onions don’t adhere very well and end up coming off the loaf when you depan the loaf and when you slice the bread. They also fall down to the bottom of the toaster oven (and burn) when you toast the slices, which is kind of a drag. I would recommend just adding the full amount of onions to the batter. Or if you are really attached to the look of having some of the onions on top (it makes for a pretty loaf, I’ll admit), you can try pushing the onions down into the batter slightly to better embed them and hope for the best.

I thought the onion rye bread was quite tasty, but my darling husband felt it lacked much oniony-ness. If I were to make it again I might add some dried onion flakes to bump up the flavor a bit.

PDQ Onion Rye Bread

irish soda bread with raisins and cranberries

I did a little holiday baking on my day off from my internship today.  St. Patrick's Day is later this week, but I won't have a lot of time to putter around in my own kitchen on that day so we're having our Corned Beef and Cabbage tonight instead.  And of course, I had to bake Irish Soda Bread too.  I don't really eat soda bread with the meal but usually have it with tea (or coffee!) during the week.

Typically, I make American-style Irish Soda Bread -- that is, I add caraway seeds.  I just like the way they make the bread taste, although I know they aren't to everyone's liking.  This year, however, I opted to try a new twist.  No caraway seeds, but (and this was an epiphany to me) the raisins and dried cranberries are soaked in Irish whiskey!  Tell me, what says St. Paddy's Day better than a little Jameson's in your soda bread?

I found the recipe on Serious Eats, and converted the recipe's volume measurements into weight because I prefer scaling my ingredients to washing a lot of measuring cups.  I also used dried buttermilk powder (I use Saco) rather than fresh buttermilk.  It's great stuff -- you add the powder to the dry ingredients and add the appropriate amount of water when you incorporate the wet ingredients.  Store it in the refrigerator and you don't have to worry about wasting half-used cartons of fresh buttermilk.  You can also substitute soured milk (1 tablespoon of white vinegar per 8 oz. of milk, stirred and left to rest for 5 minutes before using), but I think the buttermilk powder yields better results.

Irish Soda Bread with Cranberries and Raisins
(adapted from Serious Eats)

1/2 cup (2.25 oz.) dried cranberries
1/2 cup (2.75 oz.) raisins
1/2 cup (8 oz.) Irish whiskey (or hot water)
4 cups (17 oz.) bread flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons (1 oz.) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons (1.5 oz.) honey
6 tablespoons (2 oz.) dried buttermilk powder
1 1/2 cups (12 oz.) water

Combine the cranberries, raisins and whiskey (or hot water). Cover and set aside to rehydrate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and dried buttermilk powder. Whisk to combine. Cut the butter into slices, then work it into the flour with your fingertips until it is fully incorporated. Add the honey, water and the cranberries and raisins with the soaking liquid. Stir with a wooden spoon until all the liquid is absorbed.

Flour your work surface lightly and turn out the dough. It will still be sticky -- try to avoid adding more flour. It's helpful to flour your hands and use a bowl scraper or a spatula blade to help you maneuver the dough around. Form the dough into a 6-8 inch disk about 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 inches high and place it on your prepared baking sheet. Cut an X in the top of the dough across the top, about 1/2 inch deep.

Bake at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes, until the bread is nicely browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack. If you like a softer crust. cover the bread with a clean kitchen towel as it cools.

trying to get caught up

I made this Whole-Wheat Zucchini Bread last month when we had a bumper crop of zucchini, including one 2 1/2-pound zuke. The recipe is from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book. It has all good stuff in it -- zucchini, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins and grated lemon zest -- not to mention it's good for you. On paper, it's a wonderful bread; it was moist and flavorful, qualities one doesn't typically associate with whole grain baked goods. Sadly, for some reason it just didn't hit the spot for me.

irish soda bread muffins

There's something so much more appealing to me about muffins over their larger quick bread loaf cousins. Quick breads seem to dry out when they're sliced, the slices don't transport well and the serving size is inexact (my slices seem to exceed the recommended limit) and I would like to continuing baking while wearing my current clothing size. And maybe there's just something about individually sized baked goods. Anyway, I was thinking about how it's the time of year for Irish soda bread again when I saw the Baker's Banter post on Irish Soda Bread Muffins. Perfect!

I adapted the recipe somewhat based on what I had at the ready in my kitchen. I substituted the same weight of 100% whole wheat flour for the white-whole wheat, even though I know that the whole wheat is slightly heavier than the white-whole wheat. I compensated for this by adding an additional tablespoon of milk to the batter. I also substituted dried cranberries for the currants/raisins, making it a truly Irish-American creation. The result was a slightly sweet, moist and tender muffin -- perhaps a bit sweeter than I would've liked, but chockfull of cranberries. I wish now that I had added a bit more caraway seed (I love caraway) -- the recipe suggested a possible range of 1/2 teaspoon to 2 teaspoons. I think it could've definitely used the additional teaspoon. All in all, this one is a definite keeper. Éire go Brách!

cocoa-nana bread

This is another Dorie Greenspan recipe I made for the Chocolate Auction. I renamed it "Choco-Nana Bread" for the auction because I didn't want the bidders to hear "Cocoa-Nana" as "Coco-Nana" and think that the bread contained coconut. This is a rich chocolate and banana bread riddled with semisweet chocolate chips.

date nut bread

I am a big fan of dates. Apparently many people don't care for them, but I find the inadulterated sugary sweetness of dates irresistable. And I find date nut bread to be pretty foolproof. I got my recipe from P.'s Auntie Norma many years ago -- I'd had tasted some she had made and I was hooked. I never really questioned why the dates are soaked in boiling water before they go into the batter, but was told recently that it was because the recipe dates back to the Depression and soaking the dates and then adding them to the batter, water and all, was a way to make the bread moist without the need for a lot of butter. Whatever the reason, I love date nut bread, particularly toasted and with a little schmear of cream cheese!

cranberry-orange nut bread

I don't know if this is true elsewhere in the country, but here in New England, come autumn you start to see fresh cranberries being advertised in the supermarket circulars. Once upon a time, some savvy cranberry marketing genius came up with the "buy two, freeze one" tagline, which was then placed on the cranberry packaging and in the supermarket ad copy. I am guessing that once the fresh cranberry supply runs out in the fall, that's it for consumers who are looking for fresh or even frozen cranberries, or else why would we have to take it upon ourselves to preemptively scoop up the cranberries and hold them in our own home freezers?

I generally ignore such mandates from food packaging and advertising but this year, crazy manic baker that I've become, I decided this buying and freezing idea might have some merit. And as I usually make a cranberry relish from scratch at Thanksgiving anyway, buying 2 bags (I even considering buying 3 or 4) seemed pretty reasonable. As it turns out, I didn't end up making my usual cranberry relish this Thanksgiving, so I ended up with 2 bags of cranberries in my freezer at the end of November. My thoughts turned to coming up with something to make with all the cranberries I had now burning a hole in my freezer and despite being the mostly delighted new owner of a side-by-side refrigerator, I was ever mindful that freezer space is always at a premium.

To my shock and surprise, I discovered that all those cranberry-themed recipes I had been imagining when I bought those fresh cranberries don't actually require the use of fresh (or frozen) cranberries. The majority of the recipes called for dried cranberries, which are readily available year-round.

Part two of my thought process was that I've been contemplating different quick bread recipes to bake and give as gifts. I've never been a big fan of cranberry breads, largely because all the cranberry bread I've ever consumed has been off supermarket bakery catering platters and they were disgustingly artificial tasting and memorable only in that regard. But with 2 bags of cranberries staring me in the face, I decided to have faith in my culinary abilities and give cranberry bread another try.

I found a recipe for Cranberry-Orange Nut Bread in my King Arthur Flour cookbook and decided to give it a whirl. The recipe calls for fresh, frozen or dried cranberries, orange juice and extract (or if you'd rather, orange zest and juice), walnuts and buttermilk (as luck would have it, I still had some buttermilk left from making cornbread for Thanksgiving stuffing -- oh joy!). The finished bread was moist and subtly orangey -- not overwhelmingly orange with that fakey taste so prominent in the supermarket cranberry breads. The chopped cranberry and walnut bits didn't overwhelm, which pleased my chunk-phobic husband. The bread was very light on sweetness, something that might not be true if I had made it with the dried cranberries (which are sweetened). Not being a typical cranberry bread fan I'm not sure I'd put it on my must-bake list (date nut bread would come first, for starters), but aficionados of tart fruit and nut breads might really enjoy this one.

(mini) cranberry & white chocolate scones

I took another stab at scones this morning, using yet another recipe. They turned out beautifully -- moist, tender and not greasy like my previous attempts. And beautiful to look at too. This recipe is definitely a keeper. I also liked the cranberries (rather than the raspberries as in previous attempts) -- no seeds!

Cranberry & White Chocolate Scones

1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 Tablespoons half & half (I used fat-free half & half)
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup dried cranberries
l/2 cup white chocolate chips

Blend flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter. Add cream, egg, cranberries and white chocolate chips. Stir until dough begins to hold together. Turn onto lightly floured board. Knead for 2 minutes. Pat into 1/2" round, cut into 8 wedges. To make mini scones, divide the dough into 2 rounds and cut each into 8 wedges, making 16 total. Transfer to baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400 degrees for 14 minutes until golden brown.

Adapted from The Inn at Barnum Point recipe.

mexican cornbread with jalapeño and chorizo

I saw Padma Lakshmi make the Mexican Cornbread with Jalapeño and Chorizo from her cookbook Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet on a news/chat show last weekend and was intrigued. So in honor of Cinco de Mayo, I made it last night. Although I've always been curious about cornbreads with ingredients beyond the basics (cornmeal, flour, etc.) I've never tried making one. This recipe has corn pieces, chorizo, pickled jalapeño, Jack cheese and dillweed. It was quite the explosion of flavors. And best of all, this morning P. grilled the leftovers and served them with fried eggs for our breakfast -- YUM.