Farine

Crazy for Bread

Back to Baking

Yesterday was my first real Back to Baking Day since mid-December. Two and a half months without living dough in my hands. Too long…
But I had a hard time getting in the mood: it took four weeks from the day we came home for me to feel the urge. Of course we had a bread-packed freezer to begin with; local baking friends kept us supplied with marvelous homemade loaves; our Pacific Northwest Trader Joe’s carries bread that is quite good (you wouldn’t think it likely when you wander the aisles of most Trader Joe’s stores I know in the Northeast, where bread is of the barely acceptable variety but yes, grocery chains do adapt to their markets and apparently here in the urban Northwest people are serious about their bread); and finally I still find it difficult to focus. No matter how hard I try, my mind wanders. Combined, all these reasons were good enough for me not to dive into the flour bin right away.
What helped me get my baking groove back is probably the BBGA flatbread class I attended last weekend with a Canadian friend. It was taught by Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakery in Seattle. I’ll write more about it in another post (as soon as I have made one of the flatbreads at home). For now I’ll just say that it was excellent and a lot of fun to boot and that I simply love being around bakers. They are among my favorite people!
So the class helped. Plus the fact that I am trying to develop a simple learning loaf in response to the many requests I got from readers who happened on Farine because of our grandson, had never visited a bread blog before, are now tempted to give bread-baking a shot and wonder where and how to start. I have been mulling the idea for a while and I decided yesterday was as good an opportunity as any to experiment with a basic -yet tasty- recipe (I’ll post about that first learning loaf some time next week).
Finally we have a friend from France coming to stay with us for a while. She lives outside Paris in a dreamy yellow house with Van Gogh-blue shutters and when I go stay with her, we only have to walk three minutes to get our daily baguette from the little bakery around the corner. Since we can’t do that here, I must have bread for her. A three-second walk to the freezer in the garage might be slightly less romantic but hey, to her it might be just as amazing. Her French freezer is so tiny it could fit in my American bread box!
So yesterday I baked three different kinds of bread: the two loaves in the foreground are chocolate and currant levain (my French friend will forgive me for revealing here that she is a huge chocolate fan); the big boule in the middle is the learning loaf (I don’t know yet how else to call it); the curlicue on top was made with leftover dough from the learning loaf; and the four short batards (or rustic baguettes) on the sides are levain-based and partly wholegrain (wheat, spelt and rye).
For those of you who are new to baking and might be puzzled by the French word levain, let me say that it is usually translated by “sourdough”. I don’t like to use that word though because it puts too much emphasis on sourness. A levain (also called “starter”, a word I like much better than “sourdough”) is always characterized by some level of acidity (and, from what I understand, acidity is actually good because it helps make available to our body some of the nutrients otherwise locked in the grain) but the baker can control that acidity by playing with variables such as time and temperature and my personal preference goes to less sour. The learning loaf seen above is not made with levain (which wouldn’t be readily available to most Farine readers) but with a pre-ferment calling for yeast commonly found in grocery stores across America (more on the subject next week).
Our grandson loved bread (all our grandchildren do) and he was very interested in the hand-mixing process. He listened attentively when I spoke of the interaction of flour, water, salt and starter (he especially loved the idea that invisible micro-organisms are present in the flour and ready to spring to life and make dough rise). I remember hoping that one day he and his sisters might be motivated enough to want to learn how to bake for themselves.
So I thought of him a lot yesterday. Of course nothing can replace a little boy sitting on the kitchen counter, banging his feet against the cabinet and devouring slice after slice of freshly baked bread but still it brought me some degree of comfort to know that at least in spirit and in my heart he was definitely present. And maybe, just maybe, he is the one who inspired me to taste the baguette dough before setting it to rise. Good thing I did: I had forgotten the salt!

Of bread and herons

I baked Hanne Risgaard’s Real Rye Bread the other day and it seems to have come out fine although it didn’t rise as high as it normally does. But it might have been because I had digressed from my baking routine. As usual I had soaked the cracked rye overnight and done all the mise en place (gotten everything scaled and prepped and at room temperature) the night before. I had mixed the dough in the morning around 10 and transfered it to the oiled pan but – and that isn’t something we normally do when I start on a bread – we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Ikea on an errand we had been postponing for a while. Ikea isn’t exactly next door. What to do? I weighed the pros and cons and projecting that the dough would have risen nicely by the time we came back, I determined that everything should and would be fine.
But just as we were leaving, I got spooked. With my mind’s eyes, I saw the neglected dough climb over the edge of the pan, slither under the clear plastic film, crawl down the door of the cabinet to pool on the floor in a puddle that would morph from gooey-sticky to rock-hard by the time we got back. So I put the pan in the garage (where the temperature must have been around 50°F/10°C). That probably scared the dough out of its wits because when we came back five or six hours later (we got stuck in traffic), it hadn’t moved at all. Not even a shiver…
It must have been about 5 PM when I brought it inside where the temperature was 65°F/18°C. Five hours or six later it still hadn’t moved. At all. It looked petrified. I went to bed with a heavy heart. For a first foray back into baking in more than two months, it didn’t look encouraging and I wasn’t sure overnight proofing would help since we keep the thermostate on low during the night.
But, lo and behold, in the morning the dough had changed color: no longer grayish, it seemed to glow with the bloom of life and it had started to dome a bit in the middle. This time I watched it like a hawk. And watched. And watched. It took its own sweet time. At about 4 PM, when it looked like it wouldn’t rise much further than up to 3/4 inch from the top, I pre-heated the oven and waited some more. Talk about a balancing act between hoping for a higher rise and making sure it didn’t overproof.
At the time of this writing, I haven’t sliced it open yet (it is best to wait at least 24 hours and preferably 48 to 72 before slicing into a fresh loaf of whole grain bread). Whole grain breads need to settle: they taste better when they dry out a bit. It makes sense, right? Moisture evaporates and flavor concentrates. With a bit of luck, the crumb will be okay… I wish I had taken pictures all along but I wasn’t planning to blog this bread and also what’s so exciting about a dough that plays dead for hours on end?

Four days after the bake

Not the prettiest crumb ever (see the lower part of the loaf which looks a bit dense and gummy) but not the worst either.
Moral of the story #1: rye dough can and will trick you. This one looked as lifeless as the mummified heron our two-year old golden retriever dragged in from the marshes and dropped proudly at my feet one winter, the very same day she fell through the ice and we thought she was a goner. It was her first visit to our little camp by the St-Lawrence River. We had adopted her a week earlier. She fought her way back onto the ice, shook herself and was as good as new, white teeth flashing in a wide smile and dripping tail wagging. The heron got flung back into the marshes when she wasn’t looking.
The dough was so inert that I almost chucked it out too. The only thing that stopped me is the thought that waiting till morning would save me having to wash the pan before going to bed. Also that I really, really craved some naturally leavened whole rye bread. And finally that I knew we would soon be seeing our Danish cousins who live in Vancouver, BC, and that I wanted to bring them a little taste of home, however elusive the similarity of this bread with their native rugbrød.
Moral of the story # 2: any resemblance of unproofed rye dough to a wizened heron is entirely fortuitous and best taken with a grain of salt.

Hanne Risgaard’s Real Rye Bread

While I am not yet back in full baking mode, bread is slowly making its way back into my life (of course not baking was and still is made easier by the fact that our freezer was literally bursting at the seams when tragedy struck mid-December: we had been expecting our two teenage grandkids for their winter breaks and I had been baking up a storm).
This time around the first bread on the agenda is likely to be Hanne Risgaard’s Real Rye Bread. There is something profoundly honest and straightforward about this bread. It isn’t fancy and some may not consider it elegant (although I would argue the point.) But it does deliver in terms of taste, consistency, shelf life and versatility. Besides I find it deeply comforting as it brings back memories of light-filled summers spent in Denmark with beloved family members.
I have made it several times already, sometimes with my own rye starter, sometimes with the rye yogurt starter indicated in the book. I like both versions. For most people the yogurt starter is probably the easier way to go as you don’t have to have a pre-existing starter on hand to try the bread (see below for the starter recipe).

You will find the real rye bread recipe on page 133 of Hanne Risgaard’s gorgeous book, Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry. You will also find it a beautiful rendition of it online (with a list of ingredients and detailed instructions) at My Italian Smörgåsbord.
The ingredients listed make for a huge loaf (or two smaller ones). I don’t find it to be a problem: it is a lovely bread to share, it freezes beautifully and, thinly sliced and dried out, either in a dehydrator or in an oven set at a low temperature, it makes lovely crisps which keep for months in an airtight container. Those crisps are the perfect foil for sardines, smoked salmon, pungent cheeses, etc. They are also handy and healthful in case of a snack attack!
Once I knew we both liked the bread and I was going to make it over and over, I started looking for a gallon-size pan (that’s where the elegance comes in: I just love the sleek look of the loaf Hanne chose to illustrate her recipe). Thanks to my friend Larry Lowary who is an invaluable source of tips and advice, I found here a pan almost identical to the ones used in Denmark (except that the sides are not straight but slightly slanted). The price was right (I didn’t get the lid which I didn’t need) and I bought it. I have had no reason to regret it (my only advice would be to slightly grease the pan before placing the dough in it. The first couple of times the bread slid out like a breeze but with each later use the pan became a little bit more reluctant to let go).
Hanne says to leave the dough to ferment at room temperature for 24 hours before baking. I don’t know how cold it is in Denmark where she bakes but here in the Pacific Northwest where the temperature inside our house usually hovers around 65°F/18°C, I have found six to ten hours to be enough. I tried letting it go twenty-four hours once just to see what happened and it was not a success. Which reminded me of the golden rule: rye doesn’t like to wait!

So instead of following Hanne’s proofing time suggestions, I heed her practical advice: bake the loaf when the dough almost reaches the top of the pan.


As I said, I love the book as a whole: I have already made the Pear and Sourdough Bread (p. 142) (I skipped the yeast though)…

…and the Pumpkin Seed Bread with Buttermilk (p. 136) (so tasty and fragrant, especially with the suggested addition of fennel seeds that it is close rival to the Real Rye one in our affections)…

…and there are plenty of other appealing breads that I plan to try and make. My only reservations would be that several of the non-rye levain-based recipes call for yeast (I don’t see the point of adding yeast to levain except in a production environment with a tight schedule) and that it would be useful to see more crumb shots.
The photography is gorgeous however and guaranteed to make you want to start baking on the spot (which is maybe the reason why Hanne’s real rye bread may be the one to finally pull me out of my baking funk).

The rye yogurt starter is fairly simple to make.


Ingredients (for 400 g mature starter, total)
Starter

  • 150 g water
  • 150 g organic plain yogurt
  • 200 g whole rye flour
Feeding
  • 150 g water
  • 200 g whole rye flour
Method
  • To start: mix all starter ingredients thoroughly and keep, tightly covered, in a warm place for 24 hours (Hanne recommends 86°F/30°C)
  • Feeding: After 24 hours, add water and flour, mix thoroughly and keep, tightly covered, in a warm place for another 24 hours 

Hanne’s recipe uses all of the starter (and replaces it with 400 g of dough which she keeps in a fridge, slightly salted, for her next batch). She says that, when it has been refrigerated, it will need to spend 24 hours at room temperature to be ready for use again.

Hanne Risgaard’s Real Rye Bread is going to Susan for this week’s issue of Yeastspotting.

Two months ago today in Newtown, CT

Two months already? Or two months only? I can’t tell. Time stretches and compresses without warning. My only certitude is that, two months after the tragedy, it remains impossible to come to terms with what happened.
But today is Valentine’s Day and I want to tell you a story: a few weeks ago, one of my little granddaughters came to me as I was sitting at the computer. She asked: “Maminou, what’s your talent?” I was taken aback at first, then I remembered that the girls had just watched (and watched and watched) The Secret of the Wings, a Disney fairy movie where everyone has a talent waiting to be discovered. I thought for a minute, then recalling that when we meet after a long separation the first thing she asks is always “Did you bring us bread?”, I said: “Bread!” She nodded, satisfied.
Then I asked: “And what’s your talent?” She was quiet for a while, then she replied with a shy smile: “Loving! I think my talent is for loving…” I held her close. She didn’t say anything for a while, then she looked directly into my eyes: “Do I have to love the bad guy who came into the school?” I told her she didn’t and she looked relieved, as if something tight had just unwound inside her.
Love as a talent. I never thought of it that way but it makes sense. A gift that lies dormant at birth and needs to be awakened and nurtured.
Love as a choice. Some of us place themselves deliberately outside the circles. They cannot be trusted with love. Maybe because their talent was never discovered. Maybe because they never had it in the first place. I don’t know. But I like it that my little granddaughter is already working on setting boundaries for herself.
Two months ago today in Newtown, CT, a shooter chose to rob twenty-six innocents of their lives and to tear them away from their loved ones. These flowers are for the victims and for the survivors. For all of us who choose love. For all of us who understand, like my granddaughter, that not loving doesn’t mean hating. That there is another way…



Of walking and Walmart

Among the many things I love about living in the Northwest is how colorful the landscape remain throughout the winter, not only because of the everpresent evergreens but also because of the yellow, orange or red bark on so many trees and bushes. The hour-long walk around Green Lake in Seattle is color-therapy at its seasonal best. Plus it offers as good an opportunity for people-watching as an outdoor terrace in a Parisian café (one of my favorite pastimes when we visit family and friends there.) The crowd is strikingly different though: mothers dashing forward behind racing strollers, others dragged by eager pooches, muscled men in skimpy tank tops, Gore-Texed gents leaning on heavy canes, leashed dogs everywhere, mostly well behaved, old couples and odd couples, talking walkers and walking talkers, cyclists, roller-bladers, everyone in-lane, everyone oh so Seattle. Peaceful…
So we walk. We talk some. Mostly we watch. Sometimes we notice more than once the same people walking in the opposite direction. When it happens, I always regret not having paid more attention in school to problems featuring two trains leaving at different hours from different cities and going at different speeds: where and when would they pass each other? Are we seeing this elderly couple twice because they actually walk faster than us? It seems unlikely but then why are we meeting them again before our own walk around the lake is over?
My mathematically bent husband remains unfazed: he quickly processes the facts (where we first pass the couple, where we are now) and comes up with the answer. I like it that some problems can be easily solved.
As we walk I feel a burden lift then fall again then lift again: grief like an invisible cloak fluttering in the breeze. And I look at the faces, animated or stoney, smooth or wrinkled, dour or smiling, and I wonder  at the stories that live and breathe behind each of them…
Back home, the peace Green Lake has brought is shattered as I listen to Walmart and the AR-15, a Feb.6 podcast from the Leonard Lopate Show. From there I go to How Walmart Helped Make the Newtown Shooter’s AR-15 the Most Popular Assault Weapon in America, the original article by George Zornick in The Nation. I had thought Walmart had pulled the weapon so that it could no longer be bought online. It turns out that it could never be bought online and that Walmart only pulled it from its online catalog but continued to carry it in its stores. I didn’t know that gun sales was what helped the company pull out of a slump. I also didn’t know that Walmart was now “the biggest seller of firearms and ammunition in America.”
There is indeed a story behind everyone and everything, isn’t there? Many of them never see the light of day but when they are exposed, when we clearly see that from coast to coast thousands of us are either already impacted or threatened by the plot, don’t we have not only the right but the obligation to look for ways to bring about a different ending? I regret that Walmart declined to be interviewed for the article. I am still hoping it can be convinced to change its policies (or at least to make sure each and everyone of its stores abides by its stated policies). Meanwhile, let’s vote with our feet and walk away both from Walmart Stores and from Sam’s Club which it owns and operates.