Farine

Marching Against Gun Violence

My husband and I were in Washington yesterday marching against gun violence with our sister-in-law who lives in the DC area. The air was cold, the sky white. Signs abounded, many bearing the name of victims of the December 14th massacre in Newtown. We hadn’t thought of bringing our own, so we carried one that was handed to us. It had already had several bearers. We carried it a few blocks and passed it on to waiting hands. Behind the security fences that lined Constitution Avenue, men and women stood silently holding small placards which read: “I was shot” and displayed a name and a face: those of victims of gun violence whose murders never made the headlines…
The march was silent but some cars honked in sympathy and since traffic moved along slowly, we seemed to be walking in a tenuous tunnel of sound.
I looked at the faces around me, grave and resolute. I thought of the upcoming fight about gun control, of the seemingly gaping divide between gun enthusiasts and gun control advocates. Do we have to pick sides? Couldn’t we agree on the simple fact that as responsible citizens, we are all against gun violence, especially when it targets innocents? I remember reading that some of the Newtown victim families were and remain pro-gun. Whatever gun ownership means for these family members in practical terms, it is safe to assume that they are bleeding internally from the violence which took their kid, parent, spouse or sibling away. They too want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Newtown didn’t choose to make headlines but now that it has, now that the whole country is grieving with the town, let’s find a common ground and build on it. Let’s make sure we move forward together, one step at a time.

Gerry’s Kringle

Today, making kringles is a team effort at Tree-Top Baking, with Gerry and Larry taking turns mixing, laminating, shaping, etc. but back in the days when the bakery was just starting and Larry still had a full-time job off-island, Gerry made the kringles all by himself, week after week, the staccato beat of his big rolling pin on rock-hard butter his only company and thoughts of happy customers flocking to the market his lone motivation.
I have been captivated by Gerry’s Danish kringle from the first time I saw and tasted it. Not only is it picture-perfect and melt-in-your-mouth scrumptious, the delicate pastry a crunchy accompaniment to the sweet duo of flavors inside: almond cream and tangy raisins, my favorites! But it also evoked achingly dear memories of long gone family members: my beloved mother-in-law was half-Danish half-Russian and when we were in Denmark not a birthday or holiday went by without a festive kringle bedecked with tiny paper Danish flags.
In between these kringles of long ago and Gerry’s there had been none. So when I took that first bite, the layers of reminiscence were almost as delectable as the layers of flaky dough.

Of course I asked Gerry if he would teach me how to make a kringle and he agreed. He and Larry now own a sheeter, so they don’t laminate their dough by hand anymore but he said he would make an exception for the occasion and show me how it could be done at home (see video below).
I arrived at the bakery at the appointed date and time. Remember how glorious the day was when I took the ferry over to see Larry make his sprouted spelt bread? Well, on that winter day it was nothing like it. The sky was streaked with grey and the sea opaque.

At the bakery, the welcome was just as warm as last time although the bakers were busy making not only two dozen other kringles but panettone and stollen. The radio was piping soft holiday music. Christmas was definitely in the air…

Stollen proofing

Panettone cooling

Cookie waiting to be boxed

Gerry started on the kringle…

Even though he was only making one kringle for us today, Gerry mixed enough dough for four. He says otherwise the dough tends to climb up the hook and generally drive the baker crazy. It is easy enough to shape and bake two kringles and to store the other half of the dough in the freezer for the next batch. The filling can be made ahead of time and kept in the freezer forever.

Ingredients (for four kringles)

For the dough

580 g unbleached all-purpose flour
232 g water
35 g sugar
9 g salt
87 g eggs
10 g instant dry yeast
29 g butter

For the lamination

450 g butter

For the filling (120 g per kringle x 4)

141 g almond paste
170 g sugar, granulated
141 g butter
283 g flour
11 g salt
23 g vanilla extract
160 g raisins, to be sprinkled on the filling (40 g per kringle)

For the topping

120 g sliced almonds (30 g per kringle)
120 g sparkling white sugar (the shiny type that doesn’t melt) (30 g per kringle)

Method (Because of its stiffness, this dough is machine-mixed)

Desired dough temperature: 77 to 80 °F/25 to 27°C

Put all the ingredients in the bowl of the mixer (holding back some of the water) and mix for three minutes on first speed until incorporated
Mix six to eight minutes on second speed until fully developed
Let rest for one hour at room temperature, then place on a lightly floured sheet pan and put in the freezer for at least one hour covered with a plastic
Meanwhile laminate the butter to plasticize it and put it in the refrigerator (you want to have the dough and the butter at the same temperature but dough cools down much slower than butter. You want to put it in the freezer to speed up the process. Another method would be to mix the dough ahead of time and freeze it, then take it out the evening before baking, let it thaw in the fridge overnight and proceed with the laminating in the morning. Gerry stresses that anytime you defrost dough, you have to go really slowly, otherwise the outside ferments while the center remains frozen)
Prepare the almond filling: put almond paste in the mixer and gradually add room temperature butter until smooth; then (and only then) add the remaining ingredients and cream until fluffy (the almond filling can be made ahead of time and frozen
Roll in the butter and give the dough three 3-way folds (allowing the dough to rest in the fridge for 45 minutes between each fold)
Scale the dough at 341 g, roll out to 6 x 32 inches
Paint edges of the dough with water
Put a long strip of filling in the center (note that the filling needs to be at room temperature when you pipe or spread it. Otherwise the dough will rip)
Sprinkle with raisins, fold shut
Shape and proof at 85 to 90°F/29 to 32°C for 45 minutes to one hour, depending on how cold the dough was
Sprinkle with sliced almonds and sparkling white sugar
Bake for 10 minutes at 400°/204°C (no steam) then for 14 minutes at 350°F/177°C
Cool on a rack
Enjoy!

When I left the bakery with my beautiful kringle, the sky was still light…

But when I got to the ferry, darkness was swallowing up the clouds and the sea was choppy… The crossing is so short though that I barely noticed it.

All I know is that another layer of happy memories was added to the kringle… Thank you, Gerry!

The kringle is going to Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting.

Sprouted Spelt Bread At Home: a Baking Saga

Remember my visit to Larry from Tree-Top Baking and his demo of baking with sprouted spelt? Well, once I got home, I couldn’t wait to get started and I immediately set some spelt berries to soak. But since I can never leave well alone, I also read up on the notes I took at WheatStalk during Frank Sally’s* Baking with Ancient Grains workshop. Frank said (and I quote): “Spelt sprouts real fast (one day). When sprouting, keep them submerged for ten hours, then drain and let them rest. Do that again two or three times, then they are ready to grind in the meat grinder.” He added: “The grain is often very wet. If that’s the case, hold back half of the water when mixing. On the contrary, if it’s dry, you need to add more water.”
Frank also recommended adding the oil and honey towards the end of the mixing (holding off with the water even if the dough looked a bit stiff because the oil and honey would help loosen it up) and he said to add gluten as spelt didn’t have much of a push and the resulting dough wouldn’t have a lot of strength.
Food for thought there! I had seen Larry’s sprouted spelt and it had been soaking wet. So, in accordance with SFBI‘s original formula, he had used very little water in the mixing. But mindful of Frank’s advice, I had drained the grain for twelve hours, it ended up much drier than Larry’s. Therefore I knew I would need to add water.
As far as gluten was concerned, I really didn’t care to add any. Since I have seen what gluten strands look like once all other matter has been rinsed out of a dough (basically like an used chewing gum such as those you see stuck on the sidewalks in New York City), I have not been too keen on gluten as an additive. So I decided to follow Larry’s example (he had not used any the day I visited although he sometimes does) and skip it. So far so good.
I made the dough, added as much water as I thought it needed, followed all the advice on mixing duration and speed, and ended up with a dough I really liked only to realize I didn’t have the proper pans to bake it in (I had thrown out my old pans when we moved – they had been very cheap to begin with and had become gross – and never gotten around to buying others!) I had no choice but free-shape the loaves and hope for the best.

We actually liked the resulting bread very much (nice nutty taste and pleasant texture) but the dough had spread a bit too much during the proofing and I still wanted good sandwich bread for slicing.

So I bought two pans and tried again. This time though, I didn’t bother to re-read the recipe (why would I do that?) and just winged it all the way. I made the sponge, thawed the ground-up sprouted spelt (leftover from the first batch) overnight and proceeded with the mixing. Of course I didn’t remember not to add all the liquids upfront and since the dough did indeed seem stiff, I was generous with water too. Also, as I didn’t recall that gluten had to be fully developed (improved mix) before the dough was set to ferment, I did my usual short mix (usual when mixing by machine, that is, as I normally hand-mix) and called it a day (see Modern Baking magazine for more info on the various mixing methods).
To add insult to injury, I baked with steam. Which means that the breads were not only gummy from over-hydration and under-mixing but they also burst open in the oven! Some people have bad hair days, others bad bread days! Others still (like me) have both…

Despite the gummy crumb, the bread is actually okay toasted and we are half-way through the second loaf. But still…
Not to be deterred, I tried again last week: I soaked a humongous amount of spelt berries (enough for three two-loaves bakes) and decided to follow Larry’s example and not to drain the grain at the twelve-hour mark. But a baker’s life is full of surprises: at the twenty-four hour mark, the berries had barely moved. So much for spelt being a quick sprouter! I guess it all depends where you live and what the season is. I live in the American Northwest and temperatures in my house aren’t exactly balmy in early December. It took all of 48 hours before the berries were tender enough for the endosperm (the white stuff) to start coming out (it had been way faster in early October when I had made my first attempt and of course even faster in Chicago in late June).
I knew the sponge would keep well in the fridge, so I wasn’t worried on that score. But the 24-hour delay had thrown off my baking schedule so that the berries reached their peak on the morning I was due to watch my fifteen-month old grand-daughter while her mom was running errands and keeping doctors’ appointments and so forth. I don’t know if you have ever baked with a toddler around but believe me, it has its own constraints. Lily being the ninth grand-child, I knew it from experience. So I waited and hoped that the berries would too. I was concerned though because when I took SFBI‘s Whole Grains workshop in San Francisco back in 2009, Keith Giusto had forcefully underlined the fact that if you saw even the beginning of a germ on the sprouted grain, then the enzyme activity was too far along and you might just as well throw everything out and start again. Accordingly I didn’t dare leave the berries in the water a minute longer than necessary and I drained and rinsed them before the baby arrived.
A few hours later when my baking day actually started, the berries still looked pretty much the same and I was relieved. We ground them (a team effort in my house), I packed two one-kilo ziploc bags which I put in the freezer and started the mixing process with the remainder. This time I did everything by the book. I still had to add a bit more water than the first time to get the proper consistency but I was careful to hold it off until after the addition of oil and honey. I mixed to improved and got a nice gluten window. The dough fermented for about 90 minutes at 80°F/27°C in the little countertop proofer (truly a welcome tool in my part of the world in the winter) then, once divided in the two pans, proofed for one hour at room temperature (I had the oven on so the room had warmed up a bit). I remembered not to steam. The bread came out just as I hoped it would and the best part is that Lily loves it! Baking with her will have to wait a bit but baking for her sure carries its own reward: she is already a true bread head.

The following recipe is based on SFBI’s and Larry’s formula, slightly adapted.

Ingredients (for two 800 g-loaves)
Sponge

93 g whole spelt flour (I used freshly milled)
79 g water
1.9 g salt
1.9 g malt
0.5 g yeast

Final dough

877 g sprouted spelt berries, ground in a meat grinder or a food processor
292 g whole spelt flour (I used freshly milled)
77 g water, divided
93 g raisins, briefly soaked and pureed to a slurry
19 g salt
12 g instant yeast
47 g honey
23 g vegetable oil
175 g sponge (all of the sponge)

Method

This time, except for the fact that I drained my berries earlier than he did his and consequently had to add more water and I held off with the oil and honey, I followed Larry’s directions to a tee.

The Sprouted Spelt Bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting.

*Frank Sally who teaches at SFBI and with whom I had the pleasure and privilege of taking not only Baking with Ancient Grains at WheatStalk but also Artisan I and Artisan II in San Francisco is all set to open his own bakery, La Fournée, in Berkeley, CA, at the beginning of the year. Take a look at the photos already posted on the website and even if you don’t personally know Frank for the amazing artisan baker he is, you’ll understand why I can’t wait to go and visit!

Christine Ferber’s Beraweka

I already knew Christine Ferber for a master confiturière (jam-maker). I have her book, Mes confitures (now available in English), which I consider my jam bible. I do own a handful of other jam books accumulated over the years but if I were to be sentenced to a desert island and could only take one with me, hers would be the one: the flavor combinations are spectacular and the recipes spot on. I also like the fact that the book is organized by season. Needless to say, in my part of the world, the chapters that get the most mileage are summer and fall but if the above-mentioned desert island involved a tropical clime, I wouldn’t mind putting the winter chapter to the test (hello, pineapple, banana and coconut jam!).
What I didn’t know and learned from my favorite French radio food podcast (in an episode broadcast live from Strasbourg a year ago and available on the web until September 2014) is that Christine Ferber is also a celebrated pâtissière–chocolatière-confiseuse (pastry-chef, chocolate maker and confectioner), that she owns a pâtisserie (pastry-shop) near Colmar in the Alsace region of France and that every year she makes a sumptuous traditional Alsatian holiday bread, the Beraweka, also known as Beerawecka or Bierawecka or Birewecke.
The origins of the bread (traditionally enjoyed at Christmas with a glass of vin chaud – hot mulled wine -, Gewürztraminer or Riesling vendange tardive (late harvest Riesling) upon returning home from midnight mass) are a bit unclear: some believe Beraweka to be as old as Alsace itself (Beera meaning “pear” and Wecka “bread” in Alsatian) while others think it was brought to the area by the once vibrant Jewish community as a traditional Passover dessert (bere meaning Pessa’h in Yiddish). In the Jewish version, it requires plenty of dried fruit but no pears and it remains unleavened.
There seem to be as many recipes as there are spellings for Beraweka: some call for dried apples; some require scalding all the dried fruit before soaking it in kirsch; some replace almonds with hazelnuts. The variations are endless. In Christine Ferber’s village of Niedermorschwihr, the bread is traditionally made at home from a recipe handed down from mother to daughter since the sixteenth century. She feels very fortunate because her fellow villagers still honor the age-old tradition of bringing their holiday breads to the baker for baking, which means that each December she gets to experience many different Berawekas.
Winters can be long and harsh in Alsace and drying fruit has always been a favorite way of making sure summer bounty would remain available throughout the cold and dark months. Ferber says she starts drying pears from nearby orchards in August. She chooses barely ripe sweet pears, cuts them in half, removes the core, and cuts eight slices out of each half. She puts these slices on racks in the oven and lets them dry for eight hours at 70°F/158°C. She stores the dried fruit in a dry spot away from the light. She also dries her own questches (damson plums).
Christine shared her recipe with the audience. I have translated it below, with some modifications. Many Alsatian Beraweka recipes use regular bread dough. Christine’s uses brioche dough. Since the amount of dough is minimal (just enough for the fruit to stick together), the bread never dries out and keeps forever. Christine says she still has some at home that she made five years ago. I wasn’t planning on making brioche, so I used a bit of levain-based sifted flour dough I had just proofed for another recipe. It turned out just fine. I doubt I’ll have enough left over to test the five-year shelf life though…
Christine also uses two different kinds of anise when I only had one sort: rather than using more of that one, I replaced the other one by a good pinch of mixed baking spices. Finally since there were no pictures of the Beraweka on the podcast’s webpage and I couldn’t find attractive ones elsewhere on the web, I didn’t know what it was supposed to look like. Looks-wise, mine certainly didn’t end up like a winner but when I bit into a slice, I felt transported as by magic to a faraway place and time that tasted just as Christmas does in dreams.

Pierre Hermé, the renowned pastry chef and macaron all-time wizard, has been friends with Christine Ferber for more than forty years (his mom is from the same village). According to him, her Beraweka is one of the five products that should be on everyone’s bucket list (he didn’t actually use the expression “bucket list” but he did say it was one of five products everyone should taste at least once in his or her lifetime). I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to Niedermorschwihr but at least I have Christine’s recipe and now so do you. Christine said it herself, the bread really isn’t difficult to make. It only requires a bit of time and patience. As for another Alsatian Christmas favorite, the Stollen, she said the best she has ever had was Pierre Hermé’s (who got the recipe from his own mother).

Ingredients (for two breads)
(Note: Christine actually makes four 250 g-breads with this recipe. Since I didn’t soak the pears in water, I ended up with a lighter”dough”which I decided to divide in two)

100 g dried pears (Christine soaks hers for 24 hours in 500 g hot water. See Note, Method, step 1)
100 g dried plums, pitless (in the absence of Damson plums, I used California dried plums, also known as prunes)
100 g dried figs (I used small black mission figs)
100 g dried apricots (I used unsulphured ones)
100 g raisins
50 g kirsch (to which I added another 50 g for a total of 100 g)
50 g candied lemon, slivered (home-made would be preferable to store-bought and certainly closer quality-wise to what Christine has available to her in Alsace but it is an extra-step and if it prevents you from giving the bread a chance, it isn’t worth it. I used candied orange and lemon that my friends from Tree-Top Baking kindly gave me. Next year if I get my act together early enough, I might try making my own)
50 g candied orange, slivered (same remark)
40 g walnuts, roughly chopped
40 g almonds, peeled (mine were pre-sliced)
5 g green anise (I used regular ground anise seed)
5 g baking spice (a mixture of cinnamon, mace, anise and cardamom) (Ferber uses ground anise seed)
100 g brioche dough (or any other bread dough you have on hand), divided in tiny pieces
walnuts and almonds for decoration (I skipped that step)

Method: (the bread is made over three days but requires minimal intervention until the third day)

On the first day, scald the pears and let them soak overnight (Note: I did that and my pears -which were fairly tender to begin with – ended up way too soft). So, as an alternative, if your dried pears are almost tender enough to be eaten straight out of the bag, just slice them into slivers on the second day and add them to the bowl with the other fruit
Soak the raisins in the kirsch and let them macerate overnight
On the second day, sliver the figs, apricots and plums. Put these slivers together with the pears and the raisins in a large bowl
Add the candied lemon and orange and leave to macerate overnight, covered (that’s when I added the extra 50 g of kirsch since I wasn’t using the softened pears)
On the third day, add the spices, the walnuts, the almonds and the little pieces of dough
Mix until everything sticks together
Pre-heat oven to 300°F/150°C
Wet your hands and shape the breads as small bâtards
Set on a parchment-paper baking sheet and bake for one hour (Christine didn’t mention proofing but I didn’t feel comfortable going straight from mixing to baking. So I set the baking sheet inside a tightly closed clear plastic bag and gave it an hour. I could see no appreciable difference in the size of the breads but maybe the levain still worked a bit of its magic)
Bake for one hour
Cool on a rack (Christine doesn’t say to glaze the bread but I did. When it came out of the oven, I brushed it all over with a bit of confectioner’s sugar diluted in two tablespoons of kirsch and a drop of boiling water. It made it all shiny)
When cool, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and wait at least a week before eating
Enjoy!

Pre-soaking

Post-soaking

Pre-baking

Post-baking

The Beraweka is going to Yeastspotting, Susan’s weekly round-up of breads.

More info: If you read French, you might enjoy this interview of Christine Ferber for Le Journal des femmes).

Larry’s Sprouted Spelt: A Felicitous Case of Mistaken Identity

As is often the case with the best things in life, it all started with a mistake. Larry Lowary of Tree-Top Baking on Whidbey Island, WA, was stirring the grain he was soaking for his weekly bake of sprouted wheat bread (a customers’ favorite) when he noticed that the berries were already germinating when they should have been barely waking up. He checked the bag and realized he had sprouted spelt instead of wheat (spelt sprouts much faster). It was too late to go back, so he ground the grain, mixed the dough and baked. Other than the fact that it tended to crumble a bit under the knife, he thought the bread had turned out pretty well and as I happened to be visiting the next day, he kindly gave me a loaf to take home.
Eager to have a taste, I sliced it open that very night and was somewhat surprised not to find it as tasty as I thought it would be. Spelt is one of my favorite grains and I expected more depth. But my disappointment turned to wonder when I had another slice at breakfast the next morning. The flavor had set in (the crumb had probably dried out just enough to concentrate the taste) and the bread was all I had been looking forward to and more. I immediately begged Larry to please make the same mistake again and invite me to come and watch.
Not that I hadn’t already seen sprouted berries turned into loaves… When I took Whole Grains at SFBI with Didier Rosada a few years ago, Keith Giusto came and demonstrated the making of his popular Power Bread (which involved sprouted wheat, required the addition of almonds and walnuts and was marvelously sinful). We also made a simple sprouted whole wheat pan bread. The latter recipe is the one which Larry had adapted for use at his bakery. I had never made it at home since I took the class because I didn’t own a grinder until very recently. A refresher’s course was therefore most welcome.
Between one thing and another (notably a very busy market season on Larry’s side and school vacation and grandchildren on mine), a few months elapsed between the day Larry made his propitious mistake and the day I finally boarded the ferry to watch him make it again. It had been early summer then. Now it was early fall. But the boat ride and the island were as lovely as ever…

When I arrived at the bakery, Larry was ready for me. The only things he had done ahead of time were to soak the grain in water for 26 hours (stirring every eight hours or so) and to mix the sponge (which had to ferment overnight). For good measure, he had sprouted spelt AND wheat (he had soaked the wheat for two days), so that we could see how spelt compared. From the photo below, it is clear that it performed very well in terms of rise and plumpness. But even though spelt is probably my favorite by a tiny margin, I also love the taste and texture of sprouted wheat. Something happens during sprouting which not only greatly boosts the nutritional value of the grain but also maximizes its flavor. Heady stuff for a bread lover!

The process

Mixing raisins and water in the food processor

Rinsing and draining the sprouted grain

Grinding up the grain

Combining sponge, salt and ground-up grains and starting to mix

Mixing, checking gluten development and taking dough temperature

Fermenting and folding

Done!

Dividing, pre-shaping and shaping

Proofed

Baking

Finished!

The Formula (an SFBI original, as adapted by Larry)

Ingredients
Sponge

Flour – 100 %
Water – 85 %
Instant dry yeast – 1.5 %
Salt – 2 %
Malt – 2 %

Final dough

Sprouted spelt – 80 %
Whole Spelt Flour – 20 %
Water – 5.25 %
Gluten (optional) – 2 %
Instant dry yeast – 1 %
Salt – 1.65 %
Raisins, soaked and puréed – 8 %
Honey – 4 %
Canola oil – 2 %
Sponge – 15 %

Method

The original formula called for raisin juice concentrate which is both very difficult to find and super expensive. Larry’s solution is to add warm water to raisins in the food processor and make a slurry. It works just fine. The bread can probably be made without it but as Larry explained, raisins have mold-inhibiting properties. They have been used for years to prolong bread’s shelf-life
It is best to sprout more than needed as sprouted grain can be kept in the freezer (scale the quantity you need in ziploc bags and take it out as needed 24 hours ahead of time)
If whole spelt flour isn’t available, white spelt can be used instead. The crumb will look a little bit lighter
If the sprouted grain has been kept in the fridge, use hot water
The sponge can be made up to four days ahead and kept in the fridge
The water percentage is very low because the sprouted grain is soaking wet. In case you need or want to drain the grain ahead of time, you will need to adjust the water amount
Mix ground-up sprouted grain with all of the liquids for two or three minutes on first speed, then add all the dry ingredients and mix again on first speed until desired dough consistency is reached (4 to 5 minutes)
Then mix on second speed for 5 to 7 minutes
Desired dough temperature: 80°F/27°C
Ferment for one hour
Scale at 800 g
Pre-shape as hard as possible in a tight roll
Shape as a tight batard
Proof for about one hour at 85°F/29°C
Bake for 50 minutes at 400°F/204°C (or lower depending on your oven as the raisin slurry and the honey put the dough at risk of burning at high heat)
You know that the bread is done when the sides are brown and no longer pliable
Enjoy!

Thank you, Larry, for being such a patient instructor and a wonderful source of information and inspiration, not to mention a very dear friend! I am currently sprouting some spelt and hope to be able to bake tomorrow. I’ll report on the experience as soon as I get a chance and post the ingredient amounts for just two loaves.

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