Bread Number 101: Rye, My Mistake

I've made this bread four times and it tastes like a brick. Hamelman, the author, and lead baker at the King Arthur Flour Company (and former owner of a bakery in Vermont), suggests waiting to add the salt until the final dough phase, which means preceded by the vast majority of the fermentation time. This is unusual. Bread dough recipes uniformly advise throwing in the salt prior to the main fermentation, rising period.  

Hamelman has various dark rye recipes that go from 65-90 percent. We liked the 70 percent okay, nothing to write home about, but the dark dark rye of the 80-90 percent end of the range will not become either a household favorite or earn a place on the roster of breads I make frequently.

At 89 percent rye, one should not expect a light fluffy bread anyway; still, as far as taste, this one was a loser from the start. You have to actually like a dismally dark rye to eat this one more than once, My husband said that it tastes like a Russian Rye bread, so it is recognizable as a bread.

If there is one thing in its favor, other than being healthy, this is a good bread for a teleworker as there are four stages over the course of two days, with waiting periods of various lengths. Please be careful, however; this should be considered a three-day bread as the bread should rest for 24 hours after baking. This is not a Monday morning bread unless one begins on Friday. 

Ingredients

261g Rye flour

50g Bread flour

15g Malt

215g Water

6g Salt

Remember to add the salt. I was also going to try soaking the rye flour in the water at particular stages preceding the fermentation periods, the better to eek out more flavor, some sweetness, from the rye. I got busy and I forgot, but I would be curious if that singular, significant change would make a difference.

Day One

Good for starting in the afternoon and letting rest overnight, unless it is wintertime, in which case that second stage might go more toward the outer edge of 24 hours.

Stage 1

4g rye flour 

4g water

4g starter (one could precede the building of this dough with building a rye starter, but at a measly total of six grams total, I decided to use regular wheat-based starter)

Mix, cover, and rest for 5-6 hours. I found that the waiting period of the recipe was good for a warm kitchen or a summertime kitchen, but too brief for a winter kitchen's colder temperatures.

Stage 2

Rye starter from Stage 1

2g of starter - optional to add a bit more starter

50g rye flour

39g water

Mix, cover, and rest for 15-24 hours. One can see fermentation activity almost immediately, though this is not the bubbly exuberance of a wheat build.

Day Two

Need a half day, but only about two hours when you have to return to the dough with any frequency.

Stage 3

Rye starter from Stage 2

138g rye flour

138g water

Mix, cover, and rest for 3-4 hours. 

Stage 4

Rye starter from Stage 3

15g malt

261g rye flour

50g bread flour (or adjust based on the percentage of rye you prefer) 

215g water

6-7g salt (Hamelman recommends a baker's percentage of 1.8, but I generally prefer 2-3 percent)

Mix, cover, and rest for 10-20 minutes.

Baking preparation

Shape the dough and let rest, covered, for one hour. For the same hour, preheat oven to 490 degrees.

Put loaf in oven. I use a covered loaf pan for this one as it doesn't hold its shape well, but it was okay the time I made a boule. Reduce oven temperature to 480 degrees.

Ten minutes later, reduce oven temperature to 410 degrees. Total baking time will be 50-60 minutes. 

Let the bread stand untouched for 24 hours. The flavor will supposedly deepen. I did this and I still was not fond of the taste. Not my cup of tea.

Bread Number 102: German Rye with Sauerkraut

You might be wondering why this post is about Bread #102 and where Bread #101 could possibly be. After a year of intermittent attempts at that #101, a very dense rye, I am resolved to try it for a fourth time. Why has this taken more than a year? During the pandemic, when everyone was baking and becoming a sourdough enthusiast, my flour mill broke, followed by a several months-long back of forth episodes of shipping it, getting it fixed - for free - and then very quickly breaking again, I could hardly motivate myself to move on to new bread experiments, Also the day job became horrible, but that's another story.

Rye and sauerkraut - a match made in heaven

Yes, this bread recipe includes sauerkraut. I have a particularly good source at my farmer's market;  the vendor can be found at such markets throughout the DC area. Pick up some pickles as well at Number 1 Sons if you visit the nation's capital.  Lots of native New Yorkers scoop up the sour pickles, but the kimchi is also popular. Back to the bread: The sauerkraut is not overwhelming and, when combined with a very long rise, lends some depth to the sour taste, which I like, though I'll admit that might not be for everyone. I will say that my husband kept talking about how well this bread lasted, with toasting, throughout the week.

I love a nice long dough rise, a recipe that I can't help changing, and a good sour bread that turns out well, even better the second time around. I adapted the German Rye recipe from Brother Juniper's Bread Book to be completely naturally leavened and to rely on stretch and folds instead of kneading. I made this bread twice, with the same exact mix of ingredients each time.

Ingredients

137g coarse rye flour (1 cup)

352g bread flour (3 cups, less 50 grams to attribute for the starter)

3g caraway seeds (I added three times more than the recipe dictated, which was 1 teaspoon, or 1 gram.)

52g sauerkraut - Make sure to drain first (1/2 cup)

5g salt (The recipe does not recommend adding any due to the presence of the sauerkraut, but I did not think that non-commercial sauerkraut would be as salty as the jarred stuff from the supermarket.)

100g starter (wheat, not rye)

272g water (I added approximately 100g more than recommended because the dough was too crumbly, not at all cohesive.)

Dough preparation

Measure 1/2 cup of sauerkraut and set aside in a colander to drain while measuring the other ingredients. 

Mix dry ingredients - flour, caraway seeds, and salt - together and mix. 

Add the starter and water to the dry blend. No need to mix yet.

Weigh and add the 52g of sauerkraut. Mix everything together well. Cover.

Do three or four stretch and folds. Each stretch and fold should be separated by about 15-25 minutes. The dough will become more cohesive each time. My first try of this bread needed four stretch and folds, while my second try was just fine at three. 

Wait and wait

Each time I made this bread, and both times were in warm weather, the dough needed more than 18 hours to rise. The second try clocked in at over 22 hours and, frankly, I could have waited more, but I wanted to get the bread done in time for a normal bedtime. The recipe in the book only takes 90 minutes, but that is with 1.5 tablespoons of instant yeast. 

An 18-24 hour rest is fine with me. No need to babysit the dough; return to it the next morning or evening. In fact, this would probably make a better morning dough so that one has more wiggle room. Just return to the kitchen the next morning, say 21 or 22 hours after those stretch and folds are done, and the dough will be ready - or almost ready - to proceed.

Shaping and baking preparation

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

On a wet counter, I shaped the dough into an ovally rectangle and let it rest in a greased loaf pan, covered. I cover with another loaf pan and I bake that way as well. The metal loaf pans can go right in the oven with the dough. While the oven heats, let the dough rest for 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Reduce heat after 20-30 minutes to 350 degrees.

Before putting dough in the oven, uncover, sprinkle some water on top and then more caraway seeds. Cover the loaf pan. I use the second loaf pan for that and then no ice, water, etc., are necessary for a good steam to turn that nice dough into spectacular bread. Baked for 54 minutes, with nine minutes at the end uncovered. 

Taste

The bread is a bit sour, but the hearty, coarse rye and the caraway seeds balance the sourness. Wonderful! Husband says this is in the top ten.

Bread Number 100: Adapted River Cottage Sourdough

Self-awareness is a good quality and never more so than when realizing that a professional male baker's hands doing 10 minutes of kneading is not the equivalent of 10 minutes of kneading by a woman who needs a device or a strong man to open every jar. I have various tricks when it comes to opening jars, but my hands are never enough.

My failure to either almost never adequately knead or to have the patience to adequately knead is why I love stretch and folds, which offer great results without the time, effort, and anxiety of kneading.

Significant Adaptations

The first time I made the River Cottage Bread Handbook Sourdough Bread, I kneaded and the resulting bread prompted my husband to say that it was the worst bread in a long time; damning statement that it was decidedly mediocre. [Read bread book reviews. The River Cottage Bread Book is listed under Advanced to Way Beyond Me.] On the second try, I did stretch and folds; the bread was much better than the first, but still way far off from the favorites.

When I switched to stretch and folds instead of kneading, I also decided to get rid of the guidance to do a once-an-hour degas to the dough.

Pretty Straightforward Ingredients and Instructions 

Sponge

120g starter
272g water
250g bread flour

Mix, cover, and let sit overnight and beyond for 14 hours in a cool, but not cold, kitchen.

Dough

300g turkey red whole wheat flour, which is almost white
12g salt

Mix and cover.

Four stretch and folds, each 15 minutes apart. Could easily do stretch and folds up to 30 minutes apart.

Let rise for five and two-thirds hours.

Prep and Baking

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

I shaped the dough into an oblong shape. Cover for one hour while the oven heats. I also preheated the top of an obling la cloche on a baking stone, but one can easily use loaf pans instead for similar results with a slightly different shape.

Baking

• 10 minutes at 500 degrees.
• Instructions say to decrease according to color of the dough at 10 minutes. Mine was still pale, so I only decreased the oven temperature to 400 degrees. I baked for another 26 minutes and it could have been a couple less.

And ...

Good bread with a nice oven spring. Nice taste, but nothing amazing. Can do an easier recipe with results that are as good or better.

The bread appears white even though I used about 50 percent whole wheat, probably because the fine turkey red flour is incredibly whitish despite being whole grain.

Bread Number 99: Grumpiness Lends Itself to Honesty

Maybe I am asking too much, but to me a recipe should have actual amounts. Without amounts or ranges - with advice about how to select within the range - how am I supposed to know if I am on the correct route or not? Advice like "adding additional flour or water as necessary to make dough" tells me nothing. And rough drawings are fine as artwork, but they fail as directions.

I'll just be frank; bread recipes as a rule should not assume that we all live in centrally heated or air-conditioned homes or have professional kitchens and equipment. There should be instructions that, like dough, vary with the temperature, and accomodate the spectrum of the seasons. Many recipes offer instructions for both hand mixing and kneading and electric mixers, so why not also account for the relative warmth or coldness of one's kitchen?

I Am Lazy, So Cater to ME 

Desem Bread, basically a sourdough, from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book is not a recipe for me. I'm getting impatient with volume measures; I much prefer weight. I also don't prefer, since I am in an all-out grouchy mood, instructions that require that I go back to some unspecified page - that I must go and find - to determine the relative moisture/viscosity of the starter in the recipe; so that I can then adjust based on the consistency of my starter. If you are using a starter recipe as a base, then please just insert the page number. The author also did not state what kind of flour.

Now that I've been harsh, I have to say that the kneading directions are good. I generally do stretch and folds instead because I get much better results with a whole lot less effort. I made this bread twice to get out some kinks and provide a better set of instructions.

Let's Get to the Dough

I refined the recipe to do an autolyse and better elicit and deepen the taste of the whole wheat flour. I also added 67 percent more flour than in the original recipe because the consistency was unworkable, more of a batter than a dough, though, the recipe did say to add more as needed.

Autolyse
227g. starter
502g whole wheat flour
358g water

Mix well and cover. Let rest for 20 minutes.

Dough
12g salt
Autolyse mix after 20-30 minute rest

Mix, cover, and let rest for 30 minutes. I kneaded, but it was very wet and unmanageable; definitely not amenable to doing a stretch and fold. I kneaded for 10 minutes, let sit for 15 minutes, and kneaded again for 5 minutes. I felt like the bread from this dough would be terrible, so I went on with the day's plans instead of catering solely to the needs of the dough.

Rising Time Varies Greatly by Season

The first time I made this dough, it was in a cold mid-winter kitchen, so I was patient and allowed the dough to rise for 20 hours. That's hours of monitoring occasionally and second-guessing one's self. The second time I made this dough, it was also quite cold and I let it rise for 23 hours. It likely would have been seven hours on a May day when it stays at 65-70 degrees at night and warms up even to 80 degrees during the day. The recipe said three to four hours; maybe on a hot midsummer's day. But when you add 67 percent more flour, you are in the territory of moving from adjusting a recipe to creating a new recipe.

Both times, the dough remained wet, viscous, jiggly, and unamenable to manipulation. This was a dough that required prayer to whoever, maybe the bread gods, or G-d's bread angels, or just the universe.

Loaf Pan Because This Baby Has No Shape on its Own

How does one shape a wet blob that spreads instantly? That is what loaf pans were invented for. I spray mine, but definitely at least grease them.

Grease the loaf pan; as much as possible shape the dough and put it in the loaf pan. I cover with another loaf pan and I bake this way as well. It's also an easy, cheap way to generate the steam to bake bread without investing in a baking stone or a la cloche. Much less anxiety producing or dangerous than adding water or ice to a casserole pan when your oven is 500 degrees. Loaf pans work very nicely.

Oven Temperature Timing

Turn on oven to 500 degrees when dough is placed in loaf pan for its final rise. Let the dough sit covered - and allow the oven to heat - for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. [An alternative to covering the loaf pan with another loaf pan is the top of an oblong la cloche. One must preheat the top of the oblong la cloche when preheating the oven. I have done this many times and it works well.]

Prep for Oven and Baking

Sprinkle water over dough. Do slashes on the dough. Place loaf pan in oven and cover with another loaf pan.

This would be a fine dough for sprinkling sesame or flax seeds on top, but those are purely optional.

Baking

• Bake at 500 degrees for 10 minutes.
• At 10 minutes, decrease oven temperature to 450 degrees.
• After 15 minutes, decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees. My bread took another 32 minutes.
• Total baking time of 47 minutes.

Voila

Nice oven spring and solidly good taste. Was pretty sour due to long rising time.

Long Pause Explained

The hiatus is over and I did a first try at bread #99 yesterday. It was a fun journey of anxiety, like any new bread venture.

So why the long pause? In a nutshell, overwhelming work that took up all of my creative energy, and expressing myself in painting instead of taking time to think about and search out new doughs to make and bake. But mostly the long pause was prompted by a death.

A couple of years ago, a friend of ours took ill, seriously ill, and spent his last months in a major hospital. We saw his improvement, giving hope to a life outside, followed by a slow decline and his passing. This was not a sweet 95 year old who had lived a full life. This was a man who left children who were not quite even beginning their own independent lives.

To respect a person who is no longer here to speak for himself, I will not rehash the terrible details of misdeeds of one who has passed away.  This death shook my faith in human nature, in the mercy of the universe, and in the idea of a higher power.

Behind the curtain

It was as if I had learned the terrible secret of life, that there is no justice, no guarantees, perhaps no kindly force protecting us.

Maybe it is all luck and careening toward the abyss, whatever we do.

So I baked as if on autopilot. I grew my starter; I baked whole wheat and rye breads, mostly. I did go through a rosemary phase when I mashed up rosemary springs into almost every dough. It is a sublime addition, but only if it is freshly grown. Dry rosemary from a little store-bought spice jar brings nothing to the table.

Up to My Limit at the Peter Principle

And work seemed to be like a hamster wheel with an ever-increasing rate of speed. What do you know, but it worked, at least according to some conventional standard of success in which one gets promoted, is rewarded with a raise, and is confronted with many congratulations. Really?

I liked my work until I was promoted. Now I am a juggling performer with tons of balls in the air, nice administrative balls of proposals, contracts, funders to satisfy, and TIME in the form of deadlines looming larger and larger as they approach. As the deadlines get ever closer, my dreams and ambitions appear further away.

To be resolved when I give myself time to ponder and courage to move in whatever direction, perhaps on some unpaved path.

Bread for fun

I made a challah for the Super Bowl. Makes me respect those amazing artists who bake and decorate in the Great British Baking Show. I am not quite addicted to the show, but I do enjoy it. For me, bread is decidedly not about looks, but the accomplishments of that show's bakers are mesmerizing indeed.

To brag about this meagre accomplishment, there were actual humans who recognized that this was indeed a challah football. Even those who did not make the visual connection - mostly those who never watch football - enjoyed the bread.

Next up: Bread #99, but after I try it one more time, this time with less anxiety and a little fresh rosemary.

Bread Number 98: Oatmeal Sandwich Bread

It is two years since I last wrote and I have been making bread almost every week, though not new breads. More on that hiatus in another post.

Bread 98 is light on the whole grains at about one third of the total flour, but it does have lots of oats and, every time I have made this dough, a very long rise, almost or up to 24 hours, that gives a nice mellow sour flavor that I love. I've baked this bread three times for us, and a few more times if you count breads to send home with a friend and one of my daughters. It is a crowd pleaser.

The autolyse takes no time to put together and, following that, the dough sits forever after two stretch and folds. Quite easy.

Total ingredients
175g whole wheat flour (125g for autolyse and 50g that go into the dough)
91g oats (I used fine oats that can be used to make a quick oatmeal)
313g water - only spring water, never tap water
100g starter
13g honey
20g milk
44g olive oil
325g bread flour
11g salt

Autolyse
See the glossary if you are not familiar with the term, but it's basically a short pre-soak phase for the flour, grain, and water. If I do an autolyse, I generally let the flour and any grains soak for approximately 30 minutes. A few minutes more or less will not ruin your dough, so no need to be super diligent on this.

125g whole wheat flour
91g oats (I used fine oats that can be used to make a quick oatmeal)
313g water - only spring water, never tap water

Be careful: Not all of the whole wheat flour goes into the autolyse. Mix well and let the mixture sit for 36 minutes.

Dough
Autolyse mixture
100g starter
50g whole wheat flour
13g honey
20g milk
44g olive oil
325g bread flour
11g salt

Mix the dough together until all of the liquid is absorbed and the flour is integrated. Let sit for 20 minutes.

Stretch and folds
1. At 20 minutes, do a little kneading, just for a minute, and then a stretch and fold.
2. Wait another 15-30 minutes, whatever is convenient, and do another stretch and fold. The dough should be firm.

Cover this dough with plastic instead of something else. It tends to dry out easily.

In a winter kitchen, I have let this dough rise for up to 24 hours. The last time, during some mild winter days and nights (nights of 45 degrees Fahrenheit and days of up to 60), the dough took about 19.5 hours, and to be honest, I could have let it sit for an hour more. It was a recent Sunday evening and I just felt like baking already.

Patience please

The dough hardly rose overnight even though the kitchen was relatively warm. I did sprinkle on some water and replace the insulated, almost shower-cap cover over the bowl because there was starting to be a dry patch on the dough. It seemed to work.

I did the dent test to make sure that the dough was ready, but honestly, I always feel that there's a leap of faith in the determination that it is time to shape the dough and do a final rise before baking. I have waited until a dough looks super puffy, even post-puffy, and the breads come out pretty good anyway. When the comparison is supermarket or even farmers market bread, these are still way better.

Shaping dough and baking

One hour before baking, preheat oven to 460 degrees.

I sprinkle water on the counter, which prevents the dough from sticking when shaping it. This time, I made the oatmeal bread in a loaf pan. I do spray the loaf pan at this point with non-stick spray, then placed the shaped dough in there so that it is about the same length as the pan. Cover with plastic, or in my case, with another pan. Just make sure that the covering will not permit the dough to dry out.

Let the dough sit for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Many bakers do a dent test at this point, but, I confess, I generally do not.


Another leap of faith and I put the dough in the oven, covered, of course. I used another loaf pan that fit right on top and this worked very well. One could use a dutch oven instead or a la cloche.

At 15 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 440 degrees. Let the dough stay in the oven for another 25 minutes.

In a nutshell:
Preheat to 460 and bake at 460 for 15 minutes.
Reduce to 440 and bake for 25 minutes.
Total of 40 minutes in the oven.

Beautiful oven spring and excellent taste. A crowd pleaser.

Not About Bread: Race Matters in Brett Kavanaugh Fracas

Tale of Two Young Guys

Two young men, two similar acts of misconduct, two very different life trajectories.

Young man #1: We all know about privileged, smart, savvy Brett Kavanaugh, whose high school and college “antics” are being called alleged acts or something along the lines of youthful indiscretions that should not bring down someone who has otherwise led an exemplary life. But what allowed Kavanaugh to lead that life was a culture of white privilege that permitted room for and ignored common indiscretions of drinking, though it could have been of marijuana or cocaine use, and abuse of acquaintances and fellow students.

Young man #2: Warren White is a former client of mine, my first when I got out of law school. I defended him on appeal following his conviction for a crime that took place in 1983. I have no idea where he is now, but I suspect that he is unlikely to ever be nominated for a prominent position in the federal government and I also suspect that his behavior – if you believe, based on the scant and tainted eyewitness evidence, that he was the perpetrator – will ever be considered a youthful indiscretion. White was an African American young man from Coney Island, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, which was pretty much the opposite of Chevy Chase in the early 80s. White did not have anything like an elite private school education and he came from a family that tragic violence had struck just a few years before with the murder of his sister.

White was basically convicted of mugging a young woman at a subway station, having pulled her from behind up the stairs, and then, when the train was heard approaching the station, he ran with her purse. Though the appellate decision did not mention the fact, there was also testimony about improper, sexual, touching during the very brief incident. I won a reversal of the conviction because it was based on an illegal stop and arrest. (See People v. White, 117 A.D.2d 127, 503 N.Y.S.2d 59 (2d Dept. 1986). With no bystanders as witnesses and no previous acquaintance with the female victim, today any defense attorney worth his or her salt would insist on challenging such a flimsy and possibly tainted eyewitness identification. Before I won the case, White had been convicted following a plea of guilty and he was living in jail at a New York State correctional facility. Think Orange is the New Black, but with guys from rough neighborhoods.

Instead of being considered a mistake of youth (again, if one can even credit such a conviction), White’s permanent record includes an arrest and a felony. If I recall correctly, after our success on appeal, he pled guilty and was sentenced to time served. The incident that ruined my client’s future took about as much time as Kavanaugh’s alleged “horseplay” at a house party, yet no one will ever spend hours of investigation to prove that this one felony conviction was unconstitutional, otherwise illegal, and unfair. No one will ever ignore this felony conviction when White is filling out a form in the hopes of getting a job.

Unlike Kavanaugh, who walked away drunk and free from the house party, my former client was arrested and urged to plead guilty to get a much better deal than if he held his breath and insisted on going to trial. My client faced the discriminatory bias of the 1980s – and now – against young African American men, so he probably wisely decided against challenging the charge at trial. While Kavanaugh sat with his parents to make the choice to attend Yale and perhaps receiving a parental lecture or a passing wink about how to behave at parties or during beach week, my client was forced to decide between contesting an unfair felony charge and taking a deal that would mark him for life as a felon.

When we consider giving Kavanaugh a free pass for the antics of his youth, let us not forget that there are thousands like Warren White who might not even have been guilty and yet they are made to pay for their alleged youthful errors for their entire adult lives. These are the young men whose appeals and habeas corpus petitions arising out of criminal convictions that Brett Kavanaugh will be judging, whose lives will be significantly affected, if Kavanaugh reaches the United States Supreme Court. Will Kavanaugh be mindful of his good luck and privilege when he ponders the lives of those like White?  Will he reconsider constitutional interpretations that have perpetuated the divide between the privilege of Chevy Chase and the hard luck of Coney Island? Even the fact that Kavanaugh might have that opportunity, while someone like White never will, says everything about the work we as a nation still have ahead of us.