I checked the clock and added time carefully before I tackled the next recipe in Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. It was nearly 4:30 when I started, and since the recipe said the dough required five risings, I wasn't sure it would be done in time for dinner. It took my fingers and toes to calculate, but I decided all would be well if we didn't eat early.
I was wrong.
We finished the last of the Cuban Bread (discussed in my last post) yesterday, so I figured I was due to make more. The next recipe in the white breads section of Breads was Egg Harbor Bread. This Amish bread got its name not because of eggs in the dough, but because it was a specialty of the Butter and Eggs baker in Egg Harbor on the shores of Lake Michigan.
The recipe's intro points out that most breads rise two times, while this one is supposed to have a good texture and lightness from five risings. The first one is 30 minutes and the following four are each 15 minutes. What I missed in reading the description was that there's actually a sixth rising in the pans! The last one is for 50 minutes.
That's six little miracles of Nature for two loaves of bread. I told you last time that I'd tell you why I think bread rising is always a miracle. See, I used to be an utter failure as a bread baker. Way back when in the winter of '92 when I was a newlywed living in Kaltag on the banks of the Yukon River, I really wanted to bake my own bread. It was homemade or Wonder white out there in the bush. We'd gotten a bread maker as a wedding present, and that was wonderful, but I felt like it was cheating. I wanted to be able to make my own from scratch, kneaded with my own two hands.
I tried over and over. And over and over I made bricks. The ingredients were the same as I use now - yeast, water, flour, butter or oil, salt - but the results were in no way the same. You could have built an outhouse with my bread.
At the same time, I was teaching a home ec class for the junior and senior high school students. I wanted them to learn to bake bread, so I implored Goldman, wife of one of the other teachers who made perfect, lofty, airy bread to teach them. As I watched her and listened to her, I realized my problem: I was mixing my flour in too fast. I needed to take my time and thoroughly stir in each cup of flour before I added another. I needed to knead in the remaining flour a little at a time.
It was a miracle! I employed this new technique and lo and behold! I had bread that rose!
The Egg Harbor bread recipe starts with mixing the yeast with three cups of flour, and then adding the water (with sugar, salt, and butter mixed in) at little at a time. Once it it is thoroughly mixed, you add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time. Slowly, slowly. Mix well after each addition and miracles will occur.
It's now 5:30 and the dough is on its third beautiful rising. Thanks to that last long rising in the pans, there's no way it will be ready by the time I want dinner, but that's okay. Fresh, hot bread with real butter will make for a decadent dessert. I'll wait to post this blog until it's done and I can share a photo and final report. Fingers crossed that I won't have to retract anything I've said so far.
2 hours, 45 minutes later
Eh, they're not my favorite loaves. They're very tasty, and the crusty is nice and chewy. They have a lovely shine from being brushed with an egg and milk mixture. And after determining during the last two bakes that my oven is too hot, I reduced the temperature by 25 degrees and they were still done at the lower end of the 30-40 minute baking time. The loaves are a little flat, though, despite rising for the full 50 minutes. I think the problem, however, was that they over-rose too early during that time because I'd turned the oven on to "warm" when I put the pans in to rise, but then forgot to turn it off after a few minutes. I think it was too hot. I might need to have a do-over on this recipe.
Mmm, I just popped the last bite of crunchy heel slathered in butter into my mouth. Sigh.
