Fine, fine, I confess: I've been a bad blog writer. It's been 18 days since my last post and I haven't told you anything about the last four recipes I've baked from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. Please forgive me.
Honestly, while I'm still enjoying baking all the recipes, I start to wonder how much I can really say about baking water, flour, salt, and yeast.
And then a recipe like Weissbrot Mit Kümmel comes along. This German white bread (Weiss - white, brot - bread) is baked with (mit) caraway seeds (Kümmel) and was by default not a favorite of mine. This is the second recipe I've tried that includes caraway seeds and I still don't like them. Anyway, that's not what made this recipe memorable. It started out innocently enough with the usual ingredients (plus eggs) mixed and kneaded. Then I read the step describing the first rising: Fill the bowl with water (70°) to cover the dough by 2". Huh? What? Somehow, this unique rising situation allows the bread to ferment as it rises, creating, I assume, a special flavor. The photo to the left shows that the dough actually did rise as described, but doesn't give you any idea of just how icky that wet dough was to handle. It was a little sticky and had a wet, spongy, almost rotten feeling. Ugh. Once patted dry and rekneaded a bit, it returned to normal and the bread was lovely, except for those pesky caraway seeds. I don't think there was any particular fermented flavor, however.
The other recipes I failed to share with you were for Feather Bread (two long, French bread-like loaves), Poppy Seed Bubble Loaf (aka Monkey Bread, a pull-apart bread but made with poppy seeds rather than cinnamon and sugar - I like the sweeter version better), and Old Order Amish Bread (wonderful loaves perfect for sandwiches).
I honestly did mean to write about these all, but inertia and laziness overcame me. I'm back though, because I just couldn't resist bringing your attention to something called Zeppelin Bread. It's not nearly as exciting as it sounds: no real Zeppelins were used in its making. It gets its name because the final loaves resemble Zeppelins in shape. I've included photos of both my bread and a World War II lighter-than-air ship so you can make your own assessment.
The bread itself was fairly normal in terms of ingredients. The first difference was that the initial flour, water, yeast sponge was left to ferment at room temperature (but not under water) for three hours. Kneading and rising thereafter were typical. While baking, a bowl of wood ash was to be put in the oven to impart "an authentic baked-on-the-hearth flavor to the bread." It just so happens that we had a campfire a couple of nights ago, so I had wood ash available to me. I suppose I noticed a subtle aroma from the ashes while the oven was hot, but I can't say I notice anything in the flavor. What I do really, really like is that the bread was basted four times before and during baking with salt water. I love the chewy, salty crust that resulted. (I had to stop right then to take another bite. Mmmm.)
I have to go now. I need to slice another piece off of this loaf. But before I go, I'll promise again to try to do better about writing about the breads I'm baking. A sneak peek ahead told me that the next one uses a cooked potato starter....
