David Dubrow

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Breadhead Friday: Lean Artistry

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I picked up Richard Bertinet’s Dough not long ago and got some very good ideas on kneading and shaping bread dough.  His kneading process is different: you slap the dough on the counter, fold it over, pick it up, and slap it down again.  Over and over.  This puts air into the dough and helps it get the big holes you want in the simpler, lean breads (a lean bread is one that doesn’t have sugar, fat, or eggs to enrich the dough).

The epi is on the right. It’s supposed to look like a wheat sheaf

Having done breads only with my trusty KitchenAid for the last several years, I was skeptical, but willing to experiment.  My experience working with wet doughs was helpful: I knew that the soggy mess I was flopping around would eventually come together, and it did.

Great oven spring. The epi is a bit lumpy

One tool that I’d disdained as unnecessary has turned out to be vital in the process: a plastic dough scraper.  If you want to keep air in your dough and get that light, airy crumb, you need one.  It cuts without letting air out, and helps with both mixing and shaping.

I got the big holes in a baguette!

Across the board, I’m happy with the results.  The mini-baguettes, while not perfect, have great holes in the crumb, the best I’ve gotten with baguettes.  And while the fougasses may be a little clunky, they were also airy and nice to eat, and with practice, I’ll get better at them.

These fougasses are not fugazi

The breads pictured here were my own recipe: a 75%-80% hydration lean dough to ensure lightness in the crumb.  I highly recommend Dough as an excellent bread primer with plenty of good techniques, ideas, and recipes.

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Breadhead Friday: Dutch Oven Experiments

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I hauled our cast iron dutch oven out of storage, cleaned and re-seasoned it, and got it ready for some bread baking.  Baking bread in a dutch oven is simple: you preheat the dutch oven in your regular oven, put the dough in there, cover it, and bake it.  For the last few minutes of baking you take off the lid to help color the crust.  A simple Google search on dutch oven bread recipes presented variations on this one by Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery, so I gave it a try.

The crust was nice, the crumb was nice, but there was a certain flavor to it I didn’t care for, probably having to do with the overnight fermentation on the counter.  So I adapted a more tried-and-true lean bread recipe, using a cold rise in the fridge, and had much better results.

Okay, great.  What now?

My first experiment was with bacon bread.  Same lean dough recipe, perhaps a little wetter than usual, with pieces of cooked bacon added to the mixing process.  It turned out really well.  There was a faint smoky flavor throughout the loaf, and the little bacon bits added texture.  Any concerns about the salt content of the bacon affecting the yeast were unfounded: it rose just fine in the fridge.  I used the leftover dough to make pizza, which was really quite good.

Bacon dough, pre-rise

Bacon dough, after 3 days in the fridge

The baked bacon bread
Bacon bread crumb

Bacon dough pizza with chicken parm and pepperoni

Where else do we go with this?

As I leafed through a Zingerman’s catalog, I saw their mail-order breads and found my answer: Parmesan pepper bread.  If the salty bacon didn’t mess up the rise, surely a salty cheese like Parmesan wouldn’t, either.  Right?

Raw loaf in the hot dutch oven – note the pepper

Parmesan pepper boule

The crumb shot

It came out perfectly.  There’s a great, rich taste of Parmesan cheese, mixed with a pleasant, lingering heat from about two teaspoons of black pepper.  As before, I’d done nothing different in the mixing and kneading process: I just added the extra ingredients in the beginning.

No eggs, milk, or butter needed: just a straight flour-water-yeast-salt dough, plus the flavoring of your choice.

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Breadhead Friday: Pizzas I Have Known

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It’s been another extremely busy week.  Here are the highlights:

  • The novella is finished editing and has gone on to formatting.  Once again, I’ve used Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide, which is an excellent resource on formatting documents into ebooks.  It’s a somewhat lengthy process, but the results are worth it.
  • I trained myself to use GIMP to create a cover for the novella.  GIMP is powerful, easy to use, and free.  Luckily, I have some experience using Photoshop, so GIMP wasn’t terribly difficult to learn.  The cover photo was taken by me at 4:30 AM in downtown Dunedin.
  • Everyone says that unless you’re a graphic artist, you shouldn’t do your own book covers.  That’s mostly true. However, I have done professional graphic art and have experience designing both book and video covers.  The cover for Dreadedin Chronicles: The Nameless City is good and captures the feel and look of what I’d imagined.
  • I changed the look of this blog.
  • I practiced baking bread in a dutch oven.  The results have been good, but I want them to be great, so I continue to work at it.
With all that in mind, here are some pizzas I have made over the last few months.  This does not represent all of the pizzas; only the ones I remembered to take photos of.
Turkey pepperoni and chicken parm pizza

Turkey pepperoni, grilled chicken, and bacon

Turkey pepperoni, chicken parm, and bacon

Turkey pepperoni and bacon

Sloppy joe pizza

A few notes:

  • Obviously, my family is keeping the turkey pepperoni industry afloat.  It’s a heavy task, but someone has to do it.
  • A chicken and bacon pizza is about as good as it gets, especially if it’s chicken parm.  
  • For the sloppy joe pizza, things went in a different but delicious direction: I added some leftover sloppy joes I’d made to the sauce, which gave it some extra protein and diced peppers.  The crust is also different: I used leftover lean dough from a dutch oven boule I’d made earlier in the week.  It’s an experiment that’s well worth repeating.
  • And just so we don’t seem like pigs here, a green salad always precedes pizza,  I call it a “kitchen sink” salad because I add diced apples, strawberries, blueberries, jicama, and papaya to the typical greens, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, peapods, etc.  It’s become such a habit that our three-year-old naturally expects a salad before pizza. Go figure.
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Breadhead Friday: Doughnuts

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I’m expanding Breadhead Friday to include all things made with yeast, and in this case, I’m adding doughnuts.  They’re very time-consuming, from making the dough to letting it rise twice to cutting, shaping, frying, filling, and decorating.

But if you have the inclination and gumption, they’re worth it.  
At a kitchen store a few years ago, I bought a two dollar doughnut cutter for the traditionally-shaped doughnuts (with a hole).  For the jelly-filled, I used an empty, clean tuna can with a hole in the middle to let the air out when pressing down.

The recipe I used is a basic paczki dough.  Paczki are Polish doughnuts, usually filled with cream cheese, jelly, or other fruit filling.  My only alteration to the dough was letting it do its first rise in the fridge; if I use this recipe again, I’ll let it do its second rise in the fridge instead.  
Frying in a pot of oil
A different batch frying up
For the frosting, I did a chocolate ganache and a confectioner’s sugar glaze, both similar to these recipes from King Arthur.
Jimmies aren’t necessary, but nice to have
Unfortunately, I learned too late in the process that the doughnut-filling device I typically use went missing; it probably didn’t survive one of the several moves we’ve done over the last few years, so I had to forego the filling on the solid doughnuts.  
Rolled in sugar right out of the fryer
By doughnut-filling device, I mean a 99 cent plastic squeeze bottle.  Like this one.  For fillings without seeds, they’re perfect.  I’ll have to get some more someday.
One batch of dough made this many doughnuts
There’s no way we could eat the entire batch, so most of them ended up in the freezer.  They’ll keep.
And, of course, the crumb shot
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Breadhead Friday: Holla for Challah!

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Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, started the evening of Wednesday, September 24.  Jewish holidays always begin the evening before, because Judaism goes by the lunar calendar. The next day begins when the sun sets. According to the Jewish calendar, this is the year 5775.

The holiday is traditionally celebrated with challah, apples, and honey to guarantee a sweet new year.  Challah is a braided egg bread, rich and a little bit sweet.  Some people put in raisins, others scatter poppy seeds and/or sesame seeds on the surface before baking.  Me, I just like it plain.  No raisins, dried fruit, or seeds.

The dough, freshly made

The dough after two days in the fridge. Note the bubbles

I’ve made challah before with some success, so for this new year’s celebration I decided to make it again.  Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the results, though my next batch of dough won’t be quite so wet.  I get so wrapped up in the artisan bread requirement of less flour=more holes that this dough ended up a little slack and difficult to work with.

Three-braid loaf after two hours of rising and egg wash

For ease of shaping, I went for a three-braid loaf.  You can do all kinds of braids, including round 7-braid loaves, but I’m working like heck to finish this YA Halloween novel and didn’t want to make too much work for myself.

Fresh out of the oven

So, Happy New Year!  Even if you’re not Jewish, challah’s a very tasty, flaky bread that’s great for sandwiches and French toast.

The crumb shot
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Breadhead Friday: Who Put the Bab in Babka?

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Babka straddles the line between yeast bread and coffee cake, and when done right can be the best of both worlds.  New Yorkers are lucky enough to be able to get them at the corner bakery, but those of us living outside the Big Apple usually have to make our own.  The first time I made a babka, using a Peter Reinhart recipe, it turned out okay, but wasn’t anything to write home about.  I’d done it, checked that box, and moved on.

Dough rolled out and chocolate filling spread atop

Years later, I figured I’d try it again.  This time, it turned out a lot better.  The crumb was flaky and light, and the icing drizzle created a nice sweetness that contrasted with the bittersweet chocolate.

Rolled up, put into a Bundt pan, and baked

The process is a bit involved, requiring long risings and a bit of a challenge shaping, but if you’ve ever made a jelly roll or sticky buns, it shouldn’t present much of a problem.

Blue and white icing

I don’t know why I put a two-tone icing drizzle on it.

The crumb shot

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