More Math...

I have a math exam and I have realized that even though I took calculus before, I actually need to study for exams. Anyway, in a scientific vein, enjoy this article about orphaned giant planets as food for thought until I post again tomorrow...

Book Review: The Alchemist

 

Yes, I know, everyone else read this book ten years ago. Recently I picked it off my bookshelf as my I-need-a-five-minute-break book. It worked pretty well-- an easy to follow storyline and short chapters made it the ideal momentary break from the world.

I cannot say that I highly recommend the book. It had some of the elements of Spanish writing that I seem to like-- that fantastical gifted phrasing that makes words seem magical-- but it lacked a complicated plot or believable characters. Every person seemed to have a unified core that appeared unmediated through their actions with the world almost as if the main character had invented them to entertain him during long nights in the desert. Furthermore, although the character went through some hardships, I do not think I have ever encountered a self-discovery story where the path was so clear or the journey so easy. Maybe this is my view from reading too many books where authors torture their characters, but it seems like omens/God/happenstance/luck (all things to which the main character's first person narrative constantly refer) provide such easy roadmaps.

The book was enjoyable and moderately charming, but not something I could highly recommend.

The Bibliophiles' Pilgrimage

This morning, in the midst of our craziness (we had a water leak under the house), my mother found an amazing article which cheered us up. Salon created a slideshow of the world's greatest bookstores and they look fantastic! We decided that as we visit these cities we should go on a pilgrimage to each of them. Check out the pictures for youself here.

Indian Food Part II: From Sulpicia's Kitchen

For the leftovers, I decided to make some of my own naan. I found a recipe in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread. It was pretty good. Cerinthus (who sadly left today) gave it a "solid 8 out of 10" which is pretty good for my first try. I was not particularly rigorous in my picture-taking, but I will post the recipe from Whole Grain Bread page 80 (modified, as is my tradition).

As Cerinthus is not the greatest fan of whole wheat, I used 50% whole wheat, 50% all purpose flour. It worked quite well. I also used canola oil instead of butter and 2% milk instead of yogurt.

Ingredients

• 227g Whole Wheat Flour
• 227g Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 380g 2% Milk
• 3g salt
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

Directions

1. Mix together the flour and the salt.
2. Mix together the milk and the yeast, fully hydrating the yeast, and the mix the milk into the dry ingredients. Let it hydrate for 5 minutes.
3. Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Use the 40-minute stretch-and-fold technique.
4. Place the dough in the refrigerator overnight.

The Next Day...

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator.
2. Turn it onto a floured surface and divide it into five pieces.
3. Gather the pieces into balls and let them sit under plastic wrap or an overturned bowl.
4. Let rise for 2 hours at 70 degrees or about 1.5 hours at 75 degrees.
5. Preheat the oven with an ovenstone to 500 degrees F.
6. Stretch the pieces into disks about 1/4 inch thick.
7. Go back to the first piece and stretch it about 1/8 of an inch thick.
8. Punch a lot of holes in the dough with a fork. Make sure the holes go all the way through.
9. Load the naan onto a peel and let it cook for 3 minutes or until it puffs up significantly and is dappled with brown. If it puffs to much, dock it again with the fork.
10. Brush with toppings and eat while hot.

 

 

 

My Garlic Naan

Right after the naan came out of the oven, I brushed it with olive oil (mixed with a pinch of white pepper and garlic salt) and crushed fresh garlic as well as chopped cilantro. I thought it was heavenly.

Indian Food

Cernithus and I went to my favorite Indian place of all time tonight. It was amazing. I kept half of it for tomorrow and started a batch of naan to eat with it. I am really excited to try it. I have been drooling over the recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Yum.

I will report on the verdict.

Pain au Levain Success

Crust and Crumb

I made some of the Bread Cetera Pain au Levain. It was lovely! I switched a few things, no rye flour: 620g all purposed unbleached flour, 150g whole wheat flour, and 540g water. I must have messed something up because the dough was supposed to be 75% hydration and it seemed more like 85% hydration. It made a lovely open crumb, though.

Nice Open Crumb

We gobbled it up. It was fantastic. Another loaf waits in the fridge so I can bake it in the morning.

What Remained...

More soon...

It's Been a While...

It's been quite a while since my last post. In between trying to get into classics classes at the local university, being sick, and going up to celebrate the end of the year with Cerinthus and my friends, I did not get to post much.

Before I went up to my Alma Mater, I baked 5 mini loaves of bread. I remembered that Messalla liked my bread a lot so I thought I would bring him a loaf. I left one loaf with my parents and took these four loaves with me:

I also made one loaf that the family ate at lunch the day before I left:

Crust

Crust and Crumb

Anyway, more to come.

An Extremely Modified Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread

Multigrain Bread

I love whole grains. More and more I find that white bread without at least 15% whole wheat is just too bland and I savor anything above 50% whole grains, with the 70% Whole Wheat Tartine Loaf being my favorite bread that I've made. I realized recently that I have a lot of unbleached starter sitting around and I needed to use it for something. So I decided to make Peter Reinhart's Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread from Whole Grain Breads which is one of the few multigrain breads I have seen that does not require high gluten flour.. Instead of the Biga, I used my white starter.

Here is how I modified the recipe (it is now about 71% water instead of 61%):
Day 1: Soaker and Starter
Soaker

• 170g water
• 56.5g red whole wheat flour
• 56.5g rolled oats (I used steel cut by accident)
• 56.5g semolina flour (I didn't have any cornmeal around)
• 42.5g white whole wheat flour
• 7g flax seeds, whole or ground (I used toasted whole flax seeds)
• 7g wheat or oat bran
• 4 salt

1. Mix soaker ingredients together in a bowl for about 1 minute. It will form a dough that resembles thick porrage.
2. Cover loosely with plastic wrap at room temperature for 12-24 hours.

Starter

• 200g mature starter (unbleached flour)
• 100g unbleached bread flour
• 128g water
• 28g whole wheat flour

1. Blend ingredients together until fully hydrated.
2. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.

Day 2:
Final Dough

• 456g starter (all of it)
• 400g soaker (all of it)
• 100g whole wheat flour
• 5g salt
• 20g sunflour seeds
• 20g pumpkin seeds
• 20g sesame seeds
• You may need a little bit of extra whole wheat flour for adjustments

Two hours before making the dough

1. Take the starter out of the refrigerator
2. Toast the sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds. Let them cool.

For the final dough

1. Mix together the starter and soaker until fully combined. Warning: this was an oddly challenging process, but it does work. I used a danish dough whisk. The dough will be very wet and sticky.
2. Add in the whole wheat flour a little bit at a time and mix it into the dough.
3. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
4. Mix in the salt and the seeds. Make sure the dough fully absorbs the salt.
5. Using wet hands (the dough is very sticky) need the dough for two to three minutes.
6. Use the Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold technique, but do two stretch and folds in a row every ten minutes for 40 minutes. This dough is very troublesome. Note that it will probably not come completely together until the second stretch and fold and it should become significantly silkier by the fourth stretch and fold. [1]
7. Let the dough rise between 78-82 degrees for four hours. Do a stretch-and-fold after the first, second, and third hours of the rise.
8. After four hours, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it in half so both sides are lightly floured.
9. Then gently stretch it into a rectangle. Fold it up 2/3 of the way, and then fold the left side over 2/3 of the way. Fold the right side directly over the left side and pull the top down over the bottom to develop surface tension. Turn the dough seam side down and let rest under a large overturned bowl.
10. Let the dough bench rest for 20 minutes.
11. If the gluten structure seems weak, repeat this process again. If the dough spreads out with fairly even thickness, proceed to the final shaping.
12. Shape the dough any way you like for the final shaping. I decided to make a large batard. My shaping skills are pretty terrible, so I would suggest looking at some videos (e.g. Bread Cetera) for shaping suggestions. Place in a banneton or in a bowl or pan lined with a floured dishcloth.
13. Let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1 hour under plastic wrap or similar
14. Then, place the dough in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.

Day 3:

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with a combo cooker or brothpot and stone. 
2. Take the bread out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before you are ready to bake.
3. When you are ready to bake, turn the bread onto a floured peel and score it.
4. Put the oven down to 450 degrees F and bake under steam for 20-25 minutes.
5. Remove the lid for keeping the steam in and bake for another 20-30 minutes until the outside of the bread is a rich brown and the internal temperature reads 212 degrees F.
6. Wait at least 1 hour before slicing.

Crust

Crumb

The bread is great. It's very hearty and seedy and it has a lovely, rich, nutty flavor. I will most definitely make it again.

I am sending this into Yeast Spotting. I hope it doesn't look like too much of an ugly duckling among the beautiful breads.

Endnotes

1. I did mixing techniques by trial and error which is why I don't think my bread rose as much as it could have it did not develop quite the crumb I was hoping. I am hoping to have better luck with this technique as written.