Cooking for Seven

Allow me to share a few things with you:

This week I had the honor of writing a guest post over at the Tasty Kitchen blog. {link}

Joy the Baker commented on my blog. *squeals with delight*

I made Hannah’s (honey & jam) recipe for Roasted Broccoli the other night. Delicious beyond words.

Continue Reading for the recipe » »

Last year, my sister Janna gave me Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads for Christmas. I haven’t baked very many loaves yet, but the ones I have tried have been very tasty.

Hearth Breads are baked directly on the hearth (without a pan) to create a nice, crispy crust. I baked mine in a very hot oven on a stone.

As with most of Peter Reinhart’s breads, the dough was soaked overnight to produce superior flavor. There are only a few tablespoons of non soaked grains in this bread.

I must confess that this bread was nearly a disaster. When I scored the risen dough, it deflated pitifully. Then, when I attempted to transfer the loaf from the pizza peel to the oven, it slipped onto the floor. Not to be daunted, I simply picked up the lump of dough, placed it back on the pizza peel, transferred it to the stone, and shut the door, hoping it would regain it’s height in the oven.

Thankfully, the dough rose very nicely in the oven. I am quite pleased with this recipe and hope that next time I bake something from Whole Grain Breads I will not have quite so many mishaps.

This is my entry for World Bread Day.

Here is the roundup

A week or so ago Mom made a trip to our favorite co-op. She brought back many delcious things, including some chopped dates. When she noticed me mixing them into my oatmeal, she protested and expressed a desire for date bread.

I was more than happy to oblige. So I found a recipe from a trusted source and gathered the required ingredients.

Confession: I made two mistakes while preparing this loaf. And it still turned out great! Gotta love Joy of Baking.

1) I added too much flour. Don’t ask me why. I just didn’t trust my usual, fail safe method of weighing the flour. So I had to add 1/4 cup of milk at the end of mixing. Surprisingly the extra mixing didn’t turn the bread into a brick.

2) I completely forgot to add the walnuts. The bread was sitting cozily in the oven when I noticed the walnuts, sitting on the counter, toasted, chopped, and ready to be used. Oh well. I took it in stride.

This bread was very moist and soft, even though I used all whole wheat flour. If you are leery of 100% whole wheat bread, simply use all-purpose flour in place of all or part of the wheat. Serve plane, with butter, or cream cheese.

And the word from Dad, the date hater: “That’s pretty good date bread.” Wow. It must be good.

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Date and Walnut Bread

Adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces (225 grams) pitted dates, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (240 ml) boiling water
• 2 cups (8 ounces) Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
• 1/2 cup Sucanat, demerara, or brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1) To prepare the dates: In a large bowl mix the chopped dates with the baking soda and a pinch of salt (1/8 teaspoon). Pour 1 cup of very hot water over the dates, stir, and leave to cool to room temperature (about 1 hour).

2) To make the batter: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Butter and flour a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.  Set aside.

3) In a food processor place the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon. Process to combine and then add the butter. Process until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the chopped walnuts.

4) In a separate bowl, whisk the egg with the vanilla extract.  Fold the flour mixture and beaten egg mixture into the cooled dates (with their water). Stir until combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to 65 minutes. Place on a wire rack and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Gently slide a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature. Or, if you will not be using the bread immediately, when the bread has almost completely cooled, wrap well in plastic wrap and place in a zippered bag to store.

Makes one - 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf.

This bread really was extremely simple to make. Just mix all ingredients for 60 seconds, scoop into a pan, let rise, and bake. The taste is excellent as well, even with my changes to the recipe (replacing half of the AP flour with whole wheat)

Confession: I had a bit of a mishap when I was mixing the dough. The recipe instructed me to mix the dough with an electric mixer. My gut told me it would be better to mix it in the stand mixer. But a recipe (especially KAF) doesn’t lie, right?

Wrong. The dough was just too much for our little electric mixer. Bits of dough flew out of the bowl and onto the floor. The mixer made noises it shouldn’t.

Not to worry! I scraped the dough into the bowl of our stand mixer and finished mixing it there.

Lesson: when cooking, listen to your gut.

The finished product reminded me of the texture of bread sticks: crispy crust, soft crumb. It’s definitely a keeper.

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:: Focaccia ::

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Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) warm water
3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) olive oil (plus additional for drizzling)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) hard white wheat
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon onion powder (optional)

1 tablespoon dried chopped onion (optional)
pizza seasoning or dried herbs of choice, optional

Directions:

1) Lightly grease a 9″ x 13″ pan, and drizzle 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom.

2) In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine all of the ingredients except the optional seasonings. Beat at medium-high speed for 60 seconds.

3) Scoop the sticky batter into the prepared pan. Cover and let it rise at room temperature for 60 minutes, till it’s become puffy. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 375°F.

4) Gently poke the dough all over with your index finger. Drizzle it lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with pizza seasoning, and/or the dried herbs of your choice, if desired.

5) Bake the bread till it’s golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool in pan 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.