blueberry pancakes

Brunch last sunday consisted of extra fluffy scrambled eggs (always with Penzey's Chicago Steak Seasoning, it's my weird little secret for delicious eggs) and delicious blueberry pancakes.  The blueberries were beyond perfect: slightly tart, slightly sweet and not so ripe that they fell apart and melted into the batter. 

I used my go-to pancake recipe which you can find here, and just tossed in the berries, easy peasy.  I like to throw some berries in the ladle, but then I always strategically place a few more once the batter's on the griddle; can't leave berry placement completely up to chance!

Delicious!

quickie lunch

Sometimes you want to spend hours in the kitchen, experimenting and creating delicious new dishes, and sometimes, you just want to eat.  But I'm trying, in the spirit of finding balance in my life, to make something beautiful and fresh and healthy even on those 'just feed me now' days. 

 

Quick but insanely delicious and satisfying lunch between rehearsals last week: fresh whole wheat bun from the local market, avocado spread on both halves, a bed of fresh spinach, sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, a few basil leaves, and two eggs over easy on top.  It was messy to eat, but wow was it worth it.

Accompanied by a strawberry-banana smoothie made with milk and mandarin juice.

quickie breakfast

Nothing earth-shattering to post, but for lack of time and energy (and health) we've been neglecting this blog for so long, I thought I'd just pop in and at least say hello.  Here's a quickie photo of my quickie breakfast this morning.  Sometimes just taking 5 minutes to whip up some whole wheat french toast with strawberries and make an iced latte can bring enough joy to last an entire day.

breads of the last ten days

I'm catching up on the breads I baked in the last ten days. First, I baked a couple of quick whole wheat breads  - half whole wheat flour, half bread flour. I'd been wondering whether I was overproofing my loaves, so I wanted to experiment with shorter fermentations. I divided the dough in half, and baked the first loaf after about 1.5 hours of proofing. As you can see, I had a blow-out, indicating it had not proofed long enough. I will continue to go with my instincts, instead of the usual proofing time suggested in most formulas.

This loaf was inedible. Unbelievably dense crumb. Couldn't bring myself to take a picture.

The second loaf of the same batch of dough was retarded overnight after shaping. The result:

Much better. Not a whole lot of oven spring. Taste still boring. The sesame seeds on the crust were the best thing. I miss the complexity of seeded breads.

A few days later, I experimented with long retardation.

the soaker (200 g dry):

• farro (first time I'm using farro in anything)
• steelcut oats
• flax seeds (using much smaller amount than before)

Soaked in boiling water overnight, with a pinch of salt.

the dough:

• sourdough starter (200 g)
• whole wheat flour (400 g)
• bread flour (200 g)
• water (400 g +)
• soaker, drained
• roasted pumpkin seeds
• salt (15 g)

Mixed very briefly, without the salt and the pumpkin seeds.
Autolyse for 30 minutes.
Added the salt and the pumpkin seeds, and mixed for 4 minutes in the mixer.
Gave it 3 s&f's at 20 minute intervals.
Covered and put in the fridge for retardation overnight.

Next morning, divided the dough into two, shaped the loaves, put one back into the fridge. The other one proofed at room temperature and baked as usual. That loaf had a very disappointing texture, mealy like the rye loaf that turned out terrible, though perhaps not quite as bad. This puzzled me to no end, so I checked my formulas and saw that both this seeded whole wheat and the seeded rye had a relatively low proportion of bread flour. I'm thinking that the amount of seeds and grains require the strength that the bread flour provides. The slices were better when toasted, but still not good enough.

The second loaf sat in the fridge for 3 days, then baked after an hour at room temperature. Significantly better. This long retardation seems to have helped the mealiness quite a bit. Wish I knew enough to understand why.

At first, this loaf seemed too sour, expected because of the long proofing. But the next day, the acidity seemed perfect. Generally, very happy with this loaf, though I think increasing the ratio of bread flour will make it much better.

The farro didn't give the same chewiness as wheat berries. I'll switch to wheat berries as soon as I get some more.

seedy whole wheat redux

A miserably dark, rainy day. A perfect day to bake bread. The last time I baked this, the two loaves were smallish and were gone too quickly. Today, I'm making a bigger batch.

the soaker (total 250 g before soaking):

• wheat berries  - beautiful sensuous chewiness
• flax seeds - can't taste them, can't see them, but healthy
• buckwheat groats - adds no taste or texture that I can detect, finishing up my stock
• small pinch of salt

This time, I poured boiling water on the mixture and let it sit overnight. I wanted to see whether it would turn out significantly different from soaking in cold water. It did. It was much better.

the sourdough starter:
         I maintain my starter with all purpose flour, because I figure it's the most neutral. For this whole wheat loaf,  I built it up two days ago with whole wheat flour. When I tasted, it was a bit on the sour side and I wondered if I should have fed it closer to baking time. However, the sourness turned out just right, a remote whiff.

the dough:

• sourdough starter (400 g)
• whole wheat flour (625 g)
• bread flour (475 g)
• water (555 g, but I added more later)
• sunflower seeds (99 g)
• the soaker
• salt (20 g)

If these amounts read as though there was careful, precise calculation of ingredients, there wasn't. Either that's how much I had at hand (e.g. the sunflower seeds, the whole wheat flour), or my hand slipped (the water). I'm not getting obsessive with precise baker's percentages because (1) it's stressful, and (2) it doesn't let you respond to what's actually in front of you. And I don't have to replicate breads precisely, which is a major advantage of being an amateur baker.

I mixed everything except the salt on the lowest speed of the mixer. The dough was clearly much stiffer than what I usually shoot for, so I added more water. Don't know how much. Just added until it seemed right.

I covered the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes (autolyse).

I added the salt and mixed the dough for 5 minutes on the second from lowest speed.

I covered it to start the bulk fermentation. One stretch-and-fold after 45 minutes, a second one after another 45 minutes. Then 30 more minutes of fermentation.

I pinched off a bit to bake into a flat bread. Just experimenting. I divided the rest of the dough into two, pre-shaped them into balls, and let them rest for 15 minutes. Then I put one in a round basket, and the other one onto the couche, and let them proof for 1 hour.

I filled an iron skillet with lava rocks and put it on the lower shelf of the oven, and preheated the oven to 500 F. I was determined to get more steam this time. Didn't help.

While I was waiting for the loaves to rise, I made my flat bread. I stretched it with my hands and cooked it in a skillet on top of the stove baked it on the baking stone (brain-fingers not coordinated). Puffed up and cooked very quickly. A success!

That makes me very happy. Will repeat it often.

At the end of an hour, the loaves hadn't risen a whole lot, but once again, I was afraid of over-proofing. I first baked the loaf that had proofed on the couche. I transferred it onto the peel, sprayed the top with water,  covered it with sesame seeds, and slipped it onto the baking stone. Put some ice cubes in the iron skillet. When I closed the oven door, I saw the steam coming out in sheets. I'm not sure any steam stayed in the oven. Arrgh.

Turned the oven down to 450 F and baked for 15 minutes. Turned it down to 425 F, and baked another 15 minutes. This was a bigger loaf than my usual, so I decided to give it another 5 minutes and then I let it stay in the oven w/ the door ajar for 10 minutes. Next, onto the cooling rack.

In the meantime, I had placed the second loaf into a plastic bag and transferred it to the fridge, because it would have to wait while the first was baking and then while the oven heated up to 500 F again. I think I'm going to adjust my baking so that I can bake two smaller loaves at the same time. This is too much juggling.

I inverted the second loaf from the basket onto the peel, sprayed it with water, and covered with sesame seeds. Continued to bake in the usual manner.

Results: Very little oven spring. Crumb on the dense side. The breads were very moist, maybe too moist. Both loaves spread sideways when I put them on the peel. I think I may not have developed enough surface tension, so I'll focus on that next time. But I don't even know if a whole grain loaf that's so packed with seeds can rise very high.

This picture shows very uneven rising, but parts of the loaf were better:

I thought that the denseness might have been a result of overproofing. But the second loaf proofed longer, and the crumb turned out better and more even:

So maybe the first loaf was underproofed. Sometimes this feels like a crapshoot.

People might find the moistness of the crumb objectionable, but I actually found it very pleasant eating.  So yes, the crumb was way too moist, but that felt like an advantage after toasting. And the ratio of the soaker to the dough was absolutely perfect. This made for a chewiness that was orgasmic. And I don't use that word lightly. Not only was the texture great, but the taste was wonderfully rich and earthy. I couldn't stop eating it. This turned out to be my most favourite bread so far.

the burnt loaf

I finished the first loaf quickly, and had to start on the loaf that I had burned.

 I was also curious about the crumb, given that it had proofed much longer than the first loaf and I had screwed up the baking temeprature. It looked quite good, except for the fact that it was, well, burnt. I cut off the top crust before I tasted it. It was more sour than the first one, obviously because it had proofed longer, but it was not an overwhelming sourness. It was pleasant, actually. The crumb was better too - more and bigger holes. But the difference was not dramatic.

I think next time, both the bulk fermentation and the proofing will be longer. We'll see how it goes.

whole wheat with grains and seeds

I want my daily bread to be a healthy whole grain, and I like seeds and grains in it for texture. What's available here commercially is disappointing. First, almost all of them have sugar/honey/syrup added. I'm fiercely opposed to this, not just on principled grounds (which I am), but also because I can taste it immediately. I've been able to find a relatively satisfactory bread but you have to hunt around town for it, and it ain't cheap. So I decided to bake my own basic bread, which is what got me started baking bread again.

Now that I've baked a number of good all purpose flour sourdough breads to get my feet wet, it was time to get down to business.

 ingredients:

• sourdough starter (220 g)
• bread flour (300 g)
• whole wheat flour (300 g)
• water (300 g)
• roasted sunflower seeds (70 g)
• soaker (total 170 g before soaking)
• flax seed ('cause they're good for you)
• buckwheat groats ('cause I hadn't even seen them before and I was curious)
• wheat berries ('cause I love their texture)
• salt (10 g)

the night before: 
I feed my sourdough starter as usual, with all purpose flour.
I add a small pinch of salt to the soakers, cover it with water, and let it sit for about 14 hours.

mixing:
I strain the soaker, in all its gel-like gloopiness from the flax seeds.
I combine in the bowl of my stand mixer everything except the salt, and mix at lowest speed for about 2-3 minutes. That soaker doesn't want to incorporate.
I let it rest for 30 minutes.
I add the salt and mix for about 4 minutes on the second-from-lowest speed.

This dough may seem to be 50% hydration, but it isn't when you take into account the water that comes with the soaker. I debated whether I should add a bit more water, but it looked OK to me after the mixing:

bulk fermentation:
I let the dough rise for 45 minutes, and then do that magical stretch-and-fold thing. (I still have trouble grasping the fact that this is better than kneading.)
I let it rise for another 45 minutes.
After 90 minutes, I'm not sure that it has risen enough so I give it another fold and let it rise for 30 minutes more.

proofing:
I pre-shape the dough into two balls and let them rest for 15 minutes.
I still haven't gotten myself a new set of bannetons, so I decide to proof them on the couche.
I shape one ball into a boule and the other roughly into a batard shape, and place them on the well-floured couche.
I give it an hour. They rise minimally, so I give it another 40 minutes.
At that point, the fear of too much sourness strikes and I decide to bake them.

baking:
OK, now this is why I need to get me some bannetons. I'm not the world's most coordinated person anyway, but the feat of getting the loafs from the couche to the peel is daunting. When there is more than one loaf on the couche, I usually have trouble rolling the loaf straight from the couche onto the peel. So I wonder about what I can use as a flipping board, get lazy, and decide to roll it onto my arm, and from there to the peel. Arrgh. It's amazing how laziness can trump good sense. I wanted to apologize to my loaf, which now was a bit deflated and a bit warped.

I slash the top of the loaf (in vain, it turns out), and spray the top with water.
I slip the loaf onto the baker's stone in the oven preheated to 500 F, turn it down to 450 F, bake for 15 minutes, turn it down once more to 425 F, and bake another 15 minutes.

There was very little oven spring and no grigne. This loaf didn't look sexy. I put it on the cooling rack and turned to the second loaf.

I decided to bake the two loaves separately, because I knew getting the second loaf on the peel would take additional juggling while the first loaf was in the oven, and I didn't want to disturb the first loaf while it was trying to rise (ha!).

I reheat the oven to 500 F. This means that the second loaf proofed almost 40 minutes longer. Curious to see what that will do.

I slip the second loaf into the oven. When I'm back in the kitchen to turn the oven down to 425 F after the first 15 minutes, I realize that I forgot to turn it down to 450 F when I first put it in. So it had 15 minutes at 500 F. Jeeeez, how could I?!! Well, of course I can, because I've burnt even soup.

I turn the oven down to 425 F. Then I think maybe it should go lower still, and I turn it down to 400. I give it 10 minutes, then I turn off the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes.

I'm heartbroken, because the top crust looks really burnt. I know some people think you can't overbake bread (Clavel, Silverton), but that's not my taste.

However, this loaf has much better oven spring than the first one. I mean, it actually has oven spring. Was it the extra proofing? Or the crazy baking temperature. I dunno.

the morning after:
Ooooh, anticipation. I decide to try the unburnt loaf, and it tastes really really good. I toast one slice for breakfast, it's magical. I'm so so happy.

I compare it side-by-side to my commercially baked multigrain, and no contest, mine wins hands down. But look at the crumb.

How come it looks so good even though there was no oven spring? It's moist, chewy, with a rich earthy taste, and barely sour. So the loaf that doesn't look promising on the outside turns out to be super on the inside.

One flaw in the concept. Although the wheat berries are beautifully chewy inside the crumb, the ones that ended up on the surface of the loaf are hard and sharp. Unpleasant. I have to figure out a way to avoid that. In the meantime, I'm focusing on finding a good way to shave the burnt top crust of the second loaf to feed to my dogs.

it shouldn't have worked, but...

I was going to feed the pet but I'd run out of AP flour and went out to get some. Back at home, I saw that I'd bought the white whole wheat flour (KAF) by mistake. Didn't even know such a thing existed. Read up on it at the King Arthur web site, and they recommend using it for cookies, muffins, etc., but there's no mention of breads. Not good. I looked into it a bit more, and it's a low protein flour, which is why it wouldn't be good for bread. But I was curious, so I separated some of my sourdough starter and fed it with this flour. Fermenting seemed OK, but it didn't rise much. Not a surprise. I fed it a few times more, decided it was time to try to bake it into bread. I incorporated some bread flour into it and let it rest about 40 minutes. After the autolyse, it looked very wet. So I added some more bread flour, until it was a respectable soft dough consistency. Folded it twice at 45 min intervals, then put it in the fridge to develop overnight. Next day I divided it into two, formed smallish boules, and let them proof in baskets lined with kitchen towels. After a couple of hours they were pouffy, but hadn't risen much. It looked like further proofing was not going to help. (How do I know this? I have no idea.) My oven was already preheated to 500 F with the baking stone in place. I didn't want to risk placing the loaves directly on the peel, because they still seemed not sturdy enough. So I lined the peel with parchment paper before I up-ended them. Sure enough, in 5 seconds, they looked like ciabatta. Not very hopeful, I stuck them into the oven. There was almost no oven spring, but again, it's not surprising given the qualities of the flour. I let the loaves cool overnight and cut into them the next morning. Surprise! They were not bricks. In fact, they were quite light and hole-y. And they weren't too sour. They looked and tasted better than most store bought 'artisanal whole wheat'. Definitely edible. Not nearly good enough, but definitely edible.

I'm confused. Low gluten flour, therefore not much rising, but still pretty good crumb. Shouldn't it have been dense and heavy? What do I know.

sunday joy

About a month ago, my husband and I started Sunday Brunch. We're calling it a family tradition, even though it's just been a few times and it's just the two of us, but we figure, that's how things get started, right? I try not to make the same thing every time, which in reality means adding different things to my pancakes. I can't not make them, because they are never not amazing. What can I say. I'm kind of a pancake genius. But I have to give credit where credit is due, and point you to this recipe, which I use almost exactly, except for the vanilla (and only because I can't find any in this city), and I find I have to add a wee bit more agave syrup. But otherwise, this is my holy base. Here's how I do it:

1 c whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
a few generous squirts of agave syrup
1 Tbs olive oil
1/2 c skim milk
1/2 c non fat plain yogurt (or sweetened if your husband buys it by accident)
2 eggs

Mix the wet stuff. Add the dry stuff. Ta-daaa! So simple. I also find that the batter keeps nicely in the fridge for a few days, which is pretty awesome when you get up at 8 monday morning too sleepy to think about breakfast and find you can just drop some of this in a pan and you have a delicious wholesome pancake breakfast before class. The batter sort of changes color, turns blueish, but I think I read somewhere that that's some kind of chemical reaction having something to do with baking soda. I do my research, but that does mean I retain the results. In any case, I still use it even if it's darker, just give it a stir and don't show it to anyone who might be paranoid about things going bad (ahem, husband).


I've made them with blueberries, fresh from the Mercado de San Miguel which is thoughtfully open on sundays. I've made them plain for people to throw nutella and whipped cream on top. I've also made them plain accompanied by a banana/strawberry/walnut salad/sauce which I will have to post about another day. But this past week, I made Cinnamon Banana Walnut Pancakes. And yes, they were damn good.


You would like to try? Make the batter as usual, and then in a separate bowl, combine sliced up bananas, crumbled walnuts, and cinnamon. I like to keep the extras separate so that when I use the leftover batter in the following days I can make whatever kind I want and am not tied to Sunday's Flavors.


When you scoop a bunch of batter with your ladle, drop a large spoonful of the nutty mix in it and give it a swirl to better disperse the cinnamon. Drop it in the pan (a little oil for the first one, which always turns out a little sad anyway) and cook it like you cook all pancakes. You know, wait for the bubbles, wait for some of the bubbles to pop and leave holes, wait for the edges to dry up a little, flip it and then let the second side sit much less. The whole wheat does seem to take longer than regular hotcakes, but it's worth it.


More Sunday Brunch posts to come, I promise. And a special thanks to my sweet hubby who took these awesome photos.

carnivale season 1 marathon(ish) snacks

My first post here is a cheat, cause I already posted it over at my other (hugely neglected) blog, but I just couldn't wait to get something on here. Oh the joy of the mother daughter food blog!


Our Carnivale Season 1 marathon started super late because we decided to be responsible and do all sorts of grocery shopping and cleaning and organizing of the house beforehand, so in reality, I don't know if it counts as a marathon. I think we got through 4 episodes. We'll try and hit it again tonight. But what really matters is not how good that show is, even the second time around (really really good, in my opinion), but the munchies I made.

The humus was ridiculously easy, just like my mama said it would be. I took some precooked chick peas and added some tahini and a bit of lemon juice. That's about as exact as I can be as far as the measurements go. And then I drizzled olive oil on top with a dash of paprika. On the side for dipping I took whole wheat tortillas, cut them into bits, brushed them with olive oil and baked them in a too-hot oven for 5 minutes. Again, that's about as precise as I can be. I recommend not having the oven too hot, probably better if you heat it just right. Regardless, it was delicious. We had some mammoth green grapes with it, which were delicious, in spite of their prehistoric size.

And then, when we got hungry again (it happened so soon, we are eating champions lately), I pulled out the whole wheat pizza dough I'd prepared and used my brand new rolling pin (little water glasses get the job done, but not very well) and made this baby:


The crust is adapted from here, but I usually use milk instead of water. Last night, however, feeling bold, I substituted white wine ("What? Why?" asked my husband, "They're not even the same color!"). I also always throw in some herbes de provence for good measure. Thought it was going to be salty, but I think it was just the tang of the wine, because when it cooked up, it was perfect. I topped it with sliced tomatoes, sliced red peppers, grated mozzarella and some mozzarella di buffalo, and then some fresh basil on top. When it came out of the oven we threw some turkish red pepper on it, and ate it so fast there re no pictures. But trust me, it was good.