Choreki - the final post

For the final installment of the Bread Blog, a festive loaf from Greece that combines a bunch of my favorite attributes – a (1) rich, (2) eggy (3) braided (4) white bread (5) from a new country, and (6) flavored with fennel.

Proof 2 3/4 of a teaspoon of yeast in 1/4 of a cup of warm water. While waiting for that, combine 1/3 of a cup of water, 1/6 of a cup of powdered milk, 1/8 of a cup of sugar, 4 tablespoons of butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 a teaspoon of ground fennel seeds in a small saucepan, and heat through. Once the butter has melted, beat in 2 eggs. Pour this and the yeast into this into a bowl, and add 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, half a cup at a time. Kneading this dough is rather a walk in the park: the dough is soft, easy to handle, and just the right amount to be able to alternate between kneading with one and two hands. Anyway, after about 8 minutes the dough should be nice, supple, and elastic. Put in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside for the

First Rising (1 hour and 15 minutes)

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Every Thursday during the semester the physics department has a weekly colloquium, bringing in a physicist from another university to talk about his (or very occasionally her) research. Anyway, this past week might have been one of my favorites in a long time. The physicist in question had a serious high-energy theoretical physics background (publishing on an astrophysical problem the summer after college, and then studying under Gell-Mann), but then apparently drifted towards his real interests. So, he's mostly studied assorted problems in planetary science and geology...and in the colloquium we got to hear about a giant, dinosaur-killing space rock.

Which turns out to be pretty interesting, as it turns out, and there's been a lot more detailed theory and simulation done on the problem than I had thought. Random amazing trivia: bits of the rock bed from the area where the asteroid hit (the Yucatan Peninsula) have been found as far away as Colorado, which turns out to be unimpressive when you then realize that some of the ejected matter from the impact site would have had a velocity great enough to escape the Earth's gravitational field altogether.

But, I think my favorite moment came a little bit later.As I mentioned just above there was some stuff that got blown out into space, but that means there was also a lot of matter that got shot into orbit and then fell back down (covering the entire globe, as it turns out), and all of that stuff falling back through the atmosphere generated a tremendous amount of heat. And, of course, the speaker had studied this problem, and worked out that the falling material would have generated, through friction (and ram pressure? He didn't mention, but I have to assume at least partly) about 10 kW per square meter for maybe 20 minutes to an hour. For reference, that's comparable (if a bit less than) the energy output of a high-temperature pizza oven...over the entire surface of the Earth! Anyway, the speaker was explaining that this is probably what (very quickly) killed most of the dinosaurs (and pretty much anything that couldn't live underwater or burrow into a hole in the ground), and he made the point by mentioning, in passing, that "...we have some data on how much thermal radiation an elephant can withstand, and it's not 10 kW for an hour!" Which, of course, immediately raises some questions...why would anyone have data on the thermal radiative tolerance of elephants? And how did they come by that data?

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Punch the dough down, divide it into three equal pieces, and let it rest for a few minutes. Then, slowly roll each piece into a tube of dough, maybe 3/4 of an inch thick and 15 inches long. Braid the strands together, pinching the ends and tucking them underneath the braid, and put on a greased cookie sheet for the

Second rising (50 minutes)

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So, yes, I think with this post I'm bringing the Bread Blog to a close. I know I had told some of you that I would wait until I finished 50 posts, but I wanted to end on a good bread, I'd say this loaf definitely qualifies, and so this seemed like as good a time as any. And, to be honest, 48 posts is still 47 more than I ever intended to write when I started this thing anyway. I want to thank you all for reading this, leaving comments, sending me emails, and generally staying in touch through the blog; it's largely for you guys that I've kept up with the weekly writing. But anyway, I've resolved to be newly better about promptly answering email and letters, so no worries about that.

Oh, and also, feel free to keep sending me recipes...I might not be posting, but I'll still be baking. This next month or so I'll be especially be looking forward to remaking some of my favorites - and just simple white breads - one of the the problems with my rule of not posting the same recipe twice!

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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. While the oven is warming up, beat together 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water. Put that in the fridge, and chop up 1 tablespoon of almonds. Just before putting the bread in the oven, brush the egg glaze onto the dough, and sprinkle the almonds onto the dough, along with 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds and 1 generous teaspoon of sugar. Bake for 45 minutes.

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Tasting Verdict: A nice bread to end on, as I mentioned above. The crust is fantastically crispy, and those bites where you get both the fennel and the almond flavors at the same time are really quite tasty...I'm going to have to think of a dinner dish where I can use both of those, I think. Anyway, as you'd expect, the bread itself is nicely textured, with a deliciously unhealthy richness to it.

Best and worst breads of the blog

First, five of my favorites, in no particular order:

Anadama - One of my earlier attempts, but still good. Not as over-the-top as some of the following; just a classic sandwich loaf.

Swedish Limpa - One of the more complex breads I've made, but I still remember how tasty I thought it was (quite the lasting impression, I guess, seeing as that was almost 11 months ago)

Cinnamon Bread - Much too rich and flavorful to be used for regular lunches (although I recall it making some fairly decadent peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches), but just an excellent, excellent breakfast loaf.

Challah - I mean, I had to include at least one eggy bread in this list, right? I mean, it's probably been the single category of bread I've baked the most over the last year. Still, this one was particularly good, and I'm still semi-amazed that the six-stranded braid thing worked.

Pusstabrot - Best. Deli. Sandwiches. Ever.

And, the less than stellar efforts, in descending order:

Cardamom Bread - Not horrible, but "unbalanced" is really the only way to describe the flavor of the bread. Eating it you have a vague, lingering feeling that something is wrong.

Raisin and Nut Bread - Gross, sticky kneading, followed by raisins that migrate to the surface of the baking bread on their path towards becoming charred ash containers

Brown Bread - Eating this loaf reminds you with every chew that you're eating something healthy. I mean, if the idea of the taste of health food had a Platonic form, it would be similar to this loaf of bread, I have no doubt.

Black Bread - While I later redeemed myself, this was the catastrophic "brick of bread," so dense that my bread knife would barely cut it. Although, to be fair, that was probably more my fault than the recipe's.

Bavarian Rye - To misquote Nietzsche, "Ah ryes. They make the highs higher, and the lows...more frequent." Anyway, this bread, fresh out of the oven, was actually not too terrible. Just a day later, though, it turned into a truly foul-tasting abomination, with the texture of a damp, mushy sponge.