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.

Russian Black Bread

Some of you may remember my earlier (disastrous) attempt to make a black bread, but I think it's been long enough for me to give it another go. So, armed with a new recipe, eight more months of bread-baking experience, and a desire to sit around the apartment and delay going in to work for a long as possible today it's time to try a substantially more complicated than average loaf. Fingers crossed.

To start things off, combine 3/4 of a cup of water, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 of a cup of blackstrap molasses, and 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate in a sauce pan, and start heating it. While waiting for the chocolate to melt, start proofing 3 teaspoons of yeast in 1/2 of a cup of warm water. Separately, in a large mixing bowl prepare a mixture of 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons of instant coffee mix, 1 teaspoon of onion powder, and 1 teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds.

Once the chocolate is melted and evenly mixed in allow it to cool for a minute, then pour it and the yeast into the mixing bowl, and stir in 2 cups of dark rye flour along with another half-cup of all-purpose flour. Knead for a generous handful of minutes, and try not to breathe through your nose - this one, ominously, already has something of a pungent smell to it... Anyway,put in a greased bowl, cover, and allow to sit for the

First rising (2 hours )
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First week of the semester down, and I have to admit it was something of a rocky start. I'm taking just two classes this semester: one ("Polymer Physics") being taught by my advisor, and the other ("Biophysics") fulfilling the very last of my coursework requirements. Anyway, I think the semester will be substantially easier than my last one, which will of course be very nice, but I somehow still managed to have to spend almost all of this weekend working. And having to spend the full weekend working before there's even been any homework assigned for classes...well that just feels like I must have mismanaged my research time during the week. Not too swift of me.
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Punch the dough down and put in a greased 9x5 bread tin. Recover, set on top of a radiator, and wait during the

Second rising (1 hour and 30 minutes)
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A few days ago, after finishing up some work late at night, I wandered over to a coffee shop and just sat thinking for a while. Which I suddenly realized has been something I do a lot less than I used to. Well, not that I ever was that big a fan of just sitting around, but I always used to take medium-long walks, most days anyway. But here in Illinois I haven't really gotten into the habit of taking walks. I suspect that's because I walk back and forth to work every day (probably averaging 4 miles or so just in doing that), so I'm spending at least as much time physically walking as I ever used to. But of course, you're not really taking a walk if you've got a destination in mind, so you don't really get in the same mindset where you can (figuratively) sit and mull things over.

So, anyway, along with being better about cooking I'm going to have to find some spot where I can just sit, or read the paper in the morning, or something along those lines. Hmm...too bad my two favorite coffee shops closed last semester!
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Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Very interesting, actually! I still haven't really made up my mind as to whether I especially like this bread or not, but the flavor is pretty unlike any loaf I've made so far: a strong hit of fennel when you first bite into it, followed by a progression through the darker rye, molasses, and faintly chocolate-y flavors as you keep chewing. As I said, interesting, and maybe a little bizarre. Anyway, good texture - a bit lighter than I had expected - and with a surprisingly crisp crust.

Whole wheat molasses bread

Sort of a whole wheat variation on anadama bread this week. To start off, put 1/2 a tablespoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of molasses in a mixing bowl. Add 3 teaspoons of yeast that have been proofed in 7/8 of a cup of warm water and 1/4 of a cup of warm milk. Blend together and slowly add 1/2 a cup of all-purpose flour and 1/2 a cup of whole wheat flour to make a medium-thickness batter. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of Crisco, mix thoroughly, and then stir in another 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour. Knead for a while (this dough is pretty easy to work with) and set aside in a covered, greased bowl for the

First rising (2 hours )
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Since moving into my new apartment this August I've been almost universally happy with it. While cooking bread I've occasionally been suspicious of the oven, though: the loaves I've baked in my new place have come out, on average, more tender and much moister (and hence much tastier but occasionally just a touched undercooked). So, I've off-and-on been wondering if the temperature gauge has been substantially off, but until now I haven't had any particularly strong evidence to that effect.

Earlier in the week I thought I would try a new recipe for a sort of Indian-spiced chicken dish that required baking the chicken in liquid for a while. I cooked everything as directed, except that I accidentally left the chicken in for about 25% longer than I was supposed to - but then, I've cooked some nearly inedible meals in my time, so I figured that at worst the chicken would be too too dry, but I would still eat it. Well, much to my delight, the chicken was absolutely delicious! In retrospect, I should have been tipped off by the fact that the liquid the chicken was cooking in wasn't boiling - or bubbling in the slightest - despite sitting in what was ostensibly a 375 degree oven. That didn't really register at the time, though, so I just merrily kept eating what the relatively dim light in my apartment tricked me into thinking was some tasty dark meat.

Well, I realized with quite a start that when taking the chicken out of the oven I had cut open the piece to see if it was cooked, and that piece, now sitting half-eaten on my plate, had been white meat. Turning on some extra lights confirmed that, indeed, what I thought was dark meat would be more accurately described as almost totally uncooked meat. That was really quite a strange sort of feeling...I mean, what could I do? I had already eaten maybe half a pound of uncooked chicken before realizing anything...not like I could take that back! So, I quietly got up, cleaned my plate, did the dishes, and spent the next three days worried that I was about to get horribly ill. Happily, in fact, that never came to pass, so crisis averted. I do plan to find an oven thermometer the next time I go shopping though...this seems like it should be a correctable problem.
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Punch down the dough, knead for a few seconds, and shape into a roll a bit longer than the greased 9x5 baking tin you'll be using. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, and then gently put 2 1/2 twists into the roll. Put in the tin, cover, and set aside for the

Second rising (1 hour and 15 minutes )
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Anyway, other than that little scare, it's been a pretty quiet week (some days quite literally: I think the only words that have escaped my lips today have been "Just a small hot chocolate, please" and "Thank you.") But it's been nice. Nice to be back at school without the crushing workload that hit me at the end of last semester, nice to have time to work on research without any distractions (or, at least, any distractions not of my own devising)...just nice to have a calm, gradual ease into the semester's start next week.
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Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: One of the more mediocre loaves I've made (or at least, it certainly seems that way compared to last week's bread, which currently ranks among my very favorites so far). Good texture, rather tender, but a fairly forgettable flavor. Well, it'll probably be alright for deli sandwiches at least.

Pusstabrot

Always exciting to add another country to the "Where the Bread I've Baked Comes From" list, and it's Hungary this time! So, this bread gets going in a slightly unusual way (or at least, compared with most of the breads I make): start by roasting 1/2 of a heaping teaspoon of fennel seeds over medium heat in a small saucepan, and then try to use a large soup spoon to grind the seeds (a mortar and pestle might, admittedly, be more convenient here). In a large bowl, combine the fennel with 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar and two teaspoons of salt. Create a little well in the middle of the flour mixture, and pour in 4 1/2 teaspoons of yeast proofed in 1 1/2 cups of warm water, along with 2 tablespoons of canola oil. Gently stir in some of the surrounding flour to create a very thin batter, leaving most of the flour dry. Let this sit, loosely covered, for an hour, when the batter will have bubbled up out of the well. At this point, stir everything together, add another half-cup of flour, and get to knead what will turn out to be a very stiff, resistant dough. Put in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside on the radiator for the

First rising (1 hour and 20 minutes)
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Another trip home, another 8 airports (well, counting three of them twice, that is)... While I generally quite like air travel, this time I was generally less thrilled than usual, and all of the airports started blending together in my mind into one semi-continuous set of glass-steel-cement buildings, this one with a blue-glass-falling-leaf-mobile, that one with a giant wooden sphere, but otherwise not terribly distinguishable from one another. In part, I suspect that feeling is just the result of combining extra airports on this trip with having flown so much over Thanksgiving.

But, of course, that's not to say I didn't have my usual share of fun meetings, this time ranging from a Midwestern psychotherapist to a New England chemical engineer to a teacher at a New York Yeshiva. So, I ask, what is it about airplanes, I wonder? I mean, I consider myself a quite friendly but not terribly talkative person most of the time, yet somehow when traveling by myself I occasionally turn into a regular chatterbox. My current working theory is the novelty of having a completely contained, few-hour, start-to-finish relationship with someone...but I'm not entirely satisfied with that. Any suggestions?

Oh, I should add, one final highlight of my recent travel experience includes finally escaping the Bermuda Triangle of Air Travel that I call the metropolitan Detroit airport with only a tiny, insignificant in comparison, delay of an hour or two on the runway. Hurray!
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Punch the dough down and knead for another minute or so. Shape into a ball, put on a greased cookie sheet, cover, and again put on a nearby radiator for the

Second rising (45 minutes )
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Fake New Year's Resolution...the "fake" one, of course, because I think of New Year's resolutions in much the same way that I think of birthday wishes: namely, if you tell anyone else it just won't happen. So, for the fake resolution, I'm going to try to get back to some (slightly) more adventuresome cooking. When I first moved out here I was, for me, very good about this, trying out a new recipe maybe once a week or so. Since the end of last summer, though, I might have attempted all of one or maybe two new dishes. So, for the sake of saving my taste buds from further boredom, I'll try to resurrect the new-dish-a-week system. And if you (dear reader) would like to help out, I'd be thrilled if you emailed or posted a link to a favorite recipe I could try out. I have just a few vague rules...
1. Not too too much prep time (this one's a bit more flexible, but still...if it takes more than an hour and a half to prepare it won't exactly be easy to fit into the weekday rotation. Still, if it's super-tasty I'll give it a try on some weekend or other)
2. Preferably not super-spicy
3. Preferably super-delicious
4. No tofurkey (.pdf :-))
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15 minutes before the end of the rising, fill the oven's broiler pan with water and start preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Just before putting the bread in the oven, cut a half-inch-deep cross into the top, brush with a mixture of an egg white mixed with a tablespoon of water and a pinch of salt, and sprinkle with a fennel seeds.Bake for 50 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Admittedly, not the most aesthetically pleasing loaf... I'm not really sure why half of the bread decided to explode out like that! Still, I can live with that because this loaf is just straight up delicious. The crust is nicely crispy but not tough, and the fennel flavoring is terrific...I'm not sure why I haven't made a fennel-spiced bread before, but now that I have, well....I want to eat rastons.

"What's left in the kitchen cupboard" bread

Thanks to a combination of post-Thanksgiving laziness merging into pre-finals and then finals stress, it's been nearly a month since I last went food shopping. Well, fortunately I had a lot of random food to go through, but when it came time to bake bread this week, I found that I didn't have the correct ingredients for any of the bread recipes I had been thinking of making. So, instead I mostly just threw together a few random things and hoped for the best.

Start off by proofing 3 teaspoons of yeast in 1/3 of a cup of brown sugar dissolved in 3/4 of a cup of warm water. After a few minutes, add 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 teaspoon of salt (the very last of the salt!), and 2 lightly beaten eggs. Start stirring in 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, about a cup at a time. Knead the resulting dough (which is incredibly easy to work with) for a good five minutes, put in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside for the

First rising (1 hour)
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So, sorry that I've been so inconsistent about posting recently (which, I'm afraid, isn't going to improve over the next few weeks - see note at the very end of the post). Now that it's over, I think I can accurately claim that this was the most work intensive, and possibly but much less certainly the most stressful, finals period of my life. The term essay for one of my classes really wasn't so bad (although, as it turns out, writing twelve pages of a basic review sort of paper takes me much, much longer than twelve pages on literature ever used to).

But the field theory final was, simply put, absurd. Not overwhelmingly difficult (despite a few tricky sections), but almost overwhelmingly lengthy... the final write-up was about 38 pages (which had to be TeXed up, a feat that by itself took many, many hours), and it feels like I went through a good tree's worth of scrap paper (Although, just looking at an order-of-magnitude guess for how many pages you can get from an average tree, that's clearly an exaggeration!) Anyway, glad that it's all over...
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Punch the dough down, knead for a minute, roll up and put in a 9x5 inch bread tin. Cover and set on top of the nearest radiator for the

Second rising (1 hour and 30 minutes)
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And, other than said finals, I haven't been doing too much these days... I had a really great trip to Albany/Williams/Home over Thanksgiving, and felt like I had a few stories to tell from that - everything from travel (absurdly delayed flights met with spontaneous applause from the passengers-to-be, people dressed as football mascots high-fiving random people in airport terminals) to food (Four mammals in four days? The world's most artistic collection of calzones? Chocolate chip pancakes for dinner? Check, check, and check!) to purely random encounters (I mean, I know I went to a small college town, but just how many people and professors can you really expect to run into in the same coffee shop on consecutive mornings?)

But, it's probably been much too long to do those stories any justice, so I guess we'll just have to see what happens on this upcoming vacation instead...
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Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 31 minutes. Let cool before slicing.

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Tasting verdict: Well, for being such an unplanned conglomeration of ingredients, I'd say this came out fairly well. More than anything, I think the operative adjective for this bread is "mild." The bread doesn't have that whole-wheat "healthy" taste to it, but neither does it have a characteristically white-bread flavor; the brown sugar adds to much for that, I think. The texture, also, is pretty mild: the fat/egg content is clearly noticeable, but it's not nearly as off-the-charts as some of the other loaves we've made. All-in-all: a good loaf for breakfast purposes, maybe average at best for sandwiches.

Vacation time: From now until Jan. 5th! I don't know if I'll be making bread at home, so probably best to assume that there'll be no new posts until at least the week after New Year's. So: Happy Holidays, everyone!

Schnuck's brand challah bread

Much easier than usual this week: go to the closest supermarket, peruse the shelves for a little bit, but a loaf of bread. Take it home, set it on the counter, and prepare for

The unwrapping (5 seconds)
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Sorry about the lack of posts lately...but, you know, end of the semester, finals to stress about, all of that good stuff.

So, anyway, I don't really expect to make any more bread until at least, say, the 21st. Wish me luck with all the work!
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Tasting verdict: Well, it's somewhat gratifying to now be surer of the fact that the bread I make is usually better than supermarket bread (although I've still got a ways to go before I can match real bakery bread, I'm sure). The taste and texture of this bread are both fine, if a bit hollow, but there's just something really weird and slightly unpleasant about the crust. All in all, not an incentive to go back to store bought bread.

Light rye bread

Last week's loaf was excellent but a bit too sweet for my everyday lunches, so I this week I picked up some assorted deli meats and decided to make a loaf of rye bread.

Get this one started by proofing 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in 1/4 of a cup of warm water and 1 3/4 tablespoons of honey. After a few minutes, add 1 tablespoon of melted butter, 3/4 of a tablespoon of caraway seeds, and 1 scant tablespoon of salt. Slowly stir in 1 1/2 cups of dark rye flour, 1 3/4 cups of bread flour, and about 1/3 of a cup of all-purpose flour (this last only because I used up the last of the bread flour and the dough was still a bit too sticky).

Anyway, this dough was surprisingly easy to knead...or at least, it certainly feels like it would have been if my arm and shoulder hadn't felt bruised, sore, and just generally shredded from what was truly an epic, Roland-vs-Oliver-scale [Aside: I've always been a bit tickled by that phrase, despite first seeing it in a Bartlett's in junior high and never having actually read any of the Roland legends] arm wrestling match (albeit one that, while it sure felt like five days was probably less than two minutes, and one that in fact did not end in a draw). Anyway, once the bread is thoroughly kneaded, attaining that usual smooth-yet-elastic texture, put the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let sit for the

First rising (2 hours and 10 minutes)
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Well, I'll hardly be alerting anyone to a new phenomenon with this comment, but let me add my voice to the many who are tired of just how early the whole "winter-seasonal" music/decorations/promotions/etc. start each year. Usually I have a fairly high tolerance for that sort of thing, but this year has seemed worse than usual. First, on Halloween itself some of my friends went to try to pick up a pumpkin for carving. Now, admittedly, it was after dinner time, so any family would have already pick up their Halloween supplies, but by 8:00 p.m. the supermarket had already gotten rid of any trace of Halloween (well, except for vast quantities of now-on-sale candy) and were already setting up Christmas displays. I mean, really? It wasn't even November! There was still a sixth of Halloween -- not to mention all of Thanksgiving! -- before Christmas would start. There's got to be a line drawn somewhere, and that just seems to have crossed it.

Anyway, just to rub it in (and what reminded me of this in the first place), last week my piano teacher announced that once I finished the two pieces I'm currently working on we could start working on a "seasonal assortment of songs." Not exactly the best inducement for me to work too hard.
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Punch the dough down, then roll it up, put in a greased 8x4 inch bread tin, cover, and set aside for the

Second rising(1 hour)
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Mild Spoiler Alert: The following contains a tiny bit of plot about the newest Bond film, so if you're interested in seeing that film without knowing anything about it before hand, skip this section. But if you don't mind knowing one really minor plot point, I'll try to be suitably vague about everything else.

Anyway, as you could tell from the above, this weekend some of my friends and I went to see "Quantum of Solace," the newest James Bond film. Now, of course, you don't go to a Bond film expecting any sort of deep cinematic experience, and indeed I think this one performed as usual in the standard chase/fight/etc. Bond film elements.

What really struck me as odd, though, was the great villainous scheme of this installment. Of course, you have to separate out the ends from the means in the villain's plan, and the means are suitably dastardly in the film. But the ends...well, somehow plotting to double utility rates just doesn't pass the evil-super-villain test. The evil-pretty-mean-guy test? Sure. The not-a-very-nice-thing-to-do test? Absolutely. But when you finally find out that this is what Bond has been striving to stop, it makes the extra psychological-drama this movie cooks up seem a little hollow. Well, maybe making the bad guys a sort of monopolizing corporate entity out to make money at the expense of the little guys is just a reflection of the times, but I didn't think it made for as compelling cinema. Still fun, mind you, but just a little strange.
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Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Just before putting the bread in the oven, brush the top with a mix of 1 egg white and 2 tablespoons of cold water. Bake for 45 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Very nice. Rather lighter (both in density and flavor) than your usual rye bread, but still with a very nice texture. Providing it doesn't change too much over the next few days, just about perfect for deli sandwiches.

Verterkake

Quite randomly, yet another Scandinavian loaf this week…

Start off by proofing 2 3/4 teaspoons of yeast in 2/3 of a cup of warm milk. After a few minutes, stir this into 1 cup of dark rye flour. In a separate bowl, combine 7/8 of a cup of Guinness (standing in for verterol, the apparently non-alcoholic dark Norwegian beer that I’d never heard of but that gives this bread its name), 2 teaspoons of salt, 1/4 of a cup of sugar, 3/4 of a teaspoon of black pepper, and 3/4 of a teaspoon of mace. Let both sit for about 20 minutes (until the yeast/flour mixture looks like it’s starting to rise).

Then, pour the Guinness mixture into the yeast mixture, and also add 1/3 of a cup of light corn syrup. Stir in another cup of rye flour followed by 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, and get to kneading. Now, I’ll be honest: normally I quite like the challenge of doughs that are difficult to knead, but this week I was feeling pretty lazy. So I was rather delighted to find this an extremely pliant, workable dough to handle (and one that, thanks to the Guinness that hadn't quite come up to room temperature, was pleasantly cool as well). Anyway, knead a little bit less flour than usual into this one; we’ll want it to remain a little moist and sticky. After kneading put in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside for the

First rising (1 hour and 45 minutes)
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Exciting election, no? I have to admit, I can't believe that it's been less than a week...it somehow feels like ages ago. Anyway, I went to vote early in the morning before heading in for work, and was almost disappointed that I didn't have to wait in line at all (not that Illinois was even remotely close enough for there to be extra voter enthusiasm, I suppose). Also, as much fun as it was to get to vote in person, I rather wish I hadn't had to change my registration away from Maine, though...it's hard to get too worked up about, say, who the next county coroner is going to be when you've never heard of any of the people running.

Also, more selfishly, now that the election is over, I think I just lost 90% of the sites I would visit to waste time on the Internet. I mean, I guess for the next little bit there's still this and that, but then what?
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Punch the dough down, and then shape into a ball. Flatten slightly and put on a greased cookie sheet, then cover and set aside for the

Second rising (1 hour and 15 minutes)
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So, this weekend I went to another concert at the Krannert: a performance of the Brandenburg concertos.

The good: Well, I'm pretty sure just about everybody reading this blog already knows how much I like Bach...at his worst I think he's rather mechanical but still good to listen to, but at his best he's transcendent, in a Clockwork Universe sort of way. And while the Brandenburg concertos aren't my favorite Bach pieces, they're pretty high up on the list. Also, I continue to be floored by the acoustics in the Krannert Center's main performance space. Notes just ring out so well...even though I had less-than-ideal seats (below and to the back of the solo violin), so that some instruments sounded much softer than they should have, the clarity was astounding. Which would have been particularly awesome in the second concerto if not for

The bad: I'm afraid the piccolo trumpet player wasn't really up to the part in that second concerto (no real intended slight there...I mean, the piece was specifically written for a true virtuoso of the time and is (apparently) considered to be one of the hardest trumpet parts written). Or else he was just having an off night. Which is too bad; he played most of the piece magnificently, but missed and squeaked on enough notes that I spend most of the first and third movements thinking more about whether he was about to miss a note than about the notes he was actually playing. So that was a bit distracting...but not nearly as distracting as the middle-aged German couple, sitting immediately behind me, who felt the need to comment on every little aspect of the performance. And while I appreciated the opportunity to check just how much of German 101 I did and did not remember, I think the concert might have been more enjoyable without the constant chatter.
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Brush the dough with warm water, and use an especially sharp knife to cut a cross into the top of the dough. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

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Tasting Verdict: Delicious (if, as in the above photo, not quite as symmetrical as I might like!) Fresh out of the oven this was one of the better breads I've made in a little while (the smell was strikingly similar to that of rice pudding, actually), and for lunch today was still quite good spread with just a bit of butter. Other than with butter, or perhaps some jam, though, I can't really imagine this would go well with too many other things lunch-wise. We'll see how it holds up over the rest of the week.

Dark herb bread

Time for another sandwich loaf after last week's flatbread, and since I had less work than usual this weekend I thought I would make a marginally fancier-than-usual bread.

So, start out by proofing 5 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in 1/2 a cup of warm water and 1 tablespoon of sugar. In a large mixing bowl, mix together 3 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of dark rye flour, 1 cup of bread flour, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Add to this 2 generous tablespoons of olive oil, the yeast mixture, and another 1 1/4 cups of warm water.

Now, for the final addition to this mix, chop up three cloves of garlic, and grind it with a mortar and pestle, along with 1 teaspoon of rosemary and 2 tablespoons of parsley, into a paste. Or, if like me your kitchen has a semi-temporary (okay, okay...permanent) shortage of mortars and pestles, substitute instead a cereal bowl and soup spoon.

Anyway, it turns out cereal bowls and soup spoons aren't good at getting things to a paste-like consistency. Well, dump everything into the mixing bowl, stir, and then knead for a good 12 minutes, making a slightly moist but quite elastic dough. Put in an olive-oiled bowl, cover, and set aside for the

First rising (1 hour and 30 minutes)
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This Week in Breakfast: the "Lemons-to-Lemonade" edition:

This week I was faced with what seemed at first to be quite the crisis (on the scale of breakfasts, anyway). I had apparently badly miscalculated how much milk I had left when I had gone grocery shopping last weekend, and so I woke up this Wednesday to discover that at just less than half a cup, I didn't even have enough milk for a bowl of cereal. What was I to do?

Confession time (link - page 4): despite having been in the Midwest for almost a year and a half now [update: I'm not trying to call pancakes particularly midwestern...just that I've only been really cooking for myself since moving here], when I woke up on Tuesday I had yet to actually make myself pancakes. (I'm going to be honest: I really like pancakes) So, faced with the possibility of not having a decent breakfast and thus getting the day off on totally the wrong foot, I decided there was only one thing to do. So, overcoming all obstacles -- for instance the fact that, upon closer inspection of the recipe, I didn't actually have enough milk to make a batch of pancakes [um...I tried using an extra egg and adding a little water...not the best result, but still pretty tasty], or the fact that the size of my frying pan, combined with my relative ineptitude when it comes to flipping things, forced me to make one pancake, turn everything off, eat the pancake while still warm, turn the stove back on, make one more pancake, and so on -- I went and made some of the best pancakes I've had since the last time I was home.

So, it turns out that pancake batter keeps in the fridge fairly well, at least for a day or two. So, since I couldn't really finish off a batch of pancakes all by myself, I ended up saving a bunch of the batter and having delicious, delicious pancake breakfasts for the next two days. And then, when Friday morning rolled around (still a day away from my usual Saturday grocery run) and I was out of batter....well, I just had no choice but to make myself an extra-large omelet to use up the last of the Cheddar cheese I got last week.

Anyway, on the whole I had probably the best consecutive series of breakfasts since I moved out here. I might have to forget to buy milk more often.
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Punch the dough down, and knead for another minute or so. Then, shape into a loaf and put in a greased 9x5 bread tin, re-cover, and let stand for the

Second rising (1 hour)
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Currently reading (with commentary):

Late last weekend I finished that David Foster Wallace essay collection (on the whole, I quite liked it... a fun read), so now it's on to the other book I picked up when I bought that one, which happened to be a paperback copy of four of Milton's poems (but mostly, just Paradise Lost for my current purposes). Now, I didn't think about it when I was buying it, but in retrospect I think that just pushed Paradise Lost, with three copies I can think of, into the lead in the "most copies of a given text appearing in books I own" competition (out of multi-way tie with "The Master and Margarita" and a handful of Shakespeare plays that I happen to have two copies of for whatever reasons). Which made me start to wonder why I would like Milton enough to have three copies of one of his works scattered across my collection (please, no comments on my general apparent prediliction for old-dead-white-guy literature :) Or, if you must, at least join me in wondering why this particular old dead white guy as opposed to others.)

So anyway, I think my tentative explanation (I haven't thought about this too too hard so far) is that sometimes I feel like reading Milton is a breath of fresh air (albeit, admittedly, a breath of very dense, literate, and occasionally overly stuffy fresh air). Which I think I mean in two senses. First, I feel like there's less of the "cleverness-for-cleverness' sake" in his works. Objectively, this may or may not be true, and I have no doubt that he enjoyed turning an especially fine phrase as much as his contemporaries, but at the very least I'm less conscious of it in his writing than in some others. So, when I get tired of writers whose very writing screams "oh, look at how awesome I am" I think I enjoy going back to something whose art is more in service of its theme.

Second, and perhaps more relevant in my current state of mind, I've always thought Paradise Lost possessed of a certain intellectual honesty in the way Milton sets up the argument he's about to expound. From the very beginning he declares the purpose of the poem (that whole "justifie the wayes of God to men" thing), and he then proceeds to set up a poetic universe where God very much needs that justification. Or rather, where (even though we all know where he is going to come down on the issues) he gives the side he is opposed to one of the strongest versions of its position he can, instead of just setting up blatant straw men to knock down. After listening to perhaps a few too many of the political "arguments" that have been swirling around as we approach this election, where I think at least 90% of the debates I've had the pleasure to be in the same room as have quickly devolved into ad hominem shouting matches largely divorced from any point anybody had been trying to make...I think having a touch of that sort of intellectual, argumentative honesty -- even just reading a literary version of it -- helps calm my nerves. Or something like that.
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Slash the top of the loaf three times with the sharpest knife you own. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then turn the oven down to 350 and bake for another 25 minutes. Cool before slicing...this loaf seems a little less stable to fresh slicing than some of my other breads.


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Tasting verdict: Actually, I think this one turned out rather well! The taste is not really what I was expecting...after baking the parsley flavor came out a little bit more than I expected it to, so in the future I might want to add some extra rosemary. But the really pleasant surprise was the garlic: after baking the bread still has some of the heat left over from the garlic, but largely without the taste of it. An intriguing result, I'd say! Anyway, I'm a little concerned with how well this loaf will hold up over the course of the week (my past experience with whole wheat based breads has been that they lose a lot of texture and get overly crumbly about 4 days after they come out of the oven), but for the time being really quite a tasty little loaf.

Moral victory of the week: I hadn't really planned either of my little random digressions for this week's post (as I'm sure you've already guessed by now!) So, in retrospect, I'm immensely pleased that I managed to get both Milton and pancakes into a single blog post.

Lavash

Well, after making a quintessentially New England loaf last week, I thought it only fitting to go with something a bit more international this time. So, this week it's lavash (also spelled lavosh, lahvosh, and so on), as another request from Masha. As an aside, other than it's variety of spellings, lavash also apparently has a variety of meanings...trying to look it up online quickly reveals that it is both "a leavened flatbread of Armenian origin" and "an unleavened Armenian flatbread." Go figure. Anyway, I've gone with a leavened version; hopefully it'll be slightly more lunch-appropriate.

This is a fairly easy (and quick) bread to make: start off by proofing 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in just less than 1 cup of warm water mixed with 3/4 of a tablespoon of sugar. After a few minutes, mix together with 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 cup of all-purpose flour, and 1 3/4 cups of bread flour. (If you guessed that that ratio of flour was dictated less by my recipe and more by the contents of my cupboard, you'd be correct!)

Anyway, knead for an extra-long amount of time (I wasn't really paying attention, but longer than usual, despite how easy the dough is to work with), and then put in an oiled bowl, cover, and let stand for the

First rising (1 hour and 35 minutes)
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Earlier this week I had the distinct pleasure of having one of the most surreal experiences of my time so far here in the Midwest. One of my co-workers needed help running an errand for the local bike co-op and, as it turned out, needed help getting a tandem bike (with a small trailer to haul some stuff...hence the errand) there and back. Well, I had never ridden a tandem bike before, but why not, right?

Well, it turned out this was no normal tandem bike, but rather a special one that featured the person steering facing in the usual, forward-looking direction, but had the second person (a.k.a. "me" in this case) looking backwards. (And, as it turns out, having to pedal backwards as well.) This, while mildly headache-inducing during turns, was also incredibly amusing. Pedaling on the street, waving, and getting utterly bemused looks from drivers directly behind the bike was quite the experience. To be fair, the bike is a pretty bizarre sight, so I can't blame folks for getting a chuckle out of it (and, again to be fair, I'm sure my having to take a phone call while merrily pedaling backwards looked doubly peculiar). Oh, I also got quite a kick out of the small mirror attached to the bike helmet I was borrowing, allowing me to see forwards if I were to so choose.

But, I think my favorite moments, more than just looking backwards at traffic, were while we were biking on the bike paths around campus, and so were passing students walking on the sidewalks. There was something interesting in getting to see the bewildered expressions and double takes of students as we passed by, followed by the immediate checking of those expressions as they realized that I, looking and pedaling backwards as I was, could see them.

Then, of course, there was the delicious coda to the whole thing...appearing in the form of a fantastic "thank-you" pecan pie a few days later...A trade I'm pretty sure I would make any day of the week!
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Punch the dough down, and then knead for another 5 minutes or so. Divide the dough into six roughly equal portions, roll into little balls, cover, and let rise.

Second rising (30 minutes)
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So, happy as I was about the whole tandem bike thing, there were a pair of things I was mildly disheartened by this week. First, Moonstruck, my third-favorite coffee shop suddenly and mysteriously closed, with no warning whatsoever. Now, I'm not at all sure that it was actually my third-favorite coffee-shop...I don't really have a set ranking...but I certainly did like it. And, with its combination of late hours, good study or relaxing atmosphere, and excellent desserts, it's certainly the one I visited the most. So, I was sad to see it go.

Second, today I was shredding some cheese (cheddar from Ilchester, if you were wondering) to go with the taco salad I was making for dinner, when I happened to notice on the package the following advisory: "WARNING: Contains milk!" Well, of course, I was rather amused at the exclamation mark, but otherwise sad that a block of cheese had to have a warning that it contained milk. I mean...really? That's just one or two steps removed from a jug of milk labeled "WARNING: Milk contains milk!"
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Set the oven to 400 degrees. While it's heating up, roll out each ball into a very flat um...shape. Aim for either a rectangle or circle, but for aesthetic reasons I'd recommend not being as indecisive as I apparently was while making these. In any event, brush the tops of each portion with cold water, and then sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 20 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Nice! Really, the bread tastes pretty much like the recipe seems like it would. But the texture is excellent: the bread is just thick enough to avoid being a crispy cracker, but thin enough to be more distinctive than just any other slice of bread. I'm a little sceptical about whether the pieces would keep for very long, but somehow...somehow I'm not sure that'll be an issue.

Anadama, Mark II

A new recipe for one of the better early loaves we made...So, start out by proofing 3 scant teaspoons of yeast in 1/4 of a cup of warm evaporated milk. (Full disclaimer: recipe does not call for evaporated milk...but it's been sitting on my cupboard shelf for too long now, and I wanted to come up with some way to use it.) After a few minutes, add another 1 1/4 cups of evaporated milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 1/4 of a cup of molasses. Stir in 1/2 a cup of medium-grind cornmeal and then 4 cups of all-purpose flour (half a cup at a time). Knead for about 7 minutes, adding enough flour so that the dough is nice and elastic but still slightly moist and sticky. Put in a greased bowl, cover, and realize that the only place in the apartment warm enough to have the dough rise is the oven, turned to its lowest setting. Ah, Autumn finally comes to the Midwest.

First Rising (1 hour and 20 minutes)
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The real reason, of course, that I'm making this loaf this week is that I've just bought my plane ticket (engaged at enormous expense, it rather seems to me) home for Thanksgiving vacation, so I thought an appropriately New England bread was called for. As last year was the very first time I had failed to be home for Thanksgiving, I am quite excited to make it back this year

Speaking of those plane tickets, though... Now, I don't particularly want to complain; indeed, I've had some convoluted air travel adventures in the past, and I'm a big believer in sitting back, taking the almost inevitable delays with an amused smile, and just seeing what happens. However, looking at just the expected itinerary for this upcoming trip (let alone what nearly mandatory missing connections are going to make the trip in reality), my confidence is already a little shaken about this one. In my ideal world, if I had to come up with a flight pattern to get home, wouldn't it just be Chicago to Maine? Heck, since Maine airports are so small, I'll even throw in a plane transfer in Boston. And, if I were to want to stop at Williams along the way, surely we can just go from Chicago to some upstate New York airport, and from there to Boston.

All of this I would fully expect, and would be pretty happy with. What, before I actually bought these tickets, I just couldn't even imagine was that Illinois - Massachusetts - Maine would, in addition to all of the above airports, also involve stops in Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. Remind me, how can that possibly be reflective of a sensible system of air travel?
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Punch the dough down, knead for a minute or two, then shape into a loaf and put into a greased 9x5 pan. Cover, return to the oven, and let sit for the

Second Rising (1 hour)
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Anyway, other than the excitement of buying plane tickets, not a terribly interesting week. I'm happy to say I'm feeling much better than last week.... but otherwise, I've just been doing the usual mix of work, research, with maybe slightly higher levels of sleep and chicken noodle soup than usual. Hopefully, now that I'm feeling better, I'll have more to report next week.
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Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Enjoy the fact that this bread is substantial enough to be sliced while still quite fresh out of the oven.

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Tasting Verdict: Quite good. It's a little hard for me to compare with the last time I made a loaf of anadama, as my memory isn't quite that good. Still, rereading my old tasting notes, it's clear that this is a much richer, denser loaf than the last time around. I'm still really a fan, though, of the extra texture that the cornmeal adds.

Cooking Disaster of the Week: Chicken and rice noodles with a Thai peanut sauce. Somehow, I continue to be totally incapable of making a decent Thai food dish. The noodles always seem to end up with the consistency of one solid blob of mush, and the flavor is, without fail, too muted and vague...One of these days I'll get it, but clearly not this time around...

Daniel's Cardamom Bread

Last week, you may recall, I quite accidentally found myself in possession of rather more cardamom than I knew what to do with. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, this week I've decided to try to whip up some sort of cardamom loaf.

So, to start off, proof 3 teaspoons of yeast in 3/4 of a cup of warm milk along with 1 tablespoon of sugar. After a few minutes, add 1 tablespoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 beaten egg, and 2 teaspoons of cardamom. Stir in 1 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour and 2 cups of all purpose flour. Knead for about 8 minutes, keeping the dough a little bit moister and stickier than usual. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and leave alone for the

First rising (1 hour and 45 minutes)
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Some days, there just really isn't much to say. To be honest, nothing about the past week particularly stands out...just the usual mix of research and problem sets, with nothing more noteworthy than usual going on in either.
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Punch the dough, which will have grown to maybe 150% of its original size, and place in a greased 9x5 pan. Recover, and let sit for the

Second rising (45 minutes)
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Perhaps, other than the fact that week really wasn't remarkable in any way, that I'm not feeling overly chatty is that I think I'm coming down with a cold. Which means that leaning over a keyboard doesn't feel so terrific right now. Oh well.
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Bake at 375 degrees for 32 minutes. Let cool, slice, and enjoy

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Tasting verdict: Well, thanks to that cold, I'm not entirely sure. While it might just be the cold messing up how I'm perceiving tastes at the moment, this loaf feels a little off. It's not that the cardamom is overwhelming...it just feels like it isn't properly balanced out with... well, of course, I haven't the foggiest what does balance out cardamom out. Any suggestions for the next time around?

Currently reading: Just finished that Icelandic mythology book I was talking about...kind of a fun read! I think it's nice once in a while to read books that just have a very different rhythm to their sentences and paragraphs. This one was something like a prose version of Beowulf in that respect. Anyway, I haven't started it yet, but next on my bookshelf is "Consider the Lobster," a collection of David Foster Wallace essays.

Saffron Bread

Well, I now have saffron to use up, so I flipped through my recipes until I found a relatively simple recipe...here's my version of it.

Start out by boiling 1/4 of a cup of water and pouring it over a generous pinch of saffron threads. While that's cooling down, proof 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in a mix of 3/4 of a cup of warm milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of melted butter.

After a few minutes, pour those two liquid mixtures into a mixing bowl, and add 1/2 a tablespoon of salt and 3 cups of all-purpose flour. Now, I'm not sure why, but this ended up being the most rock-solid, difficult to knead dough I've made in a long, long time. As a result I'm afraid I might have under-kneaded this one a little bit, which in turn was potentially reflected in the end result....we'll see. Anyway, put the kneaded dough in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside for the

First rising (2 hours)
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So, this was my week to showcase my apparent inability to get the food I was aiming for. First, I was at my favorite cheese shop, looking for my cheese of the week. After finally settling on my choice, I asked to have a section of the wheel of double-cream gouda, thinking it would go well with lunch this week. Well, while I was searching the rest of the store for this and that, the person behind the counter sliced the cheese, wrapped it up, and put it in a bag. I was quite happy with that, until I got home, opened the bag, and discovered that I had been given not double-cream gouda, but a triple-cream brie! Okay, well, admittedly, not exactly the worst thing that could possibly happen, but I was still pretty surprised. I mean, "brie" and "gouda" don't exactly sound that similar...

I have to admit, though, that the second time something like this happened to me this week, it was entirely my fault. I was trying to pick up a small jar of cinnamon, and there were really quite a few to chose from on the shelf. So, forgive me if I didn't exactly pay attention to which one I picked up...all I cared was that when I looked down into the shopping cart, I saw something that, rotated around as the jar was, looked like it ended in "...amon." Well, that'll teach me, as I now find myself in possesion of a small jar of cardamom. Which I haven't the foggiest idea what to do with. (So, incidentally, if you have any suggestions, do send them along!)
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Punch the dough down (it will have risen maybe 150% or so), knead for another minute, and then put in a 9x5 bread pan. Cover again at let rest for the

Second rising (1 hour and 30 minutes)
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Went to the yearly Asian film fest at Boardman's again, where I saw "Train Man"...
Immediate reaction: most obtrusive use/misuse of music in a movie I've seen
Immediate generalization: Asian film is strange.
Slightly more considered modification: But not more so than the independent cinema of english-speaking countries.
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Despair a bit that the bread isn't looking so shapely. Sigh twice, then bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees, then bake for another 25 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: First, let me say from the outset that this is probably the most aesthetically challenged loaf I've yet made. But that's okay, this is the "tasting verdict," after all, and while this won't be winning any bread beauty pagents, it does actually taste pretty good. Really just a nice, substantial sandwich-type loaf, but with a nice added saffron flavor.

Challah, take two

Another stab at making this fancy loaf, with a slight variation from our last attempt.

To start off, boil 1/3 of a cup of water and then pour over a (generous but unmeasured) pinch of saffron. Separately, proof 6 teaspoons of yeast in 1 cup of warm water, and let both sit for about five minutes. Then, in a large bowl stir these into 3 beaten eggs, 3 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Start adding some all-purpose flour, a little at a time, until you've added just less than 5 cups of flour. Knead until the dough is quite stiff, then place in a buttered bowl for the

First rising (1 hour and 30 minutes)
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So, everybody that I've told this story to so far has been, shall we say, less than impressed. But I was still irrationally happy when this happened, so I'll share anyway.

Sometime last week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, I went to one of the local coffee shops to do some work (having spent more than enough time in my office and looking for a change of scenery in which to read some papers). I didn't particularly want coffee, but you can't just sit there all day without ordering anything, so I got a cup - served in a glass, actually - added a packet of sugar, poured in some half-and-half, and found myself a seat. Once again exposing my coffee naivety, though, I quite conspicuously forgot to stir this all together.

Anyway, this turned out to be a brilliant move on my part, since the next time I looked up I had created a masterpiece! So, I present the four-fold, coffee version of the black and tan:

[nerdy bit: Presumably the layers are, in order from bottom to top (1) a thin layer of sugar saturated coffee...you'll recall from junior-high science that sugar water can be up to 80% more dense than regular water! (2) milk-laden coffee (3) cream-laden coffee, and (4) coffee. Exciting for a few reasons: first, this confirms for me that this coffee shop has half-and-half that is actually a mix of two different liquids, and which is not just some synthetic substitute. Second, this puts some (to me) potentially surprising limits on what the density of coffee can be. Cream, after all, is only barely more dense than water, so the fact that coffee can float on top of it means the density must be falling in a pretty narrow range of values. Either that or there are some much more complicated boundary-layer effects that I am not bothering to consider just now.
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how much yeast was added, this dough rises very quickly...which means there's quite a lot of punching down to do. Once that's over and done with, divide the dough in four, and make each into a fairly long (let's say about 16 inches) strand of dough (much like the pizza dough and the latest cinnamon bread, this will take a few iterations of stretching, letting the dough relax, stretching again, etc.). Once they are all roughly the same length, use them to make a grid-like shape, with alternating over/under strands (once again, I am totally guessing at how to do this...if anybody has an actual method, please let me know!). Then, take each of the four "under" strands and fold it counter-clockwise over the nearest "over" strand. Next, take what are the new "under" strands (i.e. what was a moment ago the "over" strands) and fold them clockwise over the nearest strands. Repeat, going back and forth between clockwise and counter-clockwise folds, until the strands run out. Then end result should look
similar to but better than this:


Cover, set aside, and let sit for the

Second rising (45 minutes)
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This weekend I just went to the funniest, most stereotypically Midwestern place I've been yet. On Sunday I took a trip out to a nearby pick-your-own-apples orchard and pumpkin patch sort of place. Or at least, that's what I thought it was. It turns out, though, that it was much, much more than that. In addition to the orchard, there was also an entire Wizard of Oz themed country fair sort of thing, complete with a Flying Monkey Cafe, a Ruby Slippers maze, and so on. Where "so on" manages to encompass a corn maze and a non-mechanical, donkey powered merry-go-round. Oh, and an activity station where you try to identify what sort of minerals water has been flowing through based on the color of the sludge coming out the end of a pipe. It was incredible.
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Brush the top of the dough with 1 cold beaten egg, and then sprinkle liberally with poppy seeds. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Well, pretty tasty, but a little disappointing. I am still a long way from the loaf my mom makes, and to be honest, I'm not even sure if this is better than the last Challah I made. The flavor is a little better (I think the saffron was a nice touch! maybe a little more next time...oh, if only, as the Danish cashier at the supermarket said, saffron wasn't "a million dollars a thread"), but it tastes a little drier than I remember the last one tasting.

Reasonability check: On further thought, you might question my ability to so precisely recall and thus compare against a loaf of bread I made in April...point taken.

Currently reading: The "Prose Edda," a book of Norse mythology written in 13th century Iceland, a "Penguin Classics" copy of which I found in practically mint condition at a yard sale on my way back from the office this weekend. I've only just started, so I can't say much about it..but I've already learned that this book is clearly where Tolkien got the name Gandalf, along with the name of just about every dwarf in his books.

Sara's Best ever, no fail, essence-of-orange cinnamon bread

Not only is this week's bread easily the best-named one we've had on the Bread Blog, but clocking in at over 1700 miles by the most direct route across the Earth's surface it has leaped to the front of the "recipe with the farthest distance traveled" competition. I'm excited!

So, to get this project started combine in a big bowl the following: 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 beaten egg, 1/2 of a cup of sugar, 3/4 of a cup of orange juice, and 1 cup of warmed milk. Take one large orange and grate the peel into the bowl as well, (perhaps I should have put a disclaimer on this recipe in case anyone is getting queasy just thinking about oranges...) and then stir in 2 cups of whole wheat flour until everything is well mixed together. Add to this 2 3/4 teaspoons of yeast proofed in 1/4 of a cup of warm water.

Slowly stir in 4 cups of all-purpose flour, and get to kneading. Much like the Norwegian whole wheat, this dough isn't so difficult to work with in terms of its toughness so much as the shear volume of it. That and, I suspect, the fact that my arms hurt from a particularly taxing rock-climbing session earlier in the week. Anyway, after 12 or so minutes the dough should have a nice elastic but not-too-overworked texture to it, so put it in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit for the

First rising (1 hour and 20 minutes)
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So, this post is going up a day late because I just got back from a weekend trip to Chicago. It was really quite a good time, including a nicely eclectic mix of activities, from the symphony orchestra to a science museum to a matinee show of The Second City. Which was absolutely hilarious. No offense to Combo Za or anything, but that was by far the best improv/sketch comedy I've ever seen.

Anyway, mostly it was just nice to get out of town for a few days, seeing as I really didn't manage to do that much at all this summer. A very refreshing trip, and a good sort of mental endpoint to the summer... I feel like now I can really just settle in to the more regular routine of the semester: classes, problem sets, research, and all that jazz.
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Punch the dough down (be warned: quite surprisingly for a dough that was so soft to begin with, this dough punches back!) and divide it in two. Gently work the dough with your hands into two rectangles. This would be a good time to run a little experiment on final loaf states vs. rectangle sizes, so make one rectangle about 8x10 inches, and the other closer to 10x16 (but starting from roughly the same initial volume of dough, the difference being entirely in the thickness). Spread each rectangle very lightly with olive oil, and then coat evenly with a cinnamon-and-sugar mix (1 tablespoon of cinnamon to a little more than 1/4 of a cup of sugar). Roll up each rectangle, put the smaller one in an 8x4 bread tin, the larger in a 9x5, re-cover with plastic wrap, and let sit for the

Second rising (4o minutes)
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Just one more quick comment about that Chicago trip, specifically the symphony. Musically, it was great (minus one french horn player who just couldn't seem to end sustained notes gracefully). It was also nice to go to a concert where, except for an opening Rossini overture, I had never heard the pieces before (Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole and Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony)...I feel like recently most of the music I've heard live has been pieces I was already quite familiar with.

Also, the performing space in Symphony Center is pretty fantastic. I did think the row of seats above and behind the orchestra was a little weird though. It kept reminding me of professors lecturing about nobles sitting on the stage for performances of Elizabethan-era theater. Which may have distracted me slightly from the actual performance.
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Set the oven to 350 degrees, and bake for 30 minutes.


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Aesthetic verdict: Well, the interior is fine, but the exterior leaves something to be desired... Gigantor (the one on the right, from the 8x4 bread pan) clearly was rolled too tightly, whereas Mr. Eyes-and-a-nose was plainly rolled so tightly that he ripped himself apart in the baking.

Tasting verdict: Delicious! A bit too sweet to be a regular lunch loaf for sandwiches (although, let's be honest, that's what I'm using it for anyway), but absolutely fantastic as toast for breakfast. It has a good density, a soft crust, and a strong but not overpowering flavor of orange. And a whole lot of cinnamon-y tastiness.