Making Bread

We never went through a lot of bread or bread products in our house, but recently we had been eating even less than usual. Last spring, Peter had discovered that his cholesterol level was slightly elevated, so he had completely overhauled his breakfast habits. He was now eating oatmeal 4-5 days a week and filling in with a whole grain cereal on the other days. He completely gave up his buttered toast habit, although he would occasionally still have an egg.

Turns out, he was the big bread and butter eater in our house. When he changed his habits, we began finding that the softened butter we kept in a butter bell on the counter had gone bad. The bread was a different and rather scary story. A loaf of bread or package of English muffins could now sit in our bread drawer for weeks and, yet, appear and taste as fresh as the day I bought it. I suppose that's convenient, but it makes you stop and think. Real, self-respecting, bread grows mold. This stuff we were eating was a chemical impostor.

I suppose that's why I was excited to embrace bread baking as part of the eating local challenge. It certainly was not because I was a gifted baker.  Baking requires a level of planning and precision that we have already established, does not come naturally to me. This is why my baking mantra has always been, "Why bake something from scratch when you can buy a mix?" 

My first loaf of bread maker bread was a simple Italian bread that I found a recipe for on the back of the bread flour package. I set the bread maker on the dough cycle and when it was done, took the dough and out and shaped it into a loaf. It needed to rise again, and then I brushed it with egg whites and baked it. The bread looked and smelled delicious, but I found its taste and consistency a little disappointing. Now I remembered why I had stuck the bread maker in the closet and forgotten it. The bread just isn't very good.

I thought maybe it was the recipe, so I looked for a new recipe for basic white bread online for my next loaf. This second loaf was slightly less dense, but very salty. I was a little frustrated, but I was determined not to give up so soon. I needed expert advice, so I went online to search for a bread maker cookbook. 

The cookbook that caught my eye was The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook by Beth Hensperger. When it arrived in the mail, I scanned the introductory chapters and grew optimistic. This author seemed to love her bread and had obviously spent a lot of time perfecting her recipes. One of her secrets was obvious when you scanned her recipes. Most of her basic bread recipes called for the addition of vital wheat gluten. Bread flour had enough gluten in it for bread made by hand, she argued, but bread processed in a bread machine needed added gluten to achieve the same airiness and stretchiness in the dough. Ah ha!

The phrase mise en place in a side bar also caught my attention. I am a big fan of cooking shows, so I was familiar with the term, although I had never successfully incorporated its discipline into my cooking. The author argued that mise en place, which means something like everything in its place, was especially important in bread baking. The ingredients need to be measured precisely and be ready to add to the bread machine promptly, and in the right order, if you were to get the desired chemical reactions.

I immediately recognized that learning to prepare my ingredients ahead of starting a recipe could be life-changing. For one thing,  it would force me to read through a recipe before starting, instead of reading and executing a recipe one step at a time.  The first time I made my mom's famous cherry dessert, I used the step by step technique. Step one - drain the canned cherries. I opened the can and drained the juice into the sink. Step two - reserve juice from the cherries. S%&T!

After scanning the introductory section, I came to the first recipe, aptly titled, "Your First Loaf." I liked this Beth Hensperger. She was going to start me out slowly. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know. 

My mise en place!

I had the perfect set of nesting bowls in which to prepare my mise en place, and I dutifully set about measuring my ingredients into separate bowls and placing them in the order in which they would be added to the bread machine. I let all the ingredients come to room temperature as instructed, which demonstrates both an uncharacteristic level of patience, and unprecedented recipe reading skills. My life was changing already! I added the ingredients to the bread machine in the designated order: liquids first, followed by flour, other dry ingredients, and then last, but not least, yeast. I set the bread machine to the basic setting and away it went. 

The loaf rose so expansively that it almost busted out of the bread machine. When the baking cycle finished, I took the loaf out of the pan and immediately cut a slice for each of us to sample. It was amazing! This Beth Hensperger knew her stuff and I was now confident that I could bake our daily bread and not feel like I was compromising taste or consistency. 

The next weekend I felt ready to move beyond the beginner loaf and decided I would bake a loaf of Scandinavian rye and English muffins. I know, right?! English muffins! I made the English muffin dough first. I prepared my mise en place for the rye while the muffin dough was being worked in the machine, so I'd be ready to get that loaf going as soon as the muffin dough was finished. 

The English muffins were fun to make. When the dough cycle on the bread machine was finished, I emptied the muffin dough onto a surface dusted with cornmeal. A little dusting of cornmeal on the top of the dough kept the rolling pin from sticking. I rolled out the dough into a half inch thick rectangle and then cut out circles. The Hensperger recipe calls for 3" circles, but next time I'll make them a little bigger.

Next I cooked my muffins on a heated griddle for 10 minutes a side. They came out looking exactly like, well, English muffins! When you fork split one and toss it in the toaster, it looks and tastes completely authentic. I was feeling very successful. In two short weeks my bread baking skills had advanced so far, that I could already take on Mr. Thomas. 

The high lasted only until I sliced into the loaf of rye I had baked. It was dense and dusky and reminded me of cardboard. I broke the slice I was clearly not going to finish into two pieces and offered a piece to each of our dogs. They wouldn't eat it either. Enough said. I had more to learn.