Foodie Thread

[gmbteach]

I've been stretching out on my bread making. Pretty much I only made corn bread or whole wheat bread, made a portugese corn bread and something called grant loaf (oh goodness was bad!). I made a nice white bread, and have tried a sunflower seven grain bread and a pumpernickel and I can't get the buggers to rise worth a darn.

I did a little research online, and one article noted that you need about 50% more water when dealing with whole grains. I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. I typically start with the Betty Crocker recipe. They are usually good and maybe I'm just getting unlucky with the yeast, but I made the white bread the day before and that rose just fine.

As the only bread I have made of late is Damper I don't know what to tell you. I do want to have a go at baking bread, but am a little unsure about it.

Can I ask though: Isn't bread making all about the texture and the feel?

 

[spikepipsqueak]

I've been stretching out on my bread making. Pretty much I only made corn bread or whole wheat bread, made a portugese corn bread and something called grant loaf (oh goodness was bad!). I made a nice white bread, and have tried a sunflower seven grain bread and a pumpernickel and I can't get the buggers to rise worth a darn.

I did a little research online, and one article noted that you need about 50% more water when dealing with whole grains. I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. I typically start with the Betty Crocker recipe. They are usually good and maybe I'm just getting unlucky with the yeast, but I made the white bread the day before and that rose just fine.

I don't know if you soak your grains. I'm finding a few sources recommend it. 12 hours.

I am on the verge of experimenting with a whole rye bread. Haven't made bread for maybe 30 years, and even when I used wheat, then, which has lots of gluten, I was able to produce very convincing rocks.

Anybody want to do some landscaping?

 

[bilby]

I've been stretching out on my bread making. Pretty much I only made corn bread or whole wheat bread, made a portugese corn bread and something called grant loaf (oh goodness was bad!). I made a nice white bread, and have tried a sunflower seven grain bread and a pumpernickel and I can't get the buggers to rise worth a darn.

I did a little research online, and one article noted that you need about 50% more water when dealing with whole grains. I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. I typically start with the Betty Crocker recipe. They are usually good and maybe I'm just getting unlucky with the yeast, but I made the white bread the day before and that rose just fine.

I don't know if you soak your grains. I'm finding a few sources recommend it. 12 hours.

I am on the verge of experimenting with a whole rye bread. Haven't made bread for maybe 30 years, and even when I used wheat, then, which has lots of gluten, I was able to produce very convincing rocks.

Anybody want to do some landscaping?

Yeast can't eat starches; it needs sugars. You can add sugar as part of the recipe; or you can get the enzymes in the grain or flour to break some of the starch down for you; this will happen to a much greater extent if the grain is wet than if it is dry.

Brewing and bread making have a lot in common; the difference is that in brewing you want as much starch to be broken down as possible, so the yeast can make alcohol with CO₂ as a by-product; while in bread making you want to just break down a little of the starch, so the yeast can make CO₂ to raise the rest of the starch/gluten matrix as a loaf, with alcohol as a by-product driven off during baking.

When brewing beer from grain, the first step* is to crack the grains open, to expose the starch, and then to 'mash' by soaking the grain in hot water (but not too hot, as that will denature the enzymes). If the grain isn't cracked, the yield goes way down, as the enzymes can't readily penetrate into the grain.

Low yield is not a problem for baking bread - indeed, you wouldn't want too much conversion of starch. soaking the grain in cold water for a long time (or in warm water for a shorter time) should generate enough sugar to feed the yeast; I am a brewer, not a baker, but seems to me like soaking the grain would be the right thing to do if your bread won't rise. As you only want a small amount of conversion, a hot mash is probably not a good idea; the bread would end up either too sweet, or would rise too much and be mostly empty space.

The other important thing is to be kind to the yeast; keep it cool before use, but let it warm up fairly gently - and if your yeast is old, throw it out and buy new; It doesn't live forever.



* Actually the first step is to 'malt' the grain in an oven, which also helps to break down starches into sugars; but most brewers buy their grain already malted, so crushing is the first step you do yourself.

 

[Smoker]

Damn, there's lots of good looking food in this thread. Got my stomach growling. If anybody doesn't know, there's a guy called Chef John who has a blog, Food Wishes, where he makes videos of himself cooking different recipes. He's kind of my food hero because I was never able to cook anything worth eating until I started watching his videos. He's also quite funny. Here's the last video he posted yesterday. He usually posts two or three videos a week, and you can find a recipe for almost any dish you want by searching his blog.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

Bow before me! For I am no longer the woman who can't produce a decent loaf of bread!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I've been stretching out on my bread making. Pretty much I only made corn bread or whole wheat bread, made a portugese corn bread and something called grant loaf (oh goodness was bad!). I made a nice white bread, and have tried a sunflower seven grain bread and a pumpernickel and I can't get the buggers to rise worth a darn.

I did a little research online, and one article noted that you need about 50% more water when dealing with whole grains. I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. I typically start with the Betty Crocker recipe. They are usually good and maybe I'm just getting unlucky with the yeast, but I made the white bread the day before and that rose just fine.

I don't know if you soak your grains. I'm finding a few sources recommend it. 12 hours.

I am on the verge of experimenting with a whole rye bread. Haven't made bread for maybe 30 years, and even when I used wheat, then, which has lots of gluten, I was able to produce very convincing rocks.

Anybody want to do some landscaping?

Whole wheat bread, that uses about 1 to 1 for white and whole wheat flour for me is never a problem.

These predominantly whole grain breads are giving me trouble. I'll look into presoaking the 7 grain mix and see what that gives me.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

Let me now how it goes. One of the sources suggested pre-soaking any grain you use, for anything. The barley for your soup, the rice for your Chinese meal, the oats for your porrige. He said it makes the nutrients more available and that NOT soaking is a recent practice, since none of us have time anymore.

When I think about the texture of commercial grain breads, I bet the grains are soaked.

I'm impressed with myself that I got my bread to rise in the temperature here and now I can have bread without driving 40ks, which is nice.

There is a photo of my triumph in my previous post, but the photo display in the new site seems erratic. I can't get it to display.

 

[Perspicuo]

Damn, there's lots of good looking food in this thread. Got my stomach growling. If anybody doesn't know, there's a guy called Chef John who has a blog, Food Wishes, where he makes videos of himself cooking different recipes. He's kind of my food hero because I was never able to cook anything worth eating until I started watching his videos. He's also quite funny. Here's the last video he posted yesterday. He usually posts two or three videos a week, and you can find a recipe for almost any dish you want by searching his blog.

Thanks a mil!
I barely cook an egg and some pancakes and that's about it. Oh and I can do a good bowl of corn flakes! Much needed, and it looks very savory!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Let me now how it goes. One of the sources suggested pre-soaking any grain you use, for anything. The barley for your soup, the rice for your Chinese meal, the oats for your porrige. He said it makes the nutrients more available and that NOT soaking is a recent practice, since none of us have time anymore.

When I think about the texture of commercial grain breads, I bet the grains are soaked.

I'm impressed with myself that I got my bread to rise in the temperature here and now I can have bread without driving 40ks, which is nice.

There is a photo of my triumph in my previous post, but the photo display in the new site seems erratic. I can't get it to display.

The weekend is coming, and for the last few weekends, that means loaf making time. I'm stunned that I can't find anything by Alton Brown (the closest thing Earth has to a god) on this subject. I mean, the belching sock puppets help explain the yeast, but I think with the heavier grains, it gets more complicated.

 

[Under the Rose]

This picture is pretty much self-explanatory.

Pop the tray into a 400F oven and cook for 13-20 minutes, depending on the size of your slicing. Even my mother-in-law enjoyed this and she eats very little red meat. We had several colors of bell peppers and some button mushrooms on the tray we cooked when I went to visit. If you have a propane oven or an electric oven with convection feature, you will get a nice roasted effect. Regular electric, I would suggest you use the broil feature for best results.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Oh, this weekend I'll be making pumpkin seitan as a dry run for Thanksgiving. Getting tired of Seitan Pot Pie, as popular as it is. Busy, busy, busy.

 

[gmbteach]

Bow before me! For I am no longer the woman who can't produce a decent loaf of bread!

WELL DONE!!

 

[gmbteach]

This picture is pretty much self-explanatory.

Pop the tray into a 400F oven and cook for 13-20 minutes, depending on the size of your slicing. Even my mother-in-law enjoyed this and she eats very little red meat. We had several colors of bell peppers and some button mushrooms on the tray we cooked when I went to visit. If you have a propane oven or an electric oven with convection feature, you will get a nice roasted effect. Regular electric, I would suggest you use the broil feature for best results.

Looks good. One for me to try one night. What type of meat is it? Chuck? Gravy Beef? Rump? Sirloin? Porterhouse?

 

[Under the Rose]

In the photo, I would have used rib eye but you can use alternate cuts and marinade them for a while before cooking or sliced thin and cooked only until done, they should remain quite tender still. As I work in retail grocery, I pounce on prime cuts when the price is right.

 

[gmbteach]

In the photo, I would have used rib eye but you can use alternate cuts and marinade them for a while before cooking or sliced thin and cooked only until done, they should remain quite tender still. As I work in retail grocery, I pounce on prime cuts when the price is right.

As we are on a budget at the moment (which is doing us the world of good actually), I look for the cheaper cuts and cook them slowly. If we can get Rib Eye for less than $28 a kilo, its a good price. I prefer porterhouse or sirloin as we can get it at a reasonable price.

The other thing we are doing is working out how much the meat is per meal and if it's around $5 a meal, its a good price.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

The weekend is coming, and for the last few weekends, that means loaf making time. I'm stunned that I can't find anything by Alton Brown (the closest thing Earth has to a god) on this subject. I mean, the belching sock puppets help explain the yeast, but I think with the heavier grains, it gets more complicated.

The thing that I'm pretty sure made the difference in my recent triumph is the length of time kneading. Also, consider adding a little gluten flour.


This is Sunday morning and I got up at a leisurely pace and thought that when I got hungry I would probably have something light. Then I saw the potatoes. I currently have bits of partially cooked potato kneedeep in olive oil, slowly going golden. And crisp.

I may not be going to hell, but I'm probably going to hospital.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Big weekend of cooking. Made fettucine alfredo... as in I made the pasta from scratch and the sauce from scratch. Forgot to take a picture. Very nummy! Had some of my white bread to go with it, and of course, it was served on a bed of spinnach. I also tried to make pumpkin seitan today. It cooked, but how does it taste? Won't know until tonight.

My research on bread has told me a few things.

1) Hydration. Need more water with wholer grains.
2) Soaking. Pre-soaking grains or flours helps, at least in some ways with using the wholer grains.
3) Kneading. Whole grains are wholer than white flour. This means they can cut your gluten, totaling messing up your rise.
4) Sugar. Yeast are people too and people need food to survive.

So, with all these things in mind, I went bonkers. I pre-soaked my 1.5 cups of 7 grain cereal with the recipe required 1 cup of water for about 30 hrs. Too busy to use it yesterday, so it got the whole day treatment. And I went into the process assuming I'd add as much water I thought necessary and just say "fuck the recipe".

I followed the recipe at points. I put the white flour, brown sugar, salt, and yeast together and then added the pre-soak cereal. The recipe calls for the cereal after adding the water, but I wanted to know how much moisture I had in the pre-soaked cereal. Also, my other swerve was that it calls for adding the oil before adding the water. I waited to do that after I added the warm water. To me, it makes no sense to added oil before water because you can't possibly get it to mix properly. One other thing, I added a half tablespoon of white sugar, just because it seemed like the right thing to do, fearing maybe the earlier loaf attempt didn't have enough sucrose for the poor yeast to feast on.

So with most of the grains together, the dough wasn't moist at all. So I add the 1 cup of warm water (meaning I have pretty much doubled the water in the recipe). Add the oil, and I mix. It is pretty wet. I then follow the directions and easily added 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour (no pre-soaked). The dough isn't dough, it is very sticky. So I add another half cup of whole wheat flour (2 cups total). It dries up a little, but not alot. I decide to take what I have, and put it on a well floured pastry mat and start kneading. I keep adding white flour while kneading, and the white is absorbing into the dough, as I knead. Probably 1 to 1.25 cups of white flour later, I have a pliable dough. I end up kneading until the dough is semi-elastic, and can handle a few pulls before starting to tear. I consider this unkneading the dough. I do my microwave trick of boiling water in a two-cup pyrex glass container, cover my dough in the bowl and keep both in the microwave and hope it rises.

And rise it did! And by adding 2+ more cups of flour, I had a bit more dough and was going to need two pans. I do the rolling, the dough is slightly sticky (more so than usual), but it rolls well, I do the loaf thing, place it the loaves in the pyrex glass pans and do my oven trick of heating at the lowest temp for a few minutes, then turning it off and putting the dough in the oven.

The dough rises just fine on the second rise. Set oven to stun and bake!

I didn't brush any butter on them, and then still came out pretty nicely browned. Cooling rack a bit, cut a heal off (as my last fear is an over yeasty taste, which my pumpernickel sucked of and the whole grain loaf (brick) had hints of). It tasted perfect!

So I'm left with a quandry. Did my extra steps and intution lead to a perfect baking experience, or did the yeast simply not take in my last attempt. I simply don't know and will need further experimentation to determine the cause.

I'll post picks later.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'll let you guess which two loaves came out today and which one came out last weekend.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

This is all theory (Remember, I am the woman who just made her first good loaf in 57 years, so what do I know?)

Soak your grains for 12 hours to soften them and make them more digestible. Longer than that, and they start to rot and have the opposite effect. Don't presoak flour, that starts to rot right away. Drain thoroughly and don't count the water in the recipe.

Do add the oil first. It will mix, and you want your predetermined amount of oil in before you start adding your flexible amount of water.

Make a yeast starter (as you would with beer) half an hour before starting. Your yeast, and a little of the sugar (needs very little, half a tsp) and a little water. Your yeast comes out of its dormant state and starts dividing in top gear. It is then ready to feed off your bread, not yawning and wondering where it is.

Those are lovely looking loaves.

I'm voting with intuition. I have always been "afraid" of bread. Followed recipes religiously.

This was the first time I felt I knew what I should be seeing, and kneaded in flour until I had the texture I thought I should have. Also, this time I had the patience to let it prove properly, both times. I will be pinching your microwave trick.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This is all theory (Remember, I am the woman who just made her first good loaf in 57 years, so what do I know?)

Soak your grains for 12 hours to soften them and make them more digestible.

I ponder that soaking them also makes them less likely to suck up moisture. They are already saturated, so any water added after that point goes into the dough, not the individual grains.

Longer than that, and they start to rot and have the opposite effect.

It was starting to have an odor, but I went with it. Absolutely no ill affect on the taste of the bread.

Do add the oil first. It will mix, and you want your predetermined amount of oil in before you start adding your flexible amount of water.

When I added oil the first time, it just clumps up locally in some flour. I don't like that. The oil should be lubricating the matrix, not stuck in a clump of flour.

Make a yeast starter (as you would with beer) half an hour before starting. Your yeast, and a little of the sugar (needs very little, half a tsp) and a little water. Your yeast comes out of its dormant state and starts dividing in top gear. It is then ready to feed off your bread, not yawning and wondering where it is.

This has always been my question, is there a way to test if the yeast is decent before doing a bread? Nothing worse than going through the motions and after 60 minutes you are boned.

Those are lovely looking loaves.

Thanks. Based on what I've learned, I'll be tackling the pumpernickel again next weekend. I don't think that has any whole grain, rather it is rye flour, but I'll be paying special attention to the moisture.

I'm voting with intuition. I have always been "afraid" of bread. Followed recipes religiously.

This was the first time I felt I knew what I should be seeing, and kneaded in flour until I had the texture I thought I should have. Also, this time I had the patience to let it prove properly, both times. I will be pinching your microwave trick.

I wish my Father-in-law didn't toss their old microwave. It was probably made in the early 80s, and you could rise two loaves in a pan and still have room for a 20 pound turkey, and a Fiat!