Bread baking madness...

The main symptom of the advancing bread baking madness is simply uncontrollable baking, connected with flour shopping spree and sourdough production. Yesterday I baked two breads - one of them was the Easy Sunflowerseed Bread, the second one was based on the same idea, however, with the addition of rye flour and sun-dried tomatoes - Easy Sun-Dried Tomato Bread. Both breads are very simple and based on yeast.

My ambition though was to have real bread, which means for me a one that is based on levain, not yeast. I thought that it's a difficult, complex process, nearly a closed book to an amateur baker like me. But no! I've found words of encouragement and easy, step by step instructions on Liska's baking blog. Therefore, since five days I've been growing my my first levain - a sourdough bacteria (&a bit of wild yeast) culture, a natural pre-ferment based on whole-grain rye flour. In levain a natural fermentation occurs whose major by-products are carbon dioxide and alcohol (for yeast) and lactic acid & acetic acid (for bacteria). It is the yeast that primarily leavens a dough, but it is the bacteria that create acids that promote strength and flavor in bread.*

Today my patience was rewarded and I took out of the oven a gorgeous loaf of Hungarian Sourdough Rye Bread. From the original recipe (coming also from Liska's blog) I skipped cumin seeds which neither of us likes. The bread is moist thanks to potatoes but not too heavy. Ideal for sandwiches and as a compliment to a soup. 

Easy Sun-Dried Tomato Bread

100g whole-grain rye flour
300g all-purpose wheat flour (type 550)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2g fresh yeast
250ml water
8 sun-dried tomatoes (in oil), cut into small pieces

Fits rectangular loaf  form 25cm long.

Thoroughly mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover with a cotton kitchen cloth and leave for 12-18 hours. Cover the pan with the vegetable oil and sprinkle with bran. After 12-18h put the dough in the baking pan, sprinkle the flour onto the top and the leave in a warm place to rise. The dough should fill the baking pan within approximately 30 - 60minutes. Preheat the oven to 230°C. Onto the bottom of the oven (or the bottom flat baking pan) spill a glass of ice-cubes. Put the pan into the oven (only once it has risen). After 10minutes lower the temperature to 210°C and bake for 30-40minutes more.

Enjoy with some cream cheese and tomatoes... mmm :)

Hungarian Sourdough Rye Bread

200g water
3 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
450g rye sourdough / rye levain**
450g wheat bread flour (I used wheat all-purpose type 550 flour and it worked well)
3 flat teaspoons marine salt
150g cooked potatoes (pressed or mashed)
1 tablespoon cumin (I skipped it)

Fits rectangular loaf  form 30cm long.

Mix the instant yeast with sugar and water. Set aside for 15 minutes.

Then add the rest ingredients in order of liquidity - the most liquid first, then dry ones. Knead the dough - you can use a mixer with a hook. The dough should be quite loose and a bit sticky. Move the dough into a bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes. In the meantime, cover the pan with the vegetable oil and sprinkle with bran. Put the dough into the pan, cover with a cotton kitchen cloth and set aside in a warm place to rise. It should fill in the pan - it took me about 2 hours (Liska says in her blog that it took her about 3 hours.)

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put the pan into the oven (only once it has risen!) and bake for 45 minutes. Let the bread cool down before cutting. Enjoy! :)

*For more information have a look into a chapter 5 from "Bread Baking - An Artisan's Perspective" by Daniel T. DiMuzio
**recipe coming soon!

Pumpkin obsession continued...

This time I would like to present something very different from the gingerbread-like Butternut Squash - Cottage Cheese Cake. It was the first pumpkin cake I've ever made and I've been baking it all over again as it's light, healthy (yeast and olive oil, no baking powder, no sodium!) and goes perfectly with a glass of milk for a quick breakfast or late supper. Pumpkin yeast cake is more like a bread than a cake which makes it so special for me. The recipe comes from one of my favourite cooking blogs which has been an inspiration and an example to follow since the very beginning: Kwestia Smaku written by Asia. For the Polish speakers - have a look at the original recipe. I haven't made any changes apart from adding more pumpkin seeds as the cake was simply perfect.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour (around 470g)
25g of fresh yeast
1/2 cup of white sugar (around 60g, you can use also brown demerara sugar, goes very well with pumpkins in general)
a pinch of salt
4 really full tablespoons of pumpkin puree (I used this butternut squash puree)
1 glass of milk (250ml)
90ml olive oil extra virgin
1/2 glass of pumpkin seeds

Fits a medium size bundt pan.

Preparation: 
Prepare the yeast leaven: crush the yeast into a mug, add 1 teaspoon of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of white sugar and 2 tablespoons of warm (not hot!) milk. Mix everything together, cover with a clean cotton kitchen towel and put aside into a warm place (for example: near the radiator or the oven) for 15 minutes or a tiny bit longer (the yeast need to start growing).  In the meantime measure and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Sift the flour through the sieve, add the yeast leaven, sugar, salt, pumpkin puree (at a room temperature) and warm milk. Use the dough arm attachment when using a vertical mixer or simply your hands to mix (knead) all the ingredients until you can see air bubbles in the dough. Then add warmed up olive oil (up to around 30°C) & pumpkin seeds. Knead the dough for at least 15 minutes.  It's necessary to equally distribute yeast and to give time to develop the gluten. If the dough is too liquid add some more flour - it will depend on how moist the pumpkin puree is. The dough shouldn't be too sticky, it should come off from your hand. Once ready, cover the surface with oil to prevent a crust from forming. (This may not be necessary if humidity is high.) Cover the bowl with a cotton kitchen towel and let the dough rise at a temperature of about 26 - 27°C. Fermentation is complete when the dough has doubled in volume which should take around an hour.  Punch the dough with your fist - it expels carbon dioxide, redistributes the yeast for further growth and relaxes the gluten.

Preaheat the oven to 175°C. Place the dough in the bundt form greased with olive oil, oil the surface and leave for a few more minutes to grow. The time varies from 10 to 30minutes, depending how much the dough has risen previously - if it more than doubled, then none of it might be necessary. Bake for around 60 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the cake - it should come out clean. If the crust is becoming to brown, cover it with the aluminium foil during the baking. (In my oven it's usually after 45minutes.) Remove the cake from the baking form and let it cool down - it will allow the excess moisture and alcohol formed during the fermentation to escape. The cake is supposedly the best the second day after baking.