Epilogue (43 of 42)

As all of you know by now, from all the press coverage, I baked my way through the whole Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book.  Every assignment.  And then some. 

In addition to the adoration of my fan I also got a more tangible reward from my niece Cathy:

  A Trophy!
To go with my Trophy Wife!

And Cathy gave me a congratulatory card, too!

Cathy has definitely raised the bar for her niblings.  (Niblings is a collective, gender-neutral term for nieces and nephews, based on siblings.  There is a movement afoot by a group of school children in England to have it included in the Oxford English Dictionary.  See Kids want 'nibling' in dictionary.  By using it here, I am doing my part.)   

Having baked the book, I thought I would share a Baker's Dozen of our favorites.  This is a purely personal list and is colored by our likes and dislikes.   Thus, although I baked all the gluten-free assignments, and we enjoyed several of the results, none of those are included here.  The gluten-free recipes are great if you need them, but we do not, and I just do not enjoy working with the gluten-free dough.  The tactile aspect of working with the dough is part of baking too, even when using the no-knead method.

Also, I am focusing here on doughs more than products.  Thus, I am not including pizzas and flatbreads and rolls and such, which are ways of forming or embellishing one or more of the doughs. 

With regard to the AB and HB in 5 method, I have a confession to make.  They say that the first step in recovery is to admit you have a problem.  I admit I am addicted to this method.  Many of my baking cohorts easily switch between AB/HB breads and a variety of more traditional loaves.  I have a hard time doing that.  It feels like I am cheating on Jeff and Zoë.  Before discovering AB in 5 I was trying to bake a lot of our bread, and was unhappy with the results.  The AB in 5 method was such a revelation, particularly if you  are trying to bake most of the bread you eat, that I feel I owe them.  I feel kind of disloyal baking anyone else's bread.   I am trying, however.  I am hunting wild yeast with Renée over at Flamingo Musings.  I have tried sourdough in AB/HB loaves, and although the bread turned out fine, I did not get a very sour flavor.  Now that I am not baking the book, I have been planning to work on my sourdough.   And using wild yeast seems like an interesting experiment.  I will keep you posted.

As a starting point for our favorites, I have a "Cheat Sheet" posted on the refrigerator.  It is just a list of AB and HB in 5 bread recipes I bake frequently, in summary form--ingredients, cook time, and storage time.  Since that is my go-to list it seems a pretty good place to start.  You can click on the links for each entry to see my original posts for these.

First on the Cheat Sheet is:

1.  The Master Recipe.  The name pretty much says it all.  It is versatile.  It can be used not only for boules but for baguettes, batards, pitas, naan, pizza, rolls, sweet rolls, you name it. And it is easy to make--flour, water salt, yeast and vital gluten.

The Cheat Sheet also includes:

2.  100% Whole Wheat.   The title of this recipe is really 100% Whole Wheat, Plain and Simple.  And that is what it is.  If you want to go all the way (Whole Wheat wise), this is it.

3.  Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread.   This is an enriched bread, with honey, oil and eggs, and it makes a nice, softer loaf. 

4.  Whole Grain Rye.  Just a nice hearty rye.  I use ground caraway seed in the dough for a more uniform flavor, and top it with whole seeds.  To coat the loaves I sprinkle seeds on the counter and roll the loaves in them.  For me this works better than egg or water wash, especially since the dough is more hydrated.   

5.  Quinoa Bread.  I really like to make this bread using red quinoa from Trader Joe's.  The red grains really show up nicely in the slices, and quinoa is really good for you.

The Cheat Sheet breads are not only those that I bake a lot, they also tend to be those that are easy to make and that do not require extra ingredients.  Going beyond the Cheat Sheet with some fairly simple loaves there is:

6.   Whole Wheat Brioche.  A really good enriched whole wheat. bread. 

7.  Buckwheat Bread.  I do not know why, exactly, but I am partial to buckwheat.  I love sourdough buckwheat waffles.  And this bread has buckwheat groats to boot!

And for breads with more "stuff" in them:

8.  Tabbouleh Bread.  The full name for this one is Tabbouleh Bread with Parsley, Garlic and Bulgar, which is what is in tabbouleh.  It also has lemon, which really gives it that something extra. 

9.  Pumpkin Pie Brioche.  This was a good and fun bread, great for fall.  It was especially good for Honey Caramel Sticky Nut Buns and Indian Spiced Doughnuts.  I have already gotten requests, OK, request, for this one.

10.  Betsy's Seeded Oat Bread.  If you like lots of seeds and nuts in your bread, this one is for you.

11.   Oatmeal Date Bread.  Dates and steel cut oats.  And nuts.  It just doesn't get any better than that.

12.  Il Bollo.  Michelle saved one of the best for the very last assignment on our schedule.  A challah with anise, honey and vanilla.  

13.  Apple Strudel Bread.  This is the exception that proves the rule (about focusing on dough rather than on breads), since it is really the Soft Whole Wheat fancied up.  But Katie loves it, so here it is. 

Those are our favorites, but we like several of the others too.   Post some of your faves in the comment section. 

On a baking note, since I have finished the HB in 5 assignments, I decided to bake something from the first book, the English Granary Bread from AB in 5.  I used Maltex cereal as a substitute for the malted wheat flakes.  When I first baked this bread the malted wheat flakes were unavailable, but King Arthur now carries them again. 

The cereal makes for kind of a moister loaf, but we like this hearty bread. 

So that is it for the HB in 5 Challenge.  I am finished.  Really.  For sure. 

But I may keep posting about baking and such, especially about my clay oven, which is not drying in all the rain, or my wild (and sustainably) caught sourdough, which is bubbling along nicely, thank you very much.  Or maybe about other stuff.  You  will just have to wait and see.

Il Bollo and Pain au Potiron (42 of 42)

Here they are.  The last two breads from HB in 5.  And a good thing too, since Jeff and Zoë's new book, Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day is scheduled to be released on the 25th of this month.

We finish up with a continental flourish: Il Bollo, which its Italian for The Ball, and  Pain au Potiron, which is French for Pumpkin Bread.

I got a pie pumpkin potiron for the Pain au Potiron.  It is, after all, the last assignment, so I went all out.  According to our friends at Wikipedia,  pumpkins are thought to have originated in North America, although that is not entirely certain.  But the oldest seeds found so far, dating back to 7000-5500 BCE, were found in Mexico.  Pumpkins are monoecious, which I now know, thanks to my new sensei Denise with the Ohio Master Gardener Program, means having separate male and female flowers with both types of flowers on the same plant.

Over 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins are produced each year in the United States.  95% of the pumpkins which are grown for processing are grown in Illinois, and Nestle produces about 85% of the processed pumpkin.   As goes the weather in Illinois, so goes the availability of canned pumpkin!  Growing giant pumpkins is a passion for some.  There was a neat PBS special, Lords of the Gourd: The Pursuit of Excellence, about growing giant pumpkins for the annual Cooperstown Weigh Off.  The DVD is available from Netflix, or it may be on your local PBS station this Fall.   According to Wikipedia, "[t]he current world record holder is Chris Stevens's 1,810-pound Atlantic Giant pumpkin, which in October 2010 surpassed Christy Harp's previous 2009 record of 1,725 pounds." 

My pie pumpkin was more in the 3 1/2 pound range.  

The pumpkin in the Pain au Potiron is peeled and diced and added raw as the dough is mixed.  In addition the pumpkin is seasoned with pepper and the dough is enriched with some olive oil.    I baked the loaf in my French Bread Pan, it being a French Bread Pain. 

It baked up nicely, with the pieces of pumpkin throughout.

I thought I had "generously" seasoned the pumpkin with pepper, as the recipe directed, but I did not detect any peppery flavor in the finished product.  I guess "generously" is in the hand of the grinder.  Anyway, while the pumpkin may have been generously seasoned, the bread was not.  As a result, it was pretty similar to the Sweet Potato and Spelt Bread from last time.  So, for the second loaf I worked more pepper into the dough and then put it back in the fridge to rest and recover.  Then, as I formed the loaf I also rolled it in some pepper, which I had sprinkled on the counter, to coat the outside.  (I have found that this is, for me, a more effective way of adding accretions such as seeds to the surface of loaves and getting them to stick than using an egg or water wash.)

I again baked it in my French Pain Pan.

Instead of slashing the dough with a serrated knife I have taken to snipping it with kitchen shears. 

This loaf  was definitely "spiked" with pepper, which gave it a nice warm kick, but not too much.  Just right. 



It seems that growing giant pumpkins is not the only pumpkin related competition.  The Wikipedia article notes that

Pumpkin chucking is a competitive activity in which teams build various mechanical devices designed to throw a pumpkin as far as possible. Catapults, trebuchets, ballistas and air cannons are the most common mechanisms. Some pumpkin chuckers breed and grow special varieties of pumpkin under specialized conditions to improve the pumpkin's chances of surviving a throw.

Since I only used some of my pie pumpkin for the Pain au Potiron, I could have chucked the rest, but lacking a trebuchet au potiron I just roasted it and used some of it to make an
Easy Low Fat Pumpkin Cake.  

 This is one of our favorite fall recipes, and I really recommend that you click on the link and try it (the recipe calls for canned pumpkin, so you need not roast your own).  

With the Pumpkin Bread behind us it was on to Il Bollo.  According to the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food the Bollo originated in Portugal and Spain as an enriched, anise flavored bread.  When the Sephardic Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 they took their Bollo with them to other countries (they could take their dough, but were not permitted to take gold or silver or money).   The version which evolved in Italy, Il Bollo, is richer, characterized by larger amounts of eggs, oil, and honey.  Il Bollo is served throughout Sukkot, and to break the fast of Yom  Kippur.  

The HB in 5 version of Il Bollo is also enriched with oil, eggs (I used egg substitute) and honey and flavored with anise (and vanilla).  It has less whole wheat flour than most loaves we have baked, making it less dense than some.  (In the notes to the recipe Jeff offers that you can boost the whole grains by making a version based on the Whole Wheat and Wheat Germ dough.)  I baked the first loaf as a Bollo, though I skipped the egg wash and extra anise seeds. 

It baked up beautifully (a discerning eye might note that I got ahead of myself and cut the loaf before I took a picture, so some reassembly was required.)

This bread smelled wonderful baking and tasted just as good.  It was definitely one of our favorites.  It makes great toast, too.  


For my second loaf I went for a braid, and rolled the strands in anise seeds sprinkled on the counter before braiding.  It was just as good.  

So that is it. 
Done and Done.

I have baked my way through every recipe in  Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Zoë François and Jeff Hertzberg.  (In the interest of full disclosure, did not bake every combination or permutation of every recipe--Zoë and Jeff often provide several dough options that can be used in a recipe.)   That is 42 "official" assignments, plus 1 recipe inadvertently omitted from the schedule, plus 2 warm-up assignments, plus a few bonus posts.  

We owe this whole adventure to Michelle, who started this all off on October 19, 2009, when she first posted about a group to bake its way through HB in 5.  She is really great and I wish her all the best.  I miss her posts.  Zoë and Jeff (to whom we also owe this adventure) posted about the group on their website on October 20, 2009, which is how I found out about it.  And my first (ever) post was on November 10, 2009--I was much  more pithy then. 

Although most of the folks who started this journey have been pulled away over the 23 months by other demands, the discussion board has stayed pretty lively.  With apologies to Shakespeare, the few of us that are left are but bakers for the working day.  Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d with dusty flour and the sticky dough.  And time hath worn us into slovenry.  But, by the mass, our loaves are (more or less--see my "turban" of last time) in the  trim.  (According to 51 Random Facts about William Shakespeare "[Fact 2] More than 80 spelling variations are recorded for Shakespeare's name, from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd”; and [Fact 3] In the few signatures that have survived, Shakespeare spelled his name “Willm Shaksp,” “William Shakespe,” “Wm Shakspe,” “William Shakspere,” ”Willm Shakspere,” and “William Shakspeare”--but never “William Shakespeare.”)

Through the process we have forged some new friendships, learned from each other, gotten lots of good tips, and had some fun. And here at least, we have eaten pretty well.   And now, we are done.

So, be sure to tune in next time (say what??) for a review of our favorite loaves from HB in 5. 

Apple and Honey Whole Grain Challah and Sweet Potato and Spelt Bread (41 of 42)

The Color Purple: Royal Burgundy Beans and Cosmic Purple Carrot

This time out we are doing Apple and Honey Whole Grain Challah and Sweet Potato and Spelt Bread.  The recipe for the Apple and Honey Whole Grain Challah includes, not surprisingly, diced apples and honey.  The dough is also enriched with oil and eggs (I used egg substitute).   The recipe suggested Braeburn apples, which we like a lot, but those are not in season here yet, so we made do with what was available at the farm stand.  The recipe directs us to shape the challah as a turban, but at least for my skill level the directions in the recipe were a bit sketchy.  Fortunately, Jeff had posted some pictures of the process at Challah done two ways from the same dough and these helped immensely--at least as to the theory if not as to the execution.  

My loaf started looking somewhat turbanesque










But as it rose, and spread, it became decidedly more beret-like






 



It baked up fine, however. 

 As an enriched bread the loaf was nice and tender and it tasted very good.  We would definitely recommend this bread, Judy. 
 



 As you can see, I may not have diced the apples finely enough, but the chunks were nice in the finished product.



Next we moved from apples to sweet potatoes.  And spelt.  From previous posts (Olive Spelt Bread and Roasted Garlic Bread) we know that spelt is basically an heirloom wheat grown mostly in Europe for livestock feed.   Like many of the other less common grains we have used, spelt is hardy and can be grown in difficult conditions.

As for Sweet Potatoes, they seem to suffer from a bit of an identity crisis.  Sometimes they are called sweet potatoes and sometimes they are called yams.  There also appears to be somewhat of a regional convention.  Our daughter Ellen is a graduate of Clemson in South Carolina.  She observed that when you simply asked for a "potato" there, you got a sweet potato.  To get what she considered to be the "default potato" she needed to specify an Irish Potato.

Wikipedia offers that "[t]he softer, orange variety is often called a yam in parts of North America, a practice intended to differentiate it from the firmer and more nutritious variety of sweet potato that is beige on the outside and yellow on the inside."  But, as Wikipedia notes, "yam" is also a tuber "which is native to Africa and Asia and belongs to the monocot family Dioscoreaceae." (This is as opposed to the sweet potato which the article notes "is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae.")  The African/Asian yams "can grow up to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in length and weigh up to 70 kg (154 lb)."  Good thing the recipe specified one large sweet potato rather than one large yam!   According to Wikipedia, "[t]o prevent confusion, the United States Department of Agriculture requires sweet potatoes labeled as 'yams' to be labeled also as 'sweet potatoes'."   Well, as usual, the government has fixed everything. 

This bread was pretty straight forward--just a basic dough using spelt and AP flour.  The only addition was a shredded sweet potato.  My sweet potato was orange on the inside, (it should have had a sign stating "I yam what I yam") and I shredded it with the skin on to preserve nutrients.

Instead of forming an oval loaf as the recipe suggested I baked it as a boule.  I formed it into a ball and placed it in my frozen whipped topping container couche lined with parchment paper.  Then I covered it with a recycled hotel shower cap and let it rise. 

We spare no expense in pursuit of HB in 5 excellence.  

(Actually, that is not true.  Judy over at  Judy's Bakery of Johnson City did a test, comparing King Arthur Flour to Sam's Club Flour.  She felt that KA flour gave noticeably better results, though that opinion was not shared by all her tasters.  Also, Sam's is bleached (KA is not), and Jeff and Zoe have specified that it is important to use unbleached flour in their breads.  I use Gold Medal Unbleached and get it when it goes on sale. My suspicion, which is shared by some of Judy's testers, is that the KA difference would be much less significant in the whole grain breads I bake, where the AP flour is just a fraction of the flour in the recipe, than it appears to be in an all AP flour bread.  So I do spare the expense of KA flour.)

I baked the Sweet Potato Bread in my Flame Orange Le Creuset covered pot, uncovering it about 2/3 of the way through. 

The sweet potato in the dough kept the bread very moist.  In fact, the first attempt looked done at the time specified in the recipe, so I took it out.  It fell!  So I baked the other loaf about half again as long, and took its temperature before I pulled it out.  It was still pretty moist, but at least firm enough to stand. 

The bread was just OK, quite soft and tender, and a little too moist. It is possible that I added too much sweet potato, and that is why it seemed to moist.  I did not notice a particular sweet potato flavor, however.  We liked it much better toasted. 

So that is it for this, the penultimate assignment.  Only one more to go. Tune in again next time for the big finish!

Wild Rice Pilaf Bread and Lentil Curry Bread (40 of 42)

The first bread for this assignment was the Wild Rice Pilaf Bread.  According to our friends at Wikipedia, wild rice is four species of grasses that grow in shallow lakes and streams.  Included in the group is an Asian variety and a Texas variety.  Texas Wild Rice is a perennial, and is threatened with extinction due to its limited range and loss of habitat.  The article notes that  "often, only the flowering head of wild rice rises above the water" and that "[t]he grain is eaten by dabbling ducks and other aquatic wildlife, as well as humans."  The article offers

The species most commonly harvested as grain is the annual species Zizania palustris. Native Americans and non-Indians harvest wild rice by canoeing into a stand of plants, and bending the ripe grain heads with wooden sticks called knockers, so as to thresh the seeds into the canoe.

The size of the knockers, as well as other details, are prescribed in state and tribal law. By Minnesota statute, knockers must be at most 1 inch in diameter, 30 inches long, and one pound in weight. The plants are not beaten with the knockers but require only a gentle brushing to dislodge the mature grain.

They are not making this up.  Minnesota Statute 84.111 provides

It shall be unlawful to use, in harvesting wild rice in any public waters in this state, any watercraft other than a boat, skiff, or canoe propelled by hand, which boat, skiff, or canoe may have a top width of not more than 36 inches and a length of not more than 18 feet, or any machine or mechanical device for gathering or harvesting the grain other than with flails not over 30 inches in length nor over one pound in weight, which flails must be held and operated by hand.

According to the 2010 MINNESOTA HUNTING REGULATIONS "Any person violating any of the laws or rules pertaining to wild rice is subject to a fine up to $1000 and/or 90 days in jail."

From a Healthy Bread standpoint, the Wikipedia article notes that "wild rice is high in protein, the amino acid lysine and dietary fiber, and low in fat. Like true rice, it does not contain gluten. It is also a good source of the minerals potassium and phosphorus, and the vitamins thiamine, riboflavin and niacin."  Of some interest, at least to me, is the fact that, according to the USDA database, one cup of cooked wild rice has 166 calories, compared to 216 calories for a cup of cooked long grain brown rice.

Wild rice can take a long time to cook, which is where my rice cooker comes in handy.  I just threw 3/4 cup of wild rice and 2 cups of water into the cooker and set it on the brown rice cycle.  I went about my business and it beeped at me when it was done.

As I recall, which is getting to be an iffier proposition each year, my first exposure to wild rice was in college (I went to one of the many "Harvard[s] of the Midwest"--Lawrence University in Appleton Wisconsin).  My good friend Court was from a farm in Iowa, and he would bring back all sorts of good food from the farm--fish, duck, pheasant, and homemade wine.   To take advantage of this bounty we commenced to having the Sunday Night Epicurean Society™.   We hosted not only young ladies we were hoping to impress but also friends and favorite professors.  Court's Mom & Dad supplied several recipes, including one for a Wild Rice Casserole.  It had ground beef, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, almonds, wild rice and several cans of cream of something soups.  It was very rich.  And wonderful. 

Being older, if not wiser, I went a little lighter direction with the extra wild rice I had after making the Wild Rice Pilaf dough.  I made a Wild Rice Salad. 

I took some lightly cooked beans from the garden, some cherry tomatoes, a diced apple, half a red onion, diced, and some pecan pieces and tossed them with the cooked and cooled rice and some light vinaigrette.   Not as rich, but still plenty tasty.

The bread was pretty tasty, too.  In addition to the wild rice it had sautéed onion and mushrooms--the "pilaf" part.    I made the first loaf using my 1x2 couche.  I set the 1x2s on some drawer liner to keep them from sliding apart as the dough rose. 

The bread baked up beautifully, if I do say so myself. 

I used my perforated Italian bread pan to bake the rest of the dough, making 2 loaves. 

Next up was the Lentil Curry Bread.  This bread was in the chapter Breads with Hidden Fruits and Vegetables, and the lentils were certainly hidden.  You cooked them until soft and then pureed them in their cooking liquid.  As the recipe notes, lentils are high in fiber, protein, folic acid and B vitamins.  In fact, according to Healthy Eating: All About Lentils "one serving [of lentils] will give you 37 percent of your daily iron and more than half your daily fiber."  They are also one of the quickest cooking legumes--no soaking.  According to the All About Lentils article "dating as far back at 7000 B.C., lentils are one of the oldest cultivated crops."  The article notes that "[l]entils come in a variety of colors, including green, brown, red, yellow and black" and that "[l]entils have a sturdier texture and more peppery flavor than beans, peas or other legumes."  Also, "[w]hen you eat a combination of grains and legumes (such as rice and beans or bulgur and lentils), you create what's called a 'complete protein.' These power combos contain the same protein building blocks as meat, which makes them a great way for vegans and vegetarians to get protein."  To that end, here is a recipe for a good and healthy soup using lentils and brown rice, but I do not remember where I got it 

Lentil Brown Rice Soup

1 T olive oil
3/4 c celery ,chopped
3/4 c onion, chopped
6 c water (+ 1 can chicken broth to make it "soupy"? Add toward end of cooking)
3/4 c lentils
2 cans no salt added diced tomatoes
1/2 t garlic powder
1/4 t pepper
3/4 c brown rice
1/2 t rosemary
1 T Worcestershire
1/2 c carrots, shredded
Sauté celery and onion in oil in a Dutch oven. Add water and lentils. Cook 20 minutes. Add remaining ingredients except carrots. Simmer 45-60 minutes. Add carrots. Cook 5 minutes more.

 Although I made a half batch of the Lentil Curry dough I used a full dose of (sweet) curry powder.  As my trophy wife said, "if you are going to use it, you might as well taste it."  She is pretty nice and she is pretty smart.  And pretty pretty, too.

I posted a tip from Cooks Illustrated on the Discussion Board which suggesting using a pan a lava rocks (like those for a gas grill) to create steam.  My home improvement store did not have lava rocks, but had ceramic briquettes, which I got.

I put them on the bottom rack while preheating, then put about a half a cup of water in, closed the door for a minute, then put the bread in and added another half cup of water.  Seemed to work well, lots of steam, but I do not know how to determine if there was a measurable difference in outcome.

I also baked this bread in my perforated Italian bread pan, and it baked up beautifully.  

As you can see, the combination of the curry powder and the lentils lent it an interesting color.  The crumb was good too.

So that is 40 done, just 2 to go.  Tune in next time for the penultimate post (absent a green-white-checker finish).