Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Most of the bread I make is a combination of whole grain and all-purpose or bread flours. I like the nutty flavor and full feeling whole grain provides, but prefer the addition of other flours to lighten the texture. Without a flour blend, whole grain breads can be dense and tough.

I was intrigued when I came across this King Arthur Flour recipe boasting a 100% whole wheat cinnamon swirl bread. While it only includes whole wheat flour, the dough gets its tenderness from the addition of nonfat dry milk and potato flakes.

I made it with traditional whole wheat flour, but it can be made with white whole wheat - which would make it more palatable for kids. Either way, a slice of this bread toasted and topped with peanut butter makes a fast, stick-to-your-ribs breakfast.

Combine starter ingredients and allow to rest at room
temperature overnight or up to 16 hours. This starter rested for 15 hours.

Combine starter with dough ingredients. Knead. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning to grease
the top. Cover and let rise 90 minutes. This dough was mixed and kneaded using
a stand mixer. If kneading by hand, resist the urge to add additional flour.

The dough will double in size (it may take longer than 90 minutes).

Roll the dough to a 16"x9" rectangle. Brush with beaten egg.
Combine filling ingredients and sprinkle over dough.

Beginning at the short end, roll up dough. Pinch seam to seal.

Place rolled dough in a greased 9"x5" loaf pan. Cover and let rise for 90 minutes.

Dough is ready to bake when it's risen 3/4" over top of pan. Bake at 350
degrees for 50-55 minutes, tenting with foil after the first 10 minutes.

Breakfast is served! This bread is great toasted. It would also
make a tasty base for French toast and bread pudding.

100% WholeWheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

From King Arthur Flour

Starter
1/2 cup cool water
1 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

Dough
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast or active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm milk
1/2 cup orange juice*
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup potato flour or 1/2 cup instant mashed potato flakes
2 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
*Use 2 tablespoons less orange juice in summer (or in a humid environment), 2 tablespoons more in winter (or in a dry climate).

Filling
1 large egg, beaten; to brush on dough
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Make the starter: In a mixing bowl, combine the water, flour, and yeast, stirring until the flour is evenly moistened. Cover the bowl, and let the starter rest overnight at cool room temperature, for up to 16 hours or so; it'll become a bit puffy, and flatten out.

Add the remaining dough ingredients to the starter in the bowl, and mix and knead — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — until you've made a cohesive dough. If you're using a stand mixer, knead at low speed for about 7 minutes. Note that 100% whole wheat dough will never become smooth and supple like dough made with all-purpose flour; it'll feel more like clay under your hands, and may appear a bit rough.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise until it's expanded and looks somewhat puffy, about 90 minutes. Note that dough kneaded in a bread machine will rise faster and higher than bread kneaded in a mixer, which in turn will rise faster and higher than one kneaded by hand. So if you're kneading by hand, you may want to let the dough rise longer than 90 minutes.

Make the filling: Whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

Gently deflate the dough, and transfer it to a lightly oiled work surface. Shape the dough into a long, thin rectangle, about 16" x 9". Brush the dough with some of the beaten egg. Sprinkle the filling onto the dough. Beginning with a short edge, gently roll the dough into a log. Pinch the side seam and ends closed. Pat the log gently to shape it into a smooth 9" cylinder, and place it in a lightly greased 9" x 5" loaf pan.

Tent the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap and allow the loaf to rise until it's crowned over the rim of the pan by about 3/4", about 90 minutes. Don't let it rise too high; it'll continue to rise as it bakes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Bake the bread for 10 minutes. Lightly tent it with aluminum foil, and bake for an additional 40 to 45 minutes, or until the center registers 190°F on an instant-read thermometer. Remove it from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack.

Run a stick of butter over the top of the hot loaf, if desired, for a softer crust. Allow the bread to cool completely before slicing.

Yield: one 9" x 5" loaf.

New York Style Pizza

Pizza is my favorite food. Thick, thin, veggie, meat laden, even pineapple. I love it all (except anchovies). I'm always on the hunt for good crust recipes and I think I've found the best New York style recipe. I picked it up when I attended a wood fired pizza class at King Arthur's Bakers' Conference. It's bubbly, chewy and bakes up tasty and charred - even if you don't have a wood fired oven. (I'm still hoping some day...)

The recipe calls for a pizza stone. If you're serious about pizza, you can also use a pizza steel. And if you want to use what you already have, turn a cookie sheet upside down on your oven rack and preheat along with your oven.

A note about planning ahead: This dough gets it's flavor from a long fermentation - about 82 hours in all. If you want pizza on Friday night, you'll want to mix up the dough Tuesday morning. The flavor is totally worth the advance planning.

Let your food processor do the work. Combine ingredients until a smooth ball forms.
Place dough in an oiled container. Cover and refrigerate for 72 hours.

Divid dough in half and shape into rounds. Oil exterior, cover and return for
refrigerator for 8-10 hours. Place on counter at room temperature for one hour.

 

While dough is resting at room temperature, preheat oven and stone to 500 degrees.

Sprinkle corn meal over peel. Stretch dough to 12 inches and add toppings.

The pizza bakes fast - perfect for a pizza grazing party. 

While this dough looks thick, it's really bubbly and chewy.
I especially love the crispy charred bits!

Sausage, ricotta and home canned banana pepper pizza.

New York Style Thin Crust
Makes two 12" pies

466 grams bread flour
2 grams sugar
1.2 grams instant yeast
2 grams diastatic malt powder (I order online)
8 grams vegetable oil
312 grams water
10 grams salt
Place flour, sugar, yeast and malt powder in bowl of a food processor, pulsing to combine. With machine running, add oil and water in a steady stream. Process until evenly mixed, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes. Add salt and process until smooth ball forms, 45-90 seconds. Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly. Place in refrigerator for 72 hours. Divide dough in half and shape halves into rounds. Oil exterior, cover and refrigerate for 8-10 hours. Remove dough to countertop and let rest at room temperature for one hour. Preheat oven and stone to 500 degrees. Stretch each round to 12 inch circle, top and bake on preheated stone for 8-12 minutes.

King Arthur Flour Baker's Harvest Conference

Recently I traveled to the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, VT to attend the Baker's Harvest Conference. The two-day event included a variety of hands-on bread and pastry classes, panel discussions and bakery crawls. Attendees included a range of novice, experienced and professional bakers.

This was my second year attending the conference and I selected classes focused on bread baking and shaping, including instruction using a wood-fired oven. I make most of the bread we eat at home and wanted to learn new techniques, get better at making artisan loaves, and finally learn how to correctly slash dough using a lame!

While I accomplished two of those goals (still practicing the slash), I learned a tenet of artisan bread baking: time equals flavor. While fine-textured fortified bread relies on eggs, milk, butter or other ingredients for flavor (and have a short rise time), the ingredients in the bread I made included a pre-ferment (starter), yeast, flour, salt and water. Flavor and texture develop over time (up to three days for pizza crust).

Classes

Pretzels & Bagels from the Wood-Fired Oven
I wouldn't have thought of baking either of these items in a wood-fired oven but the result was chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside with tasty charred bits. Both pretzel and bagel doughs were made the day prior and allowed to ferment in the fridge overnight, then shaped. Bagels were boiled for 1-2 minutes then baked. Pretzels were dipped in a lye solution then baked.

Bagels removed from boiling water solution,
topped with seeds then placed on a cornmeal-dusted peel.

A sesame bagel fresh from the wood-fired oven.

Traditional pretzels just out of the oven.

Milling & Baking with Freshly Milled Flour
This class discussed the different types of grain and using fresh vs. aged flour. We also got a tour of the bakery and a primer on making decorative loaves.

Round loves rising in proofing baskets.

Instructor and KAF Baker, Martin Philip,
turns loaves out of the baskets to be
loaded into the oven.

Finished stencil.

Before baking, loaves are decorated
using a stencil and cocoa.

Bread is quickly loaded in the oven. Each door is a separate deck.
Steam is added to develop a crispy crust.

Pizza from the Wood-Fired Oven
Pizza is my favorite food. So I really enjoyed this class. A lot. Dough was made up to three days prior and allowed to ferment in the fridge. It was (tossed) thin, topped with sauce and a few other toppings and baked in minutes. I sampled them all, but my favorites included the pies topped with fresh, uncooked sauce. Fresh and light.

Andrew Janjigian, Assoc Editor for
Cook's Illustrated starts with the crust.

Adding toppings.

Baked in a hot wood-fired oven for just a few minutes.
The charred crust was my favorite.

Bakery Breads
Perfect baguettes are a baker's holy grail. This class taught me how to handle, roll and bake in a home oven. And I learned to curb my desire to add too much flour to aid in shaping. If repeating a task 10,000 times makes you an expert, I only have 9,998 more loaves to make.

See the baker's hands? That's how to roll a baguette. Fingertips and heels of the hand should remain on the bench. It's being done correctly if you can hear a "swooshing" sound as your hands remain in contact with the bench as you roll.

Best part of the experience? Baking for two days with my nephew, Kyle!

My goal is to practice by making artisan loaves (or bagels/pretzels) a couple times each week for a year. And envision my backyard with a wood-fired oven. What food skills are you trying to perfect?

Baguettes
From King Arthur Flour

Poolish:
1 1/4 cups (5 1/4 oz) all-purpose flour
5/8 cup (5 1/4 oz) cool water
pinch of yeast

Final Dough:
2 3/4 cups (11 oz) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (6 oz) cool water
1 1/2 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon salt

For Poolish: The night before you're ready to bake, combine poolish ingredients until blended. Cover bowl tightly and let poolish ferment for about 15 hours at 70 degrees. When it's ripe, the poolish should be very bubbly and fragrant.

For Final Dough: When poolish is ripe, add the flour, water, yeast and salt and stir to combine into a cohesive mass. The dough should be somewhat sticky, so you may need to add a bit more water.

Turn the dough onto a smooth, unfloured surface to knead. Resist the temptation to add more flour. After a short time the dough will smooth out and feel less sticky. (You can also knead on the medium speed of a mixer for 3-4 minutes.) When the dough is smooth and elastic, return to the bowl and cover well to rise. Let rise 1 1/2 hours folding once after 45 minutes (or more often of the dough is very slack).

Divide dough in two and pre-form rounds. Lest rest, covered, for 20 minutes. Shape into baguettes. Place shaped bread, seam side down on a couche or a lightly floured tea towel and let proof, covered, until not quite doubled 30-40 minutes. While dough is proofing, preheat oven and baking stone to 500 degrees.

Place the risen loaves on parchment paper, on a peel and slash. Slide baguettes onto the stone. Fill the oven with steam (place cast iron or other pan on lower rack during preheating. Pour boiling water quickly into pan after placing loaves on stone). Bake until the crust is well caramelized and the sides are very firm, about 25 minutes total.