Dancing on the razor's edge... literally!

Today I want to share my delight in the joys of having an amazing tool in your hands.  That tool, my friends, is a simple razor blade.  (I'm fairly sure the cashiers at my local stores are convinced I'm a lunatic... They see me shopping for groceries in garb a couple of times a year, I buy the "weirdest" vegetables AND rave about the delicious ways to prepare them, and now I was all giddy about finding this particular razor blade!)

I've been baking bread a while now.  I've been approaching it from a more scientific perspective for about two years, and I'm always fascinated by what slashing the dough prior to baking does to a loaf.  Do you slash it before it rises?  After it rises?  Not at all?  Which direction, what angle, the questions are myriad, and the various approaches all create a different look and, in some cases, dramatically different results!

For all this time, I've used kitchen knives to do my slashing, with varied results.  I've never ended up with inedible bread as a result, but I've been seeking something that will allow me more precise control over the bread dough, and a paring knife is at a weird angle and doesn't do what I want it to do.

So, there's this schnazzy tool called a "lame" (you can see a picture by clicking here) which is supposed to be the tool of choice in French bakeries.  I've had good French bread (we lived in New Orleans for five years, where bread is a point of pride for bakers...) but the more I considered this gadget, the more I was seeing people complain about it, and the same refrain kept repeating.  People were using a single-bladed razor blade instead.

We had to go to the store anyway, so I decided to get some razor blades.  After a fruitless search near the razors, I sidled into the hardware section where I came across this little gem.  For the huge investment of $1.98, I got this "mini glass scraper" with a washable plastic holder and five razor blades.  I was probably more excited than anybody expected me to be, but it's such a delight to find the tool you've been seeking at a bargain!  I'm not ashamed of my passion for baking! 

Our weekly Sewing Circle was last night, and I was rushing around getting ready, with a huge pot of potato soup simmering, and bread dough rising in the bowl, when I remembered my new toy!  I didn't even have time to research methods of application, I just slashed and baked.  This particular batch of dough combines whole wheat, regular bread flour, and milled flax seed.

I tried two patterns, the first being a series of three vertical cuts along the length of the bread, one on the top and one along each long side.  This loaf is very small, probably about 3/4 pound of dough.  (The scraper you see in the "before baking" picture is fairly small, taking a regular sized razor blade, for reference.)  I slashed the loaves right before baking, very shallow cuts, about 1/8", and perpendicular to the surface of the dough, just to see what would happen, and it created a very pretty look.

The second loaf was slightly larger, and longer, so I ran several diagonal slashes down the length of the loaf, again just before baking, also very shallow.  I am very much still in the experimental stage (I expect I will be in this stage for the rest of my life, it's just so fun to play with bread dough!), so I didn't want to overcomplicate the process.  I like the way this came out, although I would probably recommend deeper slashes for this look, and possible slashing before rising. 

I also brushed the loaves with salt water a couple of times during the baking process.  (Sewing Circle Night is perhaps not the best time for lengthy bread experimentation!  Too much going on!)  The came out nice, with a chewy crust and a nice crumb, and the razor blade is definitely more precise than even the smallest of our kitchen knives.  I am a convert!

I would share pictures of the inside of the bread, but it was, ~le sigh~, inhaled by the participants in our A&S evening, and not even crumbs remain.  However, that is the truest compliment I could ever ask for, so I will call this experiment a success!  I can't wait to try new refinements in using this new kitchen tool! 

Happy Baking!

A&S 50 Challenge Project 9: Viennese "Zeppelin" bread

For today's project, I went browsing through Clayton's bread book again, and this recipe caught my eye, I confess, mostly because of the reference to the zeppelin. 

Bread making is an excellent opportunity to cultivate patience.  I tell myself this every time I start a sponge, and one of these days I'm going to actually cultivate some patience. Haha.  Maybe.  Anyway, this recipe is very similar to most basic white wheat breads, but the sponge in this recipe is set aside at room temperature for three hours.  That's a very long time! 



Sponge: before





Sponge, after 3 hours

So, to start off, two cups of flour and two measures of yeast (about a scant tablespoon each) are measured into a bowl.  This is mixed  with two cups of hot water until smooth, and then a light layer of flour is sprinkled on top of the gooey sponge.  This then rests for three hours, covered, at room temperature.  Fortunately, I don't start classes until next week, so I spent the time working on a couple of small, unfinished sewing projects that have been sitting around waiting for me to complete.  Huzzah for hand work!  So, at the end of the three hours, I braced myself, and uncovered the bowl where, to my delight, there was a bubbly goo!  The resting period allowed for some fairly impressive gluten formation, apparently, as I found as I stirred the sponge down into a manageable gloop.  (That's the technical term, I swear!)    

Before rising

After first rise

Oil, salt, a little warm milk and about two more cups of flour were mixed in, and then I began the process of kneading in the remainder of the flour, about a quarter-cup at a time. I like to knead my dough on the counter, occasionally throwing it down onto the counter during the process.  It took about ten minutes, and the dough was very silky, with a lot of life to it.  This recipe calls for the dough to be greased and put into a bowl to rise.  Honestly, I normally skip this step, and just throw it back in the mixing bowl.  This dough was very springy, though, and I was curious to see what would happen, so I washed the bowl, and tossed the dough back into it with a little olive oil, turning it a couple of times, and then covering it with a clean kitchen towel.  Most modern bread recipes call for the dough to rise under plastic wrap, waxed paper, or some other modern material.  I prefer a clean kitchen towel, and always use that instead.  This dough rose quickly, easily doubling in size, with visible air bubbles under the surface. 

This recipe also calls for two rising periods before shaping, one for an hour, the second for about twenty minutes.  I punched the dough down, re-covered it, and then the fun part!  The author suggested placing a small "can of ashes" in the oven while baking, apparently to replicate the "wood fired oven" flavour in the bread.  We have a fire pit outside, but it's also the middle of winter, and it's been snowing all day, of course!  I'm a Norsewoman, however, and, undaunted by a little snow, I headed out to the back yard and rummaged in the fire pit for some ashes.  Unfortunately, the ashes were all cemented into a solid block of ice.  I did manage to chip out some charred wood, which I put in a small make-shift foil container and set on the floor of the oven, as recommended.  (Note:  In the future I will use actual wood ashes, and lots more of them.  In the end there was minimal aroma of wood smoke noticeable and almost no impact on the final flavour, sadly!) 

Now, this bread is named for the shape of the loaves, and this is one area I need more practice on, but I managed to divide the dough into three sections and shape it into roughly the "slender football" shape recommended by the author.  After another period of rising under the kitchen towel, the loaves were slashed, brushed with salt water, and baked at 400°F for about 45 minutes, brushed with the salt water every fifteen minutes during the process.  They came out beautiful, if a teensy bit lopsided, with a nice brown crust. 

After the required "cooling off" period, we sliced into them, and they were really lovely.  The salt water created a nice, chewy crust, and the crumb was slightly irregular, but very tender, with small air pockets throughout which give it a nice rustic look and feel.  This bread is good enough to eat as-is, with a nice flavour from the salt water, and my kids quickly demolished half a loaf.  (Luckily, this recipe makes three loaves, so we have plenty for dinner tonight still!) 

Mirianna enjoying the Viennese "zeppelin" bread.

My 11 year old daughter, known in Society as Mirianna, was happy to pose for a picture, as long as I let her have yet another butter-slathered slice as a bribe.  A small price to pay!  This is another excellent recipe for a feast, with a more rustic look and feel to it which would be an enhancement to any feast table! 

Operation: Haggis One!

Contrary to recent appearances, here at the homestead we do more than bake bread.  In fact, there's nothing my Lord and I enjoy more than serving some unfamiliar dish to somebody and hear them say (sometimes after a little encouragement to "... just taste it!") , "WOW!  That's really good!"

We think we can make that happen with haggis. 

Yes.  I said haggis.  Relax.  I know it has a bad reputation, but really, it's going to be OK.

Haggis has this reputation as the ultimate nasty food.  Most people I know would eat bugs before they'd try haggis, which is somewhat unfortunate, in my opinion.  I mean, haggis is just a type of sausage, really.  Ground meat, with some spices and herbs and filler (in this case oatmeal), cooked and served up.

Seems easy enough.  We're up for the challenge!  The hard part was finding the meat.  We chose to go with liver, heart and tongue, and had to special order them from a shop in Indianapolis (unlike the ancient Scots, we don't have our own flock, alas).  The people at Goose the Market were super helpful in our quest to locate fresh organ meats, although stomachs were unavailable, so we picked up some pig stomachs at Saraga International Market (WE LOVE THIS PLACE!  If you're looking for a good broad spectrum of ethnic food ingredients, I can't recommend it highly enough!)    Here's the stomach, still in the package.  NOTE:  These stomachs have been cut open, and cleaned.  That's great... except it creates problems when you want to use them as a steaming pouch. ;)  You'll see my nifty solution later! 

So, with lamb tongue, heart and liver in hand, we're ready!  The first step is to soak everything in salt water.  After thawing the organs out (they came to us in frozen bricks.. heh), I put the organs in a plastic bowl of salt water and let them rest for about 5 hours.   In this picture, from the top left there is liver, tongue, and heart.  The butchers had already cleaned the organs (removed the gallbladder, split the heart, etc.), which was nice!  Made my prep work go a lot quicker.  Nothing ruins liver like accidentally nicking the gall bladder!  So, here you see the organs already soaked and rinsed.

After that, I covered the organ meats with cold water, brought them to a boil, covered the pot, reduced the heat, and simmered them for about a half hour. The oats are supposed to be lightly toasted for this recipe, so I put them on medium-low in the skillet while I kept an eye on the simmering pot.  Steel-cut oats are used in the recipe.  Remember those from the Scottish Oat Bread a couple of projects ago?  Here they are as they toast in the skillet.  Mmmm.  Good stuff!

 I will tell you, during this entire process, the biggest "icky" moment I had was boiling the organs.  At about 15 minutes into the simmering process, I guess the fats in the organs gave up the ghost and started to render out, and that was both a somewhat unpleasant smell and look.  Fortunately, it didn't last very long!   After 30 minutes, the organs were firm and cooked, so I drained them, then began mincing the meat.  I did peel the top layer off the tongue, because it felt a little tough and chewy and I didn't want that in my haggis.  I chopped the heart and tongue, then grated the liver (it was easier than chopping, honestly!). 
 
 

Other ingredients we used were diced suet, onions, garlic, sage, thyme, salt, pepper.  We're flying by the seats of our pants on the seasonings, because we didn't like the idea of nutmeg/mace.  Maybe it's not traditional.  However, we know the spices we used would have been available, so I'm willing to go with it for the sake of science.  My Lord, known in the SCA as Uisdean mac Cailin, graciously chopped the onions and garlic for me while I was working on preparing the stomach.  (You should try his brisket some time if you get the chance.  By Freyja's Frozen Left Earlobe, it's a rare treasure!)  Thanks, Love!  :) 

Now, remember that stomach that's all flat?  This is where all those frillion hours stitching garb by hand came in handy.  With a large needle, some kitchen twine, and a little ingenuity, I sewed the stomach into a pouch, leaving the top open so we could fill the stomach with the haggis filling.  If you do this, I recommend having a paper towel handy.  The needle gets a little slippery when it slides through a soaked stomach!    Here's my beautiful A&S entry... just kidding.  But it worked! 

Important note:  You have to leave room for the oats to expand.  Now, I will be honest.  Using the "rudely stitched together stomach" method, I think this is less of a crisis, as the air in the stomach is going to escape through the gaps at the "seam", but you do need to be mindful that the oatmeal is going to expand as it cooks, so we went ahead with the recommendation of filling the stomach 2/3rds full.  Traditionally, you'd poke the stomach with a large needle as it cooked to let out the air.  Ours is "pre-poked".  Haha!  So we're in decent shape.  We also had WAY more filling that we had room for in the stomach pouch, so we put the rest of it into a casserole with a couple of bay leaves on top and covered it loosely, put the casserole dish in a water bath,  and baked it at 350F. 

The stomach was submerged in a pot of boiling water with a couple of bay leaves, with the handy leftover string tied to a spoon for easy retrieval when it's done.  We honestly have no idea what we're doing at this point, since neither of us have ever made a boiled pudding, so this is pure conjecture from here on out!  Uncharted territory!  Huzzah!

The recipe calls for the haggis to gently boil for three hours.  The pork stomach is *much* smaller than the sheep stomach would be, but really, the last thing we want is undercooked haggis, and it's not like you can gently open the baking dish and peek at it, so we're going to let it go the full three!  

So, the proof is in the pudding.  We pulled the casserole out of the oven, and the stomach out of the boiling water.  It's 11pm, so we didn't dance Road to the Isles to Scotland the Brave or anything feisty like that, instead we just carved open the haggis and dove in.  The casserole was a little drier, which makes sense, as it was NOT boiled for three hours.  The flavour was very good, although the mineral tang of the organ meats was fairly pronounced.  The "traditional" haggis, however.  Oh my.  Oh my!  The pudding is creamy and delicious, with just the barest hint of the flavour of the liver.  The onions and garlic melted into the meat mixture, and the oats absorbed the flavour beautifully.      I believe that to appeal to Midwestern palates, we're going to have to adjust the spices a little, perhaps add some nutmeg, or add more fresh-cracked black pepper, or maybe some rosemary, but this is *definitely* delicious.  I'm so thrilled! 

For a little more proof, here's my son, knowin in Society as "Piro", agreeing to be our stalwart guinea pig.  He's 13, and while we can all agree teenage boys are bottomless pits, I think this is still pretty telling!

A&S 50 Project 8 : Limpa Bread

Today my Lord and I are making haggis.  However, I didn't want to make another Scottish bread today, just because.  Instead, I tried a recipe for "Limpa", a Swedish rye bread.  This particular recipe calls for orange peels.  I imagine dried orange peel would have been available, via trading, etc.  I'm going to try it again without the orange peel, but I have to say it is a nice addition!

The recipe starts out by mixing the rye flour and the yeast with some hot water, stirring it and letting it sit a bit.  This is sort of like a sponge-light, since it only sits about 30 minutes, enough to proof the yeast, but that's about it.  Rye flour is interesting to work with.  It is really grainy and I have to say at the sponge stage, it's a little like freshly mixed cement, greyish and gooey.



Undaunted, I forged ahead, because I've played with rye flour before and I know it's just teasing and will grow up to be delicious.  The recipe I used called for fennel, caraway and cumin seeds, ground and mixed into the dough with grated orange peel.  Trusty mortar and pestle at hand, the seeds were measured and quickly ground up.  I was speaking to an acquaintance from Sweden while I was working on this recipe, and he said that fennel, caraway and cumin seeds are packaged up and sold together as "bread spice" in Sweden.  Huzzah!  So, before  grinding:

And here's the gooey mass with the orange peel and stuff waiting to be mixed in:



And now we go back to the basics, kneading in the bread flour a little bit at a time (I work with about a quarter cup and a time, until I start actually kneading, and then it's just a sprinkle at a time).  I notice that the times I've worked with rye flour, the dough seems to get sticky really fast and stays sticky a long time.  Rye's dense, though, and I'd rather work slow and end up with a lighter bread, instead of getting all crazy with the flour and winding up with a brick!  So, after about 15 minutes of slow kneading, I had a lovely little ball of dough ready to set aside to rise.

While the bread was rising, I worked on the haggis a bit (I'll be detailing that later this evening!  Stay tuned!  No, seriously, it's ok!), did a little embroidery, etc.  I always worry about flours other than wheat, and if they're going to rise properly.  I probably just need to do lots and lots and lots of baking with the other flours so my confidence is more solid.  Fortunately, this batch did just what it was supposed to.  (I used the measuring cup for calibration in the pictures!)   See? 

So, I've never had limpa bread.  I've never SEEN limpa bread.  I've got nothing to work with other than the recipe and the description from the author who got the recipe from a woman who spent most of her life in Sweden, who makes both a flat style of bread and round loaves.  Round loaves are familiar to me, and so that's what I opted for.  There was no mention of slashing the loaves, but I like the look, so I went ahead and did a simple cross-slash pattern.  (I'd rather do a Thor's hammer, but I don't think the loaf would rise evenly with an asymmetrical pattern.  Hrmm.. have to try it and see what happens!) 

Forty five minutes of rising, and the loaves went into the oven, where they baked until brown and hollow, the usual "bread test".  The bread actually overpowered the smell of the haggis ingredients cooking, which is saying something. ;)  They came out of the oven to rest for a bit before I couldn't take it anymore and had to cut a slice to taste.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much more the bread rose while baking, too.  I will definitely try the flattened loaves next time, just to see what they are like!

This bread is very tasty, with a nice light flavour from the ground seeds and the orange peel.  It's much lighter than most commercial rye breads I've had, and the crust is very nice and chewy.  This is another keeper, to be sure!  Now to get Mama Thorhalla's family recipe and see how it differs!!