Not Kleenex Bread and Spicy Grilled Cheese for the Fourth

“How can a nation be great if their bread tastes like Kleenex?” Julia Child. 

I would have voted for Julia Child for President. Yep, even a drunk Julia sounds pretty good right now. Tweets from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She’d sneak a meat tenderizer into the G7 Summit and bang it on the table while she garbled. Instead of fireworks on the Fourth, she’d flambe a tanker portion of Cherries Jubilee.

While we wait for the chance to vote, you can make better bread today. Here is the final Bake This Day pillar of bread baking.

“Not Kleenex” Raisin Walnut Bread for Pillar #5

This delectable and healthy bread is THE go-to breakfast with almond butter and strawberry jam!  Note the instruction to perform a Tension Pull in this recipe and attached video. Bread Pillar #5, The Tension Pull, effectively pulls the “skin” of the dough tight, allowing it to contain the rising CO2 and lift the whole grain into a delicious mound during baking, not a dense and enormous hockey puck. The loaf is simply pulled across your non-floured counter. Look carefully and you can see the surface of the loaf tightening in the video.

As a reminder, this is the last of our bread pillars. If you live in PDX, Andie is happy to teach you bread baking, for the cost of a small donation to Shepherd’s Door Women’s Shelter, just email Bake This Day.

Five Bread Pillars to improve your baking

Pillar One; Never, ever, DEGASS, your dough.

Pillar Two; The higher the bread percentage of water the chewier the crust and less fine the crumb.

Pillar Three; Taste takes TIME.

Pillar Four; Crust requires steam.

Pillar Five; Tension pulls increase oven spring.

Ingredients:

200 gms active sourdough starter

700 gms room temp H2O

15 gms ground cinnamon

100 gms chopped walnuts

150 gms raisins

50 gms ground flaxseed

1 teas vanilla

300 gms stone-ground whole wheat bread flour

700 gms un-bleached bread flour

18-20 gms kosher salt

Step one:  the autolyze

In a large ceramic bowl, mix your active starter, water, flours, spice, nuts, vanilla and flaxseed. Stir to dissolve and add the whole wheat and unbleached bread flours. Mix to a shaggy dough and let rest covered for 1-2 hours. This gives your starter yeasts a nice head start of fermenting without the fermentation slowing salt added.  

Step two: the stretch and folds

Now, sprinkle with 20 grams of kosher salt, add the raisins, and perform a stretch and fold every 30 minutes x 4. (Notice how your bread changes character!)

To stretch and fold picture your bread bowl as a clock face. Pick up the edge of the dough with wet hands, (not flour), at 12 o’clock and fold the dough softly over the center of the clock, without degassing or pushing down the dough). Turn your bowl and repeat this fold at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock on your dough.  Now recover and repeat this every 30 minutes X 4. Stretch and fold is our method for retaining the byproduct of your starter’s fermentation, carbon dioxide.

That’s right, no traditional bread kneading, at all. Your bread will slowly and surely become billowy and soft during this interesting process.

Step three: the final proofing and tension pull

Carefully move your dough on to a flat counter- top, without flour, and divide for two loaves, by carefully sawing in two with a serrated knife.

To tension pull, fold each corner of the dough carefully to the middle, careful, do not degas the bread. Turn it over, cup your hands, dusted with a bit of rice flour, and pull along the counter-top gently, noting the “skin” of the dough getting tighter. Turn and repeat X3.  Cover your tightened dough with a towel for a ten- minute rest, covered with a light dish cloth.

Now, place upside down in a towel lined proofing basket, dusted with rice flour.

Cover with plastic wrap and allow to proof. Indoors, this should take about 1-1.5 hours or you can let it have one hour on the counter and then go in the refrigerator or in the cool garage overnight for a cold rise.  

Note: a cold rise will produce a bread with enhanced sour flavors, a warm rise produces for yeasty, traditional bread flavors.

Step four-baking: Heat oven to 500 with rack in upper third position with your empty dutch ovens/cloches inside!

          Carefully move your final proof to a hot combo/pan or Dutch oven pan for the boule using the parchment slide. (See note below.) Slice the top, with a sharp knife or lame. Designs are fine, but a quick zig zag cut to ½ inch works perfectly well. Cover the hot pan and put in to bake.

          Once in the oven, immediately lower to 450 and bake for 30 minutes.  Then remove the lid and bake for 10-15 more minutes.  You might want to use your instant read thermometer at this point and watch for your desired temp of 198 -200 degrees. 

Cool on a rack and then wait 1.5 hours before cutting, that’s the really hard part of this recipe.!

*To perform a parchment slide, remove plastic wrap and place a piece of parchment paper over your dough. Top this with a dinner plate and carefully turn the entire basket over on the plate. Viola’, your bread is now sitting on a parchment slide on a plate.  Pick up the plate and carefully slide the dough and the paper beneath it, into your hot pan, cover and bake.

Spicy Charred Corn Grilled Cheese

Adapted from Food and Wine

1 cup fresh corn kernels

3 ounces English-style cheddar cheese, shredded (about 3/4 cup)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 ounce havarti cheese, shredded (about 1/4 cup)

1/4 cup shallot, chopped

1/4 cup scallions, chopped

1 poblano pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

1 teaspoon kosher salt

8 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6 tablespoons unsalted butter (3 ounces), softened

12 (1/3-inch-thick) sourdough bread slices (I wouldn’t use the raisin bread above, rather, some simpler tartine)

Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high until smoking. Add corn kernels, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and charred in spots, about 3 minutes. Transfer corn to a large bowl, and let cool 10 minutes. Wipe out skillet, and set aside.

Add cheddar, mayonnaise, havarti, shallot, scallions, peppers, salt, and garlic to corn; stir to combine. Spread butter on one side of each bread slice. Place 6 bread slices, buttered sides down, on a piece of parchment paper, and top evenly with cheese mixture (about 1/3 cup each); spread cheese mixture in an even layer. Top with remaining bread slices, buttered sides up.

Heat cast-iron skillet over medium. Working in batches, cook sandwiches until golden brown and toasted, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Serve immediately.

Feels so good to be eating this week. I’m grateful for comfort food, comforting company, and comfort packages incoming from all around—thank you Pure Synergy!

A beautiful neighbor brought a bouquet of life from her garden with a poem—“Some things to add color, some things for their scent, some things keep growing, some things become spent… it’s life in a jar, enjoy it today—there’s no room for “bou,” only for Yay.”

Antioxidants are a yay. Fie neuropathy! Boost ye immune system! Hyperlinked products have been gifted.