Mix together and pack into a firm ball. Let rise, covered, for 24-26 hours.
Dough
½ cup flour
1 cup warm water
All the starter
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp salt
Knead yeast and flour and salt into the starter. Let rise for 2 hours. Then divide in half and form two baguettes and let rise, covered, for another 1 to 2 hours. Bake at 425 for 22 minutes.
Slices from the baguette were particularly good with mozzarella cheese. This was served with an ensemble of tasty goods assembled last night on our backyard picnic table where we hosted a reunion with our neighbors (since we have been gone all summer). Izzy is pleased to be home and out of the backseat of the car for days in a row now. This is a great pic my dad snapped of her making a clover-tongue face in New Mexico.
My brother and mother will love this. It does require a trip to the bulk section of an organic foods store because who has rolled wheat and whole barley and cracked rye lying around? But let me say that it is worth it! I have mocked the Muesli brand cereal for a name that sounds a little too close to mucus—but it is a legit Swiss-German word for granola-like breakfast cereal. While it doesn’t look pretty, though you might try to dress it up with colorful cranberries or glazed almonds, it tastes great and will keep you full well into the afternoon. Well, maybe not you, Mom, since your metabolism runs like an old Trans Am.
Muesli Porridge
Adapted from the Village Baker
¼ cup rolled wheat
¼ cup rolled oats
¼ cup whole barley
¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup rolled rye
1 ¼ cups water
¼ tsp salt
1/8 cup sesame seeds
1/8 cup pumpkin seeds
1/8 cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup raisins or craisins
1 tsp honey
Mix wheat, oats, barley, sunflower seeds, and rolled rye with the water and allow the mixture to soak overnight.
In the morning, add salt and heat the mixture until the water evaporates. While it is cooking, mix together the sesame, pumpkin, almonds and raisins. When the mixture is cooked, stir in the honey and put a little butter and milk on top with the toppings and enjoy!
Save half a cup of this to mix with flour—and that’s your starter for Muesli Porridge Cakes, which I’ll post soon as I finish them!
Perhaps the name I have given this bread will turn some people off. I do not mean to suggest by the title that I allowed my nose to bleed into the bread dough, yucko. By “Nosebleed” I mean to say that this wheat bread was made at 9,000 feet in Winter Park, Colorado. I needed fuel for our mountain marathon in Ouray and decided that I have been making bread long enough that I should be able to come up with my own recipes. I wanted a lot of wheat, a little sweetness like you might find in honey wheat (except I didn’t have any honey on hand in the cabin), some oats, and I also needed to use the gallon of milk that I purchased but had no room for in our cooler. And voila—nosebleed wheat.
Nosebleed Wheat
Rachel Hammer (yes, I made this recipe!)
1 1/2 Tbl. instant yeast (one cup of sourdough starter)
2 c. warm nonfat milk
1/3 c. brown sugar
3 – 4 c. high altitude whole wheat flour
1 c. all purpose high altitude flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 – 1/2 c. rolled oats
Combine yeast or sourdough, milk and sugar; let sit for 5 minutes or until frothy and bubbly. Add salt, oats and 1 1/2 cups of flour. Add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until you get a soft dough. The dough should barely pull away from the sides of the bowl and it will still be a little sticky. Knead for 4 or 5 minutes until tacky and smooth, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down and shape into a large loaf with olive oiled hands. Put in a greased loaf pan and let rise again until doubled. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes, at high altitudes. Otherwise, I would guess (though I have not tested!) that 30 minutes at 350 would be enough for bakers closer to sea level. Here is a pic of the Hungarian High Altitude Flour I have been using up in the mountains. Not sure it makes a difference, but, obviously, didn’t hurt!
“KP has restrung and is now tuning his late grandmother’s mandolin. I am writing with my back to the fire. Izzy is methodically disemboweling her rubber Kong in the corner. All is right with the world, and this steaming loaf of bread contributes to the righteousness of the hour. “
This, I wrote as bread liner notes just after it came out of the oven. Now, we are back in Minnesota, with our 23rd marathon completed! The race nearly wiped us both out—hard to parse out which factor contributed the most challenge: the altitude, our lack of training, bad pizza the night before from the Western Saloon, the mountainous terrain, the lack of water stops, the incessant beating from the alpine sunrays. Hard to say. But hey, we finished! And the views from Ouray are incredible. The little historic mining community is fantastic.
Funny story that was almost not a funny story: we were lucky to find a last minute room at the Antlers Motel where the manager, Bruce (who is exactly who I imagine Eddie Vedder would have become had he not joined Pearl Jam. Bruce even looked like Vedder) took excellent care of us. This is the only motel where I’ve had a choice of rooms. Bruce toured me around to three options and let me pick which room we wanted. Then he gave me a handful of GU packets for the marathon (which he says he likes to keep on hand for his Everest training). And then, he said he’d watch Izzy for us while we raced. Above and beyond. Despite him seeming to have mild boundary issues, Bruce was a lovely man. Here’s where things got crazy. When we came back after the race, Izzy was wagging her tail and happy to see us—it could have been otherwise. “She’s fast,” Bruce said over KP’s shoulder.
“What?”
“She got away from me.”
“What?!”
Izzy apparently was not comforted to see Bruce when at some point mid-morning he came into our room to check on her. He tried to put her on leash for a walk.
“She’s strong,” he said shaking his head.
Perhaps we should have mentioned that. Izzy ran through Bruce’s legs and sped off down Main Street for a kamikaze tour of Ouray—a town that proudly hosts several black bears as casual pets. I can’t imagine the terror or hilarity if I were a unsuspecting tourist out for a stroll down Main to witness a lips-flapping bulldog charging down the sidewalk with Eddie Vedder hot on her trail, on the phone with Search and Rescue. Bruce called everyone, he said. Izzy may be fast for a sprint, but she has no stamina. Eventually, near the Box Canyon trail, some angel/tourist met Izzy and held onto her harness. They probably had cheese in their pockets. Bruce gave them a free night at the hotel for rescuing Izzy, and all was well.
Now that we looked at her knowing the whole story of the wild morning, she did seem a bit more smug. We are all happy to be home and looking forward to a new season of chickens!
Antlers Motel– just waiting to be made into a reality TV show, starring Bruce–the hippie motel manager on a mission in the mountains.
Always like to support local breweries, and this one in Grand Lake, Colorado, right outside of the Rocky Mountain National Park, was particularly good.
I would recommend Plaid Bastard and White Cap Hefeweizen.
To celebrate my graduation, KP and I are taking a week together to drive around Colorado, create space to enjoy the sense of achievement before it tumbles down the mountainside to collect along the roadsides like any other run of the mill boulder. What better than a larger than life Scrabble game at Zephyr Mountain? I couldn’t have gotten better letters:
Here is a pic of me and the fam on the happy day of graduation (thanks Capt. Ralph for the hat!)
Feeling on top of my game, I decided to try, for the first time, making choux paste. Says Julia Child, “Like soufflés, popovers, and pita breads, choux paste is one of the miracles of the kitchen. You spoon an ordinary-looking batter onto a baking sheet and minutes later you’ve got a puffed pastry that appears to be threatening flight. This is the stuff of cream puffs, éclairs, profiteroles and dreams.”
Choux paste (choux sounds like “shoe” and means “cabbage” in French) has been around since the sixteenth century—something I have lately delved into with the graduation present (to myself) of a book on the history of cookbooks, a bibliography of all the early classic works, dating back to the Middle Ages!
Choux paste is unusual in that it is twice-cooked: The mixture is mixed and heated on the stove top and then baked. The ideal choux pastry has a light, very tender crust and an almost completely hollow interior, made for filling with anything—I choose ice cream!
Espresso Profiteroles
Adapted from Baking with Julia
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup brewed coffee
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 7 pieces
2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon finely ground espresso
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
5 to 6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg beaten with 1 teaspoon cold water, for egg wash
Put the milk, water, butter, sugar, and salt into a 2-quart saucepan and bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon. At this point, the butter should be fully melted. Still stirring, add the flour all at once, and stir energetically and without stop until the flour is thoroughly incorporated. Then continue to cook and stir for another 30 to 45 seconds, or until the dough forms a ball and a light crust is visible on the bottom of the pan.
Remove the pan from the heat and scrape the paste into a medium bowl. Immediately, while the dough is still hot, beat in the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula to incorporate each egg before adding the next. The first couple of eggs are the hardest to mix in, but as the mixture loosens, it softens, smoothes, and becomes easier to blend. (If you want, you can beat the eggs in with a mixer – hand-held, or standing with the paddle attachment – just keep the speed low and take care not to beat too much air into the dough.) After you’ve incorporated 5 eggs, take a good look at the mixture – it might not need the last egg. You’ll know the dough is perfect when, as you lift the wooden spoon, the spoon pulls up some of the dough that then detaches and forms a slowly bending peak. If the dough’s too thick and doesn’t peak, add the last egg. The dough is now ready to be used in any recipe calling for choux paste. In fact, it must be used now, while it is still warm.
To bake the profiterole, preheat the oven to 400 degrees prior to making the choux paste. Pipe the choux paste onto parchment. Spoon the choux paste into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tip (I just snipped the corner off of a plastic sandwich bag and it worked quite well) and pipe quarter-sized puffs onto parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between puffs. Finish piping each puff with a quick twist, as if you were writing the letter C, so that a tail or point isn’t formed. (Don’t worry if your puffs wind up with tails – you can poke them down and adjust small imperfections with a moistened fingertip.) Brush each of the pastries with a little egg wash.
Baking the Puffs: Bake for 20 minutes, lower the temperature to 350 degrees F. and bake 5 to 7 minutes longer, or until the pastries are golden brown and feel hollow. Halfway through the baking period, rotate the baking sheets top to bottom and front to back. Transfer the sheets to cooling racks and allow the puffs to cool to room temperature before cutting and filling.
Assembling the Profiteroles: To serve, cut each puff in half crosswise and fill with Pastry Cream [or the filling of your choice] Coffee or Vanilla ice cream taste divine with this espresso profiterole recipe. Serve a generous three to a person, arranging the profiteroles on dessert plates and drizzling some warm chocolate sauce over each puff.
While these were tasty, what a learning curve! The first batch, which I didn’t photograph for shame, had too little flour (I think), and the oven wasn’t quite hot enough to pop them up to shape. If there were such a thing as alien cows, my first batch of profiteroles resembled what I imagine alien cow turds to look like. They tasted good, but looked pathetic. Sad little artsy pancakes. These were much fuller but were not as hollow. So there must be some happy medium with the flour. Or maybe the altitude was to blame. Either way, made into ice cream sandwiches, no harm, no foul.
Straight from Chimayo we drove to Denver. Our friends Lauren and Aaron now live there and Lauren had a rare free day from the hospital—so we enjoyed time with our babies. They got along. Mostly.
The sourdough has been a dogged companion on the trip to Santa Fe. It was almost forgotten in the dorm fridge at St. John’s College. Kudos to KP for reminding me to grab it (what a tragic end to my bread blog that would have been!) It seemed a little startled to emerge from its jar at high altitude in Colorado…when I added it to this dough, it seemed to be gasping and panting for breath. I purchased extra expensive Hungarian High Altitude Flour at the grocery store to give it a little help—although, I’m not sure it made much difference. It was a 12% gluten flour, (normal bread flour being anywhere from 10-13). So, I liken the superfluous gesture to giving a unit of normal blood to a person with hemoglobin already in normal limits. My sourdough didn’t turn out to be anemic after all the travel, so. The transfusion didn’t hurt, didn’t help.
Finnish Pulla
Adapted from Baking With Julia
Ingredients
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon active dry yeast (or, one cup sourdough starter)
¼ cup warm water (no hotter than 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds (from 7 to 12 pods, depending on the size)
1 teaspoon salt (I like using fine sea salt)
2 large eggs, at room temperature, beaten
4 ½ to 5 cups (22.5 oz. to 25 oz. by weight) all purpose flour
1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, melted
Topping Ingredients
1 large egg + 1 tablespoon milk, for glaze
Sliced almonds
Pearl sugar
Place a small saucepot over medium heat and add the 1 cup milk. Scald the milk, so small bubbles are just visible around the edge. Remove the pot from the heat and cool the milk to around 110 degrees Fahrenheit. While the milk is scalding heat the 1 stick (4 oz.) butter in another small saucepot (or in the microwave) until just melted.
In a large bowl, add ¼ cup warm water (around 110 degrees Fahrenheit) and whisk in the 1 tablespoon active dry yeast. Set the yeast/water mixture aside for at least 5 minutes. It will become creamy.
Once the water/yeast mixture is creamy (or if you are just using sourdough), whisk in the 1 cup scalded and slightly cooled milk, ½ cup granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds, 1 teaspoon salt, and the 2 beaten eggs. Whisk until fully combined. (I do not travel with cardamom, and Lauren didn’t have any on hand, so I decided to use 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice instead—tasted AWESOME).
Now, using a wooden spoon, add 2 cups (10 oz.) all purpose flour to the bowl. Beat the mixture until smooth. Vigorously stir in the 1 stick (4 oz.) melted butter. Once the butter is incorporated, add in the additional flour, a ½ cup at a time, until the dough is fairly stiff. Stop adding flour before the dough becomes dry. Once you have your dough mixed, but not dry, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for about 15 minutes.
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface. Knead the dough until smooth and shiny, about 10 minutes.
Shape your dough into a ball and lightly grease a large bowl. Turn the ball of dough in the bowl to lightly coat in the grease. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place. Let the dough rise until it is double in size. This will take at least 45 minutes, but could take over an hour.
Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out of the bowl onto a cool (to cold) lightly oiled surface.
Knead the dough briefly to release the air. Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces. Roll each of the three pieces into a log about 36 inches in length.
Now, line the logs up next to each other and pinch them together at the top. Braid the 3 pieces into a log braid.
Carefully move this braid to the parchment lined baking sheet, forming it into a circle onto the sheet. Cut an inch or two of dough off each end and fuse the circle together, into a crown or wreathe shape.
Alternatively, you can make a long braided loaf (or 2 braided shorter loaves). Loosely cover your bread with a towel and let rest and rise at room temperature for about 45 minutes.
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Brush the egg glaze all over the shaped dough. Sprinkle the dough all over with sliced almonds and pearl sugar. Bake the loaf for 20 to 25 minutes. The top will be just golden, and the bottom of the loaf will be very light. Be careful not to over bake the bread. Transfer the baked loaf to a cooling rack and cool to room temperature before cutting into the bread.
To store, cover the loaf in plastic wrap and keep at room temperature. Or, wrap tightly, so the bread is air tight and freeze for up to a month. Thaw the bread at room temperature.
This bread was chewy, and slightly sweet. A nice cross between a brioche and challah bread. The pumpkin pie spice tasted kind of like cardamom, at least enough to distinguish it from plain challah. The most important thing was that Ethan liked it. But then, he likes all foods that his parents put in front of him, especially those just out of reach.
For the rest of the week we are staying at Lauren’s parents’ cabin in Winter Park, Colorado. Such a treat to have a quiet getaway after the rush of my graduation writing residency. When asked by my dad what I wanted to do now that I have some free time, I said, without hesitation: Write! I want to write my book proposal.
Later today I have my final graduate reading and then –poof– I graduate with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. My feeling about the whole thing is similar to how I felt when I saw this ant hill on a hike yesterday: They must have had some significant help with this. (And if they didn’t, clearly I should elevate my judgment of ants’ potential). So have I had significant help.
What beauty! To have had so much help and support over these last two years. My family, Karl-Peter, all the students in my MFA cohort, Lauren Winner and Paula Huston, my mentors. Thank you thank you thank you, talented all.
I have been ruminating since my last residency on something the MFA Program Director Greg Wolfe said about communion—about what it means that the bread and wine we take as metaphor for Christ’s body and blood given for us are made, crafted works of art with centuries of passed on expertise and skill, rather than the raw materials– flour and yeast and salt, or ripe grapes. Bread, I have learned this year, is an extremely challenging craft. As is writing. To share in communion with others something that represents years of work, the product of countless invested hands–is a real gift.
This graduation day, this particular communion with friends and family, is joyous, but also, a breaking.
Though I have attended a writing residency at this same college in Santa Fe three times, eaten in the college cafeteria three times a day for ten days in each of the three visits–that is 90 times I have had a chance to see this poster on the wall of the cafeteria—and only today do I marvel that Joe Ortiz, the writer of my favorite baking book, is responsible for the bread art. How beautiful to see the rest of a room by its reflection in a glass of bread.
Here is one of my latest projects out of Joe Ortiz’s book. Fair warning: when I was mixing together the ingredients, I felt more like I might be making a fancy dinner for a flock of birds. Most of the ingredients here are basically birdseed.
Korni
adapted fromThe Village Baker by Joe Ortiz
(makes 1 round 3 1/2 pound loaf)
Soy bean mixture
1/2 cup organic (dried) soy beans (85 g)
1 cup boiling water (235 g)
Poolish
1 package (2 1/2 teaspoons; 1/4 oz) active dry yeast (1 1/2 tsp) OR one and half cups of sourdough starter
2 1/2 cups warm water (2 1/4 cup = 533 g)
1 cup organic rye flour (100 g)
1 cup organic whole wheat flour (130 g)
1 1/2 cups organic unbleached white (or all-purpose) flour (180 g)
Dough
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (60 g)
All of the starter from the previous step
3 cups organic, unbleached white (or all-purpose) flour (420 g)
1 tablespoon sea salt (2 tsp)
1 tablespoon ground caraway seeds (1 tsp)
1/4 cup organic flax seeds (37 g)
1/2 cup organic millet (100 g)
All of the soy mixture
Glaze: 1 whole egg whisked with 1 tablespoon milk
Prepare the soy beans:
Place them in a small bowl, cover them with the boiling water, and let them soak for 10 minutes. Drain the beans and let them cool. Process the beans in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until they roughly chopped.
Place the beans on a cookie sheet and roast them in a preheated 350°F oven between 15 and 20 minutes, until they are completely dried out. Set them aside.
Prepare the sponge/poolish:
First proof the yeast, in a large bowl, in 1 cup of the warm water. When it is creamy, mix in 1 1/4 cups warm water and slowly add the rye flour, whole wheat flour, and 1½ cups of white flour by handfuls while stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon.
Set the batter aside, in a large bowl, covered with a dish towel, for between 8 and 10 hours or overnight.
Make the dough:
Proof the yeast in the warm water, add it to the risen sponge, and mix the two together. Start adding the flour, handful by handful, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. After all but 1 cup of the flour has been added (this will take about 10 minutes), turn the dough out onto your worktable, sprinkle the salt and the ground caraway over the dough, and incorporate them by kneading the dough for about 5 minutes while adding the last of the flour. The dough should be very moist.
Add the flax seeds, millet, and roasted soy beans and knead the dough to incorporate them. I found my flax seeds and millet rather photogenic:
Set the dough aside, covered, to rise for 1 hour, until it has doubled in size.
Flatten out the dough again and then shape it into a round loaf. This loaf is best proofed in a canvas-lined basket and then baked on a baking stone in the oven. It can also be placed on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Let the loaf rise for about 1 1/2 hours.
Glaze the loaf with the egg and milk mixture and bake it in a preheated 425°F oven for between 30 and 35 minutes.
This is a loaf that probably should be planned to pair with soup. I wasn’t a particular fan of the flavor profile, or the name Korni. But I am a fan of Joe Ortiz.
When I need to think, I run. When I cannot run more than two miles because the altitude here in Sante Fe is stingy with oxygen, I hike to think. I graduate from the SPU MFA Program in Creative Writing in a week, and I’m having a hard time thinking of my life without it. Hiking hasn’t helped, though the trail was lovely this Sunday morning.
To keep with my usual theme, here are some pastries that St. John’s College campus dining serves. I enjoyed the photographing of them more than the eating.
And here is our classroom in the wily hush before a day begins. There is something alluring and also sad about empty chairs. It will all be over too soon.
Back to the Molten Lava Cake experiment set. The first attempt at the challenge went rather well, but just because a first try is a success doesn’t mean there isn’t more research to be done. Much, much more research. Probably with no end in sight. Thank God I kept going, because this second attempt was even better than the first.
Even Better Molten Lava Cake Version 2.0
Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter, plus more for the ramekins
4 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting (optional)
6 large eggs plus 6 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter eight 6-ounce ramekins and sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar.
Combine the butter, cinnamon, cayenne, nutmeg and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently until melted and smooth. Cool slightly. Whisk the flour, confectioners’ sugar, eggs and yolks, vanilla extract and almond extract in a bowl until creamy. Whisk in the melted chocolate mixture. Divide among the prepared ramekins.
Bake the cakes until the tops are stiff and the edges darken, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool 5 minutes. Loosen the edges of the cakes with a small paring knife and transfer to plates while warm. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.
I added a pinch of granulated sugar to this recipe, not sure why, but I’m starting to trust in myself the same carefree impulsive kitchen habits my mother exhibits. The batter seemed to be aching for one more sprinkle of something. These were perfect. Right up there with the Coffee Cake Muffins –very similar autonomic response—the reverie, the whispered prayer. Absolute bliss for the group of us hunched quietly in a circle in a Ballard living room, scratching forks happily against chocolate-smeared china.
Here is a video captured of the actual chocolate geology in live time.
