After a near all-nighter, it was a morning of doing things like putting the box of Kashi cereal away in the fridge. Izzy fell asleep on her chew toy, mid-chew. We were like clocks that had wound down. But it is done, and I am heading straight for the cookbooks to see what fun I can have in the kitchen before summer vacation travel ensues!
These breadsticks were made last week with Kristin, who will soon be jetting off to India for her own edifying adventures…Breadsticks, ahem, grissini, are wonderful epees for fencing tutorials.
Olive oil and additional toppings (I used sesame seeds, caraway seeds, and kosher salt)
Stir the yeast (or sourdough starter) and the torn up pain ordinaire dough and malt into the warm water in a large mixing bowl; let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the oil. Add the flour and salt and stir until the dough comes together. Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth, soft, velvety, and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes.
First Rise: Pat the dough with your hand into a 14 by 4-inch rectangle on a well-floured surface. Lightly brush the top with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Shaping: Sprinkle the dough with semolina flour before cutting and stretching. Cut the dough into strips and pull into long strands. The dough should be so elastic that you can simply pick up each piece, hold each end with your fingers, and pull and stretch to fit the width (or length) of a baking sheet. Dip the breadsticks in oil and the topping of your choice. Place the breadsticks several inches apart on lightly oiled baking sheets. There is no need to let them rise.
Baking: Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Bake the breadsticks for 20 minutes. Cool on racks.
These grissini were not as crispy as those I made before. I think both batches of grissini I’ve made have erred on the fat side because my baking sheet is rather short and stout, as is my oven, so I can’t get the length on these that might make them a little more crisp. Still tasty, and particularly with marinara! One of the breadsticks was a little hooked on the end–was perfect for creepy lurking in the shadows.
I am in the home stretch here with the thesis. It is, in fact, due tomorrow! KP gets not only long-suffering husband points, but proof-reader points. He has an eagle eye for typos and I am so grateful!
This loaf disappeared quite quickly last week and I only had a quick bite of it before it walked out the door with my Peruvian neighbors Rossana and Sergio. You’ll have to ask them how it was. But it looked pretty.
After the pain ordinaire dough has risen the first time, flatten onto a worktable and layer the dough with prosciutto and roll into a tight log. Tuck the ends under and roll the dough into a tight, rough ball. Set aside and cover, let to rise 30 minutes.
When it has risen this second time, flatten the dough out again and fold it over to form a half moon, with the round edge toward you. Seal and do this a few more times until you have a shape called a batard (not a boule, not a baguette, but a bastard). Some of the meat will be popping out of the dough.
Let this batard loaf rise, covered in a warm spot for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 400. Brush the loaf with olive oil, and slash it diagonally three times with a razor. Bake for 20 minutes.
Play this while the bread is baking. Or, if tomorrow also happens to be the due date of your thesis. It’s the final countdown!
It was a little difficult to integrate the new psychiatry knowledge I procured at this weekend’s conference seeing as how I have no patients of my own with whom to practice, lowly medical student that I am. So I decided to practice Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) on myself, focusing on my baking behavior, primarily. Now, I’m a CBT novice. Literally just learned the methodology for the first time yesterday. Here it goes.
Mood check. It is what it is. On the day I made this dish, I felt a little ill and mopey at the start. Hence, why I thought making chocolate sauce would be a good idea in the first place.
Bridge from previous session. Yesterday, I made fun of Mother Bunn Yum Yum and her sourdough waffles. Today I’ve got a recipe from a wholly different kind of mother. One that I know and can vouch for personally—Ma Carol.
Agenda setting. Today I’m going to describe how I made Ma Carol’s famous fudge sauce and trace the relative anguish attached to my perception of its being “not the same.”
Homework review. Yes, I completed the Chocolate Fudge Sauce as assigned.
Discussion of agenda. I made this fudge recipe:
Ma Carol’s Hot Fudge Sauce:
1 stick of butter
4 squares of block chocolate (recipe called for all 4 to be Unsweetened Bakers, but I used 2 Unsweetened and 2 Semi-sweet)
Melt together in pan … stirring constantly
Add 2 C of powdered sugar
1 5 oz can of condensed milk (small can)
Stir constantly to avoid burning and sticking. It will get “smooth” and “silky” in about 5 minutes of stirring and slight bubbling. Left over sauce can be put in a plastic container …. refrigerate … and warm in micro … up to a minute or so depending on amount in container. Watch.
Socratic questioning. Why did I make this? I recently visited Carol and Bruce Erickson, loving grandparently folks to anyone who crosses their Chicago threshold and bares feet on their carpet. Within seconds of arriving, Carol necessarily asks if we feel like ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce, and of course, we always are. This last visit in May, I asked Carol if she would teach me to make it.
Identify unhelpful beliefs.
It won’t be as good as Carol’s if I try to make it myself.
I will probably burn the chocolate. Or use the wrong type of milk.
Process Timeline (Chain Analysis). I read the recipe and realized I did not have enough butter, about half the amount, precisely.
Automatic thought.
Need to ask Janelle for butter tonight.
It is late and Janelle worked a 12-hour shift today.
Also, I just borrowed several sticks of butter from her a week ago. She probably hasn’t even been to the grocery store since I last cleaned her out.
Identify unhelpful beliefs.
Janelle won’t want to loan me butter.
I don’t deserve free butter from anyone.
Janelle will resent me for even asking for another stick of butter.
I am a butter hoarder.
Socratic questioning. Why do you think Janelle won’t loan you butter or that you don’t deserve it?
Because I don’t want to abuse a friendship. And, you’re right, on second thought, I do deserve butter.
Practice skills of distress tolerance.
Just call her and ask for help. Reach out without requirement.
I asked Janelle and she said that absolutely I could have some butter, come on over and get it! When I arrive, I told her the butter was for some chocolate fudge sauce. She asked me to tell her the recipe. She says, “Cut the butter.” Her mother always taught her to cut the butter recommended by recipes in half. “You don’t need all that butter,” she says.
Automatic thought.
Who will be more mad, Janelle or Ma Carol, if I take the other’s advice?
Less butter is more healthy and I am a medical student.
Carol worships butter, it is the Scandinavian way. Maybe Janelle is right.
Janelle and I proceed to entertain ourselves with colorful vignettes from the week, two bowls of ice cream and several episodes of Between Two Ferns.
Automatic thought.
Don’t tell KP you already had ice cream without him before you made the chocolate sauce.
I return to my kitchen feeling uplifted by the ice cream and Janelle’s friendship. I have decided, in loyalty to her, to cut the butter in half. I begin to melt the butter and chocolate together.
Identify unhelpful beliefs.
Cooking, in itself, is not a good enough use of time. Multi-task, multi-task!
I burn the chocolate while multi-tasking. The chocolate sauce starts to look crumbly and not at all smooth and creamy like Ma Carol’s. In a moment of surrender, I add the remaining butter called for in the recipe.
Automatic thought.
Don’t tell Janelle you didn’t take her butter advice.
I keep stirring and things smooth out.
Homework assignment. Eat and enjoy.
Feedback. Although the chocolate sauce was nowhere near as good as Carol’s, this is something that actually pleased me—to fall short of Carol—because it makes our visits with her and Bruce all the more special. I can’t wait to see them again, and Janelle, you may have been right. Next time I will try less butter. But thank you for donating so many sticks to the cause already. And for your friendship.
Also, conclusion: Chocolate sauce, even poorly made, may very well be its own sufficient therapy.
Another conclusion: Things do smooth out–keep stirring.
End of my first CBT session! And, after my first fudge sauce session, I feel a little bit more like Willy Wonka. Willemina.
Here is a silly random I found amid more serious bread recipes in The Village Baker. No explanation about who Mother Bunn is, Yum Yum is a colloquialism not otherwise found in the book. It almost looks like a prank—a bogus recipe one of the copy editors was bet twenty dollars by his buddy to include. Is that possible? Regardless, they are pretty good waffles and I am always happy to find another recipe that puts expired milk to good use.
Mother Bunn’s Yum Yum Sourdough Waffles
Adapted from The Village Baker
4 cups of milk sour (I made with 1 cup sourdough starter, 2 cups milk and 1 ½ cups flour, let to sit overnight)
5 eggs
1 ½ tbsp. sugar
1 tsp baking soda (put in right before you mix up the batter)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil (whatever kind—I used sunflower)
Combine all ingredients and beat well. If you want to make crepes instead of waffles, just add ½ cup of buttermilk and omit the oil. Obviously, grease and turn on your waffle maker. You know how this goes. I topped with maple syrup and whipped cream.
Ran a lap around Vail after the conference sessions this evening. Conclusion: affluence is boring. Now, who exactly this Mother Bunn Yum Yum is, I was too afraid to Google. It seems like the sort of moniker that could lead me to a lascivious corner of the interweb.
I am in Vail for a conference. Had to climb over 11,000 feet twice to get here. Staying in a honeymoon suite with my favorite partner in ukulele crime, Linda. She and I are training for the Olympic swim trials in our bathtub and trying to keep ourselves from singing too much Frank Sinatra in our white bathrobes and terry-cloth flippie floppies. There are fire places and shallow basins of pecans and walnuts and chardonnay around every corner. And I say, Let them eat Wheat.
Pane Integrale
Italian Whole-Grain Bread
Adapted from the Village Baker
¾ cup milk sour starter (or regular sourdough starter)
½ cup milk
1 cup warm water
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 ¼ cup rye flour (I used 1 cup rye, ¼ cup cracked rye grain)
1 tbsp salt
Mix the water and the starter with the milk. Add the flours and mix with a wooden spoon. Knead for 8 to 10 minutes on a work table. Return dough to an oiled bowl and let rise for 6-8 hours. Divide dough in half and shape into two round loaves. Now here’s where I messed up, because I couldn’t understand the directions. You are supposed to flatten the rounds and fold the edges into the center. Then place the loaf into a floured and cloth-lined banneton. I just put the round straight into the banneton, so mine lack the “distinctive shape”—maybe next time. I basically just did them as boules. Let the rounds cold rise, covered, for 15-24 hours in the refrigerator.
Then remove and let them rise for another 4 hours at room temperature. Bake for 35 minutes at 450 in a humid oven.
This was particularly good after sitting out for a day, and toasted. I love to eat bread plain, and I found this had a lot of complex flavor that made it a tasty treat all by itself. But, I’m a bread freak. I also like to eat my Cheerios plain so take my recommendation for what it’s worth. Here’s me and Linda in our palatine bathroom:
Barley Malt. I purchased this product without exactly knowing what it does on behalf of bread. It has shown up in several recipes I’ve tried, and is hell to get off the teaspoon. That was all I knew, but I did a little bit of reading and learned that there are vitamins and enzymes oftentimes in malts that help yeast grow efficiently. “Good strong rise and great oven-spring” several different sources said. I like this optimistic language. Malt enzymes apparently help to convert starch to sugar, and enhances the browning of the crust. So, anything that has to rise for a long time might be aided by the addition of malt. This focaccia bread didn’t have long to rise, so I’m not sure why malt is called for. When in Genoa…
Genoan Focaccia
Adapted from The Village Baker
Makes Two 12-Inch-By-18-Inch Focaccia
Make Pizza Dough
2 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3/4 cup old dough (I used old dough from making ciabatta)
6 cups organic, unbleached white (or all-purpose) flour
1 teaspoon malt extract or 1/2 teaspoon honey
4 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
Warm 1 cup of the water and proof the yeast in it until it bubbles.
In a small bowl, mix the old dough with 1 cup of cool water and 4 or 5 handfuls of flour, stirring until you have a pastry mixture. Dissolve the honey or malt extract in the yeast mixture and add this to the old dough mixture.
Place half of the rest of the flour and half of the salt in a food processor and pulse to mix. Add half of the old dough, yeast, and malt extract mixture. Pulse the processor to combine the ingredients, then slowly add half of the remaining water (1/4 cup) through the feed tube while the processor is running. Process the mixture for between 30 seconds and one minute. The dough should be wet and sticky. In the last 10 seconds of processing, pour half of the olive oil through the feed tube.
Empty the dough into a large bowl and combine the remainder of the ingredients in the food processor to make a dough in the same way.
Combine both batches in the bowl by mixing them together with a wooden spoon or plastic dough scraper.
Let the dough rise, covered, in a warm place for 1 hour.
While the dough is rising, combine the olive oil, salt, chopped garlic, and sage leaves.
2 cups extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoon salt
8 cloves garlic, chopped
24 whole leaves fresh sage
Place equal amounts in 2 medium-sized bowls and set them aside.
Turn out the risen dough onto a well-floured worktable and divide the dough in half. The pieces will be wet and sticky, but use a little extra flour and round them up into tight balls. Place each piece in a separate bowl. Roll the dough balls around in the oil mixture and set them aside, still in the oil, to rise for between 3 and 4 hours. The dough will have almost tripled in size and be very soft and airy.
Remove the balls of dough from the oil and transfer them onto large cookie sheets that have a rim at least 1/2 inch high. With the palms of the hands and with your fingers open wide, spread the dough out to about 12 inches by 18 inches, and about 3/8 inch thick. The dough may spring back. If so, let it relax for a few minutes, then repeat the stretching process. Pour the remaining oil, along with the sage, garlic, and salt over the top of the dough.
Set the focacce aside, covered, to rise for 1 hour. When they have risen, poke the dough with the fingertips several times and bake in a 400 degree oven for between 15 and 17 minutes, or until they are golden brown.
This was great. My Peruvian neighbor Rossana, in particular, raved. It was a bit more crispy than the other focaccia or schiacciata I made. That is because of the oil, oil, oil. Also, “focacce” is plural for focaccia.
Gruel. An ugly word, I think. But not today—for now I understand the role of gruel in making sweet things. Gruel was at the end of today’s Search for Sugarplums, which is the awesome title of an up and coming blog I recently tapped into. Sourdoughs Unite! Gruel is a bread habit from antiquity, the kind of thing the Romans were into—boiling hard mash, corn, polenta, millet or spelt, leaving the mash to sit out overnight, and then throwing a little bit of the resulting fermented mush into flour to let rise the next day. Voila, bread. And good bread.
Pane di Mais
Polenta Bread
Adapted from The Village Baker
Polenta—Cornmeal Porridge
1 ½ tbsp. chopped rosemary
1 tbsp olive oil
4 cups water
¾ tsp salt
1 cup polenta or coarse cornmeal
In medium saucepan, sauté the rosemary in olive oil for a minute, and then add the water and salt and bring to a boil. Slowly add the polenta while stirring with a wooden spoon. Cook over medium heat for 35 minutes.
Now, for the bread:
Starter
1 tsp yeast
¼ cup warm water
½ tsp honey
1 cup cornmeal porridge (above)
1 cup all-purpose flour
Add all these ingredients (after porridge has cooled for 10 minutes) and stir the wet batter, cover, and allow to rise for 2 to 4 hours
Dough
1 tsp salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg for glazing
2 tbsp sesame seeds for topping
Sprinkle salt into starter and mix in. Slowly incorporate the flour. Knead dough on a work surface for 8 minutes until satiny. Cover and let rise for 1 hour. Divide the dough in half. Flatten both pieces and roll up into a log. Braid the two pieces into a rope and place the loaf on parchment paper.
Mix egg with water and glaze the top of the loaf, sprinkling with sesame seeds if desired.
Let rise for 45 minutes. Bake the loaf at 400 for 30-35 minutes.
5 stars, I really enjoyed the flavor of this bread. It was like a corn and rosemary challah bread. I am not a fan of things with a corn taste, breads least of all, but this had very little corn flavor. Much more rich and complex. Not sure what to do with the left over cornmeal porridge, though. Maybe I’ll feed it to Izzy. Who, by the way, had an epic day. Her favorite playmate Kristen came to call, and while I was teaching a Literature in Medicine seminar, Kristen took Izz for an outing at the park. Adorable:
I set out to answer one question, why these pancakes are called Miners’ Sourdough.
Next thing you know, I’m buried in May Kellogg Sullivan’s book The Trail of a Sourdough: Life in Alaska (1910), the memoir of a woman who self-identifies as a Sourdough, which she defines as “a miner who has spent one winter in Alaska and has seen the ice go out.” So it seems these are the pancakes of prospectors, the rugged men and women who travelled out into the wilderness with just flour and salt and old dough, which, when it soured could be made again and again into new bread. The bubbling dough as precious to the miner as her gold.
Outside is all thunder and lightning and downpour. There’s something about being rained in on a holiday weekend that makes me feel like reading pioneer memoirs, and like making pancakes late in the morning. Sullivan’s is a particularly enjoyable narrator’s voice, had me hypnotized after a couple of chapters. And she wrote the best acknowledgements section I’ve ever read: “I do most heartily dedicate this little book to the memory of each horny-handed pack-laden miner “musher” who has ever lifted a finger to assist, encourage, or strengthen the author of The Trail of a Sourdough. The name of these helpers is Legion.That their cabins may be warm and roomy, winter dumps high and numerous, sluice boxes filled with nuggets, and lives long and happy is the earnest wish of May Kellogg Sullivan.”
May your Sluice Boxes be filled with nuggets as well. Happy Memorial Day.
Miners’ Sourdough Pancakes
Adapted from The Village Baker
1 cup milk sour starter (let a cup of flour and milk sit out for several days, seriously, or if you don’t have the patience for that, or don’t believe in wild yeast, just use a cup of your regular sourdough starter)
½ cup milk
½ cup all-purpose flour
Mix all these things together and let sit out for 8 hours or overnight.
Then mix all of the sponge,
3 tbsp sunflower seed oil (or whatever oil you like)
2 tbsp sugar
1 egg
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda (optional, and if you do, put it in right before you through the batter on the griddle. I didn’t, because I read that May Sullivan had no baking soda)
Try to have your ingredients at room temperature. This will help to make more tender pancakes. Preheat your cast iron skillet and grease it lightly. Bake, pour coffee into a rustic gold miner mug, curl up with May Sullivan’s memoir, and Enjoy!
5 stars. KP in particular loved the pancakes. “Great taste” says the sled-dog man from Alaska, perhaps someone who is like a rugged sourdough himself. Very hearty that man. And a great thesis proofreader!
A drizzly, grisly Sunday at the start of summer. Ran the Med-City Marathon Relay this morning and got soaked to the bone. Izzy and I have a mirroring thing going on, methinks. Feeling a little droopy and cheek saggy today.
Ciabatta
Adapted from The Village Baker
Lievito natural sponge
1 cup warm water
1 scant tsp yeast
4 cups flour
Knead this all together and although it will seem quite dry, try to add as much of the flour as possible.
Dough
2 packages yeast (2 cups of sourdough starter)
2 cups warm water
1 tbsp powdered milk
3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp salt
3 cups lievito natural
Dilute the powdered milk in the water in a large bowl. Mix the flour and salt in a separate bowl. Add small bits of the sponge to the water, and add only small handfuls of flour. Mix vigorously with a wooden spoon—for like 15 minutes! This will seem like the wettest dough ever, don’t worry. Add the yeast and stir like 100 more times. The dough will seem like taffy. The dough will seem super wet. Cover and let rise for 1 hour, until it appears blistered and satiny. You can spread the dough out and cut it into four separate squarish pieces. I made two separate loaves. Or you can save the dough and make grissini.
Cover the loaves and let rise for 30 more minutes on parchment paper.
Before baking, perform the “schiacciare maneuver” (flatten each loaf with the flat parts of your fingers, not the fingertips). Flip the loaves over, cover them and allow to rise for another 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven and baking stone to 425 degrees. Spray the inside of the oven with an atomizer and/or add a tray of boiling water to a lower rack to make the oven environment humid. Bake the loaves for between 25 and 30 minutes until they are golden brown.
This picture was taken three days ago, when I was not feeling droopy. Oh, ciabatta, ciabatta—this is my favorite bread, of all genres of bread, but this not my favorite recipe. For my best ever Ciabatta, go here. This one comes from an Italian baker from the Lake Como region, and uses a little bit of powdered milk to soften the crumb. Also, the lievito natural is an Italian version of the sponge method—which takes much longer to rise than say the French sponges. The humidity factor during the bake is key. But like I said, see the other recipe—this was okay, but not as crispy a crust as I prefer.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend! While the rest of America barbeques and jumps into the pool, I’ve got an amazing amount of hibernating with my computer to do. Thesis crunch time. Fortunately, I have the world’s best couch potato to keep me company. Right now, she is doing yoga to center herself. Though she really only knows one pose—shavasana–but she can hold it for an hour or more. Happy baby.
Stirato
Adapted from The Village Baker
1 ½ cups water (with 3 or 4 ice cubes)
1 package of yeast
¼ cup warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
The warm water is for the yeast. If using sourdough starter, don’t worry about the temperature. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add yeast mixture and about ¾ cup of the ice-chilled water in a food processor. Add the remaining water. The dough should be satiny and quite cool. Empty the soupy dough into a large bowl. Cover and let rise for 2 or 3 hours.
Shape dough into a rough oval and set it seamside down on a piece of parchment paper and let rise, covered, for 30 minutes. This is soupy soupy—even more so than ciabatta.
“Stretch” the oval loaf by flattening it with your fingertips three or four times, flip the loaf over and cover it again, allow it to rise for 15 or 20 more minutes.
Bake for 35 minutes at 450 degrees until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when thumped.
Leave the loaf in the oven for 5 minutes after the oven has been turned off to set the crust.
Rather amoebic bread. It was okay. Nonremarkable other than its sprawling, unwieldy mass. Goes well with soups.
