Guiness Bread

I love Guinness, and had some left over after making my Guinness mustard. After a quick search on the internet, I found an interesting Guinness quick bread to make.

Bread making doesn't get much easier then the recipe I came up with. Here it is:

3 cups minus 2 tablespoons AP Flour
1 1/4 tablespoons baking powder
3/4 cup evaporated cane sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vietnamese cinnamon
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
12 oz Guinness Stout

Mix your flour through cinnamon in a bowl. Add guiness mix about half way. Add cranberries and walnuts fold into batter mixing till incorporated, but taking care not to overmix. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or till a skewer inserted in the bread comes out clean.



This bread is great. It's nice to eat on it's own, with some butter. It's also nice to toast and top with some cheese. Next time I make it I will bake it in tiny loaf pans. Once baked and fully cooled I'll slice the bread and dry it out in the oven creating little melba toasts. Then I'll use it as an appetizer with some blue cheese, hopefully my favorite Point Reyes Blue.

Sour Cream Braid

Ahh, the sour cream braid; so pretty, so delicious and so...easy. Easy? Surprisingly so. Beth Hensperger's Sour Cream Braid recipe is shockingly simple. By means of a food processor you can have your dough made in well under 15 minutes (including time to proof your yeast). Then all you have to do is proof the dough for an hour, braid it, proof again, egg wash and sprinkle with cardamom sugar and then bake. Seriously, it is as easy as it sounds. Anyone who's fearful of bread should put their fear aside and make this. You'll feel like a pro.

I followed the recipe nearly to the T. It calls for sour cream, but I used low fat sour cream because that's what I had on hand. Once the dough had proofed I divided the dough into 6 ropes and made two separate braids (I froze one). Lastly, I used demerara sugar instead of granulated in the sugar crust.

Overall this is excellent bread. It has a tight crumb, but is moist with a slight sweetness (due to the sugar crust). The demerara and cardamom made it interesting, but not unapproachable to a person who doesn't like that sort of fanciness. I will make this bread again.

Sour Cream Braid from Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible

Dough
1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 1/2 tsps active dry yeast
2 tbsps plus 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup cold milk
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 cups AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp (1/2 stick) room temp unsalted butter cut into pieces

1. In a 1-cup-measure pour in the warm water. Sprinkle with yeast and 1/2 tsp sugar. Stir to dissolve



and let stand till foamy about 10 minutes.



In a small bowl whisk ingredients milk through almond extract together. Add the yeast mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring to combine.
2. In a food processor bowl with a blade combine flour, 2 tbsps sugar and salt. Dot the top with butter pieces. Process 10 seconds. With the motor running, pour the yeast-milk mixture through the feed tube in a steady stream. After the dough forms a soft, elastic ball and clears the sides of the bowl, process 45 seconds more to knead.



3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and give it a few kneads. Place the dough in a lightly greased container, cover with wrap. Let rise till doubled in bulk about 1 hour.

4. Divide dough into 3 portions (I did 6). Shape each into a 12" rope tapered at each end. Form into a braid.



Let proof till doubled in bulk about 45 minutes on your baking sheet lined with parchment paper.



Sugar Crust:
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water
1 heaping tbsp sugar (use demerara, you won't regret it)
1/4 tsp ground cardamon
5. Twenty minutes before baking preheat oven to 375. Combine sugar and cardamom in a small bowl. Gently brush the surface of the dough with the egg glaze. Sprinkle sugar mixture all over dough.



Bake in the center of the oven for 35-40 minutes.

Gingerbread

This past week I made gingerbread from Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible. Her recipe calls for a combination of maple syrup, brown sugar and molasses. I grew up in Vermont, so any recipe with maple syrup as a sweetener is bound to peak my interest. All in all this was a fun easy recipe to make. The recipe calls for adding baking soda to boiling water and then adding that to the batter. It turns into a neat example of chemistry in action.

As far as gingerbreads go, this was great. I like it better than Dorie Greenspan's gingerbread which was a bit too bitter because of the espresso chocolate edge. This gingerbread was moist with a medium spice level. I love spicy gingerbread, so next time I make it I will add come finely chopped candied and fresh ginger. I made an 8" cake and a baby gingerbread loaf. As soon as it cooled I froze the 8" cake. I hope to make a layered cake with it sometime soon.

Here's the recipe:

Gingerbread from The Bread Bible by Beth Hensperger

Makes one 9" pan or twelve 3" round cakes.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease cake pan

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups AP Flour

2 Tbsp instant espresso powder

1 Tbsp ground ginger (increase this if you want a bold ginger flavor)

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground black pepper

Grated zest of 1 lemon (I omitted this because I didn't have one on hand)

8 Tbsp (1 stick) butter

½ Cup light brown sugar

½ Cup unsulfured molasses

½ Cup maple syrup

2 large eggs

2 tsps baking soda

1 cup boiling water

Method:

Combine Flour through lemon zest in a large bowl and mix well with a whisk.

In a small saucepan combine the butter through molasses. Stir frequently over low heat till butter is dissolved.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the hot butter mixture. Add the eggs and quickly beat with a wooden spoon till smooth. Combine the baking soda with the boiling water. Pour over the batter and stir gently to evenly incorporate.

Pour into greased pan. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Oatmeal-Bulgur Bread

On a grocery shopping trip to Sevan in Watertown last week, I purchased 2 pounds of fine bulgur. With that purchase, a new obsession began. What to do with all this bulgur? I knew I could make Kibbeh, but being a baker, I really wanted to bake with it. After a quick internet search I found several interesting recipes to choose from. One that really stood out was a recipe for Oatmeal Bulgur bread from Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible. Then two awesome things happened. One being Maura told me I could make the bread at Sofra. Second, Maura lent me her copy of The Bread Bible.

The bread was fun to make at work because it's one of those recipes that involves 5 to 10 minutes of work here and there over a few hours. Often when I make bread at home, I feel chained to my house because there's always a punch down on the horizon, or something along those lines. While at work, I was able to make this, while making tons of other things. No feeling of being chained down by the bread.

Overall this bread took a little under 4 hours to make from start to finish. The resulting bread was a little sweet with a tight crumb and a dense texture. This is the perfect toast with peanut butter bread. It would also be great sandwiched with turkey or ham. The next time I make it I will increase the hydration of the bread a bit because it never really relaxed after I shaped it into boules. As you can see by the pictures below, the bread was still pretty rounded on the edges.

Oatmeal Bulgur Bread from The Bread Bible

Sponge:

1Tbsp active dry yeast

2 Tbsp lt. brown sugar

2/3 Cup bulgur wheat (fine or medium grind, I used fine)

2 ¼ cups warm water

2 cups AP or Bread Flour (I used AP)

Put water the work bowl of a heavy duty mixer. Sprinkle yeast, brown sugar, and bulgur wheat over the surface and let stand for 5 minutes. Add 2 cups of flour and beat hard until well moistened and cream (about 2 minutes). Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temp till foamy (about an hour).

Dough:

1 ¼ Cups regular rolled oats

¼ Cup wheat bran (I didn't have this, so I used 2 Tbsp whole wheat flour and 2 Tbsp more of oats)

¼ Cup lt. brown sugar

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp salt

3 to 3 ½ Cups AP or bread flour

To the bowl with the sponge add the rolled oats, bran, sugar, oil and salt. Beat hard for 1 min. Add flour ½ cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides. (I used about 2 ¾ cups flour). Turn the dough out and kneed till smooth and elastic about 4 minutes. Place the dough in a greased deep container.



Proof till doubled about 2 hours.

Deflate the dough, and divide into 3 equal portions. Shape into rounds or shape and put into 3 8x4-inch loaf pans. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in bulk about 45 minutes (mine took about an hour and 15 minutes).

Score dough. Bake at 375 for 35 to 40 minutes or until loaves are browned and sound hollow when tapped with your finger.

Easy Banana Walnut Bread

Sure, I have many Banana Bread recipes in my repertoire, but what's wrong with one more.

Today I made a double batch of Easy Banana Walnut Bread from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book. Easy? Yes. Delicious? Yes. So why not add another (healthy) banana bread recipe to your repertoire?

Easy Banana Walnut Bread from King Arthur Flour Whole Gain Baking




Here is a doubled version of the original recipe. The recipe below makes 2 9x5-inch loaves
1 cup (2 sticks, 8 oz) unsalted butter
1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract (I only increased this 50%, the original recipe called for 1 tsp)
3 cups (24 oz) mashed very ripe bananas
½ cup (6 oz) honey
4 large eggs
4 cups (1 lb) whole wheat flour
1 cup (4 oz) chopped walnuts.
Preheat 350 degrees. Grease 2 9x5-inch loaf pans.
Beat butter, sugar, soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla till smooth. Add banana, honey and eggs beating till smooth. Add flour and nuts, stir till smooth. Spoon into prepared pans. Let rest at room temp for 10 minutes (I forgot to do this, so my breads were a little flat).
Bake for 50 minutes. Lay a piece of foil over top (I didn’t do this) and bake till a cake tester comes out clean 10 to 15 minutes more. Let cool 10 minutes then remove from pan.

An Irish Feast

I had Monday's off, so Joe and I decided to celebrate St. Patty's Day a day early this year. After a weekend away in Vermont, we were eager to get cooking at home.

Matt Murphy's is an Irish pub in Brookline, MA. It has great ambiance and is well known for its food. I would be a regular patron of Matt Murphy's if I lived on that "side of the River" (that's Boston speak for South of the Charles River). One food item they are particularly well known for is their Irish soda bread. Last year around this time I was obsessed with another Irish Soda Bread, and I saw a post about how great their bread was. Lo and behold, they posted on their recipe on their website which I jotted down and shoved into my desk. Today to my amazement, I found the tattered copy of the recipe still in my desk!


I also noticed that Matt Murphy's still has a link to the recipe here. It couldn't be simpler to make. You put all your dry ingredients in a bowl and then pour enough buttermilk in to make a sticky wet dough, but not so wet that it's runny.


I halved the recipe since we're cooking and baking for two today. As for oven time, Joe was braising the corned beef in our oven all day at 250, so I tried to bake it in the toaster oven. It worked okay for a while, but then I had to pull it because the top was getting too dark.



I ended up finishing the loaf in the oven at 250. Due to those factors I have no idea how long it took because I left it in at 250 till it smelled "really" good and was hollow sounding when I tapped it's bottom.

Joe bought a nice corned beef at Whole Foods, and braised it at 250 for 6 hours with beef stock, onions, carrots and spices. I'm not usually a corned beef fan, but it made our house smell like a country home (at least what I imagine one would smell like), just lovely. About 30 minutes before the beef was ready, Joe added some potatoes and then a little later some cabbage to the pot.


I am not much of a meat eater, but I loved this meal. Corned beef is the kind of meat I turn my nose to because it's fatty and well… gross, but Joe turned it into something special. He's an amazing cook.

No beer for us Monday evening. We decided to drink a bottle of Sequoia Grove Cab (2005) in our crystal wine glasses from Galway. We received them as a wedding gift, but had only used them once before. Since they were made in Ireland we thought it would be the perfect evening for them. They were nice to drink from, but I was a little freaked out by the lead warning, so I switched to a normal glass after the first.

It was a great night!

For Saint Patty's day we went to The Burren in Somerville, which is one of the best bars outside Boston. In fact, back when I was in my 20s I moved to Somerville just to be closer to it! It is that fun. We went there today for lunch which was a great time. The bar was very busy with every person in good spirits. Joe and I had a couple of Guinness's, fish and chips and a burger. The food there isn't the best ever, but it's great for the price and the ambiance.

Happy Saint Patrick's day!