BBA Challenge: Ciabatta

OK, I got through this one.  I thought I followed the instructions to the letter, but something went awry.  The bread turned out fine - it was moist, edible, and toasts up beautifully - but it was not the ciabatta I was hoping for with those big holes and chewy crust.  Don't get me wrong, it was good.  Real good, even.  But not quite there.

The poolish

The dough after mixing

After shaping, I put the loaves into a couche I made out of (well laundered) scrup tops!

The ciabatta

As I mentioned, this one disappointed a bit, and it was the first of the BBA breads I wasn't blown away by.  I'll make it again with more hydration and more rest next time,  but for now it is on to the next: cinnamon buns!!

Challah

Finally getting back to the BBA challenge.  The kitchen has been busy with the holidays, but now it is time to get back to bread making.  Challah bread is next - just in time for the new year!

First, bringing the dough together and the separation into three boules:

Next, I made the snakes and braided them into the loaf.  Some egg white wash and sesame seeds were added:

Finally, it baked up beautifully:

The recipe made two loaves, and even a few days later the toast was delicious.  While I really like the character of the breads in the BBA that undergo overnight retardation, it is nice to know I can have something like this come out of the oven on the same day!

Casatiello

This is not bread for the faint of heart.  Literally.  If you have a heart condition, do NOT make or eat this bread.  It is a one way ticket to the operating room table and a bypass.  As if brioche wasn't rich enough with it's eggs and copious butter, this bread adds salami and cheese!!!!

By the way, it is delicious.

Unlike many of the breads in the BBA, this is a one day affair.  It starts with a 1 hour sponge of flour, yeast, and buttermilk.  The supermarket was all out of buttermilk, so I decided to make my own using heavy cream.  This is a nice trick and leaves you with both buttermilk and some amazing fresh butter.

First, pour the heavy cream into a container you can seal well.

Cover it up and shake, shake, shake.  You are essentially churning the cream.  It will gradually expand - sometimes even filling the container so that you no longer hear any sloshing - but keep shaking.  Eventually, it "breaks" and the butter starts to coagulate and coalesce.  What you are left with is butter and buttermilk.

Now I was ready to make the bread.  I sauteed the sopressata, grated the provolone, and made the dough.

I decided to make the dough into rings because it reminded me of the pork bread my father would bring home from the Italian bakery on Bleeker Street.  It baked up beautifully and was  absolutely delicious.

I should also mention that I decided to replace some of the butter (2 Tbls) in the recipe with some bacon fat.  I mean, at this point, why not?

Yeah, I know it looks like two bagels, but they are much bigger! 

 

Casatiello was a huge hit in the Tito household.  Each slice was laden with cheese and sopressata, and felt like a meal.

Brioche

Next up in the BBA Challenge is Brioche - a yeast bread made with lots of egg and butter.  Reinhart gives three recipes with varying amounts of butter ranging from a full pound to one stick.  I decided on the "middle-class" version with a half pound of butter.

After the usual sponge and kneading (this time almost all in the mixer), I spread it on a half sheet and popped it into the refrigerator overnight.  The next day I decided to make two small loaves and some cinnamon rolls out of the dough.

The smell of butter while these were baking was amazing!  I can't imagine what the "rich man's brioche" is like.  They turned out beautifully, and the cinnamon rolls were a big hit with the kids.

This bread really shines when it is toasted.  I know it's probably overkill, but I did put some butter on top too!

Overall, I liked brioche.  The dough is a bit hard to handle, but the end product is quite delicious.  Thusfar, the BBA hasn't had any recipes I didn't like, but if I had to put them in order, I would rank them like this:

1 - Bagels
2 - Anadama
3 - Artos
4 - Brioche

Zombie Bagels

Next up in the challenge: bagels.  As I wrote in my first post, I actually made these first.  But in the spirit of doing each recipe in order, I decided to revisit this recipe and make some more.  OK, my family made me make some more!

After the sponge stage, and the initial combining, it was time to get kneading.  This was just before the neighborhood Halloween party, so I had already started to "zombify" myself with some fake wounds.  Hey, even zombies like a good NYC style bagel.

I then shaped the dough into balls, followed by rolling the balls into snakes, and then bagel shapes.   After that, it was overnight into the refrigerator. 

In the meantime, I had a Halloween party to go to!

The next day, it was time to boil and bake.  I boiled them in a combination solution containing a tablespoon each of malt and baking soda.  I used sesame seeds (white & black) and pretzel salt as toppings.  They were served with fresh tomato, cream cheese, capers, and smoked salmon.  Once again, they were delicious!

Artos: Greek Celebration Bread

This is Reinhart's version of a holiday bread.  My mother-in-law makes a similar bread at Christmas with cardamon, but the BBA recipe uses cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and allspice.  I made the poolish version of this rather than the sourdough as the method for making the sourdough starter or barm seemed a bit ambitious to me at this stage.  It also would take too long!  One other change - I left out the almond extract - can't stand the stuff, which is weird because I love almonds.


First step: make the poolish and let it ferment for several hours followed by an overnight retard in the refrigerator.

The next day is basically adding all the other ingredients and kneading until it is ready (about 10").  I use Penzey's spices and have always been impressed with their service and quality.

I did want to highlight my nutmeg grater.  It has been a kitchen workhorse for me since I purchased it on the island of Grenada in 1992.  It consists of a few simple pieces of wood and a perforated coffee can!

Finally, I decided I would do the design on top of the boule, but I did not want to do the traditional crucifix.  I decided on something a bit more....aquatic:

I dub thee OCTOBREAD!!!!

After baking, the tentacles pulled apart a bit, but it still looks pretty darn cool.

Anadama Bread

I made this one last night, and I hope I don't kill the suspense by saying that it was terrific.  My wife's family is from the Rockport area, and they have had plenty of the real stuff, so I wondered what they would think, and it passed muster with flying colors.

Reinhart makes this recipe (like nearly all of them from BBA) a two day affair, but the first day is super easy.  Just soak some cornmeal in water.  He recommends a coarse cornmeal, and I was fortunate enough to find a good Portugese brand for a fraction of the "specialty flour" price.

Then it was a matter of soaking overnight.

The next day, the real fun begins.  The soaked cornmeal is added  to bread flour, more yeast, salt, molasses, and butter.  That gets kneaded together and allowed to rise, and finally put into loaf pans.

Finally, it goes into the oven, and - voila! - my first BBA Challenge bread is done!

This is really good bread.  It has a hint of the sweetness from the molasses, but not nearly as sweet as my usual oatmeal molasses bread.  In fact, I think this bread could easily support a savory sandwich without the sweetness being too cloying.  So far, though, more thna a loaf has disappeared in the toaster for butter and jam!

The Challenge

Last week, we had a brunch at our house for the purpose of planning our next scuba diving trip to Bonaire.  This presented a problem.  One of my favorite brunches is fresh chewy bagels with smoked salmon, fresh tomatoes, mimosas, Bloody Marys, and good coffee.

I roast my own coffee now, so I've got that licked. 

It's still fresh tomato season, so no worries with that.

Mimosas and Bloody Mary's are easy...

Which brings us to the fresh chewy bagels.  I am from NY City.  I was weaned on H&H, Bagel Oasis, and Ess-a-Bagel.  Heck, even the corner bodega had the good ones.  But now I live in Massachusetts.

Big problem.  The bagels up here are big pillows of round bread.  And not very good bread at that.

I had bought Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice some time ago with the ambition of turning out tasty fresh loaves of bread, but never really got around to it.  So I cracked it open and found a recipe for bagels that he claimed was as good as the real thing.  What the heck, I gave it a try.

Oh.  My.  God.

They fulfilled my fondest wishes, despite not having high gluten flour, and a minor mishap with the stickiest parchment paper in existence (don't ask).  I made 2 dozen and they were gone in no time.  My guests had a great brunch and I had a new favorite cookbook.

I then discovered it was a lot of people's favorite cookbook, and that there was something called the BBA Challenge.  Basically, it comes to this:  bake every bread in the BBA book in order and blog, tweet, or otherwise rhapsodize about it.  SO that is what I'll be doing on this blog.  I also plan on adding in some of my other recipes and culinary misadventures.