I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
Cinnamon rolls are one of my many weaknesses. They are excellent breakfast sweets just as they are. Lately, however, I’ve started seeing more and more varieties of rolls like sticky lemon rolls, coconut pull apart rolls, and butterscotch sticky buns. And, did you see Foodblogga’s blueberry sweet rolls last summer? Then, I just saw another version of blueberry cinnamon rolls on Health Nut a couple of weeks ago. I started getting ideas about changing things up with a slightly more wholesome sweet roll made with sourdough and whole wheat flour, and Texas-grown blueberries are everywhere I look lately. Blueberries on their own would have been great, but I thought using both blueberries and raspberries would give these some Fourth of July spirit.
I followed a recipe for sourdough cinnamon rolls using half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour. The recipe states the commercial yeast and vital wheat gluten are optional. I added the yeast but not the gluten. The dough also included sourdough starter, water, sugar, powdered milk, melted butter, and eggs. With less butter, no cream cheese, and whole wheat flour, these were virtuous sweet rolls compared to the last ones I made. I let the dough rise for a few hours, and then rolled it into a big rectangle. I spread on two tablespoons of softened butter and scattered the berries, one half pint of each, that had been tossed with a little sugar and lemon zest and a tablespoon of flour. The dough was rolled up and cut into smallish pieces. I went with shorter rolls this time in an attempt to limit the calories per roll. They were practically guilt-free. I let them sit in a baking pan, covered with plastic, in the refrigerator overnight, and baked them the next morning. Once baked and cooled, I made a simple glaze with confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice to swirl on top of each.
The pretty berries and lemony glaze made these seem more decadent than they were, and the whole wheat flour gave them some nuttiness. Veering off the cinnamon path was a good change of pace. Now that I’ve dabbled with berries in sweet rolls, the lemon, butterscotch, and coconut varieties are in my sights.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
My sourdough starter seems to be surviving. For this third bread adventure installment, it was used in rustic bread or ciabatta. Once again, this was from Nancy Silverton's Bread from the La Brea Bakery. It was a one-day bread, and the process seemed less frightening to me than the basic country white loaf. However, the very sticky, wet dough was not as lovely to work with as the bagel dough. Silverton explains that the wetter the dough, the bigger the holes. The finished loaf is intended to be flat and oval. Ciabatta takes very well to being dipped in olive oil or turned into garlic bread, and I had a feeling this wouldn’t last long once it was baked. The recipe makes enough dough for two large loaves, and I decided to follow the instructions for making one of them a rustic olive-herb loaf.
The starter was measured and combined with water, bread flour, and half a cake of fresh yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. After an initial mixing, it was left to rest for 20 minutes. Salt was added, it was mixed more, and then milk, olive oil, and more water were added. After the dough came together, it was left to ferment for two and a half hours. The big blob of wet stickiness was then turned out onto a well-floured board, sprinkled with more flour, covered, and left to sit a bit longer. At that point, the big blob was divided in two, and each was plopped onto parchment paper that had been heavily dusted with bread flour and semolina. Each loaf was dimpled by pressing my index finger all the way down to the parchment paper. More flour was sprinkled on top, they were covered and left to proof for two hours. Dough must get tired very easily as it requires more resting time than either of my cats. After that nap, the loaves were turned over, dimpled again and were finally ready to bake. The olive loaf was studded with pitted picholine olives in all of the dimples and little sprigs of fresh rosemary were tucked into the surface here and there.
The 500 degree oven was spritzed with water before the loaves were placed inside. Now, if you have no intention of baking this bread, just do this one part. Heat your oven to 500 degrees, spritz it with water, and then put something with fresh rosemary sprigs inside it. That immediate aroma of the rosemary hitting the hot steam is simply fantastic, and when it flavors a loaf of bread with some picholine olives, it’s quite a bonus. The temperature was reduced to 450, and the loaves baked for about 35 minutes. I was concerned that my blobs were a bit wide and didn’t seem quite as tall as most ciabatta loaves I’ve seen. I wasn’t sure I would get the nice porous interior that was the goal.
In the end, it worked fine. I think the dough would be easier to handle if there was less of it, so I’ll probably halve the recipe in the future. Now that I’ve experimented with the dough once, hopefully I can get a nicer ciabatta-looking shape and slightly taller loaves when I try again. What I did get this time was really wonderfully chewy, flavorful bread with a nice, crisp crust. When the loaves were cooled and ready to be tasted, we were kind of like kids in a candy store. We couldn’t stop eating this bread, and we didn’t take the time to dip it in olive oil. It was so fresh and so good. I may need to re-think that idea about halving the recipe next time.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
The sourdough starter adventure continues. My second baking attempt with the starter wasn’t classic baguettes or a pretty fougasse, no, it was bagels. Why bagels? I had heard about the bagels in Nancy Silverton's Bread from the La Brea Bakery book several times, and I just had to know for myself. I’d been thinking about trying to make these bagels for months but needed to make a starter before I could try them. With starter successfully made, there was no stopping the bagel attempt. I don’t know if it was the drawn out anticipation of these bagels, or just shear pride in having finally baked some of my own, but these were positively the best bagels ever. I can imagine bagel baking becoming a regular part of my week. Oh, it’s Tuesday, I need to get the dough prepared and the bagels shaped so I can bake them tomorrow. Yes, I could see that happening.
That sounded almost confident of me, but in truth, this was another lost in the dark experiment. I simply followed the instruction exactly and hoped something good would come from it. Unlike other kinds of baking and cooking, with bread baking and working with sourdough starter, I have no idea what can and cannot be tweaked. Strictly playing by the rules is a very different experience in the kitchen, and maybe someday I’ll learn enough to get more creative.
These bagels required a two day plan. To begin, the dough was formed from water, fresh yeast, starter, unbleached bread flour, sugar, salt, barley malt syrup, and milk powder. There was a note about combining bread flour with vital wheat gluten to make a stronger flour, but I completely ignored that option and just used bread flour. I was instructed to use a mixer with a dough hook, but the dough came together so quickly and easily I think I could stir by hand next time. Branching out, already. Once formed, the dough was to be kneaded on a flour-free surface. Now, this scared me. No flour? It was sure to stick and be a complete nightmare to scrape together, so I had a bench scraper at the ready. I worried for nothing. This dough was incredibly easy to knead with no flour at all. It was very smooth and not at all sticky. It was covered and left to rest before being portioned into bagel-sized lumps.
The instructions state that you should be able to form 18 four ounce pieces. I ended up with 17, and they were all just shy of four full ounces, but I didn’t let that bother me. The pieces were again left to rest before being shaped into bagels. The shaping was a point of real uncertainty. I had no idea how much the dough would expand inward, so I wasn’t sure how large the bagel hole should be. I winged it, and left the bagels to rest in the refrigerator overnight.
Day two of the process included boiling, pressing into a seed mixture and baking. This was fun. The bagels were very easy to work with, and dropping them into the boiling water for just 10 seconds per side and fishing them out was a strange delight. I can’t express enough how great this dough was and how easy it was to handle. I combined poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and coarse sea salt on a plate and pressed each boiled bagel into the mix. Then, they went back onto a parchment-lined, semolina-dusted baking sheet and into a 450 degree oven which was turned down to 400. Twenty minutes later, I had to look at these lovelies and endure the excruciating wait until one was cool enough to handle. I soon discovered slightly burned fingers was a small price to pay for tasting one of these fresh and hot out of the oven. They were just chewy enough, and the flavor was so very good.
About the size of the bagel holes: I made them too small, and the bagels looked over-puffed because of it. I’ll get better at that I hope. I will, without doubt, be making more bagels, so I should figure it out eventually. I haven’t decided yet what the next sourdough adventure will be. Parmesan cheese bread, raisin brioche, and seeded sour are all contenders.
. It was a one-day bread, and the process seemed less frightening to me than the 
The starter was measured and combined with water, bread flour, and half a cake of fresh yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. After an initial mixing, it was left to rest for 20 minutes. Salt was added, it was mixed more, and then milk, olive oil, and more water were added. After the dough came together, it was left to ferment for two and a half hours. The big blob of wet stickiness was then turned out onto a well-floured board, sprinkled with more flour, covered, and left to sit a bit longer. At that point, the big blob was divided in two, and each was plopped onto parchment paper that had been heavily dusted with bread flour and semolina. Each loaf was dimpled by pressing my index finger all the way down to the parchment paper. More flour was sprinkled on top, they were covered and left to proof for two hours. Dough must get tired very easily as it requires more resting time than either of my cats. After that nap, the loaves were turned over, dimpled again and were finally ready to bake. The olive loaf was studded with pitted picholine olives in all of the dimples and little sprigs of fresh rosemary were tucked into the surface here and there.
The 500 degree oven was spritzed with water before the loaves were placed inside. Now, if you have no intention of baking this bread, just do this one part. Heat your oven to 500 degrees, spritz it with water, and then put something with fresh rosemary sprigs inside it. That immediate aroma of the rosemary hitting the hot steam is simply fantastic, and when it flavors a loaf of bread with some picholine olives, it’s quite a bonus. The temperature was reduced to 450, and the loaves baked for about 35 minutes. I was concerned that my blobs were a bit wide and didn’t seem quite as tall as most ciabatta loaves I’ve seen. I wasn’t sure I would get the nice porous interior that was the goal.
The instructions state that you should be able to form 18 four ounce pieces. I ended up with 17, and they were all just shy of four full ounces, but I didn’t let that bother me. The pieces were again left to rest before being shaped into bagels. The shaping was a point of real uncertainty. I had no idea how much the dough would expand inward, so I wasn’t sure how large the bagel hole should be. I winged it, and left the bagels to rest in the refrigerator overnight.
About the size of the bagel holes: I made them too small, and the bagels looked over-puffed because of it. I’ll get better at that I hope. I will, without doubt, be making more bagels, so I should figure it out eventually. I haven’t decided yet what the next sourdough adventure will be. Parmesan cheese bread, raisin brioche, and seeded sour are all contenders.