Flash in the Pan

The PR people for ConAgra Foods sent a bag of the company's Eagle Mills All-Purpose Flour, which is supposedly closer to whole wheat than regular white flour, but with a milder taste and the texture of the later. I just baked some bread with it and think it's potentially got a place in the kitchen, though isn't going to be the eating habit savior that the marketing people want to portray.

Eagle Mills is actually a blend of 70% white flour and a blend of 30% Ultragrain. Don't be surprised if you haven't yet heard of the latter. It's a proprietary preparation of ConAgra and the major ingredient behind Sara Lee Soft & Smooth 100% Whole Wheat Bread, which I haven't yet tried. It seems to be some processed form of whole wheat flour, but milled to a state where is doesn't have the textural roughness you'd ordinarily expect.

One of the claims that ConAgra Foods, manufacturers of Ultragrain flour, makes is that the product is mroe nutritious than "unenriched unbleached flour." You can see their comparitive data here. The figures for refined, unenriched wheat flour and traditional whole grain wheat flour come from the USDA national nutrient database (which I double-checked). Notice that the values for Ultragrain and whole wheat are the same? (Also, notice that they compare to unenriched flour, versus, say, enriched bread flour, but the differences between those two aren't all that big.)

As I read through everything, I realized that Eagle Mills isn't a wonder concoction bringing the nutritional benefits of whole wheat to everything. This is a blend, but typically you'd have a ratio of maybe 60%/40% of regular white to whole wheat. You could even push that up more, I've found. However, some things like dietary fiber will be double using Eagle Mills compared to regular white. Also, if you're baking bread, you might find that you let a bit less rise from this. I think they blended the Ultragrain with regular white and not bread flour. Normally, I'd blend whole wheat with a bread flour to increase the gluten content and get more rise in the final product. Also, if you want the nuttier taste of whole wheat, Eagle Mills is not the way to go. But if you'd like to boost the nutritional value of something while trying to get as close to a white flour taste and texture aesthetic as possible, give this product a try.

Labels: baking, bread, ConAgra, Eagle Mills, flour, Ultragrain

I dislike exclamation points, and am apt to distrust any product whose packaging and marketing makes liberal use of the punctuation. To see "Revolutionizing the Storage Container!!!" on the cardboard wrapper of the Baker's Sto 'N Go was therefore a bad omen. Luckily, mystical signs have pretty much gone the way of hieromancy. This product is a smart and overdue take on how to convey cookies, brownies, and other snacks from one place to the other. A plastic box comes with adjustable height slide-out shelves. The container, which is compact, can hold a pan of 13x9x2 inch brownies, 32 mini cupcakes, 3 dozen 3-inch cookies, or two 8-inch pies. You could also put sliced meats, cheeses, and other deli items on the shelves. A cover snaps in place over the opening, keeping the foods in and the air out. You can also turn it on end and use the shelves as dividers to hold candies, pretzels, or anything else that will fit. It's dishwasher- and even microwave-safe. When not in use, you can even slip out the carrying handle and store it inside, so it takes up less room. The price is about $20, but if you've ever juggled baking pans or plates wrapped with aluminum foil, this will seem a reasonably modest price. One thing it did leave me wishing for is something slightly larger: It would have been nice to bring two 9-inch pies, as that seems a more common size. That aside, however, if you're sending kids to school with class snacks or donating goods to a bake sale, give this strong consideration.

Labels: bakers, baking, container, opinion, review, Sto 'N Go, storage

I was baking another loaf of bread last night - using a bit of this, some of that, and really winging it. This morning I had the great idea to call what I was doing freestyle baking. Alas, others, although not many, have used the term before. I did a search on Google for "freestyle baking" and came up with 8 references. Searching for "freestyle bread" brought 20 matches. (Here's one listing for someone who apparently has been blogging a number of times about freestyle baking and who posted a potato bread recipe as one result.) If not the inventor, I can at least, for once, feel in the vanguard.

But the concept is obviously older. The idea is to grasp the essentials of some area of baking - the relationships of salt to flour, flour to water, percentages of sugar, and so on - and then to improvise. While writing the Complete Idiot's Guide to Pizza and Panini, I had to develop a lot of dough recipes. The exercise became one of bringing together what I knew and using basic relationships to develop new breads. Here are some principles that should help, if you have an itch to try:

• Necessary Versus Optional Bread baking traditions going back thousands of years point out that for a yeast dough, all you need is flour, water, salt, and yeast. (And the Tuscans, for one, sometimes omit the salt.) You don't need sugar, oil, or any other additive.


• Know What Additives Do I'm talking about optional additions. Fat helps preserve a moist texture and softens crust. Milk (in the form of dried skim milk - no need for the liquid, just add the right amount of powder for the volume of water you've used) adds a richness to taste and also softens crust. Sugar boosts the activity of the yeast and adds flavor and maybe a little color to the crust. (Honey or other sweeteners are fun substitutes.)


• Flour to Water For a loaf, I start with two cups of water and figured that I'll need about five to six cups, maybe a bit more, total of flour. Ultimately, I'll want the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl and stick lightly to the back of my hand when I press it, but it needs to come away cleanly. Some types of dough, like a ciabatta, are far wetter and stickier. In general, the wetter the dough, the more open the crumb and the bigger the holes you'll find in the bread when it's baked. However, I will only start with about 4.5 cups of flour, adding more a tablespoon or two at a time while mixing and kneading to get the consistency I want for that loaf.


• Salt to Flour To get the taste you probably expect, you'll need about a teaspoon of salt per 3 cups (about 1 pound) of bread or all-purpose wheat flour. You can use a bit more salt in volume if you want, particularly if you are using kosher salt (which is less compact than table salt and so you put less salt in if measuring by volume) or using whole grains in the flour mix, which, to my taste, need a touch more salt.


• Fat or Sugar I'll add a few tablespoons of fat to one loaf of bread, though you can go up to a quarter cup to try different textures and amount of moisture. I usually add a couple of tablespoons of sugar when I feel like using it, though have added up to a quarter cup of honey.


• Amount of Yeast You don't need to add as much yeast as many recipes suggest. The yeast will multiple over time. Adding more speeds rising, while adding less lets the yeast and resulting bread develop more flavor. If you have hours available, try using half an envelope of dry yeast (about 1 1/8 teaspoons) and see how it goes.


• Types of Flour Bread flour is high in gluten and will give you somewhat lighter loafs, but you can pretty freely mix all-purpose and bread if you want. I will often substitute up to 40 to 50 percent other flours or grains. For example, last night I used 3 cups of bread flour (the extra gluten helps dough structure when you add whole wheat or non-gluten flours), a couple of cups of whole wheat, and maybe a half cup wheat bran. Sometimes I'll add rye, buckwheat, or rice flours, oatmeal, corn meal - it depends on what I have on hand. When using other grains, let them soak in some water: enough to get the thoroughly wet, but not enough to have a layer of water on top. This will help preserve moistness of the final bread.


• Temperature If you're baking a loaf in a pan, set the oven to about 350 degrees F so it will cook through. For wetter free-standing loaves baked on a baking stone, try 400 or 425.

Now have some fun. Keep the whole grains in water to the side. Dissolve the yeast in the water (about 110 degrees F), add all the other ingredients, mix, and then add the whole grain mixture, if any. At this point you can get a sense of how sticky the dough is. If it adheres to your hand, add more wheat flour, bit at a time, until it's just slightly tacky. Form up into a loaf or rolls and bake.

Labels: baking, bread, freestyle, improvisation, improvising, technique

Those used to professional baking recipes will doubtless be familiar with using powdered milk instead of the liquid variety. In baking breads, I've taken to this practice. But I've always used liquid buttermilk when I needed that ingredient, and have never even liked soured milk as an alternative. I was surprised when my wife and I found SACO Cultured Buttermilk Blend on a local grocery shelf. We picked some up and I gave it a try last night in biscuits. It was a pleasure and added the flavor I wanted (though I couldn't figure out where I has put the baking soda, so had to make do with baking powder). According to the web site, what you get these days as real buttermilk in cartons is actually cultured skim and not the byproduct of butter making. The company's web site touts the qualities of the results. I can't speak to the long term keeping (biscuits go within a day in this house), but I did like the texture of the results. Four tablespoons - rated as having 80 calories - is the amount you need for a cup of buttermilk, which is significantly less than whole milk. I automatically mixed the powder with the other dry ingredients, as I would with milk powder - and which is the approach the company suggests. The only inconvenience I see facing us is that after you open the container, it's supposed to go into the refrigerator. But then, I have a feeling it won't smell as bad as one of those buttermilk containers that you buy for a cup worth and then forget you have sitting around. Here's the biscuit recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 TBL. sugar
4 TBL. buttermilk blend
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
4 ounces butter, softened
water

1. Preheat oven to 375º F.
   
2. Thoroughly mix dry incredients.


3. Cut in butter until you get a coarse meal-like consistency.


4. Add just enough water to hold dough together.


5. Knead dough on a floured surface for about 30 seconds. Roll out to 1/4-inch thick. Cut into 3-inch rounds.


6. Place rounds on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 15 minutes or until golden brown on top.
   

Labels: baking, biscuits, buttermilk, powder

In the past I've tried making chapati, a grilled Indian bread made of whole wheat flour. Although I knew in theory that it took a special flour, I tried using ordinary whole wheat, and the results were indifferent. Recently we were in an Asian market in Hadley, MA and on a whim I picked up a 5 pound sack of atta, the "proper" flour made of whole grain durum wheat. What a difference a grain can make. My wife gave it thumbs up, and it approached the version we get at a great Indian restaurant in Boston, India Quality, we've been going to for a good 20 years (long before Zagat's ever dreamt of becoming a review arbiter). The recipe is easy: flour and water, kneaded to mix and then rolled out into disks. Grill on the first side for maybe a minute, grill on the second for 30 seconds, and then back on the first side for another 15.

Checking Wikipedia, I noticed that the same bread, held in an open flame, puffs up and becomes the Gujrathi or Punjabi phulka. Unfortunately, we're cooking on electric these days, so I'll have to try the microwave variation that can leave the bread a bit soggy. But I'd like to see the puffed version.

Now, if only I had a good recipe for the onion salad the restaurant carries.

Labels: atta, baking, Boston, bread, chapati, cuisine, India, phulka

I was looking forward to reviewing A Taste of Challah (Feldheim Publishers; New York; 2007) by Tamar Ansh. The bread is traditionally served on Shabbat (Sabbath) meals by Ashkenazi Jews. It generally includes eggs and, at least in the U.S., comes in a braided loaf form for most of the year, and a round turban shape for the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

There was much good I found in the book. The author is a religious Jew and offers a lot of information on the theological and culture links. There is also more information than I've ever seen in one place on how to handle and shape the dough, including variations like a braided round challah that I've never seen. We'll get to some more good points in a moment.

But calling the volume A Comprehensive Guide to Challah and Bread Baking is overblown and inaccurate. For example, the only "regular" recipe for challah dough is called Always Perfect No-Egg Challah. The title alone suggests what anyone familiar with the bread knows: eggs are a normal component. I wondered whether strict kosher food laws might consider eggs as meat, and so something that could not be served with dairy, but a little research showed that eggs are considered pareve - neither meat nor dairy. Nothing wrong with variations, but I don't see how a book can be "comprehensive" without a version of the most traditional approach.

The basic recipe also called for 16 to 17 cups of flour for what it said were 6 large loaves. Three cups of flour are about a pound, adding the weight of oil, sugar, and sugar, I'm guessing that the "large" loaves would be about a pound each - not so large from my view. I didn't bother making this fundamental recipe because that's also far more bread than my family will go through before it goes stale, though under Jewish law you're supposed to eat three meals on Shabbat and start each with two loaves, so I'm guessing that's where the volume came from. However, those who are not religious Jews are likely to be overwhelmed by the amount.

Back to what I liked: I learned a technique of using a rolling pin to make perfect dough ropes which, in turn, helps create the proper braided shape. The only hint that I thought was missing was doing a double egg wash: once, letting that dry, and then a second time to help achieve the perfect color a good bakery can get. There's also an interesting collection of other recipes, ranging from bagels and pita (though either a long-baked or no-pocket type, again not the traditional one) to some Middle Eastern breads and dips that I've never before seen.

The upshot: some people, like me, will find a lot of good in the $35 book - and you can see that more money than usual went into a nicely crafted hardbound with abundant color photography. But if you're new to bread baking and want a traditional loaf of challah, you'd at least need to supplement this volume with a recipe from another source.

Labels: baking, book, bread, challah, recipe, review

We were on the list to provide hummos and pita bread for something my son was attending. I decided to make the pita from the recipe in Secrets of a Jewish Baker - my personal top choice in bread books and containing many professional tips that I've never found elsewhere. Unfortunately the results were uneven the first time around - browned them a bit too much so some ended up flat and crunchy. So I tried another batch two nights ago, and it got raves. There are a few things I found from a little experimenting - and from what I learned in writing the Complete Idiots Guide to Pizza and Panini (coming out in August):

• Keep the dough the tiniest bit sticky. You want moisture in it to puff up the pita, which should look like little domes when they're done.
  
• The steps about letting the dough relax are important.
  
• The book's instructions say to roll the dough out to about 6-inch diameter circles, but the real trick is keeping it about a quarter-inch thick.
  
• The baking instructions in the book are a bit off - when you put them onto the hot baking stone or tiles, let them sit for about four minutes and then check on their progress (keeping the oven mostly closed to contain the heat).
  
• They should be pretty pale. If they get to golden brown, they will be crunchy.

Careful when you put them between the towels to cool, as there is a ton of contained steam, and it's easy to burn yourself.

Labels: baking, bread, pita, recipe