However, just like anything that is mass produced it is done in such a way to make it as consistent as possible as well as make the most money possible.

When a loaf of bread or buns never starts to mold…..that’s a little suspect to me.

Anyways. I’ve been on this little baking adventure for almost two years now. Sure it doesn’t show in my blog, but I’ve been making our sandwich/toasting bread for our family for over a year now. I’m still learning things on how to shape the loaf and the correct times to let it raise and bake. The two biggest variables that I have been working on right now are developing the gluten and not letting the dough over raise.

These four loaves last us about a week.

Developing the gluten is important because it is the structure that holds the gasses the yeast produces in. If it isn’t developed right then the loaf doesn’t hold up well and the texture suffers.

So that is the quest as of recent. Develop the gluten and don’t let it raise too long.

 Rolling out the pieces of dough I cut, even if it isn’t quite uniform..

Then for the fun shaping.  A loop in the middle…

 You attach one end to the loop…

And the second end to the other side of the loop.

Dissolve some baking soda in some warmish water.

Dip each pretzel in it.  It helps create the chewy outside that you want with a pretzel!

Dry them off a bit.Then let them raise until nice and puffy!

Bake until golden and then..

Sprinkle some Kosher salt on!  Yum!

I found this recipe on the webs.  Had I read all the steps I think I may have looked elsewhere.  The number of steps didn’t bother me it was having to do something with it ever 30 minutes or so.  We were out of milk and I needed to run to the store.  The hubster was working a 12 hour shift so it was just me and the baby girls.  Thirty minutes is not enough time to pack them up, load them up, drive, shop, drive, and unload.  So I threw the dough into the fridge.

If I had just left it out to keep fermenting it would have risen to enormous proportions.  The fridge calmed the yeast down, but it still rose a bit for me.

I got impatient.  I also think I used a pan too big for the amount of dough I had.  I didn’t wait long enough for it to rise before baking.  Guess what?  It still tastes good.  Not as thick as I would have like for splitting for sandwiches, but it will do just fine.

The garlic and rosemary are so good together.  Really they belong together.  True love if I’ve ever seen it!

I think I will look for another recipe to try for my next focaccia adventure.  But I may end up coming back to this one.  Would someone move closer to me so I can give you baked goods and we can get chubby together!

I bought a scale when I first started on this teaching myself to bake adventure.  A lot of textbooks and such use metric.  It is much easier to use than ounces in my opinion.  So first 600 grams of bread flour.

Then 200 grams of wheat flour.

15 grams of salt.

And 1 teaspoon of yeast.  There is  minimal amount of yeast in the bread because it get such a long ferment time.  Longer ferment times means more flavor!!

600 grams of cool water.  If the dough is too warm it will ferment too much and have too strong of flavor so the cool water and the cool temperatures to raise the bread control yeast activity.

Mix it together with a spoon.  Dark picture…sorry.

Get it all together.

Then cover it up. I have a sheet of plastic wrap under the tea towel.  I put it in the oven not for heat, but for no drafts.  As long as I remember it is in there before I preheat for something else!

The next morning.  All bubbly and happy.  Much better light for picture taking as well.  After this, well I already told you!  This bread is so easy even those of you who think you can’t bake bread, you can do this!

600grams = 2 1/2 Cups + 1 Tablespoon

200grams = 3/4 Cups + 1 Tablespoon

15grams = 1 Tablespoon

The dough for these is more of a brioche dough which means there are lots of rich things in the dough like milk instead of water and butter!  You start with…a starter.  =)

Yeast and sugar.

Some flour.

And warm milk.

Beat that stuff together until smooth.

Then cover it in plastic wrap to keep is warm and let it ferment for 30 minutes.

This is how it looks after 30 minutes.  The yeast are happy!

Then start throwing more flour in and other things like eggs.

Once it’s mixed smooth again I get to add an entire stick of butter piece by piece.

Yep, the whole thing.

Adding enough flour to form a kneadable dough and knead it until smooth.  I cheat and make my mixer do the kneading.  It doesn’t have feelings and doesn’t care that I cheat.  Work smarter, not harder.  Or something like that.

Let it raise for 2 hours and it gets all puffy looking like that.  Then you deflate it, cover it back up and let it party in the fridge all night long!

This is the beginnings of lemon curd.  Mmmmmmm….lemon curd.  These are the lemons that were languishing.  They are thanking me for making them feel useful.  Squeeze enough lemons to get a half cup of lemon juice.  Before squeezing them use your microplane zester to zest about a tablespoon of zest.  Wow, that’s a lot of zest in that sentence.  My little plastic juicer… 50 cents at Savers.  Baking makes me happy…and so do deals.

For the other half of our lemon curd I whisk eggs and sugar together until smooth and pale yellow.  These metal bowls my husband brought to the marriage, they are great for double boiler use.

Double boiler action!  Heat this up and then add in the lemon juice and zest and keep whisking so you don’t scramble your eggs you temper them.  Once it gets thick, take off the heat and let cool and roll out your dough.

On your new rolling board with your new rolling pin.

I didn’t show you the rest because I already did.  If I have to tell you twice then you weren’t listening the first time!

I shared these I promise.  I sent an entire one to work with my hubby and it was gone by 10am.  I think next time I am going to divide the dough by four because the braids just get so big.  If they are smaller I can fit them into bags easier, which means I can freeze them, and that would be a good thing!

Recipes Used: Lemon Curd Braids

I made these the other day.  It had been quite awhile since I had made them and some friends were coming over.  Nothing says thank you for coming over like fresh baked bread!

I use this recipe.  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-baguettes-and-stuffed-baguettes/i-recipe

I like that recipe because it uses a starter.  A starter is where you use a portion of the flour water and yeast to get a head start on flavor.  You mix it up the night before and leave it out for the yeast to do its work.  In the morning it’s all bubbly and smells so good.  Then you throw it in with the rest of the flour, water, yeast, and salt to mix up the final dough.

We usually just slice it and put butter on it to eat it.  But it would be a great base for bruchetta or even sliced lengthwise for hoagies.

And yes, these are already gone.  =)

This is my new rolling board and rolling pin.  They are handmade by my husband’s uncle!!  I got them for Christmas and the timing couldn’t be more perfect.  All my croissant practice has broken a bearing in the rolling pin that I had been using.  I was going to go out and buy a new one, but this came just in time.  It is quite heavy which helps with all the rolling.  The board is a heavy resin material and looks great on my counter as well.  They will both get a lot of use.

The challenge with these for me was shaping them.  It’s such a wet dough and you don’t want to mess with it too much or the bubbles will deflate and you end up with a brick.

So I did my best and ended up with a lot of different shapes, but was going for the rounded square look.  It’s the most sandwich friendly shape.

They puff up so nicely in the oven.

That’s just flour on them so they didn’t stick to everything.

Because this dough is so set it creates a lot of steam which makes a very open crumb, or big holes.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/blueberrycreamcheesebraid

I had blueberries in the freezer and some lemons for lemon curd in the fridge that needed to be used.

The dough in this recipe is like a brioche dough.  A dough with a lot of butter and you can’t ever go wrong with butter…ever.

The dough is very soft and sticky and resembles a thick batter.  It gets refridgerated overnight which makes it much easier to roll out!

The first one I did I made a blueberry filling and a cream cheese one that had a bit of sugar in it.  Slap down the cream cheese, slather on the blueberry filling. Yum!

Lemon curd.  It’s not just for pie.  I’ve fallen in love with lemons.  Unfortunately I live in Minnesota where lemon trees do not grow.  I have a dream that involves a greenhouse attached to my house and citrus trees.

Cut the sides into about 1 inch strips.

Then just fold them over alternating sides.

Pretty!

Getting all warm and cozy in the oven after getting all slathered in egg wash.  I like beating one egg with about a tablespoon of milk.  The bread will get brown in the oven with or without the egg wash, but the egg wash helps and it provides that nice shine.

See nice and brown and shiny.  Thank you egg wash!

The strips folded over make it look so fancy.

We definitely liked the lemon one better.  I think it could have used a glaze on top as well, but we ate it too fast to worry about it.  The blueberry was not bad at all, it’s just the lemon curd one was so so good.

I went with Mama D’s Italian Bread recipe from Allrecipes.com.  It calls for letting the dough raise three times instead of the traditional two which results in a deeper flavor.

First the warm water mixed with sugar with the yeast on top to proof the yeast or wake them up.

My 25lb. bag of bread flour almost gone!

A few cups of flour to get the dough started.

My kitchen companion.

After you add the water/sugar/yeast mixture I use the paddle attachment because it mixes it up better while it is still wet.

Then you started adding more and more flour until the dough starts to come together.  My KitchenAid was protesting a bit at this point so that is when I switch to the dough hook.

Then adding more flour until the dough starts to come away from the sides of the bowl.  I have learned in my bread making self-education that wetter dough is better.  Sticky even!  I used to add way too much flour to my bread just so it won’t stick.  However, the more moisture that is in the dough the more steam that gets released during the baking process causing more lift (ovenspring) and a softer crumb.

I turned my dough out at this point because this recipe makes a lot of dough and as the gluten develops the dough starts to climb up my hook!  I tried a new method of kneading called air kneading.  Pretty much you just pick it up and stretch it and twist it in the air.  As you do the gluten strands start coming together and you’ll notice that your dough stretches further and further every time.  This technique is much easier if you have a wetter dough.

Kneaded until smooth and elastic.  I’m still experimenting with getting the correct amount of gluten development.  Apparently there is a point where you can overdevelop the gluten.  I am not sure if I have done this yet.  I think I am still erring on the side of underdevelopment, but I can’t be certain.  The test for gluten development is to take a bit of dough and stretch it and if it stretches and forms almost a window pane then the gluten is developed correctly.  If the dough just breaks apart then the gluten needs more work.  Or it’s had too much work.  I’m still not sure how to tell the difference.  Anyway that test is called a Gluten Window.

Placed into a oiled (cooking sprayed) bowl and coved with plastic warp to raise.  Our house is kind of cold so I turn my oven on for about a minute and then put my dough in there.

Then as I back away from my counter I see all the miscellaneous things that Izzy was playing with while I was working on my bread.

First raise and I think it has doubled!  I followed directions and deflated the dough, divided it, and returned it to the bowl for a second raise.  I don’t think there is much point in dividing it though because after the second raise the pieces has merged back together.  So I think just deflating it and folding it over on itself a few times would be sufficient.

After the second raise I shaped my loafs.  I only did two because I wanted to do garlic bread.  I know this is a French Bread shape and I used an Italian bread recipe, but it’s my party and I’ll do what I want!

My handy dandy exacto knife that I use for slashing the dough.  You need a really sharp blade and what’s better than a razor blade for sharp?

The loaves all slashed.  I could have actually slashed a bit deeper.  I’m still intimidated about cutting my beautifully raised bread wide open.  Then I used a spray bottle with water in it and generously doused each loaf.  This helps the outside to stay soft a little longer in the oven and allows the loaf to expand more before the crust hardens.  It also gives the crust a bit of a chewy texture.  I also sprayed them down one more time about 5 minutes into the baking time.

Here are the beauties!

See how the slashes nearly disappeared.  I also roasted three heads of garlic and then mashed the garlic up and mixed it with two sticks of butter.  At my mother-in-law’s I cut the loaves lengthwise and spread the garlic butter on them and put them into the oven for about 10-15 minutes to melt the butter.  They were delicious!!!!!