You may recall that I returned home from my rustic bread class on Saturday with a lot of dough. That is no longer the case after the evening I just spent baking bread. I'm going to turn into a loaf of bread, I think, given all that I've eaten over the past few days. I don't really have a problem with that.
I started with two big dough-filled bowls: one was the pugliese that I posted on a couple of days ago. The other was whole wheat (same recipe, just substitute fine or medium grind whole wheat flour for half the flour and add 3 Tbsp. honey for the Day 2 instructions). I baked the pugliese up plain into rounds, but decided to play a little with the whole wheat dough.
Into half of the whole wheat dough, I folded about a cup of grated sharp cheddar and half of an onion that I'd sliced thinly and cooked in 2 Tbsp. olive oil to a light caramel color. I was a little iffy on whether this would turn out, particularly with cheese at such high heat. But I needed not worry, the result is better than I anticipated. It's a savory bread, the sweet onions playing oh so nicely off the salty cheese.
For the second half of the whole wheat dough, I raided the rosemary plant in the garden (yielding about 1/4 c. of sprigs) and pitted about 1/3 cup of black empeltre olives. The lovely aroma of flour and rosemary filled the house as the bread baked. This bread is calling out to be enjoyed dipped in a quality olive oil, which of course I did.
When using mix ins like those above, you want to fold them in, then let the dough rest for about 30 minutes before you form your loaves. Then bake as normal (full instructions here). I didn't think bread could be more beautiful than the loaves we made in class over the weekend, but the loaves with the mix ins truly look like art. And I think they might taste even better than they look!
Everyone I've seen in the past couple of days has received a loaf of bread. That trend will likely continue for the next few days.
P.S. This post marks the first of my pics taken with my new Nikon S9100. Stay tuned for many more from my upcoming European adventure!
1 year ago: potato green bean curry
2 years ago: eggplant curry
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the scale of the photos, but those loaves look huge! That rosemary-olive loaf looks like a trussed, stuffed chicken.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I technically saw you more than a "couple" days ago, I pointedly did NOT receive a loaf of bread. Please mail one at your earliest convenience cool thx.
Dave, you missed it by a day - bread class was on Saturday! And yes, the loaves were huge. :-)
ReplyDelete