Another pumpernickel as cool weather baking yields to Spring

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As the cool-weather baking season starts to wind down (in Minnesota, I should add the word “mercifully”), I thought I’d reprise one of my favorite hearty cool-weather breads– pumpernickel.

The “black and white” pumpernickel/rye braid is a New York specialty that brings back fond memories for me. Mark Luinenburg’s photo above is downright savory; you can almost hear the caraway seeds crunching in your mouth.  Pumpernickel is a kind of rye, and we included a whole grain version in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which also has a rustic Bavarian-Style pumpernickel based on the same dough.  Let’s throw together the recipe for this healthy and hearty dough… Read More

Cinnamon Rolls

Brioche Cinnamon Rolls | Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

The buns are made with brioche dough and layered with cinnamon sugar and just a touch of zest, what’s not to love? You can add more to the mix, like nuts, raisins, a dash of cardamom, or just leave them simple. The cream cheese icing is the crowning glory and makes these breakfast treats completely addictive. Read More

Bread Sticks from Whole Grain Dough!

Bread sticks are among the easiest and fastest things we bake, because you roll out a thin sheet, cut the sticks with a pizza cutter, and then it’s into oven, with no resting time needed– they go into the oven as soon as they’re cut! More on these beauties in The New Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (2016)on page 293.

New video’s coming (on how to get steam into your oven); but we’re two weeks from manuscript deadline, so here’s a Roasted Red Pepper Fougasse…

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… …and I’m having trouble finding time to finish editing the video.  Zoe and I have two more busy weeks of last-minute editing for our pizza and flatbread book (which will be out in October of 2011).  I’ll get the new video up here as soon as possible (on how to get steam into your oven), but meanwhile here’s a re-print of an old post– on roasted red pepper fougasse– a gorgeous stuffed flatbread from France, which looks ahead to next year when we’ll be talking about flatbread all the time. Read More

Use your best bread for the best panini you’ll ever eat

Panini (singular panino) are mouthwatering Italian grilled sandwiches.  They’re closely related to the French “croque monsieur,” but they’re made with olive oil rather than melted butter.  You can put anything you want into them, so long as one of the ingredients is cheese, which ties the whole thing together.

Why not make them with the best bread you can find (your own of course)?  First make some bread from any lean dough (white flour recipe, or a whole grain version), then come back here to fire up the panini press (you’ll see in some of my pictures that I used a mixture of doughs).  One nice thing is that the bread doesn’t have to be absolutely fresh to make a crisp and crunchy panino, so this can be a great way to use up yesterday’s loaf… Read More

Loaf pan breads work beautifully with my method

People think of artisan-style loaves as being free-form, but my high-moisture, stored-dough method also works beautifully in loaf pans. Read on to hear more about getting great results with traditional un-coated loaf pans.

In the books, I’ve tended to be on the careful side about loaf pans.  Since this dough is so wet, I recommended non-stick pans and even so, to grease them well.  Yet a very heavyweight aluminum pan works beautifully too– all you have to do is grease it well (I like olive oil even for American-style breads but you can use any liquid or solid shortening you like):

… and be sure the formed dough is well dusted with flour before putting it into the pan— it shouldn’t feel all sticky as it goes in.  If it does stick a bit, just let it sit for 10 minutes after taking it out of the oven and it will “steam” itself out.  I love this pan, and when I say it’s heavyweight, I mean it.  The pan weighs a full pound…

This was a big loaf 2 pounds, 5 ounces of dough, using my Master Recipe. Loaves this large need to rest for 90 minutes after shaping, and they tend to need extra time in the oven.  For this size, a lean dough needs 45 to 60 minutes at 450 degrees F, and enriched doughs will need about an hour at 350.  Or more. If you’re finding that there’s over-browning or scorching in your oven at this temp, try again 25 degrees lower (Fahrenheit) and increase the bake-time by 10 or 15%.  Go by the loaf color and the firmness of the crust:

A reader recently asked about REALLY big loaves, in a 16-inch long pan (but still 4 inches by 4 inches h*w), in a pan like this one. That’ll work too, but you need a lot of dough: 54 ounces / 1530 grams, almost a full batch of my Master recipe. Have a great fall, and follow on Twitter, and on Facebook too… 

Red Star Yeast (Lesaffre Corp) sponsored this post, and supplied yeast for recipe testing.

Note: BreadIn5.com is reader supported. When you buy through links on the site, BreadIn5 LLC earns commissions.

Got camping stove? Got flatbread! Plus, bread in the shape of Minnesota…

This Labor Day weekend is summer’s last hurrah for those of us in Minnesota (more on that in a minute).  I’m just back from a fantastic camping trip, and as always, we did our flatbread in a cast-iron or other heavy skillet, right on the camping stove (I’ve always used the Coleman).  You can use any lean dough, either from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, or from The New Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Your skillet must have a cover, but that’s about all the equipment you’ll need.  This is pretty similar to the naan we do in Artisan Bread, and at this link here on the website.

We Minnesotans pride ourselves on taking winter in stride.  The other thing we seem to have pride in is the shape of our state– it seems to work its way into road signs and even macaroni and cheese pasta shapes.  So with great delight, I reveal to you:  grilled bread in THE SHAPE OF MINNESOTA:

OK, it was an accident. My wife claims that this does not really resemble the state:

Well, use a little poetic license, especially for the Arrowhead region? Other posts on grilled or summer breads are at: Read More

Crisp thin crackers– outside on the grill, NEW VIDEO

First off, sorry for the loud cricket sounds– couldn’t do anything about that, because…

It’s still summer, and I’m still grilling bread, but I wanted to show how to roll dough exceptionally thin for crackers use the outdoor grill as an oven.  The key with crackers is to prevent them from getting scorched.  In Artisan Bread in Five and Healthy Bread in Five we talk about doing crackers at in the 375 – 400 degree F. range (190 – 200 C), and that definitely helps prevent scorching.  You can also use oil on the crackers, and that helps too.  But oil does increase the baking time– my crackers took 20 to 30 minutes to get crisp. And that range depends on whether you get them truly paper-thin.  The thicker ones take a little longer.  So be more patient than I am and get it to less than 1/16-inch thickness– you should almost be able to see through it.

Equipment links:  To temper the grill’s heat (adjust the burners to yield a 375 to 400), I used a baking stone and also a thick commercial-grade aluminum baking sheet.  Recently, I switched to a thin non-handled rolling pin– the French milled style pin, and I feel that it’s easier to control, especially when you’re rolling very thinly.

One other tip: If you bake large flat crackers and don’t cut them before baking, “dock” (puncture) them with a fork before baking or they might puff, which you don’t want with pita.

The idea of crackers has always to have a crisp dried result that stored well– as you can see in the video, these didn’t last long enough to test the theory.  And remember:  serious bakers wear closed-toe footwear!

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Buns for Hot Dogs or Bratwurst, Baked Outside on the Gas Grill!

The heat wave isn’t nearly as bad in Minnesota as it is in on the East coast, but I can’t say that I’m itching to fire up the oven and bake fresh buns for hot dogs or bratwurst.  It’s a cinch to do it on the same grill that you use for your hot dogs or bratwurst, and this video shows you how.  Use any lean dough from either of our books, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, or Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. If anything in the video’s unclear, just visit back and post a question into the “Comments” field.

One word of caution:  I can’t vouch for the durability of baking stones placed on a gas grill.  I haven’t had any trouble with my half-inch thick stone but the thin ones crack at the drop of a hat.  My guess is that if you call any stone manufacturer, they will tell you not to do this.  None of them warrant stones against cracking (one company did in the past, but they’ve withdrawn that).   I haven’t been listening.

This summer, the son of one of our book’s first testers started a bread business and is delivering bread door to door, by bicycle, right here in Minneapolis.  Check out Bicycle Bread… They were recently featured in the Southwest Journal and were on TV, on Fox9 News (click here to view).

Another interesting little home-town business is the Gourmet Girls, who are making fresh breads using our books as the recipe resource.  Send an e-mail to inquire about homemade artisan bread via local delivery (southern Westchester County, NY).

Click here if you’d like to see the list of past postings on summer grill-breads again… Read More