I am so pleased to be able to bring you English Granary-Style Bread today.  Many of you discovered that an essential ingredient for this bread, malted wheat flakes, became unavailable in the US soon after we published this recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (2007).  Frustrated!  Luckily King Arthur Flour has started stocking it again, so we’re in business.  But it’s been a while since English Granary-Style Bread has graced my table.  Two kinds of malted grain provide a slightly sweet flavor, even beery (?) flavor…

Granary-Style Bread is a classic English brown bread– made with a mixture of whole wheat and white flours, with cracked grains of malted barley and wheat.  Since malted barley grains are nearly impossible to find in the US, we use barley malt powder and King Arthur’s malted wheat flakes.

This bread was once considered to be a very rustic English specialty– little did elite society know that country folk were eating the most flavorful bread.  It is hearty and delicious, full of flavor and with a slight crunch.

It’s a perfect dinner bread, but I also enjoy a slice in the afternoon, dunked in some olive oil or eaten with a nice, sharp cheddar.  Or maybe toasted with some marmalade (see Laura’s Three-Citrus Marmalade on page 96 of ABin5 for an easy recipe).  It also goes perfectly well with a little Jane Austen, and whether you are a fan of her books or the movie adaptations, I can imagine Elizabeth Bennett insisting that  Mr. Darcy serve this at his table, despite his wealth.  And now that King Arthur has brought back malted wheat flakes, we can happily enjoy it at our own table.

English Granary Style Bread

Makes 4 loaves, slightly less than one pound pound each. Can easily be doubled or halved (store and use extra dough in the fridge for up to 10 days)

3 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon granulated yeast (or one packet)

1 tablespoon coarse salt (recipes tested with Morton’s Kosher)

1/4 cup malt powder

1 cup malted wheat flakes

1 cup whole wheat flour

5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

cornmeal or parchment for the pizza peel

Cornstarch wash (blend 1/2 cornstarch with a small amount of water using a fork; add 1/2 cup water and microwave or simmer till mixture appears glassy)

1 tablespoon cracked wheat, for sprinkling [optional]

Mix, store, and shape the dough according to the Master Recipe Instructions, but include the malt powder with the water, yeast and salt, then add all the flours and malted wheat flakes.  If you want a more open hole structure, consider the longer rest after shaping.

Place a metal broiler tray (no glass) near the bottom of the oven, and a baking stone near the center– and preheat to 400 degrees (about 20 to 30 minutes). Just before the loaf goes into the oven, brush with cornstarch wash and sprinkle with the cracked wheat if you’re using it. Slash a cross or tic-tac-toe pattern into the top. Slide the dough onto the pizza stone, pour 1 cup hot tap water into the broiler tray, and bake for about 35 minutes. Smaller or larger loaves will require adjustments in baking times (see Zoe’s post on making a 2 pound loaf here).

Thanks to our friends at iG publishing in Taiwan (Republic of China-ROC), Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day has appeared in Asia in Chinese translation (bakers in Taiwan, click here to buy at Eslite, or at Kingstone).  This translation, the first ever for “Healthy Bread,” joins our existing overseas versions of the first book (Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), one in Great Britain, and our first Chinese translation for mainland China.

And another Asian version is on the way– next year, a Japanese translation of “Artisan Bread” will be published in Tokyo by Rakkousha.  We are told that Asia is the fastest-growing bread market in the world…

We made dough from Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day the kind made specifically for tossing high in the air. The dough for tossing is made with Bread Flour, so it is a bit stronger and can handle being thrown as high as you dare. The group has several folks who are on a gluten free diet, so we had our gluten free crust available to them. The g-f crust is tasty and makes a brilliant pizza, but can’t be tossed high in the air and needs to be handled in a different way from traditional dough.  Below are our instructions for the no-fail gluten free crust. But, before I roll out the dough, I want to say a little about the toppings. There are some gifts that are priceless…so rare, so precious and so fleeting that they make you want to weep. Kathy Yerich, one of the partners of Rouge Pottery, brought me such a gift at the pizza party. She went foraging for morel mushrooms, ramps (spring onions) and nettles and brought them to me in a basket. The contents of this basket were almost too gorgeous to eat, but I managed and made this pizza, which my husband said “tastes like summer!” What a gift.

To work with gluten free pizza dough from Artisan Pizza in 5:

Preheat the oven as high as it will go (most ovens will get to 500° or 550°F), with a pizza stone placed on the bottom rack.

Start with a small ball of dough, about 8 ounces or the size of a peach. Remember this dough doesn’t stretch, so just pull out a piece and form it into a ball.

Place the ball on a sheet of parchment. (There are instructions in the book for doing this directly on the pizza peel, but this method gives you insurance that the dough won’t stick.)

Cover with a piece of plastic wrap and pat it out to the shape you want, don’t feel constrained to round.

Use a Rolling Pin to get the dough about 1/16-inch thick.

Peel off the plastic.

Top your dough with your favorite toppings. I used pesto from our book, goat cheese, ramps, morels, asiago cheese, and pine nuts.

A drizzle of olive oil.

Bake the pizza for about 5 to 8 minutes on a preheated Pizza Stone, until the crust is set, but not quite finished. Remove the pizza from the parchment.

Place the pizza back in the oven, directly onto the hot stone, to crisp up the bottom crust. Bake for an additional 2 to 5 minutes.

I sprinkled a pinch of the nettle salt that Kathy gave me, but sea salt of kosher will do it to.

Slice and enjoy!

It took a village to throw a kickin’ pizza party for the MN Food Bloggers and I would like to thank all of the local and national companies who made generous donations:

Red Star Yeast

Gold Medal Flour

St. Martin’s Press

Emile Henry

SuperValue

Muir Glen Organics

Holy Land Brands

Grassroots Gourmet

Prairie Pride Farms

Dragsmith Farm

Gourmet Olive & Vinegar

The Salty Tart

It’s not really braided.  Here’s another, with savory fillings from an earlier post; same idea but with Spinach, Feta, and Pine Nuts.

The trick is not difficult, check out the video of how it’s done (recipe is below)…

The Recipe:
1 1/2 pounds (cantaloupe-sized portion) Brioche dough (can swap Challah dough from our first book for a lighter effect)

1/2 cup softened cream cheese or substitute almond cream (blend 1/2 cup almond paste with 1/4 cup softened butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1 egg, and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract in a food processor; freeze excess)

1/2 cup raspberry or strawberry jam or preserves

1 cup fresh raspberries or sliced strawberries

Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of water)

Sugar for dusting the top

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Roll out the dough into a narrow rectangle 1/8-inch thick.
Place the dough onto the lined cookie sheet.  Cover the center third of the dough with the cream, jam, and berries as in the video.
Use a pizza wheel to cut about 12 strips down each side; each strip should be about 1/2-inch wide.  Fold the strips, left over right, crisscrossing the filling.  Allow to rest for 40 minutes (20 in a pinch).
Preheat the oven to 375F.  Brush with egg wash and sprinkle generously with sugar.
Place cookie sheet in center of the oven and bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.  Can serve slightly warm.

And we have a savory version, with spinach, feta, and pine nuts…

(This is a post that first appeared in 2009 – we hope it is fresh for some and a welcome memory for others!)

“Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, everybody loves hot cross buns!” are the words to the children’s song and it is so true. I made these buns at the request of many of you and my kids devoured them within minutes. They are the buns traditionally served at Easter time. A sweet dough, spiced, studded with dried (sometimes candied) fruit and decorated with a cross made of icing.

As I researched these delicious buns I realized that there are as many ways to make them as there are families who bake them. Some people slash the dough to make the cross, others use a flour and water paste to create the symbol and others use the sweet icing. Tell me how you make your buns, and if you don’t have a family tradition yet, you can start with these!

Hot Cross Buns:

I made the buns using the brioche dough on page 189. I added the following to the bucket and mixed as usual:

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon all-spice

1 cup currants

2 teaspoons orange zest.

(You could also use the Panettone recipe on page 201, adding the above spices.)

Flour paste for making the cross:

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons water

mix together until smooth

Lyle’s Golden Syrup – for brushing over the baked buns

Icing for the top of baked buns:

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

1 tablespoon cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2-3 tablespoons milk or water

mix together until smooth

To make the buns:

I took a 1 pound piece of dough (about a grapefruit size) from the bucket.

Formed it into a loose ball and cut that in half.

I continued to cut the pieces in half until I had 8 2-ounce portions.

then you will form each one into a smooth ball.

Let them rest for 1 hour on a cookie sheet lined with a Silpat, Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper Sheets. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once they have rested you will lightly brush them with egg wash and then pipe the flour paste over the top in a cross using a pastry bag and round tip. You can eliminate the paste and slash the dough in a cross pattern instead. I just wanted to try this traditional method, but it does require an extra step.

Bake them for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. While they are still warm I brushed them with Lyle’s golden syrup (or honey) with a Pastry Brush (it may be easier to brush on if you warm up the syrup just a little),

and pipe the icing over the cross.

Just like the song says, you want to eat these hot! Enjoy!

Happy Passover and a Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate these holidays!

It is very important to cut the bread using a very sharp, serrated knife, into 12.7 millimeter slices. Some people swear by an Electric Carving Knife, used most often for the Thanksgiving turkey, but I like the old fashion Bread Knife or Tajima JPR Rapid Pull Saw with a 18 TPI blade myself, although it produces a few more crumbs. The key is having a SHARP blade and use a gentle sawing motion, so you don’t push too hard, which may crush the loaf as you cut. A speed of 17.6 strokes per minute is just about perfect.

I admit my chrome toaster is more attitude, than practical, but pretty much any Toaster, Toaster Oven, Toastmaster Heavy-Duty Range broiler, Gas Grill, Butane Blow Torch or Branding Iron will get the job done.  I like my toast very crunchy, so I put it on the longest setting. The internal temperature of the slice should reach about 211°F, as measured on a CDN DTQ450X ProAccurate Quick-Read Thermometer. Sometimes I’ll even push it down twice to get nice burnt bits, which I think contrasts well with Door County Sour Cherry Preserves (recipe page 213 Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day). I have an excellent toast recipe using a SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven, but it takes 6 hours, so I’ll save that post for another day.

Slather with a pat of European style butter (if you haven’t made your own), the cherry preserves and enjoy your April Fools Day!

Preheat the oven to 450° with a pizza stone on the top rack. (Yes, this is different than the book.)

Also have ready a cookie sheet lined with a clean kitchen towel that is dusted with flour.

Form several 3 ounce balls of dough, as you can see they are about the size of a head of garlic. I used the Master recipe here, but you can also use the Bagel recipe, Montreal Bagels, Whole Wheat or any other non-enriched dough from the book for this. Cover the balls loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rest for about 20 minutes or until they no longer feel chilled.

While they are resting bring to a boil:

8 quarts of water

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

Have ready:

Sesame seeds, poppy seeds or any other toppings you may want for your bagels.  There were strong opinions expressed on Twitter about the toppings for bagels, let us know what your favorites are.

Once they have rested, dust the ball in flour and poke a hole in the center using your thumbs.

Continue to stretch the hole and add more flour if the cut part of the dough gets sticky.

You want to stretch the hole quite a bit,

because it will shrink back like you see above.

Place the bagels in the water, get as many as will fit without crowding. Boil for 1 minute, then flip over and boil for another 30 seconds.

Scoop out the bagels with a slotted spoon and allow the water to drain off.

Place on the towel covered cookie sheet. Continue the last 3 steps with the rest of the bagels. If you are doing more than 2 boiling batches, you will need to get those first two batches in the oven and then continue with the rest.

Carefully lift the boiled bagels and dip them on both sides with your topping. If you are using something that may burn easily like onions or garlic then only coat the top of the bagel and dust the peel with flour. If you are using seeds then you don’t need the additional flour on your peel.

If you are using seeds then you don’t need the additional flour on your peel.

Slide the bagels into the preheated oven, add the water to a broiler tray to create steam. bake for about 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.

Serve them slightly warm with anything you like!  A bagel cutter can be a helpful and safer tool for cutting bagels than using a knife.

2 pounds pre-made, refrigerated dough (the timing will be different for fresh dough that has not yet been chilled)

Form the dough into a ball (here is a video on how to form wet dough), then place ball of dough on piece of parchment or a cornmeal covered Pizza Peel.

loosely cover the ball with plastic wrap. For the larger loaf we have to let it rest longer, so we don’t want it to form a tight skin or it won’t rise as well. Allow to rest at room temperature 65-70°F for 90 minutes (2 hours if using doughs made mostly with whole grains).

Preheat the oven with a Baking Stone set on the middle rack, to 450°F as read on an Oven Thermometer. Have a roasting pan on the bottom rack.

The dough will have risen slightly and probably spread sideways. It should no longer feel chilled or tight and will shake like set jell-o when you shimmy the loaf on the parchment.

Slash the loaf with 1/2-inch deep cuts.

Slide the loaf onto the baking stone. Add one cup of water to the roasting pan and bake the bread for 45-50 minutes.

Remove the golden brown loaf, take off the parchment and let it rest on a cooling rack for about an hour. The loaf may still be gummy on the inside if you cut into it before the hour is up.

Cut with a very sharp Bread Knife.

Here’s what you’ll need for three batches of eight buns:

15 ounces (about 5 cups) raw broccoli florets

1 1/2 cups water for cooking the broccoli

3 cups whole wheat flour

4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated yeast (or one packet)

1 tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt (can increase to 1 1 /2 to taste)

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

1 3/4 cups lukewarm water

Oil or butter for greasing the muffin tin

1 cup  shredded cheddar cheese for sprinkling on the buns, per batch (try KerryGold Irish Cheddar if you’re feeling authentic)

Bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil and add the broccoli, cooking on medium-high heat for 3 to 4 minutes.  Do not overcook or broccoli will lose its bright green color and turn bitter.

Puree the broccoli and cooking water in a blender or food processor (won’t become completely smooth).  Set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk together the flours, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a 5-quart bowl, or in a lidded (non-airtight) food container. 

Add the 1 3/4 cups water and broccoli puree and mix w/o kneading, using a spoon, Danish dough whisk, 14-cup food processor, or heavy-duty stand mixer (with paddle).  You might need to use wet hands to get the last bit of flour to incorporate if you’re not using a machine.  For more details on mixing and using our whole grain doughs, see the post about our basic method from Healthy Bread in Five.

Cover (not airtight) and allow to rest at room temp until it rises and collapses (or flattens on top), about 2 hours.  Dough can then be used immediately, although it’s easier to handle when cold.  Refrigerate in a non-airtight lidded container and use over the next 7 days.

On baking day, grease a muffin pan.  Dust surface of refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1 1/2 pound piece (cantaloupe-sized) piece.  Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape a loose ball.  Form the buns by dividing the ball into 8 roughly equal portions, each about the size of a plum…

Keep going…

Again, into eighths…

… so that you have eight plum-sized pieces.  Cut each of these into 4 smaller pieces.  Dust and shape each one into a ball and put the 4 balls together and fit them into the cups of the muffin tin.

Allow to rest, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for 40 minutes (or 20 minutes if you’re using fresh unrefrigerated dough).  Refrigerated dough doesn’t rise much in this resting phase.

If you’re using a baking stone, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, 30 minutes before baking time.  If you’re not using one, a 5 to 10 minute preheat is enough.  Place an empty broiler tray on any other rack that won’t interfere with the rising buns.

Just before baking, sprinkle the buns with the grated cheese, being careful not to get it on the pan.  Depending on the shape and depth of your muffin cups, you may need less than we call for in the Ingredients list.  I used less than a tablespoon of cheese per bun:

Place the muffin tin directly on the hot stone (or a middle shelf of the oven).  Pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray, and quickly close the oven door.  Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes until the cheese is nicely browned.

Remove buns from the pan and allow to cool slightly before eating.  Unlike our large loaf breads, these can be eaten warm without any risk of them being gummy or appearing to be under-baked.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!