Hutzelbrot with dried cherries and cranberries

Besides the delightful taste of this bread, what I love about this Peter Reinhard recipe (from his book Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor) is that it uses a mash and that the mash can be made in part with "old bread". To me there is already something deeply satisfying about pre-soaking whole grain flour and having the enzymes start working hours and hours before you even begin to mix your dough but when you can feed them your stale bread too, wow, it's just too good to pass up!
Reinhart uses (or suggests using, it's hard to figure out which) a mix of dried fruit for this bread, such as citron, apricots, figs, plums, cherries, cranberries, golden raisins). Even though I had pretty much everything on hand but the citron, I decided to focus the flavors a little more and go for the sweet dried cherries my friend Kim had brought from Wisconsin (each one like a burst of summer in the mouth, thank you, Kim!), paired with slightly tarter dried cranberries from Washington State. I also decided to soak the old bread in apple juice since I had some I needed to use up and it would nicely boost the fruit taste. The bread turned out crusty and surprisingly light.
It takes two days to make which is perfectly fine with me since most of the time the ingredients toil away all by themselves....

Ingredients (slightly adapted): makes 2 batards


For the soaked bread (altus)

• 1/2 inch-bread cubes with crust left on soaked in hot organic apple juice or water and left at room temperature for at least 4 hours and preferably overnight. Use just enough liquid to saturate and soften the bread. Reinhart advises using rye bread but he says whole wheat is fine too. Squeeze out excess liquid before adding to the mash (I didn't weigh anything to start with, just used up all my stale bread and made a big bowl of actus. When required by the recipe, I took out the 170 g needed for the mash, weighed the rest, put it in a ziploc bag, labeled it and stored it in the freezer for next time)

For the mash

• 300 g water
• 64 g coarse whole wheat (I used flour from Cedar Isle Farm in Agassiz, British Columbia, which my friend Meeghen kindly brought me)
• 64 g 75% sifted rye flour (I used flour from True Grain Bread on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, which Meeghen also brought me. Thank you, Meeghen, for giving me the opportunity to bake with these gorgeous flours!)
• 1 g diastactic malt powder
• 170 g altus

For the starter

• 71 g whole wheat or rye starter
• 213 g whole rye flour
• 170 g water at room temperature (70°F/21°C)

For the dough

• all of the starter (454 g)
• all of the mash (397 g)
• 99 g white whole wheat flour + 200 g (which I had to add because my dough was way too wet, possibly because I had pre-soaked the fruit which Reinhart doesn't say to do)
• 99 g whole rye flour
• 100 g sweet dried cherries (briefly pre-soaked, then drained)
• 70 g dried cranberries (briefly pre-soaked, then drained)
• 14 g salt (I didn't add to that amount even though I added more flour: I just tasted the dough and it seemed fine)
• 7 g instant dry yeast

Method:

On Day 1

1. Mix the mash ingredients (save for the altus) (using water heated to 165°F/74°C) making sure the flour is fully  hydrated and the end product resembles a thin pudding or gravy. Cover and keep warm (150°F/66°C) if possible for 3 hours or at least for 60 minutes. Reinhart suggests using the oven for that step (turning it repeatedly on and off if it doesn't have such a low setting) 
2. After 3 hours, stir in the soaked bread and refrigerate until ready to use (you can also leave it overnight at room temperature) if you are planning to use it within the next 24 hours
3. Mix all of the starter ingredients and knead with wet hands to form a ball of dough. Let it rest 5 minutes and knead again. The dough will be tacky. Allow it to double at room temperature (which can take up to 8 hours depending on the temperature). When fully developed, knead for a few seconds, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight if necessary to coordinate timing with the mash. Remove from the refrigerator about 2 hours before mixing the final dough

On Day 2

1. Using a metal scraper, chop the starter into 12 smaller pieces, sprinkling some extra flour over them to prevent them from sticking to each other
2. If mixing by hand (which I did), combine starter and mash in a large bowl with the whole wheat and rye flour, cherries, cranberries, salt and yeast. Mix for about 2 minutes until all the ingredients are evenly integrated and distributed into the dough. The dough should be soft and slightly sticky. If not, add water or flour if needed (that's where I had to add the extra 200 g of white whole wheat flour as the dough was definitely not going to take shape otherwise)
3. When dough feels soft and only slightly sticky, form it into a ball and let it rest for 5 minutes while you oil a container
4. Knead it briefly again for one minute and make any final adjustments to water or flour. It should be malleable and tacky but no longer sticky
5. Form into a ball again and place in prepared container, rolling to coat with oil
6. Cover loosely and let rise at room temperature for about one hour or until it is at least 1 1/2 times its original size
7. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and shape into two batards. Place the batards on a sheet pan lined with semolina-dusted parchment paper. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or a cloth towel and let rise at room temperature for 45 to 60 minutes, until 1 1/2 times their original size
8. While the batards are proofing, preheat the oven to 425°F/218°C. When ready to bake, dust them with flour and score the loaves as desired using a sharp knife or blade
9. Place them in the oven (with steam), lower the oven temperature to 375°F/191°C and bake for 25 minutes
10. Rotate the loaves 180 degrees and continue baking for another 20 to 35 minutes or until the loaves are well-browned and make a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom
11. Cool on a rack and wait at leasts 12 hours before slicing open.

Enjoy!

The Hutzelbrot with dried cherries and cranberries go to Susan for this week's issue of Yeastspotting.

Goat Cheese Foccacia with Cherries and Shallots

I felt I had posted enough flatbreads this summer already, so I wasn't going to post the recipe for this foccacia for fear you guys would think I've gone no-knead and flatbreadish all the way! But it is simply too delicious to be kept a secret. I have to share. No way around that... As explained in A Convenient Dough, the original recipe can be found in Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (a book to which I came reluctantly but which I found to be a good source of ideas and inspiration). Although it was love at first bite, I now make it with fresh goat cheese and I think it tastes even better. Try it and let me know!

If you have the dough ready (I use no-knead naturally leavened whole grain pizza dough which I keep in the fridge but you can buy ready-made whole wheat pizza dough) , it'll take you 5 minutes to chop two shallots and set them to marinate together with a fistful of dried cherries (not the sour kind) in a bit of red wine diluted with water and seasoned with salt and black pepper , another 2 or 3 to scoop out a grapefruit-size chunk of dough and flatten it as thin as possible on a parchment-paper covered sheet pan or pizza pan.

Everything gets to rest for 30 minutes (including you) while the oven heats up to 450ºF/232ºC. Then you drain the cherries and shallots (blotting them out with a paper towel if necessary), spread them on the waiting dough (pressing down the cherries), crumble fresh creamy goat cheese over the cherries and shallots, add some more salt and pepper and slide the foccacia into the oven. Twenty minutes later (during which your kitchen fills up with a complex and delicate fragrance), I guarantee you will be in tastebuds' heaven!

Tips:

• Don't overdo the cherries, especially if they are really sweet (I use Stoneridge Orchards organic whole dried Montgomery cherries and find that the foccacia comes out better with more shallots than cherries)
• If desired, paint with (just a drop of) extra virgin olive oil after baking.

This foccacia goes to Susan's Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting.

A Convenient Dough (no-knead, 100% whole wheat)

When Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois came out last fall, it didn't even make a bleep on my radar screen. I didn't read any review or go to a bookstore to browse through it or check it out of the library. Everyone was coming out with a no-knead bread book and I just didn't have the energy to deal with one more.

Then Joanne from Eats Well With Others mentioned in one of her posts a lovely whole-wheat black-pepper dried cherries foccacia from the book and when I asked her about the recipe, she was kind enough to send it to me.

It so happens that almost at the same time, I received the book as a present. We were about to leave for our little camp by the river and I took it with me.

As I had local maple syrup at hand, the first recipe I tried making from the book was a 100% whole grain maple oatmeal bread. Neither of us liked it (a very rare occurrence when bread is concerned) and I felt even less motivated to read on. Then we had friends from France visiting for a week and I decided I would make the black-pepper cherry foccacia for "apéritif" (happy hour) during their stay.

So I mixed the dough (with a minimum amount of yeast) and let it ferment in the fridge for about 5 days. It looked supremely soupy and I had serious doubts about anything good coming out of it.

However the foccacia (which calls for soaking dried cherries, black pepper and shallots in red wine for 30 minutes) turned out to be particularly delicious. The topping is to die for and the dough was surprisingly light with a beautiful cherry wood color. Maybe because I was under the spell of the margaritas our friend had just mixed and poured, I totally forgot to take pictures but trust me! it was one stunning whole wheat foccacia.

I can't tell you about other recipes in the book as I haven't really tried any yet (although several look interesting). I was so surprised by the way the 100% whole wheat dough came out, by the fact that my family, including picky grandkids, was gobbling up the resulting pizzas and foccacias as if they were freshly baked baguettes and by how convenient it was to have them on the table in minutes that I have kept a batch of fermenting 100% whole wheat dough in the refrigerator ever since (it can be kept for as long as 7 days).Variations are endless, depending on what you have available. I thus made:

A fresh fennel-Vidalia onion foccacia with black olives and fennel seeds

A prune-hazelnut foccacia (the pitless prunes I had were a tad too dry so I soaked them in red wine for 24 hours. I toasted and peeled the hazelnuts. A few were caramelized and ground).

A potato-roasted red pepper pizza with onion, black olives, Italian sausage, basil and za'atar

A dry berries-crystallized ginger foccacia topped with poppy and pumpkin seeds (which I didn't remember to photograph after baking)

And just yesterday for the kids' breakfast a dark chocolate-marshmallow pizza that even the little ones loved

Here is the recipe for the dough.

100% Whole Wheat Dough with Olive Oil from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day

(makes enough dough for at least four 450g-foccacias or pizzas)

Ingredients:

910 g whole wheat flour (I used flour from Moulin de la Rémy)

5 g instant yeast

15 g sel

35 g vital wheat gluten

788 g lukewarm water

105 g olive oil

Method: (my version)

1. Whisk together the flour, yeast, salt and gluten in a 5-quart bowl
2. Add the liquid ingredients and mix without kneading using a spoon. You might need to use wet hands to get the last bit of flour to incorporate
3. Cover (not airtight) and allow the dough to rest at room temperature until it rises and collapses (or flattens on top), approximately 2 hours
4. Refrigerate it in a lidded container and use it over the next 7 days
5. On baking day, dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and scoop out a 450g (grapefruit size) piece (despite the olive oil, these foccacias do not have a long shelf-life, so it's best to make them just the size you need) . Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball
6. Elongate the ball into a narrow oval (for a foccacia) or flatten it into a circle (for a pizza) and allow it to rest for 30 minutes on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and dusted with semolina flour (I don't cover the dough at this stage as it is extremely wet)
7. Preheat the oven to 400 F/204 C
8. Add the desired toppings to the dough and bake for 30 minutes or so (checking after 15 minutes and turning the bread around if necessary) (because the dough is so wet, I use no steam but the authors do, so maybe their dough is a bit drier)
9. Allow to cool on a rack

Now for the healthy claim. Honestly I don't know. This dough calls for added gluten, so it is obviously not for people suffering from celiac disease or other forms of gluten intolerance. I wouldn't want to try it without this gluten boost however as it would probably turn out like shoe leather.

But beyond that, how nutritious are whole grains when fermented with commercial yeast? From what I understand from a long exchange on the Bread Bakers' Guild of America's forum and other sources, notably Hubert Chiron's Les pains français (a major reference for French master bakers) or Andrew Whitley's Bread Matters, a long levain fermentation generates phytase, an enzyme which prevents the phytic acid naturally present in whole grains to block the absorption of calcium, magnesium and other nutrients by our bodies. Fermentation of whole grains with commercial yeast doesn't generate phytase and could conceivably lead to nutritional deficiencies if our bodies do not absorb these nutrients from other foods.

But is it the long duration of the levain process which enables the production of phytase or is it the nature of the micro-organisms involved? In other words, does a long fermentation with a minimal amount of commercial yeast (a condition the above dough undoubtedly satisfies) present the same benefit as a long fermentation with wild yeast?

Since I am neither a scientist nor a nutritionist, I don't know. So I decided not to take a chance, especially since I am feeding a flock of grandchildren who need all the calcium they can get. I mean, what's the point of feeding them yogurt, cheese, beans and greens if the bread they eat interferes with nutrient absorption? So, with them in mind, I developed this no-knead 100% whole grain pizza dough recipe which uses levain and no commercial yeast.

These flatbreads are going to Susan's Wild Yeast blog for Yeastpotting.

Kouglof with Cherries & Saffron

This lovely recipe was sent to me by Christiane Macri, a SHB blog friend (in case you are wondering, SHB means "serious home baker" as I learned today in a mail from the Bread Bakers Guild of America). As I didn't have a kouglof pan, Christiane was kind enough to send me one as well. Merci mille fois, Christiane! The kouglof (also spelled kugelhof or Gugelhopf or kugelhopf, etc.) is a brioche of Germanic origin, very common in the Alsace region of France as well as in Germany, Austria and in the Czech Republic. It is usually made with baker's yeast, raisins, almonds and sometimes a few drops of kirsch. According to a local legend, the Three Kings stopped in the village of Ribeaupré (Alsace) on their way to Bethlehem and created the kouglof as a thank-you present to a pastry-shop owner who had offered them hospitality. To make it more distinctive, they gave it the shape of their turbans. Christiane's recipe uses white starter, raisins and almonds. I replaced the raisins by dried cherries and the almonds (which I didn't have) with toasted hazelnuts. I also replaced part of the all-purpose flour with white whole wheat flour. The original recipe called for 175 g of butter but Christiane reduced it to 150 g and I followed her lead. I had to adjust the flour and liquid amounts to take into account the difference between French and US flours. Finally I added saffron because I love the way it showcases the flavor of the cherries. A bundt cake pan can be used in lieu of a kouglof pan. Ingredients: 470 g unbleached all-purpose flour 120 g white whole wheat flour 150 g mature white starter 20 g water, lukewarm 4 eggs 5 g salt 100 g dried cherries (or raisins) 80 g ground hazelnuts (or almonds, sliced thin) 50 g sugar 30 g warm water (to soak the cherries or raisins) 150 g butter, at room temperature 100 g milk, scalded, then allowed to cool 1/2 tsp saffron threads, steeped in scalded milk for one hour

Method:

1. Soak the cherries in the warm water
2. Place flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of the mixer and mix (using the hook)
3. Add starter, milk (with saffron threads inside)
4. Mix for one minute
5. Add eggs, one by one
6. Mix for 5 minutes on medium speed
7. Add softened butter, little by little
8. Mix a bit faster for about 10 minutes
9. Add the cherries and mix on first speed one minute
10. Cover and let rise for 1 ½ hour
11. Butter or oil the pan
12. Sprinkle the sliced almonds or chopped hazelnuts at the bottom
13. Knead the dough briefly and shape into a ball
14. Make a hole in the center and stretch it until it is big enough to go over the central "chimney" in the pan
15. Transfer to the pan and let rise again for one to one and a half hour
16. Pre-heat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC
17. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes (according to your oven)
18. Unmold on a rack and allow to cool
19. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar

Enjoy! Jan.3 update : Oops! I just realized I was showing you the kouglof slice lying down instead of standing up as it comes out when you cut it. Here is the "right" picture:

This kouglof goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast for Yeastpotting. For those of you who might be interested, here are a few snapshots taken a couple of years ago as we were crossing Alsace on our way to my in-laws (who live in Belgium):

Looking for a reasonably healthful holiday treat?

Well, look no further. This little brioche might just do the trick! It is rich in chocolate, dried cherries and hazelnuts but rather low on fat and sugar, completely butter-free and made with a healthy proportion of white whole wheat... To top it all, it doesn't contain a single speck of commercial yeast. What's not to like? Of course it doesn't compare to a pan d'oro but, for health reasons, who would eat (or make for that matter) a pan d'oro more than a few times a year? My family likes to munch on something chocolatey while watching the kids open their presents. This year, I think I'll make this brioche (but I'll double the proportions). The idea comes from a slim French book entitled Les Pains des Quatre-Saisons, an appealing compilation of bread recipes (sometimes with accompanying memories) contributed by readers of an organic gardening magazine. I took some liberties with the recipe to adapt it both to our taste and to the family health requirements. Ingredients (for one smallish brioche): For the dough 150 g unbleached all-purpose flour 100 g white whole wheat flour 20 g agave syrup 1 egg, beaten + 1 other, beaten as well for the wash 50 g milk (you might need more according to how thirsty your flour is), at room temperature 50 g roasted hazelnut oil (the hazelnut oil contributes nicely to the taste but, if not available, a neutral vegetable oil - not canola - will do), at room temperature (soft butter is used in the original recipe) 40 g mature white starter 1 pinch of salt For the garnish 60 g hazelnuts, roasted and skinned, chopped 50 g dried cherries, quick-soaked in warm milk and drained 50 g good quality dark chocolate chips, chopped

Method:

1. Pour the flour in a large bowl
2. Make a well in the center and pour in: milk, salt, agave syrup, egg, starter
3. Mix well, adding milk as necessary
4. When incorporated and gluten is starting to develop, progressively add the oil
5. Continue mixing until smooth and flexible (but the dough should be rather firm)
6. Ferment in a tightly covered bowl until doubled in volume (in my case, it took 12 hours @ 68ºF/20ºC)
7. When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 400ºF/204ºC, making sure there is an empty cast-iron (or other metal) pan at the bottom and a baking stone (if available) on the middle rack
8. With a rolling pin, flatten the dough into a rectangle (0.20"/0.5 cm thick), spread the garnish on the rectangle, taking care to stay away from the edges
9. Roll the dough tight, as you would a jelly roll and pinch the ends closed
10. Shape as desired and set on a parchment-covered baking sheet, brush with the egg wash and let rise another 40 minutes inside a tightly closed plastic bag
11. Pour 1 cup of water in waiting cast-iron (or metal) pan and slide the brioche into the oven
12. Spray the oven once with water and close the door
13. After 20 minutes, rotate the brioche
14. Bake another 30 minutes and cool on wire rack.

Raisins (soaked in rum or not) could be used instead of cherries, white chocolate instead of dark and, if opting for raisins, you might want to use walnuts instead of hazelnuts and to spice up the whole thing with some cinnamon. You can also use only all-purpose flour and replace the agave syrup by sugar (which was in the original recipe). However you end up making it, enjoy!

Chamomille, Cherry & Pistachio Crown

I was in the mood for a flavorful and nutritious bread, something that would taste a bit like dessert but without the sugar or the fat, and I remembered Frank, my teacher at SFBI, telling us how much he loves chamomille bread.
Frank likes it with cranberries and walnuts but at the end of winter, I am feeling a bit over-cranberried to tell you the truth and even though I love walnuts too, I wanted a more delicate combination of flavors, especially because I didn't want any one taste to be so powerful that it would overwhelm the chamomille.
So in the end I settled for cherries and pistachios and it turned out to be a winning combination. Try it and let me know if you like it too. The chamomille can either be steeped in boiling water to make tea and the tea, when cooled down, is used instead in the dough instead of plain water, or you can grind some dry chamomille flowers if, like Frank, you happen to have some at hand and put them in the dough in powder form, or if you are like me, you just open two chamomille teabags (dry) and empty their contents in the flour. It works well either way.
I chose white whole wheat flour(made of hard white winter wheat) over the regular one because it is much lighter but still has all the nutritional benefits.
Also, I wanted an easy-going dough which could be mixed in the bread machine with minimum supervision (my standard workaround when time is scarce).

Ingredients:

• 235 g organic all-purpose flour
• 156 g white whole wheat flour
• 207 g water (+ 14 g which I added at the end of the mixing to make up for the dryness of the leaves)
• 118 g liquid starter (@100% hydration)
• 59 g dry cherries
• 59 g raw pistachios
• 0.5 g chamonille tea (dry contents of two tea bags) (I get mine at Trader Joe's) 
• 9 g of salt

Method:

1. Prepare and scale all the ingredients
2. Quickly rinse the cherries and pistachios together under hot water, drain them well and pat they dry
3. Put all the ingredients (except for the cherries and the pistachios) in the bread machine in the order prescribed by the manufacturer (in mine, the liquid ingredients must go first) and start the dough programme
4. Towards the end of the mixing and before the machine prompts you to put in the dry ingredients, check the dough carefully and if necessary, add a tiny little drop of water (I added 14 g and it made the dough very pliable)
5. At the beep, add the cherries and pistachios
6. When the machine stops, I either take it out and finish kneading by hand then set it to rise in a dough bucket or, if it looks just fine, I let the rising proceed in the machine. That's what I did for this bread
7. At the end of the cycle, take the dough out and pre-shape it in a rough ball
8. Let it rest 10 to 15 minutes under a damp towel or a plastic sheet
9. Shape it into a boule (ball) until the skin is tight all around
10. If you want to make a crown like the one on the picture, put one of your elbows right on the center of the boule and press down until you reach the counter top, then widen the hole with your fingers until the crown fits around the base of a small bowl

11. Then set the dough down for its second fermentation inside a clear plastic bag (blow in it before you tie it closed so that the plastic doesn't come to rest on the dough) and let rise at room temperature for about 1 hour (or until a slight depression remains when you press the dough with one finger)
12. Turn on the oven (470 F/243 Celsius). If using a pizza stone, make sure that it is in the oven and place an empty metal pan underneath
13. Score the bread. For this crown, I snipped all around the center with scissors and made tiny cuts around the outside sides of the loaf
14. Pour 1 cup of cold water into the metal (make sure to stand back quickly so that you don't get the steam on your face or hands) and put the bread into the oven directly on the pizza stone
15. Quickly spray water against the walls of the oven (remember to aim away from the lamp) and close the door. Turn the temperature of the oven down to 440 F/227 C). Spray two more times at 2 minutes interval within the next 5 minutes then do not open the door for 35 minutes
16. After a total of 40 minutes, check the bread to see if it is browning too fast. If it is and it is not fully baked yet, tent some foil over the top and bake another 5 to 10 minutes
17. If it looks ready, take it out of the oven. Using an instant thermometer, check that its internal temperature has reached 204 F/96 C. If it has, put the bread on a rack to cool
18. If it hasn't, stick it back in the oven for a few minutes until its internal temperature reaches 204 F/96 C
19. When it does, take it out and put it on a rack to cool
20. Enjoy!