World Bread Day 2007 - The roundup and after party

Please check out Zorra's fabulous roundup with 184 entries "all made with love".

Then if you bake any of the breads, please let Zorra know, along with your details, and join the After Party.

Lien from Notitie van Lien, in The Netherlands, reproduced my Scottish Bap Rolls, and they look delicious.

Nicisme from Cherrapeno in the UK, also baked the Baps, and was delighted by the softness of them (and their cute dimple).

Which bread will you bake?

World Day of Bread 2007 - From Baps to Brioche

Sadly I was too late to enter last year's World Day of Bread, but this is what I would have submitted.

Zorra from Kochtopf is hosting this prestigious event again this year, and going by the fabulous entries from last year, I'm sure there will be many hours of good reading as a result.

The Scottish bap bread is a soft roll, usually round, sometimes oval, sometimes square. It's a flat topped bread roll, dusted with flour, and an indented hole is in the middle to stop it from rising to a dome. It's best eaten fresh out of the oven first thing in the morning, sliced in two and enveloping fried bacon and eggs. Beware of flour on your lips and nose!! People may think you have been indulging in an illicit activity;)

The Recipe

175 ml (6 fl. oz) tepid milk
175 ml (6 fl. oz) water
2 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp granulated sugar
500 g (1 lb) strong white flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tblsp milk, to glaze

• Combine the milk and water in a liquid measuring jug. Sprinkle the yeast and the sugar into 100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) of the milk and water mixture in a separate bowl. Leave for 5 minutes, stir to dissolve. Stir in half the remaining milk/water mixture.
• Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeasted milk and water. Mix in the flour. Stir in the reserved milk and water as needed to form a sticky dough.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
• Put the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until doubled, about an hour.
• Knock back and let rest for 10 minutes. Divide into 8 pieces, and shape each piece into a flat oval, (or a round ball if you prefer) about 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick. Place on a floured baking tray. Brush with milk and sift over a fairly heavy dusting of flour.
• Leave to prove, uncovered, until doubled in size, about 30-35 minutes.
• Again sift more flour over each bap. Use your thumb to make an impression in the centre of the baps, about 1/2 inch deep.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until risen and pale golden. Cover with a tea towel and leave on wire rack to cool.

Next is my first attempt at making brioche, so full of eggs and butter, that this is definitely not your everyday bread. I think our cholesterol levels would soon swell to dangerous heights if we indulge in this beautiful bread too often. Especially if you turn it into french toast, or even to have with cheese or pate and some wine. A little of this bread would need to go a long way. The top notch kind of exploded a bit, and I let it cook for perhaps 5 minutes too long, but it looks "tres bon", oui?

The recipe for this came from Peter Reinhart's famous Bread Bakers Apprentice, and it is the Rich Man's version (of course). The recipe can be found here. (I just love Google Books!!)

Below is a pictorial of some of the breads I have baked, and actually taken photos of, over the past year.

On the left is ciabatta accompanied by apricot and sunflower kernel bread.

Partybrot infused with roasted garlic.

More ciabatta!

The famous "no knead" loaf

No Knead loaf baking in camp oven in my outdoor pizza oven.

Piadina, pie, pijda, pieda, pida or pita

Or just another type of pizza? Please yourself, whatver you like to call it, this Italian flat bread is yet another versatile luncheon choice, or a light evening meal. Very similar to the Torta al Testo as posted earlier, this one is a thicker version, more manly I guess, than the delicate Bread of the Tile. So it's one for the boys.


The piadina is from the Romagna region of Italy, however, it dates back to ancient Greece - piadina's etymology is the Greek word plakous - an unleavened hearth bread passed down from the Etruscans more than 3200 years ago. Today it is very popular in bars as an antipasto, served heated, cut into wedges and sprinkled with olive oil and salt. The authentic piadina does not use any rising agents, just flour, lard and water.


I'm not a great fan of lard. I liken it to the pictures of cholesterol filled arteries the health authorities kindly show us, or those cellulite dimples that mercilessly appear when you're not looking, so I chose a recipe from Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno's book, Bread..baking by hand or machine, which interestingly uses carbonated water as an ingredient. The recipe is virtually a mirror image of the Torta al Testo, with the exception of the carbonated water, so I wondered if there were any noticeable differences between the two.


I personally prefer this flat bread. Not only is it thicker (hence easier to slice into two), but when toasted, the crust has real crunch, (or for the men out there, real grunt). I also love the way it is very flexible and bends without breaking, almost like rubber, if you just want to use it as a sandwich or a panini. This one is a meal on its own. The tile bread maybe suited more for an antipasto with drinks. Either way, they're both delicious.


Ingredients

2 tsp dried yeast
75 ml (2.5 fluid oz) water
500 gm (1 lb) strong white flour
2 tsp salt
1 tblsp olive oil
250 ml (8 fl oz) carbonated water (I used a small bottle of soda water)


Method

1. Sprinke the yeast into the water in a bowl. Leave for 5 minutes then stir to dissolve. Mix the flour and salt together, make a well, and pour in the yeasted water mixture, the oil and 150 ml (1/4 pint) of the carbonated water.

2. Mix in the flour. Stir in the reserved carbonated water, as needed to form a firm, moist dough.


3. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and need until smooth, shine and elastic, about 10 minutes.

4. Put the dough in a clean bowl sprayed with a little olive oil spray, cover and leave to rise until doubled, about 90 minutes. Knock back, then leave to rest a further 10 minutes.

5. Divide dough into 8 equal pieces, and roll out to form rounds 15 cm (6") across and 1 cm (1/2") thick.

6. Heat a heavy frying pan, preferably cast iron, over a medium low heat until very hot, about 10 minutes.

7. Place one of the dough rounds in the hot pan and prick all over with a fork to prevent air bubbles. Cook until golden brown on each side.


A popular way of eating a piadina is in the form of a panini, or type of sandwich, similar to a wrap.

Or you could treat it in the same way as a cafe focaccia; fill it with then toast it in a press.

Popular fillings are:

chicken, avocado, mayo and rocket; eggplant, provolone, zucchini and pesto; rocket, tuna mayo and roast veal to name a mere few.

For the traditional "lardy" version, the ingredients are:

TRADITIONAL INGREDIENTS
500 g (1lb) white bread flour

30 g (1 oz) salt

80 g (2.8 oz) lard

5 g (0.2 oz)g baking powder

warm water as needed

METHOD
· Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Chop up the lard and work into the flour with your fingers.
· When you have a bowl of crumbs and no lumpy lardy bits, gradually work in water until you have a moist dough. This will be a ratio of about 3:1 flour to water.
· When the dough has been fully kneaded and the dough is springy, bouncing back when you poke it, leave to rest.
· Cook as above.

Torta al testo

The fast food of Umbria has come to this backyard. I have found our new Sunday night (or any other night) "quick fix" dinner. Torta al testo literally means Cake of the Tile, but this is actually bread of the tile....a quick flat bread cooked on a tile placed over an open fire. In my case, it was cooked on a cast iron frypan on top of the stove, not quite as authentic as they do it in Umbria, but the result was more than satisfying. It is usually cooked, split into two discs, stacked, wrapped in foil to keep warm, then filled and reheated just before serving.

The options are endless with this type of bread. It can be filled with any combination of ingredients you have on hand. You could even use it as a pizza base, or a variation of panini, a sandwich toasted in a sandwich press...the possibilities are endless.

I chose to fill this one simply with rocket (aragula) from my garden, and some left over cheeses - camembert and mozarella. Simple as that.

I'm warming up for the World Day of Bread on October 16th, so expect a few more "practice runs" published in the meantime.

Ingredients:

For the dough -
2 tsp dried yeast or 15 gm (1/2 oz) fresh yeast
315 ml (10 1/2 fluid oz) water
500 gm (1 lb) strong white flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
I tblsp olive oil


For the filling-
250 gm (8 oz) melting cheese (fontina is recommended)
125 gm (4 oz) rocket leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper


1. Sprinkle the yeast into 200 ml (7 oz) of the water. Leave for 5 minutes then stir to dissolve. Mix the flour and salt together into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeasted water and the olive oil.

2. Mix in the flour and stir in the reserved water, as needed, to form a firm moist dough.

3. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface, and knead until smooth, shiny and elastic, about 10 minutes. I used my Kitchenaid for this part.

4. Put the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. In the meantime, pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius (350 degrees F), or gas mark 4.

5. Knock back, then leave to rest for 10 minutes. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, and on a lightly floured surface, roll each piece to form a round of approx 20 cm (8 inches) across and 5 mm (1/4 inch) thick. If the dough resists rolling out, leave it to rest for a couple of minutes, and then continue.

6. Heat a heavy frying pan or griddle over medium low heat until very hot, about 10 minutes.

7. Place one of the dough rounds in the hot pan and prick all over with a fork to prevent air bubbles. Cook until golden on both sides, flipping it over frequently to avoid scorching and to aid even cooking, about 5 minutes. Repeat with the remaining dough rounds.

8. Stack the rounds on top of each other and cover with a tea towel to keep soft and warm. When cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife to cut around the edge of and bread, and using your hands, separate it into two halves. Top one half with the cheese and rocket and season with salt and pepper.

9. Place the other half on top and put the stuffed bread onto baking sheets. Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes until hot and the cheese has melted. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.

If you're super lazy, like I was this night, and want to make a less delicate version, don't split the bread, just place filling on top of one round, then place the other round on top and proceed to heat in the oven.

World Breadbaking Day 2007

Zorra from Kochtopf founded this event in October 2006, and is kindly hosting this annual event again this year in October. Sadly last year, I only discovered this event in it's final moments, and I'd spent a whole weekend baking bread, so I didn't enter. But this year, I have my calender marked and I'm going to make sure I get my entry in on time, Zorra.

World Bread Day

I hope I can participate in World Bread Day, an event hosted by Kochtopf where all of us bread nerds blog about ..... bread of course. I'm sure this event was created for me as my first step into the blogging of events worldwide. As it falls on a Monday, and I work full time, I baked on Sunday, and I'm awfully late posting, but I hope I can still be included.

This is my first successful sourdough, and after nurturing my starter for about 10 weeks, it's starting to talk back at me now, which means it's feisty. Of course the slow rise overnight helped, but I was sure it was going to peter out before the lengthy second rise. All up it took a night and most of a day for it to complete , but the oven spring was fantastic.

I cooked it in a wood fired oven in my backyard, very hot to start with, and then left the door open after steaming with ice cubes thrown in, until the temperature dropped to about 425 F. The sourness was just right, not overbearing, the crust was chewy, which some in my family like (i.e. me) and some don't. Sunday night dinner with butter slathered sourdough or dipped into flavoured olive oil and some dukkah to have with drinks pre-dinner....what could be more sublime?

Up until my new found passion for bread baking emerged, my family mainly preferred supermarket bread, simply for the convenience of not having to get the bread board out and slice it, and we've simply been brought up on bland flavoured "convenience" bread which needs to be disguised with various toppings slathered on it. It's really hard to break their habits from this, other than teasing them with the aromas that come from a freshly baked loaf, crust crackling and just begging to be sliced. I might be able to win them around eventually so they never open a plastic wrapped loaf of bread again.

In total 5 loaves were baked on Sunday, mainly white loaves using the direct dough method for quickness, but one was given to the little girl next door who came in licking her lips at the loaves displayed on the table, asking if she could have a loaf to take home with her. I hope you enjoyed it Maygen!

Also attempted was a camembert and grape loaf...which went to my parents. Pure indulgence.

A rye sourdough premix (so I cheated for the last loaf...sue me!).

And finally the plain old white loaf after such extravagence with the camembert and grape loaf.