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Welcome to Kitchen Revision ... a workspace for considering recipes and how they change, along with the cooks, the tasters, and the culture. I'm Beth Kanell, founder of Kitchen Revision. I love collecting and trying recipes -- and I'm endlessly interested in how history and culture shape us all. Plans for this space include co-authors, guest authors, plenty of discussion, and yummy diversions.

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Basic Baguettes and a Tender Rye Bread


One gift of the pandemic has been baking "with" my urban grandson. We started with matching boxes of King Arthur Baking mixes, working our way through a couple of breads and cinnamon rolls, then scones. He's already an ace with sugar cookies and has his own recipe.

This weekend, he's working from scratch on baguettes -- I gave him a baguette pan, five pounds of bread flour, and a jar of dry yeast, over the holidays. So he's all set! Here's the recipe I provided this morning, and I get the feeling he's going to do this on his own:

Grandma’s Baguette Recipe

One cup warm water, in a large bowl. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons dry yeast over the water. In a separate bowl mix 2 cups bread or regular flour and 2 teaspoons salt. Then add the flour mix to the liquid and stir. Switch to the dough scraper* and and another cup of flour. Work it in with the dough scraper. Now just add a half cup or less flour at a time, folding the dough with the scraper to mix and stretch it, until it feels stretchy and still soft but almost firm. Add a tablespoon of oil to the bowl and roll the dough in it so it and the bowl are oiled. Cover bowl and let dough rise for 1 hour. Put a little oil or spray on your baguette pan. Start the oven heating to 425. Take a cutting board or sheet of wax paper or parchment and put about a quarter cup flour on it. Dump your dough onto this. Use the scraper to divide into loaves (your pan is for 3?).  Roll each one with your hands into a long loaf and place in pan. Put parchment or wax paper loosely over them. Let rise - maybe 20 minutes? - then bake for 20 to 30 minutes until golden.  

For those of you ready to fuss a bit more, two tips will make your loaves more like the French ones: Place a roasting pan of hot water on a lower shelf of the oven to add humidity (I don't want a 12-year-old doing this because of the risk of spilling), and when you're ready to bake, dust a bit of flour onto the tops of your loaves and add diagonal slits, using a very sharp blade.

Earlier this week I baked a rye-and-caraway bread that I really liked, improvising a bit from a recipe that came with the pumpernickel flour I bought from King Arthur Baking. Here we go:

Buttered rye bread with organic eggs ... mmm, my kind of breakfast.

 

Soft Rye Bread With Caraway Seeds

Combine and mix in a large bowl, repeatedly folding with a dough scraper* to knead into a soft, smooth dough:

2 cups pumpernickel flour

4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup potato flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup caraway seeds

2 teaspoons salt

4 teaspoons dry yeast

3 cups warm water

Add a bit of oil to the bowl and roll the dough in it; cover and let rise 1 hour. Divide into two oval loaves and place them on a greased baking sheet. Let rise 10-15 minutes while you heat the over to 425 degrees. Slash the tops diagonally and bake 20-25 minutes. Try to wait until it's cool to slice it!

(The original recipe included 2 tablespoons of caramel color; I didn't have any, but it would have made the bread look more like a store-bought rye.)

*If you don't have a dough scraper ... well, there's nothing that does the job as well. Here's a link. They are cheap and you'll wonder why you waited so long to get one. Mine has a curved edge, which I like better than the straight one in this link, but it's not being sold by KAB now ... you may find one online if you look for a while.

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