Jalapeño Cheddar Corn Bread

This bread instantly became the new staff favorite.  I combined spicy jalapeño peppers, sharp cheddar cheese and whole grain corn meal to make this lovely loaf.  The inspiration came from a traditional Portugese Broa which is a yeasted corn bread.  I've always enjoyed the levity the yeast brings to the texture of the cornbread.  It also lacks the overt sweetness most northeastern cornbread's bear.

The process begins with a polenta-like mixture of boiling water and corn meal.  This sits overnight so the corn can absorb the water and the mixture can cool to room temperature.  I also made a biga eight hours before mixing the final dough.

I tested a variety of different jalapeños: frozen, small diced, sliced, with seeds, without seeds...  I decided I liked the flavor of the fresh, whole peppers while I required the spicy kick obtained by using the seeds and ribs from the pepper's interior.

I cut the peppers in half lengthwise before slicing them into semi-circles.  When I mixed the dough, I combined the flour, biga, soaked cornmeal and water first.  I delayed the yeast addition by 5 minutes and I added the salt 5 minutes after the yeast.  After the dough reached it's full development, I slowly added the shredded sharp cheddar and the sliced jalapeños until they were evenly distributed through the dough.

I rolled the dough into squares, folded the corners into the center and proofed upside down on a bed of cornmeal.  After a couple hours at room temperature, it was ready to flip over and bake in the deck oven.

The interior is soft and flavorful.  This bread is the perfect compliment to chili but being as though it's 100°F outside and I refuse to make chili...I used it for my pulled pork sandwich and it was great.  It also makes a yummy fried egg sandwich in the morning.  Best of all, each serving contains 8 grams of whole grains because of the whole grain corn meal in the dough.  Good for you and tasty - - sounds like a winner to me!

I am submitting this post to Susan from The Wild Yeast Blog for her weekly YeastSpotting segment.  If you would like to know more about my recipe, please email me.

Summer Sandwich

This has to be my all-time, favorite summer sandwich.  I have to admit, when it's 90°F outside, I don't do much cooking.  I do spend a lot of time thinking about what to fix for dinner that requires little to no cooking.  This sandwich is my twist on a BLT.  The tomatoes and bacon are present plus I've added roasted turkey and guacamole.  Lettuce doesn't keep well in my house so unless I know we're going to use the whole head in our meal, it rarely gets thrown in the mix.

I prepare the guacamole using minimal ingredients.  This one has jalapenos, avocados, sea salt and lime juice. I mash them together using a mortar and pestle I purchased from Ikea.  I never use a recipe, I just add everything to taste.  If you like your guac spicy, go heavy on the jalapenos.  I did try to dice the jalapenos pretty fine so I wouldn't bite into a chunk of heat while eating my sandwich.

Next, I spread the guacamole on a whole grain bread.  I made this 9-Grain loaf but you can find similar, yummy specimens at Wegman's (7-Grain Sourdough Loaf) or at Super Target (Archer Farms Artisan Harvest Grain Loaf).

I try to build the sandwich so the tomatoes are in the middle.  Layering the roasted turkey first, helps to create a barrier and prevents the bread from getting soggy.  This turkey was thin sliced from the deli counter at my local grocery store.

Next, I add the tomatoes.  These tomatoes were fresh from my local farmers' market.  The tomatoes really make this a seasonal sandwich.  I'm very picky about my tomatoes.  I will only eat them when they are the reddest ripe at the height of the season.  I sliced these as thin as I could.  All the layers create a tall sandwich and I wanted to make sure it was easy to eat.

Finally, I piled the crispy bacon on top.  This bacon also came from my local farmers' market.  It's a lightly smoked, thicker cut.  I like to bake my bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven.  Frying bacon on the stove top with toddlers underfoot is a little cumbersome and nerve-wrecking.  I lay the slices on the sheet so they are just barely touching, put them in the oven at 375°F, and turn them every 6-8 minutes until they're nice and crisp.  Then I make sure to save all the bacon grease for a later recipe (bacon fat makes everything taste better!).

That's it.  To finish, I put the lid on the sandwich and cut it in half.  This is a highly requested item in my house. My kids tend to steal everyone's bacon before they eat the remainder of their sandwiches but the rest of us enjoy the complexity of textures and flavors created in this easy summer treat.

Name This Bread

Every couple of weeks a new bread is conceived.  Imagine how difficult it would be to pick names for your children if there was one born 25 times a year.  Some are easier than others....a baguette is a baguette.  The loaf pictured above has been particularly difficult for us to moniker.  This is our newest creation...hot out of the oven.  I would love to know what you can come up with because I am at a total loss.

Here are the specifics:

Major Ingredients: Wheat Flour, White Flour, Water, Honey  

Minor Ingredients: Cracked Grains: Red & White Wheats, Spelt, Rye, Corn, Barley; Salt, Yeast, Sourdough Culture

Attributes: Sweet and nutty; soft, slightly open crumb; crisp, caramel-y crust.  Made with a biga.   Retarded for 3-4 hours before baking.  It weighs 14-16oz, is 7-8" in diameter and stands about 4" tall.

Names in the Running: Farmhouse Honey Grain, Country Honey Wheat

I will let you know which name is selected by the end of the week.  I'm sure this is the first of many "Name This Bread," posts to come.

Ultra? Maybe. Super? No Way!

Did you ever wonder how a box of Fruit Loops cereal can be slapped with a Whole Grain Council seal of approval?  Burger King's buns are WGC approved too.  Kellogs and Burger King are using "ultragrain flour" or "white wheat flour" in these products.  Ultragrain was first developed by ConAgra Mills (it has since been marketed as "white wheat flour" by other millers).  Here's what they have to say about the product:

"ConAgra Mills, the maker of Ultragrain, developed a patented technology that delivers whole grain flour with the same particle size as traditional refined white flour. The Ultragrain milling process retains the fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals and other phytonutrients concentrated within the bran and germ, while yielding whole grain wheat flour with a taste, ultrasmooth texture and appearance more similar to traditional refined white flour." 

I have a different take.  I try not to be too anti-GMO (genetically modified organism) because I would drive myself insane worrying about the repercussions of this process.  However, this is the best example of how a GMO directly affects me and my family.  Ultragrain flour comes from an entirely different plant than whole wheat flour...it's more than just the milling.

When this product was new to the market, I trained with the ConAgra technology rep on how to use Ultragrain flour to make bread.   The flour requires a significant autolyse time.  Autolyse is a time during which the flour and water are slightly mixed and allowed to rest.  The flour sucks up as much of the water as it can.  Because of this intense absorption, the final mix time is decreased and the dough is super hydrated yet still easy to work with.  Lots of water = open cell structure = big air holes = yum!  Without this autolyse, Ultragrain will start to break down the dough.  It's very finiky.  In addition to the autolyse, the flour behaves a little like a rye flour in the mixer.  If it is over-mixed it will turn gummy and good structure will never be achieved.

After doing signifigant market research, ConAgra determined that Ultragrain flour was undetectable by the average consumer up to 30% of the flour weight.  This means Kellogs can use 70% white flour and 30% ultragrain flour in their Fruit Loops and no one will be the wiser.   Funny, 30% is the minimum amount of whole grains needed in the dough to get the WGC seal of approval.  I'm no conspiracy theorist but I may be onto something here.

Ultragrain flour has a very distinct taste.  It's a little bitter and a little I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it.  I can sniff out ultragrain flour faster than a pig can find a truffle.  Maybe it's because I know it's there...it's everywhere.  Cereals, burger buns, Sara Lee pound cake, everyone is jumping on the whole grain band wagon.  These companies are trying to save Americans from themselves by sneaking good-for-yous into previously bad-for-you stuff, like Fruit Loops.  The Whole Grain Council doesn't care how much sugar you put on a product to mask the off-putting flavor of the ultragrain flour as long as each serving has 8 grams of whole grain.

That big grocery store chain I used to work for wants to do away with white bread all together.  A directive came down from the very top to make all breads using whole grains, even the baguettes.  The first bread they switched over was the basic Italian loaf, a huge seller.  They did not tell the customers they changed the bread they loved only that it now contains 1 serving of whole grains per slice.  A couple weeks ago, I was standing next to the bread counter and I overheard a woman asking for her Italian bread back "I used to buy 4 loaves a week."  So much for undetectible.

My baker friend, the mad scientist behind the whole grain switch, is trying to create a sweet potato brioche using the ultragrain flour.  I said yuck, he said if there's enough butter and sugar in the dough, it can't be bad.  Maybe he's on to something or maybe he could join forces with the fruit loop gang.  I tried his sweet potato bread and it was pretty tastey except for that noticably ultragrain aftertaste.

I know I'm not the typical American bread consumer but if I want wheat bread, I want wheat bread.  I want to see the flecks of bran and taste the nuttiness of the flour.  In the same thought, if I want white bread, I want white bread.  There is a time and a place for everything.  This whole scenario creates the same image for me as does the 300 pound woman ordering "diet" coke at the McDonald's drive thru.

Rye? Because.

Rye flour can be difficult to work with.  When flour is hydrated, gluten forms.  Scientifically speaking, gluten is made up of glutenin and gliadin.  Rye flour is grossly lacking in glutenin.  It also contains alpha and beta amylases which are also present in saliva.  Amylase breaks down starch into sugar.  What does this mean in practice?  It means that rye flour, on it's own, can not create a gluten structure that will trap steam.  If you've ever seen a traditional German, 100% rye loaf you'll understand.  These loaves are more like doorstops.  I love them but they are not exactly what you think of when you think of bread.  The Jewish ryes that you find in the grocery store are not 100% rye.  They all contain some percentage of white or wheat flour.

The 2nd practical problem with the rye stems from the amylase.  If the dough is over-mixed, it starts breaking down and becomes incredibly sticky.  This becomes even more so when caraway seeds are added.  The sharp, pointy seeds cut through the, already lacking, gluten structure.  This brings me to the 3rd, totally unscientifically related, problem with rye.  People tend to associate rye with caraway.  I hear people claim to not like rye bread all the time.  Dollars to doughnuts, it's the caraway they don't like.  When you take the seeds out, rye has a very mild, earthy flavor.  Rye also has a high ash content which, I think, gives it the earthiness.  Ash is a byproduct of the milling process and it is what makes rye flour ferment like crazy, problem #4.  If rye flour is present in a sour, it ferments more rapidly than any other flour.  Whole wheat has a higher ash content than white flour so it too ferments fast but not as quick as rye.

Enough with the science.  What does it all mean and why am I concerned?  Rye is one of the products I have been working to improve in the last couple weeks.  When I arrived at my current job, the rye loaves were flat (over fermented, over mixed, improper gluten structure...the science is unavoidable) and long.  Most often, customers buy bread for sandwiches.  They are looking for the most sandwichable slices possible.  This means the center of the loaf should be bulbous and the ends should be pudgy, not pointy.

First, we changed the flour from a light, fine rye to a medium, coarse rye.  If you've seen regular ground flour against stone ground flour, you'll know what I'm talking about.  Then, I paid careful attention to the mixing process and educated my team on the variables....don't over mix and incorporate the seeds gently and quickly.  Next we worked on shaping.  Instead of pre-shaping the dough into logs as one normally would for a final batard shape, we shaped them into rounds.  This, in an effort to get the nice bulbous center.  We focused on shaping short, fat loaves for at least a week before we got it right.  It's hard to make your hands change what they do automatically day in and day out.  We still weren't getting exactly what we wanted so we started looking at the bake.  Often rye breads are cut with several short lines going side to side across the loaf.  This helps loaves maintain their structures.  We decided to change the way our rye loaves were scored.  Several cuts call for more handling which is not really a good thing when there are thousands of loaves to be handled.  We moved to one cut, end to end for the non-seeded and two cuts for the seeded.  This change was like finding the Holy Grail.  Our rye went from grocery store blunder to artisan beauties over night.

Josie's Bread

The night before Josie was born

When I was pregnant with Josie, I switched from an OB to a midwife with only three months to go.  My husband and I saw the documentary "The Business of Being Born," and it made me change my mind about everything I thought I wanted as far as the birthing process was concerned.  My family is very traditional in terms of doctors and medicine.  I didn't know that there were so many options available for having babies until my lamaze instructor clued me in.  (On a side note, I have remained very close with said lamaze instructor and because of my experience, Lamaze International has asked me to be a spokes person for them.  I have to do a video bit and tell my story...how cool!)

It took me a week of constant calls to find a midwife who would take me on at six months pregnant.  Finally I found Barbara Charles in Long Island.  She delivers babies in a birthing center operated out of a hospital.  It was exactly what I wanted.  Barbara is a little wacko in a good way.  If there was a Saturday Night Live sketch or a sitcom portraying a midwife, she would be the one for the job.  She's a little hippie, a little granny and a lot of love.

When Barbara told me I had to drastically change my diet because I had gained too much weight, I was sad.  When she told me I couldn't eat any more bread, I was devistated.  I'm a baker; how can I give up bread?  Not even whole wheat or multi-grain, I asked.  She said she'd allow one slice of toast a week.  Yikes!  What was on my plate?  Mostly veggies, no fruit (too sugary), some meats were included on the list.  It was impossible.  There were some things she mentioned that sparked my interest.  Nettle is good for milk production and quinoa supposedly helps fortify the breast milk.  Hemp seeds are high in omegas (brain power) and flax seeds contain B-vitamins.

I decided to create an homage to Barbara and to the my unborn baby in the form of a loaf.  I would create a bread I could eat.  Grains, in general, are hard for your body to process.  They have to be denatured in order to be processed at all.  Denaturing can be accomplished by soaking, cooking, grinding, etc.  A lot of times this is done without being realized.  Think about preparing rice or baking with whole wheat flour.  I decided to sprout the grains for the bread.  Sprouting is just what it sounds like.  I give the grains just enough water for them to sprout.  It's like starting a garden.   By sprouting the grains before grinding them into a paste, enzymes are released and the grains are sort of predigested and changed from carbohydrate to protein.  All this means is the body can easily absorb ALL the vitamins and minerals contained in the grain and the calorie and carb content is drastically decreased.  This is the basic idea behind the raw food diet craze.

I played with a lot of different techniques in terms of sprouting and baking.  For instance, when flax seeds are hydrated, they release a gooey substance, in much the same way okra does when it's cooked.  This stuff prevents the other grains from sprouting if they are all sprouted together.  In the end, it took almost a year to come up with an optimal product.  Obviously, Josie was part of the family and Keegan was on his way but without Josie, this bread wouldn't be.

The Final Product

Josie's bread is made from sprouted wheat berries and quinoa.  Wheat berries are the grain that is ground to make wheat and white flour.  Using the whole berry instead of just the milled portion is packing in the nutrients.  Quinoa is a 'super food'.  It is the only grain to form a complete protein by itself.  Normally, grains have to be combined with legumes to form a protein, beans and ricefor example.  Three days prior to baking, I start sprouting the grains.  Once they all have shoots coming from them, I grind them into a paste.  On the day of the bake, I mix the paste with rye flour, spelt flour, whole wheat flour, local honey (which helps ward off allergies to local pollen), dried nettle leaf, whole flax seeds, hulled hemp seeds, oats, water, yeast and salt.  This unconventional dough is shaped into loaves and allowed to rise.  It is then baked yeilding a dense product akin to a german black rye.  The flavors are very earthy.  It smells almost like a fresh cut lawn and tastes of the complex blend of seeds and grains.

The benefits of this bread stretch beyond pregnancy.  Diabetics have found it has a low glycemic index on account of the reduced carbs.  Customers with a gluten intolerance have been able to partake in a loaf because rye and spelt flour contain little to no gluten.  The bread is also fiber rich thus stimulating digestion.  I'm trying not to say 'it keeps you regular' but it keeps you regular.  It stores remarkably well both at room temperature and frozen.  Also, it is yummy... the best byproduct of all!

Send me an email, crampsey@gmail.com,  if you're interested in ordering a loaf of Josie's Bread.  Due to it's natural ability to last a long time, it ships well too.  That being said, I bet it won't last a long time once you try a slice!

Thanksgiving

I'm in total production mode as Thanksgiving is quickly approaching.  This tends to be the busiest holiday for bread bakers...everyone needs bread to go with their Turkeys.  This year at The Patisserie, I'm offering an Apple Cranberry Walnut Sourdough.  This bread exemplifies the holidays for me.  It has a hint of cinnamon...just enough to make it smell fantastic when it's baking.  I make this bread the day before it is baked (which is why it isn't typically available on Wednesdays).  It sits overnight so all the flavors can get real friendly.  It is my grandmother's favorite bread. She and my cousin fight over it and hide it from each other.

I also have a Portuguese Corn bread on the menu.  Contrary to the southern US style cornbread (which is more a corn cake), this is a yeasted bread that is packed with flavor and it has a nice soft texture.  This is the ultimate day after Turkey and Cranberry sandwich loaf.  It also makes a great stuffing.  I just add chopped onions, carrots and celery, sprinkle some herbs, saturate with chicken stock and bake for 40 minutes at 350F to get a yummy homestyle stuffing.  I used it this morning for my fired egg sandwich...yum!

Next on the list is the Seeded Wheat Bread.  This bread has it all, whole wheat, rye, pumpkin seeds, oats, flax seeds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds.  It is Mark's favorite bread.  It has a nice soft, airy texture to spite all of the inclusions.  The seeds are toasted which gives the bread a nutty flavor.  I must give a nod to Amy's Bread for inspiring this loaf.  She makes a similar product though hers is missing the oats and our sour starters are different.

As always, I will be making a variety of French products...rolls, mini baguettes and batards.  I will have an herb loaf too.  This one is great to throw in the stuffing mix as it is already herbed up for you!  Better yet, Christian has been working away to create stuffing mix for everyone.  It includes French bread, herb, seeded, rye and rosemary loaves.  It is cubed and it has had time to dry out...perfect for your stuffing.  We add fresh sage, rosemary and other seasonings to the mix....all organic.