11/18 Cranberry Orange Pecan and Apple Cinnamon breads

Tis the season for quick breads with fresh cranberries and apples! Becky took Babs apple picking and they got a lot of good ones! We tried the Zojirushi recipe for Apple Cinnamon bread and it was pretty good but it contains buttermilk and that seems to create a greasy crust. Today we are trying another simple recipe that uses milk instead. I made some changes to the recipe, adding a bit more cinnamon, sugar and apple. It’s a yeast recipe and hopefully a good place to start …

  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 tbsp sugar (I did 3)
  • 1/2 tsp salt (I did 1)
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used 1 tbsp)
  • 2 1/2 tsp yeast (I used a packet of Red Star Active Dry Yeast)
  • 1 1/3 cups peeled and diced apples (I did 1 2/3)

We used the bread machine on setting “Course #1 White” with medium crust and added the apples at the beep (5 minutes before kneading finishes). Unfortunately as we’re learning with all our added ingredient recipes, the bread machine doesn’t quite get it done. So from now on we’ll use the Homemade course and set the time for 1.5 hours until we figure out the exact times.

We also made a quick bread today in the machine. We used this recipe from ChowHound.com

  • https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/cranberry-orange-quick-bread-29110
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup granulated sugar (next time we’ll use less, it was very sweet!)
  • Finely grated zest of 1 medium orange
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 2 medium oranges) (we used orange juice)
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/4 stick), melted and cooled slightly, plus more for coating the pan
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups cranberries, thawed if frozen and sliced in half (we used 2 cups of large fresh cranberries, cut in half)
  • 1/2 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional)

I tried using the “Cake” Course of the bread machine but it didn’t get done enough so I had to finish it off in the oven. Next time I’ll use the homemade cycle. It turned out really good although next time we’ll reduce the sugar a little.

 

11/11 Olive Sourdough, Apple Cinnamon and Chocolate Cherry Breads

photo: Chocolate Cherry (top), Olive Sourdough (bottom)

Today we made sourdough (prep’d yesterday, baking today) in the oven and two dessert breads in the bread machine. The first desert bread was Apple Cinnamon with the apples Barbara picked with Becky a couple days ago. I don’t think I used enough apples. Next time we’ll try two cups. Barbara thinks the sweetness is about right and I think it’s not sweet enough so it’s just right! 🙂

We tried the Cinnamon-Apple-Pecan Bread recipe from The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook by Beth Hensperger.

Cinnamon-Apple-Pecan Bread

For 1 1/2 lb loaf

  • 1 1/8 cups buttermilk
  • 2 tbsp walnut oil
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 3 tbsp light brown sugar
  • 1  tbsp gluten
  • 1 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp SAF yeast or 2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Added ingredients (add at beep)

  • 1/2 cup chopped dried apples (or pre-chopped apple nuggets)
  • 1/3 cup chopped pecans

We diced the enough apples for 1 cup but next time we’ll try 2 cups of cubed apples and a little more cinnamon. Maybe some extra brown sugar if I can sneak it in. It came out pretty good but the bread machine really needs help combining the extra ingredients (we add those at the buzzer, 5 minutes before kneading is complete).

Chocolate Cherry Bread

(from the Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus Recipe Book Chocolate Bread recipe)

  • 320 g milk
  • 1 large egg (beaten)
  • 2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 545 g bread flour
  • 3 tbsp sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp Rapid Rise yeast

Extra Ingredients:

  • 90g (9 tbsp) chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chopped dried cherries

Course I (White)

We added 3/4 cup Ghirardelli Chocolate Chips and 1/2 cup of chopped dried cherries. It’s cooking now. I really had to help the bread machine fold in the extra ingredients (added at the buzzer). Otherwise it just beats them to death at the bottom of the pan. This is especially key for our olive bread but vital to the chocolate too to get them evenly mixed into the dough. It’s cooking now. I think it’ll be good!

Update: Turned out great! Maybe less cherries next time.

Bab’s House Olive Sourdough

  • 380g water
  • 320g starter
  • 600g white bread flour
  • 200g wheat flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 1/3 cups sliced olives (thickly sliced)

The olive bread we made last night with the usual house recipe but with 1 1/3 cups of olives (we cut down after the disaster last time but that was actually due to a beatdown by the bread machine), we lowered the water to 380 grams which after mixing seemed about right. We left it in the fridge overnight and took it out this morning. By mid-day it was still cold so I punched it down and shaped it into two 8″ boules. We baked the first one at 425 F for 25 minutes with covered (this was an accident but a mistake we’ll repeat from now on when we have added ingredients, especially wet ones like olives which really slow things down and increase the chance of undercooking), and the usual 10 minutes uncovered to get the crust golden brown. We haven’t cut into it yet but you can see it at the top of this post. The second one is ready to go in the oven now. I think this one is going to be good.

11/11 Apple Cinnamon Kombucha

This week we increased the large batch to 1.5 gallons and and our 1 gallon batch is now the “small batch”

Will be making apple juice w the apples I picked w Becky and Ginger from apple trees on Jules’ Aptos vineyard home.

OK here’s the new recipe for the nute:

Large batch:

  • 1.5 gallons (24 cups) water
  • 48 grams tea
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 3 cups starter buch

Small batch:

  • 1 gallon (16 cups) water
  • 32 grams tea
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups starter buch

At least I’m hoping that’s the water situation. I figure we lose a cup of water in the tea so hopefully we’ll add an additional cup. We can only brew 20 cups at a time so we’ll have to add 4 cups of cold water to the big batch.

Barbara pureed the apples she picked w Becky and Ginger from apple trees on Jules’ Aptos vineyard home and created a concoction of apple puree, sugar, cinnamon, water and a squeeze of lemon. We’ll use 1/3 cup of that with 1/2 tbsp of sugar. The small batch we’ll flavor with just 1 tsp sugar.

 

 

 

 

11/10 Cheesy Jalapeno Sourdough

Trying less water this time to make up for the oil and moisture in the cheese and jalapenos…

  • 380g water
  • 320g starter
  • 600g white bread flour
  • 200g wheat flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups shredded strong cheddar cheese
  • 1 large jalapeno pepper de-seeded (leave ribs in for hotness) and diced

We’ll bake 1 round at 425F for about 35 minutes (cloched the first 20) and 1 loaf in the machine for 1 hour

Post bake update: The pan loaf turned out great although next time we’re going to try 2 1/2 cups of cheese, maybe some Parmesan and 2-3 jalapenos. The times on both seemed just right and produced brown and tasty crust. The less seemed good too (so far, we’ve only cut into the machine loaf). I think his is going to be a favorite, especially once we perfect the recipe.

11/3 Passion Fruit Kombucha

We made passion fruit juice from crop of passion fruit from the vine in our backyard.  For the large batch used 1/3 cup passion fruit juice, 1 Tablespoon sugar.  For the small batch we did the usual house plain with 1/2 tablespoon of sugar.

10/25 Sourdough and Cranberry Walnut breads

We made Sourdough with the 420/320/800 recipe, doing a 3 hour first rise and a 4 hour second rise. We also made the Cranberry Walnut bread from the Zojirushi cookbook. It didn’t have much sugar and just a few walnuts and dried cranberries but it was pretty good. The sourdough turned out great. 30 minutes for the round and 35 for the loaf as usual.

 

10/25 Tangerine Dream

We bottled after 8 days in fermentation and flavored the big batch with 1/3 cup of tangerine juice (Evolution brand from Whole Foods) and 1/2 tbsp sugar. The plain we added just 1 tsp of sugar to since there was still some sweetness from the shorter fermentation. We’ll let the tangerine go 5 or 6 days in 2nd fermentation. We’ve been letting the plain go 16-20 days but for a few we’ve found that to be a bit much so we’re back to refrigerating the plain after 12-14 days in second fermentation.

10/23 More Sourdough – Recipe 420

We tried a new recipe today:

  • Water: 420 g
  • Starter: 420 g
  • Flour: 800 g (600/200 white/wheat)
  • Salt: 2 tsp
  • Sugar: 2 tbsp

This makes 2 loaves. We’re baking at 425. We did a 3 hour proof in the bread machine and then a 4 or 5 hour proof in the loft (probably a little long). The round took 30 minutes in the cloche (15 with the cover on) and the loaf took 35. This time we did not preheat the cloche. Not sure it matters. We’ve been creating steam for the loaf with ice in a preheated pan on the bottom shelf and by spraying the pan and sides of the oven with a squirt bottle.

 

10/21 Best looking loaves yet!

We’ve been baking some good bread lately. Our current house recipe is:

  • Water: 420 grams
  • Starter: 320 grams
  • White flour: 600 grams
  • Wheat flour: 200 grams
  • Salt: 2 tsp
  • Sugar: 2 tbsp

We let the bread machine knead the dough with the following settings:

  • Rest: 10:00
  • Knead: 20:00
  • Shape: Off
  • Rise 1: 3:00
  • Rise 2: 2:00
  • Rise 3: 2:00
  • Bake: 0:00
  • Keep Warm: OFF

The dough can be pulled at any time. For this batch we made the dough last night and put it in the fridge overnight for a long slow proof. This morning we pulled it out and let it warm a bit. We then punched it down, warming it a little more with our hands. I think we may put it back in the machine for a faster warm up and punch down next time. (Rest 10:00, Knead 2:00, Shape: ON). We then cut it in half, placing half in our boule proofing basket and the other half in our large pyrex loaf pan. We baked them one at a time at 425 F. The round we baked 20 minutes covered and another 10 minutes uncovered. For the pan loaf we put a pan on the lower shelf and misted it with water and added a few ice cubes, creating steam in the oven. After 30 minutes the internal temperature was only 160 degrees even though the crust was brown so we let it go another 5. So the boules take 30 and the loafs 35. We are also preheating our cloche now. Our rounds have been coming out much nicer since we started putting some flour on the outside of the dough ball before shaping it and heavily dusting the proofing baskets and loaf pans.

 

 

10/18 Olive Sourdough

Another Olive loaf attempt today. We went with the Irish Guy’s recipe (less 30 grams of water) and added 1 cup of sliced olives.

For two loaves kneaded in bread machine:

  • White Bread Flour: 600 g
  • Wheat Flour: 200 g
  • Water: 430 ml (~430 g) (down from 460 g)
  • Salt: 10 g
  • Starter: 320 g
  • Sliced/chopped olives 1 cup
  • Rest: 10:00
  • Knead: 25:00
  • Shape: OFF
  • Rise 1: 3:00
  • Rise 2: 200 (optional, usually remove after punch-down)
  • Rise 3: OFF
  • Bake: OFF
  • Keep Warm: OFF

Add the olives for the last five minutes of kneading. Cut  in half, shape two loaves and let rise another 3-4 hours. Bake in the cloche with the cover on for 20 minutes (or some means of steaming) at 450 F. Then uncover and bake another 15-30 minutes depending on ingredients.

We’ve been looking at different recipes. Here are a few…

400 g (3 + 1/2 cups) bread flour
10 g (2 tsp) salt
200 g (3/4 cup) warm water
300 g (1 + 1/2 cups) sourdough starter (100% hydration)
4-5 ounces black olives (preferably Kalamata, pitted and chopped in large pieces – roughly 1 cup, loosely packed)

BLACK OLIVE SOURDOUGH BREAD