Great (and Not So Great) Moments in Breadmaking
The husband and I retired Saturday night with visions of fresh-and-hot-from-the-bread-machine loaves filling our minds. That's what you get for thumbing through a couple of bread machine recipe books at the end of a long, tiring day: hard-core carb cravings.
Despite our resolve to sleep in, I was up bright and early thanks to a certain cat who thinks it's quite jolly on Saturday and Sunday mornings to knock over the foot-high stacks of James Bond paperbacks and cooking tomes stacked beside my nightstand. (I know manipulating little Muffin does it because she knows I'm already half-awake and is trying to get me to get my arse out of bed, but not to feed her but instead to feed that loud-mouth brother of hers, Parmer Dude. Gads, we have such a typically twisted mother-daughter relationship! And she's just a damn cat--and a conniving, usually successful one at that.) Contacts in place and kickboxing attire donned, I headed to the kitchen to accomplish two tasks in the few hours that the temperature in the house was still below 80 degrees: roast and peel the red bell peppers for some soup and make up a loaf of ricotta bread.
Yeah, I know, Gentle Reader--who'd ever think, I've got some ricotta cheese, so why not make a loaf of bread with it! at any point in her or his life, right? But The Bread Machine Bookbook author Donna Rathmell German did (and she probably wasn't the first), noting in that book that the loaf had been a "huge hit" among her friends and recipe tasters. And since I had a half-carton or more of fat-free ricotta cheese in my 'fridge just waiting to be used or to get moldy, why not beat the mold and use it?
Ricotta Bread 1/4 C milk
1 C ricotta
2 T margarine or butter
1/2 egg*
2 1/2 T sugar
1 t salt
2 C bread flour
1 t yeast
*Use an egg white, yolk or 2 T egg substitute for half an egg.
Nutritional Info
Rathell German doesn't provide the nutritional breakdown for each recipe in her book, but she does helpfully provide a chart showing the calories as well as the protein and carb content of various ingredients used in the book's recipes. However, I'm not going to take the time to calculate this loaf's nutritional content for this post. I'm lazy. So sue me.
The Faudie's Futzings
Ahh, where to start with this one....
I'd planned to make the medium-size loaf (roughly a 1.5-pounder), but I realized (thank the FSM) just in the nick of time that I didn't have nearly as much ricotta as I thought. Certainly not the 1 1/3 cups needed for the medium-size loaf I'd wanted to make. In fact, I didn't even have the full cup needed for the 1-pound loaf I did make. Oh well.
Now because I'd prepared to make the medium-size loaf, I'd already brought to room temperature and beaten (per our machine's instructions, not the recipe's instructions) one egg, for the medium-size loaf requires a whole egg. So I have a whole egg all beaten and ready for a loaf that only required an egg white or a yolk. Given that the egg was on the small side--a lovely brown organic ovum acquired from one of the husband's coworkers--I just put the whole damn thing in. I couldn't let it go to waste.
I had issues with yet one more ingredient: the milk. I know what you're asking, Gentle Reader: "How the hell can she have issues with milk?" Well, I can because I currently don't have any moo juice in the house. I don't have room in the refrigerator for it currently. I do, however, have a big box of nonfat dry milk powder. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. For you see, I not only had milk issues, I also had math issues. I only needed a fourth of a cup of milk, yet I had to add the powder equal to a third of a fourth of a cup of milk. Fractions and ratio and division and all that jazz was never and will never be my forte. That's why I longed for the KitchenCalc when I first discovered it more than a year and a half ago. Further hampering my calculations was this tidbit of wholly unhelpful advice from Rathell German in her follow-up book, The Bread Machine Cookbook II (original title, non?):
After a little research into exactly how many tablespoons are in a quarter-cup (I can never remember it and not doubt myself), I put in 2 tablespoons of dry milk. I think. Hell, nearly 15 hours after I did it, I can't remember for sure. That's what I get for baking before the butt-crack of dawn.
As the machine was going through its second kneading cycle, I was concerned that the dough was far too gooey. Figuring that fat-free ricotta probably has much more water content than regular ricotta, I felt it was in the bread's best interest that I add a bit more flour. So into the bucket I tossed just a tablespoon of the stuff. Within a few turns of the kneading paddle/blade/whatever, the whole character of the dough changed dramatically. It looked to me like what a dough should look like as it goes through its second kneading, not some hopeless lump of guck.
Even with the addition of the flour, the rising cycle was another time of doubt. For most of it, I could see the top of the blade/paddle/whatever, which had never happened with a recipe, even the disastrous banana loaf. But I doubted there was anything I could do at that point and went about kickboxing, working up a mighty sweat, all while hoping for some culinary miracle.
And the FSM delivered!
It's not the tallest loaf in the world, but it's not a collapsed heap of half-raw goo either!
The crust was pretty solid, which is not necessarily a good sign, when I overturned the bread bucket to release the loaf and let it cool. As anxious as I was to see what the inside might be like, I didn't wait for the loaf to cool almost entirely before slicing into it. I had a good number of doughy crumbles as I sawed away, but I was pleased with what I saw:
The texture appeared just fine: The holes weren't too big and weren't too small, despite the loaf's squat, dense-looking appearance. The slice the husband and I shared was moist but not mushy (contrary to what had been alluded to by those doughy crumbles that came away as I'd cut into it), and the flavor was good. Perhaps if I'd used real ricotta and not the fat-free stuff, the bread would have had a more distinctive ricotta-y flavor. But I'm not wanting a cheesy flavor in my bread. I don't do cheese.
Will I make this loaf again? Perhaps if I find myself with a carton of ricotta that's not getting used any time soon for some pasta dish to satisfy the boy, then yes. Would I go out of my way to buy ricotta specifically for this recipe? No. But I don't consider Sunday morning's baking efforts a waste. I have a good, edible loaf of bread that made use of ingredients I had on hand. Fantastic!
Now for Those Not So Great Moments in Bread-Making
Behind every success is at least one failure, right? Isn't that some wonky anecdote peddled by self-help gurus? So what happens if the failure follows the success?
Well, I'll let the husband tell this story.
Hi, there! This is "the husband." I'm here to fill you in on the less-successful of our Sunday experiments with the bread machine: my first attempt at machine-made pizza dough.
I suppose I'm this blog's dedicated pizza guy, having written about our pizza-making exploits from time to time to time. You may remember from my previous posts that we've been able to get some pretty good results using a deep-dish pizza recipe from The New Best Recipe. But while the pizzas have been tasty, they've also been very time-consuming. The amount of work needed to follow the recipe from The New Best Recipe pretty much means you're going to spend your Sunday afternoon doing nothing but tending to a ball of dough. So, understandably, I was excited about the pizza dough recipe provided in the instruction manual of our ABM-3600. Let's see how the pizza comes out when the machine does all the work instead!
Pizza Dough
8 oz. water
1 1/2 T olive oil
2 C white flour
2 T whole wheat flour
1 1/2 T sugar
3/4 t salt
2/14 t active dry yeast or 1 1/3 t quick rise yeast
Nutritional Info
As with other recipes from this instruction manual, it's a mystery!
The Faudie's Futzings
At Angela's suggestion, I used white whole wheat flour only.
In case you were wondering, until I made this recipe, everything had gone well for us that Sunday. The ricotta bread, as Angela described, came out just fine. We had a fun afternoon shopping trip, during which I was able to find Star Wars books both new (The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, from Borders) and old (The Star Wars Question and Answer Book About Space, from Half-Price Books). Dairy Queen even blessed us with a fabulous Blizzard of the Month, the Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard Treat. With all that good mojo going on, you'd think the pizza dough would have come together just fine. But it didn't.
The dough that came out of our bread machine was really gooey and really sticky. Forming it into the appropriate shape would have been impossible if not for the roller Angela had picked up at The Surly Table mere hours before, back when our luck was still going strong. I don't know if the dough needed more time to rise or if using only white whole wheat flour was a factor or what. All I know is that compared to the other times I've made pizza dough, this stuff was really difficult to work with.
I almost--almost--threw in the towel at that point. Fortunately, Angela intervened, and with her encouragment I persevered and started baking the crust.
In the oven, the dough rose somewhat at the edges and not at all in the middle. The bottom of the pizza didn't get crispy and golden brown, as happens when we use the recipe from The New Best Recipe. I made peace with the knowledge that this wasn't going to be a fantastic pizza.
Well, it looks good...
Finished with BBQ sauce, cheese, chicken and red onions, the crust tasted okay, I suppose. It had a slightly sweet and, well, wheaty taste. (Is "wheaty" a word? The spellchecker is shaking its head "no.") Both Angela and the boy seemed to like it a lot more than I did. The final product just didn't seem to have been worth the effort...and that's saying a lot, as I didn't put a lot of effort into it to begin with!
...but it's flatter than a pancake!
Despite the failure of this recipe (in my opinion, at least), I'm not giving up on the idea of making pizza dough with the bread machine. There's got to be a recipe out there for a good pizza crust that doesn't take a ridiculous amount of effort.
Despite our resolve to sleep in, I was up bright and early thanks to a certain cat who thinks it's quite jolly on Saturday and Sunday mornings to knock over the foot-high stacks of James Bond paperbacks and cooking tomes stacked beside my nightstand. (I know manipulating little Muffin does it because she knows I'm already half-awake and is trying to get me to get my arse out of bed, but not to feed her but instead to feed that loud-mouth brother of hers, Parmer Dude. Gads, we have such a typically twisted mother-daughter relationship! And she's just a damn cat--and a conniving, usually successful one at that.) Contacts in place and kickboxing attire donned, I headed to the kitchen to accomplish two tasks in the few hours that the temperature in the house was still below 80 degrees: roast and peel the red bell peppers for some soup and make up a loaf of ricotta bread.
Yeah, I know, Gentle Reader--who'd ever think, I've got some ricotta cheese, so why not make a loaf of bread with it! at any point in her or his life, right? But The Bread Machine Bookbook author Donna Rathmell German did (and she probably wasn't the first), noting in that book that the loaf had been a "huge hit" among her friends and recipe tasters. And since I had a half-carton or more of fat-free ricotta cheese in my 'fridge just waiting to be used or to get moldy, why not beat the mold and use it?
1 C ricotta
2 T margarine or butter
1/2 egg*
2 1/2 T sugar
1 t salt
2 C bread flour
1 t yeast
*Use an egg white, yolk or 2 T egg substitute for half an egg.
- Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
- Select the Normal, Basic or Sweet option on the machine, then start the cycle.
Nutritional Info
Rathell German doesn't provide the nutritional breakdown for each recipe in her book, but she does helpfully provide a chart showing the calories as well as the protein and carb content of various ingredients used in the book's recipes. However, I'm not going to take the time to calculate this loaf's nutritional content for this post. I'm lazy. So sue me.
The Faudie's Futzings
Ahh, where to start with this one....
I'd planned to make the medium-size loaf (roughly a 1.5-pounder), but I realized (thank the FSM) just in the nick of time that I didn't have nearly as much ricotta as I thought. Certainly not the 1 1/3 cups needed for the medium-size loaf I'd wanted to make. In fact, I didn't even have the full cup needed for the 1-pound loaf I did make. Oh well.
Now because I'd prepared to make the medium-size loaf, I'd already brought to room temperature and beaten (per our machine's instructions, not the recipe's instructions) one egg, for the medium-size loaf requires a whole egg. So I have a whole egg all beaten and ready for a loaf that only required an egg white or a yolk. Given that the egg was on the small side--a lovely brown organic ovum acquired from one of the husband's coworkers--I just put the whole damn thing in. I couldn't let it go to waste.
I had issues with yet one more ingredient: the milk. I know what you're asking, Gentle Reader: "How the hell can she have issues with milk?" Well, I can because I currently don't have any moo juice in the house. I don't have room in the refrigerator for it currently. I do, however, have a big box of nonfat dry milk powder. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. For you see, I not only had milk issues, I also had math issues. I only needed a fourth of a cup of milk, yet I had to add the powder equal to a third of a fourth of a cup of milk. Fractions and ratio and division and all that jazz was never and will never be my forte. That's why I longed for the KitchenCalc when I first discovered it more than a year and a half ago. Further hampering my calculations was this tidbit of wholly unhelpful advice from Rathell German in her follow-up book, The Bread Machine Cookbook II (original title, non?):
Replace the milk with water, cup for cup, and add dry milk (about 1 to 4 tbs. depending on the size of the loaf and the amount of 'milk' used).Maybe I'm too picky, Gentle Reader, but I like a bit more...precision when it comes to these things. Especially when the amount of liquid used can make or break a loaf.
After a little research into exactly how many tablespoons are in a quarter-cup (I can never remember it and not doubt myself), I put in 2 tablespoons of dry milk. I think. Hell, nearly 15 hours after I did it, I can't remember for sure. That's what I get for baking before the butt-crack of dawn.
As the machine was going through its second kneading cycle, I was concerned that the dough was far too gooey. Figuring that fat-free ricotta probably has much more water content than regular ricotta, I felt it was in the bread's best interest that I add a bit more flour. So into the bucket I tossed just a tablespoon of the stuff. Within a few turns of the kneading paddle/blade/whatever, the whole character of the dough changed dramatically. It looked to me like what a dough should look like as it goes through its second kneading, not some hopeless lump of guck.
Even with the addition of the flour, the rising cycle was another time of doubt. For most of it, I could see the top of the blade/paddle/whatever, which had never happened with a recipe, even the disastrous banana loaf. But I doubted there was anything I could do at that point and went about kickboxing, working up a mighty sweat, all while hoping for some culinary miracle.
And the FSM delivered!
It's not the tallest loaf in the world, but it's not a collapsed heap of half-raw goo either!The crust was pretty solid, which is not necessarily a good sign, when I overturned the bread bucket to release the loaf and let it cool. As anxious as I was to see what the inside might be like, I didn't wait for the loaf to cool almost entirely before slicing into it. I had a good number of doughy crumbles as I sawed away, but I was pleased with what I saw:
The texture appeared just fine: The holes weren't too big and weren't too small, despite the loaf's squat, dense-looking appearance. The slice the husband and I shared was moist but not mushy (contrary to what had been alluded to by those doughy crumbles that came away as I'd cut into it), and the flavor was good. Perhaps if I'd used real ricotta and not the fat-free stuff, the bread would have had a more distinctive ricotta-y flavor. But I'm not wanting a cheesy flavor in my bread. I don't do cheese.
Will I make this loaf again? Perhaps if I find myself with a carton of ricotta that's not getting used any time soon for some pasta dish to satisfy the boy, then yes. Would I go out of my way to buy ricotta specifically for this recipe? No. But I don't consider Sunday morning's baking efforts a waste. I have a good, edible loaf of bread that made use of ingredients I had on hand. Fantastic!
Now for Those Not So Great Moments in Bread-Making
Behind every success is at least one failure, right? Isn't that some wonky anecdote peddled by self-help gurus? So what happens if the failure follows the success?
Well, I'll let the husband tell this story.
Hi, there! This is "the husband." I'm here to fill you in on the less-successful of our Sunday experiments with the bread machine: my first attempt at machine-made pizza dough.
I suppose I'm this blog's dedicated pizza guy, having written about our pizza-making exploits from time to time to time. You may remember from my previous posts that we've been able to get some pretty good results using a deep-dish pizza recipe from The New Best Recipe. But while the pizzas have been tasty, they've also been very time-consuming. The amount of work needed to follow the recipe from The New Best Recipe pretty much means you're going to spend your Sunday afternoon doing nothing but tending to a ball of dough. So, understandably, I was excited about the pizza dough recipe provided in the instruction manual of our ABM-3600. Let's see how the pizza comes out when the machine does all the work instead!
1 1/2 T olive oil
2 C white flour
2 T whole wheat flour
1 1/2 T sugar
3/4 t salt
2/14 t active dry yeast or 1 1/3 t quick rise yeast
- Divide dough into separate balls. On a floured surface roll into pizza rounds. Pinch around edges to form a small rim.
- Place on a lightly greased pan or dry pizza stone and cover with sauce, cheese and other toppings as desired.
- Bake at 350-375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes. Check cooking progress periodically.
Nutritional Info
As with other recipes from this instruction manual, it's a mystery!
The Faudie's Futzings
At Angela's suggestion, I used white whole wheat flour only.
In case you were wondering, until I made this recipe, everything had gone well for us that Sunday. The ricotta bread, as Angela described, came out just fine. We had a fun afternoon shopping trip, during which I was able to find Star Wars books both new (The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, from Borders) and old (The Star Wars Question and Answer Book About Space, from Half-Price Books). Dairy Queen even blessed us with a fabulous Blizzard of the Month, the Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard Treat. With all that good mojo going on, you'd think the pizza dough would have come together just fine. But it didn't.
The dough that came out of our bread machine was really gooey and really sticky. Forming it into the appropriate shape would have been impossible if not for the roller Angela had picked up at The Surly Table mere hours before, back when our luck was still going strong. I don't know if the dough needed more time to rise or if using only white whole wheat flour was a factor or what. All I know is that compared to the other times I've made pizza dough, this stuff was really difficult to work with.I almost--almost--threw in the towel at that point. Fortunately, Angela intervened, and with her encouragment I persevered and started baking the crust.
In the oven, the dough rose somewhat at the edges and not at all in the middle. The bottom of the pizza didn't get crispy and golden brown, as happens when we use the recipe from The New Best Recipe. I made peace with the knowledge that this wasn't going to be a fantastic pizza.
Well, it looks good...Finished with BBQ sauce, cheese, chicken and red onions, the crust tasted okay, I suppose. It had a slightly sweet and, well, wheaty taste. (Is "wheaty" a word? The spellchecker is shaking its head "no.") Both Angela and the boy seemed to like it a lot more than I did. The final product just didn't seem to have been worth the effort...and that's saying a lot, as I didn't put a lot of effort into it to begin with!
...but it's flatter than a pancake!Despite the failure of this recipe (in my opinion, at least), I'm not giving up on the idea of making pizza dough with the bread machine. There's got to be a recipe out there for a good pizza crust that doesn't take a ridiculous amount of effort.
0 comments:
Post a Comment