A cinnamon swirl bread with a twist

My Beloved has been listening to a book about brain fog.  Which that type of book always makes my life very interesting.  It means that I may get asked for interesting ingredients added into our diet.  Or more of certain foods that we eat.  So far it has been easy.  More tea.  More berries.  More vegetables.  More cinnamon.  The cinnamon meant that I got asked to make a cinnamon swirl bread.

Usually when I make a cinnamon swirl bread it means that I use an enriched dough.  But there were no eggs in the house and I did not wish to go to the store.  I had seen a recipe for a simple sourdough that had added pumpkin.  I had recently roasted pumpkin in the refrigerator.  Why not?  I find adding oats or fruit or vegetable puree can take the place of eggs.  This time it worked.

I used my basic bread recipe with one cup of milk and one cup of water, one and a half cups of pumpkin, and a half cup of brown sugar.  It turned out really well.  I had one loaf with a cinnamon swirl and one without.  Life is good.

Pumpkin Sourdough

Note:  Use the best flour possible.  Heritage and/or organic if you have access or the pennies too.

sourdough starter

1 cup water

1 cup milk

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 3/4 cup blended roasted pumpkin (the smoother the better)

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons butter

5 to 6 cups all purpose flour 

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

In a large bowl, mix the sourdough starter, milk, water, whole wheat flour, and two cups of white flour.  Cover and let become bubbly.  It should look like pancake batter.

When it looks like pancake batter, take a scoop and refresh your sourdough starter that you kept back in the refrigerator or add 4 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of water to you jar of sourdough.  Mix well.

To the batter, add the pumpkin, the sugar, and the salt.  Mix in 2 cups of flour.  If the batter becomes a soft dough, start to knead.  If not, add another half cup of flour.  Turn the dough onto a clean floured surface and knead.  Knead until smooth.  Then, start kneading in the butter.  I smash the butter on the floured surface with my hand or rolling pin.  Fold it a few times before I start to knead.

Once the dough is a smooth bowl, I put it back into my rinsed bowl and let rise until double.  My day got away from me, so I actually flattened it back, reshaped it into a ball and let it rise again.

I took about two thirds of this dough and shaped it into a simple sandwich loaf.  Place into a parchment lined loaf pan.

The last third, I rolled out into a square.  I mixed the 1/2 cup brown sugar and cinnamon together.  Spread this mixture over the dough and roll into a log.  Place in a parchment lined loaf pan.

Let both loaves rise about another hour or until puffy and almost double.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.

I am now wishing I had switched the larger loaf to the cinnamon swirl.  This week I will.

"easy" doughnut holes

I have been asked for doughnut holes again.  I really do not mind making them but when the request comes out of the blue, it can be more work then I wish.  But what if I am making bread anyhow?  And bread based on my the dough from my favorite hot cross buns or cranberry walnut buns?   Because sometimes that is the bread that is wished.

I rolled off 24 small balls of dough.  Let them rise.  And fried them at about 350 degrees Fahrenheit until they were golden and baked through.

I made a glaze from powdered sugar and milk with a touch of vanilla for these.  The household thought these were wonderful.  I still think the potato doughnut holes are better but that is me.  The recipe is very similar except for the addition of mashed potato.  But I have also been enjoying lefse more then tortillas lately.  My taste buds must have changed.

Easy?  Just because the bread was already being made.  And it made people happy.

the newest bread iteration

Bread is one of those things that I go along happily making the same recipe for months, years.  And then I read something.  Or see a picture.  The recent read was the Nordic Baking book (tome) by Magnus Nilsson.  I also listened to a BBC broadcast where he was being interviewed.

The main jist of the conversation was that Nordic baking was really quite good.  If not superior to say French baking because of all the hurdles that needed to be surmounted.  A lot of that baking never left the small regional area it started.  

There was also a lot of conversation about how Nordic baking could be used as our climate changed and there were less places wheat could grow.  Also, the grains that were and are being developed in that part of the world are much hardier to the changes in climate.  When the rock record is studied, it is actually quite interesting to see how even though there is an increase in global temperature, there are parts of the world where the microclimate gets colder.

I could get into a long discussion about climate change but the basics are I believe in climate change.  Climate has always changed and is very cyclic.  I do believe that humans have affected the rate of change and that is going to impact our children and grandchildren.  We need to do better for them.  But the Earth will be okay without us.  It will heal.  

What has this to do with bread?  After the conversations about Nordic baking and climate change, I was intrigued about how my oatmeal bread would taste with a cup rye added to it.  I have been making yogurt cheese so I replaced one cup of the two cups of water I normally use with one cup of whey.  A cup of rolled oats and a cup of rye were added to the batter.  The amount of wheat flour that was used was about four cups.  I kept the salt, sugar, and butter the same.  I have been kneading my butter in.  A little more work but a better loaf.  It helps develop the gluten because of the lower gluten levels with the oats and rye.

These changes made an exceptionally tasty loaf.  It went wonderfully with the honey my best friend has been sending me.  I get boxes of love which usually contain honey and yarn.  Someone who knows me well!  I am going to keep making this.  Especially since I have two quarts of whey in the refrigerator.  The last loaf I did I used two cups of whey and no water so there would be room in the refrigerator for the next batch of whey from the yogurt cheese.  Yes, I can be that frugal.  And if small boys only wish to eat bread for a day, I know they are getting good food.

toasted oatmeal bread

I mentioned in my last post I was trying a new bread recipe.  Toasted oatmeal bread.  The goal was to have more flavor in the regular oatmeal bread that the boyos like so well.  And I did succeed.  I will also admit that I have made this twice and it turns out better for me if I do not extra hands helping.

I could get very philosophical about this bread.  Bread in general.  But bread is wonderful food for the belly and meditation for the hands.  The boyos think they will starve if there is not lady made bread in the house.

My house was very cold when I made this so all the rising times were very long.  That helped develop more flavor as well.  It will be April before I have to worry about much warmth in the house to make the rise happen faster.

toasted oatmeal bread

Note:  I used Zachary Golper's method of toasting and grinding the oats in this loaf.  He uses steel cut oats and those are my favorite.  I would like not to have to buy three types of oats for the house!

sourdough

1 cup steel cut oats

2 cups water

2 tablespoons molasses

1/4 cup brown sugar

5 plus cups flour

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons butter

Lately, I have been using so much sourdough that I have gone to a quart jar.  I used about 1/4 cup of sourdough that had been refreshed for this bread.

Put the steel cut oats in a cast iron pan.  Put the pan in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven and let toast for about four minutes.  Stir.  Toast for another four minutes.  Stir.  Check the browning.  Watch them closely for the next four minutes because somewhere in there they will go from nicely golden to black very quickly.  It does not take much more then this, especially in a toaster oven!

I have a high powered blender.  A ninja.  I dump the toasted oats in that and let blend for about 15 minutes.  I usually leave the room.  The flour should be fairly fine but you will have to blend it even longer to get fine flour or sieve.  I just chose to have a gritty texture added to the bread.

In a large bowl, put the sourdough, 2 cups of water, the oat flour, molasses, and brown sugar.  Mix well. Mix in three cups of flour. Cover and let get bubbly.  It took about four hours or more in my cold kitchen.  But the yeasty beasties were happy!  The batter should remind you of pancake batter.

When the dough is bubbly, mix in the salt.  Mix in enough flour to make a kneadable dough.  Soft but not stiff.  It is better to go for less flour because the grittty oats will still take up water.  Smear the butter on the counter and knead it into the dough as well.  Put back into a bowl and cover.  Let rise for about an hour.  Flatten gently and fold.  Do this twice more.  Put in the refrigerator for over night.

The next day, line a loaf pan with parchment paper or butter it.  Take the dough out of the refrigerator and shape it into a load.  Put in the pan.  Let rise.  This could take close to all day.

When the dough has risen well, bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.  I over filled my pan so I had crazy edges.

So good!  My next loaf is seedier because I had help.  But it is all good.  It is bread.  The bread I was making today got turned into pizza so I will start more tomorrow.  I need to clean the bowl out a bit.

needs more work

The experimentation for Saturday came out of the oven.  I think it needs more work.  I think I might leave the buckwheat flour out of it next time.  It adds a bitterness that is not coming from the cocoa.  The flavor of the buckwheat and cocoa combined overwhelm the cherries and pecans.  I need to go down this road some more.  It is like having cake but not having cake.  Especially right out of the oven which is when the boyos cut into it.

The last two days I did basically nothing.  Coached.  Read.  Slept.  Watched some videos.  I have the feeling I may have worn myself out a bit.  I always have a list of things I would like to get to during the day.  It is usually longer then the day will allow so I have come to terms with that.  But I just keep running with it.  I am coaching tonight and I probably should not be if my energy levels are anything to go by.  Oh well.  I will make sure to do some hand work tomorrow.

It is hurricane season.  And we may have some weather this coming weekend.  It does not look like it will be a storm but there was some talk of that for awhile.  I am not still rebuilding.  I came out of it fairly unscathed.  There was a roof that needed to be repaired.  But I am having some anxiety.  A plane flew over the house quite low yesterday and I became stressed.  Time will help but I could see where the next storm I may wish to leave town.  Just trying to live within myself and not taking anything extra on.  It can be hard.