Recipe for two sesame baguettes

Has one Sezme been looking at my recipes?

3 cups all purpose flour
1½ cups water
¼ teaspoon yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
(optional: small piece of risen dough: see below)
• Mix and let rise 4 hours, then refrigerate overnight.
• Take out the next morning at 9 a.m. to let it warm up
• At 10 shape it into 2 baguettes (at this point I take a thumb-sized piece of risen dough for next time)
• Place in baguette mold that you’ve sprinkled with sesame and let them rise in the oven
• At 11, take out to pre-heat the oven to 450° F
• Brush baguettes with milk and sprinkle the sesame seeds
• Slash baguettes with a knife (I have trouble making decent cuts)
• When the oven reaches 450°, put baguettes in mold back in the oven and bake for about 20 min.
• Remove from oven and cool.
• Then you can eat it at noon, but I prefer to leave lots of leftovers that I slice and toast on subsequent mornings.

Does Santorum Like Baguettes?

How I Make Bread

The day before I bake, I start with the following:

¼ teaspoon regular yeast (instead of rapid rise), mixed into
1 cup water; I add
2 cups flour and
1 teaspoon kosher salt (regular table salt may also work)

Mix together and let rise 6 hours in a warm place.

Refrigerate several hours (overnight, in my case)

To be able to eat at noon, I take it out of the refrigerator at 9 am, take the wet mix out of the bowl and let it rest on a floured board under an overturned bowl for an hour.

At 10 am I divide it into two, shape each one into a square, then fold the square down into a long rectangle that I shape into a baguette. During the previous two steps I try to handle it gently as to avoid puncturing bubbles.

Then I place the baguettes on the baguette mold (coated with bran) and cover them with a floured cloth to rise for a total of 1½ hours. For the first hour I leave them in a warm oven (on a rack that has unglazed quarry tiles arranged on it), and then take out the baguettes and preheat the oven to 450º.

I then bake them for 20 minutes.

Then eat!

This is a slight modification of this. While the crust is not a crisp as a real French baguette, the flavor is excellent.

You May Need This

I tried the No-Knead Bread "adapted from Jim Lahey".

Partly because I found out the cast-iron pot I was planning to use was quite small (less than 4 quarts), I made some changes.

I used:

¼ teaspoon regular yeast (instead of rapid rise), mixed into
1 cup water; I added
2½ cups flour and
1 teaspoon salt

I turned on the heat in the oven and then shut it off, and put in the dough, then a few hours later turned it on and off again.

About eight hours later, the dough was risen (so rapid rise yeast would've been slower??), so I "refrigerated" it (actually I put it in the cold garage) overnight.

The next morning, I took it out and folded it over and left it on the floured cutting board about an hour to warm back up. Then I shaped it into baguettes, and placed them on the baguette mold (which I coated with bran) and covered them with a floured cloth to rise. After 1½ hours, they were obviously nearly ready, so I turned on the oven (where I had placed my quarry tiles) and dumped some water in pans in the bottom, then popped the filled mold in.

They puffed up in the oven and turned a nice golden brown, and although the crust was hard at first, it softened as soon as they cooled.

Still, the texture was the best I've ever made, including that time.

Next time, I'm going to try just using a chef as I did a few years ago.

Whole Wheat Pita

You may notice that these recipes are not 100% whole wheat; that's because whole wheat has less gluten and the texture isn't as pleasant for most people. (Some recommend adding gluten, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference to me.) The only whole wheat yeast breads I make regularly are this one and the following one.

This is from Julia Child's Baking with Julia via emeril:
Whole Wheat Pita Bread

• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 1/2 cups tepid water
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• Stir yeast and water together in large bowl. Using a wooden spoon and stirring in one direction, stir in the whole wheat flour about a cup at a time; then stir 100 times, or until mixture looks smooth. Cover the sponge with plastic wrap for at least 30 minutes or up to 8 hours (longer resting is better) in a cool place. A rest will give it a fuller flavor.
• Sprinkle the salt over the sponge and then stir in the olive oil, mixing well, again stirring in the same direction. Add the all-purpose flour (or the rest of the whole wheat flour) a cup at a time, mixing until the dough is too stiff to stir with the spoon. Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it mixing until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. The dough will be moderately firm and have a slight sheen.
• Clean the mixing bowl, dry it, and coat it lightly with oil. Transfer the dough to the bowl and turn the dough around to oil its surface and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, or until double in bulk.
• (You can make the dough ahead to this point (or proceed with half a recipe) and keep it refrigerated for up to a week. Pack dough in a plastic bag at least three times as big as the dough, seal. Bring to room temperature when ready to bake.)
• Deflate the dough by kneading it briefly. Cut dough into desired-size pieces and shape each into a ball. On a lightly floured work surface, press down with fingers, then with rolling pin, roll dough from center out to about 1/4-inch thick. Bake in preheated oven 450 degrees for 3 to 5 minutes. Makes about 1 dozen or more -- depending on size of each pita.

Per serving: 209 calories; 2 g fat (0.3 g saturated fat; 9 percent calories from fat); 42 g carbohydrates; 0 mg cholesterol; 196 mg sodium; 7 g protein; 4 g fiber.

I cook these on my unglazed tiles (see the baguette entry below).

Once in a great while I have tried cooking a single one of these in the morning, then for lunch I have them with:
Black Bean Hummus & Carrot Slaw

• 2 cans (about 15 oz./425 g each) black beans, drained and rinsed well (or boil the beans yourself)
• chopped salted roasted almonds to taste
• vinegar to taste
• garlic, minced or pressed
• ground cumin to taste
• Combine these ingredients and mash with a potato masher or fork until hummus has a spreadable consistency.
• Combine:
• shredded carrots
• crushed red pepper flakes
• vinegar and oil

Serve together on pita.

Whole Wheat Breads

The trouble with baguettes (see here and follow the links) is they take such a long time (I start mine Saturday mornings and don't get to eat until Sunday noon at the earliest) and the need for special equipment. A baking stone is expensive, but you can get unglazed quarry tiles at a home improvement/building supply store. A (perforated) baguette pan or mold is another question. Mine was a gift. All I can say is you don't need a very big one unless you're running a restaurant.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Here's another whole wheat breakfast bread recipe. This is adapted from the Banana-Raisin Whole Wheat Bread recipe on the Gold Medal whole wheat flour bread (which is apparently not available on their website):

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar or 1/3 cup molasses (or just leave out the added sugar)
• 2/3 cup plain nonfat yogurt
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
• 1 cup chopped prunes (or raisins)
• 1 cup walnuts
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Mix the dry ingredients
• Beat the eggs, then whisk in the sugar, yogurt, oil, vanilla, the bananas and the prunes
• Mix the dry and wet ingredients
• Add the chopped nuts
• Bake 1 1/4 hour to 1 1/2 hours

This is the one that stuck to the Crofton unglazed stoneware. I bought the pan because it seemed better, but I think it's mostly better for things one eats fresh, and I bake these "quick breads" Sunday and don't start eating them until the next day.

Nuts and Twigs

Bonnie asks for more of my whole wheat breakfast bread recipes. This is from the old edition of the Joy of Cooking. Warning: it's pretty fibrous (to my Chinese relations I call it 樹皮蛋糕, or tree bark cake).

Quick Bran Date Bread

• 2 cups chopped dates
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup brown sugar or 1/2 cup molasses (I omit this; see below)
• 1 cup whole-grain flour
• 2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup whole-grain flour
• 2 cups bran
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup or less chopped nutmeats
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Prepare dates.
• Pour boiling water over them.
• In a separate bowl, beat eggs until light.
• Add brown sugar or molasses slowly, beating constantly.
• When these ingredients are creamy, add half the cooled date mixture
• Add 1 cup flour, baking powder and baking soda.
• Add the remaining date mixture
• Add 1 cup flour, bran and vanilla.
• Add the nutmeats.
• Place the dough in lightly greased loaf pans.
  
• Bake 1 hour to 1/2 hours.

Two cups of dates seems almost as sweet as two cups of sugar, and I don't feel it needs to be any sweeter.

My most successful baguettes yet. (See here and here for previous efforts). I used a chef again, this time unfrozen; the first fermentation took just overnight, so I refrigerated it before the second fermentation, which only took about 6 hours, after which I refrigerated it again. Then today, I took it out of the fridge about 7 and added the final dose of yeast and flour. I left it a little sticky, and after dividing it into 2 let it rise on a flat surface covered with bowls, in the hope that that would make for less popping of the bubbles. I sprayed it with water before putting it in the oven, and three times more while it was baking, and while the texture was still a little too fine, and the crust not quite as crisp as it might have been, it looked good. Maybe next time I'll try baking it a little longer.

Update

The pitas that are getting increasingly delicious are based on this recipe. Suspiciously similar to this one from Julia Child. I tried to use some of my old dough, frozen and thawed, but I guess it's dead or something. I also used 100% whole wheat flour. And I didn't clean the bowl out in-between, which is what the recipe recommends. What I think makes the pitas taste so good, in addition to eating them fresh is that the dough is fermenting a little in the fridge: I made the dough on Sunday, and I'm taking out a piece each morning to bake.

Apricot-prune bread

Every weekday for breakfast I have a couple of slices of home-made (by me) "quick bread" and a cup of coffee (instant in skim milk that I heat in the microwave). A couple of hours after my ten o'clock class, I noticed a smear on the back of my pants that looked like shit. In fact, it was part of my breakfast. Here's the recipe (which is my own invention, by the way):
Apricot-prune bread
Mix together:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons molasses or brown sugar
Beat:
2 eggs
add:
2/3 cup plain yoghurt
1/3 cup skim milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
mix these ingredients with the flour mixture
Mix in:
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 cup chopped prunes
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup of oil
grease a 9" x 5" pan, bake in preheated 350 degree oven until done; about 1 1/2 hours.