Thursday, November 30, 2017

You're Welcome


Rodger the Real King of France said...

The presenter is ... well, quite talented.

Chris in NC said...

I could seriously come home to her every day without fail. She is the textbook definition of a perfect wife. Cute, happy, pleasant and fun. Sigh...

Rodger the Real King of France said...

My wife .. ike

Eskyman said...

SOB! Oh no, that was the saddest tragedy I've ever seen!

She is so right- us low-carb people can only look on and weep! It's food porn, worse than that it's enticing beyond belief, but there's no hope in sight. The only way it could have been worse would be for the bread to be Sourdough, which I miss every day of my life (though at Christmas I'll allow myself one loaf.)

Sigh. I'll just have to ignore that beautiful, impossible dream, and the beautiful woman who presented it so wonderfully well!

drew458 said...

Rodge, thanks for this. I'm a hobby baker who makes bread several times a week. My fifty two cents (sorry I'm a chatty SOB):

This old recipe is a fine first try. For a non-baker her video is great; it really is that easy to make bread. You don't even need a Dutch oven; any covered dish of good height will do the job. You can even just dump the dough in an uncovered greased pie pan or meatloaf pan and it will bake in 35 min.

From a baker's perspective, her recipe needs help and her method is crap. Her loaf is under-proofed, baked up flat and has poor crumb. Sure, it tastes good, but it could be hella better, easily.

Make it hella better, easily:
•  bread flour. period. "KABF", the blue bag of King Arthur Bread Flour. More protein = more gluten = better bread. And please either weigh it, or pour into the measuring cup. NEVER scoop. Always fluff it up in the bowl with a whisk or a fork.

•  1/2tbl kosher salt, not 1tsp table salt. If all you have is iodized table salt, use 1 1/2tsp. Bread needs salt, but too much kills the yeast.

•  1 1/4tsp yeast - 1/2 a packet - tastes better and works faster

•  lukewarm water not hot - anything over 105°F will kill the yeast. Use spring water if you have it, or filtered tap water. Or boil a pot of tap water 5 min and let it cool. Just get rid of the chlorine.

•  Let the damn thing rise. Bread is the art of patience. 3 hours on the counter, then overnight to 2 days in the fridge will taste so much better, and give you big bubbles inside which look so neat. This is what high hydration bread is all about. (her recipe is 100%; flour mass = water mass)

•  Knead the dough once every 30-45 min for the first 2-3 hours, using a "lift and fold" knead with the dough in the bowl, which is the thing she does with the scraper on the bread board. You will build better glutens and get a nicer loaf. You do just one "set" per knead, lifting North, East, West, then South. Takes 20 seconds. Stretch, pull over, drop. 3 to 6 sets is enough. with a nice rest between each set. Then into the fridge to rise slow.

•  A Lodge 4.5qt enameled Dutch oven is perfect for a loaf this size. These things take a full hour to heat up in the oven. Metal lid knob is a must!

•  If you don't have parchment paper don't fret. Just drop the loaf in. You might have to pop it loose with a spatula. Big deal. Or, if you have a little corn meal, rice flour, or semolina, dust the bottom of the Dutch oven with it first. Parchment paper is magic stuff, but if you don't bake, why buy it?

drew458 said...

Eskyman - just to add to your pain, I'd like to point out if you mix up the dough in this video, don't add any salt, then let it sit around uncovered on the counter for a couple days, you will have sourdough starter with a commercial yeast base for strength.

She is making 100% hydration dough, which is also known as "levain" which is a "pre-ferment" called a "poolish", which is sourdough starter if you let it ferment a bit. Many names, same stuff.

Keep starter in the fridge loosely covered, and feed it 1/2c flour and 1/4c water every few days. After a week or two you will have a nice brew going. When your container gets too full, make banana pancakes. You will make a lot of banana pancakes, because you will always have too much starter!!

1 ripe mashed banana
2 cups of sourdough starter
1 splash (3tbl) oil
good pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
a splash of milk to get the consistency right

Eskyman said...


I thought I was in pain before; now it's agony!

Full disclosure: I once had a sourdough starter that I kept going for around 12-15 years. I made bread at least every couple of weeks, usually every week. That starter had its origin in a cup of starter that I got from an aquaintance; she said hers was from an Alaskan starter that had been going for a long time before she got it. Starters really can last forever!

In about 1985 or so I took 3rd Prize in Breadmaking at the Armadale Country Fair (Armadale, Western Australia- in the country, with lots of competition.) I was proud to get the prize, but then I discovered that the prize was given to loaves that *looked* the nicest- they hadn't tasted the bread! So that took the wind out of my sails, as none of the breads there held a candle to the heavenly taste of my Sourdough! I never cared much what it looked like, only what it tasted like!

Funny thing though- I made lots of pancakes, lots of biscuits & loaves of bread, but never made any banana anything. Just didn't occur to me!

Now I'm sorely tempted to make bread again- I can almost smell it!- but. On my low-carb diet my health is better than it's been for years, and my weight stays the same, and I'm never hungry. If I go off this easy diet, then UP! goes the weight; it's easy up, but hard, hard to come down again. So I don't think I will, but what a test of won't-power!

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