F&W's fantastic recipes for homemade breads and biscuits include savory rosemary-potato focaccia rolls, sweet cinnamon banana bread and more.
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Halvah-Stuffed Challah
Blogger Molly Yeh fills this braided bread with a mix of halvah (the confection made with crushed sesame seeds and honey) and tahini. Yeh recommends using an extra-smooth, pourable tahini (Whole Foods' 365 brand is a good bet), but if your tahini is cakey and thick, she advises mixing it with warm water until spreadable.
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Homemade Bagels
The trick to these crisp, chewy bagels is the poolish, a fermentation starter (also known as a mother dough) made with bread flour, yeast and water. It is quickly assembled the night before the bagels are made.
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Irish Brown Bread
Even though this bread is dense, hearty and complex-tasting, it requires no yeast and therefore no rising time. Cathal Armstrong says he likes it best "fresh from the oven and with lots of Kerrygold butter."
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Pull-Apart Cheesy Onion Bread
This recipe is as fun to eat as monkey bread (little balls of yeast dough that are baked in a pan together, then pulled apart at the table) but a lot less time-consuming to make.
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Jessamyn's Sephardic Challah
Jessamyn Waldman, founder of Hot Bread Kitchen, grew up in Canada eating challah, the Jewish Sabbath bread. Unlike the eggy challahs of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe, this version comes from the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean, who flavored their challahs with caraway and anise. Many challahs are braided, but this one is twisted into a round, turban-shaped loaf.
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Honey Spelt Bread
Lionel Vatinet sweetens his bread with local honey, which may benefit the immune system and help to combat allergies.
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Crusty White Bread
To make a chunky bread, fold in 2 1/2 cups toasted sunflower seeds, 5 cups soaked and drained dried currants or 6 cups walnut halves in Step 3, after folding in the salt water.
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German-Style Pretzels
These chewy pretzels from chef Hans Röckenwagner develop a shiny, professional-looking crust as they bake.
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Rye Berry Bread
Thinly sliced, toasted or not, this dense, hearty whole-grain bread is wonderful topped with smoked salmon, sour cream and chopped onions, or with bitter orange marmalade. Allow time for the sponge to sit overnight.
Gontran Cherrier, who has an eponymous bakery in Paris's 18th arrondisem*nt, spent several years in the pastry kitchen at elite Paris restaurants like L'Arpège and Lucas Carton. So when he creates a bread, he often thinks about pairing it with a dish. He made this light chocolate brioche with foie gras terrine in mind; the Sichuan peppercorns add a spicy, aromatic kick that's good with rich foods. The brioche is also delicious with strawberry jam or quince paste.
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Strawberry-Pecan Quick Bread
As this loaf bakes in the oven, the texture of chewy dried strawberries softens slightly. Buy your dried strawberries at a specialty food shop or health food store that rotates its stock frequently to make sure that they're plump and moist.
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Yogurt-Zucchini Bread with Walnuts
This moist, nutty bread is a terrific way to use up late-summer zucchini. The walnuts in the bread are super-heart-healthy, and the yogurt adds moisture without any fat.
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Raisin Rye Bread
Lionel Vatinet developed this hearty bread—a good source of fiber—to satisfy his Eastern European customers.
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Persian Flatbread
Nan-e barbari is a classic Persian flatbread that gets crisp and golden in the oven, thanks to roomal, a flour paste that's spread over the bread before it's baked. Jessamyn Rodriguez likes to serve it with feta and olives.
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Focaccia with Caramelized Onions, Pear and Blue Cheese
In a class at Point Reyes's culinary center, students learn to top focaccia with pears and blue cheese.
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Monkey Bread with Honey-Bourbon Sauce
Michelle Gayer of Salty Tart bakery in Minneapolis smothers her monkey bread with honey-laced brown butter before baking then serves the pull-apart bread with a cream cheese–based dipping sauce that's spiked with bourbon.
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Focaccia with Roasted Squash
Michelle Gayer tops her sensational focaccia with sweet, tender strips of roasted butternut squash scattered with thyme and drizzled with honey.
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Irish Soda Bread
This soda bread has no eggs, no butter, no sugar, and no raisins—just baking soda, flour, buttermilk, and salt. Enjoy it with a swoop of good Irish butter.
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Birote (Guadalajaran Sourdough Bread)
Birote (pronounced bee-row-teh) is a crunchy, darkly baked sourdough bread said to have a flavor unique to the environment of Guadalajara, but if you grab your favorite beer and some limes, you'll come pretty close!
Quick breads are typically mixed by hand, and it's important not to overmix the batter. Overmixing can cause the gluten in the flour to develop, resulting in a tough and chewy bread. Mix the batter just until the ingredients are combined, and then stop. If there are a few lumps in the batter, that's okay.
Fat. If you're looking to ramp up the taste of your favorite bread recipe, we recommend adding a bit of fat. A fat like butter, olive oil or coconut oil in small quantities will help your bread achieve a higher rise and it will also boost its flavor by tenfold.
To determine whether bread is of good quality, there are several factors and characteristics you can identify. For example the crust must be crisp and of a darker tone than the inside, a strong flavour and taste due to the flour, as well as a pleasant smell. What's also important is that the conservation is longer.
If a large amount of salt (or sugar, which is also hygroscopic) were to be combined with a small amount of yeast and left for a long time it could, in theory, eventually rob the yeast of water to the degree that the yeast cells would begin to die off.
Overmixing your batter will cause a tough batter and an equally tough finished product. You do not want to develop the flour's gluten (protein). You want what is known as a tender crumb that will be achieved if you just combine ingredients without overmixing.
The two main quick-acting leavening agents are baking powder and baking soda Salt: Used as a seasoning Liquid: Helps in the blending of dry ingredients and the formation of gluten. It triggers the leavening action of baking powder or baking soda. Sugar: Makes quick breads tender and adds flavor.
Granulated sugar or honey: the sugar is used to “feed” the yeast and tenderize the bread. Salt: to enhance flavor. Oil: Vegetable or canola oil, or melted butter could be substituted.
Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.
The benefits of the overnight rise go beyond flexibility. Long, slow fermentation in a cold environment leads to better, more nuanced flavor development in your bread.
A general rule of thumb when bread baking is to keep your yeast, salt and sugar separate from each other when adding to your mixing bowl. The sugar and salt can both kill the yeast which will reduce the effectiveness of the yeast if they come into contact at the early stages of bread baking.
While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.
Wheat flour is the key ingredient in most breads. Flour quality is particularly important in breadmaking as the quality of the flour will have a significant impact on the finished product. When flour is moistened and stirred, beaten or kneaded, gluten develops to give dough `stretch`.
Too Hot to Survive. Regardless of the type of yeast you use, if your water reaches temperatures of 120°F or more, the yeast will begin to die off. Once water temps reach 140°F or higher, that is the point where the yeast will be completely killed off.
“Because salt helps to control fermentation, it's better to catch this one sooner than later in yeast doughs,” says Laurie. Without salt, your dough will rise faster than it normally would, leading to less flavor development and a weaker structure. To incorporate the salt, mix it with a few teaspoons of water.
The limiting factor in good quick breads is the correct mixing. Over mixing or under mixing will result in a poor quality product. Different quick bread batters are created by varying the ingredients and combining them in a certain way to form the structure of the bread.
A coarse, crumbly texture: Your quick bread should be moist and dense. Too much fat (butter, oil, or shortening) or too much leavening (baking soda or baking powder) will cause the bread to be crumbly.
Almost all quick breads have the same basic ingredients: flour, leavening, eggs, fat (butter, margarine, shortening, or oil), and liquid such as milk. Ingredients beyond these basic constituents are added for variations in flavor and texture.
If the yeast you're using is expired, chances are your bread will not get a good rise (if any) from it. Yeast is a microorganism and does have a definite life span. For best results, always use yeast before the “best by” date.
Introduction: My name is Francesca Jacobs Ret, I am a innocent, super, beautiful, charming, lucky, gentle, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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