If the shoe fits

The calendar may not agree, but summer has definitely started around here.  No, I'm not talking about the temperature for a change. =)  I'm talking about the fact that school is out for the summer, which really makes my life easier.  Instead of having to deal with drop-offs and pick-ups at both the elementary school and the daycare, I only have to go one place for a couple months.  Of course, summer occasionally presents its own challenges...

When I went in to pick up Brianna one day last week, I immediately noticed that she was wearing a pair of black flats that I'd never seen before.  I asked her where her sneakers were, and suggested that she get them back on her feet so that we could go home.  This resulted in lots of crying and B saying that she wished that Daddy was picking her up that day, since he wouldn't ask so many questions. (which I doubt...)  It took a few minutes, but I eventually determined that a bunch of the girls had been trying on each other's shoes, and one of the others left while still wearing B's.  Naturally, this was in no way B's fault.  It never is. =)  She said it was the other girl's idea to trade shoes, not hers.  She didn't seem amused by my question about whether the other girl has taken the shoes off her feet.  Anyone else dealing with the drama of an 8-year-old girl (or something similar)?  I hope I'm not the only one having all this fun. =)

One other handy thing about summer is that I don't have to pack lunch for B.  So I get to keep most of these lovely rolls all to myself.  I'm finally trying to get back on track with a few of my baking groups.  One of the June recipes for the Mellow Bakers is Pain Rustique.  It looked like a good place to jump back in--it's a fairly straightforward dough that uses a poolish perferment.  All I had to do was remember to mix up the poolish the night before.  I even talked Phyl and Margaret into doing it with me (via Twitter). This is a great dough for those who are a bit scared of yeast doughs, since there's no shaping--the dough is simply cut into pieces with a bench knife.  I decided to make rolls instead of loaves, so I just cut more pieces.  I ended up with 11--I was going for a dozen, but had to stick a couple of small pieces together to make a bigger one. 

The verdict?  This recipe is definitely going on the make-again list.  I should probably try making a larger loaf as well.  I really love the texture of these rolls, and I love using them for sandwiches.  Okay, I just generally prefer rolls over sliced bread when it comes to sandwiches--I like all the crust.  

If you'd like to give these a try yourself, the recipe can be found on page 111 of Hamelman's Bread.  I also found the recipe online here. (One note, the online recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast in the poolish, while the book only calls for 1/8 teaspoon.  I followed the book.)  To see how some of the other Mellow Bakers have fared with this recipe, check out their results here.  

Rolling along

Most of the time when I tell people that I’m going to be on vacation for a week, they ask if I’m going anywhere. More often than not, the answer is no. This time of year, Brianna is in school. Plus it’s not exactly inexpensive to fly four people to another part of the country (since none of our family members live anywhere near here). And honestly, I’m okay with that. Traveling long distances, especially with young children, can be pretty darn stressful. I’m quite content to stay at home and do some baking, take some naps, and maybe even do some cleaning up around the house.

This week I had more than the usual incentive for the cleaning up part. My dad came down from Pennsylvania for a few days. I wish he could have brought some of the cooler fall weather with him, but he was pretty happy with our warmer temperatures. He got to spend some time with the girls, even with B in school. I’m particularly glad he got to spend some one-on-one time with G, since she often gets overshadowed by her older sister. (Though Gillian certainly does her best to make her presence known.) Jamie and I even got to have dinner out by ourselves one night, while Dad took the girls to McDonald’s. Yay for grownup, uninterrupted conversations! =)

With Dad here, I didn’t do quite as much baking as I might have on my own, but that’s okay. The baking I did do was mostly for him. Gillian and I made crumb cake for breakfast yesterday, which is one of his favorites, and I packed some of it up for him to take for breakfast on the plane this morning. We also had to make chocolate chip cookies, which I knew he’d be more than happy to help us eat. (And a bunch of those got packed up for his carryon, too.) But the surprise hit of the week was some simple rolls that I made.

It started with dinner on Sunday. We were having hotdogs (with sauerkraut for me & J; with ketchup for the girls). Brianna had requested them a week or so before, but I kind of forgot that they were in the fridge. Since I started BYOB, I almost always make my own hot dog and hamburger buns. I was getting ready to lookup my usual bun recipe from KAF, when I remembered that one of the Mellow Baker recipes for this month was Soft Butter Rolls. I pulled my book off the shelf and took a look at it--it was an easy enriched dough recipe that wouldn’t take all that long to make. I also took a look at the MB discussion board for this recipe. Unfortunately, the first couple reviews I read weren’t very positive. But I decided to give it a try anyway.

The dough was very easy to mix up--it’s a straight dough, so no preferments to worry about. And it used a generous amount of yeast (about 8 g according to the errata) which allowed the dough to rise fairly quickly despite the additions of butter, sugar and egg in the dough. The dough was mixed, then allowed to double. Then the recipe called for dividing the dough into very small portions. I went a little bigger.  I made 5 oblong buns at 75 g each and then formed the remaining dough into round rolls of about 60 g each (yielding 9 rolls). The buns and rolls were placed relatively close together on a baking sheet so that once they were done rising and baking, they were touching each other, keeping the sides soft. Since several people commented that their rolls browned quickly, I baked mine for 13 minutes even though they were larger in size than the ones in the recipe.

The verdict? Well, despite my worries, these were a huge hit with everyone in my family. The dough made excellent hot dog buns--sturdy enough in the face of drippy sauerkraut, but soft inside. Brianna has been quite happy to use them for small sandwiches in her lunch. I ended up making a second batch (just round rolls) to go with beef stew this week--they were really tasty when consumed hot and dripping with butter. I substituted 100g of white whole wheat flour for an equal amount of the bread flour in that batch, and really liked the result. I will definitely be making these again--it’s nice to have another fairly quick and tasty dinner roll in my repertoire.

If you’d like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it on page 258 of Bread. Be sure to make note of the corrected yeast amount (should be .29 oz, or about 8 g).  And to see what all the other Mellow Bakers thought of this recipe, check out the discussion board.  For lots of other fun bread options, check out Yeastspotting!

Mellow yellow

My favorite color is green.  But when I'm feeling stressed or down in the dumps, I really like yellow, especially yellow flowers.  They're great for cheering me up.  Daffodils are my favorites, but I love yellow tulips as well.  And yellow roses smell the best (and were my mom's favorite, part of why I love them).  Besides flowers, another thing that often makes me feel better is baking.  It's fun to make things for us to eat or to give to others.  

It also helps to have others to pull me out of whatever funk I've fallen into.  That's actually what prompted me to make this bread.  I was stuck at home with a sick kiddo a couple weeks ago, and my friend Kayte suggested (via Twitter) that I make bread with her, since I was home anyway.  Besides my bread baking adventures with the BBA Challenge, I've joined a new group, called the Mellow Bakers.  It was started by Paul of Yumarama, in part because he finished the BBA Challenge and was looking for something new to do.  The forum includes information on the start of the group, as well as boards for the monthly breads.  The recipes are chosen more or less randomly from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread, three each month.  The great thing about this group is the whole "mellow" part--members are welcome to do as many or as few breads as they like.  You can blog about them, or not.  Everyone is encouraged to share their experiences so we can all learn from each other, but it's a very laid-back environment.  In other words, perfect for someone like me, who wants to bake more bread, but isn't always sure when or how much time I'll have to do it!

So far, I baked one of the April breads (Rustic Bread), but haven't had a chance to blog it yet.  I want to bake the other two (Bagels and Light Rye), but haven't had time.  When Kayte asked me about baking something, I was already thinking about mixing up the preferment for one of May's breads, Corn Bread.  It definitely helped to have her give me a bit of a push, though.  (Kayte's baking along with the Mellow Bakers unofficially for now.  I'm trying to convince her to be "official" since we are mellow, after all.)  I was feeling frustrated with the whole dilemma of balancing work with the needs of my children.  The prospect of baking--a yellow bread, no less--with a friend, definitely cheered me up.  

The dough is pretty straightforward to make.  It uses a poolish to add flavor.  So before I went to bed (around 11:00pm), I mixed together equal weights of water and flour with a little bit of instant yeast.  Things tend to rise quickly in my kitchen, and by about 7:00am the next morning, the poolish was threatening to escape its container.  So I stashed it in the fridge until I was ready to bake later that morning.  To compensate for the cold preferment, I warmed the water a bit, but I probably didn't need to.  Across the board, my times were shorter than those indicated in the book, which is typical of my kitchen--my bulk fermentation was 45 minutes, fold the dough, then 35 minutes more.  I shaped the dough into two batards.  I love the shaping diagrams in this book--they've helped me a lot!  Rather than trying to transfer them from a linen couche, I place the loaves seam-side down on a sheet of parchment paper on the back of a sheet pan.  The loaves proofed for just under an hour.  (I started preheating the oven after the first 30 minutes.)  After slashing them, I slid the loaves onto my baking stone, parchment and all, then poured hot water into a steam pan (the bottom of my broiler pan, placed on the floor of my oven).  I rotated the loaves after 20 minutes, and baked them for a total of 28 minutes, at which point the internal temperature was 198F.

The verdict?  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I really like this bread.  It has a lovely color, and I like the texture of the crust.  It's not my favorite for things like sandwiches--it seems a bit dry to me--but it makes excellent toast.  It smells a little bit like popcorn when you toast it. =)  It also worked well as makeshift pizza. =)  Brianna liked it well enough to ask for some in her lunch (always a good sign).  If you'd like to try this bread for yourself, I highly recommend that you get a copy of Bread for yourself.  And if you like bread baking at a mellow pace, join in the fun over at the Mellow Bakers forum.  You can read about the other members' adventures with Corn Bread there.