Chocolate Schwarzbrot (Blackbread)

This is truly a bread and not a cake.  It is a decadent and lovely bread, but make no mistake it is an adult's delight.  This recipe makes 2 loaves

You'll need:
3 Cups Organic kamut/khorasan flour  - Two names for the same flour.
2 1/2 Cups white unbleached flour
1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Scant Cup Cocoa powder
2 TBSP finely ground dark roast coffee I used Italian Roast Stumptown (a local roaster here, chances are there is a good one near you)
1/3 Cup vegan sugar (or demerara or other raw sugar or other less refined) you wont want to skip this little bit as the darkness of the real chocolate needs a hint of lightening and this doesn't make the bread in anyway too sweet.
1 egg both yolk and whites (you can replace with butter or oil but a good sized egg is a perfect amount so it seems a bit more difficult to get right with anything else.  Go easy on oil as it can make your bread a little oily like a cake.)
1 heaping tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
A tiny handful -1/4 Cup of the darkest chocolate chips you can find.  At least 70 % cocoa solids chop and fold in while kneading.

Approx. 2 1/2 Cups Tepid water and 2 heaping tsp yeast
I dissolve the yeast into 2 cups and add water as I go so there isn't too much.  If there is too much just add more flour.

Run all dry ingredients through a sieve or flour sifter.  Do the coffee alone through the sieve so you can throw out any large chunks, you want just the dustiest pieces to go through.

Mix all ingredients.

Turn out dough onto floured surface, knead until nice and elastic.  Cut into two equal pieces. Knead and ball up then let rest on floured surface and sprinkle lightly with flour and cover with a clean towel to rise.  I like to let it rise twice for half an hour at a time.  Knead in a sprinkle more flour and lightly shape to your pan's shape, flour top and cover again for the second rise for another 30 minutes.  Your oven should be preheating at this point to 480-500 degrees. Grease your bread pan.  I used pork fat, but butter or olive oil should work as well.  Bake for 20 minutes (watch it closely and remember the top will look darker than normal bread like it is burned, but it is just the darkness of the ingredients).

Let sit for a couple minutes in the pan and remove by turning over.  Bread should slide out easily.  Knock lightly on the bottom and it should sound hollow.  Done.  Das ist alles!  Let rest for 5 minutes at least!  The center will do a lot of finishing in this time, it is vital.  If you cannot wait and rip into it, at least place cut side down against the board as this will let the rest finish and keeps moisture in. ;)

I served this bread alongside lavender raspberry pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes over rice and a big glass of mead.  This bread is substantial enough to have for breakfast with coffee or a strong tea.

Excellent for cheese sandwiches with some good beer! Not kidding!

So...

Bialys

A thing of beauty.

Bialys ( bee ah lee ) are so often said to be "like a bagel" they are in that they are also round.  Bialys are chewy, airy and have a little raft-like cavity which holds whatever you'd like in there.  They haven't the girth or time bending density of bagels - They are a kind little thing.

Traditional fillings will be a smattering of garlic, or onions, poppy seeds or any mixture of these.  You can make them sweet instead of savory and you can make them cheesy or meaty.  They have a short baking time so the only rule to what goes in them is that it should either be somewhat previously cooked or cook within the same time as the bialy.  For these I very gently cooked minced onions in olive oil on low until translucent and then added a pinch of salt and poppy seeds to them.

For these little guys I make a dough that goes into the refrigerator and sits at least overnight.  This same dough is the base for a lot of delicious things.  I'll mention those later.  I start the dough just like a quick bread; so flour(s), salt,water, yeast which is spoon blended for a couple minutes.  Scraped out onto a floured surface and kneaded for another 4 minutes and then a sealable container with twice the volume of what you are putting into it.  Cover the bottom of the container with olive oil and coat the sides and the interior rim of the lid.  This will make sure the sough releases from the container when you remove some for rising.

What you need:

2 Cups whole wheat flour
2 Cups unbleached white flour
1 and 3/4 cups lukewarm water
2 tsp yeast
1 heaping tsp sea salt

Mix thoroughly the flours.  Sprinkle salt in and mix.  Put yeast into the lukewarm water.  Combine all to make a dough and if a little wet add some flour or if a little dry sprinkle touches of lukewarm water in until mostly just held together.  Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and balled up well.

Your fridge container should have double volume of your dough for expansion.  Oil it and the lid and place dough inside container.

Let stand overnight.  Or at least 2 hours.  Planning ahead always makes it quicker.
 ...
After a couple hours in the fridge you'll notice the dough getting softer and happier.  The next day the dough will be full of lovely holes. You can leave the dough in the refrigerator up to 3 days before who knows what happens.  After that it could turn into running shoes, I don't know.  It will gain in a "sour" flavor.  Which I LOVE, but isn't for everyone. The first few days wont be an intense flavor, just more like a real bakery's bread rather than the pale versions that quicker breads give. 1-3 days and it is chewy, moist, and steadily becomes more like a sourdough.  Now you have enough dough to make 2 batches of bialys. Or 1 batch of bialys and really 2-4 kick ass pizzas, flatbreads, pitas.  This dough is amazing.  Airy and chewy.  Either way you choose to go it is nice to leave at least half the dough for the following day.  No matter what if you use up the second half take a small handful of dough from it and leave it in the container.  This is your poolish.*

The best thing about this is that you will have bread ready to start anyday you want it by keeping some in the fridge!  Every other night I make a batch and put it in the fridge.  Each time I take out some for a recipe I make sure I always leave at least a handful of dough to "start" the next batch with.  *This is a poolish.  The poolish makes a safisticated bread always lending it's wisdom to the next batch making sure to pass on its flavor.  This is another thing bread bakers use to make such tasty bread. *

If/when you go straight from the fridge this dough will be approximately halved for the following photos and the remainder put back into the fridge.  You'll knead and shape it on a floured surface, let it rest while you work on other things for a few minutes under a towel (15 or so to take the chill out)  then pat and shape into a square like below to measure out however many bialy you wish it to make this does 16, 2 inch bialy or 8 monster bialy.  

This tool is for dough cutting and is worth every penny.  I recommend them, they also scrape clean your work surface.

I bundle the shapes from squares into circles.  Watch the video for a more detailed explanation.

My monkey mitten working it's magic.

Holy crap, I'm a wizard.

These will now rise for 30-45 (it likes longer - upto an hour and half but this can be rushed if you need. Longer equals softer) minutes in a warmish kitchen (or place near a warming oven).  The dough will crust over a touch, I ignore it but you can sprinkle/mist the tops with a little water or oil to prevent this.  A few (10-20) minutes before shaping PREHEAT OVEN TO 480

I lightly flour the pan with unbleached flour and then shape the bialy.  I simply press my thumbs into the center of the ball and scoot the ball around in my hand like a teeny tiny steering wheel keep a fat ring around the outer edge and making a thin center well.  The center will be very thin and translucent when held up to the light.  Tears in the dough don't matter too much and you can stretch it to make the bialy a touch wider.  The center should be an inch - two inches. 

Bialy, like most bread loves a hot oven.  These since they are so tiny will only take 5-7 minutes max.  Always check around 5 to make sure they aren't in there up to no good.  They should feel a touch firm when poked and have nice coloring.  The flours browness is a good indicator too.  It will be russet where the bread isn't.  After a few moments out of the oven the once firm bialys become soft and chewy.

Cheese Sticks

These are mostly bread and seeds if done right on.  They use egg for a binder for the seeds but you can do olive oil instead although I believe the egg is nicer and it isn't dominant.  It is just one egg, OR you can use just whites (2-3) and save the yolks for something else, for all of them.

These fall under the "A little bad for you" category only because cheese when it becomes crispy is pretty broken protein.  Melted it is okay with just the casomorphins being the only exciters in it as long as it is WHOLE milk cheese and not radically aged. Aged cheeses (harder cheeses like asiago, pecorino, parmesan) have a lot more casomorphins - the stuff that makes you overeat cheese.  It is very hard to find really good cheese (cheese that doesn't rely on it high content of casomorphins or rely on artificial/"natural" flavorings- not already present in the cheese) Low fat cheeses and skim milk cheeses being absolutely terrible.  Better to have the small amounts of whole milk cheese aged forever than to have fresh skim milk cheese.  The process by which cheese is made is a process of breaking the protein.  But like most things the closer you are to the source and the closer the control you have the better off you are.

So for this I used sharp raw milk cheddar from Greenbank farms (Preston, WA -find local cheeses near you!) at present it just relies on the cheese tasting good as is and they don't screw with it and a small amount of it goes A LONG way. Also for vegetarians, Greenbank uses vegetable rennet.  No matter what size chunk of cheese I buy it is best to chop it up immediately into shared dinner portions (for the entire meal not to be monopolized by any one person).  I'll have one chunk for an entire large pizza a little chunk for burritos and so on... often getting several meals spaced over the course of weeks for a cheesed meal here and there.

You can get nuts and use something IN place of the cheese on these as well.  The basic bread is vegan.  You can roll it that way with your own spin using a spicy pepper center or a cinnamon filling.

Ingredients:

• 2 slightly heaping Cups unbleached white flour (you can do a whole wheat version by doing 50/50 or 75/25 whole wheat -white but adding a touch more yeast to help the heavier whole wheat rise well)
• 1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
•  1 package of yeast or 1 heaping tsp  (adding a touch more yeast if doing more whole wheat than white wheat so it will help the heavier wheat rise well)
• 1 Cup warm water (you may need a standby 1/4 - 1/2 Cup warm water for later when mixing)
• 1 tsp vegan sugar or granulated
• 1-2 TBSP olive oil
• 1 tsp or more of each favorite herb if dried,  Unless your herbs are especially potent then cut in half -1 TBSP of each if fresh
• (basil, oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme nearly anything)
• 1/2 tsp salt

• flaxseed
• poppyseed
• cheddar cheese

approx. 12 large cheese sticks

Method:

Add yeast to warm water until frothy (5-10 minutes)

Add all dry ingredients to each other and finger sift/stir.  Add water/yeast and stir into a silky ball adding water as needed.  Olive oil a bowl and drop dough into it.



Let the dough rise for 15 minutes, max - too much longer and the dough which is still trying to rise while you work it will become unruly, you want the dough to be "young" and not too puffy or with too much elasticity as you'll need to work with the dough through a few steps to form the twists and with that time throughout the manipulation it will continue to mature and puff. So effecient quick moves and not too much nit picking.

Take the still young dough place onto a floured surface, flouring top slightly working in a little flour and then roll out trying to work it into a rectangle of about 3/4 of an inch in height.  Cut down the middle with the back of a knife or a bread cutter.  Take to a non-porous surface and coat top sides in  well beaten egg (or your replacement), beat just enough to break the white from keeping the egg bound.  Cover tops well leaving plenty for the other sides.

 Cover one egged side with flaxseed, and the other egged side with poppyseed.

After well covered in seeds flip over letting seed sides lay on surface and coat the "bottom" not top sides in your remaining egg (or your replacement).  Take your cheese that you've portioned out and grate it.  Cover one of the top egged only sides in the cheese to get coverage you like, too much cheese and it just spills out and wastes during cooking.  So some "holes" in the coverage are fine it works out in the end.

Preheat oven to 400.

Once cheese is on, flip other dough egged only side touching the cheese so the two sandwich the cheese in the middle.

From the top view of the dough find the center with the dough vertically oriented and cut horizontally in half.  Then cut each half into six pieces.  I goofed on the first set and had one giant one when it could have been two.  This recipe will make 12 large cheese sticks.

Place each piece after two twists (or more if you're a master and don't spill cheese) on a lightly olive oiled baking sheet (really not much oil is needed at all, and once oiled it is good for both batches and doesn't need another coat).

Bake each set at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes until golden.

Serve straight from the oven when possible.  Watch as your family thinks you are a genius.  Oh, and you are.

Flour Tortillas

 Tortillas are really just a flatbread minus all the scariness that the word bread carries with it.  They are very quick in the world of breads and probably the easiest of all.  You can roll them thick and make gyros and falafel styled sandwiches or make them thin and load them with vegetables and hot sauce.  Not much else is tastier than cucumber sauce and whole wheat tortillas.  SO good.  I have tried dozens of variations (at least) over the years and a dozen recently to find a good ratio, good ingredients and the best result.  My favorite of them all is below. 

Ingredients:   This recipe makes approximately one dozen 6-8 inch tortillas.

•  2 Cups flour (I use 1 Cup Whole wheat pastry flour, and 1 Cup unbleached white flour)
• 1 fat pinch of salt (not too much more than a teaspoon)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2-3 TBSP olive oil
• 1/2-3/4 cup hot water (as hot as you can do without boiling) 

Finger sift dry ingredients together first, then drizzle the olive oil over the top then without concern for its well-being pour hot water in a little at a time.  Fold ingredients with a spatula taking the outside of the flour and pushing it into the center, and as the flour sticks together it should form one mass.  If there are a lot of crumbles outside of the mass or a lot of flour remaining all over the bowl then add more water and fold any remnants in to your dough ball.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Using the heel of your hand, knead the dough out to collect a little flour and then fold it back onto itself.  Rotate this as you do it and it will become less sticky and trade that for silky.  Once it has become completely silky and the texture is like a love handle or an ear lobe then you have a perfect dough. Wrap the dough disk in some plastic or slip into a plastic baggie  (covered by a towel on a table is fine too).  Let it rest for about 15 minutes.

Put the dough ball onto a lightly floured surface and roll out a disk to where it is still nice and thick (approx. 3/4 - 1/2 of an inch).  Put it on a cutting surface and cut into 2" squares.  Videos for help are available and I've included the links within the writing where it matches the video information.

 You can then use a tortilla press to help flatten the dough quickly and without overworking.  Or you can do all the rolling needed manually with a pin.  I split the difference.  I flatten it a bit with a tortilla press to get it started.  When using a press plastic wrap or parchment paper between the dough and the wood or metal will help you in removing the tortilla and lessen the clean up. My press is a wooden version and cost 12 dollars new.  Often you can find these at thrift stores like the Salvation Army and most folks don't know what they are unless it states so on the tag.  Sometimes you can get them at ridiculously low prices used.

Anyhow,  if you are rolling out the dough by hand or are planning on making more breads like this or any breads then I'd recommend using a "French" pin.  I find them easier to use especially if you are wanting speed, or working with multiples (tarts and pastry dough too).  French pins have a totally smooth tapered end with no separations for handles.  Mine is a Polish pin, it cost 3.50 new from Pasta Works in Portland.  No need to get too fancy... it's a piece of wood for crissakes!

Your tortillas should be thin enough that if you hold it on top of one of your hands it drapes nicely and takes your finger impressions into it.  Once they are ready - have a pan warming.  I cook mine on a med-High heat and I use a DRY (no oil, no butter) cast iron skillet.  This means great things.  It holds heat fairly evenly, stays hot for a long time, no added fat or waste of fat that can go in something else, and clean up is as simple as wiping the scorched flour dust out of it. 

Carry your tortilla using your whole hand to support it,  you don't want it to stretch or slip out of your fingers.  Place your tortillas into the pan.  It will take only a few seconds before you see little bubbles on the surface... once those appear then flip the tortilla, the second side will take even less time to cook and you can judge your pan's heat from the darkness of the bubbles or scorch marks.  Adjust to your tastes.  I like a little darkness in spots.  Too much and it is carbon.  None at all and it looks like packaged food.  Variety is nice.

 

Brocoli Rabe and Sweet Potato tacos

On the right you can see the nation's 5th president, Lex Luthor.

These are good the next day without any fuss over them.  I don't even bother heating them up again as they remain pliable as long as they are stored outside of the fridge overnight and covered.  If you wish them to last longer you can refrigerate them.  I haven't.   If you see that you forgot them two nights out of the fridge after their debut, then you can cut them up and bake them to make little toasts for soup, salsa, salads and other meals that begin with 's'.  These do not last long.  They will mold.  I would say within 5 days sooner if warm and humid.  Unless you are sneaking some sort of preservative in there.  Fresh or day old is the way to go with these.

Besides, now you're a master and can make them anytime so don't bother hoarding them!  Cut the recipe in half if you don't want extras next time. MMMmmm.

Cast Iron skillet Pizza

Pear and goat cheese pizza

CRUST:

1/2 package dry yeast
1/3 cup warm or room temperature water
3/4 cup unbleached or whole wheat flour (you can mix and experiment with this)
3/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar or 1 tsp honey (honey is a great addition for aiding in rising breads)

This will make a 10-12 inch pizza. I often do a couple of bowls up with this recipe in it so each skillet can have a different kind of pizza in it. Does anyone ever agree on pizza toppings?

Mix yeast into warm water let sit for about 10 minutes. I preheat my oven to a warming temperature to create a warm environment for the dough. Mix salt and flour together and add sugar. Make sure it is thoroughly mixed salt kills yeast so you don't want direct contact. Then pour in water and blend with a spoon. Once mixed place in a warm spot and cover with either a warm damp towel or a clean towel. Let rise for at least 45 minutes. 2 hours is best but who has the time and it isn't all that different in the last hour. Oil the cast iron skillets - (the amount of oil/time you use will determine how crisp your crust is.  I cover it with a veil of oil and will check on it after 25 minutes to make sure it is crusting up.)

Then turn out dough onto a liberally floured surface knead in the flour and try to keep your dough approximately the shape of your pan. If the dough is a little firm and lost a lot of flexibility let it rest there for a few minutes (10). Make sure the surface is lightly floured for the roll out and use a pin to gently roll out your dough to the size of your pans bottom and or the sides as well. This dough wont be stiff enough to stay along the side of the pan but if you leave it a little thick it will make a "handle" crust.

Cover in your sauce, top with choice of toppings bake at 425 for about 20-30 minutes depending on your oven and your taste preferences.

Jalapeno cheddar pizza

Whole Wheat Focaccia

This is a FAST focaccia.  It wont have the complexity of a tenderly loved overnight focaccia. Chances are no one will complain. You can get wild with what goes on it or in it. ( I like to add jalapeno seeds on top) This recipe makes one loaf and you can make a smaller loaf which is much thicker by not rolling it out too vigorously in the end stages and that way you have something thick enough to cut for sandwiches and roll it out thinner if topping with cheese or sauces.

Directions:
3 cups whole wheat flour (this recipe isn't JUST for whole wheat so you can mix it up and half it with another fluffy flour)
1 teaspoon or 1 packet active dry yeast (you're safe with it rising as long as you cover the top of the water in the measuring cup, little more, little less wont hurt)
1 1/4 cups warm water (if the water is too warm it kills the yeast, so it should be warm to the inside of the wrist and a little less warm to the fingers)
6 cloves fresh garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt (my house likes it's salt so we use a coarse sea salt to top it with so it has that kick to it)
3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
3 Tbsp olive oil

Oil for brushing
fresh black pepper and coarse sea salt to taste (my house likes it's salt so we use a coarse sea salt to top it with so it has that kick to it) Garnishes include but are not limited to: oil, garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper(s). Anything like olives or softer things (feta) I recommend blending into the bread.


In the mixing cup:
Combine warm water and yeast. (let stand for at least 5 minutes so the yeast can activate and becomes foamy, if nothing changes stir the yeast with a spoon to get it saturated and let sit another 5 minutes)


In a large bowl:
Mix 1 tsp salt and flour together, you want the salt either already blended in or under the flour as it will kill the yeast. Stir in olive oil, 2 Tbsp chopped rosemary, pour in the water and yeast.

Work into a dough.
Add more flour if dough is too sticky.

Turn the dough on to a floured surface.

Knead the dough for a few minutes, in a folding motion until dough is smooth and 'happy' - when you see this in bread books it means silky and bouncy. Too much and it will be leather.

Grease the large bowl with olive oil and plop dough into it. Roll around a few times to coat dough in a gloss of oil.

Cover bowl with a warm damp cloth or clean dish towel. It is best to have towels just for bread and pastry baking, keep them clean and make sure they haven't any terry cloth loops to catch debris.  Paper towels may sink into dough, so are not recommended! I keep the dough near the stove and set the stove to a low warm setting to help the dough have a warm environment.

Let dough rise for 30-60 minutes. {Quick-rise yeast allows for only a 30 minutes rise time. Regular yeast is about an hour. Generally the longer you give a dough time the better it tastes, this isn't a wife's tale of patience making you hungrier it is the nature of the yeast  PUN NOT INTENDED like with sourdoughs which use a poolish (dough reserved from past recipe kept in the fridge and then added to the new dough) it adds a punch of flavor. But this at it's under 2 hours total prep time is considered a fast focaccia although faster if you use rapid yeast, I use Bob's Red Mill and not the rapid yeast, I have found that there is something in Redstar that kills me.  BRM is in the refrigerated section of many stores.} Be careful of yeasts as a lot of them are tainted with the bad stuff.

After the rise:
Punch out the dough. Just the one will do to collapse the dough.
Place it on your floured surface and knead gently a few more times. Should be silky and stretchy.

With a rolling pin, roll out dough to about 1 inch thick. You may modify this based on how thick you can your bread. 

Place dough on a lightly oiled baking sheet.  Poke rows of holes in the dough with your fingers.

Brush or drizzle or spritz top of dough with a mixture of your remaining ingredients: olive oil,  chopped and whole rosemary and chopped garlic. Sprinkle some course sea salt on top as well.  Let rise again for 20 minutes, in a warm spot. ( I often skip this last step - put my temp on the oven and let it rest on the pan just until the oven is hot enough after transferring the dough and then popped it in the oven, so maybe 5 or 10 minutes - this is just to regain a little fluffiness from its handling trauma and seems fine enough) A good time to have the oven near ready.

Bake:
Place your dough in a 350 degree pre-heated oven. Let bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a light brown crust forms. Check bread for firmness with a toothpick. Let the bread cool for a few minutes before slicing.  You can cook it to you own preference. Behold the glory you have created.