When this recipe was posted a few weeks ago on King Arthur Flour, it definitely registered on my radar. I’ve never attempted a baguette, but the main reason was really that every time I thought of making one, I thought of it too late and didn’t have the time to do a starter the night before. This one has a pretty involved night-before preparation routine, but I this time I thought of making it in time. It was both easy and involved in different ways, but it definitely turned out a nice loaf of bread.

Ingredient wise, it’s extremely simple: flour, yeast, salt and water. Because there’s no oil in this, the loaves won’t keep as long, but you get three or so loaves out of this dough and you can leave it in your fridge for up to a week, so it’s pretty easy to just bake one loaf at a time as you need them. I actually used three kinds of flour in this one because I was out of all-purpose: 2 cups of whole wheat, 2 cups of european artisan flour, and 4 cups of bread flour.

They actually have you just mix this in the dough rising bucket, which is pretty genius, and I wish I had thought of it before. You need a pretty large dough rising bucket for this, but I just happened to have the exact 6-quart bucket that they sell on King Arthur.

This dough is really wet, and it doesn’t take much to bring it together.

A couple of minutes with the dough hooks, and the dough looks just about as smooth as it’s going to get. Between the slackness and the whole wheat flour, this is a pretty shaggy dough.

After spending the night in the fridge, the dough has developed some nice gluten. Here you can see where I stuck my fingers in it and pulled it away from the side of the bucket.

I made two loaves at once, and I had enough for a third loaf later on in the week. I pulled two similar-sized lumps out of the bucket and let them rest and come closer to room temperature for 15 minutes.

The way to shape these into logs is not to just roll them out but to fold them in half along their long axes. After you fold it twice it’s elongated itself pretty much to its complete length, and then you can just roll it a bit to smooth it. Here’s one loaf finished, and one after one fold.

My shaping isn’t great, but these don’t have to be beauty queens. If you use enough flour, you’ll get a nice flour coating on the outside that keeps it from sticking to everything and helps it rise better.

Slashed, spritzed and baked. Clearly I didn’t slash the top baguette adequately enough, because you can see where it expanded along the edge. All in all, though, it came out well.

Like I said, it came out well. The crumb was pretty tight in general, interspersed with holes. The crumb was probably a little denser than a baguette in general, but it was good for sandwiches, where a too-loose crumb could mean leaking and falling apart. The flavor was very good, and the crust was slightly chewy but not crisp or crunchy; I’m not sure what it is about my crusts but I cannot get a crunchy crust to save my life. I didn’t try too hard with this one, because honestly the softer crust is better for sandwiches. Eventually I’ll probably figure it out. This split well horizontally for small sandwiches, and a slightly smaller loaf would probably be perfect for a larger sub.

No-Knead Whole Wheat Baguette (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 6 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon table salt or 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast

Directions

1. Find a large (6-quart) bowl or bucket, for dough storage in the fridge. Lightly grease the bowl or bucket.
2. Place the water directly into the bowl or or other large container.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the water, and stir to combine. Mix until there are no dry spots; the texture of the dough should be fairly soft.
4. Knead for 1 or 2 minutes in a stand mixer. Cover the container, and let the dough rest at room temperature for 2 hours.
5. Refrigerate overnight, or for up to 7 days.
6. To bake bread: Scoop out a scant 1 pound of dough (about ¼ of the batch, about 14 ½ ounces). Place on a well-floured work surface.
7. Shape the dough into a rough, slightly flattened oval, cover with greased plastic wrap, and let rest for 15 minutes.
8. Fold the dough in half lengthwise, and seal the edges with the heel of your hand. Flatten slightly, and fold lengthwise and seal again.
9. With the seam side down, cup your fingers and gently roll the of dough into a 15″ log.
10. Place the log seam-side down onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, or into the well of a baguette pan.
11. Cover and allow the baguette to rise till it’s very puffy, about 1 1/2 hours. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 450°F.
12. Slash the baguette three or four times on the diagonal.
13. Spritz the baguette heavily with warm water, and bake until a very deep golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

Wraps are one of those things that I always figured would be difficult to make at home. I thought that they would be impossible to get thin enough, that they would not stay flexible, that they would just not work as well for sandwiches. Despite this, I decided to try them out because it was way too hot to even consider turning on the oven, and cooking our lunch bread on the stovetop was very appealing. King Arthur has a fairly large variety of wrap recipes on their site, but I went with one that makes a flavored wrap like the ones that are so common in the stores. I had my misgivings, but it turns out I was completely wrong.

The dry ingredients consist of bread flour and potato flour, or potato flakes. I haven’t come across potato flour in my local stores, so I purchased the least-offensive box of potato flakes (i.e., one whose ingredients look relatively natural) for the King Arthur bread recipes that call for them, which is quite a few when you really dive into their list. I went ahead and added the salt and yeast to the dry goods as well, since all the dry stuff should go together, and in hindsight this was a good idea. This recipe has a very small amount of yeast, and it shows; I’m not sure exactly what the yeast does, as this bread doesn’t have a rising period really. But it clearly does something, since it’s in there, be it in a minute quantity.

I had tomato paste concentrate on hand, so I mixed a couple of tablespoons of that up with a little more water than originally called for. The wraps weren’t exceptionally tomato-y, but I find that most “tomato” wraps aren’t especially tomato-y, and are instead identifiable as tomato solely by their orange color. These were definitely orange. But I’m sure you could really up the tomato paste content if you wanted more tomato flavor.

Here’s why I said that it was a good thing I added the yeast and the salt early: after mixing in the liquids with a dough whisk, the dough consisted mainly of crumbles. If I had tried, at this point, to mix in yeast and salt, they would have never been distributed evenly throughout the dough.

I actually “kneaded” this dough (not really like kneading since the dough isn’t very elastic) in the bowl itself, and once I started kneading it, it came together beautifully. The recipe asks you to turn it out onto a well floured surface to knead it, but I’m pretty sure that would be a disaster: no amount of stirring was going to turn the dough into a ball without getting your hands in there, and any more flour would be way too much. The dough wasn’t hardly sticky at all, and no extra flour was needed at all, either in this step or later in the rolling out. Those white pieces sticking out are the potato flakes; at this point I was wondering if I shouldn’t have crushed them a bit first, but they disappeared completely in the finished product.

The dough is refrigerated for an hour (or overnight), then cut into 8 to 10 equal pieces. Eight yields larger wraps, ten gets us through a week of lunches. I went ten.

You have to roll them out very thin, which makes rolling them into circles somewhat difficult. This one happens to resemble a duck foot more than a circle; as long as it wraps around sandwich filling, it’s ok with me.

This one was a little more circular. They got cooked on a medium-hot ungreased, nonstick griddle for about 2 minutes on each side, or until they looked done. I mostly just eyeballed this based on how browned each side had gotten.

Here is the same wrap that has been flipped; you can see the browned portions where the wrap had bubbled. Most of my wraps didn’t really inflate like they can apparently do, but if they do inflate, they’ll deflate upon cooling. The last four wraps I cooked went crazy with the inflation, and I suspect it is because I let them sit in the refrigerator for a few days before cooking them, giving the yeast a bit more time to work its magic. While they were still tasty, the prettier wraps were the ones I made right off the bat.

Once I cooked the wraps I was afraid that I hadn’t rolled the thin enough, and that they wouldn’t stay flexible enough to wrap a sandwich up. It seemed like they would harden up overnight, and if they didn’t do it immediately then after a day they would be stiff. While I thought the fresh made wraps would probably be tastier than the store bought ones, I doubted the ability of them to stay soft without the preservatives they put in premade wraps. I don’t know what it was about them, but I was definitely, and thankfully, wrong. Not only were they limber enough the next day, they stayed flexible for several days. There were one or two that I did roll a little thick, and they were flexible, just not big enough for a complete wrap, so they became like sandwich tacos. This was definitely a recipe I came into as a skeptic, but I was pleasantly surprised by the success of the wraps. Most of all, they’re just a very easy recipe, and a perfect summertime one when you just can’t bear turning on the oven. I know they’ll probably have a regular spot in my bread repertoire.

Tomato Wraps (adapted from King Arthur)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (8 1/4 ounces) potato flour OR 1/2 cup potato flakes
• 3 cups (12 3/4 ounces) unbleached bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) water
• 1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup tomato paste mixed with 1/4 cup water

Directions

1. Whisk together the dry ingredients (potato and bread flours, salt and yeast). Mix the liquid ingredients together and stir into the dry ingredients; dough will be dry and crumbly.
2. Use your hands to form the dough into a ball and knead it until it is smooth, only a couple minutes.
3. Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour (or overnight).
4. Work on a very smooth surface so that the dough does not stick. If necessary, flour or oil it lightly. Divide it into eight to ten equal pieces. Working with one piece at a time, round the dough into a ball, then roll it till it’s very thin, about 1/8-inch thick.
5. Dry-fry the dough rounds on a medium hot, ungreased griddle for about 2 minutes on each side. The dough may puff a little, but will become flat again as it cools. As each bread finishes cooking, transfer it to a wire rack to cool, stacking one bread atop the other to keep them soft and pliable. Store in a ziploc bag with all the air removed to keep them fresh.

King Arthur says that this bread is basically the one that appeared on the back of flour packages as “The Easiest Bread You’ll Ever Bake.” They’re probably right; although it’s not as easy as, say, a no-knead recipe, it’s certainly one of the nicest and easiest to work with doughs I’ve ever made. I substituted the final bits of my 12-grain flour blend and some semolina to give it some more heft, and divided into individual rolls for sandwiches throughout the week; the recipe divided well into twelve sandwich sized rolls.

The recipe is written originally for active dry yeast, so it has built in activation time at the beginning of the recipe. I use instant yeast, so I didn’t really need that step, but I kept it in anyway.

Instead of waiting for things to dissolve, I just whisked everything together and the sugar dissolved well enough. The yeast really broke up as well from their clumps and the whole liquid became kind of milky.

In goes the flour; the original recipe called for 5 1/2 to 6 cups, depending on how humid your environment is, I suppose. 5 1/2 cups was plenty for me and turned the dough into a very workable, only slightly sticky dough.

I mixed it up a bit with my hand mixer, but then I just kneaded it by hand for the most part. Like I said, this has got to be the easiest dough I’ve worked with, very pleasant to knead.

After rising you can see just how pretty this dough ball is. At least, it’s pretty to me. Nice and smooth and easy to work with, you don’t have to worry about this one welding itself to your hand as you try to shape it.

Shaping these little guys was really easy too: just tuck in the bottom all the way around until you have a smooth surface on one side, then put the bottom down on a baking sheet covered in cornmeal.

After the buns rise another time, brush or spray them with cold water and slash them. They go into the oven with a pan of water that has been preheating; this is meant to create steam and result in a crustier loaf, but I even though I did this and let them cool in the oven with the door slightly propped (also supposed to create a crustier loaf), the crust softened like it does in all my breads. Oh well, it’s probably better for sandwiches that way. To be fair, the crust was more robust than in my previous loaves. The crumb was light and the semolina and the whole grain flour added a nice tooth to the bread. While not strictly the absolute easiest bread I’ve ever made, it was certainly one of the nicest in the making process.

Easy Whole Wheat Hearth Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon (1 packet) instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 cups warm water (not over 110°F)
• 1/2 cup 12-grain flour blend
• 1 cup semolina
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• cornmeal

Directions

1. Mix together the first four ingredients. Let this stand until the yeastt, sugar and salt are dissolved. Gradually add the flour to the liquid and mix thoroughly until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface to knead. Knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling only enough flour on your kneading surface to prevent sticking. Let the dough rest while you scrape out and grease the mixing bowl. Knead the dough again for 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Return the dough to the bowl and turn it over once to grease the top. Cover with greased plastic wrap and keep warm until the dough doubles in bulk, about 1 to 2 hours.
4. Punch down the dough with your fist and briefly knead out any air bubbles. Divide the dough into as many pieces as you want rolls (I chose 12). Place the rolls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and generously sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover the rolls and let rise for 45 minutes.
5. Lightly slash the tops of the loaves 3 or more times diagonally and brush them with cold water.
6. Preheat the oven and roasting pan with water to 500°F for 15 minutes. Brush the loaves with cold water, place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 400°F and bake for 15 to 20 more minutes, until the rolls are golden brown.

Some weekends, you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to mess with starters, or kneading, or shaping, or letting the bread rise twice. Those weekends, it’s time for Blitz Bread, which is basically the easiest foccacia ever. It can be used like any foccacia, accompanying a meal, or on it’s own with some oil and herbs, but it’s just the right hight to be split horizontally and make a fantastic sandwich bread, too.

It really just starts out with all the basics: all-purpose flour, yeast and salt.

In goes some water and good olive oil. Yes, my olive oil really is that green; it’s Greek olive oil (specifically Minerva brand), the only olive oil I’ll use anymore after living in Greece for a few months. It’s somewhat fruitier than Italian olive oil, and to my tastes richer and more flavorful. In any case, it’s worth it to use a good olive oil for this recipe, whatever kind you like best.

It all comes together easily with the dough whisk. Like most no-knead or barely-knead breads, this dough is pretty wet.

This recipe is basically no-knead, but I give the bread a good beating with my hand mixer and dough hooks for a couple of minutes, and it really smooths out and comes together well.

Pan prep. The pan needs to be sprayed with non-stick spray and olive oil drizzled in. Don’t drizzle too much, just a tablespoon or two, or else you’ll end up with soggy bread.

Scoop the dough into the pan, grease your hands well, and spread it out until it fills up the pan (mostly). This process benefits from giving it a few minutes to rest every once in a while, because the dough is very springy and doesn’t really want to go where you push it.

Let the dough rise for about an hour, or until it puffs up a lot and basically fills the pan. Then poke it a few times with a well greased index finger, sprinkle some Italian herbs on it (basil and oregano mostly), drizzle it with a little more olive oil (now you see why the quality is important!), and stick it in the oven. It will deflate a bit when you poke it, but it will spring back up in the oven.

When it comes out of the oven you should immediately remove it from the pan (again, the consequences are soggy bread). This is most easily done if you have two long cooling racks; place upside down on the top of the baking pan, flip the bread over so it pops out (which it should do easily if you greased it enough), then place the other rack upside down on the bottom of the bread and flip it back over so that it’s rightside up.

The flavor on this bread is great, and it has a fantastic crumb. It’s light and a bit holey without much of a crust at all, though the edges are thicker and chewier. Like I said, it makes great sandwich bread, and is probably the least work-intensive bread out there.

Blitz Bread (from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) warm water
• 3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) olive oil (plus additional for drizzling)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 3 1/2 cups (14 ¾ ounces) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast

Directions

1. Lightly grease a 9″ x 13″ pan, and drizzle 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil in the bottom.
2. Combine all of the ingredients, and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 60 seconds.
3. Scoop the sticky batter into the prepared pan, cover the pan, and let it rise at room temperature for 60 minutes, till it’s become puffy.
4. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 375°F.
5. Gently poke the dough all over with your oiled index finger.
6. Drizzle it lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with the dried herbs of your choice, if desired.
7. Bake the bread till it’s golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes.
8. Remove it from the oven, wait 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

How do you eat a sandwich on a pretzel? Pretzel rolls, of course!

I’m constantly searching for new and interesting breads that I can use to make sandwiches for lunch during the week. Most of the time I just pour through King Arthur Flour’s website for recipe ideas, but I got this one while photograzing over on Serious Eats. I love pretzel bread, so I had to give it a try, and boy did they turn out well. I decided to use Alton Brown’s recipe for soft pretzels, but formed into small loaves instead of pretzel shapes. Fortunately, making pretzel bread is really that simple, and with fun differences from your standard bread recipes.

The recipe starts out like any other, with wet and dry ingredients being mixed together. The original recipe calls for proofing your active dry yeast; since I use instant yeast, I just combined everything at once.

I managed to get the dough to come together completely just with the dough whisk, after which I busted out the electric hand mixer and the dough hooks for kneading.

The dough was neither too dry nor too slack; it was fairly sticky, but didn’t weld itself to your hand when you picked it up. The dough only rises once, until doubled in size.

The dough is divided up into 8 equal pieces. If the dough is too sticky you can use some oil to manipulate it more easily, but I didn’t really have any trouble.

Pretty good shaping! This dough didn’t seem to deflate as much after it’s first rise and was pretty robust, which I think contributed to my ease in shaping it.

The fun part! Pretzels get their trademark brown, glossy sheen from taking a hot bath in baking soda and water. Thirty seconds in a pan of boiling water and baking soda, and they were ready for baking.

You can see the difference between the one loaf on the right side that hasn’t taken it’s bath and those that have. Make sure you flip the loaf top side down in the water, otherwise your nicely shaped top becomes your bottom (this happened to the first one I did, seen here in the bottom left corner). They also got an egg yolk and water coating after they were boiled.

This time I slashed! Pretzel loaves just have to be slashed so that you can see the white insides peeking out from underneath that shiny, brown top. The loaves grew a substantial amount in the oven, so much so that at least two of the rolls were too large for as single sandwich. I could have definitely gotten a couple more loaves out of the recipe if I had made several of them a bit smaller. The loaves themselves were awesome; they tasted just like pretzel bread, and were fantastic for sandwiches. I decided to forgo the salt this time, since a lot of pretzel breads seem to not include it, but I think a light sprinkling of kosher salt would be a good addition to these rolls. They’ve inspired me to make actual soft pretzels, too; it was so easy and fun, with such fantastic results. Gotta love recipes like that!

Soft Pretzel Rolls (adapted from Alton Brown)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) instant yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt (optional)

Directions

1. Combine the water, sugar, salt, yeast, flour and butter in a large bowl and mix until well incorporated.
2. Knead with an electric mixer or by hand until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes (by mixer).
3. Transfer the dough to an oiled dough rising bucket or bowl, cover and let rise for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
4. Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.
5. Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in a large stock pot.
6. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Form each piece into a small, oval loaf. Place onto the parchment-lined sheet pan.
7. Place the loaves into the boiling water, topside down, one at a time, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return them, right side up, to the sheet pan.
8. Brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Slash with a sharp bread knife once or twice. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Another week, another sandwich bread. This one, once again from King Arthur Flour, comes on a suggestion from my mother, who said this was a good loaf to try. I ended up having to substitute or leave out various things, due mostly to the fact that I was nearly out of all-purpose flour, and I didn’t have any grain mix or cereal to add. The loaf came out well anyway, and while the shape was not perfect for sandwiches, it worked well enough.

It starts with a starter, unsurprisingly. The starter called for mostly all-purpose flour with a bit of pumpernickel. I possessed neither, so I just used all 12-grain flour (which I am getting low on as well), figuring that yeast love an organic flour for the starter so they would do fine.

Into the bowl goes the rest of the ingredients. The starter was probably the wateriest starter I’ve ever made (it in fact included all the flour in the recipe), and all that had to go in later was the flour and salt. If I had thought ahead I would have substituted some of the water for a little oil, which helps keep the bread fresher longer, but I did not. Fortunately, it stayed good enough for sandwiches for the week, though the edges were getting a little stale toward the end.

It mixed up well with the dough whisk, and was neither too slack nor too dry.

After a good kneading, the dough is smooth (well, as smooth as whole-grain bread gets), and stickier, but not ridiculously sticky.

Probably the best shaping job I’ve ever done. I tucked all the ends in and had a nice smooth surface ready across the top. I probably should have slashed the top with a knife before I put it in, but to be honest I’m still a little skittish about doing that because I always fear my bread will deflate.

My bread came out with kind of a bizarre shape. I think it rose a little too much on the second rise, and it probably settled down after I pulled the plastic wrap off the top. How it cooked in the oven to form a perfectly sharp edge midway down, like the lip of a flying saucer, I do not know. A lot of times if you let a bread over rise you get huge holes in the crumb, but I didn’t have any of that happen. And honestly I’d rather have this happen than the holes, because sandwiches are easier to keep together when your bread isn’t very holey.

A Simple, Rustic Loaf (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

Starter

• 1 1/2 cups cool water
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 cups organic 12-grain flour blend

Dough

• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/4 cups unbleached All-Purpose flour
• 1/2 cup mixed grains and seeds of your choice (optional)

Directions

1. Mix the sponge ingredients together, and let rest at room temperature, covered, for 3 to 4 hours, or overnight.
2. Stir down the sponge, and add the salt and flour. Mix and knead the dough until it’s smooth and elastic. Knead in the grains, if using.
3. Place the dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat its surface with oil. Cover and let rise in a warm spot for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until doubled in size.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased surface, and form it into a ball or a loaf. Place on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, or into an ovenproof crock. Cover and let rise for about 1 hour. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 450°F.
5. Gently but firmly slash the dough across the top, then spritz it with water. Bake the bread for 30 to 35 minutes, until it’s deep golden brown. Remove it from the oven and place it on a rack to cool. Cool completely before slicing.

The same weekend I grilled the pizza I came across this recipe for Grilled Asiago Rounds on King Arthur’s baking blog. While they were suggested for eating with a dip of some kind, I immediately thought that they could be split horizontally for sandwiches and figured I might as well go all out on the dough grilling and try these the same day as the pizza. This required some creative planning to make sure everything went on the grill in order (I wanted to cook the pizza last so that it would stay hot for dinner), but everything worked out perfectly and these rounds cooked up perfectly, and made for fantastic sandwiches.

Instead of all-purpose flour, I substituted the 12-grain flour blend for the overnight starter. This only made up a small part of the flour, so it wasn’t super noticeable in the finished product, but it probably lent a little more heft.

The recipe called for semolina to make up part of the flours that went in at this point, but despite searching I could not locate it in either of my two main grocery stores. Of course, several days later I found it in one, and I probably could have found it at Trader Joe’s, but I just substituted all-purpose instead and it worked fine. I’ll probably make these again, though, and I might try the semolina to see if it makes a big difference in the finished product. Also you can see the shredded asiago cheese that is mixed in at this point. I also completely forgot the parsley that would also be mixed in at this point. Oh well.

Mixed together by hand it made a sticky but cohesive dough that easily pulled away from the sides of the bowl.

After kneading the dough was as smooth as dough containing shredded cheese could be, but it was actually stickier than before. The bakers on the King Arthur blog suggested reducing the liquid a bit if I was substituting all-purpose flour for semolina, and I did to a small extent, but it was rather unscientific and the dough might have been stickier than it should have been. I ended up adding flour through the floured surface it had to be poured onto, and in the end it turned out fine.

I let the dough rise in its bowl, mainly because my dough rising bucket was currently occupied by the pizza dough.

My rounds, all divided. The recipe says you would get 16 four-inch rounds about 1/4″ thick; when I started dividing them I knew that was just not happening, at least not for my purposes. I got about 8 rounds that were probably 4 to 4.5 inches in diameter and somewhere between 1/2 and 1/4 inches thick. At this point they can be refrigerated until you are ready to grill them, but luckily my grill was ready and so was I.

In order to get them off my table and onto the grill I needed to oil up a tray and my hands with olive oil and basically cover these guys in a thin layer. This was also necessary when I put them on the grill to prevent them from sticking. I also cleaned and seasoned my grill with a half and onion, stuck on a fork and dipped in olive oil, before I put these on there. They got put over medium high heat (in between the high heat mounded coals and the low heat area) for 2–4 minutes, depending on how fast it looked like they were cooking. I tried to keep the cover on the grill as much as possible to cook them thoroughly. When they got flipped they moved over to the cool side to cook for another 4 minutes. I didn’t cover them with a metal pan to help them cook through – I tried, but there was no covering them all with a pan or covering them and putting the cover on the grill too – but if you keep the cover on your grill, I think it serves the same purpose. In any case, it worked!

They smelled amazing, and it was all we could do to keep ourselves from eating them right after they came off. I think their cool-down time probably helped them cook through a little more too, though. They were perfectly cooked and the cheese just kind of disappeared into the dough, imparting flavor but without any noticeable pieces. The grilled flavor was subtle but present, and the rounds held up great split in half as sandwiches. It was fun to grill the bread (and fast!) instead of baking it, and it was something I will no doubt do again.

Grilled Asiago Rounds (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

Starter

• 3/4 cup 12-grain flour, or all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

Dough

• All of the starter
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup all-purposed flour
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups freshly grated asiago cheese
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley, or 1/4 cup chopped fresh

Directions

1. For the starter, in a small bowl, combine the flour, water, and yeast. Cover and let sit at room temperature for at least 8 hours, or overnight.
2. In the bowl of your mixer combine the starter, water, all-purpose flour, yeast, and olive oil, stirring until the mixture is smooth.
3. Add the bread flour, salt, cheese, and parsley, and mix until a soft dough forms. Knead the dough with a mixer for 6 to 8 minutes until it’s smooth and springy.
4. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, 45 minutes.
5. After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and let the dough rest for 10 minutes while you make sure the grill is hot and clean. You can refrigerate the dough, covered, for up to 3 hours at this point, if you need to adjust your timing or want to prep things ahead of time. Set up your grill so that one section is hot and another is low heat, with a medium-hot section between them.
6. Flatten the balls of dough to 4.5″ rounds about 1/4″ thick. Spray or brush the rounds lightly with some olive oil, and place a few of them on a medium-hot section of the grill. Cover the grill and cook for 2–4 minutes, flip the dough over and move to a low-heat portion of the grill. Cover the grill again and cook another 4 minutes, then remove from the grill and let cool somewhat. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.

So rarely with my bread baking do I think far enough ahead of time to make a starter Saturday night, which is of course the night before bread baking day. But often I want to try out some of the more rustic or european bread recipes, which almost exclusively call for a starter. Last week I found one, however, that only had a starter that only needed to sit for a couple of minutes, not overnight. It was King Arthur’s Country Loaf, and while it doesn’t quite make up for the taste of a real starter, it definitely made a tasty bread.

The “starter” consists of water, yeast and a whole grain flour, mixed together and allowed to sit until bubbly. There is no fat in the original recipe, though King Arthur recommends substituting some of the water for oil if you would like the bread to stay fresher longer, which I always do. There wasn’t any instruction on when exactly to add the oil, so I included it in my starter.

I waited probably a half an hour for some change to occur, but my starter never got bubbly. I don’t know if it was the oil or what, but I gave up and went on with the recipe.

The majority of the flour is added slowly to incorporate it into the dough. It was pretty sticky at this point, and I switched to my dough hooks for kneading.

After about eight minutes of kneading with a short break in the middle, the dough was smooth, tacky but not super sticky, and was pulling away from the bowl on its own.

I let the first rise go pretty long, partly because I was eating dinner at the time. When I took it out of the bucket it welded itself to my hand, and I had a time getting it off in any kind of loaf shape, but I eventually succeeded. To say it was sticky would have been and understatement.

I let the second rise go a little long too, but luckily the loaf didn’t fall or develop any crazy big holes.

I didn’t really pay attention to the end of the recipe because once a recipe says “put in the oven…” I usually go on autopilot. So I didn’t see the note about hard vs. soft crusts, but when I read it later it made sense. When the loaf had baked its requisite time I tapped on it while still in the oven and heard a satisfying, hard crusted “knock”. Then I took it out of the oven, placed it on a cooling rack, and a couple hours later went to check on it, only to find my hard crust had become very soft. Apparently this has to do with the moisture escaping slowly through the crust while cooling, which happens when cooling at room temperature but not in a turned-off but warm oven. In the end it was fine, though, because this bread was for sandwiches, and sandwiches are always a little easier to eat with softer crusts. The bread itself has a good flavor, though not like a bread with a true starter, and a good tight crumb which makes it very easy to slice and helps it hold up great on sandwiches.

Country Loaf (adapted from King Arthur’s Country Loaf)

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water, minus 2 tablespoons
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1/2 cup Organic 12-grain Flour Blend, or whole wheat flour
• 2 1/2 cups European Style Artisan Bread Flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Pour the water into a mixing bowl. Add the yeast and 12 grain or whole wheat flour, and let sit for several minutes until the mixture begins to bubble.
2. Stir in 1 cup of bread flour and the salt and mix well. Gradually add the remaining cup and a half of flour until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Knead – by hand, mixer or bread machine – for 4 to 5 minutes. Let the dough rest while you clean out and grease your bowl; then knead the dough a few more minutes. The dough should be on the slack side and a little tacky, but should not be sticky.
4. When the dough is well-kneaded, place it into the prepared bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
5. Shape the dough into a round ball and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise a second time for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Toward the end of the rising time preheat the oven to 425ºF.
6. Bake the bread for 20 to 25 minutes. For a crisper crust let the bread cool inside the turned off oven with the door cracked; for a soft crust remove from the oven and cool completely on a rack.

This is another iteration of my 12-grain bread for sandwiches. This week, I adapted King Arthur’s Rustic Olive Roll recipe, omitting the olives and substituting a cup of 12-grain flour for bread flour in the starter. This is the first recipe I’ve made with a more unusual rising method, namely rising in a floured towel. I’ve always been wary of doing this because I would fear that the dough would stick to the towel and make a mess, but this worked without a hitch.

The recipe begins with an overnight starter, which as you can see here has expanded and is nicely bubbly.

The starter goes in with the rest of the ingredients, and it’s all mixed together.

Last time my dough was really heavy; this week it was just really, really dry. I thought I might have to add more liquids, but before making the final judgment I thought I would knead it a bit to see if I could get it to come together.

And come together it did, though this dough was really thick. My poor hand mixer was straining trying to knead it. But it survived and the dough turned into a smooth, slightly tacky ball.

The dough is stretched into a roughly 9×8″ rectangle. The recipe calls for cutting it into six even pieces, but I wanted to get more sandwiches out of it, so I cut it into 9 rectangles.

The rolls do their second rise on a floured (cotton, not terry cloth) towel that has been folded such that their sides get floured as well. After the second rise the rolls get flipped over onto a parchment covered baking sheet, flour side up, and baked.

The top of the rolls comes out all floury and it contributes to a chewier, slightly more substantial crust.

My crust wasn’t very thick, but as I mentioned before it had a good chewiness to it, and it worked well with the sandwiches. The bread had a good flavor, similar to a ciabatta, but the interior wasn’t as chewy.

Rustic Sandwich Rolls (adapted from King Arthur’s Rustic Olive Rolls)

Ingredients

Starter

• 1/2 cup cool water
• 1/16 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 cup 12-grain flour blend

Dough

• All of the starter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ cup lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast

Directions

1. Mix the water, yeast, and flour, stirring till the flour is incorporated. Cover and let rest at room temperature for about 14 hours or overnight. Tthe starter will be bubbly
2. Combine the starter with the remaining dough ingredients, and mix and knead—by hand, mixer, or bread machine set on the dough cycle—to make a soft, smooth dough.
3. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 1 hour; it should have become puffy. Gently deflate the dough, and transfer it to a lightly greased work surface.
4. Pat the dough into a 9×8″ rectangle. The more careful you are to make the corners of the rectangle square, the nicer your rolls will look (my corner pieces were pretty triangular). Cut the dough into six or nine rectangles.
5. Take a cotton dish towel (not terry cloth), and sprinkle it heavily with flour, rubbing the flour into the cloth. Set the cloth on a baking sheet.
6. Space three pieces of dough onto the floured cloth, placing them tight against one long edge of the baking sheet. Push the cloth gently against their exposed edges, then space the remaining three pieces of dough in the same manner, again pushing the cloth against their edges.
7. Cover the rolls with lightly greased plastic wrap or a free-standing cover, and allow them to rise for 60 to 90 minutes until they’re very puffy. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.
8. Very gently lift the rolls off the cloth, and place them, floured side up, on a parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet. Bake them for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and cool.

Hey everyone, I’m back, and I have a ton of posts to write up. First, the weekly bread! I try to mix it up when I’m making sandwich bread for the week, and last week I decided to go for a straight up classic sandwich loaf bread. I am constantly on the crusade for the perfect sandwich loaf, and one of the stipulations is that I be able to slice it fairly thinly without it falling apart. This usually requires a good tight crumb, so whole wheat breads actually help in this respect. I’ve made King Arthur’s Oatmeal Toasting and Sandwich Bread (which happens to be the recipe on the back of the bread flour bag) before, and it was definitely tasty. I thought I had made it with a substitution of whole wheat flour for part of the recipe, but while I was making it this time I decided that I had not. I was a little concerned about the heaviness of the dough, but it turned out great.

First, all the dry goods get mixed together. I substituted one cup of the bread flour for 100% whole wheat flour. Some oatmeal bread recipes have you give the oats a whirl in a food processor to break them up into smaller pieces, but this one doesn’t and they’ve never stuck out in the finished bread.

This dough was so heavy. Seriously, it weighed a ton, and my dough hooks wanted to slice right through it, it was so dense. I was so afraid this bread would be a brick. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The kneaded dough wasn’t super smooth, but it wasn’t that sticky either.

The yeast produced a lot of air, and it was considerably less dense after the first rise.

The dough is formed into a loaf and placed into a greased loaf pan for the second rise. I think in the past I’ve just dumped it into the pan without shaping and it came out fine, but shaping it probably results in a more even top.

It didn’t take too long for the loaf to crown the pan… I let it go a bit longer than an inch above the rim, as you see, but that worked out for the best because the bread settled a bit upon baking and it turned out to be a good sized loaf.

Perfect. It wasn’t that heavy at all in the end, and it made good sandwiches. I think the crumb was tighter than when I made it previously using all bread flour, which worked in its favor for slicing. Even when I got a little thin with my slices, the bread didn’t break apart completely apart, though I definitely was better off with thicker slices. Not perfect, but pretty good!

Oatmeal Wheat Sandwich Bread (adapted from King Arthur’s Oatmeal Toasting and Sandwich Bread)

Ingredients

• 2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon whole-grain bread improver
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl combine all of the dry ingredients ingredients.
2. Whisk together the wet ingredients in another bowl until they are combined. Add to dry ingredients and mix to form a shaggy dough.
3. Knead dough, by hand (10 minutes) or by machine (5 minutes) until it comes together and is fairly smooth.
4. Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover and allow it to rise for 1 hour.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled surface, and shape it into a log.
6. Place the log in a lightly greased 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, cover the pan and allow the dough to rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour, till it’s crested at least 2 inches over the rim of the pan.
7. Toward the end of this rise preheat the oven to 350ºF.
8. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 190°F.