Showing posts with label wheat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wheat. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2014
My experiments with baking a basic whole wheat bread Recipe inside
At the beginning of 2013, I asked for your feedback on my Facebook Page on the kind of things youd like to see on the blog this year and that Ill try and incorporate some of your recipe requests. And the one thing that was a popular demand was a healthy loaf of bread. So heres my attempt to share with you a detailed recipe for a sandwich loaf.
Ive tried baking whole wheat bread on several occasions. It has led to a variety of results- my househelp giving me puzzled looks on what that seemingly edible brick is doing on our counter top, me wondering if I should let it dry out in the sun to be used later as a weapon for self defense, my son making me swear that I will not sneak it inside his lunch box, me quietly disposing it in the main trash can of our community, so it can never be traced back to me. But yes, Ill say this one thing. I never gave up. I kept trying from a variety of sources - books, blogs, my own improvisations. Recently, I came across this recipe in the kitchn and there was so much confidence in the tone of that post, it almost felt like a friend had her hand on my shoulder and told me that "this will work!" and work it did.
Other breads you can bake - Cinnamon Rolls | Pesto Pull Apart Loaf
You can be rest assured that this bread is a 100% handmade. No food processors, Kitchen Aids, Bread Machines were involved in the making of this work of art. Oven, yes - I did use an oven :)
You may ask if this is Whole Wheat bread a 100% whole wheat? To be honest, this one has 50% all purpose flour (maida) and 50% whole wheat flour (atta) - so if you trust your Atta to be 100% wheat, you can be sure that this bread is 50% whole wheat. And that is quite healthy given that the soft, spongy, melt in your mouth sliced bread labeled as whole wheat available in supermarkets is definitely NOT even 50% wheat, or theyve added a ton of other ingredients to make it soft and fluffy. The goodness of this bread is once youve mastered this basic loaf, you can keep playing with it in terms of other ingredients added to it such as a variety of other whole grain flours, seeds, flavourings etc. But Id surely request you to try it just like it is if you are a first timer.
This makes 2 loaves of roughly 600 grams each
Ingredients
2 3/4 Cup Atta (whole wheat flour)
2 3/4 Cup Maida (all purpose flour)
2 tbsp flaxseed powder (optional)
1 tbsp salt
1 cup lukewarm water (very slightly warm) plus some more
2 tsp instant yeast or active dry yeast
1/3 Cup Liquid Jaggery or Honey
2 tbsp olive oil / vegetable oil / melted ghee
1 cup lukewarm milk
You also need two 9x5 loaf tins greased and kept aside.
Directions
THE FIRST STAGE - ROUGH DOUGH
In a small bowl, sprinkle yeast over 1 cup lukewarm water-stir with a spoon, cover and keep aside for 5 minutes, until it becomes slightly frothy.
In a large bowl, add the flours, flaxseed meal and salt, stir with a fork and keep aside.
In another bowl, mix all the liquids- liquid jaggery/honey, milk and oil with a fork and keep aside.
Once the yeast gets frothy, make the well in the flour and add the yeast-water and other liquids. Stir with a wooden spoon until all the liquids are absorbed by the flour and it sort of comes together.
Remove this onto a clean counter top or working surface and gently knead, adding up to 1/4 cup more water if this dough is too dry. Knead for 2-3 minutes until it all comes together to a rough ball. Cover this with a big bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes. This allows for the liquids to be well absorbed by the flour particles yielding a softer loaf at the end.
THE SECOND STAGE - KNEADING & PROVING
Once the dough has rested for 20 minutes, youll find this easier to handle. It has to be kneaded (here, you could use a Kitchen Aid or Food Processor) for 10-12 minutes. By kneading I mean-pushing the dough away from you and folding it back on itself towards you. Repeat this process for at least 10 minutes, youll the the dough getting progressively more elastic and soft. Once this is done, shape into a ball. Grease a huge bowl with oil, place the ball in this - cover with a fitting lid + tea towel and keep in the warmest area of your kitchen. You need to give the dough 1-2 hours for it to double in size and this totally depends on the weather conditions, which is why I cannot give you an exact time. If you wish you could keep the dough ball in a plastic transparent box, marking the level with a marker and then marking the level where you expect the doubled dough to reach, so you know that it has indeed doubled in volume.
THE THIRD STAGE - MINI REST
Once the dough has doubled, with a sharp knife divide it into two equal parts. Do NOT be rough with this and punch any air out. Gently shape each half into a ball and keep aside to rest for 10 minutes. This will make the final shaping easier.
THE FOURTH STAGE - SHAPING LOAVES
After 10 minute rest in the previous stage, follow the shaping procedure for each ball. Gently push out into a rectangle and go ahead with the step-by-step shaping instructions given here. I followed them to the tee each time and they worked perfectly. The end result should be a taut dome shaped top of each loaf. And I cannot emphasize enough to do the shaping with light, gentle hands so that you dont push any air out of the loaves. Place the shaped loaves into two 9x5 loaf tins. You could brush water on the loaves and sprinkle any whole grains or seeds on the top to give it a more gourmet look - for eg: whole oats, millets, sesame seeds, or sift 1 tsp of all purpose flour over the top.
THE FIFTH STAGE - PROVING THE LOAVES
Cover the tins with a tea towel and keep in a warm place until the dough rises to the edge of the tin. If you are impatient with this stage and put it into the oven prematurely (which I have done many times and suffered), you will not have well risen loaves, because this bread will only puff mildly in the oven, maximum rise is before it goes into the oven. This takes around 40 mins-1 hour, like I said, do not rush this stage. The middle of this stage is when you turn on the oven to preheat at 220 Celsius / 450 F and let the oven heat at this temp until the loaves rise outside to final level.
THE SIXTH STAGE - BAKING THE LOAVES
When the loaves have risen to just above the tins, brush them with some water. Using a sharp bread knife, make an incision along the length of the loaf. This not only makes the bread look good, but also helps it rise well. Reduce the oven temperature to 190 Celsius / 375 F and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top is nice and golden brown.
THE SEVENTH STAGE - COOLING
Turn out the loaves from the tins. If you have greased the tins well, you wont have problems with this. Turn them upside down on a cooling rack and keep them covered with a breathable cloth like a muslin or so. You could leave them like this overnight or at least aim for an hour or so. During this stage, the bread continues to cook inside and it becomes easier to slice the following morning. If you try to slice the bread as soon as it is out of the oven, consider all your effort wasted, because the inside of the loaf WILL be wet and you will be disappointed with the result. Loaves HAVE to be cooled fully before trying to slice them. If you want to experience the joy of breaking into warm bread just out of the oven, reserve it for the small dinner rolls.
THE EIGHTH STAGE - SLICING
Youve been patient - allowed the loaf to cool overnight. You will now be rewarded with sweet smelling, delicious bread slices for breakfast. Place the bread on a chopping board and with a sharp bread knife, slice it as thick or thin as you want.
Tips
- I get started with the process at around 5/6 pm in the evening & it gets baked by 9/10 pm or so, then let it cool overnight before slicing them in the morning. This process works well for me.
- The original recipe says 8-10 mins of kneading in food processor (second stage), so make sure you knead at least for 10-15 mins when you are kneading manually. And following the push away-bring back technique for kneading.
- If you dont have loaf tins, looks for bread shaping instructions that show you how to shape a free form loaf like focaccia or a dome shaped loaf. The proving and baking times have to be adjusted accordingly. Just make sure that during the final proving, the shaped dough rises really well before putting into the oven.
- Dont be afraid to make two loaves at one go, unless of course your oven will only take one tin at a time, in which case, halve all the ingredients and proceed accordingly. Do note that proving times may be less after the second stage.
- I buy liquid jaggery from here (Bangalore) but you can mix some crushed jaggery to water, let it liquify on low heat and keep aside to use in recipe or use honey instead. This provides a mild natural sweetness to the loaf and also the brilliant colour without using any additives or artificial colouring agents.
Lastly, bread making is an exercise in patience. You have to allow the bread to pass through each stage and it depends on a lot of factors. You cannot rush through. You may think- WHOA this takes 3-4 hours, but most of it is inactive time, it only requires your passing attention for a few minutes at a time. Its good to keep a little notepad or keep track of the times on your phone, so you dont miss the time windows for kneading, resting, proving etc. A bit of precision and a lot of patience goes a long way in baking that perfect loaf of bread. Dont let the number of steps or the huge number of words written to explain the process overwhelm you. Its quite simple actually. Try it and let me know how it turned out!
Friday, May 9, 2014
WHOLE WHEAT BANANA WALNUT CAKE
Banana walnut cake is my favorite. I make this very often like when I am bored or whenever we have overripe bananas. This is the cake recipe I have been following so far to bake this cake. This is a fool-proof recipe and results in a moist cake each time. I usually make a small cake preferably around 3-4 servings per cake just for the two of us. This is very ideal for portion control and it does satisfy our sweet cravings too. When using whole wheat flour for the cake, brown sugar or agave nectar is ideal instead of regular sugar or artificial sweeteners. It gives the cake a rich brown color. I have also added only ½ cup of flour and increased the nuts. The ingredients can be doubled accordingly.
INGREDIENTS:
1. Banana, 1 large.
2. Whole wheat flour, ½ cup.
3. Brown sugar, or any artificial sweetener (I have used agave nectar here), ½ cup.
4. Melted butter or oil (I have used canola oil here), ½ cup.
5. Egg, 1. (Can be substituted with 1 tablespoon of flaxseed meal diluted with 1 tablespoon of water).
6. Chopped walnuts, ½ cup.
7. Baking soda, ½ teaspoon.
PREPARATION:
Mix the flour with the baking soda in a bowl and keep aside. Add the peeled banana in another bowl and mash it into a paste with a fork. Add the oil, sweeteners, and egg to the mashed banana and mix everything well. The wet ingredients can also be added to a blender and mixed evenly; a hand blender also works perfectly for this. Now add the flour mixture to this slowly and mix everything just until there are no lumps in the cake batter. Transfer the contents to a well-oiled baking dish, add the chopped nuts on top of the batter and bake the cake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Let it cool and enjoy.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Cracked Wheat Pilaff and Vegetable Curry
Its Random Recipes time again! This month Dom decided to stir things up a bit and make us connect with other participants in the challenge. My partner was Alice of Italian Inspiration and we had to pick recipes for each other!
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| Random Recipes #9 |
It was all done with Random Number Generation, and the book that I got was Casserole Cooking by Pamela Westland I was rather pleased about that as I know that there are lots of nice recipes in this book and I love to make casseroles, they are so easy to make and also often better when reheated.
Back to Alice to tell her how many pages there were in the book and she returned with my number, now the page had two recipes on it, but I thought they would actually go rather well together so decided to make both.
Vegetable Curry
225g (8oz) carrots, trimmed and diced
225g (8oz) shelled broad beans
225g (8oz) shelled peas
1 small cauliflower, cut into florets
salt
3 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp curry paste
1 tbsp wholewheat flour
5 tbsp double cream
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
4 tbsp cashew nuts, toasted
1. Steam the carrots, broad beans, peas and cauliflower over boiling salted water until they are barely tender - they will cook a little more in the sauce. Reserve 300ml (1/2 pint) of the liquid.
2. Heat the oil in a flameproof casserole and fry the onion and garlic, over moderate heat for 3 minutes, stirring once or twice.
3. Stir in the paprika cook for a minute. Stir in the curry paste and the flour.
4. Slowly pour the reserved liquid into the casserole, stirring until the sauce thickens. Stir in the cream and lemon juice.
5. Add all the vegetables to the sauce, stir gently, cover and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.
6. Stir in 1 tbsp of the chopped herb and 2 tbsp of the cashews.
7. Sprinkle the remaining herb over the vegetables and catter on the remaining nuts. Serve with brown rice and tomato salad.
The second recipe is for Cracked Wheat and Spinach Pilaf, this is not a way Ive used Bulgar Wheat before, so I was interested to see what it would be like.
3 tbsp oil
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
225g (8oz) cracked wheat (bulgar), washed and drained
450ml (3/4 pint) vegetable stock
4 tbsp seedless raisins
1/2 small cauliflower, cut into florets
175g (6oz) spinach leaves, stalks removed
salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp snipped chives
4 tbsp blanched almonds, toasted
tomato wedges, to garnish
1. Heat the oil in a flameproof casserole and fry the onion over moderate heat for 3 minutes, stirring once or twice. Stir in the garlic and fry for 1 minute.
2. Stir in the cracked wheat, cook for 1 minute, then pour on the vegetable stock. Stir in the raisins and cauliflower florets, season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil.
3. Cover the casserole and simmer for 20 minutes, until the wheat and cauliflower is almost tender.
4. Add the spinach leaves, increase the heat and stir to distribute them well. Serve as soon as the spinach is just tender and the liquid evaporated. The dish should be just moist.
5. Stir in the chives and almonds, and turn the pilaff on to a warmed serving dish and garnish with tomato wedges, if wished.
This was a fun challenge and the two dishes worked really well together. The curry was lovely and creamy and the firm texture of the cracked wheat worked well as a substitute for rice. Both dishes also reheated really well.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
Makes two 9"x5" loaves
3 c. lukewarm water
1/4 c. butter or vegetable oil
3 tsp. salt
1/4 c. honey
1 c. nonfat dry milk
8-10 c. whole wheat flour
4 tsp. instant yeast
Combine all ingredients, starting just with 7 cups of flour. Knead in mixer, adding more flour as needed, to form a smooth, fairly stiff (but not dry) dough. Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise 60 to 90 minutes, until doubled.
Lightly grease two 9x5 loaf pans. Divide the dough in two pieces and gently shape each piece into a smooth log. Place it in the pan, smooth side up, cover the pan, and allow to rise about 30-45 minutes, or until it crowns about 1 inch over the top of the pan. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, or 350 if using a dark pan.
Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes. Remove it from the oven, turn the bread out of the pans, and allow to cool completely on a rack before slicing.
Source: Adapted from King Arthur Flour
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