Irish-American soda bread

Sometimes, life gets in the way of the good stuff... like baking.

I tried to take up jogging this year -- good exercise, get healthy, lose some weight, yeah, great plan. And it looked like it was going pretty well... until late February, when I sprained my foot on a treadmill. I ended up on crutches for a week and a half, and then in a walking cast, and then weaning down to just a limp, and now, I've finally gotten rid of the limp, thanks to my awesome physical therapist, and I'm working on strengthening my ankle and hips and training myself to stand and walk correctly (who knew you could be doing such basic things incorrectly your whole life?), and I'm hoping to be able to walk and then jog again soon.

But what does this have to do with baking? Well, if you can't stand for long periods of time, or you can hold yourself up on crutches but can't carry anything across the kitchen 'cause you need both hands to hobble around, no baking happens. So I haven't been making a whole lot lately. But I did manage to try out a new soda bread recipe recently, while my husband and I were putting together a "late-Patrick's Day" dinner for ourselves, a week or so after the holiday. And this is the first soda bread recipe I've made that I actually liked, so I thought I'd share it.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, I know this isn't an authentic Irish recipe. Authentic Irish soda bread is... bland. It's bread, a basic, boring bread you can use to sop up the juices from an Irish stew. This is Irish-American soda bread, bastardized from the Irish but really quite tasty. There wouldn't be raisins in authentic soda bread, and there definitely wouldn't be orange zest... but hey, we all eat General Tso's chicken, and that's not authentic Chinese food, but it's still tasty. As long as you don't try to pass off something as authentic when it isn't, I don't see the problem.

Irish-American Soda Bread
Adapted from Ina Garten

4 c flour
4 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter, cut into small chunks
1 3/4 c buttermilk
1 egg
1 tsp orange zest
1 c raisins or currants

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and butter. Turn on the mixer to low speed and walk away for a while, until the butter is thoroughly mixed in and you don't see any chunks of it remaining. (You could probably do this with a hand mixer or a pastry blender, but I imagine it would take way longer. Or you could do it in a food processor, if you don't mind the annoyance of having to wash the processor when you're done.)
2. In a large measuring cup, combine the buttermilk, egg and orange zest and whisk together. Pour this into the mixer and mix to combine.
3. In a bowl, mix the raisins with a couple of tablespoons of flour, just to get them coated. Mix these into the dough.
4. Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a bit, just until it comes together.
5. Form the dough into a ball and place it on a sheet pan. Cut an X in the top with a knife.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the loaf makes a hollow sound when you tap the bottom of it.

Dinner rolls

Every year, I like to contribute something different for Thanksgiving dinner -- I'm trying to slowly feel out what recipes I'll want to use when I have my own Thanksgiving dinner someday, when it's my turn to cook the whole meal. Last year, I made the pumpkin pie. The year before, I made an awesome green bean casserole (from scratch, which makes all the difference in the world -- no canned soup here!). And this year, well, I was running out of options, 'cause certain things are sacred in my mom's Thanksgiving dinner.

Well, strike that -- almost EVERYTHING is sacred. And to some extent, I don't blame them, 'cause Thanksgiving is partly about tradition, about time-honored recipes you pull out every year. So the turkey was settled (though I actually did get my hands on that one year, discovering that brining wasn't really worth the effort), and so was the stuffing, the carrots, potatoes, cranberry sauce (always from a can, though I've been itching to try making that some year), even the pumpkin pies (though I contributed an apple pie, largely because my boyfriend likes it way better than pumpkin).

What wasn't already carved-in-stone tradition, not to be tinkered with? The dinner rolls. Every year, they're the typical store-bought brown-and-serve variety. They're not BAD, per se. They're alright. But they're not particularly good, either, so I figured, why not try making my own?

I attacked these with some trepidation, 'cause it seems like bread doughs never want to rise for me quite as quickly as they should, and then I get impatient with them. On top of that, the recipe for these swore that you could freeze them and then bake them from frozen with no ill effects. And y'know, it was right. I popped these in the oven at Mom's, and a little while later, we had fully cooked, golden brown rolls, slightly flaky around the edges and a bit yeasty in the middle, maybe not the greatest bread product known to man, but perfectly good rolls, good enough to earn compliments from everyone at the table. I might even make these again for Christmas dinner, though I can be a bit of a magpie-ish baker, so my attention might move on to trying something else by then (and hey, cookie season's nearly upon us! And there's gingerbread, and cakes, and candies, and, and...).

Dinner Rolls
From "The Best Make-Ahead Recipe"

4 1/4 c flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 envelope rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 c whole milk, warmed to 110 degrees
12 tbsp butter, melted, plus a little extra for brushing on before baking
2 egg yolks
1 egg

1. Whisk together 4 cups of the flour with the sugar, yeast and salt.
2. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and butter, then the egg. Combine with the dry ingredients and mix until a dough comes together.
3. Knead until smooth and elastic, adding the remaining 1/4 cup of flour if it's too sticky. (The mixing and kneading can be done in a stand mixer, if you've got one, but I don't, so I did it all by hand.)
4. Form a smooth, round ball, place in a large, oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about an hour.
5. Divide the dough into 24 even pieces, form into smooth, tight balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until double, about an hour.
6. At this point, you can pop the tray into the freezer, freeze the rolls until firm and transfer them into a zip-top bag for storage.
7. To bake, arrange the rolls on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and brush with melted butter. Bake at 375 degrees until golden, 15 to 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Irish brown soda bread

While I'm getting in touch with my heritage, I figured I'd move on to another country my people are from: Ireland. This is appropriate, seeing as it's the time of year when St. Patrick's Day rolls around -- I've got a craving for corned beef, so I figured, why not make traditional soda bread for corned beef sandwiches?

That's traditional soda bread, mind you. You may think that soda bread is sweet stuff with raisins in it, but the truth is that while that kind is delicious, it's not traditional. Soda bread, really, is just bread made with baking soda, as opposed to yeast -- it reacts with an acidic ingredient, usually buttermilk, and that reaction makes the bread rise.

I have to say, this recipe's delicious. And it's healthy, too, which is always a plus. And it's easy. The only issue I had was that I overbaked it a bit, again, 'cause I got distracted while it was in the oven. And it didn't rise so much -- but seeing as it's a wheat bread, and hard flours inhibit rising, that makes sense. I might alter the flour ratio a bit next time, just a bit, just to see if I can get a better rise.

Irish Brown Soda Bread
From "Cooking Light"

2 1/2 c wheat flour
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c steel-cut oats
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp wheat germ
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 c buttermilk

1. Whisk all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Whisk the egg and buttermilk together in a small bowl, then pour it into the other bowl. Mix until just combined.
3. Spoon into a greased 9-by-5 loaf pan.
4. Bake at 325 degrees for about an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. De-pan and cool on a rack.

White sandwich bread

Bread should be a common food. Bread should be cheap to make and delicious to eat, and most of all, bread should be worth the effort. Too many yeast-raised recipes aren't worth the time and energy, not to mention the intimidation factor, 'cause way too many people are scared to work with yeasted doughs in the first place, afraid that they'll screw them up.

As for yeasted doughs, a little knowledge goes a long way. But that doesn't mean that you have to pick the most difficult recipe to get a good result.

Take this one, for instance. "Baking Illustrated" promised a good, basic white sandwich bread in just a couple of hours. Did it deliver? Well, I'll admit that I may have overbaked it a bit, and I'll admit that perhaps the long-risen kind has a better texture and somewhat more yeasty flavor. Still, this recipe's pretty good, and the savings in time and energy definitely make it worth making again. This might just be the recipe that converts me to becoming a weekly bread-baker.

White Sandwich Bread
From "Baking Illustrated"

3 3/4 c flour, plus more for the counter
2 tsp salt
1 c warm whole milk
1/3 warm water
2 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp honey
1 envelope instant (rapid-rise) yeast

1. Turn your oven on to 200 degrees. Let it pre-heat, then, after it's at 200 for a few minutes, turn it off.
2. Meanwhile, whisk 3 1/2 cups of the flour and the salt together in a large bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix together the milk, water, butter and honey. Take the temperature of your mixture if you're not sure what "warm" is -- it should be 110 degrees. Once you've checked the temperature, mix in the yeast.
4. Mix the wet stuff into the dry stuff. If you've got a stand mixer with a dough hook, use it. Me, I used a big wooden spoon and lots of elbow grease. If the dough seems really sticky after you've got it all mixed, add in up to a 1/4 cup of flour.
5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Form into a ball.
6. Place in a big, lightly oiled bowl. Flip it over, so all of the outside gets a little bit of oil on it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, pop it into the warm oven and let it double in size -- this will take 40-50 minutes or so.
7. Take out the dough, turn it out onto your counter and flatten it into a rectangle that's 9 inches wide (the length of your 9-by-5 bread pan). Roll the dough up into a log, starting at one of the 9-inch sides, then pinch the seam closed. Turn it over so it's seam-side down and place it in your greased loaf pan, pressing down so it touches all of the sides and corners of the pan.
8. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until almost doubled, 20-30 minutes.
9. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and place a small pan of hot water inside (not underneath where your loaf will be).
10. Bake your loaf about 40-50 minutes, until a thermometer reads 195 degrees in the center of the loaf. De-pan and cool on a rack.

Naan

Well, they can't all be winners.

It's true that you can make anything at home, anything you might order from a restaurant or bakery. But sometimes, it takes special equipment or a certain skill that you just don't have yet. And this was one of those times.

I got so excited when I saw this recipe on the Tasty Kitchen blog. Homemade naan! I love naan! And it's one of those things that I just never thought about making at home, assuming that it couldn't be done well.

I was half-right -- it couldn't be done well by me. I attribute this to a few factors. First, the recipe calls for a heavy-bottomed skillet, then doesn't make it clear whether you're supposed to grease said skillet or not. I imagine that what you should actually use here is a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. But I don't own one (a skillet I have, but it doesn't have a good level of seasoning on it yet). So I used a regular frying pan, which did not work out well at all -- the dough stuck to the pan and then didn't want to release, ultimately scorching my pan. The recipe also calls for cooking the second side over the flame of a gas stove. Sadly, all I have now is an electric stove, so none of that for me.

Ultimately, after the first few of these failed entirely (burnt on the outside, doughy on the inside), I put the rest of them on a cookie sheet in a 475-degree oven. That seemed to cook them alright, but there was still something really lacking about the flavor. I don't know whether it was the lack of ghee (clarified butter used in Indian cooking -- I didn't have any or feel like buying or making any) added at the end, or the lack of a tandoori oven, or what. Or maybe my standards are just too high. I noticed that on the page where I read about the recipe, the rave was "this is so much better than the kind you buy at the grocery store!" Honestly, I've never bought grocery-store naan -- I've always just ordered it at Indian restaurants. Maybe this is better than the packaged kind, but it's not as good as what you get at a restaurant.

So I figured I'd put this recipe here with ample caveats. I mean, a lot of reviewers on that site thought this recipe was awesome. And maybe, if you have a cast-iron skillet and a gas stove, or if your standards are lower than mine, you'll love this, too. Me, I'll probably wait a while before attempting naan again, and if I do, I'll probably look for another recipe. Or maybe I'll just resign it to the short list of things that are best ordered out.

Naan
From Tasty Kitchen

2 c flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c warm milk
1/2 c plain yogurt
1/2 tbsp oil, as needed (I never did figure this part out, seeing as it's not mentioned in the recipe...?)

1. Whisk all of the dry ingredients together in a good-sized bowl.
2. Mix together the milk and yogurt in another bowl. Then, make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet stuff in, mixing together.
3. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let sit for at least 2 hours.
4. Knead the dough for a few minutes, then divide it into 8 parts.
5. Flatten the pieces out.
6. Heat a thick-bottomed skillet. Brush one side of your naan with water, then place it wet side down onto your hot skillet and cover for 30 seconds, until you see bubbles in it (good luck... I never did).
7. Flip with tongs and cook on the other side, or use tongs to hold the other side over the flame of a gas burner until it has charred spots.

Wheat bread

Sometimes, a recipe is just more trouble than it's worth. Usually, this happens when you're working with a recipe that aims for complete and utter perfection -- sure, whoever created the recipe (in this case, the folks at America's Test Kitchen) might have gotten a result that was "perfect," but who says that'll be how it comes out when you make it, and for that matter, who says that it has to be perfect, anyway? In quite a few cases, "close enough" tastes just as good to the average person.

So it was with this recipe. After hunting all over the grocery store to pick up such specialized ingredients as wheat germ and rye flour, I made this recipe, and the result was... eh. It was alright. I didn't get the oven spring I'd expected, so the loaves came out awfully flat, which I read later could actually be due to the fact that it's wheat bread, made with a harder flour -- perhaps I should've let it rise more than double the second time, but the recipe didn't say that, so what I got were loaves that were the same size out of the oven as they were going in. And for all of this fussing, the taste is pretty standard, not the yeasty deliciousness I'd expected -- again, this could be because I've only ever made white bread, so I'll admit, my expectations may have been too high. What this is, to my taste buds, is a standard wheat bread, unexceptional except for the crispy homemade-tasting crust. I suppose that at least it's all-natural, 'cause it's homemade. But I'm not sure if I'd bother making this again. Wheat might be healthier, but white just tastes better.

Wheat Bread
From "Baking Illustrated"

2 1/3 c warm water
1 1/2 tbsp instant yeast
1/4 c honey
4 tbsp melted butter
2 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c rye flour
1/2 c toasted wheat germ
Scant 3 c wheat flour
2 3/4 c regular all-purpose flour

1. Mix the yeast with the water in a large bowl. Add the honey, then the butter, salt, rye flour and wheat germ.
2. Mix the two remaining flours in a separate bowl.
3. Add the flour mix into the wet mix, half at a time, then knead together on a lightly floured surface until the dough is soft and smooth. (Keep in mind that doughs can vary based on the temperature and humidity in your kitchen -- you may not need all of the flour, or you may need a little more. Use your own judgement as to whether it's too sticky.)
4. Form into a ball and place in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Let rise in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour, until doubled in volume.
5. Press the dough down and divide it into two equal parts. Form each into a rectangle about 1 inch thick and 9 inches long, then roll up from a long side and pinch closed. Place seam-side down into greased 9-by-5-inch loaf pans. Cover and let rise another 20-30 minutes, until doubled in volume.
6. Bake in a 375-degree oven for 35 to 45 minutes, until they sound hollow when tapped. (To be extra-sure, you can stick a meat thermometer into the center of one loaf -- if it gets up to 205 degrees, it's done.) Depan and cool on rack.

Babka

Didja ever have one of those recipes that you look at and think, "oh, I should make this... but now is not the time, I don't really have the time to make this," and then you keep thinking that for months? The recipe just keeps taunting you, every time you think of making something, "y'know, I haven't made that yet, and I keep thinking I should make it ... but not today, I don't have the time today." For me, this recipe has been babka. Ever since I made pierogis a while back, I've been thinking about this recipe, how it would be nice to get more in touch with my culinary roots ... but it's yeasted. Yeasted means waiting all day for dough to rise, and I just haven't had it in me. Until now, anyway.

This recipe reminds me a lot of cinnamon bread, and like cinnamon bread, I was kicking myself later for following the recipe -- it seems like they never tell you to roll the dough out very much, and then, you just don't get enough layers of filling. It was even more pronounced with this recipe, 'cause the filling layer was really thick -- my boyfriend said that eating this sort of reminded him of a chocolate-filled doughnut, except not creamy. It's still pretty tasty, but next time, I'd definitely roll the dough out way larger, so when you roll it up, you get more, thinner layers.



Babka
From The Bread Bible
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c warm water
8 tbsp (1 stick) butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3/4 c warm milk
3 eggs, room temperature
4 c flour
1-2 tbsp butter, melted, for brushing dough

3/4 c sugar
1/3 c flour
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp butter, cut into pieces

1. Pour the warm water into a small bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the top, then sprinkle on a pinch of the sugar. Let stand until foamy.
2. Whisk together the butter, the rest of the sugar and the salt, vanilla, almond extract, milk and eggs. Add in 1 cup of flour and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the yeast mixture.
3. Add in the rest of the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon, until a soft dough is formed.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and silky. Be certain that the dough remains soft.
5. Place the dough in a greased bowl and turn it over to coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
6. Meanwhile, combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl and crumble them together.
7. Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll or pat it into a 10-by-12-inch (or larger if you prefer) rectangle and brush with melted butter. Spread the filling on top, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edges. Roll up the dough into a log and pinch the seams together. Holding one end, twist the dough six or eight times to make a rope. Grease a tube plan and place the rope of dough inside, pinching the ends together and patting it so it's even in the pan.
8. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise 45 minutes.
9. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 40-45 minutes, until the loaf is browned, a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
10. Let stand 5 minutes in the pan, then depan and let cool on a rack before slicing.

Buttermilk honey bread

Don't panic! Wait, come back!

Seriously, I don't know why people freak out so much about making bread. Homemade tastes a million times better than anything you can buy at the grocery store, and while it's harder to make it than to shell out a buck and change, it's totally worth it and not that hard.

Really, there are two main tricky points when it comes to making bread. First is yeast. They're scary little beasties when you don't know what you're doing with them. But they're less scary when you have a thermometer (meat, candy, whatever, anything that can take the temperature of a liquid that you're going to put in food). Just get your liquid, whatever the recipe says to use, measure it out and pop it in the microwave for maybe 20-30 seconds. Then, stir it around with the thermometer a bit, then read the thermometer. You want 105-115 degrees. If it's 120 or so, that's still alright, 'cause it'll cool down a few degrees while you're grabbing the rest of what you need: yeast, first of all (usually active dry, in the little pouches), and sugar, 'cause sugar is yeast food, and if you don't feed them, they won't do anything.

Right, so, warm water or milk, check. Sugar, however much the recipe tells you to use (usually from a pinch to a teaspoon), grab that, sprinkle it into the bowl. Yeast, open the little pouch (or however many pouches/teaspoons the recipe calls for) and sprinkle that in the bowl, too. Grab a spoon and stir it all around a little bit. A few little yeasties will probably stick to the spoon, but that's alright, no big deal. Now, back away. Go do something else for about 10 minutes. The best thing to do is probably to get together the liquid ingredients for your bread, whatever else is supposed to be mixed with the yeast.

Ten minutes later, it should be all foamy, like this:



If it isn't foamy, throw it out, get some new yeast and start over -- yeast does go bad sitting in your cupboard, and yours probably has.

The other tricky part about making bread is actually having the time to do it. Bread recipes take a long time, 'cause the dough must be left to rise at least once, if not two of three times, depending on the recipe. Don't skimp on the rising time -- it does a lot for the bread's flavor. Do, however, read the recipe before you start to make sure you have enough time to get it done.

This recipe makes a very neutral-flavored, all-purpose sort of bread. If you want a yeastier, more rustic flavor, there are plenty of more traditional recipes out there, most of them without buttermilk.

Buttermilk Honey Bread
From The Bread Bible
3/4 c warm water
1 tbsp (one packet) active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 c buttermilk
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp honey
1 tbsp salt
6 c flour, either all-purpose or bread flour

1 egg
1 tbsp milk

1. Proof the yeast: Pour warm water into a bowl, add sugar and yeast, stir, let stand 10 minutes.
2. Put the butter in a large bowl and melt it in the microwave. Immediately add the buttermilk and whisk to combine. Stir in the honey, then the salt.
3. Mix in the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until combined.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead about 5 minutes, until it comes together into a smooth, uniform ball.
5. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning it once to coat both sides. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about an hour or so.
6. Punch down the dough (you don't have to actually punch it, but if you have aggression to get out, go ahead). Turn it out onto a floured surface and divide it into two portions, forming each into a loaf shape. Put each into a greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise again 30-45 minutes or until doubled.
7. Whisk together the egg and milk and brush over the tops of the loaves. Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes, until loaves are nicely brown, pull away from the sides of the pans a bit and sound hollow when tapped with your finger. De-pan and cool on racks.