Chibatta

Since I have used the poolish method to start bread before while preparing the greek celebration bread. One goal that I am seeking during this bread journey, is a variety of ways to prepare the recipes.

Here are the dry ingredients dry ingredients safely in the kitchenaid awaiting kneading.

Here is the lovely mixer at work kneading together the wet and dry ingredients.

The biga is made. Put to rest in the bowl to rise for 2 hours until it's put into the refrigerator. The biga is more like bread dough and the poolish is very wet mixture.

After the rise and safely in the friggie to await rise over night.

Here are the ingredients for the mushroom style chibatta. I did leave out one ingredient. I fear this may turn into a theme. The missing ingredient is pictured in the shot 2 below this one.

No, it's not dried mushrooms. Although, these did get left out of the final bread. I had the fresh mushrroms and garlic in the bread. Which was very tasty.

That's right, I forgot the garlic cloves when I gathered my ingredients for the bread.

The lovely button mushrooms while they await cutting into 1/4 slices.

The mushrooms all sliced and ready for the pan.

The quarter cup of evoo. Seems like a lot in a teflon pan but love the taste.

Here are the shrooms and garlic with lovely eevo in the pan. Now time to cook them until they are soft.

The shrooms are all ready. Time to get back to the biga since it has warmed up while I prepared the mushrooms.

The biga has been sliced up into ten slices. Doesn't it look cute on the pink cutting mat.

The shrooms are chilling. At the point I should have combined the two types of shrooms and the dried ones wouldn't have gotten forgotten on the counter.

The chibatta is being kneaded in the mixer. It took a lot of extra flour for the bread. I don't know if I mistakenly added too much liquid. This was where I should have added the mushroom but didn't read the book closely enough. But, they did get used.

The dough after it's 2 minute rest to relax. Time to fold it like a letter.

I did not have the fancy dancy couche. I did buy some new kitchen towels from work recently and they did a great job for their cousin the couche. My lovely bratty sister told me that hers stuck to her pastry cloth and next time she was going to put the chibatta on parchment paper. I decided to learn from her experience. Thanks Tammy. Maybe mom didn't make a mistake having you after all. Wink.

After the loaves were rested and risen.

Here is the bread in the oven, on the stone. Loved how it baked up.

The first loaf is out of the oven and resting and awaiting it's brothers and sister.

The holes are small in the cut. But they are evenly distributed. There were some large holes elsewhere in the bread.

The mushrooms were folded into the bread with the letter method. Next time, they will be throughout.

My bratty little sister who likes to boss everyone around, told me that I could make 4 smaller loaves just fine with this recipe. Sounded good to me. Don't they look pretty?

I don't know if you can read the time, 9:47 a.m. I know you can't read it because my photo of the clock ran away. Which means it's time for me to gather my things and go to church and play with the babies. It's my week to do nursery duty.

I did take the bread to work to share. My co-workers loved the bread. One even suggested that making garlic bread with it would be good. I think take the garlic butter idea, add a good ham and cheese and grill it. Yummy.

Challah

I was visiting someone else's blog and saw that they had their ingriedents with the cookbook. I like the look. Can you tell what ingredient was omitted?

Here are all the dry ingredients in the mixer bowl. Since I didn't want to have all the flour, yeast, sugar and salt to fly into the air, I took the whisk to combine all the dry stuff.

I used a little bowl to combine all the wet ingredients. When I tried to whisk them together I started getting spills on the counter. I didn't take a picture of the bowl with the wet ingredients because I put the small bowl above the mixer bowl and whisked and I didn't really care that I sloshed the wet ingredients into the dry because that is where they would end up. I did miss one picture.

Here is the dough after it was combined but before it was kneaded with the dough hook for 6 minutes. This dough really made the mixer dance on the counter top. It was really slapping the dough against the bowl.

Here is the dough after it was kneaded but before it was molded into a ball shape and placed in the oiled bowl.

Here is the dough in the oiled bowl awaiting the first rise. Doesn't it look cute and little.

This is after the first rise. Look at the time. It's 9:50 and church is at 10:45. There is a 20 minute drive. Time to put it into the refrigerator.

With the bowl being safely guarded, I was able to leave for church to return to finish the bread.

After church, divided the dough into three equal parts. I had a pretty picture of the dough before I baked it. It ran away and I don't know how to add the picture back in. I did a simple three braid for my challah. Maybe if I decide to repeat this bread at a later date, I may do the 4,5, 6 or if I get really crazy, the 12 braid. This wasn't my most favorite bread. It seemed hard to work with and not that tasty once it was baked. So don't hold your breath for me to repeat it soon.

The bread, fresh out of the oven and on the extra oven rack cooling awaiting to be cut in half.

I sliced the bread in half to see the lovely inside.

It was very hard to get the crumb shot with the bread. For some reason, my camera wanted to over light the bread. I hope that you can see that it looks lovely.

The bread is already packed up and ready to go to work. I forgot the bread on Monday because Trish call for a ride to work. That is okay since it was in an airtight container. The little red container did make it to Larry's work.

Challah French Toast

Just to show you how much trouble your bratty little sister can get you into. Tammy and I were talking about our latest bread, Challah. She said that she was going to make French Toast out of hers. I thought that was great. I didn't think that I was going to follow suit because mine was going to work. Generally when a bread goes to work it doesn't come back home. Well, Challah was a challenge. On Monday, I was rushed out the door by a friend that wanted a ride, so the bread stayed on the counter. On Tuesday, there wasn't a truck so not many people that I could give the bread away to eat it for me. On Wednesday, although the bread had stayed in airtight container, it was starting to go stale. I took it home, decided that I was going to make French Toast. I am glad that I did, don't tell Tammy, but that was a good idea. After eating French Toast on Wednesday night, I still had a lot leftover. I decided to take the French Toast to work to share with Kathie.
Since simple French Toast was dinner the night before, breakfast was French Toast with ripe banana, walnuts, syrup and a dusting of powdered sugar. Yummy.

Here the French Toast is retoasted in the toaster oven. The banana is waiting to be sliced and the walnuts are there.

The next step. It's looking better and better.

Whoops, forgot the dusting of XXX sugar. Even better.

This is too dangerous to keep in the house. All the elements are packed up to share for lunch.

A nice healthy breakfast. All the pictures are ready and this blog is done. Enjoy.

Casatiello

This bread was easy. I'm glad that it was fast. It only took 5 hours and that included starting the sponge.
Since my Kitchenaid was back in commission, thanks to a phone call to Marts Appliance in Escondido, CA. Love a business that cares for a customer. Here the sponge is in the bowl of the mixer.

I decided to add in Canadian Bacon, Sun Dried Tomatoes and grated smoked Gouda cheese. The grater attachment to the mixer came in handy for the cheese. I diced up the sun dried tomatoes because they were in Julian strips and smaller pieces were desired. My co-workers thought they were dried cranberry until they tasted them. I used 6 ounces of the bacon and fried it up in a skillet. I didn't weigh it afterwards to see how much weight it lost from the frying.

The ingredients in the mixer becoming a lovely dough. I think this is before the meat, cheese and tomatoes were added.

Its time to rest. Pulled out and greased out the large white mixing bowl. Flipped it to grease the bread. Covered it with plastic. I had 90 minutes to nap.

After reading some of the other blogs, they mentioned using a collar. I think mine was way too be here, but better too much than not enough. I have learned that from trying to buy pants that are long enough. I'm 5'9" and all the designers think that we should be only 5'6". I used a spring form pan that my brother, Mike gave me. The bottom was lined, the collar put on. Then the sides were greased with the extra butter, the sides were added to the collar.

The lovely dough that had it first rise was put into the pan and the collar. It looks so very cozy.

After the bread went through the second rise. I trimmed down the collar so that it still had several inches to climb while it baked, but now it could fit into the oven.

Before the dough went into the oven, I took out my trusty silicone basting brush and olive oil and brushed the top. Then I used some left over melted butter.

Doesn't this bread look lovely. See the meat and sun dried tomatoes. I liked how it browned up nicely.

The bread after it was taken out of the sprngform pan. This made it very easy to unpan.

My bratty little sister told me with the last bread that I needed to cut open the bread so that I could show off the inside of the bread. Tammy, this shot's for you. Doesn't that look lovely?

I want to make this bread again. I think this time, Swiss cheese, bacon, and green onions will be the add ins. Almost like a Quiche Loraine. My milk option will be buttermilk. I will try to add pictures of that bread to this post later, if I remember.