Day 119: Schiacciata

While it could be a little hard to say, this Italian bread definitely does not disappoint. This bread was pretty standard, although it included olive oil and an egg in the dough. I think this loaf was supposed to turn out a lot flatter and thinner, but I think it still turned out awesome. It's got a great crust and color, while still being extremely crisp when you bite into it. I cut the recipe in half so originally this bread would have gotten huge. Even I don't think I could eat all of that bread because this one is already a pretty good size. We're still going strong on the French and Italian breads! I can't wait to eat what's next! 

Day 118: Italian Batter Bread

This bread was probably the easiest to make so far, and that is saying something. Yet again it used just the basic ingredients of water, yeast, salt, and flour. You just have to knead it for about half an hour before letting it rise the first time. It was really mushy and sticky while kneading it, but that's the desired texture. Once it rises for 2 hours, you just take a cookie sheet and flatten the dough out in the pan. After that, simply let it rise once more and throw it in the oven. There wasn't any steam needed for this bread, making it even easier. It basically turned out like a giant flat bread, or a pizza crust. It was delicious and I just tore chunks off and dipped them in a little olive oil and it went down so smooth. I would definitely make this one again. 

Day 117: Pain Italien

This Italian bread did not disappoint! The recipe was a bit different from French bread in that it used a bit of milk and olive oil. Makes sense for Italian bread when you think about it. I wasn't expecting this bread to turn out this beautiful, but I was so impressed. The recipe said to bake it for about 40-50 minutes, but I only had it in there for about 40 and it got this dark. It's got a fantastic crust on it that's both chewy and crispy at the same time. There wasn't any steaming for this bread, so I don't know yet if that's just a French thing or not. There are a few more French breads but they require a few days prep in advance. I'll get back to them but for now we're on the Italian bread train!

Day 116: French Bread With Egg Whites

I can't get over how amazing these French breads are! This bread was yet again another super easy bread, you just had to whip up some eggs whites before folding them into the regular French bread recipe. This one only had to rise for about two hours total, which was nice. The sesame seeds add a nice different flavor to the bread, differentiating it from yesterday's bread. Yet again I wish I had a baguette pan, because this bread is super lumpy. Luckily, that doesn't detract from the flavor in the slightest. This bread tastes a lot like the Italian bread you get from the store, which I found quite ironic. I'm pumped to get to the Italian breads and see what they taste like! 

Day 115: Pain Ordinaire Carȇme

Yet another incredible French bread. This one used a whopping four ingredients! Yeast, water, salt, and bread flour. The best thing about all these awesome French breads so far, besides the incredible flavor, has been how easy they are to throw together. They may have ridiculous rising times, but it's worth it when you finally taste it. I wish I had a baguette pan so I could make some legit baguettes, but I still think these turned out fine, even if they're a little lumpy. I've just been tearing off chunks and munching them down; they're so good. So far we're two for two when it comes to French bread and I'm sure we're just getting started when it comes to the best!

Day 114: Pain De Campagne Honfluer

This bread is incredible! I started the French and Italian breads section today and I am so pumped. I expect all of these breads to be incredible, especially if I just base it off this first one. When I think of delicious breads, these are the ones that come to mind. A lot of these breads don't have many ingredients, but use starters and sours to add a lot of flavor to them. This bread used a starter made from honey, water, yeast, whole-wheat flour, and bread flour. After letting that sit overnight you simply add more water, some salt, and some more of each flour. That was it. You then knead it and let it rise for a whopping three hours, and then another two before popping it into the oven for about 45 minutes. While its baking you need to have a broiler pan in there full of water to create all the steam that gives French bread such a nice crispy crust. I have to resist eating more of this bread because it is just that good. I'm looking forward to all of the delicious breads coming up! 

Day 113: Pain Noir

There is a lot of weird stuff going on in this bread. First of all, the past few French breads have included tiny amounts of melted chocolate in them, just to kick up the flavor, and this bread was no exception. In addition to that, there was a ton of molasses to give it that dark color. The molasses also adds a ton to the flavor of the bread. There is also cornmeal for some added textures, and caraway seeds for their signature flavor. This bread is also made with rye flour, whole-wheat flour, and all-purpose flour. It tastes like a regular molasses bread but also a rye bread at the same time. It's really weird, but delicious too. I thought this was a very fitting bread to end the blended grains section on because tomorrow we're starting French and Italian breads!  

Day 112: Multi-grain Bread

Technically all of the breads in this section are multi-grain bread, so I'm not really sure why this bread got this awesome name. This bread is loaded with barley and millet, two grains you usually don't bake with, whole-wheat flour and bread flour. It's got a really great texture and the millet really adds some nice flavor to the bread. This was a pretty standard bread besides using the barley and millet, even though the original recipe calls for baking them in some coffee cans. I still don't have any coffee cans so I just used a regular baking pan. We're almost all through all of the breads in the blended grain section, and then we're going to be onto some really awesome breads! 

Day 111: Sennebec Hill Bread

There is a lot going on this bread, not flavor wise, but ingredient wise. This bread has rye flour, whole-wheat flour, all purpose flour, wheat germ, oatmeal, and corn meal. It's got a great hearty taste and you get a lot of toasted flavor in it. This bread is a little dry, but that is easily fixed by putting anything on it. It makes great sandwiches and I'm sure it would also make delicious toast. This is what I think of when I actually think of a blended grain bread. You can taste each different grain in it, and that's what makes this a special bread in my opinion. We're winding down on the blended grain breads, I think we only have two more to go, but then it's going to get really serious.

Day 110: Three Flours Bread

The names are getting a little ridiculous at this point, but I can't blame Bernard Clayton for running out of ideas/just using what he's given. You can't argue that naming a bread Three Flours Bread, when it does in fact use three different flours is misleading. The flours this bread uses are all purpose, whole-wheat, and soy flour. The only problem is that I couldn't find soy flour anywhere. I looked up some substitutes and it turns out you can use almond flour instead, so that's what I threw in here. I don't think I've made anything that uses this much almond flour so I didn't really know what to expect. It is definitely different when it comes to textures, but not so much when it comes to taste. It just tastes like a great whole-wheat bread, but the texture is hard to describe. It's sort of grainy, but really chewy at the same time. I actually really like how this bread turned out. 

Day 109: Red River White Bread

This bread may have opened up like that one guy's head in The Thing, but it still tastes amazing. It uses that elusive Red River cereal again, but I think it turned out just fine using Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Cereal. I still think that Bob's Mill is the bomb for having all these weird cereal and wheat ingredients that I didn't even know existed. They always come in clutch. Anyways, I'm not sure why this bread opened up so much, I just sliced it down the middle like a regular bread, but it exploded out at the seams. The texture is incredible, it's just like the oatmeal breads I made before, and the taste is on point. There wasn't really a blending of flours in this bread but technically, Red River Cereal is made from oatmeal, whole-wheat, and rye, so I can see that being the reason it was included. All in all I'm really happy how this loaf turned out (minus the appearance). 

Day 108: War Bread

This bread might not look like much, but it sure surprised me with how good it tastes. I didn't really know what to expect from it, but I actually really like it. It's got a great crunch to it and you get hints of molasses in every bite. It is made with oatmeal and cornmeal, both of which change the texture of anything they're put in to. So to have both of them in one loaf of bread is amazing. There is also whole-wheat flour and all purpose flour. This was a pretty standard bread to make, with the only nifty ingredients being the oatmeal and cornmeal. I'm really glad this section of bread exists so I can use all of these leftover ingredients I have. I never thought to combine them like this and it turns out it's pretty good! 

Day 107: Wheat And Oat Bread

Coming hot off the heels of the oatmeal section, I'm not really sure why this bread wasn't in there, There wasn't anything really out of the ordinary in this bread. The only reason I think it wasn't included in the oat section is because it has both whole-wheat flour and regular flour. Either way this bread turned out pretty well. It's got a great dark color, but the taste is what really shines. through. You get hints from all of the molasses in it while also getting the nice texture from all of the oatmeal. I really liked how this bread turned out, even if it seemed out of place. We're still cooking our way through the blended grains section! 

Day 106: Texas Roadhouse Copycat Rolls

These rolls aren't in the book, but I made them for some family friends and they turned out incredible. For anyone who's actually been to Texas Roadhouse, you'll know how good these rolls are. I didn't have any honey butter handy (which they're usually served with) but they were still delicious. The recipe was actually really easy to make, and fairly straightforward. In the picture, you can see that the rolls opened up a bit, which I wasn't expecting. They're supposed to stay closed and tight, but it doesn't really change anything. I made hot cross buns last weekend, but I forgot to take any pictures and I didn't want to make them again. There is a recipe later in the book for the hot cross buns, so they'll pop up later even when it's a traditionally Easter bread. 

Day 105: Onion Triticale Bread

This bread reminds me a lot of the onion rye bread I made a while ago, and this one is just as delicious as that was. This loaf is a lot bigger than the rye bread was and I love it. There is a ton of onion in this bread, as you'd expect, so it might not be the best for a regular sandwich, but it sure is great to snack on. Triticale is a hybrid between rye and wheat, so it just makes sense that there's a rye bread and a wheat-rye bread. Unfortunately, triticale is hard to find. The recipe called for triticale berries, but I couldn't find those anywhere. I found only one store with triticale, and it was triticale flakes, so that was what I used. I just soaked them overnight and added it to the rest of the ingredient as always. The bread turned out incredible so I'm not sure how it would have been with real triticale berries. If I ever find some maybe I'll make some more triticale bread! 

Day 104: Boston Brown Bread

Another pumpernickel steam bread. I did't realize how common these were until I started baking 50 of them. This recipe is almost exactly like yesterday's bread, only this one was steamed. Yet again it calls for copious amounts of coffee cans to bake in, and a giant stove-top kettle to put them all in. I'm not sure what the point of doing it like that is, but I just the method I used in other steamed breads and steamed it in the oven. It turned out really well and I think this might be my favorite pumpernickel so far. It's really sweet from all of the molasses and the raisins, and the cornmeal helps with the texture a lot. I'm sure there will be even more steamed pumpernickel breads in the future, and so I'll keep comparing them to this one. 

Day 103: Baked Brown Bread

Turns out there are a lot of pumpernickel style breads in this section. I looked through the upcoming recipes and most of them use rye flour, but I didn't expect so many of them to be straight up pumpernickel style. By pumpernickel style I mean dark loaves sweetened with molasses that are usually baked for a long time and are sliced thin. This bread is definitely one of them, even though it's not a true pumpernickel. It's a lot sweeter than yesterday's bread, which I'm totally down for, and has a much better texture as well. This bread also is chock full of walnuts, adding both to the flavor and texture. Apparently, this bread is just like the next bread I'm going to make, only this one is baked and the next one is steamed. I'll compare and contrast them once I've baked it! 

Day 102: Red River Pumpernickel Bread

Red River Cereal is a hot cereal made of wheat, rye, and flax seed, and sounds a lot like oatmeal. Unfortunately, I don't know where to find this stuff. Like Roman Meal before, this cereal is just old and hard to find in places. There are two upsides however: in the recipe, I was given the address to Nieland Marketing Inc. where I can mail them and have them send me some Red River Cereal, if that place still exists 40 years later, and the other upside is that Bob's Red Mill has a solution for everything. I just used their 10 grain cereal that I used for the Roman Meal bread and it all turned out fine. This bread is exceptionally okay. As I was making it seemed a lot sweeter than it actually turned out. It's incredibly dense like other pumpernickel breads, but lacks all of the flavor that other breads have. It was easy to make, took 3 hours to bake, and was just okay.  

Day 101: Dark Grains Bread

This new section is all about blended grains, which just means you take all the flours you used making the breads in the previous sections and throw them all together. I think this section was actually created just for people that tried a bunch of breads and had all that leftover flour with nothing to do with it. This first bread uses buckwheat flour, wheat germ, rye flour, whole-wheat flour, and white flour. The recipe was all pretty straight forward: just mix all the flours and work into the liquid. It eventually came together as a pretty dense and sticky dough, but after rising it just came out perfect. It's got the density of a rye or whole-wheat bread, but a lot of the flavor and texture comes from both the buckwheat flour and the wheat germ. I think this was a great way to start out the blended grain section, and I can't wait for all of the future breads to come! 

Day 100: Cinnamon Oatmeal Bread

This, like the previous days' was an awesome cinnamon swirl bread (obviously). This one was different from the Scotch oatmeal because it just used regular oatmeal and had a lot more cinnamon sugar and raisins. This bread was also a bit smaller than that one, so it had a much tighter spiral. I loved the Scotch oatmeal swirl bread, but I think this one was a bit better. I sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on top to give it a good look, but it also crystallized in the oven and gave the bread a nice little bonus texture on top. This was actually the very last oatmeal bread and it was a great one to end it on! I'd never really had oatmeal breads before and I don't know why. They were all so great. Oatmeal adds a ton of texture and flavor to any loaf it is in. We're moving onto blended grain breads tomorrow! 

Day 99: Scotch Oatmeal Bread

Cinnamon swirl bread is one of the greatest breads of all time. It was a favorite while I was growing up and it's still one of my favorites. I made a lot of cinnamon swirl bread last Christmas, which was part of why I decided to keep making bread all of this year. The only real problem with this bread, is that no one seems to know what Scottish oatmeal is. I looked at a dozen or so websites telling me different things. The recipe in the book says Scottish oatmeal is just whole oats that haven't been rolled flat. Other sites said that  steel cut oats were how the Scots made their oatmeal. Others said that Scottish oats were ground up oats and were powdery. I just used steel cut oats because those are actually Irish oats (if you believe can anything on the internet) and the bread turned out incredibly. It's not as sweet as the previously mentioned cinnamon breads but the texture is top notch. The oatmeal in it gives it an incredible chewiness. It makes such awesome toast, I think it would make even better French toast. I'm really stoked how this one turned out. 

Day 98: Buttermilk Oaten Cakes

This one is a lot like your standard Irish soda bread, only it has oatmeal in it. You first let the oatmeal soak in the buttermilk overnight, and then proceed from there to make a regular soda bread. This recipe was WAY off though when it came to how much buttermilk you need to use. I cut back on the flour and I still had to add a lot of milk to the recipe. Not sure what happened there, but the bread still turned out okay. This soda bread tastes overpoweringly like buttermilk. If you don't like buttermilk (which I don't) then you won't like this bread. That being said, I'm not the biggest fan of this loaf. I'm okay if there is a hint of buttermilk, but this just tastes like you're eating buttermilk. Soda breads are really easy however, so I can't really complain too much. Check another oat bread off the list! 

Day 97: Orange Oatmeal Bread

I made another orange bread a while back and I think this one is almost better in every way. That one used orange zest and orange juice while this one used orange zest and an actual orange that I cut up. It's definitely not as sweet as that last bread, which is another reason why I like it more, and the oatmeal adds a texture to it that you can't get in the other loaf. The original recipe calls for making two 7 X 3 loaves, but since I still don't have any pans of that size, I just put it in a 9 X 5. I should have used an 8 X 4 to make it so it wasn't as thin, but I kind of like it thin. It makes it easier to eat and I don't feel as bad for eating half a loaf of bread. This was a pretty simple batter bread recipe, and you only really need oatmeal and an orange to make it (as long as you have a standard baking stuff). We're about half way through all of the oat breads, can't wait for the next couple!

Day 96: Maple Oatmeal Bread

Now this is some incredible oatmeal bread. I made it with 100% maple syrup like the recipe said to and I was afraid that it would overpower the bread with sweetness. Luckily, that's not the case. You get hints of sweetness in each bite, but what really shines is the oatmeal in it. As you would expect, the oatmeal makes this loaf extremely soft and moist. It's a bit chewy, but in the good way. This bread is awesome to eat by the slice, but I think this bread would make some incredible French toast. This was one of those times where I wish that I hadn't halved the recipe. I could eat so much of this bread, it's that good. It was also pretty easy to make now that my flour is doing what I need it to do. There aren't very many more oat breads, but they all look pretty awesome!

Day 95: Raisin Oatmeal Bread

This bread uses oatmeal, bread flour, and rye flour, to turn it into a loaf similar to the dense pumpernickel breads that I made a while ago in the rye section. I think I made at least one with raisins in it, but I'm not sure. Either way this bread is pretty delicious. The oatmeal, like yesterday's bread, keeps this dense loaf pretty moist. It adds a chewiness to it too. I don't think I could eat a lot of this bread just because it is so dense. I don't think there are very many more batter breads in this oat section. A lot of future breads seem to be yeast breads, which I like better. They are a bit harder, and take a while longer, but you can't really do much with these breads except eat them plain. 

Day 94: English Oatmeal Bread

I've never had nor made a tea bread, but because of this one, I'm super down with the idea. The oatmeal in this bread gives it such a great flavor and texture that you won't even know it's there unless you ask. This recipe makes either two small loaves or a dozen rolls, but I just decided to make one loaf and bake it in a bigger pan. Obviously it still didn't get too big, and that's totally okay. Tea breads are smaller breads that are meant to be eaten while drinking tea, of course, so if it was a larger loaf, it would just be a sandwich bread at that point. There isn't a lot more to say about this bread other than it is absolutely delicious. This is a great way to start off oat breads! 

Day 93: Buckwheat Bread

Well folks, this new flour worked like a charm and this bread turned out amazing. All of the buckwheat flour I've gotten has been dark gray almost black in color, and so I was super surprised when this bread actually came out brown. The dough was definitely pitch black before I put it into the oven. I still don't know if my old flour was the problem, but I'm going to keep making some test loaves with it. Like I said before, this bread turned out excellent. It's got a nice crust and great flavor. I don't know what the buckwheat added exactly to the loaf, but it still tastes delicious. The original recipe actually makes four smaller loaves in coffee cans, but like I said before, I don't have one, let alone four, coffee cans to bake in. So I modified the recipe and the pans I used to create just one bigger loaf. This was the very last buckwheat bread, and I'm kinda sad I messed up 2/3's of the breads here. We're going to be moving on to oat breads next, and I might eventually come back to these buckwheat breads.

Day 92: Bauernbrot

I think my flour might be the problem. The past few loaves have all been garbage, and they all have been the same problem: the gluten won't form. No matter how slowly I add the flour or how much I knead it, nothing happens. They all turn to slouchy goop that is extremely dense and tastes terrible. I thought I was okay because I used it in the stone ground wheat and that eventually formed into a dough, but that also had whole-wheat flour, so I think the gluten in that might have saved it. Buckwheat doesn't have gluten so it relies entirely on the other flours that it is mixed with. I've been having this issue for a while now and it seemed pretty hit or miss when I was doing rye breads: sometimes they kneaded perfectly and others didn't knead at all. I was using a different bag of flour then, but I think the problem might have been that I was overloading the flour. Now, I am very carefully mixing the flour in a little bit at a time, taking every precaution not to overload it. This doesn't seem to help so I tried to rule everything out. The yeast is alive: the bread rises fine every time, it just doesn't go anywhere because there isn't any gluten to support it. All of the ingredients are room temperature: now that it's not winter anymore this isn't really an issue. I'm not overloading the batter: if the recipe says to put flour in half cup at a time, I do a fourth cup at a time. If they recipe says to keep adding flour until the dough forms a shaggy mass that cleans the side of the bowl, then I slowly add flour in and only add more when the previous flour is completely mixed in. Overloading isn't a problem at this point. Overloading becomes a problem for me when I am trying to knead the dough and it is just a sticky mass that keeps tearing. When dough is sticky you should add sprinkles of flour to control the stickiness. This is a slippery slope because if the gluten never forms, you'll just be kneading a sticky ball forever that always tears. Which is exactly what all of these past loaves have been. So I decided to get some new flour. I'll test it out tomorrow and see how it goes and go from there. If the problem persists then I'll just have to find something else to change. The bread I made today was supposed to be an Austrian peasant bread with caraway seeds. I assumed it was similar to a rye bread, but just used buckwheat flour instead. It didn't turn out well and the only good thing about it was that it tasted like caraway. 

Day 91: Special Buckwheat Bread

This first buckwheat bread didn't leave a good taste in my mouth, literally. There were a few technical difficulties while baking it, and it only got worse after that. Apparently you need to really like flavor of buckwheat on it's own to like this loaf. I don't think I've ever had buckwheat, so I couldn't say whether I liked it or not. Another thing is that I think this is called special buckwheat bread because there isn't any other flour in this bread besides the buckwheat. I put this whole thing together and threw it in the oven for the recommended time, put a toothpick in and it came out clean, and so I pulled it out. This is when things got weird. I turned it out of the pan and it immediately fell apart. The outside was baked fine but the middle (the part I checked with the toothpick) was not. Not sure what happened there, but I scooped it back in the pan and baked it for about 45 minutes longer than the original 45 minutes. But the middle never was baked all the way through. I didn't think it was possible, but it just never happened. Maybe this bread was too dense, but I just used the recommended pan and it still didn't work. So the outside tasted okay but the middle part was just awful to eat. Not the best way to start buckwheat breads but that's okay!