It was a perfect snowy day here to indulge with my Nutella filled Croissants
I haven't made real croissants in ages as I usually make a fast and yummy yogurt crescent that suits me just fine. However I have been wanting to test out a new stone ground flour that I am not able to buy locally on a variety of breads and pastry so I know how it turns out. It is not a white white flour and it is somewhat gritty, so it is important to know how it acts when making a variety of breads or pastries before I serve it to guests. I already learned that it is quite fragile when making thin crust pizzas for the wood oven, so I am still tweaking on that recipe. I found that this flour makes a beautiful croissant, full of flavor and an enchanting golden color. I used my natural wild yeast, sometimes called sour dough, that gave the finished product just a nice tang that cut through the butteriness. What's not to love?
My batch of croissants
I won't kid you, it does take a bit of time to make these, and they are a bit fiddly, but the flavor and satisfaction are worth the effort. I feel the same about puff pasty and danish, which are the same process of building up layers of flour and butter through rolling out and folding, letting the dough rest in the cold and knowing just the right timing for the best results that it might be a tad daunting. However, I think you will find once you get the hang of it all they are a delight to make and even nicer to share with the ones you love or maybe someone you want to impress.
Tea for three
Roll em up
World Nutella Day is an event created by Sara Rosso of Ms Adventures in Italy and Michelle Fabio of Bleeding Espresso, just for fun and for the love of this Italian national chocolate hazelnut treat. They put this event together a few years ago and then it disappeared for a few years whilst the owners of the Nutella company figured out how to join in the fun. So this year it's back and here's my offering for a great way to enjoy Nutella, slathered generously on a freshly baked croissant. I did make mine from scratch over a 3 day period. You of course can do the same or you can buy some and bring them home to enjoy at your leisure, naturally.
Wild Yeast Croissants filled with Nutella
If you are interested in making them, I used Jeffery Hamelman's Classic Croissants recipe that uses American measurements and you will find that recipe here. If you prefer your measurements in metric, as I do now, you can find the metric variation of that recipe here.
Both recipes are clearly explained and beautifully illustrated with photos to make your project come together easily.
I hope you enjoy making them as much as I did and hope you have a wonderful World Nutella Day every day.
It seems that every day at our house is World Bread Day, mainly because I am so fond of baking our own daily bread because it really is that much better. I have a very appreciative and voracious bread monster that I am married to and we live up aways from town, so it just makes more sense to not have to run into town for what is one of our most essential foods. We love to offer what we think is a superior loaf for our bed and breakfast guests as well. Annually, on October 16, there has been an official designation for celebrating our beloved partaking of the "staff of life" that we call bread. Eight years ago a tradition of celebrating this annual event was initiated by food blogger Zorra of the "1x umrühren bitte aka kochtopf' blog. I have participated before, but not annually. When I looked to see what I had submitted before, I laughed to see that it was an apple bread as well. That delicious loaf had chestnuts in it. I love that loaf, but was looking to improve on the apple themed bread as apple season is well under way and we had many wind fall apples that were begging to be used up and I wanted a more pronounced apple presence. I went to one of most favorite bread books, simply named Bread by Jeffery Hamelman and found his reicipe to be exactly what I was looking for. His version called for dried apples and apple cider. I had some dried apple slices from last years batch and some local apple juice. I have to say that in the US apple cider where I grew up meant fresh unprocessed apple juice made form a mixture of apple varieties for a delicious beverage. It never was alcoholic unless you left it too long before drinking it. The rest of the world enjoys a bit of a kick to their cider. I didn't have any cider with a kick, but the apple juice pumped up the apple flavor and I imagine if it had been alcoholic it would have made the bread just a little bit lighter. No matter what you use, the loaves are exceptional. They are great toasted and wonderful slathered with jam or honey butter, or savory additions like goats cheese, ham and turkey. It was tempting to eat the whole loaf straight out of the oven, but we refrained. I did make it second batch shortly after the first when we fired up the wood oven and turned out an even more outstanding loaf. I dried more apples for the second batch and found that the apples cubed gave more of a flavor burst than the slices, which tended to melt into the loaf. A combination of the two turned out just fine. Do try this recipe and if you are serious about bread baking do consider buying this book. The recipes are aimed at the serious production bakers but he does have them scaled down for 2 loaves for home baking. Sadly though he didn't give the weights in grams, which for me is a much easier way to go, but fortunately I have a scale that weighs in both versions. Do have a go with making some bread at home. You will find it so satisfying on so many levels.
Happy World Bread Day 2013!
Apple bread inside
Normandy Apple Bread
Adapted from Bread:A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman Makes: 2 large loaves
Directions: The day before you plan to make this bread, make sure your starter has been fed.
Drying the Apples: A couple of days before you plan to make the bread, dry the apples in the oven. Or, if you have dried apples, you can use them. I used some dried slices and also baked some cubed apples baked at 250 F /120 C. or in a dehydrator until they feet leathery. Drying the apples intensifies the flavor and prevents them from releasing excess moisture into the dough. Day One: Stiff Levain Build: 5.8 oz Bread flour (1 3/8 c)3.5 oz Water- room temp ( 3.5.oz) 1.2 oz Mature starter (2T+1 tsp)
Approximately 12 -14 hours (more if cool in the kitchen) before you start the dough, mix up this stiff levain. Mix all together and cover. Leave to rise over night. Day Two: Final Dough Ingredients: 1 lb 7 oz cups Bread flour- ( 5 1/4 c) 3.2 oz rye four - (1 cup) 7.4 oz Water - (3/4 cup) 10.9 oz Apple cider- (1 1/3 cup) .6 ozSalt- 1 T .2 ozInstant yeast- (1 tsp) 9.3 oz (all) Stiff Levain- (from the night before) 4.8 oz Dried apples- (1 1/2 cup)
Mix everything together, except the apples, in your stand mixer with the dough hook. 3 minutes on low to combine, then 3 minutes on medium. Turn out onto a table and add the apples. Knead until they are evenly distributed. Cover dough and let rise 2 hours. Stretch and fold in thirds over each other like a letter after one hour. When your 2 hours have passed and your dough has risen well, divide the dough into 2 pieces and shape into loaves. Place loaves in proofing baskets or bannetons and cover. Let rise, covered, 1½ hours or until well risen. Meanwhile, preheat oven, with a baking stone, to 450°F. Mist and slash loaves. Bake for 15 minutes at that temperature, Turn down to 420°F and bake for about another 25 minutes. Total baking time of about 40 minutes. Let cool on racks.
I've been wanting to post a bread recipe for awhile. An open invitation from Zorra to participate in World Bread Day seemed like more than a good enough reason to do so. I had taken a few pictures awhile ago, so no time like the present. This recipe surfaced on the web last year and seemed to spread like wild fire through the food blogging world. I came across it through some more unusual bloggers who really didn't blog about food, but whose interest was piqued to give it a whirl. I was more than interested and amused in the buzz that was swirling around this particular recipe. I think it was the concept that it sounds fairly easy as there are only 4 ingredients that hooked most of us into having a go. Of course, it is very easy and yet, not quite the no brainer that it appears to be, but can yield a very decent product with minimal effort. The crux of the matter is that it is a very wet dough, that is supported by the cast iron pot, which also gives it the wonderful crunchy crusts that is usually achieved by water pans in the bottom of the oven and misting the dough in the first 10 minutes of the baking.
So once you get use to flipping the dough into the pot, you're more than on your way to a better tasting loaf of bread. I am adding a couple of links to different sites who have some helpful information and step by step descriptions that will help even the beginner to feel confident of success. Jim Lahey's No Knead bread recipe
as seen in the New York Times article
that started the craze and undoubtedly increased sales of cast iron enameled pots Rose Levy Beranbanm's
version, instructions and in depth discussions from many people and their experiences. I found this the most useful and instructive site. In the end as usual. I have found what works for me and it varies depending on if I use other flour and my natural starter, so don't be afraid to experiment and just keep baking loaves till you get what works for you. I seldom get the large holes in my bread for a variety of reason, but the flavor is there and for me that's the most important thing. Naturally, the guests would have trouble keeping the home made jam on their toast, so smaller holes are best for me. The recipe below is the original with a few changes, from me and a few others folks like Rose Levy Beranbanm. Feel free to change it suit your taste. No Knead White Bread
Published: November 8, 2006 in the NY Times
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1 1/2 hours plus 14 to 24 hours’ rising
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting (468 g flour)
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast (0.8 g)
1 3/4 teaspoons salt (10.5 g)
1 1/2 cups water 354-grams/12.5 ounces water
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add 1 1/2 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran, or cornmeal. (I use a silpat dusted with flour and with the bowl covering it for the second rise.I put some flour around the edge of the bowl rim to try and keep it from sticking to the dough.) Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. More if it is cold and doesn't seem to be rising. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 3-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats (the original recipe calls for a 6 to 8 quart pot, but I have a smaller cast iron pot and it gives a the smaller pot which gives you a rounder loaf. If you want it wide and flatter, go for the bigger pot). When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: One 1 1/2-pound loaf.
I found this video from Breadtopiaon you tube, which is a simple straight forward approach for a good visual presentation and different from the original version of the NYTimes Mark Bittman version.
Jim 
