Island Bagels

Typical day in Paradise...a cruise ship passes by the bagels

This week's Bread Bakers Apprentice challenge was to make bagels. The recipe was different in a few ways from previous bagel recipes I have made. Peter has developed a recipe including a sponge, a wet mixture of flour, yeast and water that is the base for the eventual dough. I used my new bread whisk to stir up the sponge and it worked great.

This sponge is allowed to rest, giving a richer flavor. Then additional flour, water and yeast are added to the sponge. I used my Kitchen Aid to do the dough and to knead the dough.

Thirdly, he suggests putting the shaped bagels into the refrigerator over night to retard the rise and add further flavor and chew. His recipe suggests balls of dough that are 4.5 ounces, but I made mine 4 ounces, as well as some mini bagels that were 2 ounces.

Tis is a water bagel, which has a chewy texture and great flavor achieved by retarding the proofing process over night in a refrigerator. In my first batch, I think I may have had a little too much yeast, as I used my sourdough starter for the sponge (longer proofed starter than just adding straight yeast) and then added the fresh yeast called for in the dough.

Another thing I did that varied from Peter's suggestion is that I baked my bagels directly on my hearth stone insert in my oven, instead of on pans. Except for breads that have to be baked in a form, I bake all of my bread this way. This means that I had to put them on a peel coated with cornmeal or semolina before baking. Here they are baking:

They were very puffy, but ever so delicious. The next batch I made came out more like I like my bagels, but it was done with just fresh yeast and no retardation. Having said that, I prefer Montreal style bagels, which are more pretzel like in texture, instead of the more puffy and bread like commercial bagels.

We took some of the first batch over to our friends Joey and Bonnie's for brunch. We enjoyed them along with Bonnie's Waffles, fresh fruit, Bloody Marys and Champagne while watching the incredibly blue sea from their lanai.

I also had some extra dough when I made the second batch... and a hungry husband. So I made a few "Bagel Dogs" and they came out great. He loved them and proclaimed them the best thing I have ever made. He is extremely enthusiastic sometimes. The good thing here and now is the best thing. Wes is famous for proclaiming, "That was the best dinner I have ever eaten in a private residence." I must have heard that at least 50 times. He is also a big hot dog fan, so that may have had something to do with his proclamation, but he has been eating a lot of my bread baking samples lately and I do think he liked the bagel dogs best of the BBA challenge recipes so far.  He has been having a bagel with creamed cheese every morning since the first batch came out on Sunday. Here is a close up of the bagel dogs:

Toppings are added to the bagels when they come out of the boiling water. I sweetened my water with malt syrup. Here they are in their bath:

I made a variety of toppings and all were delicious. I still think I like sesame best. Wes likes the onion. For the onion topping you can reconstitute dried onions and the same goes with garlic, or you can lightly sauté fresh onions or garlic with olive oil for a few minutes as I did and achieve a fresher flavor. I also used my smoked salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and a red Hawai'ian Salt mixture that has some garlic and herbs in it. I even added just a bit of cornmeal to a few of them. With the seeded varieties, I added a tiny bit of my smoked salt to the top.

Here is a bagel "just formed":

I still think I need to work on perfecting this particular recipe. If I use yeast as Mr. Reinhardt suggests instead of the sourdough starter, I can be more exact. The taste was incredible, but they were not as "pretty" as I wanted them to be. They should make great bagel chips and sandwiches! Of course if Wes has his way I will be making more bagel dogs.  I think I will try making small appetizer size bagel dogs someday soon.

This week we are doing Brioche, one of my favorite breads. It is a rich egg and butter bread with a glossy crust that also is incredible in French toast and sandwiches. Till then, Aloha.

Baking with Swine Flu

You know the saying, "Don't throw pearls before swine. " Well, someone threw the swine my way last week...flu that is. I am pretty sure I have the swine flu. I have had all of the symptoms since last Friday with no let up in sight. I have to believe this is going to end sooner or later!

If you have been following my blog, you already know that I am involved in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, and that involves baking one bread a week and posting on Mondays about that week's bread. Even though I was sick, I was determined to bake my loaf of Artos Greek Celebration bread. I started out on Friday morning getting my sourdough starter out of the fridge and waking it up. It took a couple of feedings, but by Saturday morning I was feeling sicker than ever, so I put the starter back in the fridge and had to start the whole thing again on Sunday morning. I got as far as making the dough and going through its first rise (or proofing) and felt so sick that I put it back in the fridge to retard the dough. This process actually increases flavor in most breads but that was not my reasoning. I just needed time to feel well enough to complete the task.

Finally, this morning I got the dough out of the fridge, punched it down, removed a portion for the decoration, added chopped dried papaya, dried pineapple and toasted macadamia nuts. Yes, I was taking liberties with the Christopsomos version of the bread which normally is a Christmas Bread, studded with golden raisins, walnuts and dried cherries. Hey... it is May and I am in Hawaii! I promise to make the Christmas version next December. I made the bole and set it out to rise.

The dough itself is enhanced with cloves, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, almond extract and orange zest. Some versions of the Artos are sprinkled with sesame seeds. Some have a citrus glaze. I did not want mine sweeter or nuttier and the version I was doing was decorated with dough appliques. So I opted for an egg wash half way through the cooking time.

Through the flu, I trudged on... a day late, I can now post for you the victory of another bread from the fabulous book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. If you love baking, especially artisan bread, you will love this book. It is not too late to bake along with me, and as I said before, if you are on the island, come bake with me in person! Next week I hope to be Swine Flu Free and baking bagels, one of my favorite breads. I am going to include the bagel recipe, as I think that is a very special one. After that is brioche featuring Liz' most beautiful Puna eggs (another story in the making).

Meanwhile, here are a few notes on the Artos I made:

• Because I had to retard the dough for two days, my bread may have developed deeper flavor.  It had great texture and crumb. 
• The loaf was HUGE. I am not sure why, but perhaps my sourdough starter is stronger than the poolish or barm that the book suggests using. And the recipe adds additional yeast to the mix. 
• This like the first bread, the Anadama is probably a bread  I would not have made except for the challenge. I am glad I did make it and will try it again for holidays. 
• I "Hawaiianized" the loaf and was pleased with the results. The pineapple, papaya and mac nuts were a pleasant addition to the loaf.
  
• This bread is lovely on its own with some sweet butter, but also could be used for french toast, bread pudding and for making crostini to be eaten with cheese. 

Next post in a few days will be an interview with "Taro Sam" the Lau Lau King. I did the interview last week. See you then!

The Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge Week 1

I am one of 200 bakers around the world involved in an amazing baking challenge. 

It is not a contest, but instead a group of mostly food bloggers who together are baking our way through the  James Beard Award baking book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Penned by Peter Reinhart, a baker extraordinaire that I have admired since his days as a baker in Sonoma County, California. His first book, Brother Juniper's Bread Book has long been a staple in my kitchen. 

The Challenge started when Pinch My Salt blogger, Nicole invited us to join her in the challenge to bake one recipe together each week and blog about it. So, the 200 of us are on our way.

This is week one. Our bread is called Anadama, a cornmeal (Polenta actually) infused bread that makes a really nice toast as well as awesome croutons and bread crumbs. I even used the dough as a pizza dough with fantastic success. Anadama has a fun story about it, Supposedly a very long time ago in Rockport Massachusetts a man was mad at his wife, Anna not only for leaving him, but also for leaving him with a pot of cornmeal and molasses, which he threw together with some yeast and flour muttering, "Anna Damn Her!" 

And so, here are some photos of the first bread and a pizza I made. 

The process is a long one, involving some waiting time while the polenta soaks 24 hours and the dough can also be slowed in rising midway through baking. Let me just say, the wait is worth it. Essentially it is a simple bread to make, just time consuming vs. an everyday loaf. The slight crunch added by the cornmeal and the slightly sweet and rich taste of the molasses work ever so well together. 

I would like to continue perfecting technique on this bread, adding whole wheat flour in place of the unbleached bread flour and working on the second rise a bit. I also noticed (too late) that I made one loaf bigger than the other. 

Here the loaves are in the oven baking: 

And since we just moved to Hawaii, I could not find my carbon steel bread pans. I usually make baguettes and free formed breads, so I was limited to these two smaller ceramic bakers, which worked fine, but I do want to try baking it in metal pans. 

Here is a BLT I made with the Anadama Bread, toasted. 

I will not be posting all of the recipes here for the breads, as it would be against copyright laws to do so, but I will be posting pictures, methods, successes and failures and challenges of doing these breads in a Hawaiian climate and with limited resources for ingredients. And I may post an occasional recipe. Mostly, I want to encourage you, my readers to go buy the book if you do not own it already and follow along, posting comments about your experiences. You certainly don't have to make every bread in the book as we are, but at least try some of them. 

Every Monday I will post about the bread I made that week. Our next bread is Artos: Greek Celebration Bread, which can be formed in a variety of ways. Please, if you are joining me in this challenge, or just baking one or two breads, send me an e-mail and let me know and feel free to create your own blog posts and link them here under comments so other readers can see what you are doing. 

If you live in the Hilo area and would like to come make bread with me, that would be great too! Just send me a note and we can make it happen.