For some its inbred...for me its in-bread :)

Blessed are the folks who can conquer the idiosyncrasies of yeasts, the drudgeries of kneading, and make adjustments to their concoctions with great aplomb. Not only that, they can make statements like “Hey, if the dough is too sticky, add more flour.” Well, how much more? And how sticky is ‘sticky’? You see, that’s the problem being a scientist by trade. One tends to carry logic into a territory where ‘learning by experience’ seems to be the mantra. The way certain people are able to not only come up with their own recipes, but also improvise and not resort to rosary beads when something doesn’t go as planned is simply amazing to me!

I am also trying to become a more ‘seasoned’ baker. I love to follow recipes because not only it is a ‘safe call’, but it also allows me to delve deeper into the blogosphere, view a picture of the ultimate prize ;), and learn some really useful tricks of the trade. Because sometimes, it is good to know all the possible ways to screw up ;)

But as I am trying to grow into be a better baker, I guess one of the things I have to do is to be able to gain that ‘intuitive’ touch by trying to come up with something without having to follow a recipe. And to me, nothing beats the aroma of freshly baked bread! So I’d like to share with you my attempts to ‘make my own bread’.

Of course, the breads I’m mentioning are not ‘original’ in the sense that they have been made before. But to me, in a sense they are because I didn’t refer to anything while making these breads ☺ So here it goes….

A) Potato Bread

This is a minor modification to good old white bread. But I must confess that the added taste pf potato took it to a whole new level in terms of taste! The loaf was “Gone in 60 Seconds” ☺

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 ¾ cup water
1 packet active dry yeast
½ cup dried potato flakes
1 tbsp dried chives
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp sugar
Milk to adjust the consistency of the dough

Proofing the yeast:

1. Warm ¾ cup water in a microwavable bowl to make it lukewarm.

2. Dissolve the sugar and then add the yeast. Mix and leave it for 15 minutes or until its frothy.

Method:

In the meantime, we prepared the potatoes like this:

1. Bring some water (1 cup) to a boil.

2. Add some salt and then the dried potato flakes. Turn off the heat and mix until you get a consistency that resembles mashed-potatoes. You can also mix in some red-chilli powder or cayenne pepper powder to tickle your spice-buds ☺

3. Mix the flour, salt and chives.

4. Add the mashed potatoes, butter (melted in a microwave and brought to room temperature) and mix well.

5. Finally, add the yeast and mix/knead well to form somewhat sticky dough. You can add some milk if the dough is too solid. By this I mean there are lumps of dry flour remaining in the dough after the addition of all the yeast-water mixture. But do not add not too much milk, otherwise the dough may become too runny.

6. Form a ball and cover the surface with olive oil. Let it rest in a covered bowl until it doubles in volume. This should take around 2-3 hours. For an easier solution, preheat your oven at 300F for a minute and switch it off. Keep the dish with the dough inside and watch it rise :)

7. Punch the dough back. Cover the bowl and let it rest for 10 more minutes. This is the time to vent all your anger out if you’ve had a rough day at work or something! The kneading step is not a bad option either ;)

8. Grease a loaf pan with olive oil. Transfer the dough and spread it evenly. Let it rest for 15 more minutes.

9. Bake it at 350 F (Please make sure to preheat the oven at 350F after taking out the risen dough) for 20-30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when inserted into the bread.

The bread came out nice and moist. The taste of potatoes was unmistakable and not yet overpowering. It was hard to take pictures and once that was done, N and I devoured the loaf. The entire loaf vanished in no time!

B) Spinach and sun dried tomato bread

Well, this is a bit more complex. The inspiration for this recipe was Sunita’s cheesy dal bread. A very unique creation because I have never heard of adding cooked lentils to a bread-dough. Pure genius ☺ I was a bit apprehensive to use whole wheat flour because the one we had was simple “Atta”. Its texture is rather coarse and is not particularly meant for baking. So I made several changes to the recipe. Well, enough to call it my own: P

Ingredients

1 ½ cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used Atta)
1 ¼ cup water
3 tbsp active dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 ½ tbsp salt
100 g spinach (fresh/frozen/whatever!)
½ cup sun dried tomato paste
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried parsley flakes

1. Proof the yeast in 1 ¼ cups water as described above.

2. Cook the spinach in boiling water (with some salt) for 15 mins. Drain as much water as you can and let the spinach cool down.

3. Mix the flours, salt, oregano and parsley.

4. Add the yeast and knead to mix all the ingredients. Add the sun dried tomato paste and knead again. Form a ball, glaze it with some olive oil and let it rest in a covered bowl until double in volume.

5. My dough didn’t rise much even after an hour. So I decided to put the covered bowl in the oven, crank up the heat to 250F for about 2 minutes and turn it off. I waited for another hour and found out that the dough had risen well. I also noticed a somewhat dry ‘crust’ had developed. But that didn’t cause any problems. I guess Atta could be a pain to work with!

6. Punch the dough back and let it rest for 15 mins.

7. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Roll each into a ball and flatten with your hands into thick discs. Add the cheddar cheese in the middle of each disc and then fold the disc over to cover the cheese. Essentially, I made giant balls that engulfed cheddar cheese in the middle.

8. Let the balls rest for 15 mins on a greased pizza tray.

9. Bake them at 350 F for 25-30 mins. Or until a knife comes out clean. Do not insert the knife too deep otherwise it might come back with molten cheddar on it ☺

The bread came out well. The cheddar made it taste really well ☺ It was fun to see the molten cheddar ooze out when we cut the bread open. Well, I didn’t bake this on the same day as potato bread (I mean I love baking but I am not a maniac!) but this was also devoured almost immediately :D

So yes, for some folks, it is inbred. But for me, it is in-bread :D