Baked Eggs in a Basket using Sourdough Discard Bread

Baked Eggs in a Basket using a Sourdough Bread made from Sourdough Discards

I've been playing with my sourdough discards, just to use them up, and this bread was made on a whim with no object other than play.  But I used it to make 'Eggs in a Basket' this morning.

Bread

Since it wasn't a serious bread, I barely measured anything, and I didn't write it down until now.  It doesn't matter.  This bread isn't important, we are just going to roll it flat anyway.  I think that this is what I did:

• 1 c starter that would be tossed away after refreshing the sourdough starter
• 2 c wwflour
• 1 1/2 c water

Let sit 14 hours while you drive to work and come home.
Pour wet dough onto counter.
Add some salt.  How much?  I dunno, about 1/2 tsp I guess.  Use the palm of your hand and guess.
Add enough whole wheat flour to make a kneadable dough (probably another cup at least)
Shape it and put it in a buttered tin.
Let it sit and proof for about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 410 degrees F.
Bake 20 minutes at that temperature, then reduce to 375 degrees F for another 10 minutes or so.

Baked Eggs in a Basket

This recipe comes from the milk calendar.  The original recipe made 4 servings with 4 slices of bread, but here is only 2 of us, and my sourdough bread is somewhat different than the storebought whole wheat bread that the recipe calls for.  I needed 2 slices for each serving.

• 4 slices of my homemade whole grain sourdough sandwich bread
• ~1 tsp butter, softened
• ~1 c cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 eggs
• pepper
• garden fresh herbs like parsley or chives

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Butter your ovenproof bowls.
Use your rolling pin and flatten the bread.
Spread one side with butter and press the bread into the bowl, so 4 corners stick up.

Sprinkle 1 TBSP of the cheese into the bottom of each cup.
Bake 5 minutes or until it is toasted.
Crack 1 egg into each cup.
Sprinkle with pepper.
Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the cups.

Bake 15 minutes if you like your eggs still a bit jiggly, or 20 minutes if you are like my wife and like the yolk cooked through.  Toss the garnish on.

The original recipe would have you lift the cups from the hot bowls, but if you are not a child, and you are careful not to burn yourself, you can eat it right from the hot bowl.  In that case, serve oven mitts with each ovenproof bowl.

Notes to Myself

• My wife didn't really like the sourness of this bread when she ate one of the toasted corners that was sticking up, although to my taste it wasn't all that bad.  Perhaps if I had used only 1 TBSP of starter, and left it to rise in a cool or cold place, while at work, it might be less sour.  On the other hand, she did say that once you are digging into the egg, the sourness adds something to the taste.  In fact, I was thinking that an eggs benedict, or mustard eggs, would even complement a sourdough bread done this way.  Try that, next time.

Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat Challah

Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat Challah (sort of)

I have never made a braided loaf of any kind before, and I didn't realize I was in trouble until I actually began to braid the dough.

This is supposed to be Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat Challah from his book, Whole Grain Breads.  It doesn't look anything at all like the nice Challah that he made for the book's picture, of course.  This is what happens when someone totally inexperienced tries this recipe for the first time.

Ingredients:

Soaker ingredients

There is nothing much to say about the soaker.  It is just the three simple ingredients.

Biga ingredients

The biga felt really runny to me.  I neglected to measure the eggs (and it is a lot of eggs), but I probably wouldn't have tossed any away even if I had.  I did incorporate a fair amount of flour during the kneading stage, but I'm sure that it was still much too wet.  I persevered anyway.

Biga is extremely wet: I'd say, unkneadable

Kind of gloppy

The final dough seemed to come together okay, but as for passing the windowpane test, there was no way that this sloppy dough was going to do that.  Still, it had a gumminess to it that promised to hold together the dough.

Final Dough ingredients

Trying to incorporate more flour because it is just too wet

Resting periods for the dough are as important as the kneading

I waited an hour and a half for this dough to rise, and it was only supposed to take 45-60 minutes.  Again, I saw more sag than rise.  But it was substantially lighter in consistency: I think it just unfolded more than expanded.

dough after 90 minutes: the oil has slipped down the sides of the bowl and made a puddle

I discovered that I'm not much good at dividing dough evenly into 3 parts equal weight, by eye.

Reinhart instructs you to roll out the dough to 3", let it rest, and then roll it out to 10".  Well, my pieces started at 7", and I rolled them out to 17".   The strands in his book look to be longer than 10", though, so I felt somewhat justified.

But one of my strands was double the size of the other two, so I cut it in half.

One of these things is not like the other

The decision is made to shape a 4-braid Challah

"It'll be okay," I reasoned, "since Reinhart gives instructions for how to braid a 4-strand Challah too."

Well, there are pictures for the 3-strand, and the 6-strand challah, but there is only a one-line sentence for how to braid the 4-strand:

"4 over 2, 1 over 3, and 2 over 3," Reinhart tells us.

I had read over the instructions for the 3-strand, and that method seemed pretty simple.  The 6-strand method looked a bit more complicated, but I didn't have to worry about that, I thought.

But if you have 4 strands, you have to know the 6-strand method, since the 4-strand method is closer to that 6-strand method than it is to the 3-strand method.  I suppose one is supposed to easily get the idea of the 4-strand method just from looking at the other instructions. 

Well, to put it simply, I ran into trouble right away.

I labelled my strands, 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 in my head.  They were pinched together at the top, the farthest away from me.

I took 4 over 2, 1 over 3, and 2 over 3.  No problem.  Or so I thought.  I guess now, looking at my pictures, I did 1 over 2 (which is the new 3, but it shouldn't be renumbered until the whole series is complete), and that messed me up.

I take it (from re-reading the 6-strand method), you are supposed to renumber the strands 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 again only after the series is complete.

This is where I got hopelessly confused; I tried to do it renumbering "on the fly", I think.

Realizing this, I tried to back-track by lifting the last strand I placed back where it was before.  I thus discovered with horror mounting that these strands of dough -- whether they are 10" or 17" -- as soon as you start manipulating them, they are going to stretch and thin out, and they are so sticky they are going to immediately start melding to whatever other dough or counter surface that they touch.  The best way to do this, obviously, is to do it quickly and with confidence -- a sure, gentle hand.

hilarious

Willendorf Descends

If the ancient unknown artist who created the Venus of Willendorf collaborated with Marcel Duchamp, the artist who created 'Nude descending a Staircase', this braided bread would be what they'd come up with.  See the resemblance?

My Challah braid is art.

What I am trying to say is, all this means you should practice braiding.  And if you practice, you quickly notice that the outer strands cross over the inner strands, and then the inner strands are crossed, repeatedly until you are done.  This can and should be done fairly quickly, because it is an easy procedure.  In theory.

Well, I didn't practice, and the strands were a mess, and my hands were so sticky and the strands were elongating like Reed Richard's forearm, so I just quickly finished and set the whole blob on some parchment to sit, scrunchying it up in the move to the parchment.

The pictures of my "braid" are actually quite hilarious to me now.

And it was so wet that the whole thing just kind of sagged there on the parchment.  And there was no rise at this stage, just sag.  And my wife and I just sort of looked at the mess and knew it was nothing like it was supposed to be, but hey.  It was still going to be bread, more or less.

I painted the eggwash on and used sesame seeds: already sagging so the braids are invisible

I baked it 20 minutes, plus 20 minutes, plus another 25 minutes -- longer than Reinhart suggests by about 10 minutes, but I've had some bad results with our oven not acting hot enough, and I didn't want to take any chances.  I pounded the bottom of the loaf and it didn't sound quite done, hence the longer time.

There is no evidence of any braids left in this loaf.

Elephant man loaf

So I wouldn't call this, my attempt at Reinhart's recipe, a challah.

I probably won't ever make this again (unless it tastes exceptional, then I might trot it out at special occasions to use up some eggs).  Oh, but I see the next recipe in Reinhart's book is a transitional challah, so I have at least one more chance.  I do have to make a braided loaf at least one more time.

Then I can finally begin to try the hearth loaves, which I expect I will like a whole lot more than the recipes I've tried so far in Reinhart's book.

This bread actually does taste quite nice.  There is a lot of fat in it, of course, so it is bound to please, so long as it is properly baked.  And it turns out that this loaf is.  The crust is nice, the crumb is nice, the taste is nice.  I'm sure that it won't keep long, but then, it probably won't have to.  Even my wife looks interested in it.

Of course, she doesn't want to try any of my bread right now though, because today she baked herself about three dozen Berliner doughnuts (A German tradition in her household, when she was growing up, and something she has continued, as a "New Year Treat").  Those doughnuts are far too sugary for my taste, so she will have to eat all of them by herself. 

I will take a whole wheat bread over them any day of the week.  This bread allows me to say no to the Berliners.

Notes to Myself

• Practice your braid before you start in on the dough.  No excuses.
• Braid it directly on the parchment paper, you don't want to lift this later.
• Don't wait the entire 2 hours before the Biga comes to room temperature to start this. Cooler dough will actually help during the braiding procedure, I bet.

Lombardy Easter Loaf

Usually my wife makes this Easter bread, but this year she asked me if I wanted to make it. I didn't want to, but ended up doing it anyway, since I had more time this week than she does. I am not a huge fan of these sweetbreads.

The recipe my wife usually uses is the Lombardy Easter Loaf from Wolter and Teubner's 'Best of Baking'. This is a very well-used book in our home. We've had it for many years, and my wife often will make German style cakes from it. My wife has annotated this particular Easter Loaf recipe with several notes: "Very good. Bake 350 25 min" and "would make good donut dough" and "I prefer this bread to other pg - you could add raisins to this one too".

The recipe that she considers this one better than is another Easter bread, called "Polish Easter Rings", which calls for a full cup of raisins. So when talking over this recipe before I began, she said I could add more raisins "or currants, or dried cranberries, or slivered almonds, or whatever we have."

So on her advice, I changed some of the ingredients. The original recipe called for 1/3 cup (50 g) of finely chopped candied lemon peel; instead, I added the raisins, currants, dried cranberries and finely chopped candied ginger that we had on hand. I was going to go to the store for the candied peel, and also some unsalted butter, but because I didn't have to get the peel, I ended up using salted butter in the recipe. Here is the Mise en place photo (but of course, I forgot to have the butter ready in this photo). There is now 60 g of dried fruit.

This is a very wet dough, and I had to incorporate a lot of flour from the surface of the counter as I kneaded it. I would estimate I kneaded in an extra cup and a quarter. That's an awful lot, and I could have added more, but I held myself back.  The dough remained slack and moist when I set it out to rise.  It doesn't have to be firm, it sits in a pan to bake so it can be sloppy.

Ingredients

70 g sugar 1/4 c + 1 Tbsp
250 ml milk 1 c (at 110 degrees)
14 g yeast 2 pkg
500 g all purpose flour 3 1/3 cup
--- salt 1/2 tsp
2 eggs
1 egg yolk, beaten
generous pinch grated nutmeg
generous pinch ground allspice
zest from 1/2 lemon peel (grated peel)
120 g butter 1/2 c, melted
60 g dried fruit & nuts about 1/3 c

Directions

Mix 1 tsp of the sugar with the warm milk and let it stand 5 minutes until frothy. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. In a small bowl, beat eggs, sugar, spices, zest. Stir in yeast mixture. Pour wet material into the flour mixture. Mix with a spoon.

Knead on a floured surface until "smooth and elastic".

Let rise 45 minutes. Knead again, briefly.

Divide into 4, form each piece into a small boule, and set each in the corner of a 9x9 pan. Proof 30 minutes, while pre-heating oven to 375 degrees.

Brush on egg yolk

and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  Cool on a rack. 

I had changed the time and the temperature mostly on the say-so of my wife's experience. The bread uses a fair amount of yeast, and comes out of the oven well risen ("He is risen indeed") and with a nice cross shape from the loaves intersection, from which I suppose we are to derive the religious significance of this loaf.  The egg yolk gives the crust its familiar golden colour.

Unfortunately, the time and the temperature that my wife had written down was for our previous stove, which must have been a bit hotter.  She also made hers in a round pan, with smaller balls (but if you do that, you don't make a cross).  The original recipe called for 30-40 minutes at 375 degrees.  I think that next time we make this, we'll return to that.

Because what I've got here is another bread disaster.  My first clue was an hour into it, when it seemed like the center of the cross had caved in.  My wife dug into it and announced, "It's not cooked.  You've got goo here."

Well, Happy Easter.  "He is risen: indeed?"  What a let down.

There is one redeeming virtue.  While glancing at this book, I realized that there are a quite a few breads in it that I think I'd like to try: the "Wheat Germ Loaf", a "Whole Wheat Bread", "Flowerpot Loaves", "Fresh Herb Bread", "Aniseed Marble Bread", "Strong Rye Bread", "Hearty Peasant Bread", "French Onion Loaves", "Spiced Flat Cakes", and even "Savory Bacon Baps" (which look intriguing, but of course I would make a vegetarian version of them). The pictures of these breads look great. I'll have to play with these for my future Everyday Breads.


Brenda's Easter Lombardy Loaf

Because my loaf was such a disaster, my wife decided to make it herself so she would have a nice bread for Easter.  She basically threw the ingredients together haphazardly while she was making breakfast (I don't think that she measured much of anything; I saw her 'ballpark' the butter), she let the dough rise while she was eating and reading the paper, and then kneaded it before jumping in the shower.  She shaped the bread soon after she got dressed, and then started to get interested in her other work.  She remembered to toss it in the oven some time later, and said she set the clock for 35 minutes.  After an unknown amount of time passed, she wandered into the kitchen to discover that the dinger was going off.  The bread had been baking for longer than 35 minutes -- who knows how long? The yolk on top of the bread turned dark brown, and has a shine to it like ceramic glaze.

Here is her Easter Lombardy loaf.  It looks fine, compared to mine.  She bakes with such disinterest, and it turns out great.

Even the inside of her Lombardy Easter Loaf was cooked. 

Notes to Myself:

• To get a nice golden crust, brush on egg yolk and you won't need steam in the oven.
• If you are wondering about your yeast, trial it in a sweet warm (110 degrees F.) hydrated solution for 5 minutes to see if it gets foamy.  Could you do this for wild yeast starter too?
• Cook the dough, damn it!