Conference back40::soapbox

Anybody know of any particularly good breads, either commercial or
via recipe?

Discussion with another noter indicates a general concurrence that most
of the mass-market breads aren't worth the yeast it took to raise them.

As an example, in New Hampshire, it's impossible to find a decent loaf
of Italian bread. It's a wonder how anyone responsible for baking what
they claim to be Italian Bread in New Hampshire can do so with a straight
face. It's clear that there's no way they've ever actually tasted a real
loaf of Italian bread.

Pumperknickel is another good example. Gerald may be able to concur on
this - in Syracuse there used to be a bakery on the east side (Fayette
Street) known as the Snowflake that made a loaf of Pumperknickel bread
the likes of which you've possibly never seen. The loaves were at least
a foot in diameter and six inches high - prolly weighed about 3 or 4
pound apiece. You could make the best corned beef sandwiches in the world
with a loaf of this stuff. Can't find anything like it in New England
as far as I know.

If you know of a source of good quality bread, if you have a good recipe
for quality bread, or if you have some opinions (silly question) on what
constitutes a good loaf of bread, let's hear it.

A loaf of bread, a bag o' blush, and thou . . . 

    Aussie Damper

Tell us more, Martin.

    Well, it's bread you would make whilst bush-walking/camping. You can
    find all of the relevant ingredients amongst the bush tucker, exept
    for one....Beer.
    

Bush tucker?

    errr, yeah, you know..... food found in the bush ! Basically, it's
    anything that's edible and you find growing or living in the outback.
    
    A lot of stuff out there is quite tasty....on the other hand a lot of
    it would make you wanna puke !!!!! :*)

There is a good recipie for white bread on the back of bags of King Arthur 
flour (IMNSHO the only store available flour worth using [never bleached or
bromated]).  If you want really good flour contact Walnut Acres in PA ( a 
bit on the expensive side).

If you want recipies for other kinds of bread say the word and I'll post a 
couple of good ones.

Geoff

    
    I make my own bread, but I tend to the very simple white bread.  Don't
    mess around with the recipe much because it works, it doesn't dry out
    and i don't have to dispose of the bad experiments.
    
    ken
    

    
    Indian nan, puri or chappati bread.  The dough is sold by Foods &
    Flavors in Nashua, Next to the Indan Village restaurant.  It's best
    cooked in a clay oven, but you can cook it on the grill over a pizza
    stone or on bricks.

    It's an amazing concept, Jack.  Kind of like in the old country.
    
    You walk out the front door, walk for about a mile, talk with wonderful
    people, share an espresso, they give you wonderful bread, you give them
    a bit of your money, you wish them good day, they wish you good day,
    and then you walk home with your child on your shoulders while he holds
    tightly on to the treasure.
    
    								-mr. bill

John Covert's DAK Rye Bread

1 pkg yeast			1 T butter
2 cups bread flour		1 t salt
1 cup rye flour			2 t caraway seeds
1 cup whole wheat flour		1 egg white
2 T wheat germ			1 T molasses
1/2 cup oat bran		1 1/2 cups very warm water

Put all ingredients into the machine in the order listed; let the machine
sit for 5-10 minutes (top closed) to allow the water to moisten the dry
ingredients, and press start.

 Hey, how'd you get note 25?

    >And for putting on weight in a hurry, you can't beat the Portugese
    >Sweet bread at Lucia's in Nashua, esp when it's warm out of the oven.
     
     I'm partial to their portuguese rolls. You don't even need butter. But
    there are no preservatives, so don't dally in eating them.
    
     My grandfather liked their rolls with linguica inside. 
    

    
    Jack,
    
      Back in the "FOOD" note, I mentioned finding a Polish deli in
    Manchester. They ship in most of their stuff from Worcester and New
    York City, and have a really nice, dark rye that comes from
    wooster-way. It's from a new bakery there and is really tasty... Stuff
    is heavy, dense and has that nice, European taste...
    
      let me know if you need directions... or maybe we can shoot up there
    some Saturday morning...
    
    
     Andy
    

My wife makes great challah.  We get 50-lb bags of high-gluten flour from a
baker's supply place.

The best challah I've ever had is what they served at the now-defunct
Pelham Kosher Restaurant in Mt. Vernon, NY (of all places).  They gave
you a small wooden cutting board, a steak knife, and a challah about 6"
in diameter.  It was very rich -- they must have put _lots_ of eggs in it.
You could easily put away a loaf or two at a meal.  The rest of the food was
also pretty good, so you were in a quandary as to how much challah to have.

    
    
    	My mother used to bake LOTS of bread and other goodies when I was a
    young lad. Nothing better than walking in the house after a hard day
    and smelling the aroma of fresh bread. MMmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
    
    
    jim

	I bet milady has a lot of neat ways to cook bread. I'm drooling just
thinking about it.... yum!

    re: portuguese rolls
    
    Best bread for sammies IMO, beats a bulkie by a mile.

    Help sharpen your teeth, too. ;-)

    
    Noah's bagels, garlic. Dipped in garlic paste
    for good measure.
    
    Whole Foods 7 grain dark-as-earth bread
    slathered with WF house brand hummus.
    
    Vietnamese French-style bread, purchased 
    from a street vendor, containing small
    crunchy bits of, er, protein.

Noah's bagels must be pretty stale by now.

Electronic humor in the bread topic?  I Wonder if anybody has any rye remarks
about breadboards.

Oh, stop trying to get a rise out of us. Even if it does give you a charge.

    Why is a loaf of Nissan 1.80 and a loaf of Shaws Oatmeal bread 99
    cents...and it tastes just as good?

    
    
    I thought Nissan only made cars??? :*)
    

It's because of the tariff that Clinton's slapped on Japanese luxury breads.

    
    
    <---- heeheehee  Good one! :*)
    

>    Why is a loaf of Nissan 1.80 and a loaf of Shaws Oatmeal bread 99
>    cents...and it tastes just as good?

You meant "just as lousy", did you not, Jack?

    Uhhhhh....yes.

    Santa Cruz bakery "Alfaro's" does several good ones- my fave is the
    rosemary and garlic sourdough.  Stacey prefers their four-seed sour.
    
    DougO

    Rubschlager
    
    I expecially like the "European Style Whole Grain Bread"
    
    ...Tom

>    Rubschlager

Please.  This is a family conference.

    
      "If you want a man to propose marriage, bake him bread."
    
                                      - My momma, over 40 years ago
    

    >  "If you want a man to propose marriage, bake him bread."
    
    So. how many men have proposed to you?
    
    -b

    
    `Baby I'm-a Want You'
    

Youre the only one who cares enough to bake for me

    
      Well, actually (this was very long ago), I grew up totally
     henpecked - three sisters, no brothers, with a stay-at-home
     Mom, and a Dad who travelled a bunch and died when I'd grown up.
    
      So I grew up with a lot of mother-daughter type advice, which I
     guess is a lot better than father-son.  I learned that later when I had
     three teenage sons.  Not only did my wife-to-be bake me scrumptious
     bread in great loaves, I made her a great crescent shaped peach
     strudel in return.  This was back before fill-o was common.  You had
     to stretch the dough extremely thin over the whole kitchen table.
    
      Love at first bite, so to speak.  Nowadays, they throw oat bran at
     you instead.
    
      bb

    My wife has an incredible recipe for stone ground whole wheat bread,
    but if I told it to you, I'd have to kill you.
    
    Actually I'll try to remember it on Monday.  Also have a good one for
    Canadian Brown Bread.
    
    Mike

>My wife makes great challah.  We get 50-lb bags of high-gluten flour from a
>baker's supply place.
    
    Gerald, please post it when you get a chance.
    
    thanks,
    Mike

I'd post it if I could fit the bread into a scanner.

>My wife makes great challah.  We get 50-lb bags of high-gluten flour from a
>baker's supply place.
    
    Wow!  That must be a H*!! of a loaf !
    
    :-)
    Dan

    
       Use hand lotion so you won't be so "crusty"

I wonder if that lotion would work for callouses . . . 

	Tomato Bread

1 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
1/2 cup pitted black olives, well drained
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cloves fresh garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon Salt
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

If you're using a bread machine, put the wet and dry ingredients in according
to the manufacturer's directions and run at "white" cycle according to crust
preference..

By hand, combine the two flours, cornmeal, sugar, dried basil, white pepper,
salt and dry yeast by hand in a bowl or on a board. Make a well in the center
and add the sour cream, tomato paste, egg, olive oil, olives,  and pressed 
garlic. Knead well until mixture is elastic, adding more all-purpose flour as
needed. Cover dough in a warm place or oiled bowl for an hour to rise (not
doubling in volume - this is a heavy dough). Punch down and allow to rise again
for 60-80 minutes. Bake for 35-45 minutes, depending on crust preference,
at 375 F.

Try making some toasted cheese sandwiches out of this, or spreading a toasted
slice with some anchovy fillets

    Baby I'm a want you.....baby I'm a need you....
    You're the only one I care enough to live about.....
    
    Lately I'm a crazy....but I just can't live withouuttt...
    
    Am I addressing this topic properly?

re .52:

See .41.

    Sorry...it's been used!

    jack,
    
    Think I could use yogurt instead of sour cream?  
    
    I looks yummy and I have been looking for a bread recipe like this for
    a while, but I am always looking for ways to cut fat, and sourcream has
    gotten to be too rich, for the most part.
    
    meg

    
    
    >I looks yummy
    
    Why don't you let us decide???
    

I think the yogurt would work, Meg. It certainly would "lighten it up"
some. It's extremely rich.

       No-fat sour cream is just about the only no-fat food that's a
       usually-acceptable substitute for the lotsa-fat version.

    
    	in baked bread, perhaps, but I don't care for it in
    	dips or salads...
    

    
    I've had it on potato(e)s, and it's not so bad.  Also, the no-fat fake
    liquid creamer is just as palatable as the fatted version.
    
    The grossest thing in the WORLD is no-fat peanut butter.  I wouldn't
    feed that to my worst enemy.
    
    

    
    
    the no-fat sour cream after-taste is to gak for....
    

    
    Izzit?  I didn't notice.  However, I must admit I added salsa to the
    concoction, and that'll kill any aftertaste 8^).
    
    

    
    >Izzit?
    
    Yep... tried to make a veggie dip with it and the after-taste still
    came through loud and clear...
    
     It might be different if used in baking and/or cooking, but as is,
    it's in the same category as Triple Bock...
    
    

       Could be.  I mostly use it cooked, as a replacement for cream in a
       sauce. where it's masked by other flavors.  I guess it's mostly
       the texture/consistency that's comparable.

    Mr Topaz,
    
    I haven't read the list of ingredients for fat-free sourcream
    substitutes, but if it is anything like the list of fat-free
    cream cheese-like products, I prefer something that is close to real
    food.  Also the amount of sugar in the fat-free cream cheese product is
    enough to shove my glucose levels all over the place.  Do they do that
    to the fat-free sour cream substitutes as well?
    
    meg 

       re .65:
       
       I dunno.  Hth, but suspect that it might not, and further suspect
       that just maybe you could get the answer by reading the
       ingredients instead of bothering me with such questions,
       
       --Mr Topaz

    cranked up Mr. Bread Machine.
    
    worked pretty good!
    
    vegetable bread all hot'n steamy. Ate it all (what I didn't share with
    the dogs)
    
    {belch!}

Discovered the "secret" of making a genuine loaf of Italian bread by machine 
last night. I don't have a clue as to why none of the many bread machine
recipe books that I've reviewed have ever included this recipe, other than
possibly because the authors wouldn't know a good loaf of Italian bread if
they got hit upside the head with it.

The Secret? Pretty simple actually. I just remembered what the paper bag
used to say when I'd buy bread at the Columbus Bakery on Pearl Street on
the North Side of Syracuse years ago -

	Ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast

3 1/2 cups, 1 3/8 cups, 1 tsp and 2 1/2 tsp respectively on the French
Bread cycle for Light crust and I was rewarded with an absolutely perfect
loaf of crusty, airy, chewy, Italian bread which will rival anything
you can get in the North End. So much for that crap on the supermarket
shelves.

    
    
    Hmmmm.... maybe I shoulda asked you to bring a loaf of that Saturday
    rather than the box of donuts!!!
    
     :) :)
    

    
    
    	Thanks Jack!  We just got a bread machine from Shane's folks
    	so I'm printing that recipe up and give it a whirl!
    

    
    	AARRRGGHH !!
    
    	Now I really want a bread machine :-(
    
    	Unfortunately (fortunately?), my husband has already
    	purchased my birthday gift.  Jewelry ;-)
    

    >	Now I really want a bread machine :-(
    
     God supplied you with one.

    I'm still waiting for god dough.

Bread machine.  Didn't James Brown do that one?

    .73  agagagagagagag

    
    	doc, what are you ibsenuating ?
    
    

    Look at the ends of your arms (the ends that aren't attached.) There's
    the "bread machine."

Doctah, how does your manual bread machine bake the dough?

    
    
    1.) Hold dough
    2.) Insert hands into oven @ 400 degrees F.
    3.) Bake for 30 minutes
    

    
    4.)  Rush to emergency room
    

    3.5)  Phone HMO for permission.

    
    	Yeah, doc, I had dreams of being a purist, too, until I realized
    	that if I wait until I actually have time to make bread from
    	scratch (sans machine), it'll be years before there is home-baked
    	bread in my house :-(
    
    

    We use a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, the big one.  It does a very nice job
    of mixing and kneading the dough, two loaves at a time.  Into the oven,
    and they come out great.  We toyed with the idea of a bread machine but
    rejected it - another appliance, not a small one at that, and one whose
    features are severely limited (to making a single small loaf of bread).

    
    	5) Buy loaf of Wonder on the way home
    

    6) Keep gun in other hand

I finally broke down and bought the bread machine last fall only because
it was impossible for me to bake a decent loaf of bread any other way.
I haven't a conventional oven in my home, having only a combination
microwave-convection oven. Using it as a convection oven is fine for roasting
and baking most things, including cakes. However, it fails miserably when it
comes to bread baking because the hot air currents tend to dry the surface of
the dough during what should be the critical last rise that takes place during 
the first ten to fifteen minutes of baking. The result is that the convection 
oven produces only dense, low-risen loaves. The bread machine allows me to
make excellent loaves of bread without requiring me to build an addition on
my house in which to put a conventional oven.

    You could put it in the garage, no?

    
    Not unless he likes wet bread...

Before I decided to buy a bread machine, I figured I'd do it by hand
to see how easy/hard it was. 

It is extremely easy. On a Sunday morning we usually make 4 loaves
with a total of 1/2 labor. (+Couple hours waiting for it to rise 
and cook)

My daughters have a blast, forget silly puddy. Flour and
dough everywhere 

They are getting older and clean-up is taking longer but wouldn't
trade the experience for a bread machine.

    
    
    	I'll admit it, I'm lazy.  With working full time (and come
    	May the part time job will start up again) and going to
    	school two nights a week, making bread from scratch isn't
    	high on the priority list.
    
    	I love my bread machine.  Throw all the ingredients in, hit
    	a couple buttons, two hours later I have fresh bread.  Good
    	enough for me!  =)
    
    	JJ
    

    
      Besides which, the crusty French kind is HARD to make !  I've
     spent mucho effort trying to replicate it, but I think I might
     hae to build a stone or brick oven.
    
      bb

    .91
    
    You do not need a stone or brick oven.  What you need is a pan of water
    in the bottom of your oven.  That's what makes the bread develop a
    thick crust.  Been doing it that way for years with my round peasant
    loaves (the old flour, water, salt, yeast trick).  Only problem with
    the peasant loaves is that they go stake quickly because there's no oil
    in them.

    Where does one purchase scratch? Beyond the biblical reference of
    course.

Start with itch.  Scratch just naturally happens.

| <<< Note 25.86 by MOLAR::DELBALSO "I (spade) my (dogface)" >>>


| The result is that the convection oven produces only dense, low-risen loaves. 

	I know some people this description could fit. :-) 

    I thought this was apropos for the topic. It came out of a
    classified_ads note.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        For Sale.
    
    Rabbit Hutches. My daughter had a rabbit for just under a year when she
    decided to give it to the local bunny man to use in his breading
    program. So we have some things to sell:
    
    Outdoor Hutch approx 3'*3' run and attached bedroom. Stands approx 2'
    from the ground. Both run and bedroom are shingled. cost May 95 $115.00 
    asking $60.00
    
    Indoor run approx 2'*2'. cost $40.00 asking $15.00

rabbit bread....yum

Nonono!  It's breaded rabbit cutlets.

    Yum!

Dijon (mustard) rice-rye bread with butter and a bit of cheddar cheese 
melted over it.

<----that sounds soooooo delicious!