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Bara Brith a Welsh Bread Worth Knowing: Levain Rye & Oat

6/30/2016

A Welsh Tea Loaf

We made this loaf during my recent “Bards and Bread” camp, as part of the British Isles Bread series. I’m beginning to fear that you’ll think this is a baking blog only, well it’s not, but I’ve promised these recipes, and they are all so worth baking and having in your recipe box.
Bara Brith is particularly dear to me, and not just because it alliterates so nicely. At camp we marched around singing “Bara Brith and Barley Bannocks”.

In Welsh, "bara" means bread and "brith" speckled. This loaf uses sorghum, rye, and oat flours and potato starch. It gets an overnight fermentation using a levain natural yeast starter, with honey, fruit, and spices included in the fermentation. It rises with the help of baking soda and powder. It’s a delicious tea or breakfast bread and makes outstanding toast.

"over spice the bara brith" means to do something to excess

Oats Barley and Rye were common

Finally, taking all my research into consideration and what I know about baking I revision the recipe. I’m particularly pleased with the outcome of this bread. It’s very good, in fact it’s my favorite tea bread at the moment.
I don’t use wheat, so the grains were changed, and interestingly early wheat fields in the U.K. were never just wheat but wheat mixed with rye and or barley, what is called maslin or in French mesteil. They didn’t do this on purpose it was just an outcome of their farming practices, but it certainly changed the bread made!
I use oats, rye, sorghum flours, potato starch and flaxseed. All except the sorghum, were grains used in the 19th century.

Pain d'epices to bara brith

Honey is my sweetener, which comes from my take on the French pain d'epices which
Bara Brith reminds me of. I also wanted a pre sugar trade feel to the bread. This recipe uses more sweetener than most of my recipes, but less than the American norm. There are 5 grams of added sweetener per 40 gram serving, and 24 servings per recipe. Not bad.

Spices to be revived

I used spices favored in the 19th century but out of fashion now, like anise seed and caraway. They deserve reviving. The sweet spice mix is freshly ground and adapted from Elizabeth David’s “ English Bread and Yeast Cookery”.
  This recipe uses baking soda and powder as the leaveners added right before baking in a slurry with the salt. The loaf will go up with just the levain, but isn’t reliable. The alkaline sodas also neutralize any sour notes, which brings the bread back to a more British Isles flavor.
  The technique gets some getting used to, everything is quickly and easily mixed in the food processor. It’s important to add the firm levain before the honey so that its in contact with the flours. What’s nice is the easy flow of baking it makes, a little the night before, and hardly any effort right before baking, which is very nice if you’re serving it for breakfast, or tea.
  The bread ages very well because of the honey, and makes exquisite toast, sort of biscotti ish. I think you'll be pleased.

A Levain Rye and Oat Bara Brith

Bara Brith was traditionally eaten on
St. David’s Day, or Christmas Day in thick slices spread with butter. It’s a folk recipe that changes village to village. It's a 19th century tea bread.

Bringing old Recipes into their best

One of my passions is to take a traditional regional recipe, and research it thoroughly. I want to find out how people make it, made it, and in what context it’s served and when?
Then I imagine into it, and start to ask questions: How old is this recipe? Was it ever fermented? Did they use barm? What flours were used? Sweeteners? Spices of the times?

Fermentation Brings out flavor

The Bara Brith is fermented overnight using a firm levain starter, it doesn’t contain any fat but the honey and dried fruit is fermented with the flours. This was a breakthrough idea for me, which I came to by reading about the oldest known way of making a levain pain d'epices. The bakers didn’t add any levain starter, but just mixed the honey with flour and let it sit for several days until it naturally fermented. Honey is acidic so this probably helped, but it’s also antibacterial, so maybe inhibited certain bacterias?

Caraway in bloom and seed

Levain Rye and Oat Bara Brith

A Welsh Tea Bread
makes two round loaves

Overnight Ingredients
2 cups rye flour
2 cups all purpose gluten free flour
½ cup oatmeal ground fine in a food processor
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed (measure and then grind)
½ cup firm levain (one ball)
1 cup honey
1 cup water
1 teaspoon anise seed
1 teaspoon caraway
½ cup raisins
½ cup currants

Morning Ingredients
2 teaspoons sweet spice
zest of one large organic orange
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon water to make a slurry

Sweet Spice Recipe
4 teaspoons white peppercorns
2 teaspoons whole allspice
4 (4 inch) cinnamon sticks
2 teaspoons whole cloves
2 whole nutmegs
Break up nutmegs and cinnamon sticks with a mortar and pestle
Grind all spices in a spice grinder, and sift.
Keep in a sealed jar
(use the leftover siftings to make masala chai)

Overnight Fermentation Instructions
In the work bowl of a food processor add oatmeal and spin until fine, add flours, ground flaxseeds, caraway, and anise seed. Crumble firm levain into work bowl and pulse 6-8 times until combined, add zests, and pulse, add honey, add water and pulse until the dough comes together. Empty contents of work bowl into a large mixing bowl and add dried fruits. It should be a moist dough, not too dry.
Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and let ferment overnight ( 12 hours ) at room temperature. We turn our oven to warm, then turn it off, and ferment the batter in the oven, especially in the winter.

Baking Instructions
Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle portion and preheat the oven to 375F
Make a slurry of salt, baking soda, baking powder, spice and zest. Add to the dough and mix until no streaks are present and everything is completely combined. Split the dough in half and make two round 7 inch, flattened loaves on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Cut a cross on each loaf.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden/ internal temperature 200F Let cool before serving.
This loaf gets even better when cool, and is excellent toasted.
Please credit Society for Revisionist Baking for any use of this recipe and its techniques

Firm Levain

Gluten Free Flour Mix

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Foodwise Wednesday: Ages & Stages of Cooking with Kids

6/29/2016

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Foodwise Wednesday: Ages & Stages of Cooking with Kids

Ages and Stages of Cooking with Children

Baby to Six

Your little shadow
Expose them to new tastes, smells, and kitchen sensory experiences.
Let Them
pour beans into jars,
help you chop, yes, teach them to safely use a knife by age three.
Help you with everything...
Talk to them about what you’re doing, ask them "What’s next?" questions.
squish, mold, stir, pat…
Take them to the market,
a farmer’s market is even better.
Introduce them to the vegetables play naming games.
Plant food with them, gather eggs, go see the cows and goats.
Make ferments, kefir, bread...
The kitchen is a rich exploratory and engaging place for a young child.
The four, five and six year olds love to make experiments,
try to cook what they’re reading in their storybooks, have tea parties, and make special meals. They love to arrange food beautifully for their snacks.

Seven to Eleven

Mastering Skills
Competency and Creativity are what motivate these ages. Mastering a technique through practice. Making bread, crepes, waffles, soup….following a recipe, then not following the recipe. Looking into other culture's cooking, trying new food experiences. But remember on their schedule not yours. They love ritual, rhythm, consistency, and rules: setting the table beautifully, table etiquette, family meals, feasts and holidays, the family’s favorite foods.
Give them a task and let them do it while you're doing something else. They make the salad, they prep the soup, they set the table, they do dishes. Give them mini lessons as you see the need, or when they ask. Don’t hover, but expect them to be gaining skill and confidence.
All this being said,
I can’t emphasis enough how slow, clumsy, dreamy, unfocused and messy they will seem to you!
They are because they’re children, it’s a stage, expect it. If you need things to move fast, then do that part yourself.
It’s just like taking a walk with a two year old, they could care less about getting somewhere, they just want to experience everything along the way!

A child’s brain is not the adult brain they're a different animal, so slow down and enjoy them.

Twelve to Sixteen

Independent Cooks
If they’ve been cooking all along, they'll be good cooks by this time. Let them cook for you, sit back and enjoy it. Continue to give mini lessons on the finer points or new skills. Begin expanding their horizons. Read and dream over cookbooks together, watch cooking flicks, go to exotic markets, eat in special places.
Cook together often, daily if you can. It’s a great way to talk and share time together.

Sixteen & Up

Lives Of Their Own
My three children are all
good cooks, but with my 22 year old son who's in college, I followed my own advice, mostly, although I wish I'd have been more patient, not hovered as much, and realized that every stage passes into the next. He’s now an excellent cook, who makes bread, cooks whole foods, forages wild foods, ferments and completely astounds his friends who can’t open a can.
What I cherish most is our cooking relationship, how when he comes home we cook together, and talk, share, and eat. He’s forming his own culinary ways yet carrying our traditions with him.

Cooking is a Choreographed Kitchen Dance

My husband and I have frequent breakfast conversations about teaching people to cook. I’m continually explaining how much of cooking must be in your muscle memory if you want to cook with flow, and not be utterly frustrated and confined to recipes. One morning, I mimed all the kitchen dance motions involved in just making scrambled eggs and he the dancer got it.

Cooking is in my Bones

Like swimming or riding a bicycle, it’s a challenge to try to learn to cook as an adult. I’m lucky that cooking is in my bones. I was baking applesauce cake without help at Grandma’s house, while she worked out in the garden at age 7.
I regularly cooked dinner by myself for parents and three brothers at age nine. I remember a menu I made quite often: honey lemon chicken, a tossed salad and homemade dinner muffins. I had the table set, and dinner ready by the time my mother got home from work, not that I wasn’t messy, or did it perfectly! What I’m saying is that the kitchen dance is in my muscle memory. You can put whatever food you want in front of me and I can dance it.

"Cooking with kids is not just about ingredients, recipes, and cooking.
It's about harnessing imagination, empowerment, and creativity. "
Guy Fieri

Developing Cooking Compassion

When I first started to teach cooking I came with a big bag of assumptions about people’s basic cooking skills. I thought they were coming to me to expand their range, not to learn how to chop an onion, or even hold a knife. It’s taken me eight years to realize that others might not have had the same training, and daily practice that I’ve had. That what’s simple to me, might be overwhelming to them. I’ve had to develop cooking compassion.
On the one hand, I’m trying to develop kitchen compassion, to meet people where they need to begin. One the other hand, I burn anger and utter bewilderment at a culture that does not automatically teach its children to cook. That parents with children might not have a clue about how to feed their families. Why? What has gone wrong? What is the solution? How do we support cooking literacy early on?

Is Cooking Still considered Anti-Feminist?

A young woman of 25 recently told me that many woman her age still view cooking as a demeaning anti-feminist activity. They weren’t taught to cook so they could be better than that. A doctor acquaintance in town, confided how much it hurts her not to be able to cook for her children, but she was never taught, and it feels too daunting now to learn. I’ve had several widowers in my classes, men who were always cooked for, and now want to make good food for themselves. The stories I hold and continue to hear-- about people missing out and trying to catch up on the simple act of making food for themselves, not fancy food, just good homemade food.
My hurdle as teacher, is that I can teach you how to make a dish, or even expose you to a complete menu, but all of the practical everyday systems of making good food a daily reality may not be in place at your house.

Cooking isn’t an Iron Chef Competitive Sport

  Cooking isn’t an Iron Chef Competitive Sport of Exotic Dishes, it’s a lot of practical forethought, and step by step movements through hundreds of pre-learned sequences. Those sequences take practice, lots of practice. This is why children take piano lessons, or play sports, so they can learn complicated sequencing and get it in their bodies.
   So much hinges on our ability to step away from those boxes and cans, to be able to grow and cook food that suits our climate, or changing climate, to attend to our cultural soul, and nutritional food needs.
Please teach your children to cook, or learn to cook yourself, it’s never too late. If you do know how to cook then teach someone else, especially the children or young adults in your life. Expose children to cooking, and good food early, start them young, let them help, insist and make it a priority, get it in their muscle memories. It’s a simple and delicious way to be part of the solution.

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Fool Proof Pastry using Gluten Free Flour/ Flaky or Short

6/27/2016

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Fool Proof Pastry using Gluten Free Flour/ Flaky or Short

Pie Points of the Summer

What is summer if you don't make at least one pie?
But, how, without wheat and make it worth the effort?
I've put together my best pie tips and tutorials for you, to take the shivers out of pastry, even gluten free pastry.
Some pastry calls for flaky, and others for short and tender, both are possible without wheat, but there are distinct differences in how to handle the doughs.

Tips for flaky pastry

Flaky doughs depend on supporting pockets of air between the layers of flour and fat.
→Use recipes that include baking powder in them,
it'll creates more lift between the flaky layers, and it helps browning.
→ Keep everything as cold as possible, the fat and the flour. I chop my butter and then put it in the freezer, until it’s very cold. I also put my flour in the freezer, or even better you can premix all the dry ingredients for a dough, pulse the fat in, and then store it in the freezer until you add the liquid.
→ Don’t overwork in the fat, you should be able to see small pea sized clumps in the flour after pulsing.
→ Use a food processor. A food processor is God’s gift to pastry. It’s quick, easy and you can keep everything cold.
I use the Zen approach: feet planted squarely on floor, knees slightly bent, deep clear breath, and pulse 1001, 1002 about 8 times is perfect.
→ Use butter, for flavor and health, and flakiness. Really it’s best, no shortening, unless you can’t….Use enough butter, flaky doughs need a lot of butter.
→ Use eggs instead of water, or use buttermilk instead of water. Water tends to toughen the dough. Although this isn’t really a problem if you're not using wheat. Add liquid briefly, don’t overmix just enough to bring the dough together.
→ Chill the dough before rolling, not rock hard just chill.
→ Chill the rolled dough once it’s in the pie plate, or tart tin before filling, or before blind baking--prick the chilled bottom of the tart before baking.
→ Blind bake for no soggy bottoms, or put a protective layer of something good between soggy ingredients and crust. Like a cheese layer before pouring in the custard for a quiche.
→ Cold Dough should hit a hot oven, wheat free crusts will need a little more time to crisp and brown. You can always brown more on the lowest oven shelf.
Snip. Snap. Snout. follow these golden rules and you will be Queen/ King of the Flaky Crust

"The First Law of Pies: No Pastry, No Pie."
Author: Janet Clarkson

Tips for Short and Tender Pastry

These doughs are like shortbread, in that they crumble a bit and are delicious for tarts, and savories. They are easy to make, very forgiving, and easy to press in instead of rolling. If you are afraid of pastry, then these are the doughs to start with. They are also absolutely delicious.

→ Completely incorporate the fat into the flour until crumbly.
→ Use eggs, or an acid liquid like buttermilk, to create even more rich- tenderness.
→Use the best ingredients: sea salt, a mineral rich sugar, unsalted butter. The ingredients will make or break the effect of a short crust.

"A short crust is more about playing flavors that you want to support the tart, whereas a flaky crust is more about texture and mouthfeel. "

Best Practices for rolling wheat less doughs

These doughs are a different animal, so don’t expect them to act like a gluten dough!
→ Roll between layers of parchment, or heavy plastic.
→ Don’t add flour
→ Feel free to patch, and mold with your fingers
→ Use the bottom layer of parchment to move the dough to the tin, turn over and peel it into place
→ A tortilla press works wonderfully to make a small round of flat dough for a tart, of to start a larger dough. Press between parchment and then peel it off over the tart tin.
→ The tortilla press also works well for making free form galettes or empanada rounds.
→ Don’t feel like you are cheating if you press the dough into the tin, just work it evenly. One tablespoon of dough per appetizer tart tin, this even works for flaky doughs.
→ Add a hint of the same, or contrast to the dough. Like lemon zest in the dough for a lemon tart, or toasted almonds for a apricot tart. Flavor is the big player in a short crust.
→ Chill the dough once it’s in the tin, before baking.

Flaky Buttery Dough

I used Nick Malgieri’s Flaky Buttery Dough recipe substituting my pastry flour for his all purpose wheat flour. I like his doughs and knew that the eggs in the recipe would lend even more binding power, and the baking powder would support darkening and lift.
2 single-crusted pies or 1 double crusted pie

Ingredients
2 ⅓ cup /315 grams gluten-free pastry flour
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
8 ounces/ 2 sticks/ 225 grams unsalted butter, chilled and cut into ½ inch pieces
2 large eggs- lightly beaten

Instructions
→ Combine dry ingredients in the food processor, pulse several times
→ Add the butter, pulse 3-4 times, pulse 3-4 times more
→ Add eggs to the bowl and pulse until dough almost forms a ball
→ Invert bowl into a mixing bowl and quickly press the dough together
→ Divide into two balls and form each into a disk, wrap and chill for
2 hours before rolling.

This dough also keeps well
for up to 3 days in the refrigerator
or up to 1 month frozen.

Galette DOugh

A sturdy flaky dough for free formed pies, makes enough for 4 eight inch galettes
I’ve used this recipe for so many years that page 371 from Baking with Julia is spattered and dough marked. It’s a Flo Braker recipe, and she’s someone to trust in the baking world. I’ve adapted it to use my gf pastry flour and methods. It’s made quickly and simply in the food processor, using the same method as the
Flaky Pie Dough. This dough is lovely with rye substituted for ½ cup of the pastry flour.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons buttermilk,
sour cream or milk kefir
⅓ cup ice water
2 cups gf pastry flour
½ cup yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon sea salt
14 tablespoons ( 2 tablespoons shy of a cup) of cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes

Instructions
Mix buttermilk with water
and set in freezer
Mix dry ingredients in food processor and pulse
Pulse, a pulse is a long 1001, cold butter into dry ingredients about 8-9 times ( the size of small peas)
Pour into a mixing bowl and add cold liquid
Knead briefly together until it makes a ball
Separate into fourths.
Flatten each into a disk, wrap and Chill for at least 2 hours ( an overnight in the fridge softens the cornmeal, so it isn’t so prominent. Sometimes I don’t even add the cornmeal!

Sesame-Walnut Dough

Here’s an a favorite example of a short-tender cookie ish dough that’s reminiscent of a linzer crust.
Use this versatile crust as the base for fruit tarts. The sweet is also good with a savory filling. This one is fantastic with rye substituted for ½ cup of the gf pastry flour.
Best made in Food Processor

Ingredients
¾ cup toasted walnuts
½ cup sesame seeds lightly toasted
2 tablespoons flax seed measured and then ground
2 cups gf pastry flour
¼ cup mineral rich sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon coriander seed freshly ground
¼ teaspoon cardamom powder (freshly ground best)
2 large eggs beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 sticks, (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter cut into ½ inch cubes

Instructions
Toast nuts and cool
Toast sesame seeds and cool
Grind Flax seed
Put all dry ingredients in food processor and spin until combined
Add seeds and nuts and spin until fine throughout but not butter!
Add butter and pulse until everything is like fine crumbs
Add beaten eggs and pulse briefly until dough is moistened
Put into a mixing bowl and briefly bring together into a ball
Separate into two and make each into a flat disc, wrap and
Chill for two hours before pressing or rolling. Or press into form and chill, before adding filling to bake.

Click pies for another piece of the action

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Bara Brith a Welsh Bread Worth Knowing: Levain Rye & Oat

A Welsh Tea Loaf

Oats Barley and Rye were common

Pain d'epices to bara brith

Spices to be revived

A Levain Rye and Oat Bara Brith

Bringing old Recipes into their best

Fermentation Brings out flavor

Caraway in bloom and seed

Levain Rye and Oat Bara Brith

Foodwise Wednesday: Ages & Stages of Cooking with Kids

Baby to Six

Seven to Eleven

Twelve to Sixteen

Sixteen & Up

Cooking is a Choreographed Kitchen Dance

Cooking is in my Bones

Developing Cooking Compassion

Is Cooking Still considered Anti-Feminist?

Cooking isn’t an Iron Chef Competitive Sport

Previous Post

Fool Proof Pastry using Gluten Free Flour/ Flaky or Short

Pie Points of the Summer

Tips for flaky pastry

Tips for Short and Tender Pastry

Best Practices for rolling wheat less doughs

Flaky Buttery Dough

Galette DOugh

Sesame-Walnut Dough

Click pies for another piece of the action

Categories

Archives

Author

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

​​

Bara Brith a Welsh Bread Worth Knowing: Levain Rye & Oat

A Welsh Tea Loaf

Oats Barley and Rye were common

Pain d'epices to bara brith

Spices to be revived

A Levain Rye and Oat Bara Brith

Bringing old Recipes into their best

Fermentation Brings out flavor

Caraway in bloom and seed

Levain Rye and Oat Bara Brith

Foodwise Wednesday: Ages & Stages of Cooking with Kids

Baby to Six

Seven to Eleven

Twelve to Sixteen

Sixteen & Up

Cooking is a Choreographed Kitchen Dance

Cooking is in my Bones

Developing Cooking Compassion

Is Cooking Still considered Anti-Feminist?

Cooking isn’t an Iron Chef Competitive Sport

Previous Post

Fool Proof Pastry using Gluten Free Flour/ Flaky or Short

Pie Points of the Summer

Tips for flaky pastry

Tips for Short and Tender Pastry

Best Practices for rolling wheat less doughs

Flaky Buttery Dough

Galette DOugh

Sesame-Walnut Dough

Click pies for another piece of the action

Categories

Archives

Author

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own