Baking Artisan Bread

Seasonal Escapes October 2004

Breadwinners
Crisp fall days are ideal for bread baking – and the Maine Food Festival featuring Maine-grown grains

UNITY – Nights are getting that fall snap to them. Mornings have that special crispness. Perfect weather for baking. One of my all-time favorite smells is bread baking in the oven. When I drive by Country Kitchen in Lewiston when the loaves are baking, I roll down the windows and breathe deeply.

This year, the third annual Maine Food Festival will feature Maine-grown grains. The festival is co-hosted by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Bread Bakers Guild of America.

The festival is Sunday Oct. 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the association’s Common Ground Education Center. Grains to be highlighted include wheat, oats, rye, corn and buckwheat. Topics will include farms that grow these grains, history of these grains in Maine agriculture and cuisine, and the Maine’s artisan bakeries and restaurants that use these grains in their products.

Baking demonstrations

You will be able to see demonstrations on baking breads and making pastries. Enjoy discussions on growing and harvesting grains. Learn how to bake on a wood-fired open hearth. Listen to talks on the history of growing and cooking with grains in Maine. Be part of a round-table discussion about how to get more Maine grains to Maine consumers. Visit vendors featuring Maine grain products.

Getting there: Coming from points south, take Interstate 95 north to Waterville exit 127, (formerly exit 33). Turn right on Kennedy Memorial Drive. Continue down the hill and cross the Kennebec River onto Route 137. Follow this route through China and Albion, continue to Knox. Turn left onto Route 220 north through Thorndike. Drive about half a mile and follow the signs to the fair. The Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s Web site offers directions from all over; it’s www.mofga.org.

Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for members and free for children age 12 and under. For more information contact the association at (207) 568-4142.

Bread baking 101: Hints for novices

Making bread isn’t difficult, but it takes time. Here is a quick once-over of the steps in making yeast bread: stirring, kneading, allowing dough to rise, “punching down,” gently kneading again, shaping, rising again and baking. Ingredients are important, good bread is often considered to be heartier when made with a variety of grains.

If you’ve never baked bread before, I suggest you start with a white bread dough. As you get comfortable with the process, have a little fun with the ingredients. You, too, can become an artisan bread baker. When my husband and I first married, I explored natural, healthful cooking, including bread making. Many of the following tips are from my notebook, gathered over the years through trial and error.

The lingo

Preparation: Bread dough likes to be warm. Warm the flour to cut rising time. Warm the bowl you will use to let your bread rise, and warm the liquid you will add. If you have an electric stove, you can turn on the oven light. This provides the perfect warm environment. If you want a crisp crust, you can put a pan of hot water on the bottom rack. Just do not forget to remove the bowl before you preheat; I once did this and melted a plastic bowl! If you use a different heat source, turn the oven to the lowest setting to help your bread rise.

Yeast: The yeast needs a sweetener and a warm liquid to make it grow. I remember china teacups overflowing with yeast in warm milk and sugar on my grandmother’s table. Watching the small yeast cube transform seemed magical. Oma used the solid refrigerated yeast, I prefer the jars of dry yeast. Packets of dry yeast are also available. Oma said the more sugar, the browner the crust.

Gluten: The gluten holds the bread together. Some flour – such as white flour – has lots of gluten; rye flour doesn’t have any. When you add the liquid, the gluten begins to form. Make sure you stir until evenly mixed. Kneading turns the gluten into elastic bands that hold in the bubbles coming from the yeast, which makes your bread rise. The gluten is stretchy and glue-like. You can see it in your dough.

Kneading: The warm dough shouldn’t stick to your greased fingers. If that happens, add a bit more flour. Fold your dough toward you, push down and away gently but firmly, turn and fold again. Continue for about eight minutes. Check if done by forming the dough into a ball and holding the dough in one hand while smoothing from top toward the bottom, tucking and smoothing as you go around. If you turn the dough over, it should look as if there is hole in the center.

Rising: After kneading, place the ball of dough in a lightly greased large bowl, gently roll all sides along the inside surface of the bowl to coat the dough. Cover with a damp lightweight, woven towel. A regular looped towel is too heavy and will sink onto your dough and stick to it. Allow to rise until the dough doubles in size, or about 1 to 1½ hours. To check, push two fingertips into the surface, if the dents stay, the rising is complete.

Punching down: Push your fist into the middle of your dough. Yes, the first time this may be tough to do, as you do not want to ruin your beautiful puffy batter, but punching is exactly what you must do! Knead again briefly, then let rest for 10 minutes before shaping.

Artisan ingredients: After punching down, you can knead in cheese, herbs, nuts, spice, fruit, seeds, etc. Be creative!

Shaping: Shape and let rise again until the dough looks puffy and double in size, about 30 to 60 minutes. Form the dough into two halves for loaves, or a long sausage to cut and shape into rolls. This part is so much fun! You can braid the sections together, or form a circle. Be creative. Rolls will take less time to bake.

Crusts: For a soft crust, brush the bread with melted butter or margarine. For a hard crust, brush the bread with warm water while baking.

Doneness: To tell when the bread is done, when the top is nice and brown, lift carefully onto a mitted hand and thump the bottom of the bread to listen for a hollow sound. Your bread is done when you hear that sound!

Kinds of grains

When you begin playing around with different proportions of grains, remember that additional gluten makes the loaf rise higher and the bread more tender. Whole wheat flour rises only about two thirds as much as white flour. You can substitute whole grain flours for up to half of the white flour.

Buckwheat: The whole grain is called grouts. When roasted, buckwheat is called kasha. Buckwheat is not related to wheat. An interesting note, therefore, is that someone with a wheat allergy may be able to eat buckwheat products.

Cornmeal: Cornmeal is ground corn kernels.

Oat: Oat flour comes in steel cut, old-fashioned, quick or instant oat bran.

Rye: The darker the rye flour, the more the bran content. Rye flour does not have any gluten, so you will need to mix it with a flour that does. Rye cannot be used by itself to make a raised yeast bread.

Wheat: There are several forms of wheat grains: whole as wheat berries, cracked wheat has the bran and germ together, bulgur has the bran removed, wheat germ is the center and semolina is refined.

Finding Maine-grown grains

Places to buy Maine grown grains locally include the following locations. For a complete list of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association certified farms of grain growers, check www.mainefoods.net/mofga/

Buckwheat

Johnny’s Selected Seeds located in Winslow (207) 861-3901

Morgan’s Mills in Union (207) 785-4900

Corn

Blueberry Ledge Farm in Gardiner (207) 737-8522

Caldwell Farm in Turner (207) 225-3871

New Elm Farm in Freeport (207) 865-4019

New Leaf Farm in Durham (207) 353-5263

Sandy River Farms in Farmington (207) 778-1141

Sparrow Farm in Gardiner (207) 582-2213

Oats

Coffee By Design Inc in Portland (207) 879-2233, ext. 6

Little Falls Farm in Harrison (207) 583-6047

Nezinscot Farm in Turner (207) 225-3231

Oaklands Farm in Gardiner (207) 582-2136

Webb Family Farm in Gardner (207) 582-7160

Rye

Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow (207) 861-3901

Wheat

Caldwell Farm in Turner (207) 225-3871

Little Falls Farm in Harrison (207) 583-6047

Webb Family Farm in Gardiner (207) 582-7160

Bakeries

People who don’t have the time to bake your own bread can enjoy artisan bread from Maine bakeries and restaurants.

Here are a few locations to try:

Anthony’s Italian Kitchen, Portland (207) 774-8668

Big G’s, Winslow (207) 873-7808

Borealis Breads has bakeries located in several communities, including Waldoboro, Wells and the Portland Public Market in Portland. www.borealisbreads.com/Maine, (800) 541-9114

The European Bakery, Falmouth (207) 781-3541

Grant’s Bakery, Lewiston (207) 783-2226

Panera Breads, South Portland (207) 780-1212

Austin’s Fine Wines and Foods, Auburn (207) 783-6312.

Sophia’s Bakery, Portland (207) 879-1869

The Standard Baking Company, Portland (207) 773-2112

– Edith Churchill