Bread Machines For Dummies (12 page)
Read Bread Machines For Dummies Online
Authors: Glenna Vance,Tom Lacalamita
Salt controls yeast activity. With salt in the dough, the yeast will ferment the sugar at a steady pace. Without salt, the yeast will work like crazy and then burn out before the rising time is complete. You can suspect that you probably forgot the salt if the bread rises beautifully and then collapses as it begins to bake.
In addition to controlling yeast activity, salt strengthens the dough structure and adds flavor. Because many of the people who buy
Bread Machines For Dummies
are trying to keep their sodium intake in check, the recipes in this book use modest amounts of salt. If you do use a salt substitute, read the ingredients of the product. It must contain some sodium. Potassium chloride alone will not control yeast activity. If you must cut out all sodium in your diet, you will need to do some experimenting, reducing the sugar as well as the salt, so that the yeast is not overstimulated. The shorter yeast-bread cycles work well when you have to completely eliminate salt.
What makes an herb different from a spice? Herbs are generally leaves and can be grown on one's own windowsill. Spices can be flower buds, such as cloves; fruits, such as pepper, nutmeg and vanilla; seeds, such as anise, caraway, cardamom, coriander and mustard; or rhizomes that spread underground, such as ginger and turmeric. And then there's saffron, in a class of its own, derived from the stigmas of a crocus plant. Some plants like celery and coriander provide both herbs from the leaves and spices from the seeds. Spices come from all over the world â usually a long way from our kitchen windowsill.
The wonderful part is that today we can find them at our local markets. Buy small amount of spices at a time as their flavor diminishes with age. If possible buy whole spices and grind or crush your own as needed. Always store spices in containers that protect them from air and light. Here are descriptions of some of the spices we love to use in our breads.
If you want to add more of an herb or a spice to your bread than the amount listed in the recipe, you can (except for cinnamon and garlic). Please check the sections on each to find out why this is so.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we have wonderful sources for fresh spices. Ruth and William Penzey, Sr. opened The Spice House in 1957. Today their children have carried on the family business and Milwaukeans now shop at two locations: the original Spice House on Third Street in Milwaukee and Penzeys Spices in Brookfield. Both The Spice House and Penzeys Spices have mail order catalogs and are on the Internet,
www.thespicehouse.com
or
www.penzeys.com
.
Allspice is not a combination of all spices. It actually comes from the bayberry tree in the Caribbean, mostly in Jamaica. The small, round berries vary in size and are dark gray-brown with a rough skin. They have a very delicate, bittersweet flavor that tastes like a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, and a hint of nutmeg. And that explains the name!
Anise, also called aniseed, is a member of the hemlock family and is grown primarily in the Mediterranean region. The very small anise seed has a surprisingly explosive taste that combines sweetness and a spicy, licorice-like flavor. It has been known as an aid in digestion, a stimulant for a sluggish system, and a cure for flatulence. Don't be concerned, as the small amounts we use to flavor rye breads will not affect the digestive system. To release the full flavor in your bread, crush the seeds before using.
The warm, pungent aroma and flavor of basil make it one of the best loved of all culinary herbs. You can grow it in your garden, on your windowsill, or buy it fresh in the supermarket. Fresh basil is one of our favorite herbs for pizza and flatbread toppings. We use dried basil in bread doughs.
Caraway has grown wild in Europe and Asia since the Stone Age. Today, Holland is the main exporter. The seeds are small, thin, brown, and sweetly spiced, but also have a sharp taste, which livens up rye bread. It is commonly added to German and Austrian foods. Small amounts of Caraway will foster yeast activity. For this purpose use 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons per 3 cups of flour.
Crushed caraway is in the Beer Rye in Chapter 12 and the Light Rye in Chapter 10.
Cardamom is the most expensive spice after saffron and vanilla, with a strong, powerful, unusual flavor. The price and the flavor may explain why we use it sparingly in our recipes. It is delicate, sweet, and fresh, and is the perfect addition to Scandinavian breads. If time is not important to you, buy cardamom in the pods; then when ready to use, remove the seeds and crush. This method makes a spice that is more aromatic than ready-ground cardamom. Eight crushed seeds equal 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom.
Most celery seed is grown right here in the United States. While celery is harvested in the first year of growth as a vegetable and an herb, it is only in the second year that it develops a flowering stem that produces the spicy seeds.
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Do not substitute celery salt for celery seed in bread without decreasing the amount of salt in the recipe. Celery salt obviously has salt added to it; three parts celery seed to one part salt.
Cinnamon is native to Southeast Asia, India, and China, and is now grown in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It is the inner bark of an evergreen tree. The bark of the tree is taken from young shoots cut close to the ground once every two years in the rainy season. After the rough outer bark is planed off, these strips are dried, curling into characteristic quills. The fragrance of the cinnamon is strongest when freshly ground.
Cinnamon is a tricky ingredient. Besides being a wonderful, fragrant spice, cinnamon is also a food preservative. And that's what it tries to do in any situation, even in bread dough. Add enough cinnamon to your bread dough and you'll end up preserving the yeast so that it can't ferment. The result will be way too small of a loaf. You can add some to dough (no more than a teaspoon per cup of flour). If you want your bread to be spicier, add small amounts of nutmeg, ginger, and/or cloves. Or, combine sugar and cinnamon and serve with bread or toast. The Babka recipe in Chapter 14 tells you to roll the dough balls in cinnamon sugar before baking.
Cloves are grown in southern India, Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra, Brazil, and the West Indies. They are harvested as unopened flower buds of an evergreen tree and then dried. We use them in sparingly in bread recipes with other spices like nutmeg and cinnamon.
Cloves are available both whole and ground. Unless you plan to use them immediately, it's best to buy them whole. Ground cloves soon lose their freshness and start to taste musty.
Coriander is used as both an herb and a spice. The leaves look much like parsley leaves and are becoming increasingly popular in the culinary art in entrees involving lamb, chicken, ham, pork, and smoked meats. Coriander is also used in curries.
Coriander is a bit like orange peel, and excellent in sweet breads.
Dill is another of those plants that provides both herb and spice for us with their leaves and seeds. We use the seeds and leaves (sold as dill weed) in bread dough. The Onion Dill (Chapter 10) uses dill weed.
Maybe it was this spice that inspired someone to write about little girls as “sugar and spice and all things nice.” Fennel was hung over doors in the Middle Ages to ward off evil spirits. In Italy, “to give fennel” meant to flatter someone. We know it's a nice spice. It's delicate, light, and sweet, similar to anise, and in fact can be substituted for anise in a recipe. The plant looks very similar to dill and grows in the same climate as dill. The leaves are herbs; the seeds, spice.
Garlic is as ancient as the oldest civilizations. It's written about in the earliest Sanskrit, the Chinese believed it warded off the evil eye, the Egyptian slaves who built the pyramids were fed it, Greek gladiators thought it gave them strength, and those sexy Romans used it for an aphrodisiac. Wonder if that's why garlic is so popular in Italian food?
Garlic bread
sounds
so good. We garlic lovers would like to generously dump garlic into bread dough. But guess what happens when we do that â the bread doesn't rise. Garlic has long been used as a meat tenderizer as it breaks down the fibers in meat. And it does the same thing to dough â breaks down the structure. You can add a
bit
to the dough, as in the Mediterranean Bread (Chapter 10), where a small amount of garlic salt is added. But really, garlic is something you add to the baked product. You can spread it on as generously as you would like; it won't do any damage that way. Unless you're concerned about your breath!
To make a great garlic spread, combine the following ingredients: 2 tablespoons room-temperature butter, 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 4 cloves minced garlic, a pinch salt, a pinch freshly ground black pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon oregano. Mash together with a fork until smooth.
A great garlic spread deserves to be on a delicious loaf of bread. Try it on the French bread (Chapter 11). Split a loaf in half lengthwise. Toast it under broiler, crust side up, two to three minutes. Remove from oven, turn over, and spread garlic spread on cut side. Place back under the broiler until lightly toasted.
Marco Polo found ginger in China in the thirteenth century. Spice caravans carried ginger from China and India to the Middle East. It was dried after picking so that it could make the long trip. Even today, Chinese cuisine uses fresh ginger, while in the Middle East, dried ginger is used.
Ginger is grown in China, India, America, and the West Indies. The part that is used is the horizontal root known as the rhizome. Many dishes use fresh ginger for flavoring. In bread making, we use ground, dried ginger. Small amounts of ginger (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon per recipe) actually stimulate yeast activity.
Nutmeg is the seed of a nutmeg tree, which grows throughout Indonesia and in Grenada. Nutmeg is encapsulated in a fruit resembling an apricot; when you break the flesh open, you discover an outer covering, bright scarlet in color, known as mace. Mace dries to a light brown color. Each fruit produces less mace than nutmeg. Therefore, the price of mace is much higher than the price of nutmeg. We use nutmeg with other spices like cinnamon or cloves. You'll find it in the Hot Cross Buns and Apple Kuchen recipes as well as in the Pineapple Carrot and Pumpkin Quick Breads.
Marjoram and oregano are both members of the mint family and are frequently mistaken for the other. Marjoram has a more delicate flavor than does oregano. Oregano is used in Mediterranean and Southwest cooking. We use both in breads.
Parsley is the best known and most commonly used herb in the United States. It was introduced into this country in the sixteenth century from Europe. The flat-leafed variety was the first known here as Italian or French parsley. The curled leaf variety is most widely grown and has a stronger flavor. The California drying techniques preserve the flavor and color of the leaf. We use parsley in Risotto Bread (Chapter 10) primarily for the color it adds.