Beer Bread 'The Bread Bible' Alpha Bakers

Hmm, I need more experience "building a burger" but the home-baked beer bread buns make up for it! 

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Today is the monthly post for 'The Bread Bible' by Rose Levy Beranbaum and it's 'Beer Bread'. Porter or Stout give this bread a wonderful rounded flavour, a slight bitterness in the after taste and a somewhat more pronounced beer flavour around the crust. Yet, it's never over powering and will appeal to beer drinkers and non beer drinkers alike.  

It's an adult bread and oh my it must be the best bread to serve for your BBQ entertaining. Delicious served with equally strong flavours, think well seasoned barbecued burgers, flat spiced mushrooms, bitey cheese, roasted capsicum dip and the like.  

Sheeesh, you don't need a McDonalds build your own burger now, black beer burger buns all round!!! 

I got a touch "tired" this week so a few less photos, but I've included the a YouTube video of Rose actually making the beer bread (6 minute 40 second mark) plus a few photos/serving suggestions of mine below. 

This was a quick loaf to make with no starter required and about 2 -2/12 hours rising time. Yeast, malt, sugar, most of the bread flour and some wholemeal flour were combined, black beer was added then salt.

I used a beer another alpha baker recommended, 'Coopers best extra stout' from an Australian brewery...., thanks Catherine from the blog plylliscaroline the stout was perfect. 

I was using my stand mixer so 7 minutes of kneading and there it was, just as Rose described "putty-coloured dough". 

The dough came easily from the mixers dough hook.

The dough went away (well actually I put it away) to rise. After rising the dough was shaped, I divided my dough in half, made one half sized boule and four buns. Off it goes for another rise. You can slash the tops now with your favourite design, Rose has several with instructions in 'The Bread Bible'. Then off to bake. 

Easy to shape this dough, ready for it's second rise. 

Awww, the robust flavour of the beer bread reminds me of mum, bless her heart she loved a high tea on one hand but always partook in the opportunity to share a ploughman's lunch. I think she found it amusing that the traditional ploughman's lunch offended my sensibilities (no cutlery, rip apart bread and cheese and suck down a pickled onion!! wash it down with beer) and Mum did love a pickled onion! 

Ploughman's lunch, perfect for casual get together. The pronounced flavouring of the beer bread pairs perfectly with aged bitey cheddar, apple and pickled onions of course. 

You could skip a few steps, serve ploughmans cheese with your beer bread and a slice of apple. See how I used the word "slice". Ploughman's lunch is not an ancient British tradition, but rather a measure from the cheese board in the UK post rationing to promote the sale of cheese. So "forks", "knives" and perhaps even "little napkins" were around!!! 

I prefer the vegan way with organically torn fresh beer bread topped with hummus and spiced marinated pine nuts.  

Would I bake again? Yes, loved it.

Would I change anything? No

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Bread Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

The Bread Bible  available from Amazon and all discerning book retailers. 

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Prosciutto Ring

proscuitto ring; a coarse rustic bread just waiting to be ripped apart. 

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This is my first monthly post for 'The Bread Bible' by award winning cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum. 

Excited by the opportunity to learn more about bread baking, my Grandfather and Great Uncle were both Master Bakers that owned their own bakery in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. The bakery sold cakes, pies, pastries but were especially known for their bread. My Great Uncle taught/lectured at the culinary university in Melbourne, particularly on the subject of wheat production. 

I never met my Grandfather who died before I was born, some say that my love of baking is in my genes. I believe it's belng raised hearing about tales of the bakery from my Dad and Aunt that sparked my love of cooking. 

20 years ago I ate some salami ... yep, and in 2009 my step son made chocolate bacon for a school exams and I tried that, but since this is my first bread bake from 'The Baking Bible' I'm commited to the "meat" for this loaf. Lets start with the lard. 

Lard:  despite its reputation, lard has less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol than an equal amount of butter by weight. Unlike many margarines and vegetable shortenings, unhydrogenated lard contains no trans fat.  wikipedia

With the resurgance of traditional British recipes for the last decade (which I love!!) and favour with chefs world wide, the demand for good quality lard continues. The neutral flavour, high smoke point, lower saturated fat product is produced from swine fat. Often combined with butter to produce light and crispy pastry, lard is tradionally used in fruit studded Welsh and Lardy cakes to crispy roast potatoes.

Today's bread is a "lard bread" but is also brushed with bacon fat. Here I am making wet-rendered bacon fat, this is how you make lard too. Bacon fat is put in a saucepan (or slow cooker if you are making a lot) and boiled with water until the fat releases/melts. On cooling I skimmed the bacon fat off ready to be remelted to brush on the loaf. 

wet-rendered bacon fat

The prosuciutto loaf contains three meats, prosucitto, pepperoni and hot sopressata (a dry salami). Rose suggests baked ham or even turkey ham can be substituted if desired.

I used prosuciutto, salami and bacon... because I had bacon meat left over from producing the bacon fat. 

prosuciutto, probably should have been cut a little thicker than this

salami I used... couldn't anything close to hot sopressata without going to the city to get it

Flour, yeast, black pepper and barley malt syrup were combined before salt, warm water and lard are added. All done in the KitchenAid, but there is hand and food proceesor instructions in the book too. 

 lard brought to room temperature is spreadable and in fact is still used in parts of europe as alterative to butter.

Dough once meat has been added.

The dough is rested briefly before rolling into a sausage shape and formed into a ring and brushed with cooled melted bacon fat.

Bake in a hot oven, before reducing heat and transferring directly to baking stone for further baking, the kitchen aroma reminded me of the local pizzeria. Once removed from the oven the loaf is then brushed with bacon fat again and left to cool.

Taste, well it's surely "meaty"... the bread itself is fabulous, serve this rustic loaf as part of antipasto platter, accompany with a green salad and you have a picnic brunch, lunch for the family or a light dinner with a bottle of red to wash it all down. 

Would I bake again? Yes, I can imagine using up leftover Christmas ham etc in this bread for a boxing day brunch perhaps.

Would I change anything? Oh, I'd love to give a vegetarian version a try. Charred grilled veg, little pesto... maybe some pinenuts too. Sundried tomatoes, feta and kalamata olives would be good too... add a handful of fresh herbs. 

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what bread I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Bread Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

 The Bread Bible  available from Amazon and where all good books are sold.

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Classic Brioche Rose's Alpha Bakers

Petite Brioche Nanterre Loaves  : Classic Brioche 'The Baking Bible' 

Ban the Brioche Bun!!! Late last week our major talk back radio station called for a ban of hipster brioche bun hamburgers and brioche pulled meat buns. I don't think those people calling saying "enough is enough" with brioche buns have to worry, like the macarons before them the brioche bun craze has reached saturation point now McDonalds sells "build your own brioche burgers". 

Really I've yet to come across a brioche burger bun that comes close to home made brioche! With today being the Queens Birthday public holiday in Australia it's apt that I'm baking the queen of breads the classic brioche from 'The Baking Bible'.  This buttery beauty is a stunner, for me the aroma evoked the memory of bakeries as a child... oh and as Dad worked for Sara Lee when I was a kid, it kind of reminds me of a fresh soft version of Sara Lee's pecan danish. 

New to baking? There is a lot of steps in this recipe yet it's an easy recipe, most of steps you are "waiting" for the yeast to do it's thing. 

You start by making the "sponge" (a yeast starter), I made mine in a mixer. 

A flour mixture is then sprinkled over the sponge. 

Two hours later you'll have bubbles rising through the blanket of flour in parts.  

You'll need butter for buttery enriched bread, and here is what the rest of the world is perplexed about an American "stick of butter".  It's one hundred and thirteen grams for the rest of us... thanks Rose. 

Eggs and well softened butter are added and beaten in.

The resulting dough goes off for a rest in the fridge now, here I'm gently deflating before another hour in the fridge. Brioche, like other enriched breads has a refrigerator period to solidify the butter and make the dough easier to handle. 

The dough is envelope folded, rolled, folded and I forgot to take pictures of this bit. 

But I remembered to photograph when I wrapped my dough for it's overnight developing time.

Just unwrapped the dough here after a night in the refrigerator. It needs to be deflated a little before working with it. 

'The Baking Bible' uses a large loaf tin, I went with small individual tins.  I like the petite size, perfect for sharing and it does make really cute sandwiches for afternoon tea and the like. 

Smooth balls: whatever shape you are using, your dough needs to nice and smooth. Any fault in your dough now will show in the end product. 

Since I'm making Brioche Nanterre, there is eight balls in each lightly buttered tin to create the classic shape.  The tins are then covered with oiled plastic wrap and off to rise once again before baking.

I had enough dough to make four petite loaves. I used pearl sugar on two and left two plain.  There was a small amount of dough left so I made a few bite sized parisienne (Brioche à tête) with the classic fluted sides and "tête" (head) on top. 

Would I bake again?  Absolutely!! This recipe is incredibly versatile and can be used for sweet and savoury applications and yes, even for a batch of hipster hamburger buns. 

Would I change anything? Nup. 

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a week I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

The Baking Bible

Happy Baking :)  

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