Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Sliced Marble Rye Bread, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

When bought my new cookbooks I decided to try a recipe from Peter Reinhart‘s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I intended to try his bagel recipe first but you know time constraints – three days! so I need to plan well…I’m not sure how I’m going to do on this multi-day baking extravaganza. I might get tired of these snazzy cookbooks and just regress to the Betty Crocker easy stuff – which I used to think was difficult before.

I also skimmed through the book for the one-day recipes. The english muffins were but I kinda went crazy trying to figure it out. I was willing to follow Rose Levy Beranbaum’s from The Bread Bible but then I started pulling my hair out and knew I wouldn’t get it all done for anybody to eat and me to go to class. So I did regress to the Betty Crocker and we were all happy. I mean Peter Reinhart uses boules for his english muffins! He doesn’t cut it out. So weird. I guess I need to try it.

So first I found the whole wheat sandwich loaf but yesterday while flipping through the book I decided that the Marble Rye Loaf wasn’t hard. I could do it. I just had to be ORGANIZED! I’m not really an organized person. I need lots of space and love people who wash up for me. But I was going to have to do it myself.

I informed mom I was going to make this bread and so scotched her plans of making hops. HAHAHA! I told her people want variety. And I want to make bread.

So onwards!

	In each of two bowls, weigh out 6 oz of rye flour, 13.5 oz bread flour, 1 1/2 tsp salt and 1 3/4 tsp instant yeast and stir it. Then add the tablespoon of molasses, 1 1/4 cup water (you might need an extra 2 tablespoons of water), 2 tablespoons of shortening (for the dark colouring I used 2 tablespoons of cocoa dissolved in 2 tablespoons of water…you could use a tablespoon of browning I think) and mix. Dad passed and asked if I was using the bread machine. I said no. I don’t like how it bakes the bread. The mixing/kneading might be fine but the bread is sometimes a little too…thick crusted? for me.
	Gather up the dough into a ball and knead a few minutes on a lightly floured board. You need to knead each of the doughs separately. Okay? :-) When I kneaded the light part and it was coming to, I was so excited. You can’t believe. I called mom (who didn’t come) so she could see. I couldn’t believe that I was kneading dough and…it was good. Dad wondered if I was going to use mom’s mixer. I was like no! I don’t know bread and dough and consistency. Mom does. She can do it by hand and in the mixer and know when it’s ready. I’ll only know if I hand mix and practise and then maybe I can take shortcuts.
	Oil a bowl lightly and the dough and leave it in the bowl, and leave it to rise!
	Wait until both doughs have doubled in size. He says about 90 minutes. I live in the tropics. It took less than an hour I think.
	He had a few methods for making your marble dough. I tried two methods. Cut each of the dough into 12 pieces (me 6 as I only used half … and then halved those) and create two piles, each with 6 pieces of light and 6 pieces of dark. Scramble them up and then scrunch them together and roll into some kind of missile-like baguette shape. I made the two smaller loaves like this. The first bread I made is very patchy looking. The second I did came out a bit better and looked better melded. I could improve! Separate each dough into 4 pieces and take two of each and layer alternately. (of course I separated my remainder into 2 pieces and made one loaf). Layer it so that the light is on the outside and the dark on the inside. Then roll it up and shape. I really liked this. It looked nice inside. This made the big loaf. Of course I haven’t cut the others yet. One is being sent to Guyana. Next time I think I will make all like this but smaller. I’ll separate the dough into 8 pieces each and make 4 small loaves. I’ll try some in a bread pan instead of freestanding.
	Lightly oil the loaves and lay on parchment paper lined sheet trays. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise…
	…until they double in size.
	Preheat the oven to 350 F and make an egg wash (1 egg and 1 teaspoon of water, whisked to frothy). Brush the wash over the loaves gently yet evenly. Bake the loaves for about 45 minutes. You may have to rotate and such for even cooking. Cook until the centre reaches 190 F. Hehe! I bought a thermometer. I used it. It’s for my baking. It’s fun sticking a thermometer into your bread and watching the temperature rise. Hehehe. I took em out. :-)

All the pictures are on flickr.

This is the finished loaf.

Baked Marble Rye Loaf, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

And yes, I know this is PETER REINHART’s recipe. If you like it buy the book :-)

Chocolate and Custard Ice Cream, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

In the continuing saga of the ice cream maker, we of course made chocolate ice cream!

Mom made a custard/plain mixture with a light (very light) coconut flavouring. It was 4 cups. We used almost 3 cups and the 1 1/2 qt limit on the ice cream maker was more than reached.

So, we got a lovely custard ice cream. But there was leftovers.

So, I took out my chopped Callebaut chocolate (don’t ask how long I had this in the fridge! It’s dark. It’s my truffle making chocolate. There was an 8 oz block and 8 oz all chipped up to make Chocolate Hearts of Darkness. And there are about 4 more 1 lb blocks). and melted it a little in the double boiler and then added the rest of the milk mixture and stirred and stirred and got chocolate! Woohooo!!

Mom was a bit worried it might be too bitter so I caved and added some sugar. I should’ve taken the time to make sure all the chocolate was properly melted and maybe the sugar too…because it is a bit gritty in the end but we shall see.

We then put it in the fridge and the next day…we made CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM.

OH MY LORD!

It was soooo good.

Mom: Lily, does it taste so good because of the quality of chocolate we used?

That’s what they always say, isn’t it? Your product can only be good as the ingredients you put into it.

It’s so rich and dark and good and mmmmmmmmmmmm chocolate.

So when the house was full with Chennette, brother and sister-in-law, I gave them each a teaspoonful to taste (I was eating some…they were free to take their own bowls but it seems babies take all of a mommy’s time and uber-frequent fliers can’t settle down to have some…but daddies always make time for chocolate ice cream).

They were all amazed.
Astounded.
Impressed.
Wanting more.
Simply the greatest.

Brother: does it really work out? compared to what you buy?

Well, I haven’t calculated how much this chocolate ice cream cost (a half tin of condensed milk, a quarter tin of evaporated milk, 8 oz callebaut dark chocolate, sugar, 3 tablespoons of custard powder, some coconut cream powder (not necessary). I’ve forgotten how much the chocolate cost (I can check I’m sure) and I’m sure it’s gone up.

But I think it’s worth it. You get absolutely great chocolate ice cream. And truth be told, we don’t eat a lot of it. I mean we could but we go through phases. And despite Chennette’s threats, there is about 3 cups or so. About just under half of what we made.

Now, why waste time on something else?

My homemade ice cream set should always be here. And, NO! it’s not avocado ice cream. She’s half-way right.

More later. Pictures necessary. Was busy baking today.

Guess what!

No, mom, you are not allowed to guess or say anything. You know everything in your freezer down to the dirty ice at the bottom.

:-)