Recipe 26- Heritage Bread
Well I have to say I am really thankful that I was able to find the ingredients to FINALLY make this bread. Ever since my book came in the mail, this was one of the first recipes I wanted to try.
I never thought finding the "Red Fife" flour would be been such a daunting task.
My good friend Emilie even asked her family in New Brunswick to help with the search as it was no where to be found in any of my local stores. Huge thank you to everyone for helping me!
I also emailed the company and they told me that a lot of stores are no longer carrying it in the Maritimes either!
In the book Chef Michael does give alternatives that you can use, but trying to stay as true to the recipe I was hoping to find the 'real deal'.
Earlier this month we headed to Whitby Ontario to visit friends and ended up stopping at a Whole Foods Market. The variety in this store is just jaw dropping! Sure enough... guess what I found??
THE RED FIFE FLOUR!
Chef Michael uses the Red Fife from the Speerville Four Mill in New Brunswick. The one shown here is not the exact brand, but is what I needed for the recipe.
I LITERALLY did a "hallelujah" in the isle and then snapped a picture which went right to Facebook announcing my find. People probably thought I was from the nutty house, but hey.. I get excited about food finds haha!
Now if you have Chef Michaels book and want to make this recipe then don't get discouraged if you can't find the exact ingredients, the alternative for this is Whole Wheat flour and I later found out that Red Fife can also be purchased in bulk at... THE BULK BARN! of all the places, I never checked there!
Anyways to my pleasure the rest of the ingredients are pretty common and I had them on hand in my kitchen. The one thing I did't have was the "Red River Cereal". I went grocery shopping the other day and didn't think twice as I tossed the common red box into my cart. Except....
I really bought this:
CREAM OF WHEAT!?!?! what was I thinking!?!?
I will get back to this....
So now I will get into the day the actual bread making took place.
At 8pm the other night I had the kids off to bed, my kitchen clean and was not feeling so great. I am still battling the never ending ear infection that has required numerous rounds of antibiotics. Regardless is was planned to make the bread THIS night, as it needs 8-12 hrs over night to rise. I was already in my pjs and thinking I had EVERYTHING I needed, this would be a quick thing and I could head off to bed.
WRONG!
I came down to the kitchen and realized I did not have the right cereal until this.exact.moment.
I quickly ran upstairs and changed my pj pants to regular pants, left my pj top on and threw on my jacket to run to the store. I came home feeling great that I found what I needed and I could get this recipe on the go. Until.... My husband points out that I have gone out to the store with my pants on INSIDE OUT!
Oh my.....!
We had a really long laugh and I continued on whipping up the bread inside out pants and all!
Its ok.. you can laugh too!
So to start off, into the bowl went regular all purpose flour, Red Fife Flour, red river cereal, salt and yeast. My friend Craig mentioned to me that this Red Fife flour is 'stone ground' and that it was wise to do a little sift to make sure no stones are present in the flour. None were found by the way!
One thing I wanted to add here is how surprised I was when I saw how the Red River cereal looked. Its a very seedy mix and I was really intrigued on how this would make the density of the bread. I knew for sure that it would be 'hearty' with this being added in! I would really like to try making the hot cereal version on the box.
Next all the dry ingredients where whisked thoroughly together and it was time to add the warm water.
Now comes the stir method that Chef Michael has instructed for other recipes in this book.
Using the stick end of the wooden spoon.
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oooooohhh magic the spoon stirs the dough itself ;)
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After the dough is throughly mixed and come together in a ball, your done!
This recipe literally took a few minutes to whip up and from here you add a nice TIGHT or as Chef Michael would say "drum tight" layer of plastic wrap to the bowl and let it sit over night.
Rat a tat tat- yup my bowl is now a drum...
I placed my bowl next to my Keurig, because like most people this is my first and most important step to my morning :) Nightly night bread, see you tomorrow!
The next morning, I snuck down at 7 am before anyone was awake to check out the dough.
Whoa!!! It was literally to the top of the bowl, how exciting that it WORKED!
Next I floured my fingers a big to separate the dough from the bowl to get it into my bread pan.
In the recipe you are instructed to grease your pan before hand, so I used a little oil and made sure everything was coated nicely... or so I thought! Here is a little tip... Make sure you get some oil along the rim of the bread pan.. this is CRUCIAL! The bread will rise a little over the pan and unless you want to do some 'bread excavation' later, grease that pan baby!
Next the dough was in the pan and was let to rise for another 1-2 hours.
The first picture above is when it first went into the pan. Picture 2 was taken about 1 hour into it rising. I left mine for about 1 hour and 45 minutes and seemed like it was risen to the max. Into the oven it went for 45 minutes exactly as the recipe says.
On sunday morning, the aroma of fresh bread seeping from my kitchen was a real treat!
When the bread was out for about a half hour, I figured it would be time to get this out of the pan and onto a cooling rack. Chef Michael suggests getting the bread out in a timely fashion, as the longer it stays in the pan.. you are at risk of the bottom becoming soggy.
Remember my story from above about 'excavating your bread'? ya.. guess who had that task to complete! Yup.. ME!
It was crumb city in my kitchen. But it eventually came out of the pan in one clean piece and made it to the cooling rack.
Later in the afternoon after the loaf had sufficient
time to cool, I dug in for my first slice.
This bread is delicious. The outer crust is nice and crusty while the inner I was expecting to be firm and dense. But to my surprise was fluffy and moist. This literally is a perfect bread.
My first slice was gobbled with no butter or anything. The flavour of the whole wheat flour and the lovely crunchiness of the cereal is just mouthwatering. I can say that I have never had a bread quite as satisfying as this one. The next morning, I sliced some bread and popped in the toaster. I added some Peanut butter and WOW! what a delicious and hearty breakfast! I really enjoyed making this bread and most of all eating it!
I hope you give this a try, this is a great recipe for beginners learning how to make bread. This recipe eliminated the time consuming kneading that bread requires. The overnight wait does all the work for you!
As always my compliments to the Chef and cheers to you, my friends!
I would like to thank everyone for participating in the "thank you" giveaway that was posted on Recipe 25. You still have time to go and leave a comment to enter to win a copy of Chef Michael Smiths
Back to Basics- 100 Simple Recipes with a Twist
Link to contest page:
http://100recipesin52weeks.blogspot.ca/2014/04/recipe-25-fresh-chilli-and-thank-you.html
Winner will be announced on Thursday May 8th 2014 on the blog post for the day!
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