(no subject)
Mmm. I can has
PEASANT RYE BREAD nao?
Mmm. At last. I have made it and it is delicious. And as a lovely side-benefit, the kitchen is a lot warmer now. But see it? And all the yummy rolled oats stuck onto the outside? I'm definitely a fan. In fact, I feel the need to share the recipe...
So here you go: PEASANT RYE BREAD
2 cups (dark) rye flour (or if you're like me and no longer capable of baking without tweaking the recipe somehow, 1 cup rye flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup grated aged cheddar cheese (or again, if you're me, 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese)
2 tbsp honey
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3/4 cup milk and 1 tbsp lemon juice)
1/2 cup large flake oats/rolled oats
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cheese. Stir together honey, egg, and buttermilk; stir into flour mixture, mixing just until ingredients are moist. Turn onto board sprinkled with oat flakes (warning from me: dough will be very, very sticky and have a texture quite unlike the texture of wheat dough). Form into a ball, roll in oat flakes (or not, see dough being sticky - sprinkle with oat flakes) and place on greased baking sheet. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped.
SCOFF UNCONTROLLABLY WHILE STILL WARM.
From Rogers Foods 50th Anniversary Recipe Collection, 2002, p. 3
Anyway, I must also mention that, seeing as how I used half wheat flour and half rye flour, tonight's adventure in baking also involved a certain degree of experimental historical research. Having now finished Peasants of Languedoc, in which Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, among other things, analyzed fifteenth-, sixteenth-, and seventeenth-century peasant diets in Languedoc, I should note that this loaf is, indeed somewhat authentically peasant-esque bread. ELR discussed how in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rye replaced the traditional Mediterranean crop, barley, in parts of Languedoc, while at the same time, the quality of peasant bread declined. At the beginning of ELR's period, peasants generally ate wheat bread, but by the end, they were eating mixed-grain bread or flat-out rye or barley bread. (NB: not very digestible, or nourishing if you're a field laborer eating nothing but, apparently) So while I imagine that peasants in Languedoc were probably eating yeast breads of some sort, my half-and-half loaf (minus the cheese, probably), is kind of... in the spirit. Nor, by the way, is the irony entirely lost on me that rye and barley bread, these latter days, are expensive, artisan products generally consumed, in Canada and the US, by the upper classes. In any case, I must say, it was an interesting experiment in cooking, because even half rye flour seems to give a totally different dough texture than wheat flour. It's very wet and gluey and much less smooth and sticky and elastic than a wheat flour dough. Very interesting. And now I know what Languedocian peasants baked with in the sixteenth century!
I'm kind of curious to try making bread from other grains now, to see what they're like. Hmm. I wonder if whole foods has barley flour?
PEASANT RYE BREAD nao?
Mmm. At last. I have made it and it is delicious. And as a lovely side-benefit, the kitchen is a lot warmer now. But see it? And all the yummy rolled oats stuck onto the outside? I'm definitely a fan. In fact, I feel the need to share the recipe...
So here you go: PEASANT RYE BREAD
2 cups (dark) rye flour (or if you're like me and no longer capable of baking without tweaking the recipe somehow, 1 cup rye flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup grated aged cheddar cheese (or again, if you're me, 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese)
2 tbsp honey
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3/4 cup milk and 1 tbsp lemon juice)
1/2 cup large flake oats/rolled oats
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cheese. Stir together honey, egg, and buttermilk; stir into flour mixture, mixing just until ingredients are moist. Turn onto board sprinkled with oat flakes (warning from me: dough will be very, very sticky and have a texture quite unlike the texture of wheat dough). Form into a ball, roll in oat flakes (or not, see dough being sticky - sprinkle with oat flakes) and place on greased baking sheet. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped.
SCOFF UNCONTROLLABLY WHILE STILL WARM.
From Rogers Foods 50th Anniversary Recipe Collection, 2002, p. 3
Anyway, I must also mention that, seeing as how I used half wheat flour and half rye flour, tonight's adventure in baking also involved a certain degree of experimental historical research. Having now finished Peasants of Languedoc, in which Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, among other things, analyzed fifteenth-, sixteenth-, and seventeenth-century peasant diets in Languedoc, I should note that this loaf is, indeed somewhat authentically peasant-esque bread. ELR discussed how in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rye replaced the traditional Mediterranean crop, barley, in parts of Languedoc, while at the same time, the quality of peasant bread declined. At the beginning of ELR's period, peasants generally ate wheat bread, but by the end, they were eating mixed-grain bread or flat-out rye or barley bread. (NB: not very digestible, or nourishing if you're a field laborer eating nothing but, apparently) So while I imagine that peasants in Languedoc were probably eating yeast breads of some sort, my half-and-half loaf (minus the cheese, probably), is kind of... in the spirit. Nor, by the way, is the irony entirely lost on me that rye and barley bread, these latter days, are expensive, artisan products generally consumed, in Canada and the US, by the upper classes. In any case, I must say, it was an interesting experiment in cooking, because even half rye flour seems to give a totally different dough texture than wheat flour. It's very wet and gluey and much less smooth and sticky and elastic than a wheat flour dough. Very interesting. And now I know what Languedocian peasants baked with in the sixteenth century!
I'm kind of curious to try making bread from other grains now, to see what they're like. Hmm. I wonder if whole foods has barley flour?