Weekend Update - Hearth Cooking Class - On the Rise: Breads, Cakes, and Biscuits
Saturday the weather was beautiful. I really enjoyed my drive out to Historic Deerfield in the brilliant sun with good tunes on the radio. It was hard to miss the evidence that we’ve had plenty of rain and snow melt though, starting with the Mighty Merrimack looking swollen, and the white caps on the river (the Connecticut River?) that I drove past on the way there.
I’ve never been to Historic Deerfield before, and I’m thinking that I should probably go back once they open up for the season. Driving down the Main street, past all the historic houses, I just had to wonder what they looked like when it’s not mud season? I had printed out the map from the Web site, and found the Hall Tavern without much trouble. When I opened the door, there wasn’t anyone in the front room, but I heard voices in the back. So I headed off to find the people and ask if I was in the right place. Turns out the only people in the building were the students and teachers there for the class.
It took me a while to figure out who the instructor was and who the students were. I gather that several people were on their second or third hearth cooking class in this series, so everyone seemed to know where things were and were poking around. One woman laid out samples of two different types of bread that she’d made at home (a whole wheat and a potato bread) and another had brought along some antique bread baskets. The instructor passed out packets and started talking about leavening agents. When she was talking about where and how to find/collect yeast (often from existing sources, like brewing ale or beer, or from the bread bowl or basket, which reminded me of sourdough starter) we passed the baskets (kinda like these) around and talked about how you’d let the bread rise in them and then dump it out (leaving a nifty pattern on the top) and passed around samples of the baked bread. Nummers.
Confused? At this point I was too. Who was in charge here? When were we going to start baking? But once we got past show and tell with the bread and the baskets, things settled down a bit. We talked through the packet of notes and recipes that she’d passed out. She explained that because it needed to warm up, she’d already stoked the fire and the oven. And because it needed to rise, she’d started some French bread (French because it uses eggs instead of yeast as a leavening agent, they are a nation of wine drinkers and don’t have a ready source of yeast from brewing) earlier so that it would have time to rise. She pulled the bowl out and gave the dough a couple of punches to demonstrate how much it had risen, then covered it and tucked it away again. Our overview covered flours and gluten and leavening agents. But not really enough. I think I’m going to have to find a good bread baking cookbook and really study up on this stuff.
Our packets had a couple of recipes in it. We broke into three groups, one made Irish Soda Bread, another made Gingerbread, and the third made Vegetable Soup from the Old Sturbridge Village cookbook. (Sources for the other recipes are unknown.) Since I really wanted to work on baking, I made sure I got into the Soda Bread group. I’ve already made vegetable soup! Really, I think that if you’re running a baking class, everyone should have been baking! But I think the menu was determined by the fact that we were going to eat what we cooked for lunch, so there had to be something besides bread on the menu. *sad face*
I had a bit of a giggle when it came time to measure out the ingredients for our recipe. Some of my experience cooking with the Fahnlein came in handy, because we didn’t have any measuring cups! I eyeballed the various bowls and little ceramic things on the sideboard, and grabbed a small pottery bowl that looked like it was about 1 cup, and we used that to guesstimate our measurements. I figure, most recipes are as much about proportion as exact measurements. We also had to use a regular spoon for our teaspoon/tablespoon. (And I was pleased with myself for remembering that there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon!).
Chuck measured out things, I cut in the butter, and then Joan did the kneading (which she seemed to enjoy immensely). When we were finished, the instructor took one look at our small loaf and suggested that we make a second. So we measured, cut, and kneaded a second time. Our loaves went into two Dutch ovens on the hearth, and the vegetable soup went into a lovely little cast iron three legged cauldron. I wants one I does! But nobody knew where they bought it from. *sad face again*
By this point, it was time to prep the oven. We’d had a lovely fire going in the wall oven all morning, and our instructor pointed out that the bricks were plenty hot by this point. Then she explained that a “falling oven” (a term I hadn’t heard before, but then again I don’t bake much) is one that starts at around 500 degrees, then cools off. As she shoveled out the coals and then swept the oven with a wet broom, she explained how you check the temperature of the oven. One method (the one she doesn’t like) is to stick your arm in for 10 seconds. The other method is to toss a little flour in and see if it burns or browns. The first handful she tossed in quickly turned black, and then actually smoked and glowed a bit red as it burned off. We sat around the kitchen chatting while we waited for the oven to cool a bit, and the second handful of flour she tossed in browned nicely. At this point she put the French bread and the gingerbread (in a pottery pie plate) into the oven and closed the door.
While we waited for things to bake, a couple of us took a quick trip across the street to the Gift Shop. They had lovely baskets and ironware (long handled forks!), and other items that while nice, were too clearly colonial to be useful with the Guild. I snooped the large room of books, but again, they were focused mainly on colonial American, so not much use to the Fahnlein. Even cookbooks are pretty useless, as there is such a huge difference between American and European foodstuffs (beans, corn, potatoes, etc.).
When we got back to the kitchen, it was almost time to eat. Our instructor checked the Irish Soda Bread, which was done. We dished out the soup and sliced up the bread, and took seats in the dining room to eat. OMG yum. The soup was awesome. I wonder if it would be as good without the potatoes? (I’ll have to try next week and see. If it is, I have a new soup recipes for the Guild.)
We ate and chatted. I found out that several of my classmates live in historic houses, so they actually have their own hearths at home. The woman sitting across from me bought a house where they’d torn out the chimney and dropped the hearthstone into the crawl space. She and her husband re-created the hearth and chimney when they renovated the house, but she hasn’t used the oven yet. *Sigh* I’d love to have my own oven and hearth to play around with.
By around 1:00 we’d eaten, divvied up the leftovers, and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. I hopped in the car and started for home. I hadn’t gotten far when I passed a familiar grocery store. Hadn’t I bought ice there the year the Vermont Renn Faire was in MA? I pulled over and reprogrammed the Garmin. Since I was so close, might as well stop in at the Textile Company in Greenfield, MA and check out their woolens. They happened to have three (three!) lovely shades of green in stock. But with prices ranging from $18.5- to $30 a yard, I didn’t buy any. Just fondled it wistfully. Oh Osgood’s, why do you have great prices but hardly ever have yummy colors?
Since I was craving more carby goodness, I stopped at Panera on the way home and bought myself a three cheese demi loaf and a salad. I spent the rest of the evening reading on the internet. Since I’m headed to Jamestown this week, I figured I should do a little reading before I left this time. During the course of my researching, I found out that Roger Delk is on the list of qualifying ancestors for membership to the Jamestown Society. Nifty! Almost as good as having an ancestor on the Mayflower! *preens*
Sunday morning I had to call the folks to see if dad had caught the bit on CBS Sunday Morning about the 100 year old guy who skis and rides a motorcycle? Dad was poo-pooing him for using a sidecar, but hey, 100 years old! I plan to use a sidecar when I’m that old too.
I chatted with dad about Roger Delk a bit. Turns out we can’t exactly trace our lineage to him, there was something about some unpaid debts and fleeing to Georgia and some missing records. Dad has had his DNA checked, and we match the Delk genotype, but the paper trail is missing. Not that I have the $400 lying around to join the Jamestown Society right this minute anyways. But it’s something to think about in the future…
My sister’s feral kitteh Julius (who is orange, natch) has returned after being missing for 10 days. Apparently he was trapped in a neighbor’s unused garage and couldn’t get out. Luckily the neighbor heard him yelling and opened the door for him. My sister and her kitteh Irving are delighted that he is home again.
My folks are already gardening. And bringing in flowers from their own yard. I haz envy of this, I does.
I’ve never been to Historic Deerfield before, and I’m thinking that I should probably go back once they open up for the season. Driving down the Main street, past all the historic houses, I just had to wonder what they looked like when it’s not mud season? I had printed out the map from the Web site, and found the Hall Tavern without much trouble. When I opened the door, there wasn’t anyone in the front room, but I heard voices in the back. So I headed off to find the people and ask if I was in the right place. Turns out the only people in the building were the students and teachers there for the class.
It took me a while to figure out who the instructor was and who the students were. I gather that several people were on their second or third hearth cooking class in this series, so everyone seemed to know where things were and were poking around. One woman laid out samples of two different types of bread that she’d made at home (a whole wheat and a potato bread) and another had brought along some antique bread baskets. The instructor passed out packets and started talking about leavening agents. When she was talking about where and how to find/collect yeast (often from existing sources, like brewing ale or beer, or from the bread bowl or basket, which reminded me of sourdough starter) we passed the baskets (kinda like these) around and talked about how you’d let the bread rise in them and then dump it out (leaving a nifty pattern on the top) and passed around samples of the baked bread. Nummers.
Confused? At this point I was too. Who was in charge here? When were we going to start baking? But once we got past show and tell with the bread and the baskets, things settled down a bit. We talked through the packet of notes and recipes that she’d passed out. She explained that because it needed to warm up, she’d already stoked the fire and the oven. And because it needed to rise, she’d started some French bread (French because it uses eggs instead of yeast as a leavening agent, they are a nation of wine drinkers and don’t have a ready source of yeast from brewing) earlier so that it would have time to rise. She pulled the bowl out and gave the dough a couple of punches to demonstrate how much it had risen, then covered it and tucked it away again. Our overview covered flours and gluten and leavening agents. But not really enough. I think I’m going to have to find a good bread baking cookbook and really study up on this stuff.
Our packets had a couple of recipes in it. We broke into three groups, one made Irish Soda Bread, another made Gingerbread, and the third made Vegetable Soup from the Old Sturbridge Village cookbook. (Sources for the other recipes are unknown.) Since I really wanted to work on baking, I made sure I got into the Soda Bread group. I’ve already made vegetable soup! Really, I think that if you’re running a baking class, everyone should have been baking! But I think the menu was determined by the fact that we were going to eat what we cooked for lunch, so there had to be something besides bread on the menu. *sad face*
I had a bit of a giggle when it came time to measure out the ingredients for our recipe. Some of my experience cooking with the Fahnlein came in handy, because we didn’t have any measuring cups! I eyeballed the various bowls and little ceramic things on the sideboard, and grabbed a small pottery bowl that looked like it was about 1 cup, and we used that to guesstimate our measurements. I figure, most recipes are as much about proportion as exact measurements. We also had to use a regular spoon for our teaspoon/tablespoon. (And I was pleased with myself for remembering that there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon!).
Chuck measured out things, I cut in the butter, and then Joan did the kneading (which she seemed to enjoy immensely). When we were finished, the instructor took one look at our small loaf and suggested that we make a second. So we measured, cut, and kneaded a second time. Our loaves went into two Dutch ovens on the hearth, and the vegetable soup went into a lovely little cast iron three legged cauldron. I wants one I does! But nobody knew where they bought it from. *sad face again*
By this point, it was time to prep the oven. We’d had a lovely fire going in the wall oven all morning, and our instructor pointed out that the bricks were plenty hot by this point. Then she explained that a “falling oven” (a term I hadn’t heard before, but then again I don’t bake much) is one that starts at around 500 degrees, then cools off. As she shoveled out the coals and then swept the oven with a wet broom, she explained how you check the temperature of the oven. One method (the one she doesn’t like) is to stick your arm in for 10 seconds. The other method is to toss a little flour in and see if it burns or browns. The first handful she tossed in quickly turned black, and then actually smoked and glowed a bit red as it burned off. We sat around the kitchen chatting while we waited for the oven to cool a bit, and the second handful of flour she tossed in browned nicely. At this point she put the French bread and the gingerbread (in a pottery pie plate) into the oven and closed the door.
While we waited for things to bake, a couple of us took a quick trip across the street to the Gift Shop. They had lovely baskets and ironware (long handled forks!), and other items that while nice, were too clearly colonial to be useful with the Guild. I snooped the large room of books, but again, they were focused mainly on colonial American, so not much use to the Fahnlein. Even cookbooks are pretty useless, as there is such a huge difference between American and European foodstuffs (beans, corn, potatoes, etc.).
When we got back to the kitchen, it was almost time to eat. Our instructor checked the Irish Soda Bread, which was done. We dished out the soup and sliced up the bread, and took seats in the dining room to eat. OMG yum. The soup was awesome. I wonder if it would be as good without the potatoes? (I’ll have to try next week and see. If it is, I have a new soup recipes for the Guild.)
We ate and chatted. I found out that several of my classmates live in historic houses, so they actually have their own hearths at home. The woman sitting across from me bought a house where they’d torn out the chimney and dropped the hearthstone into the crawl space. She and her husband re-created the hearth and chimney when they renovated the house, but she hasn’t used the oven yet. *Sigh* I’d love to have my own oven and hearth to play around with.
By around 1:00 we’d eaten, divvied up the leftovers, and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. I hopped in the car and started for home. I hadn’t gotten far when I passed a familiar grocery store. Hadn’t I bought ice there the year the Vermont Renn Faire was in MA? I pulled over and reprogrammed the Garmin. Since I was so close, might as well stop in at the Textile Company in Greenfield, MA and check out their woolens. They happened to have three (three!) lovely shades of green in stock. But with prices ranging from $18.5- to $30 a yard, I didn’t buy any. Just fondled it wistfully. Oh Osgood’s, why do you have great prices but hardly ever have yummy colors?
Since I was craving more carby goodness, I stopped at Panera on the way home and bought myself a three cheese demi loaf and a salad. I spent the rest of the evening reading on the internet. Since I’m headed to Jamestown this week, I figured I should do a little reading before I left this time. During the course of my researching, I found out that Roger Delk is on the list of qualifying ancestors for membership to the Jamestown Society. Nifty! Almost as good as having an ancestor on the Mayflower! *preens*
Sunday morning I had to call the folks to see if dad had caught the bit on CBS Sunday Morning about the 100 year old guy who skis and rides a motorcycle? Dad was poo-pooing him for using a sidecar, but hey, 100 years old! I plan to use a sidecar when I’m that old too.
I chatted with dad about Roger Delk a bit. Turns out we can’t exactly trace our lineage to him, there was something about some unpaid debts and fleeing to Georgia and some missing records. Dad has had his DNA checked, and we match the Delk genotype, but the paper trail is missing. Not that I have the $400 lying around to join the Jamestown Society right this minute anyways. But it’s something to think about in the future…
My sister’s feral kitteh Julius (who is orange, natch) has returned after being missing for 10 days. Apparently he was trapped in a neighbor’s unused garage and couldn’t get out. Luckily the neighbor heard him yelling and opened the door for him. My sister and her kitteh Irving are delighted that he is home again.
My folks are already gardening. And bringing in flowers from their own yard. I haz envy of this, I does.