Russian Black Bread - Part II

... bread has proofed, doubling in size ...

I am doing a lot of blogging about bread. That seems to be the thing a lot of people have asked me about: Marcia, Jamie, Mary, Joaquim, Amir, Laynie, Mati. It didn’t seem fair to talk about it and not put up some pictures – not ones I skimmed off of the internet, but a show and tell about how the bread is done in my kitchen.

I believe bread is something you can do in between other things in the day, until you aren’t aware that it has taken any time. So without thinking about my days schedule, I just got some going.

... loaves have been baked and are ready to turn out of the pans ...
I can't capture the smell for you. Too bad

I put yeast in some warm water in my bread bowl. Then I ran over to Miranda’s house while it was taking its three minutes to dissolve. They asked me to stay for pancakes. I got back 30 minutes later and added the rye flour, incorporating it into the water and yeast while I pulled out the other ingredients.

So it sat in the bowl while I discovered I had no chocolate. I always substitute some chocolate and margarine, when I am out of chocolate, but I couldn’t find my tin of cocoa upstairs. I just don’t run out of some things: cocoa, cinnamon, a bag of flour, bran, lots of yeast – you can count me if you need to borrow these. I always have back ups.

Finding the cocoa was a task – when it is downstairs and not in its rightful place in the upstairs cupboard.

... trying to save a mess by putting it on a nice dish ...

 By this time the dough was looking like a sponge. And this bread was taking more time than usual – finding the instant coffee granules, trying to use up the last of the molasses which now have to be dug out of the bottom of the carton to get ½ a cup. While my bread usually gets together fast, this was taking a few minutes longer and added to that I had taken on the task of cleaning out one of the kitchen cupboards as I went.

... we don't know if the pan wasn't greased enough or
if we should have put parchment paper on the sides and bottom
or if we used one of the cheaper pans
or perhaps this just happens to everyone, sometimes ...

I finally got a soft dough made, some raisins thrown in at the end.

Since I don’t like raisins that much I shorted the recipe by ½ a cup, which I wished I hadn’t when I tasted the product later.

 The extra raisins would have been nice.

Once I got the dough into my big metal bowl and was washing up my bread mixing bowl, that is when I remembered I hadn’t put the vinegar into the bread. I measure it out and poured it over top of the bread, trying to incorporate it by hand. A few people came through the kitchen and kept me company while I messing and squishing the vinegar in.

... please take a piece.. watch it ... tall slices don't have raisins ...

When the bread had doubled in size, I had to run off to an appointment.

 Amir said he would finish it off for me.

 He rolled it into loaves, greased the pans and baked it while I was gone.

Later when someone thanked us and asked who had made the bread, neither he nor I could answer, since ... well, neither of us had taken it from start to finish.

"I'll take mine with cream cheese."

You will see that when he took the loaves out of the pan, one of them stuck to the side and then fell apart, so there was that mess on the counter.

We cut it first to eat it. I selected a nice serving dish, trying to compensate for the breads lack of traditional form.

 I don’t know what to say about it taste, except that if this were served as sacrament bread, you could double the size of the congregation in no time.

...  only a bit of butter is left, but there is still lots of bread ...

I ate my first slice plain. Kelvin put butter on his. Pouria loaded his with cream cheese.

Connor took his piece of new bread and toasted it to give it a nice crust on both surfaces.

 Some of us tried every method: butter, cream cheese and toasted.

Even people who were full, ate.

His German roommates think Connor's beer is the best.
Glen thinks it is better to go to Germany
and drink German beer.

We can’t say which is the best bread ever.

Maybe the best bread ever is the one we are eating at the time.

But this one was glorious.

Connor thought beer would go well with the home made bread.  I asked him when he was going to contribute his beer recipes to this blog.  He said he doesn't tweet, do facebook or blog.  He only like to make beer and have a piece of Russian black bread on the side.

Arta