Wednesday, June 3, 2009

BBA: Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire

aka: Little piece of heaven!

Once again we're baking out of order in order to keep up with our daily lunch needs. I must say however that this bread is my favorite sandwich bread so far.
What a beautiful loaf of bread! I did however make a couple adjustments to the recipe as follows:

-I substituted a 7 grain cereal for the cornmeal and wheat bran because that was what I had at home.
-I also substituted white rice for the brown rice, once again because that was what I had in the fridge already.
-I found that I needed to add a lot of extra flour I could be because of my soaker. I didn't measure the water I just filled till it covered the grains as it states in the recipe.

I doubled the recipe and it made 2 large loaves over 2 1/2 pounds each.
My lunch! I am officially committed to never buying store bread again. One bite and I was with my family eating a $7 sandwich at the Atlanta Bread Company. This loaf could easily sell for $5-10. Let's just say 5 stars! This bread is pretty well perfect.

BBA: Brioche

Let them eat Brioche!

According to Peter's book, the history of brioche "includes allusions to Queen Marie Antoinette, whose last words are reputed to be properly translated as 'Let them eat brioche,' and not 'Let them eat cake.'"
There are three different types of brioche in the book, rich, middle-class, and poor man's. I decided to make the middle-class so that I could get a good idea of what brioche is (I've never had it before) but not needing to work-out non stop.


Here's my pretty bread! I was surprised at how quickly this loaf baked. The times in the book are a little vague depending on what shape you made the dough. I figured the loaf would be on the max side of things. It cooked a lot faster than I thought, so it turned out slightly over done.

The Crumb! Looks almost like pound cake, but it's a lot lighter think cream puff.

French Toast

(We almost had breakfast for dinner I was so excited about this!)






Ingredients

* 2/3 cup milk
* 2 large eggs
* 1 1/3 tablespoons honey, warmed in microwave for 20 seconds
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 5 (1/2-inch) slices day-old brioche
* 2 tablespoons butter

Directions

In medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, honey, and salt. Pour the mixture into a deep plate or pie pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Dip bread into mixture, allow to soak for 30 seconds on each side, and then remove to a cooling rack that is sitting in a sheet pan, and allow to sit for 1 to 2 minutes.

Over medium-low heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a 10-inch nonstick saute pan. Place 2 slices of bread at a time into the pan and cook until golden brown, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove from pan and place on rack in oven for 5 minutes. Repeat with all 8 slices.



Buttermilk Syrup
I was introduced to this at a local restaurant and had to try it at home
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of cinnamon (optional)

Combine sugar, butter, buttermilk and corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a low boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes (continue to stir!) until all sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and cinnamon if desired.

Recipe from Dinner's on me
Ta Dah! This was the most amazing french toast I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing! I am planning on freezing and saving the other loaf of brioche for breakfast when my sister comes down next week. (yup Tiff that's you so be excited!)


I wouldn't say it's a healthy breakfast, but what a way to start the day!