Challah! or more adventures in bread.

Tim alerted me to a deal at his store: 1.99 for 2.5 dozen eggs.  We got a pack which brought us up to something like 3 dozen eggs in the house.  So I had to make a sweet egg bread.  I decided on this recipe: Smitten kitchen's best challah.

It uses a total of 5 eggs.

This is a completely milk free recipe.  It uses oil rather than butter.

The recipe noted that this may be a bit much for a standard kitchen aid mixer so I kneaded it by hand.  It did make a sizable lump of dough.  I'd say over 5 lb.



I attempted a 6 stranded braid (the 6 means something in Judaism) but it was kind of more trouble than it was worth.  This recipe had 2 egg washes for extra lovely crust.



They came out pretty well but the bottom of the smaller one really wanted to burn and the larger one stuck a little and ripped.  Should have used parchment paper.



Even prettier than the zopf!  Definately a different flavor of bread.  Kind of almost sour creamish.  I plan on making some nice french toast out of part of it.

Zopf!

Today, I decided I wanted to make some kind of fancy bread.  I had been reading about pulla when I discovered zopf.  After going through a few traditional recipes that called for fresh yeast (hard to find in the USA), I came across this one: http://www.cuisine.com.au/recipe/zopf-swiss-sunday-bread  Apparently they don't have fresh yeast in Australia either.  This one is also a little different because it doesn't have egg in the dough itself, though that wasn't uncommon in the recipes I was finding.



I had to modify the method a bit because I was using my stand mixer.  I started with everything but the milk and then had to use my paddle-scraper to get everything incorporated.  After that I switched to the hook and got the milk mixed in.  I had to scrape the sides down once because the paddle had pushed everything up.  I let the dough double for 30 minutes.



The easiest part of this was the forming of the braid.  Instead of the Swedish technique, which tends to look like a big knot rather than a true braid, I opted to do a four stranded braid.  I also then let the braid rise for 30 minutes after forming it, which isn't in the original recipe.



As you can see, 30 minutes makes it rise a lot, but see how much more even that braid looks?  I then used an egg wash consisting of a whole egg with a splash of milk (the recipe just uses a yolk) and baked for 30 minutes at 425F.



Beautiful!  Now we just have to taste it.

FOCACCIA!

I made focaccia via modifying this recipe.  Here's my version:

2 pkgs (4.5 tsp) active dry yest
1 tsp sugar
1 3/4 c lukewarm water (105-115° F)
1/3 c olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp cracked rosemary (I used 1 tsp but more wouldn't have been overpowering)
4-5 1/2 c flour
olive oil, coarse salt, and rosemary (optional) to top

Warm the bowl of your stand mixer.  Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 1 cup of the warm water.  The yeast mixture should thicken and foam within 5 minutes.  Add the remaining water, olive oil, salt, rosemary, and 3 1/2 to 4 cups of the flour.  Attach the bowl to your mixer, fitted with a dough hook, and beat on speed 2 (or your recommended speed for bread) for 1 minute.  Add flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough sticks to the hook and cleans out the side of the bowl.  Beat for an additional 2 minutes at the same speed.
Place the dough in a greased bowl and turn to grease the top of the dough.  Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 1 hour.
Punch down the dough and then knead on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes.  Roll the dough to fit a jelly roll pan (15.5 x 10.5 inches).  Cover the dough with a moist tea towel for 15 minutes.  Oil your fingers and make dents in the dough about 1 inch apart.  Re-cover and let rise 1 hour.
Heat oven to 400°F.  Drizzle the dough with olive oil (careful: too much will make it soggy and inhibit browning!).  Sprinkle with coarse salt and whole or cracked rosemary.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

Bread: Take 3

My second bread baking adventure was pretty disastrous.  I got this honey wheatberry bread kit that you were supposed to be able to make artisan no-knead style, but they only had you rise it for like 2 hours when everything else I've seen that is no-knead has to rise overnight.  It was too wet and I ended up with what looked like focaccia rather than the ball shaped loaf I was supposed to get.  Pretty tasty though...
This actually inspired me to find a basic focaccia recipe, which I did in my better homes and gardens prize winning recipes cookbook.  I had everything to do it with, except yeast.  And then I looked at some of my bread recipes in the kitchenaid mixer manual and all I needed to do those was yeast.  So I put a jar of yeast on the grocery list.  Then I convinced Tim that we didn't need to buy bread and I would just bake us bread from now on, which was pretty easy.
That night I prepared some dough using the quick mix, cool rise method.  It was actually a bit easier to get the dough to come together with the recipe because you get a range of flour and can add more or less based on texture.  After it is mixed and kneaded (by my kitchen aid dough hood), it rests for only 20 minutes at regular room temperature and actually puffs up quite a bit before you divide it and form loaves.  Then the loaves get refrigerated for 2-12 hours (I left mine in there from 10pm to 2pm the next day and they were fine) before baking.  I should mention that you use something to the equivalent of 3 packages of yeast.  This is really close to storebought bread in terms of texture because all the little bubbles are very tiny and uniform and its really dense, but it is on a completely different scale in terms of flavor.  You can taste the yeast, salt, and butter so much.  I actually think I might cut back on the salt next batch.  We still have a loaf waiting in the freezer but I think I will also try a rapid rise method on my next day off.  And focaccia is still waiting to be made.

The giant vinyl bag! (Part 2)

My giant vinyl bag is done... its not quite as good as I wanted it to turn out, but it definately is giant....


One piece of liner with makeshift pocket.

For the liner, I chose some sport nylon.  I have another small glitter vinyl purse that uses a similar material as its liner and it works really well.  I did a makeshift pocket on one side for things I need quick access to.  I didn't even measure it...


The liner, finished.

I sewed the liner to mimic the actual shape of the bag, rather than just a big old loose liner.  I have a pet peeve about coins and stuff getting lost in there.


The silver lining?  (it looks so much more metallic with flash on)

My plan, originally, was to put the liner inside the bag, sew around the very top once, and then use a piece of bias or twill tape to cover up the raw edges.  Unfortunately, the liner came out a bit too small, so as I sewed it in, there wasn't enough of it to go around.  I was able to ease it in by sewing the bias tape to the vinyl and then hand sew the liner to the other end of the bias tape.


Finished!  (yes, it is that big compared to the cat litter bucket)

I used the twill tape to sew on some clear plastic handles that also have glitter embedded in them.  I think I will probably add a removable shoulder strap at some point too, but otherwise, I've already got it loaded with all my junk and a sock project and still have tons of room!

The giant vinyl bag! (Part 1)

I decided that I would start carrying a knitting project to work with me all the time a long time ago.  Unfortunately, I picked a purse that would only carry about 1 project.  It would have been ok, but that project always ended up being a sock or something small.  I decided I needed to make a bag that was big enough that I could actually throw an entirely different project bag into... you know, to be able to switch them out... and it would also have to hold all my normal purse stuff too.  My current purse was already the size of a small tote bag, so I had to thing really really big.
A while back, I had ordered some glitter vinyl to make a purse, so I decided my meganormous tote bag would be made from that.


A sea of glitter vinyl.  (or maybe just a yard)

Luckily, the glitter vinyl I ordered from Joann.com is the upholstery type of vinyl.  It is bonded to a cloth backing and its pretty hardy stuff.  I had read it was best to use a leather needle because it leaves a smaller hole and it can stand up to punching through the vinyl, but as I was leaving Hancock Fabric, the cashier girl told me not to use them on vinyl because they could leave a hole.  This reminded me how important it would be to take some scrap bits and sew them all together.


Testing tension, got some loop-de-loops.

I used some extra strong upholstery nylon to sew the vinyl.  I think my machine liked it less than the vinyl.  It kept getting jammed in the hook and then I had to take apart the whole hook assembly and oil it.  That made it a bit better but I kept getting those loops and I had to crank the tension up to 7.  I had the stitch length set really wide too because it would leave fewer holes in the vinyl.


Bits o' vinyl.

I decided to use two side pieces and one long piece for the bottom and skinny sides together.  For me, the fewer the seams, the better.  I left a good 1/2 inch seam allowance on them all.  It should actually provide a bit of structure in the finished bag, i hope.


The first seams.

I cut the long piece extra long, so I could cut the sides to an even length at the end.  This mean I had to find the center of the pieces and line them all up.  Amazingly, this worked pretty well.


All the vinyl seams sewn.

On the last two seams, of course, I met with a few problems.  First, the machine decided to jam to the point where I had to remove the bobbin, the hook, and the presser foot before I could get the needle out of the fabric and loose.  Not sure what happened but it seemed to work a bit better after I replaced the hook this time.  Perhaps I had it off the first time and was just getting lucky up until then.  Finally on the last seam I ran out of bobbin thread.  Doh.


The outer shell of my dream bag.

So far, it looks great!  Now that I've rested a bit and posted this, it's time to think about the lining.

my newest knit

I have started a new project, even though I have yet to finish my brother's socks.  (its ok, i'll get back to them when i'm done starting this one)  It is a baby blanket.  I kind of have this rule where I have to knit a baby blanket for people really close to me (except my bff's 3rd baby because i was kind of planning a wedding).

Here's the ravelry link: The next baby blanket

I linked to the actual pattern and everything before but here that is again: New Traditions Baby Blanket

It creates a quilt block style pattern by starting with a knit square and then picking up stitches from the edges and knitting other geometric shapes around them.  It sort of reminds me of entrelac except maybe a bit less cool.  I still need to do an entrelac project someday.

I'm hoping to take pictures as I go to kind of demonstrate the construction process.  I will be putting them up on the ravelry link rather than here, so check it out.