Paulchens FoodBlog?!

Our first bread of the year 2012 is as easy as you can imagine.

Our most talented and lovely Ilva is serving as the Kitchen of the month this time and she chose a – let’s put it in her words: “revolutionary bread”.

This bread has everything a good bread needs: flour, water, yeast, some slat and sugar and if you want a nice topping.

Plus: now hold on – it’s baked within 2,5 hours from grabbing your box of flour to burning your fingers from removing the hot bread out of the oven.

Even better yet: you don’t even need to preheat your oven! Just throw it in the cold oven, give it some hot water on the bottom of your oven and turn up the heat!

All you have to do is now: Sit down and watch the magic! 

Perfect, ain’t it?

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Cuban Bread - first time baked, topped with white poppy seeds

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CUBAN BREAD

from Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads

1,2-1,4 litre/ 5-6 cups of bread or AP flour
2 packages dry yeast, I used 50 g fresh
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
500 ml/ 2 cups hot water
sesame or poppy seeds (optional)

after kneading, before rise

After rising, before shaping

by hand or mixer (15 mins)
Place 4 cups flour in a mixing bowl and add the yeast, salt and sugar. Stir until they are well blended. Pour in the hot water and beat with 100 strong strokes, or three minutes with a mixer flat beater.
Gradually work in the remaining flour (using fingers if necessary), 1/2 cup at a time until the dough takes shape and is no longer sticky.

kneading (8 mins)
Sprinkle the work surface with flour. Work in the flour as you knead, keeping a dusting of it between the dough and the work surface. Knead for 8 minutes by hand or with a dough hook until the dough is smooth, elastic, and feels alive under your hands.

by processor (5 mins)
Attach the short plastic blade.
Place 2 cups flour in the work bowl and add the other ingredients, as above. Pulse several times to thoroughly mix. Remove the cover and add 2 more cups of flour. Replace the cover and pulse to blend.
Add the remaining flour through the feed tube, pulsing after each addition, until the dough begins to form and is carried around the bowl by the force of the blade.

kneading (45 secs)
Turn on the machine to knead for 45 seconds.

after shaping, right before baking

after shaping, right before baking

rising (15 mins)
Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and put in a warm (26-37°C/80-100°F) place until double in bulk, about 15 minutes.

shaping (4 mins)

Punch down the dough, turn it out on the work surface, and cut into two pieces. Shape each into a round. Place on the baking sheet. With a sharp knife or razor, slash X on each of the loaves, brush water, and, if desired, sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds.

Baking (205°C/400°F; 45-50 mins)

Place the baking sheet on the middle shelf of a cold oven. Place a large pan of hot water on the shelf below, and heat the oven to 205°C/400°F. The bread of course, will continue to rise while the oven is heating. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the loaves are a deep golden brown. Thump on the bottom crusts to test for doneness. If they sound hard and hollow, they are baked.

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Second One, knotted shape

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Ah, well I have to say while this bread really is a keeper for moments like “oh damn I ran out of bread and need some soon ’cause I am getting company” or like in my case “I ran out of bread and it is my turn to host the Sunday Breakfast Club” it seems that I have developed my demands recording bread a lot since I started baking with the Babes a few years ago…

I like the taste of the bread right out of the oven, still warm a lot, alas – to my mind – it does not keep well. It loses it’s nice bready taste and the soft yet kinda juicy taste the very next day and to my opinion it goes stale very quickly too. While it is still good for toast on the second day, I used it up for making breadcrumbs the following day.

It’s not a bread for me that I would bake often because I need a bread that keeps it’s taste and nice mouthfeeling at least a few days before it starts to crumble totally on me. Most of the time I am a single person household – two persons at the most and I do not like my bread to dry out too quickly.

I blame it on the massive amount of yeast you’ll need to bake it – and of course you’ll need to use that much if it has to rise in such a quick time. I prefer breads with a much deeper taste too and I am a bit repelled by the yeasty taste it has once it has cooled out completely too.

As you can see by the pictures I’ve made this bread several times throughout January because I was pressed for time and didn’t have time to bake anyway so this recipe came in handy tho – Thanks again Ilva!

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Third ones, shaped as baguettes topped with white poppy seeds

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Yeastspotted!

I send this over to Susan’s Yeastspotting.
YeastSpotting is a weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. If you are not familiar with YeastSpotting just scroll the archive and you’ll know what I am talking about. To submit your post simply klick here!

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You sure want to bake this bread as well, don’t you?

Please do so, you will not regret it. If you snap some pics and share your thoughts about this month’s bread on your blog Tanna will be more than happy to add you to the BBB Buddy round up on November 29th.  If you do not own a blog, no worries, you can also post your picture to Flickr or any other photo sharing site and share your thoughts there.

One word about that whole Buddy thing: 
The Bread Baking Babes are a closed group but we thought it would be fun to reward people who take the effort of baking our breads with us and give them a nice Buddy Badge and mention in a round up post every month. Just to say thank you for baking along and sharing your thoughts with us.

Since we are Babes and do no obey to rules, there are nearly no rules for Buddies, except these two:

1. Bake the featured bread, snap a pic & share your thoughts about how you liked it (or not liked it)
2. Send an email to the Kitchen of the Month to notify  us and make it easier to write the round up.

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Don’t forget to visit my fellow Babes and see what they did with this lovely Bread this month.

Oh and don’t forget to visit Katie our BBBBB (Bitchin’ Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire) who writes up such lovely round ups of all the BBB Breads every month!

Bake My Day – Karen | blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth  | Feeding my enthusiasms – Pat  | Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya | Lucullian Delights – Ilva | Notitie Van Lien – Lien | Wild Yeast – Susan | My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Busy, Busy Babes on Hiatus: Canela and Comino – Gretchen | Grain Doe – Görel | Living on bread and water – Monique  | The Sour Dough – Breadchick Mary | Thyme For Cooking – Katie | Cookie Baker Lynn – Lynn | I Like To Cook – Sara

Thinking of you with Love: Glenna (Alumni Babe) | Sher (Angel Babe)

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