With the exception of creating an acid based starter using the Bread Drink (which apparently is no longer going to be available in the US, with the death of the company founder), my son Diallo has taken this recipe and run with it. He has added more whole grain and prefers a poolish rather than the biga, but he follows closely the multifold time table.

The results are a very rich tasting, spongy and porous crumb. His basic topping for the moment–and photographed here–is a marinara sauce, topped with caramelized onions* and fresh Mozzarella cheese from our favorite booth neighbor at the Barton Creek Farmers’ Market, Mike of Full Quiver.

He bakes hotter and longer than I would and likes to singe the top and the sides. But the great thing about bread in general, and Focaccia in particular, is that it accommodates all kinds of variations.

* Slowly cook thinly-sliced onions in butter or olive oil until most of the onion juice has evaporated and the onions have turned golden brown.

focaccia with caramelized onion

And now he talks about Chocolate Focaccia?

I’m a bit skeptical. On the other hand, George is a no-nonsense guy who knows what he’s doing. And, after all, bread and chocolate is a classic combination. Look here what’s out there…

Well, George told me about his plans when we chatted at the farmers market, last weekend. So I asked him to write a blurb for our blog, and, if possible, send a picture of his experiment:

Chocolate Focaccia

“A baker friend alerted me to a posted recipe for a fruit focaccia. As strange as it sounds, focaccia made with the smaller champagne grapes and topped with coarse sugar are fairly common in the grape regions.”

“This got me thinking about the classic bread and chocolate. I was going to top the bread with chocolate at the beginning of the bake, but my chocolatier friend, Chef Keem , suggested that I should do it at the end of the bake. In his words, burnt chocolate is not particularly pleasant. I took his advise and only dotted the bread during the last 5 minutes of the bake, when I had turned the oven temperature down to 425 degrees.”

This is the brand I used: El Rey dark chocolate, 61% Mijao

“I wanted to have some background herb flavor, so I went with the classic topping of rosemary, olive oil and kosher salt. I am going to continue experimenting with this idea and with other background flavors, and I invite any other baker to post their ideas here.”

“Specially selected, organically grown wheat, spelt and oats are the first step. To our Spelt Krackers we add extra bran for flavor, nutritional power and an extra crisp bake. Flax seeds go into all the doughs to enhance the basic texture.”

“All of our ingredients are organic and add important fiber, Omega-3 essential fatty acids, lots of vitamins, minerals and trace elements to the diet. Our Krackers offer substantial nutritional value, especially when compared to crackers, chips and other snack foods, and they celebrate the best flavors that a bakery can offer.”

Can you imagine the sheer amount of goodness you will add to your Wiener Schnitzel, Chicken/Eggplant Parmesan, or Catfish fillet…with a breading made from these powerhouse flatbreads?

To blow you away completely – here is the nutrition table for Dr. K’s Culinary Crisps line: Apple Crisps and Cherry Semolina…

O.k., forget the healthy part for a moment and think about the flavor…wow!…apple, cherry, fire-roasted spices! And now compare this to some store-bought plain breadcrumbs (plain is the all-revealing keyword here!), or even their “upgrade” with a sprinkling of tired old dried herbs floating around in the desert sand. Now, that was easy, right?

Here is a very special treat for you! Amie Valpone from the Healthy Apple Blog makes an incredible Eggplant dish using Doctor Kracker breadcrumbs in her recipe. Watch…

For thousands of years, it has served as the major source of nutrition for the Incas. With a whopping 16-23 percent, it is one of the best plant sources of protein.

Image courtesy of Jason Riedy. Thank you!

What Makes It A Wondergrain?

• It provides all 9 essential amino acids
• It is a complete protein
• It is gluten-free
• It is cholesterol-free
• It is usually grown organically
• It has high levels of B vitamins, iron, and phosphorus for energy production
• It promotes cardiovascular health through its magnesium content
• It protects the body from free-radical damage with high levels of antioxidants
• It is a good source of manganese, copper, vitamin E, and fiber
• It is perfect for vegetarians and vegans
• It tastes great on its own
• It cooks quicker than other whole grains (10-15 min.)

How To Cook Quinoa – Video Tutorials

Note: The outside of the seed is covered with saponins (a natural insect repellant) which have a bitter taste and need to be rinsed off before cooking. However, most commercially produced quinoa has already undergone a thorough washing process, so a quick rinse by us consumers should suffice.

Cooking Quinoa

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a rolling boil

2. Add 1 cup of rinsed quinoa, cover and reduce to a simmer

3. Cook undisturbed for 15 minutes; remove from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes

4. Fluff up with a fork; eat as is, or mix with additional ingredients

Recipes

Quinoa and Pistachio Salad

1 cup quinoa
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup orange juice
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tblsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3/4 cup roasted red pepper, chopped
12 olives, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup pistachios, chopped

1. Put quinoa, broth, water and orange juice in a large sauce pan and bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer 12 minutes.

2. Place everything from cilantro through garlic in a food processor and run until smooth.

3. Gently combine all ingredients, reserving a few sprinkles of pistachios for garnish.

Breakfast Porridge

2 cups cooked quinoa
1 cup milk (or almond, rice, or coconut milk)
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 apple, chopped
1 cup almonds, chopped
Optional: honey or agave nectar for sweetening

Combine cooked quinoa and milk in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer; add raisins and cinnamon, cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the quinoa is hot; add all other ingredients, stir and serve.

Look at these beautiful images of recipes using our wondergrain:

Unfortunately, quinoa is NOT sold everywhere. Most health food specialty stores should carry it, but you may have to order it online. Browse this widget for high-quality product and a selection of excellent cook books:

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I’m currently signed up for a premium membership because I couldn’t imagine a better refresher course for yours truly. And even if you are a beginner in the culinary field, these contemporary cooking videos and highly detailed recipe courses will teach you the exact cooking techniques I had to pay a lot of money for in chef school. (Only this time for pennies on the culinary institute dollar!)

Check out these materials of the ROUXBE Online Cooking School and then I will tell you how to take advantage of a fabulous introductory offer. Hint: You get one lesson of your choice for FREE, for a couple of weeks, before you have to decide on a membership option. This is huge!

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Full disclosure of Chef Keem’s affiliation: I am a Rouxbe Cooking School affiliate partner. Rouxbe is the world’s first-ever online cooking school. I partnered with Rouxbe to help you improve you cooking skills. As part of their affiliate program, I have the power to give you a free, restricted-access, no-videos-barred, 14-day pass to their site. All you have to do is go to the ROUXBE Online Cooking School and redeem the 14-day Gift Membership. After the trial, you can join for as little as $4.95 per month per lesson. However, there is no obligation. It’s awesome! Check it out.

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Go ahead, sign up for free and start looking around. I strongly believe that this is by far the best deal I’ve ever seen online. It’s fun, easy, convenient, and actually quite cheap, if you ask me. And you WILL become a good (or a better) cook!

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It is not always easy pulling recipes from history’s deep closet. I have looked at old baking books and researched the web. With this recipe, we will bake whole grain crackers that would meet his approval.

How To Make Graham Crackers The Old-Fashioned Way

Preferment: Biga

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 teaspoon dry yeast
1 cup water

Mix and let sit for 12 hours at room temperature, ideally 65-70 degrees

Soaker

1/8 cup ground flaxseed
1/8 cup whole flaxseed
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2 Tblsp canola oil
1 Tblsp molasses
2 Tblsp honey or agave nectar
1 Tblsp salt

Cover with 1 cup of boiling water and stir.

This should be prepared at least 30 minutes before you start to mix the dough so that it will be cool enough and not kill the yeast. It can sit for several hours, if you prefer.

Main Dough

Biga
Soaker
2 teaspoons dry yeast
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour plus 1/2 cup for the kneading
1 cup water

• Mix all the above and knead intensely for 8 to 10 minutes
• The dough should be stiff and dry
• Let rise in a covered bowl for 45 minutes

Rolling out the dough

• Remove the dough from the bowl, being careful not to fold it, which could create too much strength. We want the dough relaxed.
• Divide it into 4 pieces. Gently extend one piece into a rectangle by hand, making certain that the work surface is well floured.
• With a rolling pin, roll it into a larger rectangle. Use flour to keep the surface dry. I like to flip it over to make certain that the bottom doesn’t stick.
• When you have the dough as thin as you like (we try for 2 millimeters in the bakery), use a knife or pizza cutter to make rectangles. Carefully transfer these to a sheet pan.
• To decorate the surface with additional seeds, brush or spray the surface of the graham crackers with water and sprinkle with flaxseeds, sunflower seeds and rolled oats. Use the brush to push the seeds gently into the dough so that they stay in place.
• Let rise in a warm place (I use the top of the oven, with the sheets on a dish so that the bottoms don’t heat up excessively). Let rise for 45 minutes and during this “proofing” time, cover with plastic or brush/spray the surface with more water to ensure that the crackers don’t dry out.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes. Do not let the crackers become too dark. If your oven bakes unevenly (and most ovens do), switch the pans around during the baking: front to back or top to bottom. The graham crackers are finished when the surface is no longer soft. You want them crisp, not hard!

Dr. Graham’s legacy of the graham cracker tells the story of a kernel of enduring nutritional truth that was sidetracked by religious belief and later hijacked by the sweet tooth. Dr. Sylvester Graham wasn’t really a doctor, nor was he an ordained minister, as far as I can tell. But it was more about the message in those days (as it may still be now) and whether the message attracted a following. Graham was convinced that lust and masturbation were caused by poor dietary choices: too much meat, refined flour and inadequate fiber. Raw food was high on his recommended list, but without California, Florida or Central and South America providing abundant fresh produce, I’m not certain how fulfilling a plant-based diet was in the 1830’s.

Dr. Graham advocated healthy living to suppress the carnal urges and to purify the mind and spirit. Healthy living meant no meat, raising the ire of butchers; no refined flour, making him unpopular with bakers; and no alcohol, angering the brewers and saloon keepers. But people signed up!

Since he had little support from the bakers, Graham instructed his followers to bake healthy bread at home. His recipe specified unsifted flour that contained all the bran and the germ. This flour would have come from the first grind at the mill and thus contained many particles of varied size, which is to say that it was very gritty to the feel and baked into a very coarse texture.

During my apprenticeship in Germany, I was able to find graham bread in the health food stores, and I indulged in its hearty flavor and texture to vary my otherwise daily rye bread fix. Graham flour is hard to find these days, although our miller, Keith Giusto at Central Milling, designates our custom ground spelt flour as graham flour.

The honey graham crackers of today compare in no way to Dr. Graham’s original recipe!

As with many things, the graham cracker underwent many changes, and it only became a mass market success when it was sweetened up with sugar and honey and when vegetable oil or other fats (pig lard was a preferred fat in baking until 50 years ago or so) were added to make a more tender, cookie-like cracker. A sweeter cracker always works to broaden the appeal, and I freely admit I loved them as a child. And somewhere along the way, yeast disappeared from the recipe. Chemical leavening took over as sugar content increased (yeast does not like a sugar rich environment) and sped up the entire baking process. Once again, it is clear that faster food means nutritionally less healthy food.

The above recipe recreates the cracker as Dr. Graham and other bakers most likely baked. I love a hearty crust, and this type of cracker, like all Dr. Kracker flavors, is a tribute to the richness of flavor that develops in the bread’s crust. I’ve added some oats, sunflower seeds and golden flaxseeds for fun and additional fiber and flavor. Good luck recreating this lost treasure from our past!

For a very complete look at both Sylvester Graham and Harvey Kellogg check out this free article:
“Porn Flakes: Kellogg, Graham and the Crusade for Moral Fiber” by Carrie McLaren

Dough rest is the amount of time that bread dough ferments after being mixed and before being shaped into loaves. Many bread recipes require only a single resting period. The more preferment and the amount of yeast generally determine the length and number of dough rests.

The best breads use less yeast and have longer resting periods, some even overnight, in order to maximize the flavor that ultimately characterizes the bread. This is the stage where your signature as a baker is developed, and the richest and fullest flavors come from the longest fermentation.

Punch and Fold Method for Making Bread Dough

I like to call this technique “stretch and fold” since artisan bakers want to preserve the gases and bubbles rather than punching them out of the bread dough. The stretch and fold organizes the gluten and improves its ability to capture fermentation’s gases. Check out our video explaining this technique, since it is much easier to understand when you see it.

Proof Times and Bread Dough Rise

How long a bread dough rises or proofs will depend on a variety of factors. The amount of yeast in the recipe, the temperature of the dough and the ambient temperature all can increase or decrease the speed. As a young home baker, waiting for the bread dough to rise always challenged my youthful impatience. As the slow food movement has showed us, good food takes time, so follow the directions of the recipe, and know that cooler temperatures require more patience, and warmer temperatures will speed up the process.

Bread Dough Baking Temperatures

Bakers like very hot temperatures to guarantee oven spring and toothy crusts. After my apprenticeship in Germany, I found books for the home bakers specified too low of temperatures for bread doughs. I prefer to preheat my oven and start my baking at 500. After 10 or 12 minutes, I bring the temperature down to 375 to 425 to finish the bake. I use a baking stone in my home oven, and I sometimes brush bread with some water before baking. Unfortunately, there is no way that a home oven can generate steam like a commercial oven. The steam prolongs the oven spring and maximizes the volume of the bread dough and the color and the crispness of the crust. But don’t despair. What you can’t achieve in the crust, you can still guarantee in the crumb by the judicious use of preferments!

Baking Odds and Ends

Salt Rising Bread Dough

When I first read about salt rising bread, I wondered how the salt could make the bread rise, since salt restrains the yeast and thus slows the rise. Later, I learned that salt rising referred to a place to let the dough or starter rise. Rock salt makes good insulation, and home bakers would heat up a bowl filled with salt and then incubate the starter on top of this warm container of salt. The salt radiated heat and allowed the starter to develop faster and created unique flavors because of the warmer temperatures. Making salt rising bread dough is not as difficult as constantly feeding a sourdough, and a heating pad will work just as well as a bed of rock salt.

When I bake at home, mixing and kneading are one and the same. I use a large bowl and a very heavy duty spatula or dough scraper to fold the dough onto itself. This is very wet or tacky dough that defies any hand mixing. I aim for 100 strokes, give or take a few. I rely on the organic acids that form during the fermentation to finish the gluten development and to achieve the structure of the bread. I only touch the dough with my hands to stretch and fold it, at least until I shape it or place it on the baking sheet. What I have sacrificed in the physical joy of baking, I have gained with much better bread results.

Spelt is often called the biblical wheat. And many people who have a wheat allergy and avoid eating wheat (which is not the same as Celiac disease) find spelt does not affect them in a negative manner. In fact, spelt is an early variety of wheat and underwent a spontaneous mutation. Technically speaking, spelt is hulled wheat, which means that the extra hull has to be milled off before the wheat can be milled into flour. Spelt bread is not easy to bake, and the same mutation that lost the hull changed the balance of the gluten proteins to create a grain and flour that was preferred by bakers. This is wheat as most of us know it. Since proteins are the usual culprits in allergies, I would assume that the mutation that improved the bake-ability of the wheat also made it more difficult to digest. Because of the difficulties of baking, spelt almost disappeared from the agricultural scene, but fortunately has made a strong return. Dr. Kracker uses spelt flour extensively to bake its flatbreads. To bake with spelt, try using the biga for best results. The weaker spelt proteins like the extra organic acids developed with the preferment.

Organic Spelt

What Is Durum Wheat?

Durum is yet another variety of wheat that is known for its large kernels and high protein content. Most all of the durum wheat in the US is milled into semolina flour, the basis of pasta and macaroni. When added to bread, semolina flour imparts a rich yellow color and a buttery flavor. Most all recipes combine semolina with regular bread flour for the best results.

What Is Kamut?

Kamut is one of the durum wheats and is known for its sweeter flavor (it is amber rather than red wheat) and the large size of its kernels. Kamut is the Egyptian word for wheat, and the initial seeds were carried to the US as a curiosity from Egypt. Today, most all of the kamut in the US is grown in Montana. Like spelt, Kamut does not have ideal baking characteristics, but can be combined with wheat flour. I like to cook Kamut—or spelt for that matter— as a rice substitute or together with rice, and Kamut can be precooked and added to the dough. The large plump kernels make for a fantastically chewy texture.

All-Purpose Or Bread Flour?

Bread flour for the home baker is milled from hard winter wheat. If you want to bake with preferments and use long fermentation, always look for bread flour. All-purpose flour is milled from softer wheat varieties which have less protein and whose protein is better suited for cakes and cookies. You would not want the tough, chewy texture of sourdough bread to characterize your cookies! Flour is labeled specifically for bread baking or all-purpose baking.

Photo Credit

Wheat can be planted in the fall and harvested in the spring or can be planted in the spring for a fall harvest.

The first are hard winter wheat varieties. These are mostly grown in the Western plains states. The wheat is planted in the early fall. The seeds germinate and the wheat grows until the cold weather forces the plant into dormancy. In the best years, a light snow cover can protect the young plants and provide sufficient moisture for the crop to rocket out of dormancy in the spring. Harvest begins in Texas as early as June. The winter wheats are considered to have the best protein characteristics for artisan baking.

Spring wheat is grown throughout the Midwest and is most often high protein wheat. High protein flour has special applications in the pan bread and pizza bakeries, and should not be used for home baking.

Red wheat or white wheat?

Most home bakers never realized that they have an option. In the last 10 years, hard white wheat has been widely introduced to professional bakers. Just as there are several colors of corn such as blue, red, yellow and white, to name the obvious, wheat can be hard red wheat or white, depending on the color of the bran layer.

White whole wheat flour has gained in popularity as consumers and bakers have noticed a sweeter flavor in the white wheat in contrast to the slightly bitter flavor of the red wheat.

Traditionally, whole grain recipes call for honey or sugar to mellow this bitter flavor. But with white wheat, there is no need to add any sweetener to the recipe. If you are looking to bake whole grain, King Arthur sells a 5-lb bag of white wheat, and you can be certain that it is whole grain and will have the same excellent baking characteristics of hard red winter wheat.