Weaving

I had no idea that cook books could be so literary! There is quite a story in Jim Lahey’s book on “No Knead” bread. Even within these books I was facing multiple choices. Figuring out how to weave what I knew, what I had available as far as supplies and what seemed like an appropriate beginner bread was still difficult.

I read both introductions. Although each book used a different style and technique for bread making I was starting to see some similarities. Here are some of the common tips for bread making:

- Weigh ingredients instead of using volume measurements (Cups/Tablespoons etc.)- using a scale (which I do not have)

- Using a pre-heated stone or crock helps

- Bread quality is important

- Both books encourage the use of instant yeast, not a starter (more on this later)

As much as I learned by reading the books new questions arose… what if I can’t find a specific ingredient. How do I know that the dough has risen long enough? The book gives some answers to these questions but I am seeing now why experts in baking have been doing it for years. It isn’t easy to describe the feel of bread dough at a specific stage. When I poke the dough ball, it is supposed to spring back, slowly, or half way, or some degree – depending on the stage and recipe.

Wiggling

(I apologize that these are all posted on the same day... I've been working on these but Blogger has been blocked at my school this week. When I asked the tech person she said, "it's hit or miss." Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. Anyways, I am posting several all at once.

At about the middle point of this project I was starting to worry… there were so many types of bread options and so many different versions of bread. I now better understand the stress of an open ended project for my students. Especially when I want them to decide in a very short amount of time. I am guilty of giving students an open ended prompt and then expecting them to pick a direction in one night, or less time event. How stressful! I hadn’t realized. I know kids who have said “Just tell me what to do,” making decisions is stressful. As much “Fun” as it is to get to pick something you’re interested in the uncertainty certainly can cause anxiety.

So, at this stage I decided I needed to physically narrow down my choices. I went down to my local library and found the bread section. There were two books there that seemed to fit my needs, Artisan Breads by Eric W. Kastel and My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Kead Method by Jim Lahey. The Artisan bread book seems to hit right where my goal is and the No Knead book seemed interesting and the pictures still looked like the goal I was going for.

Lamb writes, “…students working independently may need the support of friends, family, and teachers.” It’s true, in a small group a student can get encouragement and support from the group – also the student feels the (positive) peer pressure to perform well, to do their part. Even today I saw this play out in my classes. Usually we go over homework as a whole class. Students get to ask questions from their study guides that they had trouble answering. Then, another classmate gives the answer – I chime in when additional information is needed. Today, I had them perform this same type of task in their small groups, about 5 students each. After this process I asked how they felt about it. They gave some pros: 1) it is easier to ask questions in a small group of peers you are comfortable with. and Cons 1) if your group didn’t do their work then it is harder to get answers. One boy moved to another group because he was the only one in his group who had finished most of his homework. At the end the class mostly agreed that they would like to do this style of discussion again sometime – but not all the time. They also seemed to agree that if they knew their group was going to be relying on them they would make more of an effort to do their work. So—should I always make them do it this way? Probably not, variety is good – but it was an interesting experiment. Often I feel teachers try different things and then just try to figure out from simple observation if it worked or not. I am glad I decided to ask them.

Anyways… back to my project. I knew I had been talking about my project a lot when my boyfriend surprised me with a refurbished KitchenAid mixer. He sent me a text on his way home that said, “I hope you’re serious about this bread making thing…” but I still had no idea what he was cooking up ;) Needless to say, I was very pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed getting to use it.

Moving from the Starter to the Recipe...

The more I read about starters the more there seemed to be a better way than just water to create them. By using pineapple juice the acid level in the starter is increased and it give the yeast a more favorable environment to "blossom." Another way to get a starter is to purchase the special yeast from a bread company. Since, for me this is about doing it at home, I decided to try the pineapple juice. There are multiple versions out there:

NY Times Article that Gives a starter recipe from Peter Reinhart's book Artisan Breads Every Day

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/dining/19pizzarex5.html?ref=dining

Fieldstone Organic Farm: http://www.fieldstoneorganicfarm.com/recipes/starter.htm

The Sourdough Lady's Blog: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/233

I decided to use The Sourdough Lady's blog because I had all the ingredients and I liked her daily steps.

So far the starter seems to be doing what it is supposed to be doing. I am learning some more "whys" about the growing of yeast. Starters can be grown and kept for a long time as long as you feed them water and flour. If they go flat then the pH level is probably too high (the acid in the juice raises it -- but there is apparently a good range) and you can add apple cider vinegar to improve the conditions and cause the yeast to become active again.

Now that I am past day four I will be able to start using my starter... but HOW DO I DO THAT?

So, since I used the SourdoLady's Blog's starter plan I thought I'd look into her recipe too. I was kind of surprised -- it included some things like potato flakes (the kind they use in the school cafeteria). It made me question if her bread baking was going to align with my goals of getting back to the basics and using wholesome quality ingredients.

I revisited the other starter recipe locations from my previous searches.

http://www.fieldstoneorganicfarm.com/recipes/recipes.htm has a wholesome sounding recipe ... much less detailed that SourdoLady's but ingredients like honey, water, wheat flour.

Sadly, the ingredients might be difficult for me to find. Hard Red What Flour? Hard White Wheat Flour? Cooking is about experimentation, so I may end up combining these recipes, but I feel like for a beginner I should follow someone's steps exactly... but who's?

I think my next step will be getting my head off the internet and checking out some of the books at the library.

Today's Learning

1. These are the tips I found most relevant from Farmgirl Fare at this point in my project:
1. Read - Get a book on Bread and read it all. She suggests Bread: Artisan Breads from Baguettes and Bagels to Focaccia and Brioche for beginners.
2. Start with high quality ingredients (flour, water, salt and yeast).
3. Write everything down.

There are 10 tips total, and I will be revisiting them when I am ready.

Here is a bread recipe (ingredient list here... full recipe page here: http://www.farmgirlfare.com/2011/01/farmhouse-white-easy-basic-white.html) that I think I will start with. Some of the ingredients I do not have yet. Some I will get but I do have bread flower (it is not organic as she request, but I will try it first before going and buying more flour.

4 cups (1 lb, 4 oz / 566 grams) organic all-purpose flour

1½ Tablespoons* (17 grams) instant yeast

2 Tablespoons granulated or brown sugar

2 Tablespoons safflower oil (or your favorite neutral oil, or melted butter)

4 cups (2 pounds / 908 grams) warm organic milk (or water), about 85° F

About 6 cups (1 lb, 13 oz / 825 grams) organic bread flour

1½ Tablespoons (22 grams) salt

After thinking about why I picked this one because the pictures look great and the one time I tried bread before it was almost the opposite -- very dense finished product. These look airy and full of air bubbles -- Like something I would buy in a bakery. So, this is where I will start my practical practice and I will continue to work on other bread studies and learning that can be applied to this bread or other styles.

ACTUALLY.... I'm changing my mind. I am going to start with a starter (since that was one of my "Need to Knows." I found directions here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/follow-that-food/sponge-starter-recipe/index.html

Ingredients:

• 7 ounces warm water
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh yeast
• 7 ounces organic bread flour

I am going to have to figure out how to measure ounces since I do not have a scale.

More later.

Watching and Wondering

Technically this is part two of Watching, which was what my first post was mainly about... here are some additional thoughts though at this point in the process...which seems to bridge between Watching and Wondering.

Why does baking bread appeal to me ? I mean, really I can buy pretty nice fresh bread at the local grocery. I don't *need* to make it myself - in the sense that that is the only way I can get it.

I guess there is something about getting back to the basics that appeals to me. Also, the smell of baking the bread and the fresh hot slices that you don't get when you buy it from the store. If I make it myself I know exactly what goes in it. It will take time, I have learned this much, and there is something satisfying about putting honest effort into something and getting pleasant results.


I started with some of these questions today and I am working towards answering them:

1. What ingredients do I need? (and what do I already have).
2. What about yeast?
3. I hear people talking about starters... what does that mean?

My starting point before was Farmgirl Fare's page on bread -- which I skimmed a couple of weeks ago when thinking about baking bread in the first place. So, I am going to go back to that page and really read it to move further on in my inquiry.

After reading through the Watching, Wondering and Literacy pages I was thinking about recipe reading as a small sub-group of literacy. My mother helped me to learn about cooking and reading recipes when I was young and I also took a Home Economics class where I relearned many of these skills... such as the differences between cups, tablespoons and teaspoon measurements.

So, I know (K):
How to read a recipe
Some basics about the process for making bread.
Places to research further - 1. Online 2. Library Books

Want to Know (W):
How to make a starter
How to improve the quality of my breads
What are the necessary and best ingredients
What type of bread do I want to focus on first

Learned: (L).... will update later.

Decision Making - The Beginning

Wow! Inquiry can stress out my brain! I know I am the type of person that seeks information daily. Today in my classroom I pulled up a map of Cuba (we’re reading Old Man and the Sea). I also used Google images to show a skiff (fishing boat). Yesterday I used my smart-phone to check my driving directions with Google Maps. It doesn’t seem like a day goes by that I don’t find out about something either for my personal life or for my teaching life. (Not to mention my student life…)

However, despite my comfort with inquiry this project gave me some anxiety. Here is a little break-down of my first few ideas before I landed on bread baking.
Oooh, I can use anything I want! That’s awesome! I do love roller derby; it’s the greatest workout/sport I’ve ever tried. I wonder if I could do my project related to roller derby? Hmm… I’m not really sure what I need to find out about roller derby that I don’t already know. I mean, I’m learning kinesthetically and gaining endurance, but for this project maybe I need to move on to different idea.

I explored some of the examples, It’s hard to find the simple answers sometimes because the last entry is first and it relies on the knowledge of the previous entries. I skim around these a while. Some that I liked were about food. Eating local is something I am passionate about that was a topic that I seriously considered.

A lot of other students wrote about redesigning a garden or yard space. This didn’t inspire me much.

As I was pondering all this I was also thinking about how to make my Sunday most productive. I was considering trying (again) to bake some bread. The first time my results were so-so. Since then I’ve found one resource I like a lot, http://www.farmgirlfare.com/. The author has some bread tips. The more I read the more I realized this would not be one of my quick Google searches that leaves me quickly satisfied and on my way. This would be a much larger and more in depth endeavor. Then it dawned on me: I may not have time to make bread today because I’m going to use it for my Inquiry Project (which I needed to start) and it’s going to require a lot more inquiry.

And that is the rambling story of how my blog/project/inquiry got started.

(Now that I’m writing about it more ideas are coming to mind: dog training, fishing (another unsuccessful endeavor this previous summer. But, I’m sticking with bread. )