First, I must of course offer my sincerest apologies for not updating our devoted followers for the last few days. But I have a good excuse- I completely forgot. AND, of course, today was a HUGE advancement in the "Great Bread Experiment" because today Jessie and I ACTUALLY BUILT THE OVENS!!! As I am sure you all already know because she has also posted and update.
So, as Jessie has already relayed the tragic setbacks our oven and baking adventure faced earlier today, the focus of my blog will be on the actual product we were able to create.
We began our work today at around 1pm, heading down to Cook Street Village to go to a health food store for some stone ground rye flour. On a side note, it's a great store with a lot of vegan, organic, and natural products that can be trickier to find. I'm a vegan, so I was definitely pretty excited about the store and probably could have spent more time perusing. Getting the wood and pot back to my house along with the ingredients was cumbersome, and there were moments when I doubted our safe return (there was one point where we were stuck behind a gang of elderly, blind, motorized wheelchair driving people and had we not found a brief opportunity to circumvent them we might still be trailing along behind as I write this). Anyway so we made it.
We will devote an entire post to the actual bread-making and oven-building processes later because there are associated pictures. For now, it will only be said that we originally had six loaves of bread. Three were made using the original medieval recipe that Karen and Krista first made a few days ago (see blog for details), and three were made using a more modern recipe for oat bread from Bernard Clayton Jr.'s book The Complete Book of Bread, but still using ingredients that would have been available to medieval people (except maybe the yeast, but that was also in the medieval recipe so I think we're covered there).
Once the oven was hot enough, which was an adventure in and of it self that included explosions - true story - we put our first loaf in to bake. It was one of the medieval recipe ones. So as it was baking we went inside and were just chillaxing while we waited for the bread to bake, planning to check on it after it had been baking for about 15 minutes. So we go back, and lo and behold there are only TWO loaves left: they had been STOLEN! And, in fact, the only two remaining were from the modern recipe batch, so thank goodness we got one in to start with because I would have been helladisappointed. Silver lining? The dog seems to think our medieval bread recipe is fantastic, although she might no longer think so if the three loaves of unbaked bread in her stomach start to rise in there. Which in some ways I hope they do because it would serve her right for her heinous act of thievery!
Despite this tragedy we did succeed at creating a fully cooked, edible loaf of bread! Three, actually, but once the first one was a success the success of the rest was a bit less exciting. Anyway, here are my observations on the product we created. Note how my keen observational skills and bread know-how have elevated me to the position of "Official Chief Medieval Bread Connoisseur of Victoria"* It should also be noted that I sacrificed my veganism** to conduct this research in an authentic manner. If that doesn't scream A+, then I just don't know what does...
1st Loaf: Medieval rye bread recipe
Oven used: terra cotta pot
Baking time: between 30 and 35 minutes
Results: We have ourselves a functioning oven! Overall, this bread was pretty good. I would give it a 6 out of 10 on the Buttress Bread Scale***.
Texture:The bread did not increase in size much as it baked, and the end product was a very dense bread, but those qualities are characteristic of rye bread anyway. The bread was quite hard on the outside, but inside it bordered on under-cooked. I don't know if we would have wanted to bake it much longer though, because the outside was quite well done.
Taste: The taste was pretty good. It was pleasant, but not on the level that you tried it and thought I WILL be making this again.
2nd Loaf: Modern Oat Bread
Oven used: terra cotta pot
Baking time: between 30 and 35 minutes
Results: This bread was very good! I would give it an 8.5 on the BBS.
Texture: This bread also was well baked on the outside and perhaps slightly underbaked baked on the inside. However, it was not to the same degree. The loaf did enlarge while baking, and the result was a much softer, more airy bread, which personally I found more enjoyable, but again, rye bread sets itself up for failure on the BBS by being rye bread.
Taste: It was really good. It was a nice combination of salty and sweet. Definitely worth making again (probably in a real oven though).
3rd Loaf: Modern Oat Bread
Oven used: normal oven (in wall Kitchenaid Superba if you want to get specific).
Baking time: About 28 minutes
Results: This was also a very nice loaf of bread. It gets an 8 on the BBS.
Texture: The curst was quite brown and crisp. It might have been better to take it out a few minutes earlier than I did. Even so, the inside was soft and overall the texture was quite pleasing.
Tatse: The taste was basically the same as the 2nd loaf
Conclusions: I am kind of surprised to report that my favourite loaf was the 2nd one baked in the terra cotta pot. I think that the pot must have been lower than 400 F because the 3rd loaf baked so much faster, but we don't know what the exact temperature was. When we first heated the oven we used the thermometre we bought, and it shot right up to 400 and exploded. Soooo we could not longer accurately determine how hot the thing was. We did try and measure the heat, but the other thermometre we had only measured up to 200 F so we don't know how much hotter than 200 it was. The second loaf must have baked at a lower temperature, and as a result it was less crispy on the outside, which was better. The good news is that the oven definitely was capable of holding enough heat to bake not one but two loaves of perfectly edible bread. They were all tasty on their own, but we also tried them with butter, honey, and almond-hazelnut butter, which was also delightful.
I think the plan is to have another baking day later in the week so that we can bring the class some samples of our wares. And now that I've said it...there's not baking out. (GET IT!?)
Today was a glorious success. I now realize that when the apocalypse comes, if I am provided with a large terra cotta pot and something to start a fire with, I will still be perfectly capable of nourishing my loved ones with delicious baked goods. This was such good news that I felt I needed to let my mother know about her good fortune (come the apocalypse). Her response was,
"Yeah, well my grandmother had a wood-burning stove."
To which I said, "Yeah...but that doesn't really help you in the apocalypse then, does it?"
Judy Buttress: "Well your dad had a wood-burning stove [when he lived on a hippy commune] in the Okanagan in his 20's."
Angela Buttres: "Right...but yeah...still doesn't really help with YOU in the apocalypse..."
Judy Buttress: "Well. Obi-wan Kenobi (our dog) just got sprayed by a skunk. I guess he'll be sleeping outside tonight."
Angela Buttress: "Okay. Well. That's no good. But yeah, I can bake you bread come the apocalypse."
Judy Buttress: "No. I think I'll just use my barbecue. I'll improvise."
Angela Buttress: "Okay. Well I just wanted to tell you about my bread..."
Judy Buttress: "Oh, well. Four years of university and you finally learn something useful."
GEE THANKS MOM.
No. She doesn't have Alzheimer's. She's just insane.
Angela out.
* This is a self-ascribed title
** Now, before all the self-righetous vegans who frequent our blog get all up and armed about my flaky fake veganism, y'all should know that I don't refrain from eating animal products for moral reasons so I am really not quite so hypocritical as it might seem. I just feel sick when I eat meat or dairy products, so about 99% of the time I keep a strictly vegan diet. So, one might say I sacrificed my personal health and comfort for this project. Now, if that doesn't scream A-triple-plus, I don't know what does.
*** This is a self-established scale. 1 would be a charred lump of inedible material, whose taste, based on its overwhelming, pungent malodour, one doesn't even dare investigate. Should one day someone decide for some reason to sample this bread, they would die, although, in a single ray of light upon the whole situation this bread creates, the repulsiveness of the "loaf" prevents this from ever occurring. Conversely, it could be some sort of puddle of glueish-consistency that has the same characteristics. 10 is the most exquisite bake-for-a-dinner-with-your-new-bf's-family-whose-mother-you-are-trying-to-convince-of-your-cooking-"skillz"-becasuse-he-may-just-be-the-one, soft, sweet kiss upon the pallet, with a buttery, crisp but not too hard crust and fluffy, warm, cloud-like crumb**** that almost melts in your mouth. It is delicious alone, for even the most delectable of spreads, butters, preserves, etc. can augment it in no way.
****Crumb is 100% the actual term for the fluffy insides of a bread. Trust. I am the Official Chief Medieval Bread Connoisseur of Victoria. I know this stuff - it's my job*****.
***** Na, I googled that.
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