Ten Grain Torpedo and Rye

This weekend I decided to retry the Tyrolean Ten Grain Torpedo.  The last time I tried this I ended up with a big lumpy mess of blegh dough and tossed it.  Although it resembles more of a football than a torpedo, it came out much better this time around.  I think if I added some wheat germ to the preferment it would really bring out a better "wheaty" flavor

I'm still practicing my scoring, can't quite get it pretty enough.

I also made my first Rye bread following the Levy's Real Jewish Rye recipe out of The Bread Bible.  I'm very happy with how this one turned out.  I brought it to work today so I could not get any crumb shots.  It looks about the same as the ten grain torpedo's crumb only instead of cereal it has caraway seeds.  We ate it with some fresh butter and hummus somebody else brought in.

One corner split :(

Ten Grain Cereal

I made this one last night to bring over to Grant and Michelle's for dinner. I had initially started a sponge the night before but the yeast had not activated in it.  I think its just too cold in the house to leave anything on the counter.  Oh well.  I tossed it out yesterday afternoon and started one from scratch.

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons Bob's Red Mill 10 grain cereal

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup hot water

3 cups bread flour

2 teaspoons instant yeast 

3/4 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon honey

1 cup hot water water (110 degrees F)

In a small bowl the night before mix the 10 grain cereal, salt, and hot water.  Mix until the grains are thoroughly soaked.  Cover and let it cool to room temperature.  Then place it in the refrigerator overnight.  

This grain mixture was originally intended for the first loaf that I ended up scrapping so I decided to keep it and toss it in here.  I had to make sure to lower the salt and water content of the dough before I mixed this in to keep the total flour to moisture ratio roughly the same.

Preheat the oven to 375 an hour ahead of baking time to let the pizza stone warm up.

The next day mix the bread flour, instant yeast, remaining salt, honey. and the hot water.  I use my kitchenaid at setting #2 for 2 minutes or so with the dough hook.  It will be a little dry so a little extra hot water may be necessary.  Once the ingredients are mixed turn it up to speed #4 for about 7 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Mix in the grain mixture from the previous night and knead for another 3-5 minutes until it is incorporated.  Place dough in a greased bowl and give it a turn.  Cover and let rise until doubled, 60-90 minutes.  Punch down and turn out onto a piece of parchment on a sheet pan or peel.  Stretch the dough out to form a rectangle and then form a batard or baguette shape.  Cover with oiled plastic and let rise until doubled another 30-45 minutes.

Dust with rye flour and score the bread.  I did 4 scores about 1/2 inch deep at a 30 degree angle.  I'm getting much better at scoring!

Slide the parchment paper on the pizza stone and toss 1/2 cup of ice cubes on the bottom of the oven and quickly shut the door

Bake for 40-45 minutes at 375.  Less time if you made a longer, skinnier loaf.

Everybody thought this loaf was the best one I've made yet.  I think that if I could modify this recipe to use a preferment it would have a much deeper flavor.  I will add some wheat germ into the preferment next time too I think.

The scores could have been a little bigger, I got some cracking down the side of one of them.

The crust was nice and crispy while the crumb was a heavy but incredibly moist and chewy. 

Red Velvet? Red Velvet!

With my roommate Eugene's birthday party coming up I really wanted to bake him a cake.  I've been thinking a lot about red velvet lately and figured this was a perfect time to tackle it.  I started out with a modified version of a cupcake recipe from an episode of Bobby Flay's Throwdown here.   

Cake:

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

2 teaspoons baking soda 

2 teaspoons salt 

1/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 1/4 cups vegetable oil 

3 1/2 cups granulated sugar 

2 cups buttermilk 

4 1/2 eggs 

3 tablespoons red food coloring 

3 teaspoons red food coloring 

2 teaspoons vinegar (white or apple cider can both work) 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

1/4 cup water

Cream Cheese Frosting:

 

2 lbs cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/4 lbs butter, room temperature 

2 1/2 lbs powdered sugar, sifted 

1 1/4 tablespoons vanilla extract

 

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.

 

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside.

   

In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix oil, sugar, and buttermilk until combined. Add eggs, food coloring, vinegar, vanilla and water and mix well. Add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time and mix on low, scraping down sides occasionally, and mix until just combined. Be sure not to over mix, or the batter will come out tough. 

 

I used 2 10" springform pans to bake the cake in, splitting the batter evenly between the two pans.  Bake the cakes for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees F or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the pans and let them cool.  

*This cake was going to be 4 layers so I had to make the cake portion of the recipe twice.  The amount of frosting I made worked for the entire cake so no need to scale it if you are making a cake as big as mine.

For the cream cheese frosting:. Whip the butter and cream cheese together in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until creamed. Gradually add powdered sugar to the mixture and scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and mix until combined.  The frosting can be used right away or stored in the fridge for a week.  

 

On the test batch of cupcakes I did with this recipe I had WAY too much cocoa powder.  The batch was roughly half the size of the recipe listed above but I used almost double the cocoa powder.  OOPS!  The flavor wasn't exactly bitter, but the abundance of cocoa washed out a lot of the flavor of the cake.

 

Suddenly: Cupcakes!

 

Decorations courtesy of Elana!

 

When I started the cakes on Friday morning.  I ran into one problem that I didn't really think about when planning my day.  Cooling time!  The first two cake layers had enough time to cool to get started.  However, by the time I added the 4th layer, it was still too warm and ended up melting some of the frosting and split in half.  Unfortunately I had to trash the top layer and stick with three.  At 10" across and each cake being 1 1/2" high, there was still plenty of cake to go around!  Again, 1/8 of a cup of cocoa powder gave this cake a chocolaty taste without making the cake bland or bitter.

The first two layers:

 

 This was before the layer 4 disaster.  Pics were scarce after this due to frustration!

 Completed!

 I used crumbs from the scrap cake to decorate.  It covered up the inconsistencies of my icing job well!

I think the biggest lesson learned is to allow more time to cool.  I'm going to try another cake sometime soon, this time making it a 2 day process.  Allowing the cake to sit in the fridge overnight should do the trick.  Watching that top layer slide off was almost heartbreaking!