A New Bread for Fall

I combined a couple of recipe to create this lovely pumpkin cranberry bread for a potluck my husband was having today at work. The theme was "healthy eating" and one of the categories was gluten free. So, I decided to make this bread since I had some pureed fresh pumpkin and fresh cranberries from the farmer's market on hand.

And....I won a $20 cash prize for this bread in the gluten free category! It was fun and exciting to win!

This wonderfully moist gluten free, dairy free, soy free bread is so delicious it is more like cake! You could never tell it is gluten free or made in any other way than the traditional way of baking.

I know that this will become one of the favorite fall treats in our household.

I learned a lot about gluten free baking when we had Farmer's Tea- selling our baked goods at a farmer's market. There were many customers who came to appreciate our growing selection of gluten free treats. So, I love to combine recipes and create many new gluten free baked goods to try. Also, since we have a couple of friends who need to eat gluten and dairy free- having these types of things on hand is always great!

Enjoy this lovely bread!

First of all- before baking you need to create a special flour mix. If you live locally (in Oregon) I have found all three of the flours available at New Seasons- or if you go to Bob's Red Mill in Milwaukie, Oregon you can buy these flours in bulk which saves a lot of money.

The flour mixture is as follows (I usually mix up a large batch and store it in a zip lock bag or a storage container) I got this mixture idea from "Gluten Free Baking Classics" by Annalise G. Roberts. It is a wonderful book and a great one for coming up with baking ideas.

Small Batch of Gluten Free Flour:

2 cups brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca flour

Large Batch of Gluten Free Flour:

6 cups brown rice flour
2 cups potato starch
1 cup tapioca flour

The only other ingredient that is essential to gluten free baking is xanthan gum which helps hold the flours together and helps prevent baked goods from being too crumbly. It can be found in most stores. It is expensive but only a bit is used in each recipe and it lasts a long time. Below you can see a photo of all of the ingredients laid out:


Gluten Free Pumpkin Cranberry Bread:

Makes three 8x4 loaves- they freeze wonderfully!

Ingredients:

Dry Ingredients:

• 3 cups brown rice flour mix (if you don't need to make this gluten free substitute all-purpose flour)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
  
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

Wet Ingredients:

• 3 cups granulated sugar
  
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree (or use fresh pumpkin that you have baked and pureed yourself- be sure to use a pie pumpkin or other sweet pumpkin for this
  
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries-chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 8x4-inch loaf pans.
2. Combine flour, spices, xanthan gum, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Set aside.
   
3. Stir together sugar, pumpkin, eggs, vegetable oil and orange juice in bowl; beat until just blended. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Fold in cranberries. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pans.
4. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Enjoy a lovely slice of fall!!

Bagels- Two Ways

This week I was in the mood for bagels. They are really my favorite breakfast bread and also make great savory sandwiches, so I decided to make 1 batch of bagels two ways- one sweet and one savory. The picture above shows one of the sweet bagels- a cinnamon raisin Scottish oat one. I decided to try a new recipe and a new method of making bagels and then add my own twist on it. The result was a very soft, chewy bagel with a nice crust on the outside. They are so delicious! It was a big treat to enjoy a freshly made bagel this morning.

I used a recipe that I found on the blog The Fresh Loaf which was adapted from the book The Bread Bakers Apprentice.

Here is my version of the recipe along with my notes.

From this basic recipe I made cinnamon sugar bagels and garlic bagels.

Scottish Oat Bagels- with variations- Adapted from The Bread Bakers Apprentice

Makes: 12-14 bagels (I made 14 bagels with 1 recipe)

Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cup all purpose flour (the original called for bread flour, but I did not have any)
2 1/2 cups water- warm from the tap

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
2 cups bread flour- or all purpose flour
1 cup Scottish oats
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons malt powder
OR
1 tablespoon malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar- I used honey

1/2 cup sugar + 2 teaspoons cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar bagels
1 teaspoon garlic powder for the garlic bagels

Finishing touches:
1 tablespoon baking soda for the water
Cornmeal for dusting the pan
Toppings for the bagels such as seeds, salt, onion, or garlic- I did not top my bagels

The Night or Late Afternoon Before:


Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours. As you can see in the photo above the sponge gets very bubbly.- I let it rise slightly longer than two hours because I wanted to finish eating dinner before I made the dough. I think that any recipe that starts with a sponge is going to turn into a lighter, fluffier, more flavorful bread because it seems like the yeast gets a good head start in rising.

Remove the plastic wrap and stir the additional yeast into the sponge. Add 2 cups of the flour, the 1 cup of Scottish oats, the malt powder or honey and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. You may need to work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to make the dough less sticky, either while still mixing in the bowl or while kneading. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.

At this point I divided the dough in half and added 1/2 cup of sugar + 1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar bagels to one half of the dough. Then, to the other half I added 1 teaspoon of garlic powder to make the garlic bagels.

Knead each half of the dough for about 10 minutes on a floured board.

Right after kneading, divide the dough into a dozen small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each. I used a kitchen scale to measure out each ball. If you don't have a kitchen scale, try to divide the dough as evenly as possible into 12-14 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 12 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes. In the photo below you can see the size of the balls of dough on a tray before resting the dough.


Shaping the bagel is very simple. Punch your thumb through the center of each roll and then rotate the dough, working it so that the bagel is as even in width as possible.

Place the shaped bagels on an oiled sheet pan or pans, with an inch or so of space between one another. If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil or pan spray before placing the bagels on the pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes. My formed bagels are pictured below:


After about 20 minutes of rising time, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator overnight. This will develop the flavor in the bagels.

The Next Morning:

Preheat the oven to 500F. I decided to use the convection feature on my oven- so it was set at 475F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the pot.

When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to flip them over and boil them on the other side.

Before removing them from the pot, sprinkle corn meal onto the sheet pan. Remove them one at a time, set them back onto the sheet pan. At this point you can top the bagels with seeds, etc. if you wish while they are still wet. Otherwise you can leave them plain, or brush an egg wash on them.

Place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, (or 425 in a convection oven) rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. I let the bagels bake a total of 15 minutes with a couple of rotations because the temperature was a bit lower and I wanted them to brown a bit more.

Enjoy!

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Cranberry Bagels

Even though it's been a busy week I couldn't go without making bread! So, since I had some success with making whole wheat bagels in the past I decided to make them again and try some new techniques and change the recipe a bit. I had run out of raisins so I decided to use some dried cranberries instead.

The new techniques I tried were giving the bagels a longer initial rising time, a longer second rising or "floor time" and also adding some vital wheat gluten to the dough.

My son Adam had such fun "sifting" the flour while I made the dough and of course eating the dough after it was kneaded. That is his preferred way to eat bread!


I'm not sure if it was due to my changes or not, but the bagels turned out really well and it was amazing to eat one hot out of the oven! That's a good way to start off your morning!!

Here's the recipe with my notes:

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Cranberry Bagels:

2 cups warm water (110 degrees) - I usually use the hottest tap water I can get
2 (1/4 ounce) packages active dry yeast or 1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup sugar mixed with 2 to 3 tablespoons cinnamon (save some of this mixture for sprinkling on top)
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 21/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional)
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries

cornmeal for dusting baking sheets
1 egg + 1 tablespoon water for glaze

1. Mix together sugar, yeast and water in your mixer bowl. Let it rest for 5 minutes or until it's foamy.

2. Mix in salt and cinnamon sugar mixture.

3. Add in the 3 cups of whole wheat flour and mix for about 5 minutes or so on medium speed. Then, add in the unbleached all purpose flour a 1/2 cup at a time until you achieve a stiff dough ball.

4. Switch to the dough hook attachment and knead for 5 minutes or knead for 5-10 minutes on a lightly floured board by hand.

5. Put the dough into a lightly greased bowl and cover. Allow it to rise in a warm place until double in bulk. I allowed my dough to rise for 2 hours.


6. Take dough out of bowl after rising time and punch down the dough. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll each piece into a log and pinch it together to form a bagel shape. Put the bagels on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover and let rise or have "floor time" for 2 hours. I decided to lengthen this step to see if it would rise the bagels more or create more flavor.

7. After the bagels have risen put them into the refrigerator overnight to rest.

8. The following morning boil 2 quarts water and 1 tablespoon of honey or sugar in a large pot (about a 5 quart soup pot). Boil 3-4 bagels at a time for 15-20 seconds per side. Then, let them drain on a cooling rack that has been greased with cooking spray and has a kitchen towel underneath it.

9. Mix the egg and water. Brush the mixture on each bagel and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

10. Preheat the oven to 400F.

11. Put the bagels on back onto the baking sheets and bake them for a total of 30 minutes or until golden brown. Rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom after 15 minutes of baking time.

12. Remove from the oven and let the bagels cool on a rack. Don't forget to slice one and try it with butter straight from the oven! They are great toasted after that but the first one is the BEST!
Enjoy!

Happy baking, gardening & living!