Stollen

Fruit breads, always out to fuck you up, bitches.  However, unlike the EIGHTY MILLION other fruit breads in this book, this bread is "different."  Why?  B/c "Germans who grew up on stollen . . . were adamant that stollen is nothing like panettone."  Right, but pita bread is just like lavash, Peter.  GEEZ, the Orientalism of this book grates on my nerves.

I will say that fruit breads have cute stories, if you're into that kind of thing.  For example, the bread in this "bread symbolizes the baby Jesus, and the colored fruits represent the gifts of the Magi."  Cute!  Someone make a bread about my birthday!

Another cute thing about this bread?  You can make it in one day!  Gasp!  Okay, on to the pictures and whatnot.

This bread starts with a sponge:

which is whole milk + flour + yeast.  PS: So if I add water to whole milk, does that make skim milk?  Fuck, I should have just used evaporated milk like normal.  Now I have 1 3/4 c whole milk for which I have to find a use.

And fruit!

This is raisins (supposed to be golden raisins, but I already had regular ones.  I figured it wouldn't make a big difference, unless golden raisins signify a particular gift of the Magi.) + dried fruit mix (supposed to be candied fruit, but where do you find candied fruit and also Peter says dried's okay, he guesses.) + brandy (caucasian gentleman wasted) + orange extract.

Both of these sit for an hour.  I also napped for an hour.  Friends!  Until!

It's amazing what warm milk and a shit ton of yeast will do.  Barm, I do not miss your face.

So, this is flour + sugar + salt + orange zest (clementine, anyway.  Are they the same?) + cinnamon + egg + butter + water + sponge.

Bugs.  My camera is getting buzzed from the brandy, which smells horrible.  I then had to pour all of it out onto the counter to knead obvs, so my kitchen will forever smell like a frat house and/or cleaning facility.  I don't wear tight jeans like the white boys.

But it resulted in this!  Sits for forty-five minutes.  This is like bread via time travel, it's so fast!

After 45, this bread gets laid out.  Ha.

More fruit!  And nuts!  I'm giving this bread away, PS, in my dislike of fruit breads.  So, I'll be making the next bread soon.  Look out.  And, I don't have to eat french toast for the next eighty mornings.  Yay!

So, this gets rolled up.  Omg.  There are so many relationships between this bread and Gucci Mane's Wasted, which will now be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.  Remember when I didn't like this song?  I had such taste then.  You can have it stuck in your head now, too.  Twins!

Gucci Mane has to be the ugliest out.  Also has the dumbest name.  AND makes the dumbest music.  Poor Gucci.  Anyway, bread gets shaped:

Look!  Here's me!  A German bread!  And it's crescent-shaped now!  Such hybridity.  Bhabha would be proud.  Say that last part in an Indian accent.  This sits for an hour, kids.

Okay, so I thought this got huge, but the pictures don't lie.

Almost donez!

+ vegetable oil + powdered sugar =

A tea strainer is like the most useful, versatile tool in the kitchen.  For future reference, it also works as a mini sieve.  Powdered sugar makes everything look pretty!  Except this bread in this picture, which looks like a dead dog covered in snow.  Like seriously, am I the only one that sees a dog lying on its side?  It even has ears.

Tada!

This was you know, bread with fruit and nuts in it, basically.  4/5.  The rest goes to Shaad and his gf gf Andrea, who should try it anyway.  <3

Sunflower Seed Rye

murder murder murder she wrote

This bread will be a lovecrime. It's my last sourdough bread!  Last barm bread except for the two at the end.  Yayz.  Peter promises that the bread "entails a commitment, but the results are so memorable that it is well worth the effort."  Peter <3 heteronormativity, apparently.

The bread begins with a soaker and starter:

The soaker is once again supposed to be coarse whole-rye (pumpernickel-grind) flour or rye meal + water, so I once again used dark rye flour.  This sits overnight.

And the starter is the same firm starter from our old friend sourdough (literally old friend, since I made this is 2010.  This project has been going on for way too long.  Yet, I still remember what a failure that bread was.  Like it was yesterday!  All these breads are like my children.) -- barm + bread flour + water.  This sits to double for four hours.

After four hours, I'm not sure it doubled, but I put it into the fridge anyway:

Bread baking is incredibly stressful.  Reflecting on this project, I'm not sure it was the best thing to undertake in grad school.  I will need a new project soon.  You should give me suggestions.  Or maybe I'll just buy a bike.  The next day!:

Rollin' around like I'm ready for a funeral

THERE IS A KNIFE IN THERE

Along with flour + salt + yeast + the firm starter + the soaker and a spoon too

Sunflo(u/we)r.  This is the name of my band.  I'm going to start one with my upstairs neighbor.  And by that I mean I'm going to start playing an instrument when he plays his guitar.  That would be funny, right?  I wish I knew how to play an instrument.

All blurry b/c I decided I don't like the flash.  With my 16-year-old-girl-camera.  Looks like bugs.  This, stirred up, sits for ninety minutes.  Maybe when I come back my brain will come with me, although I hope not.  It should stay with all the reading on nationalism I have to do.  Postcolonial bread.

After ninety minutes -- pretty!:

That sat for sixty to ninety minutes to become 1.5 times its original size.  And now look!

It's a fat donut.  It looks gross compared to the original, no?  So, then I baked this.  My oven sux.  So it's been so long since I've baked at a billion degrees that I forgot that sometimes when I bake at 500 degrees, my oven is like well, if you want HOT, I'll be like HELL up in this bitch and then just gets as hot as ovenly possible.  So, my bread kind of cooked in ten minutes and by cooked, I mean burnt.  A little:

I comfort myself by telling myself that burntness just looks artisanal, which is also so fun to say!  This rests for an hour, during which time I will attempt to motivate myself to read more.  Help?

I cut it like a bundt cake!  Chrome says bundt isn't a word, ps.

Um, so despite the burntiness, this is good.  Yay!  The last sourdough bread did work out!  Dare I give this a 4.5/5?!  Yay!!  <3

Pumpernickel Bread

On to the next one on to the next one

I am really going to try to push through barm breads so I can be done with them.  Of course, the book ends with two barm breads, so that really means I have to push through the book, which means I am going to try to do what I initially set out to aka no more buying bread, just baking it.  Not New Year's resolution #3429038402384.  Which means I'm going to suffer when we get to fruit breads.

I'm kind of sad the holidays are over b/c I kind of enjoy making fun of them.  Oh capitalism, you're so funny!

Anyway, back to the star of today aka Ryan Gosling (why?) aka pumpernickel bread!

This is barm + dark rye flour (again, substituting this for coarse whole-rye (pumpernickel-grind) flour) + water.  PS: So my stepmom loved my last bread.  Apparently it is like the breads of Austria, which cost a billion dollars here.  I am so euro chic.

Stirred up, this sits for four to five hours, until bubbly.  Like New Year's Eve!  Oh this post is so belatedly festive!

The next day!  You can see the baby bubbles.  Or probably only I can, but they are there.  This gets mixed with bread flour + brown sugar + cocoa powder (for color, I think, although you can't really tell) + salt + yeast + oil + water.  I apparently neglected to take any pictures of the process involved in mixing all of these things together, but I'm sure your imaginations work better than any lame picture.  So:

This sits for two hours, or until it doubles.  I put it in the oven, b/c it's freezing in my apt.  It's like one degree here, people.  Yet, I still wear skirts out.  One of my not New Year's resolutions is to start liking pants again.  HOW?!

Look!  It doubled!  I think.

So I shaped it -- I shaped it into a loaf b/c my mom got me this awesome loaf pan for Christmas!  It's like silicone or whatever flexible-y material, so the bread should just pop right out of the pan, no worries about half of it sticking.  Yay!  I'm so excited to see this work.  This sits to proof for ninety minutes.

I'm not sure if that rose by 1.5.  It certainly didn't rise an inch above the top of the pan, but a lady sometimes has to go to the gym, and bread, if you choose to disrupt my scheduling, you'll just be bad bread, which . . . only punishes me.  Alas!  At least the red pan is pretty.

Going to the gym is a lot more exciting when you come home to freshly baked bread.  My house smells good.  I suggest it if you are lacking motivation in your gym-related resolutions.  Although, idk if baking bread would be good for that either.  Better than baking cookies?

Damn girl damn girl damn girl damn

So, this bread is a great consistency -- yay rising! -- but is not too pumpernickel-y.  4/5.  If only I could meld the results of this bread and the last!  Perhaps the next bread will work out perfectly for me??  *gasp*  Stay tuned, lovers!  <3