Ben Benner’s Blog

I am having trouble getting to sleep tonight, so I figured I would knock out a quick blog post. I would be coding, but I just cannot for the life of me focus enough to code. So hopefully I can focus enough to write a little bit.

I mixed up some honey wheat bread the a couple of days ago. The bread didn’t get as good a proofing as I would have hoped for, it didn’t get as tall as I would have liked. The actual proofing of the bread I think was good, in that when it was baked it did not bust open. Bread that hasn’t proofed long enough will “explode” when baking, still edible, but ugly.

Now, let me try to explain the title of this post a little bit. I think I have come up with a decent recipe for Honey Wheat bread. I made the first version of this bread in mid December. I believe that had the desire to try and make a Honey Wheat bread because of the Brioche bread that I had made earlier in the month.

I wanted to add something else to the bread, in part to add some flavor and make it look prettier, but also to help clear out some of the spices I bought previously. I settled on adding some black sesame seeds to the bread. I think it would likely work well with poppy-seeds as well, but I haven’t had the chance to buy any.

I baked the Honey Wheat in a loaf pan instead of on the baking stone. It was tasty, but the bread didn’t quite have enough of a honey flavor for me. I augmented the recipe the second go-around, I doubled the amount of honey that I had put in the first time.

Here is the recipe (as best as I can remember it, really need to start writing these down).

Honey Wheat With Black Sesame Seeds

• 1.5 Cups of lukewarm water
• 1 Cup of Whole Wheat Flour (unbleached)
• 2 Cups of All-Purpose Flour (unbleached)
• 1.5 Tbl Active Yeast (I believe this to be a 1.5 packets)
• 1.5 Tbl Kosher Salt
• 2 Tbl Spoons of Black Sesame Seeds
• 1.5 Cups of Honey

You can mix by hand or with a stand mixer. I mix all of the wet ingredients with the salt and yeast and allow it to site for about 5 minutes. I then mix in the whole wheat flour, after the flour has been mixed into something that can only be described as ‘gruel’, mix in the all-purpose flour, I did it one cup at a time.

If you are mixing by hand, then mix until it feels like you cannot mix it any more and when you see that all of the flour has been mixed in. If you are doing it in the stand mixer, make sure to use the dough hook and stop it when it looks like all the dough has pulled away from the side of the bowl.

Allow the bread about two hours for it’s first rise. You can bake the bread after the first rise, but as I have said before, I really believe that the bread needs to ferment in the fridge over night at least, possibly two nights even.

On baking day, take out the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin, all the while dusting with whole wheat flour to avoid the dough sticking. I like to do a three fold of the rolled dough, folding the two outer edges towards the middle. Then tuck the edges of the bread underneath and place into a greased baking pan.

If your kitchen is fairly warm 70-80 degrees, then you might want to try and break the above recipe into two pieces. If your kitchen is cooler, more like mine is at the moment, then you will likely want to keep this as a single loaf of bread. You can improve the rise of your bread by allowing your bread to rise near the oven, which you should have started preheating to 400 degrees.

Allow your bread to proof for at least 40 minutes, if your kitchen is cooler, then you will want to allow it to proof longer. Bake the bread for about 20 minutes. If the crust has turned a nice brown, then you should lower the temp to 350. If not, then allow your bread to bake for another 5 minutes and check again. After the crust has reached a nice color, bake on 350 for another 15 minutes or so. (might want to check on it 10 minutes in)

Remove the bread from the oven and place on a cooling rack, as soon as the pan is cool to the touch, remove the bread from the pan and place on the cooling rack.

In recent discussion the subject of a ‘proofing box’ came up. I am going to look into the subject some more, as one of the aspects about my bread that I wish to improve is the rise of my bread, my bread tends to be very flat.

Note: Both my first and second batches of this bread were stated to be good. I had at least one co-worker inform me that he thought it was my best bread yet.

Ok, I am not finally sleepy.

Laterz

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… a whole lot of bread and php!

I have not blogged in a while. It is not due to a lack of stuff to talk about. But more so that ever nagging lack of time to write. There are many out there that would aptly (justly and most likely with righteous fervor) say that I need to MAKE the time. To which I have but one simple answer (excuse).

I cannot make anymore time.

I have managed to find time to practice some new bread recipes (which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t take nearly as much time as some might think), I have written several small applications (in php) for side projects, been assisting with some home renovations and to boot attempting to keep my stress level (and sanity in check).

Work has changed up quite a bit in the last 60 days, I am no longer the VP of Product Development, I am also the VP of Product Management and Development. Thirteen little letters added to my title have added at this point countless hours at the office after the normal quitting time. I say countless because well I am salaried, so at some point counting them all up is too aggravating.

I don’t want to paint a picture that I am there until midnight or anything, but I do believe the latest I have been at the office has been about 10pm, and if memory serves I got into the office early that day and more or less clocked a 12 hour day.

It is the age-old tale of “Doing more with less”, there was some re-organization and I got a title change and once again have staff (the Jaduka development team reports directly to me). I was immediately tasked with hiring two new developers to work on some web applications. Can’t go into the details just yet, but when we launch I will make sure to post some more information.

The search took some time, but I managed to find some good additions to the team. We threw them into the deep end and we are about 3 weeks into their first project. Things are moving along well, but we have had quite a few other projects creep up in October that were not originally planned for, these projects are customer related, so that means that it is NEW business. And new business is always a GOOD thing.

I had gotten into the habit for the last few weeks of once or twice a week bringing bread into the office. I haven’t done that yet this week, but I think I will be able to line that up for Friday. I have done some experimenting.

There is of course my Sans Raisin Bread, my Gingerbread squared (Gingerbread bread) and my Great Pumpkin bread. The last batch of Great Pumpkin I think turned out very well, everyone in the office felt the second batch was better than the first. The secret was to add a second can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling, ‘raw’ canned pumpkin). There was also my attempt at Log Cabin bread, which just didn’t have enough maple syrup flavor, not quite sure how to overcome that without having to put like 2-3 cups of maple syrup in, which keep in mind is A LOT of maple syrup. (talking about the real stuff, not that corn syrup junk)

I enjoy bringing in bread and getting feedback from folks on the taste, texture, etc. I also enjoy stealing what I think are the best two pieces for myself. I am not sure what will be next on the list for bread. I will likely make something ‘boring’ like buttermilk bread, but it is an old standby at this point. I use the buttermilk recipe as the base for most of my experiments.

We cleaned out the garage this past Sunday. If you have to clean out a garage or are planning any sort of home renovation project that will produce any significant amount of construction waste/debris, I highly recommend that you see if your can use TheBagster (www.thebagster.com), we used it to get rid of all the junk (mostly construction waste/debris) that had accumulated in the garage after the various other projects that we had done.

Last night I hung a new ceiling fan in Gina’s office. I also installed new closet doors and a bi-fold door in the hallway entrance to the laundry room. I did the demo(lition) and room prep for Gina’s office, clearing out the old carpet and baseboards.

John installed the laminate flooring the other weekend and put in the new base boards. Gina caulked everything and painted the trim, spackled some spots in the drywall. It has been quite a little renovation of Gina’s office.

We hit up IKEA and she got herself a new desk and some new wall hangings. Everything isn’t quite  back together yet, I think that is on the agenda for tomorrow night.

This evening I came home, wrote up some specifications, got my laptop rigged up to run the code for the latest web project we are doing at work and poked around in the repository to see how the guys have been doing.

On Monday I fly out to Reston, VA to attend a user conference (tradeshow) that is hosted by Appian, a company that Jaduka is partnered with. I will be out there to demonstrate our integration and discuss with the attendees how we can help improve the efficiency of their Appian installations with Jaduka’s services.

It has been a VERY, VERY busy October, thus far.

I really want to try and knock out a batch of Pumpernickel, but I think that will need to wait until I get back from my trip next week.

Oh, did I mention that I also managed to catch that cold that has been going around Austin (particularly our office)?

Well, I need to get to bed I am supposed to be into the office early tomorrow as to help ensure that I can leave at a decent time.

Laterz

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For the last couple of weeks I have been baking bread and bringing it into the office. I usually bring in one loaf to share with everyone in the office. I slice it up and steal two beautiful slices for myself.

What can I say I need a couple of good pieces of toast in the morning to go with coffee. I am not sure if or when I will start charging for this bread, so in the meantime I joke about how ‘The first one is free’, you know drug dealer style.

I have been experimenting a little bit with different forms of buttermilk bread. Having made the buttermilk bread in the past I knew how the consistency of dough varied significantly than the artisan breads that I have been making. The dough is gooier and when it bakes up it has a spongier feel to it.

Previously, I made raisin bread with it. The process is relatively easy, you roll out the dough, spread a mixture of melted butter, cinnamon and brown sugar out on the flattened dough and then you roll it up, it will resemble a jelly roll. However, before rolling it up you have to remember to put some raisins in.

The first time I made the raising bread, I felt there were not enough raisins. As you might expect, the next time that I made it, I overcompensated and put too many raisins in.

In the experiment that I conducted earlier this week, I decided to put the cinnamon directly in with the yeast, buttermilk, water and salt. This gave the dough a nice cinnamon smell with just a hint of cinnamon flavor. The first loaf of this experimental dough I felt was OK, but could be better. I agreed with Gina’s assessment that it needed brown sugar (and butter).

The next loaf of this cinnamon infused bread was baked jellyroll style, with melted butter and brown sugar rolled up in the middle. However, I opted to leave the raisins out, figuring why not try the only remaining extreme.

The bread was mutant looking in my opinion (sorry for got to grab a pics before serving it). Myself and most everyone at the office felt it was just great. A few felt it was too sweet, almost candy like.

I decided to try and find a happy medium between the two extremes. Except in an effort to try and evenly distribute the cinnamon and brown sugar flavors, I mixed the brown sugar straight into the dough, foregoing the whole spread it out and roll it up part aka jelly roll style.

I have gotten into the habit these last few times of mixing up and baking the dough the same day, for the most part I usually am only dealing with dough that has been in the fridge for overnight (or a couple of days). I am not entirely sure which version of dough I prefer better. I have found that cold dough is easier to handle is not very sticky. However, a liberal dusting of flour will help keep the dough from being too sticky, regardless of temperature.

I mixed up a batch of cinnamon, brown sugar, buttermilk bread this evening and it is currently baking in the oven. I will remove it from the oven before I go to bed, but in the meantime it is filling the house with a positively fantastic smell of cinnamon (and butter).

I am calling this bread “Fajita’s Sans Raisin Bread”. Here is the recipe that I used for this go around.

• 2 cups of luke warm water (distilled or reverse osmosis)
• 1 cup of buttermilk
• 1.5 Tbls of yeast (I use Fleischmann’s Active Dry)
• 1.5 Tbls of salt (I use Kosher salt)
• 6 Tbls of Brown Sugar (heaping tablespoons)
• 3 Tbls of Cinnamon
• 1 Cup of unbleached whole wheat flour (King Arthur’s brand)
• 5 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour (HEB works OK, King Arthur is better)

Directions

Mix the yeast, salt, water, milk, sugar and cinnamon together. I usually let this sit a minute or two before mixing in the whole wheat flour. After the first cup of flour has created sort of a ’slurry’ I proceed to mix in the remaining flour 2 cups at a time (last cup is solo of course).

The last cup of flour is something that I generally have to mix in by hand, the dough does not mix well via wooden spoon at that point. The recipe book states that you can use a mixer for this, but I have never tried.

After it is all mixed up, I generally sprinkle it with some flour and punch it down to the bottom of the bowl, after it has been pushed out to all the sides, I dust it again and then proceed to pull the edges underneath, sort of pulling the middle out and forming a ball.

Then I let it sit in the bowl/tub for a couple of hours. Afterwards, I dust it again and form another ball with it. Depending upon how much the ball has risen, I will determine (by eye-balling it) whether or not it is ready to bake. If it looks good to go, I set the oven to preheat at 350 degrees.

I grease up a loaf pan and then take 1/2 the dough from the tub and sort of make a cylindrical object out of the dough. I put it cylinder in to the loaf pan and allow it to sit for at least another 20 minutes.

An individual loaf of bread will need to bake for 45 minutes. I have done more than one loaf in the oven at a time and do not yet have a great feel for how this alters to the time frames.

That is the recipe for Fajita’s Sans Raisin bread.

Oh yeah, I should note that if you don’t get the chance to remove the loaves from the pan after they cool initially, then you will have a bit of a soggy spot on the bottom of the bread. Throw the bread in a paper bag for a little bit and everything will be OK.

It is way past my bedtime and I do believe I need to take the bread out of the oven.

Laterz

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I figured a big loaf of bread deserved a BIG picture on the blog here. This loaf was created using twice as much dough as I normally use for a loaf of bread. I was originally thinking about giving it away, but Gina said that it wasn’t allowed to leave the house.  I think that it is definitely a good size for sandwhiches.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

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Just doesn’t have the same ring to it as, “Bad Moon Rising” but all I could come up with at the moment.

I just baked what looks to me to be one of the most beautiful loaves of bread I have baked just far. (I have taken pics, but I need to upload them still.)

I have made a couple of dozen loaves of artisan bread now and feel like I am getting the feel for what a good artisan loaf looks like. Have started experimenting as well, trying to get a feel for what you can do, outside the regular recipe.

I have experiemented with adding more whole wheat flour to the dough, I like it, though Gina only like the white bread (unbleached all-purpose flour). I have even gotten a little adventurous, we had a spare jalapeno and some shredded cheese in the fridge, so I whipped up a half batch of dough and made some Jalapeno Cheese bread. It turned out pretty well.

The Jalapeno Cheese bread turned out well enough for me to ask the folks in the office if they wanted some. I got six takers. In retrospect, I should have whipped up a double batch of dough, but I managed to stretch the full-batch of dough into six loaves (I gave Jeremy the smallest loaf).

I got a few compliments and no complaints, so definitely a good sign in my book. When I was originally taking orders, Eryn asked me if “Is this for profit?” I had not thought about charging my coworkers, though I have thought about trying to perfect a few breads and maybe, just maybe trying to get into a farmers market.

I think I could easily get $3-5 a loaf. I mean for the loaf of bread I just baked I definitely think $4 would be a fair price for a GOOD sized artisan loaf. I think that a decent size loaf of Caraway Rye would go for at least $5. And I am certain that the Jalapeno Cheddar bread could snag $7 for a big loaf and $4 for a small.

Jeremy is planning to delivery some fresh basil from his herb garden, meaning that I will be doing a thing of herb bread this weekend.

After all of the excite of the storm this evening, I am beat. I think I am going to try to read a little then go to bed.

Laterz.

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I didn’t burn the bread, but I am still attempting to master the art of bread baking.

This last loaf, which I took out a few hours ago, stuck to the stone.

I believe that my problem is that I have not been putting enough cornmeal down. I bought some shakers at teh restaurant supply store in an effort to get more even spread of the cornmeal, vs just kidna shaking it out of a measuring cup.

This last time around, I was fairly certain that I had spread enough out, but the bread says otherwise.

I am going to put the next batch of dough into the freezer soon as it has almost been two hours.

I gave away my first loaf of bread to Jeremy and Nichole.

Jeremy has not tried it yet, but he said that Nichole has enjoyed it.

The majority of the next batch is destined for John, as he requested the regular Boule bread. After that is all baked, I am going to make a deli style rye, as I finally bought some carroway seeds. Thank you Central Market!!!

I want to give a quick shout-out to AustinTweetup.com, Jeremy and a couple of his Tweeps are organizing a an unofficial SXSWi party.

I need to get ready for bed.

Night!

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