uwMike » Archive » Buttermilk Bread

I'm in Waterloo at the moment, and next available to work in September 2008.

Buttermilk Bread

November 10th, 2006

I’ve mentioned The Book of Bread previously, but it really is the definitive resource for any kind of bread you can imagine. I thought I’d share one of the recipes I tried recently that was particularly delicious.

I’m cautious of any recipe that claims to be creamy, as I had a bad experience once with bread so creamy that each bite tasted like a glass of whole milk. This recipe isn’t just soft and airy, it’s also tough enough for nice big sandwiches, and has a yellowish colour and very slight sourness that’s extremely pleasant.

Although it rises three times, you should be able to get done with it in a little over three hours. In terms of actual effort, it’s less than 30 minutes—not much as long as you’re working on an interruptible task.

Unfortunately, I haven’t got any in-progress pictures of this, but I’ll transcribe the recipe with a few extra remarks.

Note: No need to tell me that I’m being old-fashioned giving quantities in non-metric units. In the kitchen, it’s the system that makes sense. In case you’ve forgotten, a cup is 250ml, a tablespoon is 15ml, and a teaspoon is 5ml. Also, Google can help you with these.

Prep

The recipe suggests real buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream. For the two cups required in this recipe, I used most of a 500ml tub of 14% sour cream, and then topped it up with 2% milk to get the consistency right. Nuke it for a few minutes, stirring frequently… you don’t want it to be gross, but you want to take the chill off so it doesn’t frighten your yeast.

In terms of flour, I went with unbleached. The recipe also suggests “hard wheat” flour, but that sounds to me more like a health-food specialty item. I imagine standard all-purpose white would work just as well, though you don’t get the extra feel-good factor of using something without bleach in it.

You’re going to need a largish mixing bowl, two bread pans, and an area of clean counter-space for kneading.

The Sponge

1 tablespoon of active dry yeast
half a cup of warm water
a quarter cup of brown sugar
1 cup of the buttermilk
3 cups of the flour

Mix it together in the bowl, starting with water and the yeast and making sure it’s all dissolved before adding everything else. Once you’ve got it mixed, it’ll be stiffer than a batter, but wetter than a dough. Cover the bowl with plastic and let it rise at room temperature for 40 minutes. But wait, before you go back to surfing reddit, you can make a bit of headway on the next section.

The Dough

the rest of the buttermilk (1 cup)
4 tablespoons of butter
2 teaspoons of table salt
3 cups of flour (give or take)

Heat up the rest of the buttermilk enough so that the butter melts in it, and dissolve the salt. Let it cool down to lukewarm, and when the sponge is risen, dump it in along with the flour. Stir it around until too stiff to do so, then flour the counter-top and dump it out for kneading. Knead for 8 minutes, sprinkling on more flour as it gets sticky. I typically add as much as an extra cup in this stage; you don’t want the dough to be gooey.

Once your eight minutes are up, wash out the bowl, lightly oil it, and put the dough back in there. Covered in plastic, leave for another hour of rising.

The Loaves

Grease the two bread pans. Punch down the dough and divide into two halves. In terms of loaf forming, it’s pretty much the same strategy as always: take the blob and fold it in on itself, pinching the bottom shut. You want an unbroken gluten cloak across the top of the loaf, but at this point the stuff is pretty stretchy and tolerant, you just need to get the right dimensions for your pan.

Lay the loaves in the pans, and leave to rise for another 40 minutes, covered in a tea-towel. Near the end of the time, put on the over for 425ºF.

The Baking

Stick the loaves in the oven ten minutes at 425º, then drop the temperature to 350º for 30 more minutes. Once it’s done, put it on racks for a few minutes before you try to slice it.

Then, slice thick, butter, and enjoy with a glass of cold milk!

Mike

Update: Forgot to mention, some excellent general principles on breadmaking are located here.

Update 2: I purchased a litre of 1% M.F. buttermilk and tried this again, with much the same results as described above.

← Earlier Later → Posted at 9:40 pm to Food.

Discussion

i want that book! making bread is one of my favorite things, the kneading especially. it’s a small joy of life. i’m sick of that no-knead bread recipe that has been going around the interweb recently that everyone claims is so fantastic. it takes something like 18 hours to rise; that is not fantastic. also, why would you not want to touch the lovely, smooth, bouncy, baby’s bottom ball of dough? it’s so much fun.

next time we go grocery shopping, i’ll pick up some sour cream and will give this recipe a whirl. my current favorite is a super easy “dinner rolls” recipe from about.com. i have adapted it into loaves and also cinnamon rolls/buns; it is a favorite will all.

Posted at 9:59 pm on November 10th by haya.
About.com seems to be a good source for a lot of recipes. I’ve had good luck with a cheese sauce recipe from there. I think the best thing is that they’re presented by staff authors, so there’s that extra level of quality control over somewhere like allrecipes.com, where any old shmuck can post whatever they want.

Anyhow, yeah, it’s a terrific book. It’s got several good roll recipes, too, one of which looked like this and was received quite well by my housemates.

Posted at 10:10 pm on November 10th by Mike Purvis.
I would have to agree with Mike that this bread is impressive. I had a nice big slice of it yesterday with some cheese and pickles, and it was definitely better than any bread I’ve ever eaten. I may just have to start making myself lunches so that I get to eat more of it, instead of buying my way into destitution.

Thanks for baking, roomie!

Posted at 11:21 am on November 11th by Brandon.
Well, if you get headaches today, I take no responsibility, Mr. Mildly Lactose Intolerant. It is pretty unhealthy stuff. At a cup of sour cream already per loaf, you don’t want to be spreading too much butter on it…

Posted at 12:12 pm on November 11th by Mike Purvis.
So… what sort of bribe is required to get you to come here & cook for us?

Posted at 11:47 pm on November 14th by Christine.
Um, what sort of bribe is required for you to send some of that over to mac? I obviously dont need TONS of help getting the freshman 15 whilst on mealplan…but who’s counting?

Your site looks awesome mike, im so proud to know/be related to you sometimes. The girls came up to visit me last weekend and we missed having you, although i think my room would have been a tad crowded with all four of us in here. I’m listening to mtv mash-ups right now, they’re fun, although highly uncool I think. But who can say no to listening to snoop dogg and the guns n roses at the same time? the cure and the black eyed peas? yes please. My fav is the verve and jay-z: bittersweet dirt off your shoulder. haha. ok i just wanted to say hello, I have to go to bed because I have a 4 hour clinical lab with a real fake patient tomorrow, doing vital signs and such. k have great night. love, Hannah

ps. sorry for hijacking the discussion, I just noticed your little notice below..

Posted at 12:22 am on November 17th by Hannah.
Christine: You could always teach me some Circuits. (And by teach me, I mean stand there and smack me with a slide ruler until I get through all the homework, providing corrections where necessary…)

Hannah: Aw thanks, you’re such a sweetie.

Posted at 12:59 am on November 17th by Mike Purvis.
Mike, it’s a deal.

Posted at 7:08 pm on November 19th by Christine.
i was inspired to begin a type of cooking i’ve always avoided for several reasons; breadmaking seemed to me to be a certain commitment to huge amounts of time, and a certain kind of labor not fun–and the product resulting, as a choice of many cooking skills fell by the way, in favor of sautees of vegetables, excellent soups, and a range that was the other side of the carbohydrates.
then i saw last week in the NYTimes jim lahey’s recipe for no-knead bread–not i’m a practicing greenhorn, with a lotta questions–elementary ones, watson!
for instance,
why does this recipe [the ingredients being-- bread dough, 3C; water ~1.5 C, a quarter-tsp instant yeast, and salt]
call for the second riseto be with the loaf completely covered, swaddled in 2 well-floured cotton towels???
when i use towels, with this very-high water content dough, the dough begins to work its way into the towel fabric, so that it cannot be separated clean, pulled free, from the towel after the recommended 2 hrs of rising time.

basic question is “why put the rising loaf in any particular thing–what’s wrong with just leaving it in a bowl, or on a marble slab with a bowl over it?

as i say, i’m new to this art.
thanks,
michael

Posted at 2:15 pm on November 21st by michael.
Hi Michael, here’s the recipe you’re referring to. I’m not familiar with the properties of instant yeast, but given the choice between ten minutes of kneading and ready in three hours versus no kneading and having to wait 18+ hours, I think I’d rather do the kneading.

Besides, I like kneading bread dough. It’s very relaxing and undemanding.

As to your question, I think the dough is typically covered to prevent the edges from drying out. When you cover it with plastic, it keeps the stuff consistent throughout. I imagine that the floured towels are supposed to provide the addition flour that would typically be added in the kneading phase. If you’re determined to get the recipe working, perhaps it would be worth adding a little extra flour in the initial stage?

Honestly, though, if I find a recipe doesn’t work the first time, I’m disinclined to spend the time and effort giving it a second shot.

Posted at 3:23 pm on November 21st by Mike Purvis.

You can use Markdown for style. I love hearing from readers, but please don’t hijack the discussion, use offensive language, or try to sell anything.