Adventures in Bread

2020-01-01T16:44:22Z

Now that I have completed a full year of retirement, I have decided to embark on another adventure in frustration and heartbreak by trying to take and post a picture every day this year.

In anticipation of my pending failure, I decided to make my first picture one of my last failures in 2019.

I made buns yesterday to go with the ham & bean soup we're having for dinner tonight. I found an on-line recipe for crusty rolls that looked promising, and I decided to give it a try. The first thing I did was convert the volume measurements to grams so that I could test out a new technique I've learned that is supposed to yield bread/buns that take longer to dry out.

The trick is to take about 15-20% of the water/flour (by weight) and combine them in a 5:1 ratio, whisk them, and then microwave them to ~140F. Once this gooey mess cools, you add it to the bread along with the other moisture and make it as usual.

The mistake I made yesterday was in blindly following the recipe without actually checking the consistency of the dough before I set the stand mixer to kneading it. If I had just paused before that step, I'd have noticed that it had too much moisture, and I could have corrected it with a bit more flour. The end result was a dough that was more appropriate for brioche than crusty rolls; it was sticky and hard to work with, resulting in buns that turned into a blobby, flat mess in the oven.

The exteriors did not form the right crust either, likely because of the dough being too wet. They still taste good, and they make fantastic toast, but they are not what I was trying to make.

I added a hand-written note to the recipe to remind myself to check the dough for moisture before I am too far into the process next time. I will probably just start off with less water than the recipe calls for and add it in small bits until the right texture is achieved.

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Winnipeg Rye

2017-05-06T15:52:03Z

Somebody posted a question to a local forum recently, asking why rye bread is so popular in Winnipeg.

I had not given it much thought, but it occurs to me that I eat far more rye bread now than I did before I moved here. In fairness, the most popular form of rye bread here is not the type of bread that I associated with it when I was growing up. I always pictured rye bread as something close to pumpernickel, with caraway seeds in it. Winnipeg-style rye is actually very light, and baked in a manner that makes for good toast, but awkward sandwiches.

One poster in the forum suggested that sandwiches made with rye bread are popular here because folks wouldn't live in Winnipeg at all if they did not like a challenge. It's hard to argue with that.

The population here is anecdotally divided along cultural lines when it comes to their choice of rye bread as well, with the Jewish community favouring it from one bakery, and the Ukrainian community preferring it from another. There is a third major bakery in the background jumping and waving and calling, "hey, we make it too!" Other than the shape and size of the loaves, I cannot tell much difference between the bread produced by the three major players here, though I was not born here, so my opinion on the matter is tempered by being a recent arrival versus people born into the rye situation.

While Winnipeg rye is the predominant player in the market here, there are obviously other styles available as well. Many breakfast places will give you marble rye if you order rye toast in the morning, and some of the fancier restaurants will sneak dark rye into the complementary bread plates they serve before a meal. One long-established steak house has their own in-house dark rye with a salted crust that atara and I both really like.

On a broader note, Winnipeg has a few cuisines that - while not unique - are an integral part of the local dining experience. If I was going to list five foods that I consider integral to the Winnipeg culture, just off the top of my head I would list:
Winnipeg Rye
Perogies
Bagels
Koubasa
Honey Dill Sauce

As a fun footnote, if you happen to visit Winnipeg and want to get a group of people into an argument, ask them how to spell "Perogies" or "Koubasa".

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and things went downhill from there

Adventures in Bread

Winnipeg Rye