Nancy Silverton's La Brea Bakery Rosemary Olive Oil Bread

This bread uses a white starter. If you already maintain a sourdough starter, use it here. If you don't have one, you'll have to start one to make this bread. You can do research online for how to make a sourdough starter if you'd like to begin one. Feel free to half the recipe and make just one loaf.


Two-Day Bread--First day:

MAKES TWO APPROX. 1 POUND 11 OZ. BOULES

--1 pound plus 2 oz. (about 2 1/4 cups) cool water, 70 degrees F
--12.5 oz (about 1 1/3 cups) White Starter
--2 pounds plus 2 oz. (about 7 cups)unbleached white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
--1/2 cup raw wheat germ
--3.5 tsp. sea salt
--1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary
--4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
--Vegetable oil

Place water, white starter, flour, and wheat germ in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix on low speed for 4 min. The dough should be sticky and pliable. You may also mix the dough by hand, if you choose. Cover the dough with a proofing cloth and allow to rest in mixing bowl for 20 min.

Add salt and continue mixing for 4 min. on medium speed, scraping the dough down the sides of the bowl as necessary with a rubber spatula. Add rosemary and olive oil and mix on medium speed until the ingredients are incorporated and the dough reaches an internal temperature of 78 degrees F, about 5 minutes more. Remove dough from mixing bowl. It should feel soft and resilient. Knead the dough for a few minutes by hand on a lightly floured surface. Lightly coat a large bowl with vegetable oil. Place the dough in the oiled bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and let it ferment at room temperature until it doubles in volume, about 3-4 hours.

Uncover the dough and turn it out on a lightly floured surface. Using a dough cutter, cut the dough into two equal pieces. Slap each piece against the work surface a few times to deflate. Tuck under the edges of each piece, cover the dough with a cloth, and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Uncover the dough and round each piece into a boule. Place the boules smooth side down into floured proofing baskets. Cover each basket with a cloth and let the dough proof at room temperature until it begins to show signs of movement (it should rise about 1 inch), 1.5 to 2 hours.

Remove the cloth and sprinkle surface of dough with flour. Wrap each basket tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours.


Second day:

Remove the boules from the fridge, take off plastic and cover baskets with cloths. Let dough continue proofing at room temp. until internal dough temp. is 58 degrees F, about 2 to 2.5 hours.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees 1 hour before baking.

Remove the cloth and lightly dust the boules with flour. Carefully run your hand around one boule to loosen it and gently invert it onto a lightly floured baker's peel. Score a tic-tac-toe pattern on top of the boule. Open the oven door, spritz heavily with hot water from a spray bottle, and quickly close the door. Open the oven door again, slide the boule onto the baking tiles, and quickly close the door. Do the same with the second boule.

Reduce oven temp. to 450 degrees. Spritz oven two more times during the next 5 minutes. Refrain from opening the oven door for the next 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, check the boules and rotate them if necessary to ensure even baking. Continue baking for 15 to 20 more minutes, for a total of 40 to 45 minutes.

Remove boules to a cooling rack. The finished boules will have a rich brown color.

Making Bread

I had no idea that bread making would be so much fun and intensely satisfying. I'm so glad that I started! It is a thrill to see how such simple ingredients become something alive and life-giving...not to mention the irresistible nature of bread dough--each batch does indeed feel different in your hands and has its own personality. Come to think about it, perhaps the sensory experience of bread making is exactly what makes me so fond of it.

Touch: Feeling dough in my hands is thoroughly enjoyable to me. It may be easy to work with, malleable, and barely sticky or it may be fussy, sticky, a wet mass that's seemingly impossible to knead... Manipulating the dough through the kneading process allows me to feel the dough as it changes. The mass develops more strength, becomes elastic and less sticky as the gluten is developed. And for doughs with lower hydration levels (i.e. the ones that aren't messy and sticky), the dough becomes smooth by the end of the kneading process.

Sight: Of course these same changes that I feel with my hands, I also observe with my eyes. I can see the dough sticking to my work surface and hands when working with wetter doughs and I see that I have an easier clean up when the dough is not so sticky--LOL. I observe the weak dough that tears apart when I stretch it early in the kneading process, but that strengthens considerably and doesn't tear when stretched when I am finished kneading. It is my eyes that I rely on to know when my dough has doubled and can be deflated and shaped. My eyes help me to know if my bread is ready to come out of the oven by looking at the color of the crust. And my eyes scan the crumb (the soft part) of the bread which differs depending on the type of bread and how it was made.

Sound: So, what role do my ears have here? Actually, they are the least important to bread making. However, I do slap my dough down on my work surface several times during kneading (that's how the French do it) and I like that smacking sound... Then there's my timer that goes off when my bread should be about ready to come out of the oven. But my favorite is hearing the crackling of crusty bread when you break it open. This reason alone is enough to make French bread daily!

Smell: Thank God for my nose so that I can enjoy the smell of bread baking in my oven! It is absolutely one of my favorite odors and it never gets old. It makes me hungry with anticipation when I start to smell it baking...one of the most lovely smells ever if you ask me.

Taste: This is where all the work comes together. This is the most important part. What's the point of having a beautiful loaf if it doesn't taste good? But an imperfect-looking loaf can be overlooked if it has great flavor!

Making bread only requires flour, water, yeast, and salt (salt is optional, but your bread will taste awfully bland without it...it also keeps the yeast from multiplying TOO much). And there is more out there than the active dry yeast you may be most familiar with. Instant yeast, fresh cakes of yeast, and wild yeast (available free of charge hovering in your kitchen), will also leaven your bread if the yeast, flour, and water are allowed to slowly ferment for about a week... So these four ingredients become bread! I think that's way cool!

A year ago when I began making yeast breads by hand (I had used my bread machine a few times before that but wasn't impressed with the quality of bread), I simply felt inspired to do it. I remember asking myself what was hindering me from making bread. My main obstacle was knowing how to knead. I didn't know what good kneading technique looked like, didn't understand the purpose of kneading. So I had the idea to look on You Tube for some tutorials and I found plenty, a couple of them really helpful. I learned what kneading looked like and came across some recipes that didn't require real kneading of the bread. I had good success with the no-knead bread and it boosted my confidence to try some breads that required kneading. To my amazement, I was able to knead the bread just like the lady in the video that I'd watched. And it was so soothing, not laborious at all. It was at that moment that I was hooked.

Perhaps your objection to bread making is that it requires too much time. While it is true that you must allow time for your bread to rise (fermentation of the dough), the real labor is minimal. Mixing the dough, kneading, and shaping can usually be done in less than 25 minutes total. And many doughs lend themselves well to an overnight rise in the fridge after they are mixed. So you can sleep and forget about the dough during the first or second rising. I often decide the night before what bread I will make, take 15 minutes to mix and knead the dough after breakfast while the children are playing, let it rise until nap time (I can use the fridge to slow down fermentation/rising if I need to), deflate, shape, and second rising during nap time, score the dough with a blade, bake, and have it ready to eat by dinnertime. OR, I may mix it up and knead it once the children have been put to bed, let it rise in the fridge overnight, let it come to room temperature (if required) for the shaping...and continue as above. I do my best to put the dough on my schedule and not vice versa. It actually is quite accommodating most times. I really like using a natural leaven in my breads. I also use commercially packaged yeast, but my preference is wild yeast for the flavor and texture it gives to bread. Also, when you use a natural leaven, the rising times are longer than with packaged yeast. Those longer periods spent rising/fermenting develop more flavor and give beautiful character to the crumb. Longer rising times are easier for me to fit into my schedule. I just let it sit and forget about it, for the most part, except for maybe folding the dough once or twice during the first fermentation.

I have a sourdough starter that I maintain. A sourdough starter, like all starters, is just flour and water that has been left to ferment for about a week or more. The flour and water becomes a home for the wild yeast in the air and after a while, there's enough wild yeast in the flour/water mixture to leaven dough without any additional packaged yeast. The wild yeast in your kitchen is different than the yeast present in mine. And thus the flavor will be different, too. There are certain yeast strains that are unique to certain locals, as is the case with the famous San Francisco Sourdough Bread. I cannot replicate the flavor of that bread entirely because I do not live where that strain of yeast resides. I love that! It's so fascinating to me that my kitchen will have different strains and quantities of yeast than the next person and that our bread will taste differently because of it.

The more bread baking you do, the more yeast is present. So when I started my sourdough starter/natural leaven, it didn't take long for me to see some yeast activity. I started with water and rye flour because rye flour encourages fermentation and helps the yeast to multiply. On the third day, I was using all white flour in my starter. By day 6, my starter was ready to be used because I had an abundant supply of yeast present in my kitchen to help it out! In the photos for this blog post, you see a picture of the flour/water mixture on day 2 and on day 6. Big difference, huh? It's nothing short of amazing, quite frankly. All of the bubbles you see are yeast activity. Flour + Water + Time = Good Bread. If you're just starting out, it will probably take longer for your starter to become mature and ready to use. Once it's ready, you just leave it on the counter and "refresh" it daily. Refreshing it means to discard all but about 1/2 cup of the starter (or use it to make bread, sourdough pancakes, and other treats) and feed the rest with fresh water and flour of a certain proportion, depending on the hydration percentage of your starter. I maintained mine for a little while on the counter, but have recently begin storing it in the fridge and refreshing it once a week when I'm not using it. This is working just fine. I like this better since I'm not using as much flour. But, thankfully, flour is inexpensive, even the quality brands.

When you use a starter, the bread making process is a little lengthier, but I recommend it because it gives your bread more flavor and helps it stay fresher longer. There's so much more flavor in a sourdough starter that's been maintained for weeks, months, or years than there is in commercially packaged yeast. The same is true for other types of starters, all of which take seconds to mix up. Biga, poolish, levain, sourdough, these are all terms for bread starters. They just differ in the amount of time you have to let them sit to ferment and the flour/water ratio you use to mix them. But fermentation is a hands off process, so please don't be put off by the extra step of making/maintaining a starter. That being said, there are also times when I want a loaf of yeast bread on the table within 4 hours from start to finish. And this is very easily accomplished and you will still have delicious bread (I refer to my Beth Hensperger books for times like this). The flavors won't be as complex, though.

In cooking, there are so many possibilities that you are never bored if you're willing to try something new and be creative. I have found this to be true in bread making as well. I have hardly made the same bread twice! There are so many new things to try! But I never tire of Rosemary Olive Oil Bread. This is my favorite. I grew very fond of La Brea Bakery's loaf and purchased Nancy Silverton's (the bakery owner) bread book about 10 years ago when I was in a cookbook club. I remember looking through the book when it arrived and knowing immediately that I wouldn't use it. I certainly didn't have that skill level then and I was very closed to the idea of taking 2 days or more to make a loaf of bread! Fast forward 10 years and I have now achieved that skill level and can make any loaf in her book. When I made her bread, it was a pinnacle moment for me. I was very proud. This is just a testimony of what a little desire, passion, time, wild yeast, and You Tube can do for you...LOL. Who would've known I'd be making the loaves I stood in line for at the bakery and that I'd fall in love with the process from the very first fermentation? Amazing, indeed.

Recipe Request--Martha Stewart's Sticky Buns

Danish Dough for 12 buns (instructions follow)
Unsalted butter to grease muffin pans
3 1/3 cups pecan halves
2 1/4 cups light corn syrup
3/4 cups plus 2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
all purpose flour, for dusting
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tbsp ground cinnamon



DANISH DOUGH:
1/2 cup warm milk (110 degrees)
1 pack active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp table salt
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp, cut into tablespoons
1 large egg and 1 egg yolk

In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm milk; stir until dissolved. Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, cardamom, and 4 tbsp of the room temp butter. Mix well with pastry blender or fingers until it resembles coarse meal. Pour in the yeast mixture and mix until dough just comes together. Add eggs and yolk and mix just until combined. Do not overmix (you can do all the mixing with a stand mixer, if you like).

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface, making sure to include any loose bits left at the bottom of the bowl. Gently knead to form a smooth ball, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Wrap well in plastic and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 10 x 13 inch rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick, keeping the corners as square as possible. With a short side facing you, evenly distribute the remaining butter over 2/3 of the dough. Fold the unbuttered third over as you would a business letter, followed by the remaining third. This seals in the butter.

Roll out the dough again to a 10 x 13 inch rectangle, then fold dough into thirds again as described above. Refrigerate for 1 hour. This is the first of 3 turns. Repeat rolling and folding two more times, refrigerating for at least one hour between turns.

Refrigerate dough, tightly wrapped in plastic, for at least 4 hours or overnight. Dough can also be frozen, tightly wrapped in plastic, for up to 2 weeks. Before using frozen dough, thaw in fridge overnight.


ASSEMBLING THE BUNS:
Let danish dough stand at room temp until slightly softened, about 15 minutes. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Generously butter two jumbo muffin pans. Chop 2 cups pecans, and break the remaining 1 1/3 cups in half lengthwise, keeping the two groups separate. Pour 3 tbsp corn syrup into each muffin cup, and sprinkle with 1 tbsp brown sugar. Divide halved pecan evenly among the muffin cups (I used a little less corn syrup and brown sugar, thinking it a bit too much for my taste).

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to an 18 x 14 inch rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. Using a spatula, spread the sour cream over the surface of the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border. Dust the sour cream with cinnamon, and sprinkle with chopped pecans and remaining 2/3 cup brown sugar. Roll up the dough tightly lengthwise to form a log about 3 inches in diameter, and trim the ends using a serrated knife. Transfer to prepared baking sheet. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

Using a sharp knife and a sawing motion, slice the dough crosswise into 12 rounds, about 1/2 inch thick, and place in prepared pans. Cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until 1/2 inch above the cups, 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer to the oven, placing a baking sheet on the rack below to catch drips. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until buns are dark golden brown, about 40 minutes.

Immediately turn out buns onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Replace any pecan halves that have fallen off. Place the baking sheet on a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temp. Sticky buns are best eaten the day they are baked.

Note: You may be tempted to skimp on the refrigeration time, but do not. This dough requires multiple refrigeration times to keep the butter cold, to rest, and to develop flavor. It won't disappoint, though! Just plan ahead and do it over two days when you have the time to spare. These sticky buns are worth the wait. Better than the prestigious "Cinnabon" in my opinion. And the satisfaction you get from making this beautiful, buttery, flaky, soft dough all by yourself is incomparable. Love it!

Homage To The Lemon

One of my favorite flavors is lemon, without a doubt. I incorporate it into so many things that I prepare. I love its versatility, that it can compliment sweet and savory dishes alike. I love its uniqueness. It's easy to pick out that lemony bite in most anything you put it in. But at the top of my list of lemony treats is lemon curd. I loves me some lemon curd.

After I made some a few weeks ago, I took the time to savor a couple of spoonfuls before I spread it onto a cake. I thought about my impressions of it, what I love about it. Here are my thoughts: I love the explosion of tartness in your mouth balanced by the sweetness from the sugar. To me, lemon curd has so many, if not all, the characteristics that make me swoon. There's that tartness and sweetness, but it's also tangy, creamy, buttery, and rich. I'm very content to eat a couple of spoonfuls without any accompaniments (or guilt), but it's at its best when harmonizing with a moist layer cake, or cupcake...say, a lemon meringue cupcake?

Lemon curd is incredibly easy to make. If you have some lemons on hand, some eggs, sugar, and butter, you are on your way to lemony heaven. There is a way to do it that's more time consuming and requires more eggs and butter (see the Lemon Curd Cake recipe from a previous post), and, admittedly, the flavor achieved with that version is more complex. But I promise you, this one is almost as good. It won't disappoint you in flavor. I use this version more than the one I use to make the Lemon Curd Cake because of its simplicity to flavor ratio. Here's what you do: Put 4 eggs, 2/3 cup of sugar, the zest of 1 lemon, and 2/3 cup fresh lemon juice in a heavy bottomed saucepan and whisk until smooth and slightly pale in color (about 2 minutes). Put the saucepan over low heat and whisk until it thickens. Make sure you use low heat at all times or you will have lemony scrambled eggs! If your heat is low and you use a heavy bottomed saucepan, you should have no problem. It may take 5 minutes before it begins to thicken, but once it begins, it will be very thick in no time. The curd should be very thick, but still pourable. At this point, take it off the heat and stir in 3 tbsp cold butter until it's melted. To keep the curd from forming a skin on the top, cover with plastic wrap and press the plastic directly onto the surface of the curd.

Note: Although the flavor isn't as pure, bottled lemon juice can be substituted and the zest omitted if you have lemon juice in the fridge, but don't have any lemons.

Because of my love affair with lemon, I seem to never tire of eating "piccatas". Chicken? Turkey? Pork? Veal? Sole or another fish? Give me all of them. That combination of lemon, butter, and spices in the sauce is a winner with me. To make chicken piccata, buy some chicken cutlets and season them lightly with kosher salt and cracked pepper. Dredge both sides of the cutlets in flour and brown them all, using equal parts butter and olive oil. I like to use my large electric skillet because I can do them all at once (6 cutlets), but you can use any large skillet and brown your cutlets in batches. When golden brown on both sides, remove from skillet. Pour in 1/2 cup dry white wine and 1/3 cup lemon juice. Return the chicken to the skillet and scatter 1 tbsp drained capers on top (more if you want), 6 lemon slices on top of the chicken cutlets, and 1 tbsp of chopped Italian parsley. Continue to cook until sauce is thickened slightly. Take off heat and stir in 1 tbsp butter. Yum!

Lemon really does have a unique way of transforming a dish. When I feel like something's "missing" in a dish, sometimes a dash of lemon juice is what is needed to bring it all together. It adds a special quality to foods in that it can be both bold and delicate, depending on how it is used. In lemon curd, the flavor is bold. The lemon flavor takes center stage. But in homemade mayonnaise, for example, lemon flavor comes through tenderly, quietly, breathing a touch of refreshing acidity to those egg yolks, mustard, spices, and oil.

So today I pay homage to the lemon. You will forever have a place, albeit many places, in my kitchen. Thank you, lemon, for the fruity acidity that you bring to our tables. Your ability to equally triumph in the spotlight and rest in the shadows is admirable to me, the home cook, who is fond of adaptable ingredients. Lemon, you are appreciated, honored, and thankfully inexpensive! Your oil is fragrant and pleasing to most. Lemon, we pay you tribute for all you offer to our cooking!