Bread blitz

[magid]

Last night was yeast and flour, in quantity.

As of last week, I had two bags of flour (white and white wheat, both King Arthur) that were more than half full, so something more than 50 pounds. I don't have a good place to store that much flour in my kitchen over Passover (sold, along with all the other chametz), so I give it away, but I wanted not to overwhelm anyone I gave it to.

Since last Friday, these breads have been made (listing is for baking, not starting dough):

1. full batch (around 8 cups of flour), Friday morning, white, white wheat, barley, and buckwheat flours
   
2. Sunday morning, same as batch 1
   
3. Monday morning, same as batch 1
   
4. Wednesday morning, same as batch 1
   
5. full batch, Wednesday evening, white, white wheat, and barley flours
   
6. Wednesday evening, same as batch 5
   
7. half batch, Wednesday evening, white flour (for pita)
   
8. full batch, Wednesday evening, white and white wheat flours with chipotle salsa, oregano, and a touch of cumin (the heat builds; I like this)
   
9. half batch, Wednesday evening, white and white wheat flours with bulghur, olive paste, and walnuts (the bread is pleasingly dark, but the olive flavor is much fainter than the walnut; next time I should add a can of them as well)
   
10. half batch, Thursday morning, white, white wheat, and barley flours with zaatar and sunflower seeds
    
11. full batch, Thursday afternoon, white and white wheat flours with bulghur (well, the plan is to bake it this affternoon, anyway)

I think I'm done making bread until after Pesach. There's perhaps 10 pounds of white flour left, and 15-20 pounds of the white wheat flour to deliver this weekend.

Many thanks to Pheromone who came over to make bread with me (especially for the salsa bread, which would not have been assayed otherwise), and to Theora, who made the quorum.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Where do you store 50-pound bags of flour when it not Pesach?

Wow, your home has been a regular bakery this week, complete with early morning hours, it would seem.

The breads all sound tasty, and numbers 8, 9, and 10 especially and intriguingly delicious.

Maybe reserve some of the flour to burn Monday morning?

[magid.livejournal.com]

The bags sit around in the kitchen when not Pesach. It's not particularly sightly, but very convenient.

Not too much with the early morning; I tend to make the dough before going to bed, then form loaves and put it in the oven on time-bake in the morning, so it bakes while I work. (Though I have been doing a lot early morning, but more on the cleaning/straightening/organizing side of things).

8 is really good, and totally a bread of convenience, having far too much chipotle salsa (Trader Joe's, of course) left and an enthusiastic experimenter with me. 9 is decent, but the balance isn't right; the olives fade back too much. And I have yet to try 10... but I suspect it'll be quite nice, based on the smells from the oven this morning.

I hadn't thought about burning flour; I tend to leave myself chometz that is more solid, less prone to bits escaping during bedikat chometz. Though if the flour's in Ziplocs, I suppose that would work.

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps I'm picturing sacks of flour that are much larger than is in fact the case. I don't think it sounds unsightly, just of great volume.

I bet 10 will be great. It sounds Israeli!

Yeah, flour doesn't seem right for bedikat chametz. I don't think flour on its own burns all that well either, but it would be nicely symbolic to sprinkle some in, given that it's the item you've been working so hard to use up this week.

Bread blitz . . . has got me thinking blintz blitz.

[magid.livejournal.com]

The first photo I could find that gave any sense of scale was this. I just put the bag(s) in a corner out of the way. Not beautiful or anything (nothing like those gleaming mostly-empty kitchens in glossy magazines), but convenient.

Ooh, Israeli flavors in bread makes me think I should do zaatar with olives next time! And have some chickpea flour in it, too, for hummus :-).

I don't do my own fire (there's nowhere safe here, so getting chametz burned requires a trip to the communal bonfire outside the fire station in Allston.

Mmmm... blintzes. And now you've got me picturing London being bombarded with blintzes. (And some are filled with cherries, so there can be a scene like the beginning of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes where someone licks what is apparently blood but actually tomato product.) Working backwards, though, people could be hit with some pretty weighty breads, and umbrellas aren't designed to protect against sudden carb incursions.
Have you read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs?

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the photo. That doesn't seem as unmanageable as I had imagined.

Gleaming, empty kitchens are silly. Kitchens should be used. I want to get a feel for how the kitchen is used by the people who use it when I see it. A kitchen should be welcoming, not a museum.

It's been a long time since I last read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Some year that was before the Atkins craze hit, I paid attention to how much flour I used from Pesach to Pesach, and it was about 210 pounds, so a 50-lb bag was only around for about 3 months. I've slowed down some (not hosting as many meals).

And I like your take on kitchens being used, though I have to smile, given that my kitchen's going to be empty and reflective in unusual (compared to the rest of the year) ways very soon now.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pleased that you like it.

While your kitchen might soon be relatively empty and gleaming with foil, I imagine it will not be cold and devoid of any information concerning how you use it. On the contrary, I'd be able to walk into your Pesachdik kitchen and be able to immediately tell that it is being used for Pesach, and I imagine I'd feel welcomed by the sense of the holiday present there.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Truly, you are too kind.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I ate the flatbread with the soup I brought for lunch today. It was a great combo. Thank you!

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yay! Glad you liked it.

[powerfrau.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the picture. We go through a lot of flour here, too. Your recipes sound more interesting. Currently I am looking for a cracker recipe. I am tired of paying $3.00 a box for flour and water....

[magid.livejournal.com]

Even if you don't get through all of it, if there's a place that carries 50-lb bags locally, they're worth getting. It's something like $12-14 for the whole bag.

The recipes are all riffing off my basic bread recipe rather than specific variations; I don't have a better description than this (add yeast, salt, water, olive oil to the stuff above and that's mostly it; some have a touch of sugar, too).

I've never made crackers; I wish I had somewhere to point you to.