The women in my family made bread. My Aunt Daisy made an amazingly lofty yet substantial whole wheat loaf. My Aunt Sadie's was light and springy (no shortening). My mother's bread, each loaf containing three buns (most people made two-bun loaves), was perfectly risen (three raisings!) and held a mahogany-coloured crust that was generously brushed, while still warm, with Good Luck margarine. That last step is frowned upon by serious bakers. Who cares? My mother was a seriously good baker.
Seven loaves, every Monday. It took the whole day, and when you consider that her left arm was fixed rigid at the elbow, it must have been hard work. But by the time I got home from school at 3:30, the bread would be cooling on the counter top with a little tin of warm buns for a snack. Her bread tins were seasoned black -- the secret of that crust. After she died, my father threw the tins out because be thought they were no good. The next time I went home I grabbed her blackened old skillet and hid it in my suitcase. Still use it for grilled cheese even though I have a very nice cast iron griddle.
It's quite odd, now that I think about it, that I have very few pictures of Mom in the kitchen and none of her baking bread. This is Christmas 1981.
I cook lots of things my mother cooked. Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Shepherd's pie with the mashed potato sculpted in a herringbone pattern and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Macaroni and cheese, baked until it's crunchy around the edges. Thick salmon steaks grilled with butter and lemon. Pan-fried cod with scruncheons. Fish cakes. Once every three years or so, salt beef dinner. And Kelly makes her biscuits and pie dough. But bread? Not so much, even though I remember standing with her over the kichen table as she taught me how to handle the dough.
As I said, doing it the real way is a lot of work. And although I have friends who make very good bread with them, I'm prejudiced against bread machines. So when Kelly brought home baker Jim Lahey's book about no-knead, slow-rising bread that you bake in an iron pot, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not sure Mom would approve of the process.
The ingredients are simple: flour (3 cups), water (1 1/3 cups), salt (1 1/4 tsp), and yeast (1/2 tsp).
Mix it together with a spoon or your hands (I got in there!) until it just comes together in a wet, sticky goo. This is Mom's pastry bowl. Her bread bowl was much bigger.
Resist the temptation to add flour and knead ... this is not your mother's bread!
Cover and let sit at room temperature 12-18 hours. I went for 18. Here we are before unveiling this morning.
And here's the dough in all its fermented glory.
It pulls out stickily. Turn it onto a floured board, gently shaping it into a ball.
Dust it with cornmeal, lay it seam-side down in a floured cloth, bundle it up and let it rise about 2 hours until roughly doubled. It's ready when you press your finger in and the dimple stays.
You've had your oven and a cast iron pot (with cover) heating to 450-475. (The pot needs about a half hour.) Dust the loaf with flour and carefully pop it in the pan, seam-side up. Slap on the cover and bake 30 minutes. This is the 30 minute mark, at which point you remove the lid and return the pot to the oven for another 15 - 30 minutes.
Here's the end result.
It's really nothing like the bread she made, but I'm pretty sure Mom would have liked the final product. And approved of the fact that her daughter was making bread.
I think my large Le Creuset pot is too big for this bread. I may be forced to go shopping for a new bread pot. Maybe a nice plain, well-seasoned, black one.
The fruit might be a little different, but the apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree.
Christmas, 1986.
