Michael Ruhlman » Bread

Bake Your Own 5:3 Bread

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:38:54 +0000

Bread basics on the rise and ready to go. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

Taking a bit of a break with Ma in West Palm—Goodbye, Cleveland grays!—but wanted to keep up the culinary inspiration via Donna's photos. Here a basic bread ratio of 5 parts flour to 3 parts water can be turned into pizza dough, flat bread, or even a braided loaf with kosher salt My Bread Baking App has more info or watch this video. Or have a look at these past bread posts: pretzels, multigrain bread, no knead bread, and challah. What is The Book of Schmaltz? Find out on Vimeo; then win a copy of the app from Edamam’s giveaway on Click to Continue Reading

The Key to Flaky Biscuits

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:13:53 +0000

Nothing beats an oven-fresh biscuit. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.
Ages ago a reader requested a biscuit post and now, in something of a dreary February brain hibernation, I thought would be the perfect time. Donna shot this biscuit while I was writing Ratio and what I love about it is not the ratio itself (3 parts flour : 1 part fat : 2 parts liquid) but rather how the rolling technique results in layered flakiness. It's kind of a cross between a pie crust and puff pastry. A pie crust is flaky because random knots of butter separate layers of dough and puff when baked. With puff pastry, one sets out to create precise layers of dough and butter, hundreds of them, by successively folding and rolling out a ...
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Bread Pudding

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:11:09 +0000

Cinnamon raisin bread pudding
Still recovering from 10 days of Key West fine food and postprandial debauchery, I’m giving my site over today to my friend Stephanie Stiavetti (@sstiavetti), who writes The Culinary Life blog, and whose first book, Melt, will be published next year by Little, Brown (a fine book to which I happily contributed the introduction). I'll be back on Friday with a Key West–inspired cocktail to combat the winter grays. Take it away, Steph, and thanks for keeping it simple and discussing a critical cooking technique!—M.R. by Stephanie Stiavetti Bread pudding needn't be complicated. At its core, custard is a straightforward dish consisting of cream and egg yolks. For a sweet custard you add sugar, alongside tiny, fragrant vanilla beans (usually), and that's about as fussy as it gets. The best bread puddings ...
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Schmaltz on Bread

Michael Ruhlman — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:45:41 +0000

Schmaltz schmeared on bread. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.
Fat on bread. Talk about felicitous but little-thought-about pairings. While writing Schmaltz, I of course tasted schmaltz on rye, with a little kosher salt, and it's so good. Now this really is better than butter. (Donna would want to underscore yet again the power of backlighting. This was shot in late afternoon sunlight.) Back to cold Cleveland tomorrow. Now need to make lobster stock from yesterday's crustacean extravaganza. Twenty-five lobsters à la minute is no easy task, so thanks to all the sailors who lent a hand, especially Russ, whom I sprayed repeatedly with lobster juice as we cracked fifty claws. His favorite shirt no less. Other links you may like:

My post on how to make a classic rye bread.

A guest post on Click to Continue Reading

Guest Post:Cinnamon Bread from The Culinary Life

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:37:05 +0000

Freshly baked cinnamon bread is a great baking item to add to the holidays.
Photo by Stephanie J. Stiavetti
I'm giving my site over today to my friend Stephanie Stiavetti, who writes The Culinary Life blog, and whose first book, Melt, will be published next year by Little, Brown. Here she focuses on cinnamon at a time of the year when the smell of cinnamon announces the celebratory nature of the month and soothes stress. It's true, the smell of cinnamon bread baking makes for a better mood around the house. A note about yeast and temperatures—many novice bakers get in a fluff about it. Fresh? Active dry? Instant dry? What's it all mean? I'm not going to go into it because it's boring—use dry, it doesn't matter what kind (I recommend Red Star or SAF, same ...
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Pretzels for Oktoberfest

Michael Ruhlman — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:26:53 +0000

Homemade pretzels. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

How to Make Pretzels
Originally Posted on November 16, 2009 My obsession with pretzels began with olives and lye, but I was only moved to actually figure pretzels out after a comically disastrous demo at the Fabulous Food Show on Saturday.(Before the demo, hanging out with Symon and Jonathon Sawyer, I mentioned my demo and said, "It's a no-brainer, it's so simple nothing can go wrong." Symon clutched his bald head and shouted, "DON'T SAY THAT!!!") Half my demo was on baking and making a 5:3 bread dough into several products, and I also wanted to bake gougères, cheese puffs, so I went early to make sure the ovens were cranked. I was assured by the very efficient woman running that stage that it was. Thirty seconds into the demo, ...
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Le Creuset Giveaway!

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:53:54 +0000

Announcing the first episode of my Le Creuset Technique series! In December, in Charleston, South Carolina, while promoting my book, Ruhlman’s Twenty, I met Will Copenhaver and Grimsley Matkov, from the Marketing Communications team at Le Creuset US. They loved my book (and the many photos of the food we cooked in Le Creuset products, which Donna shot). I told them I love Le Creuset, it’s the best stuff on the market, that’s why we use it. A month later, while cooking in Key West (brought my 7-quart Le Creuset French oven along with other tools, bien sûr), a colleague of mine, Warren Johnson, of Taste Five Media in Charleston, asked if I’d consider working with Le Creuset. I told him nothing would please me more, and Warren got to work. Le Creuset wanted to teach people how easy ...
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Labor Day Weekend Hot Dog Buns

Michael Ruhlman — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:45:50 +0000

Fresh out of the oven hot dog buns. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.
I had an unstoppable hunger this past weekend for old-Chicago-style all-beef hotdogs from Vienna Beef, the best hotdog in the country in my opinion. I wanted that charred skin flavor of summer, the grill smoke from fat dripping on coals, the juicy snap when you bite into them. I decided to make buns. Why? Because, we were inviting friends (great food must be shared); I had a cool hot dog pan from American Pan; I had never made them before; and most important, the best hot dogs deserve special treatment. One of the great things about cooking is that you're subliminally eating the entire time, a kind of calorie-free spiritual nourishment, and I was thinking about the hot dogs the whole time in ...
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Christmas Yorkshire Pudding

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:21:45 +0000

Freshly made popovers. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Marlene Newell, who runs an excellent cooking forum called CooksKorner tested all the recipes for Ratio and Twenty. She's a friend and excellent cook. One of her passions is Yorkshire pudding, in effect, a savory popover, which is how she bakes them (as above). I, too, make roast beef for Christmans dinner and Yorkshire pudding. I believe it's critical to cook it in beef fat, for flavor, so I buy and render suet for this purpose. I've also poured the batter straight into the roasting pan which works great so long as there are no burnt bits (the pudding ripples and puffs like crazy; I then cut it to serve). I imagine the roasting pan method was how it would have originated, the batter cooking in ...
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Brioche Revisited

Emilia — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:54:17 +0000

Freshly sliced brioche. Photo by Donna
Michael has been traveling all around the United States promoting his new book Ruhlman's Twenty. Yesterday he had a long day in New York City where he appeared on the Martha Stewart Show. Michael sends his apologies, as he is nursing a wicked hangover. He returns to Cleveland today and will be appearing at the Fabulous Food Show this weekend. Please enjoy this favorite post of mine on how to Make Brioche. This post reminds you to begin preparing for the holiday season, which is quickly approaching. Original Post Date: November 30, 2010 December is the month for making brioche at home. It's the great holiday bread. Though calling it bread doesn't do it justice. Good brioche is like a cross between bread and cake. Hell, it's really ...
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Gluten-Free Brioche

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:14:17 +0000

I accidentally upgraded my wordpress account and it wreaked havoc. Lost all kinds of posts and it broke countless links. F@$#! One of the many post sent off unanchored into the ethernet was this guest post (and photo) by freelance writer Stephanie Stiavetti. As with her gluten-free fried chicken, enough people have asked about it that I'm reposting it again. I've really only recently become aware of what a rotten disease celiac is, especially for people who love to cook, and to eat, and to write about it. This post with Carol Blymire (alineaathome.com) describes the situation, um, vividly (the post also has glutenfreegirl's awesome pizza dough recipe). It's also impressed on me how important it is for chefs to understand celiac disease and gluten-free cooking. Stephanie Stiavetti, a social media consultant and reluctant techie ...
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Update: Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:31:39 +0000

I've spent nearly a week in the Napa Valley working on the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook. This will be the fifth book in a series led by Thomas Keller that began with The French Laundry Cookbook which is one of the best chef-restaurant cookbooks ever (do we need full dislosure here?). Forget the words I write—these books are truly fine and costly productions, and I think it's important for people to know what goes into books of this magnitude, because so often people don't know. A team of people, from the many at Artisan, an imprint of Workman Publishing, who make beautiful books, to the commis at the restaurants who scale out the mise en place for the recipes for the chefs, and all those in between, including myself. In 1997, I flew out here to have dinner at the French Laundry and meet Chef Keller, ...
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What makes a great cooking app?

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 26 May 2011 12:45:52 +0000

We've just released the Bread Baking App for iPhone/Pod/Touch
In the headlong rush to turn everything into an app, we have created amazing apps (shazam is truly amazing) and ridiculous apps (won't name names). The publishers of cookbooks and chefs are among them. Some publishers (S&S, my last publisher) are not entering the market; smaller more agile ones are (Chronicle, by chance publishing my next book). But what makes a valuable app? Since teaming up with Will Turnage, VP of technology and invention for the digital media firm R/GA, I’ve been creating apps for the iPad and smartphones and so have been thinking about how to proceed. They take a lot of time and work and so far, return on investment is spotty (except in the games department). My goal is to create only ...
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Veal Stock and Guinness Bread

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:30:35 +0000

Guiness Stout-Veal Stock Bread/Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
My second pick for innovative use of veal stock came in from Marc Barringer, Chef/Hopsitality Director, St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Grosse Pointe Woods and Food Service Director, Lost Lake Scout Reservation, Freeman Twp., Michigan. He's also a freelance writer, innovative cook and classic jack-of-all-trades in the best cooks tradition (still a school crossing guard! God bless him!). Veal stock is one of the great preparations of the kitchen that can elevate everyone's cooking, and someone on twitter asked me what you could do with it. It lead to a lot of great ideas, in addition to the traditional uses for making sauces and enriching braises. Read the story of how Marc came up with bread—it's classic innovation from the restaurant kitchen. I love it. And I love the bread. ...
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Eggs Benedict From Scratch

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:27:58 +0000

Eggs Benedict: a great way to start the morning after. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
This eggs Benedict post has new recipes for Hollandaise sauce and sourdough English muffins but I have to begin with the angry comment on my Tomato Sauce post. A reader was clearly miffed that I would suggest that anyone who works make their own tomato sauce. Well, I do suggest this, but I hasten to add that it's not homemade or nothing. I've bought jarred tomato sauce when I knew I wouldn't have time to make it myself. It's more expensive, doesn't taste as good and isn't as much fun, but there are only so many hours in the day, and someday there's just no time. My second response to Angry Reader is that he should do this: ...
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No-Knead Bread: A Convert’s Story

Michael Ruhlman — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:08:58 +0000

No-Knead Bread, with serrated knife, banneton, salted butter
I recently posted on twitter that I don't believe in no-knead bread, the phenomenon started by Jim Lahey—chef of the excellent pizza restaurant Co., and owner of Sullivan St. Bakery in Manhattan, and author of My Bread—when Mark Bittman wrote about Lahey's no-knead technique in The New York Times. (Here's Lahey's no-knead bread recipe.) After tweeting, I almost immediately received an email from Nick Fox, a New York Times Dining editor, perplexed. The next day Bittman DM'd me on Twitter asking why? Jeff Hertzberg, an author of the popular Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, RT'd my comment, adding "Say it ain't so!" Not long after that the eminent author and Vogue columnist, Jeffrey Steingarten, in ...
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Gluten-Free Multigrain Bread

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:25:51 +0000

Gluten-Free Multi-Grain Boule / Photos by Shauna Ahern
I've been fascinated with gluten-free bread recipes because they attempt to do what shouldn't be possible: create a network of pliable solids that can expand and trap gas released by yeast, giving you a leavened bread without gluten. It's also invariably a good-for-you loaf, with a rich variety of grains. Shauna Ahern, aka gluten-free girl, author of her the eponymous book and recently Gluten Free Girl and the Chef with husband Daniel, is among the best and has developed this seriously good gluten-free loaf for my bread-baking month. (There will be one more bread baking post; I know, it's February, but who cares. Bread is Life. Remember these awesome rolls.) Celiac is a very real intolerance to the main proteins in flour ...
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Bread Baking Basics App For iPad

Michael Ruhlman — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:51:34 +0000

Baking bread is one of the oldest forms of cooking, fundamental to civilization and satisfying to the individual soul. Is it because baking bread is so powerful that so many fear it, feel that it's beyond them? Baking bread is easy and and its pleasures are deep, not just for the one baking but for everyone in the house. The smells of baking bread are a natural analgesic and stress reliever, the bread itself nourishing. This fall, talking with my partner in digital productions Will Turnage (by day, Will is the upstanding VP of Technology and Invention at R/GA, a digital ad agency—I want to be a VP of Invention!; by night he's a digital Mr. Hyde), about what kind of App to do next, we looked to the iPad because tablets are ...
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Homemade Bagels Are a Breeze!

Michael Ruhlman — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:03:57 +0000

Homemade Bagels/Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman
Here is a bagel recipe worthy of the best New York or Jersey deli from a baker in Boone, North Carolina. Bruce Ezzell commented on this blog ages ago and elicited a discussion about bagels, which led to his inspiring journey from being laid off to opening his own bakery. professional baker. I'll let Bruce, @thebreadlist on Twitter, tell the story.—M.R. by Bruce Ezzell I've been baking for 20 years now. Five years professionally from 1989-1994, then what I called 'sanity baking' after that. Newly married, kids on the way, I had to find work that gave me a steady paycheck so I left baking for new careers. The 'economic downturn' changed things for me. I lost my job as the office manager of a high-end construction company in January 2009. Boone, NC, ...
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Challah!

Michael Ruhlman — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:53:26 +0000

Challah/Photo by Leo Gong © 2009
When I asked my friend and primary recipe tester, Marlene Newell, who runs the site cookskorner.com, to contribute a post during bread month, a challah recipe was the first bread that came to mind, and I'm delighted it did, because I love the soft, egg-rich crumb and flavor, probably my favorite of the non-lean doughs. This is Marlene's favorite recipe and it comes from one of the foremost bread teachers and writers about bread in the country, Peter Reinhart. If you don't know about him, you should! See Peter's blog, as well as his other site and soon to be show, Pizza Quest. "This is my best challah to date," Peter wrote to us in an email, "and I don't think ...
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