MLK Day Breads

I spent most of MLK's birthday baking bread.

Bread, to me, illustrates the complexity of simple things. Made of simple ingredients that come together as so much more than the addition of each component. The ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr were basic but we are still working to achieve them 41 years after his death. I believe tolerance and justice are about the process, about striving, about being better and bigger then our individual selves. For me, baking bread is this way too. Bread epitomizes basic sustenance throughout history. It exists as much as a concept as a physical, consumable object. Making great bread requires a commitment to baking, a repetition, an awareness.

Bread is alive, made up of living yeast and protein and sugar. it is the relationship of all these elements that create the bread. We each are our own individuals. Our relationship to other individuals illustrates tolerance or intolerance, hatred or love. Like bread, these things are in flux. Whereas environmental conditions will change the outcome of a bread formula (for example, cold temperatures slowing the yeasts' activity), humans have different moods, responses to our environment, our economy, our day. So we must focus on the process - make the same bread again, the same effort to be better - in life and in baking.

I made three breads on Monday: Ciabatta, Italian bread, Anadama. All were from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice.

The Anadama bread was my motivation to bake. Course ground polenta is soaked overnight in water, then used to make a sponge. Molasses is added - imparting a beautiful brown to the loaf and vitamins. It turned into a delicious, soft sandwich bread with a subtle crunch from the polenta. I haven't formed a loaf shape in probably 6 years, so I was happing with the shaping. I held one loaf back in the refrigerator and will bake it off later this week.

I was most excited to eat ciabatta and most disappointed. If you didn't know what a ciabatta should look like, it did taste ok, but it wasn't a ciabatta. The holes were mostly small and evenly spaced. It was more puffy than flat. Where the bread had been folded on itself, a layer of raw flour remained in parts. Maybe it will become croutons... My guess is that it was drier than it should have been - a wetter dough would have absorbed the loose flour. I was probably too rough when I shaped it, degassing it in the process. I blame that for my small, consistent holes.



The Italian bread was fantastic! It was soft and lovely and comforting. It reminded me of east coast hoagie rolls but with more flavor. Again, I was really happy with the shape and the eye-shaped cuts on the loaf.