Pocky: Like Bread, but Amazinger

I'm absolutely blown away by this homemade pocky from the Not Quite Nigella blog - with recipe! It never would have occurred to me to make pocky at home - doesn't it spring fully formed from the forehead of Hello Kitty?

Wild Rice and Tea Bread

I thought I'd do something a little different this week, and while it wasn't 100% sucessful, it was still tasty. According to "A Thousand Years Before a Hot Stove," wild rice isn't really a rice, but a type of reed native to North America. Despite that, it responded to the sourdough treatment exactly like the brown rice I usually use. I also thought I'd use tea instead of half the water, which was good in theory but poor in execution - I was impatient to get started, so I fear I may have scalded the yeast by adding the tea too soon! Notice how doll-size the loaves are.

1 cup cooked wild rice
2 cups sourdough starter
8 cups flour (3:1 bread to whole wheat flour)
1 cup water
1 cup English Breakfast tea
1 tsp salt

I mixed the rice, starter, water, tea, and half the flour in a bowl and let it sit for 8 hours while I ran some errands. When it was ready, I added the salt and then the rest of the flour, kneaded for 15 minutes, and let it rise for 2 hours. Then I beat it down, kneaded it for a minute, cut it into three parts, and let it rest for 30 minutes. Then I rolled it into loaves and put it in greased and floured pans and let it rise for 2 hours. By this time it was nearly midnight! I baked it at 425, spraying the inside of the oven with water twice at the beginning, then letting it bake for 45 minutes. Presto!

So, it came out a bit dense, probably because it was cold in the kitchen and I managed to slaughter some of the yeast with hot tea. I'm not sure if I would try the tea again; Jamie said he could taste it, but I don't think it added much. The wild rice, on the other hand, really complemented the sourdough. Next time I might add lentils too, just to mellow it out a little. I deem it a moderate success - definitely edible!

Are you intimidated by bread? Maybe you should be:

"It is legitimate to fear a stalk of grain. Even though one does not know its history, one knows that it is indeed a hero with its plume, a miracle of statics with its stone armor of petrified silicic acid. That is why grain crackles when the wind plays among the stalks. The wild Germans and Slavs were terrified by it when they entered the Roman empire and hear this sound for the first time."

from Jacob's Six Thousand Years of Bread: A Holy and Unholy History, page xv.

Red Bean Bread

This really came out better than it had any right to.

1 can red beans, washed
2 cups sourdough starter
8 cups flour (3:1 bread to whole wheat flour)
2 cups water
1 tsp salt

I mixed the beans, starter, water, and half the flour in a bowl and let it sit overnight. In the morning (ok, early afternoon) I added the salt and then the rest of the flour, kneaded for 15 minutes, and let it rise for 2 hours. Then I beat it down, kneaded it for a minute, cut it into three parts, and let it rest for 30 minutes. Then I rolled it into loaves and put it in greased and floured pans and let it rise for 2 hours. I baked it at 425, spraying the inside of the oven with water twice at the beginning, then letting it bake for 40 minutes. Et voila!

I've been making the recycled grain bread from Wild Fermentation with great success for the last few weeks. The recipe's so whatevs ("use any grain") that I thought I'd try some beans instead of rice. I was hoping it would taste a little like red bean pastry, but the flavor doesn't really come through. The crumb is really moist and cohesive, and it's got lovely red speckles. I deem it a triumph.


(I'm going to have to develop some bread photo taking skillz.)