Whole Grain Bagels

With our steady supply of locally grown flours from our Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA, I’ve been experimenting with baking whole grain breads. I’ve attempted a number of versions of a whole grain sandwich loaf, which have all been delicious, but dense affairs hovering below the rim of the loaf pan, and I’ll need to keep tinkering before I share a recipe here. I'm pleased to report more success with another beloved bread product, the bagel. 

I was inspired by this evangelical speech about bread making by Peter Reinhart and my sister-in-law’s reports of bagel success. I'd also finally procured Reinhart's book on baking whole grain bread from the library that describes his “epoxy method” in which he makes two components of the dough a day in advance and combined them together on baking day. The first component is the soaker (right), which contains whole grain flours moistened and left at room temperature to allow enzymes in the grains to break down the complex polysaccharides, releasing sugars and developing flavor. I made our soaker with a combination of Lonesome Whistle Farm's red fife and rye flours. The second component is the biga or poolish (left), which contains a small amount of yeast which is allowed to ferment slowly in the refrigerator, also developing flavors. For this I used Lonesome Whistle's Stephen’s white, a soft white whole grain flour. 

The next day, we cut up the components and combined them with more yeast and Stephens white flour. This might have been easier if I had a mixer, but squishing together dough pieces was quite an appealing job for the kids. 

To form the bagels, we opted for rolling out snakes turned into bracelets, which Reinhart claimed is the professional option as compared to hollowing out circles, but I’m sure either method would work well. 

The most fun was boiling the bagels, watching them bob in their alkaline bath. And after baking in a hot oven, the final flavors of the dough were deliciously complex. The whole recipe only made six bagels, which seemed like a small yield for such a big undertaking, but they are really best eaten the same day. I recommend this as a fun project for spring break. 

Multigrain Bagels 

from Peter Reinhart

Soaker
2/3 cup (85 g) whole wheat flour [I used red fife]
1 cup (142 g) any combination of cooked and uncooked grains, or use 1 ¾ cup (227 g) whole wheat flour [I used a combination of red fife and rye]
½ tsp (4 g) salt
2 Tbsp (35.5 g) barley malt syrup or honey
½ cup (142 g) water

Mix all the ingredients together for 1 minute, let rest 5 minutes, mix again for 1 minute.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temp for 12 to 24 hours. 

Biga
1 ¾ cup (142 g) whole wheat flour [I used Stephen's white]
¼ tsp (1 g) instant yeast
½ cup (142 g) water

Mix all the biga ingredients together, knead for 2 minutes (use wet hands), let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then knead again for 1 minute.
Transfer to a clean bowl, cover and refrigerate from 8 hr to 3 days.

About 2 hours before mixing the final dough, remobe biga from the fridge.

Final dough
Soaker
Biga
2 ¼ tsp (7 g) instant yeast
2 Tbsp (28.5 g) water
5/8 tsp (5 g) salt
7 Tbsp (56.5 g) whole wheat flour [I used Stephen's white]
cornmeal
poppy or sesame seeds
2 tsp baking soda

1. Chop the biga and soaker into 12 pieces each. Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the pre-dough pieces, and the salt and mix vigorously. Add the flour and knead 2 minutes. Flour a surface and knead the dough on the surface for 4 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes. Knead again for 1 minute. Form into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl, rolling to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temp for 45 to 60 minutes until 1 ½ times its original size. 

2. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat and dust with cornmeal. Divide the dough into six pieces and shape into bagels: roll into a snake and then wrap around. Place on the prepared baking sheet and cover loosely with a cloth towel. You can also refrigerate for 24 hours, covered with plastic wrap.

3. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Set a wide pot with 4 inches of water and bring to a boil. Add 2 tsp baking soda (watch out the water will foam). Lower the heat to a steady simmer.

4. Within 20 or 30 minutes of shaping, the bagels should be ready to boil. Test one: it should float within 30 seconds. If ready, boil 2 to 4 at a time, turning gently after 30 seconds so that they boil for a total of 1 minute. Use a slotted spoon to remove t the baking sheet. Cover with seed topping. 

5. Place the pan in the oven, lower the heat to 450 degrees, and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Let cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Swedish Rye Knäckebröd

Every Christmas season we prepare a Swedish Smörgasbrod, a tradition from my husband's family. This year, with a fresh supply of rye flour from Lonesome Whistle Farm, I was inspired to make our own knäckebröd or rye crackers for our Swedish feast.

I found a wide variety of recipes for knäckebröd on the web, and put together a version with a buttermilk starter sweetened with honey and lightened with a bit of yeast. To make the round crackers, we shaped the dough into a log, sliced it into disks, and rolled them flat.

Then my son cut out the centers, which we read were for cooling the crackers on a wooden spoon,

and my daughter made a pattern of fork pricks designed for breaking the crackers into radial sections.

The spoon cooling process required some precarious balancing, but the final crackers were a delicious component of our Swedish Smörgasbord of:

Knäckebröd (rye crackers)

Fyllda ägg (stuffed eggs)

Köttbullar (Swedish meatballs)
Inlagd Sill (pickled herring)
Inlagda Gurkor (pickled cucumbers)

smoked salmon and smoked trout
Bruna Bönor (brown beans, delicious prepared with Lonesome Whistle Farm's cranberry beans. Cook beans in water until tender. Mix in salt to taste, 1 tsp mustard, 3 Tbsp molasses, and 3 Tbsp cider vinegar and simmer for another half hour for the flavors to meld.)

Swedish Rye Knäckebröd

1 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2 cup rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour, and more for rolling out dough

1. In a glass measuring cup, microwave the butter until it melts. Add the buttermilk and microwave a little longer until the mixture is warm but not scalding. Stir in the honey and yeast. Let sit for about 5 minutes until frothy.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the salt and a cup of wheat flour. Pour in the milk mixture and stir to combine. Now stir in the rye flour in several stages until you have a firm dough. Gather together the dough and knead gently into ball. Put into an oiled bowl, cover, and let sit for at least an hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. On a floured surface, roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut into eight disks. Roll each disk into a thin circle. Use a shot glass or cookie cutter to cut out a hole in the center (you can bake the holes as little crackers). Transfer the disk to a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Use a fork to prick all over including radial spokes along which the crackers can break.

4. Bake the crackers in batches for about ten minutes until they brown up along the edges. Cool on a wooden spoon threaded through the center holes.

Other recipes for locally grown grains

Barley Risotto with Grilled Vegetables

Buckwheat Blini

Buckwheat Crepes

Gluten-Free Waffles

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets and Kale

Swedish Rye Cookies

Teff Grain and Ricotta Pancakes with Apple Topping

Wheatberry Tabbouleh with Green Beans and Feta

Wheatberries with Snap Peas

Swedish Rye Cookies

My son, born four years ago on Winter Solstice, is the antithesis of winter. From the moment he arrived, he has been a fiery ball of energy with the sunniest of personalities. Defying the laws of Mendel, he seems to have inherited only his father's Swedish genes, and has a head of white blond hair the color of a field of grain in the height of summer. With a new supply of rye flour from Lonesome Whistle Farm, I recruited my little Swede to help me test out this recipe for Swedish rye cookies from 101 Cookbooks.

The recipe calls for a combination of butter and cream cheese, which gives the final cookies a pleasantly tart flavor. The dough was quite easy to work with, and in no time we had a herd of reindeers.

The poor things never knew what hit them when they encountered my son's blizzard of colored sugars. Luckily, the cookies themselves are not too sweet and could stand the heavy drifts of decoration. We all liked the subtle rye flavor and we think Santa will too. These will definitely become part of our regular holiday baking repertoire.

Swedish Rye Cookies

from 101 Cookbooks

1 cup (106 g) rye flour (from Lonesome Whistle Farm)

1 cup (120 g) pastry flour (such as soft white winter wheat flour from Camas Country Mill)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup (113 g) cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (100 g) fine sugar

1. Sift together the flours and salt.

2. In a mixer or food processor, cream together the cream cheese, butter, and sugar until very smooth. Then combine in the flour mixture, but avoid over-mixing. Gather the dough into a ball, flatten into a disc, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut into shapes. Place on parchment paper-covered cookie sheets and dust with colored sugar. Bake for about 10 minutes until just golden around the edges. At this point you can dust them with powdered sugar, if they haven't already been thoroughly sugared.


Other recipes for locally grown grains
Barley Risotto with Grilled Vegetables
Buckwheat Blini
Buckwheat Crepes
Gluten-Free Waffles
Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets and Kale
Teff Grain and Ricotta Pancakes with Apple Topping
Wheatberry Tabbouleh with Green Beans and Feta
Wheatberries with Snap Peas