Back in February, the baking club decided to go the more savory route with homemade whole grain bread for a little change of pace. After our first attempt at meeting was thwarted by the snowstorm of the season, we met in early February to try a bunch of different whole grain loaves along with some tasty flavored butters and jams.

Keep reading to see how it all turned out!

LIBBY - Seeded European Peasant Bread

I received a bread baking cookbook from a friend called The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. All the recipes are based on the concept that all you need to do to make bread is make a large batch of a master recipe, store it in your fridge and then when you want bread, pull of a chunk, let it rise and bake! Essentially, it's just five minutes of work to assemble the dough and then it's letting the dough and oven do the rest!

3 cups lukewarm water (100 F or below)
1 tbsp of granulated yeast
1 - 1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt
1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
5 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup seed mix (use your favorite seeds, I used sesame, poppy, sunflower, amaranth & millet)
cornmeal and/or parchment paper to line cookie sheet

In a large bowl or lidded plastic container, mix the water, yeast and salt. Add in the remaining ingredients and stir until fully mixed (may need to use wet hands to add in all the flour). Cover the dough (not airtight) and let rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses (or flattens on the top), about 2 hours. From here, you can either bake your first batch or put the dough in the refrigerator until you're ready to bake.

When you're ready to bake, dust the surface of the dough in the container with some flour and take out about 1/4th of the dough. Coat it with some more flour and shape into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all sides and rotating the ball as you go. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and sprinkled with some cornmeal and allow to rest and rise for 40 minutes. While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Place a baking stone or baking sheet in the middle of the oven and let it heat for 20-30 minutes. Place an empty metal tray on the lowest shelf. When the dough has risen, sprinkle with flour and slash the top, about 1/2 inch deep. Transfer the dough to the baking stone/sheet in the oven and pour one cup of water into the metal tray on the bottom and quickly close the oven door. Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown and firm. Allow to cool on a rack before eating!

GINA - Easy Seed and Grain Loaf (via BBC) and Sesame & Flax Seed Oat Bread

Gina made two different seed loaves. One made with a mixed grain flour, poppy & sesame seeds and sweetened with a bit of honey. The other was made with a wider mix of seeds including black and white sesame, chia, pumpkin, flax and sunflower seeds and sweetened with maple syrup. Both were delicious and had great nutty flavor from the seeds.

TONYA - Classic 100% Wheat and Whole Wheat French Baguette

Tonya also made two different loaves - one using 100% white whole wheat flour, sweetened with honey and baked in a traditional loaf pan. The other was a whole wheat take on the French baguette. It was warm, crusty and the perfect vessel for some butter and jam!

KLARE - Classic 100% Wheat (via King Arthur Flour), Wheat Berry Bread & Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread with Raisins

Klare was the winner in the most-loaves-of-bread-baked department! She made three loaves for us: a classic 100% wheat loaf, a wheat berry bread and a whole wheat oatmeal bread with raisins. All were delicious and I especially loved the red wheat berry bread for which she cooked the wheat berries the night before and then added them to the dough. They added a great chewiness to the bread. And the oatmeal bread had a delicate sweetness thanks to the raisins.

So in the previous post, we covered the baklava, which was just one part of the Greek-inspired meal I had planned for a friend's birthday celebration.

The other menu item I was eager to try was homemade pita bread. It had always seemed way too complicated and just easier to buy at the grocery store. Now, I've successfully made other kinds of bread many times before, but this had that whole mysterious air-pocket-in-the-middle thing going on. But I ventured forth, confident that it would at least be edible (especially once slathered in hummus) even if it didn't make that magical air pocket.

The ingredients for pita bread are about as simple as they come: flour, water, yeast, salt and olive oil. That's it. And the techniques for mixing and kneading the dough were all standard and echoed the instructions I learned from the "bread camp" I attended at King Arthur Flour two summers ago. I kept going through the recipe and the steps waiting to find that special technique or secret step that would transform these little balls of dough into pita bread.

Well, it turns out there's no secret ingredient or technique. The magic is all in the science and chemistry of baking. I found this recipe from one of my go-to blogs TheKitchn, and they describe this magic the best:

What makes [pita] puff so impressively is the dual action of water turning to steam and the yeast becoming hyperactive when both are hit with the heat from the oven or stovetop. The pita has been rolled so thin that this action forces the top and the bottom of the dough to separate and balloon outwards.

Reading this description, it totally makes sense and sounds really cool. But guys, wait until you see this in action. In your own oven. I mean, turn on that oven light, call the kids (or the kids at heart), pop a squat and watch these discs of dough transform right before your eyes, all in less than three minutes. When my first batch puffed up perfectly, I was truly giddy with delight. I had done it! I was a sorceress of the kitchen! (In reality, I had just followed directions and let chemistry do it's thing, but I still felt triumphant.) It was at this point that my guests arrived, and they too, were completely enamored with how the pita puffed up in the oven with the subsequent batches.

So excitement of the process aside, these pita breads continued to wow once we took a bite. By baking them in the oven on a baking stone, they get a nice crispy crust on the bottom, with the rest of the bread soft and pillowy. The hints of olive oil and salt make these delicious on their own but also serve as the perfect platform to load up on hummus, chicken or whatever else you want. They really were so easy to make that I may never buy store-bought pita bread again.

To complement the pita bread, I made chicken souvlaki (chicken marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, basil, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper) and a Greek salad (lettuce greens with tomato, cucumber, kalamata olives and feta cheese). O-YUM-G!

HOMEMADE PITA BREAD

1 cup warm water
2 tsp active or instant yeast
2 1/2 - 3 cups flour
2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp olive oil

In a large bowl, mix yeast and water. Let sit 5 minutes or until yeast is dissolved. Add 2 1/2 cups of flour (reserve the extra 1/2 cup for use when kneading), salt and olive oil. Mix until a shaggy dough is formed.

Sprinkle some of the reserved flour onto a clean work surface. Scrape out the dough onto the work surface, setting the bowl aside, and knead for 5-7 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic. Use only enough flour to keep your the dough from sticking to your hands and work surface. Return dough to the bowl and cover with lid or plastic wrap. Let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free spot for 1-2 hours or until dough has doubled in size.

Preheat your oven 450 degrees. If you have a baking stone, place in the oven as you pre-heat. If you don't, place a large baking sheet on the middle rack to heat. Once the dough has risen, sprinkle some flour onto a clean work surface. Gently deflate the dough and turn out onto your work area. Divide the dough into 8-10 pieces. With your hands, roll each piece of dough into a ball, then flatten. Using a rolling pin, roll out the balls of dough into thin, flat circles, about 5-7 inches in diameter and about 1/4 thick. You may have to turn and flip your circles periodically to keep from sticking to your work surface and rolling pin.

Once the oven is at temperature, place the rolled out circles of dough directly onto the baking stone (as many as will fit). Bake for 3-4 minutes. The pita will start to puff up after a minute or two and will be done when it's fully ballooned. Remove cooked pitas from oven and cover with a clean towel as you cook the remaining dough.

Pitas are best when eaten immediately after cooking. Can be kept in an airtight bag for several days or they can also be frozen with wax paper between the layers for up to three months.

Note: Sometimes you'll get pitas that won't puff up. Usually, that's because your oven wasn't hot enough. Make sure that you let your oven and baking stone get back up to temperature between batches after you've opened the oven. Even still, I had some pitas that didn't fully puff up. Don't worry, they're still just as delicious!

Yields 8-10 pita breads.

Recipe from TheKitchn

Baking Club Adventure: Whole Grain Bread

It's All Greek to Me - Part Two