During this Stay-At-Home order, we have missed our students and the energy of cooking and baking side by side, watching our fellow chefs teaching through the glass doors, and working with our awesome team of assistants and dishwashers. It’s been a strange adjustment, and, like many of you, we’ve turned to tactile tasks to calm our restlessness and ease our minds. We’ve noticed that many of you have turned to baking bread and we want in!
This time of year usually marks the start of Bread Camp, an intensive series designed to grow your bread expertise from working with store-bought yeast, making dinner rolls and bagels, all the way to graduating to making a sourdough boules.
We could not bear the thought of our students missing out on this very popular series, so we took our Bread Camp online to The Gourmandise YouTube Channel and Instagram account (@gourmandisela)! Join Chef Clemence Gossett as she teaches the foundation of bread-making, how to build a sourdough starter and walk you through making simple breads like focaccia, dinner rolls and, yes, even babka.
In keeping with our ethos to keep your kitchen simple and free of loads of gadgets, we’re going to encourage you to text your neighbors and see if they have what you need, such as a loaf pan or a scale-even a KitchenAid mixer, and to leave those on a doorstep to comply with our physical and social distancing practices.
Having trouble finding flour, yeast or other ingredients? Here’s where you might find it at the moment:
Farmers Markets! Yup, it’s time to break free from commodity flour and tool around with the good stuff. See our post about which markets are open; you can purchase locally grown, whole grain flour from farmers like Weiser Farms (part of the Tehachapi Grain Project), Roan Mills and Fat Uncle Farms.
Grist & Toll: Get these awesome, stone-milled whole grain flours from the mill in Pasadena before miller Nan runs out of grain. Again. (They ship!)
Smaller grocers: Step outside of the large-footprint supermarkets and head over to your local grocers specializing in everything from Indian ingredients to Oaxacan staples.
Central Milling: For Bread and All-purpose flour without going to the store, check out Central Milling’s (it’s what we use for white flour in our classes) organic options, shipped right to your door.
If you want to join in and bake with us, the following details each day, the bread we’re making, along with tools & ingredients you’ll need to get you through the series:
BREAD CAMP DAY-BY-DAY
CLICK ON THE DAY FOR THE VIDEO MORE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS
DAY 1: FOCACCIA
Tools: A bowl and a rimmed cookie sheet
Ingredients:
- 2 tsps active dry or rapid rise yeast
- 7 cups bread flour
- 2 tsps kosher or flaked salt
- ½ cup olive oil
- Favorite whole wheat flour to sub out some of the bread flour for: Spelt
DAY 2: MILK BREAD
Tools: Mixer, loaf pan or pie tin
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- ¾ cup whole milk
- 1 ½ tsps active dry or rapid rise yeast
- 2 Tbsps sugar
- 2 ⅔ cups bread flour
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 egg
- Favorite whole wheat flour to sub out some of the bread flour for: Sonora
DAY 3: WHOLE WHEAT SANDWICH BREAD
Tools: Mixer, loaf pan
Ingredients:
- 1-1/2 cups whole milk
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 2 ½ tsps. active dry or rapid rise yeast
- 2 ounces butter
- ⅓ cup rolled oats
- 2 tsps. kosher salt
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup bread flour
- 1 egg
- Favorite whole wheat flour to sub out some of the bread flour for: Hard Red or Hard White
DAY 4: BRIOCHE AND BABKA
Tools: Mixer, loaf pan
Ingredients:
- 12 ounces butter
- ½ cup whole milk
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 ½ tsps. active dry or rapid rise yeast
- 6 eggs
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 6 ounces of your favorite chocolate
- Favorite whole wheat flour to sub out some of the bread flour for: Spelt
DAY 5: CHALLAH!
Favorite whole wheat flour to sub out some of the bread flour for: Spelt Tools: Mixer, cookie sheet, parchment paper
Ingredients:
- 7 eggs
- ½ cup vegetable or olive oil
- 7 cups bread flour
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup honey
- 5 tsps active dry or rapid rise yeast
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt
DAY 6: START SOURDOUGH
Tools: A large bowl, your hands, a deep, narrow bowl and linen towel OR banneton
Ingredients:
- 2 Tbsps active sourdough starter
- 4 cups filtered or spring water
- 8 cups strong flour (bread flour, whole wheat flour, or all-purpose if that’s all you got)
- 1 Tbsp kosher or flaked sea salt
- Favorite whole wheat flour to sub out some of the bread flour for: Hard White or Hard Red
DAY 7: SOURDOUGH
Tools: Dutch oven, for baking the bread
Ingredients:
- Same as above, but no “knead” for more!
- If desired, ½ cup sesame seeds for the top of your loaf
- Extra white flour or rice flour for dusting your proofing bowl