Holiday Yeast Breads?

[judyandjohn]

Hi, bakers!I'm looking for some ideas for ingredient combinations to put in a basic white bread dough for the holidays i.e. fruit & nuts, cranberry & ?,pear & blue cheese, etc. Any ideas are appreciated!Also, if I were to use fresh pear, would it be better to use it in small chunks, slices or puree?Thanks (as always!) for your great help...

[grendlesmoder]

I can't imagine pears in a yeast bread. Sounds more like a reasonable quick bread ingredient though. The wetness of the pear makes me thnink it wouldn't work with yeast dough.

My family's traditional christmas bread is called schiaccia, or sometimes shiacciata. It's Tuscan, but is not florentine schiaccia which is like pizza, very flat. Despite its name, this is high and well-raised.

It's a sweet dough, with sugar and eggs and butter and milk. But when you scald the milk you put a tsp of anise seeds in for each loaf. It has lots of raisins too.
The flavor of the anise is very very delicate. To me it;s the smell of christmas breakfast - schiaccia toasting while the coffee brews.

[judyandjohn]

Ooh-could I get your recipe?I've read a lot about holiday breads containing anise.I'll have to give it a try in one of my breads.You're absolutely right about the pear in the yeast bread; I made a test loaf and it came out completely mushy and fell in the middle and I had to consequently toss it out.Then I thought about making a puree out of it and then incorporating it but nixed that idea so the pear in the yeast bread I think is out all together. (I live in one of the major pear capitals of the country and we are in abundance right now-oh well!So, sweet bread it is...)Anyway, I would love your recipe.Thank you for your input!

[grendlesmoder]

Ok, if you really want to put pear in a bread, i'd suggest you make a sweet dough, like a yeast coffeecake dough, and roll it out, put maybe cooked pears (with a little sugar? nutmeg? raisins) on a strip down the middle, then slice the sides in at parallel diagonals (like the painted stripes in some parking lots where the cars are angled) then put the strips criscrossed on top - sort of woven. It comes out like a braid looking thing.
Then the pears are not impeding the yeast dough from growing and making it heavy and all.

By the way, you might try pear jam. Use underripe pears, and boil the skins and cores separately to get all the pectin from them. It's quite nice, and unusual.

As for my recipe, i don;t use the one my mother used to make, it was too dry. It was only her eyeball equivalent of my grandmother's eyeball recipe. So i put together recipes i liked of sweet bread, and adapted.

1 envelope yeast proofed with a pinch of sugar in a little bit of water (1/8 cup?) - if you use cake yeast, make it the temp of a baby's bath, if you use dry yeast, make it warmer, like you would take a shower on a cold winter';s day.
2 cups milk, or 1 cup milk and 1 cup yoghurt or buttermilk (makes it exceptionally soft)
1 tsp or up to 2 anise seeds
3/4 cup sugar
4 yolks
2 1/2 tsp salt
7 cups flour
50 - 100 gms butter (1/4 to 1/2 cup) cold in slivers
raisins, a couple or three handfuls (or currants are also good)

Proof yeast in water and sugar
scald milk (not yoghurt or buttermilk) with the anise till bubbles form around the edge.
shut off, add sugar, yoghurt or buttermilk if you use it. Make sure it's just tepid or cool. If it;s hot, wait till it cools.
Put flour and salt in a bowl. add yeast, egg yolks and milk/sugar.
Knead until smooth and silky. Knead in butter in small slivers. (Not melting it is important for the texture and rise. If you knead it in cold or cool after having kneaded the dough, it seems to make the gluten "slide" more easily for a good rise. So i read and it makes sense.
Proof in bowl till it's about double, but check by poking with a wet finger. If it makes a hole it;s ready, if it bounces back and fills in, it;s not.
Detach from sides of bowl to release air and flatten gently (you don;t want to break the gluten by "punching down"./
rise again
turn out, top side down, on floured bowl. cut in two. flatten and fold flaps over all around to make a smaller circle and turn back over, smooth side up.
Rest 5 minutes covered with a cloth.
TYurn upside down again and press flat. Roll up in a cylinder, or fold down the top, fold in the sides slightly, and then fold up the bottom to make a cylinder. Put smooth side up in the greased loaf pan. (you can also make braids, or a big round loaf or whatever you like).
rise till double and do the finger test. (If it should rise too much and not leave a hole but collapse around the hole, go back and flatten and raise again or you will get cavernous dry bread. .
Brush with egg yolk for a nice shiny yellow glaze.
bake at 350 till it's nice and colored and tapping it it sounds hollow. Stick a skewer in and if it;s dry, it;s ready. Remove from oven and from pans, cool on racks.
This is wonderful toasted,a nd releases the gentle scent of anise again.

[judyandjohn]

Wonderful-I'm anxious to try this!Thank you so much again and I like the idea of making that braid you suggested. Well, I'm always learning by my experiments and mistakes!(I'm assuming in your recipe you incorporate the fruit in with the flour?)

[grendlesmoder]

Wonderful-I'm anxious to try this!Thank you so much again and I like the idea of making that braid you suggested. Well, I'm always learning by my experiments and mistakes!(I'm assuming in your recipe you incorporate the fruit in with the flour?)

Yes, i forgot to mention. Raisins in dough present a slight problem at times, especially if you're doing a difficult dough like 100% whole wheat dough which tends not to get the same rise - though this is not a problem in this bread. (In whole wheat dough, you want to care for your gluten very carefully, and not let it break by rough handling or by kneading in "objects" like seeds or raisins or nuts, which tend to cut the gluten. In those cases, i usually press them in when i flatten the dough the first time, fold them up inside, let it rest, and then form the loaf distributing them more. The problem here is that the raisns are kind of sitting in between layers of dough and when you cut the bread, they come out so i don;t recommend it in this bread).

In this bread, you can add them with the liquid ingredients at the beginning, which is the simplest. Though if you knead a long time, they can easily get smushed up and you don;t have nice, whole, plump raisins to bite into. So I usually add them halfway through the kneading process.

No need to "flour" them, because they won;t sink. Gluten sheaths are like little hammocks, the raisins won;t sink to the bottom, they will rest on the strands of gluten.

Because the butter is not melted into the dough, but added cold at the end, it never makes it a heavy dough and the final bread is light and soft, not dense and heavy. So i never had a problem with it rising, as you might with whole wheat bread. So go ahead and knead them in.

[ChefJune]

I generally make a lot of breads at holiday time, but I don't really improvise fruit in yeast breads. I make Panettone, Stollen, and Julekaker, all of which have candied fruit in them. I generally soak the candied fruit in rum or brandy for some time before using it, and then dry it off thoroughly and toss with a bit of the flour so it will incorporate better throughout the loaves. For fresh fruit, I'm sure I would make a quick bread.

[Bernhard]

To use pears in yeast breads you use dried pears cut into very small dice just like you would use raisins