It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that I decided to join the Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge, and breathlessly announced my plans for “a year in bread.” The first recipe, mercifully, was simple and turned out perfectly, and I thought I was hooked on the yeasty aroma and feeling of accomplishment on pulling a perfectly risen, lightly browned loaf of home made bread out of the oven. And then summer came…. and suddenly it was over, gone in a haze of rain, farmers markets, travels and all that other summer chaos that seems to amplify once you have children. (And I only have one!)

So then here we were at the Jewish holidays, and time to dip apples and challah in honey and I hadn’t even made it through the B’s yet — BBA’s recipes are in alphabetical order – so I skipped ahead, so to speak, and made my first loaf of Challah for our slightly belated, semi-homemade (hello Whole Foods prepared holiday food bar) Rosh Hashanah supper.  Ah well, it was a start back onto the bread baking trail, and now that the weather is turning cooler I hope to resume a pace a little more frequent than once every three months….

I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m the non-Jewish spouse in our family, so I’m still learning the holiday traditions.* Thankfully Peter notes in his book that it’s customary to double the sugar and shape the Challah into a round loaf for Rosh Hashanah, both of which I did. For some reason I decided to braid my dough first and then wrap it into an awkward round; apparently, there is an easier way to make a braided round loaf that doesn’t come out quite so lopsided. It tasted good, if a little less eggy than I anticipated. I blame the store-bought eggs, as we were unexpectedly out of our farmers market eggs. It was also rather bubbly, probably because I didn’t de-gas enough as I kneaded. But overall I’d deem it another success.

*It’s not just because I’m new to this that I made a reference to Yom Kippur, which is today, in my title and then went on to tell you about our Rosh Hashanah meal …. that’s my clever way of making up for not posting this before my jaunt to San Francisco, and stalling for time to tell you all about my 48 hours in the lovely foodie-haven by the Bay. Stay tuned…

The second bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice (BBA) challenge was Artos, a Greek celebration bread typically enjoyed for Christmas or Easter. While I added the fruits found in the Christmas version, I stuck with the basic Artos shape rather than adding the decorative cross design.

The recipe begins with a starter, either a barm or a poolish. I chose the poolish as it was the simplest of the two, and I’d never made either before! The poolish is simply yeast, flour and water allowed to ferment for several hours. You then refrigerate it overnight and then are supposed to pull it out of the fridge an hour before mixing the rest of the bread’s ingredients. I took it out Memorial Day morning thinking I would mix it up before brunch, but of course that didn’t happen. When I returned five hours later (brunch was followed by playground and errands), it had exploded through its plastic wrap, over the top of its jar and oozed all over the place. After scraping off the crusty top, there was just about a cup left in the bottom of the jar which was precisely the amount needed for the bread.

Artos had a pretty long ingredient list, including a number of spices and extracts. I used cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg (no ground cloves). After mixing the dry ingredients, I plopped my gooey poolish-monster into the bowl….

… and added the beaten eggs, warm milk and almond extract. I had neither fresh citrus nor extract, so had to do without that. I mixed it in my Kitchen Aid again, but it was so sticky that I sprinkled an extra tablespoon of flour around the sides of the bowl so it would fully pull away from the bowl to knead. I added the organic dried cranberries and sultana raisins for the last two minutes of mixing.

After kneading, the dough went into an oiled bowl and was left to rise for 90 minutes …

Yep, more than doubled. I shaped it into a round boule and left it on the baking sheet for another 60 minutes. I was a little concerned that it rose outward at that point, rather than up, but went ahead and put it in the oven after 70 minutes as other BBAers had commented about humongous loaves.

Sure enough, 43 minutes later this fragrant beauty emerged from the oven … loved the cinnamon fragrance while it baked! And it was a moist, delicious bread.

• Note: I haven’t used spray oils in years, but after slathering oil on the Anadama dough by hand I decided I should pay attention to Mr. Reinhart’s instructions. I was happy to find spray grapeseed oil at my organic grocer. They also had organic olive oil spray but the grapeseed was recommended for baking.
• N.2. My bread shrunk a little while cooling, leaving a few wrinkles in the crust. (Any baking gurus out there know why?)
• N.3.: I hate to take a bye week so early in the challenge, but we’ll be traveling next week so bagels will be posted the following week, along with bread #4. Come back and see what’s baking!

You can see a (lovely) authentically-shaped Christopsomos loaf at Appoggiatura; or check out the enormous braided version by the Engineer Baker. And be sure to visit the BBA homepage at Pinch My Salt to check out other’s successes, failures and advice as we bake our way through The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

One of my personal goals for the year was to conquer my long-standing fear of baking with yeast to make my own bread. We almost never eat grocery store bread, but we do rely quite heavily on our local bakeries and market vendors. And unlike the farm-fresh produce at the market, the baked goods aren’t always up to my organic/GMO-free standards. So when a favorite foodblogger of mine, Nicole of Pinch My Salt, posted a note on Twitter that she was thinking of cooking her way through Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice, it seemed like the perfect time to jump on the “bake your own” bandwagon. Apparently, more than a few other home cooks and bloggers had the same thought, as the list of participants is now 200 people strong! I’ll be making one bread a week (give or take), and you can follow along on the group site if you want to see others’ experiences with the same recipes. (Or follow #BBA on Twitter and see photos at Flickr.)

The first bread, Anadama, is a rustic New England recipe with cornmeal and molasses. The boy ate two slices for dessert tonight, so I think that’s a good sign.

My notes:

• I used dark (unsulphured organic) molasses, which gave the bread a rich, dark brown color; and my local cornmeal (Wye Mill, MD).
• Kneaded in the KitchenAid for 8 minutes.
• Didn’t shape the loaves evenly (need to re-read the shaping instructions before doing it) so they came out slightly lopsided.
• Grilled cheese: I’m envisioning white cheddar and pear on Anadama in the fall … so far we’ve just eaten it warm with farm-fresh butter.

Overall, this was a pretty simple recipe and tasted delicious. Here’s hoping future experiments go as smoothly!

Shared with Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop – check it out for more real food inspiration!