Homemade Tomato Soup & Open Faced Vegetable Melts (Plus: How to Bake with Yeast)

111 CommentsThursday • February 5, 2009 • by Ari

Those of you who live in areas that see a lot of snow will understand when I say that sometimes a 10 minute drive to the market for a loaf of bread is so not worth it. Like last week, when Connecticut was being covered in sheets of snow and freezing rain, and I realized I’d forgotten to buy a loaf of wheat bread for our soup and sandwich dinner plans. Doh! I had a pre-sliced loaf of Arnold’s bread on hand, but I wanted to make hearty, open-faced vegetable melts… and for that commercially produced bread just would not do. Melts called for the thicker texture and nuttier flavor of bakery bread, yet the prospect of braving the falling snow and ice was unappealing and potentially dangerous. What to do?

Rather than abandon our dinner plans I decided to make a light wheat bread from scratch. I mixed a bit of this and a bit of that, and a few hours later a fresh loaf emerged from my oven, all aromatic and ready to be made into the satisfying meal you see pictured above.

The benefits of being on friendly terms with yeast are innumerable, yet too often I find that folks shy away from working with these amazing microorganisms. “It’s too complicated,” one friend said while munching on a loaf of my Yeasted Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread, while another remarked later, “Who has the energy to bake bread?! I’d rather go to the grocery store.” I have to say that, while I understand where my friends are coming from, I can’t help but feel sad for them too. Why? Because their conceptions about working with yeast are so off-target that they’re missing the opportunity to make some incredible loaves of bread in their homes. Isn’t that sad? It is.

This post is for everyone who loves the ‘idea’ of making bread but feels a little hesitant about working with yeast. I hope that those of you who have already formed a fast friendship with this fabulous fungi will forgive me for talking about something you already know – for your benefit, I’ve included three recipes in this post.

Ari’s Super Simple Guide to Baking with Yeast

Yeast is a teeny-tiny microorganism that does three things: eat, multiply and produce CO2 and ethanol. CO2 is the gas that makes dough rise, while ethanol ultimately lends extra flavor to bread. This process is called fermentation and yeast needs warmth, moisture and food to do it. Create the right environment for your yeast and you will be rewarded:

• Warmth & Moisture: Yeast is a living organism, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that too much heat will kill it – and sabotage your baking endeavors. The hottest temperature that yeast can stand is around 140 degrees F, but it is happiest between 80 degrees to 98 degrees F. When I warm water or milk for use with yeast I test the liquid on the inside of my wrist, just as you would when testing formula for a baby’s bottle. Place a few drops on your wrist and if the liquid feels lukewarm to warm, then add the yeast and let the warmth revive it from its dormant state. If the liquid feels hot or very warm, then let it cool off a bit before adding the yeast. My rule of thumb: if the liquid is too warm to feed to a baby, it’ll probably kill the yeast.

  Since cool temperatures inhibit yeast, it also helps to have all of your ingredients at room temperature before you start mixing your dough.

  Warmth also comes into play once you’ve mixed your dough and are allowing it to rise. Yeast dough needs a warm place to rise – ideally someplace between 80 to 85 degrees F – so that the yeast can multiply and produce that helpful gas that will raise your dough. If your kitchen is cold you can always allow your dough to rise in an unheated oven. Simply place your dough in a slightly oiled bowl and cover it lightly with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel. Put the bowl on the upper rack of your oven and place a large bowl of hot water below it on the lower rack.

• Food: Yeast eats the sugars and complex carbohydrates found in flour. It uses the energy it gains from eating to rapidly multiply, and the by-product of this growth is ethanol – a kind of alcohol that gives raw dough its beerlike smell – and CO2, which is a gas. As the yeast produces more and more gas (a process Alton Brown likes to describe a burping) the CO2 slowly fills thousands of balloon-like bubbles in the dough. When you bake your bread the oven kills the yeast and burns off the alcohol while setting the porous texture of the dough.

Keeping these elements – warmth, moisture and food – in mind will help you create the ideal environment for your yeast. This is really the trick to easy baking. Mixing and kneading your dough does not require much effort, then the yeast will do the majority of the work for you by adding volume and flavor. All that’s left for you to do is shape the dough and pop it into the oven. Doughs high in sugar or fat, or filled with extras like nuts, will take longer to rise than other doughs – so don’t fret if you’re making a rich bread and it doesn’t rise as quickly as you expected.

There are different types of yeast used in bread making: regular active dry yeast, instant yeast (also called rapid-rise yeast) and fresh cake yeast. Bakers often favor one form of yeast over another, though they all work equally well if you know how to use them.

• Active dry yeast: Dry yeast can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one year but isn’t active until it’s dissolved in warm liquid. Activating your yeast is called “proofing” and is done by allowing the yeast to sit in warm liquid with a dash of sugar or flour until it takes on a slightly spongy appearance. In addition to activating the yeast, this process also verifies that the yeast is still good – which it generally is if the expiration date hasn’t passed. Active dry yeast is sold in 0.25 ounce packages, 4-ounce jars and in bulk at some natural food stores. The most common brand is Fleischmann’s Active Dry Yeast, which is what I use 99.9% of the time. Why? Because it’s easy to find at the grocery store and is great for those impromptu baking sprees.
• Instant yeast: This is a European strain dried in small batches until it has very little moisture. It is coated with ascorbic acid and a form of sugar that allows it to activate immediately upon contact with a warm liquid, so it doesn’t need to be proofed. Instant yeast has three times as many yeast cells as active dry yeast, so you can use 25% less instant yeast in a recipe that calls for active dry. It is usually sold in 1lb bags and should be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Although instant yeast is sometimes called “rapid rise,” master baker Peter Reinhart notes that it is actually slower to awaken than active dry yeast, but that it only requires one rise. He prefers this yeast to others as does Susan of Wild Yeast. You can order it online or, as Sandy points out, Fleischmann’s sells it as Rapid Rise Yeast. Still, I’m a creature of habit and generally use the active dry variety.
• Fresh cake yeast: This kind of yeast is sold in 0.06 ounce cubes, 2-ounce cakes and 1lb blocks. It is highly perishable because of its high moisture content and will go bad in about 2 weeks. There are smaller cakes sold in some supermarkets that have been stabilized with starch for a longer shelf life, but this tends to decrease their overall potency. When cake yeast is fresh, it is tan-gray in color with no discolorations and breaks with a clean edge. It should be refrigerated and wrapped in plastic. I do not use this form of yeast because its difficult to find and doesn’t last long enough to make it worth my time to search for it. That’s just my opinion though.

Most of the recipes on Baking and Books use active dry yeast because that is the kind I like using best, though little by little I’m starting to use instant yeast more often. Any form of yeast can be used so long as you make the proper adjustments (i.e. the differing amounts for active dry vs. instant yeast). Everyone has their own preferences and the best way to discover yours is to start baking. Here are a few of my favorite yeasted bread recipes to get you started:

• Sugared Monkey Bread
• Honey-Vanilla Challah
• Apple-Honey Challah
• Pulla
• Autumn Apple Bread
• Yeasted Chocolate-Chip Pumpkin Bread
• Chocolate-Cranberry Sweet Buns

Also, below is a recipe for Peter Reinhart’s “Light Wheat Bread” from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. It is very easy to make and would be a great loaf to start with if you want to venture into the realm of yeast baking and are interested in taking a savory, rather than sweet, route. As you can see in the photo at the beginning of this post, I made this bread into open-faced vegetable melts with zucchini, sliced onions, thyme and a bit of mozzarella and provolone cheese. I served it with a quick, homemade tomato soup that takes about 25 minutes from start to finish. Delicious.

Before the recipes, I wanted to share a bit of bloggy news with you: I got a video camera! Fingers crossed, how-to videos featuring yours truly will soon be showing up in posts. Also, check out my recent interview on MaTweeps!

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Don’t forget about the monthly book giveaway! January’s winners have been posted on the giveaway page. February’s book giveaway includes one copy of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart. It is, in my opinion, one of the best bread books out there.

Light Whole Wheat Bread
From The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart. The loaf in the pan, pictured above, is this bread.

Ingredients: Makes 1 loaf

• 2 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar or honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons powdered milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast (I used 2 teaspoons active dry yeast)
• 2 tablespoons shortening or unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups water, at room temperature

Stir together the bread flour, whole-wheat flour, sugar (if using), salt, powdered milk, and yeast in a 4 quart mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the shortening, honey (if using) and water. Stir (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment) until the ingredients form a ball. If there is still flour on the bottom of the bowl, dribble in additional water. The dough should feel soft and supple. It is better for it to be a little too soft than to be too stiff and tough.

Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading (or mix on medium speed with a dough hook). Add more flour if needed to make a firm, supple dough that is slightly tacky but not sticky. Kneading should take about 10 minutes (6 minutes by machine).

Lightly oil a large bowl (I used olive oil for this) and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Allow to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

Remove the dough form the bowl and press it by hand into a rectangle about 3/4 inches thick, 6 inches wide and 8 to 10 inches long. Working from the short side of the dough, roll up the length of the dough one section at a time, pinching the crease with each rotation. Pinch the final seam closed with the back edge of your hand or with your thumbs. Rock the loaf to even it out, do not taper the ends. Place the loaf in a lightly oiled loaf pan. The ends of the loaf should touch the ends of the pan to ensure an even rise. (View an illustration of this procedure here. Scroll up a bit to view Page 81). Mist the top of the dough with spray oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap.

Allow to rise at room temperature for approximately 90 minutes, or until the dough crests about the lip of the pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

Bake for 30 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and continue baking for an additional 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the oven. The finished loaf should be golden brown on the top and the sides, and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

When the bread is finished baking, remove it immediately from the loaf pan and cool it on a rack for at least 1 hour before serving.

Open Faced Vegetable Melt (My Recipe)

Ingredients: Makes 4 melts

• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
• 1/2 cup zucchini, halved lengthwise, then sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup seeded, coarsely chopped tomato. Unpeeled.
• 1/4 teaspoon dry thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup shredded provolone cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
• 4 slices of thick, light wheat bread

Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onion, zucchini and garlic and saute about 5 minutes, until tender. Add the chopped tomato and thyme, cook an additional 1-2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of cheese on each slice of bread, then top with the vegetable mix. Top the veggies with 2 tablespoons of cheese. Place the melts on a baking tray, then melt the cheese under your oven’s broiler. Keep an eye on the melts because broilers get very hot and you don’t want the cheese to burn. Once the cheese is melted, remove melts from the oven. Serve immediately.

Homemade Tomato Soup (My Recipe)

Ingredients: Makes about 6 servings

• 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced
• 3 cups canned crushed tomato (1 28 oz can)
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon dry thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dry rosemary
• Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large, deep soup pot or dutch oven over medium heat. When heated, add the tomato paste and let it cook for about 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Season with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.

Add the crushed tomato, vegetable broth, thyme and rosemary. Bring soup to a boil, stir, then cover and let cook for 15 minutes over medium-low heat.

Stir the soup again, then blend using an immersion blender (ideal) or an stand blender. If you use a stand blender, don’t close the lid completely because the heat from the soup will create a lot of pressure in the blender and cause the soup to explode. Rather, leave a small opening for the heat to escape and hold the lid with your hand. Puree the soup in bursts to prevent the pressure from building up.

Taste the soup, adding salt or pepper if needed. If the soup is too thick you can add some extra vegetable stock put it back on the stove until heated through.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

• How to Make Pita Bread in the Desert
• (Vegetarian) Whole Wheat Chorizo-Onion Bread
• Creamy Carrot Potato Soup
• Yeasted Chocolate-Chip Pumpkin Bread
• How To Grow Culinary Herbs and Plants (Without a Yard)
• Homemade Buttermilk Pretzels
• Cinnamon Pan Dulce (Mexican Morning Buns)
• Tomato & Goat Cheese Strata

Posted in: Balanced Eating, How To, My Recipes, Quick & Easy, Savory Recipes

Tagged with: bread, Breads Made With Yeast, how to bake with yeast, how to use yeast, whole wheat