Cooking with Herbs/Spices

Lesson 6: Breads

Classic Yeast Breads

Besides adding to the flavor of breads, herbs and spices add a wonderful aroma to bread baking – think of how the house smells with cinnamon raisin bread in the oven. Besides adding to flavor and aroma, herbs and spices can have other effects.

Shirley Colleher in her book, Cookwise, reports that some spices encourage activity in yeast. She specifically mentions ginger, caraway, cardamom, cloves, mace, nutmeg and thyme. Cinnamon, like salt, in small amounts (1/4 teaspoons/one cup of flour) will also enhance yeast production; but in larger amounts it, again like salt, will retard yeast. Another seasoning that retards yeast is dry mustard. A second effect that some herbs like fenugreek (an Indian spice often found in curry) and rosemary have on bread is to act as a preservative.

When thinking of combining herbs and spices with breads, one of the easiest approaches is to top the dough with seeds. Long before we learned how to use sesame seeds in Oriental dishes, we were introduced to them as the little white seeds which top a MacDonald’s hamburger bun.

To add seeds as a topping is simple – you can push them into the dough a little before baking. Alternatively, before the bread goes into the oven, brush the top with egg white which has been mixed with a little water. Not only will the seeds stick on, but the bread will develop a wonderfully golden brown color. Milk also works to enhance the bread’s color, but is not as good a glue for the seeds.

Next time you reach for the sesame seeds to top a loaf of bread, try some of these substitutes:

• Anise seeds for a licorice flavor
• Caraway seeds, classically paired with rye breads, but also good for hearty whole wheat
• Celery seeds, especially good on bread sticks that are going to be put into a vegetable dip
• Fennel seeds, also for a licorice taste
• Poppy seeds, especially on slight sweetened breads

But if you really like the taste, don’t stop at topping breads with seeds – blend them right into the dough. To really accentuate the flavor, use both whole seeds and ground seeds. Ground or powdered seed will disseminate the flavor more effectively through the dough.

To illustrate, here’s a recipe for dinner rolls from my Irish Mother-in-law, which I think actually are Swedish in origin. She got the recipe from her Mother who was raised by a Swedish family. These rolls combine caraway and raisin for a tasty combination, but you can eliminate the raisins if you want an entirely savory roll.

Caraway Rolls

• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 4 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
• 1 package dry yeast
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water, e.g. between 105 and 115 degrees
• 2 tablespoons caraway seed
• 1 tablespoon caraway powder
• 1 ½ cups raisins (optional)

Heat the milk in a medium saucepan over low heat. While the milk is heating, add 1 teaspoon of sugar, the salt, molasses, and shortening and stir until the sugar dissolves and the shortening melts. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the liquid to cool to lukewarm.

Warm the bowl of a standup mixer by rinsing it with hot water. Put in the yeast, the other teaspoon of sugar, and the warm water. Allow the yeast to proof for 5 minutes.

Add the milk and 3 cups of flour, and mix slowly for one minute. Add ½ cup more of flour, the caraway seeds, the caraway powder, and the raisins and mix about 2 minutes more. If the dough clings to the hook and cleans the side of the bowl, do not add more flour. Otherwise, add the rest of the flour. Process at a medium speed about 2 minutes more or until the dough is smooth and elastic – it will be slightly sticky.

Put the dough in a greased bowl, turning the dough around to get the grease all over the surface. Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let the dough rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until doubled. Turn the bread out of the bowl and divide the dough into twelve even portions; (I do this by weight). Form each of the pieces of dough into 12 balls and put the balls in a 10 inch round cake pan. You will need to squeeze them a bit to fit them in – they’re supposed to be pressing against each other. Recover the bowl with the damp towel and let the rolls rise for another hour.

About 20 minutes before the rolls are finished rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If you want the rolls to have a shiny color, combine an egg white with a teaspoon of water and brush this on top of the rolls. Bake the rolls for 45 minutes or until the top is shiny and the temperature in the center of one of the rolls is 200 degrees. When finished, turn the clump of rolls onto a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely. Tear each roll off as desired.

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