Bread

It won’t take you long to do the actual preparation for this aromatic bread. During its resting and baking times, you can take a walk, fix dinner, or just relax.

Get back to basics, and take pleasure in baking your own nourishing bread.

Banana, cranberries, and orange zest give this bread a lively flavor that will get your day off to just the right start.

Adding fresh apple gives this gingerbread a deep sweetness.

Focaccia can be either savory or sweet. Topped with grapes, figs, and candied orange peel, it’s a great breakfast or brunch bread. This is one of the favorites from my cooking classes. You can substitute the grapes and figs with other fresh fruit such as strawberries and peaches. Keep the toppings light; don’t overload the focaccia.

This is a very simple bread to make either at the campsite or at home. it requires no kneading, and is baked in a Dutch oven or clay baker. This bread’s flavor is developed through extended fermentation.

Jerry Traunfeld was the executive chef for many years at the HerbFarm in Woodinville, Washington, near seattle and now owns Seattle’s Poppy Restaurant. Jerry’s finely tuned palate served him well in the development of an expansive herb-focused menu at the award-winning restaurant. Jerry’s version of naan, a simple flatbread from India by way of Afghanistan, was created for this book. Filled with a combination of flavor-packed herbs and richly flavored cashews, it’s wonderful!

Peter Reinhart is a well-known cookbook author; his Crust and Crumb, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and Whole Grain Breads have been graced with prestigious awards. At Ramekins, where he occasionally teaches bread classes, Peter and I baked bread and pizzas together in the wood-fired oven after his last class. This recipe came from his The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. It is an amazing formula that can be turned into baguettes, ciabatta, focaccia, and pizza. That baking session was about a lot more than the recipe. It was about the primary message of this book: joyfully cooking and sharing with others at the fire.

These stuffed flatbreads are shaped much like meat-filled galettes. Lamb is the meat of choice in many Mediterranean cuisines, and here it is combined with other key ingredients of the region—eggplant and pomegranate—along with the warm aromatics often used in Turkish cuisine.

Though pita bread is made throughout the Middle East, we have come to identify it with Greece. When baking, it puffs up like a small balloon and then deflates when removed from the oven. This version has a bit of whole-wheat flour in it for extra nuttiness and added flavor. Make a batch or two ahead and freeze some to use later; these pita reheat easily. Try these filled with strips of roasted Mustard and Lemon Chicken (page 92) and topped with a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Coca is the Spanish version of pizza. Here, it is spread with my Smoky Romesco Sauce, a basic in the Spanish pantry. When topped with green onions, roasted potatoes, and sliced hard-cooked eggs, it is an edible canvas of the sunny colors and flavors of this part of the Mediterranean.

This multilayered flatbread is made by spreading the dough with the filling, then folding, rolling, and cooking quickly on both sides on a hot cast-iron griddle or stone. I love to serve them as an appetizer and often add a bit of salty crumbled cheese such as sheep’s milk feta to the filling.

Tim Decker and his wife, Crystal, are the owners of Bennett valley Bakery in Sonoma County. A former apprentice of Peter Reinhart’s, Tim makes artisan breads with a beautifully browned crust by baking them in a wood-fired oven at unusually high temperatures. You can also make this bread successfully in a conventional oven, with the heat as high as it will go.

Focaccia is one of the easiest flatbreads to make: No shaping is needed because the dough is stretched and spread out in the sheet pan. This recipe uses a very wet dough, resulting in a moist flatbread about 3/4 inch thick. You can substitute shavings of Parmesan for the ricotta salata cheese, if you like. Focaccia is best eaten the day it is baked.

It’s not always easy to find good sandwich bread, and when I need just one loaf I enjoy using the bread machine. I don’t bake it in the machine, because I don’t like the look of the loaf, but it’s neat and easy for mixing and rising. Here’s my formula, made in any standard-size machine.

Other than a soft bun or white bread, cornbread is the choice for barbecue. Min has been making it so long she only uses the recipe in her head. After years of working with the test kitchen staff of Martha White, the historic Nashville flour and cornmeal company, and writing the live radio commercials for Martha White’s Friday night segment of the Grand Ole Opry, who needs a recipe? The key, of course, is self-rising cornmeal mix. Southerners prefer white cornmeal (made with white corn) to yellow. So do Rhode Islanders, as R. B. likes to point out, where the native white corn johnnycakes are as ancient as their close cousins, Southern hot water hoecakes. Either way, white and yellow are interchangeable and basically a regional preference, like white and brown eggs. Don’t get hung up on color. For cornbread, it’s all about crust and batter. First, the best crust comes only from a well-seasoned black iron skillet preheated with bacon drippings or oil. When the batter hits the pan, POW! It sizzles. Second, the batter must be creamy and pourable. If your batter is thick and dense, add more liquid, because you want the batter to slide to the edges of the pan with ease. Cornmeal absorbs quite a lot of liquid, and even a shot of water can loosen things up. Get the feel of good cornbread batter, and crumbly, dry cornbread will be a thing of the past. Now, about the balance of outside crust to inside moisture. For Min, the finest cornbread is an inch thick and a mile wide. Most 2-cup recipes baked in an 8- or 10-inch skillet are just too tall, denying the cornbread its rightful ratio of crust. Min uses about 1 1/2 cups of cornmeal mix for a 12-inch skillet and only about a cup for a 10-inch. Sugar is also an issue that divides cornbread camps. The most common cornbread recipes and mixes are often half flour and half cornmeal, with a heavy dose of sweetness. We’re in the other camp, using very little sugar (or none at all) in skillet cornbread. It’s just a matter of taste. If you live in the land of self-rising cornmeal mix, get acquainted with it and use it to replace the plain cornmeal, flour, leavening, and salt. It’s the best way to go. If not, and you don’t have a relative to send you some, give this a try. Always serve cornbread flipped out of the pan with the beautiful browned crust faceup. Whatever you do, invest in a good cast-iron skillet. It will bring your family generations of top-notch cornbread.

Corn Light Bread, a favorite barbecue side in middle Tennessee, breaks all the Southern cornbread rules. It’s loaded with flour and sugar and it’s baked in a loaf pan. Why sweet cornbread with barbecue? Our guess is that sweet-sauced barbecue calls for a sweeter bread, just like the customary pairing of a sweet wine with a sweet dessert. Anything not sweet enough just tastes sour. Judging how most of the country prefers sweet cornbread, this may be the one that tastes the most like home.

Loaded Cornbread is the cornbread for a crowd and essential for a big barbecue. Dense and moist with Cheddar cheese, cream-style corn, and buttermilk, it can be baked in advance and cut into neat squares. Unlike traditional skillet cornbread that’s best eaten hot out of the oven, Loaded Cornbread travels well and tastes fine at room temperature. The jalapeños are up to you. Substitute a chopped fresh mild green chile or even a can of them. The other substitution is yogurt for buttermilk. Again, if the batter seems too thick, add a little water.