Bread fit for Zen monks, hippies old and young, and other living creatures
“A recipe doesn’t belong to anyone. Given to me, I give it to you. Only a guide, only a skeletal framework. You must fill in the flesh according to your nature and desire. Your life, your love will bring these words into full creation. This cannot be taught. You already know. So please cook, love, feel, create.”
In 1980 I was in my second semester of freshman English. My professor, Richard Morton, was having us read Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I had been struggling to write papers that ever got more than a C+ from Dr. Morton who was a notoriously tough grader. That’s when an idea hit me. I would bake a loaf of bread and write about it in the style of the first chapter of Walden. In this chapter, “Economy,” Thoreau goes into meticulous detail about how he built his famous cabin in the woods by the banks of Walden Pond near Concord, Mass. He even includes a list of materials that lists the price that he paid for nails.
I would do the same only for a loaf of bread instead of a cabin. Of course, I had never baked a loaf of bread before. But no matter, I could follow a recipe – if I could get one.
The Guilford College library did not have a bread cookbook and there were not many bread cookbooks on the market in 1980. Beard On Bread comes to mind. But the book that began the home bread baking revolution had been published ten years earlier and was still the go to for home bakers looking to get into bread: The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown, a Buddhist monk and communal baker at the Tassajara Zen Center in California, which gave the book and the bread its name. I found a new copy at the bookstore across the street from campus ($4.95) and with a $10 withdrawal from the Wachovia Bank ATM, I bought everything I needed to make the bread including all the ingredients and two loaf pans with money left over. (I documented the costs in my paper in homage to Thoreau.)
My all-male dorm didn’t have a proper kitchen, only the women’s dorms had those. So, I camped out in my friend Lindsey’s room making the bread in her dorm kitchen late into the evening and hiding out in her room during risings. Males weren’t allowed to be in female dorms after midnight so the whole operation had to be super stealthy. As luck would have it, Lindsey’s roommate had returned to campus that January only to immediately withdraw from the college. Lindsey had the room to herself, which meant there was no one to disturb as the baking project carried on to nearly 2 am. Lindsey was fast asleep when I packed up my pans and crossed back to my side of campus.
The bread was a success by which I mean it was edible. I made two loafs and gave one to Dr. Morton along with the paper (Lindsey and I split the other loaf.) I got a B+ on the paper, the best grade I had gotten from him to date though I was never sure if it was the writing or the bread that had earned the grade.
During the subsequent summers, I made Tassajara bread again and again. For many years, it was the only bread I made. The recipe calls for 100 percent whole wheat and it is sweetened with honey and enriched with butter or oil. It makes a pretty dense loaf but it is quite tasty especially fresh from the oven.
After graduation, I lived in Albany, N.Y. for about a year and during that time I worked in a retail shop six days a week. I had only Sunday’s off from work and I invariably made Tassajara bread on that day. I’d make two loafs every week, cut each in half, freeze the halves and defrost as needed. I lived mostly on sandwiches during this time and two loaves got me through the week. I never bought any commercial bread at all.
Later I moved on to fancier breads, bagels, challah, and the occasional sourdough but that copy of The Tassajara Bread Book with its stained, yellowed, and ragged pages has moved with me a dozen times. Last week, I got into my head to make a loaf for auld lang syne and I drew the tattered brown and orange volume from the shelf.
One hurdle was that I now bake by weight and the recipe is for volume measurements. I decided that as I baked the bread, I would convert the recipe to weight and then rewrite the recipe for you! So here it is. It tastes just as I remember it. Feel free to add a cup of raisins if you like (I used to always do that) and eat it with the best butter you can find. Kerrygold Grassfed Irish Butter is an excellent choice.
Tassajara Yeasted Bread by Ed Brown Updated for the Modern Baker (I’ve tested this; it works.). If you prefer the old school volume recipe — well the book is still for sale! It costs $18.61 now.
Makes Two Loaves
You’ll need:
850 grams of Whole Wheat Flour (any kind but I like King Arthur)
680 grams of warm water (it should feel warm but not hot on your wrist. 98F/37C. If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast, and you’ll end up with matzah). (note: the method I used for calculating the amount of flour was by taking the water volume in the original recipe (3 cups) and converting it to grams. Then I reverse calculated the amount of flour to arrive at an 80 percent hydration which seemed right for an all whole wheat dough. Actually the original recipe calls for 6 cups of water, but I cut the recipe in half years ago because four loaves of bread is a lot to bake at one time unless you’re feeding a monastery!)
17 grams of salt
8 grams of instant yeast (packet or jar)
75 grams of honey
50 grams of a neural vegetable oil
A cup of raisins (or as many as you want)
2 aluminum loaf pans
A kitchen scale that measures in grams
Place the water in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer and add the yeast.
add enough flour to make a thick batter the consistency of pancake batter.
Mix with a large spoon 100 strokes OR mix with your stand mixer until smooth.
Let rest for 15-30 minutes.
Add the honey, the oil, the rest of the flour and the salt, and the raisins if using. Mix with the mixer or by hand until you have a shaggy mass. Let rest for five minutes.
Now knead by hand or with your mixer for about five min. Rest for 10 minutes and knead again for five minutes. Repeat the knead and rest once more. The exact times aren’t that important.
The dough should be smooth and elastic. Sparingly add a little more flour if you need to prevent the dough from sticking to you fingers and the counter or kneading board. Form into a ball and place into a large bowl or (better) a Cambro until the dough is doubled in size. Gently push the air out of the dough and let it double again. This is often call “punching down the dough” but no need to get aggressive. No one likes someone who punches down.
Generously oil two bread loaf pans. Split the dough into two equal pieces (use the scale or just eyeball it.) Roll each dough into a tight smooth loaf the size of your loaf pans and place them into the pans pressing the dough into the corners.
Cover the loaves with a damp towel and allow them to rise for the final proofing. You want to see the dough cresting the tops of the pans. This will take 30 minutes to an hour depending on how warm the dough and your kitchen is. When you think the dough has maybe 20 minutes to go, pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F/190 C.
Optional: brush the tops of the loaves with a beaten egg and add seeds if you like. Poppy, sesame, or caraway. Slash each loaf with a couple of diagonal slashes using a lame or a serrated knife. This allows the loafs to “bloom” and expand in the oven during the first 15 minutes of cooking before the crust sets.
Place the loaves on the middle rack and immediate lower the temperature to 350F/175C.
Bake for 35-40 minutes until the loaves give a hollow sound when thumped or (more accurate) when an instant read thermometer registers 190-200F/90-95C.
Let them cool for 10 minutes then remove from the pans. Use a knife to loosen around the edges of the loaves if needed. Let cool completely before slicing. If you plan to slice and freeze. Let them sit overnight and slice the next day. They will be much easier to slice. Otherwise slather with butter, jam, honey, cream cheese, or Nutella and enjoy. I used to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich for breakfast and eat it strolling up Central Avenue on my way to work in the store.
Best bread ever? I give it a solid B+.
Oh and that roommate of Lindsey’s, who had so disliked Guilford that she had only stayed one semester, baked Tassajara bread with me the following summer and married me seven years later. She’s a hell of a good baker herself.
Did you have a copy of The Tassajara Bread Book? Share your memories below.
The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.