Bread Update

We have been enjoying freshly baked bread for several weeks. Once we received the oven and found the wheat flour in the store (exactly the same place as last year!) we were ready for action. I had the foresight to bring several round and rectangular foil pans from home. Last year we could not find any baking pans in the stores, and the bread always ended up sticking to the baking tray that slides into the little oven.

If you weren’t a blog follower last year, the “oven” is just an aluminum box, with a window in the front door equipped with a mechanical thermometer. Inside the box there are several brackets to hold pans and the rack at three heights. The bottom of the box features a round hole which allows the oven to fit right over the top of the gas stove (two burner propane fueled). You put the oven in place, sometimes it is stable, other times it needs a dish for extra support on a corner. Then you turn the stove on high and the flame leaps up into the oven, heating it to the proper temperature within a minute or so. Then you turn the stove on low and the temperature inside the oven remains pretty stable. I think the temperature inside the oven is about 350 but I’d really need a second thermometer to confirm what the thermometer on the door says.

The first few rounds of bread came out tasting good but the texture was trending more towards cake than bread. It was probably the combination of the type of flour and a bit too much oil that caused this. I was also experimenting to find the best way to ensure the bread releases from the pan after baking. I was using the rectangular loaf pans and this was an issue. Before I put in the dough, I was coating the pan with oil. That didn’t turn out to be much of a solution. We went to the market several times and I kept my eyes open for corn meal. There is corn flour, the equivalent of our corn starch, and there is ground corn, which is extremely coarse and is used as chicken feed. I asked if it was possible to mill this to a finer consistency and everyone agreed it was possible but nobody suggested where it could be done. So I’m still looking for corn meal.

In the meantime one of the market vendors brought something to us that looks like fine bread crumbs. Sort of like you’d use for a graham cracker crust for a pie. That’s what I’ve been using and it is better than the oil but not perfect.

When I switched to the flour type with the highest protein level it made a big difference. I also worked hard to stir more flour into the mix to make the consistency stiffer, like a real dough. It’s stiff enough to form it into round loaves by hand. I’ve made four or five variations of this version and the results are pretty consistent. It earned Craig’s endorsement during his visit, and Nancy and Jacob are eating it, and that’s the greatest confirmation I can get. I think it has a great consistency inside, though it is still pretty soft. I am still working on making the crust harder. I believe the oven doesn’t get hot enough to produce a really hard crust, but I’ll keep trying.

Though there is not a bread tradition here, with rice being the central staple of life. But bread is old in specialty bakeries and also in the general grocery stores. This bread is either the equivalent of Wonder bread in consistency and texture, or it is cake. The cake / bread always is very sweet and often includes some filling. Our favorite of course is the chocolate filled rolls, which are nice snacks.

Most of our Indonesian friends don’t understand why we eat bread that is so “harsh” and doesn’t include anything sweet, like chocolate. Some of our visitors have learned to appreciate my bread with strawberry jam slathered on top. But the bread texture is something new and different so I won’t be opening a French bread bakery in Siantar anytime soon. So Pastor Steve of St. John's, don't despair, I will be returning to bring you your traditional Sunday loaf of bread in just a few weeks!