things wot i made then ate: black bean bread

Aw, my little pinches didn't hold and the dadgum bun popped open. They were solid pinches too.

The purpose is to use up some of the black bean dip made earlier. The dip has been sitting neglected in the refrigerator. I have no intention of using it as dip, and I'm tired of seeing it. Some fuzz started growing on it so I picked it off.

I wish the dip was actually black but it is not. The dip is brown. It contains bits of jalapeño and onion. I added Mexican oregano to the bread dough, which you might know to be stronger than Greek Oregano. Since the ratio of bean dip to wheat flour is about 1:4 to 1:5, the dough will be even lighter in color. I wanted black dough just for fun, but that isn't going to happen. I just hope it doesn't become an unattractive gray.

:-(

I had black bean dip in Mexico that was totally black, but the black beans I cook here never stay black. That makes me sad because the beans lose some color to the water that cooks them. Maybe that water should be reserved for its color. Hmmm. I do not know. The inside of the beans are white to tan so when the beans are all mashed up the result is brown and not black. Maybe those Mexican guys trick us with squid dye. There's a lot of squid around there, you know.

Whether black bean dip or black bean powder milled directly from dry black beans, the material is inert in the bread dough. That is, the material will not contribute to the wheat gluten matrix and it will be dead weight that must be lifted by the yeast active within the molecular web of attached gluten molecules, and sustained by the strength of that network. High protein bread flour would be better because more protein means more gluten to form such a web.

Not too much can be expected by mixing such a large quantity of inert material into the dough. The bread will not rise as an ordinary wheat loaf. But we know that yeast is not the only way to get air into bread. There is still the option of chemical leavening. If the ratio of bean powder or bean dip to wheat was greater, then chemical leaven would be the better option. Additionally, the beans will provide food for the yeast, so it has that going for it.

1 + 1/2 cup milk was heated beyond the tolerance of yeast. To that milk was added in the mixer 1 cold giant ~~pterodactyl egg~~ ~~ostrich egg~~ chicken egg, along with 4 heaping mountainously piled up heavy scoops of black bean dip that amounted to slightly over 1 cup.

Flour was sifted onto a flexible cutting surface 1 cup at a time and added to the liquid mixture incrementally. Only after all that, 1 level teaspoon dry active was added to the wet mixture while still wet and cool enough not to kill it. Lastly, well along with the flour additions and after the yeast had time to take hold, 1 +1/2 teaspoon flaky kosher salt was added. The mixture was whipped on high. Stopped. Sifted flour added by the partial cupful in repetitions until the dough pulled away from the sides of the bowl. The stickiness VS cohesiveness VS the solidness of the dough was checked repeatedly and flour added in careful increments until my higher self whispered across the Astral Plane to my lower consciousness that then allowed a thought-bubble to rise up to my brain's upper consciousness which relayed a message over the surface of my frontal lobe referenced as the spoken sentence in English, "STOP ADDING FLOUR YOU IDIOT!" Or maybe that was just me thinking it.

This bread is for a sandwich. See what a bloke has to go through around here just for a sandwich? Oh, yeah, I could buy your inferior tasteless unwholesome replication of bread. That would be easy. But then what would happen to me? Huh? I would be normal, that's what!