Our cookbook of the week is Babette’s Bread by Babette Kourelos, a Saint-Lazare, Que.-based artisan baker and baking instructor.
Jump to the recipes:old-fashioned cottage loaf with spelt, koulouria (Greek sesame bread rings) and epi baguette.
Though Babette Kourelos’s parents named her after the French chef in the Danish story and film Babette’s Feast, she found a roundabout route to professional kitchens. Her baking career began with a rustic cottage loaf, one small round of dough sitting on top of a larger one.
“The shape was what really caught my eye and got me interested and intrigued and started on the journey,” says the author, artisan baker and baking instructor. “It’s basic, unpretentious and just good sustenance — and simple to make.”
It was 2011, and Kourelos was in her last two years of law school at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Baking became a much-needed creative outlet, and her stepfather, Kevin, suggested she try something other than cookies. When she made that first loaf of bread, Kourelos was hooked.
“Working with your hands, you’re producing something beautiful, and then you’re able to eat it at the end.” Besides being creative and rewarding, baking’s therapeutic qualities drew her in. “When you’re kneading or mixing the dough and watching it rise and giving it time, you’re actually reflecting on things in your day-to-day life and processing thoughts, ideas and next steps.”
After completing her law degree, bread orders poured in from friends, neighbours and acquaintances. Wanting to deepen her knowledge, Kourelos apprenticed with the late master baker Gérard Rubaud in Westford, Vermont. There, she learned you can’t rush the process, especially with sourdough, and beautiful food comes from focusing on simple ingredients.
“You have to let the dough do its thing. You have to monitor it. You have to learn to read with your instincts. You have to develop your senses, basically. You have to smell, you have to watch, you have to touch. And I think it teaches you to slow down, which is such a special thing in today’s time because everyone’s always rushing from one thing to the next.”
Upon returning to Johannesburg, baking from her mother’s house, Kourelos moved her bakery to a commercial kitchen. There, she supplied restaurants, coffee shops and delis and taught weekend workshops until 2020, when she and her husband, Vasili, moved to Vancouver as permanent residents.
In her cookbook debut, Babette’s Bread (TouchWood Editions, 2024), Kourelos features more than 60 recipes for everyday baking. Ranging from quick breads to sourdoughs and sweet loaves to rye and whole-grain, she drew on experiences from her Johannesburg bakery, home baking and teaching in the hopes of making it less intimidating.
“It doesn’t have to be this scary thing. Often, when I teach and people come to the classes, they’re terrified of yeast or have had bad experiences with yeast and say their breads never rise, or things go awfully wrong.
“If you’re shown once or twice or guided through the simple steps, it’s actually not such a complicated process. Then, you can become more confident in your skills and truly do it at home on a regular basis. So, I want to inspire people to bake for themselves and to make wholesome, good bread for them and their families.”
In Babette’s Bread, Kourelos features recipes that are meaningful to her and that she makes regularly. When she was 10, her family spent a year in Cologne, Germany, where she developed a taste for pretzel buns (laugenbrötchen), marzipan stollen and Berliner (jam doughnut). Canadian classics such as Montreal bagels also make an appearance, as do recipes from her native South Africa, such as her oumie’s (grandmother’s) buttermilk rusks, mosbolletjies (grape must buns) and kitke (challah).
“(I chose) breads that have made a mark on my bread journey and that I find personally are special and worth trying. They’re quite universal. Most people would recognize many of the breads in the book.”
After baking from a commissary kitchen and teaching bread classes in Vancouver, in August 2024, Kourelos, Vasili and their baby boy, John, moved to Saint-Lazare, Que. She’s found a space in nearby Vaudreuil-Dorion and plans to start teaching there later this year and, ultimately, baking and selling bread again.
“This isn’t the end of the story. This is still very much part of the journey, and it’s ongoing,” says Kourelos. “I think that’s what bread is like in general. You can’t ever bake the perfect bread. You can improve, learn, change and tweak something.”
Consumer law was one of Kourelos’s favourite subjects as a student. She sees her two specialties crossing over when it comes to wheat farming and milling. Things are not always as they seem with bread, and labels can be misleading. She mentions the Real Bread Campaign in the U.K., which has called out supermarket chains and industrial bakeries for misleading consumers with “sourfaux” bread labelled as sourdough.
“If you’re going to be creating an artisanal product, and you’re going to be marketing it as an artisanal product, it needs to be what you’re saying it is.”
Kourelos likes to teach not just the skill of bread baking but also what goes into the final product: the ingredients, what’s available and which questions to ask to gain insight into the entire process and make informed decisions.
“In Canada, there’s still a lot that we can do in terms of informing consumers and customers. But I don’t see it as a bad thing. I think it’s exciting that people are going to learn about this, and the more people learn to love good bread, the more they’ll be interested in where their flour comes from, how it was farmed, how it was milled, how to store it and what you can do with it.”
From coast to coast, locally milled flour is ripe for exploration. “There’s so much that you can go into — all the different flavours of ancient grains and different fermentation techniques. It’s fascinating.”
OLD-FASHIONED COTTAGE LOAF WITH SPELT
Makes: 1 loaf
415 g (3 1/3 cups) spelt or whole-wheat flour
85 g (2/3 cup) white bread or all-purpose flour
12 g (2 1/2 tsp) salt
7 g (2 1/4 tsp) instant yeast
280-285 g (1 1/8 cups) water (lukewarm)
45 g (1/4 cup) good-quality honey
40 g (3 tbsp) butter (melted)
Step 1
Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix briefly. Pour the lukewarm water, honey and melted butter (slightly cooled) over the flour mixture. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until no dry flour is visible. The dough will feel soft and sticky but not overly wet.
Step 2
Lightly dust your work surface with flour and knead the dough until it is smooth (5-10 minutes). Shape the dough into a ball, place it back in the bowl, cover it, and allow to rise for 1-2 hours, until it has doubled in size.
Step 3
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Step 4
Lightly flour your work surface and tip the dough out. Using a sharp knife or dough cutter, cut off 290 g of dough (approximately 1/3 of the dough). To shape the cottage loaf, first shape the larger piece of dough into a firm ball and place it on the prepared baking sheet. Shape the smaller piece of dough into a round. Lightly press down on both rounds to flatten them slightly. Carefully place the smaller round on top of the large round. Use your index finger or thumb to press a hole down the middle of the stacked pieces of dough — all the way down to the baking sheet. Cover the dough with a moist kitchen towel and allow it to rise in a warm place for 60-80 minutes.
Step 5
Preheat the oven to 375F (190C).
Step 6
Bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden brown. Remove the loaf from the oven and knock its bottom to check for doneness. It should sound hollow. Allow it to cool before slicing.
Note: If you prefer uniform slices, you may choose to bake this loaf in a bread pan, though you will lose the old-fashioned charm of the classic shape.
KOULOURIA
Greek Sesame Bread Rings
Makes: 8-10 sesame rings
500 g (4 cups) bread flour
5 g (1 tsp) instant yeast
7 g (1 1/4 tsp) fine sea salt
260-280 g (1-1 1/4 cup) cold water
30 g (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil
45 g (2 tbsp) honey
Toppings:
125 g petimezi/pekmezi (grape syrup) or honey diluted in 65 g of water
120-150 g sesame seeds
Step 1
Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the water, olive oil and honey and slowly start stirring the ingredients together. Work into a basic dough by kneading, folding and massaging the ingredients together. The dough should be firm but not dry. Cover and allow to rest for 1 hour. Return to the dough and give it a few stretches and folds (see note). Cover and place in the fridge overnight. (If you intend to make the koulouria the same day, allow for a minimum of 2-3 hours of bulk fermentation.)
Step 2
Remove the dough from the fridge and allow it to sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours.
Step 3
Gently tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide into 8-10 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a long rope about as thick as your index finger. Join (squeeze) the ends together and set aside until all the rings have been formed.
Step 4
Prepare a large baking sheet (or a few smaller baking sheets) by lining with parchment paper.
Step 5
Dilute the petimezi, pekmezi or honey in 65 g of water — a wide and shallow bowl works best. (Alternatively, use plain water.) One by one, dip the rings of dough into the liquid. Roll them in sesame seeds. Place the rings well apart on the prepared baking sheet(s). Allow the dough to rise for 30 minutes.
Step 6
Preheat the oven to 390F (200C).
Step 7
Bake the sesame rings for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack and be sure to eat at least one koulouri (one koulouri, many koulouria) while still hot from the oven and pretend that you are on holiday in Greece. Kalí órexi!
Note
Stretching and folding is done by gently pulling the dough from the side of the bowl upward and toward the centre of the bowl. Rotate the bowl as you continue to stretch and fold toward the centre.
EPI BAGUETTE
Wheat Stalk Baguette or Ear of Wheat Bread
Makes: 2 large epi baguettes
Day 1 (for the poolish):
75 g (1/2 cup) bread flour
75 g (1/3) cup water
Pinch of instant yeast
Day 2:
150 g (3/4 cup) poolish
500 g (4 cups) baguette flour or strong white bread flour (± 13 per cent protein)
285-340 g (1 1/4-1 3/8 cups) water
11 g (2 1/4 tsp) fine sea salt
3-4 g (1 level tsp) instant yeast
Step 1
Combine all the ingredients for the poolish in a jar and mix well. Cover and allow to ferment overnight. (If the poolish won’t be used for baking the next day, it can be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days.)
Step 2
After the poolish has fermented overnight (or longer), observe it. The fermentation should have brought about a multitude of small bubbles across its surface and it should smell fragrant and somewhat fruity. If you give the jar a gentle shake, the mixture will respond with a pleasing little jiggle.
Step 3
In a large bowl, combine the poolish with the remaining ingredients and mix for 5-10 minutes, until no dry flour is visible. Cover and set aside for 1 hour.
Step 4
Return to the dough and perform a series of stretches and folds (see note). The dough should feel elastic and strong. Cover and set aside for an additional hour.
Step 5
Tip the dough out onto a work surface lightly dusted with flour. Divide the risen baguette dough into 2-3 equal pieces and loosely pre-shape them into rounds. Cover the rounds and set aside for 15-25 minutes.
Step 6
Shape the baguettes by gently pulling the dough into oval/rectangular pieces (approximately 6-6 1/2 inches). Place one piece in front of you horizontally on the lightly floured countertop and fold the top half toward the centre as you would when folding a letter. Rotate the dough 180 degrees and fold toward the centre again. Continue folding and tightening the dough until it feels firm and somewhat compact (not loose or weak). To join the two folds of dough and create a seam, gently but firmly press the base/palm of your hand down on the edge of the folds, sealing them together. Continue pressing and sealing along the length of the dough until one long seam has been formed. (You will hear little bubbles popping as the folds of dough are sealed together.)
Step 7
Set out a couche (proofing cloth) or large piece of parchment paper. Turn the dough over so that the seam is facing down, under the dough. Start to roll (not drag!) the dough from the centre outwards. As you roll, the dough will become longer. Repeat with the other dough pieces.
Step 8
Once you are happy with the length of your baguettes (aim for about 12-15 inches), place the shaped loaves in the folds of the couche or parchment paper, folding the paper up like a drape to separate them. Cover and allow the baguettes to rise for 35-40 minutes.
Step 9
Preheat the oven to 470F (243C).
Step 10
Generously dust a sheet of parchment paper with flour and place the risen baguettes on it. Using a pair of clean kitchen scissors, cut into the dough at 45-degree angles. Start cutting at the base of the baguette and continue moving upward, making sure to only cut halfway or three quarters of the way through the dough. (Be careful not to sever the pieces entirely.) After each cut, lay the cut piece to the left and the next piece to the right, alternating as you make your way toward the top end of the baguette. (Make sure there is enough flour under the cut pieces so they do not stick to your fingers or the paper.) You can make the cuts as small or large as you like, depending on how many pieces you want.
Step 11
Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden and crispy, or a little longer, depending on your oven and personal crust preference.
Recipes by Babette Frances Kourelos from Babette’s Bread, copyright ©2024 by Babette Frances Kourelos. Recipes and images reprinted with permission of TouchWood Editions. touchwoodeditions.com
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