Days-old bread is useful in many ways, even if you wouldn't want to make sandwiches out of it. If the bread is light, it can become bread pudding-savory and cheesy or sweet and custardy-or croutons, to add crunch to soup or salad. Dense, heavy bread can disappoint in bread pudding or as croutons, but works fine made into crumbs. Once they are dried thoroughly, crumbs and croutons will keep a long time stored airtight in the refrigerator.

Bread Pudding Probably the most popular way to use up stale bread, at least with the younger set, is in bread pudding. In general, it is most delectable when made with light and airy breads, but if you give the heavy ones time to soak up the goodies-at least an hour, better two-they can work too, especially in the savory versions. Keep in mind that there is a lot more bread in a cup of heavy bread cubes than in a cup of light ones; sometimes, twice as much. The light bread will soak up a lot more of the custard. With a heavy bread, check the pudding about halfway through the bake, and if the bread is floating on the top of partially set custard, take a big spoon and give it a righteous stir.

After a light meal, a sweet bread pudding makes a substantial and nourishing dessert, and no apologies. Savory puddings can be just as delicious; taking the place of a grain ca.s.serole, for example, they make a hearty foil for green vegetables, soup and salad.

Sweet Bread Pudding - 4 slices of light bread, b.u.t.tered and cubed - 2 cups of warm milk - 2 eggs, slightly beaten - to cup honey or other sweetener The recipe in Laurel's Kitchen Laurel's Kitchen is still the best we have come across, but here is a much simpler one that you can vary endlessly with raisins, cinnamon, fruit, nuts; top with toasted coconut, cinnamon, date sugar, or what have you! Use plain or somewhat sweet bread. is still the best we have come across, but here is a much simpler one that you can vary endlessly with raisins, cinnamon, fruit, nuts; top with toasted coconut, cinnamon, date sugar, or what have you! Use plain or somewhat sweet bread.

Put the bread in a baking dish. Mix the milk, eggs, and sweetener and pour over the bread. Bake at about 325F an hour, or until brown.

Simple Cheesy Bread Pudding - 1 tablespoon b.u.t.ter - 4 cups of cubed light bread (about 4 slices, to inch thick) - 2 cups warm milk - 1 egg, slightly beaten - to cup grated sharp cheese This is a standby for us. Vary it as you like to suit the rest of the menu, and the mood of the bread that wants using. (Sweet or fruity breads aren't well suited to this recipe.) Bear in mind that the bread "slices" we use are good hefty ones. If you've got really thin slices left over, you'll need more.

Use part of the b.u.t.ter to grease an 8 8 inch pan and put the bread cubes into it. Mix the milk, egg and cheese and pour them over the bread. Dot with the remaining b.u.t.ter. Bake in a moderate oven, about 350F, until the custard is set and the top nicely brown. 8 inch pan and put the bread cubes into it. Mix the milk, egg and cheese and pour them over the bread. Dot with the remaining b.u.t.ter. Bake in a moderate oven, about 350F, until the custard is set and the top nicely brown.

Let it cool before you eat because it is incredibly hot when it comes out of the oven.

FANCIES.

Sesame bread is wonderful in this dish, using cheddar cheese-top it with a tablespoon of toasted seeds.

Rye bread, especially sourdough, is particularly good with an aged Swiss cheese. Add a sauteed onion and a half cup of chopped celery for a delicious ca.s.serole.

Croutons The best croutons come from bread that is airy and not too sweet-light sourdoughs are superb.

For croutons in a hurry, toast bread slices in a toaster, b.u.t.ter them, and cut into cubes. Croutons made in this way will be soft in the middle and are not meant for storing but for eating up right away.

To make plain croutons that will keep a long time, cut bread into - to 1-inch cubes, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off the crust if you think it is necessary. Spread the cubes on a shallow pan and keep an eye on them while they bake very slowly until they become 100 percent crunchy. (Chomp on one: no other way to be sure that I know of.) If the bread contains milk or much sweetener, take care when toasting it to prevent its getting too brown. Cool thoroughly and store airtight.

Just plain, good crunchy croutons add extra interest to soups or salads. Or you can flavor them either before or after the toasting, to complement whatever you will serve them with. The traditional method uses considerable fat: either spread slices of bread with herbed b.u.t.ter, cube, and toast in oven or skillet; or toast already cubed bread in a skillet with herbs and olive oil or garlic and b.u.t.ter or whatever suits. Usually a little extra salt is welcome, but keep a light hand.

Whether the bread is already cut and toasted or not, you can flavor it using a whole lot less fat, sometimes none at all. Select savory flavorings: sauteed onion, garlic; herbs like celery leaves, parsley, thyme, or dill weed; salt, soy sauce, lemon juice or peel-to mention just a few possibilities. Blend the seasonings with a compatible liquid-water, broth, milk, tomato juice, whatever, allowing about half a cup of the flavoring brew per quart of croutons (four slices of a normal-sized loaf). Toss the cubed bread with the liquid and put into the oven until crisp.

Stuffing - 1 medium onion, chopped - cup oil - 2 stalks celery, chopped (about 1 cup) - 1 teaspoon basil - teaspoon salt (reduce or omit if salted stock is used) - teaspoon oregano - teaspoon thyme - teaspoon sage - shake of pepper - cup water or vegetable stock - 4 cups whole-grain bread cubes - cup pecans, optional What does a vegetarian stuff? Why, tomatoes, green peppers, oversized zucchinis, winter squash-or, with this delicious dish, simply oneself and one's friends.

Saute the onion in the oil and add the celery and herbs, cooking until the celery is crispy-tender. Add the water or stock, then the bread, stirring to be sure it is evenly moistened. When hot through, add the pecans if desired.

Serve at once, or bake to make a crispy top. Serves about four people as a hearty grain dish at lunch or dinner.

Crumbs Truly heavy bricks don't make the best bread pudding or croutons, but grated into crumbs, then tossed in a skillet with olive oil, garlic, and herbs, and toasted crisp, they find honorable service atop ca.s.seroles or stirred into steamed sliced carrots or broccoli chunks. Toasted b.u.t.tery rather than garlicky, crumbs function nicely in fruit betty, too; or use them plain or flavored to coat patties, to top stuffed tomatoes or peppers, or to make a crumb crust. More good ideas follow, and there is no need to limit your crumbing to heavy breads. The lightest ones are delectable, needless to say.

There may be as many ways to make bread into crumbs as there are cooks to make them. If the bread is not sliced and is dry or firm, it is easy to grate it on a normal food/vegetable grater, using whatever size grate works best. Keep your touch light, especially if the bread is a little moist. When you are doing a whole loaf's worth, it is a big help to have a bowl that fits comfortably under the grater; otherwise, use a sheet of waxed paper or a chopping board, and turn the crumbs into a bowl as you work.

Maybe the easiest way, and surely the noisiest, is to make the crumbs in the blender or food processor. Follow the manufacturer's directions. Usually, cut the bread into chunks about 1 -inch maximum; put in just enough to cover the blades, plus a little. Turn the machine on for a few seconds, then check. Repeat as needed. Between blendings Between blendings, stir the crumbs with the handle of a wooden spoon to keep them from packing under the blades. This method works even if the bread is quite fresh.

Herbed Crumb m.u.f.fins - 1 cups whole wheat flour - teaspoon salt - 2 teaspoons baking powder - 1 cup whole-grain bread crumbs - 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese - 3 tablespoons oil - 1 tablespoon honey - 1 egg - 2 tablespoons chopped chives OR OR - minced raw or sauteed onions - 3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley - 1 cup milk Hearty but not heavy, these make a satisfying accompaniment to soup and salad.

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir in the bread crumbs and cheese.

Combine oil, honey, egg, onion, parsley, and milk, stirring to dissolve the honey.

Add the dry ingredients to the liquids, mixing just enough to moisten them. Spoon into greased m.u.f.fin tins and bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Makes 12.

Crumby Greens - 1 leek or a medium onion, chopped - cup oil - -inch slice of fresh ginger, minced fine - cups fresh greens, cooked and very well drained - 1 cup lightly toasted crumbs salt and pepper to taste A delicious way to use garden greens, whether you serve as is, stuff into tomatoes or steamed ripe bell peppers, or bake in patties.

Saute the leek or onion in the oil until soft. Remove from heat, and stir in the remaining ingedients. If you're baking these, form 6 small patties, roll in more crumbs, and bake in a greased pan at 350F until the crumbs on top are nicely browned.

This recipe is a happening: add whatever sweet vegetables are in season. These are good: fresh corn off the cob, diced red bell pepper, chopped coriander leaves.

Crumb Pancakes - 1 cup bread crumbs (not dried) - 1 tablespoon sweetener, OR OR - whatever flavoring seems right - 1 cup b.u.t.termilk - cup whole wheat flour, scant - teaspoon soda - 1 large or 2 small eggs, slightly beaten These are very flavorful, and if the crumbs are made from light bread, the pancakes are at least as light as normal ones. If you have rye bread crumbs, serve the pancakes with yogurt and applesauce: wow!

The taste, the texture, and especially the sweetness of the bread you use will make them different every time, so vary the amount of the added sweetener as seems appropriate to you.

Soak the crumbs and flavoring in the milk for several hours. Sift together the flour and soda. Add these and the eggs to the bread crumb mixture and drop like pancakes on a hot, seasoned griddle. Makes 6 to 8.

Tykmaelk This simple and satisfying dish could be breakfast or lunch or a midnight snack. It is presented as fondly remembered from a year in Copenhagen, where it is a specialty at the famous Strawberry Cellar restaurant.

ELEGANT VERSION, QUITE AUTHENTIC.

Choose large shallow soup bowls that hold about 1 cups. Heat enough rich, unh.o.m.ogenized milk to fill them, warming it slowly so that it is gradually reduced in volume by onefourth. Cool to 120F. Stir in fresh yogurt, about a teaspoonful per bowl, and pour the inoculated milk into the bowls. Keep them at about 90 to 100F for 3 to 4 hours, or until set. The result should be softer than regular yogurt, and less sour. There will be a delicate creamy-yellow skin on the top. Chill.

Over each bowl of cultured milk, sprinkle about inch of crunchy-chewy sourdough rye bread crumbs.

Serve with a small bowl of coa.r.s.e brown sugar, which is to be sprinkled on top to taste.

QUICKER VERSION & NO EXCUSES.

Use mild yogurt, kefir, or even good b.u.t.termilk. Put it in a cereal bowl. Over the top, sprinkle crumbs; if you don't have sourdough rye, any innovation is fair. The sugar is optional if you aren't being authentic.

Using (Accidentally) Saltless Loaves A word here on the sad subject of (accidentally) saltless bread. Many people simply can't abide the taste of toast or sandwiches made on such bread, and if you or yours fall into this group, use the loaves to make bread pudding, flavored crumbs, or any of the other recipes in this section that seem appropriate, depending on how heavy the bread is. Add 1 teaspoon of salt for each loaf's loaf's worth of bread, mixing it into the recipe wherever it will be best absorbed by the bread. Note that if the bread did not rise well, you will not get 1 cup of cubes per slice: gauge the salt by the portion of the loaf that worth of bread, mixing it into the recipe wherever it will be best absorbed by the bread. Note that if the bread did not rise well, you will not get 1 cup of cubes per slice: gauge the salt by the portion of the loaf that is is included, whatever it is. included, whatever it is.

BREAD PUDDING.

Dissolve the salt in the liquid, and give the pudding a little time to sit before you bake it, especially if the bread was heavy. Note that for most people, even sweet bread pudding needs some some salt if the bread doesn't have any. salt if the bread doesn't have any.

CRUMBS & CROUTONS.

Dissolve the desired salt in the flavoring mixture or in plain water or broth if you don't want to add fat. Shake the mixture into the cubed bread or crumbs, making every effort to mix them evenly. Bake until crisp.

A Breadmaking Handbook

A Breadmaking Handbook There are some wonderful gadgets that can make baking easier and even better, and in this section we talk about a few of them and give a lot of tips and information that can be helpful, too. But all this aside, the most important thing is that you get in there and start baking start baking, however timid you're feeling, whatever equipment you have at hand.

Whenever I begin to be dazzled by shiny pans, handturned bowls and fancy equipment, the figure of Walter Reynolds comes vividly to mind. I met him in the late sixties in Berkeley, a towering, white-bearded Dutchman, broad of chest, big of heart. Just then he was teaching a Free University course, Baking and Giving Away Bread. Even in those days, it was whole wheat all the way for him-but then he was ahead of his time in a lot of ways.

Walter's cla.s.s met in the Reynolds kitchen on Wednesday evenings. He would prepare for it by stirring up a vast batch of dough when he got home from work. When his students arrived a couple of hours later, the dough would be rising in a big plastic garbage can. As soon as people walked in they would roll up their sleeves and start to shape Walter's dough. Those first loaves would come out of the oven about the time the students' own dough was kneaded and ready to rise. Everyone went home with a hot loaf of bread and a very good idea of what breadmaking was all about.

Walter originated a no-equipment method of baking: measure with a coffee can, mix, then turn the dough out on floury newspaper. Knead it well, let the dough rise in any convenient container, grease the coffee can, put in the dough, and let it rise again. Bake, of course, in the can.

Coffee-can bread had become famous two summers before, when Walter and others turned out hundreds of loaves a week from the bas.e.m.e.nt of a church in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, using donated flour to provide what was sometimes the only sustenance for many of the 'flower children' that received it. A few years later, during the Poor People's March on Washington, the coffee cans reappeared in Resurrection City, where the bread came off the back of Walter's pickup truck, hot from a gas oven converted to propane. The country was just catching on to the idea that whiteness and goodness are not necessarily the same, and Walter and Ruth Reynolds believed good brown bread had a part to play in the drama.

We don't bake in cans anymore, but we still carry with us what Walter taught: a lesson deeper than words about recognizing hunger and doing something pretty daring and friendly to address it. To make nourishing bread, and to reach out with it, continues that loving gesture in some small way.

First Aid What to do if something goes awry What to do if something goes awry Sometimes partway along in a baking partway along in a baking you find that something is wrong. Possible setbacks are listed here, along with suggestions for s.n.a.t.c.hing victory from the jaws of disaster. you find that something is wrong. Possible setbacks are listed here, along with suggestions for s.n.a.t.c.hing victory from the jaws of disaster.

The yeast does not bubble up see this page this page .

You forgot to take the flour out of the refrigerator You forgot to take the flour out of the refrigerator Flour cold from the refrigerator will make cold, slow-rising dough unless you compensate by using warmer water. To calculate precisely how warm the water needs to be, plug into the formula-or, roughly: for a 7 hour dough: 100F water for a 4 hour dough: 120F water for a fast dough: 140F water Mix the really warm water with the cold flour before you add the yeast, of course. If the yeast comes in contact with 140F water, it won't survive.

This method should really be considered an emergency measure, not standard procedure. The flour will perform better for you when it has a chance to warm slowly to room temperature overnight.

The dough won't knead up The dough won't knead up this page If you have to give up on it, here are some possibilities: roll the dough thin and make flat bread or crackers instead (millions of them). You can make Chapathis-Indian flat breads see this page this page; they'll be good (if unauthentic) so long as the dough doesn't have too much sweetener in it. Or, make piroshki. (The Laurel's Kitchen Laurel's Kitchen kind, for example.) kind, for example.) As for the flour, if you bought it with the understanding that it was bread flour, return the rest to the store; they may not know that they are selling low-gluten flour as bread flour. Otherwise, keep it to use for m.u.f.fins and quick breads, and as dusting flour.

You overkneaded the dough: Make English m.u.f.fins.

First Aid First Aid

The kneaded dough does not rise in the bowl .

You are unexpectedly called away You are unexpectedly called away

Somehow, the yeast is not on the job. Dissolve another measure of yeast in cup of properly warm water, with teaspoon of sweetener stirred in. If the new yeast bubbles to the top in a few minutes looking vigorous and enthusiastic, take your dough and press it out on the kneading board. Drizzle the newly activated yeast and water on the dough, and work them together well.

When the now very wet dough has incorporated the yeast and is smooth, knead in a mixture of about a cup of flour and a teaspoon salt to regain the proper consistency. Let it rise as if you had just mixed the dough.

If there is no good yeast in the house, wrap the dough in plastic or put it in a covered bowl, and refrigerate it. Sometime in the next week, you can get fresh new yeast, bring the lump of dough to room temperature, and proceed as suggested above.

If you want to use the unyeasted dough right away, you can make Chapathis (see previous problem) or even a naturally leavened bread. For the latter, keep the dough at room temperature or cooler until it ripens, about 18 hours. (If there is any life at all in your yeast, it will take less time than that, and may rise, too.) Form the loaves and bake as suggested in the recipe for Manuel's Seed Bread; it may not be light, but it can be very tasty sliced thin.

If you have to leave the rising dough and won't be back for hours, deflate it and put it in the refrigerator (see this page this page). Since it will continue to rise until it cools (and even afterward, slowly), allow room in the container, but cover it to keep stray refrigerator flavors out. The dough will be good for a couple of days; after that, since the yeast is still at work, it begins to get old and may make grayish bread. (There is less leeway with fruited dough, by the way, because the fruit gets winey.

You think you may have forgotten the salt .

The dough rips when you shape the loaves .

The shaped loaves collapse in the pan

Whatever stage the dough is, you can taste a pinch of it. You really can trust your guess about whether it has salt or not. If you have to add salt, unless the dough was overkneaded in the first place, it is worth rolling it out on the kneading board, sprinkling the salt measure evenly over the dough, rolling it up, and kneading until you think the salt is distributed evenly. One way to be sure is to mix the salt into a tablespoon of mola.s.ses or poppy seeds so that you can see when it is all mixed.