Merry Baker: Festival of Breads, Part I

When I visited Merry Graham's kitchen at the National Festival of Breads last Saturday, she was talking to two boys and their mom. One of the boys was telling her about how much he loved to cook and bake.

"Do you know they have contests for kids your age?" Merry said with an infectious lilt to her voice. "You could do something like this, too! Just go to www.contestcook.com and look under the junior division. There's lots there to choose from."

For Merry, interacting with bakers - young and not-so-young - is part of the appeal of the National Festival of Breads, held June 8, 2019, in Manhattan, Kansas. And this year, the third time was the charm for the Newhall, California, baker, who walked away with the top prize in the Food Blogger division of the contest with her Blackberry Ginger Speculaas Danish Wreath. (More on the home cook division winner, Rachel Hubsmith, in the next blog post.)

Merry's enthusiasm and personality bubbled out just like the blackberries bubbled out from the wreath during baking. Sharing her passion with young bakers comes naturally. She enjoys baking with her seven grandchildren when she's not competing.

Blackberry Ginger Speculaas Danish Wreath - Photo from National Festival of Breads website

Three food professionals chose Merry's wreath as the winner among the four finalists in the food blogger division. The sweet yeast dough has brown sugar, Speculaas spice blend, and blackberry jam swirl, dotted with blackberries and crystallized ginger. Speculaas has gotten some traction in the grocery store aisles in the U.S. in the past few years with a spread often located next to the peanut butter (Biscoff spread). The spread is made from Speculaas cookies, a treat often served at Christmas time in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria,

Photo from National Festival of Breads

But King Arthur Flour, one of the major sponsors of the breads festival, has a Speculaas spice mix made  by combining cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves with anise, coriander, cardamom, citrus zest and a few other spices. That's what Merry used for her wreath recipe. (In the recipe, there's also a way to make your own at home.)

Sharing the legacy of baking and recipes is a central theme for Merry. She began her blog, A Merry Recipe, after she began competing in baking contests in 2009. After 10 years on the competitive cooking circuit, she plans to revisit some of those early posts. She hopes to retake some of the early photos and make sure that the winning recipes she's entered in contests all over the country will be easily accessible.

Merry used a thermometer to check "doneness" on her wreath.

"I look at it as a legacy," she told me. "And having it on the blog makes it so easy. You can just enter a topic or a recipe name in the search engine and have it at your fingertips. That way, I can make sure that my family has a record of all my recipes." A side note: It's also easy to access all the Festival of Breads finalists' recipes from this year and previous competitions at the contest website. 

Merry sprinkled fresh thyme over the freshly-baked wreath after she removed it from the oven.

Merry hedged her bets and entered seven different recipes in the 2019 Festival of Breads competition. The wreath ended up earning her a finalist spot.

When experimenting with recipes for the contest, Merry wanted to find a "showstopper." As she explained to the spectators during the judging on Saturday, a "showstopper" has a natural visual appeal. The ribbon of blackberries and blackberry jam provides a splash of dramatic color to the specialty bread.

"I've been watching The Great British Baking Show, and they feature showstoppers, so that's what I developed for my entry this year."

Win or lose, this was going to be Merry's final year in the National Festival of Breads competition. Once a baker has competed three times, they are no longer eligible. That's not to say she's done with competitions. She is a seasoned pro in that arena.

In 2014, she was selected as a finalist in the 47th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off, winning the Gluten Free Award for her Herbs and Seeds Parmesan Crackers recipe. Also in 2014, she was one of the five finalists on the Rachael Ray show, Great American Cookbook Competition. In 2015, she competed on Season 1 of Food Network's Clash of the Grandmas, making it to the final round of the Thanksgiving-themed show. She has also appeared on and competed in the World Food Championships.

Merry admits the cooking competition world becomes kind of like a "sorority." She knew almost all the finalists at the bread competition this year and had competed against them before.

"These events become as much a reunion as they do a competition," Merry said. "I always enjoy reconnecting with everyone."

Photo from Kansas Wheat at the Joe & Geena Kejr farm near Brookville.

As a sponsor of the biennial contest, Kansas Wheat arranges a Field to Flour tour. With a later harvest this year, contestants weren't able to ride a combine cutting wheat. Instead, they could take a spin in a sprayer with farmer Joe Kejr near Brookville. Joe and Geena Kejr also hosted the contestants and their guests for lunch and told about wheat production. The finalists also toured Farmer Direct Foods at New Cambria and drove by grain elevators as they drove to Saline County and back to Manhattan.

This was Merry's third Field to Flour tour. But the experience always reminds her that a premium flour is worth the extra money.

"I'm a southern California girl," she told me. "When I go into my grocery store and pay a few more dollars for the premium flour instead of the store brand that's on sale, I remember those trips to a Kansas wheat field. I remember the people of Kansas - especially their commitment and their passion to produce a quality product. When I think about all the hands the wheat touches from the field to the grocery store, I realize what a bargain it is."

Kansas Wheat photo

On Saturday, the contestants could begin their first attempt at their bread recipe at 7 AM. At 8:30, the ballroom opened to spectators, and the contestants interacted and answered questions throughout the day while making their recipes up to three times. They had to choose their best product to be judged by 2:30, and another of their products went into a silent auction to raise money for Flint Hills Bread Basket. (The People's Choice award votes and the silent auction raised more than $938 to feed the hungry in Manhattan.)

Kansas Wheat photo - Merry Graham, food blogger division winner, and RaChelle Hubsmith, home cook division winner (More on RaChelle next time.)

I was outside for much of the day working a booth in the Children's Festival.

Children could spin a Wheel of Fortune-like wheel and answer questions about wheat production, end products, nutrition, exports and harvesting for a prize.

 

I had some special contestants. (Well, they were all special, but these two were the most special to me!)

Randy took a shift, so I could go inside and cool off. I spent part of that time talking to all eight contestants and taking some photos so I could blog about it this week.

When I got back, we had another special visitor to our Wheel of Wheat station. Willie the Wildcat pondered his answer ...

... And he correctly deduced that Kansas is usually the leading producer and exporter of wheat in the nation. Good job, Willie!

I try to do my part in connecting the farm with consumers through blogging, something I've done since beginning Kim's County Line in January 2010. But face-to-face interaction is better in the long run. That's why I gave up my Saturday to volunteer at the National Festival of Breads.

With all the gluten-free promotion and companies marketing "non-GMO" to consumers, it's important for those of us in production agriculture to tell our stories. Goodness knows, popular restaurants and so-called nutrition experts aren't shy about doing it.  (For the record, there is no GMO wheat commercially available at this time. And yes, those with celiac disease must avoid gluten. However, many of those who don't have celiac disease avoid gluten based on inaccurate information from non-medical professionals who make unsubstantiated claims.)

In 1870, 50 percent of the U.S. population was directly involved in agriculture. Today, farm families comprise less than 2 percent of the population. A lot of the kids I talked to didn't even know what kind of machine harvests wheat. So that's why it was important to volunteer and talk to little consumers and their families about wheat.

Photo from Merry Graham's website as she was practicing before the breads festival.

And it doesn't hurt to get some yummy recipes, too. Check out Merry Graham's winning recipe for Blackberry Ginger Speculaas Danish Wreath on the National Festival of Breads website as well as the other winner and all the finalists' recipes.

For her champion bread, Merry receives tuition to attend a hands-on baking class at a King Arthur Flour Baking School in Norwich, Vermont or Skagit Valley, Washington, along with a $1,500 check for travel and lodging expenses. She also receives a one-year supply of Red Star® Yeast, another major contest sponsor.

More from the National Festival of Breads next time!

Rising to the Occasion: National Festival of Breads

Ronna Farley and her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf.

Ronna Farley had a big smile on her face when I visited her kitchen at the Festival of Breads competition last Saturday. Her first attempt at baking her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf had come out of the pan cleanly. If you've ever made anything in a Bundt pan, you know there's no guarantee: Part could end up on the cooling rack while some is stuck in the pan.

But after carefully inching her way around each crook and crevice with an ice pick, the bubble loaf was out in one piece, looking evenly browned and with that unmistakable fragrance of freshly-baked yeast bread combined with an undertone of onion.

She had more reasons to smile that evening. Her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf won the grand prize at the 5th biennial National Festival of Breads.

She and seven other finalists spent the time from 7 AM Saturday morning until 2:45 or so that afternoon making their recipes three different times. By 3, each had delivered her best effort to a judge's room for evaluation.

Farley traveled to Kansas from her home in Rockville, Maryland, where she works as a cashier in a grocery store. She gets inspiration for developing original recipes based on the ingredients she rings up for customers as they empty their carts onto the supermarket conveyor belt.

I especially love seeing what people from other countries are buying and the different ideas of ingredients I should try in recipes. Sometimes I'll even ask them, 'What are you doing with that?' or 'What is that?' because there are different things we sell that I don't even know what they are.

Ronna Farley as quoted in the Festival of Breads recipe book

As the 2017 National Festival of Breads champion, Farley received $2,000 cash, plus a trip to attend a baking class of her choice at the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. She will receive 120 envelopes of Red Star Yeast. 

This was Farley's second time as a top eight finalist in the Festival of Breads. Like several of the competitors, she is no stranger to cooking contests.  Patrice Hurd has been chosen as a finalist in a dozen national contests. Three times, she's been a contestant in the "grandmother" of them all - the Pillsbury Bakeoff. Once you've competed a trio of times, you're no longer eligible at Pillsbury. She's also been a finalist in the national beef cookoff, Build A Better Burger and Midwest Living events, among others.

Patrice Hurd and her Toasted Cardamom Nordic Crown.

But Patrice was glad to be back at the National Festival of Breads in Kansas. She was also a finalist in the 2015 contest. This time, her recipe was Toasted Cardamom Nordic Crown. 

"It's a fun hobby to compete in these contests," Patrice said. "You meet people who are just as crazed about doing this as I am. We get to know one another, and it's kind of like family when we get together."

There's a family feel to the National Festival of Breads competition itself, she said. 

"At the Pillsburg Bakeoff, there are 100 finalists, so you're basically a number," Patrice said Saturday as she worked on her bread recipe. "This contest (Festival of Breads) has so much heart and a real down-home feeling. I was thrilled to get back here. The organizers take care of every single detail. They do everything to make you feel welcome and make it an experience to remember." 

One of those experiences was her first-ever ride on a combine. Though it was on the schedule in 2015, a drizzly day kept the contestants from truly experiencing a Kansas wheat harvest. This year, Patrice and other contestants traveled on Friday to the Brookville farm of Joe and Geena Kejr where they took turns riding the John Deere combine. They also toured the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center in Manhattan and the Farmer Direct Foods Inc. flour mill in New Cambria. It gave them a glimpse at how wheat grown and harvested in Kansas ultimately becomes flour that can be used in their kitchens scattered across the U.S.

Michele Kusma with her Mexican Street Corn Skillet Bread.

Contestant Michele Kusma from Columbus, Ohio, loved the combine ride, too. This was the first time she was a National Festival of Breads finalist and her first visit to Kansas.

"It was just awesome," Michele bubbled. "It was interesting and beautiful to see the wheat being harvested." 

Michele, too, is a contest veteran. As she developed her recipe for Mexican Street Corn Skillet Bread, she was thinking about flavors that consumers tend to enjoy.

Though she's a contest pro now, she didn't grow up baking. Michele turned to creating recipes and baking as an outlet after her second bout with breast cancer.

"My mother didn't bake bread. My grandmother didn't bake bread. It was me and YouTube," Michele said with a laugh. "I love baking, and you might as well love what you do. None of us know how long we have on this earth, so we need to pursue the things that give us joy."

Jane Fry (on the right) and her kitchen assistant look over her Southwest Focaccia.

It definitely wasn't finalist Jane Fry's first time on a combine or in a Kansas wheat field. Jane didn't have to hop on an airplane to get to Manhattan. She was down the road in Elk Falls, Kansas.

Like many Kansas cooks, her love of baking dates back to her days in 4-H. This was her second time as one of the Top 8 in the National Festival of Breads. This time, her recipe was Southwest Focaccia.

Jane isn't just an expert in shaping bread. She and her husband, Steve, also shape stoneware, much with a wheat theme. Each piece is individually made on a potter’s wheel or by other hand methods, glazed, decorated and fired. The business has grown, but remains a small family enterprise to provide the kind of “home-grown” lifestyle. In 1987, Jane incorporated her love for quilts by developing a line of porcelain pins and earrings using traditional quilt patterns as well as original and custom designs, which are sold under the name Elk Falls Piecemakers.

Fellow contestant Kellie White grew up on a farm near Westmoreland, Kansas, though she now resides in Valley Park, Missouri. Her entry, Orange Spice Anadama Wreath with Walnuts and Dates, won the People's Choice award voting the day of the festival. Her Kansas fan club cheered loudly when those results were announced Saturday afternoon. Festival goers could vote for their favorites by depositing $1 in voting jars. Those efforts raised more than $600 for the Flint Hills Bread Basket, a local food pantry.

She credits her love of baking to her mom and also to a neighbor lady named Ethel who shared a day of baking with Kellie as a young girl and also gave their family gifts of homemade bread at Christmas.

One of Shauna Havey's Butternut Romesco Braid's was shaped and rising, while she had another dough rising.

On the other hand, contestant Shauna Havey didn't grow up baking. The Roy, Utah, finalist began experimenting in the kitchen after marrying her husband. The mother of two prefers savory recipes, so she developed Butternut Romesco Braid. 

Pam Correll shapes her Orange Marmalade Breakfast Crescents.

Pam Correll was hoping for a "sweet" victory with her Orange Marmalade Breakfast Crescents. The smells of orange zest and fresh orange juice permeated the work station for the Brockport, Pennsylvania, baker. The FACS teacher enjoys teaching her students to bake from scratch.

"It's becoming a lost art," Correll said. This was the Pennsylvania baker's second time to enter the Festival of Breads, and two of her recipes were awarded honorable mention in 2015. The 2017 contest was her first as one of the eight top finalists.

Turmeric-Rosemary and Sweet Potato Rosettes

Somehow I missed talking to Tiffany Aaron, whose recipe was Turmeric-Rosemary and Sweet Potato Rosettes. Aaron is from Quitman, Arkansas, but she grew up in Montana. In her interview included in the festival brochure, she says her father-in-law supplied all the sweet potatoes she used for her experimentation and recipe development. In 2015, she had won an honorable mention. This year, she only entered the one recipe, but it still got her included in the Top 8. The mother of five brought her middle daughter with her to Kansas to experience all the festival happenings.

The National Festival of Breads, the nation’s only amateur bread-baking competition, is sponsored by King Arthur Flour, Red Star Yeast and the Kansas Wheat Commission. Many more recipes from previous years' contests, as well as bread baking tips, are available at the National Festival of Breads website. Check it out.

***

I volunteered at the festival. Watch for my next blog post about why I took time during our own wheat harvest to travel to Manhattan and help out!
 

Over the (Crescent) Moon

My bread baking skills were slow to evolve. As a Pratt County 4-Her, I was lucky if my yeast bread entry earned a red ribbon. And, back in my day, 4-H judges didn't mind handing out white ribbons either. I certainly got my share of those in the yeast bread department.

I learned more as the 4-H parent than I did as the 4-Her. When Jill and her friend, Holly, got interested in yeast breads, my personal education began in earnest.

Pretzels provided their first foray into the world of yeast breads. They gave a demonstration called Fit To Be Tied for county 4-H club day and an enterprise was born. Their purple-ribbon talk earned them the right to give the demonstration at regional club days and at the Kansas State Fair. Then they sold pretzels - hundreds of them - at Stafford's Oktoberfest. (Jill's 4-H book says each girl made around 300 giant pretzels.) It was a learning experience for all of us - for Jill and Holly and for me and Tami, Holly's mom. (I recommend pretzel making as a first step for beginning 4-H cooks who want to try yeast breads.)

The year after the pretzel demonstration, they decided to try their hand at shaping yeast dough into rolls and gave another talked called Shape Up! Holly mastered the more complicated rosettes and twisted braids. Jill and I were better at crescent rolls.

From Jill's 4-H Foods and Nutrition story that year:
We showed how to make cloverleaf, crescent, Parkerhouse and rosette rolls. We made somewhere in the neighborhood of 864 homemade dinner rolls while we practiced for county and regional club days, made rolls for our families and prepared entries for the county fair.

That's a lot of rolls. But all of us - the 4-Hers AND the moms - got better at yeast bread baking. What was the secret? Practice. If you only bake yeast bread once a year for the county fair, you're not going to become a master at it.

I'm still not a master at it, but I have become my family's bread baker for the holidays. I still prefer making crescent rolls, and I have some step-by-step photos to help you conquer fear of yeast roll shaping, plus other links for recipes and videos.

Because of preferences for some of the extended family, I make some white rolls (and that's what is pictured in the step-by-step photos). But for better nutrition, use at least half whole wheat flour.  You can use hard red winter wheat flour. Now there is also white winter wheat flour available, which is often more appealing to white bread fans.

A little investment of time and effort will have your holiday guests over the (crescent) moon when you serve them homemade rolls.

Classic Crescent Rolls

2 pkg. dry yeast
2 1/4 cups warm water (105 - 115 degrees)
2/3 cup nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup margarine, melted
2 tsp. salt
3 cups whole wheat or white whole wheat flour
3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add dry milk, honey, margarine and salt. Stir well. Using a heavy-duty stand mixer, beat in whole wheat flour until well blended. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes to allow the whole wheat flour to absorb moisture. (If you do this, you won't have to add as much additional flour and you'll have a lighter dough, so a little patience is warranted here!)

Add 3 cups of all-purpose flour and use a dough hook on the mixer to incorporate the flour. After it has been mixing for awhile, add additional flour, a little at a time, until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Using the dough hook, knead the dough mechanically for 4 to 7 minutes.

Turn out onto very lightly floured surface and knead for just a few more minutes until smooth and elastic. Take care to not add more flour than is needed. (If you don't have a heavy-duty stand mixer, you may knead by hand for 8 to 10 minutes.)

Place dough in a lightly-greased bowl, turning it over once to allow the dough to have a little of the oil (or cooking spray) on its surface. (If a skin forms on the dough, it hampers its stretch and it may cause streaks in the finished bread.) Cover the bowl with a lightly dampened tea towel while the dough rises.

Allow to rise in a warm place (80 to 82 degrees) until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. To test dough for doubled bulk, press two fingers lightly and quickly about 1/2 inch into dough. If the dent remains, the dough is doubled.

Punch down and turn onto a board for shaping. Do NOT have additional flour on your board. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes before shaping. For crescent rolls, use a knife to divide the dough into four equal pieces; you want to cut the dough, rather than tearing it. Roll 1/4 of the dough into a 12-inch circle, about 1/4-inch thick. Using a pizza cutter, cut the circle into 8 equal parts. Pick up each triangle at the wide edge and roll up tightly. Pinch the point to prevent unrolling and lay it point side down on a lightly greased baking sheet. Curve ends of each roll on baking sheet to make the crescent shape. Repeat for each of the 4 parts of the dough, making a total of 32 rolls.

Cover the rolls and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes or until light, golden brown. Turn out onto cooling rack. Brush hot rolls with butter, if desired. (A note to 4-H bakers: Don't put the butter on your hot rolls for the fair. Just use that for rolls for home use!)

Roll shaping 101 via photos:

This is how the dough looks after it has doubled in bulk after about 1 hour.

Turn the dough out onto a NON-floured board. I never add more flour at this stage as it will cause streaks in the finished dough. If you've incorporated the right amount of flour when you were mixing, you don't need more flour.

Divide the dough into four equal parts, using a knife. Don't tear the dough - cut it.

Roll each 1/4 portion into a 12-inch circle using a rolling pin. It will make it about 1/4-inch thick.

Cut each into 8 equal parts using a pizza cutter or knife. (I like a pizza cutter.)

Starting at the wide end, roll toward the point, keeping the roll as tight as you can. Tuck the point under the roll and squeeze it so that the point won't come undone as it rises. Curve the roll toward the center to form the crescent shape.

After the rolls have risen for another 45 minutes to 1 hour, they'll look puffed and ready to go. If you look at the close up photo above, you can see at the curve how the dough has stretched and risen.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes. Keep a close watch. You know your oven. You don't want to go to all this work and then burn them in the end!

For more information about shaping (like shaping into these pan rolls), go to Recipe Tips: Shaping Rolls.

Want other ideas and recipes? Winter is the perfect time of year for experimenting with yeast breads and yeast rolls. You won't mind heating up the house when the winter winds are blowing outside. 

Here are some links for you to explore the world of bread baking:

Kansas Wheat

America's Bread Basket (includes recipes from the National Festival of Breads)

Wheat Foods Council

Homemaking Association and its link to videos that show step-by-step the how-tos of making bread and rolls.