dosidough's blog

The blatant plug and thank you’s first: I got the Brød & Taylor proofer. I love it. My breads are more consistent and predictable now. Yes, I could’a rigged up a homemade proofer but that ‘s not my thing. With zero counter space in the kichen this B&T gets its own little table tucked in a corner of the dinning room.
So if you see this post thank you Eric and Sylvia for bringing it to the attention of TFL and for all your info and insights. And a HUGE thank you to Susan for her original Simple Sourdough formula, I have taken a real liking to it.  A tiny loaf that I find just about perfect.   (Susan’s post found here:)

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13771/simple-sourdough-909

Here’s a shot of this weeks SSSD:


I convert a tiny portion of the discard from my 80% hydr. starter at its feeding time Friday night to get to Susan’s firm starter so I can mix the loaf Saturday afternoon for a Sunday morning bake. Read Susan’s original post and you’ll see how schedule friendly this is.
Anyway, having just come in from shoveling our 1st 6” snowfall of the season and thinking back fondly to the days of fresh fruit salads with date-nut bread I got an idea...I converted a second batch to firm starter and dug out a box of raisins.  Here’s what I made....

     Dark and Dusky Raisin Sourdough

It’s dark and deep and sweet. Moist and chewy crumb with crunchy crisp crust. A great dessert or late night snacking bread. Wonderful with butter and a teenie sprinkling of demerara sugar, or honey-nut cream cheese, or peanut butter and a glass of milk.
Here’s what I changed:

54g Firm Starter
100 g First Clear Flour (would’ve used high gluten but i was out)
175g KA Bread Flour
25g Medium Rye (Hodgson Mills)
2T Double -Dutch Cocoa Powder
1tsp Espresso Powder
70 g Raisins

I've had higher oven spring and a bit more open crumb than this weeks Simple SD and I attribute that to having fallen asleep
(was that 6" of snow I shoveled or 8? LOL) and the starter was out initially 4 hours instead of 2 and it tripled. So it may have been a bit past it's optimum when I did the mix at about 6p.m. Saturday. I'll watch this next time I bake this Dark and Dusky SD and see if I get it higher and more open.

Here’s a few more shots:

    Dark and Dusky proofing in my new best bread friend.

    Slashed and ready for oven load using a "magic bowl" cover, thanks Susan (I use a disposable extra deep aluminum roasting pan). And with 4 min. microwaved wet towels for oven steam...Thanks SylviaH.

The color in the photos changed...different time of day. I wanted to wait till Monday morning to slice the loaf because it has rye, but I gave in just before midnight.
Well, that's almost morning. And it was a great way to celebrate the birth of my new Grand-Niece, Rylee (Sunday night about 11:30)!

Mmmmmm this loaf's a keeper!
Dosi

Butter didn't smoosh in my bag on the way to work. Quite handy I think!

Boy am I happy with this method!  Can’t wait to retry all the wonderfully tasty breads I’ve tried from here and books that I’ve liked but just couldn’t get that spring going.  This is a heavy cast iron DO and I’m small; but no problem at all getting this together.  I did a trial set up to see how it would go and everything balanced so perfectly.  When it was all pre-heated I think I lost less heat from the oven because it loaded (although a little crookedly) quicker than using the pot right side up.  All worked like a charm.

Lid on bottom of springform pan, Dutch oven inverted on top

Dough loaded onto DO lid (a bit off center though)

Final loaf and crumb shot, just shy of 3" tall.

Gonna use this method again. Oven’s thermometer isn’t fixed yet so I could only get 450°.  Wish I could devote to a constant stream of baking time right now, but I’ve got wallpaper to get up and tons of stuff to unpack yet. No more fretting on the steam methods in this old electric oven, for boules this is the trick in my equipment. Hurrah!

All is very good and... I’m baking on!
Dosi

I’ve been following all the wonderful things being baked by the testers for Norm and Stan and decided I need the excitement of a challenge. Over the years I have had more rye bricks than loaves but lately I use Beatrice Ojakangas’ “Whole Grain Breads” and get good results but I wanted the Sour Rye experience.  We used to have a great German deli that carried some but alas they are gone. I picked “Eric’s Fav Rye”.  Got a quick order of First Clear Flour from KAF, and last Friday evening began converting my starter to rye. First feeding 50/50 white four/medium rye left out over night, a.m. fed all rye and once again late Sat. night. It was very active right off and seemed ready to go Sunday morn so I had at it. Started early so the sponge could sit 8hrs. and I’d have the bake finished sometime around 10/10:30. (Just in time for the annual 4th of July war zone type explosion of our neighborhood)

               

If absence makes the heart grow fonder can not doing a task give your hands the opportunity to learn it on their own? For 6 months I’ve been barely baking except quick sandwich loaves...shape up, drop in the pan. Suddenly I noticed a totally different feel or awareness when shaping this rye, and the same thing with a sourdough bake for Fathers Day. I think I’m finally getting a strength and tightness to the gluten cloak. It just happened and seemed so natural. Oh that elusive assuredness in the tactile core of this bread baking thing. Isn’t it glorious.

Well, the oven preheated an hour and I don’t use the pan water/ice for steam but mist heavily with water and use a deep aluminum roaster as a cloche. It’s rectangular so for this batard shape I just stretched it out a little and smooshed it in so it would sit flat and be elongated. Not elongated enough!! Guess I got that cloak going real good. the shaped batard was just under 12” and the roaster was just over 13”. after the first 12 min. when I went to remove the cover it stuck, really stuck and I ended up pulling off about 2” of each end getting it off. A biter sweet moment indeed. I was amazed and so happy with the oven spring but now I had a rather strange endless loaf of rye. No heels!!! boooo. Didn’t get a pic of the shaped loaf to compare size to the finished bread but the difference was pretty great.

What a great bread this is. Had to zoom out first thing Monday for the corned beef  kraut and deli pickle. Reuben time! Great sour flavor moist crumb at the just right mode, not too light nor dense. I may try the Greenstein Jewish rye that dmsnyder worked up and posted awhile back. It uses the First Clear flour also. (looks like I may need to order more) Has anyone tried the recipe on the bag from KAF? It has sour cream in it. Ooooh ssoouurrr ccrreeaamm!....

Here’s a “bonus” pic of the sourdough I made for Dad this Father’s Day. One of the prettiest I’ve done even if I do say. It’s good to have the gifts turn out that way. No crumb shot, it was for their meals that week.

Bake on!.......
Dosi

Well here I am;

and I will fear no bread. This is my first post outside of a few comments one of which was admitting to feeling intimidated by many of the “high-end” bread books. I buy them, get very excited, then back off and retreat to my known and used comfort formulas. But I want more. I find this site and the people here very inspiring, creative and helpful and I want in. I only have a computer at work so I’ll be a bit sporadic. I started years ago with a bread machine and a fear of yeast (”They have box mixes for these things don’t they?”). Loathing the machines loaf shape and stupid paddle hole pretty soon I got a small loaf pan and after the dough cycle put the ball of stuff from the mix into the oven. I was right to fear yeast. They are extra terrestrial beings! Like pods they rise up, take over our brains and alter our normal budgetary disciplines with mad cravings for new bread books, bannetons, heavy duty mixers, and every kind of milled grain from everywhere on the planet. They may have overcome many of you earlier but yes I am a yeast head like you. Thank goodness for this site for I will catch up.

I got PRs Artisan Breads Everyday and I find it very relaxed and accessible. After hearing a lot around TFL about Struan loaves this is where I jumped in. I was especially curious as the formula is very similar to a favorite of mine from an old bread machine book that was called Irish Brown bread. I posted this recipe here in a response awhile back (_somewhere?). I didn’t add the brown rice, and used a multi-grain cereal. It came out great. Good moist crumb and very crisp crust. Now I want to try his other versions of this bread. Has anyone done both, and how would you compare the different methods? 

I also made a small Oatmeal Maple Nut loaf from Beatrice Ojakangas Whole Grain Breads book. When I’ve used maple in the past I find it is just too subtle so this time I added some natural Maple flavor_KAF, 1/4 teas. per cup of ingredients. What a tasty loaf and boy did my house smell good. Next day I was compelled to remake this very same loaf when upon returning from a quick trip to the store I discovered I had left the loaf sitting on the edge of the counter where I had sliced off my breakfast. With irritated resignation I retrieved the tea towel from beneath a cupboard while my maple/pecan breath Boarder Collie slunk nonchalantly to his resting area. I took out the last of the pecans and began again.

Here’s also a couple of my regular sourdough loaves. They are made with a starter from KAF that I got about 3 years ago. Does anyone use the same? If you have a KAF starter and still feed by their directions (volume) what hydration do you figure it to be? I did a bunch of math weighed things out and converted it to a 100%. A month later it’s raising power had diminished disturbingly so it went back to once a week discard of 1 cup and feed the remainder (a 1/4 to 1/2 cup) with 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of flour. It’s taken awhile to get it’s strength back but now it’s back on track. In a week I’ll have enough time off to maybe brave beginning the PR starter from his new book. Hmmm pineapple juice. Now where have I heard of a starter like that???

Love you Guys and Gals. Thanks for helping me along on my journey from the paddle hole through Norm’s fantastic onion rolls to stretch and fold prior to autolyse and maybe someday a rye starter.

Many thanks and..bake on.

Dosi

(Ureeka!!!! I just got the photos to show up...only took an hour! The Send To Editor part was what I missed. Is that in the FAQs instruction? Sorry these are bigger than necessary next time I think I know how to do it better, for now I'm leaving the office I'm too beat to redo them.)