daveazar531's blog

I just wanted to give a public shoutout to Bonni who shared some starter.

I used a basic sourdough process, adapted from countless youtube and fresh loaf articles.

• Feed the 30g starter with 50g Trader Joe's AP flour and 50g Bottled water, let double in size
• mix the following and allow to sit for 1 hour
  • 75g of the above
  • 250g TJ's AP flour
  • 50g Bobs Dark Rye Flour
  • 240g Water
• add 8g Salt and mix well with a splash of water
• 4 Stretch and Folds every 20 or so minutes (i did not do well timing these)
• fridge overnight
• Take out of the Fridge and preshape into a small lined basket dusted with rice flour/ap flour mix
• Crank the over with a lodge combo cooker to 500
• once it passes the poke test, flip onto a small sheet of parchment for easy transfer and score.
• Bake for 20 minutes covered
  • Remove from cast iron cooker and put on a cold baking sheet and lower temp to 450
  • Bake until its dark enough for you, temp check if desired
    
    • I notice in my oven my bottom gets very dark so putting it on a cold sheet pan allows me to get a much darker upper crust without burning the bottom

Thoughts about the bake:

I was very happy with the oven spring and crumb texture. I might spritz the loaf next time to remove the excess flour from the crust. Very good tang from the starter.

Used old and excess starter to make Scallion pancakes and  Zatar Frybread. Both came out great

 * some odd shadows on the bread here, the color appears consistent throughout the crumb in real life.

I was in the mood to bake on Saturday, all I had in the house was a bag of store brand Whole Wheat flour so looked around the fresh loaf for something to bake that will require the least about of ingredients but still give me a nice sandwich loaf for the next few days. I’ve always been a fan of txfarmers super fluffy breads so after checking her blog index I found this 100% whole wheat bread

The below was inspired by her blog post but is actually a very different bread

Mix by hand 100g of flour with 85 grams of Guinness beer and a half teaspoon of SAF Instant Yeast. Once well combine, drizzle a tiny bit of oil on the ball of dough and roll it around the bowl.

I let it rest covered for 4 hours at room temp. You could leave it in the fridge over night to develop more favor but I wanted to bake the same day.

Add the malted barley syrup and butter to the milk and nuked it for 30 seconds. I stirred those ingredients until the syrup was mixed in and nothing settled to the bottom of the cup. I then added everything to the mixing bowl and use the paddle until combined. I then let the dough rest for 10 minutes before switching to the dough hook for 10 minutes on 2.

I then did 3 S&F‘s every half hour. I added a splash of water to my hands for the first S&F but it’s very easy dough to work with and no extra flour was needed. By the third fold the dough had good structure and was ready to go.

I divided the 900 gram dough into 3 parts and reshaped them into loafs and bench rested them for a few minutes. I then smashed them down and rolled them tight and put them into a loaf pan to proof for 90 minutes. I didn’t grease the loaf pan but I should have in hindsight. I’d recommend either greasing the pan or laying some parchment down on the bottom. I had a little trouble getting the finished bread out of the loaf pan

I preheated the oven to 375 and baked the load for about 40 minutes. I put a digital probe into the center of the loaf at 35 minutes and waited for it to hit 195. Overall I’m happy with the way the bread came out, it had a soft flavorful crumb with a good textured crust.

I was in the mood for nutella so i started googling what i could do with the stuff and i ran accross this

Steamy Kitchen Article

But i am tring to not use the NK bread as much anymore so i used the BBA recepit for Challah. the only thing i didnt do was let the  4 strand loaf proof for 90 minutes. its getting late and i didnt want to wait. i got some decent oven spring(gas oven, no steam). For a rookie who doesnt really follow the "rules" im really happy with the result.

Up intill the shaping of the braids i followed BBA formula. I scaled and preformed the braids so they would roll easyer then I used a serated knife to open each braid and load it with nuttela.

Pinching them shut can get messy but i realised that if you let the weight of the braid strech the dough as you pinch it is much cleaner

 Considering i only let the loaf rest 10 minutes before putting it in the oven and i didnt bother with steam im happy. I would have liked my if the loaf had a better shine to it. A better glaze then the one I used (egg whites and a little half an half) might be the right move next time

Crumb pictures from this morning