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Elsasquerino's blog

Elsasquerino's picture
Elsasquerino

Been away a few weeks 'cheating' with a few hybrid loaves, Hamelman and Forkish's books are full of sourdough recipes with a pinch of commercial yeast. It feels a bit wrong... But tastes so right! It's like playing pool after playing snooker, still great fun but seems too easy. 

I stuck rigidly to Forkish's recipe, although not so much to his timings. I utilised the fridge overnight after maybe six hours on the counter and allowed an hour's warm-up before shaping this morning. 

The hydration worried me a little at 78% but it was surprisingly easy to handle, the kitchens pretty cool right now which I'm sure helped.

 

Blonde, you can see what inspired the name. The loaves are very pretty to look at and range from straw yellow to a dark bronze like a sunset. Aesthetically perhaps my finest to date.

The oven spring was pretty special, this batard almost ripped itself in two!

I've become obsessed with heavily sour, rye levains lately and this one didn't quite tick the flavour box in that respect but then it doesn't mean too. It has a gentle tang and it is tasty, just not my favourite. Lovely crispy crust and soft light crumb. It was just warm when I cut it, early for me I usually allow an overnight cool before cutting but had to treat myself tonight.

Thanks for looking.

Elsasquerino's picture
Elsasquerino

And showing off a bit :-)

Following on from earlier posts about confusion with under/over proofing I decided this weekend just to push it as far as I dared on the bulk stage and see what happened. I'm very pleased with the results

My first bake was basically Hamelman's Vermont sourdough. This seemed to take forever to get going, think my starter needed some maintenance. After about 6 hours on the counter (very cool kitchen) it went in the fridge overnight and still needed about 4 hours the following morning before I felt I was risking going too far and knocked back/shaped.

Wonderful loaf and having used my wholewheat starter still had a robust flavour. I'll try this one again.

After some tlc on both my rye and wheat starters I had a bit of discard and decided to do a second bake using some interesting malted flour I had neglected for a while.

This one is a very complex flavour, I'm not even sure if it's not too complex.  I used 300g of starter (mixture of rye and wheat) to compensate the chill in the kitchen, hoping to complete and bake in a day. It bulked on the counter for 9 hours then after shaping had another 3 hour proof. It's high proportion of rye shines through and the malted wheat and barley in the flour (Cotswold Crunch from F W Matthews), makes for a very intriguing taste. 

Thanks for the ongoing support network guys, makes the journey a lot more fun sharing it with like minded types.  Back to the porridge bread this weekend I think... Decisions, decisions.

Elsasquerino's picture
Elsasquerino

Maybe it's a coincidence but there are an awful lot of porridge breads cropping up on here... I like it!

I keep seeing such delicious looking loaves and seeing the word porridge in the description and I finally took the plunge and had a bash myself. I made an extra thick porridge from quinoa, milled flax and pinhead oats with half water half milk you can see the basic recipe here, http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/42627/pinhead-oats-and-quinoa  although I left out the ground almonds and cinnamon. As an aside it tastes great for breakfast sweetened with a little honey or brown sugar. Once that was ready it got amalgamated with two loaves worth of my go to sourdough right from the initial autolyse. 

 660g white bread flour

150g spelt flour

80g rye flour

500g water

250g of cooked cooled porridge

Leave to get acquainted for an hour, then add in 150g of levain (mine is 100% hydration whole wheat) and an extra 20g of water along with 20g of salt to help incorporate a little and work the dough with a bit of slap and fold to distribute the porridge.

I gave this 5 hours on the counter with several stretch and folds before bunging the bowl in the fridge overnight. After a preshape into a boule and a baton I gave it an hour to de-chill this morning before the shaping proper and bannetons.  Two hour proof seemed about perfect for once, I got a decent poke test result anyway. And into the Dutch oven they went.

I keep putting my Bayard shaped loaves in the oblong banneton crossways but I'm going to stop as I keep getting a weird shape, I saw it on a Chad Robertson video and it worked for him? Must be a top class baker or something ;-)

I am impressed with these though. They have such a soft bouncy crumb and taste very nice indeed. I see why so many of you go to the trouble, I certainly will be trying this again. Thanks for the inspiration you guys.

I'll finish with the obligatory crumb shot.

Elsasquerino's picture
Elsasquerino

I have lots of packets of seeds and grains kicking around so I thought it was time to get using them. As usual the ideal recipe was found in a list of blog entries by our own DMSnyder I keep bookmarked. 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16957/5grain-sourdough-rye-sourdough-hamelman039s

I didn't have exactly what was called for in the soaker, actually I lie, I did but fancied making my own blend. So ended up with, sunflower seeds, quinoa, rye flakes and pumpernickel flour, pinhead oats and golden flax. Pretty close to the original but not exact.

I scaled the recipe down to suit just one loaf as I had another multigrain loaf on the go for comparison (Reinharts multigrain bread extrordinaire) but this one won the contest in my opinion.

Rye sour:

113g rye flour

96g water

6g starter

Soaker: 

41g flax

41g cracked rye

34g sunflower seeds

34g oats

187g boiling water

10g salt

Final dough:

340g bread flour

150g water

2.5g yeast

7.5g honey

Soaker

208g rye sour

Tastes delicious, really really good. It is a special loaf that everyone should try.

Elsasquerino's picture
Elsasquerino

Every week I bake a loaf to take to work for lunch each day. The last couple of weeks I've used a recipe from TFL's own Trevor Wilson, for a great loaf with a 65% hydration see here...

http://www.breadwerx.com/how-to-get-open-crumb-from-stiff-dough-video/

I want a loaf that tastes great, (obviously) and that can be great for sandwiches as well as make the ultimate toast and soup soaker upper - a good all rounder. I like that the sourdough loaf will keep easily so I could still use it for a sandwich on Friday if that took my fancy... It rarely does I treat myself to the UK delicacy of beans on toast most Fridays --

65% is not a particularly stiff dough using my local mills flour, UK flour in general is not as thirsty as US or Canadian flours it seems. I have seriously struggled with tartine style recipes and Trevor's write up makes a lot of sense. Master the lower hydration first and build up from there. I'd advise a UK beginner to drop the hydration a little further in fact and if it's not midsummer, people in the north could happily forget using the fridge at all in the first steps, I just use cold water and leave it out on the side.

I baked this one in my Romertopf for 20 mins lid on then 30 mins lid off because I like a good crust. Thanks Trev!

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