I am a beginner in the making of bread and starter.  Nothing is turning out.  My starter was bubbling .  I would stir ir and refresh it then it stopped rising.  So I thought it was done.  used it in a recipe for squaw bread and it wouldn't rise.  I put aside the starter and used rapid rise yeast and again no rising of the dough.  Can the temperature of the house make a difference in the rising of bread dough or starter? If there is anyone out there HELP.

Kreatíve cakes.

How did I become infatuated with idea of incorporating home milling into my bread making? 

... the baker Gérard Rubaud.

His story and methods of crafting bread and levain maintenance incorporating fresh milled flour captivated me. From his attention to detail (using all of his senses) to his relaxed but focussed methods, it seemed to speak of another way of making bread. A craftsman’s way perhaps? (sorry … but I am still reading Richard Sennett’s book “The Craftsman” and have found the subject matter fascinating)

This planted a seed for milling my own flour … a seed that took a few years to germinate mind you.

A week ago I put together a “quick” version of this bread for a weekend lunch with family and friends.  I thoroughly enjoyed making it and even more so at lunch the next day. I had no photos of the process or the final crumb to share so I have endeavoured to make this bread again … with a little more effort this time.

From what I have read about Gérard and his processes, the heart and soul of his bread is his lovingly maintained levain. It is a firm levain kept in warm conditions refreshed frequently. It is fed AP flour, freshly milled sifted flours and a small addition of salt to keep enzyme activity under control. (The caught material from sifting is added to the final dough)

I already had the firm starter. We definitely have the warm conditions at the moment and the sifted fresh milled flours are also possible. Last year during the peak of our summer I regularly added salt to my firm starters to stop them turning to goo by the end of the day. I saw no decrease in rising activity and if anything I noticed an increase in flavours during the warmer periods. I think the addition of salt is even more essential with the addition of freshly milled flour.

I have maintained the levain during the week with two feedings a day except for the day before the bake where I gave the levain three feedings six hours apart and built the necessary amount for the final dough and also the olive bread from my last posting.

Gérard Rubaud’s 'pain de tradition'

Formula

Method

1. Autolyse flour and water 45 mins (hold back 50 grams of water)
2. Add levain and knead (French fold) 5-10 mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and 50 grams of water and squeeze through bread to incorporate (dough will separate then come back together smoothly) then knead a further 5-10 mins.
3. Bulk ferment 3 hours with three stretch and folds at 30 mins in the first 1.5 hours. (could be taken back to two sets of folds as the dough had gained considerable strength by third set of folds)
4. Preshape and bench rest for 20 mins
5. Shape (allow boules to rest seam side down on bench for a minute before placing into baskets) and proof for 2.5 – 3 hours
6. Bake in steamed oven for 10 mins at 250°C then 30 mins at 200°C

Dumping, dividing and preshaping

The oven spring was astounding … I baked both loaves at the same time on different shelves and they both reached the shelf above. There was a bit of juggling and crafty shelf removal to extract them from the oven safely :)

They are almost weightless.

The crusts are somewhat paler than the high extraction breads I have baking notably the three grain bread where I use two starters. (I love how the use of a rye starter adds a red hue to the crusts in those breads)

The gentleness of the crust proved a test when it came time to slice but we were rewarded with a delicate translucent crumb and sweet aroma. The flavour and texture is undemanding with only subtle sourness … hard pressed to call it sour at all. It melts in the mouth.

This is a bread best torn, not sliced.

I am still not entirely happy with the steaming setup in my oven when baking on two shelves. I am wondering if the steam is rising higher or sitting above the bottom shelf leading to uneven results. I bake for the first ten minutes with the oven switched off as I am unable to turn off the fan force feature.

Where to from here?

For me this kind of levain maintenance is not sustainable for a home baker who usually only has the weekends to bake, both for the waste it creates and the amount of time required for minimum twice daily feedings. If however I was baking daily or a few times weekly in my imagined wood-fired oven this would be the signature bread I would make for my customers.

For myself though, the flavour and added health benefits of a high extraction loaf with fresh milled flours is superior. It’s the bread I miss when I am not at home.

All the best, Phil

p.s. Hey Aneeks, does this bread look familiar? Hope you liked the loaf we left for you :)

Hi, everyone! It's almost time to start the Inside the Jewish Bakery challenge! 

We'll be baking nearly every recipe found in the wonderful "Inside the Jewish Bakery" by TFLs very own Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg. Not only will we get a chance to bake all the recipes -- we'll get to eat all the recipes! I can't wait!

It turns out that this fabulous book has enough recipes to keep us occupied for over a year. So, I've broken it up into 6 "semesters" of approximately 15 recipes each, spanning about three and a half months each time. Semester One begins on December 3 of this year, with the following lineup:

I'll start off each item with a post or or near the assignment date for that item, and then the comments section of this blog will be open for anyone to post their experience. To keep us all more or less together, I ask that if you're going to participate, that you post your comments by no later than seven days after the original assignment date (which happens to be, also, the first day of the next item on the list). 

There has been tremendous interest in this challenge, which is so exciting. I've decided to not keep close track of who is signed up or not -- you all know who you are, chime in as you please. If you miss a week -- or two, or three -- join back in. All are welcome. I'm hoping that the semester format will help the task seem more manageable -- there's a lot of ground to cover in this book! 

I'm looking forward to the adventure with you all. And until then -- Happy Thanksgiving!

Kendra

Though my favorite bread to eat alone or with a dab of butter or cheese is French-style sourdough, there is nothing better than a good Jewish deli-style brunch, featuring bagels and rye bread.

This morning we had some old friends over—East Coast-raised Jews; serious eaters.  It was advertised as a lox and bagel meal, but while planning the meal, I remembered that these friends had expressed extreme interest several months ago when I told them about my homemade pastrami.  And I had frozen some of the pastrami.  So, in addition to bagels, I made some sour rye bread yesterday, too, and thawed and re-heated the pastrami.

I used my favorite bagel formula--the ITJB Krakowski formula, but with 25% KAF Bread Flour and 75% Sir Lancelot—but didn’t shape many of the bagels with the Krakow twist (sounds like a dance … kinda like the Warsaw watusi).  They were very pretty and quite delicious. 

Our friends brought some excellent Pacific Ocean lox (with Coho Salmon).  But the pastrami was the real hit.  And the rye bread (from Greenstein’s formula via dmsnyder) was much admired. 

It was a real deli meal right here in San Francisco, where—for all our touted food variety—one can’t find a decent deli.  Another mutual friend—one of the Philadelphia Ginsburgs--dropped by for just a few minutes and had a quick bite, swooning at the bagels and the pastrami, and then left with a bag of bagels-to-go for his family.

All agreed that it was like a taste of the Old Country.   It makes me feel like I’ve done a service for the culturally deprived.  And the best news is there’s enough left over for Pastrami and Eggs for dinner, with both bagels and rye toast!

Glenn

Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, the authors of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, swung through Portland a couple of weeks ago to promote their newest book, Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.  I was able to catch a few minutes of their time to chat about the new book.

As the title suggests, Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day is similar to their previous books in that it centers around a high-hydration no-knead master recipe that takes only a few minutes to assemble.  Many variations of this dough are introduced, as are the appropriate sauces to accompany everything from your classic Margarita pizza to a Brussel Sprout, Pancetta, and Pecorina pizza.  Pitas, Chapati, and Turkish flatbreads are covered as well, as are gluten-free and whole wheat pizza doughs.  

Jeff and Zoë told me there are now just shy of half a million of their books in circulation and that they personally respond to around twenty emails a day from folks asking questions about their recipes.  While artisan and wood oven pizzerias have become a staple in places like Portland and San Francisco and the East Coast has a deep tradition of serious pizza, it is their impression that there are still many places where pizza as something that doesn't come out of a cardboard box is still catching on.  Particularly in these tough economic times with more folks eating at home, it is their hope that through this book they can make good pizza both affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.