Greetings everyone!

This is my first post, having been lurking here for a few weeks. This is a fabulous website and it has accelerated my learning and increased my enjoyment of my new hobby a great deal. I started baking bread a few months ago as an antidote to revision for my university finals. My initial attempts were flat and dense bricks and puddles, more like squashed soda breads. But since finding this site a few weeks ago I've been inspired to put a bit more energy in and try out some of the techniques I've been reading about and watching on the various youtube videos dotted around.

I thought yesterday that I'd have a first attempt at baguettes, having previously been put off by reading it was difficult to make an actual 'baguette' rather than baguette-shaped sandwich bread. The first hit in the search was the Anis Bouabsa recipe. I wanted to have them ready for this evening's dinner so couldn't quite stick to the method prescribed. My method was:

- Poolish - 250g flour, 2g yeast, @100% hydration. Fridge for 7 hours.

- Allow an hour to warm, add the rest of the ingredients. Fridge for 2 hours then in the pantry (which is about 10 degrees C at the moment) for 5 hours. 

- Pre-shape and rest for 40 mins

- Proof for about 50 mins

I slit and sprayed with water, then put them (on baking paper) on the floor of the Aga, which has had a small pan of water on a higher shelf boiling away for the duration for constant steam. Took about 35 minutes to cook - a bit longer than the recipe says - the floor of the Aga is at a lower temperature than the recipe calls for but my feeling is that having them directly on a nice, big, heavy, high thermal mass aga oven floor is A Good Thing. I don't have a stone slab but I guess putting that higher in the oven would be the better way to do it.

I wasn't expecting much - this was a real step up in shaping complexity (I was guided by the <i>excellent</i> Ciril Hitz videos) and more difficult slashing than my usual cave-man technique. But I was pleasantly surprised by what came out of the oven!

You can see my shaping is a bit inconsistant (not to mention wrong in ways that are less immediately obvious to me!) but they just about look the part. They sang and crackled promisingly on the cooling rack and I had to try one before dinner. You know, just to test... it tore just like the baguettes I've had in france and biting in was a lovely crunch followed by tasty chewiness. The crumb was on the right lines, I think:

 

 

I'm really quite excited to try this again. Next time I'll plan ahead more thoroughly and give it the 21 hours fridge fermentation that the original recipe calls for. I'll not bother with the poolish stage either (I did it as I thought it might give me the flavours and gluten development a little quicker).

I've been getting quite into using a poolish. I've just come back from a bit of travelling and decided tot to make a sourdough starter until i got back (just so I could be around to care for it) so a poolish seemed like a good stop-gap for getting a bit more flavour out of the flour. For fun, here's a photo of another recent session.

- 1kg of flour (2/3 whole grain 1/3 strong white), 500g of which was in a 100% hydration poolish overnight in the fridge. 

- 20g salt.

- 20g fresh yeast

- teaspoon of dark brown sugar.

Produced a pair of boules, finished in different ways:

I cut the slashes quite deel on the nearer boule, but the loaf still sprang right up to the point of stretching them out flush with the rest of the crust. Given they have so much spring left to give, should I prove them a bit longer?

Anyway, thanks for reading, now I need to go an feed my new starter!

 

Ed 

 

After I try to baking country bread from one month ago. Many failed stone bread enter my stomach. So my stomach start to strike now,"I want soft, sweet, oily bread...(^_^)" 

 I have no any special patterns for baking. Maybe baking bread like buttermilk cluster is a good idea for me. I can try to use my pot again(^_^).When I see GSnyde very nice Challah photos in Thanksgiving, I like this Challah so much.  I try to braid my first braiding pumpkin bread this time. I'm not sure, I hope they're also Challah. 

I like pumpkin. So I use all I have, about 400g,I use a bag of milk.

Levain:

whole wheat flour 100g, all porpose flour 300g, 

Mashed pumpkin 260g, milk 120g, 

Instant levain 1t

Main:

All purpose flour 240g, 

Mashed pumpkin 140g, milk 80g, 

Coffee creamer powder 1T,Ice cream powder 1T,

White ice sugar 1T, Salt 1/2t, 

butter 60g, 

Levain all.

At last I get about 1380G pumpkin milk dough.  5/8 for cluster. 3/5 for Challah.

 

 

I cut cluster dough to 17 pieces, make them to ball.and seven pieces wrapper with Chashao fillings. After I found the pot size not enough for 2 circle. So I place them to the pot lid.  I have to cut 6 pieces outside ball to half for suitable size.

This cluster baking time  210 degree 10 minutes, 200degree 10 minutes, 180 degree 10 minutes. After baking I  taste Chashao bread, On plate center, bread bottom heating not enough. Maybe I can baking more long time. 

 

 

 

Before baking These braided breads, I place one piece broken earthware pot on bottom of oven. 180 degree 25 minutes. These braided breads baking better than cluster.Even bottom  have good crust. I'm not sure if they get more heat from bottom earthware pot. Or for Only 3 pieces braided breads on bakeware. These braided breads same looking and similiar taste with I often get from local bread shop  "ma hua"-translate name "fried dough twist". Mine just get from baking. "same world,same food". So Now I don't know these breads are Challa, or Ma hua, or only braided breads.

They are all very delicious. And same dough different taste. 

Thanks for good ideas from TFL.

*****************************************************************

 

 

 

Chashao sourdough get from starter:

I fed low gluten flour to my fresh starter for Chashao bao dough. After 3 days 

looks starter no big holes as before. So I fed all purpose flour. After I get 1 piece 100g dough. Looks it work ok. So I mix with all purpose flour and water. When the dough have wine smell, I mix with low gluten flour,baking powder, sugar and oil. It was Chashao dough now. Cut to 6 pieces, wrapped with Chashao fillings. The dough up quickly. Even I thought one finished wrapping bao was a dough ball.So Made mistake again(Number 1 good wrapped bao broke). This time I wrapped more same looking as ball than last time. Before finish wrapping. I heat steaming pot. after wrapped all. I quickly steamed them. And this time midium high heat 10minutes, midium heat 2 minutes, small fire 2minutes. After stop fire, waitting 2 minutes, Than open pot lid slowly. This time, I get more natural more happy face Chashao bao(^_^).

(Normally steaming sourdough : For get good shape. need enough steam at first. After sourdough already enough hot and steam in pot, can down heat. before stop heat more small fire.  Gradually  down heat. It's good for keeping shape. Even stop heat. need 2-5 minutes more cool.  If no waitting time. steaming food cool quickly. Shape no good. My mother give a word to like that steaming bao or bread"气死"--“die with anger” )

 

I have a question about starter now. If only low gluten flour can feed for starter? 

 

Thanks for you reading.

Have a good weekend.

Happylina

 

My parents love baguettes, especially my dad.  There was no doubt that I wanted to impress them with nice, homemade baguettes. However, I hadn’t made baguettes for a long, long time. The lack of practice in addition to my shaky skills had turned this baguette bake into something rather disappointing.  As you will see, the baguettes were out of shape and the scoring was messed up.  The only thing I probably did right was the handling of the dough, since the alveoli were quite evenly distributed.  But I can’t remember the details now as everything was a blur when I tried to bang out a few loaves of bread simultaneously in the last minute.  Like many parents, my dad was very lenient. He complimented on the flavor and did not criticize the appearance of my baguettes. But I knew I ought to be able to do better than that.

 

I made these baguettes again today.  Without the stress of packing and catching a flight, I was able to think more clearly.  Every aspect of this bake, from shaping, scoring, to color, has improved except for one thing:  the alveoli were not as evenly distributed.  How I wish I had taken the time to record the details!  Oh, well, I can always try again.  Next time when I come home, Dad, I promise I’ll bring you some decent baguettes.

 

The following is a summary of my bake:

 

 

 

Here are some pictures:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41705172@N04/sets/72157625518554802/show/

 

Trying to lose weight as a bread baker is really the pits. It is really cramping my baking frequency! But with the holidays coming I wanted to make some "decorative" bread so I decided to give the Epi another try. While previous efforts were not necessarily failures, I figured it would be a good chance to explore my skills (whatever they might or might not be!)

All of this was complicated by not starting yesterday so this morning I weighed out 190 grams of flour and 10 of rye, 4 grams of salt, 130 grams of water, and a half teaspoon of yeast. While weighing I decided to add some sourdough starter just to add a bit more flavor - about 10 grams. Mixed for about three minutes in the KA, let it sit for about 20 minutes, gave it two more minutes in the KA, and finished by hand. The dough passed he window test. Gave it twenty minutes to get going and popped it in the fridge to ferment while I worked out and ran errands. 

Formed two shortish, thin baguettes and let them rise about 2 1/2 hours. Cut the epi and baked in a 450 degree oven to an internal temperature of 207.

I think I will make some more to take to a party next weekend! Seems like a nice, decorative alternative to conventional loaves!