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Hi Folks

i was reminded by work colleauges that i had not baked for a little while and that they were feeling deprived of some nice bread. So with that thought ringing in my ears and the thought that i hadn't baked since i had changed my feeding regime for the sourdough culture  where it now spends more time in the cool room than out, coming out for a couple of days for a few feeds and going back in the fridge for a longer stay.

I decided to come in early to work and put through a white dough 3kg flour 2 litres of water and 1 kg of culture(100%hyd) 75g salt 1x 50g egg and 150g of butter.

The dough was mixed well as i had decided that it would get no stretch and folds just a bulk fermentation which lasted for 4.5 hours so the dough was scaled and shaped after my lunch and placed on linen couches for an overnight stay in the cool room. 4 @750g 5 @ 500g 4 @ 250g 

Again i came in early and baked off the dough before my scheduled 7.45 start 

I managed to get a cut shot just before the loaf was eaten at lunch time, please disregard the cutting board with coffee stains  

I have also included a couple of pictures of bread that was made recently during a visit from fellow TFL follower Betsy Teo, im sure she is about to do her write up  about her Aussie Aventure whilst on holiday from Malaysia ( the pressure is on)

Home brew stout with torrified wheat sourdough to the left,  with cottage loaf and stick made  from black sesame white dough (No time dough)

Turmeric with Haloumi Cheese and Spring Onion Sourdough loaf inside and out.

Kind regards Derek

The lead in picture shows that we baked Nisu plus other breads... Helen's picture leads in with her braided Nisu breads and her Alaskan Sourdough. We had a great time baking these breads and decided that we LOVE the dough from this Finnish Nisu (Nissua) bread... it will be the go to recipe for future sweet breads and cinnamon rolls... in fact, today I am going to make a raisin swirl bread with the same recipe.  

Here are our pictures of how this bread came out for us....

 These are Helen's braids before baking.

The next picture shows Barb's braids... beautiful... My two sisters are great at braiding bread dough... lovely.

 Barb said she was surprised and pleased by the oven spring... 

These loaves look great. Good Baking Barb!

And the crumb is nice and spring and beautiful... the bread really tastes good. We all love the taste!

\Below is my crumb, looks a lot like Barb's so I must be doing something right. 

 My bread is not sitting around like other breads I have baked ... we are feasting on it and looking for more... The recipe we used was from allrecipes.com for Finnish Nisu... check it out, you too will become addicted to this one.

 With some sprinkles, this would make a great centerpiece for the Christmas table.

Happy Baking everyone!

Barbra, Diane and Helen (3 gmas)

Down to my last few weeks in Canada and am now trying to clear a bit of my remaining pantry. Still have a little of the spent grains from the previous spent grain bake which I decided to incorporate in last week's bake. And why not throw in a little beer to make it a beer bread something which I wanted to try for a long time. Recipe was adapted from Dan Lepard's barm bread.

Barm:
250g Ale (I used a home-brewed Honey Basil Ale)
50g Flour
4 Tsp Starter

Heat up Ale until 70C. Whisk in Flour. Let it cool and add the starter. Leave to ferment for about 12 hours. (While researching on the recipe, I noted that there is a wide variance to the fermentation time from 8-36 hours). I left mine for 20 hours but I felt it could go longer. I used half the batch for my 1st try but it resulted in a dense bread with little fermentation which I tossed out. To remedy the situation I added some extra sourdough starter for this batch.

Starter:
1/2 Cup Flour
1/4 Cup Water
1 Tbps Starter

Mix and ferment for 8 hours.

Final Dough:
150g Barm (About half of the prepared portion)
1.5 Cup AP Flour
1.5 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1.5 Cup Water
2/3 Cup Spent Grains
2 Tsp Salt

Mix all together and ferment for 7 hours with 2 stretch and folds in between. Preshape and rest for 30 minutes. Shape and proof for 2.5 hours and bake at 230C for 45 minutes.

I must say that this bread really taste great and was well worth the lengthy procedure. Can you really taste the beer? Not really but the barm helps the loaf retain quite a bit of moisture, like a water roux commonly used in chinese styled bread. I would like to think it imparts lots of flavours to the bread as well! 

And the crumb was beautiful from the long fermentation time and high hydration used. It felt like a 75% dough but taking into account that wholewheat was used and the inclusion of the barm, I guess it is about 82%. Not so easy to handle and shape but turned out great. 

The spent greats lend a nice texture to the bread too providing a bit of bite and something to chew on. Just in time for lunch.

-Tim

This is essentially my pizza dough recipe except that I added an extra teaspoon of yeast. I let it rise until double in size. Punched it down, divided it into fourths, formed flattened balls and placed them in a 9x9 pan. Let them rise until doubled again and baked them at 350F for 25 minutes. Sprayed them with butter flavor oil immediately as they came out of the oven, and broke them into individual buns to cool.

They had a nice crumb for burger buns and toasted easily. Tasted great!

Now, this is a first for me - a golden Christmas pudding - golden almonds, golden fruit and actual edible GOLD!!!

Full review and pictures here

Recent bakes:

11/27/13 - 100% Whole Spelt Pandoro-Like Thing

This is a continuation of the 100% spelt brioche that I made last week or so…  I wanted to see what more butter, eggs, and sugar would do using spelt flour...

11/24/13

Rye SD

100g - Water

50g - Organic whole rye flour (Arrowhead MIlls)

48g - Rye SD (100% hydration)

190g - Total SD weight

1:00pm - Mix rye SD, cover and let rest.

11/25/13

11:40pm - Add 100g rye flour to SD, mix, cover and let rest.

11/26/13

Decide to attempt making pandoro with 100% spelt flour (Arrowhead mills).

Sweet SD Starter

200g - Whole spelt flour

100g  - Rye SD from above

58g - Egg (1 xl egg)

17g - Water

38g - Sucanat

396g - Total sweet starter weight

8:30pm - Mix sweet starter, place in covered container, let rest…

11:45pm - Place starter in refrigerator.

11/27/13

8:01am - Take starter out of fridge.

9:30am - Place starter in microwave with a cup of hot water, just to keep starter warm.  My kitchen was cold.

6:50pm - Place starter back in refrigerator…

Final Dough

250g - Whole spelt flour

292g - Eggs (5 xl eggs)

188g - Unsalted butter

150g - Sucanat

10g - Honey

6g - Salt

2g - Instant dry yeast (½ tsp)

396g - Sweet SD starter

1306g - Total dough weight

10:00pm - Weigh out all ingredients.  When butter is slightly softened at room temp, whip with whisk with a little of the succanat, set aside.  Cut up sweet SD starter into small pieces.  In large mixing bowl, place eggs, honey, salt, yeast, sweet SD starter, and spelt flour.  Mix well with wooden spoon until smooth and lump free.  When you can feel some resistance and gluten development, then start adding the succanat.  When all the sucanat is is combined, then mix in the whipped butter.  This process takes about 1 hour by hand…

11:00pm - Place dough in lightly oiled covered container, place in fridge.

12:00pm - Lightly spray 5 ¼” diameter x 3 ¾” tall paper pannetone molds with spray olive oil or you can butter lightly if you like.  Divide dough into 2 equal portions, and place into molds.  Spray lightly the top of the dough with olive oils spray, place on pan and cover with saran wrap and proof overnight…  The dough is very wet and I think I overhydrated so I was unable to shape the dough into a ball…

11/28/13

10:40am - Preheat oven to 380F.

11:30am - When dough reaches approx ¾” from top of mold, bake in oven for 40 minutes or until internal temp reaches 190F…

Ugh…  This recipe was inspired by the Bruno Bakery’s Pandoro recipe from Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking Across America…  This was a lot of work especially when you don’t have an electric mixer, and a lot of time.  Not sure if it was worth it, but at least it didn’t taste bad.  The texture wasn’t what I was after, the shreddy crumb of a pandoro made from high gluten wheat flour…  It was more cakey…  It tastes quite good toasted…

At the same time, I made another spelt bread using a spelt/rye starter, and all spelt for the final dough…  I’ll just say that it didn’t turn out well probably due to not bulk fermenting long enough…  I think I’ll wait awhile before I try a 100% spelt bread using only spelt flour, water, sourdough and salt…  I just didn’t like the taste…

Now on to the next thing…  Limppu and Ruisreikäleipä from Nordic Breads in NYC…  So I have been baking a lot with rye flour lately and remember an article from New York Magazine: Rye’s Rise: Loaves That are More Than a Vehicle for Pastrami: http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/09/new-rye-breads.html

I am fortunate enough to live in NYC and was able to find Nordic Bread’s rye bread Ruisreikäleipä at Dean & Deluca.  I got it just to try and see what it was like.  It’s 100% locally grown organic rye flour.  It’s quite soft, light textured, and sour.

So here is my attempt at Limppu, which simply means loaf in Finnish…  

The recipes that I referenced are as follows. more so the 2nd one:

http://flourandleaven.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/limpuu/

http://tofufortwo.net/2009/06/08/finnish-rye-bread-2/

For technique, I saw this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thaVEPbcT_w

I just think the word “limppu” sounds funny…  On a more serious note, I think that limppu is basically a 100% rye bread that is 75% hydration.  The sourdough starter is a rather liquidy batter in which approx 35% of the total flour is pre-fermented in in most of the total liquid...  Anyway, here’s what happened:

11/28/13

Rye SD - Freshening

50g - Rye flour

50g - Water

Whatever rye SD I had leftover, probably about 50g.

6:30pm - Mix SD, cover and let rest.

11/29/13

Rye SD

364g - Rye flour

700g - Water

50g - Rye SD from above

16g - Toasted spelt bread crumbs from the failed loaf…

1130g - Total SD weight

9:45pm - Mix, cover and let rest.

Final Dough

636g - Rye flour

50g - Water

20g - Salt

1130g - Rye SD from above

1836g - Total dough weight

6:30pm - Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon, place in covered container and let ferment for 3 hours.

10:00pm - Flour work surface well with rye flour, shape dough into a cone, place on parchment paper, cover with towel, let rest for 2 hours, or until surface is cracked.

11:00pm - Place baking stone on middle rack in oven along with steaming device, preheat oven to 500F.

12:00am - Bake for 10 minutes at 500F, then 80 minutes at 400F, then 10 minutes in off oven.  Internal temp should be approx 210F, and loaf should weigh approximately 15% less than pre-baked weight.  Cover in aluminum foil, then in kitchen towels and let rest for at least 24 hours.  I let mine rest for 2 days before cutting.

Notes:  I think it turned out well, but it was not as sour as I had heard that this type of bread could be.  The rye bread from Nordic Breads is more sour than my limppu…  Also, maybe I left the loaf in foil for too long as there were some strange spots on the loaf that I ended up just cutting out with a knife…  

I think the texture is good, but I think I could have let the loaf proof for longer so it flattened out more and developed more cracks and possible had a lighter crumb…  Anyway, I am relatively pleased with this attempt…

Until the next loaf…

Tim

I'm still working on my challenge to provide before and after pictures of all the breads I posted in a collage. This is not the pizza in the collage, but it's the only pizza pic I have that somewhat shows the crumb of my pizza dough. And all my pizzas are the same basic dough, so here's to substitutions!

Pizza is such a customizable dish that it's difficult to produce an exact recipe. My basic rule of thumb is to use a crust recipe you like, the sauce of your choice and the toppings that you prefer. You can cook it on a stone, in a pan or a dish. In the oven, on the grill or over a campfire. Make it small, medium, large. Thin crust, hand tossed, thick or stuffed crust, deep dish.

The one I have shown is a deep dish version, Alredo Sauce, chicken, broccoli, and all the other goodies we like. The only thing I'm going to include here is my recipe for the crust.

Pizza Crust

SIZE            WATER               YEAST               OIL              SALT               FLOUR

Small            1/2 cup                 1/2 tsp             1 tbs              1/2 tsp             1 1/2 cups

Med              3/4 cup                 3/4 tsp             1 1/2 tbs        3/4 tsp             2 1/4 cups

Large             1 cup                   1 tsp                 2 tbs              1 tsp               3 cups

The water should be warm. Pour water into bowl, sprinkle with yeast and allow to bloom. Add salt, oil and half the flour. Beat with a fork until smooth. Knead in the rest of the flour and knead until dough is smooth and elastic. Oil dough, cover lightly, and put in a warm place until doubled in size.

Punch down and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Shape dough to fit your needs and you can let it rest again and even rise again, or you can add your toppings and put it in the oven. I bake mine at 425F until it's as done as I like it.

Now the conditions in your kitchen are probably different from the conditions in my kitchen, and I don't know what kind of yeast, oils and flours you use, so amounts my differ according to your needs, tastes and preferences. I tend to use all purpose flour, Red Star dry active yeast, either vegetable or olive oil, and regular table salt.

Explore your options with this one, I've never had anyone turn down pizza hot out of the oven. Enjoy!

I am starting to feel the effect of all this tastings - six down, another dozen (at least) to go.

And it seemed like such a good idea - full reviews here

I have been on a higher % rye kick for a while now and decided to bake up a few to stock me up for December.  When I say higher %, I know these aren't quite high, but for me, I haven't really tried anything higher then 40% prior to this.  Maybe a Danish Rye qualifies as higher than 40%...

I baked up a Swedish Seed Rye using my Swedish Rye formula and simply adjusted it by using dark rye instead of medium rye.  Also added some sprouted organic spelt flour in lieu of my typical spelt flour.  Even though it will still be a day or two until the flavour develops properly, I can already taste the dark rye coming through loud and clear.

Starting out as a 40% Rye, the other 2 loaves I baked up turned into a 50% Rye inadvertently.  I realized during the mixing process that I added too much water.  I had to off set this hydration with more flour.  I ended up using an extra 95 grams of dark rye flour.  The loaves came out decent but with little oven spring.  I noticed that the bread tastes quite sour so I have a feeling I over fermented both the sour and the bulk.  The extra bran in the dark rye was probably the culprit in the over fermenting.  Still came out decent enough for a slice of cheddar or knob of liver pate.

John

You just have to improvise and salvage what you can!

These were really good buttery rolls. They should have been croissants!

I was trying to make croissants, but had a major butter blowout while working my dough. Such a blowout that it was not going to work as croissants at all! So I folded my dough up, cut it into 6 pieces, sort of tucked the corners under to form a ball and then went at each ball with my apple corer.

Some times you just have to do what you can to save what you can!