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Haven't baked in a while as dealing with family health issues.  Finally ran out of bread so had to bake and I wanted something different.  I liked the bread I baked for 123 community bake so that was my starting point. Pictured loaf is based on 123 but flour mix is:

bread flour 65.5%, Kamut 14.5%, Spelt flour 10% Durum 10% and hydration ended up at 84% approx with 1.8% salt.  Usual 200 slap and folds followed by coil folds 4* 30 minutes apart. preshaped, rested 30 minutes, shaped and left on bench for an hour before retarding over night.  

Really nice light yellow crumb, soft and delicious.

2nd bread was also based on 123 buts different flours and seeds.

Bread flour 65%, Barley flour 10%, Rye flour 10%, durum flour 10% potato flour 10% and 2% salt. Hydration ended up at 89%. Toasted seeds: chia 6%, Quinoa 6% sesame seeds 6%  and ground flax seeds 6% plus 2% yoghurt.

Method as above, incorporating seeds at autolyse. only 30 minutes bench rest before retarding. 

Nice loaf you can really taste the seeds.  Not sure about quinoa though.

Final bake was a straight forward white Yeastwater/sourdough with overall hydration of 80%.

This sprung and bloomed beautifully. really happy with it.

Sorry, time has run out for me today and I have to run.  It was a great overall bake especially after a month of doing no baking.

Bake happy everyone

Leslie

I was thinking about grass a few days ago while finishing the last lawn mowing of the season and while not really appreciating my lawn grass as such, was struck by the fact that wild grasses are the archetype for the many grains we use to make our bread.  Many species/strains of wheat and other grains can trace their origins as wild grasses that have been cultivated, modified and preserved over many years as food crops.  So, with that in mind, I baked what I decided to call "Grass Bread", as inspired by the grass roots of our modern grains. 

300 g fresh milled mix of organic rye/spelt/khorasan/Marquis wheat sifted to yield 250 g high extraction flour (bran set aside for coating the loaves); 750 g organic all purpose flour; mixed with 725 g water and autolysed for 2 hours at room temperature; then added 15 g sea salt, 250 g levain (4 hours, very active), mixed with a series of stretch/folds and set aside for a 4 1/2 hour bulk fermentation with more stretch/folds every 30 minutes for the first  2 hours; additions were mixed in after the second series of stretch/folds - 150 g cracked grain, steel cut oat porridge; 50 g cooked hulless oats; 50 g cooked hulless barley; 75 g cooked wild rice. FDH estimated at 85% after additions. Pre-shaped and rested for 1/2 hour then final shaped and cold-proofed overnight (10 hours).  Baked directly out of the fridge covered at 500 F for 25 minutes; 450 F for 10 minutes and then uncovered at 450 F for 20 minutes directly on the baking stone.  Oh, and almost forgot...before setting the loaves into the baskets I coated the loaves with some of the sifted bran, ground pumpkin and sunflower seeds (not grass, I know) and toasted hemp seeds (some would say "grass"!)  I am very happy with this bread. Of all the loaves I have baked this one is my absolute favourite - taste, texture, nutritional composition - who knew grass could be so good?

I just had probably my last bake with a class of students at the college before it closes for good at the end of this year.

This was a dough that they had down in their work books as a basic bread dough but i would have it down as an enriched dough as it had 8% butter and 8% milk powder, for me it would qualify as a vienna dough.

 It was a fresh yeasted dough  and made a nice selection of dinner rolls and a few loaves like this one i bought home.

My DH was asking for a plain sourdough. But it's a little too boring for me. So I made a high hydration loaf and coated it with sesame seeds. 

500g Organic AP flour

262g water (over poured a bit)

150g Levin built from NMNF rye starter and whole wheat flour over 2 days

13g salt

Autolyse about 20 mins flour and water. Add Levin and salt. Process in KitchenAid with dough hook for 15 mins. Bulk overnight in the fridge. Warm to room temp about 3 hours. "shape" coat in sesame seeds and proof again in the fridge, about an hour in banneton. Bake in DO 25mins and 30 lid off at about 460 DF. 

 This morning's PdC made in a hurry; but good.

About 6am I ground 25 g rye and 175 g of red winter wheat as fine as possible, then added 400 ml of water, a tsp of instant yeast, and 100 g of very good starter, stirring well. I put a shower cap on it and let it sit at 85F for a couple of hours.

Then, I used a wooden spoon to stir in 400 grams of GM bread flour making a rough dough, put the  shower cap back  on it, and put it back its proof box for half an hour. 

I kneaded it lightly. and put it back in its proof box. it was still not a smooth dough. Then at 20 or 30 minute intervals,  I took it out and did a stretch/fold.  After 4 folds in the course of 90 minutes, the magic of the sour-dough had turned it into bread dough, and I let it ferment for an hour.  (I watch the dough, not the clock.)

I shaped the loaf, and put it in a banneton with it's shower cap, where it sat warm for ~ an hour. A little after 10 am it went into a 400F oven for 35 minutes.  

It was served at noon with pea soup.  A mild bread, not a full flavored sour-dough, so it let the thyme and rosemary tones of the chicken stock used to build the soup come through.  It was good soup and good bread, but together they made an excellent meal.

I came home to see that my levain was doing quite well in my Doraemon bowl! The CO2 got trapped by the cling wrap. Interesting.

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I mixed some unusual cassava flour this time. Cassava flour is gluten free stuff and this one was not toasted. I would like to try the toasted one sometime later on. The cassava flour needs to be hydrated before mixing. Since it was the first time I used, I hydrated with boiling water, but I think tap water would work just as fine.

I did not keep a good track of all ingredients, but here it goes:

80 g levain at 100% hydration

25 g cassava flour at 200% hydration

170 g flour (12% protein)

30 g semolina

80 g WW

4.5 g salt

177 g water

Total flour: 350 g

Total water: 267 g

I have done the standard procedure that I have followed lately: (1) Dissolve levain in water as well the cassava blob. It was a little gummy after hydrating, so I had to dissolve it by hands. (2) Add all flour and mix into a shaggy mass. (3) Wait for 30 min and add salt, kneading for 30 sec to 1 min. (4) Apply 3 sets of stretches and folds every 20-30 min. (4) Bulk fermentation needs to be about 4 hours. (5) Shape and retard in the fridge for about 6 hours. (6) Bake straight from the fridge on a 230 C deg oven for 45 min with lid on + 10 min with lid off (I started baking on a cold pot). (6) Wait to cool and slice

Crust and crumb were quite good. Since the cassava flour is mild in taste I could not identify it in the final loaf. Note that cassava flour and tapioca starch are different things. The cassava flour is not fermented, so the flavor is mild. Since I scalded the cassava in boiling water, it felt as the tangzhong method. Being gluten free, cassava flour is becoming a good option for those with celeriac decease. You will find other names for the product including: cassava, manioc, mandioca, yuca, ...).

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So it really bugs me that I can get ok crumb on croissants but not (as Roman Moroni would say), fargin excellent crumb. One TFLer recently posted 'attempt number 4' or something crazy and posted the incredible crumb ever. What up with that man ! Looking at his recipe I noticed a lower hydration and thought I would give it a go today. As a result I turned out really nice shapes - every last one had 7 steps and weighed out between 90-100g - gee, that never happens - I usually get wild swings in weights coz wetter dough is harder to consistently laminate to uniform thickness. So all going well but still a bit underwhelmed by crumb. Oh well, the quest continues ... Some snaps for all y'all croissanteurs -

A friend has a walnut tree and gave me some walnuts...So when I looked at my Tartine 1 book again there was a basic recipe similar to my usual 1:4:5 with 100g WW and the rest strong white flour and 100g leaven...

So I followed the advice and toasted the walnuts in the oven which gave them an amazing flavour and surprised I had any left to bake with...

I then followed a bit the @fullproofbaking route and after 30min one coil fold and then lamination after 1.5 hours in bulk and added the walnuts...Then 2 X hourly coil folds and then left alone for 1 hour or more until nicely risen but not too proofy....

No pre-shape and as only two loaves just divided and straight shaping and into bannetons. I left them ambient proof for 25 min and then into 4C wine cooler over night....

I just loooooove the taste and the second one went to my friend with the tree!

Now, there is an interesting discussion going on about whether to pre-shape or not and triggered posts on IG after a talk by Ian Lowe at the UK Grain Lab event in UK. So, this is what I tried as the dough was strong enough, I thought and kind of the right shape to go into final shaping....need to look more into this....   Kat

Hello friends! 

It's been a (long) while since I posted, not for a lack of baking though. Just been dealing with all sorts of chaos. 

I've been baking and re baking this seeded loaf trying new techniques and methods and it's been fun to see the different results. The formula hasn't changed much from my last post, except I've changed to a 100% hydration levain. I don't know if there's any real science behind it but I seem to get nicer results with a 100% levain as opposed to my usual 80% hydration. 

I've also stopped soaking the seeds, trying to incorporate wet seeds while laminating dough is hard. Has anyone ever tried picking up a wet pumpkin seed from a marble counter??? So frustrating... LOL! So now, I just sprinkle the dry seeds onto the dough while its stretched across my counter. 

The mix of seeds has changed too, I don't really measure how much of each type anymore, I just use whatever blend I have that adds up to 40g. Living on edge... 

Coil folds are my new dough development technique of choice. I find them more effective and gentler than how I do stretch and folds. Plus, it's a really great way to get the dough out of container and do a preshape all in one without destroying/over handling the dough.. This is one area I tend to struggle with, but doing a coil fold and then just lifting the dough out of the container, and using that as my pre shape too, seems to work for me. 

Here's the result: 

Really happy with how this turned out. 

This was my third attempt at a stencil and I was pleased with this result. I'm trying to figure out how to get a butterfly onto my loaf with scoring, my last attempt didn't really work. As we can see, the scores kind of exploded on me, so that was a bit of fail :(

But I'll be trying this again soon, hopefully with better results!

Happy baking all! 

Ru

While looking through the kitchen pantry for inspiration, I came across a bag of Wild Blend Rice made by Lundberg. I normally use this rice for a wonderful Chicken & Wild Rice Soup made in the Crockpot but I had bought too much and this bag was sitting there saying to me: “You have been lusting after Ian’s Rice breads for some time, so here I am!”. Who am I to argue with a bag of rice? Ha ha!

I have Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day and  between Ian’s posts and this book, I managed to put this one together. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Dough:

700 g unbleached flour

255 g Kamut berries 

155 g Rye berries

20 g dried onions flakes

85 g dry Lundberg Wild Blend Rice (~240 g cooked)

585g water + 30 g

125 g buttermilk

50 g honey

24 g salt

200 g of 4 stage 100% hydration levain (procedure below)

Two nights before:

1. Mill and sift the Kamut and Rye berries. Reserve 200 g of the sifted Kamut flour and 100 g of the sifted rye flour in a tub. Add the unbleached flour and the dried onion flakes to the tub. Cover and reserve.
2. In separate containers, save the bran and leftover Kamut and Rye flour for the levain.
3. Take 5 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 5 g water and 5 g of the bran. Mix well. This will be quite thick. Note: I use the bran for feedings first to soften it up and when all the bran is used up, I start feeding with the leftover flour. 
4. Cover and let sit overnight at room temp (73F).

The morning before:

1. Feel the levain 15 g of water and 15 g of bran.
2. Cover and let sit 12 hours at room temp.

The night before:

1. Cook the rice mix in plenty of water until the rice is tender. I just put it on a low boil uncovered. Drain, cool and reserve covered in the fridge until the next morning.
2. Feed 30 g of water and 30 g of bran or leftover flour to the levain. Let sit covered overnight at room temp. By the way, because the mixture is so thick, there won’t be a lot of rising. There will be a lot of holes and it will smell mature in the morning. 

Dough day:

1. In the morning, prepare the final stage of the levain. Add 60 g of water and 60 g of leftover flour. Mix well and let sit at room temperature (73F) until it peaks; this took 4 hours. 
2. At the same time, take the rice out of the fridge to bring to room temperature.
3. An hour or two before the levain is ready, add 585 g water to the bowl with the rice, stir to loosen, and pour it all into the tub with the flours. Add the honey and the buttermilk, and mix until all the flour is hydrated. Autolyse (let sit) for an hour or two. 
4. Once the autolyse is done, add the salt, 30 g water (dough felt stiff, hence the extra water), and 200 g of levain. Mix well and let rest for 30 minutes.
5. Do three sets of French slaps and folds (75/40/10) at 30 minutes intervals. Again on 30 minute intervals and in a warm spot (oven with light on), do 3 sets of stretches and folds in the tub.
6. Let rest an hour and a half and then retard the bulk for two or three hours. If you can see bubbles through the walls of the tub, the dough feels jiggly and there are some bubbles along the walls of the tub, you could go ahead and divide the dough at this point but I wanted to extend the bulk without it rising too much so I decided to refrigerate the dough for a few hours. The dough rose about 20%. Total bulk fermentation was 7.5 hours (4.5 hours on the counter and 3 in the fridge). 
7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~765g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest one hour on the counter. 
8. Do a final shape by flouring the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice right boule.
9. Sprinkle rice flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 9-10 hours. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully place the dough seam side up inside. 
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 30 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 17 minutes. Internal temperature should be 205F or more.

And if you are interested in the soup recipe, here it is:

CREAMY CHICKEN WILD RICE SOUP [SLOW COOKER]

YIELD: 8-10 SERVINGS

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup uncooked wild rice blend (NOT parboiled) I use Lundberg Wild Rice Blend.

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast

1 cup onions, chopped

3/4 cup celery, chopped

3/4 cup carrots, chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

2 bay leaves

6 cups low sodium chicken broth

2 cups water (or additional chicken broth)

1 tablespoons salt-free seasoning blend (such as Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute OR Mrs. Dash’s Original Blend)

1 tbsp Thyme

1 tbsp sage

1/2 tbsp Old Bay Seasoning

1 tbsp Chicken Bovril (concentrated chicken bouillon)

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil (or substitute more butter)

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 cups milk or light cream

Seasoning salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Rinse the rice under running water. Place the uncooked rice, chicken breast, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, chicken broth, water, Bovril and all the spices and seasonings (do not add the seasoning salt or pepper at this time) in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on the high setting for 3-4 hours or on the low setting for 7-8. In the last 1/2 hour of cooking, remove the chicken from the slow cooker. Allow to cool slightly before shredding using two forks.

When the rice is done cooking, add the shredded chicken back into the slow cooker. Melt the butter and oil in a saucepan. Add the flour and let the mixture cook for 1 minute. Whisk the mixture slowly while adding in the milk. Continue to whisk until all lumps have dissolved. Allow the mixture to thicken and become creamy.

Add this creamy mixture to the slow cooker. Stir to combine. Add additional water or milk to your preference if the consistency is too thick. Season with seasoning salt and pepper to taste.