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I haven't posted in quite some time, but there is rarely a day that goes by that I don't check in here and marvel at the TFL creations.  I haven't posted, as I was pretty much making the same bread every week, so not much to share.  At some point (early Covid lockdown) I decided to acquire a Pullman pan and work on my sandwich bread.  I've been making this loaf with small tweaks to the flour mix here and there, and just wanted to pop in, share, and say thanks..... without some of the wonderful breads I see posted here, I would not have achieved this kind of result.  My current loaf is my modified version of Maurizio's Pain de Mie Sandwich Bread

Weekly Sandwich Loaf (9" Pullman - USA Pans)

398g AP Flour (Central Milling ABC)

76g Whole Wheat (freshly milled, CM hard red spring)

49g Durum (freshly milled, Great Plains)

14g Rye (freshly milled, CM)

350g Water

21g Olive Oil

35g Honey

9g Salt

87g Active Starter (100% hydration)

(note, my scale died today, and I obviously can't halve a double batch by eye....hence the lumpier loaf on the right that didn't fill the pan.) :)

Keep on baking, TFL, your creations inspire me!  (.....going to try one of Benito's multi-colored creations soon!)

Rich

I recently saw the Nussknacker (eng: Nutcracker) on Dietmar Kappl's Instagram feed and decided straight away that I wanted to bake it.  It comprises a tasty mix of wholemeal spelt and coarse rye flours, leavened with a rye sour and packed full of roasted hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower and hemp seeds.

Very kindly, Dietmar has provided the recipe on his blog, so no need to reproduce it here. Suffice it to say that my only changes were swapping some of the sunflower seeds for hemp hearts, 15ml extra water in the main dough, 1.5g IDY in place of the fresh yeast and a topping of mixed black and white sesame seeds.

I baked it as a single loaf in a long thin Kaiser loaf tin. I'm pleased with how it turned out - quite dense, but not heavy as the high quota of nuts give it a great crunchy texture.

Lance

All, 

I posted on here a few months ago regarding issues with my starter. I've baked around 30 loaves between then and now and all have been failures. I'll attempt to add as much detail as possible to this post.

I take a time-lapse video of my starter during the day, keep it inside a proofing box, and feed it twice a day (1:8:5 starter:water:flour) I also occasionally measure pH, it's reliably around 5.5 after feeding and around 3.7 after it falls, typically around 4 at peak. I feed it rye flour, and sometimes a 50/50 mix of rye and whole wheat. It rises and falls predictably, tripling in volume at its peak (~6h after feeding kept at 78F), and falling at around 8 hours. I feed it 3 times on weekend days and only twice during the weekdays. Recently, out of frustration, I bought a starter (the KA starter), and was able to make good bread, which was enough incentive to keep trying. I've kept my starter alive purely out of stubbornness, but I can't get it to make anything good. Everything is under proofed, even after bulking for over 8h at 80C, at which point my gluten network starts to disintegrate and I end up with pancake batter. 

Out of desperation, this morning I decided to feed it white KA AP flour instead of its usual Bob's organic dark rye. Because white flour can't hold as much water, I fed it a 1:6:5 ratio, instead of the usual 1:8:5 to reach a similar consistency. I've been watching it throughout the day and took a time-lapse. It's been 10 hours since I fed it and it hasn't grown at all. There seems to be marginal activity and a few small bubbles, but otherwise it's dead.

Do you guys have any idea why this is happening? why can my starter feed on rye very well, act predictably, smell good, etc, but isn't able to feed on white flour? 

Thank you all in advance :) 

Off to celebrate the Mother in Laws 92nd birthday with the family so i made some bread to share, i thought a Potato and Rosemary would be nice, and a chance to use some of the Italian flours that i have recently purchased. I started with making a sponge @ 8.30am using 300ml of recent rain water that i collected and 280 g of Molisana Farina di Grano Tenaro OO flour and just 1.25g of dried yeast which is a tiny amount, my intention was to have a really slow long fermentation as i had quite a few things to fit in.One of the grand daughters was playing in the Netball grand final at Gibson Park for 10.30 and the won by 2 points. The sponge was well bubbly some 6 and a half hours later @ 2.30, All the remaining ingredients were added. i used the LA TUA Pizza flour 400g, 13.6g salt, 27.2g butter, 68g of Potato, 6.8g of chopped fresh Rosemary and a further 107ml of water. The mixing was also quite leisurely with a number of rests and stretch and folds taking place over an hour period. it was then set aside to bulk ferment and after 4 hours it went into the fridge as is .to complete the BF overnight . In the morning the dough was taken and shaped, i elected to make a 750g loaf via a banneton proof and the remaining 450 was placed in a small baking tin these were placed in plastic bags to final proof and we were off to watch the youngest Grand daughter do a solo violin performance at Penrhos, all the students did an amazing job. When we returned home the dough was progressing well and the oven was fired up. Once the temp was up the smaller loaf tin was placed in the oven with a steaming tray for the first 15 minutes and as the tray was removed the Romertoph clay baker was put in . When it was time for the small loaf to come out the lid was removed from the Romertoph and the loaf allowed to bake out. all cooling now and will be just right in another hour or so for the gathering. if it tastes only half as good as it smells i will be very pleased PS iT WAS!                                                          

This is Whole Rye and Whole Wheat from Bread - A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes by  Jeffery Hamelman

I baked two loaves the other day of this delicious bread.  I have to say that I'm quite happy with the way they turned out. The crumb is mildly dense and has a nice, light tangy flavor. The crust is crisp and has toasty/roasted flavors. This bread will definitely go into the rotation. Recipe and process are below for those interested.

Well it is almost fall and soon Instagram will be full of pumpkin shaped breads. I have never tried to make one of these so thought it might be fun to do. I also haven’t shaped a boule in sometime so thought I was due.

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I still have some mashed purple sweet potato from months ago that I prepared using the instant pot and froze in small portions. I will say that the addition of purple sweet potato to this dough seems to slow down the yeast which surprised me somewhat. As I have been doing lately, I prepare two aliquot jars to watch fermentation, one for rise and the other to measure pH. The gradual fall in pH was as expected so the potato wasn’t affecting LAB at all. However, the rise was extremely slow. I typically see a rise of 40-50% with a pH of around 4.4-4.5, but for this loaf there was only a 20% rise at a pH of 4.4. At that point I did shape this. The dough was left in the banneton until the pH reached 3.9 at which time cold retard was started.

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I dipped the string in neutral oil to help make them release more easily after baking. The photos show my process in preparing the dough for final bake. The oven was preheated at 500ºF. Once scored the dough was baked at 450ºF with steam for 20 mins, then the steam was exhausted and the temperature was dropped to 420ºF and the loaf was baked for another 30 mins turning halfway through.

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Yes, posted before and guilty as charged!  However, I'm here to sing the praises of this extraordinary bread.  And can't think of a better way than to put it in front of your eyes again.  After these came out of the oven and cooled, and we'd had a few slices, I said to my wife - if I had only one bread that I would be able to bake forever, I think this would be the one.

Those who know what I've posted in the past know that I have a strong leaning toward both semolina/durum breads with sesame seeds and deli-like rye breads with caraway seeds.  Those could be leading candidates for the "forever bread" for me.  But I have the feeling that this particular bread right here is the Secretariat* of them all.

If you haven't yet gotten around to this dandy bread, I suggest that you do.  Most likely you will not be sorry.

310g x 4 baguettes/long batards.

Baked 13 minutes with steam, another 13-15 minutes after releasing steam and rotating loaves, and an additional 2 minutes of venting with the oven off.

I realized as I was assembling the components that I was out of sunflower seeds, but did have just enough pumpkin seeds on hand.  They worked out just fine.

*Secretariat was the greatest horse in USA racing history winning the American Triple Crown of racing in 1973 by the still incredible distance of 31 lengths.

Edit.  Crumb shot added.  This bread, like the Hamelman 5 Grain, is very hearty and so there really isn't a lot of place for me to coax a much more open crumb.  Others may very well be better at it, but getting a good open crumb has occasionally been an elusive skill. 

Loosely based on (i.e. "inspired by") this formula: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Scottish_Wheat_Bannock_Bread

My take:

• 1/2 cup Sharbati atta, Swad brand.
• 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill, stone ground whole wheat.
• 1/4 tsp salt, Himalayan pink.
• 1 tsp baking powder, Rumford.
• 1 tbsp regular olive oil.
• 3/8 cup bottled spring water.
• 1/8 cup instantized dried milk, Kroger brand.
• NO added sugar. (Original called for sugar.)
• additional water was added during mixing/kneading,  between 1/8 and 1/4 cup.

Pre-heated toaster oven and Lodge 9.25" diameter round handle-less cast iron griddle
https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-Logic-Round-Griddle-Handles/dp/B00I4XNEE4?tag=frogllabout-20
at 400 F while mixing/kneading.

The iron griddle and this oven tends to scorch the bottom of breads, so I place the griddle on a circle of aluminum foil, shiny side up.  I tried shiny side down, but then the bottom doesn't brown enough. The foil was in place during pre-heat.

Added 1/8 cup powdered milk to 3/8 cup water, mixed.

Mixed dry ingredents separately.

Worked in the olive oil into the dry ingredients. Original recipe called for butter.

Added milk/water. Mixed. Could tell it was going to need more water. Probably had too much flour, as I merely used measuring cup to scoop directly from bag.

Worked/kneaded in small amounts of water until it felt like a nice dough. Forgot to measure additional water.

Pressed out dough by hand to about 8" diameter disk.

Reduced toaster oven temp to 350 F.  Oiled the griddle. Loaded the dough. Docked it a little. Placed in toaster oven. After a 10 minutes or so flipped  the bannock. After a few minutes, flipped again. Last half of bake was at 325 F.   This oven runs a bit hot.

Total bake time was about 25 minutes. I just went by looks and didn't keep exact track.

Used the toothpick test. Seemed nicely done and browned.

My cheapy probe thermometer broke so I could not take temp. 

Top: (Note: top was browned by baking it upside down for a bit.)

Bottom:

Side:

Crumb:

Our recent babka community bake gave me a hankering for what my grandmother would call 'bulkas/boolkes/bulkes' - yeasted cinnamon buns made with milk.

They are simple, soft and buttery, and not too sweet or as complex as babka. Lovely to eat when spread with butter. We also like to have them as the perfect food for breaking the Yom Kippur fast.

Orna Purkin has a great recipe which uses commercial yeast. She has an interesting YouTube channel that has a couple of variations and a clever technique for shaping the buns.

They're easy to make with commercial yeast, but I do like my yeast water lately, which also seems fairly osmotolerant and can handle the sweeter doughs. These were made with apple yeast water (pictured below) and I did a double build before using in the final dough. For the first build 50g of apple yeast water was mixed with 78g of bread flour and left for 8 hours. This was then used in the second build for which an additional 148g of bread flour and 94g of water was added, this was then left in the proofer at 27 deg C for 12 hours and used in the final dough the next morning.

The final dough formula was adjusted to take into account the yeast water levain. All of the second build yeast water levain was used (about 370g). To accomodate this, the amount of milk in the final dough was reduced down to 107g of full cream milk, when compared to Orna's recipe, and the total amount of flour was reduced to 314g. Another adjustment was that I used some cake flour which gives a softer crumb that I tend to prefer, so that 314g of flour was 206g of cake flour and 108g of bread flour. Because I was using the yeast water I didn't deliberately degas the dough prior to shaping, but since shaping involved rolling it flat with a rolling pin some degassing couldn't be avoided!

Fermentation times were 2 hours for the bulk ferment, after which the dough had risen in size by about two-thirds. The bulkas were then shaped (the dough unfortunately cooled a little in my cold kitchen). It then went back into the proofer for about another hour or so to bulk up. Had nice oven spring too.

These are lovely and quick. The crumb below is crying out to be eaten with butter whilst still a little warm!

-Jon