Blogs

It is supposed to rain for the net two days here in the AZ desert but be clear for the Super Bowl on Sunday.  No worries anyway since the stadium has a real grass moveable field and a moveable roof too.  Still, Lucy was thinking about how beautiful, if dry and desolate, the desert usually is while I was thinking about how much the desert and Lucy’s brain are alike.  It’s odd how the names of her breads come about.

This one was a mix of 5 sprouted and whole grains including, wheat, spelt,  rye, einkorn and emmer (Hayden Mills Farro)  The whole and sprouted grains totaled 40% of the flout and half of them were sprouted.  The levain was 13% of the flour and the hydration was 77% so, it was not too wet for a change. 

With sprouted grains in the mix, we start on Tuesday for a Friday’s weekly bake.  First the grains have to be soaked for 3-4 hours and sprouted up to the 24 hour mark or so – stopping them when they first begin to ‘chit’ showing their first tiny toots    Then o Wednesday we dry them in the dehydrator at 105 F and then grind them with the other whole grains.

Then the milled whole grain sprouted flours are sifted to remove hard bits (in this case 28% extraction) that we feed to the starter in 3 stages (2 -3 and 4 hours in this case) to make the levain.  This left the 72% extraction for the dough flour mix.  One the levain doubles after the 3rd feeding it goes into the fridge of a 24 hour cold retard at 36 F.

On Thursday we got out the levain from the fridge and the yogurt whey from the freezer.  We zapped the whey in the microwave to thaw it out and warm it up for the autolyse which was an hour as the levain warmed up.  We sprinkled the salt on the top of the autolyse so we wouldn’t forget it.

Once the levain hit the mix, we mixed it in a bit with a spoon before beginning the 3 sets of slap and folds on 8, 1 and 1minute and 3 sets of stretch and folds from the compass points .  All were done 20 minutes apart, and the dough stopped sticking to the counter at the end of first set of slap and folds.

A yummy cheesecake and a deep dish chicken pot pie!

We then let the dough ferment and rest for a half and hour before putting it in a plastic oiled bowl for a 8 hour bulk ferment, followed by a shaped 12 hour cold proof making this bake a quadruple retard - a week for the starter, 24 hours for the levain and   hour bulk ferment and a 12 hour proof.

How Lucy comes up with these methods just goes to show how much she has slowed down. It has been forever since we tried to do this quadruple madness and the last time wasn’t pretty if I remember right - which proves beyond a doubt how much I have slowed down too.

Thank goodness geneticists have isolated a jellyfish gene that makes people not be forgetful – great for Alzheimer’s cases.   You can now be genetically modified to perk up the old brain pan in ways like never before.  I’m trying to get them to put it in wheat so I can kill two birds with one stone!

Once the dough came out of the fridge after the 12 proof, we let it warm up on the counter heating pad for 1 ½ hours before starting up Big old Bets to 500 F preheat.  We un- molded the dough onto parchment paper on a peel, gave it one big slash, onto the bottom stone it went and quickly covered by our heavy aluminum MagnaLite turkey roaster bottom for 20 minutes of steam . After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 450 F

Once the lid came off, we continued baking at 425 F convection for 20 minutes until the temperature read 205 F.  Once the oven was off, we left the bread on the stone for another 5 minutes until it hit 208 F and then removed it to a cooling rack.  The dough sprang and bloomed pretty good under steam and browned up well enough too

Can’t wait to see the crumb once it cools down.  The crumb came out not as open as the rise and spring would suggest.  Still, it was very soft moist and glossy.  A perfect sandwich crumb.  Thos is the kind of crumb we get when we do a long bulk ferment in the fridge and then a long shaped proof in the fridge too -just too much messing with the dough.  Once the again, the taste was great and quite different than the porter bread.  The whey added a sharper tang  but not too much.  The sprouts really came through too.  A fine loaf that we can't wait to make toast out of tomorrow for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch.  

 Taco Tuesdats are always a hit.

 Lucy reminds us to never ever forget to add a good salad to any meal.

Hello bakers!

Im a long time reader, but finally achieve a bread that Im not ashamed to share with you guys.

This is a Tartine-style bread with some dry figs and brazil`s nuts. Its basically the Tartine recepie from the Weekend Bakery website (weekendbakery.com), so they describe the steps much better than I could do it.

My levain is fed with a 1-3-3 ratio (usually 20g of levain, 60g water and 60g whole wheat). Usually I make the poolish the night before baking, in the counter, and it sits the whole next day in the fridge (I work all day, so nightime is where the magic happens here). After the autolyse stage, I added the water part II (see recepie in the website), salt and dry figs (60g) along with brazil`s nuts grinded in a food processor (30g).

I pre-heat my oven 1 hour before bake time. The bread goes to the oven inside an old oval shaped cast iron casserole (see pictures below), 30min with lid on and another 5-7min without it. Inside my oven theres a piece of soapstone that I use as a base for the cast iron.

Here it goes:

Cheers!!

I was intrigued by dabrownman's "more than 15 but less than 30 ingredient challenge" so I decided to give it a try by modifying Reinhart's BBA Basic Sourdough. I bought a package of Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain 10 Grain Hot Cereal, which appears to be coarsely milled whole grains, and chose to substitute 5 oz of starter with 5 oz of dry whole grain (Reinhart's recipe calls for 10.2 oz of preferment, in this bread I used about half as much). I made a bit of a mistake here as I added enough water to soak the grain overnight which totaled 7 oz of water ... my intention was an 82% hydration loaf using 100% hydration preferment and soaker but it's pretty obvious the soaker exceeded 100%.

100% hydration preferment (I did it in 2 builds, first build was 50 g water and 50g flours, second build was 100g water and 100g flours):

KAF Bread Flour

KAF White Whole Wheat

Arrowhead Mills Rye flour

Mature starter

Water

Main dough:

KAF Bread flour: 8 oz

KAF White Whole Wheat: 6.25 oz

KAF AP: 1 oz (I intended to use more but the bag ran dry)

Arrowhead Mills Sprouted Wheat Flour: 2.5 oz

Arrowhead Mills Rye Flour: 2.5 oz

Whole grain soaker: 12oz

(the whole grain cereal I used for the soaker is whole wheat, whole rye, corn grits, whole triticale, whole oats, soybeans, whole millet, whole barley, whole brown rice, oat bran, and flax meal ... it was 5 oz of the dry cereal and 7 oz water)

Salt: 0.6 oz Pink Himalayan

For the fluid I used Flying Dog "The Truth" Imperial IPA (12 oz) and 5.5 oz of additional water.

I autolysed the flour overnight for 12 hours, then added the salt, soaker, and preferment.

I mixed the mess with my Kitchen Aid using the dough hook ... then proceeded to knead in 5 minute intervals with 10 minute rests in between each interval. I let it sit out of 2 hours at room temp, then let it ferment in the coldest room in my house (about 55dF) for 5 hours, then into the refrigerator overnight. I preshaped it in the morning and then put it back int eh fridge ... it was very wet and sticky but I was able to stretch it and form a boule. Back into the refrigerator for 8 hours. Then for the final shaping I gently stretched it and formed into a boule, then into the brotform ... then into my utility closet (90dF) for 1.5 hours for final proofing.

I preheated my DO to 550dF and put the dough in and lightly scored it. After 5 minutes in the oven I reduced the temperature to 515dF and baked another 10 minutes. I then removed the bread from the DO and put it on the baking stone, and reduced the temperature again to 475dF. After 15 minutes I measured the internal temperature which read 195dF, so I left the bread in the oven for another 10 minutes ... at this point it was pretty dark so I removed it from the oven.

Crumb shots later, unless my wife decides to give the bread away, lol.

-Dave

EDIT: I couldn't wait so I lopped a slice off a few minutes ago. I'm pleased with the crumb. I think some of the hops came through, the outer crust is a touch on the bitter side. The crumb is moist, likely from the corn, and was delicious with butter. Will be interesting to observe the flavor as the loaf ages.

Who could have imagined that the lid of a cheap turkey roaster would give me the confidence to explore whole new areas of shaping and scoring my sourdough loaves? I feel like it’s given my baking stone a new purpose in life.

Last weekend I posted my first pointy batards. I have done a number of early morning bakes since then, and I'm pretty much transfixed by the shape. They just have this...I don't know...this subtle elegance, I guess. And working with them also allows me to practice some of the most classical vertical scoring techniques, with hopes of occasionally actually seeing those ears bloom.

I am also always, always experimenting with tricks and techniques to work long-fermented sourdough into a busy 40+ hour non-baking-related work week. I didn’t set out to focus on the “48-hour” mark, but that’s how this week turned out. Here are three different methods for producing sourdough torpedos in 48 hours, even when you’re at home for very little of that time. Both formulas emphasize a long room-temperature autolyse. This just seems to do wonders for the extensibility of the dough, and the quality of the crumb...no matter what type of flour is involved.

Torpedos #1 and #2:  I include these together, because they use the same hydration and the same levain %...just slightly different flours and mix-ins...

#1: The Simplest

50 g 100% hydration sourdough starter

475 g all-purpose flour

365 g water 

11 g salt

5 g malt powder or sugar

#2 Olive and Herb 

50g 100% hydration sourdough starter

300 g all-purpose flour

175 g whole wheat flour

375 g water

11 g salt

5 g malt powder or sugar

1/2 cup sliced olives (black and green)

1.5 tsp herbes de provence

2 tsps lemon zest

Day One

1) Mix together water with flour in the morning.

2) Autolyse all day (whatever your 'all day' ends up being...mine was 10 hours).

3) Mix in levain, salt, malt, and extra ingredients. This will take 3-4 minutes. 

4) Perform 4-point stretch-and-folds ever 30 minutes for 2.5 hours (I actually sometimes add 1-4 more stretches. If the dough seems extensible enough, I add a few folds!).

5) Rest on the counter for 8-12 hours. The small amount of levain will require this length of bulk ferment!

Day Two

6) After 8-12 hours, place in the refrigerator. I retarded both of these for 24 hours during bulk fermentation. 

Day Three

7) Divide and rest for 10 minutes. Shape into torpedos and proof for one hour. 

8) Trick: Place in the freezer for 20 minutes! I truly think that this encourages ovenspring in high-hydration loaves proofed at room temperature. 

9) Score and bake for 15 minutes with steam, 17 minutes without. 

The Simplest:

Olive and Herb:

I am amazed by old dough as a method of leavening. I still can't believe that I can use a small hunk of dough from a previous loaf to leaven a new one. And it's incredibly flexible, because you can simply decide exactly the hydration percentage and flour makeup of a loaf, autolyse, everything...and then cut in the dough. No worries about levain changing hydration percentage. It's just added mass. Magical.

#3: Pate Fermentee 

300 g old dough (I actually can't remember exactly what the flour makeup of the dough was...I've been baking too much!)

400 g all-purpose flour

100 g whole wheat flour

400 g water

11 g salt

5 g malt or sugar

Day One: 

1) Mix flour and water, and autolyse for your full work day (mine was 9 hours)

2) In the evening, mix in the old dough and the rest of the ingredients. This will take about 5 minutes. 

3) Perform stretch-and-folds every 30 minutes for 2.5 hours.

4) Allow to rest for 2-4 hours more. 300 grams of old dough will actually ferment new dough more quickly than one might think!

5) Place in the refrigerator. 

Day Three:

6) That's not a typo. There's no second day, because the dough was in the fridge at the end of Day 1, and was there for nearly 36 hours. Now we're at the morning of the third day. 

7) Divide and rest for 10 minutes. Shape into torpedos and proof for 1 hour. 

8) Place in freezer for 20 minutes!

9) Score and bake with steam for 15 minutes, without for 17 minutes. 

All of these loaves tasted good. I will say that #1 and #2, the ones with the longer room-temperature ferment, had a deeper tang. The pate fermentee loaf spent much less time at room temperature, with a long, cold bulk, and it tasted much milder...but not necessarily less complex. Maltier, even. I've read wildly conflicting descriptions of the role of room temperature vs. cold fermentation. So I guess I'll just have to keep trying...testing...exploring...

--Hannah

My starter died this summer due to starvation and neglect. It was watery and foul, but I seem to have revived it after a few feedings.

However, the point of this post is that in 2009 I took a couple of Tbs of this starter and smeared it on a piece of parchment, put it in the oven on the proof cycle (80*F) and left it overnight. The next morning I scraped of the dried flakes, put them in a freeezer bag and into cold storage it went at 0*. I revived them 2 days ago with water and flour; after 3 feedings at 12 hour intervals I have a frothy new starter. Highly recommended procedure.

New oatmeal bread formula I've been working on at home in my free time.  Feel free to try it and share the results (hopefully good ones).  Bread ends up with a really nice clean flavor, great toasted up in the morning with some jelly or eggs.  No need for a sourdough starter which makes it nice and simple though you could certainly incorporate one into the recipe pretty easily and I think the results would be quite pleasing, it will probably be my next adventure with this one.

Total Formula -

Flour 100% - 750 grams

Water 112% - 840 grams

Rolled Oats 30% - 225 grams

Brown Sugar 6% - 45 grams

Salt 2.6% - 19.5 grams

Yeast (IDY) 0.45% - 3.38 grams

The breakdown goes like this:

Oatmeal preferment -

225 grams of oatmeal

150 grams of flour

562 grams of water

0.84 grams of yeast

The consistency of the preferment should be extremely wet, sort of like a poolish.  This can be left for about 12 hours, it will not grow a whole ton due to the weight of the oats but it should bubble up pretty nicely and start to develop a nice smell.  In addition this will also soften up the oats (which aren't really visually present in the final product).

Final dough -

600 grams of flour

278 grams of water

45 grams of brown sugar

19.5 grams of salt

2.54 grams of yeast

and of course the entire oatmeal preferment

I used my kitchenaid due to the wetness of the dough just to get a rough start on the mixing though it certainly could be done by hand as not much mixing is really necessary.  I put it on a moderately high speed (I think it was around 6) with the dough hook and just mixed for about a minute and a half till there was slight signs of development but it wasn't close to pulling away from the bowl and the scooped it out into an oiled container.  folds went at 20, 40, 60, 90,120, and 180 minutes.  so folds every 20 minutes for the first hour, twice during the second hour, and once at 3 hours.  After 4 hours of fermentation I divided it into two 750 gram boules and used the extra dough to make a little batard.  bench rested for 30 minutes and gave it the final shaping.  Final proof should take between 1 hour and 15 minutes to and hour and a half, though I imagine if you wanted to retard it you could do that with some slight procedural modifications as the dough doesn't move particularly fast. Baked at 500 on a stone covered with a clay dome for 20 minutes and then removed the dome and baked till it was to my liking.

I have never made this bread before, so I thought I would give it a try. I modified the original recipe a bit, as I have described below. Another TFLer found the recipe, and I used that, with some modifications. The original recipe link shows how to build the 100% rye starter from scratch, but I used my existing starter and saved that step.

I really liked the dough once it came together.  For a tartine dough, it didn't seem to have enough hydration, so I added a bit more water than the recipe called for.  After that, and the addition of the salt and the olive oil, I just loved the dough. It had a wonderful silky feel.

Just had some with butter, and it was really tasty.  Very moist, nice crumb. My husband made a corn beef sandwich and really enjoyed it.

I baked it in my LaCloche and had a slight bit of sticking as the dough rose above the lip of the banneton and didn't want to come out when I turned it upside down.  I was afraid of this and had even added more brown rice flour to the banneton before I popped the dough in!  It landed on the side of the LaCloche tray, but I was able to shake it back to a better position.  As a result, the shape wasn't a perfect boule, but worse things can happen. I guess I have learned with enough of these mistakes to make the best of it.

Semolina Tartine

Here is the website that has the original recipe: http://tartine-bread.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/9-days.html?m=1

Levain

50g 100% hydration, 100% rye starter

100g organic dark rye flour

100g cold, filtered water

I started this and left it on the counter overnight at room temperature.  I had mixed the rye with my AP/WW/rye starter mix, so it wasn't 100% rye starter as the recipe called for.  However, it responded beautifully and really popped overnight.  You have got to love a rye starter. It was a bit crazy, but it made about exactly the 250 grams required for the recipe.

Final Dough

250g mature whole rye starter 100% hydration 

200g semolina 

300g bread flour

300g water 

12g salt

30g extra virgin olive oil 

Method

Combine all ingredients minus the salt and olive oil.

Autolyse for about one hour.

Add salt plus olive oil and incorporate. At this point, I really gave it a knead in the bowl to incorporate the ingredients as another blogger mentioned she did not do this and didn't feel she got the proper gluten development and suggested a bit of a knead at this point rather than a turn or stretch and fold.

For first two hours do stretch and fold every half hour.  (I had some schedule issues and let it sit out a lot longer and did stretch and folds over a longer period of time, perhaps even four hours before I put it in the fridge for the bulk fermentation. I really liked how the bread responded and actually seemed to become more like the Tartine dough I have worked with before.

For last two hours of bulk fermentation finish off in the fridge. 

Take out of fridge, do first shaping and let rest for 15 minutes. 

Then do final shaping, pop into your banneton and final proof in the fridge overnight.  (It really came up by morning; I was impressed. It does not need much counter time to pop up, so don't leave it out of the fridge very long before baking).

Bake:  I baked my loaf in the LaCloche covered baker, preheating the lid and bottom at 500F and baking for 30 minutes with the cover on and then 15 minutes with it off, lowering the temperature to 435F convention.  You can also bake with normal steam, 450F or 235C for 40 45 mins, turn the loaves half way through the bake. 

With Poolish bread.

turmeric powder 30g, Black sesame 30g

 Poolish

Room  - 14.7ºC

Water  - 28.5ºC

Poolish  Dough  - 24.5ºC

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Dough

Water  - 41.2ºC

Room  - 22.1ºC

The final dough  - 23.2ºC

Hi !!
These days, I'm testing the flour water salt yeast book
It's the result.

Breakfast this morning: raspberry, blueberry poppy seed muffins. Mix the wet and dry ingredients separately then combine. Gently fold in the blueberries. Fill prepared muffin tins half way, then press a whole, large raspberry in the center and fill up the tins. Bake @ 400F for 20 minutes turning at the half. Enjoy!!!

 Super easy:

1 cup flour

6 Tbs sugar

2 Tbs poppy seeds

1 t baking pow

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 egg

1/2 cup raspberry yogurt

2 Tbs canola oil

1 t lemon extract

3/4 - 1 cup blueberries

6 large raspberries.

Home baked goodness!!!

Here is yet another take on Norm's onion buns where Brian uses 2 Tbs dehydrated onion flakes and 1 Tbs garlic flakes to season the water and provide the topping. I love these buns and am still amazed at the volume I am getting from a pound of flour! 

Happy baking folks! Brian