Danni3ll3's blog

I was checking out my stash of grains and realized that I have a lot of Kamut. So I decided to do a repeat of a loaf that I did about a year ago. I did make a few changes to include things that I have learned over the past year and also decided to add some honey. 

And.... I forgot to add my usual yogurt. I didn’t feel up to par for some reason so I’ll consider myself lucky that the rest of the dough seemed to come nicely together. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Sprouts

100 g Kamut berries

Soaker

50 g flax seeds

100 g Kamut flakes

300 g boiling water

Dough

700 g unbleached flour

250 g high extraction Kamut flour (mill and sift 285 g of Kamut berries)

50 g high extraction rye flour (mill and sift 60 g of rye berries)

570 g water + 30 g 

60 g honey

22 g pink Himalayan salt

200 g 100% hydration 4 stage levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra whole grain wheat or/and partially sifted whole grain flour for levain

Three days before:

1. Soak 100 g Kamut berries in plenty of filtered water for 6 to 8 hours. Hubby forgot to drain mine while I was away at pottery so it was more like 12 hours!
2. Drain and rinse the berries. Drain again and let sit at room temp (72 F).
3. Every 6 to 8 hours, rinse and drain the berries, and keep at room temp  until the roots are about the same length as the berries themselves. This took about 2.5 days for me. Your mileage may vary. =D
4. Rinse, drain very well and refrigerate until needed.

Two nights before:

1. Take 5 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 5 g water and 5 g whole wheat flour.
2. Let sit overnight.

The morning before:

1. Feel the levain 15 g of water and 15 g of whole wheat flour.
2. Let sit 12 hours.

The night before:

1. Prepare the soaker by toasting the flax seeds in a dry frying pan. Place the flax seeds in a bowl, add the Kamut flakes and pour the boiling water over the seeds and flakes. Cover and let soak overnight.
2. If you are using Kamut and Rye berries, mill into flour. You could use commercial whole grain Kamut flour and dark rye flour if milling your own is not a possibility. Sift to remove the bran. 
3. Place 250 g of the Kamut flour and 50 g of the rye flour in a tub. To the tub, add the unbleached flour. Cover and reserve till the next morning.
4. Save the extra flour and the bran to feed the levain. I ended up with a total of 20 g of Kamut/Rye bran and 21 g of extra Kamut flour.
5. Add 30 g of water and 30 g of bran/extra Kamut flour to the levain. Let sit overnight at room temp (72 F). Note that the bran and the whole grain flour make for a very thick mixture.

Dough day:

1. In the morning, prepare the final stage of the levain. Add 60 g of water and enough leftover Kamut flour and partially sifted whole grain wheat flour to make 60 g. Mix well and let sit until it peaks; this took 3 and a half hours. 
2. An hour or so before the levain is ready, add 570 g water to the bowl with the soaker, stir to loosen the mix, and pour it all into the tub with the flour. Add the honey and mix until all the flour is hydrated. Autolyse (let sit) for an hour. 
3. At the same time, take the sprouts out of the fridge to warm up on the counter.
4. Once the autolyse is done, add the Kamut sprouts, the salt, the yogurt, 30 g 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. The dough felt quite sticky for some reason. Again on 30 minute intervals and in a warm spot (oven with light on), do 3 sets of stretches and folds in the tub. The folds really helped pull the dough together. 
6. Let rest until 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. The dough rose about 30%. Total bulk fermentation was 4.5 hours. 
7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~820g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 45 minutes to 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 and Kamut flakes 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.

I was very happy when I lifted the lids and saw that these loaves had sprung nicely! They sure smell good!

For the past few weeks, I have had quite a few requests to make another olive loaf. So I took my Caramelized Onion with 4 Cheeses recipe and subbed out 3 types of Olives for the onions, feta for the 4 cheese blend and Kamut for the Selkirk wheat. I did adjust quantities on the fly to accommodate the ingredients I had on hand (Might as well use the entire jars of olives and the whole container of feta). ?

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

500 g unbleached flour

200 g bread flour

250 g high extraction Kamut (Khorasan) flour (Mill 285 g of Kamut berries and sift the flour. Save the bran and, after weighing out 250 g for the main dough, any leftover sifted flour for the levain)

50 g buckwheat flour (Mill 50 g of buckwheat groats)

725 g water

144 g in total of green (Manzanilla 48 g), red (Kalamata 49 g) and black olives (47 g)

113 g crumbled Feta (I used a goat cheese feta)

30 g full fat plain yogurt

20 g Pink Himalayan salt

200 g 100% levain (explanation below)

Plus high extraction whole wheat flour (local Brûlé Creek partially sifted flour) for levain

The morning before:

1. Take 15 g of starter and add 15 g of high extraction whole wheat flour and 15 g of water. Let sit for 12 hours.

The night before:

1. In a tub, put in the unbleached flour, the bread flour, the high extraction Kamut flour, and the buckwheat flour. Cover and reserve for the next morning.
2. Use the bran from the Kamut and any sifted leftover flour (as well as some high extraction whole wheat flour if needed) to equal 30 g. Add this and 30 g of water to the levain. Let sit overnight.

Dough making day:

1. Very early in the morning, feed the levain 60 g each of high extraction whole wheat flour and water. Let rise for about 5 hours in a warm spot.
2. About an hour or 2 hours before the levain is ready, add the water, mix well and let sit (autolyse) until the levain is ready.
3. Add the olives, the Feta, the yogurt, the levain and the salt to the dough. Mix well and let rest about 10 minutes.
4. Do three sets of French slaps and folds at 30 minutes intervals. The first set has 75 slaps, the second set has 40 slaps and the last set has 10 slaps. The olives will pop out of the dough at first, but eventually, they will integrate and stop flying all over the place. For the ones that hit the floor, the four legged apprentices will take care of them. ?
5. Continuing on 30 minute intervals, do sets of gentle stretches and folds until the dough feels billowy, has bubbles on the surface, bubbles can be seen through the walls of the container and it giggles when shaken. I usually do two sets of folds and then it takes about another 45 minutes before the dough is ready to divide but this time the dough was moving really slowly. It got a third set of folds and then ended up in the fridge for 5 hours because this baker went off visiting with her puppy. ? By the time I got back, the dough had risen about 50% and was quite bubbly. 
6. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~740 g. Round out the portions into fairly tight rounds with a dough scraper and let rest one hour on the counter. (The one thing with cold dough is that it comes out of the tubs very cleanly and it is much easier to shape.)
7. 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. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle and continue stitching the rest of the loaf. 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.
8. Place the dough seam side down in rice floured bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes (I left it for an hour because the dough felt still quite cold) on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 8 -10 hours (I baked after 6 hours because the loaves looked ready... probably due to the one hour initial proof on the counter once they were in their bannetons). 

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. Score the dough if you wish (I don’t as I like the rustic torn look). 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 208F or more.

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, and as usual, I have been asked to bring bread to the family dinner. Because it is going to be served with a number of different courses, I needed a rather plain sort of bread. At the same time, the 1-2-3 challenge presented itself. So how to combine the two… well, it is the harvest, might as well use the plethora of grains that are in my pantry as well as some flour from the local miller. He produces 100% wholegrain flour and a partially sifted flour. I bought both at the Farmer’s Market and made sure to include some in my recipe (the levain was made with this). The remaining grains were simply milled into flour and the bran sifted out to also feed the levain.

I must note that I initially thought “Yay, no math!”. But then reality kicked in. I needed to make loaves of a certain weight because I was selling some, I had to make 4 batches, each batch needed to make 3 loaves, I had to figure out the total amount of flour and how to split that between the levain and the main dough to respect the 1-2-3 challenge, the levain had to be multiplied by 4 with a bit extra so I would have enough, then that amount had to be split up to make a 3 stage levain, I had to decide which flour and how much would be used to put into the levain with the sifted bran, and so on and on and on. Just be happy that the math is all done for you in the recipe below. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Ingredients:

70 g Einkorn berries

70 g Spelt berries

70 g Kamut berries

70 g Rye berries

70 g Red Fife berries

70 g Selkirk berries

70 g Buckwheat groats

77 g Brulé Creek whole wheat flour 

76 g Brulé Creek partially sifted flour

630 g unbleached flour

720 g water

360 g 3 stage 100% hydration levain (process below)

25 g pink Himalayan salt

30 g local yogurt

The morning before:

1. In the morning, mill all the grains and sift out the bran. I ended up with 459 g of sifted flour and 29 g of bran. Reserve the bran for the levain. 
2. Place the sifted flour in a tub. To the tub, add the unbleached flour. Stir, cover and reserve for the next day.
3. Take 26 g of starter from your fridge and feed it 26 g of water and 26 g of the bran. 

The evening before:

1. About 12 hours later, feed the levain 52 g water and 52 g bran/wholewheat flour. Let rise overnight. 

Dough making day:

1. Do the final feeding of the levain. Add to the levain 104 g each of water and wholewheat/partially sifted flour. This should use up all of the Brûlé Creek flour. Let rise till double. This took about 6.5 hours but mine sat for another couple of hours while the main dough autolysed (life got in the way). Amazingly enough, it hadn’t started receding when I finally got back to it.
2. A couple of hours before the levain is ready (or in my case, when the levain was ready but I made it wait), add the water to the tub of flour and autolyse for 2 hours. I must note that I had to work a bit harder to get all of the flour hydrated. I do prefer to work with a slightly more hydrated dough but in the spirit of sticking to the 1-2-3 recipe, I didn’t add any water although I was sorely tempted to do so. I added the salt on top of the dough and left it there during the autolyse. 
3. After the autolyse, add the yogurt and the levain. Mix well and let rest 10 minutes. Do in tub folds until the dough pulls away cleanly from the sides of the tub. Let rest 30 minutes.
4. Do three sets of French slaps and folds (75/40/10) at 30 minutes intervals. Again on 30 minute intervals, do 2 sets of stretches and folds in the tub. Let rest until you can see bubbles through the walls of the tub, the dough feels a bit jiggly and there are some bubbles along the walls of the tub. The dough should have risen about 20%. I must say that this dough was a lot firmer than what I am used to and the gluten seemed to develop much faster. Total bulk fermentation at 72F was 3.5 hours. 
5. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~730 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 45 minutes to one hour on the counter. 
6. 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. 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.
7. Place the dough seam side down in rice floured bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 8 hours. 

These are proofed and ready to go into the oven. 

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.

Once again, the shorter bulk and proof are giving me loaves that I am quite happy with!

Last weekend, we had a pizza party at the barn where my daughter leases her horse. The deal was that we provided the pizza oven, the dough, the sauce and the cheese. The rest of the gang brought the toppings. For us, we made Fig and Prosciutto pizza and Tarte flambée. The fig pizza called for caramelized onions. The last time I made caramelized onions, it took me 3 hours standing at the stove stirring the silly things. I thought that there had to be a better way and there is! It takes longer but there is no standing at the stove. Basically, one fills a crockpot half to 3/4 full of sliced onions, put in a pinch or two of salt, drizzle melted butter and olive oil over the lot, stir, and put it on low for 10 hours. Then, crack the lid and let it go for another 4 to 5 hours. The results is beautifully caramelized onions with no fuss! This made a huge batch and I froze quite a bit of them in ice cube trays. I also had a lot of left over cheese from the pizzas. So between the onions and the cheese, this bread was meant to be! 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

400 g unbleached flour

300 g bread flour

250 g high extraction red fife flour (I milled 285 g of red fife berries and sifted it. Save the bran for the levain)

50 g buckwheat flour (I used 50 g of buckwheat groats and milled them)

2 tbsp of dried Italian herbs

725 g water

100 g of shredded 4 cheese mix (parmesan, gouda, provolone and mozzarella)

72 g caramelized onions

30 g full fat plain yogurt

20 g salt

200 g levain (explanation below)

Plus high extraction whole wheat flour (local Brûlé Creek partially sifted flour) for levain

The morning before:

1. Take 15 g of starter and add 15 g of high extraction wheat flour and 15 g of water. Let sit for 12 hours.

The night before:

1. In a tub, put in the unbleached flour, the bread flour, the high extraction red fife flour, the buckwheat flour and the Italian herbs. Cover and reserve for the next morning.
2. Use the bran from the red fife as well as some high extraction whole wheat flour to equal 30 g. Add this and 30 g of water to the levain. Let sit overnight.
3. Thaw the caramelized onions if you have some frozen in advance. (Otherwise, slice one large onion and caramelize slowly on the stove with 1 tbsp of olive oil and a bit of butter as well as a pinch of salt.) Cover and reserve.

Dough making day:

1. Very early in the morning, feed the levain 60 g each of high extraction whole wheat flour and water. Let rise for about 5 hours in a warm spot.
2. About 2 hours before the levain is ready, add the water to the tub of reserved flours from the night before, mix well and let sit (autolyse) until the levain is ready.
3. Add the caramelized onions, the shredded cheeses, the yogurt, the levain and the salt to the dough. Mix well and let rest about 30 minutes.
4. Do three sets of French slaps and folds at 30 minutes intervals. The first set has 75 slaps, the second set has 40 slaps and the last set has 10 slaps. Continuing on 30 minute intervals, do gentle stretches and folds until the dough feels billowy, has bubbles on the surface, bubbles can be seen through the walls of the container and it giggles when shaken. I ended up doing two sets of folds but then the dough had to take a trip to the fridge because the kitchen got taken over by the daughter (She is a very messy baker ?). It spent almost 2 hours there. I was happy to see that the dough had risen only about 20% when I got back to it. 
5. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~710 g. Round out the portions into fairly tight rounds with a dough scraper and let rest one hour on the counter. 
6. 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. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle and continue stitching the rest of the loaf. 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.
7. Place the dough seam side down in rice floured bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 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. Score the dough if you wish (I don’t as I like the rustic torn look). 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 208F or more.

I always make a bit more Levain than I need because some sticks to the walls of the container and then I would end up short. This time, I guess I made a bit too much, and since I hate throwing away something I nurtured along, I figured a quick 1-2-3 bread with left over durum semolina and a touch of honey would do the trick. 

155 g mature Spelt Levain (100% hydration made with Spelt bran and sifted Spelt flour)

325 g water

90 g durum semolina 

375 g unbleached flour

11 g salt

10 g yogurt 

25 g honey

1. Mill the durum semolina into a finer flour. 
2. Mix water and levain well. 
3. Add durum and unbleached flour. Mix well and let sit for 75 minutes. 
4. Add salt, yogurt and honey. Mix in and do 75 slaps and folds. 
5. Let rest 30 minutes, do 40 slaps and folds. 
6. Let rest another 30 minutes and then do 10 slaps and folds. 
7. Do 2 sets of gentle folds at 30 minutes intervals. Let rest 15 minutes. Dough should be bubbly and jiggly. 
8. Place on unfloured counter and sprinkle with flour. Preshape into a round. Let rest 20 minutes and then shape into a batard. 
9. Place seam side down in a rice floured banneton. Cover and retard in fridge for about 9 hours. 
10. Heat oven to 475 F with granite ware roaster inside. 
11. Place parchment paper on bottom of pan, carefully tip loaf into hot pot, score, cover and place back in oven for 30 minutes. 
12. Uncover and bake a further 15 minutes at 450F. 

Crust feel a bit hard so I wonder if I overbaked it. It is 3 am so I will see in the morning. 

 This won’t be much of a write up because I used the same recipe and method as my last bake except for the following:

1. I used Roger’s Oats with Ancient Grains instead of plain large flake oats. 

2. I added all of the water at the beginning which made for easier mixing. 

3. I threw in an extra fold but kept the total fermentation time at 3 hours and 45 minutes. 

4. I retarded the loaves for only 8 -9 hours and baked directly out of the fridge. 

5. I tried baking for 30 minutes with the lid on and 17 minutes with the lid off. 

The last one is because I feel that sometimes the loaves seem to lose some height when I switch the pots from top rack to bottom rack and vice versa when baking 6 loaves at once. I thought that maybe baking a tad longer with the cover on would strengthen the structure of the loaf so they would be more able to handle the move. Seemed to have worked as they came out just gorgeous!

Once again, I am really happy with what is coming out of the oven. I was definitely over bulking and over proofing my loaves! 

This is a loaf that came out of Sourdough from Sarah Owens. The recipe is available via pdf file (http://scottsbreads.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/5/3/10536109/honeyed_spelt___oat-08-40-s.pdf) on the web. I followed the recipe fairly closely but scaled up for 3 loaves and I sifted out the bran from the Spelt and used that to feed my starter. My starter is mostly bran these days so the final recipe has a bit more bran than just the bran that came from the Spelt. The dough was super stiff so I added a fair bit of water at different stages. I also used French slaps and folds instead of stretches and folds for the first 3 sets. And of course, I added a bit of yogurt. =)

Makes 3 loaves

Levain

70g Water (cool water)

53g Mature Starter (100% hydration starter)

70g Spelt bran and high extraction flour

Oat Soaker

245g Rolled Oats

481g Boiling Water

Dough

Total Flour 963g 

• 779g Unbleached Flour 
• 184g High extraction Spelt Flour 

429g Water (82°F) plus 65 g plus 25 g

726g Soaker

79g  Honey

20g Salt 

30 g Yogurt

193g Levain

Be sure to feed your starter a day or two before making the levain to make sure it is active. 

The night before:

1. Mill 255 g of spelt berries and sift out the bran. Place 184 g of the high extraction/sifted flour in a tub and reserve the remaining flour and bran for the levain.
2. Prepare the levain by adding 70g cool water and the reserved bran/flour to 53 g of sourdough starter. Place the levain in a cool spot for the night. I placed mine in the basement where it is around 68-70 F. 
3. Mix the oats with the boiling water and cover. Leave to cool overnight on the counter.

Dough making day:

1. In the tub with the high extraction flour, add the unbleached flour, the oat soaker, the honey and 429 g of 82F water. It was impossible to get all of the flour wet so I added the extra 65 g at this point. I guess my flour was extra thirsty. Let autolyse for at least one hour. I believe I let this particular dough go about 90 minutes.
2. Add the salt, yogurt and levain. Once again, the dough felt really stiff so I added 25 g of water to loosen things up. Mix well and let rest 30 minutes.
3. Do three sets of French slaps and folds at 30 minutes intervals. The first set was 75 slaps, the second set was 40 slaps and the last set was 10 slaps. Continuing on 30 minute intervals, do gentle stretches and folds until the dough feels billowy, has bubbles on the surface, bubbles can be seen through the walls of the container and it giggles when shaken. The dough will also release nicely from the walls of the container when doing the folds. My dough was almost at this stage after 2 sets of folds so I let it rest 45 minutes until I deemed it ready for dividing. The dough rose barely 20%. (I am slowly figuring out that I have been chronically overfermenting my dough. I used to let it double and it stuck to everything when it came to dividing. What a difference when reducing the bulk fermentation time.)
4. Pour the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of 842 g. Round out the portions into fairly tight rounds with a dough scraper and let rest one hour on the counter. 
5. Do a final shape using Sarah Owen’s method: “Lightly flour the top surface of the dough rounds and, using the bench knife, maintain round shape & flip each over so floured side is on work surface. Create a neat package. Fold the third of the dough closest to you up & over the middle third of the round. Stretch out the dough horizontally to your right & fold the right third over the center. Stretch the dough to your left & fold this third over the previous fold. Stretch out the third of the dough furthest from you & fold this flap toward you over the previous folds, and anchor it in place with your fingers. Roll the package over so that the smooth underside of the loaf is now on top and all seams are on the bottom. Cup hands around the dough & pull towards you, rounding it against the work surface to tighten the tension.”
6. Place the dough seam side down in rice floured bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 12 hours. (I was going to sprinkle some oat flakes in the bannetons before placing the dough in there but I forgot. The loaves look very nice with a sprinkling of oats on them.)

Baking Day:

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Mine ended up being over 2 hours as I slept through my alarm. ?While the oven is heating, take the loaves out of the refrigerator and let rest on the counter at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Score the dough if you wish. 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 25 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 22 minutes. Internal temperature should be 208F or more.   

I am certainly getting much better oven spring since not letting dough go too long during bulk fermentation. I am also trying to limit the time in the fridge between 10 and 12 hours. These loaves were a bit more than that but I am still quite happy on how they turned out. 

For years and years, we go to one of the local country fairs where we go and check out the entries for veggies, baking, etc. And the last couple of years, my daughter says that she is sure we could do better than some of the entries. Well, we will see since she twisted my arm and got us entered. I made a variation of Maurizio's 50% wholewheat sourdough and his Raisin Fennel Sourdough, and she made Nana's Oatmeal cookies, a lemon Meringue pie and a French Yogurt Blueberry cake with Glaze. Here are the recipes:

6 Grains Whole Wheat Sourdough

Makes 3 boules

You will need some sourdough seed/starter and some extra flour or bran to get your sourdough starter up to speed a couple of days before making the levain.

Levain:

60 g sourdough starter

65 g unbleached all purpose flour

65 g filtered or bottled water at 90F

Main dough:

100 g high extraction Selkirk wheat flour (explanation on how to make high extraction flour below)

100 g high extraction Red Fife wheat flour

100 g high extraction Khorasan wheat flour

100 g high extraction Spelt wheat flour

100 g durum semolina wheat flour

59 g high extraction Einkorn wheat flour

292 g Rogers Bread Flour

266 g Rogers Unbleached No Additives All Purpose flour

886 g filtered water at ~90F divided (explanation below)

25 g Pink Himalayan salt

40 g Slate River Dairy yogurt

158 g levain (explanation below)

Rice flour to dust bannetons

2 Days before:

1.     Activate your sourdough starter by feeding it 1 part starter:1 part filtered water:1 one part flour/bran by weight every 12 hours. I initially used plain all purpose flour but once I had milled the flour for the bread, I used the left over high extraction flour and some bran.

1 Day before:

2.     In a flour mill, mill 115 g of Selkirk, Red Fife, Khorasan, Spelt and 75 g of Einkorn wheat berries separately and sift in a sieve. The sifted flour is high extraction flour. Measure out 100 g of high extraction flour from each grain. Save the bran and any left over flour. Mill the durum semolina to turn it into flour. 

3.     In a tub, place the high extraction wheat flours, the bread flour, and the unbleached all purpose flour in a container and reserve.

Dough Day:

1.     Build the levain: Take 60 g of your revived starter and feed it 65 g all purpose flour and 65 g of filtered water at 90 F. This will make a bit more than needed. Set aside in a warm spot.

2.     Two hours after mixing the levain, in a separate container, mix 836 g of 90F water with the reserved flours until all the flour is hydrated and place the dough in the warm spot with the levain. The remaining water will be added later with the levain and the salt. Let sit for a couple of hours.

3.     After the two hours is up, add 40 g yogurt, 50 g water, 25 g of pink Himalayan salt and 158 g of levain. Mix in well. 

4.     Do 4 sets of 30 French slaps and folds on the counter at thirty-minute intervals. Then do 3 sets of stretches and folds going all around the tub, also at 30 minute intervals. Place back in the bucket and in the warm spot in between sets. 

5.     Leave the dough to rise in its warm spot for half hour. Bubbles should be evident on the surface of the dough and through the walls of the container if using a translucent or transparent tub. About three and half hours should have gone by from the first set of French slaps and folds.

6.     Pour the dough out onto a bare counter and divide into portions of about 740 g each. Sprinkle flour over the portions and shape the dough into rounds using a bench scraper. 

7.     After 20 minutes, shape tightly into boules. Be careful not to degas the dough.

8.     Sprinkle 3 bannetons (cane baskets) with rice flour to prevent sticking and place the boules seam side down in the bannetons. Cover the bannetons with plastic bowl covers and place into a cold fridge (38F) 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 25 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 22 minutes.

Raisin Fennel Sourdough

Makes 3 loaves

You will need some sourdough starter and some extra flour or bran to get your starter up to speed a couple of days before making the levain.

Ingredients

Levain:

50 g sourdough starter

50 g unbleached flour

50 g water at 85F 

Main dough:

125 g high extraction Red Fife flour (mill and sift 140 g of Red Fife wheat berries)

50 g high extraction Khorasan flour (mill and sift 65 g of Khorasan wheat berries)

50 g high extraction Spelt flour (mill and sift 65 g of Spelt wheat berries)

800 g Rogers Unbleached No Additives All Purpose flour

12 g vital wheat gluten

800 g of water at 86F

20 g pink Himalayan salt

30 g Slate River Dairy yogurt

150 g levain (explanation below)

200 g golden raisins (soaked in hot water for 30 minutes and drained)

7 g freshly ground fennel seed

1 to 2 days before:

1.     In the morning, take a bit of your refrigerated sourdough starter and feed it equal quantities of filtered water and unbleached flour or left over milled flour and/or bran from sifting (see below). Do the same again roughly every 12 hours. Use bottled or filtered water.

2.     In a grain mill, mill the grains (Red Fife, Khorasan, Spelt) and sift out the bran using a sieve. 

3.     Weigh the high extraction (sifted) flours needed and place in a tub. To the tub, add the vital wheat gluten. Stir well to distribute the VWG, cover, and reserve.

4.     Save the bran and the extra flour for the levain.

5.     Grind the fennel seed in a bullet to get a fairly fine powder. Reserve.

Dough making day:

1.     In the morning, make the levain by taking 50 g of the revived starter and adding 50 g unbleached flour and 50 g of warm water. Let sit in a warm spot (oven with the lights on and the door cracked open (~82F).

2.     About an hour later, add the warm water to the flour tub and autolyse (let sit) in the warm spot for at least 3 hours. 

3.     To the tub, add the salt, the yogurt and the levain and mix well to integrate. Do 50 in tub stretches and folds and let rest 30 minutes in the warm spot. 

4.     Do 75 French slaps and folds on the counter and place back in the tub. At this point, boil water and pour the hot water on the raisins and let soak. 

5.     Thirty minutes later, drain the raisins. Take the dough out of the tub onto a barely damp counter and spread the dough out in a large rectangle and sprinkle with the raisins and ground fennel. Roll up the dough in one direction and then the other.

6.     Do gentle French slaps and folds until the raisins are well distributed throughout and they stop popping out of the dough. This will take a little while. Place the dough back into the tub and into the warm spot. Be sure to keep the dough covered whenever it is in the tub. 

7.     Do four sets of stretches and folds in the tub at 30-minute intervals. The dough should be holding itself nicely into a rounded shape. Then let rest until you can see bubbles on the surface. This should be another half hour. 

8.     Remove the dough from the tub into a bare counter. Sprinkle flour over the dough and divide into 3 equal portions of about 750 g. Sprinkle a bit more flour over the portions and shape the dough into rounds using a bench knife. Let rest for 20 minutes.

9.     While the dough is resting, dust 3 bannetons (cane baskets) with rice flour to prevent sticking.

10.  After 20 minutes, shape tightly into boules. Be careful not to degas the dough. Place the boules seam side down into the bannetons and cover with plastic bowl covers. Then place in a cold fridge (38F) to proof 9 to 10 hours.

Baking Day

1.     The next morning, heat the oven to 475 F with the Dutch ovens inside for at least 45 minutes. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter.  Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and gently place the dough seam side up inside. 

2.     Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 22 minutes.

 Daughter took a loaf out to camp (cottage) and sent me this shot. 

French Blueberry Yogurt Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze

(Sorry, forgot to take a picture)

Batter

2/3 cup yogurt

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 large eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp grated lemon zest

2/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not thaw)

Glaze

1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tsp salted butter

Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit on convection bake.

2. In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, and eggs, stirring until well blended. 

3. Add the flour, baking powder, and zest, mixing to just combine.

4. Add the oil and stir to incorporate. At first, it will look like a horrible, oily mess, but keep stirring, and it will come together into a smooth batter. 

5. Butter and flour a Bundt cake pan. Sprinkle some of the blueberries on the bottom of the pan. Pour and scrape part of the batter over the blueberries. Repeat sprinkling of blueberries and layering of the batter finishing with a layer of batter.

6. Bake for 50 minutes, until the cake feels springy to the touch and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. 

7. Cool cake on a rack for about 20 minutes; then turn it out of the pan to cool completely.

Glaze:

1.     In a large Pyrex measuring cup, combine the sugar, and lemon juice.

2.     Add in the butter, then microwave on high for 45 seconds.

3.     Take out the measuring cup and whisk until smooth, making sure there are no lumps.

4.     Let it sit for a few minutes then pour it over the Bundt cake.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Pastry:

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

½ cup cold lard, cut into chunks

½ cup butter, cut into chunks

1 egg

2 tsp vinegar

Ice cold water 

1.    In a food processor, place flour and salt. Pulse twice to blend. Add the cold lard and butter and pulse again to mix briefly.

2.    Place vinegar and egg in a measuring cup, add ice cold water to fill to the 2/3 cup measure. With the food processor running, add the egg, vinegar, water mixture and blend until it forms into a ball.

3.    Place in fridge for 30 minutes before rolling out. Roll out on a floured counter and place into glass pie plate. Prick bottom with a knife or a fork to prevent puffing. Bake at 350 F till golden brown.

Lemon Filling:

1 ¼ cups sugar

6 tbsp cornstarch

½ tsp salt

1 ¼ cups water

3 eggs yolks, slightly beaten

3 tbsp butter

¾ cup fresh lemon juice

1.    In a saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in water. Over high heat, bring to a boil, stirring constantly. 

2.    Reduce heat to medium low and boil gently for 3 minutes, stirring almost constantly. Remove from heat. 

3.    Whisk a small amount of mixture into beaten egg yolks, whisk mixture back into saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. 

4.    Stir in butter and lemon juice. Pour mixture into cooked pie shell.

Meringue:

3 egg whites at room temperature

¼ tsp cream of tartar

6 tbsp of sugar

1.    Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until mixture hold soft peaks when beaters are lifted. Gradually add sugar one tablespoon at a time, beating constantly until mixture hold stiff shiny peaks.

2.    Spread over hot filling, making sure meringue is sealed to crust all the way around. Make peaks with spatula.

Assembly:

1.    Bake in 350 F oven for 12 to15 minutes until meringue is lightly browned.

2.    Let cool thoroughly at room temperature, at least 2 hours. Do not refrigerate.

Nana’s Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 ½ cup oatmeal

½ cup chopped pecans

1. Cream shortening and sugar. 
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat well. 
3. Sift in flour, salt and baking soda. 
4. Stir in oatmeal and nuts. 
5. Roll into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. 
6. Slice in quarter inch slices. 
7. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet in oven at 375 F for 12 minutes.

I loved the bread from last week so I decided to redo it taking out the olives, sun dried tomatoes and rosemary and do a simple loaf with black sesame seeds. This was also my opportunity to try to improve the oven spring. To do this, I halved the prefermented flour in the levain and also shortened the bulk and retardation times. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

632 g of unbleached flour

194 g of durum semolina 

60 g of soft wheat berries

30 g each of barley flakes, spelt berries, einkorn berries, kamut berries, rye berries, hulless oat groats, red fife berries and farro berries.

715 g of water

22 g pink Himalayan salt

195 g of mixed levain (sourdough and peach/apple yeast water - Procedure in recipe)

30 g black sesame seeds 

Starters:

1. Sourdough starter: A few days before you plan to make your dough, revive your sourdough starter if it is in the fridge by feeding it 1:1:1 water and flour/bran. I used bran left over from prior bakes and fed it twice a day. You will need 13 g of this for the seed amount.
2. Yeast Water starter: At the same time, refresh your yeast water by removing the old fruit and feeding it some fresh fruit and leaving it room temperature until it has bubbles at the top. Once it fizzed, I put a few tablespoons of the YW into a container and added unbleached flour to make like a thick pancake batter. I left this overnight. In the morning, it was nice and bubbly so I fed it again some YW and more flour. You will need 13 g of this for the second seed amount.

The day before:

1. Run the durum semolina through a grain mill to turn it into flour. Reserve in a tub.
2. Run all of the grains separately through the mills and sift out the bran. Save the bran for feeding the seed starters or for another use. 
3. Measure out 34 g of the sifted flour from the soft wheat berries and add to the tub
4. Measure out 17 g of the sifted flour from each of the remaining grains and add to the tub.
5. Mix the remaining sifted flours together and save in a separate container to do the builds of the levain.
6. Add the unbleached flour to the tub and mix. Cover and reserve.
7. Lightly toast the sesame seeds and pour water over to soak overnight. 

Levain:

1. About 16 hours or so before mixing your dough, do the levain builds.

• First build: Take 13 g of sourdough starter and 13 g of YW starter. Add 25 g of filtered water and 25 g of high extraction flour. Let rise for 8 hours at room temp (73-74F). 
• Second build: Add another 63 g each of filtered water and high extraction flour to the levain and let rise 6 hours. It should double. Mine was just past peak when I used it. 

Dough Making Day

1. Mix the water with the flours in the tub and autolyse for a couple of hours. 
2. Drain the sesame seeds and set aside. 
3. Add the salt and the levain and mix well. Let sit 30 minutes and then do 3 sets each of 30 slaps and folds and 2 stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals, all at room temperature. Put the sesame seeds in during the second set of slaps. Let rest one hour or so til bulk is done. This dough took 90 minutes until I deemed it done. Normally I would have let this dough go a lot longer since it looked like it barely rose (maybe 20% if that) but I am thinking that the lack of oven spring I have been getting lately might be from over fermenting the dough. It felt airy but not loose and it came out of the tubs nicely. The top had a few large bubbles and you could see lots of small bubbles through the sides. 
4. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions of about 675 g and do a loose pre-shape by rounding the dough with a bench scraper. Let rest 30 minutes and then do a final shape, and place seam side down in rice floured baskets. 
5. Cover and place into the fridge to proof overnight. This ended up being 9 and a half hours. Last week, I let the dough stay in the fridge for twice that amount and it overproofed. I wasn’t taking any chances this time. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the dutch ovens inside for at least 45 minutes. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and gently place the dough seam side up inside. 
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 475 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 22 minutes.

I finally got the oven spring I was hoping for! Getting up at 3 am to bake the silly things was totally worth it! ?

I haven’t done a bread with olives for quite a while and while searching TFL, I came across this one from Dab. The loaf looked amazing and the crumb is to die for. Dab was super helpful and answered all of my questions. So I owe him a big thank you for that!

The recipe is his (scaled to make 3 loaves) and I tried to follow it to the best of my ability with the ingredients I had available. He used 3 types of starters but I only had two available to me so my bread was adapted to that. Be aware that the prep was a bit onerous especially when I make 4 batches of this but if my bread turns out half as well as his, I will be thrilled. Here goes:

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

632 g of unbleached flour

194 g of durum semolina 

60 g of soft wheat berries

30 g each of barley flakes, spelt berries, einkorn berries, kamut berries, rye berries, hulless oat groats, red fife berries and farro berries.

625 g of water

22 g pink Himalayan salt

390 g of mixed levain (sourdough and peach/apple yeast water - Procedure in recipe)

234 g olives (Kalamata and black ripe olives, sliced)

40 g sun dried tomatoes

2 g fresh rosemary

Starters:

1. Sourdough starter: A few days before you plan to make your dough, get your sourdough starter going if it is in the fridge by feeding it 1:1:1 water and flour/bran/whatever makes it happy. I started using unbleached flour but once I had milled my grains, I fed it the bran. I also fed it twice a day. You will need 25 g of this for the seed amount.
2. Yeast Water starter: At the same time, refresh your yeast water by removing the old fruit and feeding it some fresh fruit and leaving it room temperature until it has bubbles at the top. Dab advised me to add a bit of sugar and some honey if it didn’t get going strongly. Mine fizzed within a few hours so I didn’t add the honey or the sugar. Once it fizzed, I put a few tablespoons of the YW into a container and added unbleached flour to make like a thick pancake batter. I left this overnight. In the morning, it was nice and bubbly so I fed it again some YW and more flour. You will need 25 g of this for the second seed amount.

The day before:

1. Run the durum semolina through a grain mill to turn it into flour. Reserve in a tub.
2. Run all of the grains separately through the mills and sift out the bran. Save the bran for feeding the seed starters or for another use. 
3. Measure out 16 g of the sifted flour from the soft wheat berries and add to the tub
4. Measure out 8 g of the sifted flour from remaining grains and add to the tub.
5. Mix the remaining sifted flours together and save in a separate container to do the builds of the levain.
6. Add the unbleached flour to the tub and mix. Cover and reserve.

Levain:

1. About 12 hours or so before mixing your dough, do the levain builds.

• First build: Take 25 g of sourdough starter and 25 g of YW starter. Add 50 g of filtered water and 50 g of high extraction flour. Let rise for 4 hours at room temp (73-74F). 
• Second build: Add another 50 g each of filtered water and high extraction flour to the levain and let rise 4 hours. It should have doubled. 
• Third build: Add 76 g  each of filtered water and high extraction flour and let rise 4 hours.
• Yes, I got up in the middle of the night to pamper the levain. ?

Dough Making Day

1. Mix the water with the flours in the tub and autolyse for one hour. The dough was surprisingly not as sticky as what I usually deal with. 
2. While the dough is autolysing (is that a word?), chop the sun dried tomatoes and rehydrate them in hot water. Drain and squeeze out the water after an hour. 
3. Chop the fresh rosemary finely with a mezzaluna. 
4. Measure out the olives. 
5. Add the salt and the levain and do “3 sets each of 30 slaps and folds and 4 stretch and folds on 30 minute intervals with the olives, sun dried tomatoes and rosemary going in during the first set of stretch and folds.” -Dab. By the way, you will lose a few olives during the process and having four legged apprentices around really helps. ? The dough felt quite billowy at the second set of folds so I did the last two sets very gingerly. Dough temp by the last fold was 75.4F. Then I left it alone for only 30 minutes as opposed to Dab’s one hour because my kitchen is warmer than his and the dough definitely looked ready. 
6. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions of about 745 g and do a quick pre-shape. Let rest 10 - 15 minutes and then do a final shape, and place seam side down in rice floured baskets. I used stitching and rolling top to bottom as well as spinning the dough like a top to shape. I was careful not to degas the dough. 
7. Cover and place into the fridge to proof overnight. This ended up being 17-18 hours. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the dutch ovens inside for at least 45 minutes. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and gently place the dough seam side up inside. The boules looked liked they had risen quite a bit overnight and were quite soft so I was very afraid that they overproofed. 
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, (yep, overproofed again as there was not much oven spring ?), drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 22 minutes.

I suppose they could be worse. I am definitely having a problem with overproofing in the fridge with my last few bakes. I did test the temp and at 38F, it shouldn’t be happening. I may need to rethink my methods. 

Just as an aside, no yogurt or flax in this one! I don’t remember when I last made Sourdough without those ingredients!