For my first attempt at English muffins I decided to try Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe from her Bread Bible.  The recipe uses a sponge/poolish and is an enriched (with butter and honey) dough.  I followed her recipe to the letter, except for diameter size.  After mixing I placed the dough in the fridge overnight for retardation.  She says it can stay in the fridge up to 24 hours. I left it in for about 12 hours.   The recipe calls for rolling the dough out while it is cold and cutting round 3 1/2 inch diameter  rounds (I cut them 4 inches in diameter).  Place them on a pan sprinkled with corn meal and sprinkle the tops lightly with corn meal, then allow them to rise (covered) until double in volume.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's English Muffins: Rose Levy No. 1

Photo below: Then place each dough round on a lightly buttered, griddle heated to medium.  Cook on one side for 10 minutes, flip them over and cook on the other side for about half previous time (5 minutes) until they reach an internal temp. of 190 deg. F 

Rose Levy Beranbaum's English Muffins: Rose Levy No. 3

Photo Below: The front 2 rows are the tops (after being flipped and cooked 5 minutes).  The back 2 rows are the bottoms (after cooking for 10 minutes).

Rose Levy Beranbaum's English Muffins: Rose Levy No. 3

The photo below is the crumb of the muffin.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's English Muffins: Rose Levy No. 4

Summary

In the opening passage of her recipe she says: "This incredibly smooth and supple dough is almost identical to the one for Basic Soft White Sandwich Loaf (page 244).  Therein lies the problem. The muffins DO NOT resemble English muffins with the firm texture and craggy holes in the crumb.  The crumb was way too doughy and more like the texture of Wonder Bread than English Muffin. 

With all due respect to Rose Levy, who I think has written a terrific book (Bread Bible), which I bake from frequently---I would be less than honest if I didn't say strike this one from your "To Bake" list.

Dougal has posted a version of Dan Lepard's recipe for crumpets that I plan to try next.  Thank you Dougal.  I'll keep you posted.

This is my first attempt at multigrain bread using an overnight "soaker" for the grain.  These loaves are made from Mark Sinclair's recipe for Multigrain Bread, taken from his wedsite Back Home Bakery (under recipes).  I followed his recipe except I used King Arthur's (KA) mixture of multigrain (total of 188 grams), which I recently purchased in one of my orders from KA.  This bread is delicious.  Thank you Mark for sharing this great recipe.  The recipe produces 4 1/2 pounds of dough.  I divided it into three 1 1/2 pound loaves and used 2 unlined brotforms and an unlined boule bannton for the loaves. I dusted the brotforms and banneton using a mixture of half KA AP flour and half rice flour.  Incidentally, as you can see from this photo, I use a large plastic bin to cover the loaves during final proofing, which works well for me.

Brotforms after final proofing.  At 1 hour final proofing time (75 deg. F) the loaves were ready for the oven.

The scoring needs practice but the loaves came out pretty well.

The crust was excellent and I was very pleased with the crumb and this bread tastes delicious.  Again, thank you Mark for this terrific recipe.

If anyone is interested, King Arthur has marked their videos/DVDs 1/3 off.  There are some very good instructional videos/DVDs available from their site and you can't beat their marked down prices.  A while back I purchased two DVDs; The Baker's Forum - Artisan Breads with Michael Jubinsky and the Ciril Hitz - Simplified Bread baking: Baguette to Pretzel.  They're very good for entry level home bakers and also good for experienced bakers, to brush up on techniques.  When I purchased the Artisan Bread DVD it was $15.00 and is now $9.99, etc.  Here's a link for anyone interested: 

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/landing.jsp?go=DefaultSearch&stype=product&term=baking+videos&x=20&y=16

Howard

Using Mike Avery's refreshment method (every 8 hours), after a 2 day refreshment I placed my starter in my jar (slightly less than half filled) clamped on the lid (with rubber gasket) to seal it and placed it in the refrigerator.  Next day I had a very active starter.  So, instead of tossing 2/3 and refreshing it again before storing it back in the fridge, I decided to hold out the 2/3 "discard" and make some whole wheat sourdough bread.  Incidentally, this is a 10 year old Nancy Silverton starter.  I'm not suggesting that Ms. Silverton's starter is better than other starters but it's what I made when I first started my sourdough journey and, as is evident, it still works quite well.  I'm Just thankful that I checked it when I did.  This is the same "bad boy" starter that lifted the lid off my dutch oven a while back during the baking of  a 3 pound boule.  

Sourdough Starter and Container: Refreshed Sourdough Starter

Anyway, I made a couple of whole wheat boules, mixed by hand.  I did two "stretch and folds" during a 2 hour bulk frementation, then placed the container of dough in the fridge for a 14 hour retardation.  The following day I took the dough out of the fridge (it had risen during retardation, which is unusual), divided it, shaped it, placed the 2 shaped boules into 2 heavily floured (half rice flour mixed with half KA AP) linen lined bannetons and let it do it's final fermentation for about three and a half hours at room temp, as it was still cold from being in the fridge.  Then turned the boules onto parchment lined pans, scored them, placed them in the oven and baked them at 450 deg for about 40 minutes, using a heavy dose of stream at the onset of the baking cycle---and turning them half way through the baking cycle.   

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

They may have slightly overproofed because they dropped a bit after scoring, but overall I was pleased with the results. They tasted very good, had a good crust and very nice, rather complex, flavor and good texture.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Yesterday I made Rose Levy's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf from her Bread Bible.  It's an enriched dough, using a sponge and lots of butter (no eggs, except one beaten as a wash for the interior of the rolled dough.  It gets rolled out, an egg wash applied, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rolled into a loaf.  It's somewhat labor intensive but the recipe produces a really good bread.  However, there's a mistake in her recipe, which if you have Bread Bible, you should note.  On page 261 - "Flour Mixture and Dough", she lists the ingredients: flour, dry milk, instant yeast, unsalted butter, and salt.  In Step 2 she tells you "Combine the ingredients for the flour mixture and add to the sponge."  She fails to tell you to reserve the salt until after the flour, which you cover the sponge with, has bubbled through and you have mixed the butter into the dough.  She later tells you (Page 262, Step 3), after adding the butter and mixing it into the dough, then add the salt.  So, make a note on page 261 to hold the salt out of the Flour Mixture until Step 3: "Mix The Dough".

Anyway, for the "scoring artists" out there, the crust/exterior "look" of this bread is unexciting, but it's great tasting bread.  I mixed it by hand, as I have been doing each time I make a new recipe lately, and I'm going to do it again later.  My "unprofessional" opinion is she over handles the dough a bit.  After 1 hour in the fridge the dough gets divided, rolled out, egg washed sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, rolled up and put into baking pans.  At this point (make a note in your book) the dough needs about 2- 2 1/2 hours at room temp to allow the butter to soften sufficiently so that cold butter (in the center, doesn't inhibit the oven spring/rise).  So, I'm going to try making some changes to the mixing technique and final proof it longer next time and see how it works out.

Instead of using only raisins (per the recipe) I used a mixture of half golden raisins and half dried cranberries and that worked out nicely for both color and taste. 

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf: Cinnamon Raisin Loaf No. 1 

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf: Cinnamon Raisin Bread No. 2

Here are some pictures of a batch of Hamelman's light rye that I made using a couple of dutch ovens simultaneously.  I did the entire mixing/kneading process by hand just to be able to get a good feel for the dough.  I doubled Hamelman's recipe and made 2 three pound loaves using 2 dutch ovens. We're talking "serious workout" by hand :-)  I also did a a couple of stretch and folds during bulk fermentation (20 minute intervals).  He calls for dividing the dough for a single batch into two 1 1/2 pound loaves but I decided, since I had doubled his recipe, I would bake 2 large 3 pound boules using 2 dutch ovens.  I used 2 large parchment lined skillets to proof the loaves under 2 large clear plastic bins (Walmart), then holding each end of the parchment I lifted each loaf into a preheated 500 deg. F. dutch oven (oven mittens highly recommended for this procedure), put on the lids on placed them into the oven and immediately lowered the oven temp. to 450 deg. F.  Baked them for 25 minutes, took off the lid and let them top brown for about 10-12 minutes.  Then shut off the oven and cracked the door for another five minutes before removing them from the oven.  At the end of the baking cycle the intermal temp. of the loaves was 205 deg. F.

I did not use carraway seeds in this interatation.  I wanted to compare Hamelman's light rye with Leader's Pierre Nury light rye to see the difference.  Hamelman's loaves turned out to be a very good without the carraway seeds.  But without the carraway seeds it didn't have the pronounced taste that you get with good Jewish rye, which the carraway seeds impart.  This recipe is slightly different from Leader's recipe, but very good.  I think Leader's Nury rye has a bit more flavor as a result of the process and the ovenight retardation in the fridge for 12-18 hours.  But overall they're both great recipes, only slightly different in taste and texture.  The Hamelman recipe is somewhat easier and quicker (uses a bit of yeast in the dough) but I still think it's near impossible to top the Nury rye.

Anyway, that's my experiment for the week. I recently bought a couple of bags of King Arthur whole grain with my last flour order, which have been sitting in the refrigerator waiting for some "action".  So, later this week I'm going to make some whole grain.  Haven't done the soaker thing yet but after seeing Eric Hanner's beautiful whole grain loaves he recently posted I'm anxious to try Mark Sinclair's recipe.

P.S. The memory stick on my camera filled up and I couldn't get a photo of the crumb (yeah, likely story) but it was nice and open. Not as nice and open, with large holes, as Leader's Nury rye but still a very nice crumb.

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 1

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 2

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 3

Hamelman's light rye baked in a dutch oven: Hamelman's light rye no. 4

I had baked this bread and posted some pics of this recipe (from Daniel Leader's Local Breads book) a week or so ago.  The crumb on the previous post was not as open as it should have been and the loaf, as MiniOven said, was not nearly "ugly" enough.  So, a couple of days ago I decided that the problem I was having was a result of my starter not being active enough before introducing it into the dough mixture, and I had not baked it long enough.  Anyway, I received some good critiques from a number of TFLer's and greatly appreciate the advice and suggestions I received.  I gave it another try a couple of days ago with better results.  It could, as MiniOven and Jane said, use some more "ugly" but I believe I'm making progress.  I doubled the recipe. I divided it into 3 pieces, 2 smaller loaves and one larger loaf.  Here's pics of the larger loaf.  I froze the 2 smaller ones without cutting them but assume they're fairly similar to this one in crumb. They look about the same as far as crust and color.

I left my K.A. on the shelf and mixed it completely by hand, as MiniOven suggested, in a large bowl using a large rubber spatula with more of a folding technique than a mixing action and followed Mr. Leader's recipe to the letter.  I retarded it for 18 hours before baking.  That, I think, gave it greater flavor. It tasted really good.

Pierre Nury's light rye no. 1

Pierre Nury's light rye no. 2

Thanks to:

Mike Avery for his refreshment/feeding instructions for my starter.

Janedo for her suggestions about handling the dough and baking.

MiniOven for her advice on mixing by hand and making them more "ugly".

David Snyder for his numerous posts showing what it should really look like.

Howard - St. Augustine, FL

This is my latest attempt at Maggie Glezer's Acme baguette recipe.  I used scrap dough and poolish as she specifies and the taste was very good.  I used K.A. First Clear flour for the scrap dough and K.A. French Style flour for the poolish and dough.  Still needs work on shaping technique. 

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe dough divided:

Dough divided for 2 baguettes and 1 batard after bulk fermentation

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe primary shaping:

Primary shaping

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe final shaping:

Final shaping

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe 2 baguettes and a batard:

2 baguettes, 1 batard

Glezer's Acme baguette recipe 2 baguettes and a batard

These are pictures of the process beginning after mixing.  I made Jeffrey Hammelman’s Light Rye Bread from his book BREAD, A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes (page 197)albeit a slightly modified version.  I would have to say that this recipe is wonderful and very easy to make.  His recipe ingredients consist of 2 parts.  (1) SOURDOUGH, (2) FINAL DOUGH.  He makes what I would call a sponge, which he calls “Sourdough” as the first step in his recipe.  This takes 14-16 hours to ferment.  Then he mixes the SOURDOUGH with the FINAL DOUGH ingredients.  That’s it! The 5 basic steps of the process consists of:

SOURDOUGH:  (sponge/levain)

MIXING: 7-10 minutes

BULK FERMENTATION: 1 hour

DIVIDING AND SHAPING: 5-10 minutes

FINAL FERMENTATION: 50-60 minutes at 78-80 deg. F

BAKING: 35-40 minutes

I made a couple of minor changes to his recipe:

For his SOURDOUGH (sponge) he calls for Medium Rye Flour.  Instead I used K.A. First Clear Flour.  I did this because K.A. says it works well with sourdough starters.  After 16 hours I had a terrific sponge.

In his FINAL DOUGH, He does use some yeast (1 ½ tsp.)  For the flour I incorporated  4.8 ounces of medium rye flour (called for in the sponge) with the high gluten flour.  I used K.A. Bread Flour with Arrowhead Mills rye flour and added 1 tablespoon of vital wheat gluten.

Caraway Seeds:  He calls for 2 ½ tablespoons.  I recently purchased a bottle of McCormack which smelled very fresh and pungent.  At first I thought maybe they were a bit too strong.  But after my second bite I think they’re fine.  My wife really likes this bread very, very much and she’s a very tough critic.  Anyway, there you have it, and here are the photos.

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Mixed Dough Photo No. 1

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Folding Photo No. 2

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Folding - Photo No. 3

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Bulk Fermentation - Photo No. 4

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Ready for Final Fermentation - Photo No. 5

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Final Fermentation Complete - Photo No. 6

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Ready for scoring - Photo No. 7

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Scoring complete - Photo No. 8

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Light Rye Loaves - Photo No. 9

Jeffery Hamelman's Light Rye Bread: Light Rye Crumb Photo No. 10

These are ciabatta loaves I made using Rose Levy's Bread Bible recipe.  She doesn't call for "stretch and fold" in her recipe but I did 3 very gentle stretch and folds during proofing, then divided the dough into 4 equal pieces and it seemed to give the loaves better rise and crumb.  The dough is very wet so I very lightly floured the work surface and top of the dough when doing "stretch and fold" (be careful with the amount of flour used to dust the dough or it will leave tell tale lines embedded in the interior of final loaf).  I very lightly dusted with flour before each of the 3 "stretch and fold" procedures (at 30 minute intervals).  Some folks use water on the counter and water on their hands but I found this dough to be so wet that if you use water you destroy some of the air bubbles that is so important for the light airy texture you're trying to achieve.  Anyway, after final proofing I divided and shaped them (her recipe is for 1 loaf, I made 4 loaves) for final proofing on parchment lined baking pans placed, coveded with a large clear rectangular plastic storage bin that accomodates two baking pans containing the 4 loaves.  I think the "stretch and fold" technique helped produce a better, more open crumb in the ciabatta loaves and gave them better oven spring.

Ciabatta Loaves No 1

Ciabatta Loaves No 2

I had mentioned previously, in a response to a question re: getting the ciabatta loaves off the work surface and onto a parchment lined pan or baking stone, that I made a bread board using a legal size clip board with the clip hardware removed.  My wife purchased a pair of panty hose for the project and here's a photo of the front side of the bread board with the panty hose stretched over the surface.  It works well with wet dough, as the dough doesn't stick to the nylon.  I moved the loaves from the work surface onto the nylon covered bread board and then onto parchment lined bread pans for final proofing.  This photo below (Bread Board No 1) is the work side of the board, where the loaf is placed on the board.  It is hard to see but the board is covered with the nylon hose.  If you wanted to make a longer bread board (and have an oven that will accomodate longer loaves) you could use thin plywood cut to the size you need and sanded to take of the rough edges after cutting the shape.

Bread Board No 1

The photo below is the back side of the bread board, with the nylon hose tightly pulled across the front side of the board and tied on the back side.  You could, if you wish, tape the back side with packing tape.  I didn't bother and it works fine.  I also use the board for baguettes (up to 18 inches long) and batards, when removing them from the couche and placing them onto parchment lined pans.  During the final 10 minutes of baking they can be removed from the parchment line baking pan(s) and placed directly on the baking stone to finish out the baking phase, if one wishes to use the stone as the preferred method.  After use I let the board dry completely at room temperature, dust off the excess flour and store it in a plastic bag for the next use.

Bread Board No 2