MaximusTG's blog

With mother's day at hand I decided to give her a bread-baking starterset from weekendbakery.com - a 750 gram round cane banneton, some flour, a mixing spatula, a lame, and a doughscraper, yeast and a recipe. Of course, that was the perfect excuse to order some more supplies for myself. Namely a 1 kg oval cane banneton, two 750 gram bannetons out of pressed wood material, round and oval and a lame for myself and a dough scraper.

Of course, I immediately wanted to try my new stuff! So I revisited the Norwich sourdough I had made before:

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/08/my-new-favorite-sourdough/

though I did had to substitute a little amount of the white flour with whole wheat flour, since I did not have enough white flour. Also upped the hydration a bit.

First in the 750 gram oval banneton:

I then wanted to try the larger oval banneton, and came across this recipe:

http://thevicardiedlaughing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/white-sourdough-with-rye-ferment.html

which is similar to the Norwich recipe, but uses a different technique and a bit less rye. So I got some more flour and mixed the rye ferment yesterday evening.

So after the low yeast version I baked a while ago, I baked some more of those. 

Then I wanted to use my own sourdough culture to bake that bread. 
I had some trouble getting the hydration right, because I feel like the use of baker's percentage is a bit harder when using a sourdough (another source of flour and water) to aim for a certain hydration. 

I used 

300 grams whole wheat flour (50%)

300 grams white flour (50%) \

                                               100 grams sourdough, 58 gram flour, 42 gram water

420 grams water (70%)            /

12 grams of salt (2%)

30 grams of butter (5%)

and a handful of pumpkin seeds.

I mixed all of the WW flour, all the sourdough and 258 grams of water the night before. 

In the morning I mixed in 242 grams of flour and 120 grams of water, the salt and the melted butter.

Kneaded with handmixer, left to rise an hour. Then shaped into a boule and put seam-side up in a banneton. After 2 hours proofing turned on a peel and scored and baked in a steamed oven on a stone for 55 minutes at 190 C. 

For this bread I took 300 grams of whole wheat flour and mixed it with 300 grams of water and 1/8 tsp of instant yeast. 

That was at midnight. Next morning I added 280 grams of flour, 1 tsp salt, some pumpkinseeds and some flax seeds. Also enough water to make the hydration 75%. Gave it a stir and then kneaded with mixer. Let rise for 1,5 hours. Then shaped into boule. Proofed for 2 hours in banneton. Baked for 50 minutes at 190 celsius with steam.

 Wanting to bake another sourdough bread with a larger portion of whole rye, I started searching on the internet, and came across this recipe:

http://beginningwithbread.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/sourdough-rye-with-walnuts/

This was interesting because I had some walnuts left from something else. Not quite enough, so I added some sunflower seeds. Roasted them a bit.

I had already fed my sourdough starter and put it in the refridgerator before it reached its peak. The recipe mentions adding instant yeast in the final dough. I omitted that, because I wanted it pure sourdough.

Around midnight last Saturday I made the levain, whole rye, water, my starter. Did add a bit more than in the recipe. Left this out to ferment. 14.00 in the afternoon on Sunday I made the final dough, but did not let it rise outside, but instead kept it in the refridgerator (I had a party, so I didn't have time to bake it then). A 24 hour rise in the refridgerator later I took it out, formed a batard and let it proof for about 2,5 hours on a couche. 
Baked following recipe, and this came out: 

Update: Crumb photo's:

Today I baked the bread as described on this blog:

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/08/my-new-favorite-sourdough/

I fed my starter yesterday evening, and it had more than doubled in volume this morning. After a quick trip to the local reform store, or "Ekoplaza" as this store is called, for some whole rye flour, I started the dough following the instructions. Made half of the recipe, opting to bake two 500 gram breads. 

Kneading and then S&F during bulk ferment went fine, so I then set up a couche from parchment paper. Shaped into two small batards and proofed for 2.5 hours. I had never really transferred bread from a couche to a peel, but I assumed I had to flip them on something and then put them on the peel, because they were supposed to proof seam-side up. This proved to be a bit of a problem because the dough had sticked to the sides of the couche. Guess I'll be getting me some cloth to use next time, I'm sure that would work better. You simply can't put flour on parchment paper, fold it so the paper is perpendicular to the table and expect it to stick ;). 

Eventually it did work out great though :) :

Edit:

Here are two photo's of the crumb. Didn't make them yesterday because the bread was still cooling. Thanks for the compliments!