Mebake's blog

Ever since i started baking bread at home, I have been baking with rye flour quite judiciously. Rye flour sold for retail on the shelves of supermarket chains in Dubai, and the UAE in general ,is mostly exclusively Doves farm organic rye flour. The flour is quite expensive given that it is organic: US$ 3.4 per Kg. I continued baking with it for years, with beautiful results and excellent finished products, until today.

 The other day, I was restocking on Bread flour (12.6% protein) from the mill , and I was curious whether they mill other grains too. To my delight, they milled Rye too! Non-organic of course, but German rye (t-170 flour - Dark rye flour) nonetheless. I was thrilled with the idea of having Rye flour in bulk, to bake with at will. The flour also was considerably cheaper, being non-organic, and in bulk: US$ 0.81 per Kg! I forgot to take a picture of the flour, but it had a consistency similar to whole rye flour, but with finely milled bran.

I was eager to test run this new flour, so I fed my rye starter with it, and let it ferment. Usually, the organic doves Rye flour raises and collapses in 3 hours at room temperature, this one took an hour more. This was my first encounter. I created a sour levain from the ripe starter, and it rose and ripened, but the unique scent of a fermenting Sour was not as potent as I’m used to. That was my Second encounter. I mixed the sour with the flours for the autolyse, added salt , fermented with stretch and folds, shaped, proofed, and baked.

The aroma of the finished loves were the usual, nutty and sweet with a hint of rye. The flavor was almost identical to the ones i made with the organic rye, though slightly inferior. I'm partial to the ones i made with organic rye, but the true test will be in a 100%  Rye bread; this is were the the true difference will be revealed.

I'm not sure whether the flour being non-organic has to do with it's slower fermentation rate (fewer bacateria and wild yeasts), or it being Dark Rye, but i'm paritial to the first reasonining.

Anyway, overall, my new t-170 Rye flour did a good, and i'm very pleased with it.

Note: the the Rye flour package says bread mixes, but the sticker shows:T-170 Rye flour, Which, i think, is the german grade for whole grain Rye flour (anyone?) No additives here.

-Khalid

I wanted to bake a hearty Rye for many reasons. Firstly, to satisfy my Rye craving, and secondly to serve as a rye altus for further rye baking.

So, I have baked a 3-stage 80% Rye from Jeffery Hamelman’s book: BREAD, and it was high time that I bake it in my Pullman pan lookalike. The recipe calls for medium rye, and since I didn’t have any, I sifted my organic store bought Whole Rye flour. The sifting resulted in almost medium rye flour, and so I added back some of the bran to emulate medium Rye flour consistency.

I had thought that 3 stage detmolder Rye is time consuming,  precise , and daunting  to make. Now that I made it for the 3rd time, I have attuned myself to it’s schedule. It it really simple to make if you plan ahead.

After 36 hours of being wrapped in linnen, here it is:

Wonderful aroma, and flavor. Sweet, and sour, earthy and moist... very satisfying!

- Khalid

I promised myself the other day, that I’ll try Mark Sinclair’s  (TFL member mcs) Potato rolls. My kids desire soft enriched white breads;  and as i watched in regret my wife’s grocery bags carrying bland/cottonty mass produced rolls, this was my chance to try out Mark’s wonderful rolls featured in his latest video.

I have followed the recipe religiously, as I wanted to be true to Mark’s authentic product. I did deviate, however, when it came to overnight refrigeration. The rolls were baked the very same day, and they were absolutely delicious! They’ll have to taste even better refrigerated.

The house was filled with buttery aromas when those rolls were baked. My wife and kids ate them warm. Silky Soft, and squishy,  slightly chewy crust, and a heavenly buttery milky sweet flavor, the rolls were a hit with the family. They loved it, and ask for more!

Thanks alot Mark for the video and the recipe!

-Khalid

This is a 100% whole wheat bread with corn slurry. It is an enriched bread with molasses and oil. TFL member Janet (Janetcook) has blogged about it earlier here.

I used sunflower oil, and substituted Molasses for date syrup since i didn't have any. Like janet, i used a sourdough starter (210g) instead of the yeast called for in the recipe. Furthermore, i had storbought fine cornmeal, so i cooked it to a slurry and used it after 1/2 hour.

I mixed the dough with a mixer, but continued by hand when the corn slurry, date syrup and oil were added. Since the dough was faily wet, i kneaded using the (Slap and fold technique) and the dough was miraculously turned into a soft, smooth dough. (The corn slurry was edible enough as it is, and i could eat the whole lot!)

Given the fact that i used a white starter, the levain was an all white liquid sourdough, so the fermentation of the dough was fairly sluggish. After forming the doughs and molding them into the pans, they were allowed to ferment for an hour and then were refrigerated to the next day eveneing (18 hours). Next day, i removed the pans from the fridge, and allowed them to continue fermenting for 6 hours! at 10 pm they were ready to be baked.

This morning, i had a slice. The crust was soft, and the crumb was moist and very soft. It was slightly sour, yet sweet from the date syrup. the corn slurry did not shine through as i had hoped, but it did help establish the overall character of this loaf.

Personally, i preferred Peter Rienhart's Anadama. However, next time, i won't reduce the corn meal to a slurry/mush. Janet's version must have tasted loads better with the coconut oil, and freshly ground corn.

-Khalid

At long last, I got around to baking David’s favorite staple bread:  His San Joaquin.

The bread was fabulous! I loved it, and I will be baking it again in the future, no doubt.  

Thanks a lot David for sharing your lovely formula :)

- Khalid

A very easy to make whole wheat bread:

This is a method I came up with, that marries two good techniques: Delayed fermentation, and the no knead technique.

 The method goes like this: Add tiny yeast (or active starter) to flour and water, give them a mix to barely incorporate them and put the dough in the fridge for upto 48 hours. Remove from the fridge when you want to bake, cut the dough into quarters and sprinkle salt on top, and mix briefly to form a dough and leave to rest on a floured work surface. An hour later, Shape the dough into a log/batard/boule, and insert it into a pan/brotform. An hour to an hour and a half later bake the dough in a preheated oven for 35 minutes. (Even without any enrichments, this dough takes color fast, due to the saltless retardation).

I have baked a 50% whole wheat bread using this method, and it was extremely tasty and easy to make.

Recipe:

(Makes 1kg dough)

Whole Wheat flour: 287  g

Bread flour: 287 g

Water: 414 g

Instant yeast: ¼ tsp

Salt: ¾ Tbl

Total: 1000 g

-Khalid

Last week, I had some left over whole spelt flour, some corn meal, and some semolina in addition to a ripe Rye starter. Therefore, I decided to put them all to use in a new recipe as follows:

I have mixed all ingredients together, which was quite sticky to begin with but formed a coherent dough after being folded. The dough was folded once during the 2 hour bulk fermentation. Final fermentation was only 45 minutes. The water used in the soaker was at room temperature.

Due to the soaker, the aroma of this bread is really attractive. When cool, The crust was somewhat chewy, and the crumb slightly moist but not chewy. The flavor of this bread is earthy sweet and very pleasant. The crumb is close textured and compact due to all the whole grains, the bread might have benefited from extra lightness by increasing bread/all purpose flour.

I have eaten this bread thinly sliced with a spread of cheese, and it was fabulous. This bread keeps really well.

I've baked this recipe twice before, but this one i wanted to exclude the yeast and extend the bulk fermentation. Actually, this bake was sort of a controlled test that was aimed at verifying whether or not i could bake during my working weekdays, which i'am happy to say: YES, it works!

First day eve, I started feeding my starter one day to creat the levain for the next day;

Second day, when i came back from work i mixed the levain into a dough and retarded the dough after 2.5 hours;

Third day after work, i preshaped, shaped and baked.

i'll have to admit, though, i don't like to split the joy of baking into several days, but the convenience of having bread anyday of the week was my incentive.

One thing worth mentioning: i added 1/2 tsp of diastatic malt to compensate for the extended refrigeration of the dough (21 hours).

Flavor wise, there was no noticeable sourness to this bread, though the sweetness of the raisins may have masked it. It was a good basic bread with sweet pockets of raisins, but nothing more. Could i be too accustomed to wholegrains that i can't appreciate delicate flavors of white-ish breads anymore? Could it be the malt? All i know is that the original recipe with the yeast added had a better overall flavor.

Still, though, i like this bread and loved the idea of being able to have bread almost any day of the week.

Khalid

I have recently converted my White Liquid starter into a stiff one, with a 50% whole wheat flour  - 50% AP flour flour mix. I browsed through the bread books, and found that Hamelman’s Miche point a calliere appeals to me, in addition to be a favorite of mine. Miche it was, therefore.

David Snyder has blogged about his Miche too, so I was thrilled to return to this favorite recipe. Although I had no high extraction flour, I decided to use a mix of 45% freshly milled whole wheat, 45% bread flour, and 10% All purpose flour instead. I followed Hamelman’s recipe to the word, except the High extraction flour.The dough was a breeze to work with, despite being sticky at the beginning. 

The flavor of this bread is that of a typical Miche, Fragrant, chewy, and sweet-sour. I have baked this Miche boldly to benefit from the concentrated flavors in the crust. The crumb was slightly moist and chewy.  All in all, this bread is a winner.

Khalid

There are times when I stare at my pantry and decide to be creative and use leftover flours in bread, this is one of those times.

I had some Whole spelt flour, and Whole wheat flour, and therefore decided to use both in a 50% wholegrain sourdough hearth bread. I made up a formula that benefits from my ripe White liquid starter, here it is:

Preferment:

Bread Flour: 188 g

Water: 188 g

White Starter: 1.5 Tbl

Dough:

Whole Wheat Flour: 280 g

Whole Spelt Flour: 120 g

All Purpose Flour: 251 g

Bread Flour: 103 g

Water: 470 g

Salt: 1.25 Tbl

Total dough weight: 1600 g

Total Dough hydration: 75%

Wholegrain %: 42%

% of Prefermented flours: 20%

The dough was not kneaded, instead, folded in the bowl 4 times every 30 minutes. The bread fermented as expected, with 3 hours initial fermentation, and 2.5 hours final. I baked the bread on stone, with a another stone on a rack above. The dough was quite soft, but behaved nicely after the third fold.

The flavor of this bread is clean, yet isn’t sweet-sour as i prefer, and is somewhat bland. The crust was chewy, and crumb moist and tender. In retrospect, I believe that with 42% wholegrain flours, I should have used a levain that contains some wholegrains. The bread was also baked on the same day, and not retarded.  DA, and Ian.. and many others here have come up with lovely tasting formulas because they utilize the wholegrain flours in their levain, thereby enhancing the finished product’s flavor. They also retard their doughs, while I’m unable to do so due to timing constrains. The flavor would have been better enhanced if I had used my white levain with a high proportion white flour, but I can’t resist adding more wholesome flours. This explains a lot, as Hamelman’s wholewheat levain (50% wholewheat) recipe calls for a wholewheat levain NOT white.

Therefore, from now onwards, I’ll add wholegrain flours to my levain for high Wholegrain doughs.