proth5's blog

Well, just to prove that my mind can get a bit fuzzy after long hours and stressful situations, for the life of me, i thought the title of this was simply "Farmer's Bread" - but it wasn't.

Some people expressed interest in some formulas, I am posting here.  These do come from a German baker's manual (I had to fire up the German translation skills...and get some help...) and I did bake at least one of them (no pictures - I'm back to my old habit of no pictures.)

First the method:

Final Mix desired dough temperature - 82-84F (yep. no typo)

Bulk Ferment - 5-10 mins (Again, no typo)

Loaf size - 1150g (oh, the horror! I'm now using at least some metric!) Shape round proof in floured brotforms. Dock prior to baking which is not poking holes in it with a fork - it is using a dough docker or other blunt instrument to make dents in the surface of the dough.)

Mix time:

Spiral Mixer 1-2mins

Planetary mixer - 6 mins

Diving arm mixer - 10 mins (if you have such a thing, I'm looking at you, Phil!)

(First speeds all)

Final proof

Temp 86-95F

Humidity - 70-75%

Time - 50 - 60 minutes

Bake with normal steam (Pre steam, load, steam, vent after 2 mins)

Temperature - start at 536 F (might have to just be 500F for most home ovens) let fall slowly to 410F

Time 60 mins.

I will give the formula for a 3 build and a 2 build formula

3 Build (Called Detmolder 3 phase)

Freshening Build

0.040 kg rye starter

0.080 kg Whole rye flour

0.120 l water

Ripening temperature: 77-79F

Ripening Time 5-6 hours

After ripening, remove 0.040kg to perpetuate the rye starter

2nd build

All of the freshening sour

1.000 kg whole rye flour

0.600 l water

Ripening Temperature - 75-80F

Ripening Time 15-25 hours

3rd build

All of the second build

2.700 kg Whole Rye

2.700 l water

Ripening temperature - 86F

Ripening time 3 hours

Final Dough

All of the sour

5.2200 kg Whole Rye flour

1.000 kg white flour (The German manual calls out T1050 - but use any white flout that is suitable for bread)

0.080 kg fresh yeast (optional)

0.180 kg Salt

3.589 l water

Two stage rye (called Detmolder two stage)

First Sour

0.100 kg rye starter

1.600 kg Whole Rye

0.800 l water

Ripening Temperature - 75-80F

Ripening time - 15-24 hours (remove 0.100 of the sour to perpertuate the starter)

Second sour

All of the first sour

2.400 kg Whole rye

2.400 l water

Ripening temperature 84-87F

Ripening time 3 hours

Final Dough

All of the sour

5.000 kg whole rye flour

1.000 kg white flour (again T1050 is called out, but use any white (wheat flour) good for bread making)

0.130 kg fresh yeast (and you probably should add the yeast on this bread)

0.180 kg salt

3.800 l water

So, the quantities are pretty large - use your calculator or your spreadsheets to reduse sizes to something more suitable.

And there you are. I'm posting this with a sincere belief that I have violated no copyrights, but if I have done, I'll be told soon enough.  I'm not a big rye bread baker or eater, although this formula is begining to change my mind. Turns out, the carroway so many people are fond of in rye causes me shooting headaches - so this may be why I avoided rye.  This particular bread is lovely and quite tasty - although not exactly a fluffy sandwich loaf! It still is a bit like putty to handle, but wasn't as bad as I remembered the stuff to be (maybe the shooting headaches from the carroway...)

As for the video that the OP references that inspired this posting, I've got to say that I will never understand the urge that people have to make videos of themselves as a "how to" - without any assurance that they should be doing it. I always have a certain hesitance to put myself in front of folks as a teacher, becasue I think that I should at least be an expert - but the individual in the video - he didn't have those qualms.

Peace.

To quote my university hymn “Time like an ever rolling stream” (well, and it originally went on to say “bears all her sons away” which made the whole thing problematic once those of us with the double X were finally allowed to roam the Dear Old Place’s hallowed halls – but that is another story…) and it has been quite a while since I posted part one of this saga. (The rocks and bumps over which the stream has rolled is yet another story – suffice it to say, a long one.)

Whole wheat bread in a bread machine seems to be a popular topic and I have been working on a formula, so it seems like a good time do to a full write-up.

Consulting the leaflet that came with the bread machine, it seemed that every whole wheat variation came with the ingredient of “vital wheat gluten.” Of course, upon reading that I could hear The Voice in My Head scornfully saying, “Well, Pat, if you want to use vital wheat gluten…”

To which I could only hang my head and reply, “No, I don’t, Sensei. I’ll aspire to better.”

(Oh, no – now I’ve gone and done it.  I’ve said negative things about the ingredient vital wheat gluten. Well, let me assure my small reading public that “The Voice in My Head” comes from actual conversations with a very real, and, as I like to put it “well qualified” baker. I will not intone “You do what you want” as I have no power to compel or prevent anyone from doing anything.  But as for me, I will deal with qualities of the grain as I find it and use technique to overcome any hardships.)

Of course, the tools were at hand.  A good intensive mix would make a fluffy whole wheat loaf, but no setting on the machine would mix long enough to deliver this – and I have been coming to the point where I love the “set it and forget it” aspect of the bread machine (at least for the sandwich bread to feed “the house” – I’m still hand crafting a lot of other stuff to satisfy my public…)

The other obvious tool in my arsenal was – you guessed it – a pre ferment. But not just any pre ferment, a firm levain.

“Why?” you ask.  Well, a firm pre ferment will tend to add strength (due to the acids that develop in a pre ferment and the lesser amount of protease action because the pre ferment is relatively dry) and a sourdough based pre ferment will add more acids because of the nature of the leavening.

As we wind on in this saga of me inexplicably becoming intrigued with this appliance, I make an observation: discussions on these pages pushed me to try the same formula with a firm commercially yeasted pre ferment.  Although the bread was certainly edible, it did not have the same texture nor did it rise as high as the sourdough version. If I were baking by hand, I would have to wonder if I had unconsciously done something differently – but with the machine, the cycle marches on.  So even though I “kinda” knew that sourdough would result in a stronger dough, I’m a lot more convinced of it now.

Other than that, the only thing I needed to do was up the hydration a bit and jigger the sweeteners and butter.  No long, drawn out story.

I did, however, avail myself of the “Sourdough starter” cycle on my machine (a Zojirushi Virtuoso) to mix the pre ferment.  This could just as easily have been done by hand in a bowl, but for those who don’t want that inconvenience; it turns out to be a good option.  I didn’t want the fast rise that would be engendered by the “rise” cycle – nor did I want to stay up way past my bedtime to wait for the thing.  So, I cancelled the cycle after the mix and then (had it fit into my proofer – or if my night time kitchen temperatures were warm enough) I could just cover the pan and let it proof overnight.

So, without further ado, here we go with a formula and some pictures.

Since this is a bread machine post, I will present the formula two ways, in the Bread Baker’s Guild of America format and in “recipe list” format.  For those of you just beginning to practice your baker’s math this is a good opportunity to see how the “list” format easily translates into what can be a perplexing little grid.

Bread Machine 100% Whole wheat

Firm Levain Pre Ferment (40% of the total flour pre fermented)

Whole Wheat Flour                                         228 g

Water                                                                   173 g

Seed (taken from storage starter)             5g

Mix the above ingredient (by hand or using a bread machine mix only cycle). Cover and allow to rise overnight until mature (doubled) – 8-12 hours at 76F.

The next day (or when the Pre Ferment is mature) Load the pan of the bread machine in this order:

Water (40F)                                        277 g

Agave Nectar                                     40 g

Molasses                                             24 g

Firm Levain                                         all of it, broken up into roughly 2 T chunks distributed over the bottom of the pan

Dry Milk                                               9 g

Salt                                                         11 g

Butter (room temperature)        46 g

Whole Wheat flour                         342 g

Instant Yeast

 (in small well on top of flour)     3 g

Use “Whole Wheat” cycle on the bread machine and bake per instructions.

Is it a work of food art? Well, no.  But as I looked at it I thought “This is a nice, solid, bread.  Nothing wrong with it.” Not too shabby. No vital wheat gluten. Tastes good, too…

It’s just a piece of home kitchen equipment, but it has inspired opinions from “absolutely necessary” to “nearly utterly worthless.”

When one contemplates the seasonal nature of food production – or to be specific, the foods I have tasked myself with producing – one sees that summer and early autumn are not the seasons for bread baking. While the bread can be a stern task master, it is a jovial uncle compared to the tyranny of fresh produce and its preserved forms. The unbreached wheat berry we may lay aside for a month (or a decade), but the blushing peach will move from fullness to rot almost before our eyes.  While rises and folds have flexible “windows” where our efforts are rewarded, cooking sugars become substandard in the blink of an eye and the coordination of hot sterile jars, lids, finished jams, and boiling water baths is a taxing discipline, indeed.

As consumers we love our bread and jam, but as a producer of both, I find their production incompatible.  Or perhaps doing both is just incompatible with my “real life” – but that’s another story. I do, though, make a few products that are quite popular with friends and family and they would be sorely missed when the winter months are upon us again.

So the summer months always find me spending way too much time wilting over the jam pans and giving myself water bath canner facials. Baking and the heat that an oven would add to this potent mix must generally wait for a better time. However, since I was already curious about these controversial appliances, it seemed like a good time to try automating the bread making process.

I decided on a Zojirushi  BBPAC-20 (“Virtuoso”).  Not only do Zojirushi appliances remind me of my months spent in Okinawa (where the sole appliance that I had for producing meals was a Zojirushi hot pot), but this particular model promised cakes, jams, gluten free, sourdough, and custom programmable cycles – seemed like the way to go, for me. Frankly, I enjoy the contemplation of how thoughtful design and intelligent engineering can make what could be a mundane tool a joy to use and tend to “vote with my dollars” for companies that embody this ideal.

I set out with a couple of goals:

1.        Make acceptable/good pain de mie style bread using the bread machine only – no mixing and then baking in the oven.
2.        Use metric – which puts me very much in mind of negotiating the roads in Finland.  One knows that these things are letters and the letters seem familiar, but they are supposed to string together in a way so as to have meaning, yet they don’t.

So I skimmed the directions (how hard could this be – right?) and loaded the machine with the ingredients for a formula that I had successfully produced by conventional means many times.

Epic fail.

The bread was over risen prior to baking and collapsed.  It was inedible.

Having experience in the “if at first you don’t succeed…” department, I made a small tweak and tried again.

Not an epic fail, perhaps, but not yet anything I would describe as a success.

Humbled, I really read the directions, took time to understand the timings on the cycles, and determined that I should take one recipe from the owner’s manual and follow it exactly.

My machine cycles for “regular” are as follows:

Rest – 31-41 min

Knead – 22 min

Rise 1 – 27-37 min (91F)

“Punch down” and rise 2 – 20 min (91F)

“Punch down” and rise 3 – 20-30 min (95F)

Bake – 60-70 min (248 – 302F)

The rises are too hot and the bakes are too cool – but the formulas are written for this.  And well, yes, the thing did turn out as a respectable looking loaf.  But it tasted bland at best and staled faster than an intensive mix baguette. (No wonder there are advocates of “must be eaten right away – or warm.”)  Clearly I should be able to do better.

So I stopped to consider many things.

First, I considered what made the bread machine such a nice little toy.

I guess that I have to admit that I have certain disagreements with those who say that bread baking involves a lot of laborious kneading or that it makes a big mess. The advantages of some of the hand mixing methods like “stretch and fold” or “fold in the bowl” have been explored thoroughly on these pages.  As for baking making a mess, the “voice in my head” keeps repeating – “you must work clean” at various intervals and since I always obey the voice – I think I’ve gotten that skill covered.  After all, if I were in competition (which, I won’t be – because I am too old and I don’t bake well enough) – points would be deducted if I didn’t work clean.

What is great, though, is the fact that I plugged the thing in (and it magically knew the time!) and hit the cycle buttons, to be presented with the completion time.  Then I could just walk away.

Once again, many of us know that the actual work involved over the life of our developing loaf is minimal.  However, summer yard work chores at the crumbled abode often leave one in a state where one feels that a good scrub and a change of clothes are called for before food is handled. Performing such ablutions each time one must fold or shape or load does burden a busy baker. Or sometimes the errands simply must be run and sometimes they take longer than the time between folds. With the machine taking over these duties, the bread is made and the errands are accomplished.

And there is, of course for me, the preserving to be done. A great tide that blots out most other concerns, until it finally ends – in just a few weeks.

The advantage of automation, though, is also the downfall of the bread.  The cycle times are short enough that the subtle tastes of fermentation do not really occur. And for all the effort that I have put into learning to control fermentation so that I can bake to a schedule, I use my senses to make adjustments – a little longer here – a little more forcefulness there – to make the final product come out the way I want. Once set, that cycle marches on. The formula is everything.

It would be possible to add a lot of ingredients to the formula to up the taste factor, but that is not my métier. Of course, the one or two people who read my posts know the answer to bringing fermentation flavor and keeping quality to bread produced in a relatively short amount of time.  Yes. A pre ferment. Or maybe two.

My machine has a “sourdough” cycle, but as I studied the process that they advocated and the mix of ingredients that they called “sourdough” – I’ll have to admit that my brain blew a bearing. What I concluded was that my evening routine usually includes mixing up a pre ferment or two, so why not just mix as usual and let them ripen in covered containers to be put in the machine as part of the liquid ingredients? Yes, there are those two containers that will need to be cleaned (two containers – Oh! The humanity!) but this is a small price to pay for inner peace. For those of you who wonder about “all the hard work” involved in mixing the pre ferments, they are simply mixed – literally - by hand to the point where all the flour is wet and the mixture is slightly lumpy. Any remaining on the fingers is simply washed off.  If it takes me five minutes to mix up two of them – well, I’m dogging it.

Now, I am not normally the kind of person who takes pictures of the baking process, but while writing this I came to the realization that given that I was writing about bread machines, some reader may have wandered by who doesn’t routinely mix up a poolish or liquid levain. So, as final proof that I should not handle cameras, but in a sincere effort to help, I am including pictures of my poolish and liquid levain both right after mixing and when mature.

Just after mixing:

Fully mature (the liquid levain is in the small bowl)

Of course, if you are mostly a bread machine baker and haven’t glazed over when confronted with the terms “pre ferment”, “poolish” and “liquid levain” – I say good for you. You can find definitions for these things on these pages in the “Handbook” tab. None of it is really difficult – it’s just that bakers use very specific terms for simple little mixtures.

But it gets bumpy from here, because now I’m going to head down the road paved with baker’s math.

What you will see is unusual, for me, is the high percentage of the flour that is pre fermented.  This was inspired by the owner’s manual, but makes a lot of sense to me, since this is the only flour that really receives proper fermentation.

I calculated the baker’s percentages from the manufacturer’s formulas and along with my own knowledge set the percentages myself. Again, for those of you who still do not use the BBGA standard – here’s the big payoff – it was simplicity itself to convert to a pre ferment based formula from a straight dough. I used some of the lessons learned from my exploration of sandwich bread a while back – although I had issues doing an exact duplicate.

What I did find, however was that the addition of good, ripe pre ferments, the yeast percentage had to be reduced drastically. The small amounts caused me to recall “my teacher’s” remark about needing to weigh in fractions of grams and its relationship to drug dealing – but working with these very small amounts (remember – one loaf at a time!) did put me in the mind of a scale that measured fractions of grams.

Metric continues to not be my favorite thing. “My teacher” and I agree on that.  It is difficult to transition the heuristics of a half a century. But I have been sticking with it.

In true Blaisian fashion, I’m never actually happy with the thing I just made.  So I’ll say it’s an OK bread.  The crust is a bit thick and lacking in refinement and that will never change – it is being baked in an un preheated oven at low temperatures. A day in a plastic bag softens the crust without degrading the bread – and of course crusts can always be cut off and used for crumbs.  And there are holes in the bottom –which bug me (I have since seen a Breville bread maker that makes claims to the paddles folding out of the way so there are no holes – which is tempting, but even I have my limits) – but for some slices and a sandwich – or toast - or eggs in a frame – it is tasty and sturdy. It is miles ahead of any of the manufacturer’s recipes. It lasts a couple/three days before staling. (Of store bought bread, I know so little, but I think this must be better.)

When I look at the loaf I see major shaping flaws.  But the cosmos reminds me that the machine did the shaping – it’s not my fault – just let it go…

The loaf.

The crumb.

The formula and method.

Once again my mind wanders and I think about Julia Child – wrestling various “recipes” into a book that most folks could actually use.  I use the Bread Baker’s Guild of America’s standards to present formulas – and this is very clear to me. But as I look at it with the eyes of a typical beginning (or even intermediate) home baker, I think, “Well that’s not just a recipe – it’s a recipe for disaster.”  So for those who have the standard down – I present it below.  I will also add a list of ingredients in more traditional format.

(Oh – and I do mean to specify the water temperature in the Final Dough ingredients.  Because my machine has a “wait and heat” cycle – that water needs to be cold. Call the Format Police – but The Guild doesn’t publish too many bread machine formulas…)

Ingredients

Levain

White flour                                         47gms

Water                                                   47 gms

Seed (sourdough starter)             5 gms

(mix this by hand in a small bowl – allow to ripen overnight: 8-14 hours)

Poolish

White flour                                         141 gms

Water                                                   141 gms

Instant Yeast                                      Large Pinch

(mix this by hand in a medium bowl – allow to ripen overnight: 8-14 hours)

The next morning you will mix the final dough – the ingredients are:

Levain                                   All that you mixed the night before

Poolish                                 All that you mixed the night before

Cold Water                         150 gms

Triticale Flakes                   56 gms

Molasses                             20 gms

Agave Nectar                     20 gms

Dry Milk                               7 gms

Salt                                         9 gms

Butter                                   30 gms

White flour                         118 gms

Whole Wheat Flour         118 gms

Triticale Flour                     47 gms

Instant Yeast                      2 gms (that’s about a half a teaspoon)

Put (Final Dough)ingredients in the pan of the bread machine (don’t forget the paddles!) in this order:

The water and the pre ferments,

The triticale flakes,

The butter, salt, milk powder, molasses, and the agave nectar

The flours

Make a well in the center of the flour and put the yeast in it.

Bake on “regular” cycle of your bread machine (they vary, but they all have some kind of “regular” cycle).  Mine has “crust control” – I like to set it for “dark”.

Take it from the pan to cool…

Some ingredient notes: I have been on a quest to bake good breads with 100% triticale flour.  This is a maddening type of quest, but it is my quest and I’m sticking with it. What I have found, though, is that small amounts of triticale can be incorporated in wheat breads and greatly improve the taste. For people who are not losing their grip on reality, whole wheat flour can be substituted for triticale flour (although you can buy it from Bob's Red Mill) and rolled oats for triticale flakes. It won’t be exactly the same, but will still be nice bread.  Also, my “all purpose flour” is about – 11.5% protein - folks using lower protein flours might want to switch to “Better for Bread” flours.

Of course if I only baked one type of loaf in the thing all those other cycles would be a waste. Jam has been made and pronounced tasty; although it is not of the quality that I put up (I’m going to hope not because if so, I’m doing a lot of work for nothing.)  I’ve also done some lovely cakes (altitude adjusted, of course – and of the “pound cake” variety) a type of cinnamon roll, and a couple other breads. (I’ve also baked stuffing in it – which I think is pretty neat – no need for a “stove top” – or an oven – yea!) (Oh, and while I was writing this I baked some eggplant parmesan…)

But this length of a blog with almost no pictures is enough. I’ll leave those for future installments.

With a lot of baguette dough and a home oven.

Lately I have been working with ever larger batches of dough.  This is good training as it helps develop one’s eye in terms of dividing, does a little hand skill training on wrangling a larger volume, and because I have a tiny kitchen, ups the bar on mise en place and other organizational skills.

And while I am not in training for the Coupe du Monde (because I am too old, and frankly I don’t bake that well) – I continue to be very inspired by my two opportunities to attend and have decided to consider the judging criteria as I strive to improve my baking.  Baking to a schedule is part of that – and while the phrase “watch the dough not the clock” is good advice for most home bakers – inspired by the fact that the 2008 Team USA didn’t place because they finished late (geeez) I am practicing how to control dough temperatures and conditions so that I can hold to a schedule.

But then there’s that home oven.  I always knew that oven capacity is the big factor in getting bread out the door – but a commercial oven would simply not fit my space and to be honest, would not be a good investment in a state where there is only a remote possibility that someday I could operate a bakery from my home.

I’ve tried retarding the dough after pe-shaping and was not best pleased with how the dough felt during shaping. Additionally, my ever growing group of bread testers is beginning to want a little variety. So my challenge is to get decent loaves when I need to bake in shifts.

So after whomping up a large batch of my “bearguette” dough, I set myself to dividing up the dough.

Recently I had a little incident with wildlife in my home that required that I empty out and disinfect everything in my basement.  It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, and indeed this exercise revealed that I have a large number of round cake pans inherited from my grandmother.  I knew in my heart that I had them – it just never came to front of mind.

I can load three pans at a time into my oven, so I gave my pans (6 total) a very generous coating of olive oil and sprinkled on a combination of dried herbs (oh, about 8-9 ounces of dough per 8 inch pan).  Dough was shaped into rounds placed in the pan “good “ side down and after a few minutes flipped to good side up.  This action coats the dough with olive oil and while there is no fat in the dough, the general taste and mouth feel is that of an enriched dough. (and then there are those herbs…)  This shaping is the least sensitive to over proofing and so is put somewhere cozy for as long as it takes to get the rest of the bread proofed and done.

I’ve still got a lot of call for standard baguettes so a good bit of the dough is divided with that intent.

Again, lately, though I’ve been considering how I would create a” baguette fantasie.”

In the actual competition, these are baguettes that must be shaped by machine (to demonstrate that the baker has the skill to create dough that would withstand machine shaping) and then cut and shaped to form various fantastical patterns.  I’ve pulled some oddly cut lumps from my oven.  Oh sure, they look good when loaded, but oven spring takes its toll on some of that cutting.  I begin to understand why some classic shapes are, indeed, classic – they work.  I’ve also had some horrible loading accidents, since I continue to hold to the belief that parchment paper is cheating (for me, at least) and a beautifully cut shape can get – oh, shall we say “distorted” if the peel is not rendered completely non-stick. (Oh, for a loader!)

Also, I’ve been working on traditional regional French shapes.  I had quite a good run on Auvernats (and, of course, me being me took no pictures) and have gone on to some other shapes – providing I can do them quickly enough.

So, baguettes loaded and baked, then the baguettes fantasie (which can handle slight over proofing a little better), then special shapes, and then my bread in the pans. 

The bread in the cake pans is “dimpled” to give it the look of foccacia.  I also take one pan and flatten out the middle and top with sauce and cheese to create a type of deep dish pizza.  (Yes, yes, not completely traditional, but delicious with the good bread as a base, and the oil and herbs.  Also a meal for the busy baker.)

I complete on schedule.  The kitchen is clean and the couches are hung with care to dry. Having been assaulted by the smell of a moldy linen couche (not in my home, but elsewhere), I am even more meticulous about this than before.  It’s a satisfying feeling. All that is left is to bundle up the bread for my various “customers.” When I was in Okinawa I learned how to tie a square piece of cloth (called a furoshki) into various carrying containers and have used my vast collection of flour sack towels to be the transport for these loaves.  The fabric allows enough ventilation to keep the loaves crisp and the recipients can store the loaves in the bags for a day or so.  I have a friend who has become the self appointed “bread fairy” for a number of folks who will come at her phone call to get their weekly bread allotment. (And you all get the destination to which this will lead…)

All this baking leaves little time for photography – even if I liked doing photography or was any good at it – but this week the special shapes came out well – so they were worth a snap.  They are left to right – a baguette fantasie, an epi de ble, and a torsade.

The torsade was proofed “good side” down on linen that had been coated with “remoullage.” Remoullage is bran pulled from the milling process and re-milled until it is as fine as flour.  It makes a lovely coating on the surface of the bread rather than just dusting with flour and has almost better non stick properties than white flour.

So that’s what I do with all that dough.  It’s one mix, but a variety of products.  My testers are completely sure that I have made at least three different breads.  I just smile and say thank you.

People get grabby over the herb bread and it really is a low maintenance addition to a batch of baguettes – I highly recommend it.

I'm bumping about the crumbled abode, not quite myself, unpacking my suitcase, doing piles of laundry, and sorting through my Europain swag.  I try to be restrained on this, because I won't check baggage and a week long trip does fill up the carry-on.

Those of you who followed my exploits at IBIE will be pleased to note that I got a plastic scraper from Caplain - a company that markets small scale bakery machinery including (and this is so exciting) a table top, hand cranked sheeter.   Now that would fit in my house.  How cool is that!

From Revent, I got a great shopping bag emblazoned with "Make Ciabatta. Not war." on one side and "Blood, sweat, and baguettes" on the other. Oh, and both sides also contain the photos of artisan bakers who are way, way easier on the eyes than The Naked Baker. Aditionally - and this is so fabulous - I opened the bag and thought "Geez, I really need to remember to dump out bread crumbs before I pack" (and I do have a lot of bread crumbs in my luggage) - but when I went to empty them out, they were printed on the cardboard that formed the base of the bag.  It's the details that matter.

Revent also supplied me a t-shirt proclaiming "In Bread we Trust."  Neat.

Of course there is the Europain lanyard.

But, I send out to you one more piece of info from the Revent company.  Now my phone is not smart, so I don't know from these things, but Revent has created an "app" called Bread Seeker.  The English wedsite is: http://www.revent.com/en/breadseeker.html  I seem to read that it is for both the iPhone and Android, but again, not my thing, and it seems to be free.  It is supposed to tell you, based on your current location, the bakeries that are in your area.  The website also has some videos (with subtitles) - you may wish to check it out.

Okay, tired, hurting, and not up to snuff - still coming down from that Europain high...

Pat

For those of you who have not read it, Mr. Hamelman blogged quite movingly about how the fraternity of bakers who had participated in La Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie became and remained friends despite their positions as competitors.

Of course, not all of us travel in such exalted circles. Some of us soldier on in the trenches trying to be of service to the Bread Bakers Guild of America (BBGA). Since I am (as our chief conspirator Laverne tells me) one of the few members who both speak French and are crazy enough to spend mornings dragging people around Paris, I volunteered to be a guide for some of the Guild’s Paris bakery tours.

These were not famous bakeries by any means – these were places where one or two people labored daily to turn out a lot of bread six or seven days a week.

My first stop – at La XXX - was a bit a surprise to the people staffing it that day.  They had been told about the BBGA, but had not been expecting us that morning.  Nevertheless, the baker who was in charge that day took us to every corner of the bakery, answering detailed questions about his techniques and formulas (although he slyly told us that he had his secrets which he would never tell) letting us stick fingers into his levain to taste it and letting us handle dough to understand its consistency.  When a question was asked about how he did the lamination for his croissants, he weighed out a piece of dough and laminated it for us. All this was done in a space where the baker and his assistants could barely move, let alone accommodate a group of nosy Americans who asked him to stop work every few minutes to snap pictures. He gave us samples of anything where we showed interest. He collected a number of cards and promised to visit us in the USA someday. Although I doubt that he wants to visit my personal “bakery”, I am sure that the pro bakers on the tour would give him the same warm welcome.

Our next stop will remain nameless, but even though they had never heard of the BBGA and had no idea why we would want to see their bakery, the person in charge of the front of the house let us all go in to their subterranean bake shop. (Yes, we are all going to have a little sit down and figure out how we do this whole tour thing better next time.) Generous of them, I must say. I had already brought shame upon myself by getting lost in Paris, but now thinking about it, I believe the universe was trying to keep me away from this bakery.  It seemed eerily familiar and as we rounded the corner to the sweltering area containing the oven and the shaping machine, I knew I had been there before. There was the Naked Baker – clad only in an apron (below the waist) and flip flops. I had toured this place at the last Coupe du Monde and the proprietor had described him as “Le Vrai Boulanger Français!” He stood impassively feeding dough into the shaper (and in case you were wondering most of the baguettes you find in Paris – even the better ones - are fed through a shaping machine – not hand formed) unconcerned with our presence. But still, those of you who work in places that actually make things – would you let strangers on to your factory floor?

Since I was starting to get the feeling that things had not been arranged as well as they could have been, I decided to go in person to check out the stops on the next day’s tour.

The folks at Boulangerie de XXX told me that they had never heard of the BBGA and were just too busy to accommodate a tour. When I persisted, they agreed to host us on a tour at 10:30AM the next day. After negotiating all of this (and after checking out the action at the Coupe) I had to retire to my hotel for a martini. I had the feeling that it would be a bumpy day.

Our first stop on that morning was a bakery who was the winner of the 20xx “Best Baguette in Paris” contest.

They were expecting us, and in the midst of their morning production jammed us in to their tiny, tiny production area where the more than busy baker patiently answered every question that the group asked. He told us the formula, the mix schedule, the dough temperature, the fermentation schedule and the bake parameters. He posed for pictures, paused his loading routine to show us how to score and then. And then. He thanked us for coming to visit him. That almost made me melt and I was starting to fray just a bit with the translation duties.

Now Wednesday was the ceremony to name the winners at the Coupe and the tour of Boulangerie de XXX had a good chance of causing us to miss it. We determined that we would like a quick tour – but as we found out – that wasn’t possible. The sole/head baker (who had suffered the breakdown of his shaping machine that morning) was just too generous with his humor and information.  Then he started slicing bread and giving us samples (and the bread was quite delicious!) – well, not just samples, but entire loaves of bread – for free – for us to take. I was chatting away with his wife about how we might get a much better tour next time and who we should contact when one of my tour members tugged at my sleeve.  “He’s cutting up more bread – tell him to stop.” I nearly had to throw myself in front of the slicer – he wanted us to taste a few more breads and he wanted to give them to us. (And yes, we got back to the Coupe exactly one minute before the announcements were made.)

I have seen no more generous people than when bakers deal with bakers. It is, the best that I can understand, a fraternity/sorority of people who face such similar challenges that they cannot help but be kind to each other. (For you Star Trek the Next Generation fans, you will remember the episode “Darmok” where the commander of an “alien” ship decided that shared danger and sacrifice with Picard would create understanding where none had been possible before.) I have now seen enough of these French bakeries to know that there is nothing we haven’t seen in the US. The equipment is the same – even though it is crammed into spaces so small that most of us would say we couldn’t put a bakery in them. It is the hands and the heart of the baker that make the difference, but the hands and the heart of artisan bakers are more alike across the big waters than they are different. Heart to heart – this is what happens when bakers come together. Of all the experiences this week in Paris (and I do love Paris, make no mistake, and I can misbehave here pretty good) it was the coming together of people with similar passions that I will remember best from this trip. I even had a good time at our Guild gathering – the kind of event that usually has this little introvert running for the door.  There was some small talk, some chit chat, but then the subject quickly became “tell me about your bread.” When we can talk from those places in the heart, we truly communicate.

As I put this into final edit, I realized that this would go out to the “interwebs” and that all sorts of people would know where we had been and perhaps try to take advantage of this incredible generosity and I cannot bear that, so I took out the names of the bakeries. For those of you who must know – because you will actually be going to Paris in the near future -  use a PM, and if I feel I “know” you well enough I will supply the details.

It's been a while - but here I am, right where I need to be - in Paris at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie.  After a day of tour guiding "adventures" (including the return of the "Naked Baker" - a story for which the world is not prepared) I thought I would go over to the competition area, check out the day 3 baking and snap some photos.   Then rest my tired tootsies and post them to TFL.

This is me, taking photos - which I never do in Paris - not even at my Sunday dinner at a famous landmark - so set expectations accordingly - but here they are for you...

Team Italy - baguette fantasie and other breads

Team Italy - crumb shot

Teanm France - Crumb shot

Team France - Decorative scoring

Team France - Decorative piece

Team South Korea - Decorative piece

Team Taiwan - Decorative piece

Team Peru - Decorative piece

Team USA - Decorative piece

At the Judges Tables

I could go on and on about the nuances of the competition - the fact that Taiwan was the only team the first day to finish on time - that this year Team USA finished on time, also - that the Austrian judge saw both me and the guy standing next to me almost spit out a piece of the bread from Team Taiwan (seaweed in bread - this is a love it or hate it deal - which, in a competition, is always a gamble)- the reaction of Team USA to French flour (they don't much like it) - but you don't want the blow by blow - you want the pictures...  and I took all my camera could hold.

Tomorrow we learn the results.  Let me tell you, there is some tough competition (the scoring on Team France's breads just kills me...), but I will stay true to my team.  Go Team USA!!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t think I would be baking at all. The little hobby that supports all this baking fun was keeping me away from home and oven.

However, I am working for a client who employs a chef to prepare meals for the executives and he graciously lent me the executive kitchen for the day (and the evening before.)

After getting the lay of the land in the kitchen and not wanting to poach too heavily on the supplies, I turned the wheels of the rental car to the local mega-mart and stocked up on the essentials for a day of baking.  The local mega mart had fresh yeast and I couldn’t resist – some cream, some buttermilk, eggs, KA 11.5% protein white flour, some whole wheat flour, butter, brown sugar – that would give me at least four different baked goods.

So, late at night (well, late for me) on the first day of the year, I did my scaling and mixed my pre ferments.  Early the next morning I returned.

It hadn’t hit me the night before, but as I walked into the space in the morning (and checked my pre ferment first thing) I realized that for the day this kitchen was all mine.

I’ve worked in commercial kitchens before, but always when they were under the control of someone else.  But today, for one day, I was in charge. I didn’t get the satisfaction of buttoning on my chef’s jacket (Yes, through a long series of unfortunate events I was forced to buy a chef’s jacket.  I generally avoid enterprises that require new clothing, but this was unavoidable.) but I was the head baker that day.

Being engaged in the discipline of planning, I had the day laid out.  The kitchen was minimally equipped for bread baking (no wooden surfaces to work on, no couches, no loaf pans) but I was able to adjust.  I first baked some scones to get some food out to hungry colleagues, and then started the (hand) mix on about eight pounds of baguette dough.  I then did the mix for some Moravian sugar cake and took a deep breath.  I had a lot of whole wheat flour left and so decided to make a whole wheat sandwich loaf.  All that practice in formula writing served me well and I was able to write up a formula using available ingredients.  I did the mix in the Kitchen Aid Pro 600 mixer to as close to an intensive mix as I have ever gotten. I noted that this was a weak, whiney little machine compared to My Preciousssss.

A request rolled in for more scones and it was easily accommodated.

I had to proof the baguette dough (shaped for epis de ble and an Auvergnat) on parchment, but no biggie (actually, yes, big biggie to me, I don’t understand why anyone with a love of artisan bread baking doesn’t just bite the bullet and buy a proper couche – so much benefit from so little expenditure.).  Six ounces of dough that was left over from those shapes was rolled out, brushed liberally with olive oil and then sprinkled with dried herbs (a good use for it).

Since proofing facilities were primitive, at best, I did a lot of my proofing in unoccupied areas of the building which were, curiously warmer than the kitchen.

The Vulcan convection oven had a practical capacity for 3 sheet pans, so my eight pounds of baguette dough could be baked all at once. I contemplated mightily what I could do if I had that sort of oven capacity on a daily basis.

Since there were no loaf pans, I baked the whole wheat sandwich loaf in a conveniently shaped hotel pan.

Oh. And I kept up with emails and technical request from my hobby.

Strangely, the only disappointing moment had to do with the yeast.  (And realize that since this was a long way from home, I had no access to sourdough starter – which forced me to work with all commercial yeast.) The local mega mart had fresh Fleischmann’s yeast.  Now, I know that for the end product itself, instant yeast is most likely the same as fresh (Please, let us not open the great fresh vs. instant yeast debate!), but in terms of process and the impact on me the baker, there is nothing the action and aroma of fresh yeast early in the process.  I find the smell quite intoxicating although as the process goes along that early-on smell and feel is lost. So I had purchased fresh yeast.  When I went to open the little blocks I saw the words “Product of China” emblazoned on the package.  Has it come that? Really? Really!? We get our fresh yeast from China!? What the ----? I’m going to need to look into this further and see if there is a closer source.  This product is not available in my home market, but as sensuous as the experience is, I am not completely sure I can support flying in yeast from across the Pacific Ocean just to give me that little fresh yeast high.

I started at 7:15 AM and by 3 PM I had produced:

2 batches of scones

4 epis de ble

1 Auvergnat

1 mini foccacia

3 Moravian sugar cakes

1 Whole wheat loaf

If I hadn’t been such a wimp with the size of the baguette dough mix (I could easily have handled double or triple the amount even with a hand mix – but I hadn’t purchased enough flour!) I could easily have made more. I am more convinced than ever of the primacy of oven capacity (and practice with hand skills to be able to divide and shape quickly and efficiently) to determine how much can be produced in a reasonable working day.

All the products were consumed by a grateful project team.  They were pretty good. (Ok, the scones [formula on these pages] were awesome – even when triticale isn’t used.)

I also have a streak of lightly charred flesh on my left hand (not serious, it doesn’t even hurt) from a miscalculation about oven racks to remember the day. Some bakers get ink – I collect scars…

As I looked out over my sparkling clean kitchen (I was, after all, a guest – but a kitchen should be that sparkling clean at the end of a work day anyway) with tired feeties and deep satisfaction, I felt that the universe was sending me a message.  I just wish I knew what it was.

As the few of you who read my posts know, 2011 was the year when I wanted to concentrate on formula development.  But as I found myself winding up the year and looking on to the next, I thought it might be time to look through my vast collection of “vintage” recipes and pull out something from a distant and fading past.

This almost always leads me to the collection of recipes from my grandmother. Of course, at this festive time of year, I am the one tasked with baking a treat that is known only as Grandma’s Brown Christmas Cookies. While not a secret family recipe, it is not worth posting here as it involves an ingredient that is somewhat difficult to obtain (and may or may not be especially legal to have) and large numbers of tiny cookie cutters – which, frankly, are not easy to come by.  No, it is my job to turn that out for the relatives until my death – when no one will make it anymore.

But, there are recipes that are more accessible to the average home baker and this year I decided to resurrect the making of “Crispy Cookie Coffeecakes.” I will reproduce the recipe as per the original (in hopes that this miracle of the “interweb” may preserve it after my inevitable demise) – and the offer my changes.  So here it goes, another “don’t tell the doctor, but we’re baking PA Dutch stuff” recipe from my grandmother.

CRISPY COOKIE COFFECAKE

1 package or cake Fleischmann’s Yeast, active dry or compressed

¼ cup warm, not hot, water (cool to lukewarm for compressed yeast)

4 cups sifted flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp grated lemon rind

1 cup (2 sticks) Blue Bonnet Margarine

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk scalded and cooled to lukewarm

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. In a large bowl combine flour, salt, lemon rind, ¼ cup sugar.  Cut in margarine with a fork.  Combine eggs, milk, dissolved yeast and add to flour mixture.  Combine lightly.  Cover tightly. Refrigerate overnight. Divide dough in half. On a floured board roll each piece into 18” x 12” rectangles.  Sprinkle with remaining sugar mixed with cinnamon. Roll up tighty beginning at the wide end.  Cut each roll into 1” slices.  Place cut side up on a greased baking sheet.  Flatten with palm of hand.  Bake at 400 degrees F. about 12 minutes.

Makes 36

My changes

Butter instead of margarine.  I cut this butter into smallish cubes and kept it chilled. I did convert the flour to 4.25 oz per cup and weighed instead of measured.

I noted with great satisfaction that my grandmother dissolved – not proofed - the yeast and then used a scant 2 teaspoons of instant yeast mixed directly into the flour mixture.  I used reconstituted powdered milk and increased the quantity by ¼ cup while omitting the lukewarm water.

I used a dough blender to cut in the butter. 

While I was doing that, I had a flashback to blitz puff pastry.  Because that was what I was making.  My grandmother didn’t go into the folding process, but this was blitz puff pastry dough.

The dough is quite alarming when it goes into the refrigerator, but in the morning turned out to be a lovely, soft dough.

I rolled it out into the 12 x 18 rectangle (liberal flour is needed on the board) and then folded it in thirds and rolled it out again. I consider that future iterations might well include better folds, but I had a busy baking schedule ahead of me and I wanted to get on with it.

I goosed up the cinnamon sugar mixture by using half brown sugar.  I baked on parchment paper lined half sheet pans (the cinnamon/sugar filling runs a bit, so containment is helpful.)

I had to bake the things for 17 minutes.  I had a distant memory that when I used to eat these they had frosting on them, so I concocted a quick butter/vanilla/powdered sugar/milk glaze and spooned it on when they had cooled slightly.

Yum.

Now back to Sherman’s planet where I once more take up my ongoing triticale quest.

“My teacher” gave me a memorable quote something to the effect that if one is working with grains that might not be considered optimal for baking, adding enough sugar, butter, and cream will almost always move one closer to success. So I am shamelessly stealing a formula from “my teacher” and tailoring it to my own obsession – triticale

Scones

Mostly Whole GrainTriticale flour                 545 grams            100%

Sugar                                                                     136 grams            25%

Baking Powder                                                  33 grams              6%

Salt                                                                         3 grams               .5%

Butter (unsalted, diced pliable soft)        136 grams            25%

Currants tossed in a little extra flour        109 grams            20%

Eggs, Large                                                          60 grams              11%

Buttermilk                                                           204 gram              37.5%

Heavy Cream                                                     289 grams            53.1%

Cinnamon sugar mixture – or just sugar

In the formula above, the 60 grams is really one large egg.

The flour is about 85% extraction, sifted through a #50 mesh, with the bran milled to a powder.  It’s a nice flour, not exactly silky, but much finer than standard whole grain.  The original formula calls for whole wheat pastry flour, but be bold home millers – try the triticale!

And here we take a mental detour to comments made by “my teacher” – who like me grew up with the Imperial system and has not the reverence for the metric espoused by so many on these pages. Yet, because of certain extenuating circumstances, this formula had to be written in grams.  There were dark mutterings about people feeling that they had to measure everything in grams to bake good bread and strange oaths about never seeing the day come to pass when a scale was needed that measured in fractions of grams. At this point, I swear, I didn’t even say anything, when my teacher looked me directly in the eye – “Yes, when you deal drugs, you need that accuracy.”  For one of the very few times in my life – I had no snappy retort.  You see what I endure – and yet, I am proud to call this person “my teacher.”

(BTW: for you metric enthusiasts, I’ve spent over half a century baking with pounds and ounces, I have a feeling for them.  Half a pound – I know what that looks like in several different ingredients.  A kilo?  Beats me. When I work with people who are new to baking, I use pounds and ounces, but suggest that since they don’t have the years invested in that system that they start fresh and create their references in metric.  Seems like the sensible blending of the worlds to me.)

But back to the scones.

Mix the dry ingredients and the sugar. With paddle attachment of your favorite mixer, blend in the butter until it looks like small peas. Add the currants (I actually used dried cherries, chopped up a bit), mix and then add the liquid all at once.  Mix to a soft dough.  I actually mixed the triticale version a bit longer than I would have mixed wheat.

Use a scoop of desired size to create rounds on parchment lined sheets (I used a standard ice cream scoop sized disher).  Egg wash the tops.  If desired, sprinkle with sugar or cinnamon sugar (I use the formula from Advanced Bread and Pastry) and bake either in convection or standard oven at 350F for 13 – 18 minutes.

Also, yum. I’ve baked this formula with wheat and the triticale texture is very, very similar. They are very delicate scones in either medium and do with some cooling before they can be eaten without excessive crumbling.

And so, as promised, a picture:

Happy Baking!

Pat

My old waffle iron was handed down to me from my grandmother.  As the one or two of you who read my posts know, I am no spring chicken.  Neither is the waffle iron – which is roughly my mother’s age.

Just as with human beings, appliances seem to have a lifespan.  When sometime last year half of one of the two waffles produced by this venerable piece of equipment never got beyond a pale yellow and parts that should not have gotten warm became ominously hot, I decided that honorable retirement was the best thing for the trusty old waffle iron and began to cast about for one more fit for active duty.

I found one – I did all the standard “interweb” searching and this one was highly rated – except it was advertised as a “Belgian Waffle Iron” but reviewers said that the waffles were really a bit on the thin side for “Belgian” waffles.  I thought that would be perfect.  It was – sort of.  The recipe (found on these pages, thanks SylviaH) that I had for sourdough waffles wasn’t quite up to the increased thickness.

And it was bit sour for my tastes, I thought.

And not quite light enough.

With a head slap to my forehead, I reminded myself that 2011 was all about formula development and that perhaps I had it in my grasp to revise the (already delicious) formula to my specific tastes.

Also, if truth be told, I’ve been doing some Supply Chain consulting for the company that distributes OXO products.  You know “Good Grips” – the angled measuring cups, etc. In the vast confluence of unlikely events that makes up my life, I was chatting with one of the folks about my desire to own a hand cranked egg beater, their new egg beater and how cool it looked and somehow, one happened to come into my possession. I promised that I would give it a workout and report back.  A new waffle formula seemed to be just the thing.

I get all misty about waffles around the Solstice because my father really loves them. My mother can’t make them (that talent skipped a generation) and the only time he gets them is when I make the journey halfway across the continent to make them for him – usually at this time of year.  Unfortunately, the little hobby that supports my household and what seems to be an ever growing assortment of hangers on sometimes has its extraordinary demands and I will not be making waffles on the East Coast until sometime in 2012.

So for your enjoyment, I give you my jazzed up waffle formula.  I always have plenty of sourdough discard hanging about the house, but it’s worth saving up some.

As with so many of my breads as of late I use two “pre ferments.” I’m told by someone I respect (and admire!) that this is over elaborate, but since I’ve made this switch people (some of whom don’t even know me) are going seriously crazy over my breads, so, well, too bad, I say, too bad.

First pre ferment

4.5 oz 100% hydration sourdough discard

6 oz 11.5% protein flour (this is King Arthur All Purpose flour, but ringing in my ears is “All purpose? What does that mean?  You are beyond that.  You speak in protein percentages now!” Must – obey –voice!)

4 oz unsalted butter melted and cooled

8 oz milk

1 tsp sea salt

2 TBS non diastatic malt (or brown sugar)

Mix (with an eggbeater if you have one) and allow to mature overnight.

Second pre ferment

2.25 oz 11.5% protein flour

2.25 oz water

Pinch of instant yeast

Mix and allow to mature overnight

Additional ingredients

2 eggs, separated

¼ tsp baking soda

When pre ferments are matured (the next morning…)

Pre-heat the waffle iron at the appropriate time...

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form (I’ll mention that an egg beater comes in handy here…)

Mix together the two pre ferments, the egg yolks, and the baking soda (can also be done with an eggbeater.)

Fold in the egg whites. Don’t use the eggbeater for this.

Bake per your waffle iron’s directions and your tastes.

Just a few more minutes than the earlier version – delish!

So, realizing what a privilege it is to get to make waffles for your family – be sure to make a special breakfast (or dinner) over the next couple of weeks.

My best wishes for whatever brings light into this dark time of the year go out to you all!