The first day driving kids to school since I got back from Taiwan last weekend was the first day of listening to Emma Ayres on a fine classical radio show, ABC Classic FM, the familiarity of which filled me with delight which was quite uncharacteristic of me.  That day I counted the flowering trees that I had missed by the road side while I was away.  The flame trees were alight with their chilly red color flowers, the Chinese favorite color.  The vivid colors were like endorphins to me, sending me into fanciful thought of the depth of my memories.

Memories are like ghosts.  I think of Sting's The Hounds of Winter.  His new album, If on a Winter's Night ... has just been released, "an acoustic meditation on winter."   For me trips to Taiwan are trips down memory lane.  While I was there, my mother told me of her youth over many days and many morning Oolong teas.  When she was two months old, she migrated to a Taiwan that was occupied by the Japanese, 73 years ago.  She would have learned to speak Japanese if she were a better student.  Back then, the Japanese encouraged the Han people from China to develop Taiwan - the land was open for grabs to anyone who was strong and had an able body, not unlike that of the New World more than two hundred years ago.  My late grandfather was a strong man, who occupied a big piece of land towards the eastern seaboard of Taiwan. His younger brother was not so able and he occupied land up the mountain, ill-suited to crops.

How memories have faded and how Taiwan has changed.  73 years is a short time indeed.  In this period of time, Taiwan became a very affluent society.  People embraced new ideas, new trends and were afraid to fall behind.  The same thing happened across the Taiwan Straits in Mainland China - today, there are 50 million young kids learning to play western music instruments, 30 million of whom learn piano, which is why you get a Lang Lang, the modern day Mozart in China, as some believe.

We are all co-incarnates.  Don't get caught up in the word that has mystical, and for the most part, superstitious connotations.  It means we are the results of our forbearers, our cultures, and our surrounds as we in turn influence other people.  It has always been in Chinese blood, throughout our history, to learn from other people, to adapt, and then, to call it our own. 

Whenever I go back to Taiwan to visit folks and friends, I see a dazzling array of new stuff, half digested but always presented in a unique way.  Sourdough is one such example.

Inky bread is not most peoples' 'cup of tea.'  When my mother saw a sample of it, she uttered "pee-yew" instinctively (sorry that's an Australian sound, I forgot what she uttered.)  We walked into a humble looking bakery in a busy street in downtown Taipei; and a big tray of inky batards stared at me.  There was a cut-up sample on the side and as I looked closer, the description said "Squid Ink Chicken Bread."  Just when you need a camera, you don't have one.  That is annoying.  I had been carting a camera around the whole week and I had not found anything to shoot.

Savory breads like the "Squid Ink Chicken Bread" are quick lunches you can find easily in the streets of Taipei and most cities in Taiwan today.  I didn't buy one to try, but I think the chicken in the inky bread that I saw was done the Chinese way; that is, with a little soy sauce and ginger, or perhaps honey and ginger.  I wanted a little green color (unsuccessfully as you can see from the pictures below), so I made mine with spring onion and pesto. 

When I did my last inky bread in honor of Sting's song, A Thousand Years, I had no idea that it could be found in the market place.  I used squid ink to color the bread to make a statement - to express the grief and suffering from thousands of years of wars and killing, the subject of that song.  But this time, I am doing this inky bread because I think it is fun and unusual.   Here we go: 

My Formula for Inky Savory Pain au Levain 

Final Dough:

• 1,223 g ripe starter @75% hydration (5% rye)  This was refreshed three times over 32 hours from a seed starter of 36g from the fridge.
• 1,223 g flour (5% rye flour and the rest white bread flour, 11.9% protein)
• 700 g water (divided into 600 g and 100 g, see squid ink below)
• 4 + 1/2 tbsp or 65 ml. of olive oil (approx. 5% of total hydration)  Try not to use the scale for this. See note below*
• 7 - 8 g of squid/cuttlefish ink (to be pre-mixed in 100 g of water as above)
• 35 g salt
• Sesame for dusting

Pesto and spring onion mixture:  mix the following

• 100 g pesto sauce
• 100 g chopped spring onions

Chicken: pan-fry the following in 2 tbsp of olive oil

• 500 g diced skinless chicken thighs (do not use breast)
• 4 - 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon of corn starch (as meat tenderizer)
• salt & pepper to taste

Total dough weight 3.2 kg and dough hydration 67%  (I was aiming for the standard baguette hydration)

The dough was divided into:

1. 230 g x 3 (rolled in sesame seeds) and 800 g x 1, baked last night (pictured immediately below) for pre-dinner drinks and dinner (note: I left the large one plain without incorporating the pesto or chicken); and
2. 900 g x 1, 500 g x 1 and 350 g x 1, baked this morning.

* One tablespoon of water is 15 g but one tbsp of olive oil is not 15 g.  It's 12 - 13 g for me if it is scaled on its own, but 11 - 12 g if scaled on top of water or something else. 

                                                                          The above were all baked last night.

Procedure

1. Mix squid ink in 100 g water.
2. In a large bowl, mix starter with 600 g water first, then add flour, then salt, oil, and squid ink (in that order), mix until just combined. (Take down the time when this is done.  Bulk fermentation is approximately 2+1/2 hours if dough & room temperature is roughly 22 - 24C / 73 - 76F.  Note:  almost all bread books calculate bulk fermentation time from when kneading finishes, whether or not autolyse is incorporated.  Because I use my stretch and folds as my kneading, technically this means I should start counting my bulk fermentation time from the end of the first set of S & F's.  But as long as I am getting the results I want, I will continue to do what I have been doing. )
3. Autolyse 20 minutes; in the mean time, pan-fry chicken and prepare the pesto spring onion mixture (the cooked chicken should be completely cooled down before use).
4. First set of stretch and folds in the bowl, 60 - 70 strokes.
5. After 45 minutes, another set of stretch and folds, 20 - 30 strokes.
6. After an hour, divide the dough as you please.  Pre-shape the dough to a cylinder; rest 15 minutes.
7. Incorporate the savory mixture and shape the dough into a batard (see pictures below).
8. Proof the dough for approx. 2 hours if dough & room temperature is roughly 22 - 24C / 73 - 76F.  (Note: I moved my dough into the refrigerator immediately after it was shaped as it was a very hot day, 30C; ie, my dough received no floor time after it's shaped.)
9. I baked 4 loaves (250 g x 3 and 800 g x 1) after 4 hours in the refrigerator last night at 230C / 445F for 15 minutes and another 20 minutes at 210C / 410F.  I baked the rest of the loaves this morning (16 hours retardation). 

1. place some pesto spring onion mixture and chicken on the top one-third of the dough
2. fold the top 1/3 over and turn the whole dough 180 degree
3. place some more savory mixture on the top one-third of the dough, and fold it over again
4. fold again and seal it tight

                                                               The above was baked this morning.

The bread was delicious.   This was one of the best breads that I have made.   When it came out of the oven, my husband said that the bread looked sensational; but when I said, it's squid ink bread, he said, Oh, I changed my mind.  He ended up having his lion's share and couldn't stop raving about it.   This bread was a hit with my family. 

As I was finishing my draft for this post, Lang Lang was playing Yellow River Piano Concerto on my hi-fi.  The instrument is western, but the sentiment expressed in the music is incredibly Chinese.  What a piece of pure Romanticism.  With that, I am going to indulge myself with something I have always wanted to do - to paint abstract with flour:

                 flour abstract painting on my black marble work bench 1

                                                                                                          flour abstract painting 2

Shiao-Ping 

It all started with this picture when I dropped my son at his mate's house for tennis and saw these colors:   

                                                             The pink bougainvillea next to their front door against

                                                                      a flowering jacaranda in the background

A few days later a girl friend invited me to have tea in the park just round the corner from her place, under the flowering jacarandas.   

           Symphony jacarandas:

           First movement

                                          Second movement

                                                                           Third movement, and

                                                                                                      Fourth movement 

And this was the bread that I made for our tea: 

                 Pain au Levain with Praline Rose 

My Formula

• 350 g starter @ 75% hydration
• 310 g bread flour
• 40 g medium rye flour
• 262 g water * see note below
• 183 g Praline Rose (pink caramelized almonds), 1/3 of the weight of total flours
• 11 g salt
• Extra rice flour and medium rye flour for dusting

Total dough weight 1.15 kg and dough hydration 75% (*Note: I did 75% hydration but in truth the hydration of the final dough felt much higher because of the sugar dissolved from Praline Rose which I over-looked.   70% hydration, or 235 grams of water, would have been plenty.  Because of the wet dough, extra stretch of folds became necessary to build up dough strength.)

1. In a large bowl mix all ingredients except salt and Praline Rose until just combined
2. Autolyse 30 minutes
3. Stretch and folds in the bowl 100 times (I tried to build up some dough strength before the nuts go in), then
4. Fold in salt and Praline Rose by way of S & F's 100 times again
5. Bulk fermentation 2 hours with 2 sets of S & F's of 80 - 100 times each at 45 minutes and 90 minutes (see Note above)
6. Divide into two pieces and pre-shape to rounds (or leave as whole), rest for 15 minutes, then shape to boules and place in a flour dusted banneton
7. Proof 1/2 hour then into fridge for overnight retarding (I did 18 hours)
8. Next morning bake with steam at 240C / 460F for 10 minutes and another 30 minutes at 210C / 410F (It was a mistake to bake at such high heat.  I completely over-looked that there was a lot of sugar in Praline Rose.  I did see that it browned very quickly in the first 10 minutes of baking and turned down the heat to 210C but had not realized at that point that the dough would burn anyway because of the sugar level.  The oven temperature should not have been more than 200 C for the whole duration of baking.)

                                                I truly burned this bread but the crumb was lovely and open.

This was one of the best sourdoughs I have made, despite the charcoaled crust.  The crumb is very chewy and mildly sour.  I don't taste much sweetness from the sugar, very little in fact.  I am very confused as to why this bread does not taste sweet.  If my memory serves me right, the pre-crushed Praline Rose I've got has only 20% almonds, which means at 183 g of Praline Rose, there was 146 grams of sugar, about 1/4 of the flour weight!!   Then, why doesn't this levain bread taste sweet?!  In fact, I don't think I've ever had a sweet sourdough, not even the chocolate sourdough I made.   Is that why they say sourdoughs are NOT fattening?!  Hog heaven?!

Shiao-Ping

Wine is abundant in our household; a day rarely goes by without some consumption of wine.  When I read Erzsebet Gilbert's post: A winemaker wants to be a wine-baker, I thought what a good idea.  There was a lot of discussion there whether or not alcohol kills off the yeasts.  I thought the only way to find out is to try.  Recently I have been making mainly Pain au Levain breads, so I took my formula and simply replaced 60% of hydration with wine.  This number was a matter of convenience and also because I felt any less than 50% the wine flavor might not come through.  As my starter is normally 75% hydration and my Pain au Levain is normally 68% hydration, when I substituted wine for the hydration for the final dough, the wine worked out to be roughly 60% of all hydration. 

I did four doughs in the following order (my starter was the same for all four doughs):

(1) dough one with red wine previously boiled and cooled down to room temperature of about 20C / 68F;

(2) dough two with white wine previously boiled and cooled down to room temperature of about 20C / 68F;

(3) dough three with red wine as is from a bottle at room temperature; and

(4) dough four with white wine as is from a bottle in the refrigerator but warmed up to 20C / 68F. 

The boiling was supposed to take off the alcohol in the wine (14.5% for my red, Australian Shiraz, and 14% for my white, Chardonnay).  

My formula for all four doughs are the same as follows: 

• 300 g starter @ 75% hydration
• 285 g bread flour
• 15 g medium rye flour
• 192 g wine (for dough one and two above, I measured at least 220 g of wine to allow for evaporation from boiling)
• 9 g salt

Total dough weight (each) 800 grams and total dough hydration 68%

1. In a large bowl, mix wine and flour only until just combined
2. Autolyse 40 minutes
3. Add salt and starter, and knead by hand for 3- 4 minutes (alternatively, stretch and fold in the bowl for 100 times to thoroughly mix all ingredients to a homogenous whole)
4. Bulk fermentation 2 1/2 hours with two sets of stretch and folds, each set 20 - 30 times (dough temperature about 20 C/68 F, adjust fermentation time longer or shorter depending on room and dough temperatures)
5. Pre-shape to a boule, rest 15 - 20 minutes, then shape to a tight boule
6. Proof for 1/2 to 1 hour then place in the refrigerator for overnight retarding (I did 19 hours)
7. Bake next morning with steam at 240C / 460F for 20 minutes and another 20 minutes at 210C / 410F

Below are the first and second Pains au Levain with wine (previously boiled to take off the alcohol): 

             red loaf on the left and white loaf on the right

             Pain au Levain with boiled red wine

                   crust of Pain au Levain with boiled white wine

Both loaves have very open cell structure as above; the white one tastes to me no difference to a normal Pain au Levain, but the red one seems to taste more flavourful (I don't know if I am imagining flavors because of the color).  Both crumbs are mildly chewy and not very sour, just like normal Pain au Levain.  As the alcohol was taken off, the breads do not taste to me to have any trace of wine, save for the color in the red loaf.  The breads are lovely just the same but I don't know if I can say for sure that the wine improves the bread in these two instances. 

Following are breads made with wine straight from the bottle (dough three and four descriptions above).  The doughs looked noticeably smaller after fermentation compared to the first two; however, it did not appear that the yeasts were completely killed off, there were some activity but far less compared to the first two loaves.  The crumbs are very dense but extremely flavourful.  When the breads were being sliced open, you could smell the strong alcoholic aroma from the wine.  The white loaf has a hint of bitterness about it, but the red one has none of it (I don't know why but I can only guess that other flavor compounds which have come through the red wine have masked the bitterness). 

               Pain au Levain with red wine (straight from bottle)

                                                         By the time I took this shot, the natural light was out so the color here is not exactly true. 

               Pain au Levain with white wine (straight from bottle)

As someone says, flour is for baking, and wine is for drinking, and so perhaps it's best to keep the two separate?!  Or, as Erzsebet says, they are delicious together too?!  

I guess, it's your choice.

Shiao-Ping

At SFBI, we did a 100% Spelt bread using dry instant yeast.  To soften the bitterness taste of spelt flour, we did a poolish as the preferment for this bread.  The result was very pleasing.  Two things about that spelt bread I found worthy of a mention from my own perspective: 

(1) The weak gluten in spelt flour is such that its mixing technique needs a bit of attention.  Its protein may be high (14.2% according to the bag of my organic spelt wholemeal flour), but a lot of it is not gluten forming protein.  However, while it is a weak flour, its gluten will happen fast (sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it); and therefore, we need to mix faster when we are working on the spelt flour.  Towards that end, at SFBI, we used the double hydration method to try to get the gluten developed at an early stage before all recipe water is added.  (For a description of double hydration, please see my post on Chocolate Sourdough)  Also note that to mix faster does not mean that we use a vigorous mixing or kneading motion because spelt is a fragile flour. 

(2) The spelt poolish after it's been fermented shows a lot of foams on the surface.  The froth resulted from the weak flour unable to trap in gasses produced by the yeasts as seen below: 

                                                       Didier Rosada's thumb, Artisan III at SFBI, August 2009  

Theory aside, I have had no luck with the double hydration method using my bread machine.  So, with this 100% Spelt Sourdough, I used my old trusted hand method.  As well, I made another Pain le Levain with 20% Spelt flour that I posted yesterday to practice on my scoring and to see if I could get better grigne.  I suspected that the scoring in that earlier bake was difficult because I inadvertently incorporated too much water into the dough when I was stretching & folding my doughs with wet hands (the dough ended up much higher hydration than Hamelman's 68%).  I have found grigne almost not possible with wetter doughs. 

So, here are the two spelt sourdoughs:

My Formula for 100% Spelt Sourdough  

First levain build - day 1, night or early evening 

• 3 g starter (I used my usual white starter at 75% hydration, but at this quantity, any starter you have at any hydration will do.)
• 10 g spelt flour (I used 90% white spelt flour and 10% whole spelt flour)
• 11 g water

Second levain build - day 2, morning

• 24 g starter (all from the first levain build)
• 48 g spelt flour (I used 90% white spelt flour and 10% whole spelt flour)
• 48 g water

Final levain build - day 2, late night

• 120 g starter (all from the second levain build)
• 155 g spelt flour (I used 90% white spelt flour and 10% whole spelt flour)
• 155 g water

Note: as the ratio of flour to starter is less than 1. 5 times, if your room temperature is very warm, you'll need to do this levain built as late as possible for the next day's dough mixing.

Final dough - day 3, very early morning

• 430 g Spelt starter @ 100% hydration (all from the final levain build)
• 224 g water
• 387 g organic white spelt flour (90% of final dough flours)
• 43 g organic wholemeal spelt flour (10% of final dough flours)
• 12 g salt
• Extra spelt flour for dusting

Total dough weight 1.1 kg and dough hydration 68%

1. In my big mixing bowl, I first put in the starter, then poured a little of the formula water, stirred to combine, then a little more of the water, stirred to combine, then a little more of the water, and stirred, until all water was thoroughly mixed into the starter.  (I have found this way my starter works very well for me; it is as if all of the little microorganisms are woken up to do their morning aerobics.)
2. I put in the rest of the ingredients and stirred them just until they were combined and no dry flour was visible; more work than that at this stage was not necessary.
3. Autolyse 25 minutes
4. First set of stretch & folds (I did 100 strokes, more than my usual, to try to build up dough strength.  I wet my hands to do the S&F's so the dough doesn't stick to my fingers.)
5. After 30 - 40 minutes, the 2nd set of S&F's was done (I did another 100 strokes.  The dough felt silky and smooth, and quite elastic (there was good gluten development.)
6. After another 30 - 40 minutes, I did the 3rd set of S&F's (100 strokes again).
7. Dusted some spelt flour on the work bench.
8. 30 minutes from the last S&F's, I pre-shaped the dough by way of a minimalist S&F's so that I could pick up the whole dough easily with one hand and dump it on the floured surface (right side was against the flour, ie, seam side was up).  Cover.
9. Rest for 15 - 20 minutes.  In the mean time, a linen lined basket was dusted with flour.
10. Shaped the dough first by gathering the edges of the dough to the centre, turned the dough over (so that the seam side was now down), then shaped it into a very tight ball.  Placed it in the proofing basket.  Up to this point, bulk fermentation had been about 2 and a 1/2 hours.
11. Proof for another 2 hours (and in the mean time, I planned when the oven was to be turned on for pre-heating).
12. Bake with steam at 230C / 450 F for 20 minutes and another 25 minutes at 220 - 210 C.

It was quite a cold morning (for a spring time) when the dough was bulk fermenting and proofing.  While I was putting on a sweater to keep myself warm, it never entered into my mind that my dough might need extra flour time because of the low temperature.  It was almost as if that I wanted to behave myself by sticking to a set formula - ie, bulk fermentation 2 and 1/2 hours and proofing 2 hours.  This is the reason why formulas don't always work because there are a lot of details that are not spelled out but which are critical.  A time-table of bulk fermentation of x number of hours and proofing of x number of hours is on the basis of a certain dough temperature and ambient temperature perimeter as well as the amount of the pre-fermented flour as a percentage of the total flours, etc.  While we may know those base temperatures and percentages very well, we may not be quick enough to adjust for our scenarios, which incidentally is never exactly the same as the last one. 

Because of the low temperature, the fermentation should have been at least 1/2 to one hour longer.  The crumb could have been more open, I believe, if the yeasts in the levain had been given a longer time to work.  The effect may be more apparent in the 20% spelt levain bread below (and I would like to come back to this point again).

Despite the above, this 100% spelt levain bread has a lovely crumb flavor.  Because of the way the levain was built up and its hydration, the acidity is very well balanced with the nutty flavour of the spelt flour.  I didn't taste the bitterness, very often associated with spelt.  The sourness is less than medium strength to me.

My formula for the 20% Spelt levain bread - please refer to my post yesterday.

To adjust for the fact that I normally dip my hands in water before I stretch & fold the dough, I did 1% less hydration in this dough.  As well, I did 100 strokes at each set of S & F's, trying to build up more dough strength for the "grigne" that I was looking for (but was unable to get in that last bake).  These two being the only adjustments, see how different the profile and the crust of this bread look compared to those posted yesterday:   

When the dough was loaded onto the baking stone, it was about 3 - 4 cm in height; it rose to about 12 - 13 cm in its oven spring.  I think the 100 strokes of S&F's were doing the trick.

For signs of good fermentation, I look at the cell structure of the crumb, especially the area where there was no visible big holes - I think the parts where there are no holes tell more story about the fermentation than the area where there are a lot of holes.  In the crumb shots above: 

(1) where there are no holes (big or small), you see that the cell structure is quite dense; and

(2) where there are holes, they are not all there to register the presence of yeast fermentation, but they could possibly be there due to the way my hand stretch and folds the dough - it is possible that I had simply folded in too much air than I should have. 

The somewhat dense cell structure (where there are no holes) tells me that the fermentation probably did not happen at the optimum temperature, given the time in which the levain had to work.  From this I learned that, even with the same formula, each bread is a new situation to be assessed independently in terms of its action plans regarding dough strength and fermentation.   

It is a flavorful bread just the same with very mild acidity.  If I could get yesterday's cell structure with today's crust and grigne, it would be a near perfect world for me.

Shiao-Ping

I find Hamelman's Pain au Levain formula very attractive (page 158 of "Bread").  A friend asked if I could do spelt sourdough for her.  I thought I would try 20% spelt flour to start with.  Essentially I took Hamelman's Pain au Levain with Whole-Wheat Flour formula (page 160 of "Bread") and substituted spelt for whole-wheat flour.  But I have no confidence in my bread machine to mix and knead the dough properly, so I made two versions to compare: one by hand, my way; and the other by machine, exactly as detailed in Hamelman's book.   

Formula

First levain build - 8 to 12 hours before final levain build 

• 5 g starter
• 14 g bread flour
• 9 g water

Final levain build - 12 hours before final dough mixing 

• 130 g bread flour
• 9 g stone-ground organic medium rye flour
• 85 g water
• 28 g mature culture from above (@ approx. 60% hydration)

Total levain 252 grams.  Reserve 28 grams for future use; with the balance of 224 grams, I split it by two (ie, 112 grams each), one for the dough to be made by hand, and the other for the dough to be made by my bread machine. 

Final dough - the quantity below is to be split by two as above 

• 549 g bread flour
• 37 g stone-ground organic medium rye flour
• 181 g organic spelt flour (of which 1/2 is wholemeal spelt flour)
• 532 g water
• 17 g salt
• 224 g of levain from above

Total weight 1.54 kg to be split into two of 770 grams each; dough hydration 68%

Major differences in the two methods are as follows:

(1) Autolyse:  With the hand mixing version, I autolyse all ingredients, whereas with the other version, salt and levain are not mixed in until after the autolyse. 

(2) The levain: In Hamelman's machine version, the levain is cut up in chunks and spread on top of the dough to mix. With my hand version, I diluted the levain thoroughly with the formula water before adding the flours in to mix.  As a result, the levain in the hand version acts more vigorously.   This means that fermentation happens faster in the hand version (see below).

(3) Fermentation:  Temperature of both of the doughs was roughly 76F as recommended by Hamelman in his book.  Bulk fermentation was 2 and a 1/2 hours and proofing was 2 hours.  An interesting thing was that at the end of this fermentation time, I felt the two doughs with my finger - the one that was mixed and kneaded by bread machine felt just right, however, the hand version dough felt slightly over-proofed, very bubbly, gassy and fragile.

(4) Baking:  I baked the hand version dough first (and placed the other into the refrigerator to wait for its turn).  

(5) Scoring:  My scoring for the hand version dough was shocking; the other one was easier for me as it was in the refrigerator for half an hour.

It is very obvious that that the hand version pain au levain has a more open crumb.  Hamelman says of Pain au Levain with Whole-Wheat Flour that "the bread has a clean flavor and a balanced acidity" this would apply to the two Pains au levain here with 20% Spelt as well.  The flavour is really lovely.

It is very easy to over-ferment the dough.  If dough temperature is higher or lower than the recommended 76F (24.5F) due to ambient temperature, fermentation time should be adjusted.

Shiao-Ping

I was taking shots of the moon cakes for this post and was late collecting my son from his sport; when I arrived, he said to me, "Mum, do you love me?"  Seeing my stunned face, he added, with a grin, "I was the last to be picked up!"

Somehow I felt that another post about the full moon was in order ... because of that remark about the Chinese excellence in astrology, or not!  The Chinese lunar calendar was formalized thousands years ago.  Recently I have learned a big word from my husband - to recalibrate.  Something that is as old as the Chinese lunar calendar may be in need of some sort of recalibration!  In recent years a few friends of mine and I have found that the moon is fuller the next day after the Moon Festival.  I know nothing about astrology.  What I have just said may well be taken as an excuse to eat more moon cakes!

I came to my favourite Taiwanese grocery store in "Little Taipei" in Brisbane looking for good moon cakes to buy.  I was chatting with a lady there and I found out that she is the boss's wife.  I asked her which are the good ones to buy.  She asked me, "Are they for you, or for giving away as a present?" - the latter means moon cakes with good looking packaging and wrapping but may not be of the best quality, while the former means good quality and good tasting moon cakes for own consumption.  She pointed at those she got for herself.  I could not pass by a lead like that.

Assorted moon cakes from "Little Taipei" in Brisbane - lotus paste on the top left, red bean paste (very dark brown color) in the centre, and savory ham & nuts to the top right

And below are the "moons" - salted duck egg yolks. 

These have been the traditional flavours since I was a little kid.  In recent times there have been new flavours being developed because of the affluence in consumers and the popular new flavours have been chocolate and other tastes under the Western influences.  Because I was in no mood for the troubles in making the moon cakes, I decided I would try incorporating a very traditional moon cake ingredient - red beans - into my sourdough.  This is a can of the cooked red beans that I used (made in Japan):

In addition to the Red Bean Sourdough, I made Cocoa Cranberry Sourdough Rolls.  So, here below is the goodies I made for the Moon Festival for my kids and myself, quite a Western concoction:

My formula for the Red Bean Sourdough

• 240 g starter @ 75% hydration
• 240 g bread flour
• 157 g water
• 170 g cooked red beans from the can above (45% of total flour) * see step 5 below
• 7 g salt
• Extra rice flour for dusting

Total dough weight 810 grams and total dough hydration (approx.) 69% 

1. Mix all ingredients by hand
2. Autolyse 40 minutes
3. Mix in the red beans by way of stretch & folds (this serves as the 1st set of S & F's; I did close to 100 strokes)
4. After 30 minutes, perform the 2nd set of S & F's
5. After another 30 minutes, perform the 3rd set of S & F's (* At this point my dough still felt very extensible, no strength whatsoever.  I decided something was wrong - I went and checked the can of red beans for its composition and found that its sugar was 38%!  This meant the sugar level in my dough was 17% flour.  When sugar is more than 12 - 15% of flour, it is best to add it in stages or starter may have difficulty performing.  It's too late now so I proceeded as normal.)
6. After another 30 minutes, do the 4th set of S & F's
7. After another 30 minutes, pre-shape the dough to a tight ball (I had to use a lot of flour on the work bench as the dough was extremely slack and sticky.)
8. Rest 15 minutes and shape it to a boule and place it in rice flour dusted basket
9. Proof for one hour in room temperature then place it in the refrigerator for overnight retarding (I did 10 hours.) Note: By the tiime I put the dough into the fridge, it had hardly risen.  Fortunately, after 10 hours of retardation, the dough had risen nicely, more than doubled.
10. Next morning, just before baking, stencil any way you like, score, then bake with steam at 230 C for 35 minutes

It is strange that for that much sugar this sourdough actually does not taste sweet.  It tastes quite sour (I would say, slightly less than medium strength sourness), and therefore I felt no guilt at all to have a slice of this with a handsome topping of extra red beans from the can!  Yum (to a Chinese).

My formula for Cocoa Cranberry Sourdough Rolls

• 350 g starter @ 75% hydration
• 350 g bread flour
• 60 g cocoa powder
• 240 g water
• 30 ml or 2 tbsp oil
• For cranberries: 80 g dried cranberries + 60 g Kirsch + 20 g sugar, soak for as long as you can, up to a couple of weeks, in the refrigerator
• 12 g salt

Total dough weight 1.2 kg (to be divided into 8 pieces of 150 grams each) and total dough hydration (approx. ) 75%

1. Bulk fermentation 3 hours with 4 sets of stretch & folds
2. Proofing one hour
3. Retardation 10 hours
4. Bake with steam @ 220 C for 25 minutes (I baked 4 pieces at a time while the other 4 resting in the refrigerator)

This Cocoa Cranberry Sourdough Roll is really lovely to have.  So far I have found the cocoa powder (and for that matter, chocolate) very easy to work into a sourdough.  The crust is very crispy.  

I asked my daughter if people would find so many pictures in one post nauseating. She said without hesitation, "No, people would just think you are a lunatic."  My daughter is one who cannot tell a lie (what you see is what you get).

There had been a big patch of dark cloud hanging over the north-eastern side of the sky, determinant not to let me see the moon tonight.  As I was signing off this post, I went to my balcony to have one last look, and there it was - brighter and fuller than last night!  And here it is - the last photo of this post: 

Shiao-Ping              

In a couple of weeks' time I will be visiting my favourite tea houses in Taipei and Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  Oolong tea has become a drug to me; the first sip of this green tea very early in the morning before the whole household stirs, whilst seeing the sun rise, is like heaven to me.  My tea is my ticket to heaven.

Today is one special day for all of the Chinese in the world - the Moon Festival, or the Mid-Autumn Festival (more like the Mid-Spring Festival for me down under).  This festival has been celebrated since the 7th century in the Chinese Tang Dynasty.  None of the stories, or legends, as to how and why this festival came into being has ever sounded credible to me.  I hadn't thought of it before but now I think perhaps this festival began more as a way of showcasing the ancient Chinese excellence in astrology, because this day, the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese Lunar calendar, is considered the day when the moon is the fullest and brightest each year.

The Chinese poet, Lee Bai or Li - Bai (701 - 762) in Tang Dynasty, died from trying to scoop the full moon out of the lake while drinking and dancing to the moon, a drowned drunkard basically.  The following is one of his poems that I love the most; I had it written in mad running style Chinese characters for me; while he drank wine, I drink tea:

I made a sourdough, intending to have it with Chinese sausage in a sort of open sandwich tonight to celebrate the full moon.  I used the "trinity" for Chinese stock pot - soy sauce, sugar & garlic (and I threw in sesame oil too) to flavour this sourdough:

When I was stirring my starter in the soy sauce mixture trying to break it up, I thought I must have poisoned the little beasties - there was absolutely no sign of life.  And sure enough, the dough, after 4 hours of fermentation, was flat as a pancake, dead as a door knocker!  Fortunately, it sprang up in the oven, maybe by 50 - 75%.  The raw garlic was so potent that while it was in the oven baking, I felt sorry for my poor neighbours.  I couldn't even say I liked the smell.  I don't know why I put in so much raw garlic in the first place - maybe I was trying to make a statement.  It really is not good form to be biting into a piece of bread so full of garlic; I mean, not on a night of beautiful full moon!

My Formula

• 350 g starter @ 75% hydration
• 350 g bread flour + 1 tsp Chinese five spices
• 190 g water
• 30 ml sesame oil
• 15 g dark soy sauce
• 20 g sugar
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced (two cloves should be plenty)
• 6 g salt

Total dough weight 1.1 kg and total dough hydration 70%

Shiao-Ping

My son has been singing a song called Down Under.  Listening to this song with his i-pod ear-phones, he dances out of his room as he comes into my kitchen to check if there are any goodies to snack on.  I asks him what song it is; he says, Mum, this song is iconic and it goes:

Traveling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said,

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
And he said,

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Lying in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?
And he said,

Oh! do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

And he is so stingy; he wouldn't let me take a photo of him dancing.

Driving my kids home from their tennis yesterday afternoon, I was getting an earful of suggestions from them as to how to do an Aussie Sourdough.  My son said there's got to be Vegemite and my daughter said there's got to be some gold or green color (they are the colors Australia wears in international sports).  And so I said, there's got to be jacaranda somewhere because it's the jacaranda season now (the saying goes, if when jacarandas are in bloom and you haven't started studying for your exams, you are in trouble).  And here is our Sourdough Down Under: 

My Formula

• 350 g starter @75% hydration
• 350 g Australia's Laucke's Wallaby unbleached bakers flour
• 70 g Kraft (new) Vegemite, diluted in 35 g water (Note: this new product contains yeast extract from barley (30%) and cream cheese (28%) with caramel flavor and salt.)
• 200 g water
• 30 ml (ie, 2 tbsp) olive oil
• 6 g salt (less salt than normal as there is salt in Vegemite)
• 157 g pistachio, roasted (I had 250 grams sitting on my stove to cool off, everybody went past the nuts and ate some; by the time I was ready to mix them into the dough, barely 2/3's left.)   This is the "green" color that I can think of for this sourdough.  At the last minute I coated the nuts with one tablespoon of olive oil (just before they were to be mixed in) as I was afraid that the roasted nuts might draw some hydration out of the dough.
• Extra rice flour for dusting the proofing basket

Total dough weight 1.2 kg and total dough hydration (approx.) 75%

1. Mix all ingredients (except the pistachio nuts) by hand
2. Autolyse 40 minutes
3. Perform the first set of stretch and folds, about 30 - 40 strokes
4. After 45 minutes, do the 2nd set of stretch and folds and at the same time mix in the nuts
5. After another 45 minutes, do the 3rd set of stretch and folds
6. After another 45 minutes, do the 4th set of stretch and folds (and this will serve as the pre-shaping)
7. Rest 20 minutes
8. Shape into a boule and place in a rice flour dusted and linen lined basket
9. Proof in room temperature for an hour then place the dough into the refrigerator for retardation (I did 8 hours)
10. Bake the next morning with steam at 240 C for 20 minutes and another 20 minutes at 220 C.

I think my starter did not like the foreign elements from the Vegemite.  Every kid in Australia knows that Vegemite is a yeast product which contains Vitamin B.  But it is also heavily loaded with preservatives; it can sit safely in your pantry for a long, long time.  My dough had hardly risen when I put it into the refrigerator (maybe only 50%).  There wasn't much oven spring either (probably another 50%).  If I had done this sourdough before, I would most likely have spiked it with some dry instant yeast.

But the aroma was strong!  The whole house smelled delicious when the baking was going on.

It is a beautiful night tonight, clear and lots of stars.  My husband had just had a dip after a few hours work in the backyard and he called everybody out to see the moon.  In a couple of nights, it will be the Chinese Moon Festival, the 15th of August in the Lunar calendar when the moon will be the fullest and brightest.  I reckon there are more stars visible in the southern hemisphere than in the north; at least that is the case in Asia, where I grew up, lots of industries and, sadly, pollution.

My kids love today's bake and so do I.  My husband said the stencil looks like Australian aboriginals' art work on their cave walls (the latter was considered one of the earliest form of recoding of human history).

You could hardly call pistachio Australian; but roasted, their nutty aroma compliments the rich flavor of Vegemite very well.  I will have no problem having a slice of this toasted with some cheese over a glass of Australian red.  Yum yum ....

Shiao-Ping 

We made olive bread at Artisan II course, SFBI, using double hydration method (see this post for a description of double hydration).  At the time I felt the bread came out a bit dense because, with the double hydration method, you actually end up mixing the dough for quite a long time.  The method is supposed to help build up the dough strength before any add-ins are incorporated into the dough. 

With this Olive & Rosemary Oregano Sourdough, I wanted to experiment if I could first build up the dough strength with stretch & folds by hand, then incorporate the olives and herbs.  What I did was after the usual autolyse of 30 minutes, I did the first set of stretch & folds, waited 3o minutes, then mixed in the add-ins by way of the 2nd set of stretch & folds.  Perhaps because this dough was lower hydration than my usual dough (which is well over 70%), I found that some strength and good elasticity had already developed towards the end of the first set of stretch and folds.  So, I was happy to incorporate the olives and herbs at the 2nd set of stretch and folds.  

My kids are on school holiday this week; it's a week day today but felt like a Sunday for us.  Here is the sourdough we enjoyed at today's lunch table.     

My Formula

• 704 g starter @75% hydration
• 412 g water
• 60 ml or 4 tbsp of olive oil (note: 4 tablespoonfuls of olive oil is 60 ml but not 60 grams; it is about 40 to 44 grams in weight. The SFBI formula that we worked on at the Artisan course does not use olive oil.)
• 704 g bread flour
• 17 g salt (I used only 1.5% of total flour because there is also salt in olives.)
• 280 g pitted kalamata olives, rinsed in water and drained (I used 25% of total flour)
• Chopped rosemary (I used only a sprig of 20 cm in length; this turned out to be on the light side, you could easily have 2 to 3 times amount of what I used).
• Chopped oregano (I used only 3 sprigs; this also turned out to be too little, you could at least triple the amount I used. Also note the SFBI formula uses Thyme, not rosemary or oregano.)
• Extra Whole Wheat flour to coat the olives (just before olives are to be incorporated into the dough); this is said to prevent the olives from being meshed during mixing, but I don't find it necessary.

Total dough weight 2.16kg (to be divided into two pieces); total dough hydration 70% (note: SFBI formula is 66% hydration) 

1. Mix all ingredients (except the olives and the herbs) by hand
2. Autolyse 30 minutes
3. Do the first set of stretch and folds of 30 - 40 strokes
4. After 30 minutes, incorporate all the olives and herbs at the 2nd set of stretch and folds
5. After another 40 minutes, perform the 3rd set of stretch & folds
6. After another 40 minutes, divide the dough to two pieces and pre-shape to tight balls
7. Rest for 20 minutes
8. Shape to tight balls
9. Proof for 2 hours then place in refrigerator to retard (I did 18 hours)
10. Bake next morning with steam at 230 C for 20 minutes and 220 C for another 20 minutes

Some thoughts on this bake:

(1) The dough was slightly over-fermented as there was not very much oven spring.  From the time the dough was mixed to the time it went into the fridge, it was 5 hours.  Adding the 18 hours retardation, total fermentation was 23 hours.  This normally would not be too much, but I wonder if my active starter has meant that I should shorten the proofing time before the dough gets into the refrigerator.

(2) 5% olive oil increases the keeping quality of the sourdough; the bread stays fresh longer and toasts beautifully.  The oil gives the crumb a very light texture.

Shiao-Ping

                                                                               SP's Country Sourdough

And let's slice them ...

 Now I found something ... 

And this ...

                                   Lovely crumb to me                                        but this is slightly on the dense side and gummy, why?

A wake-up call:

I recall when I was mixing my starter in the water for the final dough, I felt tiny little lumps of dough in my hands but I was unable to break them up because they were too many.  I used a trick that I learned from making custard when there were lumps - by pushing the starter through a sifter, I managed to get rid of most big lumps, but there were still many very tiny ones.  I got tired of trying to get rid of them, so I proceeded as normal.  Those lumps would most likely have been formed during the 2 hour final levain expansion (see my post here for details of Chad Robertson's sourdough timeline) - I did not mix the starter thoroughly with the flour and water.  And these lumps, however small, became the gummy part of the crumb!  (I may be wrong but that's what I think it was.)

A myth: The longer the fermentation, the better it is for the sourdough.  No, it depends on how time is spent, not how much time there has been.

With this sourdough, I learned something new.  What happened was when I was trying to get rid of the lumps, my hands were stirring the starter in the water for quite a long time (15 to 20 minutes at least).  I had never seen so many bubbles appearing in the water as if all of the wild beasties were woken up from their sleep and were doing their morning exercises.  This would not have meant anything to me, had it not been the fact later on that the fermentation seemed to have advanced in quite a fast pace even though the dough temperature was under 20C / 68F.  (I wish Debra of the Frankendough could help me out here.)

Anyway, with the fermentation kicking along, I decided I wanted to do an experiment, and that is, to really work the dough with my stretch & folds in such a way as to really build the dough strength.  I dipped both of my hands in water (to prevent sticking) and, with one hand pressing the centre of the dough, the other hand grapping a corner of the dough and folding onto itself, I stretched & folded the dough quite vigorously for at least 30 to 40 times at each set of S&F's until the dough felt elastic.  I did 3 sets of S&F's within one and a half hours and within that time the dough expanded quite a lot.  In normal circumstances I would have done a 4 hour bulk fermentation as in my post of Chad Robertson's country sourdough; but in this instance, I decided one and a half hours were enough (the dough temperature stayed under 20C).  I divided the dough into three pieces and pre-shaped them twice as they were very soft and even though I pre-shaped them to very tight balls each time they relaxed and spread out completely.  I shaped them to tight batards and only proofed for half an hour, compared to 2 hours previously when I did my Chad Robertson's.  Retardation was only 9 hours.

This morning before I baked them, the doughs were as flat as pancakes, but in the oven, they rose like hills:

What I learned in this bake is that the dough strength (built up from the vigorous stretch & folds) helped in the volume (the oven spring, the open crumb, etc).

Time for some food,

And pack up the rest,

Shiao-Ping 

p.s.  The minor variations I made in the formula here compared to the one in My Imitation of Chad Robertson's Country Sourdough were: (1) 72% hydration; (2) 5% of total flours in rye flour; and (3) total dough weight 3 kg.