Skibum's blog

I tried posting this one yesterday and tfl blew up on me when I pressed save. I got a black screen with lettering in white saying page not available. Will try this again.

I bake a loaf of pulla roughly each week and have used the same recipe and methodology for at least two years, perhaps three. Using a vigorous levain I found my braid strands blowing apart at inappropriate places, so I set out to remedy this.  First I thought either the gluten is underdeveloped or perhaps I have been too aggressive with my stretch & folds and have torn the gluten strands. I made a couple of small changes. Fist I used more of a kneading process, say a knead & fold and I upped the hydration a couple of points: from 180 g of milk to 189 grams.

I have always divided the dough and pre-shaped into boules, then rolled out into tubes for braiding by hand. The flaws in my blown apart braid strands appear to have been caused by my roll out method. I googled "rolling out dough for braids," and found that some bakers use a rolling pin, then jelly roll up the strands. Here is where I made big changes in the way I roll out pulla dough. First I pre-shape into a tube instead of a ball -duoh!

I then use the rolling pin to roll out the dough into a long rectangle.

The dough rolled out to 1/4" or so is then rolled up. I brushed the tail end with a little water to get a tight seam.

I pinched and patted the seams down as tight as I could and gently rolled the dough into a uniform tubes.  This is the second time I have used this technique and need to be careful I don't roll the braids out too long. First time I ended up with a 16" braid to bake on a 15" baking stone . . .

The longer, more uniform strands were easy to braid. this technique of rolling out is faster and easier than my traditional technique and actually resulted in a more open crumb and a better loaf! Here is the proofed braid, egg washed and sprinkled amply with sugar.

Who knew an old skibum could learn new tricks? Here is an updated recipe:

Sponge:

80 g liquid levain

alternately use 40 g each flour and H2O and 11/2 tsp instant yeast

189 g scalded milk

1/4 c sugar

2 Tbs raw sugar

8 cardamom pods,, hulled and ground

75 g egg, beaten, (2 eggs, use remains for egg glaze)

Let this mixture get happy and bubbly. I usually mix at the end of the day and leave in on the counter overnight.

Final mix

120 g bread flour, mix well

50 g melted butter, beat in until the dough is smooth and glossy

7-8g salt

120 g bread flour, mix in well and rest 10 minutes

I did 4 sets of knead & folds with 10 minutes rest, then a bulk rise of 2 hours. Divided, shaped, braided, coated with egg wash and sugar and baked 400F 14 minutes with steam and 12 minutes without steam. the result has been an improvement in both taste and texture. It is never too late to learn new tricks!

Happy baking!  Ski

Left to right a tag end of a pulla braid, some soft pull apart dinner rolls and in front NY style deli rye take three. I love the deli rye and this time I used barley malt syrup instead of brown sugar and used more onion and caramelized them down. This has made a wonderful sandwich bread.

On this rye bake, I brushed the excess flour from the banneton from the loaf with a soft brush and applied an egg wash to give the crust gloss. Perhaps my best take yet on Peter Reinhart's great recipe!

Happy baking! Ski

Peter's NY deli rye recipe from Bread Baker's Apprentice remains my favourite sandwich loaf and second favourite loaf, second to my beloved pulla.

I did a half batch and pretty much followed the formula to the letter. The last time I made this bread, I chopped the onions so finely they pretty much disappeared in the crumb. For this bake, I sautéed a much coarser chop of onion. You can see some of the chunks breaking through the crust and can both feel and taste the herbaceous notes in the crumb. For the final water add I used potato water. Nice crust and very soft crumb. Yummmm!

This bread is ideal for piling on smoked meat. Today pastrami with nuclear mustard, tomorrow, smoked moose or elk butt . . .   This has been my first full loaf for months. It has been a most satisfying bake.

Happy baking! Ski

Well I finally got what I was looking for with this bake!  Pretty much the same mix as the last two bakes of this recipe, but somehow with the first two, I got lazy and used a muffin tin. Buns were fine, but not pull apart shred able.

This bake I  placed the formed boules on a parchment lined sheet pan about 1/2" apart, confident that after proof and bake, they would actually stick together. Mission accomplished! Baking them in the middle of the sheet pan allowed the buns to bloom to maximum size. The crumb is pull apart an shred able, delicious without butter. Just what I was looking for.  An egg wash gives the gloss.

For sweetener I used 15g barley syrup and 25g honey. The barley syrup gives a nice note to the sweet flavours.  I also used more of a knead and fold, rather than the stretch and fold method of dough development I had been using. Perhaps I was a little too lax on the S&F's, perhaps too aggressive and tore the gluten strands.. In any event I have had a couple of pulla bakes blow apart, but using the knead and fold things worked out better.

Happy baking!  Ski

Well I haven't posted in more than a month, but have been busy baking different things. The dinner rolls are a take of P. Reinharts soft pull apart dinner rolls from ABED.  This batch of 325 grams total flour yielded 6 rolls at 104 grams each, so I thought why not bake them off in a muffin tin?

All of the my bakes are leavened with a refreshed liquid levain. Here is the formula for the rolls:

50 g levain

325 g bread flour

175 g milk, scalded

30 g honey, added to the hot milk

32 g butter

20 g egg

Mixed and developed using 4 sets of stretch and folds with 10 minutes rest. Bulk rise was 2:15, then I divided and shaped, baked at 400F convection with steam for 7 minutes, turned removed steam and baked a further 7 minutes.

Here are some lemon ricotta cookies courtesy of Giada:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/lemon-ricotta-cookies-with-lemon-glaze-recipe.html

These are the BOMB!

Hoagie/ cheese steak buns. Again adapted from Reinhart's ABED.

Pita, pita pita! Boy did these turn out great. It makes me want to bake another batch.

Last, but not least is an exploding loaf of pulla. I thought I had the braid ends together.

Finished braid

Proofed braid

Final loaf with one end blown apart

Happy baking TFL friends!  Ski

Well after a solid week of rain and very heavy rain the last couple of days the sum has finally come out. Shown is pulla left and double chocolate expresso cookies on the right. I bake a loaf of pulla every week or two and my rolling out of the braids and braiding is slowly getting better.

To Giada's recipe which follows, I added 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts. Yummmmm!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/double-chocolate-and-espresso-cookies-recipe.html

Well with all the rain we have had my garden is lush with the daisies up front in the sun really putting on a show!

Happy baking! Ski

This has been a very enjoyable baking project.  This was the second half of the last focaccia dough that had rested in the fridge for 3 days prior to baking.  I changed up the herbed evoo using dried basil this time. I found the fresh basil used in the last batches tended to burn and become a little bitter. This is not an issue with the dried herbs: rosemary, basil, oregano and Italian seasoning.

Last bake after dividing I pre-formed a ball and ended up with a square-ish loaf. This time I thought I would follow Peter Reinhart's lead and do a letter fold instead. This gave me a rectangular piece of dough about 268 grams.  After 15 minutes rest I was able to coax the loaf into shape in my long loaf pan, drizzling generously with the herbed evoo and docking firmly with my fingers to coax things into place. I also sprinkled fine sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper and granulated garlic on to the oiled loaf. Yummmmmmm . . . .

I love this bread! Great snap to the crust and a nice soft crumb.

Fully proofed and ready to bake. Again baked 10 minutes at 500F with steam, turned and finished at 485 for 7 minutes. Okay, I promise this will be my last focaccia post . . .well maybe.

Happy baking! Ski

Well friends, three days of steady rain have given me some time to bake.  I call this a successful bake as the crumb is nice and open and the crust has a real snap when you bight into it. Perfect with just herbed EVOO.

This bake was 300 grams total flour @77% hydration. Ten percent of the flour was durham semolina and the balance strong bread flour about 6g salt and 1Tbs EVOO. I abandoned P. Reinharts dough handling suggestions. The batch was refrigerated overnight and this morning divided in half. I used a pan oiled with evoo and topped the loaf with herbed evoo, salt, pepper and dried oregano, basil and Italian seasoning. After 15 minutes rest I topped and docked the dough with my finger tips, coaxing into a roughly square shape.

I baked this in the pan on my pizza stone for 10 minutes with steam @ 500F and another 7 minutes at 485F convection.

Fresh out of the oven and still retaining some dimples. Looks closer to what Focaccia is supposed to look like.

I can't resist showing off the Lupins flowering in my front bed garden. They are putting on a real show this year. I counted 20 developing flower spikes so the show should continue for a while.

Happy baking! Ski

This was my second try at this classic Italian bread and finally a success! 

Formula is 350 g total flour @75% hydration. I used 50g liquid levain, 35g durham semolina, 240g BF, 1 tsp salt and 225g H2). I developed the dough as I would normally do then finished it as Mr. Reinhart suggests: a couple of letter folds with 30 minutes rest, then a thorough docking with fingertips and a drenching of herb oil. Lots of fresh basil, dried rosemary and all the Italian regular herbs into the oil.

This was a beautiful loaf, with a crust that snapped. Perfect for dipping in the herb oil!!!!!

This was a great bake on many levels!

Happy baking! Ski and Ciao!

I have been struggling for months with batards, scoring and getting proper bloom. Well, I have had success two bakes in a row now as a result in two new procedures. I would like to do a shout out to alphonso for the video he posted a while back. Thanks alan, your video has been most helpful to me!

The two small changes were to put the loaf into the fridge for the last 10 minutes of proofing and dipping my lame in water prior to scoring. Ear on the first bake at 200 grams and a half ear on this one at 370 grams. I will call this loaf VanGogh as it only has a half an ear.

Great oven explosion on this bake. the fully proofed loaf was about as long as the baked one, but only about 2 inches in diameter, so I am super happy with the bloom! This batch of dough was 350 g total flour @ 75% hydration. I used 25 g durham semolina and the rest strong bread flour, 50 grams liquid levain and 5 g salt. I will note that I had fed my levain three days in a row. It sure made a difference in oven spring, ah explosion. Very satisfying.

Here is a crumb shot:

I find the addition of a little semolina adds some real snap to the crust and a nice subtle flavour add in a lean loaf.

Well is the May holiday long weekend here in Canada. Naturally here in my mountain town it is 4C with steady rain expected to turn to snow as the temperature drops. This is normal. It is also a great day to bake some stuff! With the terrible fires in the north east of my province, I pray that some of this rain gets to Fort McMurray and area! I great this rain with great relief as the area had been tinder dry and this takes the wildfire risk down to low. There are still nearly 90,000 people from the fire area. Prayers!

Happy baking! Ski