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Okay, now I have a starter and need a jar.  Do I need something special.  Certainly can do better than the expensive one from KA.  My big question is does it have to have air flowing or does it need a tight seal?  Can I use a mason jar with the metallic lid?  Can I use a quart canister that has a rubber seal and a small metal clamp?  Maybe it is not that important, but I want to do this right.  Thanks for your help.

New Baker

Inspired by Shiao-Ping and David (dmsnyder) I decided to try out my new bannetons (bought from SFBI) with two 1-kilo loaves made ala Gerard Rubaud. Rather than copy/scale either of their formulae, I went to the source http://www.farine-mc.com/ and did my own adaptation of Msr. Rubaud's formula. In a phrase...

I messed up!

I made up a quantity of his whole-grain flour mix--10% rye, 30% spelt, 60% Whole Wheat-according to plan; noted his comment he mixed his levain in the same ratio as his final dough: 30% flour mix, 70% All purpose, and proceeded to make my levain entirely fed with the whole-grain flour mix, except for the 18g of seed starter that got it going. Wrong!

The levain contributed 25% of the total flour. Of course it was essentially all whole grain, not the 30/70 split with AP intended. To further exacerbate the error I diligently added 5% more of the flour mix so that now my final dough was 30% whole grain. At 78% hydration the final dough was decidely slack. Applying a zillion French folds, I believe the dough's gluten developed good strength, probably as much as possible, but the dough remained extremely extensible. Nonetheless, I proofed my two basketed boules, and baked them.

And, it was about midway through the early steam cycle my mistake hit me. I went back to the source, and reread Master Baker Gerard's interview. Yep, I'd got it wrong. Bigtime!

The Good News. This bread is tasty! The prefermented rye, spelt, and whole wheat combination lend a distinct flavor unlike anything I've tasted before, but reminiscent of each of them: nutty like spelt, a wheaty base note throughout, and a gentle bite to it all from the rye. I'm going to do it again, rightly, following Shiao-Ping to the letter. But I'm also going to keep this mistake in my formula ecard-file.

David G

Traditional Italian Eastser desserts, the taralli is a treasure from Apuglia.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com

A Loaf of 100%Rye sourdough in a pan.

lovely!

Since my Pure Rye, 1939 post, I had wanted to do light rye.  In the past, I have done a few (this, this and this most recent one).  The challenge of rye for me is the stickiness, hard to handle, and hard to score.  In this post is a pain au levain with 50% rye.  I solved the problems with very minimal handling of the dough and always with a light dusting of flour, and most importantly, I made sure the surface was very dry before I scored.   Also, to solve the browning issue that I sometimes encounter with the crust, I turned on my oven full blast for the whole time of baking (ie, 250 ºC).  I had to rotate the dough several times during baking, so not one spot got too much heat for too long in one go... what we do for our dough....

This was a 1 kg dough.  Main points of my formula were:

1. Stiff starter was 15% of final dough flour, which was 50% stoneground organic rye flour and 50% organic plain flour. 
2. My starter was fed the same flour combination as the final dough.
3. Overall hydration was 80% (without counting molasses, which was another 8%).
4. In addition to one teaspoon each of caraways, fennels and coriander powders, I had zest of one large navel orange. 
5. (The orange juice was part of the 80% hydration.)

I think I finally found the light rye formula that I like.

The crumb would have been more open if I had given my dough longer bulk ferment time.  Rather than the usual 3 hours bulk at my room temperature of 26 ºC, this dough should have had much longer bulk time, say 5 - 6 hours or even overnight at room temperature, as the starter was quite low in terms of the final dough flour.   

You could see the orange zest peeping out in the crumb shot above (almost in the centre).  Like the herbs, orange can be a dominating flavour.  Any more than one orange zest would have been too much.   I am very happy and excited with the way this bread has turned out.  The excitement I have got from this bread reminds me of the very first sourdough I posted here at The Fresh Loaf last June.

Shiao-Ping

Hey All,

Just wanted to share with you my Big Bad Batards from my 2/22/10 bake.  These are approximately 850g-900g and 16" long.  They are big!  Some of the nicest looking breads I have made in while.  I could have let the bulk fermentation go a little longer and upped my hydration... These were about 70% hydration.

I did some interesting stuff with these.  I used a still levain, along with instant yeast.  I mixed the levain the night before and refrigerated it until I was ready to mix the dough.  Also, I mixed all the remaining flour and water the night before and refrigerated it for about 24hrs.  On the bake day, I kneaded in the salt, stiff levain, salt, instant yeast, and went about my normal procedure...  I'm not sure I would do it this way again as it was difficult to knead in the levain and salt.  I was not sure if I kneaded it all in evenly...  Anyways...

Enjoy!

Tim

Recently I had an interview with a bakery in hopes that I'd be able to secure an internship for after my schooling. I need some technical training working in a high production environment, and this place was amazing, they had beautiful bread and several varieties of pastries besides. Possibly the best baked goods I'd seen in a bakery. 

The interview consisted of me working with baguettes at various levels of development. We ended the day mixing baguette dough and reserving pate fermentee, and we started the day by shaping loaves and loading proofed baguettes into the oven. It was an incredibly informative and educational experience to say the least. 

The dough that we used wasn't very wet, but baguette shaping being what it is, tends to stick to the bench. Liberal flour dustings were very useful, and if you dust with the right amount of flour, by the time you're finished shaping the baguettes, any excess flour has been pounded into the dough (which could be good or bad, depending on how anal you are). Without the flour, the dough sticks, and your shaping gets extremely rough (the only thing I got reprimanded for!). I'd never used a couche before, I'd always thought it unnecessary and cost prohibitive, but I had to use one to proof my baguettes, so I found you can only move them without damaging them too much if you pick them up from above and not below. 

Remember to dust your dough when shaping, pick dough up from above, and make sure your seam is on the bottom!

I used the bakery formula (slightly derived) to bake some baguettes at school:

I'm so happy to say that after so many tries of making white breads,  I finally got the taste and texture that I wanted.  Very very soft bread,  with a good slightly burnt crust.  Although without sugar,  the taste is sweet,  perhaps due to the water roux,  the overnight dough and butter.  This bread does requires time at least 12 hours waiting time,  but with good planning,  it'll work.

This type of bread is suppose to maintain its softness.  Well,  I will find out tomorrow. (yes - it remains soft even after 12 hours without toasting or heating up, 48 hours later and it remains soft, no heating up required,  unless you really don't like cold soft bread)

Click here for recipe:  http://www.foodforthoughts.jlohcook.com/breadmaking/sugarless-loaf

My wife and I have a problem with cinnamon rolls. She dislikes the gooey, too-sweet frosting found on most, and she gives me a hard time about sweet doughs with too much butter for my health. So, I'm on a new quest: A breakfast pastry we both like that is still kind to my arteries. (I'm not that concerned about the cholesterol, but my wife's persistent expressions of concern can't be good for my heart.)

Last week, I got Ciril Hitz's latest book, “Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads.” Like his previous book, “Baking Artisan Bread,” it is aimed at the home baker. While providing clear and detailed instructions that do not assume the reader has a degree in culinary arts, the formulas are in no way “dumbed down.” He teaches professional techniques and tricks for mixing doughs and making classic fillings, all adapted to home baking equipment and quantities. Also, like his previous book, he introduces a small number of basic doughs – for quick breads, sweet rolls and laminated dough pastries – then provides a number of formulas for products made with each and suggestions for additional applications.

When I … well … we saw Hitz's formula for sweet dough, we were struck by it appearing less enriched than most. His formula calls for only 10.6% butter and 10.6% sugar. I made a batch last night and retarded it in the fridge (as Hitz prescribes) until this evening. Hitz has formulas for cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, but I wanted a pastry that was less sweet. Among his recipes for pastry fillings I found one he calls “nut filling.” It looked good, since we love nuts, and looked less sweet than ones that are mostly sugar. So, I also made a batch of nut filling last night and stuck it in the fridge.

This evening, I rolled out the dough, spread it with nut filling, rolled it up and cut it into 1.5 inch rounds. (Actually, I just cut half the roll-up. I froze the other half for another day.) I put some pecan halves on the top of each, proofed, egg washed and baked them in a 1/4 sheet pan on parchment. I did not glaze them.

As expected, the dough was less sweet and less rich than most, but with the nut filling, the pastry is just sweet and rich enough for my taste. This is a nice solution for those who find most cinnamon rolls and sticky buns just too sweet. If one wanted a richer dough, another formula for sweet dough could certainly be substituted.

The nut filling (makes about 1.5 cups)

Method

Use purchased nut flour or make your own by pulsing frozen nuts in a food processor. Combine all the ingredients except the water. Slowly add the water to make a nice, spreadable consistency. It should not tear the dough when spread. It can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week. The consistency can be adjusted by adding water on the day of use.

I made the filling with frozen unsalted dry-roasted almonds. I processed them to a rather coarse consistency – coarser than coarse-ground flour but finer than “finely chopped.”

As I said, this is a “quest,” so stay tuned for further developments.

David

These are part of my ongoing 100% whole wheat projects, originally inspired by a photograph I saw here quite some time ago posted by Jane. I am unable to find the link right now, but I recall being astonished with the beautiful slices and Jane's unaffected, matter-of-fact approach. 

Over time, I was unable to produce a fair approximation of Jane's loaf:

This led me in turn to think about taking another step further and trying to produce a 100% whole wheat baguette. The ones pictured below were made from a dough of about 75% hydration using Bob's Red Mill flour. The flour was hydrated with the water but without the starter for about 36 hours. The final dough was given a series of stretches and folds at 30 minute intervals, then rested, shaped, proofed for about 45 minutes and baked at 500 degrees.

First time out (not pictured,) the long narrow loaves did not expand much, so I chose to call them ficelles. This time, there was a little more surface tension in theloaves and I formed them to be a little fatter, but not much. I cut one to approximate an epi.

While I may try a baguette with more volume in the future, I think the narrower profile suits this bread, which has a very intense wheaty, nutty flavor, with no hint of bitterness. The sourdough is present as a deep, mellow background, not at all tangy. This bread is excellent with cheese.

What remains is to improve the scoring. In a sense, no scoring is necessary; the loaves will come up to fine form in the oven without any. But I have seen photos ofsimilar loaves showing beautiful cuts that nicely expose the grigne. It is just showing on one of the loaves pictured. Perhaps slightly deeper cuts would have helped.