We're invited for dinner tomorrow at the home of one of my favorite high school teachers. He and his wife have become our good friends over the years. I offered to bring bread and decided to bake two different breads that I think they will enjoy: The Miche, Pointe-à-Callière from Hamelman's "Bread" and my own San Joaquin Sourdough. (This version)

My wife thought the miche would be just too much, so I divided the dough and baked two boules of 820 gms each.

Boules, Pointe-à-Callière

Rather a "bold bake" of these, but I expect the caramelized crust to be very tasty. 

Boules, Pointe-à-Callière crumb

Here's another photo of the boule that's going to dinner.

And the San Joaquin Sourdough. I think it was a bit under-proofed. The oven spring was ... exuberant. 

San Joaquin Sourdough 

David

Submitted to Yeast Spotting

The inspiration for this bake: 

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/04/24/name-that-loaf/  

Susan at Wild Yeast has incredible breads on her site and I've printed out quite a few to try. This was one of them. 

I didn't have currants or pine nuts at the time, so I baked with what I had. The colors went with fall anyhow, and cranberry walnut is a winning combination. I was drawn to this recipe also for the semolina- curious to see how baking with it (vs. durum flour) would turn out.

Susan's formula was followed except for thechange of the fennel, currants and pine nuts. I also had to make adjustments for the starter as the hydration of my starter is 50% instead of the 100% starter called for in the formula. The crumb is a lot tighter than in a regular baguette, but I was relieved to see the pictures on Susan's blog to be similar to mine :-) I don't know how easy it is to get big holes with 50% semolina...

We all loved the taste of these baguettes and couldn't get enough. It was actually sad when they were gone. I plan on making this same formula, but shaped as a crown instead- for the holidays coming up. It would be a beautiful centerpiece lightly dusted with powdered sugar. Hmmm..I may have to make a practice loaf for that....

Thanks to Susan from Wild Yeast/ Yeast Spotting for sharing this recipe!

I've been wanting to try "Pain Normande" ever since seeing it on SteveB's blog recently. Not only did I want to attempt to replicate his lovely bread, but I also conveniently have a ton of apples that I needed to use up. There are a lot of orchards around where I live so it's easy to come by (free!) great apples and fresh pressed apple cider. So, I threw a bunch of these apples in the dehydrator and got out the cider for this loaf. 

It's funny- I just read dmsnyder's blog about this very bread the day before I planned to bake. I'm glad I did because I took some of his findings/ comments into consideration. I wanted to avoid an "earthy" whole wheat flavor and instead taste more sweet apple taste. I've been baking Susan's Simple Sourdough almost every week and have been tweaking that recipe here and there and wanted to add some type of add-in, now that I have a good foundation for that loaf. Long story short, I basically disregarded the original pain normande formula and instead, made-up one based on Susan's Simple Sourdough. 

Here's what I used:

51g 50% Firm Starter

250g KA Bread Flour

40g Durum Flour

10g White Whole Wheat Flour (freshly ground)

6g Sea Salt

175g Apple Cider

25g Water

1/3 cup chopped, Dried Apples

I used the double hydration technique, mixing starter, and 110g flour (all flours mixed) for 3 minutes. THen added the rest of the flours and mixed in a KA for 3 minutes. 20 min rest, add salt, stretch and fold and incorporate apples. Then I did 3 more sets of S+F's at 30 min intervals. Into brotform and retard overnight. Take out 1 hour before bake and pre-heat oven to 460f. Baked 20 min w/ bowl ("magic bowl") and 25 min uncovered, last 5 min w/ oven door open.

Overall, I think it turned out pretty well. I was a little concerned at first when we cut into it that it was under-baked because it was a little tacky. I think this was caused by 1: not waiting long enough for it to cool (waited one hour, but it could've been more) 2: too much durum flour. If I use this percentage of durum flour again, I would use AP flour instead of bread flour for a little less gluten chew. Or, just use about half the % of durum and more WW flour. 3: The cider- it was really thick, so I think it helped to create a tighter crumb and chewier/dense texture. (i suspect, I don't know.) Anyway, I was very pleased the next day with this bread. It tasted so much better after an overnight sit in a brown paper bag. This bread was really good toasted. So next time, I would let it sit for 1/2 a day or more before cutting into it.

Oh, and as for the scoring- I wish I'd cut all the way around the apple stencil. Ah, next time...

After having successfully fed my starter from Zingermans last week, turned it into a chef and then a levain, I was finally able to start crafting my own Farm Loaf using Zingerman's Bakehouse recipe last night!

I started the bread last night by prepping the levain and letting it set for 12 hours. In the morning I started the mixing and crafting, mixing in bowl till combined...kneading for 12 minutes and so on. After letting it set for 3 hours with two stretch and folds...I proceeded to let it ferment again for 3 and a half hours more. One thing I've learned so far from Zingermans it all their recipes seem to take time...lots.

I preshaped the loaf around 2 o'clock, placed it in my banneton and by five o'clock, it was ready to bake! 18 hours of overall time it took for this bread, but from all the farm loaves I've tasted, it is worth it.

If this bread wasn't still so freshly baked, I would have pictures of the crumb, but I've learned to wait before slicing bread : )

Next week I will be attempting the Vermont Sourdough by Hamelman one more time since my last few attempts haven't been that great. Hopefully with my newly acquired knowledge I will be able to craft a nicer loaf though.

Also baked for the first time ever, Palmiers today!Turned out to be a bit 'overdone', but they still tasted yummy!

I developed this recipe when I was missing my traditional Russian coriander-rye bread but did not yet have enough skills or confidence to try making it in its classic form, which requires both the sourdough starter and the soaker and includes no wheat flour whatsover. However, I was mindful of a different Russian rye bread (we have a few dozen of them), just as sweet and flavorful but made with caraway and wheat flour, a little less coarse, more tender, but still very full-bodied. This recipe combines some properties of both of them (while actually being neither), and has an important advantage: it is simple enough for a novice.

Here is the recipe (makes two ~1-pound loaves), all measurements in grams:

Dark Rye Flour 270
White Bread Flour 80
Whole Wheat Flour (as coarse as you can get) 80
Vital Wheat Gluten 80
Yeast 4
Sea Salt 12
Freshly Ground Coriander Seeds 4
Honey 60
Molasses 60
Water 280-300
Canola Oil 30

This is a direct dough designed for overnight fermentation (hence low yeast content). I measure and mix all my dry ingredients, then add my wet ingredients one by one, with water going in last. If the dough turns out too sticky, add a tad more wholewheat flour. You may want to knead it but I usually get by with 2-3 stretch-and-folds.

If I want my loaves to be sprinkled with flour, I shape the loaves on a heavily floured board. If I want them shiny I shape them on my tiled countertop, lightly sprayed with canola oil to prevent sticking, and spray them with water just before sprinkling them with coriander seeds and putting them in the oven. The baking is as usual: at 475, with steam in the first few minutes, for about 10 minutes, then decrease temperature (I usually turn it down to 325 with convection) and bake until the internal temperature reaches 185-190F.

Yep, I realize the headline is provocative. Even we celiacs have to admit that most GF breads are abysmal. But, thanks to insights gleaned from you lucky majority of bread builders  – you're able to digest gluten! – I’ve come up with a natural-leavened GF bread that not only tastes great, but stales slowly and contains no dairy, fat or eggs.

The secret? This bread is leavened only with wild sourdough.

To make it you’ll need some equipment in addition to ingredients. Items include: A pizza stone. A cloche top (I use a Romertopf clay top). A gram scale. Saran wrap. A plant sprayer. Rubber/vinyl gloves. A heated proofing environment. A pizza peel or flat cookie sheet. Six plastic “picnic” wine glasses (if making rolls) or a length of sawed-off plastic PVC pipe if making loaves. A very sharp fillet knife or a razor blade on a stick. Or a lamé.

Ingredients:     60 grams millet sourdough in storage concentration (See below)

                        67 grams millet flour

                        260 grams Analise Roberts Brown Rice Blend  (see below)

                        3 teaspoons Xanthan gum

                        1 1/4 teaspoon salt

                        331 grams spring water

                        Cornmeal for dusting

Making the sourdough: I followed the instructions in The Bread Builders, by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott. To 120 grams of millet flour I added 120 grams of water and stirred well. I let this sit in a covered, non-metallic vessel in a cool (62 degree) area in my house. After 48 hours I threw away 1/2 this mix, added 60 grams flour and 60 grams water and let stand at the same temperature for another 24 hours. At the end of this 24 hour cycle I again threw away 120 grams of the mix and added 60 grams flour and 60 grams water. I let this stand until it showed signs of life – bubbling, froth, fermentation stink –

then removed it to a 70 degree environment, added 60 grams of flour (to bring the mix to a 50% hydration) and let stand 3 hours. At the end of this time I put it in my refrigerator.

It looks like this:

To make a bread recipe I remove 60 grams of storage sponge, add 40 grams of millet flour and 80 grams of water to it, mix and cover. I place it atop my refrigerator, where the temp is 75 – 80 degrees, and let it stand 12 hours. Then it looks like this:

I remove all but 80 grams of this sponge and weigh what I remove. Then I add enough flour to the removed amount to create a 50% hydration leaven, put this back into the storage container, and let this stand 3 hours, after which it goes back in the ‘fridge.

            So, what I have left is 80 grams of 100% hydration leaven.

            On with breadmaking:

            Mix 67 grams of millet flour, 260 grams brown rice mix (Available from Authenticfoods.com) 3 tsp xanthan gumn and 1 1/2 tsp salt and blend carefully and well. It’s important to do this thoroughly because the xanthan will coalesce as soon as water hits it and you want the distribution to be even when this happens/

            Dump mixed dry ingredients into a large bowl, add the water, and stir just enough to wet all the flour. 

Let this stand 1/2 hour. As it stands, take the 6 hemispheric classes and stuff a small square of plastic wrap into each. Spritz this with water. Also lay a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter and spritz this well. Warm up your proofing chamber (mine, btw, is a heating pad and two kitchen towels J ) Put on your rubber gloves and wet them thoroughly.

            Add the leaven to the dough, stir until blended fairly well, then turn out onto the wet plastic and mix by hand, squeezing out lumps and working to create a very rough-textured  sheet about 1/2” thick. Remember, there’s no gluten to protect or develop – what you’re after is a thorough blend and a shaggy-surfaced sheet of dough. When you’re certain you’ve got a good mix, lift the edge of the plastic and roll the dough into a long tube.

            If you’re making loaves, simply divide this tube into two lengths, continue to wrap loosely and place the sections into the halved PVC pipe. Cover with a towel and set in your proofing chamber.

            If you’re making rolls, stuff chunks of dough into each glass, pressing down with your fingers to get good contact with the plastic wrap. Spritz the dough surface well, cover with the plastic you used as a work surface and stick into your proofing chamber. The glasses should look like this:

Let proof 12 hours at 80 – 85 degrees

Now heat oven with pizza stone and cloche to 500 degrees. Dust your peel thoroughly with cornmeal, and work with one loaf or 3 rolls at a time. Roll loaf onto flour and remove plastic, or invert glasses onto flour and remove plastic. Slide loaf/rolls onto pizza stone. Repeat with second loaf or remaining 3 rolls, arranging so that your cloche lid will fit without touching any of the loaves/rolls. Place lid over rolls/loaves and close oven.

            Bake for 8’.

            Remove cloche top and score rolls/loaves with knife/razor.

            Re-close oven and bake 19 min more.

            Remove bread and place on wire rack atop oven so that products cool slowly. This will help prevent shrinkage.

            Here’s what you’ll have:

The crumb:

Unlike any other GF bread you may have eaten, this one doesn't stale in half a day. If you leave the rolls out their crust stays crunchy and their innards, moist. Freezing softens the crust, making them ideal hamburger buns. Of course they don't taste like wheat bread - they're mostly millet, after all - but they are excellent!

I baked this hand shaped loaf and a dozen others yesterday in an artisan bread bakery I work for in New Zealand. About 80 in total.

It is made with a cold overnight poolish at 125% of the overall dough weight, receives a fairly decent bulk fermentation and a quality hearth bake.

Love to hear some feedback from bread lovers around the world.

It seems that often my bread products turn out too dense and doughy tasting.  For example yesterday I had lunch at a church's and their biscuits were delightful, I looked up the recipe when I got home to see if I could make them as good (from a knockoff recipe on the internet) and they were pretty much a disaster, too dense and doughy tasting what could I be doing wrong.

I have had good recults baking some bread recipes from Clayton Bairds book "Complete Book of Breads".

Two girl friends came for tea this morning.  In the past I would have toiled for weeks (no kidding) to prepare the most exquisite desserts and pastries that I could think of for our tea.  Since I started making sourdough breads, my taste bud has changed.  Just as well, Chinese tea is not meant to be enjoyed with sweets.  We just drank and drank until we were hungry.  We then had the finger sandwiches that I made earlier for lunch with the two Pains au Levain that I baked yesterday - Snow Peas Pain au Levain and Carrot Pain au Levain.

                                                                     Celebration for summer colors

                           Snow peas butter, bacon and snow peas sprouts in Snow Peas Pain au Levain

                                     Smoked ocean trout, avocado and lemon in Carrot Pain au Levain

                                             Asparagus and crème fraiche in Snow Peas Pain au Levain

My Formula for Carrot Pain au Levain

• 450 g starter @ 75% hydration (5% rye flour)
• 450 g flour (5% rye flour and the balance white bread flour)
• 282 g carrot juice (from 455 g peeled carrot, or 4 - 5 carrots)
• 55 g orange juice (from 112 g orange, or 1/2 orange, skin included )
• 14 g salt

Total dough weight 1.2kg (divided into two) and approx dough hydration 72 - 75%

My Formula for Snow Peas Pain au Levain

• 500 g starter @ 75% hydration (5% rye flour)
• 500 g flour (5% rye flour and the balance white bread flour)
• 660 g peas puree (made up of 500 g frozen peas cooked in 30 g oil + 2 garlic + salt to taste, then blended with 130 g water added)
• 12 g salt

Total dough weight 1.6kg (divided into two) and approx. dough hydration 67 - 70% (based on assumption that there is 30 to 35% liquid in peas.)

Procedure for both breads

1. Mix only the flour and carrot/orange juice (or peas puree).  Autolyse for an hour.
2. Combine with starter and salt; stretch & folds in bowl, 60 - 70 strokes (very messy, especially the peas dough)
3. Bulk ferment for 2 to 2 1/2 hours (my room temperature was 25 - 26 C) with one set of S&F's.
4. Divide into two doughs and pre-shape and shape into cylinder or any shape you like.
5. Proof for 2 hours (my room temperature was 25 - 26 C)
6. Retard in refrigerator for 10 hours.
7. Bake with steam at 220C for 35 minutes (carrot bread) or 40 minutes (peas bread).

Leftover bread crumbs for a bread quiche for dinner tonight:  I soaked the above leftover bread crumbs (from making the finger sandwiches) in chicken stock, then added some vegetables (Swiss mushroom, butternut squash, capsicum, and cherry tomatoes), eggs, cream and cheese and made a bread quiche.  The idea came from making bread and butter pudding the other day using staled walnuts and raisins sourdough. 

                                                                         Enough bread to sink a ship

Shiao-Ping

Having used this site for ages, and having greatly appreciated and learned from the collective wisdom of my fellow bakers, I finally decided to join the Fl. So now, I figured, is as good a time to introduce myself as ever.

Here's my story. A couple of years ago I did not know how to bake anything. All the foolproof recipes that my more baking-talented friends gave me simply said, "add as much flour as the dough will take" or "knead until the dough would stop sticking" -- but the dough would take as much as I'd give it or will never stop sticking, thought I! I honestly tried baking bread a few times, and failed miserably every time, producing absolutely ugly loaves that were as heavy as a brick, and as raw on the inside as they were burnt on the outside -- in other words, completely and utterly inedible. After a while the word "yeast" would send me into a major panic mode, even though in all other respects I was a very fearless and rather successful cook.

And then some kind soul sent me the link to the youtube no-knead bread recipe. Now THAT seemed totally foolproof. I worked up some courage and decided to try it. It came out! Not to push my luck too far I waited a few days and then tried it again. It came out again! At that point, having gained just the tiniest bit of self-confidence, I started reading cookbooks and trying some "real" recipes. Some came out, some didn't. But my failures ended up being even more educational than my successes -- I started actually "getting it."

One day early this summer I was at a local farmers' market. I had a loaf of my Russian corainder-rye bread that I brought at the request of a friend. Well, the friend couldn't come to the market, so I gave the loaf to the market manager. As soon as the market ended that day, she found me through common friends and asked me if I could become a vendor at the market. Apparently, my bread was different enough from everything else that was available that she wanted to have me join them.

It took me a little time to rework my recipes from cups/spoons into grams and milliliters (my brain works in metric only) and to figure out how to scale up from baking 10-15 loaves a week to over 100 in one day (for the market, I generally make a push and bake all of my 120-150 loaves on Friday, but that would be all of my weekly baking). By mid-July I started selling my breads at the market. I absolutely love it! It is very hard work, it doesn't make a lot of money (although I am not in the red, thank goodness!) but I feel that after a lifetime of working much less "real" kind of jobs I'm finally doing something that makes people happy. At least, my customers' faces make it all worth my while.