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The girls really liked this week’s YW Italian bread we baked using a take in the poolish calzone recipe by replacing the poolish with YW.  That will be a tough bread to beat but We though we would give it a go at using nearly the same recipe and replacing the YW with SD this time. 

We dropped the herbs, sun dried tomato and olive oil and added in a bit of red and white malt and upped the hydration from 76% to 78% which really made the dough a slack one.  We kept to the rough 17% whole grains with all of it being in the SD preferment.  This is about as white a bread as we want make for health reasons.

We stuck to the same procedure; 12 hour 1 stage levain build with a 1 hour autolyse of the flour and dough water and the salt sprinkled in top.  Once everything came together we did a with mix with a spoon and 5 minutes of slap and folds before resting 15 minutes and doing another 1minute set before stopping when the dough no longer stuck to the counter.

We then did 4 sets of stretch and folds from the compass points on 30 minute intervals. The dough was then pre-shaped and then shaped into a boule and placed into a  rice floured basket, bagged and placed in the fridge for a cold 12 hour retarded proof.

The bread proofed to 85% in the fridge so we Fired up Big Old Betsy to the 550 F pre heat and go (2) of Sylvia’s steaming pans ready for the mega steam.  Sylvia’s pans went in when the temperature hit 500 F and when the temperature hit 550 F the steam was billowing and the stones at least up to 500 F.

We took the dough out of the fridge, upended the basket onto parchment on a peel, scored it diamond style, slid it onto the bottom stone, closed the door and turned the oven down to 475 F for 12 minutes of uninterrupted steam. 

When the steam came out, we turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time and baked the bread till it hit 207 in the inside when we turned off the oven while allowing the bread to sit on the stone till it hit 210 F when it was removed to the cooling rack.

The bread browned, cracked, blistered, sprang and bloomed well but, the blisters were not as big as the YW bread earlier in the week.  This one was not over proofed as the YW seemed to be - even though it sprang and bloomed as well as this one.

We will have to wait on the crumb and tasting till after lunch but it smells fine cooling on the rack.  This crumb is almost as open as the YW one, just as soft and moist but the taste is where this version of white bread shines - the YW can't compare if you love SD like I do.   But, if you don't like SD then the YW version is for you.  The crust stayed a little more crisp on this one but once gain it's all in the SD taste.

This bread reminds me of SFSD but little more tasty due to the whole grains and red malt.  We had a great pepper jack, smoked pulled pork sandwich for lunch with the usual veggies, salad and fruits.  This bread is the perfect white bread for smoked meats.   I wish the BBQ joints in KCMO would serve it instead of Wonder Bread:-)

Formula

And don't forget that fantastic blue cheese, cherry tomato and home grown greens in that salad! 

Both these loaves are based on the basic formula and technique from Tartine Bread.  The formula for both:

500 grams unbleached white flour

375 grams water

100 grams leaven (100% hydration, white flour)

10 grams salt

The Fig & Fennel loaf has the addition of 12 grams of fennel which was soaked in boiling water for a few hours and the fragrant soaking water was used in the dough.  The fennel seeds and about a cup of roughly chopped dried figs were added after a one hour autolyse.  The Cherry & Chocolate loaf has 75 grams of dark chocolate chips and 100 grams of tart dried cherries, added after a one hour autolyse.  A portion of the water in the dough was an herbal cherry tea as suggested by member isand66 last time I posted a similar loaf (thanks!).  Both loaves were retarded in fridge for 16 hours or so and baked at 450 º for 20 minutes in a pre-heated covered dutch oven and then for 25 minutes uncovered.

I love the oven spring on the Cherry & Chocolate loaf (first picture) - it got quite a bit higher and rounder than the Fig & Fennel (second picture).  I haven't cut into either yet so can't show a crumb shot or tell you how they taste.

From left to right, top to bottom

Here's a yeasted white bread, my basic white loaf bread, I added one cup roasted white onions, 1/4 cup scallions, green parts only sliced thin, one tablespoon parsley, and a half teaspoon dried dill weed.

This recipe makes one standard loaf, put once again I quartered it for four mini boules, two to bake now, two wrapped in plastic for later use.

Proofed, egg washed, scored and saltd

With this kind of salt

Here they are, straight out of the oven

Here's the close up shot

Here's the crumb shot

And here's the sandwich shot.

Baked another Tartine loaf with increased hydration, looking for the perfect crumb (which, of course, can never be achieved!)  We had this loaf for lunch with my husband's sister and her husband, Bob the baker from England.  They leave today, so we enjoyed lunch outside in the California sun.  Bob gave the bread passing marks. They return to Liverpool (and a bit of rain) this afternoon.  They did have rain here and in Las Vegas during their visit.

We enjoyed the bread, and I will continue my experiments in hydration. I believe I may try a WW recipe next.

This is a 100% whole wheat sourdough bread with lots of nuts and seeds mixed in (walnuts, almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds).

I have recently taken a personal chef type endeavor, not like a gourmet chef, where I show up with wonderful ingredients and fix a 5 course meal. It's more of a I show up in your kitchen and fix dinner out of whatever I find in your kitchen. It's a hey everybody, grandma's going to come and fix us dinner kind of a thing.

I like to include fresh baked bread with the meal, but because I am only going to be there for 2-3 hours, I need a bread which I can make up in my kitchen ahead of time, transport to the site, and bake in their kitchen. And it needs to be something that doesn't require any fancy oven set up, something that I can have baked and cooled enough to eat within the time restraints, two hours.

So here is the recipe: 3/4 cup warm water with one tablespoon sugar dissolved in it, one cup active sourdough starter (I use a 100% hydrated starter), and one cup whole wheat flour. Mix together in bowl and let it sit for 30 minutes to one hour. Then I added one cup of unsalted nuts and seeds, I teaspoon salt and another cup of whole wheat flour. And mixed that in. (I'm totally old school, all my mixing and kneading is done by hand) And then gradually knead in about another cup of flour to make an elastic dough. I would have said smooth, but there's a lot of nuts and seeds in there!. It then gets a thin coat of oil and is allowed to rise until doubled in size.

This is enough dough to make a large boule loaf. But what I did was punch it down, knead it lightly, and cut it into four quarters. I pre-shaped each quarter into a mini boule. Two of the loaves were baked in my kitchen, after being allowed to proof for about an hour.

The loaves shown here are the ones that had been in refrigerator. The top loaf went directly from the fridge to the oven, the second got to sit at room temp while the first one baked (425F, 45 minutes, light steam). I wanted to compare crumb between the two. Here's what I got.

What I ended up with was four quite tasty although rather dense loaves (which is what I get normally with this particular recipe unless it retards for day or so).

Having benefited from the collective wisdom of other Fresh Loafers for a while, I thought it was time to make a contribution. This bread is a sourdough adaptation of a straight-dough whole-wheat multigrain loaf with honey and dried malt that my much-loved late father-in-law used to make with a bread machine.

The family always loved it, and when I took up bread baking asked me to replicate it. They claim my version tastes the same, which of course can't be true because the technique has changed. Anyway, I've been tinkering with the recipe for a few years, influenced by the Hamelman whole-wheat multigrain bread and more recently by various bloggers on this site, especially David Snyder. Today's loaf had easily the best oven spring so far and tastes good too. The crackly crust was especially satisfying.

I thought it might be worth sharing the recipe because it has a couple of unusual features for a whole-wheat multigrain both of which are retained from my father-in-law's original formula, namely the high proportion (72%) of whole-wheat flour and the inclusion of the dried malt. Here goes:

Overall Formula (makes two large loaves) 

   643g            whole-wheat flour                                                                                                              72.1%

     20g            culture whole-wheat flour

   257g            bread flour                                                                                                                          27.9%

     64g            cracked wheat or rye                                                                                                            7.0%

     64g            steel-cut oats (or other grain)                                                                                               7.0%

     55g            linseed (or other seed)                                                                                                          6.0%

     28g            dried malt                                                                                                                             3.0%

     28g            honey                                                                                                                                    3.0%

     18g            salt                                                                                                                                        2.0%

   723g            water                                                                                                                                   80%

     13g            culture water

 1913g

Levain build

   113g            whole-wheat flour (+20g culture flour)                                                                              72.3%

     51g            bread flour                                                                                                                         27.7%

   107g            water (+13g culture water)                                                                                                 65.2%

     33g            stiff whole-wheat culture                                                                                                   20.1%

   304g

Prepare the levain around 12 hours before the final mix, and ideally leave it to ferment at 21°C.

Soaker

   183g            grains and seeds                                                                                                            100%

   183g            boiling water                                                                                                                   100%

       4g            salt                                                                                                                                      2.2%

   370g

Prepare the soaker at the same time as the levain, and leave it to stand in a covered bowl at room temperature.

Final Dough

   530g            whole-wheat flour

   206g            bread flour

   433g            water

     28g            dried malt

     28g            honey

     14g            salt

   304g            levain

   370g            soaker           

 1913g

Method

1. Mix without kneading all the final dough flour and water in a bowl until the water has been incorporated.
2. Cover the bowl and leave the flour and water to autolyse for up to 60 mins. The target dough temperature is 24.5°C.
3. Add the soaker and honey, sprinkle on the salt and dried malt, add the levain, and mix roughly until all the final dough ingredients are loosely incorporated.
4. Hand-knead the dough (I don't own a mixer) for 12-15 minutes until it acquires some body and the gluten has developed perceptibly. It will be sloppy and almost unmanageable at first, but starts to settle down after a few minutes.
5. Bulk-ferment the dough for 3 hours 20 minutes, folding three times at intervals of 50 mins.
6. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, then lightly pre-shape them round and leave to rest for about 10 minutes.
7. Shape the dough pieces into boules or batards, optionally coat them with sesame seeds or cracked grain, then place them seam-side up in bannetons covered by plastic or inverted bowls.
8. Proof for 2-2½ hours, ideally at 24.5°C. Alternatively, refrigerate the bannetons for 14-18 hours. If retarding in the fridge, leave the bannetons out at room temperature beforehand for up to 1 hour and afterwards for 3-5 hours, depending on the state of the dough.
9. Pre-heat the oven well in advance of the bake at 240°C. However, if using a peel and stone, pre-heat the oven at 255°C to allow for the loss of heat when loading the loaves.
10. Score the loaves and transfer them to the oven.
11. Straight after loading the loaves, steam the oven and, if using a peel and stone, reduce the oven temperature to 240°C.
12. After 20 minutes, lower the heat to 225°C and remove your steaming device.
13. Bake the loaves for about another 30 (batards)-35 (boules) minutes, until fully baked and crusty.
14. Take the loaves out of the oven and leave them to cool thoroughly (six hours or longer) before tasting.

This recipe includes a few innovations compared to my earlier versions of the bread, mainly the high 80% hydration level, the long bake, and above all the long proofing time at room temperature after fridge retardation. The extended final proofing was forced on me because we had to do some shopping in the morning, but the dough had hardly moved in the fridge and I was curious to see what happened. In the end, I left the loaves out for 4 hours 15 minutes and they don't seem to have suffered. I was worried that the sourdough acid aftertaste would be too prominent, but the flavour turned out balanced and wheaty.

It's certainly a denser bread than most, but there's enough expansion to keep the denseness at a pleasant level. And to my taste it's not remotely like the caricature of a whole-wheat brick. I hope you're interested to give it a try.

Okay, I couldn't resist, I know its corny.

I've now baked twice the Black Hamster Bread recipe from Ketex, to me this is a Schwarzbrot or black bread.

The first attempt was problematic -

Too much yeast, this coupled with the starter and the bread began rising too quickly

Hydration level was way overboard - as I cut into the bread the knife had streams (yuck!)

I wasn't happy with the high/fast bake time, I felt this contributed to the wet doughy first trial

This is painful to write - I love the recipes on Ketex and they are a regular staple at our house. I always get good results. You can see below the comparison between the first attempt on left and second on right -

So on to Black Hamster Bread 2.0, here's the modifications -

No additional yeast, I put loaf pan in warm oven and let the yeast do its work

Omitted 50ml of water in final step (this was strange, Ketex always water by weight!)

30 minutes at 350F/177C with steam to start and light foil covered

30 minutes at 350F/177C with cover

30 minutes at 350F without loaf pan, cover just baked

First attempt on the left, second on the right

But, I'm hooked! I am planning one more attempt at this bread. I'm probably going to extend the bake time and I will add just a small amount of yeast.

Sid

It seems ever since Sylvia posted her fine calzones we haven’t had pizza night but have calzone night instead.  We like both my daughter loves seasoned ricotta and that is a calzone ingredient if there ever was one.  You could say that our calzones are a cross between lasagna and pizza.

We made a simple poolish white dough sized for 4 calzones loosely based on our favorite pizza dough that is really a less hydrated Focaccia Romana, at 72% hydration, that has fresh rosemary and sun dried tomato in it.  Then I thought some friends of my daughter might show up as they can when something like home made pizza or calzones are on tap.

So we quickly whipped up another version of pizza dough, this time a yeast water one since we haven’t used the poor thing in weeks and it was pretty useless just sitting in the fridge doing nothing.  We used whole; rye, spelt and wheat in the YW levain to give it some extra flavor at 17% whole grains, upped the hydration 4% to account for the whole grains and subbed basil for the fresh herb instead of using the rosemary.

Then we found out that the other girls wouldn’t be coming after all and we had double the calzone dough needed for the 3 of us.  So I shaped the 2nd yeast water version into a boule, put it in a rice floured basket and chucked it into the fridge for a 15 hour retard even though it was nearly fully proofed for calzones.

We are starting a test on doing less slap and folds (1) set at 5 minutes instead of our usual (3) sets totaling 10 minutes and increasing from 3 to 4 sets of stretch and folds and increasing the time between them from 20 minutes to 30 minutes to see if we could tell a difference in the crumb. 

The poolish was a 12 hour counter affair before it was incorporated into the rest of the mix, the dough developed, the herbs and sun dried tomato added on the first S&F and then  fermented for 30 minutes before being bulk retarded in the fridge for 24 hours.

When the poolish dough went into the fridge we started the YW levain which also took 12 hours on the counter, overnight this time.  The next morning we developed the dough with slap and folds and incorporated the herbs and sun dried tomato the same as before but, instead of bulk retarding this time, we let the dough bulk ferment on the counter to hopefully let it catch up to the poolish dough in the fridge now going on 18 hours.

We took the fully risen poolish dough out of the fridge 3 hours before we wanted to use it to let it get to room temperature.   In 3 hours both batches if dough were ready to go and fully proofed.  This is when we shaped the YW one, put it in a a basket and retarded it.

The calzone filling included the seasoned ricotta with an egg mixed into it and the other 4 cheeses included; Monterrey jack, mozzarella, pecorino and parmesan.  Hot Italian sausage and pepperoni were the meats.  The veggies included caramelized crimini and button mushrooms, caramelized red onions, red bell pepper and green onion.

The calzones were baked at 425 F for 10 minutes with steam and then at 425 F convection for 15 minutes until browned and bubbly.   There were even some small blisters on the folded edges.

Last night’s calzone dinner was delicious and the huge house salad was hardly touched as each of us went for maximum calzone intake.  We checked the YW bread in eh fridge before going to bed last night after it had been in he fridge for 6 hours and it looked like it was 100% proofed – not a good sign for dough that had another 8 hours to go.

The calzone even looks good frozen!

Sure enough this morning the dough had given up 15% of its fridge proof the night before and was back to the 85% mark.   I figured the worse case it would continue to fall in the oven and bake up like a Frisbee.   So we got Big Old Betsy fired up to 525 F as fast as possible and put (2) of Sylvia’s steaming pans on the bottom rack at the 475 F mark.

We got the cold dough out of the fridge, dumped it out of the basket onto parchment on a peel.  Lucy was heartened that when we scored it with a single edge razor the dough didn’t deflate further.  We slid it onto the bottom stone, threw 1/2 C of water onto the bottom of the oven for instant steam, closed the door and turned the oven down to 475 F for 12 minutes of steam.

When we pulled Sylvia’s steaming pans out we switched to convection at 425 F and noticed that the bread had surprisingly sprung and bloomed well.   But the huge blisters were also a welcome sign that this bread had resurrected itself from near collapse and death.  It hit 210 F before we could catch it at the 26 minute mark and by then the bread was a pleasant brown.

Let's not forget breakfast.

After cooling we sliced it t find the crust was still a little crisp and the crumb very open, soft and still moist.  It tasted like a really good poolish baguette that had been retarded - possibly a little sweeter?  My daughter loved it and the girls who prefer a non sour bread will eat this up in no time.  I wish it was a SD!  Can’t taste the basil at all but every once and while you get a taste of sun dried tomato.

A hamburger slider dinner.

This is a very nice bread if you like white non sourdough bread and makes due as fine sandwich bread that the kids will love for their lunches.  I have to say I really liked today’s lunch sandwich of Monterrey jack cheese, some mayo and peppered Italian salami.

Donlt overlook a great salad even if you don't eat it with calzones like you shouls!

The sides included a salad with cherry tomatoes, a knob of grilled salmon and a slice of brie. A half a pear and Minneola, half an avocado, red pepper, carrot elongated coins, a slice f fresh jalapeno, a couple of strawberries and small pile of tortilla chips with Dabrownman’s chili, tomatillo, salsa verde and killer habanero hot sauce.  All of it was just delicious.  

My wife's triple birthday cake.  One a raspberry and white chocolate cream delight, a traditional carrot cake and the last a triple death by chocolate chunk.  Delicious!

If you or yours want fine tasting 80% white sandwich bread that isn’t sour, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Formulas

A little over a year ago, I read on this site (here) about PiPs' wonderful find of a Raadvad Danish bread slicer. I saw that post and was filled with envy. Of course, I immediately searched online for one. A few were available on some auction sites, but for very high prices (and most won't ship internationally, either). 

At work, most people know that I enjoy baking. Of course they know that my favorite thing to bake is bread. I often bring bakes to work. There also happen to be several other hobbyist bakers there, and I often supply them with recipes. After all, I have a rather substantial library of bread books. One guy at work was telling me how he missed good old Russian Rye breads. The next day, I gave him a little bit of sourdough and a recipe. He followed the recipe, made successful bread, and was ecstatic with the result. 

Fast forward a few months, and he mentioned that his wife found a Danish bread slicer at an antique dealer. Boy was I envious! I told him that I had been wanting one, and that he is very lucky. This was maybe three or four months ago. 

This morning he came to the office carrying a Raadvad Danish bread slicer, in great condition (not as pristine as the one PiPs had bought, but in very good condition, and in perfect working order). His wife had found one, and got it for me! I was elated. I took it home, cleaned it, and sharpened the blade. I now have a loaf of Russian rye bread (Andrew Whitley's version, with a little added salt) baking in the oven. Tomorrow, after it had had time to settle, I will try out my bread slicer. 

I don't know how old it is, or any of its history. There were some leftover dried grains stuck between the plates of wood that I had cleaned. Here are some pictures: 

After years of gawking at some croissant-centric blogs (*ahem* txfarmer's and weekendbakery), I decided to conquer, once and for all, my biggest fear in all of baking. I've been using weekend bakery's recipe, and for the most part, it has been great. 1st attempt was a success, 2nd was a disaster, and 3rd was pretty good again. My biggest problem, however, is trying to get consistent and even honeycomb structure with each croissant. Seems like I would only get 2-3 perfect croissant per batch. Any tips/pointers would be greatly appreciated!