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Had to make some muffins today to share with friends.  I usually make them with sourdough, but didn't today.  It's a good recipe; I added the toasted almonds to it because I always love muffins with both fruit and nuts. I got the blood oranges from the farmer's market on Sunday.

Saw this video and thought i must share.. first time i see how a dough can be strech to cover the entire table!!

http://www.mercotte.fr/videos-cuisine-et-cuisiniers/

Happy Baking!

I sliced a loaf from mondays bake in half and discovered a hole big enough to park the 2CV in. I was after large holes but not quite to this degree. I've since cut into another loaf from the batch, it was much tamer.

This is from a hybrid batch,12 loaves with a baked weight of approx. 550g.  The sour culture fed on home milled unsifted wholegrain rye (10% of total flour). A separate poolish was made with home milled unsifted wholewheat(12% of total flour), with a pea sized piece of fresh yeast. Both of these where at 100% hydration, the flour had been milled 3 days previously.

The main dough contained; Swiss Ruchmehl(high extraction wheat flour) at 53% and Swiss halbweissmehl(white bread flour approx type 750) at 25%
The salt was at 2.2%, fresh yeast in final dough 1%, total hydration 72%. dough temp., after mixing 22c. 

I gave it a bulk rest of 80 minutes with a stretch&fold at half way and a  50 minute final proof.                                                                                          

The loaves were pealed into a good hot 270c oven, given a good blast of steam, after 10min. the damper was opened and the temp. dailed down to 230c for the remainder of the 55min. bake. The crust was nicely carmalized the bottom had a bit of characoal development, just how i like it. The week got off to a reasonably good start.

cheers    

daniel

Last year i had permission to hold a promotional class consisting of colleagues family and friends with the idea that fellow TFL member Ross (ROSS-N-ROLLER) would come along and do an article that we could submit to the local paper  prior to a November date for a class on Sour Dough.

Ross and his partner Janice  came along and we had a great evening together.

Ross's article follows 

                                                       Bred to Bake

i recently attended one of Derek Hughes' sourdough bread baking classes at Beaconsfield Challenger Institutes campus. There were 12 attendees in all, most with no bread-making experience. as a home baker of sourdough bread myself,i was struck by the depth of Derek's knowledge and his deft dough handling and shaping skills He was a pro baker for many years,and it shows .He even looks like a baker (see pic)

While Derek's retail bakery days are behind him,he has never stopped baking,enthusiastically passing on his knowledge to Hospitality students at the Institute, in between working on campus as a Supply Officer. He brings this same impassioned approach to his bread baking classes-It's infectious!

The classes take place over 3.5  jam-packed hours. Derek led us through sourdough breadmaking process:weighing and mixing the ingredients:stretching and folding the dough during fermentation;shaping and baking.

There is plenty of opportunity to get down and doughy,with Derek overseeing as mentor-and just as well,in the case of some devilishly naughty but easy to mangle cinnamon scrolls!

The highlight is the sampling the wares,which included a delicious black sesame seed sourdough Pre prepared by Derek  and baked during the class.

We were all given a dozen cinnamon scrolls to take home as well a dough fermented and shaped in class to be baked next day. This  night it was a delicious wholemeal sourdough featuring Derek,s home brew stout recipes are included.

a fun night well run,and outstanding value. ROSS ---------------------------------------------------

As the article didn't get a run in the local paper we had to cancel the proposed date, it was not long after this that i received an email from fellow TFL member Betsy Teo asking if i knew of any one that gave sourdough lessons as she would be visiting Perth and had hoped to book into a class with Yoke Mardewi of Wild Sourdough fame  who lives in Perth but alas was not holding any classes at that time. I said to her it was a pity as i was due to run a class but had to cancel due to no publicity.

Anyway i was able to gain permission to run another freeby for staff colleagues and friends and over seas visitor so emailed the details and to contact me when she got to Perth, which she duly did. i gave the details of where and when. and how to get there.

What follows is an account from Penelope, Betsy's daughter who accompanied her on this trip.    

Over the hill

Now that phrase can be rather misleading.

And this is something i had come to learn last November 2013 as i made my way by foot from the junction of South Tce and Sth St where the free blue cat bus service  had let me off (bus stand7) towards Challenger Institute of Technology.

Stopping every 500 metres or so , i was greeted with the same response ,"over the hill. to your right across the oval"

Well, what would have been helpful was if i had been told  that its a BIG hill - somehow the art of describing how strenuous and challenging the different hills one has to encounter on foot is something only the residents of San Francisco has it refined to the 'T'.

What's interesting is my mother has over the course of 5 years or so been trying to make the perfect San Francisco sourdough bread.

Having left the 'brick' stage some time back with the help of online forums,countless of hours spent on You Tube videos, and many.many guinea pigs  who has been or lived in San Francisco as testers the phase of inconsistent results of 'blisters','open crumbs' and 'ears '  continues to haunt her.

This resulted  first with amassing a collection of sourdough or levain publications  by the who's who  of baking, followed by stalking  self proclaimed  local artisan bakers, to eventually combing farmers markets of Europe and begging strange Swiss, Italian and French men covered in powdery white substances to Pilates professional moonlighting as organic artisan bakers for private lessons.

Almost giving up hope , a lovely Australian man  - Derek- responded to her email queries, agreeing to provide her with some lessons one fine day.

the respond was timely with a last minute  visit i had planned for  after receiving news of an old family friend who was terminally ill in Perth.

Needless to say our laborious hike up Sth Street was well worth the visit and the very fact that we  had travelled all the way from Kuala Lumpur gave us not only automatic access to the Challenger Institute of Technology premises after hours but an escorted  tour around by security personnel on duty.

Derek on first impression was unassuming  and friendly . While waiting  for the rest of the 'friends and family who would be joining the baking session that evening, i went about taking the roots off the spring onions  that were to be used latter, while he went about answering my mothers 'technical questions'

Betsy and Derek  

  With the party ensemble at the agreed upon time ,class started with Derk explaining the lesson  plan for the night and put a batch of flour , sourdough starter and other base ingredients  for a white bread with turmeric Haloumi cheese and spring onion sourdough: one of 3 breads that we would  make that evening into a larger mixing bowl.

Michael one of Challengers'  chefs adding cheese and spring onions into the last few folds

the dough pieces scaled off below

As the dough was getting a good work out in the industrial sized mixer , Derek  produced loaves  of risen 50%wholemeal  with Home brewed stout  and torrified wheat that he had made the previous day and went about describing the technique of slashing . Once we had all had our rounds of slashing 2 or 3 loaves each Derek went about preparing the loaves with a glaze before baking them.

Michael  the Hospitality Technician  prepares the loaves for washing slashing ready for the oven.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Well I finally got around to baking this weekend. My starter was 2 weeks old last Friday and bubbling and growing faster than I can feed it or use it!

 I produced this loaf loosely based on the The Quest for San Francisco Sourdough, take 4 blog of dmsnyder. Primarily due to disorganization and distraction my fermentation times are all over the place, but seems it still produced a great tasting loaf and while I'm sure I'm biased, it's also kinda pretty. My starter is maintained at 100% and my levain fermented at room temp, about 65 in my house this time of year, for 21 hours. I dropped my autolyse time to 1 hour, I can't for the life of me remember why...maybe due to the dinner guests I had coming that night and realizing I had to get pizza dough rolling. I did follow the 4 hour room temp ferment time with s&f at 50 and 100 minutes. I pre-shaped into what was supposed to be a batard but more resembled an hour glass, I've got some work to do there, and proofed 2 hours at rm temp. My cold retard time was 17 hours, then just proofed 1 hour at room temp, (if there was anyplace that's 85 degrees within 500 miles of me right now I would have driven there to do that final proof) for an hour before baking. I used steam the first 10 minutes and baked until 208 degrees. 

Think it was slightly over proofed based on my poke test and I've got lots of scoring practice ahead of me, but not a bad first go.

I'm interested in making a Poilane style bread, so I thought it might be interesting to make a BBA Basic Sourdough with half of the flour being whole wheat.

I made the dough up using the same procedure I've been using for the other Basic Sourdoughs, except (of course) using much more WW flour. Due to schedule conflicts the dough stayed in the refrigerator for 4 days ... I baked the loaves yesterday evening.

Shaping is still an issue and I haven't yet gotten to purchasing a linen, making transfer peels, etc. The batards are slightly misshapen, unfortunately. Baked at 525F for 15 minutes, then 475F for about 15 minutes (until the crust was the desired color).

Crumb is a bit tight despite following the same procedure previously used to achieve ~73% hydration, not sure if it is the result of WW flour needing more water, the excessively long cold fermentation and the yeast running out of "oomph," or the long ferment damaging the gluten.

Flavor is excellent, crumb is tender and fragrant, the crust is nicely flavored and crunchy. There is a slight sour note which is nice.

I have a Poilane style dough in the fridge at the moment and I'll likely bake it tonight ... more later.

-Dave

PS: I did bake a BBA Basic Sourdough 2 weeks ago that I didn't blog about ... went skiing with some friends on the weekend of the 18th/19th and baked some bread to bring along. I was in a rush so I didn't get a chance to take pics or post. One friend who came to visit the house we rented, a gent from France, particularly enjoyed the bread with dinner. I was quite happy about that!

So, I'm really excited (but also a bit nervous) to post the results of my first bake. Not my first bake ever, mind you; just my first bake after deciding to get really serious about baking.

After buying a few neccesary supplies a few weeks ago (digital scale, kneading board, baking books) I decided to go full bore and attempt to bake through Peter Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice". I got this book a few years ago but was always too intimidated to try anything from it. I figure trying every formula would help me get quite a few breads under my belt and hopefully teach me a few things.

And so, without further ado, here are som pictures from my attempt at the first formula for Anadama Bread, an enriched sandwich bread employing direct fermentation and a cornmeal soaker. A list of newbie questions follows.

The dough was smoother than any I've made before but, while I did get a windowpane, it still seemed a little rough to me.

My proofed loaves! I actually put these in the refridgerator to retard while I ran out to do some errands but the stubborn things proofed anyway. You'll notice that the one on the left is a little overflow-y. Thatt's because the pan is really too small for the amount of dough but it's all I've got for now.

The final loaves! Including the weird mushroom-y one:)

Crumbshot! The crust was soft and thin and the crumb was moist but very light, better than I expected!

I sliced up one loaf and put it in the fridge in baggies for the rest of the week and put the other loaf in the freezer to share with family on the weekend.

Overall, I was very happy with this bake and look forward to the next one!

Questions:

1. My digital scale has setting for ounces and fluid ounces. I used the ounces setting for all the ingredients since I know that we're dealing with the relative weights of the ingredients. But how can a scale measure fluid ounces, which is a measure of volume?

2. My digital scale picked up the addition of the instant yeast but just would not pick up the addition of the salt. I ended up using the volume equivalent for fear of adding too much. Any ideas why this happened? Is the salt not dense enough? How do others measure light ingredients?

3. My windowpane was good but a little rough, not like the smooth ones I've seen in books and online. Does the addition of heavier grains/meals make it more difficult to get a smooth, clear, windowpane?

4. Why did my loaves continue to rise even in the fridge? BBA says that they can be put int he fridge to retard for up to two days.

5. What happened here?:

My guess is that I didn't form my loaf evenly which resulted in a gas pocket at one end of this loaf.

Hi - I do not often bake yeasted bread but last night made a small white loaf with unbleached white flour. Ingredients 500gms U/B White Strong flour / 330gms water / 8 gms fresh teast / 8 gms salt.

Mixed and kneaded for approx 12 minutes then into bowl to rest. Rested for 1hr 20 mins (double in size plus a bit) and then into small loaf tin. Allowed to prove for 1 hr and 10 mins until double.

Then cut top with razor just before going into the oven. The loaf sank slightly and never produced any oven spring !

Any thoughts on problem would be appreciated.

Thanks and regards

I am on a mailing list which periodically sends me formulas for new breads developed at the San Francisco Baking Institute. The most recent mailing was for a "Finnish Rye." Here's a link: Finnish Rye Bread Formula Now, I cannot attest to the Finnish provenance of this bread. Nor would I call it a "rye bread." It is only 22% rye. In fact, it has more whole wheat flour (35%) than rye. Anyway, it is a multigrain bread made with a liquid levain, a cracked wheat soaker and a flaxseed soaker. It looked interesting, but I definitely would not have made it this soon but for Paul's (PJKobulnicky) bake of it (see SFBI's Finnish Rye) that looks so good. 

I followed the SFBI formula with these modifications:

1. For the Wheat Soaker, I used coarse bulgur.

2. I added about 20g additional water during the early dough mix because the dough seemed dry to me. (That was before the soakers were added.)

3. I mixed the dough for about 7 minutes before adding the soakers.

4. After mixing the soakers into the dough at low speed for 3 or 4 minutes, I transferred the dough to a floured board and hand kneaded for another 3 minutes to distribute the bulgur and fax seeds better and develop the gluten a bit more.

5. I bulk fermented at 76 dF for 2.5 hours. I did not feel the prescribed 1.5-2 hours resulted in sufficient fermentation.

6. I proofed for 45 minutes at 85 dF.

The dough was pretty sticky with the additional water I had added. The crust softened quickly with cooling and was pleasantly chewy. The crumb was more open than Paul's, probably because of the additional water and the extra gluten development. The crumb was soft but somewhat chewy.

When first tasted a couple hours after baking, the flavor was very nice except that the flavor of the molasses and the sweetness seemed excessive. There was also a clear flavor of flaxseeds (which I happens to like). However, the flavor profile evolved considerably by the next day. Now, the bread had the flavor of a honey whole wheat bread. The distinct flavors of molasses, flaxseeds and rye have all melded and are no longer identifiable (to my taste). I had said in Paul's blog I would reduce the molasses next time. I'm not so sure now, but I might try it with honey rather than molasses.

I have eaten it plain, toasted with almond butter and un-toasted with a bit of sweet butter. I enjoyed the last option most, so far. We are going to have some tonight as leftover roast chicken sandwiches.

Both my wife and I like this bread a lot, and I expect it will be baked often. However, I will classify it in my my mind as a whole wheat bread rather than as a rye bread.

David

This is a tweaked-to-suit-my-routine version of the barley and flax seed loaf in Tartine No. 3.  The biggest change was to the leaven – all whole wheat flour, 75% hydration, and more of it.  I also switched from barley flakes to cracked barley because that is what I had access to. The rest of the numbers I just put together in whatever way I thought would give me the greatest margin for error.

And, this was the inaugural bake in my new cast iron combo cookers.  I never thought I would take the leap, but my curiosity finally got the better of me.  I must say, I am impressed.  The size and shape limitations mean that I will never rely on them entirely, but they do make things simpler (and I don’t have to worry about setting the wet towels on fire!). 

The method stayed pretty close to the one presented in the book, so I will avoid going through it in detail.  One change I did make was to do the turns at shorter intervals, 15-20 minutes, to accommodate the faster fermentation brought on by the increase in leaven.  The dough was also drier than I anticipated, so I added a bit of water with each turn.

As for the result…  I like it!  Crust, crumb, flavor: all good.  There is a nice nuttiness from the flax seed and the barley smooths out any rough edges from the whole wheat.  OK, I need to reduce the salt a bit, but that’s easy enough.  This is one of those loaves where I can tell I got the fermentation right and the rest mostly followed from there – I wish I could do that every time!

 Odds and ends – The formula may look a little wacky because of the porridge.  So it goes.  I don’t know if there is a convention on how to present this.  In the end I treated it as an add-in, otherwise the percentages get so skewed as to make them meaningless.  As for the rest, I tried to present the basic info so you could take whatever mathematical leaps tickle your fancy.  The one measurement I regret not having taken was the weight of the porridge after cooking.  So it goes, again. 

Oh, and check out the book.  It reads a little like the blog section here on TFL.  No wonder I’m enjoying it so much!

Marcus