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Bashert's picture
Bashert

Hey guys, this is my first Fresh Loaf blog, but I have been reading these pages for a long time. Bread is my thing. As I know it is for a lot of you. Anyway, I am a part-time baker (bashertbakery.com), full-time school teacher, but.... Friday was a rain-out day in South Florida (our version of a snow day, sorry everybody in most of the rest of the country right now)! So, no school, which means I could bake!

I decided on experimenting with seeds. Check out the fruits of my unexpected day off below: two country sourdough boules with sesame seeds and two sourdough rye boules with ground caraway. I used ground caraway because I screwed up and ordered ground instead of whole. I am using the Tartine method for high hydration dough, modified to accommodate my schedule. Which today meant I did a bulk rise of 3.5 hours, then shaped the loaves, then had a relatively short, room-temperature (75 F) final rise of 2.5 hours.

 

I ended up being very pleased with the results! Both varieties had nice oven spring, crisp crusts, and a moist, open crumb. I love the earthy quality the sesame seeds lend to the mild tang of the country sourdough. As for the rye with ground caraway... Not a bad experiment! The flavor of the caraway came through and complimented the rye, as always, but it was a bit more mild and even flavor compared to using whole seeds. Below, I have the formulas I used. Thanks for sharing my bake with me!

Leaven (100% hydration; enough for 4, 1000g loaves, with some leftover)

300g - Water

3tbs - Sourdough starter

50g - Organic rye flour

250g - White/Wheat Flour 50/50 blend

Mix and cover with a towel. Seeya in 8 hours or so!

 

Final Dough

Country Sesame (75% hydration; yield: two 1000g loaves)

750g - Water

200g - Leaven

450g - All-Purpose flour

450g - Bread flour

100g - Whole Wheat flour

20g - Sea salt

1 cup toasted sesame seeds

 

Rye with Ground Caraway (80% hydration; yield: two 1000g loaves)

800g - Water

200g - Leaven

200g - Rye flour

600g - All-Purpose flour

200g - Bread flour

20g - Sea salt

1 cup ground caraway seeds

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

 

When I began baking a couple of years ago I soon found out that my family all loved freshly baked bread.  It was a rewarding feeling to be able to bake something fresh and wholesome for them.

Within a short period of time I discovered that each had a preference for a particular type of bread.  In other words, one loaf did not fit all.  My journey began to find the ONE loaf that would satisfy them all.

It has been about 3 years and I have finally found that loaf.

             

The first book I fell in love with when my baking odyssey began was Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I mentioned that I was baking to a friend and she knew I baked with whole wheat that I ground myself so she sent me a book titled Whole Grain Breads by Machine or Hand written by Beatrice Ojakangas.  I was excited to expand my baking repertoire but I soon found out that Beatrice's book did not use 100% whole grains and that the book was written with volume measurements rather than by metric weights…..

Somewhere between WGB and her book I had learned all about baking math. but was not skilled as yet at converting recipes to metrics.  The book sat on a shelf while I baked through WGB.  

          

While baking my way through WGB I found TFL and suddenly my baking world expanded by ten fold.  In no time at all I learned how to convert just about any formula I happened across.  I also learned how to convert from using IY to SD.  Beatrice's book was retrieved and I began trying her recipes.  (They are great.)

    

Things began to change after I read about Syd's Asian Style Pan de Mie about a year or so ago.  In following his formula I found out about using a roux in a loaf to soften the texture.  I began experimenting and found the texture that worked for my son and daughter but the method was still a bit drawn out for a regular loaf and flavor wasn't there yet…

          

Somehow I hitched the roux up with Beatrice's Honey Whole Wheat and I hit upon a loaf that my son said was his favorite….My daughter was home for Christmas break and she concurred  with him.  Husband vote was not far behind.  Texture and flavor pleasing to them all and it is a loaf the I like to bake.

          

OVERALL FORMULA

Flour  100%

Milk      62%

YW       10%

Salt      2.3%

Butter   5.4%

Honey   10%

Egg       10%

ND Malt   1%

IY            .2%

ROUX

Milk          18%

Butter      5.4%

Honey      1.2%

Malt             1%

Flour         13%

Leaven contains 15% prefermented flour and 10% YW.

  • Build leaven using YW in the morning and feed again 4 hours later when it has ripened.
  • Make roux in the morning.  Boil milk with butter and honey added.  Add flour and malt. Stir until mixed and firm.  Cover and let it cool until ready to use.
  • In the evening combine flour, egg, honey, milk and leaven in mixing bowl.  Mix into a shaggy mass.  Let it rest for 1 hour for the gluten to begin to develop.
  • Add remaining ingredients in stages while mixing.  
  • Knead until a strong windowpane develops.
  • Place dough in bowl and let it sit at room temp. for 1 hour.
  • Place in refrig. for overnight bulk fermentation.
  • In the morning, remove dough from the refrig and allow it to come to room temp. and to finish expanding.
  • Shape into a loaf and place in pan.
  • Bake at 350° for about 30-40 minutes when internal temp reaches 200°

I do steam my sandwich loaves too but some bakers do not find that necessary with loaves containing enrichments.  

So there you have it.  Three years of work in the making and I know that as soon as I post this here….something or someone will change…

…..and the challenge of trying to bake the 'perfect' loaf for all will continue to confound me….

                                                                 HAPPY BAKING

 

 

     

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

From what Lucy can tell these are either calzones or strombolis depending on how Italians feel at the time or how they slice them and if anyone who knows the difference between the two is present.  I’ve decided, once again, that Lucy is nearly worthless in these matters, like most other things but we will go with her suggestion of calling them Stromzones..

  

We use the same dough for Italian focaccia and pizza interchangeably so there isn’t a difference that way for us either.  This time, to mix things up and try to cater to everyone’s personal preferences, we made the girls favorite poolish white Focaccia Romana and, for Lucy and I, our favorite sourdough multigrain Focaccia Romana for the crust portion.

 

After that everything was the same.  The Focaccia Romana portion was fresh rosemary and basil with garlic and sun dried tomato for the dough enhancements.   The filling was some mozzarella and parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese salted and peppered with an egg to bind it together.

 

The meats included very thin pepperoni, smoked hot Italian sausage and smoked chicken breast.  The caramelized veggies included red onion, button and crimini mushrooms and sautéed red peppers with some green onions and basil for color.

 

The poolish started the night before with a pinch of ADY and 100g each of water and white flour.  This was left out overnight on the counter to double and in the morning we added it to 200 g of AP, 5 g each of salt and olive oil and 116 g of  water to make a 72% hydration dough that we slapped and folded for 4 minutes…. twice – 15 minutes apart.

 

We then did 2 sets of stretch and folds where we incorporated the herbs, garlic and sun dried tomato on the first one.  It then went into the fridge for 2 and a half hours to slow it down and wait on the SD portion to catch up. 

 

The SD version started with a 3 stage build over 12 hours using 15 g of rye starter at 66% hydration, 120 g of whole grains – in this case wheat, spelt and rye in equal amounts mixed with 120 g of water.  When the levain had risen 75% after the 3rd build we refrigerated it overnight.

 

The next morning we mixed the levain with 240 g of AP, 7 g of salt, 10 g of olive oil and 160 g of water to make a 78% hydration dough.  We followed the exact same procedure as the white  poolish dough for gluten development and add in incorporation but immediately put it on the  heating pas to start fermenting and proving.- a 5 hour process.

 

The poolish dough joined the SD on the heating pad for the last 2 and a half hour of fermenting and proving.  We then divided (2) 180 g pieces of each to make the 4 what ever these turned out to be.   This left some of each dough left over - with way more multigrain SD than poolish.

 

Still working on Ians's bread for breakfast and lunch - we don't get tired of it!

 

We made a knotted roll and 4 balls out of the poolish to place in the bottom of a rice floured basket.  With the sourdough portion, we made and a large bialy shape to cover them and make a Mixed Italian Bread Chacon and set aside to proof again..

 

The tomato pot garden is just now starting to produce the bigger tomatoes to go with the cherries.

We rolled the Stromzone dough out to oval shaped rectangles slightly thicker than our ultra thin pizza crust thickness.  We then, over half the rolled out shape and leaving a 1/2” border, we piled up in layers; mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta, pizza sauce, pepperoni, smoked sausage, smoked chicken, caramelized veggies - with the green onion resting on top.

 

We folded over the other half and sealed the ‘pouch’ with rope twists of the crust where it came together.  They were then transferred to a parchment covered peel with a large dough scraper and the tops slit to let the steam out.

 

We had pre-heated the oven to 500 F and let it sit there for 20 minutes to let the top and bottom stones catch up to the oven air temperature.  As soon as the Stromzones were slid onto the bottom stone, we tuned the oven down to 425 F convection.  After 10 minutes we rotated the parchment paper 180 degrees and continued to bake for 10 more minutes.

 

We then rotated the pouches on the parchment paper 90 degrees twice - 5 minutes apart when we deemed the Stromzones done at the 30 minute mark.   We let these packets of goodness cool for 5 minutes before serving. 

 Yes, they were delicious and the ricotta made them different than our normal pizza – besides using a knife and fork to eat them!  We will make them again but since there are so much harder to make than pizza, we will probably start putting ricotta on pizza more often…. Such is life.  The Bi-color Chacon came out looking good with a little cracking where it should have.  It smells great from the outside.  Now that we have sliced it open, the crumb is soft and moist holes on the small to medium size.  The bottom SD is slightly darker than the poolish top making for a nice contrast.  The smell is phenomenal!  This bread will be used for some fine brisket using our homegrown tomatoes - tonight if  not for lunch.

aptk's picture
aptk

Baked in a cast iron skillet

MANNA's picture
MANNA

Here is my first bake from The French Baker by Sébastien Boudet. Came out very nice. I had to retard the final rise overnight in the fridge. Sleep was in need. Next morning I took it out and let it finish rising at room temp for a few hours. Has rye in it and that contributes to the flavor of the loaf. The family and I liked the loaf very much. The recipe says it makes one loaf. It was to big for my cast-iron cooker so I split it into two loafs. Came out fine.

Mebake's picture
Mebake

 Some years ago, I remember seeing tables lined up in a shopping Mall here in Dubai, where locally homemade Artisan crafts are displayed for sale. For months now, I have been planning on taking my home baking a step further, and the idea of selling bread to public was brewing slowly in my mind. So, I looked up for information on the Crafts Market, and found that “ARTE” or Arts and Crafts Market run a once in a month exhibition, were only locally handmade art work and craft items are featured by local Artisans.  A few months ago, I had e-mailed the Management of ARTE to ask whether food or specifically Homemade Artisan breads can be displayed during the event. The reply was swift; they welcomed the idea!

Last week, I decided to take the step. I felt that it was the right time for me to move forward and take this hobby to a new level. I decided to register myself at ARTE, and reserve a table for the next event. To my surprise, the reply came a few days later, inviting me to the upcoming market after 3 DAYS! Although I had registered for February market, I just couldn’t turn the opportunity down. I removed the starters from my fridge, and gave them a quick refresh.

For bread, I could not bake more than two varieties due to time constrains; a basic white sourdough, and whole wheat sourdough will be a good contrast in my baskets, I thought. The white sourdough was exactly David’s SJSD, and the whole wheat oats was a new recipe I had been working on earlier. The whole wheat- oats bread’s recipe is as follows:

Needless to say, It was a hectic 2 days, with two different recipes and a total of 6 Kg worth of dough.  After the breads were baked, I shopped for baskets and other necessities to make a proper presentation, and started planning on pricing and labeling. I didn’t have an idea about the general price range of food displayed in the market, so I decided to price bread based on my experience with store bought artisan breads. For instance a 520gm “White country bread” was priced @ 9 Dhs ($ 2.5).

On the Market day, I drove to the mall, parked my car, and unloaded the breads and equipments. The mall was already bustling with participants. I haven’t noticed much food being displayed; it was mostly handmade ornaments, jewelries, paintings, and healthy soaps/body fragrances.  I picked up my table no. through random draw, and headed for it straight away. As I walked around, I noticed that food tables were quite few, and none had bread. I located my table, and began preparing it for presentation. I cut slices of two misshapen loaves, and brought out butter and some disposable knives.

As time drew near to 12:00 p.m, there was a considerable increase in the number of mall visitors. They were from different nationalities, and many were from Europe (east and west) and some from the US. Gradually, i began to notice an increased interest in the bread, with a first client in about ½ an hour. She bought one loaf of each, after tasting the bread with butter. Before I knew it, I was sold out in 2 hours, and left with no breads after I had 8 of them; it was really exciting! The remainder of the time was spent on networking with visitors, and inviting them to taste the remaining slices. There was a considerable interest in Artisan bread among the market visitors, as sourdough aroma was wafting about my table. Despite the regret of not having baked enough bread, I was happy to witness the appeal that handmade sourdough breads had among people here. Some visitors noticed I had no bread left, and even demanded that I bake for them!

The Market day ended, and I packed my belongings and left home. It was surely a day to remember.

 

-Khalid

 

 

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

It seems everyone is enjoying cheesy bread's lately and with Ian's last post on Calzone and watching 'Diner's Drive Inns and Dives' hosting an old favorite diner of mine and it's Calzone's.  It has certainly put me in the mood for one.   

Mike had taken Saturday off from work to do a mountain bike race and neighbors were all home.  So I was make K.Forkish's levain pizza's for everyone.

 

Before making the pizza's.

My wood fired oven needed a pre-warm up.  I built a small fire and removed most of the coals and ash.  Thinking I might have enough heat stored in the oven for a little baking.  I decided to make up a quick one day dough for calzone's.  I found just the recipe from Beth Hensperger...mini calzone's.  So I made my version based on the one's I saw on DDID tv show and used BH dough recipe.  I liked it because it also had Semolina or Durum flour in it.

The calzone's were delicious and I was surprised at how light they were dispite the filling.  The crust was crisp and very tasty with the fillings.  Mike loved the one we cut open and ate while I prepared the pizza's.

The rest were frozen as suggested by BH. I liked that idea.  Just place them on a sheet pan freeze and then seal them in a freezer plastic bag, freeze and warm up later for a snack.

I placed them into my WFO and baked them for a few minutes.  I could see the oven was not quite hot enough so I had to remove them and finish baking them in my electric oven.  They turned out great and just needed a few more minutes in a good hot oven.

These are simple and delicious.  This was great time for simple and easy.  I had plenty to do later.

 

You can easily mix this dough up in your bread machine's dough cycle or by regular mixer.

Here's my version of the recipe.  You won't be disappointed and neither will your kid's, husband or game watcher's when it's snack time.

1 1/8 cups Water

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

340 g King Arthur All Purpose Flour

63 g of Durum Flour

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

2 3/4 teaspoons Instant Yeast

Filling

sliced/diced, ham, pepperoni, sweet Italian sausage cooked, provolone and parmesan cheese.  A dab or two of sun dried tomato in oil with pesto.

Egg wash - one egg yolk with about a TBsp of milk

sprinkle of sesame seeds and Italian oregano on top of calzone's.

 

  • Pre heat oven 425F - Bake apx. 25-30 - until nice and golden.

ADDED:

After your dough has proofed.  On a lightly flour a surface.  Divide into dough balls for how ever many calzone's you wish to make.  A couple of very large one's or mini's, it's up to you.  Roll into thin rounds, fill, shape and place them onto your parchment lined pan.  Then egg wash, slash, sprinkle with sesame seeds 'opt' and bake.  I didn't proof them any farther than the time it took to put them together.  They went right into the oven and baked.

I have frozen thawed them in the frig, nuked them, frozen and unfrozen and also heated them in my mini oven.  The froze and heated up beautifully.  

Roll out your prepared dough into about 8 or 12 mini calzone circle's.

layer half of the circle, leaving about one inch.  Egg wash edge and fold over and seal.

Egg wash top and sprinkle with oregano and sesame seeds.  Cut slits to vent.

Bake till golden, about 25 - 30 minutes on parchment lined pans.

oops, looks like I'm running out of battery.  I'll have to do any further posting 'proof read' later.

Sylvia

 

CAphyl's picture
CAphyl

 When my husband and i were in England for the holidays, I brought my sourdough starter with me. When our visit was nearing the end, I wanted to use up the fresh ingredients on hand for one last bake.  I made a classic sourdough recipe and after letting it proof overnight, I diced up tomatoes, drained them on paper towels and then seasoned them with salt and pepper, Italian seasoning and garlic powder.  While that sat for a bit, I did a number of stretch and folds with the dough.  I had some olives left, so I cut those up and kneaded the pieces into one loaf.  I flattened both of the loaves and laid in mozzarella cheese and then layered it with the tomato mixture.  I left an inch around and sealed them both shut.  I had some excellent grana padano cheese, so I grated it and put it on top of each loaf.  After baking for some time, I put mozzarella on top as well during the final few minutes of the bake.

My English family and friends really enjoyed it.  One friend made homemade leek and potato soup and heated the bread up to have for dinner.  I gave the other loaf to my nieces and their husbands.  My husband and i didn't even try them, so I will definitely have to make them again!

ElPanadero's picture
ElPanadero

Member Omid posted an excellent and very comprehensive blog on Iranian Barbari bread which can be viewed here if you haven't seen it:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/36357/persianiranian-barbari-bread

The result is a wonderfully subtle bread with slightly nutty undertones and a structure not too dissimilar to french baguette.  End to end I was surprised at just how simple these were to make.  They are well worth a go.

Recipe

The true recipe calls for a special flour called  “ard-e setareh”, which literally means "star flour" but I don't have this and have never seen it in the UK.  Thanks to Omid's comprehensive background info though I was able to select flour with a similar protein content of about 10-11%.  Actually, I used a 1/2 and 1/2 mix of T55 flour and my ordinary generic bread flour and as it turns out that worked rather well.

For my attempt at this I only made enough to make 2 small breads.  Using a domestic oven limits the length I can make the breads and I only have one rectangular bread stone so I baked them separately one after the other.

Flour (half T55 half generic)  -  366g (in total),  Water  -  250g,  Salt  -  7g,  Fresh Yeast -  1g

Process

I mixed the above ingredients according to Omid's description, water, then salt, then yeast then flour.  Kneaded the dough gently for 5 mins then left to rest for 20mins.  Formed a boule with the dough then left it in a plastic bowl with a smaller upturned bowl on top on the kitchen counter.  Left it there to prove overnight.  As I got up slightly late the next morning the dough had proved some 12-13hrs (rather than the required 11hrs) but it looked just fine, nice and bubbly.

I split it into 2 portions of 306g each and formed each into a small boule and left on a tray, covered by a plastic bag for a further 2-3 hrs at which point they looked like this:

Whilst these had been proving I made up some "sauce" with just flour and water as per Omid's instructions and brought it to a gentle boil on the hob.  Then left to cool.   I experienced some difficulty here because when it was later cool, it was pretty thick and gloopy, almost set which was clearly not right, so I discarded 1/2 and put more water in it, re-heated and left to cool again and all was then well.  The sauce looked like this:

Next stage was the shaping which traditionally requires Wheat Bran to be spread on the table first.  Unfortunately I found that I had none of this so I used 100% Wholewheat flour instead and sprinkled this over a glass chopping board and placed one of the dough portions on it, gently stretching it out a little.  I gently smeared the sauce all over it and then using my fingertips put in the characteristic grooves as below:

Then simply sprinkled sesame seeds over the top.  Meanwhile my oven had been warming to it's top temp of about 240C with my bread stone inside.  Now came the slightly tricky bit, transferring the bread to the stone whilst stretching it.  Having tried this I have to say that the consumate ease with which the bakers do this in Omid's video clips is incredibly misleading !  There is definitely a knack there garnered from years of experience !  First attempts lifting the dough with plams face up were somewhat dodgy and hamfisted but I got the dough on the stone in the end.  Later when I came to do the second piece, I did it with palms face down and that worked much much better.  In fact after putting one hand underneath one side and lifting up,  the dough stretched nicely by itself as it came off the board.

Into the hot oven it went for about 12mins and out it came like this:

Looked pretty good to me for a first attempt !  Left it to rest for 5 mins then cut in half to examine the crust and crumb which looked like this:

 

As you can see the top crust was thin and slighly crispy, the base firm but not crispy and the middle soft and chewy much like a french baguette.  I was very happy to see the crumb looking similar to Omid's !  There are numerous YouTube clips of other people's Barbari breads out there but many are not using the long fermentation and the crumbs produced are nothing like the above.  So the long 11hr + 5hr fermentation really pays dividends I think.

Overall taste was subtle with just a hint of nuttiness presumably from the wheat flour underneath and the sesame seeds on top.  Very nice indeed though I confess that I found myself longing for a bit of sea salt which I next time I shall sprinkle on top.

As an experiment, I treated the second piece of dough slightly different.  I happened to have some hemp seeds to hand (supposed to be very healthy!) so I ground some of those and sprinkled them on top along with a few sesame seeds.  It produced deeper nuttier tones than the first and whilst not wholly "traditional" was a pleasant tweak but again what I really wanted was sea salt on top.

Overall this is a lovely bread and is surprisingly easy to make.  The long fermentation is well worth the wait to produce both flavour and crumb texture.

Many thanks to Omid for giving such a comprehensive explanation of Barbari bread and hope others will try this too.

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