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As the weather has turned cooler, my sourdough breads have become less tasty. They have  had a less complex flavor and have been less tangy than those baked last Summer. My kitchen is in the mid-60's of late, while it was in the high-70's (or low-80's)  in the heat of summer. So, in the interest of science and other noble causes, I set out to return my SFSD to its rightful tastiness.

The truth is that I changed a number things at once, which is poor scientific methodology. But  I think I know what made the biggest difference, and the important thing is that I made some really good bread.

The basic formula and methods for my San Francisco-style Sourdough with increased whole wheat can be found here: San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with increased whole wheat flour And here is what I did differently:

1. I fed my levain with some firm starter that had been refrigerated for about 3 days, rather than freshly refreshed starter.

2. I fermented the levain for 9 hours at 76 dF, rather than overnight at room temperature. I then refrigerated it for about 12 hours.

3. I mixed the autolyse with water warmed to 90 dF rather than cool water.

4. After a 1 hour autolyse, I mixed the dough and fermented it in bulk at 76 dF for 4 hours.

5. I then divided the dough and shaped boules and refrigerated for 24 hours.

6. I baked at 475 dF for 12 minutes, then convection baked at 445 dF for 14 minutes more.

Here is the result:

The crust is a little darker than usual. I prefer it this way. And the crumb ...

Mixed at the same hydration level as usual, this dough was noticeably  more slack from the time I mixed the autolyse. I guess that must be because my flour had more water content with the cooler whether. I think that is why I got the much more open crumb. It is also possible that increased enzyme activity played a role.

In any event, this bake produced bread with a crunchy crust, chewy but tender crumb and a delicious flavor that was both more complex and more tangy than my previous few bakes of this bread. I think I have a new procedure, at least until hot weather returns.

We often have bread that is a few days old and starting to get a bit dry, even for breakfast toast.  I hate throwing out bread, and I seldom do. Many of my favorite dishes made with bread of advancing age are made with croutons - slices of bread that I dry in the oven before using.

Except when drying bread for salad croutons or breadcrumbs, I slice it thinly and put it on a baking sheet or pizza pan. If I want it to remain pale, I convection bake the slices at 250 dF for 15 minutes on each side. If I want the slices browned, I convection bake at 350 dF for 15 minutes on one side, then turn them over, brush them with EVOO and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes. Then, depending on how I am going to use them, I may rub the warm, dried slices with a clove of garlic. That's what I did for these ...

These croutons served to support heaps of grated gruyere cheese, floating in onion soup and run under the broiler for 90 seconds before serving. 

Croutons made in this way are also delicious put in the bottom of a soup bowl before filling it with ribollita or another hearty soup.

The slices of SFSD can also be toasted in a toaster and then left in the toaster for a few minutes to dry out further. That method makes a nice base for crostini. These are topped by a chicken giblet dice sautéed in olive oil with shallots, herbs and madera wine.

The giblets came surrounded by a whole chicken! We roasted it while eating the crostini and discussing how we really should have just made the crostini our dinner. 

Happy baking!

David

I have recently become somewhat interested in making sourdough at home (OK, maybe slightly more than interested...). I've always loved bread but never made it seriously until recently. Last year I enrolled in Stratford Chefs School where I got my hands doughy again in pastry class, and I'm now in second year. I've made a few different kinds of breads (Baguettes, Sours, Sourdough Ryes, Pain Rustique, Potato bread, so on) but have not had any real repetitional experience, often just make the bread once or twice.  

It being Christmas Vacation and all, I decided I would try to tighten up my technique a bit, as well as stock the freezer for the looming second semester of school. I've been focusing on sourdough because its what I enjoy most at the moment, and my house mates and I go through a few loaves a week. 

Here is my bake from december 15th, it was my first time making bread in this house, and making this sourdough recipe solo. I want to improve the crumb, and have it open up more, but am still happy with the results considering the quality of oven I'm using. I bake in an electric still oven, using aluminum pots or cast iron dutch ovens, sometimes hotel pans (AKA 1/3 inserts). 

Stratford Sourdough - makes 2 x 700 gram loaves

Build:

AP Flour   104 g

Rye Flour  7.5 g

Water        69 g

Culture      22.5 g

Final Mix:

AP Flour   712.5 g

Rye Flour  35 g

Water        500 g

Salt           16.5 g

Build          all 

Did an Autolyse for roughly 20 minutes, mixed by hand, and folded in 30 minute increments about 7 times. 20 minute bench rest. Shaped into baneton and Roughly a 2 hour final fermentation. Baked for 25 minutes (covered) in a hotel pan and dutch oven, and an additional 4-7 minutes (uncovered). I like them somewhat dark. 

Any advice to increase the opening of the crumb would be welcome!

Cheers, 
Nick 

So I was making some bread for the holidays and I decided to try using scissors to make my cuts since I had little success using a knife. I am still contemplating buying a razor.  But this is what I got with my shears...nothing fancy. The top left was basically an octagon or circle cut. He top right was intended to be a square and the bottom was a simple snip in the center and a second perpendicular snip in the middle.  

  I received a Nutrimill for a present from my wife last week....another new toy to play with!  I've ground fresh flour in small batches in my coffee grinder, but it is no comparison to using the Nutrimill.  I have yet to purchase any drum sieves to sift the flour and I definitely want to buy some bulk grains as soon as I can find a good source.

For my first attempt I used whatever I had on-hand which was Kamut, Hard Red Whole Wheat and Hard White Whole Wheat.  I used the Kamut to make the levain and also made a scald with some of the white whole wheat.

I added the scald ingredients to the hydration calculations but I think I did something wrong as I'm coming up with a crazy number for the hydration with add-ins.  The potatoes were calculated at 81% water content which as something to do with it.  In any regards, the dough is a bit on the wet side but the fresh grains really soak up the water, so it's not that hard to handle.

I added the potatoes which I had left-over from making potato pierogies over the holidays and it had cream cheese, butter and milk in them.  This was probably the best tasting pierogies filling I've made to date.

I also used some honey to try to cut some of the bitterness from the whole wheat and made the scald for the same reason.

All in all, for the first loaf made with my milled flour it was very good.  The loaf is very tasty with a moderately open crumb and a nice crust.  I sent one of these off to Arizona as a belated present to Max's friend Lucy and DA.  I hope they enjoy it along with the Orange Shandy Durum Semolina bread.

Formula

Levain Directions

Mix all the Levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  I usually do this the night before.

Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

Scald Directions

Boil the water in a small sauce pan and add the flour.  Mix until you end up with a paste.  This should take only a minute or two and then you can remove from the heat and let it cool down before using in the main dough.

 Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours, and water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Let it rest in your work bowl covered for 20-30 minutes.  Next add the salt, starter (cut into about 7-8 pieces), potatoes, and honey and mix on low for 3 minutes.  Mix on medium for another 3 minutes and then remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.  I made 1 large boule shape.   Place your dough into your proofing basket(s) and cover with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray.  The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature.  Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 550 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, score as desired and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 500 degrees and after another 3 minutes lower it to 450 degrees.  Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 210 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

Now, where were we?

I have left baking bread for a while now. I moved to the so-called big city into an apartment with a decidedly large living area but comparably small kitchen. Sharing with three other people caused issues and I really need reign over the whole thing when baking bread. I couldn't have it, so I instead gorged myself on what was locally available--and there are a decent amount of bakeries here in Halifax. I never stopped admiring and eating bread. Just stopped baking it, really.

Well, it's a new year and a fresh start. I've been in a new apartment for several months now which houses only me and my partner. He is quite happy to let me take over the kitchen, especially since he often reaps the benefits. I am determined to start again.

I've started my journey with a batch of Pain de Campagne from The Village Baker. I can already say that it's not a success. But all things relative, it's a success in that I'm starting again.

What a monster!

I can tell you what the problems were. Overproofed. I think the creation of the poolish was probably fine, but a warm kitchen assisted in causing this dough to rise too quickly. At a couple points in the proofing, I thought to myself, that's done now, you should move it forward to the next step. I ignored my instincts because it was a fraction of the time called for in the recipe, and it's been so long, I thought I should follow the steps to the letter.

I still moved things along a little faster than I was supposed to--rising for 45 minutes instead of an hour and a half, for example--but not fast enough, I don't think.

What can be done? The taste is fine, and the crust is actually lovely. The crumb itself is not terribly impressive--not even photogenic enough to show you, though.

However, I'm determined not to be upset about this. This bread will still be good for toast, for serving alongside a hearty winter stew, and for the first step of hopefully many. 

This is really good and has an intense chocolate flavor.

Recipe can be found here:

http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/130390/Delicious-Chocolate-Quick-Bread/detail.aspx

I used Ghirardelli cocoa powder and Ghirardelli dark chocolate (60% Cacao) chips, and just as it came out of the oven I drizzled it with a quarter cup of home made caramel sauce to make like a turtle topping. Really good stuff!

I spied some chocolate hazelnut pastry in the deli yesterday and that set off the craving. I did a google search and came up with this recipe:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/biscotti/ChocolateHazelnutBiscotti.html

I scaled the formula to one half  and discovered I had only 20g of brown sugar and needed 105g. I improvised by adding 60g white sugar and 25g malt syrup. The results are outstanding! Next bake of these goodies, I will use all brown sugar, but reduce the amount and continue to use the barley syrup. YUMMMMM!

Happy baking folks and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! Brian

 I made a traditional Polish Piernik (Honey Cake) for the holidays this year and it came out as nice as I remembered them being from childhood. The whole house smelled like Christmas when I was baking too - so many fond memories!  

I love spelt but not too much of it.  My high percentage spelt loaves have turned out fine, but somehow don't get eaten up, even by me.  Today I made a Pain au Levain with added Spelt and kept the spelt to 21%.   To my taste at least, this is ideal.   The resulting loaf has that special nutty fresh taste that spelt in small enough quantities provides.  

Using Janet's Cadco techniques plus my  new steel plate, I got some good ovenspring.  Perhaps too good.

I also wanted to come back to the fig anise bread.   I baked the La Brea formula several times, and it was a big hit, but I felt vaguely uneasy, as it is very sweet and incredibly figgy.    I decided to take it down a notch by leaving out the fig puree, reducing the sugar, adding some whole grains, and upping the hydration.   The resulting loaf seems just as figgy even without the puree, still quite sweet, and somewhat more interesting with the added whole wheat.   I accidentally added more water than I had intended, by a lot.   Despite being somewhat perplexed by how wet and slippery the dough was, it still handled reasonably well, and behaved properly.   If anything I would reduce the figs and sugar even more, and perhaps up the whole wheat.   In any case, this version was more satisfying to me than the original.   It almost seems that when you get a lot of figs in there it hardly matters what the underlying bread is made of as the figs conquer all.   

Some time ago, my husband and I ate out at a Portuguese restaurant in East Cambridge.    The bread was amazingly good.   The dinner not so much.   As this hardly ever happens (usually a good dinner is accompanied by just so-so bread) I needed to find out more.   The owner told me that the bread was Broa - Portuguese cornbread.    More questions didn't lead to more answers, as it turns out they don't bake it themselves.

I searched around, and didn't find much on Broa.   Clayton had a quite unsatisfying version in his book.   Then a comment on TFL led me back to my own bookshelf.  Greenstein has a recipe in his Secrets of a Jewish Baker, not really the place I expected to find it.   Greenstein uses volume measurements and it has been so long since I've baked using them that I felt all at sea.   I weighed everything and took notes so I would be able to figure out what I had done.   The dough was incredibly dry - almost like putty, and very salty - perhaps I misunderstood.   To make matters worse I used Masa Harina, and that was just a mistake, as the bread ended up tasting like tortillas.   When I went back and calculated percentages, not surprisingly the hydration was around 50%, and the salt was 2.6%!   Furthermore, the method used was very fast - not even a bulk ferment - and so I thought the flavor was pretty dull excepting the lime treatment of the corn flour which was not a plus. 

I went back to it, and decided to do things a bit differently.   I used starter instead of a boatload of yeast, upped the hydration somewhat, used remilled cornmeal for the corn flour (Greenstein's suggestion) and started over.   This was definitely an improvement, but I don't think I've come close to the delicious bread I had in that restaurant.   Anyone know how to make this authentically?

Happy New Year everyone.

12/28/13 - Tangzhong + Rye Scald + Rye Sour + Too much dough for too small a pan = Balloon Bread

So this is from this morning's bake.  I decided last night to try and mix a bunch of elements into one bread to see what would happen...  This experiment consists of Tangzhong water roux, rye scald, rye sour, mostly AP flour, buttermilk powder, an egg, honey, salt, and a little bit of instant dry yeast.  My recipe made a little over 1kg of dough, which put the dough which filled my pan about 2/3 of the way.  The dough was pretty wet, so I couldn't really knead the dough very well so I resorted to stretching and folding in a plastic tub...  Anyway, this dough was proofed overnight in the pan covered with plastic wrap.  In the morning, it had risen about 1/2" above the form, so it was pretty much dumped into the oven as soon as I could heat it up to baking temp...

See the nice balloon top below?  I should have divided the dough into 2 pieces, but it was too late for that...

Crumbshot!  Pretty nice, but was did not have the shreddable crumb that I was looking for.  What it did have was a nice slightly sweet taste, and it toasts up very well.  See photos below with butter and grape jelly...

Happy baking!

Tim