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This week I found time to come up for air and play with some of my Christmas toys, so I tried a little experimentation where I haven't been before, and also revisited familiar places where my skills can always improve.  The result is an interesting, but somewhat perplexing, apple-walnut sourdough, and more practice with croissants and my favorite poolish baguettes.

I've wanted to try an apple-walnut bread for some time, but frankly, I'm too lazy to either dry apples or buy dried apples.  So, my thought was this: why not puree an apple, make allowances for its hydration, and see what would result.  I used Hamelman's Vermont sourdough as my 'base' recipe.  To this I added a pureed Macintosh apple.  Now, according to my Google explorations, apples are about 85% water. Armed with this information, I adjusted the flour and water weights and mixed the dough, having built my levain over a 12 hour period.  The first thing I found is that even pureed, the apple has not released all of its water during the mix, so I ended up adding a small additional amount of water to reach a dough that felt right (Hamelman's Vermont sourdough is at 65% hydration, so I figure I upped it to about 68% - no big deal).

I mixed all ingredients except salt, did a 40 minute autolyse, and then added the salt and mixed for 3 minutes on speed 3 of my Hamilton Beach.  After, I added chopped walnuts and mixed on speed 1 for an additional minute.  Bulk fermentation was for 2 1/2 hours with two folds at 50 minute intervals.

The initial thing I noticed about this dough was that it was very slow in rising during the bulk fermentation.  After dividing and shaping, I left it for final proof downstairs where the temperature is a chilly 60 degrees F.  After 5 hours I was not satisfied with its progress and brought it upstairs to a more hospitable 68 degrees where it proofed for an additional 2 hours before baking.

Now, if this were simply Hamelman's Vermont sourdough both the fermentation and final proof would have been accomplished much sooner (unless I opted to retard overnight).  But with the addition of the apple and walnuts, the levain worked much, much more slowly.

The bake was fine - there was noticeable though not spectacular oven spring.  The profile, as you can see, is not bad, but not what I am used to when baking this recipe without additions.

Good things: instead of pieces of apple in the finished product, there are flecks of the peel and a nice, but not overwhelming flavor of apple, with some additional sweetness it brings.  The walnuts are a perfect complement.  The bread is surprisingly moist and has stayed fresh much longer than a straight sourdough.

I do wonder if there is something in the pureed apple that inhibits the levain (cue for anyone to offer opinions, or better yet, definitive answers).

Following the sourdough experiment I decided that, it being wintry and cold - outside and in my kitchen - it was a good time to revisit croissants.  Lately I've spent some time with our pastry bakers at work rolling out croissants, so I've developed some confidence in my shaping and overall in the feel, texture and thickness of the dough.  The results, shown below, were accomplished using a recipe adapted from Dan DiMuzio's excellent textbook, Bread Baking.  I laminated the dough using two single-folds and one double (book) fold.  I'm pretty pleased with the outcome and the crumb.  As with everything in baking, I'm finding that the 'secret' is pretty simple: practice, practice, practice.

Finally, I wanted to bake something for my friends at my local pub (which also supplies me with Sir Galahad flour in 50# bags), so I did a bake of poolish baguettes taken from Hamelman's recipe.  I've tweaked his to up the 68% hydration slightly via the poolish, but when I did the poolish mix last night, his recipe was closer to me than my spreadsheet, so this is straight from Bread.  I like it particularly because it demonstrates the openness of crumb that's attainable with a hydration that is not overly high.

I'm including a picture below of the ripened poolish for the benefit of anyone who is not familiar with what this should look like.  What I'd like to call attention to are the small rivulets of bubbles that have formed, displacing for the most part larger bubbles that dominate under-ripened poolishes. (And actually, this could have ripened for probably another 20 minutes or so, but my schedule pronounced it 'done' - and in any event I'd prefer a slightly under-ripened poolish to an over-ripened one).

Here are the 10 oz 17" baguettes (mini baguettes really) that emerged from my new FibraMent baking stone after 23 minutes at a temp of about 450 degrees F.

Aside from the few slices shown here, the rest was quickly devoured by patrons and kitchen staff at the Old Brogue Irish Pub.

Larry

Today was another snowday, so I again canceled a variety of plans to stay home with my son.   Amazing how nicely baking bread fits into that routine.   I had already planned to bake, but had no idea how I was going to fit it in, since I always manage to be out of the house at the exact moment that some essential step has to happen.   No such worries today.   I made Hamelman's 5 grain sourdough for the first time, as well as yet another iteration on my own elusive sourdough.  Actually I made Hamelman's 5 minus 1 plus replacements sourdough.  Since I don't like sunflower seeds, I upped the flax seeds and oats.  I don't have cracked rye (or know what it is) and had just bought a tiny bag of wheat berries, having no idea what to do with them, so I threw them into a coffee grinder and gave them a whirl, and voila - cracked something.   The resulting bread is just awesomely tasty.   Only after I tasted it did I run to this site and search, and see how them as come before me have raved about it.   Absolutely delicious, and compared to what I've been trying to make lately, like a walk in the park.   What other jewels is Hamelman hiding up his sleeve?   Not that he has any duds as far as I can tell.  But some are better than others, and this is just amazing.  

and rye and white sourdoughs side by side:

I Love Lavash!  I love this video! I love their team-work and syncrinization. I love their skill and precision.  I Love this music.

Does anyone know the words to this song?

Watch on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uY54Jy1lDA

Despite the advice of my graduate school advisor- "Rules are for suckers" (an attitude which I have always thought accounted for the number of indictments among those who went to the Dear Old Place) I have always been the kind of person who tries to follow the rules.

So when (shameless plug coming) the Bread Baker's Guild of America (BBGA) tells me that soakers should be "hydration neutral" - I'll do my best to comply. This week's bake however left me wondering about glib statements and vowing that some teacher in some class in the hopefully near future will be faced down with unrelenting questions about what the heck that means and how does one achieve it.

So it seems I have tipped my hand that I have included another soaker in my formula for panned bread.

In what can be considered a daring move for me, I also included a pre ferment (Varying two things at a time - oh! the horror!). True to my nature, I agonized about just what kind of pre ferment to include. I just knew that a touch of levain would add depth to the flavor of the bread, but I thought long and hard about the general tone I have sensed on these pages that one must use levain to produce great bread. I continue to hold on to my belief that commercial yeast can still make great breads, but when push came to shove I realized that I have plenty of starter just hanging about the house waiting to be put to use, and it was foolish not to do it. Not that I wanted a pure levain bread - but a little bit couldn't hurt. As an offset to this I did lower the yeast content.

But first, on to the soaker. I had some wheat bran in the house from an earlier milling run. Always mindful of folks' desire to get a little more "roughage" in the diet in painless ways, I was thinking about the bran - which could be re-milled to powdery softness and maybe - put in a soaker! How to determine "hydration neutral"? I thought that I had a method for that - just put a measured amount of water to the bran and then the next morning strain out the water and voila - hydration neutral!

I was alarmed when the bran/water mixture became more a slurry than anything else but assumed (and you know what that makes of you and me) that in the morning the bran would settle to the bottom and all would be well.

Meanwhile, I mixed up the pre ferment, which I made at 60% hydration so as not to use up too much of the water that would be poured over the oatmeal. I only wanted a touch of flavor, so I settled on 5% of the flour in the pre ferment (which is somewhat in line with what I have been using in my lean hybrid breads.) And so - to sleep, perchance to - oh, you know.

Next morning full of the optimism that a warm and sunny day in the Mile High City always inspires in me, I confronted my bran soaker (well, the first thing - and I do mean the very first thing - I did when hitting the kitchen was to heed the words of "my teacher" who told us that we need to invoke our "baker's instinct" and always check the pre ferments upon entering "the bakery") which had, indeed, not settled out into any kind of distinct layers, but sat in the bowl as the same slurry it was the night before. As I poured it into my finest sieve, little water came out and it remained in the sieve as a quivering, gelatinous mass - not dripping water, but distinctly moist. Hydration neutral my clavicle.  Nothing to do but mix it in and see what happened.

What happened was a gloppy mess in the bowl of my precioussss. I've seen slack doughs in my life, but this was beyond that. I added measured amounts of flour until it became a soft, sticky dough.

Of course, we are not supposed to do this. Why? Anyone? Bueller? That's right. Because we add other ingredients as percents of the flour and greatly adjusting the amount of flour will throw off the balance of the formula. But in my defense, this is formula development - not a final bread to be sold to customers. The formula presented below shows amounts against my adjusted amount of flour.

I have considered (and rejected) doing an intensive mix for this bread to up the volume (although the volume is certainly acceptable). I've had the opportunity to taste what intensive mix will do to baguettes and while this bread is deriving plenty of flavor and color from the molasses, I still wanted to preserve the wheat flavor by not mixing intensively. Although I do consider that I am being chicken hearted with my mixing times with some other products...

After a fold, the dough behaved very well and was shaped/proofed and baked.

How was the bread? I was right about the levain - it added depth of flavor without making the bread sour. The bran was invisible and did not interfere with the rise at all, nor did it seem to taste of anything. I'm not sure the bran was worth the effort and I'll be removing that from the next iteration (Bran Soaker, please pack your knives and go!). The levain will move forward, although I'm considering how that might morph next week.

Still no pictures this week. I am doing a little work with the doctors at "the place" about why I hate photography so much and perhaps next week. But the loaves were brown little loaves - fine crumb.

In the meantime, here's the formula that I used just so the record is complete. It isn't bad - it's just that the bran soaker was more trouble than it was worth.  This doesn't have all the cool color codes of the BBGA formula format, but the actual data is in the correct format.  Don't be too distressed by the baker's percentages - they are actually calculated as they should be and are correct, but may be just slightly different than others you have seen.

Because I haven't converted the oatmeal solution to a proper soaker (since apparently I don't know how), there is a bit of variation with boiling water (for the oatmeal) and levain water being two separate water measurements.

If you are baking this bread - do NOT use the "Total Dough" column to mix or weigh anything.  Use the "soaker" area to weigh/mix for the soaker, the levain area to weigh/mix the levain, and the final dough area to weigh/mix your final dough.  This is similar to, but not identical to the usage of columns in "Bread, etc".  Be careful.  I have a little quip about this, but it is too rude for TFL. 

Combine the two types of oats, boiling water, milk powder and shortening.  Allow to cool to lukewarm. 

Add the salt, molasses, yeast, levain, soaker, and flour.  Mix 5 minutes on the single speed of the spiral mixer. Or use your preferred method of mixing.

Let rise until doubled - 2 hours at cool room temperature.  Fold.  Let rise again - about 2 hours at cool room temperature. 

Shape and place in greased pans.  Proof (1 hour) and bake at 375F for 40 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool on a rack.

Until next time - Happy Baking!

With all this talk on the forum about miche lately, I've been itching to give it a try.  So when the excellent dmsnyder posted the formula for the miche he made in the SFBI Artisan II workshop, I decided that the time was now and the bread should be here!

I followed the very nicely written formula at the link, using a small amount of whole wheat flour in the Levain and toasted wheat germ in the final build, as I've no good source for high-extraction whole wheat flour.  I made the levain with 25% whole wheat flour, 75% KAF AP (and my starter had been fed the same mix), to get approximately 3.33% whole wheat in the final dough (it actually ends up being a bit more, but I didn't worry about it).

I must say, this is an excellent formula, and an excellent bread.  Incredible oven spring.  Wonderful alliterative potential too: My massive mighty miche makes mastication memorable.

Anyway, pictures:

From the top

Another external view

Miriam meets miche

Not a bad crumb either.

We sliced it 7 hours after it came out of the oven.  Lovely flavor and texture, lots of character.  Looking forward to snacking on the remaining three quarters of a loaf  I'd definitely make it again, although unlike dmsnyder, the notion of upgrading to a 2kg loaf sounds intimidating!  If nothing else, there's no way that would fit in my poor little banetons.  I guess there's always the "napkin in a bowl" trick, eh?

As someone who's always fed their sourdough culture 1:1:1 (i.e. equal amounts culture,flour,water: keeps things simple!, although for flour I use 2/3rds wholemeal to 1/3rd white), making a 1:5:6 (culture,flour,water) 'levain build' was a bit daunting. I needn't have worried, as the levain was perfectly active by mid-morning when I was ready to bake.

I let the oats soak in water for 10mins then added & mixed the rest of the ingredients except the sultanas (UK=golden raisins?) which I added after 40 mins. I did almost no kneading, just briefly after mixing to make sure the ingredients were fully incorporatedacclimatise & again briefly after adding the sultanas. The dough, which was tacky but not sticky (drier than I'm used to), passed the windowpane test before I added the sultanas.

I gave the dough an air-fold after an hour. An hour later, when I should have been shaping, my partner Tess was dragging me out of the house on account of it being a beautiful day (& I think she was trying to avoid some onerous paperwork!), so I put the dough in the fridge.

2.5 hours later the dough was back out of the fridge, and after another hour to reacclimatise, I scaled it 2x500g & preshaped round; 25mins later I shaped two batards & put them in floured bannetons. Another 1.5 hours and they were ready for baking; after 35 mins, these emerged:





Nice springy crumb, with the creaminess you get from oats & no discernible sourdough flavour (due probably to the small proportion of mature culture used in the build), but lots of sultana taste. Great with butter & I'm sure even better toasted after a few days.

Hey guys! Here's my post about Casatiello, an enriched bread with cheese and meat. I'm doing the BBA Challenge for a project in my high school. My brother and I share a blog (he's going to start writing soon) where we document our journey through the Bread Baker's Apprentice. Here's the link: http://bakingacrosscountry.wordpress.com/

Casatiello, a Neapolitan Easter bread, is also known as Tortano in other parts of Italy. The word casatiello is derived from the Neapolitan word for "cheese." Casatiello is enriched bread, much like brioche, with the addition of cured meat and cheeses. Traditionally, Italians add salami and pecorino-romano and/or provolone cheeses.

Like many other breads, casatiello has religious significance. The rising dough represents the resurrection of Christ on Easter. The traditional circular shape represents Christ's crown, and the eggs on top signify His rebirth.

To incorporate the meat and cheese, Reinhart kneads in these additions. However, while researching other recipes, they call for the dough to be rolled out flat, sprinkled with meat and cheese, and rolled up like a sandwich loaf. The traditional casatiello is topped with raw eggs, covered with dough crosses. When baked, the eggs atop the casatiello are similar to hard-boiled eggs. Reinhart bakes his bread in tall mold, like a coffee can, lined with a paper bag. However, many traditional recipes call for the dough being shaped in ring and baked in a tube pan.

In comparison to many of Reinhart's recipes, this bread can be made in one day, rather than retarding overnight. However, he does use a sponge to add more flavor to his bread. I began by mixing flour and yeast, which I added warm milk to. I let this ferment for about an hour, until it collapsed when tapped the bowl.

Meanwhile, I shredded some provolone cheese, and diced some salami. I sautéed the salami for a few minutes, and it rendered some fat and became slightly crispy.

Next, I mixed flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of my Kitchen Aid. Next, I added eggs and the sponge to the flour mixture, and mixed until it became a ball. After resting a few minutes, (known as autolyse), I added ¾ cup of room temperature butter in 4 additions. The dough was sticky and soft, and I kneaded it for about 5 minutes until it became slightly tacky and smooth.

I sprinkled the meat over the dough, and tried to knead it in the mixer. However, the salami just whizzed around the bowl, so I decided to knead by hand. After the meat was incorporated, I added the cheese, which mixed in much easier than the meat. I let the mixed dough rest for about an hour and a half, for the first rise.

Since I didn't have coffee tins, and I didn't want to stray from Reinhart's recipe, I chose to bake the casatiello in two loaf pans. I shaped it like I would sandwich bread- I flattened it into a rectangle and rolled it into a tight cylinder. Remembering my mishap while shaping the brioche, I made sure to seal these loaves extra tight. After being shaped, I let the dough rise for the final time for about 90 minutes.

The loaves baked in a 350 degree oven until they were golden brown, and the insides reached about 190 degrees. Unlike the brioche, they were not glazed, but the top was speckled with dark bits of cheese.

When I cut into the loaf, I could see the bits of melted cheese, which made this cool, web-like structure in the bread. Maybe because I'm not a fan of cured meats is the reason that I didn't really find this bread to my liking. Although I liked the rich and soft texture of the bread, I didn't like the bits of salami. I probably should have cubed the meat finer, so it was more evenly distributed. I made this bread with my mentor, Mr. Esteban, in mind. He does not like sweet breads and casatiello is the epitome of the savory kind he would enjoy.

Esposito, Mary Ann. "Neapolitan Stuffed Easter Bread/Neopolitan Casatiello." Ciao Italia. PBS, 2011. Web. 18 Jan 2011. <http://www.ciaoitalia.com/>.

Reinhart, Peter. The Bread Baker's Apprentice. 1st ed. . New York, New York: Ten Speed Press, 2001.129-132. Print.

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80% Rye with a Rye Soaker, plus Black Strap Molasses

Very close to 2kg weight of paste, baked in a Pullman Pan, resulting in beautiful bitter sweet flavour!

This is close to Jeffrey Hamelman's recipe in "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes"   pp.213-4.   The differences I used were as follows:

• Rye Sour is prepared as a liquid culture with water at 1.67 times the flour.


• Molasses in the formula at 4% on flour


• Overall hydration is increased to 85%


• High Gluten flour is substituted with regular Strong White Bread Flour [Allinson, 12% protein]


• There is no added yeast in the final paste.

Impact of relying on the Sour only for leavening meant 40 minutes bulk fermentation, then 2 hours 20 minutes final proof in the Pullman Pan.

Bake profile was 2 hours at 160°C, with a pan of water in the oven.

For more information on this bread, see my earlier postings, here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21307/some-variations-hamelman039s-quot80-sourdough-rye-ryeflour-soakerquot and here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17539/slight-variations-two-more-formulae-hamelman039s-quotbreadquot

Pain au Levain using both a Wheat Levain and a Rye Sourdough

Hamelman (2004) has a similar concept in his book, above, but this formula is quite different in a number of ways.   Full details are given below:

Method:

• Build both the rye sour and wheat levain using 2 elaborations plus stock starters, over a 30 hour period for the Rye and a 15 hour period for the Wheat.
• For the final dough, first of all use autolyse, combining flour, water and rye sour. Leave for 40 minutes
• Combine autolyse with wheat levain and mix for 5 minutes. Add salt and mix a further 5-10 minutes.
• Ferment in bulk, covered, for 2 hours. Stretch and fold, and leave a further half hour.
• Scale at 1.5kg + 1kg piece. Mould round. And place upside down in prepared Bannetons.
• Proof in the fridge for 1 hour, then ambient for 2 hours prior to baking.
• Pre-heat oven to 250°C, hold for 10 minutes before setting the bread onto hot bricks.
• Fill a roasting pan with hot stones with boiling water for steam, and cut the top of the loaves before setting to bake. After 15 minutes drop the heat to 220°C. After another 30 minutes drop the temperature to 200°C and completely bake out each loaf.
• Cool on wires

Ok, so there is evidence that my hands are not so clean; please don't make comments about this oversight on my part; the photographs are posted to be instructive and helpful.   Thanks for appreciating this!

The finished dough was strong, resulting in a lovely finished flavour in the bread.   How I wish domestic ovens had sufficient power to do these large loaves full justice.

Best wishes

Andy

My name is Bridgette Byers, and I am a student at the Art Institute of Nashville. For the next 10 weeks I am going to be blogging about the happenings in my Artisan Breads class. This week in class we made several different types of breads. Those breads included sesame bread, crissonts, middle class brioche, cranberry-orange scones, yeast doughnuts, and different types of mixing methods.

The first day in class we made the dough for everything except for the yeast doughnut dough. We then let those doughs ferment for the 5 hours of class, as well as degasing/pounding down, stretching, and folding these doghs. At the end of class we put them in the fridge and let them chill over night.  In the process of all of this we made our scones. I am not a big fan of scones due to how dry they can become. However, the scones that we made werent too dry and tasted wonderful. We also found out that these scones taste slightly better with some sort of glaze on top.

The second day of class we came in and took all of the dough out of the fridge and let them come to room temperature. In our waiting process we began to make the dough for the yeast doughnuts. After that we began to form our dough into the desired shape and put them in the proofer and began proofing the dough. After proofing the dough we put them in the deck over, steamed them, and then left them to bake into their delicious form.

Now, I would have to say that making dough can be a messy process, but it is the most fun thing i have done since being at the this school for culinary. My major is Baking and Pastry and I am to receive my diploma in July of this year. I would have to say that I am definitley not a big fan of any type of pastry. Which means that I am more of a Baker than anything. So far this class has convinced me that I should be a baker, no more , no less. I love making bread, to me it is a fascination to see dough go from flat to puffy to huge in a matter of hours. This is my first weeks blog, I will keep you posted as the next 10 week come along. =D

Before I went and watched my boss's dogs and house while he was away on vacation, I managed to bake a few loaves of bread that I did not get a chance to blog about.

The first loaf was a 100% whole wheat mash bread from Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.

I was rather curious about this loaf after having made a few rye breads using Hamelman's hot rye soaker technique. What I remembered from those loaves is the mash imparted a slightly sweet taste to the final loaf as if there was a touch of sugar or honey. Bwraith blogged about this bread as well seen here; Whole Wheat Mash Bread. There is no need for me to rewrite the recipe since it is available on Bwraith's blog, which he kindly supplied in his post.

I only made two changes to the loaf. I used a whole wheat starter in place of the biga, as Reinhart provides as an alternative leavening agent. Also I left out the suggested sweetener in the recipe for two reasons; I felt many of Reinhart's recipes from WGB to be far too sweet to begin with, and second because I wanted to see the potential of the mash. To my surprise I found the end loaf to have a full 'whole grain' taste which I desired, a slightly sour taste, but only a slightly sweet taste too. I half-expected the wheat mash to match the rye mashes I have dealt with before, but to my surprise it couldn't compare. Though this loaf was still very tasty. I imagine the sweetness I was looking for has to do with the more ferment-able sugars found in rye.

The next loaf of bread I baked was from The Culinary Institute of America's Baking and Pastry book.

It was a simple whole wheat sourdough. The end product though after an over night retardation provided a very, very tasty loaf in my opinion that certainly surpassed what I was expecting. The formula and procedure follows;

Whole Wheat levain

Ingredients                         Bakers %              Weight

Bread Flour (Sir galahad)     50%                     5.4 oz

Whole Wheat Flour              50%                     5.4 oz

Water (DDT 76)                  75%                     8.1 fl oz

100% Starter *                   40%                    4.32 oz

Salt (Grey Sea Salt)            2.7%                   .3 oz

*Starter used was a 50/50 of Sir Galahad and Fresh Milled 100% Whole wheat flour. As with the whole wheat flour used in the loaf, it too was fresh milled.

Method

1.  Combine the flours, water, sourdough and mix on low speed for about 4 minutes. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes. Add the salt and mix 1 minute on low and then 2 minutes on medium. Aim for a improved stage of gluten development. The dough should be slightly soft but elastic.

2.  Bulk ferment the dough until nearly doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Though it took me about 3 hours in a cold apartment. Fold gently and ferment for another hour. Fold again. Ferment for another 20 minutes.

3.  Preshape the dough into a round and let rest for 15 - 20 minutes.

4.  Gently shape the loaf into a batard or round when sufficiently relaxed.

5.  Place in a banneton lightly floured and covered with plastic overnight in the fridge to have a slow final rise.

6.  When the dough has risen, or the next morning, preheat your oven with your dutch oven or cc, or latest crazy steaming method to 470F.

7. When preheated, remove bread from retarder, load into your oven, score and cook covered (or steamed) for twenty minutes. After twenty minutes remove steaming apparatus, bake in a dry oven for 17 minutes, or until loaf registers 200F, sounds hollow when thumped or looks nice and done to you!

8. Cool completely, slice and enjoy.

Two different loaves, but both very tasty.