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Well, I haven't been active here in quite awhile, but I do still check in from time to time to see what people are baking and to just pick up some tips here and there.

But I baked a focaccia yesterday and wrote up the recipe to post for some folks on a couple of other sites, so I thought I might as well share here too, in case anyone is interested. I'm just going to put it up how I did on the other sites and try to fix up the formatting for how it works here. Here goes:

Notes:

• I use instant yeast, the recipe will need to be altered slightly for active dry if that's all you have. For active dry yeast, use lukewarm water, add yeast to warm water, add 1 tablespoon flour, let sit for ten minutes until bubbly, then add mixture to flour.
• It's simplest to measure if you're working with a kitchen scale, and that's how I do it, but I will include volume measurements in case you don't have one.
• For the herbed olive oil I tend to mix up whatever sounds good. Usually I'll do something like a clove or two of crushed/minced garlic, and some rosemary, oregano, and black pepper. I've also sometimes just done the garlic and some "italian seasoning" spice mix. You could also leave out the garlic if you like. All references to olive oil mean extra virgin.
• Oversized parchment paper is very helpful in that it allows you to line your jelly roll pan all the way up the side. I use stuff that is 15" wide and it does the job nicely.

First day:

Sponge:

• 250 g (2 cups) flour (Bread flour or other high gluten flour recommended)
• 250 g (9 ounces, 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp) water
• 1/16 tsp yeast

Mix yeast into flour, add water, mix until the flour is wet, it will be a thick batter. Let sit covered overnight or at least four hours, at room temperature.

Next day:

Herb oil:

• 1.25 cups olive oil
• Herbs (Crushed garlic, fresh ground black pepper, dried oregano, dried basil, dried thyme, dried rosemary)

Heat the oil in a small saucepan over low heat, add the herbs. After 5-10 minutes or if any of the herbs start to brown, remove from heat. Allow to cool to somewhere in the lukewarm-room temp range

Dough:

• Sponge (It should be bubbly by now)
• 375 g (3 cups) flour
• 13 g (2 tsp) salt
• 4 g (1.25 tsp) yeast
• 100 g (1/2 cup) herbed olive oil
• 250 g (9 ounces, 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp) water

Toppings:

• 1/4-1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (asiago or romano also work nicely)
• 5-7 cloves garlic, sliced thin
• a sprig or two of fresh rosemary

This is just what I used this time, feel free to use whatever sounds good to you.
---
Add yeast and salt to flour, Mix well.

Put all dough ingredients in a large (5 qt or so) mixing bowl and mix well until all of the flour is wet. It will not be smooth, don't worry about that. Cover and let sit for a half hour or so.

Oil your hands (use your herbed oil), reach into the bowl and stretch the dough, folding it over on itself. Do this two or three times. Cover and let sit another half hour or so. Repeat this step twice, allowing half an hour between each repetition. The dough will get smoother and the gluten will strengthen each time.

After the third folding session, let the dough sit until roughly doubled in size, usually 40 minutes to an hour.

Line a jelly roll pan (half sheet) with parchment paper. Pour about 1/4 cup of herbed oil onto the parchment and use your hands or a pastry brush to spread the oil to coat the parchment.

Using an oiled spatula or scraper, pour the dough into the sheet pan. Pour about 1/4 cup of herbed oil onto the dough. Oil your fingers a bit with it too. Spread the dough out by poking with your fingertips (hard to describe, poke it with fingers of both hands, pulling a little away from each other as you do, do this repeatedly until the dough is not a mound, but more flat with dimples and spread to about 2/3 the size of the pan). If there are any very large bubbles in the dough at this point, pop them. Pour a bit more oil on the dough so it's coated, using a pastry brush to spread the oil if needed. For the rest of this rise, I don't usually cover the dough, just check on it occasionally and pour a bit more oil on if any part looks dry. Let rise for another hour to hour and a half. It will mostly spread and get bubbly during this time.

About 1/2 hour into that rise, spread the dough again. It should pretty much fill the sheet by now. Try to pop as few of the bubbles that have been forming as possible. You'll want to start preheating your oven to 450 now.

At the end of that rise, Pour the rest of the oil onto the dough, including the herbs in it. try to distribbute the herbs somewhat evenly. Spread your grated cheese and sliced garlic on top.
 
Bake for 10 minutes, turn 180 degrees, bake for another 10-15 minutes, until golden brown. For best results, remove from the hot sheet pan. What I usually do is use the parchment to help me slide the whole thing into another, cool, sheet pan. Allow to cool at least 15 minutes before cutting.

Enjoy!

Hey guys, 

I am pretty new to this forum but oh my does it have a great amount of information! I have a pretty good professional cooking background (even though I am an engineer lol) but I recently became interested in bread making. I tried making a baguette for the first time and the result was ok... it had a nice outer look and a nice oven spring but the crumb was a little off. I read a lot about what makes a good open crumb and, despite what I read, I came to the conclusion that the main reasons for an open crumb result are: a couple of very gentle stretch and folds, long cold fermentation, and very little kneading  (I'm sure a lot of you bread professionals know that). Once, I even shaped my loaves aggressively just to see if it affects the final result (because I read that you are supposed to shape the dough very loosely to obtain an open crumb) but it had no affect on whether I achieved an open crumb or not!

oh I also wanted to mention how I steamed my oven. Well, I kind've made a little steamed oven inside my oven. I used a big turkey roasting pan, preheated it with the lid on at 500F, and placed a small turkish coffee pot (google it) filled with boiling water at the corner of the inside of the roasting pan. Then I put my loaf on nonstick aluminum foil and placed it inside the roasting pan, put the lid on, and reduced the heat to 460F. After baking/steaming it for 10 mins, then I took the roasting pan lid off and removed the turkish coffee pot before baking the loaf for another 13 more minutes or so. 

See pictures of my results! Questions and comments are welcomed :D

With all the family here for Thanksgiving and then some personal parts replacements (my eyes are getting brand new lenses, the kind without cataracts.), I haven't been posting much. So, this is a catch-up on my last few weeks' breads.

Hamelman's Pain au Levain Delicious with the Lamb and root vegetables braised in merlot I made to welcome our arriving Thanksgiving guests - just to fuel them to help making Thanksgiving dinner, you know.

Jewish Sour Rye  These were especially made to accompany Salami and eggs, our grandson's very favorite breakfast.

San Francisco-style Sourdoughs with increased whole wheat For breakfast toast and lunch sandwiches and whatever. 1 kg and 500 g boules.

San Francisco-style Sourdough

San Joaquin Sourdough Baguettes, scored various ways

Happy baking!

David

I was trying to get into the holiday spirit so I asked my wife what type of bread she wanted me to make next and she immediately asked for a chocolate chip Challah with cherries.

I decided to use a sourdough starter and followed the Coconut Yeast Water Challah formula I had made last year which came out very nice.  This dough is very wet and does not really allow for braiding, so if you want to braid it you should cut down on the water even though the overall hydration is only 68% most of it comes from the egg yolks.

I ended up baking this a little too boldly for this type of bread since I needed to run out for lunch and get back in time for a meeting.  I  turned up the heat a bit since it was taking a long time to finish baking and still almost took 2 hours to bake.

The end result is a nice breakfast/dessert bread with a ton of chocolate goodness.  My wife thought it could have been sweeter so next time I would increase the honey or add some white sugar to the mix.  My wife also insisted on adding some cinnamon/chocolate sugar on top right before baking which ended up burning off mostly, so next time that would be omitted.

If I make this again, I would also add some cocoa powder to the dough itself to make it more interesting even though I used so many chocolate chips and cherries you can't help but get a taste in each bite.

Procedure

Starter Preparation

Mix the starter with the water and break it up.  Next add the flour and mix until incorporated.   Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 5-6 hours until you have a bubbly active starter.  Either refrigerate for a day or use right away in the main dough.

Main Dough

Mix the flour with the egg yolks and water for about 1 minute.   Let the dough autolyse for 30 minutes to an hour in your bowl covered with a cloth or plastic wrap.  Next add in the starter, salt, oil, vanilla and honey and mix on speed #1 for 4 minutes and #2 for 2 minutes or by hand.  This dough is very wet but it should start to come together after mixing but will still be very wet.  Now add the chocolate chips and dried cherries into the bowl and mix until incorporated for about 1 minute.

Next take the dough out of the bowl and place it on your work surface or in an oiled proofing bowl.  Do a stretch and fold and rest the dough uncovered for 10 minutes.  Place the dough in an oiled bowl after the rest and do another stretch and fold and cover the dough in the bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Do one more stretch and fold and put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and let it sit at room temperature covered for 2 hours.  (If the dough is still too lose, you can do several more stretch and folds until you are ready to put in the refrigerator). After 2 hours you can put the dough into the refrigerator for 24 hours or up to 2 days before baking.  (Note: this dough is very moist and you may want to add more flour, but try to resist or you will make it too dry.  It will firm up while in the refrigerator overnight.)

The next day (or when ready to bake) let the dough sit out at room temperature for 2 hours.  After 2 hours form the dough into your desired shape and put them in floured bannetons, bowls or molds.  If desired use an egg wash of 1 beaten whole egg with a little water.  I added 2 coats to try and get it shiny.

Set your oven for 450 degrees F. at least 30 minutes before ready to bake.  When ready to bake place the loaves into your on  your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 350 degrees.  Bake until the loaf reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. which in this case took about 2 hours.  I'm not sure why this took so long this time as the last time I made this it only took about 70 minutes.  I also started the oven at 550F this time and lowered it to 450 and then 350 F until I got impatient during the last 30 minutes and put it back to 425 F.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an hour or so before eating as desired.

Before I say anything that's going to totally appall some people and actually offend other people, I want you all to know that I really love this site, and seeing all your creations and reading about your experiences has inspired me to try many new delicious things. Thank you all!

I want to talk about the recipes and the methods used to turn flour into bread. And I really don't care whether you call it a recipe, a formula, or a percentage. What I care about is whether or not it will hold some butter without making a mess. And I also don't care if you measure by volume or weigh each ingredient to the micro gram with a digital scale. I personally use the measurements "some", "a little", "a little more" and "a couple handfuls". But's that just me.

I am fully aware that there's a world of different flours, yeasts and other ingredients available. I don't know what kind of wheat my generic white flour is made of. I don't care if the yeast came out of a packet, off of a block or was harvested wild in field of rye. I care if the yeast I have will make my bread rise.

And it doesn't matter to me if you knead it, slap it, or fold it so long as it gets to the consistency you need it to be.

And it really doesn't matter to me if it rises in a warm spot or a cold spot so long as it rises. I also don't care if it's in a bowl, a basket, or a pan, or wrapped in linen. And shape away to your hearts content. Baguettes, batards, boules, loaves, rolls, flat, tall, round, square, scored, washed, sprayed, sprinkled, or dusted. Remember, my main goal is to have a tasty product which will hold butter without making a mess.

And when it comes to baking, it doesn't matter to me if it's a commercial professional grade oven, wood fired, electric, gas, indoors or outdoors, if it gets hot enough to bake your bread in somewhere between twenty minutes and two hours, I'm good with it. And it's immaterial to me whether you cook it in a pan, on a stone, with some steam, with some lava rocks, if it's baking, you've done good!

I have a friend who bakes and follows recipes to the letter. The EXACT letter. He will call you to ask the specific farm the grain for the flour came from. He will want to know what the ambient humidity in his kitchen needs to be. He's going to want to know what the temperature of the stone needs to be and exactly how much steam he needs to generate.

He's got an awesome set up, if there's anything in the oven his kitchen resembles an intensive care unit in a state of the art hospital. He can hook up to eight probes into whatever is baking and measure external and internal temperatures, pressures and humidities. He can tell you that in his oven the back left top corner is seven tenths of a degree warmer than the space in front of the window in the oven door. Amazing things to know, but if it doesn't taste good or hold butter without making a mess, I'm really not interested.

Me: It smells like your bread will soon be done.

Him: No, it's not. The recipe said to bake for one hour and 15 minutes. It's only been 45 minutes, it's not done.

Later, while peering in over door...

Me: Hey, this bread, is really, really getting dark.

Him: No, it's not done, there's still 15 minutes to go.

Ten minutes later

Me: It smells like your bread is burning.

Him: I'll take it out in 5 more minutes.

So in five minutes he gets out to the kitchen, and spends 20 minutes removing probes so that he can open the door and removes a blackened, smoky loaf and announces that this recipe is no good because the bread has been overcooked!

My whole point is that sometimes we can get so caught up in the details that we lose sight of the loaf. So when a newbie asks what's the most important thing you need to start making your own bread, I'm going to say:

Some flour, yeast, water and a little bit of salt...

Times are busy.  Went up to Portland, OR to see Pearl Jam for the holidays and ate some great foods.  With only a few days in the city and so much good food to eat I barely scraped the surface.  Some good mentions.  Fressen and German bakery was a hidden gem that I'd highly recommend.  Tabor Breads was wonderful and probably the best bread I got to try.  Tasty n Sons was an epic dinner.  

Anyone when i returned home my computer was broken and now its back up and runnin (just the power supply). 

So my first winter market I opted to keep it simple and make a good wheat loaf.  With the exception of the dough comin out of the bowl cooler than I'd wished (only 72F when i wanted 75-76F)  All went well and the bread was actually quite good.  

 Happy Baking

josh

Now that I've jumped into the world of heavy rye breads and learned the infamous detmolder three stage build I got curious.  If it makes for the best dark rye's couldn't it make for an excellent light rye as well?  

I'm pretty happy with the results.  Tons of flavor for a light rye here.  Nice sour notes in the crumb (more after a day or two) with a sweet and crunchy crust.  Toasts up amazingly.  This is my white sourdough  

More testing needs to be done.  

First off I'll have to make the same formula with just a rye sour and see if skipping the detmolder detracts from this breads quality (I'm pretty sure it will at least shorten its life span)  I just finished these loaves I made last Sunday on Thursday and they were still moist on the inside and just starting to get truly staled. I leave my bread cut side down on a cutting board and avoid putting it in bags.  I figure I get to experience the loaf in all of its stages of life.  

Next test would be to see if cold bulk or final fermentation would add or detract from the loaf.

And of course there is increasing the amount of Rye.  

Finally I also used the same dough to make little rolls topped with Coarse Salt and Caraway which were also great. 

Sorry no  pictures of the rolls.  

the loaves were 1 kg batards and the rolls were 100g.  

Happy Baking

Josh

Hello everyone,

If you are a chocolate lover, you might like these Chocolate Salted Rye cookies!

I discovered the recipe, created by Laurie Ellen Pellicano of Tartine Bakery, in an airline magazine
(published here).  Rye flour in a chocolate truffle of a cookie - how could I resist?

The recipe is published in Tartine No.3 (had a look at the Amazon preview) and if these cookies are any indication of the flavors to be discovered in this book, I really can't wait for my copy of this book to arrive!

To make these, I used the best bittersweet chocolate I had on hand, Nunweiler's organic dark rye flour, and substituted a coarse, dark Demerara sugar for the muscovado called for in the recipe.

After mixing and shaping the cookie dough was very much like a chocolate truffle:
                 
                                                     (shaped with a mini-ice cream scoop)

Baked these at 335F Convection for 8 minutes, yielding a soft center for the cookie;
while baking, the cookies puffed up which created a nice, crackled surface.

The recipe makes lots of cookies to savor, enjoy and share

Thank you so much to Laurie Ellen Pellicano for creating this recipe!
I was in 'chocolate heaven' when I tasted this cookie.

Happy cookie baking!
:^) breadsong

Made some bread bowls today to hold a delicious salmon chowder.

There is no exact recipe for what I did today because it was a thrown together kind of thing from stuff I had on hand.

And the sad truth is, I have never weighed my ingredients, I don't even own a scale (not even in the bathroom), and I very seldom measure, and when I do it's not very accurate. But next time I do this I will try to be more careful and document what I am doing!

In short, I made my basic sourdough white bread, I let it rise until doubled with two folds in my special warm spot - the barely pre-heated oven. Then I punched it down and divided into six pieces by just eye balling it. Shaped each piece into a ball, dipped the bottom of the ball into a plate of cornmeal. Then I placed them on a piece of parchment paper and set them in the fridge to ferment for a couple hours.

I preheated my oven to 425F, with my cooking stone in the oven. I use a Pampered Chef cooking stone, set on the middle rack with an old Wilton castle shaped cake pan on the bottom rack for my steam generator. I let the oven preheat for about an hour to make sure the stone is up to temp.

Working with two boules at a time, they got a light egg wash, then using my best sewing scissors, I snipped a star shape on top of the boule. Five snips, then quick into the oven on the stone, still on the parchment paper, filled the cake pan with two cups of boiling water poured out of my long neck watering pot as quick as I could and shut the oven door.

Baked them for 15 minutes with the oven light on. I sat on the floor in front of my oven staring through the glass so that I could watch them rise. After 15 minutes, I opened he oven pulled out the stone, gave each boule an additional quick egg wash, pulled out the parchment paper, swapped them places on the stone, shoved them back in and let them bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Took them out, internal temperature was 200F, so I moved them to the cooling rack and continued in the same fashion with the rest of the boules.

After they cooled I cut off the tops at the base of the star lid, and hollowed out the boule with my fingers until I had a suitable bowl. I saved all the crumb, it will be used to make bread crumbs. At dinner time (actually, when we got hungry), we filled the bowls with a delicious salmon chowder and it was really, really good!

I suppose these really aren’t Rugelach in the strictest sense of the word but they are at least sort of shaped like them and they end up sort of looking like them. 

These are much lighter the heavier sour cream and short crust ones that are terrific too, but not as good as these beauties.

I didn’t brush the rolled out puff paste with butter as usual but, besides the Heath Bar chunks and chocolate chips, Lucy did put some brown sugar and cocoa in the filling as well.

My daughter said these were the best Rugelach yet and mentioned…. Wow Dad you really know how to make puff paste!  She made my day and these treats were the fitting end to long day of baking.