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Hi all, does anyone have any tips to repair my cloche? The bottom part has cracked into  2 pieces, its a clean break so wondering whether there is any way to stick them back together with a non toxic heat resistant glue.

Is this my fault for placing the cloche in a hot oven from cold or is this a defective cloche?

I've only used it 3 times! So iit works out at £15 per loaf - joy!!!

Got quite a bit of spent grains from a friend who is into Homebrewing and decided to try making a bread out of it. The grains (mainly barley) were roughly cracked using a hand grinder before being heated for about 2 hours to create a malt extract from them. This means that they are no longer sweet but still lend a nice texture to the bread.

I scoured the web for some inspiration before building a formula that works nicely with my schedule and timing. 

Sourdough Preferment
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup water
1 Tbps starter

Mix and let it ferment for about 8 hours or until ripe.

Main Dough
All of the preferment
1 3/4 cup AP flour
1 cup red fife flour
1 1/4 cup water
2/3 cup spent grains
1 1/2 + tsp salt

Combine all ingredients aiming for a 70% like hydration. Bulk ferment 7 hours at 20C. Preshape, rest 30 mins. Shape and proof for 1.5 hours at 24C. Bake at 240C with steam for 1st 15 mins. Reduce to 230C for another 30 mins.

Here's the dough preshaped and resting.

And here's the final product:

While quite a few recipe's called for grinding up the grain further, I decided to keep it whole as I thought it would lend a nice texture to the bread, which it did! However, you do get some husk in the bread, but I find it adds a rustic quality to the bread. Next time I might even be tempted to increase the amount of spent grains to 1 cup. Crumb is reasonably open and moist with the grains contributing a nice bite to the bread. All in all, a nice homemade loaf and probably my best canadian bake thus far!

-Tim

I haven't been baking nearly as much as I would like, but I'm making an attempt to bake on Sundays this winter.  I feel like any skill I have obtained since I started making bread has been lost, and gaining my skill set back might prove frustrating.  My girlfriend loves bread and I don't mind lavishing her with fresh treats.  A favorite bread of mine is ciabatta, but I've never made an attempt to add any cheese or mushrooms to the base bread.  I decided to use dried shiitake mushrooms reconstituted in water and baby bella mushrooms.  The night before I made a poolish and let it rest in the refrigerator until Sunday.  I made the main dough and let it ferment while stretching and folding every 30 minutes for 2 hours.  After the initial mixing, I added a bit of olive oil to a pan along with garlic and the mushrooms, sauteing them until they were tender.  I let the mushroom mix cool and added it to the bread during the next stretch, folding them into the dough.  I poured the dough out on the butcher block for a final shaping and proof.

I'm not working with a couche or a peel, which can make it difficult at times.  I did not have a thick enough bed of flour on the butcher block to inhibit sticking, which led to degassing one of the loaves. However, the other two turned out well, and the bread was delicious with a gorgonzola cheese spread.  I'm back in the baking game and I've won impressive points with the girlfriend, win win for the weekend!!  Next weekend will be my 29th birthday and might be a bye week for baking.  I'll see you on the flip side.

Made with 35% fresh milled local Hard Red Winter Wheat (Hollis).  I miscalculated with the olives and after pitting came up short but proceeded.  I will post my formula but I'd double this for sure.  The addition of an herb could also be nice but my olives were a mix of three green varieties brined with garlic and oregano.  Had I used enough maybe I wouldn't need any herbs.  I'll find out next time around. 

Olive Levain:                              Makes two large or three smaller loaves                                                                                                                                         

Total Flour       1120

Total H20           813             72.5%

Olives                 150            13.5 %

Levain: 3-4 hours @ 72.5% hydration DDT 78F (20% prefermented flour)
90 Wheat Starter
180 Wheat, fresh milled
118 H20
-------------------------
421
-------------------------
Dough:
200    Wheat
32      Rye
663    Artisan (malted bread flour @ 11.5% protein)
650.   H20
150    Olives, herbed (a mixed variety of garlic oregano green olives)
16      Salt
---------------------------

1711

Total Dough = 2132   3 loaves at 705 or 2 loaves at 1066  

Drain and dry olives on paper towels when you make the levain. 

Autolyse 2 hours

Add levain and mix on speed 1 for 3 minutes 

Add salt and continue mixing on speed 1 until well incorporated. 

Turn to medium speed and devlop dough to medium development.

Add olives and mix until evenly dispersed.

Bulk ferment 2 1/2 hours with stretch and fold at the 30 minute and 1:15 minute mark

Divide, preshape, shape to bowls.  Retard for 8-12 hours

Bake 500 w/steam and turn down to 460 and continue for 20-30 minutes pending size of your loaf. 

Well just because I haven’t been blogging doesn’t mean I haven’t been baking.

There’s just been a lot of “stuff” happening in my life and I haven’t had the energy (or time) to pretend I care about photography at all – and I know that’s what everyone wants – the pictures.  But with winter fast approaching, I’ve got a little relief from the yard work – and a little more time.

I’ve been working hard on my croissants and if I’m ever happy with them, I’ll let you all know.

I’ve also been working on pretzels and there are times when I can actually hear “My Teacher’s” voice telling me that I am fired.

So today I gave myself a break from croissants and decided to make some brioche treats.  And also pretzels. I’m going to make those danged things until I get them right.

At one point I looked over at my cooling racks and thought to myself, “Gee, they are kind of pretty all bunched up together like that.”  And I decided they were worth a couple of pictures.

Once I located my camera and had a few tough moments remembering how to use it, the pictures were taken.

Although I could give a blow by blow account of the many, many flaws in these products - I'll chill on that for today.  But I know and I know where I need to improve.

Below is the assortment: a brioche sticky bun, a brioche a tete, a couple of pretzels, and two laminated brioche – uh – things.

And below the crumb shot for the laminated brioche.

I will not describe the taste of the laminated brioche, becasue that's just being mean.

The details:

Use your favorite brioche dough.

Sticky Buns

49 oz of dough for about a half sheet pans worth of sticky buns

Bottom of pan coated with cinnamon bun glaze from “Advanced Bread and Pastry” (Suas) (accept no substitutes – this is the best sticky bun mixture I have ever tasted…)

Cinnamon mixture fro above source.

385F oven with convection

Brioche a tete

3.5 ounces per piece – shape, etc…

Laminated Brioche

24 oz brioche dough

4 oz butter

Lock in then 3 single folds

Roll out to about ¼ in thick

Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture

Roll up and cut into 12 pieces – put in large size muffin/cupcake tin

Proof – egg wash – sliced almonds on top

385F with convection

Pretzels

Base recipe is from “Advanced Bread and Pastry”

Leaf lard instead of butter

10% rye and 90% KA AP instead of bread flour

3.5 oz pieces.

Roll into long shapes with small “bellies” – making sure that the ends remain as bulbs. Do not taper the ends.  The ends must be bulbs.  Civilization itself depends on this.

Twist (yeah, I can twist them by twirling them in the air)

Place on parchment that has been sprayed with pan release.

Refrigerate covered overnight.

In the morning dip in 4% lye solution for 10 seconds or so.

Sprinkle salt on the lower part.

Slash

Bake at 450F

The lye dip is essential to the taste and appearance of the pretzel.  Takes me back to the land of my birth – which is in the Philadelphia area.  Frankly, it’s a bit nerve wracking at first, but the key is good mise en place and seriously, always wear chemical proof gloves and eye protection.  It gets easier the more you do it.

Well, that’s about all for me.  Gotta run!

This Remberance Day weekend I have reminded myself of how to bake bread.  It's been a little over a month and a half since I baked.  Having the business transferred from my parents to me takes a lot more paperwork, legal and technical work than one would imagine.  Quite draining actually.  Now that things have settled down, I decided to tackle a challenge that I have had in the recent past with whole wheat loaves.  Those of you who helped me, know of my frustrations with higher percentage whole wheat bread attempts.  Looks like I was simply over proofing and over hydrating my loaves, trying to compensate for using stone ground whole wheat flour.  Man, that type of flour sure soaks up a surprising amount of water...Anyway, here is a whole grain multigrain levain along with an experiment using a poolish/biga in a wholewheat loaf.  I have to say, the levain sure has a lot more complex flavour, especially in the crust, but the poolish whole wheat makes a nice loaf for those times I don't have time to awake my starter.  Excited about fall time, I included a few local photos I took to get me in the rural, rustic bread baking mood.

The Poolish/Biga loaf with increased stone ground whole wheat

As we come upon the last weeks of the market I have now missed a few but next week will be 20. Had all plans set to make an olive bread but the cost of nice olives made me bail on a large batch and simplify.  Maybe had I thought ahead I could get some wholesale prices but I didn't.  So I threw together a formula for a Spelted Sourdough that I'm quite pleased with the results.  The dough is lovely smooth but quite slack and was just super fun to shape.  I also continue on my quest to learn and make 100% ryes which may or may not be going so well.  First batch was simply the worst and its improved since.  I thought I'd make a few pullmans and gift small loaves of this along with the SD.  I should have only made three but I planned on four and accepted that they would be short loaves.  

Last of the tomatoes, beets, cippolini onions, artichokes, daikon radish, goat cheese (pressed ricotta with cumin and fiennel, and queso fresco), new local tuna company, locall olives (which are cut and in my olive bread to bake today), two bags dried figs, cillantro, spinach and brocollli

If anyone is interested in the formula I will scale down and post later

Happy Baking

josh

This Friday’s bake started out as 2 bakes which were originally to be completed while we were smoking some brisket and pork sirloin over 12 hours.  Neither bread was to be  retarded but completed within 12 hours – not including the time it took to build the SD and YW levains.

This all in the same day bread is quite unlike our normal efforts to bring out the sour in the SD with retarding but sometimes a SD bread without so much tang is preferred by some others around here besides Lucy and I.

SD left YW right but it is hard to see the yellow color amd thd zest in the YW.

The YW citrus, fruit and nut bread was a Lucy adaptation of Floyd’s current home page post of Thanksgiving Baking Ideas  that featured a chemically leavened Orange, Cranberry and Walnut Bread here that featured a chemically leavened Orange, Cranberry and Walnut Bread here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/cranberryorangewalnutbread

We really liked the looks and ingredients of Floyd’s bread but, since no sour was needed for this sweet enriched bread we decided to use YW for the leaven.   It has been quite some time since we used any YW from our refrigerated hoard of it and we needed to use some so we could feed the stored remainder to keep it perky.

The SD bread was similar to the ingredient list of the one we did last Friday except cut the whole grains in half but still keeping them all in the levain.  The YW fruit and nut bread ingredients we different from Floyd’s in that we cut the orange juice used as liquid by 1/3rd to get a more dough like consistency instead of a thinner batter.

We cut the sugar in half to 1/2 C – as a diabetic I don’t put a cup of sugar in anything, plus, the last change to3/4 of dried cranberries from 6 oz of fresh cranberries means that less sugar was needed since dried fruit is more sweet than fresh.

We built our levains the same way as always  The YW levain was slow compared to the SD even though both starters had been refrigerated for the same many weeks since they were fed last.

So we ended up retarding the SD for a bout 6 hours longer than the YW.  The SD levain fully doubled in the fridge after its lat feeding but the YW showed  little rise after it hit the cold.  So we took the YW levain out of the fridge 4 hours before the SD one and put both on a heating pad to get them to 82 F. 

When both had peaked we started the 2 off at the same time by autolysing the dry ingredients with the liquid for 1 hour before mixing and doing 3 sets of slap and folds and 2 sets of stretch and folds when the re-hydrated cranberries and walnuts were incorporated into the YW dough on the first stretch and fold.

Once again the YW proofing lagged far behind the SD bread, even though it had tons of sugar and sweet orange juice to fed on.  The SD proofed and was ready to bake in 5 hours on the counter after the last S&F but the YW took 11 hours and it never fully proofed with it still being 1“ below the rim of the tin when I finally gave up on it and baked the bread at 11 PM.  All proofing was done on the heating pad.

 We baked the SD in Big Old Betsy - GE regular oven that was preheated to 550 F with mega steam supplied by two pans filled with lava rocks and half full of water that were placed in the oven when it hit 500 F.   The SD was jingly and looked like it might over proof as the oven heated up so we refrigerated the dough in the basket for the 45 minutes it took to heat up the oven

15 minutes after Betsy beeped tell Lucy she was at 550 F, we took the SD out of the fridge, un-molded it onto a parchment covered peel, slashed it with a pairing knife and slid it onto the bottom stone that is 12 “ below the top stone. 

It sprang and bloomed very well for being so close to what we thought was near 100% proof.  The color was a little on the pale side though so we baked it to 208 F instead of our usual 205 F

It’s not bad color but it still didn’t look as boldly baked as we would have liked for that higher than normal internal temperature.  The crust also blistered well and was crisp as it left the oven only to soften as it cooled.

The crumb was open, glossy, soft  and moist but no more than last Friday’s bake that had twice as much whole grains in the mix.  What was noticeably different from last weeks bread was the taste

Not nearly as much sour tang or complex flavors – exactly what we thought would happen without the extra whole grains and long retards of levain and dough.  It is still a fine tasting bread

The big surprise was the YW bread.  After giving up on the proof on the heating pad at 11 hours at it only showing a 50% proof, it sprang like crazy in the oven, easily doubling in volume and splitting widely down on side.  This has happened one time before and I should have known to slash the top!

Pork sirloin sandwich in the making with the SD bread.

The bread was baked in the mini oven at 350 F without steam but it was brushed with butter after it came out of the oven to soften the crust and give it even more buttery flavor.  With all the sugars in this dough, it baked up a very pleasing dark brown.

Breakfast with the fruit bread French toast 

For so much spring the bread had a slightly open crumb which surprised me even though were a lot of cranberries and nuts in there to hold the holes back.   That YW can be deceptive in the proof and explosive in the oven - when you least expect it be that way.  YW is still less tame and predictable for me after a year and half baking with it.

Slicing the brisket

The taste of this bread is better than I thought it would be.  I don’t miss the missing sugar and orange juice but it could have used more orange zest to make it pop.  We like this brad very much for the Holidays as Floyd thought.  We are also glad we baked it ahead of time to make it will be better later when guests will be here for Thanksgiving.   This bread finished up 5 hours after the long low and slow smoked meat.

Sunrises are just as good as...

I almost forgot that pork sirloin isn’t like butt or shoulder and only needs to smoked to 150 F on the inside because it is so lean and caught this one at 160 F – very tasty, sliced very thin…. something you can’t really do with brisket which is way less lean, smoked to 185 F and cut in thicker slices.  The good thing is that they took the same amount of time it the smoker since the beef brisket is so much thinner than the pork sirloin.

The sunsets!

SD BBQ Bread Formula

YW, Orange Cranberry and Walnut Thanksgiving Bread Formula

After my white bread I decided to bake another load with higher whole grain content. 

this is based on peter Reinhardt cinnamon sticky bun, I charge it to 25% wholewheat and sub part of the yeast with sourdough. 

did a 6+ 4 slap n fold and 3 s&f over the initial 2 hours of bulk fermentation, total 3.5 hours till double in size.

I used water wash with bran topping which added nutty flavor from the side it looks like a shreddable crumb. A crumb shot with filling will be posted tomorrow