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We had a crowd over on Firday night for a pizza party.  Of the dozen balls of dough I prepared, we made 10 pizzas in my wfo with various toppings.  I was the pizziaolo and with all of the activity there were no photos taken of any of the final products :(

The weather today is not great - rain showers througout the day.  So I cranked up my kitchen oven with a baking steel and used the last two balls of dough.  The first was lunch, with leftover toppings from Friday night, namely San Marzanos, fiore di latte and shredded mozzarella, crumbled sausage, sauteed wild mushrooms, basil, and a drizzle of Tuscan olive oil.

I made a Berry Cheesecake pizza with the other ball of dough.  We're going to a freind's for dinner and this will be my contribution for dessert.  I've never made this before and I know I probably shouldn't bring an experiment, but they're my oldest, closest friends so I can't do much damage.  I would have preferred a darker bake but I didn't want to incinerate the berries.

This is a favorite here, but i decided to tweak the formula abit as i was short on whole wheat flour. To compensate for the shortage of ww flour, i increased the soaker by 20%. The dough was also fermented in the fridge during the initial fermentation for 7 hours, so i decided to add 1.5 tsp of diastatic wheat malt flour.

Having almost twice the levain on hand, i decided to increase the total dough yield and bake 2.3 kg dough into 4 batards.

The bread's texture, and flavor were excellent! The sour was very mild.

-Khalid

A week ago i started my own starter, the wild yeast starter i found here. After a week, my starter looked a bit like an ADHD-starter. Very active, bubbles, smelled nice so even though i planned on baking after 14 days, i already baked something.

And... wauw. Amazing! The taste, the texture... i am in love. I made a Norwich Sourdough, an easy first-time sourdough but one that i will continue to bake.

Some pictures; before final rise overnight in the fridge: 

Next morning; time to bake!

Tadaaaaa!

My house smelled so nice, but i had to leave for some sunday-morning sport... knowing to find fresh, cooled-down bread when returning home :-) .

For the crumb-fanatics:

This is from the same sourdough burger buns dough that has been retarded overnight

It being summer in AZ, we are baking our pizzas on the gas grill outside.  We prefer the big old GE inside for pizzas but the gas grill does a half decent job with the pizza stone heated up.  One plus is that the gas grill can get to 650 F and the crust is super crispy, even though the top may not be browned enough.

See through pepperoni can go under the cheese adn still bake up well trapping that fat next to the sauce.

This dough had been in the fridge for 48 hours and was nice to work with and was tough but pliable when stretching over the knuckles.  The leaven for this was repeat of a three-peat - a pinch of yeast biga, yeast water, sourdough starter and flour – the same one used earlier this week for that fine crust on Lucy’s Fruit Stupid; a peach and plum and Nutella galette.

The girls split their pizza #1, each making half to their liking.

One thing we did different this time is to liberally dust the counter and the top of the dough with semolina when forming and to use whole wheat pastry flour for 25% of the flour mixed with AP and bread flour.  Semolina just sounds like Italy to me and it takes the tackiness out of the dough just as well as flour does when forming.

Pizza #2 was everything included for one low price that was flipped over after par baking.

 My shaping of these pies was a little fast which produced an odd shape but I could tell the monsoon was going to blow in right as the first pie was to go on the grill.  Poor Lucy had the be Jesus scared out of her with all the wind. lightening, thunder and rain.  Since she usually forms the pies and was beside herself, I tried my best. 

The poor grill was struggling to  keep the heat in so on the 2nd pie instead of par baking for 3 minutes and then taking it off and loading it up, we par baked it for 2 minutes, took it off and then flipped it over and loaded up the once stone side down with the toppings.

For this pie we didn’t brush Mojo de Ajo on the top until it had been par baked and flipped.  The first pie had Mojo de Ajo brushed on top before it went on the stone for par baking.  We did not put our normal rosemary, garlic and sun dried tomatoes in the dough this time.

The bottom was perfectly browned even after being flipped - very crispy and tasty.

The toppings were the usual home made sauce, mozzarella, parmesan and romano, red, jalapeno and poblamo peppers, green and caramelized onions, carmelized , king oyster, crimini and shiitake mushrooms, hot Italian sausage, grilled squash, steamed broccoli and pepperoni.  I put a little aged super sharp cheddar on mine too.

My pie was the 2md one and the crust was stupendously crispy and tasty.  It took 6 minutes after it went back on the stone after the par bake and loading it up.  It wasn’t the best looking pizza because it was flipped but it tasted fantastic.  I might start flipping them all the time even when made indoors.

Saturday morning’s breakfast was a home made English muffin with butter and caramelized medium Minneola marmalade, hot breakfast sausage, half a peach, half a mango, a slice of cantaloupe chopped up  and an omelet with hot pepper jack cheese.

The fruits and melon were all at their very best ripeness and made for a nice consolation after a stormy sunset that turned into some thing quite unexpected and beautiful.

How strange that this ugly storm….

turned into this Western facing sunset of orange rain coming down…… but looking East at the same time was a double rainbow.

Formula

Using the recipe from a member here (dwfender) to produce this lovely soft burger bun.

In order to produce a healthier bun yet maintaining its fluffy texture. I replaced 30% of the white bread flour with wholewheat flour and increased the milk by 45g.

So with these produce pack we are 12 weeks into a 26 week season. I can't believe I am already that far and still coming up with new ideas for breads. My maple oat idea hasn't worked out yet but we are thinking closer to October will be a good time for that one. This weeks bread was Sundried Tomato and Basil. This bread was easily one of the best breads of the season. It has a slight red tint to the whole bread with a rustic floured crust. there were more orders for this one as well so I know it was popular. As far as this weeks farmers market I got pretty ambitious. I made 97 loaves of bread with 4 different varieties. I made a really nice dark seedy spelt, sourdough just like last weeks, fruit and nut, and this weeks bread sundried tomato and basil, And of course baguettes. I hope it all goes well at the market.

Next weeks bread: Honey Oatmeal Date.

Here is a picture of the seedy spelt and the sundied tomato basil.

Ever since I read about this bread baked by Varda (recipe here) I have wanted to try to bake one.  I managed to pick up what I thought was Chocolate Malted Rye which is one of the key ingredients at a local brewers supply store.  Unfortunately I later learned that what I bought was chocolate malted barley.  Never the less I still figured it was worth giving it a go anyway.

You are also supposed to use a Pullman pan with a lid for this bake but since I don't currently own one I used a standard baking tin and covered the bread for most of the bake with aluminum foil.  I think it worked out okay, but next time I will buy a Pullman pan and see if it makes much of  difference.

Following Varda's advise I tried to dock the dough and separated the sides with a spatula to avoid cracking on the top.  I still ended up with some cracking so I guess I need to try something else next time.

Nice and Bubbly

Overall I think the bread came out pretty good for my first attempt.  It has a nice moist crumb with a pretty hard crust.  I have never eaten this type of bread before so I'm not sure what it is supposed to taste like, but mine is very sour which I imagine may mellow after it sit for another 12 hours or so.  I ate a piece after about 18 hours which is the longest I could wait.

The chocolate malted barley smelled so good when mixed with the sour; almost good enough to eat like cake batter.

I am going to try and get some authentic malted rye for the next attempt.  I used only the malted chocolate barley for this bake even though Varda's formula called for some plain malted rye which I did not have.  Not sure what kind of difference that made in the final taste profile.

I will have to give a 100% rye version of this style bread in the near future after I return from my trip to China next month.

Happy baking everyone.

We needed to come up with a white bread that had around 30% of home milled, whole grains that did't disappoint when it came to flavor and sour.   We have been developing 80% and higher whole grains with robust flavor and sour but, some folks just don’t like breads like that .....even though that should be against the bread laws :-)

My poor apprentice still thinks that, if it isn’t pumpernickel, it’s not even close to real bread and she should know being the determined German she looks like and claims to be.  But, the other girls in the family still like their mamby,  pamby, cotton candy, Oroweat, supposed whole wheat bread even though, it sure doesn’t look like any whole wheat I grind and bake – not even close.

Hopefully, Lucy will come up with a recipe that they actually prefer over their notion of what bread is supposed to be.   So, we took a flyer from toad.de.b and decided to do a bread that required double slap and folds.  Our 2nd set required double slaps to one fold as it was stiffer than normal!

After Tom’s great flavor enhancing invention that Lucy named 'Toadies' (short for Toady Tom's Toasted Tasty Tidbits), you just have to read his latest post on his summer bread experiments and incorporate what ever strikes your fancy into your methods -  like I made my apprentice over her scowls and growls.

This time we dropped the whole wheat from the whole grain mix and added whole oats to the usual rye, Kamut and spelt.  For liquid, we went with water this time instead of some part being yogurt whey.  This white bread should be less tangy than our normal loaf as a result but it should still be tangy enough.

Weonce again put the whole grain bits into the levain to get them wet as long as possible.   We hoped they would be softer that wasy and not cut the gluten strands too much when we went to develop it.  We also did a 48 hour retard after the 3rd stage build had risen 25%  to promote sour and lab reproduction over yeast reproduction.

When the levain came out of the fridge to finish it's 48 hour belated doubling, we started the autolyse with everything else except the ground seeds.  We only sprinkled the salt on top of the autolyse so we wouldn’t for get it later as we sometimes prone to do.

After 3 hours on the counter, the levain was ready by finishing its doubling.  We mixed it with the autolyse and then did 10 minutes of slap and folds.  After a 15 minute rest we did another 4 minutes of slap and folds before resting it again for 15 minutes.  The gluten was fully developed but we still did 2 sets of slap and folds on 15 minute intervals.  The ground sesame and flax seeds were incorporated on the first one and were evenly distributed by the 2nd set.

After another 15 minute rest we pre-shaped the dough into a boule and 10 minutes later shaped it for keeps and dropped it seam side up into a lightly rice floured basket.  A short 30 minute counter proof and into the fridge it went  We planned on a  retard per Toady Tom’s latest near death wait of 20 hours.  We hoped the low levain inoculation of 12% would be small enough so the dough didn't explode.  Low inoculations and long low temperature retards promote flavor and sour better than any other way.

We let the boule warm up for half an hour before starting the mini oven's  preheat to 500 F.  For steam, we used the overturned stainless steel bowl over the broiler pan that had ½ C of water in the bottom.

The boule was un-molded, quickly slashed in a square, covered with the stainless mixing bowl and placed into the mini oven for 14 minutes of steam.  At the 7 minute mark we turned the oven down to 475 F and at the 10 minute mark we turned it down to 450 F.  5 more minutes of steam would have been better but my apprentice forgets to add steaming time when covering with a cloche.

The steaming bottom of the broiler pan came out at 14 minutes and the temperature was turned down to 425 F, convection this time.  The bread didn’t spring much, spread a little and bloomed some under the steam.  A sure sign the bread was proofed over 85% and or not steamed long nough.  These long ferments can be tricky to time properly when you are sound asleep :-) 

We rotated the bread every 5 minutes to make sure it browned properly.  Oddly, as soon as the steam came out, the bread sprang nicely and puffed itself up pretty well.  After 15 minutes of dry heat, the bread registered 205 on the Fahrenheit scale.   It was then moved to the cooling rack all browned up and blistered with the mini oven’s typical crust.

Yesterday's white bread lunch  and this moring's white bread breakfast.

Will have to wait on the crumb shots but will have this bread for a late lunch as see how we like it.  But first a nice sunset.

Followed by today's lunch.

The crumb was open moist and soft.  The crust went softer as it cooled and became more chewy rather than crunchy.  If I have to eat white bread..... this is the one I want.  The seeds really come through and help make this bread flavorful and plenty tasty enough.  I was struck by the sour flavor and some of it must be because of the lowered levain amount to less than 12% and retarding of it for 48 hours.  Toady Tom's 20 hour retard of the dough didn't hurt either.  I could eat this bread all day without ever knowing it is a white bread.  We likie this bread a lot and now have to see what the girlsi think. 

Formula

A little something that I put together for breakfast this morning.

Waffle batter:

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup orange juice

1 large egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup AP flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

Whisk together the buttermilk, egg, oil, and 3/4 cup of the OJ, reserving the rest to adjust batter thickness.  Add the dry ingredients and whisk until evenly blended.  If needed, use remaining OJ to thin the batter to your preferred consistency.  Cook in a waffle iron.

Peach topping:

2 large peaches, peeled and sliced (approximately 2 cups)

1/2 cup orange-infused simple syrup

Heat the peaches and syrup in a saucepan, stirring occasionally, until peaches are heated through.

Serve waffle with a scattering of hot peaches and their juice/syrup.  If desired, dollop some Greek yogurt on top.

And yes, we desired:

If you don't have any orange-infused simple syrup on hand (and it was only happenstance that I did), you might want to play around with 1/4 cup each of water and sugar and a bit of orange zest, instead.  Or perhaps something else will tickle your fancy.

We were pretty happy with the way these turned out.

Paul