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I'm beginning this Danish recipe straight from Copenhagen. I just milled the wheat and rye.  Yeast water is fermenting. 

It also uses walnut oil and milk.  

We'll see how it goes.  

Hi All, 

I’ve just dived into the world of baking naturally leavened bread and I’m just a tiny bit obsessed. I’ve been drooling over my friend’s instagram pictures for the past couple of years. (He’s a chef in Toronto/MTL who bakes sourdough weekly). Last week my sister brought me some of his starter. Which was handed to him from another chef, who got it from his grandmother and apparently it’s very very old. So I was super excited to dive in and make some bread. My sister gave me a lesson and we used my king Arthur white bread flour with 75% hydration and I couldn’t shape figure out how to shape a wet blob of flour goo for the life of me. But it still tasted delicious and after a week of reading the perfect loaf blog almost cover to cover I was read to try again. 

I used the same recipe as last week but with a little less water. 38% starter, 100% bread flour, 70% water, 2.2% salt. That being said I put a lot of flour on the counter before shaping and in the basket after to avoid sticking and ripping. But I followed the method from the perfect loaf beginner bread. With the addition of using a stand mixer and mixing/kneading the dough until a windowpane could be seen after the autolyse. The dough didn’t seem to rise very much during the 5.5hours bulk in my 75 degree kitchen with 3 sets of folds 30mins apart. But shaping went well. Also, they didn’t seem to rise much in the fridge overnight.  But I was happy with the end result. Baked in my cast iron crocks at 480, 30 mins with the lid on 20 with the lid off. Hopefully, I’ll get the same or better result next week. 

My my only real question right now is, why do some recipes call for kneading until the windowpane  and some don’t include that step at all? 

(Don’t really know how to add pictures yet sorry, I’m typing from my cell phone)

This is my version of a “Sunburst” Bourbon Peach Melba Pie.

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Once again I used Stella Parks’ all butter pastry recipe but bumped up by 25%.

• 281 g all purpose flour
• 19 g sugar
• 5 g salt
• 281 g unsalted butter, 2.5 sticks cold not frozen
• 144 g cold tap water

FOR THE FILLING:

• 2⁄3 cup sugar
• 1⁄3 plus cup tapioca starch 
• 1⁄4 cup packed light brown sugar
• fresh lemon juice from half a lemon
• 1 tbsp bourbon
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1⁄2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1⁄2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1⁄4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
• 1.5-1.75 lbs of frozen peaches 1/2″-thick slices
• 1 cup mashed frozen raspberries

I know it is peach season and I could have used fresh peaches but I didn’t feel up to the work of preparing fresh peaches and I find that using frozen peaches there is much less shrinkage when the pie is baked and almost no air gap between the top crust and the filling that I always got when using fresh fruit.

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I know I’ve made this before but I wanted to see if my techniques have improved at all with more baking and for this dinner I wanted a simple sourdough without a lot of whole grain or other flavours added to the bread.

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This was my best looking sourdough ever.  I hope it isn’t underproofed as it didn’t rise as much as I expected during the cold fermentation last night.

For one 750 g loaf

311 g white bread flour

46 g whole wheat flour

21 g dark rye flour

287 g warm water reserve 21 g for later

7.5 g salt 

77 g levain 

Levain Build 

35 g mature starter

35 g bread flour

35 g whole wheat flour

70 g filtered water 

I’m sure most of you have looked at this recipe on The Perfect Loaf website but I will post it here if someone wants it.

I did slap and folds for 7 minutes and then over the course of two hours did three sets of coil folds.  This was the first time I did coil folds and never combined the slap and folds with the coil folds.  I think I will employ this from now on.

I made a couple of videos showing my coil folds and then final shaping.  I’d be happy if you could offer advice on doing things better, I won’t be offended whatsoever.  If I look so hesitant when doing both the coil folding and final shaping it was because I was hesitant and scared of doing it wrong.  That was the first time I used that final shaping method and I think it created more tension than how I was doing it before.

Me coil folding the final time for this bake.

https://youtu.be/w2VdvfXknjs

Me shaping the batard using this method for the first time.

https://youtu.be/rMeiUjSlWRg

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Hopefully the crumb looks good.  Fingers crossed.

I used the Smoky Chili Sourdough recipe from Sarah Owens, but added 2 tbsp tomato paste and 180g of chocolate stout to replace some of the water content. The dough was great to work with. I got a bit distracted trying to work 2 recipes at once so I ended up shaping earlier than I had intended. I usually put the loaves right in the fridge after shaping, but because the bulk was on the short side I left the dough out for about 45 minutes before putting it in the fridge. Great oven spring although my attempts at new scoring methods were funky. This was my first time using T85 flour for 80% of the loaf and resulted in a denser crumb. 

These loaves were 75% hydration and 80% high-extraction T85 flour and 20% whole wheat. 

I tried to make Shiao-Ping's recipe for chocolate sourdough and I added walnuts and 160g chocolate stout to replace sone of the water. This recipe had a 37% starter % inoculation so I was really curious about how it would work. It smells amazing, but the oven spring was a little underwhelming. In the fridge, the dough kind of cracked which is something I hadn't experienced before. I think in part it was because the dough was lower hydration and much stiffer than I'm used to, but also maybe it was a sign of overproofing - not sure. 

I think I made  a mistake when incorporating the chocolate and walnuts during lamination is I ended up tearing the gluten. Next time I would probably use slap and fold to add the chocolate and really develop the dough. I feel like this dough could have used even more mixing/gluten development as the cocoa powder really impedes the process. The crumb is definitely different - a bit crumbly and moist in parts although I'm pretty sure it's fully baked. The taste is very good, but it's more like cake than bread. At first I thought it was overproofed, but now I think that maybe there just wasn't enough gluten development and that I did some damage during lamination. What do you think my looking at the crumb? 

Fun to try something new! This was also my first time using coil folds and I enjoyed it. 

 A stalk of Marquis heritage wheat still standing tall in the field after last week's harvest.  The picture is courtesy of Cedar Isle Farm - Organic Grains CSA, Agassiz, BC.  The Marquis and soft spring wheat were harvested last week just before a rare late summer rain storm passed through the valley. This wheat was in short supply last year but after a successful growing season and harvest the farm will be offering it again this year to all the *CSA members....very good news, happy baking ahead!

*Community Supported Agriculture

My second bake of the Swiss Farmhouse Bread. This time I was able to source organic raisins and make the raisin yeast water successfully.  My first attempt at yeast water failed due to impurities on the raisins, so I resorted to making the yeast water using kumquats and honey.

This time I made the raisin yeast water using organic raisins and was successful. I also changed the container setup using an airlock lid and a cling film layer in contact with the water. I observed the development daily and on the sixth day, the bubbles were very active.

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Setup day 1

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Day 6 - ready for build 1

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This is the recipe I use as my "Go to" for WW sandwich bread. The recipe belongs to Jani Boys but I added the Ground Flax seed as well as the vital gluten and dough enhancer (this gives my bread not only vitamin C but keeps my bread fresher on the countertop. This bread can be frozen for up to a month by putting a paper towel over the top of the cooled loaf then put into a large plastic bag like a gallon size Ziplock. 

SOFT 100% WHOLE WHEAT SANDWICH BREAD

 Author: Jami Boys  https://anoregoncottage.com/whole-wheat-sandwich-bread-101/

★★★★★

An easy, soft 100% whole wheat sandwich bread with only 1 rise that will free you from buying loaves at the store!

Prep Time: 1 hour 30 mins

Cook Time: 30 mins

Total Time: 2 hours

·      Notes from BJD: I used 2 1/2 cups KA bread flour 12% Protein with 4 c KA WW 14% protein flour.

·      I used all the optional; vital gluten, dough conditioner & flax seed. Her original didn’t have these and it makes a very nice soft bread as well.

Yield: 2 loaves 

INGREDIENTS

·      6 to 6-1/2 cups whole wheat flour (ww regular, ww bread, or white whole wheat all work great)

·      2–1/2 cups warm water (between 105–110 degrees)

·      1–1/2 tablespoons instant active dry yeast (not rapid rise) – regular active dry yeast can be used as well

·      1/3 cup honey

·      1/3 cup oil

·      2–1/2 teaspoons salt

·   1-1/2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten- OPTIONAL

·      1-1/2 tablespoon Dough Enhancer- OPTIONAL

·      1/2 c ground Flax seed (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1.    Combine water, yeast and 2 cups of the flour in a mixing bowl. Set aside to sponge for 15-20 minutes, until risen and bubbly (warmer weather takes 15 min, cooler temps usually needs 20).

2.    Add honey, oil, salt, (gluten, if using), and 4 cups of flour. Mix until dough starts to clean sides of bowl. Change to dough hook (or turn out to knead by hand), (No need to change to dough hook if using the Bosch mixer), and knead 6 to 7 minutes (10 by hand). Add only a few tablespoons of flour at a time if dough sticks to sides, being careful not to add too much.

3.    Form into two loaves and place in greased 9×5″ pans ( I use 803g of dough per loaf in my 9x5 pans). Allow to rise in a warm place for about  40-60 minutes, or 15-30 min. longer if needed to reach 1/2 to 1-inch above pans (i.e., cold kitchens may need the longer time). Preheat oven to 350 degrees ten minutes before rising time is done.

4.    Bake for 30 minutes, rotating halfway through if needed.

5.    Immediately remove from pans to cool on a rack. Allow to completely cool before slicing.

NUTRITION   Serving Size: 1 Slice

·      Calories: 110

·      Sugar: 2.8g

·      Sodium: 136mg

·      Fat: 2.4g

·      Saturated Fat: 0.3g

·      Carbohydrates: 19.7g

·      Fiber: 0.7g

·      Protein: 2.4g

·      Cholesterol: 0mg

It’s been quite a while since I posted except for the CB earlier this week.  I pulled my starter out of the fridge on Sunday and did one refresh. Then 9:15 pm mixed the levain

9 g starter + 44 g water + 44 g flour and left on the bench over night.

Monday am popped it in the microwave to warm up as room temp was only 12°C, brrrrr. once it was nice and bubbly mixed final dough

335 g bread flour + 6 g gluten flour

94 g Durum

60 g freshly milled whole wheat

37 g freshly milled spelt

360 g water.

brief mix by hand followed by 100 SLAFs.  Added salt and an additional 10 g water followed by 120 SLAFs. Dough left to bulk ferment. After 45 minutes I did 1 set of coil folds  then 2 more an hour apart.  It was not warm so last hour or so the BF was done in microwave with door cracked open.  Once I had 30% increase in volume and bubbles were visible with a slight domed look I divided dough into 2 x 550 g loaves, pre shaped and rested for 30 minutes.  At 7:15 pm I decided dough was ready so baked in preheated DO for 15 minutes at 430°c fan with lid on and 15 minutes lid off.

Crumb shot

It is good to bake again.  happy baking everyone

Leslie