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as you know i love blue :) to obtain a significant natural blue is quite impossible. found a method to dehydrate the blue pea flower and grind them to powder. check this out http://www.wikihow.com/Dry-Rose-Petals 

did not have enough fresh blue pea flower!!! 

this is a Toasted flax seeds Quinoa Spelt sourdough bread..

happy baking

evon

 July is the hottest month of the year in Central California. Today it was 99 ºF, the first day in 15 with a high temperature below 100 ºF. Tomorrow we expect it to be back above 100. Now, it's hotter in Phoenix (not to mention Death Valley), but still ….

For several years, my wife has talked about spending as much of July as possible in cooler climes. This year we've done pretty well so far with visits to Portland and the Oregon Coast, to San Francisco, where we attended the one game the Giants managed to win against the Dodgers and also the 50th reunion concert of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band with Maria Muldaur at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. Next week, we will go over to Carmel for a couple concerts at the Carmel Bach Festival.

While in Portland, I spent some time in Powell's bookstore and browsed through Ken Forkish's James Beard Award-nominated bread and pizza book, Flour Water Salt Yeast. I read enough to be convinced I did need yet another bread book, after all. <sigh> I ordered it when we got home, and I spent much of today reading it. I haven't gotten to the sourdough or pizza sections yet, and already I have a list of formulas I want to try. I haven't made any of them yet, but I did manage to squeeze in a couple loaves of Hamelman's “Pain au Levain with increased Whole Wheat” today.

I hope you all are having a great Summer (or Winter, for those in the Southern Hemisphere)!

David

This was supposed to be a 36 hour sourdough but I got stuck in my favorite airport O'Hare for about 4 hours longer than expected and didn't get home until 1:30 AM.  Due to the extra hours in the refrigerator and the blueberry beer I used this one ended up real sour.

I wanted to make a mostly whole grain bread and this one came in at around 72%.  I used freshly ground flour for the levain and for the main dough I added some First Clear for some gluten strength and Durum because it's one of my favorite flours.

I added some maple flavored balsamic vinegar to add some sweetness without using sugar.

I wanted to up the hydration on this one and it came in at almost 80% but due to the long retardation and high percentage of whole wheat flours the dough handled easily.

The final result was a nice open and moist crumb with a complex beer favored whole grain flavor and ideal crust.  This will make a great sandwich bread.

Directions

 Starter Build 1

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.  You can store it in the refrigerator for 1-2 days until ready to use.

Procedure

Mix the flours and the beer and 66 grams of the water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Put the dough in a slightly covered oiled bowl and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours.  I ended up leaving it in the refrigerator for over 24 hours.

The next day add your starter and salt to the dough and mix by hand until it is thoroughly mixed and evenly distributed.  Next add the vinegar and the balance 54 grams of water.  Due to the high water content in the 100% hydration starter this dough is very easy to mix by hand and is very silky and smooth.

Bulk rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours until it grows around 1/3 in volume doing stretch and folds every half hour until it has developed the correct amount of strength.

Put the dough back into the refrigerator for around 20-30 hours.  I ended up letting it go around 24 hours.

The next day take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it rise at room temperature for around 2 hours or until the dough has almost doubled from the night before.

Next, shape as desired and place in your baskets if using them.  Make sure you use enough rice flour with flour in your bowl/basket to prevent this moist dough from sticking.

Cover the dough with a moist towel and let sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Score as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

Set your oven for 500 degrees F. at least 45 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 450 degrees.    When the loaf is nice and brown and reached an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. you can remove it from the oven.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an 3 hours or so before eating as desired.

Anyone browsing through TFL will sooner, rather than later, come across mention of the Tartine Bread Book. I'll confess, I don't have a copy of this, but it does seem to be one of the go-to books at the moment for sourdough, no-knead, and lots of other techniques. Likewise, if you want to make enriched breads, there's really only one port-of-call, and that's Cresci by Massari and Zoia. I have a love/hate relationship with this book: it's expensive, the photography is not particularly beautiful (my opinion only but everything is so dark!) and the instructions are absolutely FULL of mistakes and omissions. But when the recipes work... well, everything seems worthwhile.

I've been interested in the panettone a tre impasti for some time now. For those who've never made a panettone, there are usually two separate mixing stages (excluding feeding the starter). The first one late at night and the second in the morning, followed by shaping and a 6-7 hour proof. The panettone a tre impasti is, as the name suggests, produced through three separate mixes. Cresci claims that a panettone made with more impasti will be lighter, softer, moister, and last longer. Better in every way therefore.

But I had my doubts. First, the dough looked far too lean compared to other panettone recipes in the book. If we look at the panettone a gusto moderno and the tre impasti it is easy to see what I mean:

(Baker's % of total ingredients)

The other thing which put me off is that the instructions (I have the Italian edition) are definitely very wrong. It seems as if the first page has been printed twice and page 2 is missing, leading straight into a mysterious page 3.

But I thought I'll have a go! And I'm thrilled I did. This panettone is excellent! The volume increase is truly unbelievable. I thought it would never stop growing in the oven. And the flavour is wonderfully rich and complex - it really is a celebration of the magic of a good starter and slow proofing!

I started mine at midnight and left it to proof for 7 hours at 28C. It had just over doubled in this time. I did the second impasto at 7 in the morning, put it back in to proof for another 5 hours, and then did the final impasto. I left it to rest for about 30 minutes and then shaped it (folding it repeatedly works best before making the final shape). Final proof was at 28C for 6 hours, then 45 minutes in the oven at 175C.

To give you an idea of how much this thing grows, the pirottino here is 20cm by 6cm, and I put in only 750g of dough. It must have increased its volume by at least 6 times. Instead of using candied fruit I used gianduia. Yum! I also added the seeds from half a vanilla pod and the zest of half an orange. Because I had decided to substitute chocolate for the candied fruit and raisins, I included 5% acacia honey, to act as a humectant, and a sweeter, but mostly because I like the taste.

I made a little too much impasto to take into account loses during mixing and then took 583g of it before adding the chocolate.

My recipe was:

This might be the best panettone I've ever tasted, and the beauty of it is, is that it is a lot cheaper to make (though very inconvenient in its timings) than the gusto moderno.

I might have to make another one very soon, but not here in Perugia. My time here is at an end... a pity, because it's a wonderful city, and I recommend it if you ever get the chance to visit. And it's great as a base to explore Umbria, which might be one of the most perfect places I've ever seen.

David

I have been making a lot of baguettes lately.    I had a particularly promising one the other day - took a bite, left the room, came back to find the dog eating it.   That's what happens when you make a lot of baguettes, I suppose.   

My husband asked me if I was driving myself crazy with making all these baguettes.   The answer?   No, I'm just trying to learn how to do it.   And you have to make a lot to learn.   So there it is.    And fortunately unlike some of my rye-ier efforts, he actually likes to eat the endless series of practice rounds.  

Today's entry?   A lower hydration overnight retarded sourdough version.   It rolled out a lot longer than I expected - 20 inches - as I did a long rest after the preshape.   It surprised me that the shaping was much easier with this long rest and it didn't seem to get overproofed.    As my baguette trays are 16 inches long instead of proofing on the tray, I placed it diagonally on a 16 inch sheet seam side down, covered with couche, and supported the sides.  

It sang like crazy coming out of the oven and looked ok if a bit mottled - I'm not sure why.

I was thrilled with the taste.   My best yet without question.   This had exactly the smooth creamy crumb texture that I have been striving for with an absolutely crisp and brittle crust.   The sourdough gives it a deep flavor, with not a hint of sour.  

Since I rolled it out so thin it had a bit higher ratio of crust to crumb for every bite, than I might have hoped.   So at least a shade thicker and shorter next time.  

If you ask am I likely to be posting any more on baguettes, I will have to quote Winston Churchill.  

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

After all, I still haven't fully explored hydration or yeast vs starter or retardation time or starter plus biga or...

And just in case you are wondering if my dog story is a bit too shaggy...

Does this look like a shaggy dog?

My last sourdough starter had an unfortunate accident in which it ended up all over my kitchen floor, along with pieces of its glass container. So, I started a new one and yesterday it was ready to use. I fed it about 2 hours before making this recipe. It turned out really great! Nice and reasonably light with a good amount of sour flavour.  

• 150g 100% hydration starter (mine is mainly rice and sorghum flour, with a little red teff)
• 400g water
• 21g psyllium husks
• 11g salt
• 110g corn starch
• 110g stone-ground white rice flour
• 150g sorghum flour
• 40g very coarsley ground quinoa (I just bashed it up in a mortar and pestle)
• Brown rice milk, for glazing (optional, but gives a more attractive finish)

1. Dilute the starter in the water and whisk in psylliu until emulsified.
2. Leave covered for 30 minutes.
3. Sprinkle over salt.
4. Mix together the flours and quinoa.
5. Add to the starter mix and knead until it comes together to form a dough.
   Note: You only need to knead until it comes together, as gluten free bread does not require development of the gluten strands through kneading - just make sure it's well mixed and smooth.
6. Form a ball and leave to rise in the fridge overnight in a covered and oiled container.
7. The next day, knock back the dough and form into two bâtards.
8. Cover and leave to prove for an hour.
9. While the bread is proving, preheat the oven with a stone to full temp (This is 250c on my oven).
10. Uncover the loaves, brush with a little brown rice milk, slash and transfer to the oven.
11. Bake for about 25 minutes, turning halfway through if neccassary, until a dark reddish brown colour is acheived.
12. Leave to cool COMPLETELY before cutting the bread, otherwise the texture will be gummy.

Breakfast on bun day

These were very good buns.  We didn’t make a poolish or a YW levain since we didn’t have time on our side.  It was already 11 AM and no time to grind flour or an autolyse it either.  We used 40 g of YW and a pinch of ADY for the leavens.  This was an all AP bake so not very healthy.  But brats, Italian sausage and Boudin aren’t all that healthy either.

We just mixed everything together, did 10 minutes of slap and folds and 3 sets of S& Fs on 45 minute intervals and then let the dough rest for 1 hour.  We shaped the buns pulling them taut and let them proof for 3 hours on parchment paper, on the top portion of the mini’s vented broiler pan, on the counter.

We fired the mini oven up to 400 F convection and egg washed the buns.  We baked them without steam for 4 minutes and turned the oven down to 375 F convection  and baked the rolls another 4 minutes before spinning the pan 180 degrees and turning the oven down to 350 F convection.

The Last of Sylvia's inspired Key Lime Pie

After 8 more minutes the buns were done and we moved them to the cooling rack and brushed then with milk while still oven hot to keep the skins soft. They came out brown and blistered.  So, blisters aren’t from a cold retard or mega steam or a combination of both - since there rolls didn’t have either.  They were soft, moist and open on the inside.

We are getting close to a fine enriched bun recipe with this batch.

A magnificent sunset tonight

Formula

My wife made some Sangria for the 4th of July and had a ton of fresh blueberries and raspberries left over so I decided to use some of them up.  My fellow baking friend Evon inspired this bake with her use of blue berries, cherries and cranberries in her recent sourdough breads.

I wanted to use my Cherry Yeast Water instead of a my sourdough starter.  I also wanted to incorporate some whole grains in this bake so I used some Spelt and Dark Rye (Pumpernickel) flours in the main dough.  I used some lower protein 00 style Italian flour and French style flour from KAF in the starter and the main dough.

In hindsight it may have been better to skip the 00 style flour in this one and have a little more dough strength.  The final dough was wet as expected but I did not get much oven rise and this one was more difficult to handle than Ciabatta I have made in the past.

In the end though, the bread came out just fine although a little flatter than I would have liked but it tastes terrific with a little nuttiness from the spelt and rye and the blueberries and raspberries add a whole other dimension.

This one is worth giving a try if you are up to the challenge.

Levain Directions Build 1

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  (Note: I used my proofer set at 83 degrees).

Levain Directions Build 2

Add all the ingredients listed to the levain from Build 1 and mix well.  Let it sit in your proofer or a warm place about 83 degrees for 4-5 hours until the starter is nice and bubbly and has doubled in size.

Directions

Mix the flours together with the water for about 1 minute.  Let it sit in your mixing bowl covered for about 15 to 30 minutes.

Next, add the Yeast Water and salt and mix on medium low for 3 minutes. You can now add the blueberries and raspberries and mix for another minute until they are incorporated.   Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl using a dough scraper or spatula. Cover the bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes transfer the dough to a lightly oiled work surface or you can do the S & F's in the bowl itself.  . Make sure you oil your hands and do a stretch and fold on all sides of the dough and flip it over and form it into a ball. Put the dough back in the bowl and let it rest for another 10 minutes at room temperature. Do this stretch and fold process three more times over the next 30 to 40 minutes.

After you do the last stretch and fold put it back in the bowl and cover it. Then let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours and cover it tightly and refrigerate overnight.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.   Place a large piece of parchment paper either on your work area or the back of a baking pan and dust with flour to cover it completely. Using an oiled or wet dough scraper gently remove the dough to the work surface. You want to be very careful so you don't degas the dough and kill the big air holes you want to achieve.

Flour your hands and lightly dust the top of the dough. Use your hands and a metal dough scraper and form the dough into a 9" square and be very careful again not to manhandle the dough and degas it.

Next, cut the dough into either 3 small Ciabatta or 2 larger size loaves. I opted to go with the 2 larger size but probably would have been better making 3 smaller ones.

Gently fold the individual dough pieces into thirds like an envelope. Make sure to be very careful and not to apply any pressure. Roll the folded dough in the flour to coat it and lift it onto the parchment paper and roll it in the flour again. Rest the dough seam side down and repeat with the other piece(s) of dough.

Spray the tops of the dough with oil (I use a baking spray) and cover the pan with plastic wrap very loosely. You can also use a clean lint free kitchen towel.

After 1 hour of resting, roll the dough pieces very gently so the seam side is now facing up and lift them with your floured hands to coax them into either a 7" rectangle if making the larger size or 5" rectangle.  Try to get them to be as close to a rectangle shape as you can when you put them back down on the parchment paper.

Let them rest covered loosely again for 1 hour.

About 45 minutes before baking, pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 550 degrees F.

Place an empty pan in bottom shelf of your oven or a cast iron skillet.

Pour 1 cup of boiling water into pan and place loaves into oven. I also spray the side walls of the oven with water 2 to 3 times for added steam.

Lower oven to 450 Degrees and bake for 12 minutes and rotate the bread and bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes until bread has a nice golden brown crust and the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. The bread should have puffed up a little and should be hard when you tap it.

Let it cool on a wire rack for 45 minutes (good luck waiting that long!) and enjoy!

The bread should have nice large irregular holes and should be soft after cooling.

Here are some photos of the pretzel rolls and hot dog buns I made for the 4th of July party we went to along with a cherry pie my wife made.  I also made 7 racks of ribs and a big brisket but didn't have a chance to take any photos.

Hungry Bee!

Since my recent first attempt at making pizza on my grill using unglazed quarry tiles, I have been anxious to try again but with Ian's (isand66) tip of using parchment paper as the transfer tool.

The system worked perfectly.  Thank you Ian for your suggestion.  My pizza system is now complete.

Today I made a shrimp and pesto pizza.  Whole wheat crust.  Shrimp, pesto, asiago cheese, feta cheese.  Sounds odd but works so nicely together.  Learned this one back in my restaurant days.  It was one of the most popular pizzas.

Ian this za's for you!

Well, I decided to try to make baguettes.  I loosely followed dmsnyder's instructions and Anis Bouabsa's formula (scaled to 80%) from here, with some adjustments based on my schedule and my laziness.  Specifically, I mixed the dough but did not knead it, let it rest at room temperature for about 45 minutes, then parked it in the refrigerator for about 12 hours without any folding.  I portioned the dough and did a very cursory pre-shaping step consisting of simply forming some rough rectangular blobs.  After a 30 minute rest, I formed the loaves and let them rise for about 1 hour.  I attempted to score the loaves without much success (I guess my knife wasn't sharp enough).  Then I baked with some steam at 450F for 20 minutes.

Super lazy pre-shaping step.  I did not find the dough to be too sticky or unmanageable.  These were 175g (~ 6 oz.) portions.  I figured smaller loaves might be easier to handle.

After watching a couple of videos on youtube, I was ready to go. There may be better/more helpful videos out there.  These are the two I happened to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEpedY__hsM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d0dzpJAbbU

I did these very quickly, as I didn't want to obsess and end up overworking the dough.  The smaller amount of dough made it slightly difficult to form a good seam with the side/heel of my hand. 

I proofed directly on a parchment lined baking pan, without couching.  The loaves spread out sideways as a result and  the spacing of these was awful.  I should not have loaded more than three on this pan.

Scoring was a disaster.  First I tried with a paring knife, then tried 2 different serrated knives.  As as you can see, the blades were dragging and pulling the dough.  I finally gave up.

Yikes! After 15 minutes at 450F, the tops were golden brown but they didn't look quite done.  I decided to go for 5 more minutes.  In retrospect I should have dropped the temperature.  The loaves look a LOT darker in the photos than in person.  I guess the lighting was too cool and my phone's camera picked up too much blue.

I had to run out the door, so I left these to cool and then sliced one open 2.5 hour later after I got home.

Despite the problems with scoring and the overly browned crust, I'm pretty happy with the results.  The crust is somewhat crispy (maybe not cracklingly crispy) and has a nice chewiness.  I didn't get a ton of oven spring, but the crumb is still somewhat open and tender with a slight chew.  I must have liked it, because I finished a loaf within a few minutes.