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We are now officially on the summer baking schedule.  No more large loaves.  Only 1 small one or possibly 2 if baked on the same day.  All bred baking is done in the mini oven outside.   This particular bake came in at over 1,300 g so it will have to be baked as 2 loaves one after the other to fit the mini oven.  Lucy isn’t quick with basic math.

My apprentice quickly forgets just about everything and the size of a loaf that fits in the MO is something she never knew to begin with - like every thing else worth knowing.   I have noticed that she is really good at hunting geckos, eating them and then upchucking the gooey mess on your summer bare feet.  Amazing really…. so don’t think you can catch a gecko with your bare teeth like she can.

This bread is what I would call our almost everyday bread that we would like to eat if we ever made the same bread more than once and had a favorite one dominating our bake list.  Thankfully, my apprentice forgets what that last bake was much less what her favorite might be other than knowing DaPumperizing any bread is way better than not doing so.

.The only thing missing is a dried fruit, I had a variety of them laid out and ready to be included but Lucy forgot all about them.  When I asked, she said that with the molasses and honey already in the mix, the sweetness of the fruits wasn’t needed.  Odd how these recipes come together especially after traversing torturously through such a tiny brain as hers.

We were going for multi grain sour so we used 10 g each of our rye and whole wheat starters and used all the whole grains in the 3 stage levain.  The whole grains ended up at 36% if you do not include the wholegrain soaker and the levain was 20% of the total weight.  We like to use a larger levain when making a bread that is jam packed full of add ins.

We refrigerated the levain for 24 hours after it had risen 25% after the 3rd stage feeding to increase the sour.  It rose another 25% in the fridge before being warmed up and allowed to finish its 3 stage doubling the next morning.  The whole grains in the levain included, barley, farro, spelt, wheat, and  rye.  Lucy tries to keep the whole grains in the levain so they have a really good chance of softening up as much as possible.

We added some corn, oats and potato to the AP dough flour because we like the flavors they bring to the party.  We scalded; whole wheat, rye, barley, farro, and spelt berries before putting them in the fridge overnight to soak and soften up.  They were well drained before being added to the dough.

The add ins included home made red and white malt, honey, molasses, ground flax and ground sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and pistachios,. We tossed in some Toadies since they are nearly required to enhance the flavor of every bake and a little VWG to bring up the gluten to an acceptable level .

Bake day breakfast.

The autolyse included everything except the pumpkinseeds, sunflower seeds, pistachio nuts and the whole berry scald.   The autolyse was done while the levain warmed up and finished doubling in the morning - about 3 hours.

Once the levain and the autolyse came together we did 10 minutes of slap and folds to develop the gluten and then let it rest for 15 minutes in an covered and oiled bowl.  We did 3 sets of S&F’s on 15 minute intervals where the scald and remaining seeds and nuts were incorporated on the first one and thoroughly distributed by the third set.  After a 1 hour ferment on the counter, into the fridge it went for its 16 hour bulk retard.

After taking the dough out of the fridge we divided it in half and then refrigerated half.  This way we could maintain a time window of 45 minutes between the 2 loaves.  This accounted for one loaf to bake off, the oven come back to temperature with steam in place and be oven be ready just in time for the 2nd loaf.

We shaped the dough cold into small ovals and for a little excitement, the first one we proofed seam side down so it would bake seam side up without slashing and the 2nd one we placed seam side up and slashed it.  The bread was ready to into the oven 2 1/2 hours after coming out of the fridge.

The mini oven was pre heated to 500 F and (2) of Sylvia’s steaming Pyrex cups, half full of water with a dish rag in each, were heated in the microwave.  We overturned the bread cross wise onto the top of the vented broiler pan covered in parchment paper.  The bottom of the broiler pan was preheated in the mini oven.

This bread made a fine balogna and brie sandwich with veggies, fruits and cheese.

A half a cup of water was put in the bottom of the broiler pan right before the broiler top, with the bread and steaming cups was placed on top of it.  The small space where the bread takes up 25% of it and the mega steam applied usually makes the mini put crust on bread like a commercial bakery oven.   Our best breads have always come the mini oven.

How did that stir fry from last night's dinner get in there? 

Once the bread went in, we steamed for 2 minutes and then turned the oven down to 450 F for 13 more minutes.  At the 15 minute mark, the bottom of the broiler pan came out with Sylvia’s steaming cups and the bread was left to bake on the top of the broiler pan at 400 F, convection this time.

We turned the bread 180 degrees every 5 minutes and flipped itnover on the top for the last 10 minutes of baking to get the bottom as brown as the top 20 minutes after the steam came out the bread tested 205 F on the inside at 35 minutes total baking time. 

Once removed to the cooling rack we noticed that the bread had not cracked mightily along the seam as we thought it would.  It wasn’t a lack of steam, possibly 98% proofed?   It did brown nicely, was crunchy with very small blisters and it smelled great.

The 2nd loaf was slashed before it went in the mini oven and baked the same way. It to did not spring or bloom much and did not bake as dark on the outside.  It too softened a little as it cooled but the crust was still crunchy and very tasty. 

With the crumb not as open as our usual, maybe the bread was under proofed?   The crumb was soft and moist like always.   Maybe there was just so much stuff in this bread it had a hard time getting lift?  Usually we would put YW in these kinds of breads to open the crumb and probably should have this time.  It passed the poke test and it looked like it had nearly doubled though.

The great thing about this bread is that it is a fine tasting bread.  My daughter said this is the only bread I should make.  The flour mix, corn, potato, scald, Toadies, ground flax and sesame seed, pistachios pumpkin and sunflower seeds really make this a tasty treat.

Formula

The bread was a bit dense not very sour either

M

This morning I baked a sprouted wheat loaf.   I had made my first one the other day and it was an ugly duckling but delicious, so my plan was to make a prettier bigger one.   I succeeded on the bigger.

I will say this though - this loaf rose very nicely both in and out of the oven, and I didn't use any VWG.   I did however use lots of rye sour and starter which had the effect of obscuring the wonderful taste of the sprouted wheat.   Good but not ready for prime time.  Back to drawing board.   Ideas?

No sooner was my sprouted loaf out of the oven when it hit me that I had a pain de mie biga timing out in the refrigerator.   I had not been planning to make a second loaf today but didn't want to lose it, so I gave up on what I was supposed to do and made the pain de mie.    This time, again following Janet, I decided to make a 100% whole white wheat loaf.   I had made one with high extraction flour earlier which tasted terrific but was somewhat disappointingly flat.  

This one was much better behaved.   After mixing my last one for 45 minutes it was still a liquid although a particularly viscous one.    Here, after 20 minutes or so of intensive mixing, the dough came together in a ball, but didn't windowpane.   I gave it a 10 minutes rest, then mixed around 10 more minutes.   This time it was definitively done.

Much to my delight, it did not come out of the oven looking like a cornfield flattened in a tornado but had a pretty nice loft (see above.)   Comparing it to my last (same size) white pain de mie (see below) it wasn't shaped all that differently.

Crumb shot:

Formulas, Methods:

Sprouted Wheat Loaf

Whole Wheat Pain de Mie

When I was a kid, thats what you used to say to each other!

Strange kids....

Without any further ado.....

What more can I say?

Beautiful…

Beautiful…

Beautiful….

Where to start?

These tasted like nothing I can describe…

Fresh, tasty, light, bready, doughy, yummy, warm and delicious!!

I don’t like to blow my own greedy trumpet but they simply were fantastic!!

Gone within 2 hours of making them…

I was even tempted to make more the night before going to work and getting up early to make them before work!!

That is how good they are.

Only alteration would be to make the poppy-seed and cheese ones, a little smaller, more like the fruity ones, that had the perfect bagel shape:)

Even though it’s a 2 day process, its simple really and the 2nd day part is over really in an hour…

Baked, all done!!

Ready to scoff….

Bagel sponge..

Split in 2, ready for flour and spices etc…

Cranberry dough

Plain dough…

Spiced pre bagel…

Plain pre bagel..

Slight rest…

What do I need?

Sponge:

2 tsp dried yeast
4 cups bread flour

2 tsp sugar

2 & 1/2 cups warm water

Dough:

4 cups bread flour
3 tsp  salt
2 tsp malt powder

OTHER:

1/2 cup of muscovado sugar

1 cup of cranberries

3 tsp mixed spice

1/2 cup of grated cheese

1/2 cup of poppy seeds

1/2 cup of fine polenta.

A bit of this…

Plain rested ):

Fruit rested

The Night Before CHRISTMAS…..

Just kidding.

Take your sponge ingredients and mix the yeast into warmed water along with the sugar.

Cover and allow yeast to become frothy, usually 10 minutes, then add in the flour.

Mix well and cover with gladwrap and then a tea towel and rest for 2 hours.

Stir in the 2nd lot of flour, malt powder and the salt.

Make sure it is well blended and knead for 10 minutes.

Cut dough into pieces  (I did 12 BUT next time I will do 14-16).

Roll each piece into a smooth tight ball (as above) and place on lightly floured bench and allow to rest for 30 minutes, covered with a tea towel.

Holey…

Holey moley…

Holey guacamole

Cover and into the fridge…

When rested, poke your thumb into the middle of the ball and then rotate round using finger and thumb until the shape is reached.

Its easy peasy…serious, do one and you will be sweet!!

Place on a lightly oiled baking paper/tray, allowing lots of room between the bagels.

Cover with gladwrap, ( I used 2 foodtown plastic bags on each tray ) and pop into the fridge overnight.

Boil, Boil, toil and trouble…

Ready….

Polenta….or very fine semolina flour is ok too.

NEXT DAY!!!

Are you excited????

I am….

Pre heat your oven to 250 Celsius.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, salted well.

Remove bagels from the fridge.

Get your toppings ready, I had my poppy seeds and grated cheese..

Also some polenta to scatter on the baking tray.

The fruit beasties well already to go:)

Boiling…

Getting fruity…

Poppied!

cheesy too…

Ready to bake….

Carefully place 2-3 bagels in the boiling pot at one stage.

Allow 1-2 minutes cooking on one side, then turn over and allow the same on the other side.

Remove from the water, a slotted spoon is good, and place on your baking tray that is sprinkle with polenta that will go in the oven.

Top whilst the bagel is still damp.

Place in the oven for 5-6 minutes and then rotate the tray round, also turning the heat down to 220 Celsius and baking for a further 5-6 minutes.

A slight goldy tinge is good:)

Remove from the oven and cool (if you can wait that long) slightly and EAT!!

I made the plain bagels a little larger than need be so that is why above is I suggested 1-2 more bagels.

Dig in….

Cheese???

Mmmm Fruity

Underneath…

Yummmmm

Lovely Texture

Inner Cheese…

Almost all gone…

Tasty…

ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY!!

Recipe adapted from the lovely folks @ the fresh loaf.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/bagels

Don't forget to check out greedybread on Facebook now!! 

https://www.facebook.com/greedybread

See you there:)

So I wanted to try a no-knead bread again;  Just very plain and simple. Just white wheat flour, water, salt and some yeast. 
1 kg total dough weight, 70% hydration. About a 1/4 tsp of IDY and 12 grams of salt. 

Just mixed it all together and left for a night. Then did some S&F and left to proof. First time in an oval banneton, second time in a round banneton (though that one was a bit too big for the amount of dough).

After proofing I turned on a shooter, slashed and baked at 250 degrees C. 

First version was nice, but the second one got a much more open crumb. I guess because it got a more heaped 1/4 tsp IDY, and fermented a bit longer for the first proofing. 

Oval version:

Round version:

All thumbnails are clickable.

The Cord of Poverty

If you want to go straight to the video, follow this link 

This loaf has it all. Great dough, great flavor, and; slashing not required! A rope of twisted dough, placed parallel on top of the loaf, magically takes care of that. And it has great visual appeal. The long twisted strand of dough is like an umbilical cord. Where it touches the dough, it folds open. It's almost hard not to have associations with life, birth and fertility when looking at it.

The origins of the bread go way back to the time of the crusades, to Vézelay, France. It was from this Christian enclave that people left for the 2nd and 3rd crusades. Among the many monastic orders around Vézelay, there were the 'cordeliers', followers of Francis of Assisi. They were called that because of the simple rope they knotted around their robes, as a symbol of poverty. They also used the rope for bread making. They marked the bread with it, and proofed the dough, draping it lengthwise over the cord, thus achieving a nice 'grigne' without any actual slashing of the dough. What would they use to hold up their robes while baking...

Somewhere along the line the actual rope was replaced with the doughy version. I think we all know why...

Pain Cordon de Bourgogne

flour-mix

300 gr. bread flour

125 gr. high extraction flour

75 gr. rye flour

First make the flour mix; weigh out all the flours accurately and sift all of them together.

poolish

ingredients

150 gr. active wheat starter (100% hydration)

100 gr. flour mix

90 gr. lukewarm water

20 gr. buttermilk

4 gr. fresh yeast (or 1½ gr. dry active yeast)

method

Dissolve the (fresh) yeast into the lukewarm water and leave to rest for 15 minutes. If using dry yeast, you can continue to the next step right after the yeast has dissolved.

Add the yeasted water and the buttermilk to the 150 gr. of active starter. Stir until it goes all frothy. Add the flour mix and stir it all together into a mushy porridge. Leave this, covered, at room temperature for about 1½ hours. It will be ready when it goes all bubbly and has doubled, or even tripled in volume.

Dough

ingredients

the poolish

400 gr. flour mix

40 gr. buttermilk

170 gr. water

12.8 gr salt

Stir the water and buttermilk through the poolish. Add the flour and mix it into a rough dough with the back of a wooden spoon. Cover and leave to autolyse for about 30 minutes.

Knead the salt through the dough, either by hand or in a stand mixer. About three minutes. Cover and leave for 15 minutes.

Knead the dough for another minute or so and cover and rest for 15 more minutes.

Knead the dough one last time for about a minute, or 2 minutes by hand. Form into a ball, cover and let the dough rest for another hour or until the dough has more or less doubled in bulk.

Put a baking stone in the lower third of your oven and preheat it to 240°C

Turn out the dough on your work surface and cut about 75 grams of dough off the dough, shape it into a small ball and leave to rest for 5 minutes.

Flatten the dough into a rectangle, and shape it into a batard.

Dust your proofing basket royally with rye flour.

Roll the small ball out into two strands of dough, flour them lightly and twist them around each other. The cord should cover the entire length of the dough.

Place the cord in your proofing basket, centered and hanging over the far ends. Place the dough, seam side up on the cord. Cover and rest until doubled in bulk, about 1½-2 hours. When you poke the dough with your finger, and it returns slowly, your bread is ready to go into the oven. If it springs back within a few seconds, leave it to rest a little longer. When you poke your dough and the dent doesn't spring back at all.... you have over proofed your dough. Keep an eye on it, and remember; under proofing is a more common occurrence than over proofing.

Spray the walls of your oven with some water.

Transfer the loaf from the basket onto a peel. Bake it on the stone for 15 minutes on 240°C, then lower the temperature to 210°C, and bake for a further 30 minutes until the crust is nice and dark.

Enjoy!

sources:

panis nostrum

ma petite cantine

sweet & sour

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on The Fresh Loaf.  Having become more deeply entrenched as a professional baker has left me less time to bake at leisure.  And having helped to launch a new restaurant in Washington, DC has entailed too many days of continuous work to allow the time to bake for myself and share the joys and tribulations on this forum. 

But after a couple months since our opening I found myself one early morning placing wheat-rye sourdough boules onto the loader and shaking my head at how pathetic they looked after nearly a day in refrigeration, yet confident that they would not disappoint.

So as I journeyman baker I share these thoughts:

Bread is magical, but also a form of magic.  Like Penn & Teller, but instead of applauding you get to eat the magic. 

The photo above is a good demonstration of the magic of bread.  While I'm a professional baker and help perform the magic each day - Teller to the dough's Penn - I never cease to be amazed at the magic which bakers call "oven spring."  It is a phenomenon which occurs within the first 15 minutes of a loaf's bake, and when successful, it beats sawing a pretty lady in a box in half hands down.

If you look at the piece of dough on the right, you cannot help but be struck at how much it resembles nothing so much as a frisbee.  And yet, if the baker and the dough have worked their magic well, in 45 minutes the flatish frisbee has sprung up to become the beautiful round loaf (called a boule) you see on the left.

Not only is this magic, it is a performance conducted daily without a net:  By which I mean, if for some reason the baker and the dough have not worked together well, the result is not a beautiful tall boule but a barely risen loaf.  And because of that, every day when I load dough into our oven, I tremble looking at how flat and deflated my boules look, and hope that the result will be magical and not a disappointment.

Ok, the hope is actually an expectation.  But I am working with a living organism. This is a relationship. Miscommunication can occur. You and the dough may not be on the same page for any number of reasons.  And so, you never have certainty that the resulting bake will meet or exceed your expectations.  "Hope" is a good way of putting the feeling I experience when I load these loaves each day. 

There are, of course, technical, scientific explanations for oven spring and how it is that a seemingly defeated, deflated round of dough can and will rise into a mountain of a loaf.  But they are not nearly as wonderous as witnessing the event first hand.  And in the end, they take none of the wonder away from this truly magical event.

Some other pictures of this and other loaves as they transformed themselves into beautiful wheat-rye sourdough boules over a long bake in a deck oven.

For starters, freshly formed boules placed on a floured board before being retarded:

 Loaves being baked and cooling on racks after baking:

We call this a "bold" bake, and the sweetness of the bread's crumb contrasts nicely with the slight char on the surface of the boule's crust.

And finally, the interior crumb that magic and a successful bake produced:

This is what gets me out of bed in the wee hours of the morning.

And protects me against the cynicism which can easily come with age.

Because as long as I can bake bread, I'll believe in magic.

Best regards to all,

Larry

Got this idea while watching Pizza Cuz on the Cooking channel. The two cousins visited a shop that sells only focaccia with toppings. It seemed to be a better rendition of Sicilian Pizza, distributed locally--Scranton, PA--and sold in Mom & Pop grocery stores when I was a kid. It was delivered in baking-sheet pans, and, as I recall, a 5-inch square sold for 5-cents. The crumb was like white bread, but chewy. The tomato sauce tasted like...tomatoes, with nothing but salt for seasoning.

I used sourdough focaccia dough (all Bread flour 72% hydration, 30% liquid levain), and made a tomato sauce with a 14 oz. can of diced tomatos, a 6 oz can of tomato paste, 4 oz of V8 juice seasoned with 4 minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper, basil and marjoram. I retarded the dough overnight at 54°F. I sprinkled a few fresh Globe Basil leaves on top immediately after baking.

My go-to pizza dough is a 50/50 mix of semolina and AP flours at 60% hydration, retarded overnight also. I roll it thin; we generally prefer thin-crust pizza. This is a nice change. The dough is particularly light, open and soft, and the bottom crust is crispy.

I made two. One is today's lunch, the second will be frozen. I will warm it up in a 375°F oven for a few minutes hoping to regain the bottom crust's crispiness.

David G

I've been overloaded the past couple of weeks, so I've fallen a bit behind on my blogging and baking. 

Going back the furthest: BreadSong gave me a heads up about an Advanced Baking class being taught very close to where I live at the UBC Farm a few weeks ago.  The class was being taught by Florin Moldovan, an accomplished Vancouver-based baker who ran a popular bakery in the Kitsilano neighborhood here.  Sadly Florin closed the bakery right around the time I moved here before I had a chance to visit.

Florin's blog is definitely worth checking out.

There were about a dozen of us in the class.  In his intro class, Florin covers the basic steps in baking (mixing, fermenting, shaping, etc). In the advanced class, he introduces preferments, soakers, sourdough, baker's math, and other things that folks had questions about.

Everyone was asked to bring a large mixing bowl with them. 

Florin provided the ingredients and had the soakers and starter ready to go. At the end of class we each got to leave with a bowl full of dough.

The next day the dough we'd prepared baked up beautifully. My photo doesn't do it justice.

Florin is an extremely accomplished baker, but one thing that struck me about the class is you wouldn't have to be that good to teach a class like this: a lot of us could do it. Gear-wise, since everyone was asked to bring a bowl and none of the baking was done there, all you really need is space you can occupy (and get dirty) for a few hours and about twenty bucks of ingredients.  Pre-measure the ingredients, have them ready in plastic cups or bowls before the class starts, and hand out a couple of print outs about the basics of baking and some simple formulas. Good times, and a great way to introduce folks to baking or meet other bakers.

* * *

Last week was a travel week, down to Oregon to see friends and wrap up our final loose ends there.  The storage locker is empty now; we are now fully settled in Vancouver.

* * *

After returning, I baked a nice loaf using a soaker and starter similar to what we did in class.  

Starter

100g rye flour

100g water

20g starter

Soaker 1

130g cracked wheat

140g water

Soaker 2

100g whole wheat flour

120g water

Final dough

300g Robin Hood "best for bread multigrain blend" flour

400g all-purpose unbleached flour

20g salt

330g water

The starter and soakers

The exterior shot is at the top of this post.  Here is a crumb shot.