The Fresh Loaf

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Floydm's picture
Floydm

I guess I woke up feeling a bit combative this morning... more on that another time. The long and short of it is I put together a bit of TFL merchandise. A t-shirt...

an apron...

   And a bumpersticker.

Dorota, on the other hand, was of a more peaceable temperment.

These should show up in the Zazzle.com storefront in the next 24 hours.  

I've actually never ordered from Zazzle but they have a good reputation.  I ordered a few stickers, so we'll see what they look like in a little bit.

There is also some TFL gear for sale over on Cafe Press. I just ordered myself a TFL t-shirt, which I've been meaning to do since we first set that up and never got around to.  Again, I'll let folks know how the quality of the shirt and the printing is.

I want to do another shirt/sticker with "CARBIVORE" on it.  If anyone else has good ideas for a bread-themed shirt that they'd actually wear, let me know!

Tedmonkey's picture
Tedmonkey

To the bloggers on this site who inspired me to make fresh blueberry and white chocolate sourghdough with chaia seeds. Cooked in a Dutch oven, which I'd never even heard of before visiting here. Chaia seeds were new to me too as they are not very common in the uk.

Bread has a gorgeous nutty taste and is utterly delicious. My favourite so far.

So big thanks again,

Catherine

MaximusTG's picture
MaximusTG

So after the low yeast version I baked a while ago, I baked some more of those. 

Then I wanted to use my own sourdough culture to bake that bread. 
I had some trouble getting the hydration right, because I feel like the use of baker's percentage is a bit harder when using a sourdough (another source of flour and water) to aim for a certain hydration. 

I used 

300 grams whole wheat flour (50%)

300 grams white flour (50%) \

                                               100 grams sourdough, 58 gram flour, 42 gram water

420 grams water (70%)            /

12 grams of salt (2%)

30 grams of butter (5%)

and a handful of pumpkin seeds.


I mixed all of the WW flour, all the sourdough and 258 grams of water the night before. 

In the morning I mixed in 242 grams of flour and 120 grams of water, the salt and the melted butter.

Kneaded with handmixer, left to rise an hour. Then shaped into a boule and put seam-side up in a banneton. After 2 hours proofing turned on a peel and scored and baked in a steamed oven on a stone for 55 minutes at 190 C. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

I can't be a party pooper, so here's enjoyed for dinner today in celebration of CDM!

I don't think chocolate chip cookies are really a Mexican cookie, but we like them occassionally.

 

I brined a lovely organic chicken overnight.  It was cooked in my rotisserie to perfection..so delicious, moist and tender.  If you've never brined your poultry.  Do give it a try.  You'll be very pleased at the difference.

 

 

Plate of tortilla's, shredded pork roast, chicken, fresh guacamole, pinto beans, Mexican pizza on locally purchased tortilla's..we have several local mexican tortiarilla panaderilla's so they are always very fresh and delicious. 

 

 

My Oatmeal, walnut, chocolate chip cookies.  

I just recently had to replace my mini oven.  I purchased the Breville smart oven.  I made the mexican pizza in it and 

crisps up a cold pizza perfectly.  I haven't tried baking a pizza in it yet..though I do have a stone and pizza pan for it. 

 

Not to be an add, but I'm so pleased with the new mini oven.  

Can you tell which cookies were baked in the Bmini and which ones were baked in my GE wall convection wall oven?

Answer -  The left is the Bmini on the right GE wall oven, baked Oatmeal, walnut, choc chip cookies.

 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Sylvia

 

 

 

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with Increased Whole Wheat

by David M. Snyder

May 5, 2013

 

Sometimes another TFL member comments favorably on one of my breads, then goes on to say how they have modified my formula or methods. Sometimes these changes seem to be for the member's convenience or to substitute a preferred method for the one I used. Sometimes I feel the changes are of small consequence. The one alteration that consistently intrigues me is an increase in whole grains in a formula of mine that is basically a white bread.

Today, I baked a couple loaves of my San Francisco-style Sourdough Bread with two modifications: I increased the whole wheat content to 30% of the total flour, and I increased the hydration to 76%. I expected this increase in hydration to more than compensate for the increased water absorption of the whole wheat flour. I used a very finely milled organic whole wheat flour from Giusti's. I find this flour has much less cutting of gluten strands than most whole wheat flours. I can get a more open crumb using this flour.

I also made a couple loaves of the San Francisco-style Sourdough without the increased whole wheat.

 

Total dough

Bakers' %

Wt (g)

AP flour

54

304

Bread flour

14

79

Medium Rye flour

2

11

WW Flour

30

169

Water

76

428

Salt

1.9

11

Total

177.9

1002

 

Stiff levain

Bakers' %

Wt (g)

Bread flour

95

79

Medium rye flour

5

11

Water

50

45

Stiff starter

80

66

Total

230

201

 

  1. Dissolve the starter in the water. Add the flours and mix thoroughly until the flour has been completely incorporated and moistened.

  2. Ferment at room temperature 6-8 hours. (Until about tripled in volume, domed and very well aerated.)

 

Final dough

Wt (g)

AP flour

281

WW Flour

162

Water

350

Salt

11

Stiff levain

201

Total

1005

 

Method

  1. In a stand mixer, mix the flour and water at low speed until it forms a shaggy mass.

  2. Cover and autolyse for 30 minutes

  3. Add the salt and levain and mix at low speed for 1-2 minutes, then increase the speed to medium (Speed 2 in a KitchenAid) and mix for 5 minutes. Add flour and water as needed. The dough should be rather slack. It should clean the sides of the bowl but not the bottom.

  4. Transfer to a lightly floured board and do a stretch and fold and form a ball.

  5. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly.

  6. Ferment at 76º F for 21/2 to 3 hours with a stretch and fold at 50 and 100 minutes.

  7. Divide the dough into two equal pieces.

  8. Pre-shape as rounds and rest, covered, for 10 minutes.

  9. Shape as boules or bâtards and place in bannetons. Place bannetons in plastic bags.

  10. Proof at room temperature (68-70º F) for 1-2 hours.

  11. Cold retard the loaves overnight.

  12. The next morning, proof the loaves at 85º F for 2 to 3 hours. (If you can't create a moist, 85 degree F environment, at least try to create one warmer than “room temperature.”

  13. 45-60 minutes before baking, pre-heat the oven to 480º F with a baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

  14. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score the loaves as desired, turn down the oven to 460º F, steam the oven, and transfer the loaves to the baking stone.

  15. After 12 minutes, remove the steaming apparatus, and turn down the oven to 435º F/Convection. (If you don't have a convection oven, leave the temperature at 460º F.)

  16. Bake for another 15-18 minutes.

  17. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack, and cool thoroughly before slicing.

 

After cooling, the loaves had a chewy crust and chewy crumb. The flavor was wheaty and moderately sour when first tasted. I am looking forward to trying this bread toasted tomorrow for breakfast.

At the moment, I am considering further modifications such as a bolder bake, adding a bit of honey and increasing the whole wheat to 50%.  

David

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Dabrownman's;  green Mexican rice, a  chorizo burrito, grilled peppers, onion and squash, Black re-fried beans, grilled . salsa, pico de gillo and  Mexican Creama.

A fine breakfast made from two of our recent breads,  with back yard Minneolas, applewood smoked bacon, strawberries, an egg, caramelized Minneola marmalade and a basil blossom stalk.

 Above is David Snyder's Pugleise we baked on Friday and below is an equally fine Aroma Bread by Hanseata (Karin). Both are fine for breakfast or any other time!

A A lovely white bread lunch with Italian dipping sauce of Parmesan, Pecorino, cracked black pepper,  fresh basil, EVOO, balsamic vinegar, grilled chicken sandwich  and the usual veggies, fruits and avacado.  A tasty Pecan granola apple crisp for dessert. 

Happy CDM to all! 

 

 

CB85's picture
CB85

Ok...so I might have been a little carried away while playing around with hydration. This was actually a normal looking proofed loaf a few seconds before I attempted to score it, and got it stuck to the counter, and got it stuck to my arm, when I opened the oven and there was an unruly oven rack in the way. Anyway, hopefully the crumb makes up for this silly crust. The second loaf is still circular at least!

ananda's picture
ananda

Bread and Roses

Spring 2013

 

Finally, this post is coming together!   It has been a long time in the making, and in the meantime it’s “all-change” here at TFL.   The re-vamped site looks great Floyd, and I am about to experiment with all the new upload options now made available.   I gather I should be able to embed my own videos; well, let’s just see how I get on shall we?

Ok, well, I’ve entitled this post “Spring”, but in truth, we haven’t really got going with this most beautiful of seasons in the UK, especially here in “The North”.   Current estimates are that the natural environment is lagging 6 to 8 weeks behind where we could reasonably expect it to be.   Many of the big old trees in our village have no buds on them whatsoever.   And it has been cold; very cold indeed.   It is now windy, but there is some warmth when the sun is out properly.   I start off with this whinge because it drove many Brits to choose to escape to Southern Europe at Easter-time, fed up as the coldest March on record was finally drawing to a close.   Alison and I were part of this exodus, although we had decided to take a 2 week break at Easter some time ago, when we found cheap flights with EasyJet from London’s Gatwick Airport.   We are going to Scotland with family this July, so hit on the idea of exploring our favourite island of Crete in the Springtime; what a fantastic ideas that turned out to be too.   We are used to Crete appearing baked; little water, no grass, limited flowers to say the least.   It can be a trifle windy, but ordinarily it is HOT.   Of course our visit this time brought very different weather, and a landscape very unfamiliar to us, and very beautiful indeed.

I made notes of our early days in Crete, and reflected largely on baking, given I made bread in the wood-fired brick oven attached to the lovely “Anatolika” Beach House where we were staying.   I will write up the notes below.   There is also a video slideshow to watch, with photos of my baking, of the amazing landscape we enjoyed, and acknowledgement of our feline companions through the fortnight.

 

“Anatolika” – The Beach House; Easter 2013

Alison loves Crete – she has been coming on holiday to this island for close on 25 years.   She brought me to Crete for our extended honeymoon back in 2007, and I too fell in love with the place.

Since then we have stayed in various places around the island; all very beautiful.   But this is the best of all and we have been so excited about coming back here since we first secured the booking back in late 2012.   We stayed here in the heat of July and August 2010; you can read about our adventures on that trip here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19167/anotolika-beach-house

Setting the scene: we are on the South Coast, around 40km due South of Rethymnon – Crete’s third largest city.   The road west is unfit to use to drive in our grotty hire car and the road east meanders for a few kilometres around shore and mountainside before it peters out.   To the south is the Libyan Sea, with the tiny island of Gavdos some 4 hours away by boat.   After that, next stop Africa!   So the north is our access point, over hills rising close to 1000m, with the town of Spili as our base for buying supplies.

We re-visited our favourite greengrocer and stocked up on aubergines, peppers, courgettes and other vegetables, as well as some fabulous local strawberries.   The shopkeeper also sells loose dried beans and pulses, so we bought fava and gigantes too, and we also found some local speciality pasta.   Last, and definitely not least, we bought local honey, plus the gentleman’s own olive oil [truly top class], and raki, which was sufficiently smooth that Alison was quite happy to down a tipple in one when offered a sample in the shop!

At the other end of the town car park is the INCA supermarket where we bought other provisions, including a good range of flour….milled in Crete.   I bought a beautiful coarse wholemeal with protein of 14.4%, a strong white flour for bread at 11.8%, and what must be close to a US All Purpose flour at 11.2% - although I expect it to have been milled from predominantly Mediterranean-grown wheat and, as such, that the protein quality and water absorption would be lower than its US counterpart.   I have included photos of the flour bags in the slideshow.   All the flours were produced by the same milling company.   We followed one of the company lorries on our way back to the airport as it made its way from its base in Souda, near Chania, to one of the plant bakeries in the capital city, Heraklion.

The labels are headed ΜΥɅΟΙ ΚΡΗΤΗΣ, which I suspect translates as “Cretan Mills”.   The Greek word for flour is αλεύρι.

I don’t lay claim to the flour being any local speciality flour like the Gilchesters’ which I use in the UK; anything but!   They are clearly industrially-produced flours with consistent specifications.   But, they are milled at Souda, the port which serves the second city, Chania, in the west of the island.

I do not know where the Greeks source bread-making wheat, but have these inclines.   Thessalonikii in the north of the mainland is noted for agri-business, and one suspects the shortfall is made up from wheat from the other EU nations, France being a most likely source.

I arrived in Crete to bake, armed with a red plastic scraper, 40g of levain stashed in a plastic container, and a neat mini-scale which I have photographed in the slideshow.   The scale weighs upto 300g, in 0.1g denominations, although a level scoop only provides about 30g of flour, so weighing out accurately can be a bit of a pain.   Still, it’s a good balance; I avoided “winging it”, but managed to keep things as simple as possible for me to enjoy the pleasures of baking in our wonderful seaside abode.

We arrived on Friday afternoon.   I had driven overnight from home to London [350 miles/560km] before the flight to Crete, plus a 120km journey from Heraklion airport, so, yes, I was tired.   We shopped on Saturday, and I built up the levain.   Alison and I sourced some wood from the roadside and the beach, and the owners of Anatolika supplied more besides.   The sun shone and it was hot for the first few days.

On the Sunday, I baked a large Miche, which was a little over-ambitious at 1.5kg of dough, as my makeshift banneton was too small to allow full proof, meaning the crumb in the centre areas of the bread ended up just a little tight.   I also made 2 small cobs of Toasted Almond and Prune Bread which served well for breakfasts over the next few days.   The pick of the breads was undoubtedly a large wholemeal cob, which I topped with a few sesame seeds.   I think a white crusty bâtard, or maybe a small but chunky baguette, with a scattering of sesame seeds is typical of everyday Greek bread.   But, we like wholemeal flour better, and I had a couple of plastic round bowls to use and some linen tea towels to improvise as bannetons…so these loaves became our bread of choice for our lunchtime sandwiches this holiday.

In the early part of the second week of the holiday I baked once more.   This time I made a pizza, which baked in just 2 minutes in the red hot oven, just after extinguishing the fire.   A courgette focaccia followed, taking just 5 minutes to bake through!   I made more wholemeal bread plus some spicy buns.   The buns tasted good, but the levain was somewhat over-ripe by the time I came to make them, and my supply of bread flour running very short.   Yet again, the wholemeal loaves were just great; I reckon hydration in these loaves was in excess of 80%, and they stayed fresh for days.

Of course, we really did not want to come home.   Here is the slideshow of photographs from the holiday.

 

My Movie










Post Holiday

Nigel covered the Hexham Farmers’ Market on 13th April allowing Alison and I to catch up with my family on the way back home from London.   I then had to travel back up to Dunbar for nightshift work on Sunday night for 4 nights.   We had friends for dinner the following Saturday and I worked just one Sunday night back up in Scotland.   After that I baked all week on my wood-fired oven at home in preparation for the Alnwick Farmers’ Market on 26th April.   You can see my baking effort on the slideshow below.   The weather was rubbish that day, but sales were ok considering.   I attended Hexham Farmers’ Market the next day, and sold out of everything very quickly, including the small amount of excess from the day before which went on special offer.

After a brief rest on Sunday, Alison and I caught an early train South on Monday morning [29th April] and were joined by my parents at York en route to London.   We went to the Barbican Centre in the heart of the City of London for my Graduation Ceremony with City University.   Yes, finally I have successfully completed an MSc in Food Policy.   There are a few photographs at the end of the slideshow below.

 

Farmers Market & MSc Food Policy Graduation










Nigel and I had a large baking session on Thursday this week.   We attended the Newcastle Farmers’ Market for the first time on Friday 3rd May, and all-but-sold-out of bread.   Given tough competition, minimal publicity, and a first attempt, 130 loaves sold seems a good result to us.   We wait to see whether we are invited back for June and July.

I’m looking forward to the Summer.   I have a few day courses booked in, plus the Farmers’ Markets and the Powburn Show.   BUT, I soooooo need a bakery; that is the real goal I have to work for.

Happy Baking Everyone!

Andy

varda's picture
varda

The other day I was baking a lot of bread, and had excess white starter on my hands.   I knew that I had (or would have) too much bread on hand to make more, but what about later in the week?   Maybe I would run out and wouldn't have time to bake.    So I took my excess starter, added flour, water and salt, mixed it up, put it in a lidded tub and stuck it in the refrigerator.   Two days later, sure enough the bread had run out.   So I removed the tub from the refrigerator.   The dough was totally aerated, but did not have a sour odor.   I took that as a good sign.   I scraped out the dough, cut it and shaped it.    Talk about enzymatic autolyse - oh forget the autolyse part.   The dough was extremely sticky and would not unstick.   I figured less handling would be better than more, so I just got it shaped without trying for much form, and floured it very well, so it wouldn't stick to the couche,  Then let it proof while I preheated the oven and stone.  Then in it went.    The resulting bread was certainly not the best I've ever made, but really not bad.    And no surprise here, very tartly sour.   I don't generally strive for sour bread, but this was a nice change of pace. 

Here's the insides:

From these pictures you can spot two issues:   separation in the crumb.   I'm not sure what that's from.   And a somewhat pale crust undoubtedly due to the long refrigeration.   However, despite the paleness, the crust was quite crisp and good. 

Since I just threw this together, computing in my head at the counter, I'm not 100% sure what this is.   Here is my best guess:   100% KAAP, 67% hydration, 20% prefermented flour, 2.5% salt.   I was going for 2% salt, but as I recall, accidentally put in more, and then thought, that was just fine given that I didn't know when this was coming out of the refrigerator.  

For a bread that took less than 15 minutes of work altogether, I will declare this a success.

evonlim's picture
evonlim

i baked this with a wonderful blogger in mind.. inspired by his colorful personality and his no boundries yet no nonsense bread baking. if you missed out this blog of his, here is the link http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32553/sd-yw-durum-ricotta-bread-pistachio-nuts-pumpkin-millet-seeds

 

finally, got a good ear to my loaves :) 

yes, indeed the ricotta soften the crumb. 

 

and yes..  everyone loves it. 

thanks to dabrownman :) inspiring bread blogs

Cheers..

evon

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