The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Blogs

kevinnoe's picture
kevinnoe

I've been working on a way to combine the Reinhart "Pain a l'ancienne" technique with a 100% sourdough from a fresh ground whole wheat starter for some time. I'm incredibly proud of this little personal breakthough, and looking forward to cutting into this bad boy! Ah bread... the stuff of life!

breadforfun's picture
breadforfun

Just a short note to share some recent bakes.  We love Hamelman's 5-grain levain - it's flavorful, moist, healthy, and it freezes well.  We always keep a loaf in the freezer, sliced and ready to toast for spreading with (choose your topping: cream cheese, yogurt cheese, jams) for breakfast.  It also makes a great sandwich bread.  I follow the basic recipe from Bread (1st edition - I don't know how it compares to the recent release), with just a few small additions.  First, I add 100 gm of toasted pumpkin seeds, and second, I substutute yogurt whey for the water in the final dough.

     

Another recent bake is Horiatiko Psomi, which is based on this recipe.  David (dmsnyder) also made a version of it here.  I tried the batard version that is coated with sesame seeds.  It had a fairly closed crumb with a few larger holes.  But the crumb was creamy and it had a soft, chewy crust, it is also quite tasty with a hint of tang.  Unfortunately, I have no crumb shot because it was brought to a friend for dinner.

    

Have fun baking!

-Brad

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Sorry for the duplicate post however I realized I posted this bake accidentally in the forum but wanted it on my blog.

Today I finally had a chance to bake the Tartine loaf with my new baking gear.  This is the second bake with the gear.  I strongly suggest to anyone experiencing the same issues as I had with bakes, GET THESE SIMPLE ITEMS.  It has taken my breads up a few notches and fixed all my problems immediately.

And the larger loaf with crumb.

kaseylj's picture
kaseylj

This is a great recipe from a great book.

The recipe is posted here: 

I actually followed the recipe exactly .. which for some reason is rare for me.   The only difference was I baked at 425 vs. 450.   I wanted a little bit softer crust.. and this worked well.    (so I guess I didn't follow it exactly..).

Anyway, I tripled the batch.. these are 1.5lb loaves.

I had to split it up into 3 different bakes.. so the last loaf (poppy seeds) sat for a good hour and a half waiting for the other loaves to bake.  It still held up pretty well.  

I used a small stone for these and can  only fit 2 at a time.

These all have egg wash except the 2 pan loaves.. just flour on those.

The taste is great.  Three of us took out a loaf and a half before the day was out.

(now you know why I tripled the recipe)

 

Enjoy,

LJC

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Wowzer....today at church a member brought a huge bag of extra grapes . Hmm...I had a 1/2 batch of semolina pizza dough at home just waiting for something creative to happen. Voila !  This is SO yum !! I can't  even describe how good it is. I used raw sugar and EVOO on top and sprinkled with Herbs de Provence...lots of lavender. Whoa...we have devoured a 1/2 loaf !  Made Conchiglie con Salsiccia e Peperoni as well. Grated parmagiano reggiano ..what a Sunday night feast.  Will share recipes if you are interested...will have to wait till tomorrow :)  Vino also very nice...

 

 

 photo IMG_6203_zpsaa9c84da.jpg  photo IMG_6204_zps046a6244.jpg  photo IMG_6205_zps0d1f4779.jpg  photo IMG_6206_zps5c50f62e.jpg  photo IMG_6207_zps82d487c2.jpg

Cheesie Keys's picture
Cheesie Keys

Was it beginner's luck?

In my previous and first post on The Fresh Loaf, I described my experience of baking the introductory loaf from Floyd's handbook.  This was my first attempt at Artisan Bread, and I liked it!

Well, that was yesterday, and today I had another go to see if I had gotten lucky first time around - to my surprise it seems to have turned out even better!  As mentioned in that post I wanted to make a couple of changes, and also thanks to the comments from that post I realised that the sticky consistency the dough starts off as is to be expected.  If this is a 80% hydration recipe, then I'm glad I didn't know that at the time - ignorance is bliss!

I still followed Floyd's recipe closely, but this time I used 335g of Strong White Bread Flour (35g more than previously) with 240ml of warm water.  Whilst it was still very sticky to start with, I didn't panic so much and only added a tablespoon of extra flour to the work surface twice to keep it manageable.  In fact, by about 6 - 7 minutes of kneading I needed to add some water to my fingers to loosen things up a bit.  The dough definitely was more silky and stretchy this time around and in general more manageable - plenty of practice still needed but I'm encouraged

It proved again for 2 hours, and then after shaping another rise of 1 hour.  I kept the oven temperatures the same as yesterday (220C for the first 5 minutes, and then 200 for the remaining time), but added an additional 5 minutes, so a total of 25 minutes.  I did the steam technique again, but this time I didn't not use boiling water, and I didn't really get a big release of steam, so I think next time I will always go with boiling.

Size does matter

At the suggestion of Simon3030 I left the loaf in the oven with it off for an additional 5 minutes to crisp up a bit.  The crust certainly was more of a golden brown colour this time, and I must have done something right with the kneading as it grew much larger in the oven.

Here is my first and second attempt again showing the difference in size of the loaf.  Amazing what some additional kneading can do!  The second loaf crust is darker although the pictures don't really show that.

Tasty Loaf

We were good and let it cool completely this time before eating it tonight (helped by my wife having baked some Apple and Raisin Muffins!).  The most important thing was it tasted great - less doughy than yesterday, so well cooked.  We also toasted some of it and it made pretty good toast too!  There is even a little left over for breakfast tomorrow so I'll see how it keeps overnight.

Here is a picture of the crumb texture before it headed off to the toaster - a few holes, not sure where they came from?!

Where to Next?

I obviously need to keep practising the basics on this recipe - it seems to be quite forgiving.  But sadly the weekend is over, so that will have to wait until next weekend.  I think I'm going to look at three variations on this unless the experts on here suggest otherwise:

  1. Combining regular plain flour with Strong Bread flour - what differences would that make?
  2. Going wholemeal (The Rustic Loaf from TFL) 
  3. Using a Poolish - simply because its a great word to say out loud!, and its the next recipe in Floyd's book

I'm also on the look out for a good (but simple) sandwich loaf (nice and soft) that my one year old can eat instead of the supermarket sliced he currently has.  Any suggestions?

Thanks again for the encouragement, comments always welcome!

- Cheers for now, Barry

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Not being in the Avocado capital of the world but swimming in avocados, I decided to try an experiment using only avos (avocados) for my liquid.  Started with the basics and going from there.  I happened upon some watery thin skinned fruit that I am told are known as "Florida avocados" and thought at first interesting but then reality set in, sure enough... less fat, more carbs and more water.  Hmmm not exactly what I value in an avo but good enough for a cracker experiment and maybe a bread.  

Peeled the avo and diced it into a bowl on the scales.  Added equal weight of rye for a reference point and began to squish it all together.  Went much faster than I thought, and they weren't even mushy avos!  Let that sit for a while to soak and soften lumps wondering about the dough turning brown, should I add lemon or sourdough?  Does one even add leavening to crackers?  Nibbling on the dough, well, it needed something.  2% salt would be about 4.4g on my 220g flour and I had black olives calling out from the fridge.  Half dried chili peppers would be colorful (threads?) and crushed garlic would also be good,  black pepper?  Bread spice?  Cumin?  Curry?  Petunias?  Had to start somewhere.  What makes them puffy? Resting time and hot baking the water in the dough.  

First Run:

220g Florida Avocado     (the watery kind)

220g medium rye flour

2 garlic cloves

10 black olives       (cut from pits, salty)

1 chili pepper         (mine was thumb size and medium spiced)

 

flour/raw seeds for rolling

oil for 3 sheets of parchment    (1 tsp each sheet, flavoured or not)

salt

 

Remove seed and skin from avocado and cut into pieces, weigh.  Add equal weight rye flour.  Pinch and mix with hands until it becomes a firm dough and lumps of avocado are well blended into the dough.  Autolyse or allow to rest covered for 30 minutes.  Then arrange on a nice plate photographic piles of pressed garlic, finely chopped olives and a rounded tablespoon more or less finely chopped fresh chili pepper.  Add to dough, forget to make a photo, check moisture, it should be a bit sticky now but still firm enough to roll out, yet soft enough to do so easily.   Rest another 30 minutes.

 

Divide dough in half,  shape into a rectangle hamberger shape and roll into a mixture of flour and sesame seeds to coat, this helps with the rolling out of dough.   Wrap up one to prevent drying.  Roll out dough as thin as possible between two layers of lightly oiled parchment paper.  Anything squishing out can be cut off and stuck back on in a needy spot under the parchment.   Carefully peel back top sheet of parchment.   Sprinkle with seeds/salt.  Score if desired to facilitate breaking and transfer to baking sheet.

 

Bake middle of oven at 200°C or 400°F until medium brown, rotate to avoid burning back corners.  Allow to cool on rack.  Break apart.

 

Flavour tweaking needed.  I found it smelled and sort of tasted like teriyaki beef jerky, a little bitter (I did get it brown) without any sweetness.  I chrunched on half a sheet of the stuff trying to decide my next step.  Maybe brushing the rolled out cracker with honey water or using some sourdough or aging of the dough 24 hrs to bring out sweetness.  Lots of different directions to try.  Tempted to turn down heat a little bit to help dry while baking.

 

This is an open experiment, all comments and jumping in to experiment and post more than welcome!   

Floydm's picture
Floydm

I haven't baked with my starter in a couple of weeks, so Wednesday evening I fed my starter some rye flour and water.  Thursday mid-day I made my dough (1kg bread flour, 20g salt, 730g water, "a bunch" of starter).  It has turned cool again in Vancouver though and my dough was moving slowly, so I bulk retarded it overnight until Friday morning.

Our fridge is really cold so there was very little action overnight.  I removed the dough from the fridge Friday morning and stretched and folded every couple of hours so the dough would warm evenly.  By late-afternoon the bulk dough was starting to move and getting close to double in size, so I shaped the dough into boules.  I was hoping to bake it later that evening, but it was moving slow enough that I decided to cover it and refrigerate it overnight again.

Saturday morning I removed the loaves from the fridge around 7am.  Again, very little action overnight and even a bit of ice on the outside of one of the loaves.  By 11 or so they looked ready to bake, so I tossed them in the oven, covering them with an inverted aluminum pan for the first 10 minutes or so.

As you can see, I accidentally squished the edge of one of the loaves with the aluminum pan, but the breads came our really good, really sour, as one would expect from such long, slow fermentation.  Lots of blisters, too, which I like.  They went really well with cheese, wine, and pasta e fagioli.

greedybread's picture
greedybread

P1080319 (800x600)

P1080334 (800x600)

P1080320 (800x600)One of my greedyboys had been hassling me for weeks to make some Raspberry sticky buns.

So after much umming and arghing and thinking “plain, sugar, Plain and mascapone, Ricotta, brown sugar”  and many variations here they are in all their glory.

Stunningly Scrumptious…

Without any adornments at this stage:)

Chock bun of raspberries….Simply delicious…Brekkie, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea..

Toasted, wonderful in a bread pudding after a few days…

Warmed up with cream or custard…endless, endless possibilities…

Not sweet enough the greedyboys said…

Hmm you be the judge.

I think they are:)

Almost all gone

Almost all gone

Chock full

Chock full

What will you need?

Use my base sticky bun recipe but add in 2 eggs and change the butter amount to 150 g.

Apart from that, it is the same.

So follow the same procedure.

You will need 400g of Frozen raspberries

1/2 cup of sugar

2 tsp of cornflour.

Add altogether in a bowl and toss.

You want the berries to be frozen as long as possible.

Dough waiting to rise...

Dough waiting to rise…

Some of these...

Some of these…

P1080283 (800x600)

P1080285 (800x600)

P1080287 (800x600)

Make the dough according the above recipe.

Allow to rest for specified time and then place on lightly floured bench/board.

Roll out into a sort of rectangular shape (see below) and sprinkle with berries.

Then roll up as tightly as possible.

P1080288 (800x600)

P1080289 (800x600)

P1080290 (800x600)

P1080292 (800x600)

Lightly grease a roasting dish, or a big, high sided dish.

Slice the sticky buns into 12-14 pieces.

I did 12.

I laid these out 4 x 3 , as you can see below.

Cover lightly with a tea towel and place in a warm place and allow to rise for 2 hours.

P1080293 (800x600)

P1080295 (800x600)

P1080298 (800x600)

P1080299 (800x600)

P1080300 (800x600)

P1080300 (800x600)

 

Pre-heat oven 20 210 celsius about 30 minutes before rising is finished.

Place in the hot oven for 10 minutes and then reduce heat to 180 and bake a further 25 minutes.

After 15 minutes, ,make a sugar syrup of 1/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar and let become syrupy.

Spoon over the buns about 10 minutes before removing them.

It acts as a glaze.

Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan.

NB: RASPBERRIES WILL BE VERY VERY HOT!!!!

Allow to cool fully and then pull apart and munch.

Mmmmm, very very very yummy….

P1080311 (800x600)

P1080318 (800x600)

P1080345 (800x600)

 

The greedyboys felt more sugar was needed in the raspberry mix.

I did not.

You could also make a white icing and drizzle across the raspberries buns but i really feel this maybe too much.

But as usual I will leave it totally up to you.

P1080343 (800x600)

P1080336 (800x600)

P1080327 (800x600)

P1080323 (800x600)

P1080322 (800x600)ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY!!

 

Cheesie Keys's picture
Cheesie Keys

Hello!

I've been wanting to get into baking bread for a while, and coming across the Fresh Loaf site gave me the final push to have a go and get my hands dirty (doughy)!  So here is my first report in baking "artisan" bread from the point of view of a complete novice.

After looking around numerous sites for good beginner loaf recipes, I finally bought Floyd's handbook from the Amazon Kindle Store.  Its a great little book, and I think I will be doing quite a number of the recipes he features in it - but first I went for the introductory loaf - French-style bread.

As you can see from the picture above, it didn't turn out too bad for a first attempt - I'm pretty proud of my efforts! 

Baking Floyd's French Loaf

Living in the UK, I don't have measuring cups, so after some research I went with a 120g flour to 1 cup raito - See my comments later on what I'll do next time.

I used 300g Strong White Bread Flour (Waitrose Leckford Estate), and 240ml of warm water, with the salt and sugar as stated in the original recipe.  I currently have some instant fast-yeast sachets (Allinsons), and so used half a packet.

Once all mixed together the dough was pretty wet, and a lot of it started sticking to my fingers (slightly stress inducing).  I found sprinkling flour on the work surface (granite) and directly onto the dough helped (as Floyd states) for a short time, but as I kept kneading, the dough would quickly become over-sticky again.  I'm wondering whether the granite work surface has anything to do with this?  Things became easier after repeating the sprinking of the work surface about 4 times (using a tablespoon of flour each time).  I also tried a small amount of oil of the work surface, and again it helped for a short period of time, but the dough soon became quite sticky again.

On reflection, I think my hydration percentages might have been a bit high? (see, I've been reading lots of books about the subject!).  However, I did end up with quite a nice light silky dough which looked like this after "rising" for 2 hours - I smaller bowl is needed for a more impressive rise I think!

Dough after first rise

I didn't find shaping the loaf as difficult as I thought it would be - again Floyd's instructions are really easy to follow.  I left the shaped dough to rise for another hour, although to me it didn't really look any different between the first shaping and leaving it for an hour.

I have a fan assisted oven, and pre-heated it to 220C.  A bread knife worked well to score the loaf, although I think I could cut it a little deeper next time.  I also added a cup of hot water to a roasting pan as a put the loaf into the oven on the middle shelf.  After 5 minutes I turned the temperature down to 200C and then after another 5 minutes I rotated the baking sheet.  The oven-spring was impressive, the loaf really ballooned up nicely.  

The loaf was then left in the oven for another 10 minutes (total time 20 minutes).  We couldn't wait for it to cool very much before trying it out, and it tasted pretty good!

Crumb structure

Changes for Loaf #2 

The loaf turned out much better than I could have hoped for, and its given me the inspiration to keep on practicising - I think I'm hooked!  For loaf #2 I think I'm going to make a few tweaks:

  • Increase the total baking time by an extra 5 minutes - the bread was a little doughy in the centre
  • Increase the amount of flour to something like 330g (133g per cup) to try and reduce the wetness of the dough
  • Really make sure I use no more than 240ml water
  • Use a chopping board, rather than granite for the kneading surface - would this be easier or not?
  • Knead the bread for longer (I need the practice) - I assume more kneading can make a "lighter" loaf?
  • Score the bread a little deeper

Loaf #2 will be baked tomorrow so hopefully I'll continue reporting my adventures in "proper" breadmaking then.  

Comments and suggestions always welcome!  Cheers for now! 

 

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - blogs