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pmccool's picture
pmccool

I've begun fiddling with Scottish Oat Cakes.  They are a bit of a departure from my usual yeasted bread baking.  What makes it tricky is that I really don't know what my target is; I suppose I may have to wait for our trip to Scotland and Ireland this summer to see whether I'm on the right track.

There are probably several thousand "traditional" Scottish oat cakes recipes.  That doesn't include all the Canadian variations on the theme, nor the more pancake-like versions.  At it's simplest, an oatcake is a mixture of oatmeal (ground, not flaked), water, and fat that is baked on a baking stone or "girdle" over an open fire.  It is sturdy, hearty fare that can underpin savory or sweet foods.  Having sampled them, I wonder if this was the inspiration for Tolkien's lembas, the Elfen waybread that was so sustaining.  Literary musings aside, the oatcake is the precursor to the scone, which was also orginally baked on a girdle (I'm going to switch to the American "griddle" for the rest of this post).  Nowadays there are recipes for both oatcakes and scones that are oven-baked instead of griddled.

Here in the States, the stone-ground variety of oatmeal is very hard to come by and ridiculously expensive.  We are very accustomed to calling rolled oats "oatmeal".  I chose to exercise two different options for this first go-around.  First, I ground some hulled oats, using the KitchenAide grain mill attachment.  (My wife had found one back in February at a kitchen shop that was going out of business for a price that was substantially less than list price.)  Second, I used our food processor to grind some rolled oats into a faux meal.  I thought that would give me a good idea of both the handling and flavor characteristics of each.

The recipe I worked from is as follows:

  • 1 cup medium oatmeal
  • 2 pinches baking soda
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 teaspoons melted fat (bacon fat, if available)
  • 3/4 tablespoon hot water
  • Additional oatmeal for rolling

Let me say right up front that I believe there is a typographical error in the formula.  It seems to me that the 3/4 tablespoon of water should be 3-4 tablespoons of water.  I know that I had to use substantially more than the recipe quantity to achieve a workable consistency.  The process is simple: combine the dry ingredients, then add the fat and water and mix until a stiff paste results.  You want to work quickly with this so that the dough doesn't cool significantly, which makes handling more difficult.  Roll the dough to approximately 1/4 inch thickness on an oatmeal-covered surface.  Cut into 3-inch rounds with a biscuit cutter.  Re-roll the scraps and repeat until all dough is used.  Cook on a griddle over medium heat, 3 minutes per side.  Each batch made 6 oatcakes.

Here's the finished product, ground rolled oat version on the left, oatmeal version on the right:

 

As prepared, the cakes were soft (in an authoritative way), rather than crisp.  They want plenty of liquid to wash them down; a large bite tends to stick to the teeth while chewing.  The oatmeal version was a hands-down winner over the rolled oats version in the flavor category.  That may not be entirely fair, since I was already won over by the fragrance of the freshly-ground oatmeal as it came out of the mill.  I've tried them with fruit preserves and they are delicious.  I haven't yet tried them with savory accompaniments but can see how they would play very nicely with cheese or smoked meats.  It's difficult to say what, if anything, the baking powder contributed.  There's no acid component for it to react with, so these are not light little puffs.  They are rib-sticking food that can fuel some hard work.  

If anyone with first-hand experience with oatcakes wants to weigh in, I'd love to hear your input.  That help me gauge what I have so far and what might need to change.

Paul

ml's picture
ml

Hi all,

I have not autolysed for more than 2 hrs., & would like to try the "enzymatic 12hr autolyse". I have been told that this will not work with my regular starter.

Has anyone tried a 12hr autolyse with regular starter?

I will experiment, but would like to know.

ml

Mebake's picture
Mebake

A very easy to make whole wheat bread:

This is a method I came up with, that marries two good techniques: Delayed fermentation, and the no knead technique.

 The method goes like this: Add tiny yeast (or active starter) to flour and water, give them a mix to barely incorporate them and put the dough in the fridge for upto 48 hours. Remove from the fridge when you want to bake, cut the dough into quarters and sprinkle salt on top, and mix briefly to form a dough and leave to rest on a floured work surface. An hour later, Shape the dough into a log/batard/boule, and insert it into a pan/brotform. An hour to an hour and a half later bake the dough in a preheated oven for 35 minutes. (Even without any enrichments, this dough takes color fast, due to the saltless retardation).

I have baked a 50% whole wheat bread using this method, and it was extremely tasty and easy to make.

Recipe:

(Makes 1kg dough)

Whole Wheat flour: 287  g

Bread flour: 287 g

Water: 414 g

Instant yeast: ¼ tsp

Salt: ¾ Tbl

Total: 1000 g

 

-Khalid

 

 

evonlim's picture
evonlim

today's baked..Beetroot and purple carrot sourdough kamut flour with seeds n raisins/walnuts

:) thank you for all the great tips and advices. and this is the results..

evon

PiPs's picture
PiPs

It feels so strange to stop for a minute and think back over the week ... It has been a blur of oven firings, dough mixing, baking and cleaning.

In some ways it has been a week of major milestones ... the FIRST bake!

... but now that I am test baking everyday in the oven it really feels down to business. I have entered into a relationship with this wood burning beast and I need to tame it.

I now often think of something that Chris Bianco said about woodfired ovens - he said they teach you about heat.

Perhaps I understand that a little more now - it's not just the feeling of radiant heat when you stick your arm in a blazing hot oven, its also about heat transfer, how it moves through objects and is stored.

The lesson probably also extends to losing most of the hairs on my right arm and burning off part of my fringe ... I am also drinking a lot more water these days :)

 

 

Though we are baking small loads in the oven it is not fully operational. A lot of water is used to build these masonry ovens and for the first few weeks that moisture needs to be pushed out of the oven so it can dry thoroughly - the oven has been literally dripping water. But everyday I see improvements in its heat storing ability and the water patches in the render are slowly drying up ... but it could still take a few more weeks until it "comes good".

As has been said so often, the biggest test is having dough that is ready when the oven is ready ... I have many, many, many more weeks until I have a firing schedule nailed down. This will be my biggest test. We can work the bread schedule around the oven ... but the oven NEEDS to be right.

 


First Sourdough bake


Bread and basket


Sourdough and Walnut Levain


Sourdough crumb


2kg Miche


2kg Miche


Miche Crumb

 

So now the test baking phase begins ... over the next few weeks many varities of breads will be baked, tested and improved upon then baked again and again ... the whole time aiming for consisent results that taste delicious.

All the breads in this post have been baked in the woodfired oven. Apart from the ciabatta, all are sourdough and have been hand mixed, plus they contain a proportion of freshly milled grains. The biggest batch I have hand mixed so far has been 30kgs - It is easier than it sounds and is incredibly satisfying.

As Eric Kayser says, "It is a dream!  It is a dream to make the dough by hand, to make the energy with the hand!"

 


Scoring practice


Restaurant Ciabattas


Boldy baked bread!

 

Sorry I have been so slack with replies in my previous posts ... I will aim to answer any questions that you have or just say hello :)

Happy baking,
Phil

 

ml's picture
ml

Just pre-ordered Chad Robertson's next book, due out Nov. available through Amazon!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I'm sorry about the pictures on this post.  We can't get them to line up no matter what my apprentice does :-) 

Sometime things just happen because they are triggered subtly and naturally by our senses.  We are reminded of something and then these thoughts lead to other unrelated ideas.  Next thing you know you have a new bread formula designed by the simplest of things - in this case smell.

  

After our; very tasty and soft crumb, not to mention good looking, fig, hazelnut, Tang Zhong, Italian bread,  we kept and froze some of the fig soaker water for a future bake to use as part of the liquid.  We didn’t want to use figs again, but the smell of the juice made us immediately think of dried apricots so the fruit decision was made.

  

While looking for the apricots we noticed a little bit of some buckwheat flour that we had purchased for sweetbird’s beautiful, hard cider, Buckwheat Bread.   My apprentice had reminded me to use up long ago – so it would have to go into the flour along with our usual spelt, rye and whole wheat multigrain mix.  We wanted to double up the whole grains from the last bake and get them closer to 50% than 25% too.

  

Instead of a whole berry scald, this time we decided to do a 48 hour WW sprouting of 100 g of WW berries.  It has been a while since we made sprouts for bread and this was the perfect time to get back to them.

  

sweetbird’s bread has a light purple cast to the crumb because of the buckwheat and knowing we couldn’t use hazelnuts two times in a row, we immediately thought of Phil’s purple and green Walnut and Sage Super Hero Bread we like so much.  We love the purple color the walnut paste gives to the crumb so 25 g of walnuts a 12 g of walnut oil were crushed together in a mortar and then we decided to use 75 g of quartered walnuts in the dough too.

 

To try to duplicate the soft crumb that Tang Zhong provides we decided to use some yeast water in the levain.  Yeast water provides a similar soft, moist crumb.  This time we decided to build one levain in 3 stages using all 3 of our wild yeast starters; the WW and the rye sour to go along with the YW.  This levain was very active doubling in 4 hours after the 2nd build.  We fed it the all flour 3 build and let it sit on the counter for an hour before retarding it overnight. 

 

When the starter came put of the fridge the net morning we also started the 4 hour autolyse of the fig juice, water, salt, flours, malts, VWG and Toadies.  We micro waved the chopped apricots in water to get them re-hydrated and then prepared the walnut paste in the mortar and chopped the add in walnuts to get them to a more manageable size.

 

Once the autolyse met the levain we did a quick hand mix with a spoon in the bowl before doing 10 minutes of double slap and 1 folds.  We made this dough a little stiffer than normal because the apricot soak and sprouts would give the dough a little more liquid than the hydration calculations take into account.

 

We incorporated the sprouts apricots and walnuts on the first of 3 sets of S&F’s that were started 15 minutes after the slap and folds and 15 minutes apart.  By the end of the 3rd set the add ins were thoroughly incorporated and the dough felt like it was at 75% hydration instead of the 72% in the formula.

 

After an hour on the counter, we put the dough in the fridge for a 15 hour retard.  In the morning we let it sit for 30 minutes before dividing the dough in half, shaping and placing each in a rice floured basket.   We proofed them for 3 hours   in a plastic trash bag before firing up Big Old Betsy to a 500 F pre-heat.

 

We haven’t tried shaping cold dough so we thought we would give it a try and see if it affects how our normal bread turns out in any way.   After another 45 minutes the oven was ready.  We upended the baskets onto parchment paper on a peel, slashed them with a paring knife (tough going for breads like these) and chucked them onto the bottom stone.

 

A nice YW pancake with sausage and egg.

We had another stone on the top rack of the oven and steam was supplied by a Sylvia’s large size steaming pan with two towels in it and a 12” CI pan that has lava rocks in it, ala David Snyder.  Each was filled half way with water an placed in the oven at the beginning of preheat.

 

We turned the oven down to 475 F when the bread was loaded in and we steamed them for 12 minutes.  After removing the steam, we turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time.  We rotated the bread 180 degrees on the stone every 8 minutes.  The bread tested 205 F and was deemed done 16 minutes after we removed the steam. 

We let the crust crisp on the stone with the door ajar and the oven off for 10 minutes and then removed the bread to a cooling rack.  It came out if the oven nicely browned, hardly blistered and crispy.  The crust went softer as it cooled.

The crumb had that purple tinge we like so much.  It was fairly open, moist and soft.  The taste is unique, earthy and hearty.  Everything works well together from a flavor perspective too.   It is fun bread to make and well worth the effort.  We will be making this again.  Thanks to Phil and sweetbird for the fond memories of their great bread.

Formula

WW SD, YW and Rye Sour Levain

Build 1

Build 2

 Build 3

Total

%

WW SD Starter

20

0

0

20

2.77%

Yeast Water

80

0

0

80

14.95%

Rye Sour Starter

20

0

0

20

2.77%

Spelt

27

20

20

67

9.23%

Dark Rye

27

20

20

67

9.23%

Whole Wheat

27

20

20

67

9.23%

Water

0

60

0

60

8.31%

Total

200

120

60

380

31.39%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain Totals

 

%

 

 

 

Flour

220

30.47%

 

 

 

Water

160

22.16%

 

 

 

Hydration

72.73%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain % of Total

24.34%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

 

Buckwheat

102

14.13%

 

 

 

AP

400

55.40%

 

 

 

Dough Flour

502

69.53%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

11

1.52%

 

 

 

Fig Water 175 Water 200

375

51.94%

 

 

 

Dough Hydration

74.70%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Flour

722

 

 

 

 

Fig Water 175  & Water

535

 

 

 

 

T. Dough Hydration

74.10%

 

 

 

 

Whole Grain %

46.81%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration w/ Adds

71.73%

 

 

 

 

Total Weight

1,561

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add - Ins

 

%

 

 

 

White Rye Malt

3

0.42%

 

 

 

Red Rye Malt

3

0.42%

 

 

 

Toadies

10

1.39%

 

 

 

VW Gluten

15

2.08%

 

 

 

Walnut Oil

12

1.66%

 

 

 

Apricots

50

6.93%

 

 

 

Walnuts 25 g in walnut oil paste

100

13.85%

 

 

 

Total

193

26.73%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weight of apricots is pre re-hydrated weight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sprouts

 

%

 

 

 

Whole Wheat

100

13.85%

 

 

 

ejm's picture
ejm

Do you get tired of kneading? Sometimes, I do. Especially if I find myself with nothing interesting to think about. Because, let’s face it. Kneading is somewhat repetitive. It’s hand-wringingly repetitive.

Others clearly have the same feeling. Some people resort to using machines to knead. But I’m not wild about using machines. They take up so much room and they’re so loud. And they aren’t easy to clean – I’m always worried about cutting myself….

Other people, like Ken Forkish (Ken’s Artisan) and Chad Robertson (Tartine Bread), forgo kneading entirely and hand-mix and fold their bread doughs in a container. I tried this method, and it does work. Forkish's pincer method is especially satisfying.

But the sides of the bowl aren’t clean.... That just goes against my sensibilities. ie: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Especially if the dog was old when it learned the first trick.

When I first started making bread seriously, I read Julia Child’s instruction to wash out the mixing bowl before putting the kneaded dough into it to rise. I just can’t stop doing this. And it’s not just about obedience. It’s practicality. When the bowl is clean, the risen dough just plops out; note that I NEVER oil the bowl. That’s right. Never.

Not to mention that Richard Bertinet’s turning and slapping kneading method is just too wonderful.

After reading Chad Robertson's "Tartine Bread", Ken Forkish's "Flour Water Salt Yeast" and watching Richard Bertinet's Gourmet Magazine video showing how to hand mix and knead brioche, I have revised the way that I hand-knead bread. I still knead, using a dough scraper, but there is something really thrilling about plunging both hands into the dough.

When hand kneading slack dough, I alternate between using Richard Bertinet's "lift, flip over, slap down" method and my own "hand wringing" method. Both methods are easy and both work very well. I use a dough scraper every so often to clean the board.

Here is the video we made (Nope, still no sound on our recording equipment - too bad too - I love the sound of the dough slapping down. It isn't particularly loud. There is just a nice satisfying *Plop* as the dough hits the board.): YouTube: hand kneading slack dough

So. Are you ready to throw away your big heavy electric mixer yet?

-Elizabeth

Harvest Bread
Ken Forkish's Harvest Bread, from a recipe in Flour Water Salt Yeast

(This is partial mirror of a post on blog from OUR kitchen. The full post can be seen at http://etherwork.net/blog/?p=1701 )

dstroy's picture
dstroy

Checking notifications - sorry, please ignore.

Masterofnothing's picture
Masterofnothing

Hi All

I am new to bread making but want to make a gluten free loaf that doesn't turn out like a brick!

 

I am wondering if I can use yeast and baking powder to make it lighter - as there is no gluten to "stretch" and lighten, no kneading is required.

 

Help?

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