The Fresh Loaf

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linder's picture
linder

Today, I made another run at David Snyder's San Francisco Sourdough.  Gosh, I love that bread  and it just gets tastier the longer it sits (although it doesn't sit too long).  I made two loaves today in order to bring one to share with my quilt group.  The ladies have commented on the bread I've been having with my lunch, so I thought that might be a broad hint to share a loaf or two.  We'll see how it goes over - if they enjoy it as much as we do at home there won't be much left.  Two large boules -

pmccool's picture
pmccool

This past Friday, I taught a class on rye breads at the Culinary Center of Kansas City.  The class was scheduled to run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  Three different breads were featured: the rustic pumpernickel from ITJB, Eric's fav rye (compliments of the late Eric Hanner), and a vort limpa.  That gave a nice sampling of the diversity of rye breads.  We were able to bake both the pumpernickel and the vort limpa during class; students then took the dough for Eric's fav rye with them to bake at home.

I had had some concerns about the drawing power of a full-day class on a week day.  As it turned out, all 20 slots were taken, with a waiting list in case of any cancellations.  So, yes, there is enough interest, in spite of the schedule.  No doubt the inclusion of a $20 gift certificate for Pryde's of Westport, a local kitchen supply store, figured favorably, too.

A number of the students were familiar to me from previous classes, which makes for a pleasant time.  Based on what I saw and heard, and what came through on the feedback forms, it was a fun day for the students as well as for me.  Most were new to rye breads and to sourdough, so they were pleased to gain some new experience and to receive some starter to take home to use for future baking.

One of the Center's requirements is that the instructor provide food for the students.  In the case of an evening or half-day class, that is typically something to snack on; usually whatever is being made in the class.  In the case of an all-day class like this one, it is lunch.  It was a no-brainer to plan lunch around the three breads being taught.  That led to cold cuts and condiments and pickles/olives/peppers, with fresh fruit for dessert.  

Consequently, I needed to bake bread ahead of time to have it ready for the lunch of Friday.  That worked well, since it also did double duty as object lesson so that people could see the finished product, too.

If you have baked the rustic pumpernickel from ITJB, you know that it is dark and dense and fragrant with rye.  There's no molasses, coffee, cocoa, or caramel color in it, nor does it have a prolonged bake.  My belief is that the scald contributes strongly to the dark coloring and the moistness of the finished bread.  Then, too, all I can find in local supermarkets is Hodgson Mills stone-ground rye flour, which is pretty hearty stuff in its own right.  Even with heavy steam, the loaf experienced some cracking but no blowouts.

The vort limpa is a party in a compact loaf.  It is redolent of molasses, orange zest/juice, anise, fennel, cardamom, and beer.  With a smear of sweet butter, it's practically dessert.  And it still makes for some darn good sandwiches and toast, too.

Many, many of you have made Eric's fav rye and know that it is a stellar example of a deli-style rye bread.  It makes a magnificent base for a wide range of sandwiches.  While I enjoy the bite of the caraway, my wife often prefers it when I substitute either fennel seeds or dill seeds for the caraway.  No matter how you tweak it, this is a seriously good bread.

With those out of the way, I needed to build up my starter to have sufficient for 21 batches (20 students + 1 instructor demo) of the pumpernickel and Eric's fav rye, plus enough to give away.  That turns out to be a lot of starter.  Really, really, a lot.  Keep in mind that this class was initially planned last summer.  At that time, I was focused more on pulling together the bread descriptions for inclusion in the advertising and the formulae to go into the student's class booklets.  There should have been some thought given to the amount of prep.  I know that now.  Yes, I do.

For instance, this is what all of the scald for the pumpernickel looks like with half of the sponge incorporated.  You can see that it occupies most of one end of my kitchen's island:

The lighting isn't very good; it's all down light from the ceiling and island light fixtures.  There isn't a lot of ambient light at 6 a.m. in January here in Kansas.

This is the second half of the pumpernickel's sponge, ready to mix in with the scald; nothing but rye flour and water, and it smells wonderful!:

Sponge and scald, ready for the final mix (I could have used a big spiral mixer right about now).  Note that the sponge is lighter in color than the scald, even though both are made with the same flour:

Needless to say, it took a number of trips to schlep all of the ingredients from my kitchen to the car, and then again from the car into the teaching kitchen.  I suspect that we will rerun this class at some future date but there may be a change in the lineup that reduces the amount of prep I have to do.

There aren't any photos of the actual class.  I didn't think to grab my camera on the way out the door and there wasn't time to use it, anyway.  

My students were an interesting group.  The youngest may have been in their late 20s or early 30s.  The oldest were, well, older than me and I'm 57.  One couple took a day off from work to attend.  All were alert and inquisitive, with lots of good questions.  We had a lively discussion about how to begin and maintain a starter, which would have been shorter if I hadn't misunderstood a key part of one inquiry.  ;0  During the course of the day, there were a lot of questions about dough consistency and how it was affected by the amount of flour or water people worked into their doughs.  I had talked at length about how sticky some of the doughs would be and not to try to kill the stickiness with flour.  A few still wound up with some stiff doughs that needed more water.  Some students were almost completely new to bread making while others had some good skills.  Tips on shaping and docking and slashing led to another flurry of questions.  These are all areas where the hands-on aspect is hugely valuable, since a book just cannot provide that tactile feedback.

It was very satisfying to share these breads with such an eager group of learners.  And it was a very full day.  I was happy to climb into bed that evening.

Since one student was a no-show, and since I had intentionally made more starter than I expected to use, I wound up making a double batch of Eric's fav rye on Saturday and a double batch of Hamelman's sourdough walnut raisin rye on Sunday.  We have happy friends.

Paul

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Since I had some leftover Durum YW starter from my last bake I decided to make English Muffins again.  I followed the same recipe I used the last time but this time the starter was 100% Durum flour and I used my European style flour from KAF for the main dough.  Similar to last time I used Greek Yogurt (2%) and I added some Cheddar cheese as well.

The end results were exactly what I expected with a nice open crumb and flavor as good as any English Muffin I have had before.

English Muffins Main Dough

165 grams Wild Yeast Water Durum Starter (you can use your regular Sourdough starter at 65% hydration instead if desired)

620 grams European Style Flour (KAF or use Bread Flour with a little Whole Wheat)

300 grams Greek Plain Yogurt (I used Fage 2%)

235 grams Water (85-90 degrees F.)

50 grams Cheese (I used grated Cheddar.  Add in final mix)

26 grams Sugar

10 grams Salt

12 grams Baking Soda

Semolina or Cornmeal for Dusting

Directions

Mix flour, starter and yogurt in your mixing bowl and mix for 1-2 minutes to combine.

Cover the bowl and let it sit out at room temperature overnight or for at least 9-10 hours.

The next morning add the rest of the ingredients and mix for a minute.  Knead the dough either with your mixer or by hand for around 4 minutes, adding additional flour if necessary.  Next roll out the dough to about 3/4" thickness on your work surface.  You will have to put some bench flour on the work surface to prevent the dough from sticking.  Using  4" biscuit cutter or can, cut the muffins out and place on a pan lined with parchment paper dusted with corn meal or semolina flour.  You should end up with 5-6 muffins.  If necessary you can combine the scraps and roll out again but you may need to let it rest before rolling.

Cover the muffins with a clean misted or floured towel and let rest for 1 hour at room temperature.

Heat your griddle or heavy skillet to medium or around 350 degrees  and when ready to cook spray some cooking spray on the cooking surface before placing the English Muffins in the pan.

Cover the pan to create some steam and let cook for around 5 minutes or until the bottoms are nice and brown.  Flip and cook another 5 minutes and remove to a baking rack to cool.

Wingnut's picture
Wingnut

First attempt 

 

Raluca's picture
Raluca

 A couple of days ago I told you about my first white sourdough baked this year.

Today I am going to tell you about the second one. Still not perfect, but definitely improved. Baked all the way through, with a good oven spring due to preheating the oven and stone for much longer (1hr and 20 minutes to be exact) and a better crumb (potentially from the increased hydration – I went for a 67% hydration level for this one, compared to almost 65% for the first one).

I followed pretty much the same recipe and method as for the first boule, the only difference for the recipe was in the hydration level of the final dough.

So you still have the same time schedule, the same ingredients for the preferment and the same baker’s percentage for the preferment.

Here are the ingredients for the final bread and the baker’s percentages for this new formula.

Recipe for 1 loaf (67% hydration)

Ingredients for bread

Ingredient     Quantity   Baker's %
Preferment245gr72%
Strong white flour340gr100%
Water192gr56%
Salt8gr

2.30%

Final baker’s percentage (including preferment)

Ingredient  Quantity    Baker’s     %
Strong white flour455gr100%
Water307gr67.47%
Sourdough culture15gr3.29%
Salt8gr1.75%

For this bread I used the same strong organic white flour from Shipton Mill.

Method:

The method I used was the same, apart from pre-heating the oven and baking stone for 1h and 20 minutes rather than just 20 minutes.

The results are just amazing! When a loaf like this comes out of my oven I just wonder why I have ever bought bread from a shop, why? Why?

This time the bottom wasn’t cracked anymore, the bread was baked all the way through and the crumble was much better. As for the taste: divine!

What do you think? Better?

lumos's picture
lumos

 When I encounter really tasty bread from a bakery or at a restaurant, my usual reaction is ‘God, I want to make this myself!,’ and start going back and forth on my palate-memory lane, playing with formula in the attempt to re-create the flavour, aroma and texture I enjoyed.  Many of my bread recipes are born like that rather than following/adjusting the recipes I found in books or on internet.

 One of those breads I’d been trying to re-create was Pain l’Ancienne by a small artisan baker with amazing array of European (mainly French & Italian) breads, Earth Crust, a very popular bread stall at the Market in Cambridge town centre. I love the slightly chewy texture and its very open crumb. And of course I like the flavour but I wanted it to be a tiny bit more rustic/deeper than their verson, so I’ d been tinkering with the formula for quite a long time, not quite sure myself what sort of flavour-profile I want to achieve…..without just ending up with exactly the same formula of other breads I already had and liked, which  often happens with me. :p

Then, in February last year we went to have a lunch with our family friends at a lovely restaurant on the Thames in the southwest of London  after watching our daughter’s boat race on the river.  As soon as we ordered the food, a waiter brought a huge basket with breads of various kinds, and among them were a few slices of bread with very open, creamy coloured crumb & quite rustic looking dark crust.  Without any delay (nor manner), my hand bee-lined to grab the slice. As soon as I chewed into it, I knew. This is IT!! This is exactly what I wanted to achieve!  I asked the waiter where they got their bread from and this was the bakerery he told me and, by judging from the photo and the description on their website, I think what I had was Ancient Loaf (Ha! :D) from their ‘Long Fermentation Speciality Bread……probably.

Anyway, whatever the name was, my quest of re-creating it by tinkering the uncompleted ‘Earth Crust’s l’Ancienne’ recipe that I’d been playing with had began….and sort of completed in the early autumn last year.

 So this is my take on Flourish Craft Bakery’s Ancient Loaf/Pain l’Ancienne, though I’m guessing theirs is much higher in hydration than mine, from the look of their very open crumb with large holes.  I lowered the hydration to just a little over 70% because 1) I’d be using the bread to make sandwich for my hubby, so too many, too large holes might not be such a good idea, 2) I didn’t want the dough to stick to my banetton during proofing.  Also, according to their product list they only use wheat and rye, but I added small amount of spelt and wheatgerm for extra flavour…..plus a tiny bit of rapeseed oil for better keeping quality. I used rye sour as the starter to make sourdough because I know some traditional French bakers use it as their mother starter.

 

My take on Flourish Craft Bakery’s Ancient Loaf

    S/D   Rye sour 50g (75% hydration) fed, twice, with 140g strong white flour + 100g water during 14 – 18 hr period (or shorter or longer) before making the dough.

        Feed 1 – flour 40g + water 30g

        Feed 2 – flour 100g = water 70g

    (Note:  Only 240g is used for making the bread. Store the rest in the fridge as starter for next use.)

  Main Dough  

    Strong flour   570g

    WW  15g

    Spelt  15g

    Wheatgerm   2 tbls  

    Water   420 – 430g

    Sea salt   14g

   Very good quality rapeseed Oil (or extra virgin olive oil) 1 tbls

  1. Mix mature sourdough with all the flour, wheatgerm and most of water until no dry bits of flour is left.  Cover and leave for 30- 40 min.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the dough with some of remaining water and S & F in the bowl until everything is thoroughly mixed and the dough becomes smooth. Adjust the hydration, if necessary, at this point using remaining water. (Don’t make it too wet because….→) Add oil and mix thoroughly, using S & F technique. Cover and leave for 40 min. (or maybe 30 min if you live in a warmer country than this freezing Britain! Brrrr….)

   3.  Two more S & Fs at 30-40 min interval.

   4.  Leave for 1 – 1 1/4 hr and let it increase in volume by about 25% at room temperature.

    5.  At the end of the above period, check the dough’s strength and, if necessary,  letter-fold once on a floured work-tup to strengthen the dough. Put it in the fridge for cold retardation for 12 – 18 hrs.

     6.  Take it out of the fridge and leave for 1 – 2 hr (depends on how cold where you live is…) to return the dough to room temperature (….and finish proofing, if necessary).

     7.  When fully fermented (you’d see a few large bubbles on the dough surface), divide into two, pre-shape, rest 15 – 20 min.

8, Shape, put in two banettons, cover (I use a shower cap) and proof.

     9.  Pre-heat the oven @240C with casserole/pot/Pyrex with lid.

    10.  When the is sufficiently proofed (finger test!), score the top and bake for 20 min with the lid.

   11.  After 20 min, remove the lid, lower the temperature to 210 – 220C and bake another 20 min.

    12. Turn the heat off but leave the loaves in the oven with the oven door slightly ajar for 5 min.

 

 

 

 

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello everyone,

January’s Bread Baking Day theme is “A Bread Fashion Show”, with a call for decorated crusts.
What a lovely idea!

                                                                                

A Fashion Show seemed to call for fabric – how to use fabric to decorate bread?
I was reminded me of a photo I saw once, of one of Roger Gural’s beautiful breads, stencilled with a lacy pattern.
Off to the fabric store I went.

This is Mr. Hamelman’s Unkneaded Six-Fold French Bread, using a big piece of lace to stencil, for this month’s baking challenge. I wish I could say I used fancy French lace – this was more likely drapery material :^)    

                                  

 

Many thanks: to Mr. Gural for the inspiration, to Mr. Hamelman for his delicious recipe, to Jenni at The Gingered Whisk for a wonderful idea for this month’s challenge, and to Zorra for her Bread Baking Day event.
I’m so looking forward to seeing what other bakers will create for this month’s ‘decorated bread’ baking theme!

 

*Update to this post - one more entry for the Fashion Show :^)

I was going through some photos and remembered this bread I baked a long time ago (2011).
This bread was inspired by a fashionable, floral, felted hat, made by a very talented lady I met at a bread-baking class -
I wanted to add this bread to this post!
This sourdough bread's crust was covered with decorative dough 'flowers', that had been colored with white flour, cocoa and cornmeal; the 'leaves' were colored with green pea flour. Had fun with cookie cutters, for this one :^)
                               

 

Happy baking everyone,
:^) breadsong

 

linder's picture
linder

Today, I decided to try Txfarmer's straight dough baguette formula on this post http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/31945/straight-method-baguette-good-starter-baguette-practice 

OK, I'm hooked.  I am now, along with many others, on a quest to make a good baguette.  I made a bunch at the SFBI class Artisan Bread I and it was so much easier to get a nice brown crust on those baguettes with the professional oven.  Now I'm with my home oven and the browning just isn't happening.

Here is a picture of my baguettes to date -

-

Close up of the scoring (which could improve but getting better)-

 

I would like to get the bread to have a little more color.  Not sure what the issue might be.  I have a  gas oven. I used the towel steaming method that SylviaH explained in detail(thank you).  It helped open the scoring. Perhaps I didn't have the steaming loaf pans in the proper positions?  I also used quarry tiles on the top shelf over the baguettes in hopes of creating more of a brick oven effect.  Was that a mistake?  I would like more color on the baguettes.  Should I add some diastatic malt to the mix?  I was using KAF Bread flour not AP, would that do it?  Any and all ideas welcome

 

Skibum's picture
Skibum

I have recently been seeking out new recipes to try, both for the flavour of new breads and the fun of trying new things. One of my favourite recent bakes is P. Reinhart's Many Seed bread which has become my favourite toast bread:

After a year of trying to make "artisan breads," I tried PR's Hoagie/ Cheesesteak buns and I love these! It is a super easy recipe -- beautiful dough to work with, the buns freeze well and toast up great for a grilled Bratwurst from my local Swiss deli.  I have done these twice now and both have been easy, fun bakes:

Hoagies proofing on my ragged linen couche. I support the couche with the counter backsplash and anything handy for the other end.

Proofed, scored and ready to bake.

Voila! A most tasty result and I will repeat, a very fun bake!  Beautiful, easy dough to work with and tasty results.

Regards, Brian

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

Click here for my blog index.

I have made brown croissants (coffee), green croissants (matcha), black croissants (dark chocolate), yellow croissants (pumpkin). With some purple yam on hand, it's only natural that I want to make purple croissants.

Well, it turns out complicated. Yam puree, just like potato puree, softens the crumb and weakens dough strength. As the result, if I add too much, croissants don't open up enough (i.e. no big honeycomb holes) and the texture is tender rather than crispy. However, if I add too little, there isn't enough color. After a few tries, the following recipe is what I arrived at. Still not the vivid purple I wanted, but at least that hint of color is noticable.

Purple yam croissant with Sourdough Starter
Note: for details and tips on making croissants, please see this post & this post.
Note: this recipe makes about 12 large danishes.

-levain
starter (100%), 35g
water, 59g
bread flour, 105g

1. mix and leave at room temp for 12 hours.

-final dough
bread flour, 422g
sugar, 68g
salt, 10g
instant yeast, 7g
butter, 21g, softened
purple yam puree, 200g
water, 180g
levain, all
roll-in butter, 287g

1. Mix everything but the rolling butter, knead until medium gluten developement. Then follow the steps here.

I filled them with more purple yam filling

It's obvious that the cross section has less hight comparing to my other croissants, that's due to the weaker dough

-----------

Also want to post some chocolate puff pastery I made a while ago. Recipe is from Pierre Hermes’ “Chocolate Desserts”(recipe can be found here), like all PH recipes, it's horribly time consuming and fussy. Yes, it's also terribly delicious. Sigh.

This dough is on the drier side, then it needs to be folded six times!!! Let's just say between all the resting and rolling out and folding, it was a 24 hour process.

The first time I made it, I was so sick of the dough that I directly shoved it into the freezer after the final rolling, couldn't bear to use it until a month later. I of course didn't learn my lesson, made it again. Used some of it for this mille-feuille.

All that layers...

Used the rest for some very fancy apple hand pie.

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