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I have wanted to try my hand at a Challah made with a Yeast Water starter for a while so I decided to give it a try this weekend.  Naturally I needed to change it up a bit more and added some shredded coconut and used coconut water in place of the liquid.

I figured since today really finally feels like Fall it warranted using a nice fall themed cake pan for this bread.  This is the first time I successfully used a cake pan/bundt pan for a bread.  I was planning on removing the dough from the pan before baking, but the dough was very moist so I was afraid I would ruin it if I tried to un-mold it before baking.

I was very happy with the way this bread turned out.  It has nice sweet flavor from the honey and coconut and the mold worked perfectly as the bread easily popped out after it was finished baking.

Procedure

I used a combination of my white sourdough starter which I keep at 66% hydration and did a 3 stage build with my fruit flavored yeast water starter.

Yeast Water Starter Build 1

60 grams AP Flour (KAF)

60 grams Yeast Water Starter

Mix the flour and Yeast Water in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 4 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed to build 2.

Build 2

Add ingredients below to starter from above and mix until incorporated.  Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 4 hours.

60 grams AP Flour (KAF)

60 grams Yeast Water Starter

Main Dough Ingredients

240 grams  Yeast Water Starter (all of the starter from above)

844 grams European Style Flour (KAF)  (You can substitute Bread Flour with a little White Whole Wheat)

35 Grams Shredded Coconut

170 grams Egg Yolks

71 grams Vegetable Oil

21 grams Pure Vanilla Extract

19 grams Salt (Sea Salt or Table Salt)

66 grams Honey

390 grams Coconut Water at Room Temperature

Procedure

Mix the flour with the egg yolks, starter,  and 340 grams of the coconut water for about 1 minute.   Let the dough autolyse for 30 minutes to an hour in your bowl covered with a cloth or plastic wrap.  Next add in the salt, oil and honey, rest of the coconut water and mix on speed #1 for 3 minutes and #2 for 2 minutes or by hand.  This dough is very wet but it should start to come together after mixing but will still be very wet.

Next take the dough out of the bowl and place it on your work surface.  Do a stretch and fold and rest the dough uncovered for 10 minutes.  Place the dough in an oiled bowl after the rest and do another stretch and fold and cover the dough in the bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Do one more stretch and fold and put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and let it sit at room temperature covered for 2 hours.  (If the dough is still too lose, you can do several more stretch and folds until you are ready to put in the refrigerator). After 2 hours you can put the dough into the refrigerator for 24 hours or up to 2 days before baking.  (Note: this dough is very moist and you may want to add more flour, but try to resist or you will make it too dry.  It will firm up while in the refrigerator overnight.)

The next day (or when ready to bake) let the dough sit out at room temperature for 2 hours.  After 2 hours form the dough into your desired shape and put them in floured bannetons, bowls or you can braid and make a traditional style Challah.  I decided to use a cake pan which I sprayed heavily with baking spray and after forming the dough into a rough oval I placed the dough in the pan and covered it with a moist towel.

Set your oven for 450 degrees F. at least 30 minutes before ready to bake.  When ready to bake place the loaves into your on  your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 350 degrees.  Bake until the loaf reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. which in this case took about 1 hour and 10 minutes.  If you make it as a free-from loaf it will probably take  a lot less time.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an hour or so before eating as desired.

Please visit my other blog at www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com for all of my recipes.

When I made my wonderful rose hip jam a month ago, temperatures were in the eighties, t-shirt weather for weeks, and we even used the air condition in our bedroom - in Maine!

The glasses were sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be properly tagged before going into the basement. But my husband, immobilized by a broken foot, needed special attention, and, between baking twice a week for our local natural food store, answering student questions online, and taking care of our undeserving critters, I didn't get to it for quite a while.

After a week or so, I noticed that one of the glasses showed ominous signs of frothy activity. Obviously I didn't fill it quite high enough to establish a vacuum, and, with the prevailing heat as incubator, my rose hip jam had started to ferment.

I was pretty annoyed with myself. Why didn't I pay more attention, and place the compromised glass into the fridge, before it could turn itself into booze?

No help for it, this was a goner, and had to be thrown out..... Or not? Suddenly I remembered my experiences with apple yeast water two years ago. Made from fermenting apples, the yeast water had proved to be a powerful leaven, my bread even grew a horn!

But in the end the apple yeast water died a slow death from starvation in a dark corner of my fridge, all but forgotten, since we preferred the tangier taste of sourdough.

Wouldn't it be worth a try to experiment a bit, and see what would happen if I fed the tipsy jam with  flour?

I measured a teaspoon of jam in a little bowl and added equal amounts of water....

....and whole wheat flour to the bowl: 

5 g fermented rose hip jam + 25 g water + 25 g whole wheat flour.

Eleven hours later the reddish mixture had become bubbly and spongy, and emitted a wonderful fruity-sour smell.

I fed it two times more, aways with 25 g flour and 25 g water. It ripened faster each time, first after 3, then even only after 2 1/2 hours.

   Fully developed rose hip mother

I was very pleased and contemplated my next move.

I wanted to make a fairly simple levain, with a bit of whole grain, but not too much. I expected a rather mild taste, but I didn't want the blandness of an all-white bread, nor a too hearty loaf that overwhelmed more subtle nuances.

So I adapted a recipe for Pain au Levain, made with apple yeast leaven, from Jan Hedh's "Swedish Breads and Pastries". I had made this bread before, with apple yeast water, it had been nice, but rather mild.

Hedh's book is gorgeous, with wonderful recipes, though not without some pesky errata - my first attempt of an attractive looking Levain with Bran and Vinegar had ended in a dense, compact brick - thanks to one erroneous Zero too many in the bran department.

Even though it was already evening, I didn't want to wait, and started with 16 g of my newborn rose hip mother - mother, chef and levain are the classic French terms for the 3 steps to make a leaven - to make the second stage: the chef.

 Chef after kneading

I woke up at midnight, went downstairs, eager to see how my starter was doing, and found a nicely grown chef, wide awake, and hungry for more.

  Fully developed chef

After feeding the little guy with more flour and water, I tottered back to bed. The next morning my levain was fully ripened and ready to go!

 Fully developed rose hip levain

PAIN AU LEVAIN  (adapted from Jan Hedh: "Swedish Breads and Pastries")

CHEF
21 g mother starter (it doesn't have to be rose hip, an ordinary mature wheat or rye starter will do)
   8 g water
21 g bread flour

LEVAIN
  50 g chef (all)
  50 g water
100 g bread flour

FINAL DOUGH
200 g levain (all)
 16 g spelt flour
 16 g rye meal
282 g bread flour
219 g water
    6 g salt

DAY 1:
1. Mix together all ingredients for chef. Knead for 2 minutes, then let rest for 5 minutes. Resume kneading for 1 more minute. (Dough should be stiff, but not hard, moisten your hands to incorporate more water, if needed.) Cover, and let sit for 4 hours, or until doubled in size.

2. Mix together all ingredients for levain. Knead for 2 minutes, then let rest for 5 minutes. Resume kneading for 1 minute more. (Dough should be stiff, but not hard, moisten your hands to incorporate more water, if needed.) Cover, and let ripen for 5 - 6 hours, or until doubled in size. Knead briefly to degas, and refrigerate overnight.

DAY 2:
3. Remove levain from refrigerator 2 hours before using, to warm up. Cut into smaller pieces and place with flour and water in mixer bowl. Knead for 3 minutes at low speed, then let dough rest for 5 minutes.

4. Add salt and continue kneading for 7 more minutes at medium-low speed. Stretch and fold 1 x, gather dough into a ball, place it in lightly oiled bowl, turn it around to coat with oil, cover, and let rest for 90 minutes.

5. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface, place hands in the middle and push out the air, stretch and fold 1 x, gather dough into a ball, return it to the bowl, and leave it for another 80 minutes.

6. Push out air again, and let dough relax for 10 more minutes. Shape into a round, place in banneton (seam side up), or on parchment lined baking sheet (seam side down).

7. Sprinkle bread with flour, mist with baking spray, cover, and proof for 60 - 90 minutes (in a warm place), until it has grown 1 3/4 times its original size.

8. Preheat oven to 250º C/482º F, including steam pan. Score bread.

9. Bake bread for 5 minutes, reduce heat to 200º C/400º F, and continue baking for another 15 minutes. Rotate bread 180 degrees, remove steam pan, and bake for 20 minutes more, venting the oven once to let out steam in between.

10. Leave bread in switched-off oven with door slightly ajar for another 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and let cool completely.

  Rose Hip Levain crumb

I changed Jan Hedh's recipe a bit. Instead of long kneading, I added a period of rest (autolyse) while mixing the dough, thereby shaving off some hands-on time.

A total baking time of 60 minutes, as stated in the recipe, was not necessary, my bread was already done after 40 minutes. And leaving it a while longer in the switched-off oven with the door a bit ajar guaranteed a nice crisp crust that didn't soften soon after baking.

Did it taste like rose hips? No. But is was delicious! And not only that: The best of all husbands found it "the crustiest bread you ever made". 

One question remains: what was it exactly that gave the bread its marvelous lift? The rose hips? The apples? Or the red wine the jam was made with?

With all that discard starter I just couldn't help but send it to the griddle.

Just a little closer...

I followed kjknits recipe, except I let it sit out for 14 hours and in the fridge for 2 hr. I had to make a trip the farmers market. My palate couldn't complain.

So amidst my Baguette a l'Ancienne and Sourdough Boule baking frenzy I began feeling a little wheaty. I decided to bake again, 3rd time, Peter Reinhart's Whole Wheat recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

First two attempts were...eh...not so good. Basically negative rise accompanied by an Adamantium-like density. So being a little discourage I did what anyone would do, I tried again. Forgive me for switching back and forth between ounces and gram, but I have no second decimal for ounces.

Results weren't half bad...

Le Pain

And ze crumb...

and...

The Way I Baked:

• Soaker
• 120g Bob Red Mills 10 Grain Cereal (No 10 Grain flour)
• 6 oz. Water (Room Temp)
• Set for 23 hr
• Poolish
• 191g Gold Medal Whole Wheat
• 6oz Water (Room Temp)
• 1/2 t Instant Yeast
• Sat out for 41/2, then in the fridge for 21hr 40min. Sat out for hour to take off chill.
• Dough
• 9oz Gold Medal Whole Wheat
• .33oz Sea Salt
• 1t Instant yeast
• 1,5oz Honey
• .5oz Vegetable Oil
• 1 Large Egg
• Poolish & Soaker

Notes:

Dough temp was at 78.1F after kneading. Bulk fermented for 75 mins, shaped into sandwich loaf via Khalid's method, then final proof for 45 min. Preheated to 400F, then placed loaf in (9x5 loaf pan) oven and reduced to 350F for 30min, rotated 180 degrees, bake for another 15min. Cooled for approx. 2 hrs. Turned out great in my opinion. No grassy after taste and soft inside.

Anybody want to critique feel free please!

Not the prettiest loaf I've ever made but proof that my new starter is indeed alive. 

* * *

In other news, I just can't wrap my head around it being Thanksgiving here in Canada Monday.  It feels too early in the season for pumpkin pie and turkey.  I think we're going to have a mini-Thanksgiving with some friends here Monday and then celebrate again with family members from the states six weeks from now.  Will I bake?  We shall see.

-Floyd

It has been a while since we did our Hemp Bag take on Empress Ying’s 36 hour baguettes.  The last time the hemp seeds made for some pretty dopey baking according to Hanseata.  She is rarely wrong when it comes to seeds and especially  ….eeerrrr…. baking with them.   They were delicious baguettes but lacked full depth of flavor and tasty character of a bread that has at least 15% whole grains in it.

Luckily EY (Empress Ying) has already set the standard for multi-grain baguettes here like she has for 36 hour baguettes galaxy wide here:  They are terrific!

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21809/36-hours-sourdough-baguette-increased-whole-grain-how-much-too-much#comment-230831

 Of course I didn't find her perfect post until after my bake was done so all of the good things I learned from it were not used :-)  Her experiment starts at 20% whole grain and moves up to 40% and she increases her hydration as the whole grain rise with 80% hydro for her 20% whole grain version.

I kept my hydration at 75% for this 16% version but would have used 78% had I thought properly even without her post.  I know it sounds like a lot to expect from a doofus like me but my apprentice has been testy of late and asleep at the oven much of the time.

My whole grains were different than txfarmer’s too.  We used spelt, rye and whole wheat.  Our 36 hours was different than hers too and wasn't even 36 hours either.   We just can’t seem to stick to any kind of schedule since we retired.  Instead of a 12 hour autolyse, we did a 6 hour room temperature one with the salt.

After the mix of levain and autolyse came together, we did 8 minutes of French slap and folds because my apprentice loves the sound of the dough smacking the marble - makes her go insane and start barking very loudly until things quiet down.  After a 15 minute rest we continued on with (3) S&F’s every 30 minutes for the next hour and a half.   We allowed the dough to ferment for an hour before we retarded it for 20 hours instead of 24.  We then took it out of the fridge with the intent of baking it but after 1 hour of warm up, pre-shape, final shape (16” long) and into a rice floured basket for final proof, we only let it proof for an hour and then chucked it into a plastic trash can liner and into the fridge for another 14 hours of retard. 

EY said that she thought it could stand some more hours of retard and Ian just gave it 30 so we though a total of 34 hours of retard instead of 24 might be OK if the bread gods were too drunk on godliness to notice. 

After the 2nd retard was done we let the dough, still inside the trash can liner sit on the counter for 3 hours before firing up Old Betsy at 500 F for a 45 minute pre-heat with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming bread pans on the bottom rack with the stone on the rack above.

The baguettes were upturned onto the parchment lined peel, poorly slashed 4 times each, this type of massacre should be illegal by the way,  and slid onto the stone with a ½ cup of water thrown into the bottom of the oven as we closed to door to make sure the steam was maximized. We immediately turned the oven down to 450 F and let the bread steam for 10 minutes.

The steam was removed, the oven turned down to 425 F convection this time, and the baguettes were baked for another 15 minutes.  The baguettes were turned 180 degrees every 5 minutes for the last 15 minutes to make sure they baked evenly.

When we test them for temperature they were already at 210 F so we took then out of the oven and put them on the cooling rack.  They were very crispy (and stayed that way), blistered, nicely browned and we could hold them up by the ears – well at least 1 of the 2 we could.  The slashing was still primitive - practice isn't helping much  -  but no giving up is allowed :-)

What surprised us was the crumb was not as open as we wanted and thought we would get after our last baguette bake and the even our last boule bake for that matter.  Well you can’t have everything, every time like Empresses do unless you know what you are doing and do it :-)  Maybe starting off with 8 minutes of French Slap and folds was not the right thing to do. 

Do you think it would help if we followed txfarmer’s directions exactly?  Possibly!  Well, tell that to my apprentice!These baguettes do taste great, much better than plain white ones or even ones with hemp seeds in them with our taste buds.  Can’t wait to have some bruschetta tonight.

I subbed Karo syrup for malt extract in my sourdough pizza dough. It came out good, but I feel dirty. :)

I wanted to make some bread according to the Quarter Sponge Method as outlined by Elizabeth David / Walter Banfield ever since I came across it more than a year ago.

The details are intriguing: A standard metod used to make "Batch Bread" in Scotland well into the thirties, it uses a long fermentation process and a minimal amount of yeast. A sachet of yeast will make about 30Kg of bread!

The result of my first bake: As close to shop bought sandwich bread as one can get - just with flour, water, salt, yeast and a 16 hour fermentation!

Here some pictures; details follow.

The overall appearance of my 1kg loaf:

The crust in more detail:

And the crumb:

The loaf looks very appealing; the crumb is dense and regular, but fluffy. And the walls of the small bubbles have the translucency of well fermented dough.

The taste is ... neutral. Just plain neutral, but in a pleasant way. Great with cream cheese and salmon, or salami, or marmalade. 

Quite a surprise.

The formula is given by David in industrial amounts (200Kg batch size). I haven't got the proofing space, so I decided to scale it down.

Here the original formula:

I adjusted overall salt to 2% and estimated the modern yeast to be a lot stronger, the formula I used was:

After the Third Stage Sponge (Final Dough) had rested, I kneaded, divided and shaped, followed by another 1.5 hours rest.

The dough was very pleasant to work with, despite the low hydration (using Bacheldre organic stoneground bakers white flour).

Baked with steam in a falling oven to 210C for 45 minutes. 

An interesting experience.

Happy Baking,

Juergen

A couple of weeks ago I tried TxFarmer's 36 hour sourdough version but I had some issues transferring the rested baguettes to my oven and the results were less than stellar.  After experimenting with a different formula for a couple of bakes I decided to go back to this recipe and see if I could get some better results.

I think this time I achieved something close to the crust and crumb that TxFarmer creates.  These ended up being the best one's I've made to date and tasted excellent with a nice light and crisp crust and chewy crumb.  The only thing I need to improve is my shaping and transferring from the couche to the peel and baking stone.  I just purchased a new larger couche and flip board so I'm anxious to see how that turns out.

I also want to try this formula with some changes and additions and see if I can still get a nice open crumb.  I also want to try this in a batard and boule when I get a chance, but maybe with a slightly lower hydration.

For the recipe and directions please visit TxFarmer's blog post above.

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/.

Misty wants you to know she prefers mice to bread any day.

After a recent failed attempt to make Tartine's basic country loaf, I decided to change up my starter.

I now feed 50 grams of starter 50 g water + 50 g flour. I feed it every 12 hours. (On a related note, this seems a little too fussy. Do I really need to do this all the time?)

I store it in a glass pint jar on the top of my fridge. I keep it screwed shut.

The starter shows strong bubbling activity, though I can't get it to double in size. It maybe -just maybe - gets to be a third larger in a 12-hour span.

What's most amazing about it is that after 12 hours, it smells extremely strongly of apple vinegar. Also, when I unscrew the lid, the inside of the container is pressurized from all the yeast activity (I assume).

My question for you: Am I on the right track? Is something crazy happening here?