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Hey, I don't post as much as i should here, but I'm excited about the new way of steaming, at least for me, that I used today!

First, I'm from Brazil, so sorry for some misspell or something :)

I was looking for a better way to create steam for bread baking, than I came up with a photo (on thefreshloaf) of a pressure cooker connect to the oven (eletric) by a tube, I didn't even know that a eletric oven has a tube on top by the stove, and then I said to myself " what the heck, let me try this!"

I decided to bake a regular poolish dough.

Total flour: 400g

Pre fermented flour: 150g + 150g of H2O

I started with 65% hydration, but I had to add a bit more H2O maybe 68 or 69% total, got a really old flour (KAAP)

2% Salt

A bit of yeast

Only thing I did different. I mixed The poolish flour H2O, yeast and a bit more malt than normal and let it rest for maybe 2.5 hours, I went to the gym rsrs.

After this period, added the salt and a tiny amount of ascorbic acid. I can only bake batards on my oven, so I can use a little more strength.

Then kneaded just enough, let it ferment for 1:30 min with a turn (45 min), divided, pre shaped shaped proof and bake. ufff!!!

But I'm getting out of track... Wanna talk about the steam!!! Hahaha

The bakeing took 27 min. total

Here is a photo of my new steaming method

I steamed the oven before, don't know why cos when I opened the oven door all the steam came out lol, and after loading.

And for 15 sec in one minute intervals for 10 min.

After that let it bake for more 10 min, turn the bread and more 7 min in the oven, maybe a bit much, it burned the bottom :(

I loved the results!!!

Check it out!! Some pics...

I think is the first time than I bake with steam instead of vapor. I mean, I tried before with hot water, but I don't know if is the same, cos here I'm using the steamer.

I tried to show some cracks on the crust, I don't know if you can see it on the pics.

I think is worth trying, I will again tomorrow, with a bit of rye on the poolish ;) ....

So that's it!!! Hope you like it!!! Happy baking!!!! =)

BTW One last photo...

That's the layout inside my oven!!!

Regards,

Leandro Di Lorenzo

I'd been meaning to make Challah for a long time but never found the courage. These breads always look so beautiful. Reading Carol Ungar's account of recovering her family's tradition, 'Grandma's Lost Challah, Found', I was inspired to have a go. I used a recipe from Maggie Glezer’s book, A Blessing of Bread, recited by TFL member Zolablue with photos from her own bake.

The bread turned out just fine, a little firm yet soft and tasted very nice. To keep complexity at minimum I opted for a three strand braid. Due to the sour dough, the bread kept pretty well until the next day. However, I sliced and froze most of what we didn't consume on the day of the bake. Lightly toasted, those slices were absolutely fabulous.

We have been eating lunch well the last day or two with our last Pretzel Roll bake for sandwiches - P and J and Baja Grilled Chicken with Grilled Veggies.  The J is caramelized Minneola Marmalade.  There is part of a croissant, some nice red pepper hummus, cucumber salad and fruits and veggies of all kinds.  All very healthy and my assistant cleaned herself up for a photo with her new bow!

Baja Grilled Chicken, squash and eggplant and some new Kosher Dill Pickles - Medium Hot. 

Alnwick Farmers’ Market; Bread and Roses, May 2012 The sun has been shining in the UK this week, and, finally it is warm here; not before time! Yesterday and today’s baking have produced some very tasty breads plus other treats too [croissants, pain au chocolats, pain amandes and spicy buns]! I laid out my produce this evening and came up with 70 loaves plus the aforementioned treats. There are Gilchesters’ breads made with local flour plus levain, seeded breads and 5 grain breads with levain, an assortment of rye such as Seigle d’Auvergne, Pain de Siègle de Thézac, Moscow Rye and Black Pumpernickel, plus yeasted varieties, wholemeal bloomers, brown tin loaves and chollah I have already posted formulae for all these breads. But, here is a slideshow to summarise the last 2 days, working away at my home, “Ananda” in Powburn, Northumberland. See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdXNxvvyTA4

All good wishes, and Happy Baking! Andy

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/99579/grandmas-lost-challah-found?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=4aba4f5698-5_16_2012&...

I don't know if many of you saw this, but when I read it, I came close to tears. In his cover blurb for ITJB, Peter Reinhart graciously wrote, "bread is always more than just bread," and this article bears that idea out to the max.

IMO, there's no greater pleasure for a writer -- or anyone, for that matter -- than to know his/her work has enriched another's life, and I wanted to share this moment with you all.

Stan Ginsberg

Érdekesség képpen megmutatom a mi tyúkunkat, aki a nyusziházba tojt meg!  Nagyon aranyosak!

Now that I finally made the famous Phil's 100% Whole Wheat Desem bread I figured it was time to push the envelope and put my own twist on it.  I love onions so I added some toasted onions and figured I would try to mix up the flour a bit by adding a small percentage of Quinoa and Barley flour.  Both of these flours impart a nice nutty flavor to the dough along with the toasted wheat germ I also added.  I also added some dehydrated onions since I ran out of the toasted onions and wanted to make sure I used enough in the recipe.  Just for the hell of it I added some pistachio oil to make it even more nutty tasting.

I refreshed my whole wheat starter I built for the last bake of 100% Whole Wheat Desem bread and the next day away we went with mixing the final dough.

Please see Phil's original recipe for his  formula for 100% Whole Wheat and his original procedures here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27999/honest-bread-100-wholewheat-desem-bread-and-some-country-bread.

Ingredients

243 grams (refreshed) Desem Starter

650 grams Whole Wheat (KAF 100% Organic)

130 grams Quinoa Flour

119 grams Barley Flour

20 grams Roasted Wheat Germ

838 grams Water (90 degrees F.)

20 grams Sea Salt (or table salt)

11 grams Toasted Onions

4 grams Dehydrated Onions (I ran out of the toasted so used this instead)

11 grams Pistachio Oil (you can omit if desired or use any nut oil or olive oil)

Procedure

Like the last bake I decided to change his procedures by using my Bosche Mixer as follows:

I mixed  the flours and wheat germ together with all the water except for 50 grams and let them autolyes for 1 hour.  I added the dried toasted onions to the remaining 50 grams of water.  After an hour  I added the levain and the water with onions, pistachio oil and salt and mixed on speed #1 for 1 minute and #2 for 4 minutes.  I then did a stretch and fold, rested the dough uncovered for 10 minutes.  I then did another stretch and fold, covered the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.  I did one more stretch and fold and put it in a lightly oiled bowl for 1.5 hours.  I then put it in the fridge overnight.

The next day I let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1.5 hours.  After 1.5 hours I formed it into loaves and put them in floured bannetons and let them rise covered for 2 hours.  Score the loaves as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

I then baked on my oven stone with steam at 450 degrees until both loaves were golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 200 - 210 degrees F.

The bread had a great nutty flavor and you can taste the barley and quinoa flours for sure along with the onions.  The crumb was nice and moist and open with a nice dark medium hard crust.

A few months back while I was browsing some Vietnamese food sites, particularly [this one] I found myself lingering on the pages featuring Bahn Mi sandwiches with all their various fillings, the most common being pork in some fashion, fried, grilled, pulled etc, as well as ones using chicken, prawns, crab, there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rules when it comes the protein component of the sandwich. However the only bread to use for making them is a typical French baguette, a bread I seldom bake at home, mainly because of their very short shelf life. I love a fresh baguette just a few hours out of the oven, but if I can't finish it in a day, well... not so much. Regardless, I was determined to make the bahn mi using a fresh baked demi baguette and deal with whatever leftovers remained as best as possible. The first item on the agenda was to pickle some thin slices of carrot and daikon for garnishing the sandwich. I wasn't in any rush so they had a good 3 weeks pickling away in the garage before I was happy with the flavour. The next item was to get in some practice actually mixing and hand shaping baguettes. We used to make our own baguettes in our shop years ago but they were always shaped using a molder so my hand skills definately needed some upgrading. I decided to use Jeffrey Hamelman's Poolish Baguette from "Bread" for the first mix since I've always found his formulae so reliable. The results were just OK, a fact I chalked up more to my lack of experience with the process than Mr Hamelman's formula. The crumb was too tight, lacking the larger irregular sized holes that it should have, but it tasted allright, considering. I should note that the flour I was using was Canadian Organic AP flour, a generic brand from the local supermarket, but more about that later on. For the second batch I went with the poolish baguette formula from Michel Suas' "Advanced Bread & Pastry", which resulted in almost the same type of crumb as the one from "Bread". The shaping was better, it tasted fine, but not there yet. Next I tried my own version using a levain with 100% rye starter that had a great flavour, not like any French style baguette I'm familiar with, but tasty and with a better crumb structure than the previous two. Still not what I wanted for the bahn mi though.Not one of the demi baguettes made so far had been used to make a bahn mi with, instead used for sub sandwiches which I eventually grew tired of. The project was put on hold while I did some other things and in the meantime gave some thought to blending a softer (10%) Cdn. pastry flour with the AP to see if that might help things along. Our Canadian AP flour typically has a protein content of 13.3% so a little higher than U.S. AP flour, and higher still I'm guessing than French flour or whatever type is used in Vietnam. Based purely on speculation I used a 75/25% blend of AP and pastry flour in the next mix, this time using Steve B's Baguettes a la Bouabsa from his very good site [breadcetera.com].

That the formula uses a straight mix, retarded for 21 hours, held a lot of appeal for me schedule wise, being able to mix it an hour or two before going to bed, and have it ready for shaping an hour after getting home from work the following day. The only changes I made to the formula/process were to substitute the AP/Pastry blend for Meunere Milanese flour in Steve's formula, and to give it two stretch and folds on the bench over it's one hour bulk ferment, rather than the 6-8 in the bowl every 20 minutes Steve calls for. This time all the pieces came together to produce something I was happy with, a light,crusty loaf with a toasted wheaty flavour and enough irregular holes in the crumb to do the sandwich justice.

Many thanks to SteveB for making this recipe available!

From here on it was easy. Two small pieces of pork shoulder, say 60-65 grams total, pounded very thin with a mallet or rolling pin, marinated in lime juice, garlic, fish sauce, and sweet dark soy sauce for 1-2 hours, dredged in seasoned flour and deep fried till crispy. Toast or grill the bread, spread with a lime flavoured mayonnaise, add the pork and sprinkle with course sea salt, top with fried shallots, a [Vietnamese Slaw], and fresh pea or sunflower shoots, a sprig or two of fresh coriander perhaps...and that's it!

Some of the items mentioned above such as the pickled carrot-daikon, and fried shallots aren't visible in the photo, but they're in there somwhere, just buried under everything else. 

I know it may sound like a lot of time and effort to go to just to make a sandwich, but take my trials and tribulations of making the right sort of demi baguette out of the equation and it's no more trouble than making many of the world's great sandwiches. Give or take a few minutes, it's right up there with the likes of such classics as the Rueben, Cubano, Croque Monsieur, Porchetta, Philly Cheese Steak and Lobster Roll, to name just a few. Now that I have a baguette formula and process that I'm happy with, this sandwich goes on my All Star list of street food to be made again.

Cheers,

Franko