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codruta's picture
codruta

I think we all agree Phil's breads are awesome. When I saw his latest post, I instantly decided that I want to make the desem bread... but I didn't have a desem starter, and with 2 active starters in my house, I didn't really wanted to make another starter from scratch. But a couple of days later I saw David's post on the same topic and I followed his example. I took a small amount of my white starter and fed it with whole wheat flour at 50% hydration, kept it in the fridge all the time. After a week and 2-3 feeds, I decided to give it a try. The desem build was slighty sour (I tasted it just before using it), but the bread is not sour at all. Is not sour, is not bitter, it has a wonderful caramel aroma and is lighter than other WW breads I made before :)... but it doesn't have the famous sweet taste I hoped it would have :(. I think this might be because the desem starter still has some of the characteristic of the white starter and it will need more than 2 feeds to change completely... or is because I didn't use freshly milled flour like Phil did... or both.

I had and used a low protein (10.9g) whole wheat flour from Alnatura (http://www.alnatura.de/de/produkt/16918) and Phil advised me to increased the prefermented flour and to reduce hydration and fermentation time. The overall hydration was 80% and fermentation time was 2h:30min (first fermenatation) and 1h:20min second fermentation at 24C. The dough was slighty underproofed, as you can see, but it had a good oven spring, nice crust colour and nice crumb (not as opened as Phil's ...but,  I'll get there one day!). I'll be making this formula again, the taste is very close to what I expected, the aroma is delicious and it was a real pleasure to eat it. Thank you Phil for the detailed formula and the help you gave me along the way!

 

The desem starter after 2 feeds:

The desem build just before use:

The preshaped dough, before rest and final shape (I made just one loaf from 850g of dough):

and the baked bread:

Best wishes to all of you,

codruta

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

Click here for my blog index.

This is inspired by the brandy roll formula from the book "A Handmade Loaf". I have made 80%+ of the recipes from that book, with variations, all have been great.

Note: makes 10 cloveleaf rolls OR 12 golden horn rolls (I double the recipe and made both)

Note: total flour is 250g

- levain

starter (100%), 13g

milk, 22g

bread flour, 41g

1. Mix and let fermentation at room temp (73F) for 12 hours.

- Final Dough
bread flour, 203g
sugar, 25g
salt, 5g
butter, 50g, softened
egg, 25g
milk, 50g
water, 59g
brandy, 25g
levain, all

1. Mix everything but butter until gluten starts to form, add butter, knead until moderate level of gluten developement. A relatively thin windowpane can be stretched, but holes can appear.
2. Rise at room temp for 2 hours, punch down, put in fridge overnight.
3a. For cloveleaf rolls, takeout, divide into 10 parts, round, rest for 1 hour. Divide each part into 3, round, put all 3 into a muff tin hole.

3b. For golden horn, takeout, round, press flat, rest for 1 hour. Roll out into a 14inch round (about 1/8inch thick), brush with melted butter, cut into 12 parts

Take each piece, roll out tightly

4. Rise at room temp for about 6 hours. The dough would have double. Brush with brandy, shift powdered sugar.

5. Bake at 400F for about 25min for cloveleaf rolls, 20min for golden horns.

Brandy brushed on surface made the roll crispy on the outside

But soft and shreddy on the inside

This is basically a "poor man's" brioche formula made into rolls. Sourdough starter and brandy lends sutle layers of flavor, but you can't really taste the alcohol at all (which makes sense since it would have disappeared during baking).

joyfulbaker's picture
joyfulbaker

Just heard this wonderful news.   The IACP award, which is discretionary, is given to "a book that exemplifies Jane Grigson’s extraordinary ability to put food in a wider cultural context, using diligent but not pedantic scholarship. Jane Grigson, a cookbook author from the United Kingdom, was a prose stylist of high degree. The book should exhibit distinguished scholarship in the quality of its research and presentation."

 Hearty congratulations to you, Stan and Norm, for this well-deserved honor!   

Joy

mcs's picture
mcs

So we just got back from our two-week vacation in Europe-   Spain, France and Holland to be precise.

I'm going to roll through some of the highlights, but if you'd like to see a lot more pictures of the Big Adventure, you can check them out on my Facebook page here.

We landed in Madrid about mid-day, found our hotel, washed up a bit and headed out into town.  If you ever happen to make your way there, you should put this place at the top of your places to visit.  The Mercado de San Miguel is an indoor market with lots of booths filled with food and wine.  Yes, and because it's in Spain this means that you're free to eat, drink, and be merry while you walk and sample everything from fresh mozzarella with blueberries on a sliced baguette to a glass of wine from La Rioja.

 

Next we move onto the island of Ibiza where we visited my friend Helena.  Although its recent reputation is as the party capital of Europe, Ibiza has a rich history with relics dating back to Carthaginian times.  Helna hosted us at her home and gave us a super tour of the beaches, the local foods, and fantastic churches and museums. 

 

Our next stop was further north in the land of Spanish Wine known as La Rioja.  Two of our friends were generous enough to give us the local tour complete with visits to Logroño, Santa Lucia, and Laguardia.  In the first picture, accomplished sculptor Félix Reyes poses with some of his work and my friend Javier.  Below, there's nothing like a night on the town in Logroño with good friends, food, and wine.

 

Next, we took the train up to France and managed to spend a night in the picturesque village of Saint Emilion.  Since we were a bit early for tourist season, we had the streets to ourselves as we walked through the town at night after an outside dinner in the evening.

 

After spending a night in the very scenic town of Tours, we began our three day visit to Paris.  Of course we had the obligitory visits to the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.  Breakfast and/or lunch was spent touring the various boulangeries- pictured here are Michel Deschamps' and Eric Kayser's.  Baguettes were coming out of the oven at Deschamps, but we opted for a couple of delicious quiches instead.


I know it may be heresy to say on a bread baking forum, but by far the highlight of the Paris portion of the trip was not the baked goods, but our first-time visit to the Palais Garnier.  Back on January 9, I spent between the hours of 12:45AM and 2:15AM 'standing in line' online waiting for tickets as they went on sale for the first time for the Robbins/Ek show titled 'Dances at a Gathering' and 'Appartement'.  It was well worth it as we got front row seats in the center of the second mezzanine. 

If you only have one night to spend in Paris, this is what I would recommend.  I particularly enjoyed the second half of the show which featured the Swedish band Fleshquartet playing live as a modern ballet was performed in front of them. Here's a link to a video of a portion of the show from a few years ago.  It was as good as it gets.

Finally our Big Adventure was capped off with a high-speed train ride to Amsterdam, a visit to the Van Gogh museum, and a personalized tour of the Keukenhof tulip gardens by fellow Fresh Loafian and BreadLab meister,  Freerk.  It was the perfect finale as we saw more colors and varieties than one could possibly imagine and thanks to Freerk, we actually got to and from the gardens without ending up in Belgium, Germany, or just in the water somewhere. 


 

And thus ends Sharon and Mark's Big Adventure of 2012.  Thanks to everyone who helped us feel the local flavor of their wonderful lands! 

-Mark
http://TheBackHomeBakery.com

 

Franko's picture
Franko

 

Late in 2010 I posted on a bake of James MacGuire's Miche, Pointe-a-Calliere from Jefferey Hamelman's "Bread" *here* This is a bread I've been meaning to do a re-bake of for some time now, but for one reason or another hadn't gotten around to it until yesterday. Varda's recent post of her lovely high hydration Miche *here*, and that my flour stock includes some Central Milling Organic Type 85 Malted high extraction flour gave me the inspiration to finally have another go at this wonderful bread. The CM high extraction flour came to me because of breadsong's generosity in sharing some of what she picked up last year while in the Bay Area. Thanks again breadsong!

A miche size loaf isn't a terribly practical bread for me to make considering I'm the only one in our house other than our dog who eats wheat, and anything over a 1.2K loaf size is more than I can reasonably eat over a 7-10 day period. Practical or not, I decided to make it in the size it was intended to be and give enough away to friends and relatives that none of it would be wasted. Now that I've had a chance to taste it I'm seriously reconsidering that strategy. 

Having made this bread previously with good results I didn't see any reason to alter any of the formula percentages or procedures other than a minor change to the initial oven setting of 440F by increasing it to 460F in order to compensate for the temperature recovery time of a domestic oven ( or at least our particular oven) with a large dough like this. The dough was scaled to yield 2K, which by the time it went for bulk proofing was just around 70 grams less than that due to waste from stickage. At 82 % hydration this is indeed a sticky one at first, but it does become quite manageable after it's 1st of 3 stretch and folds, and as the author mentions, liberal dusting flour is needed during this part of the procedure. By the time it was ready for final molding the dough was soft and supple but with enough strength to easily shape it into a boule for it's final rise in a floured banneton. Because I'd managed to keep the DDT, bulk and final fermentation temps within 1 degree +/- of the recommended 76F, the final proof was almost bang on at the prescribed 2 hours, always a good sign.

The last time I baked this bread I used Sylvia's wet towel method for steaming, but this time I was concerned that too much steam with this very soft dough might hinder good crust development. The dough was quite a bit slacker than I recall the previous one being, and after a brief debate with myself I decided I'd be better off just spraying the oven before and after loading and let the moisture of the dough do the rest. Whether my thinking was entirely correct on this or not I can't say for sure, since the loaf did in the end develop a satisfactory crust, however I do think it's time I invested in a second stone to put in the rack above the loaf for more even top heat.

The low profile shape of the loaf is fairly close to the one pictured in "Bread", but the crumb doesn't have the "large interior air holes" Hamelman refers to in his side notes, at least I haven't encountered any yet. The crumb is moist and chewy with a pleasantly mild wheat flavour and just a trace of sour at this point. I'd be quite happy with the flavour if it remained the way it is, but I know from the last loaf that it will become stronger over the next few days, which is fine with me as well so long as it remains fairly moist.

A very tasty lunch today of home made country pate, sharp cheddar, pickles, with Maui onion mustard and thick slices of the miche.

Cheers,

Franko

Anonymous baker's picture
Anonymous baker (not verified)

Peter Reinhart's Pane Siciliano–or, as a friend calls it, Pan Sissy.

Here's the formula in BBGA format using Reinhart's original quantities as listed in the Bread Baker's Apprentice

(I'm still learning the BBGA format, so please let me know if you spot any errors.)

 

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

After reading about Dave's never-ending quest to create the perfect San Francisco Sourdough bread I felt it was time to give his latest recipe a whirl.  I have never been to SF so I don't know exactly what the final bread should taste like other than by his description.

I tried very hard to follow his exact recipe but alas my string of good luck continued and my refrigerator decided to mimic an oven.  I was forced to let the bulk ferment dough rest in my mini beer/assorted alcohol refrigerator instead of the shaped loaves.  I let the dough bulk ferment over night and the next afternoon while I waited for my refrigerator to be fixed I let the dough rest at room temperature for a couple of hours.  I then formed the loaves into Boules and let them rise in their bannetons inside my oven with a bowl of hot water for 3.5 hours.

The dough was nice an elastic and puffed up very nicely.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that the risen loaves would be too big to fit in my oven at the same time.  I had to adjust the loaves while the oven was nice and hot and subsequently one of the loaves was hanging off the baking stone for a few minutes causing it to sag slightly.

The final result was an excellent crust and a nice open and light crumb.  I did however discover the first loaf I cut into had a mysterious hole running through a big part of the bread, almost like someone or thing was trying to dig its way to China.

Overall the bread turned out excellent.  I would have expected it to be slightly more sour though and I'm not sure why it was so mild.  It could be due to the fairly new converted starter I used.  I turned my 65% AP starter to Dave's multi flour starter at 50% so maybe it wasn't mature enough.

You can find Dave's recipe  here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27982/san-franciscostyle-sourdough-bread-two-ways-3252012.

Thanks again Dan for an excellent recipe!

jamesjr54's picture
jamesjr54

Top: The boule

Bottom: A sloppy turkey and jack w/mayo and dijon on seeded sourdough

Made a modified sourdough (with 1/8 tsp active dry yeast for timing) with toasted sesame, poppy and sunflower seeds. Came out great. Thanks to TFL'er Jay and the "The Basic Problem with my sourdough" thread contributors for guidance on my starter.

Formula

Levain:

102 g KAF AP

108 G water

43 g 100% hydration starter

5 g Rye

Fermented overnight (12 hrs minimum) at room temp.

Final dough:

417 g KAP AP

100 g Whole Wheat flour

310 g water

All of the levain (258 g)

1/8 tsp active dry yeast

13 g salt

20 g each sunflower, poppy and sesame seeds, toasted and cooled

Comes out to ~70% hydration, but feels wetter to me.

Mix all but salt, seeds and yeast. Autolyses 1 hr. Add salt, seeds (cooled) and yeast. Knead 10-12 minutes until moderately developed. Ferment 2-3 hours w/2 S&Fs.

Divide and preshape for 2 boules. Rest 20-25 minutes. Shape as boules. Proof for 90-120 minutes (watch the dough, not the clock ;-)).

Preheat oven 500F for 30 last 30 minutes of proof. 

Bake in cast iron covered dutch oven 20 mins covered; 20 minutes uncovered until 190F internal. (I use a parchment paper "sling" to load the dough, which I remove for the last 10 minutes.)

 

 

Syd's picture
Syd


 

Leaven

  • 20g starter @ 100% hydration
  • 100g water
  • 15g light rye flour*
  • 85g all purpose flour

Ferment @ 29C (84F) for 9 hrs. 

 Sponge

  • All of the leaven
  • 250g water
  • 250g bread flour  (12.4% protein)

 Allow to sponge @ 28C (82F) for 3 hours.

 Main Dough 

  • All of the sponge
  • 65g water
  • 250g bread flour (12.4% protein)

 Autolyse for 20 mins.  Now add:

  • 10g salt

Knead until gluten moderately to well developed.  You need to have the gluten fairly well developed because the bulk ferment is very short. One hour bulk with folds at 20 and 40 mins respectively.  Pre-shape.  Rest 5.  Shape. Place in cloth-lined banneton.  Three-quarter proof.(About 1.5 hours).  Retard in fridge for 7 - 9 hours.  Remove from fridge and allow to final proof (about 1 hour).

Pre-heat oven to 230C (450F).  Slash.  Load onto baking stone.  Immediately reduce heat to 205C (400F), convection off.  Bake for 20 mins with steam.  Remove steaming appartatus when the top of the bread starts to show signs of colour.   Reduce heat to 190C (375F), convection on.  Bake a further 25- 30 mins.  (You might have to experiment with baking temps/times.  I baked this at a lower temp than I usually do for my regular sourdoughs. You don't want to have a deeply caramelized crust like for that of a miche, but rather a reddish-brown crust with nice blistering).  

Notes

  • hydration is 69%
  • for the leaven build I use a very light rye with all the bran removed (for all practical purposes, this is an all-white loaf)
  • this loaf improves with flavour on the second day and gets sourer

Taste

 
It has a distinct but, what I would categorize as, mild sour flavour.  This was my third attempt at this recipe and was the least sour of the three.  This could be, in part, due to the fact that the weather was slightly cooler and the temperatures were slightly lower than the temperatures when I first formulated this recipe. It could also be due to the fact that I changed the composition of flours.  Despite the open looking nature of the crumb shot, it was actually quite firm to the bite.  This is undoubtedly the result of the high protein flour.  The crust was chewy, too.

 

Previous attempts


On my first attempt I used 11.4% protein flour for both the sponge and the main dough.  I also gave it a 50 min autolyse and added 3g of diastatic malt.  The main dough was very sour tasting and got sticky quickly.  I attribute this to too much enzymatic activity and the enzymes breaking down the gluten.  The resultant loaf had a rather low profile and a moderate to strong sour flavour. 

On my second attempt I considered using the same flour but lowering the hydration to counter some of the stickiness. Instead, I kept the hydration the same and used a higher protein flour for the main dough. The result was similar to the first attempt although the main dough wasn't as sticky.  The profile was still rather low, though. 

For this try, I ditched the diastatic malt, reduced the autolyse to 20 mins and used a 12.4% protein level flour for both the sponge and the main dough.  This resulted in the best profile but the mildest flavour of the three.  

I want to work on this one a little more. For my next attempt I want to keep everything the same but let it proof for only an hour in the bannetton, then give it double the time (about 16 hours) in the fridge. I am hoping this will get me where I want to be:  a moderately sour, chewy loaf with a reddish-brown, blistered crust.  

Finally, a different angled view of the whole boule (and a gratuitous crumb shot)  for Varda, lest she again accuse me of minimalism (or was it brevity)? :)

Syd

hansjoakim's picture
hansjoakim

It is finally getting a bit warmer here, but nights and mornings are still bitterly cold. We have winds from north, and they chill you to the bone if you're not well packed in. The weather has been beautiful the last couple of days, with clear blue skies and some warmth coming from the sun. Still, things don't thaw up before lunch time, and summer is clearly still a few months away.

I live next to a farmer, and he has kept sheep the entire winter on a small patch of grass just next to our house. By the looks of it, they're enjoying the sun just as much as us two-legged ones are. I love the view these days, here a photograph from Saturday, taken while I was waiting for a loaf to finish baking...:

Just this morning, I noticed what I guess must be the first lamb of the season on the farm - a cute and fragile newborn that's been tumbling around next to his mother all day today. I feel this is truly a wonderful time of year - bursting with vibrant colours and scents, and there are signs of life, birth and re-birth everywhere. It all feels so much more intense these first few weeks after the long, dreadful winter.

Although I try to spend as much time out in the sun as I possibly can, the cold, frostbitten weekend mornings are still excellent for dough handling and bread baking. I've baked two multigrain rye loaves this weekend; the first, the boule below, was an improvised 50% sourdough rye, with some flaxseeds, sunflower seeds and rolled oats added to it. The hydration was a bit over 90%, so this loaf has kept fresh for several days, just improving in flavour.

 

The second loaf was one of my old favourites: Hamelman's flaxseed rye from the Modern Baking website. I baked this regularly before, and I can't believe it's been over a year since I last tasted a sample of this one (shame on me). High time to get everything together in the mixing bowl (clockwise from top: old bread + flaxseed soaker, rye sourdough, bread flour and whole rye flour)!

Usually I scale and bake these formulas as roughly 1.2 kg loaves (they keep so well, one might as well bake a large one while at it), but this time I settled for a smaller 800 gram batard. The dough comes together quickly, and is easy to work with.

I was very happy with the result; a bread with a deep, full-bodied rye flavour, and a crisp crust. The good thing about smaller loaves, is that you can bake them more often ;-)

 Have a wonderful Easter everyone!

Edit: Below is a copy of the formula for the flax seed rye bread above. Hamelman's original recipe in Modern Baking can be found here.

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