The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

artisan

pumpkinpapa's picture
pumpkinpapa

I really like the Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire or Struan from the BBA and have been modifying since I first made it with the hope of using sourdough as the main leavening, since Struan is an old Scottish bread I thought it would be good to have it all sourdough.

So with my Spelt starter in hand I changed the recipe once again:

My soaker was:

  • 2 Tbsp Organic Polenta
  • 1 Tbsp Organic red and white Quinoa
  • 3 Tbsp Organic steel cut oats
  • 2 Tbsp organic wheat bran
  • 1/4 cup room temp Kefir milk

Mixed the grains together in a small bowl and poured the Kefir over, then covered bowl and left on the table overnight. I really like the flavour of Kefir soaked grains.

My dough was:

  • 9 ounces organic hard flour
  • 4.5 ounces organic whole spelt flour
  • 1.5 ounces brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 Tsp sea salt
  • 3/4 Tbsp instant yeast
  • 3 Tbsp cooked organic brown rice
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp Buckwheat honey
  • 1/2 cup Kefir milk
  • 3 ounces Spelt starter
  • 2.5 ounces room temp water
  • handful of poppy seeds (Floyd, I now know your nightmares)

I mixed the flours, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl and then added the soaker, rice, honey, Kefir, starter, and enough water to make the dough tacky. After it was well mixed, I transferred it to the counter where I kneaded it for 20 minutes until it passed the windowpane test, then I misted the top with some spray oil and covered it with plastic wrap.

I folded it once every half hour for the next 90 minutes at which point it had nicely doubled in size. Whereupon I placed it in my loaf pan, misted the surface with water and coated the loaf with poppy seeds. I sprayed the loaf with spray oil and covered it with plastic wrap and left it until the loaf had risen about 2 inches above the top of the pan, this took about 5 hours. I had left it to rise so high because I had a pork loin taking up the oven, but it worked out well just the same.

I baked the loaf at 350 F for 20 minutes and after turning 180 degrees I baked for another 20 minutes. The bread turned out nice and soft and with a good spring to the crumb. It was incredible toasted with either raw honey or my wife's strawberry jam.

This is after the first folds and rising (the picture is actually of 12 pounds of dough, not the 2 pound loaf stated above)

And the final loaf, or what is left of it. I actually did this recipe times five and I now have half of a free standing loaf remaining after making it on Thursday evening. This picture doesn't show it well but the loaf is 4 inches high.

Next time I will be going with less yeast and more starter and a mix of whole grains too.

pumpkinpapa's picture

Harvest Moon Artisan Bakery in the Bruce Penninsula

March 11, 2007 - 7:13am -- pumpkinpapa

I've visited the Harvest Moon Artisan Bakery once every summer while on vacation in the Bruce penninsula here in Ontario. They built their reputation on their pies, wonderful fillings and great flaky crust. Plus so many savoury items, bread's, cookies, cakes etc. I can't say enough about them. They also have an organic herb garden and a heritage orchard on their property interspersed with trails and sculptures. A nice break from travels!

And I never have enough money to buy all the creations they lovingly prepare.

pumpkinpapa's picture
pumpkinpapa

I created a delicious spelt starter at the beginning of February and made some great loaves from it recently.

 

The one on the left was a 50/50 organic AP with organic light spelt flour (I can only afford 2.5 kg bags of spelt and ran out) while the one on the right is a 100% light spelt loaf. Both were excellent! The kids liked the 50/50 while I found the 100% to be exactly like pumpernickel in texture, great spread with peanut butter or pb/banana/honey!

I used Sourdolady's recipe for starter but reduced all liquids by 25%, otherwise too much liquid and the starter never matures. After a week the starter was active, not as much as white or rye, and definitely not as volatile as whole wheat, but it was bubbly and produced a pleasant aroma. You can use either whole or light spelt with no loss of nutrients as they are contained in the germ not in the bran as in wheat.

I used the basic sourdough recipe as given in Peter Reinharts BBA but with 25% less water again:

Starter:

4 ounces spelt starter, 4.5 ounces spelt flour, 0.75 to 1.5 ounces water

Final dough:

20.25 ounces spelt flour, 0.5 ounce Celtic sea salt, 9 to 10.5 ounces lukewarm water 

Kneading took about 20 minutes, but my house is cool these days which affects proofs immensely as well. However unlike all my sourdough experiences (save for yeats spiked variations), this spelt sourdough had far faster and greater second proofing results than wheat or rye starter.

This is going to be my main bread, and if the kids continue to enjoy it then I should experiment with spelt cinnamon buns soon too. 

Susanmarie's picture
Susanmarie

gf

Here are the NKB and the hearth breads I mentioned earlier:

NKB crumb

Hrth

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!  The NKB is the original recipe except for the pan, and the Hearth has 4 c. flour and 2 c. water, as opposed to the 5:2 I usually use.  I'm not sure if the holes are about what I can expect using this and AP flour or not...  I guess the holes on the Hearth are a little bigger than with the 5 cups...I said earlier they are not much different. 

Susanmarie's picture
Susanmarie

today's yield

If this works, you will see a photo of the previously mentioned breads I tried today...

Susanmarie's picture
Susanmarie

Today I tried to make the NYT no-knead bread.  I didn't have a heavy covered pot so I just put it in a baking dish, uncovered.  I tried to post a picture of it, but I have no idea what I'm doing wrong because nothing is happening.  I got all excited, taking pictures of the loaf, grain, etc.  My husband thought I was nuts!  I don't know how it was supposed to be inside, but it was spongy with even holes that were quite a bit larger than my normal homemade hearth loaf. 

I have been trying all sorts of things to get my hearth bread to have holes like I see in photos on the site.  Today I tried quite a bit less flour so that the dough was quite sticky.  I had a hard time getting surface tension, and my slashes were a joke!  The bread turned out nice and spongy inside but I was disappointed the holes weren't really any bigger than with the full amount of flour. 

 I really need to learn how to put in pictures because I really need feedback!

zolablue's picture

Ciabatta challenge - BBA recipe

February 24, 2007 - 1:56pm -- zolablue
Forums: 

There has been some discussion about problems with the BBA ciabatta recipe and not being able to achieve an open crumb.  I have tried this recipe 3 times with varying results based on changes I made but was still not able to get the crumb correct.  I'm a very new bread baker but this was the first recipe I made about two months ago.  Each time it had a very good flavor and I think its worthy of trying to find out if it is a flawed recipe or if those of us who've tried it are making some error. 

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - artisan