Hi All,

Here's some more catch-up blogging.  The top 2 are basically fat baguettes.  The bottom 2 are my made up version of bauernbrot with breadcrumbs.  Enjoy!

Tim

Last week I baked one of my favorite recipes, Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain from Bread. The bake turned out successful I would say, especially since I finally was able to use my two week old liquid levain starter and achieve a delightful tang when the bread was sliced and eaten. One thing though is my batard (and boule) seemed to explode in the oven! Was this because of an unsuccessful scoring? Or did I let it rise to long? Any help would be appreciated in this manner, though I do kind of like the looks of it.

And then the crumb...

And finally the boule, sorry no crumb shot, though I will say it turned out a bit tighter then I would have liked.

So what might I have done wrong in this bake? Any help would be appreciated since I am always open to advice and will always be baking weekly hoping to only improve my methods and results!

My next bake is going to be Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough with increased Whole Wheat. I will be attempting this tomorrow (hopefully) and pictures will follow soon!

Today I baked loaves of the pain au levain that we created in the French bread workshop at KAF.  The recipe we followed there varies slightly from those found in Hamelman's Bread in that no rye flour is involved.  The baking temperature is also lower - 220° C versus the 240° C in his book.

I also scaled this to produce two 500g batards:

Overall formula

500g sir galahad (or KAF's AP) flour  (85%)

88g whole wheat flour  (15%)

400g water  (68%)

11g salt  (1.8%)

First build

11g sir galahad

4g whole wheat

9g water

3g culture (I maintain my starter at 60% hydration)

The first build should take place approximately 30 hours before the bake.

Levain

52g sir galahad

8g whole wheat

36g water

27g first build

The second build is mixed approximately 18 hours before the bake.

Final dough

437g sir galahad

76g whole wheat

355g water

11g salt

120g levain (this is the weight of the levain after backing out the 3g of original culture, although given the small amount I left it in)

The final dough mix occurs approximately 6 hours before the bake. Desired dough temperature is 76-78° F.

Mix ingredients except for the salt and levain until they just come together.  Autolyse the flour and water mixture for 20 - 30 minutes. Add the salt and chunks of levain and mix on second speed until moderately developed - with a stand mixer this took me about 5 minutes.

Dough undergoes a bulk fermentation of 2 - 2.5 hour with two folds. I went for 2.5 hours with folds at 60 minute intervals.

Divide into two equal pieces of dough, lightly round and bench rest for 20-30 minutes.

Shape into batards and allow a final fermentation of 1.5 - 2 hours.  I placed my batards seam side up on a well-floured couche.

Score, load into preheated oven to 220°, steam and bake approximately 35 - 40 minutes.  If using an unvented oven, crack the door slightly once the dough begins to show color.  (I misted both batards before placing them in the oven, and then misted them twice again at 2 minute intervals and I think it helped my cuts remain moist enough to open during the bake).

The end product was two 13oz loaves. I'm pleased with the outcome.  My slashes opened moderately - these are about the best gringes I've produced.  And the crumb shows good oven spring as well.

Oh - and being lazy and cheap, here's the flipper board I used to move them from my Home Depot couche (kudos to Eric and others who pointed out that a painters drop cloth is basically a couche - but so much cheaper!!) to my baking stone:

Yes, if you look carefully you'll see that it's actually the serated cutting insert to a box of food service wrap.  Completely jury-rigged, but it works!

I like this particular bread!  Good for basic sandwich use and especially with a good cheese or tapenade.

Larry

For over 3 years I've been baking artisan style breads in my (really lousy) gas oven without a baking stone but was never quite satisfied with the result. I finally purchased a good baking stone. This is my first effort with the baking stone...

Sourdough Sesame Seed Batards with Spelt Flour

The height of each of these batards is about 4 inches (compared to the 3-1/4 inch height I got without a stone) for a similar type of dough and prebaking dough weight.

The recipe (one of my own devising) uses a white flour 100% hydration sourdough starter. About 20% of the total flour weight is spelt flour (home milled from organic spelt). In an attempt to add sesame flavor to the bread without compromising rising, I use 8% sesame seed meal, which is ground from whole sesame seeds using a small electric coffee mill. Additional sesame seeds are on the outside of the dough. Dough hydration is 68%

I am pleased with this first effort using my new baking stone, although I obviously need to become familiar with this newest addition to my bread baking equipment arsenal.

Onwards and upwards - SF

==========================

For those who are interested, this stone is a Dacor baking stone. It is 1/2 inch thick and measures 15" x 20". This was a good size for my oven, as my oven rack measures 17" x 25". I believe that smaller size baking stones from Dacor are marketed under the brand name Old Stone Oven; these smaller stones are widely available.

The stone was purchased from fantes.com for $50 USD plus shipping. The packaging was excellent and shipping was prompt.

I am including two images of this baking stone from the fantes.com site in this post to give an idea of what the baking stone looks like...

I've always liked the walnut raisin pain au levain Dan Leader sells at Bread Alone Bakery near me, and I've been wanting to try something like this for awhile and finally got around to it this week, but with cherries and pecans.

Both Susan's yeasted version on her Wild Yeast blog and SteveB's version on his Bread Cetera blog gave me a craving for cherry pecan bread when I saw their photos....thanks for the ideas you two, your baked goods are so mouthwatering and professional looking...(I am unworthy of breadblogging in the same sphere as you two!)

I made this as a sourdough-only version and mixed about 30% whole wheat and 2.5% rye with AP flour. This mix gave a nice dark-colored but light-textured open crumb that tasted good with the fruit and nuts. You could obviously substitue rasins and walnuts, or anything else you can think of. I find it especially tastes great sliced, toasted, and served with cream cheese, and lasts a long time.

I soaked the cherries for a bit too long as they were a little too mushy and a some color washed out, but the bread tasted great, I'll be making this again a lot I think. It was very easy.

Here are the loaves just before slashing and loading into the oven, after their overnight cold retarding:

Here's the formula:

Pecan Cherry Pain au Levain

Makes 2 large 2.5 lb batards or oblong loaves.

Levain Build

Final Dough

1)  12 hours before making final dough, create the levain using some ripe starter that has been fed and doubled. Mix well and cover in bowl until levain has risen to over double but has not yet begun to collapse, aprox. 10-12 hours at 65-70F. Toast the pecans at 350F for 10-20 minutes and let cool, then coarsly chop and set aside. Soak dried sour cherries in water overnight and strain next morning before making final dough.

2)  When levain is ripe, create final dough by mixing warm water with levain to dissolve. Mix all flours and salt in large bowl until evenly distributed, then add watered levain to flour mix with dough whisk, spoon, or hands until well combined. Cover and let rest for 1 hour at @ 70F. Tip dough onto counter, knead in the cherries and pecans lightly, and french fold for approx. 10 minutes with short 1-2 minute rests as needed to scrape together dough or relax it, and tuck in the fruit/nuts. The cherries and pecans may fall out and it will be quite messy at first, but eventually the dough will come together into a neat lump after 5-6 minutes or so. At end of kneading, round out the dough so that fruit/nuts are tucked inside and good skin of dough is on outside. Place dough in lightly oiled container and cover to rest for 30 min. After 30 min., turn out dough onto lightly oiled counter to give it one good gentle stretch and letter fold, then place dough back into oiled covered container. Repeat one more stretch and fold after another 30 minutes, then let dough continue to rise until doubled at @ 70F (approx. 2 more hours).

3)  Shape dough into 2 batards, place batards in floured couche, cover well so loaves don't dry out, and let loaves cold proof overnight at 40-50F for approx. 8-10 hours. Next morning, place loaves in warmer area (65-70F) while oven preheats for 45 minutes to 450F. Bake loaves on oven stone with steam (I pour 1 cup hot water from tea kettle into pre-heated cast iron pan on oven floor) at 450F for 15 minutes, then turn heat down to 400F for another 30-35 minutes until center registers 200-205F with instant read thermometer and crust is well-browned.

On a slightly different note: my last few batches of bread have been coming out smelling and tasting better than ever, I think it may just be this new flour I was able to pick up in a 50lb bag from Bread Alone Bakery down the road from me. It is an All-purpose flour from Canada with 11.5% protein, not sure about ash content. Anyone ever used or heard of this Oak AP flour before?I like it a lot. It handles nicely in dough.

I have been busy with everything but  baking. So last night I started refreshing my motherdough from the fridge. It sits there paitienly and I eventually get around to it once every two weeks. I decided to use it insted of my counter-intelligent sourdough starter I keep for weekly baking at 166%.

I tore off about 50 grams of motherdough. I used a simple formula of ( I made a really small amount) Which is a variation from Janedo's Monge recipe which I have come to love. Thanks Jane!!

250 grams Hi Gluten Flour

175 grams of water

50  grams motherdough

5 grams salt

Combined the water and flour and allowed to autlyse 20 minutes. Added motherdough and kneaded about 5-8 minutes. Allowed a 10 minute rest and then added salt till evenly distributed. Allowed to bulk rise for 4 hours. Placed in a couche and off to the fridge. Took it out this morning and gave it about 3 hours to warm up and rise. Slashed and placed in a 500 degree humid oven for 30 minutes.

I normally do not use the motherdough. It is regarded as a back-up and safety net. It smells so sweet as if made with a good wine. Made only of flour and water back in January.

I noticed several things after the bake. The color is much more of a caramel color and seems to be thinner but crispier. The crumb seems to be somewhat more open. The taste still has a sour flavor but more of a caramel taste and then a sour finish. I may switch to this method and practice a little more. I like the results.

Eli

Does anyone use primarily a dough for the starter?

Motherdough Batard

Motherdough Closeup

Motherdough Crumb

Hey Loafians,

This is the next video in the long awaited and eagerly anticipated series (OK, maybe not). It's on shaping dough, and I hope you enjoy it.

-Mark

http://TheBackHomeBakery.com

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7MVHDdDtuRc

Today I received a sample package from Filbert foods of T-55 flour they had created for import. It smelled about the same as my Harvest King and KA AP flour but had a slightly darker color than the King Arthur.