bialy

I've made Bialys before using high-gluten flour that I purchased via mail order. The cost with S&H for a 3lb bag is $13. That's OK for something I only make once in a while, but still I wouldn't be opposed to getting the price down. I don't know anyone that I could order commercial flour through, but even if I did I am not interested in a 50lb bag. What I want is something I can buy off the self at my local chain grocery store.

I live in the Detroit metro area. All of the major stores in this area carry KA flour. According to their website King Arthur's bread flour is 12.7% protein. Their high gluten flour is 14.2%, which they claim is the highest available retail. The bagel place in NJ where my sister used to live uses Pillsbury high gluten which is also 14.2%. I've heard this number before on some other bread sites, so this is the target I was shooting for.

Most of the stores in this area carry Gluten. I've been using Bob's Red Mill brand, but I've seen other brands too. I assume it's commonly available in most urban areas. The nutrition label on the Gluten I was using indicated 23g of protein per 30g serving or 76.67% by weight. To get to 14.2% with the flours I was using would put it at 97.65% BF and 2.35% Gluten. I went with 3% instead just to be safe.

The formula I used for the Bialys was Hamelman (p262). The only modification I made was to use 33.3% of the flour as a Poolish preferment. I made a 300g total flour recipe. This divides into six rolls at about 80g each.

Hamelman recommends 8 to 10 minutes at 480°. I was making these the night before, so I par-baked them for six minutes.

Actually they looked and smelled so good I finished a couple off right then for me and the wife.

My idea was to freeze a couple and see how they would hold up to a par-bake/freeze/thaw/re-heat method. If I can get that down on Bialys, I was thinking maybe I can transfer it over to a similar method for Bagels as well. The Bialys are simple enough to make anytime and I was pleased with results from my grocery store purchased high-gluten flour equivalent. Bagels aren't too much more work, but more than I am going to do regularly for small batch baking. If I can get a par-bake/freeze method down, I wouldn't mind having Bialys and Bagels as a regular weekend breakfast routine.

I didn't end up freezing any this time. The par-bake was a little darker then I had intended and after having couple, I knew there was no way we would want to be short any in the morning. Gives me a good excuse to try again sooner than later anyway. Next time I will shorten the par-bake to 5 minutes and see if I like that better. I think I need to work my pocket size out a bit too, but that's not a big concern for me.

The thing I like about these Bialys is I've never had one before making them myself. Unlike a Bagel, I don't have any preconceived notion of what they should take like. If they taste good, I like them. Simple as that. With Bagels I am always comparing them to an ideal. Even if I make a decent tasting doughnut shaped bread, if it doesn't have just the right chew and texture, it's always a little disappointing. That and my wife prefers a Bialy a bit more now, than a Bagel actually. I still favor a real Bagel more myself, but these are still darn good breakfast rolls.

Happy baking everyone.

Take care, Todd

Today's family breakfast included rye bialys with cream cheese and smoked salmon, we enjoyed them!  The dark rye pre-ferment for these was adapted from The Bread Bible's rye pugliese, but the main dough, as well as the proportion of pre-fermented dough, is quite different.  In addition to the dark rye and unbleached flour, they also have KAF whole grain white wheat flour, which I sifted to remove the larger bran pieces.  The bran was used to coat the outside of the bialys in place of the tradtitional flour coating.  The onion, poppy seed, salt and pepper filling is from the Bread Bible's bialy recipe, it's a great filling.

The pre-ferment was mixed and left overnight (12 hrs) at cool room temperature, until doubled.

The flours, yeast and water were mixed and autolysed, then salt and pre-ferment added, and the main dough kneaded for about 5 minutes in my stand mixer.

Bulk ferment was 75 minutes at 80F.

Final proof was 60 minutes, also at 80F.   Before baking, I docked the centers and filled with the onion-poppy seed mixture.

Baked about 10 minutes at 500F.

Last time I made these, I used bread flour, which I think I'll go back to next time.  These were moist and tender, but I missed the chewiness of the bread flour.  The centers are dark from the poppy seeds (not burnt onions). 

I've recently stumbled upon the tradition of making Polish bialy. This was my first try at the recipe and I found them to be absolutely amazing. Although I am not Jewish and have never had one before in my life I think I gave it a good effort and made my own variation that is wonderful and tasty. (with my sourdough starter of course!)

External Link to blogpost and recipe: http://neo-homesteading.blogspot.com/2010/07/sourdough-bialys-bialystock-kuchen.html#more