It's been a while since I mixed up my standard white bread flour formula. I decided to march to a different tune a few days ago and try something a bit different.

I started collecting things from the pantry and this is what I arrived at:

The formula:

• 850g bread flour
• 150g rye flour
• 25g wheat germ
• 25g sesame seeds
• 460g water
• 250g beer
• 20g salt
• 6g yeast

I decided not to count the wheat germ as 'flour' when calculating the amount of water to add. Not sure what the generally accepted approach is.

The mix (KitchenAid)

• 6min: speed 2
• 45 autolyse
• 3min: speed 2

Fermentation

I used a primary fermentation of 3 hours at 72 degrees and overnight in the fridge (mostly to fit my schedule). The dough easily doubled, I think the sugar in the beer kept the yeast happy.

Shape, Proof & Score

The next day I (for no good reason) decided to shape all this dough as a single large boule. It proofed for about 3 hours at 70 degrees. I needed such a long proof because the dough was still chilled from the time in the fridge. I proofed on a couche and transferring wasn't an easy task. There was no way to flip this over like I do my baguettes. I eventually just did my best to scoop it up with my hands and transfer to some parchment. Doing this really made me nervous, but thankfully it more or less held it's shape. Next time I'll probably proof right on some parchment paper. Looking back I think the proof time was a bit too long (I was out of the house while it proofed and made it back later than I expected).

Scoring was a piece of cake because it had developed a bit of a skin, having proofed for so long. I used to think any skin was to be avoided, but just a little makes scoring so much easier. And I don't think it's the detriment of the final product.

Bake

This was unlike any bake I've done before! Into the oven at 500 degrees with 1 cup of water poured into a pan for steam (oh no! did I just use a volume measurement?!) 30 minutes into the bake the crust had developed a nice brown color. I decided to check the internal temperature, thinking it might need another 10min or so. Imagine my shock when the thermometer read 96 degrees!! I couldn't believe it. I wasn't even halfway to my usual 'done' temp of 208 degrees.

So I dropped the temperature to 425, realizing this was going to be a loooooong bake. I lost track of time, but it felt like an eternity. I was nervous I'd eventually burn the crust, but that wasn't an issue. Eventually the temperature crept up while the crust became darker and darker.

When I arrived to 208, I turned off the oven and left the boule in the oven with the door ajar, sitting on a cooling rack. This way it would cooled without the internal moisture 'steaming' the crust (something I've had happen more than once) Can't loose that crunch!

Taste

Delicious! I can't stop eating it ;) Because of the long bake time, I ended up with a super thick crust that isn't overly chewy. And while not burned, the dark crust has a flavor I really enjoy. The crumb isn't very open at all, which is fine with me and expected given the rye and wheat germ. I'm not really sure the sesame seeds provided at flavor. I'm making this loaf again without the seeds or the beer.

What about the beer? I used a darker Octoberfest beer I had laying around. I'm really not sure what if anything it contributed to the flavor of the loaf. It definitley doesn't smell like beer, nor can I pick out the taste of the beer. It will be interesting to compare this loaf with another made without the beer (currently in progress).

Sourdough Raisin Boule :)

Still hot this evening fresh from the ceramic oven so I'll wait until tomorrow morning to slice.  I'm baking in cast iron and I'm feeling very satisfied with results.   This is a basic sourdough made by my very own apple peel starter.   The bail on the Dutch oven sure comes in handy when moving the heavy pot in and out of my ceramic oven.   I'm testing out a few things---  The new apple starter,  the Dutch oven, a signature slash to the top of the bread and the quality of the bread.  Will do the taste test tomorrow morning!

Breadboard

 The last set of experiments was to determine whether the use of fruit based yeast in the absence of flour in the starter would result in more fruit flavor in the final loaf. Much time and effort went into weaning my standard sourdough starter from a diet of wheat flour and water to a diet of pure fruit puree.  This starter was used to create a boule with the starter, AP flour and peach puree. The result was less than spectacularly peachy. 

 This time the fruit was blueberry.  I initiated my starter from my blueberry yeast water and bread flour, and through  successive refreshments (5X), I created sufficient starter for the following loaf.  I don’t know, but I suspect the loaf was once again, overproofed as I ended up with yet another “muffallata” loaf. The color of the crumb is most striking, almost like a pumpernickel.  The taste is faintly blueberry, sweetish. With cream cheese it tastes very much like a bagel.

Formula: 

70g starter (10 starter/30 flour/30 BYW @100%)

158g blueberry puree (132L,26S)

175g AP flour

4g salt

234:166 = 70% hydration dough

total loaf =407g

To make this loaf, I took 9g of the starter (4^th refreshment) and fed it 30g each bread flour and blueberry yeast water.  This I left at room temperature for about 3 hours until it has more than doubled. Then I combined it thoroughly with the blueberry puree, which interesting enough was more like a jelly than I expected, there must be lots of pectin in blueberries.  I stirred in the flour and the salt, gave it a S&F and let it rest for ½ hour. This was repeated for three hours, then not thinking, I put it in the cooler (46*F) for about 3 hours.

Then, remembering that I needed to shape it, I took it out of the cooler, preshaped it and left it out for 30 minutes. Then I shaped it into a boule and placed it into the floured banneton.  This was replaced into the cooler for the remainder of the night. 

The next morning I took it out of the cooler and let it warm up until the oven and combo-cooker was up to temperature (460*F). The loaf was baked for 20 minutes with the cover on, 10 minutes with the cover off, and an additional 10 minute with the oven door ajar.

We recently got very lucky and were able to buy a flat of the best peaches we have ever had. These peaches, just picked, ripened on the tree, are pure peachy goodness. At the same time, I’ve been experimenting with water/fruit fed yeast in bread baking. As a result of this experimentation I’ve discovered that it is next to impossible to get any fruit flavor from Yeast Water to be present in any baked bread. The water from the fruited yeast is just too subtle. Yes, the fruited yeast water has a nice effect on the crust (crunchy), crumb (moist and tender) and on the color (esp. with red/purple fruits), and taste (absolutely not sour). However, one would be hard pressed indeed to tell which fruit was used to prepare the yeast water. This is discouraging as why go to the trouble of using beautiful fresh, fragrant, and hard-to-come by fruits when any old bag of raisins will do exactly the same thing?

The first step was to convince my standard grain fed sourdough starter to like, and want to eat the sugars contained in peach puree. Taking my cues from Ron Ray, as documented in his Banana Saga, I slowly weaned my standard wheat based sourdough starter to accept a diet of first AP flour and peach puree until I reached the point where there was no more water in the starter seed. From there, I began the process of weaning my starter to accept a diet of pure puree (no AP flour), again to the point where there was no more flour in the starter seed.

 Now this starter ready to be developed in the final dough. I wanted to create a dough that relied solely on peach puree for the water content (Google assures me that peaches are 80% water). Thus, peach puree is comprised of 80% liquid and 20% solids. As is the recommendation, I set about creating a dough that was approximately 1/3 preferment (in the form of fermented peach puree), and was at approximately 75% hydration (e.g., liquids as a proportion of solids) and holding the overall loaf size to approximately 400g, yielded the following formula:

Ingredients

• 60g Starter 
• 185g Bread Flour
 (plus 11g extra)
• 150g Peach Puree
• 
4g salt

Preparation

I combined the 60g fizzy starter with the 150g peach puree. Then I slowly incorporated the 185g bread flour to form a rough, sticky dough. I covered the bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes to hydrate the flour. Then I mixed in the salt.  This was given the first stretch & fold (S&F) in the bowl and left to rest for 30 minutes. At this point, I was forced to alter my plans and work in an additional 11g of bread flour. The dough was just too sticky and not holding together.  This S&F/rest process was repeated a total of four times over the next 1 1/2 hours. After the final S&F, I left it to rest an additional 1/2 hour before I turned it out onto a lightly floured counter (approximately 8g flour) and preshaped and shaped the boule. This was placed in a floured banneton and into the 46*F cooler overnight (approximately 11 hours).

The following morning, as is my habit, I took the dough out of the cooler and let it come to room temperature. About half an hour into this warming up period, I began to preheat the oven and the combo-cooker to 450*F. This takes about 1/2 hour. When the oven was fully preheated, I removed the cooker from the oven, overturned the dough onto the parchment, slashed (not very well, hmm.), and slid the loaf to the bottom of the hot cooker. Placing the lid, back into the oven the whole works went for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the lid was removed—The moment of truth, pancake, hockey puck, boule? What would it be, well, as it turned out, peaches are not the best for massive oven spring. I wouldn’t call it a pancake, somewhere bigger than a hockey puck, but not much. After removing the lid and turning down the oven to 425*F the loaf was baked for another three minutes, then I removed the bottom of the cooker and the parchment, and placed the loaf directly on the stone. This is where it remained for another 7 minutes. Then, I propped open the oven door for an additional 10 minutes (total 40 minutes in the oven). Then I removed the loaf. Well, it does smell of peaches.

 Way too much flour in the banneton - I was worried about sticking.  The oven spring is not great, sort of like it was overproofed. It sounds hollow when I thump it and the crust is quite thick and hard. So. Now comes the real test. After all of this work and experimentation, did I create a peachy tasting peach bread? Here is the shot of the crumb:

 As you can see, the crumb is definitely a peachy color, moist and tender. There are bits of peach visible in the crumb. Does it taste of peaches- yes, faintly.  It tastes almost like a not-so-sweet cake, not a bit sour, which is not surprising.

 
If someone were to not tell me peaches were 51% of the mix, would I ever be able to figure that out?  No. Alas, I think the pursuit of pronounced fruity flavor in the crumb of a yeasted bread needs something more than peach puree.

Happy Baking!

My round boule does not stay round. Comes out in funky shapes. What could I be doing wrong?

I did cut into the loaf and the bread was amazing. Just the way I like it!  Had a slightly tough, yet crusty crust and had a very soft inside. I loved it.

Today's bake was a 3-seed sourdough.  I previously posted all ingredients and the method I used, and had to go, and lost it...sigh.  Next time  :)   Here's the pics...tastes lovely.

The seed soaker added extra water even after I drained it.  I can't tell if I underproofed or not.  The crust was nice but I didn't get as much vertical lift as I had hoped.  My scoring kind of just melted back into itself.  I like this a lot better than the wheat germ one, but I think next time I use wheat germ I will soak it first.  I soaked my terra cotta lid for a couple of hours before I baked it.

Today's bake was another 3 day sourdough with whole wheat and wheat germ.  The crumb wasn't as open as I'd like, but the crust was as lovely as usual with my Thai-style La Cloche, a terra cotta pot with lid.  I soak the lid before I heat up the pot and it steams the bread lovely.  The wheat germ soaked up a LOT of water and if I make this recipe again I will add more water.  It is delicious, interestingly, this time the sourdough is quite pronounced.  I was kind of nervous to do the refrigerated bulk ferment/retardation with the wheat germ because I had read about so much enzyme activity with the wheat germ, but it seemed okay, no grey mush.  I love the inspiration for this bread, San Francisco sourbread, I grew up in S.F. and the Bay Area until my teen years, which were spent in the Sierra Foothills.  For my next breads I'd like to start trying seeds on my dough.  I wonder if I should steam my dough less when I use the seeds?  I love TFL because whatever obscure piece of information I'm looking for is here, and so much more than I ever imagined I'd want to know!

I've been baking bread a long time and I'm still amused by the narrow line between success and failure. I fed my sourdough starter last night in preparation for baking a (singular) rustic loaf today. When I looked at the starter early this morning it had grown to over 16 oz. by weight. Being a frugal person I decided to use all the starter and made a monster ball of dough. I blended 2 recipes, substituted and blended flour, and basically just winged it with autolyse, proofing, and shaping. I ended up with a 2 1/2 pound boule and 20 2 oz. rolls. I stayed on the right side of that fine line somehow and ended up with great looking bread and awesome crumb and taste.

And just because I like a challenge, I made a 100% whole wheat focaccia at the same time. I almost crashed and burned with getting everything in and out of the oven on time, but again I stayed on the line.

The lesson?  Learn to trust the instincts you develop through experience and have some crazy, risk-taking fun! It is a hobby, right?

Whole Wheat Focaccia

This 100% whole wheat flour recipe was adapted from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

Biga

Mix together until well blended. Cover and let stand at room temp for 12 to 16 hours.

4 oz. KAF white whole wheat flour

4 oz. water

Scant pinch of yeast

Dough

In the mixer bowl of a stand mixer add:

All the biga

9 oz. water

1 oz. orange juice

12 oz. KAF white whole wheat flour

3 Tbs Vital Wheat Gluten

Pinch of ascorbic acid

2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp instant yeast 

With the paddle beater, mix on the lowest speed until dough starts to come together. It will be very wet and slack. Scrape down the paddle and add 1 to 2 Tbs water if the dough seems too dry. Mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes. Increase speed to medium and knead for 4 minutes. The dough will be very soft.

Cover and let rest in the bowl for 30 minutes. Scrape the dough onto a silicon mat and fold like an envelope length-wise and width-wise (4 folds). Return to bowl, cover, and let rest for 30 minutes. Repeat the fold process again, and let rest for 30 minutes. Repeat the fold process once more and turn out onto a parchment-lined half sheet pan. With oiled hands, press the dough outward to the pan edges. When dough stops spreading, let it rest for 10 minutes then continue pressing the dough out with your fingertips. The dough will not cover the pan - it will be approximately a 10" x 13" oval.

Cover and let rise for 30 minutes while preheating the oven to 500 degrees. I use a baking stone set in the bottom third of my oven. Uncover the dough and drizzle with olive oil. With greased fingers, gently dimple the dough. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake in the pan on the stone for 18 to 20 minutes until a deep golden color.

My family is not so much in to football, but we are into bread.  This post will give you an idea how much.  You see, my mom taught me the basics of making bread when I was a kid.  However, she never went much beyond a basic white bread pan loaf (although these were always excellent).  Although I got her The Bread Baker's Apprentice for Christmas a couple years back, she never got into the artisan baking thing, with pre-ferments and all, and found the whole process a little intimidating.  But this year, for Christmas, she asked for a baking lesson from me.  Today was the day.

The plan: to bake three types of bread in one day, making two batches of each so that I could make one and demonstrate, and then she could make one.  Limitted to her standard (but quite good, as I discovered) home oven, this required staggering the batches over the course of the day.

On the roster: Italian Bread (from BBA), Potato Rosemary Bread (also from BBA), and French-style rustic bread (Pain Rustique from Hamelman's Bread). All solid players that I can do in my sleep at home, and felt like ought to go fairly smoothly, while showcasing different flavors, shaping and slashing styles.

Let the games begin!

We showed up at my parents' place at 9am, bringing with us a pre-game miche:

Another Mighty Miche, ready for toasting

At 9:30 my dad took the baby, my wife went out shopping with her mom and sister, and my mom and I got to work.  First up was mixing Italian Bread--not much teaching there, although I demonstrated the power of the 5-minute rest for helping along gluten development

Italian Bread #1, in between the remaining biga and the poolish

From there, the day proceeded in an almost-orderly fashion, alternating mixing, stretch-and-folding, dividing, and shaping with one bread and then another.  Mostly things proceeded smoothly, although there was a moment of panic when we realized that I'd dumped out, pre-shaped and final shaped Potato-Rosemary Bread #2 instead of #1, while #1 sat happily bulk fermenting for an extra half an hour.  Some improvisation was required (we pretended batch #2 had never been shaped, quickly shaped batch #1 without a pre-shape and pretended it had already been proofing for 10 minutes.  It worked.)

Mom kneading Potato Rosemary Dough

Italian Breads Proofing - "Mine" are on the left. (All on my new TMB/SFBI couche!)

Potato Rosemary Breads in the Oven

Rustic Breads in Bulk Fermentation - "Mine" is on top (Also my lovely SFBI/TMB proofing board)

Italian Breads, Finished. Mine on the left (clearly under proofed!)

Rosemary Potato Breads (I don't even know whose are mine!)

Rustic Breads  (Mine on the Right)

The hardest part of the whole business (besides being up on our feet all day baking), was teaching the shaping techniques.  I had the principles clear in my head (surface tension, surface tension, surface tension), but conveying the actual physical motions (which are just plain tricky anyhow) was quite difficult.  Practice was useful -- except on the Italian bread, I had my mom shape and slash one of "my" breads after I demonstrated the technique so she'd have an extra chance to get the hang of it.  What proved invaluable, however, was employing a dish towel a la Mark of Back Home Bakery to demonstrate.  I already thought that video was great when it was posted, but now I'm really grateful to Mark for making posting it! I only wish I'd thought to do that before we'd already shaped the Italian breads, rather than after.

The other main challenge was the oven--it was just too good!  My parent's gas oven held it's heat remarkably well, which meant that turning the temperature up before was actually unnecessary, and indeed counter-productive since amidst the chaos I forgot to turn it down after loading the breads.

The fruits of our labors

The bakers and their breads

After we were done baking, we brought three choice loaves over to my in-laws for dinner (it was my father-in-law's birthday, by coincidence), and had a lovely meal.

Clockwise from left, Rustic Bread, Italian Bread, and Potato Rosemary Bread

It was a fun, busy, bread-ful day.  I'd do some things differently if I were to do this again (like use a bigger oven and do three batches instead of six!), but my mom and I had a great time.

Happy baking, everyone,

-Ryan