This mornings attempt at Jeffery Hamelman's 'Vermont Sourdough'. The dough was ever so sticky when kneading by hand, and since I didn't add any extra flour, it took all over 10 minutes by hand to get it to the right consistency. Something I always did before was add extra flour until I learned that was a 'no-no'.

I must admit, after having taken the Bake with Zing! class, I found out I am a hands on learner type of guy. My breads are starting to come together nicer since I figured out the stretch and fold method, kneading and baking skills through first hand experience from some great bakers. I guess reading the text could never get through to me well enough.

When the bread is cooled, I'll have pictures of the crumb.

.  

I finally did it. I installed a conventional oven in a small shed here at my resort. I have fed the birds 50-60 lbs of bread trying to get a decent loaf with my small convection/microwave oven in my Motor Home.

After about 10 minutes of Baking I had a nice smile on my face. Its about time. All the nice coments and help I have got from the forum and now I can bake again. Thanks Floyd for all the nice replys and the members also.   

 Now I be happy.

 Mr Bob

www.siemann.us

I have already written about Bäcker Süpke's wholegrain spelt bread with whole grains in my 'other blog'.
But I think the TFL blog would be a much more appropriate place for this recipe.

I've made this bread several times by now, and it always turned out flawlessly. It's nothing I could claim any credit for, but , seeing how charming Meister Süpke is in his comments, I don't really think he'd mind the extra publicity. So I sat down and translated the original recipe, hoping to spread this around the blogosphere a little.

There are only two minor changes I made to the original recipe, apart from the translation, that is.

For one, I shied away from adding the soft, boiled grains to the dough at the very beginning and kneading them for half an hour. I feared they would completely disintegrate and so I decided to add them only for the last ten minutes. And it works very well, the grains remain whole and apparently it makes for something like a double hydration technique, with the dough being able to build up strength before I add the final bits of liquid with the grains.

Also, the original recipe calls for a bit of 'Brotgewürz', bread spices. Which is all very nice, but also entirely undefined as far as I know. So I guessed and used ground caraway and coriander seeds in equal proportions. Which turned out to be one of my luckier guesses lately. Both spices blend pitch perfectly with the taste of the spelt, warming and brightening the taste without being really distinguishable on their own.

This bread has become a constant fixture of our diet, and I can only stress that it is the least 'healthy' tasting whole-grain bread I've ever come across. It never stops to amaze me that it's really brown and not grey, that it's rather sticky than crumbly, open-crumbed and yet perfectly sliceable with a nice but demure crunch to the crust.

Roasted in the oven with just a few drops of honey until the corners start to turn dark, this bread makes a perfect treat on its own, or a great coaster underneath a grillt goat's cheese, or basically anything that needs a solid, earthy partner.

The only thing I am not really happy with is the name, unwieldy as it is. Even in German with its infatuation with endless strings of words it's a rare thing to need 47 letters to name a single bread. But for a bread with such a long list of strong points, I am more than willing to put up with a lot, even this behemoth of a name.

Bäcker Süpke's wholegrain spelt bread with whole grains
(translation and any mistakes are mine)
(makes two 850g loafs)

for the boiled grains
200g spelt grains
400ml water

for the sourdough
340g wholegrain spelt meal
10g ripe sourdough starter
340g warm water

for the soaker
200g wholegrain spelt flour
20g salt
120g water

for the final dough
190g wholegrain spelt flour
7g dry yeast (one sachet)
[EDIT: The original recipe uses 10g presumably fresh yeast, equaling half a sachet dry yeast.]
40g runny honey
1 heaped teaspoon ground caraway
1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander seeds (or more, to taste)

for decoration
rolled spelt, about 2 tablespoons

On the day before baking, bring the grains and the water to boil in a small pot. Cover and leave to simmer gently for about 10 minutes, then take off the flame, stir, and set aside, covered.

Mix all the ingredients for the sourdough until just incorporated. Cover and set aside.

Mix all the ingredients for the soaker until just incorporated. Cover and set aside. Leave all three bowls to ferment overnight in a cool room, but not the fridge, for a minimum of 16 hours.

On the day of baking, combine the sourdough, the soaker and the final ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and knead at lowest speed for twenty(sic) minutes.
I am not kidding. The original recipe says twenty minutes and the dough really needs every second of it. You'll see, in this case it makes all the difference between wet flour and a dough.

Leave to proof for an hour. Deflate the dough and add the boiled, cold grains.
The original recipe says to discard eventually remaining water, but I add it to keep the amount of added water identical each time. Never had much of it left with the grains, anyway.

Knead at low speed for another ten minutes.
That's half an hour kneading all together. Any wheat dough would be a neat rubber ball by now, but here, it just works perfectly.

Pour into a rectangular baking tin lined with non-stick paper. Even the dough and cover loosely with the rolled spelt. Leave to proof in a warm place for about an hour to one hour and a half.
The dough will increase about 20% in volume at most, and when ready will stop springing back if gently poked.

Preheat your oven to 220°C. Bake with steam for the first minutes and immediately reduce temperature to about 160°C. Bake for 100 minutes. Take out and leave to cool on a rack. Rest a day or at least until fully cooled before cutting.

Freezes perfectly well, and tastes especially well toasted.
We usually bake on stock and freeze the sliced  bread, thawing individual slices in the toaster. Talk about two sparrows and one stone.

Some more wise remarks of Bäcker Süpke:

• Always add all the salt to the soaker. Otherwise, the enzymes of the wholegrain flour will produce harmful byproducts leading to a grumbling stomach.
• Wholegrain doughs, especially wholegrain spelt doughs, have to be wet - rather add a little more water.
• Bake long and 'slow' to get all that moisture out of the bread.
• Always use very little yeast and long final proofs, else you wouldn't get a sliceable bread.
• Playing with the honey and the spices is a great way of tweaking this recipe!

Well,

I just processed my first loaf o' bread.  I've never done this before.  I went to my local grocer and the bag of KJF stood out as being natual, rustic etc...  After my purchase I realized that I bought hard red KJF.  Not so bad as i've enjoyed 100% wheat before but I whish I bought soft or hard white.  Oh well.  I will just top it with PB and J to mask the flavor...  or my first jar of chocolate crack (i mean "Nutella."  Wow!  That stuff is truley not necessary but sooo good. )

I followed KJF's recipe on the bag and the loaf turned out good (solid/airy/cooked...) but...  The taste...

I look forward to the experienced folks in this community sharing their abilities.

I really have no idea.

Well, I shouldn't say that.  I do have some knowedge of the basics (salt, shugar, flour, fire...) but this doesn't come naturally to me.

Thanks in advance.

Clint.

Look out for episode 3 of the new Gourmet TV series 'Adventures with Ruth', screening tomorrow 1 November on PSB in which Richard Bertinet shows Ruth and Oscar Winning actress Diane Weist how to bake bread.

Richard Bertinet is a baker, chef and owner of The Bertinet Kitchen cookery school in Bath, UK.  He has written two award winning books on bread-making Dough - Simple Contemporary Bread (2005 ) and Crust - Bread to get your teeth into (2007).  His third book - a cookery book is due to be published next year.  (All books published by Kyle Cathie in the UK / Kyle Books in the US)

For the trailer for this and other episodes see the Gourmet website at http://www.gourmet.com/adventureswithruth/season-1

For more information about Richard Bertinet and The Bertinet Kitchen visit http://www.thebertinetkitchen.com

Here are two no knead loaves baked in an oblong cloche. Both were made using the same reipe, using 1/4 Cup of sourdough starter in lieu of 1/4 t of instant yeast. The difference is in the fermentation time (12 hours for the first and 16 hours for the second), and the resultant "explosion" of the crust with the second loaf. Has anyone else seen this type of reaction when Iusing sourdough starter? I do not get this reaction when using commercial yeast and varying the fermentation time as earlier described. The flavor is magnificent, by the way.

Yesterday's loaf with 12 hour fermentation.

Here is today's loaf with 16 hour fermentation. It's too hot to cut into, but I'm sure the crumb is very open.

Check out the shine inside of the split. Is this the sugars carmelizing when the lid was removed? The crumb in yesterday's loaf had a sheen to it in the air holes.

Well, I mentioned some time ago that I was considering attending the bread program at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. Well, in an attempt to kick-start my career and get out of Ohio, I signed up and off I went. So here I am in Chinatown with aching feet and a big bag of baguettes and batards. I mentioned originally that I was going to blog my experience, and I have begun to do so.

The blog isn't all about bread, but bread is what ties it all together. I'll be doing restaurant reviews, bakery reviews, general NYC fun, and updates on my classes and progress. There are not yet, but there will be soon, pictures to accompany all of these things. Additionally, the layout of the blog needs some work but I'm on it and should have it all worked out soon.

I invite you to stop by my blog, have a read, and please, please leave comments. I will answer any questions I can regarding formulas and techniques if you leave them in the comments section, and I can always ask my instructor things that you wanted to know in the guise of me pretending it was my question! I hope he's not reading this. Sorry, chef!

Thanks, and may your ovens always heat true!

Corey

Baking, bread, cookies, cake

Hello everyone,

Hope you all are doing well. Hey does anyone know any Egyptian bread cook book or an African bread cook book or at least a website that deal with nothing but African bake recipes? Thanks and look forward in hearing from you.

Thanks! !

I've been out of town some lately, but really wanted to post the pictures of my Guinness Walnut Loaf which is a recipe that I got from Qahtan here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/1649/walnut-levain

It turned out to be delicious and perfectly timed since I just read a NY Times article touting the health benefits of walnuts here:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/walnuts-the-original-health-nut/?scp=1&sq=walnuts&st=cse

There are some yummy looking recipes in that article as well.

About the baking: One change that I made is that I retarded the dough overnight and should have reduced the yeast since the centers of the loaves dried out a little about a day after cutting into them.

I left the walnut halves on the top of the loaf whole.

Try this recipe for a simple but satisfying and healthy loaf!

Summer

Hi,

This is Jackie from PhamFatale.com. Please do click on the link below and head on over to my bread contest to vote for your favorite bread recipe. You could win an awesome knife. One lucky voter will be picked and win a Petty Phoenix knife from New West KnifeWorks (a $99 value).

Bread Contest

Good luck!

The voting period will be open until 11.59 p.m. (Pacific Time), on October 7th, 2009.