buckwheat

It's Carnival Time Again!   And, as I've been on a roll, baking everything I want (ok, I haven't tried Filo dough yet, but come on...)

So, for our Super Bowl party, I decided to attempt an Almond Brioche 'Bostock' inspired King Cake using my homemade Buckwheat/Rye Brioche dough.

The King Cake is light and fluffly, and has a great flavour of almonds from the paste and extract with a hint of citrus from the Meyer Lemon and a subtle nuttiness from the buckwheat. I don't like large amounts of icing on my cakes, so I went with a finishing glaze of lavender honey.

The next time I make it I may include more cinnamon to evoke more of the classic flavor, maybe even incorporating it more heavily into the almond creme, or making a cinnamon creme, or rolling it into the dough before flattening it out. Any suggestions are welcome!

Ingredients:

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2 lbs "Buckwheat-Rye Brioche Dough" (Recipe Follows) or another brioche dough would work fine, I guess

4tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 cup almond paste

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 (duck) egg

1/2 tsp rose water (or citrus water like sweet orange water)

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/4 cup caster sugar

Zest of Orange, Satsuma, or Meyer Lemon

1/2 cup of sliced unsalted almonds

egg wash (1 egg w/ 1 tbsp of H2O)

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Almond Crème:
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Cream butter, almond paste, flour, duck egg, floral water, and almond extract in a food processor until uniform and smooth.

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Assembly of the Cake:
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There are two strategies possible for assembly of the cake, and I opted on the less traditional, but possibly more visually appealing.

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Traditional Method:
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Form Dough into 2 balls and roll them into two rectangles of approx 24"x12" and 1/8" thick.

Smooth Almond Crème onto the rectangle of dough, and then proceed to roll up the dough from one of the longer sides of the rectangle (jelly-roll style).

Braid the two strands together and join at the ends by pinching and using a little water.


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My Method:
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Form Dough into single ball and then into rectangle.
Roll Into a long rectangle, approx 26" x 8".

Visually divide the rectangle into thirds, width-wise and spread the Almond Crème on the center 1/3.

Create 'fingers' on the opposing sides by cutting opposing 1/2" width strips with a pizza cutter.

Place red bean inside. (I don't put plastic in my baked goods...)

Paint inside of fingers with egg wash, and fold over each other carefully (fingers on bottom only) in a criss cross pattern to create a braid, alternating left over right, lightly pressing together as you move to next pair of strands.

Carefully bend into a round 'crown' shape and seal on edges, preferably by braiding together and using a little water and pinch.
Allow the crown/braid to rest for 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F with baking stone in center 20minutes before baking.

Immediately before baking, mix together sugar, zest, slivered almonds, and a little juice of the citrus and sprinkle over the top of the cake.

Bake without steam for 35-45 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

Drizzle with a light coating of lavender honey and serve warm with French Roast café au lait!

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Buckwheat Rye Brioche Dough

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*Makes Approx 4lbs of dough

1.5 cups of 105-115F water

1.5 tablespoons of granulated yeast or 1/4 cup of sourdough starter, and adjust water appropriately given hydration level

1.5 tbsp. of Granulated Salt

8 eggs, beaten lightly

1/2 cup Local Honey

1.5 Cups melted unsalted butter

4 cups unbleached bread flour ! (or KAf, we need the protein)

3 cups buckwheat flour

1/2 cup Whole Rye Flour

Egg Wash

1) Mix starter or yeast, salt, eggs, and melted butter with water in a 5 quart+ container which isn't airtight.

2) Add flour without kneading, with a spoon or spatula or a food processor or stand mixer with a dough hook. The dough should be loose.

3) Cover and allow to rest and room temperature until the dough rises and falls. (approx. 2h at 75F)

4) Refrigerate briefly and it is now ready to use.

Use within 5 days, or freeze in 1lb portions.

I've been baking a lot of sourdough as of late, and since I'm stubborn I don't ever refrigerate any of the starter and maintain it exclusively on the counter. While this lends to a vigorous starter it also encourages (ok, demands!) frequent baking, or you're going to either end up with the starter that ate your kitchen, or be exceptionally wasteful by refreshing the starter so frequently.

I have a little bit of a sweet tooth, and love blueberries so this was a natural next step.

I have adapted this recipe from this recipe at Sourdough Home:
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.php?content=blueberrymuffins

I made some adjustments as to my taste and added a crunchy Streusel topping!

Ingredients
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1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil (EVOO works great here)
1 cup 100% rye sourdough starter at 100% hydration!
2tbsp of Greek Yogurt (adds a little more acidity, good fat)

1/2 cup whole rye or wheat flour if you must
1/2 cup of organic buckwheat flour
1/3 cup of ground flax seeds
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup sugar or fructose
3/4 cup frozen blueberries

Streusel Topping

2 cups pecans or walnuts (8 oz.)
½ cup packed light brown sugar (I combined molasses and caster sugar)
⅓ cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. salt
2 Tbs. vegetable oil (I used more EVOO, though next time I may be decadent and use coconut oil)

Method

Preheat oven to 425F. (I use a convection oven, so actual temp was 400F)

Prepare streusel by combining nuts, sugar, oats, cinnamon and salt in food processor and pulsing a few times until a coarse mixture is achieved. Slowly drizzle in oil taking care to stop before creating a paste. The ideal consistency will be damp, but very crumbly. Set aside.

Combine dry ingredients in small bowl and then stir in blueberries. Combine wet ingredients in medium bowl.
Add dry ingredients to wet ones.

Place muffin cups inside tin and oil and dust them.
Oil a large dough or ice cream scoop and spoon batter into cups.
Sprinkle a liberal amount of Streusel topping over each cup such that you can no longer see the batter.

Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes or 16 min for convection

Allow to cool for 5 minutes in tin and then transfer to rack to cool to room temperature!
This should yield about a dozen full sized muffins. Enjoy!

After baking my first variation of sweetbird’s Buckwheat SD and Apple Bread here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28081/dabrownman-butchers-sweetbird%E2%80%99s-lovely-buckwheat-apple-and-apple-cider-buckwheat-groat-br

I thought we would give it another go, since we butchered her lovely bread and also made an evil face with the boule,  by removing the hard cider and replacing it with the juice used to re-hydrate the dried apples and prunes and combining it with Phil's Sage and Walnut Rye.

 We added prunes, walnuts, a walnut oil paste, sage, chia, flax seed and wheat germ.  The buckwheat groats remained and were used with the apples and prunes as decoration for the loaf and well as add ins.

 The bread is 60% whole grain consisting of buckwheat, durum atta, rye, soft white wheat, WW, WWW, semolina and AP.   The hydration was 75%

 We made this bread 2 ways; in a loaf and as the ever popular Chacon.  The top of the loaf was decorated with buckwheat groats and the apple prune filling and the Chacon was left nakedly unadorned.

Both baked up nicely in the mini oven.  The crust was dark brown and crunchy going to chewy when cooled.   The exterior of both was appealing.  The crumb was ope, light, airy, moist and soft - just like the YW and SD combo bakes tend to be every time. 

This bread tastes great with the buckwheat, fruit and walnuts coming though  well with the hint of sage.  The SD tang is muted because of the YW and hanging out in the background.  We really like this bread and glad that we did another variation of it - without the ugly face!

Method and formula follow the pix's.

Chacon wedge shot of the ctrumb.

Made a great salami sandwich with veggies and fruits for lunch.

Method

Instead of our usual 3 day method we shortened it down to 24 hours.  The mixed YW and SD levain was built over two 4 hour builds and one 2 hour build and then it was added to the 2 hour autolyse of; flours, apple /prune re-hydration juice liquid and salt.

The dried apples and prunes were reconstituted in water overnight in the fridge and the excess water was squeezed out and used for the dough liquid.  The groats were micro waved in water for 1 minute and allowed to sit for 30 minutes.  The walnut and walnut oil paste was made.

Once the autolyse was complete the levain was added and hand kneaded to mix before being allowed to rest in an plastic covered oiled bowl for 15 minutes.  6 S&F’s were done every 12 minutes.  The first 2 were performed on a floured surface and the next 4 on a lightly oiled surface.  Before the 5th S&F the dough was rolled pout into large circle about ½” thick and the walnut and sage paste, buckwheat groats, walnuts and apple / prune add ins placed on top. ¼ C of AP flour was added to the apple / prune mixture to help dry it out some more and not affect the overall hydration of the dough..

The dough was placed back into the oiled bowl and allowed to ferment and develop for 1 ½ hours before refrigerating for 6 hours.  In the morning the dough was removed from the fridge and divided in half with the Chacon half going back in the fridge for another hour while the other half of the dough was formed into a loaf and placed into a PAM sprayed Pyrex loaf pan and allowed to rise in a plastic trash bag until doubled and passing the poke test about 2 hours.

After the additional hour in the fridge, the remainder of the dough was formed into a Chacon by making a knotted roll and placing it in the center of the folded round edges of the circular Chacon.  The Chacon was formed on a cutting board so it could be inverted into the rice floured basket placed on top.  Rice flour was also used to dust the top before being inverted into the basket.

The Chacon was placed into the plastic trash bag with the loaf and allowed to rise until doubled and passing the poke test.

 The mini oven was heated to 500 F regular bake and Sylvia’s steaming method using a wash cloth and 1 C Pyrex measure ½ full of water installed on the back of the oven after being micro waved until the water boils.  We decided to slash this loaf at the last minute and then steamed it in the mini oven for 12 minutes with the temperature turned down to 450 F at the 4 minute mark.  At the 12 minute mark the steam was removed and the temperature turned down to 425 F – convection this time.

The loaf was rotated 180 degrees every 5 minutes and it was removed from the pan at the first 5 minute rotation.  At the 32 minute mark the loaf was done, reading 205 F on the inside and allowed to dry in the off oven with door ajar for 10 minutes.  The loaf was them allowed to cool on a wire rack while the mini oven was steam prepared and preheated for the Chacon in the same way as the loaf.

The Chacon was removed from the basket by inverting it onto parchment paper with the perforated top of the broiler used as a baking tray.  The decoration of buckwheat groats, apple and prune fruits was added.  The same baking method was used for the Chacon as the loaf.

For breakfast we had a nice YW Buckwheat Apple Pecan Pancake loose based on sweetbird's bread but using YW as leaven and milk to thin it out to pancake consistency.  Very nice!

Then for lunch we used a couple of left over SD and SD YW breads to make a grilled chicken and brie sandwich with lettuce, tomato, homemade Dijon, mayo sstrawberries, mango, a dill pickle and Pink Lady Apples.  Why are there no Brown Men apples I still wonder.

Today we had a wonderful breakfast and lunch thanks to sweetbird's fine bread that had pistachios and soba noodles added to it by a 'butcher' or as Varda says a 'postmodernist'.  When toasted, this bread, like most, takes on a new life that is hearty and modern too.

As a classic smoked salmon, grilled chicken, tomato and basil feta cheese, lettuce and mushroom masterpiece - rarely attempted by the most professional sandwich artisan, this bread comes into its own saying 'You Know I Ain't No Slimy White Slice Sweetbird'

The original blog is here aand where you find the link to sweetbird's fine recipe on her blog :

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28081/dabrownman-butchers-sweetbird%E2%80%99s-lovely-buckwheat-apple-and-apple-cider-buckwheat-groat-br

With some fresh pineapple, strawberry, bread and butter, kosher dill and Serrano pickles, a slice of brie and some corn chips with jicama and corn salsa - this lunch is terrific on any spring day that nears 100 F in the shade.

Had to make a couple of changes to Sweetbird’s hugely fantastic, far better than magnificent, Buckwheat Bread recipe that can be found here:

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27784/buckwheatpear-sourdough-pear-hard-cider#comments

 First off we, my apprentice and I, used aWashingtonstate hard apple cider called Spire.  It was their mountain apple draft variety and used 245 g in the dough instead of 230.  We also; did not use any cider in the SD levain and used the excess apple water squeezed from the re-hydrated dried apples and frozen fermented apples from the YW plus some water.  Also used Whole Rye and WW with the Buckwheat in the first SD levain build since our starter had them and we think these grains make better bread when used in levains.   I wanted to taste the cider so I drank 90 g just to make sure it wasn’t spoiled or otherwise not up to the task at hand.

 My apprentice, bless her heart, substituted an Apple / Orange Yeast Water levain instead of SAF instant yeast since we don’t stock any commercial yeasts in the pantry, autolysed 1 hour instead of 30 minutes, sprouted the buckwheat groats instead of scalding them (after making red and 2 white malts she’s into sprouting it seems) and then put them all inside since she reasoned enough stuff would be hanging out in the end anyway.

Because the mix – ins were so wet (compared to sweetbird’s), I added 30 g of BW and 30 g of BF to them and let it autolyse while the dough was doing the same thing, added chopped pistachio nuts and chopped cooked buckwheat soba noodles, added fermented apple pieces saved when refreshing the YW that were previously frozen, re-hydrated the dried apples in apple juice.

 My apprentice also cut the salt to 10 g from 11 since the pistachios seemed salty to her when tasted for poison and she was a little bloaty this morning, added 15 g home made white diastatic malt to the vital wheat gluten, and finally, subbed bread flour for the AP which birdsong recommended doing after her bake.

 So, not much at all really major changed in the scheme of things we call bread.  We agree with sweetbrird that the dough needs 2 S & F sessions at 40 and 80 minutes and another to pre-shape at 2 hours.  Do a quick S & F to form into a ball.  Drag the skin tight and put into your large floured benetton.  Place into a plastic bag and let it final proof for at least an hour or so.  You can get your oven ready at 500 F with your steaming method in place while it proofs.  My final proof was 1 ½ hours about twice as long as sweetbird’s and it was not over proofed.

 The bread was turned out onto parchment on a peel and slashed with my patented ‘angry face with really nasty eyes design,’ steamed for 20 minutes at 430 F, then the steam was removed.  The bread then baked on the stone for about another 45 minutes until it reached 203 F and then left in oven for 12 minutes with the door ajar and oven off.

Will post the recipe later if somone wants it.  This boule finished weight was 1,305 g.

We are invited tonight to a Burns Night supper - long-running, we've been going for years!  I thought this time I should try to take some bread (though I wasn't confident enough to stop them buying bread - must be more confident!)

I recently purchased Bertinet's Crust, and Hanseata (I think) mentioned the Breton Bread, so I thought I'd give that a go, as unusually I had some fresh yeast.  As this was a new recipe, I decided to also do DSnyder's Pugliese as usually that works really well for me.  18 people so it felt like a big quantity was required - so I did around 2kg of each, which was a fun experience in itself, as I've not done these volumes before!

Ingredients - Breton Bread

Pre-fermented dough: 3.6g yeast, 3.6g salt, 180g strong white flour, 126g water - 6 hours or so (it went a bit faster)

Final dough: 10g fresh yeast, 750 strong flour, 200 buckwheat flour, 50 rye flour, 300g (all) pre-ferment, 15g sel gris, 700 water - total 2038g at 70%

Ingredients - Pugliese

200g starter, 720 water, 590 strong flour, 160 "00" flour, 250 durum flour, 20 salt - total 1940 at 75%

I thought originally the breton bread would be fairly quick, but the pugliese also went really fast - so I nearly ran out of proofing baskets!  As it was, I ended up doing 3 Breton and 2 Pugliese - both the Pugliese in the La Cloche, two of the Bretons on a stone with metal lid and the other in La Cloche

The Breton didn't rise as much as I'd hoped, even in the La Cloche - but I guess there's quite a lot of buckwheat in there!  I did bake it when I thought it was just about ready - so a bit quicker than planned...  Quite a thick crust (this one was under the metal lid), pleasant taste, went well with eggs this morning...

Not sliced the Pugliese as both are going down to the dinner, but it rose beautifully (as usual) and I hope will taste good

Challenges of timing - the Pugliese went a LOT faster than I expected - so rather than my usual proof overnight in the fridge, I baked them all the same day.  Luckily I have two ovens, so one had the stone and the other the Cloche!

Will see what the reaction is tonight
cheers
S