The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hamelman

codruta's picture
codruta

hello from Timisoara!

I baked recently "Roasted Hazelnut and Prune Bread" from Hamelman book, page 185. I removed the butter and the instant yeast, and I increased the hydration from 66% to 68%, and I left the dough in the fridge overnight for the final fermentation.

The bad: I didn't know what to expect of it, I ezitated when I slashed it, cause it's still not clear for me when I have to give a perpendicular slash (with a straight lame) or an "almost-parallel-with-the-surface" kind of slash (does the shape of bread dictate it, or the kind of bread -rye, whole-wheat, white). The bread didn't have a spectacular oven spring. I think I incorporated a little raw flour in the dough when I shaped it (or else why do some prunes have a dry layer around them?). I think I could have roasted the hazelnuts for a longer time. I wish the prunes were more even distributed.

The good: I like the crumb, the contrast of textures and colours. I loved the combination of sweet, sour and nutty. Lovely for breakfast, with a cup of coffee aside. Lovely with goat cheese, or other kinds of cheese. Excellent with butter. I regret I didn't try to toast it...

For those who haven't tried it yet, I absolutely recomend it.

I decided to make this bread, because food-bloggers from Romania make a dish every month, with a chosen theme; and for august the theme was the plum. (They accepted me with prunes.) The challenge is called "Sweet Romania" and I was glad that I could participated with this lovely bread.

The recipe and details can be found here on my romanian blog Apa.Faina.Sare.

codruta's picture
codruta

Hi from Timisoara! This bread is adapted from Hamelman's book, page 172. A couple of weeks ago while making this bread, I posted a question on forum, link here. The dough felt very stiff, even though I increased the hydration a little over 74%. I omited the yeast from the recipe, and I adapted the fermentation time.

Overall formula was 348 g bread flour, 87 g whole wheat flour, 325 g water, 9 g salt, 44 g old fashioned rolled oats, 110 g raisins. (The prefermented flour was 15% from the total amount of flour, and the levain was liquid, at 125% hydration). First fermentation was two hours, with 2 S-F (it was a very hot day, that day), second fermentation was 8 hours in the fridge (overnight) and 1:30...2 hours at room temperature (in the morning)

This is how the bread turned out. I was surprised to see how light and open is the crumb, with all the raisins and rolled oats, and whole wheat in the dough. I think it was a good bread, we (me and my boyfriend) enjoyed eating it with butter and coffee, or cheese. The boule was a present for a dear friend blonde lady, so I don't have photos of the crumb.

I don't know why, but this bread makes me think of summer, hot sun, and laziness.

Complete recipe and more photos can be found on my romanian blog, with translation available, Apa.Faina.Sare., link here.

codruta

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

We've been traveling a lot the past few months, and I haven't had many weekends at home to bake. Now, we'll be home for a few weeks, and I can bake more regularly. This weekend, I baked two of my current favorites – the SFBI Miche and Hamelman's Pain au Levain. (See: Miche from SFBI Artisan II - 2 kg. The formula for the Pain au Levain is found in Hamelman's "Bread.")

After a long, cool Spring, we're starting to get some Summer weather. It's been in the low 90's. Temperatures of 105ºF are predicted for the middle of the coming week. Frankly, I could do without the 105º days, but my starter and doughs are enjoying the warmer kitchen temperature. My old dictum - “Watch the dough, not the clock” - was applied. For example, the pain au levain, which Hamelman says to proof for 2 1/2 hours was ready to bake in 90 minutes after shaping. I feared the bâtards were a bit over-proofed, but the oven spring and bloom I got suggest proofing was pretty much on target.

SFBI Miche

Miche crust

Miche crumb

Pain au Levain

Pain au Levain, up close

One thing I learned and applied for this bake of the pain au levain: The last few bakes of this bread have had many excessively large holes. I suspected this was due to insufficient de-gassing before pre-shaping. So, this time, I de-gassed a bit more vigorously. I like the results.

 

Pain au Levain crumb

Happy Baking! And Happy Father's Day to all you fathers!

David

 

codruta's picture
codruta

This bread is problably a classic, everybody seems to love it. And how comes one not to? I usually try to bake and eat more whole wheat breads, but this bread is hard to resist to. I followed the recipe "by the book", with 10 hours retard in the fridge, baking them directly from the fridge, and I suspect both breads were just a little bit underproofed. Probably an hour at room temperature would have been a better thing to do. I didn't manage to score the boule as it should have been done (I'm not good with boules, in fact this is my best boule so far, usually I ended up with a round flat mass of dough), but both loafs were a pure delight to eat. I've never seen a loaf (in my home) to disappear so quickly, and the name that I gave to this bread, translated from romanian, is "The bread with taste of home"

for the boule shaping, I tried to follow teresa's instructions from this video.

here are some pictures.

for more pictures and recipe (in romanian, with (funny) english tranlation available on the sidebar) go to Apa.Faina.Sare.

cheers, Codruta

codruta's picture
codruta

I don't know why I've waited so long to make this bread, after buying hamelman's book. I've done it before, from intructions giving on this blog, which were very helpful, btw. For grains, I used a mix of fennel seeds, flaxseeds, spelt berries and oat bran. I retarded the dough overnight, omitted the yeast as instructed, and I baked it directly from the fridge. For the final fermentation, the instructions weren't very clear to me... in case I opted for retarding the dough overnight, it still gets an hour of fermentation on room temperature, or after shaping goes directly in the fridge??

Final fermentation. Approximately 1 hour at 76 degrees. [The dough can be retarded for several hours or overnight, which case the bulk fermentation should be 2 hrs with 1 fold, and the yeast left out of the mix.]

Not knowing what to do, I let it stand 45 minutes at room temperature (78F), but I still don't know if that was good, or this step shoud have been skipped. Maybe someone can clarify this.

Also, I don't know if baking directly from the fridge was the right decision, I wonder if it would have risen more if I let it stand 1 hour at room temperature before baking?

Anyway, I'm extremely pleased with the result, the taste is absolutly amazing.

More pictures and the addapted recipe (recipe in romanian, translator on the sidebar) can be found here, at my new blog  Apa.Faina.Sare

Juergen Krauss's picture

Vermont (or WhereEver) Sourdough side by side

May 11, 2011 - 1:07pm -- Juergen Krauss

Studying Hanelman's book Bread I wondered about the differences in taste of the diverse wheat levains and sourdoughs.

As a home baker I usually do one batch at a time, and by the time I bake another formula I might have forgotten the subtle characteristics.

Today I had the idea to make 2 batches - one Vermont Sourdough (p153, VS for reference), and one Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain (p156, call it IS).

Of each batch I made 2x 500g boules and 2x 250g batards, and the remaining dough I combined in a kind of double-fendu:

basbr's picture

Amount of poolish in Hamelman's baguette and pain rustique

April 10, 2011 - 7:17am -- basbr

Dear all,

This weekend I received my copy of Hamelman's "Bread" and it's fantastic. I made a boule from his poolish baguette recipe and his pain rustique.

I was completely surprised by the difference in taste between the two breads. Both were terrific, but the pain rustique tasted like no yeast bread I have ever tasted. I was blown away.

Ryan Sandler's picture
Ryan Sandler

Victory is mine!  If you haven't been following my occasional series of posts, six months ago I set out to improve my baguette skills by making a batch Hamelman's "Baguettes with Poolish" every Saturday and blogging about it here.  I haven't been entirely rigorous about the blogging, but I've kept up the baking, skipping only one weekend in all that time.  Here's what I said I wanted to achieve in week 1:

My objective: produce a reliable, tasty and beautiful baguette through practice, trial and error. I don't really imagine that I will truly master the baguette--better home bakers than I have tried in vain, I know. But I'm hoping to turn what is usually a hit-or-miss process into something I can do over and over again well, if not perfectly.

I submit to you that I have achieved this objective.

Exhibit A: Last week's bake (week 26 if you're counting)

What is notable about this batch is not how well they turned out, per se (though they aren't bad, eh?), but the fact that I did several things wrong, and they still came out quite well.  The plastic wrap stuck to the baguette in the middle, making it hard to score, I forgot to turn the oven down from the pre-heat temperature for the first 6 minutes of the bake, and I purposely omitted the "leave in the oven with the door cracked" step because I needed the oven.  And still they were good.  Crust was a bit chewy, but it was thin, the crumb was nice and the flavor was great.

Exhibit B: Todays bake

Exterior

 

Crumb:

 The scores didn't come out quite perfectly--the baguettes took longer than usual to proof, and may have stil been a little under-proofed.  But everything else was spot on.  Crust was thin and crisp, crumb open and creamy, flavor sweet and nutty.  If every baguette I ever make again is like this, I'll be happy.

More to the point, if every baguette I make again is a random draw from the last 4-5 weeks of baguettes, I'll be more than happy.  There is still room for improvement, but at this point I think the benefit of making my baguettes a little bit better is less than the benefit of making a wider variety of breads (or even a wider variety of baguette recipes), and much less than the benefit starting a new quest (I have a couple in mind, but that's for another post).

Thanks to everyone who has followed along with my occasionally long-winded adventure, and thanks especially to those (Larry in particular) who helped point me in the right direction early in the process.  It has been a wild ride the last 6 months (not least due to the birth of my daughter in week 6).  Sometime soon I'll write up a post specifically reflecting on the lessons I've learned from Saturday Baguettes.

Happy baking, everyone,

-Ryan

 

Ryan Sandler's picture
Ryan Sandler

This week I made the dough for Hamelman's baguettes with poolish yet again.  This time, instead of making three 11-13 inch baguettes, scaled at 250g, I made one 750g loaf.  Since the 250g baguettes would be called demi-baguettes, clearly this was a mega-baguette. Clearly.

Okay, fine, I made a batard and scored it like a baguette.  Still it came out pretty nicely.

Crust Crackles, too!

No bursting between the scores! Though on a batard that's kind of cheating.  Anyway.

No crumb shot this time--we had company over for dinner and I wasn't quite willing to beg their patience while I snapped pictures of the bread, the way I regularly do with my wife.  Moderately open crumb, comparable to my recent baguette efforts.  Good flavor, nice crust, though a little chewy.

It will be back to baguettes next week.  Happy baking, everyone.

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