I found a store about half a mile from my house that caries King arthur AP and 100% red wheat flour for 3.16$ per 5lb bag. Is KA a good brand? should i replace my Goldmedal AP flour with KA flour? I follow the Artisan bread in 5 a day and healthy bread in 5 a day, but i have been using goldmedal for this process. Will the red wheat KA flour work as a replacement for goldmedal whole wheat?

thanx guys

Matt

King Arthur Sir Lancelot flour is available at  fiddleheads in New London, CT. (see fiddleheads for directions)

If I remember it was about $1.00 a pound...NICE! It's in bins so you scoop and pay by the pound. I wish I found this earlier.

Smiles...

Hi Everyone,

I had a very enjoyable chat this afternoon with Stan Ginzburg of NYBakery (located in San Diego) because I, like many of you, received an email from him as a potential test baker for recipes coming from his new book.  Aside from being a very dedicated, erudite and wonderful individual, he has offered a 10% discount on flour purchases made between May20 and Aug20, 2010, for those who have offerred to be test bakers.  Now that's a nice plus in and of itself, but the real plus was finding the amazing array of flours, including some very nice regional and Italian flours "00" which are not readily available to many of us because of our geography (Tulsa, OK, for yours truly).  But, here is the best deal of the day, his prices for the many numerous flours that he carries, both his proprietary brand and others, such as KAF, are much, much reduced than what we might pay on either the KAF website or at Whole Foods.  So, please do yourself a favor and check out their website and I'm certain you will be most happy with the selection and pricing.  The selection was the best I've seen anywhere in the US, same with pricing.  Be sure to tell him, "Bernie sent me!".  Just kidding. {:-)

Bernie Piel

Tulsa, OK

Hi Everyone!

My name is Lacey and I've got a three year old daughter (Gracie) that has a wheat allergy. I've been experimenting with sprouted wheat flour and no knead baking for about six months now and to be honest haven't had much luck with it. I don't know technical baking terms, but sprouted wheat flour seems to come out more dense than when I make the same recipe with regular un/bleached bread flour. I'm talking no bubbles inside, thick thick crumb on the outside, etc. Kindof blah tasting. And frankly, that stuff is expensive. We're talking $4 for 1 lbs, when you can get 5 lbs of king arthur for the same price. So there've been some major disappointments along the way. but now I'm experimenting using other flours and have had some luck in the baking front.

I bought myself Jim Lahey's book about No Knead baking for Christmas. He is my own personal baking God. I've made some Stecca baguettes last week using organic amaranth flour and king arthur flour. And today I baked my carrot juice bread. The smell was amazing! I haven't cut it open yet  but it is singing like songbird and that is a good sign. Here is the result:

Recipe:

3/4 cup organic amarathn flour

2 1/4 cup king arthur bread flour

1/4 tsp instant yeast

1 cup freshly juiced carrot juice. (I did this using my newest gadget - Jack La Lanne juicer) It took a small bag of carrots to make this much.

1/2 cup water, plus some if needed

1 1/4 tsp salt

~1/2 cup or more chopped dried cranberries. I didn't measure them out.

~1/2 cup chopped pecans. Again, didn't measure. I eyeballed it.

wheat germ, sunflower seeds and more flour

Combine flours, salt and yeast together. Add in carrot juice and water. Mix with a wooden spoon. Add pecans and cranberries. Dough should be really sticky to touch. Scrape stuff off side of bowl back into the dough. Cover with saran wrap and a thick kitchen towel and store in a warm place for 12-18 hours. On a well floured surface, dump and scrape out dough and fold over on itself several times until you form a ballish shape. Coat a tea towel with wheat germ, sunflower seeds and flour enough so the dough won't stick. Place dough seem side down in towel and cover up to let rise for another hour or two. Once dough has risen enough to hold a finger imprint - heat oven to 450 and place your 4-5 qt stock pot with lid in oven to heat up. Once oven and pot is completely heated pop dough in pot, cover and bake for 20 minutes. Take lid off and bake until brown and golden, more if you want a thicker crust.

Take out of oven, place on cooling rack and let it sing away. And wa-la. Delicious and healthy bread!

Hello everyone. I am new to the site and completely new to baking bread. This is something that I can really get into, but I am having a little trouble with the texture of my first couple of loaves.

First, about me: I am 22 years old, male, and I live in SoCal. I will be graduating this year with a degree in Marketing. I currently work as a barista at SBux, formerly at a small coffee shop that had the best coffee in all of CA IMO. Working as a barista is what has inspired me to delve into culinary adventures. I have explored the process of making coffee a whole lot, including several brewing methods, home roasting and mixing beans, and refining my palette to taste the nuances of beans from several regions of the world. I would like to travel to the farms where coffee is grown and learn more about coffee and the people who are involved in its cultivation. I am very interested in learning about other cultures, languages, and foods from around the world. I enjoy hobbies that produce something, like car detailing. When I detail my car I call it therapy because it is a process. I have something that I can stand back and admire when I am finished. The next time I go through the process I learn from the time before and do it even better. I think that baking bread is very similar, which is why I like it so far. But bread is cheaper, and I like that too. I would love to work with a renowned artisan, such as Peter Reinhart, and learn and refine my skills in the kitchen.

Now, on to the bread. My first attempt at baking bread was a recipe from King Arthur Flour.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-100-whole-wheat-bread-recipe

My bread came out with a good flavor, but it is very dense. I am thinking that maybe I didn't let it rise enough after forming it. My crumb does not look as good as in the picture provided with the recipe. In fact, there really aren't any holes in it at all. It is a very heavy loaf.

A picture of loaf 1

So I tried again with the lesson 2 recipe on this website.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/lessons/addingmore

My bread was still a little dense, but this time it had some flake to it. I used the steam method of putting a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the oven while it preheated. Then I poured a cup of water over it just before I stuck the dough in the oven. I baked both loaves of bread in a convection oven. I think the bread needs to stay in the oven longer next time because my bread is not getting a dark crust. I will invest in an oven thermometer at some point to check the accuracy of the oven's internal thermometer. I also need to get a better instant read thermometer to check the bread's temperature. For both loaves I used King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour. I would like to try some other flours to see how it affects things.

Pictures of loaf 2

What I learned so far:

1. Making bread is more about process than about ingredients.

2. Shaping and scoring are harder than they look. On my second loaf I wasn't going for any specific shape, but it was some sort of boule I guess. I got aggressive with my knife when scoring it and practically ended up with two loaves!

3. Practice makes perfect! Or at least each time comes closer than the last...

Questions:

1. What should I do to get a lighter, fluffier bread with more holes? Does it need to rise longer on the second rise perhaps? Is the dough not taut enough when I'm shaping it? Does it need to stay in the oven longer or at a higher heat? Should I try a different type of flour (I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat for both loaves)?

2. Does shaping bread always involve punching it down? I understand bread recipes all the way up to the first rise. I put the kneaded dough into a bowl and within an hour or two it doubles in size. At this point is the dough always supposed to be punched down before forming it? Some recipes don't really specify. I assume that it does get punched down because obviously it has to go down to a smaller size when forming it if it is going to have a second rise.

3. On the second rise am I waiting for it to get back to the size that it was when it doubled on the first rise?  On second rise, does the dough need to be covered air tight? I have noticed most recipes say to cover it with plastic wrap on the second rise. My first loaf I covered the dough with the same towel that I used on the first rise. Was that a mistake?

I'm sorry that I have so many questions, but I am completely new to baking bread. When I get into something I get into it. I want to understand every aspect of the entire science and art of baking bread. Being new, I would appreciate any comments, no matter how simple your tips may seem. I already ordered (pretty cheap from www.abebooks.com) one of Peter Reinhart's books that has recipes for artisan breads. I plan on also picking up The Bread Baker's Apprentice to help me better understand the process. I will probably check it out at the library until I get the money to purchase it. Any comments or tips are completely welcome!

King Arthur Flour has free shipping on orders of $75 or more til Thursday

In response to a prior post where I mentioned my recent experience at King Arthur Flour, David (dmsynder) kindly suggested a fuller account of the class, and was even kind enough (at my urging) to provide a list of topics I should include. I've attempted in what follows to touch on all of them, if in revised (and perhaps stream-of-consciousness) order.

From July 9th through July 11th I experienced a second childhood of sorts: I spent three days at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont working to master classic french breads with twelve other bread aficionados (about an even split between professional bakers and amateurs of varying skill levels) under the tutelage of the center's director and master baker, Jeffrey Hamelman, and James MacGuire, author and master baker.

The course was entitled "From Miche to Levain to Baguette: A Survey of Classic French Breads." The title succinctly captures the course content in terms of the breads we worked with.

For the miche, we did two separate bakes - both miche pointe-a-calliere recipes of James. Both utilized 20% pre-ferments and were built in three stages: refresher, levain and final dough. The one used high extraction flour, while the other was built from 67% whole wheat and 33% sir galahad flour from KAF.

(Below: miche pointe-a-calliere.  All photos courtesy of Chris Henke)

We also did two bakes of batard-shaped pain au levain - one using 100% sir galahad flour, and the second with 15% whole wheat along with a pre-ferment of 12.2%.

(Hamelman removing pain au levain from KAF's production oven)

For the baguettes we did three bakes - a baguette de tradition with a hydration of 76%, one built from a poolish with 67% hydration, and the third an "intensive" french bread recipe. "Intensive" in this case refers to an intentional over mixing of ingredients to demonstrate how the resultant oxidation destroys the carotenoids which contribute so much to the flavor, color and nutritional value of bread. (It was, in short, an exercise in how not to bake bread.)

(Below, from l-r: intensive mix, poolish, de tradition, no-knead.  Note the utter whiteness of the intensive mix.  Its flavor was mainly from the salt (at 2.5%!)

Finally, James demonstrated an un-knead six-fold baguette with a hydration of 73%, that involved a bulk fermentation of three hours, with folding accomplished by 20 to 25 quick strokes of a scraper at 30 minute intervals.

(Both Hamelman and MacGuire are of the school of ‘less is more' with respect to mixing. Since all mixing causes oxidation, and oxidation degrades the flour, the ideal circumstance would involve combining all the ingredients without any mixing - something that very hydrated doughs utilizing autolyse come about as close to as humanly possible).

Ok, so that covers what we baked. But there was so much more to the course than simply these three classic french breads!

It seemed to me that inherent in everything Hamelman and MacGuire demonstrated, two themes were present: First, bread baking is about learning how to control various factors and processes that occur within certain timeframes, so that you, the baker, determine the schedule, rather than having it dictated by the bread.

For example, Jeffrey pointed out that in production baking of baguettes, those baguettes which are initially shaped are done loosely, because they will be going into the oven in the first bake(s). Ones which will be baked later in the day are pre-shaped more tightly, allowing for more expansion over time since they have a more lengthy rest period.

The second, and to my mind, overarching theme, however, was that in every aspect of the baking process - from initial mixing to proofing to determining whether a loaf is fully baked - the baker must learn to rely on his/her senses, all of them, to determine if the processes and end results are as they should be.

I discovered this unwritten theme the second day when we were getting ready to put our first loaves of pain au levain into KAF's production oven. I asked, innocently enough, "So, how long do they bake." Jeffrey stared at me, and with straight-face replied: "Until they are done." (I had provided him unwittingly with the proverbial slow pitch over the middle of the plate. He went on to explain how we learn when "done" is done).

Done, as it turns out, is only approximately determined by bake times. The real test involves handling the loaf - and with the batard-shaped levains and the baguettes - squeezing them to see if the crust gives way with a distinct snap, while looking at the ears to see if they were turned a golden-brown (fully baked) or were still whitish (under baked).

(Hamelman's one injunction when it came to determining doneness was that you never, ever stick a thermometer into a loaf!)

Jeffrey would constantly ask of us after a mix, "So, has the gluten developed sufficiently?" The answer, we learned, involves thrusting your hand down into the dough and giving it a good tug. If the gluten is insufficiently developed, it will be shaggy and tear. But if it is well developed it will be elastic and extensible with good strength. (We would do this after an autolyse, for example, as a way to determine whether the final mixing needed to go a full two minutes, or perhaps only a minute and a half.)

"Have the loaves proofed sufficiently, or are they under- or over-proofed?" he would ask. And again, the answer did not involve looking at the recommended proofing time, but actually pressing down on the dough.

His point is that ultimately the baker should be able to tell by touch and feel, taste, smell and sound, whether a loaf or a stage in baking is complete. (In one of our mixings, we accidentally over-hydrated the dough. The cure was the addition of more flour. But this then led to a question with respect to salt - more? How much more? Jeffrey's approach was direct: pinch off a bit of the dough and taste it. Salty enough? Not salty enough?

So the lesson I took away is this: good bakers are empiricists par excellence!

From James we learned much about the history of bread in France, especially during the twentieth-century. Those who haven't read his excellent essay, "The Baguette," written in 2006 for The Art of Eating can order it here. There was much discussion of how the culture of bread baking in France altered radically during the 1950s, leading to almost complete automation and inferior breads (this occurred while we were in the process of making the awful intensive mix pain). This in turn led to a discussion of how the art of bread-baking migrated to Japan, where many of the finest bakers in the world may now be found.

And he talked at some length about Raymond Calvel (who trained many of the Japanese bakers) and how he ‘rediscovered' autolyse in the 1970s. (The French had developed the technique just after WWII, when they had to rely on flour from the United States that had a higher protein content than their native flour, but then seemed to have forgotten about it).

The one very specific learning regarding autolyse we took away is that with rare exception, neither salt nor yeast should be added during the autolyse repos, since both will cause the dough to contract, whereas the goal of autolyse is to allow the dough to relax (hence repos).

As far as techniques we learned and practiced, in addition to the constant requirement to consult our senses, we focused on folding (both by emptying the dough onto a floured table, and, as James demonstrated, by leaving the dough in its container and reaching down to make the folds - a technique that works well with very hydrated doughs. We also practiced mixing, pre-shaping and final shaping involving boules, batards and baguettes, and scoring using lames.

(Below: James MacGuire demonstrates a fold within a container)

(Jeffrey Hamelman demonstrating a fold on table)

Finally, there were the two instructors: world class bakers who have been friends for many years and whose routines at times called to mind Penn and Teller (in equal parts humorous and magical in the effortless way they worked with dough). The class was fascinating not only for what we learned and practiced, but because the two were constantly entertaining, even when the instruction was serious. Each morning we would gather at 8:30, before class began, to eat freshly baked pastries from their production bakery, and each day around noon we would pause to have a communal lunch that involved wonderful local cheeses, the breads we baked, and at one lunch, magnificent pizzas created using baguette dough.

KAF offers a variety of classes on a regular basis. A link to their education center is located here.

I would do this again in a heartbeat! As I emailed Jeffrey and James afterwards, this was like summer camp for adults who love to play with dough.

Since I bake all of our bread, I'm always on the hunt for great sandwich loaf recipes to try. I get bored making the same ones week after week.

I tried this one today and I'll definitely be adding it to the rotation: Oatmeal & Brown Sugar Toasting Bread from King Arthur Flour.

It has rolled oats, steel-cut oats and a nice dose of brown sugar for a sweet, toasty, nutty loaf. I bumped up the nutrition a bit by adding some whole-wheat flour to the mix.

You can see photos and get the recipe on my blog, Flour Girl, or on the King Arthur Flour site.

Happy baking!

Flour Girl

Hi Bakers and Bread Lovers!