laminated dough

This one isn't very seasonal at the moment, but I love eating it for breakfast. It's so buttery and soft that I really don't think it needs an accompaniment. The recipe is taken from "non solo zucchero vol.II" where it is called pandoro evolution, but it is very similar to the pandoro a sfoglia from Cresci. 

Main impasto - in grams

sweet starter (50% humidity) 45

dry active yeast 3

very strong flour 179

sugar 36

unsalted butter (soft but not melted) 27

egg 107

salt 3.5

half a vanilla pod 

melted butter flavour 0.3 (I've made this before without the flavouring and it tasted exactly the same - but it's in the recipe so I've included it here).

mix all the ingredients together and work it until it forms a smooth, elastic dough. It should be strong and windowpane, but still very slightly sticky. Wrap it in plastic and put it in the freezer. I left it in there for an about an hour, but the book actually recommends overnight at -10C. While this is firming up, I worked on the butter for lamination:

softened unsalted butter 147

icing sugar 39 

mix the two ingredients together thoroughly, then pat into a square, wrap, and put in the fridge to firm up. When both parts are at the right consistency, take 362 of the dough and laminate it as if you were making croissants - 3 simple turns in total, with at least half an hour between each turn. It ought to look something like this when you've finished:

the total weight is 550g.

The difficult bit is then forming this into a ball without breaking the laminations. The book gives absolutely no guidance here whatsoever! I usually fold the ends underneath and then roll it around until it looks more or less spherical. I doubt very much that this is the best method! The dough by this point is really quite resistant to being shaped. 

It looks so tiny in the tin - it's hard to believe that it can possibly fill it!

Leave it to prove at about 27C and at least 60% humidity for about 10 - 12 hours. I left mine for 10 hours. 

I think it could easily have grown even more than this, so next time I might put less dough in the pandoro tin. As it was, it was just about to start spilling over the edge. If my shaping of the ball had been better then I also think this might have helped.

Leave it in the open air for about 30 minutes in order to form a skin on the dough and then it goes in the oven for 30 minutes at 170C. Leave it in the tin for a few hours after cooking before turning out. Mine stuck a little bit - I should have used more flour and butter to grease the form. 

When it's ready to eat (after a few days), dust it in icing sugar and enjoy! 

I was very happy with the crumb on this one - really light and shreddy, with a wonderfully complex buttery taste. It just fell to pieces as I was cutting and eating it. 

David

We were inspired, even though the wrong time of year for laminated doughs with it being 8o F inside and 105 F outside in AZ, by txfarmer's croissants and Danish pastries. 

Hers are just fantastic to look at and professional in every way - unlike mine.  But, I thought we would give it a go now and get back to them later next winter.  Her posts can be seen here:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22677/poolish-croissant-pursuit-perfection and here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/26777/cheese-danish-sourdough-all-american-beauty

We needed to change her recipe from yeast to sourdough and yeast water since I no longer stock any commercial yeast.   I didn't expect my first attempt at laminated dough to be anywhere near txfarmer's and I was right.  Freezing some of the croissants and Danish didn't help any either I suppose :-)  But I did learn many important things about lamination which will help my assistant out later. 

A very nice grilled; Amish Swiss and pepperjack cheese with grilled chicken sandwich made for lunch with this fine white sandwich bread.  Love the chia seeds.   The sweet potato and the pickled tomato, red onion and cucumber salad were also nice.

We made this enriched dough (can't believe it didn't have cream in it too) into 3 variations with various flavors; a non -laminated white sandwich bread (half of the dough split off before lamination), 3 kinds of Danish (blueberry, strawberry and dried apricot) and 2 kinds of croissants (plain and with a sweet home made mince meat filling made with beef shanks - those are the fat ones that didn't have 7 steps).

Used 27.5% of the total dough weight in roll-in butter (180 grams),  txfarmer recommends 30% but we had a few more add ins than her recipe that upped the total weight.  Txfarmer also said to hold the hydration down al little and I managed to somehow up it slightly,at least a couple of percent, if I calculated properly.  We used dried apricots and they burned on the top and I should have reconstituted them in bourbon or water.  We wanted to take them out of the oven at 25 minutes but by mistake took them out at 22 minutes and they could have used another 3 minutes in the oven.  If you live in AZ it is best to do this in the wintertime. 

My wife summed it up best.  They don't look too good but they taste OK.  I give the sandwich loaf a solid B and the rest a C only because it was a first attempt - my apprentice is worried she will soon be replaced since she said she was a lamination freak - well, at least the freak part was right:-) 

The formula and method follows the pictures.

Method

 Build the levain over 3 - 4 hour steps.  I mixed the YW and the SD together from the beginning as is our usual now a days.  Mine had more than doubled over 12 hours and then I refrigerated it overnight.

The nest morning, mix everything except the levain and the salt together in the mixing bowl and autolyse for 1 hour.  Add the levain and the salt and mix on KA 2 for 4 minutes and KA 3 for 1 minute.  Remove to an oiled bowl and rest for 15 minutes.  Do (4) S &F’s every 15 minutes.  At the 1 hour mark let the dough develop and ferment for 1 hour.

At this point I split off half the dough and formed it into a boule and let it ferment for another hour.  Then it was formed into a loaf, placed into a Pyrex loaf pan and refrigerated for 4 hours.  It doubled in the fridge.  It was then removed and allowed to final proof for 3 hours.  When it tripled in volume from when it initially went into the loaf pan, we slashed it and put it into a425 Fmini oven with steam for 10 minutes.  The steam was removed and the temperature turned down to 375 F convection this time.  The loaf was turned 180 degrees every 4 minutes 2 times.    At this point the loaf was removed from the Pyrex and allowed to finish baking turning 2 more times at 5 minute each.  When the loaf reached 205 F the loaf was allowed to stay in the off oven with the door ajar for 10 more minutes to crisp the crust..  It was then removed to a cooling rack.

 The other half of the dough was used for lamination and I followed txfarmer’s method and procedure.  I used180 gramsof roll-in butter for 645 g of dough (27.5%).  The croissants and Danish were retarded overnight in a plastic bag in the fridge where the back half of them froze – no harm done though.  In the morning, they came out of the fridge for final proof – this took about 2 ½ hours.  Then they were placed in the 425 F oven for 22 minutes (should have been 25 minutes) rotated half way through and the temperature turned down to 375 F convection.  When done they went onto a cooking rack from the parchment covered baking sheet.

Formula

A few weeks ago I was reading Hamelman's recipe for brioche when I noticed in his side notes that a feuillete or laminated dough can be made from a brioche dough. While I realized that of course it can be done , it's just something that had never occured to me before. Brioche is such a rich dough to begin with, the idea of laminating even more butter into it just seemed a little over the top. Sometimes though over the top can be very good and this looked to me like it might just be one of those times. Although I had Hamelman's base formula for brioche as well as others I've used before, I didn't have any for making the feuillete. Specifically what I was looking for was the ratio of roll-in butter I would need to do the folds. Web searches turned up very little, however one site did have some actual photos of a class at King Arthur being conducted by Mr. Hamelman making up a pastry using brioche feuillete, so that was helpful in giving me some idea how to use it. Link to site: http://mzkitchen.com/?p=2120

I put a query into Andy/ananda asking if he had any ideas on it , and while he'd read about it in Bo Freiberg's book on pastry, he'd never made it himself. I decided to just wing it, see how it worked, and adjust the ratio if necessary. The first attempt I made was based on a 91% butter to flour ratio, down from the original 110% butter-108% flour ratio I'd first shown Andy when I started putting a beta recipe together. Andy thought I was a “brave fellow” for wanting to try it , which I thought was a very polite way of him saying that I might just be a little too over the top with those numbers. Having made brioche dough on numerous occasions over the years this one mixed up well with no surprises for me and I gave it a 1hr bulk ferment and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Next afternoon while I laminated the bulk of the dough for feuillete, I took a portion of it and made up a few brioche tete to bake off and see how they turned out.   They turned out fairly well I thought, not having made them for a few years and I was very happy with the flavour. Unfortunately I'd run out of time that day to do anything more with the feuillete and decided to leave it for the next day. When I got home from work the next afternoon I set about rolling out the dough to a 14x9 inch rectangle and dividing that into 3” wide strips of dough that I piped a 3/4” strip of filling (recipe to follow) along the length of each, then alongside the length of that strip I placed blueberries side by side. These were then rolled string fashion, or like you would a cinnamon bun roll, to 15 1/2” and then made into a 3 strand braid and placed in a loaf tin to rise.  It took about an 1 ¼ hrs to rise and 25-30 minutes in a 380F oven to bake. When it came out I immediately applied a thin apricot glaze to seal it and help prevent staling, then sprinkled it with toasted almond slices for garnish. When it had cooled sufficiently I drizzled the loaf with some white vanilla fondant I'd made a few days before.  The braid didn't rise quite as high as I would have liked since by this time the dough had lost some power from the additional day it'd had before I could use it, but it turned out well enough that I knew I had to try it again . As far as the flavour went?... pretty incredible. I'll get into that more a little later in this post but for now....Wow! Some photos of the the finished loaf.

The second dough was started the night before I finished eating the first loaf, (about 48 hrs..or less ) my wife being slightly appalled at how quickly I'd devoured this large, ultra rich pastry. A few muttered comments were made regarding possible repercussions were this to become a regular habit. Something about being married to a fat guy.. but I can't say for certain. Seriously though, this sort of thing is something I rarely eat, being in my 'once in a blue moon' category of food. With the second mix I wanted to make the dough a little stiffer so that I could hopefully get a high and more defined look to the braid. Other than decreasing the hydration slightly and dropping the roll-in butter ratio to 72% overall, I made the dough as I did before, following the same length of bulk fermentation, same amount of degassing and overnight retardation in the fridge. This time though I had the next day off from work and was able to do the lamination and product make up in one day, which I think resulted in a better looking product. The dough doesn't suffer from the lower ratio of roll-in butter, in fact I think you could reduce it another 5%-10% and not notice any appreciable difference in the finished product. OK , now about the filling and flavour. This seems like a natural sort of pastry that you could use a cream cheese filling of some sort in,.. and it is, but I've just never acquired a taste for the stuff. I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from using it as a base for a filling if they like the flavour, but I think there are more elegant options available for a pastry like this. The choice I made was to use Brie, combined with honey, toasted almond meal, puff pastry crumbs, and beaten egg white to bind it into a consistency that can be easily piped. Brie works well with the fruit and nuts , not overpowering them, and also melting into the soft cells of the bread itself.

• room temp or soft Brie-114 gr

• lightly toasted almond meal-25 gr

• liquid honey-20 gr

• puff pastry crumbs-15 gr

• beaten egg white-5 gr

note: cake crumbs can be substituted for puff pastry crumbs

egg whites should be beaten lightly till they run fluidly without lumps

The fruit I had at the time, and still have the most of, is blueberries. We have a couple of very prolific blueberry bushes in our backyard that challenge us every year in trying to figure out how to use them all up before the next years crop comes in. I think we're about six months behind at present, so it's just an ongoing problem for us every year , but we try to make the best of it. The beauty of a dough like this is it's versatility. It will accept a wide variety of fillings ranging from sweet to savoury, (with some adjustments to the sugar ratio for savoury fillings being necessary) so it really depends on what flavour you want to have, or what you have on hand at the moment to use as a filling. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything within reason that this dough won't lend itself to and enhance. The flavour is of course predominated by butter, but also with that great taste of a long fermented yeast dough that permeates every bit of the silky soft crumb. Very similar to a croissant or danish dough, just better...by a long shot!

Procedure: Place all ingredients except butter in the mixing bowl and mix on 1st speed until all the ingredients are incorporated. Mix on 2nd speed for 8-9 minutes until the dough is strong and resistant

to the touch. Take the cold butter and beat it flat with a rolling pin until it's pliable and add in chunks

continuosly until all of it has been absorbed. This will take some time depending on your mixer. I

found that I had to work the dough by hand on the counter for about 5 minutes using the slap and

fold technique until the dough was developed enough that it would 'sheet'. To test for sheeting you

should be able to gradually stretch a small piece of dough out very thinly until it's almost transparent.

Let stand, covered at room temp for 1 hr then fold the dough, recover, and refrigerate overnight, degassing 2-3 times over the next several hours. The next day the dough is ready to use as a traditional brioche dough or for doing the roll-in and folds for feuillete.

To make brioche feuillete: Add cold pliable butter and flour to mixer fitted with the paddle and mix on 1st speed for 3-4 minutes , then on 2nd speed until all the flour is incorporated. Shape into a square or rectangle (depending on what lamination method will be used) and chill to the same temp as the brioche dough in the refrigerator. Roll the butter in using preferred lamination method and give a

total of 3x3 folds plus 1x4 fold, resting the dough for 30 minutes in refrigerator between each fold.

The dough is ready to use at this point.

Note: For a more thorough description of the lamination method see ananda's blog

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16082/laminated-yeasted-dough-construction

Pate Brioche Feuillete is not exactly health food but it is good for the soul , being one of those special occasion additions to a baker's repertoire that can be useful to have come Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year.

All the best,

Franko

 8:30 AM - a full hall to listen to Ciril Hitz talk about laminated pastries and brioche.

Even the professional's heads were reeling with the amount of information Mr. Hitz can pack into a lecture.  We were given a CD with links to Youtube instead of the traditional paper sheets.  There was just that much material...

There were, however, some points that were both useful to home bakers and quite memorable.  Mr. Hitz spent some time talking about mixers for making bread dough in general and sweet doughs in particular.  He is a big proponent of the professional needing both a spiral and a planetary mixer.  He described the action of the spiral mixer as a trip to the massage parlor (it's Las Vegas...) - your back is rubbed with long strokes and eventually feels just right - the muscles have been worked.  A planetary mixer, he opined, was more like a bar brawl.  One person throws the other against a wall and eventually the muscles are worked, but in a much more violent way.  I've never quite heard it put that way before.  It will take some time for me to get that image out of my head.

Continuing on he said that the most important thing to evaluate when choosing a planetary mixer is the tolerance between the dough hook and the bowl.  If it is tight, the dough will pick up well and mix cleanly.  If it is loose, the dough will ball on the hook and make trouble.  This is certainly something I have seen with my faithful KitchenAid (which will soon be supplemented with a spiral) where the hook clears the bowl by several inches.  But the spiral really is a "one trick pony" - it exists to mix dough.  It does not cream or whip, so for someone working pastries, the planetary mixer will still be required.  For home baking, Mr. Hitz likes the Viking (now, don't everyone rush out to buy it - although independently I have heard good reviews on this mixer) he feels that with it he can develop dough 25% faster than with a KitchenAid.

He also weighed in on the great fresh vs. instant yeast debate  For all of his baking, especially at Johnson and Wales, he has transitioned all of his formulas to instant yeast.  He claims that he can find no degradation in the finished product.  He uses a conversion factor of .4 for fresh to instant rather than the more traditional .33 (and I am still too sensitive on the subject to report what he said about yeast and salt during mixing.)  Please, let's not open that debate, I just thought it would be interesting to report this, because he is a picky man with strong opinions.

He also describes osmotolerant yeast as "the way to go" for any sweet doughs.  He feels it lasts up to six months in the refrigerator (hardly "forever") once the package is opened. 

As he was showing us pictures of over fermented pre ferments, someone asked about making use of those.  The distinguished bakers who gave us the lectures on pre ferments had indicated that they could be used - with some product degradation - at a lesser percentage of the total flour.  Mr Hitz expressed agreement, (especially about the product degradation) but told us that when his students allow the pre ferment to get over ripe, he makes them use all of it because next time they will pay better attention to what they are doing.

I write 'em like I hear 'em.

A class with Mr. Hitz is not really a logical linear progression.  It is a kind of Mr. Toad's Wld Ride - high energy with bits of learning on the way.  So we are now reduced to some great quips and quotes.

On proper gluten development: "There is nothing that beats time and controlling dough temperature in a proper development."

On butter: "I cannot emphasize enough that the butter used in lamination must be at least 83% fat content."  Any other butter must have a drying agent (flour) added to avoid it cracking apart in the lamination process.

And my favorite: "My theory is, if you don't have a sheeter - don't laminate." (Ok, no throwing of hard objects - he was talking to a group of primarily professional bakers - and for professional bakers he has a point. Did I mention he is opinionated?)

He also passed on a tip he had gotten from Peter Yuen (if you don't know who he is, type the name into your favorite search engine) which was to drill a 1/8inch or so hole in the bottom of brioche tins so that the steam could dissipate and the bottoms bake evenly and flat.

And so much more.

Mr. Hitz is currently in the thrall of blast chillers (for some good reasons) and the question and answer period had spun itself out to a discussion of the best way to use these marvels.  So I had a more important destination - the competition area for the LeSaffre Cup.

I neglected to mention the teams that competed yesterday.  Once again, very beautiful breads.  Peru had a fabulous decorative piece of a working pendulum held aloft on framework of bread.  Very nice.

The ceremony to declare the teams who would compete at La Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie had a familiar air.  Folks went on and on in three languages (too bad for Brazil, eh?) thanking everyone who was even remotely connected with the competition.  There was of course the City of Las Vegas, the Bread Baker's Guild of America, many individuals, the artisan baking community in general...Oh, you want the results?

Teams would be chosen for South America and for North/Central America.  There would be a challenger team and the team that would actually compete in Paris.

For South America:

Challenger Team - Brazil (thought they might regret that bland decorative piece)

Winner - Peru  (and the crowd goes nuts!)

For North/Central America

Challenger Team - Costa Rica

Posted on www.evilshenanigans.com on 11/25/2009 here

Ready for something a tad more advanced?  It takes time to make, but it is SO worth it.

I fell in love with croissant making a few semesters ago in my Laminated Dough class.  Bread making is among my favorite things to do in the kitchen, but making laminated doughs (doughs with butter sandwiched between the layers) tops that.  It takes time to make laminated dough and the process has taught me a lot about being patient in the kitchen.  Some things can't be rushed.

Making croissants at home is not a hard thing to do.  Yes, it will seem intimidating the first time when you see all the steps all at once, but  it is really just three stages, which makes the whole process less intimidating for me.

Stage 1 - Mixing the dough and making the butter block

Stage 2 - Marrying the butter with the dough and doing your three turns (folding the dough into thirds, like a letter, and turning 90 degrees)

Stage 3 - Make-up and baking

A few things to note:

I proof these croissants in the refrigerator overnight then allow them to set, at room temperature, for an hour before baking. The long, cold proof gives the dough more flavor and allows the butter to chill completely before the final proof at room temperature.

The oven gets a spritz of water from a spray bottle before the croissants go in, and another when I put them in the oven.  The steam helps the croissants get nice and big.  You want that.

Give yourself two or three days to make these.  If I do not have a full day to make the dough and do the turns, about 6 hours for stage one and two,  I make the dough and make the butter block the first day, do the turns and make up the croissants the second and bake the third.

Cook the croissants until they are well past golden brown. The edges should be quite dark and the tops a robust brown color.  This does two things, it gives the croissants more flavor and it ensures they are done all the way through.

Once made up into croissants you can freeze the dough and store it for as long as two months.  Just put the frozen croissants in the refrigerator overnight to defrost and let stand for an hour and a half before baking.

This dough can also be used for some pretty awesome danish!

Roll your sleeves up, get out your butter and remember, no fear!  You CAN do this!!

Butter Croissants   Yield 5 pounds of dough (about 48 croissants)
Adapted from Professional Baking, 4th Edition by Wayne Glisslen

For the pre-ferment:
7 ounces water, warmed to 110F
1/2 ounce dry active yeast
5 ounces bread flour

For the dough:
2.5 ounces sugar
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces whole milk
1 1/2 ounces water
2 pounds bread flour

For the butter block:
1 pound 4 ounces butter (I use salted for croissants, but unsalted is also good)

Egg wash:
1 egg
1 tablespoon cream
2 teaspoons water

Begin by preparing the pre-ferment.  In the bowl of a mixer, or in a large bowl, mix the water, yeast, and bread flour.  Mix until it forms a very wet dough.  Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.

While the pre-ferment sits prepare the butter block.

Between two sheets of parchment paper arrange 5 sticks of cold butter into a rough square.  Using a rolling pin press and pound the butter until it forms a rectangle about 1/4″ thick.  Place this in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Once the pre-ferment is rested add the ingredients for the dough and mix on low speed for three minutes.  Increase the speed to medium for two minutes.  You do not want to form gluten, you are just trying to form a rough ball of dough.  Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead lightly until it forms a relatively smooth ball.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover until it is double in bulk, about 50 minutes.  Turn the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and, using the palm of your hand, press out the air bubbles.  Form another ball and return to the bowl.  Refrigerate for an hour.

Once the dough has rested for an hour remove it and the butter block from the refrigerator.  Turn the dough out on a a lightly floured surface and press out the air.  Using a rolling pin form a large rectangle roughly  12″ x 24″.

Take the butter block still wrapped in parchment and see if it covers 2/3 of the rolled out dough.  If it is too small roll it out until it fits, leaving a 1/2″ border around the edges.  You can use your fingers to spread the butter if needed, just make sure that the butter does not develop any holes.

Fold the dough with out butter over the center of the dough.  Fold the buttered side in.   At this point check to see of the butter is getting soft.  You want the butter cool and firm, but if it is starting to melt let the dough chill, covered, for twenty minutes before you make the first turn. ( If you work quickly you can incorporate the butter and do your first turn before you have to chill.  Your first time you may not be able to.  That is completely ok.)

Turn the dough 90 degrees, or with the long seam facing horizontal to you.  Dust the board and the dough well with flour and roll out the dough into a rectangle that is about 12″ by 20″.  Dust all the flour from the dough and fold one third of the dough in.  Dust the top of the dough again to remove any flour and then fold the other third over the top.  Wrap the dough in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for an hour.

Repeat this process two more times.

Once you have completed three turns, and the dough has rested for an hour, you are ready to roll out and make up your croissants.

Divide the dough in half.  Wrap the half you are not using and return to the refrigerator.

On a well floured surface roll out the dough until it is about 1/8″ thick.  You may need to let the dough rest during this process if it starts to spring back.  If so, cover with plastic and return to the refrigerator for ten minutes.  Once rolled out cut the dough in half lengthwise with a pizza cutter.  Now, holding your cutter at an angle cut triangles from the strips of dough that are about 4″ wide at the base.  Cut one strip at a time.

Working with a few triangles at a time, chilling the rest, stretch the dough gently at the base until it is about 5″ to 6″ wide, then stretch the dough lengthwise so it forms a long triangle.  Working from the base, roll the dough onto itself, stopping to stretch the unrolled dough half way through.  Place the dough with the point on the bottom and tuck the edges in to form a crescent shape.  Place on a parchment lined sheet pan.

Cover with plastic and chill for at least 4 hours, but overnight is best.

Heat the oven to 400 F, prepare the egg wash, and fill a spray bottle with water.  Set the dough out to proof for an hour at room temperature while the oven heats.

When you are ready to bake spritz the inside of the oven with water.  Close the door and wait thirty seconds.  Brush the croissants with egg wash, then put the pan in the oven and spritz again and quickly close the door.

Bake for 18 to 22 minutes for medium sized croissants, or until the tops are very brown and they sound hollow when tapped on the side.  Rest on the pan for five minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool slightly.

Serve warm.