pullman

Today was the final stretch before heading to the in-laws for Christmas. I spent pretty much the whole day in the kitchen, minus a trip to the grocery store. The takeaway:

First, this was week 3 of the Inside the Jewish Bakery challenge. I haven't actually gotten to taste the results, so my comments are limited. I did a four-high braid, and had a little trouble getting the ends to stick together. I ended up wetting my fingers and kind of blending it, which seemed to work. There are some shots of the initial braiding and the final rise at the bottom. On top of the two challah loaves, I also did a pullman pan full of PR's pannetone recipe. I used dried strawberriers, dried orange-infused cranberries, and dried sour cherries that I soaked for a day in apple brandy (plus the vanilla and orange extract). For the nuts, I used 5 oz of macadamias and 2 oz of almonds. Finally, another pan of Mohn bars from week one of the ITJB.

My last chocolate experiment was a bit (allright, a large bit) too sweet. This time, I eliminated the extra butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup, and went with 2 oz of bittersweet choc chips and 2 oz of milk choc chips. I added 5 oz of dried cherries and 4 oz of pecans. I also used 100% home-milled flour (mix of hard red and white wheat) and the sourdo.com Russian starter. After an initial 4 hour proof, I shaped and put in a pullman pan. Because my kitchen feels like a meat locker these days, I put the pullman pan in the microwave oven and put two cups boiling water in a sealed plastic container, then stuck it inside as well. It rose for 2 more hours, then I put the pullman pan into a cold oven, set it on 375 degrees F, and baked for 2 hours 15 minutes.

The sweetness is just about perfect for a breakfast/dessert bread. I think I'll add more cherries next time, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it.

You know what's good? Chocolate chip blueberry pancakes with pecans. Don't want to make pancakes every morning? Try this.

I started with PR's BBA basic sourdough recipe, using a milled mixture of 50/50 hard red and hard white wheat with KA New England sourdough starter. I then added the following:

• 5 oz dried blueberries
• 4 oz pecans
• 4 oz milk chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoons softened butter
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (for god's sake, real maple, not that goo in a plastic jug. If you don't have real, use maple extract or leave it out.)

The pictured loaf used 6 oz of chips, which was too much. I've adjusted to 4 oz. I did a stretch and fold every 45 minutes for 3 hours, then left it alone to rise another two hours, then put in the fridge overnight to retard.

The next problem I faced was that I really didn't want chocolate melting into my baking stone. Solution? Pullman pan! After retarding the final dough overnight, I let it warm up for a couple of hours, then shaped it and put it in a 13" x 4.5" x 4.5" pullman pan and let it rise for three hours. It was about 3/4 up the pan, and unlikely to go much higher on its own. I put the lid on the pan and put it into a cold oven, set it to 375 degreesF, and went away for two hours. I pulled the lid back far enough to check the browning, and let it have another 20 minutes. YMMV.

It needs no butter or anything else, and has been our breakfast all week.

Apricot Yeast Water Pullman Loaf

Previously, I posted a short Pullman loaf leavened with Potato Yeast Water (PYW). Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23793/potato-yeast-water-pullman-loaf-shorty

In that post, I concluded that “Although, I found PYW worked well, and made a good loaf, I decided that the making of the levain, and creating another YW seems unjustified just to introduce potato flakes and sugar into a loaf.” In this post, I simplified the process by introducing the sugar and potato flakes in the Final Dough, and used a strong Apricot Yeast Water (AYW) culture as very nearly the total water used in the loaf. The only other water was the approximate 3.8g contained in the unsalted butter used.

The formula above provides the Baker's Percentages of the ingredients, as well as the weight of ingredients actually used for the reduced sized Pullman pan, which only required 482g of dough. The percent hydration level was about 62.2%HL.

A fuller account of the formula, Apricot YW (AYW) 2-stage levain builds, method, and observations can also be found in a PDF of my baking log at this link:

D-b_110529_Apricot YW Pullman 482g_[Photos]_110602-1635 .pdf - https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_MScoZfDZkwMWFjMWNiMzktYjNjMy00MzU1LTkxNjQtOTAyZjM5ODQzMThm&hl=en_US

Actually, a 3-Build Levain had been planned, but in a hectic kitchen moment, I started the Final Dough with only the first two levain builds. Fortunately, I caught my error in time to simply add the remaining 100g of AYW and 100g of AP flour into the Final Dough mix and all worked well.

The short Pullman loaf measured (5-5/8” x 4” x 4”)/(14.3 cm x 10.2 cm) and the 482g batch size managed to fill the pan with a 9 hour rise at 82ºF ( 27.8º C) . For additional details, see the notes in the above mentioned PDF.

The crumb texture was soft, but firm, moist and quite flavorful, with a very pleasant fragrance, however, there was no discernible taste of apricot that I could detect.

It worked very well as both a sandwich bread and for excellent toast.

It has survived three and one half days, as of this writing (I had a loaf in front of it to eat, too). I just had another sandwich made from it and it seems as moist and fresh as it did when first cut. The flavor enhancement resulting from the Apricot YW, rather than just the Potato YW used in some previous loaves, is a fine improvement of the formula. I do think, however, that I will do the Build-#3 as a levain build on the next loaf, rather than mixing the 100g of AYW and AP flour in the final dough. On the other hand, this accident demonstrated that a great loaf can be made this way, as well.

Ron

Potato Yeast Water Pullman Loaf

Long before I had every heard the name 'Yeast Water', I actually had made a culture and had maintained it for months. In fact, I used a 1/4 tsp of the Potato Yeast Water (PYW) to jump-start my first Apple Yeast Water (AYW) culture. Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20693/culturing-growing-and-baking-range-wild-yeasts#comment-143857

I had come across a YouTube video called a 'Potato Sourdough Starter' and I was curious. I grew it, but never tried the loaf that was given in the same series of videos, they simply had too much sugar for me to even want to try. Link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tnjeffofalltrades#p/search/5/XkZ-q6P-ioA

Months later, after becoming involved with other Yeast Water (YW) I dumped the PYW for need of space and lack of usefulness. But, a little while back I thought I would close the loop and use AYW to jump-start and small test culture of PYW.

At this same time, I wanted to do a test loaf in my crazy attempt to make a Pullman pan shorter. I decided that I could use the excessive sugar called for in the PYW culture as part of a test sandwich loaf. I did just that, and both the Pullman 'Shorty' idea and the loaf work well. Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23622/one-pound-pullman-shorty

When Build-#1 was combined with the ingredients in Build-#2 all the sugar really set off a rapid rise in the levain. The rise was not above normal in the final dough. That seemed to confirm that it had to be the sugar that made the rapid growth. I further confirmed later,  in a second loaf, that was pure PYW –which also confirmed the AYW from the jump-start was uninvolved, as well.

The Potato Yeast Water 'Shorty' Pullman (5-5/8” x 4” x 4”)/(14.3 cm x 10.2 cm) made a pretty little loaf.

The softness of the bread can clearly be seen in the bending of the 2 slices against the balance of the loaf.

The crumb had a taste that was pleasant, moist, and with no trace of either sour or potato. It had a very good shelf life extending over the limited 'test period' of a bit over 3 days. As a toast, it was above average.

Although, I found PYW worked well, and made a good loaf, I decided that the making of the levain, and creating another YW seems unjustified just to introduce potato flakes and sugar into a loaf. Yesterday I tested an alternative made with Apricot YW that was, at least equal – if not better, in qualities and certainly simpler in the levain builds. But that is for another posting.

Additional information can be found in the form of loaf-log in PDF format on Google Docs. Link:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_MScoZfDZkwYTUwYzBlMTgtM2UwNC00Nzc1LTkyZjctNmZmN2JkODA2ZjU0&hl=en_US

Ron

One Pound Pullman Shorty

A one pound loaf is just right for me. I can comfortably go through two loaves a week, without getting too overweight...

I use an Alum-7½ (7.500” x 3.750” x 2.250”) bread pan, which converts 478g of my test doughs into loaves of about 1 pound. Those pan-breads allow me to make reasonable comparisons later based on photographs and my data logs. This has worked well for my purposes, but what happens when the loaf pan itself is what I want to compare?

That was my problem when txfarmer's posting got me interested in her Sourdough Pan de Mie – Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20669/sourdough-pan-de-mie-how-make-quotshreddablyquot-soft-bread

Then there where all those other formulae that best fit the Pullman pan form factor, Even the shorter 9” pan requires a much larger dough than the 478g that most of my testing has been based upon.

A possible solution occurred to me when reading txfarmer's Kasutera (Castella) cake posting – Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/22860/kasutera-castella-cake-thinking-japan

In that posting, she mentions what to do if you wanted to make a wooden pan for the cake. She includes how to treat the wood before you baked using it.

I measured the cross-section of my most recent loaf that had been made in my A7½ pan. With that, I could calculate the volume. It came to about 90 cubic inches, or 1475 cubic cm. Armed with that information, it was easy enough to determine that the Pullman's approximate 4” x 4” cross-section would need to be 5.625” long for an equal 1475 cc of volume.

I made a paper pattern of the Pullman's cross-section and transferred it to a piece of picture matting material and used that to make my cutting lines on 2, 1-1/2” pieces of yellow pine and 1, 3/8” piece of solid teak. And then cut the pieces out and sanded them for a better corner fit. I let the thin teak piece remain slightly higher than the other 2 pieces. I wanted the lid to press against it so as to hold the wooden spacer firmly at the unused end of the Pullman during the final rise and baking.

Following txfarmer's posted instructions, I soaked the new blocks under water overnight, towel-dried them the next day, and then baked them at 350ºF ( 177º C) and went longer than the 30 minutes, giving them a full 45 minutes and then let them cool in the oven on the still warm oven stones. There was a strong pine smell during the baking and for some time after that.

My test bake was of 478g of dough in a preheated oven on oven stones without steam for 45 minutes at a temperature of 350ºF ( 177º C) and removed the loaf from the Pullman as soon as it was taken from the oven.

There was no smell of wood during the baking and nothing unusual in the taste of the finished loaf. Everything worked as well as I could ever have hoped for.

The resulting loaf can be seen with the light colored end piece being where it was pressing the parchment paper I had wrapped around the thin teak block. The 3 wooden blocks are shown as they were positioned during the baking – only the parchment paper was removed with the loaf.

I labeled the items in this photo, which has the parchment paper still wrapped around the teak block. Notice the wrinkles in the parchment paper were transferred into the end crust of the 1 pound loaf. The actual ending weight of the original 478g dough was 440g while still hot.

I am well pleased with the method of reducing a Pullman's baked loaf to suit the user's desires.

Ron

This weekend I finally made a loaf of vollkornbrot, which I'd been planning to do for some time.  It was a lot of fun, and let me try several things that I had not done before:

• I used the formula from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, which includes preparing a mash on the first day.  A mash is a thin paste of flour or whole grains and water, kept at 150 for several hours.  The goal of this is to produce what I think can best be described as enzyme craziness.
• I've been on a rye kick lately (rye sourdoughs are currently my favorite type of bread), but had not tried anything more than around 2/3 rye.  While a 2/3 rye dough is a lot different than a wheat dough, the vollkornbrot dough was much different than either of them.
• I bought a grain mill around a month ago, and while I've been very happy with it, I've been using it almost exclusively to produce finely-ground wheat flour.  I'd been holding off using it for rye, as I still have a fair amount of store-bought rye flour to use up.  However, the vollkornbrot recipe calls for coarsely-ground rye, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to break out the rye berries I bought.  For the mash, I actually produced what I would classify as cracked rye (the recipe calls for rye chops), sifting out the smaller pieces to use as part of the flour for the starter.

On Day 2, I combined the above ingredients along with a good deal more rye flour and a few other items (including, somewhat surprisingly to me, sunflower seeds).  On a whim, I used a medium-coarse grind on this additional flour as well.  Reinhart lists molasses and cocoa powder as additional optional ingredients, but I decided to leave them out in this batch.  After mixing the final dough, I let it proof - the rise was pretty limited, as one might expect, but it was noticeable.  Reinhart's instructions have this bread being cooked in an open pan, but based on my reading, I wanted to try it with a lid.  However, I do not have a Pullman pan and have sworn off buying any additional kitchen accessories for at least two months.  Instead, I used the oft-recommended trick of covering the pan with a baking sheet (weighed down with a cast iron skillet) to roughly approximately a lidded pan.

After around two hours of baking (including rotating the loaf after the first hour so that it cooked more evenly), I pulled the below item out of the oven.  I was a little bit disappointed with its appearance, as the flour that I can carefully sprinkled inside the pan and on the top of the loaf had mostly disappeared and there were not as many cracks as I was expecting.

The hardest part of the process was still to come:  waiting until Day 3 to sample the loaf.  Fortunately, that was today.  I'd wrapped the loaf in a towel after it cooled yesterday, and when I took it out this evening, it smelled terrific.  Cutting through that crust was a bit of a challenge (as expected), but once I made it through, the crumb was quite soft with a very unique texture.  Reinhart says that using a mash gives the crumb a creamy texture, and while I didn't really know what that meant before trying this bread, I have to say that "creamy" is probably the word for it.  The taste was very complex - it didn't have much of a rye flavor, but I could detect the sourness from the starter, the sweetness from the mash, a hint of the taste of the sunflower seeds, and many other factors that I can't quite place.  For the first time I can remember, I wish that a loaf I made had more crumb and less crust.  I will also be interested to see how the flavors continue to develop over the next several days.  I've included a photo of the crumb below.

Overall, this was a very satisfying bake for me.  I love trying new ingredients and techniques, and when they actually produce something this tasty, it's even better!  I will definitely be baking more vollkornbrot in the future, although I think I may first try a few of the lighter recipes I've been neglecting.  I also plan to save some of this loaf to provide altus, perhaps for Reinhart's Bavarian Pumpernickel recipe.  In addition, I'm now more interested than ever in trying my mill out on different grains and coarser grinds.  So many breads, so little time...