Hi all.

I'm getting ready to make a Rosemary Olive Sourdough and I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle the Rosemary part. I bought a small plant for the windowsill and would love to use it fresh, but there's a chance I will end up making these 12 loaves at a time, and I don't think the plant would give me enough. Will dried Rosemary give me the same results? What's the best way to incorporate the dried herb? Do I need to rehydrate it somehow first?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Stephan

Hi

A while back I baked a raisin and rosemary loaf and it came out quite well, and the flavour was quite excellent. I have only been baking for a year now and from that year I have gather one opinion. I have still lots to learn.

So I am going back to basics. Just have one simple recipe and tweak that recipe to learn all the ins and outs of getting a decent loaf of bread. Don't get me wrong I will be baking with different recipes that I find here on fresh loaf and in Various books. My major aim though is to stick with one basic recipe and learn all the ins and outs. What temperature to bake at, when to add the salt, what temperature the water must be, how long to proof the loaf, what will happen if I have a high hydration loaf, etc

This is all in aid for me to learn and know when and where certain elements will happen. So that it will be less hit and miss if it going to be a good loaf and be more certain that a loaf will come out how it should.

The basic recipe I will be following is the same one from the lesson found on this website [LINK]

3 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of yeast

2 teaspoons of salt

1 1/8 cup water

In the loaf I will be showing today I have added about 1/4 cup of raisin and 2 Tablespoons of rosemary. I just love the combination of these two ingredients.

So now for some pictures:

As always start with the recipe:

Then the required utensils and ingredients [I do all my bread baking by hand as I do not have a mixer of yet]

Add the Yeast to the warm water to activate 

Add the flour, at this point I have held back the salt and let the flour and water and yeast sit for about 10min to Autolyse

I then add the salt and then Knead for 10 - 15 min, I then leave the dough to rest for about 15 min

While the dough is resting I cut up the fresh rosemary to be added to the dough

I then add the raisins and rosemary and knead for another 5min. I then tighten up my boule and let proof for about 45min. I then fold the dough and least proof for another 30min

After it has proofed, I then punch down and reshape into the final boule shape. 

I preheat my oven to 230c and place in my pizza stone to heat up as well. I also place an old roasting dish to water up at the bottom of the oven.

Once the loaf has been proofing for about an hour, I place the boule onto the pizza stone and slice in a cross. As I place boule in the oven I reduce the heat to 200c and though some ice blocks in the heated roasting dish to create steam.

I bake the loaf for about 15min then turn the loaf and back for a further 10 - 15min. 

and here is the end result:

and crumb

I am quite happy with how the loaf came out, the crust was nice and crispy and the flavour was good. I think the crumb is still a bit dense and spongy. This might be due to the salt being added later. Aslo it looks like it "blew out on one side, I am not sure why this happen, maybe my slicing was not up to par.

Next I will try this recipe without the raisin and rosemary and try it with out the autolysis and a different slicing pattern and see what will happen. Hopefully this will rectify some of the issues that I have had.

Please let me know what you think or if I must try something out at different stages of my bake.

Thanks

Please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes, it is not my strongest strength.

I have also submitted this post to YeastSpotting : http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/

I got a call that there's a discount on one kitchen item that I've been eyeing for like 3 years.  After lunch, I quickly hop over to the store,  the buy is not only a discount but also a free meat grinder,  well,  I wanted the pasta maker.  The sales girl promised that there will be a free surprise gadget in the pack,  and ok,  fine, we decided to buy it.  Well,  the surprise was not there and the sales girl decided to give us a the pasta maker for free!,  I was exhilarated.  

Lugging the big item back home, my son had to help me carry it home.   I couldn't wait to try.  But it was already evening,  too late for a quick bake.  I decided to work Daniel Leader's Local Breads,  usually turns out really really well.  And,  my son requested for Rosemary Bread.  Leader's Local Breads contains a lot of recipes that uses herbs,  simply love it,  and uses biga that somehow,  makes it easy for the bread to work with and it usually turns out excellent.

Rosemary Filone (Daniel Leader's Local Breads)

1.  Took the biga out from the fridge, put into the mixer bowl.  add in water,  and used the stirrer to cut up in chunks.

2.  Add in all Ingredients, all dry first then, followed by wet.

3.  Mix for 10 mins using no. 3 ( I initially used 4 and the whole machine was jumping like crazy, I was afraid that it'll jump off the counter.)  In the meantime,  I was able to do some cleaning up.

4.  After 10 mins, the gluten was developed very well,  I was able to get my window pane dough.  And the dough was warm from the mixing.  Remove from the bowl.

5.  Round the dough and leave in the container for 1st proof.

6.  1 hour 15 mins.  the dough doubled.   

7.  Split dough by half,  fold and leave for 15 mins.

8.  Shape into loaf and leave in basket to proof for another 1 hour.

9.  Meanwhile,  heat oven at 210 degree celsius.

10. Score dough, bake for 40 minutes with steam.  (this bread is stated as no steam required, but I prefer the crust to be crispy and light)

Rosemary Filone:  The dough doubled in the oven,  and the rosemary smell wafted through the oven as it was baking. This bread is so soft and the crumbs were so well stretched.

 

Ricotta Bread - Pane Alla Ricotta(Daniel Leader's Local Breads)

Since I had my machine and flour all out,  I decided to make another bread at the same time. I had a box of Ricotta that I bought,  but not sure how to use it other and there in front of me, just a few pages down,  Ricotta Bread.  I just have to try it.

1.  Same method,  dry ingredients first then followed by cheese and butter, then water and milk.

2.  Mix for 10 mins at No. 3.

3.  Dough was mixed well. Window Pane achieved again.

4.  Let proof for 1 hour 30 mins.

5.  Cut 2/3 and 1/3.  Fold and leave for 15 mins.

6.  Round the 2/3 dough and 1/3 into loaf.  Leave to proof for 1 hour 30 mins.

7.  Score dough,  bake bread for 30 mins, with steam.  

This time,  the loaves tripled.  The milk and ricotta seems to make the dough much lighter than other breads,  and with the steam,  the bread just bloomed.  This is the first bread that I see spread, bloomed,  just indescribable.

I am totally happy with this new machine that I bought.  Totally satisfied,  as I usually don't get consistent mix.  And now,  with only 10 mins,  and the dough is so well mixed,  gluten fully developed. 

Like a number of other Bay Area bakers on TFL, Della Fattoria is one of my favorite bakeries.  I have always loved their Rosemary Meyer Lemon bread, although it can be hard to get from this small local operation. Inspired by onceuponamac on this post http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23378/rosemary-meyer-lemon-80-hydration, I tried my hand at making something that approaches their bread.  Of course, without a WFO it can never be the same, but this bake came out pretty good.

I used a fairly high percentage (almost 30%) starter, and mixed it with predominently T85 flour from Central Milling and a small amount of light rye.  It is 76% hydration (including the starter), and it got a fairly dark bake.  Here is a photo of the finished loaf and the formula.  Next time I will probably double the rosemary.

-Brad

Crumb:

Recipe:

Rosemary Meyer Lemon with 80% hydration - thanks to Della Fattoria in Petaluma for the inspiration.  6 hour bulk ferment 12 hour proof.

     Hello, everyone.  I'm Teketeke's son (Akiko), and this is my first time baking bread. I made rosemary bread.  This took me about 2 1/2 hours. Oops, one of my loaves didn't de-gas much. This recipe was from the Food Network.

 It tasted great, I loved it, but I had to add a lot of water though because the dough was tough.

                                                                                        Ingredients

                                                                          1/4 ounces of active dry yeast (I used 6g of active dry yeast)

                                                                         2 teaspoons of sugar

                                                                          2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil+ some more for brushing and serving

                                                                          2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

                                                                          2 tablespoons of dried rosemary

                                                                          1 teaspoon of fine salt

                                                                          1/2 teaspoons of kosher

                                                                          one gram of freshly ground pepper 

                                                                                   Method

                                             1.) Stir the yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup of warm water in a large bowl. Let it sit foamy, about 5 minutes.

                                             2.)Add 1 table spoon of olive oil, the flour, 1 ½ tablespoons of rosemary, the fine salt, and ¾ cup warm water, then stir until a dough forms

                                             3.) Put the dough on lightly floured surface and kneed adding water and flour if necessary, until smooth and elastic

                                             4.) Brush a large bowl with olive oil. Add the dough, cover bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand in room temperature until the dough rises 3 times its original height.

                                             5.) Brush 2 baking sheets with olive oil. Add the dough and spilt into 4 equal pieces. Shape each piece like a sphere. Then let the dough rise again until 2 times its size.

                                             6.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While waiting brush olive oil on the surface of the dough, then sprinkle with the kosher salt and ½ tablespoons of rosemary. Then bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Transfer the loaves to a rack to cool. Serve olive oil and the pepper.

                                                                    Enjoy!

Best wishes,

Hajime

Hi everyone -

I've been lurking here and there, maybe with one or two posts, always AMAZED by what I see! I'm very new to breadbaking, but I find it pretty addictive.

I stirred some fresh rosemary into the Lahey no-knead basic recipe. It looks and smells delicious, but I'm suspecting that there will be no rosemary flavor. Is there a suggestion on how to infuse more taste into the recipe? Is there a way to use rosemary-infused oil?

Thank you!

I saw Floyd's posting on this recipe.  Wanted to try out.  I also saw some seeded recipes,  and wanted to add in the seeds. I need some advice here,  as the the bread turned out a little dense - see the crumb below.

Ingredients:

I have a problem. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right?

So here I am, 7 weeks after giving birth to a wonderful baby boy...and I have 12 loaves of bread in various stages of becoming tasty, crusty goodness.

I am not a professional. I do not have one of those nice ovens that will fit all this bread. I have no couche for the insanely wet rosemary potato bread other than the piece of thin natural linen that I picked up at the fabric store for half off. I have to bake loaves 3 at a time, part of the time on a half sheet pan, so that they all get done at the right times.

The smell wafting through my house, though...heaven. Really. The smell of bread baking makes up for the hours of hard work I've put in over the last 24 hours.

Really, the hardest part was making the dough last night. My husband works second shift, meaning he's gone from about 2:30 until about midnight, so during the time I was mixing up doughs I had both kids to take care of, some laundry to do, dishes to keep up with, and dinner to make for Rinoa and I. Not only did I get everything done, but I figured I'd have time to do not only the baked potato and rosemary potato breads that I planned to take to Christmas as gifts, but also a loaf or two of real gingerbread to have with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

I think I've renewed my confidence in my ability to successfully multitask. I quit baking while I was pregnant because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to spend enough time with my daughter after having the new baby and that she'd be forever scarred by my inability to play with her constantly. I can't believe I thought that now, but pregnancy does strange things to you. I now know that I can do my baking, which is something I do for myself as much as to provide my family with the best food possible, and still not neglect my family.

I have to admit that this crazy baking spree was most likely not the best way to reacquiant myself with my rational mind.

I'll share pictures when I'm done. Just thought I'd share my brain today. :)