rye

I have done a lot of scattered baking the past two months. These are pics of most of it. OK, so only one loaf was actually bad. That was the one where I thought I forgot to add the salt to the evening mix, so I added it the next morning. That was one of Peter Reinhart’s epoxy sandwich loaves. Not only was it too salty, but as you can guess it also didn’t rise very well. It still had a very nicely textured crumb. That loaf went in the freezer for use as breadcrumbs. I just hope I remembered to label it!

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07/29/07 This was a wonderfully flavorful multigrain loaf, based on the NYT/Lahey No Knead Bread. Thanks Cooky for the grains combination! I couldn’t find my cornmeal, so used corn grits instead. I didn’t presoak any of the grains, but with the 18 hour ferment they did fine. I didn’t get well-developed gluten, but for the minimum effort involved, I was happy, and the taste was great.

A few days later, I diced up the remainder and used it for a cheesy bread pudding. Topped with the bacon/tomato/onion flavors of bluezebra’s mulligan stew it made a very nice light supper.

1/3 cup rye flour

1/3 cup steel cut oats

1/3 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup WW flour

1-1/2 cup bread flour

1 Tbsp gluten

1.5 tsp table salt (or 2 tsp kosher salt)

1/4 tsp yeast

1.5 cups water (more?)

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09/27/07 This is the cinnamon oatmeal raisin bread that so many of us know and love. I could have done a better job of mixing the raisins in, but am otherwise very happy with it. I’ll be making this often, freezing it in half-loaf portions. Eventually I hope to have large volume formulas I’m happy with for other breads, so I can keep the freezer stocked with a variety of breads. Yes, three loaves is large volume for me! The Delonghi/Kenwood mixer handled the full recipe just fine.

I subbed in 214 gr sourdough starter for corresponding amounts of flour and water, and added 1 Tbsp. granular lecithin to the dough. Both of these were to enhance the keeping quality. I also took the dough for the third loaf, and made cinnamon rolls from it. They were baked with more butter, sugar and cinnamon, and topped with icing. But I thought the plain bread was better.

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09/15/07 The loaf on the left is Peter Reinhart’s transitional rye sandwich loaf on page 119. I did increase the content of whole wheat flour relative to bread flour just a bit. The loaf on the right is a quickly thrown together NYT/Lahey no-knead rye bread. I wanted to try the King Arthur deli rye flavor, but didn’t want to adulterate the taste of the rye sandwich loaf. I don’t think I quite got the perfect formula for the no-knead! But it was still a good bread.

The taste comparison was interesting. A few hours after the bread was baked, we thought the PR loaf was a bit sweet, and preferred the flavor of the other one. The next day, we noticed more complex flavors in the PR loaf, and preferred it. Next time I may try the PR loaf with the King Arthur flavor enhancer.

The flat no knead rye made a nice hearty sandwich

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08/11/07 I played around a lot with the NYT/Lahey no knead. This one has kalamata olives, parmesan and marjoram. Unfortunately, there was no rosemary in the house. The bread was still good, and eaten with an Italian chicken dish. I also love it for tunafish sandwiches.

The bread additions were decided on rather late in the process, so I spread out the dough, topped with the additions, and rolled it up. I then did a few folds. This was NOT a good way to get the olives evenly distributed!

The result was a dough that wasn’t developed quite enough. As you can see, it has a lot of puff at the top.

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09/??/07 One of my uses for some leftover starter was some sourdough biscuits. I didn’t get the formula right – and my starter was probably too old to use.

So they weren’t perfect biscuits, but were definitely tasty!

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09/08/07 I think this is the Loaf for Learning from Laurel’s Kitchen. It was a good effort, with a nice soft crumb but my version still has room for improvement. Definitely worth a 2nd try.

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08/20/07 This is the sandwich loaf from Reinhart’s new book, Whole Grain Breads. Too bad about that salt!

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08/09/07 This is my earlier attempt at almost the same loaf. This time I had used JMonkey’s version.

I will try this one more time. Sure hope the third time’s the charm!

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08/30/07 I took a basic NYT/Lahey no-knead, gave it a few extra folds, and tried a sandwich-loaf shape. It didn’t have quite enough structure. You can see it pushed out the rolling pins I used to hold my “couche” in place.

It still made a very tasty loaf, and was good for sandwiches. You can see how it laughed at my slashes! More than likely I won't try this formula like this again - either go with the utter simplicity of the original, or make a bread designed to hold up to shaping. But I had fun finding out if it would work.

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08/06/07 This is about a half recipe of the NYT/Lahey loaf, small enough to fit easily in my toaster oven.

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08/04/07 This is my first whole wheat sourdough. I started following instructions for a mixer far less powerful than mine, and way overkneaded the dough.

I thought I had great ovenspring, but just had these huge baker’s caves (Surely some bakers lived in caves sometime.) Anyway, you’ll find a discussion of much that went wrong HERE.

400 g starter (about 100% - mostly WW with some rye & AP)

480 g WW flour

420 g water

1.25 teaspoons table salt

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Well, that’s all the pics. We also had pizza a few times, but I always forgot to snap a photo. Some of the breads were also consumed without benefit of camera. ;~) Extra starter went into cornbread and a few batches of waffles. The cornbread tasted about the same as normal. I don’t know how the waffles compared, because I hadn’t made them in years! The desire to use extra starter triggered all sorts of things. I may do pancakes next weekend.

I’ve had a very chaotic summer, and baked way more than we need to eat. Yes, we gave some away, but also ate too much. Time for me to get back to doing some things I’ve been ignoring and bake a little less. Both my office and my waistline will appreciate it!

Many many months ago, in Austria far away, a sourdough starter was supplied from a baker, good and qualified. The Austrian starter was dried and traveled to China where part of it mixed and grew nurtured in the presence of Chinese all purpose flour and later with Austrian Rye flour. Sometimes it sat out to grow, sometimes it sat in a refrigerator, one time even froze but it lived long and prospered and provided many a loaf of bread. Then it was dried. This happened at various times in the last few months.

It might be interesting to compare the starter 6 months ago and now, making two identical loaves and see if the SD has changed in flavor. Two very different environments. A change in starter flours and water not to mention treatment. Will they taste the same? Will they rise the same? Have I changed the characteristics of the starter from the original?

First part of experiment requires re-hydration of dried starters, then feed and stabilize, keeping them separate but treating them alike. Then to use in a recipe and do blind taste tests. Mad scientist has her baggies of dried starter ready and they are February dried starter, April, and August, a control has been made using no starter. 10g of each dried starter was placed into a jar and 40g water was added, after 10minutes 15g of rye flour was stirred in. Each is covered with butter paper and just sitting there waiting for action. One interesting observation...April dried starter smells like cream cheese. (it should be noted that this sample was stored in glass for a long time and the others in plastic baggies...hmmmm)

I made this rye-fennel crackerbread from the new Leader book, Local Breads. Easy and good! The recipe is here.

Susanfnp

http://www.wildyeastblog.com

Decided to bake a cake today, along with my weekly rye bread. :)Here is the "Chocolate Double Layer Cake"


And it's Rye Bread day:


And I keep wondering why I've gained 15 lbs. in a year!!! UGH

Luv4Country Soaps
http://www.luv4country.com/catalog

Ulrike (Küchenlatein) will host BBD #03, and she is asking everyone to make a sourdough-leavened bread, preferably rye.

it is my first time baked bread with starter and rye , my bread came out great!

My first starter

756 g rye starter.

2 cups cup dried dates.

2 Tablespoon Anise seeds.

4 cups  white flour.

1 2\3 cups whole wheat flour.

1 2\3 cups rye flour.

2 2\3 cups water.

1 teaspoon salt.

2 Tablespoon olive oil.

1)In the bowl of mixer, mix the flours, dates, Anise seeds, water, and starter until just combined, about one minute.

2)Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes.

3)Add the salt and oil and continue mixing about 4 minutes.

4)Cover and let rise for 1-2 hour.

5)Divide dough into 2 pieces.

6)With lightly floured hands, shape each piece into a rough oval.

7)Cover loaves loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

8)Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes.

zainab 

http://arabicbites.blogspot.com/

Also known as Baguette aux lardons.

This is fabulous bread!  I baked it yesterday from Daniel Leader’s new book, Local Breads.  It is a very easy recipe, absolutely delicious fresh from the oven and today it made incredible toast.  The incorporation of slightly browned bacon and his recommendation to retard the shaped loaves overnight to infuse the dough with more of that great smoky bacon flavor is a winner.

His recipe calls for making four 316g baguettes but for some reason I only ended up with about 1100g total dough so I made 3 roughly 366g baguettes.  The dough was supple and slashed really well which I was concerned about with the bacon.  No problem though.

His method of using floured parchment and then making your own couche worked really well for this.  I was able to fit all three baguettes perfectly on a quarter-sheet restaurant style pan with rolled up dish cloths on each side to keep the loaves from spreading.  You make the troughs for the dough creasing the parchment between each loaf and then tuck the rolled cloths against them and the rim of the sheet pan. 

The next day I removed from the fridge and slid the entire thing onto the counter, took off the plastic wrap and covered with a cotton flour-sack towel.  I let them warm up and finish proofing for about 2 hours and then baked.  Even in my small oven all three loaves fit perfectly on my smaller-than-normal baking stone.  I steamed the oven and baked them about 25 minutes at 450°F and was really happy with the way they rose and actually grew ears.  (chuckle)  That is always welcome and always surprising for my breads, it seems but I’m getting better. 

I have not typed up this recipe yet.  I encourage you all to go buy Daniel Leader’s new book.  This is the first of his two books I have purchased so others are way ahead of me in the knowledge of his great breads and first book.  Mountaindog is lucky enough to live close to his bakery – wow!  That would be a treat.  So far in what I’ve read I’m very impressed with this book although since I use a firm starter I do have a couple thoughts that may differ from what his instructions are only by means of my own experience.  All in all it is a wonderful book and I’m thrilled to have it.  Can’t wait to try more new recipes.

Baguettes aux lardons

Great crisp crust and you can see how the bacon bits on the exterior crisp when baked. (yum)

Crumb was creamy with bacon infused throughout in little bits.  He doesn't show a photo of the crumb so I'm hoping this is how it is supposed to look.  He does have you beat the tar out of the dough and with a mixer it does break down the already small cooked pieces.  I didn't mind. :o)

I have been making some nice bread lately.

My shaping is coming along and I am favoring shapes like ciabatta and just very rustic looking breads and rolls in general.

I go between rye and semolina doughs and am enjoying making Fenu shapes. They look so cool :)

I also decided whilst I was shaping to try shape some into bagguettes......not the best I must say buuuuuuut, still tasted great :)

Here are two batards with varies slashes

My lovely Rustic Rolls that went down a treat with my family

And after an entire day of baking, I think a well earned glass of Cab sav was in order!

I DO LOVE baking bread :)

Thegreenbaker