sweet potato

Lots of baking going on today, in addition to trying out a San Francisco Sourdough recipe from Dave Snyder, pie baking for Thanksgiving was in order.  I found a great Sweet Potato Pie recipe on this site which was submitted by SylviaH.  It's definitely a keeper. 

I also made a pecan pie that's in the oven now--

The San Francisco Sourdough is in its bulk fermentation - I've done one stretch and fold so far and it's looking good.  I hope to bake it tomorrow before the Turkey goes in the oven.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and thank you to Floydm for this wonderful website.

Here on Long Island, New York we have a ever-growing wine country on the East End of the Island.  My wife and I like to go visit a few different wineries and enjoy sampling the different varieties of wine available.  There is nothing more relaxing than to sit down with some good wine, cheese and bread and enjoy the cooler autumn air.

Last weekend we visited a few wineries we like after picking some pumpkins and it inspired me to try to incorporate one of the chardonnay from Mattebella vineyards into my next bake.

I decided to make a variation on my multi-grain soaker bread and also incorporated some roasted sweet potatoes in the mix along with freshly ground spelt flour and soft white wheat flour.

The soaker was made up of rolled oats, bulgur, millet and malted flakes.

I also decided to try being a little stylish with these loaves and used a snow flake cookie cutter to create an interesting effect.  On one loaf I brushed it with an egg white mixed with water and sprinkled on some chia seeds.

AP Starter

227 grams AP Flour

71 grams AP Seed Starter

151 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.  You can either mix in final dough or put in refrigerator for at most 1 day before using.  If your kitchen is warmer than mine which is usually about 70-72 degrees with my air-conditioning you can proceed sooner.

Soaker

70 grams Rolled Oats

50 grams Bulgar Wheat

30 grams Millet

25 grams Malted Wheat Flakes

275 grams Boiling Water

Mix ingredients together in a bowl and cover.  Let rest for 30 minutes or longer until ready to use.

Drain the liquid before mixing in the final dough.  (Note: most of the liquid will get absorbed by the soaker ingredients which will help make this a fairly wet dough)

Main Dough Ingredients

425 grams Refreshed AP Starter (65% hydration) from above

All of the Soaker from above with water drained

50 grams Rye Chops

141 Freshly Ground and Sifted Spelt Flour

50 grams Wheat Germ

225 European Style Flour from KAF (can substitute Bread Flour)

130 grams Freshly Ground Soft Wheat Flour

160 grams Roasted and Mashed Sweet Potatoes

14 grams Sea Salt or Table Salt

268 grams White Wine (I used a Dry Chardonnay)

Procedure

Mix the flours with the wine and starter leaving 50 grams of wine for later in your mixer or by hand for 1 minute.    Let the dough autolyse for one hour in your bowl and make sure to cover it.  Next add in the salt, potatoes and the soaker with the balance of the wind and mix by hand for 2 minutes until everything is well incorporated.  Mix on speed #1 for 2 minutes and speed #2 for 2 minutes or by hand for 5 minutes.

Next take the dough out of the bowl and place it on your work surface.  Do a stretch and fold and rest the dough uncovered for 10 minutes.  After the rest do another stretch and fold and cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Do one more stretch and fold and put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and let it sit at room temperature covered for 2 hours.  After 2 hours you can put the dough into the refrigerator for 24 hours or up to 2 days before baking.  Feel free to do some additional S & F's if you feel it is necessary.  I baked the bread about 24 hours later.

The next day (or when ready to bake) let the dough sit out at room temperature for  2  hours.

Next, form the dough into your desired shape and put them in floured bannetons, bowls or on a baking sheet and let them rise covered for 2 hours or until they pass the poke test.  If you want to make the pattern on top, press your cookie cutter into the dough and place it good side up in a floured basket to rise.  When ready to bake, make an egg wash or use some milk and brush on to the top of the loaf you want to add seeds to.  Sprinkle the seeds on and then proceed to score the loaves as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

Set your oven for 500 degrees F. at least 30 minutes before ready to bake.  When ready to bake place the loaves into your on  your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 450 degrees.   The total baking time was around 45 minutes.  When both loaves are golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. you can remove them from the oven.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an 6 hours or so before eating as desired.

Since there are so many different grains and flours in this bread the wine flavor is not very apparent. The final bread did come out very nice with a nice moist crumb and thick crust.  This is a hearty bread and if you don't like whole grains you will not like this one.  I just ate some for breakfast with some nice Havarti style cheese.

Please feel free to visit my other blog at www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com for all my recipes.

We always seem to have smoked and BBQ ribs for many holidays. This Memorial Day was no exception.  In KCMO where I grew up, the ribs are famous and are always served with Wonder Bread.  I was looking for a different bread when I saw Floyd’s Sweet Potato Rolls in the home page.   I though this might make a great bread to go with ribs.

 Quite unlike my wayward and undisciplined apprentice, I try to stay as close to recipes as I can but, in this case I don’t stock any commercial yeast, so I hope Floyd doesn’t mind that I subbed a SD and YW starter and converted the rolls to a bread - boule style.   I think my apprentice threw in some rye and WWW while I wasn’t looking too!   Other than that, we were true to Floyd’s intentions – pretty much.

 To commemorate Ian’s first home page cover for his Semolina, Toasted Almond Multi-Grain Bread, I used his signature T-Rex slash for this bread and for once it was near perfect – a real first for me.  Ian must finally be rubbing off on me.

 The beauty of this bread is unmistakable.  Sweet taters give this bread a lovely orange cast inside and out.  The color is what drew me to it in Floyd’s post.  I was so glad it didn’t stick to my cheap basket. 

 It also smelled great while baking from the cinnamon and nutmeg light spice in the dough.   My wife was asking what that smell was?  If it’s not Thanksgiving, I guess it is harder to pin down.

 The crust went soft as it cooled and we cannot wait to have it for dinner in about 2 hours.  Crumb shots after that.

 Method

 The levain was built over 3 stages of 4 hours each and the YW and SD were mixed together from the beginning as has been the usual lately.  After 12 hours the levain had more than doubled and into the fridge it went for an overnight stay.

We micro waved two small sweet potato and mashed the with a fork to get the ¾ of C required.

In the morning I mixed everything together in the mixing bowl (including the salt so I don’t forget it), except the levain and let it sit for 30 minutes to autolyse.  Then the levain went in and we mixed it on KA 2 for 6 minutes and the KA 3 for 2 more minutes. The dough was then transferred to a plastic covered, oiled bowl to rest for 15 minutes.

4 sets of  S&F’s were done 15 minutes apart each time on a slightly floured work surface  and then the dough was allowed to rest on an oiled bowl and ferment / develop for an hour. 

After an hour rest, 1 more set of S&F’s were done to help shape the dough into a boule.  The dough was dragged across a non-floured surface to make sure the skin was taught.  It was flipped over and the bottom seam was completely pinched off and sealed.  Then the boule was flipped over and dragged again to stretch the skin tight.   It was placed upside down in a rice floured basket to double in a plastic bag on the counter.  It rose ½” above the top of the basket in 2 ¾ hours and passed the poke test.

After 2 hours the oven was readied by preheating to 500 F with steam and stone in place.  I use 2 of Sylvia’s towel in a baking pan method for steam now.  In 45 minutes the oven was ready.  The boule was un-molded by putting parchment on the top, a peel on top of that and then the whole shebang overturned.

 Into the oven it went and the temperature was turned down to 425 F.  after 15 minutes of steaming the steam was removed and the temperature was turned down to375 Fconvection this time.  The boule was turned every 5 minutes and after a total of 38 minutes it was deemed done.   The bread was not allowed to crisp in the off oven with the door ajar as usual but was immediately moved to a cooling rack since we wanted the crust soft like Wonder Bread.

Note : 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of fresh grated nutmeg are added with autolyse.

I had some leftover sweet potatoes from dinner the other night and after refreshing my starter I decided it was time to concoct something new and different.

I figured I would throw in some dried roasted garlic and what better than maple syrup to go with sweet potatoes. Naturally I had to be different and use some raspberry flavored maple syrup that we had picked up in Vermont a while ago. I love the nutty flavor spelt flour adds to bread along with roasted wheat germ and cracked wheat.

Including the water and syrup the total hydration for this dough is 73% and it definitely a wet style dough. If you are not comfortable working with wet dough you can certainly add some additional flour or decrease the amount of water a bit.

The final bread came out with a wonderful complex nutty flavor. You can taste the toasted garlic for sure, but the raspberry maple syrup is not noticeable at all. It has certainly added to the dark appearance of the bread, but the flavor is hard to notice. The sweet potatoes contribute to the rich flavor and dark color of the bread and were a great addition to the overall formula. The crust is nice and dark and crunchy with a moist and flavorful slightly chewy interior. I had a few slices with some cream cheese for breakfast a few minutes ago and it was very tasty. I'm sure this is going to make great toast and would be ideal for a steak sandwich.

Starter Ingredients

227 grams AP Flour

71 grams Starter (65% Hydration White Starter)

151.5 grams Water

Final Dough Ingredients

425 grams 65% Hydration Starter (All of Starter Above)

230 grams Bread Flour (I used KAF)

200 grams Spelt Flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

70 grams Cracked Wheat

40 grams Roasted Wheat Germ

17 grams Dried Roasted Garlic (you can roast your own garlic and use that instead)

8 grams Raspberry Maple Syrup

160 grams Roasted Sweet Potatoes

400 grams Water (90 degrees F.)

18 grams Seas Salt or Table Salt

Directions

Starter

Prepare the starter the night before and let it sit at room temperature for at least 10 hours. After 10 hours it should be doubled or more in volume. Deflate the starter and put in your refrigerator for up to 2 days or use it immediately.

Final Dough

Take the starter out of the refrigerator and let it warm up for about 20-30 minutes. Break it up into 5-10 pieces and put it in your stand mixer or work bowl. Add the cracked wheat to the water and let it soften for about 5 minutes. Next add the water with the cracked wheat with the starter and mix on low for 30 seconds to break up the starter. Use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to break up the starter. Now add all of the flours, sweet potatoes (mash them slightly before adding), maple syrup and roasted garlic. Mix on low for 2 minutes. Let the dough sit for 15 to 20 minutes.

Next sprinkle the salt over the dough and mix on medium for 4 minutes. The dough will still be fairly wet and loose at this point which is fine. Resist the temptation to add too much additional flour. If the dough is like soup then you should add some more flour until it starts to come together.

Remove the dough to your work surface and using a dough scraper stretch and fold the wet dough for a couple of minutes and form it into a ball. Let it sit uncovered for 15 minutes.

Do another stretch and fold several times and cover the dough with either a moist clean towel or a slightly oil sprayed piece of plastic wrap. Let it sit for another 15 to 20 minutes before you do another stretch and fold. The dough should start to feel more tacky than wet and sticky at this point. Let it rest again for 15 to 20 minutes and do one more stretch and fold. Form the dough into a ball again and place it in a slightly oiled container or bowl and cover it tightly. Let it sit at room temperature for 1.5 hours and then put it in your refrigerator for 24 hours or up to 3 days.

When ready to bake the bread, take it out of the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Now shape the dough as desired on a floured work surface being careful not to handle the dough too roughly so you don't de-gas it

.

Place it in your bowl, banneton or shape into baguettes. I made 2 loaves with this recipe and shaped them into boules.

Let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours covered with oiled plastic wrap or a wet cloth.

Pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 500 degrees F.

Slash loaves as desired and place empty pan in bottom shelf of oven.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into pan and place loaves into oven.

Lower oven to 450 Degrees and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until bread is golden brown and internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. Leave the loaves in your oven with the door cracked for 5 minutes longer with the oven off. After 5 minutes remove them from the oven and place on your cooling rack. Try to resist the temptation to cut into the bread until they have cooled sufficiently.

I am always on the lookout for something new and different to try in a bread recipe.  I was visiting my home town of Massapequa, NY this weekend and stopped by a specialty supermarket to pick up some cookies and came across a bag of chickpea flour.  I have never used this in baking anything before and didn't know exactly what to expect.  I had some left over roasted sweet potatoes from the other night and decided to add some as well as a high percentage of a higher gluten flour to make up for the lack of protein in the chickpea flour.  I did some extra stretch and folds to make up for the higher hydration in this dough and the chickpea flour definitely caused me to add some extra flour to compensate.

The final bread had a nice chewy dark crust and a yellow color with a moist open crumb.  You could taste the nutty flavor of the chickpeas with a mild sourdough tanginess.

Ingredients

15 ounces 65% Hydration Starter AP Flour)  Refreshed

7.5 ounces Roasted Sweet Potatoes Mashed

16.7 ounces Bread Flour (KAF)

4 ounces Chickpea Flour

3 ounces White Rye Flour (KAF)

14 ounces Luke warm water, 90 - 95 degrees Fahrenheit

2 1/2 Teaspoons Sea Salt

Directions

Using your stand mixer or by hand, mix the water with the starter to break up the starter.

Add the flours and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes.  Let rest for 10 minutes.

Add the salt and mix for 4 minutes more on medium speed, adding more flour if necessary to produce a slightly sticky ball of dough.

Remove dough to your lightly floured work surface and do a stretch and fold and form into a ball.

Leave uncovered for 20 minutes.

Do a stretch and fold and form into a ball again and cover with a clean moist cloth or oiled plastic wrap.

Do at least 3 more additional stretch and folds letting the dough rest for 15-20 minutes each time. After the last stretch and fold, put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl that has enough room so the dough can double overnight.

Put in your refrigerator immediately for at least 12 hours or up to 3 days.

On the day you are ready to bake, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it rest at room temperature for 2 hours.  After 2 hours shape the dough as desired being careful not to handle the dough too roughly so you don't de-gas it.

Place it in your bowl, banneton or shape into baguettes.

Let the formed loaves sit at room temperature for 2 hours covered with oiled plastic wrap or a wet cloth.

Pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 500 degrees F.

Slash loaves as desired and place empty pan in bottom shelf of oven.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into pan and place loaves into oven.

Lower oven to 450 Degrees and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until bread is golden brown and internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.

Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy!

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/.

A little help from my friend Cosmo...

In North America, sweet potatoes or yams are traditionally harvested and eaten in the fall of the year.  Sweet potatoes are root vegetables and, although they look very much like regular potatoes, have certain qualities that make them ideal for bread. They are sweet of course, hence the name. More importantly, they are orange in color something that adds a wonderful, delicate shade to the bread.

They are to be found everywhere in the world in many shapes and sizes. In Israel we have a member of this family, locally called batata, (stress on the second syllable) an Arabic word for potato.  It is both similar in texture and bright orange just like the North American sweet potato. It can be used interchangeably for all recipes that call for sweet potato. I have even used it to make a great sweet potato pie and candied yams.

This bread is a soft, delicate sandwich bread that is a gentle orange color. It is not the screechy, bright orange of Halloween, but rather it takes on a subdued, understated hue. It is perfect for sandwiches that have drier contents (meat and/or cheese) but probably would not be appropriate for wetter ingredients (like sauces and gravies). Mostly, it's delicious and perfect for breakfast. Makes great toast, too, and tastes great with butter or jam.

Here's What You'll Need:
for the starter (poolish):
200g (1 3/8 cup) AP flour
200g (3/4 cup + 1 1/5 Tbs) warm water
1 tsp. yeast

for the dough:
400g poolish
1 cup (250ml) warm water
10g yeast (2 tsp.)
800g (about 3 1/2 cups) AP flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 sweet potatoes, baked until soft and mashed
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped rosemary

Here's What You'll Need to Do:
1. Make the poolish by  mixing the ingredients together. Let it sit, covered, at room temperature for about 3 hours. Place in the refrigerator overnight.

2. Peel and mash the baked sweet potatoes. You can bake them with the rosemary if you wish to intensify the flavor.
3. Knead together all the ingredients, including the poolish to make a slightly sticky dough. Knead it until it is smooth, then form it into a ball
 and place the dough in an oiled bowl, covered, to rise. Let the dough rise until doubled, in a warm place. This will take about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
4. De-gas the dough as little as possible when handling. Form the dough into 2 round loaves, or torpedo shape or even rolls. Cover with a towel for a final rise, about 45 minutes.

5. Bake at 350F (175C) for about 40 minutes for loaves, or about 20 minutes for rolls. Cool on a rack.

Sweet Potato Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

My Entry in Bread Baking Day #04, Bread with Spice http://bakinghistory.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/bread-baking-day-04/

I’ve been wanting to make these ever since I saw Floyd’s beautiful sweet potato dinner rolls. There were only two left when I went to take a picture. These are a decadent treat, great for special occasions. Here’s the finished dough. Even this gloppy dough will make a nice windowpane if the gluten is well-developed.

Here’s me just starting to tease the windowpane from the dough. An earlier attempt obviously failed, but showed the dough was getting close.

I scraped the dough into a sort of ball, and left it to rise. It rose quickly, and was probably a bit overproofed in the next picture.

The dough was still quite soft, so I did a set of envelope folds to the dough, then cut it in half to make it a bit easier to work with.

Each half was rolled into a square, buttered, and topped with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans.

The left roll was rolled a little loosely, which is why half of the rolls don’t make a pretty spiral pattern – I had to tuck in the loose dough as I placed them in the pan, resulting in an extra little loop. You can see it very plainly in the baked rolls.

Here are the rolls tucked up in their pans. I only baked one pan, the others went into the freezer for a holiday morning treat. The rolls might have risen higher if I hadn’t overproofed the first rise. I don’t know, but they were ready to go in the oven.

Soaker - 30 minutes to 24 hours

Final Dough – 30 minutes (including rest)

Primary Fermentation – 90 minutes

Forming Rolls and Final Fermentation – 3 hours

Baking – 35 minutes

Soaker

1¼ cup milk, scalded (heated to about 185F)

1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar

200 grams WW pastry flour

100 grams WWW flour

All of soaker

1 sweet potato, roasted, cooled, and peeled

4 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into pieces

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp. Ground cardamom or ground seeds of 12 pods (optional)

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons salt

2 ½ teaspoons instant yeast

450 grams AP flour

Filling
8 ounces light brown sugar, about 1 cup packed
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Icing

4 tablespoons soft butter (or cream cheese)
3 tablespoons milk
5 1/2 ounces powdered sugar, about 1 1/2 cups

Prepare Soaker Put flour into bowl of stand mixer. Stir the lemon juice into hot milk, and pour over flour. Mix well. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes to 24 hours. Refrigerate if soaking for more than a few hours. (A long soak will yield a softer roll.)

Prepare Dough and Filling Add all remaining ingredients to soaker, and mix with paddle until thoroughly combined. Let rest for 15 minutes. Knead with dough hook until smooth and satiny, with a nice windowpane. This will be a soft, gloppy dough. Cover dough and let rest until doubled..

Butter your baking dishes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and divide in half. The dough will be extremely soft at this point, so do a couple of envelope folds (one each direction.) Divide the dough in half, and let rest a few minutes if you’ve folded. (Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl. Mix until well incorporated. Set aside until ready to use.)

Form Rolls Gently shape the dough into 2 squares. Roll each into a 12-inch square. Brush the dough with the melted butter, leaving 1/2-inch border along the top edge. Sprinkle the filling mixture over the dough, leaving a 3/4-inch border along the top edge. Sprinkle the pecans over the filling. Gently press the filling into the dough. Beginning with the edge nearest you, roll the dough into a tight cylinder. Firmly pinch the seam to seal and roll the cylinder seam side down. Very gently squeeze the cylinder to create even thickness. Using a serrated knife, slice the cylinder into 1 1/2-inch rolls; yielding about 16 rolls. Arrange rolls cut side down in the baking dish; cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator overnight or up to 16 hours.

Baking When rolls are ready to bake, place in a cold oven and set to 350. Bake until interior temperature reaches 190F, about 15 to 30 minutes. I checked in my toaster oven at 20 minutes, and they were already at 212F!

While the rolls are cooling slightly, make the icing by whisking the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until creamy. Add the milk and whisk until combined. Sift in the powdered sugar, and whisk until smooth. Spread over the rolls and serve immediately.

For frozen rolls, place in buttered pan and let thaw in refrigerator overnight. Remove the rolls from the refrigerator and place on the middle rack in an oven that is turned off. Place a shallow pan on the rack below the rolls and fill 2/3-full of boiling water. Close the oven door and let the rolls rise until they look ready to bake. They should be more than slightly puffy; This should take 30 to 45 minutes.

Turn the oven on to 350F and bake until golden brown, or until the internal temperature reaches 190F on an instant-read thermometer, somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes.

NOTES

After the first few, I got a bit careless cutting the rolls. So I ended up with 22 instead of the 16 I expected. The two in the first picture were cut at about 1 inch instead of 1 ½ inch.

If you’re uncomfortable working with a sloppy dough, go ahead and add more flour during the mix. Be sure to keep the dough soft though, as too much flour will affect the rise and tenderness.

I omitted the cardamom, but only because I didn’t have any. A lack of powdered sugar meant no icing either.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did! Even my sweet potato adverse husband loved them.