wholewheat

went back hometown to celebrate Chinese New Year with my parents and brothers. it was a long drive because of the heavy traffic. the journey took 7 hours instead of 3 .  i was really looking forward for mom's cooking!!

new year's eve dinner

... of course we started a.. 

Prosperity Toss, also known as lo hei (Cantonese for 撈起 or 捞起). It usually consists of strips of raw fish, mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.

the dishes:

butter prawns :P

hainanese steam chicken.. 

sweet n sour pork ribs..

my all time favorite soup, salted mustard green duck soup!!

this is my nephew, Christopher ( r u ready for PSY??) he loves gangnam song :)

and niece, Le Ann

1 st day new year's lunch

fried yellow noodles .. ( mom had to fried 3 portion of this, everyone was having second helping!)

left my starter for 4 days. refreshed it for 2 days before i bake.

this is a wholewheat with polenta, sunflower seeds and green olives sourdough bread

 (Formula adapted from Tartine) used a rye starter and white starter

the crumb shots... and yes it smells great and tasted delicous

 i had a short and sweet Chinese New Year celebration. started work 2 days ago. my brothers are still back at homtown!!

Happy Chinese New Year to all who celebrates, Gong Xi Fatt Chai

evonlim

This is what I've been doing for the last few days. I thought, since this was an interestinng case, that I should post a few things.

The first time I tried to make a starter I did it in the way I almost always do it: stone ground rye and water. For the first time in my starter-making, I got nothing. A few bubbles, but nothing ever concrete after the first few days. It was my first real failure since using the method mentiond in Sourdough 101. I decided that I should change out one of the variables to see what it was.

I remembered that I had a small bag of graham flour I was going to use to make smores cookies...and then I fell sick and ended up getting my gallbladder evicted. Cue finding it again, and then using it to make the second starter. And...resounding success. It's so much a success, even, that I could use it now. It's only been about five days, though, so I don't really plan to, but you know how you feel when something goes extremely *right* from the get-go.

In the mean time, I should mention that I've started feeding it with King Arthur plain bread flour and it's peaking in 4 hours most of the time, no more than 6.  It's taking basically *all the willpower I have* not to just bake with it right now. It smells sour, and yeasty, but not overly acidic. I just don't want to use it before it's really mature enough.

So...hi? And look forward to pictures from me as I bake. Again. Husband will be so thrilled at having ten different kinds of flour in the house again. :D

Also: I have been a member for four years and a week now. Time *flies*.

Posted a little bit later than intended, but its out there now, my mid-week bake, another attempt at a Honey WholeWheat and a Chocolate Sour Cherry loaves.

I am trying to achieve that lovely soft wholewheat texture you find in American breads – think gourmet WholeFoods and delis type, not the horrible Subway kind that squashes in your hand.

I am quite please with that I got at the end, probably a bit more room to play with the recipe – it didn’t spring in the oven as much as I hoped, but the flavour is very close to what I have in mind.

The other one, Chocolate Sour one was a spur of the moment thing, really. I am not really into chocolate breads, especially not the ones that use cocoa powder, I find them too sweet and not chocolaty enough. I found some lovely Valrhona chocolate in my sweets box and some dried sour cherries in the pantry – why not? Sounds like they go together, lets give it a go.

I do like the chocolate in it, especially after you’ve toasted it and the chocolate goes all soft and melty. Could do with more sour cherries, as the cherry flavour isn’t particularly strong, I just didn’t have any more at hand.

I will be trying both of these recipes again, that’s for sure

Full recipes and more photos on my blog

I always wanted to know how Pakistani wheat kernels i have in stock would perform in a loaf pan. I mill my own wheat, so i made a wholewheat loaf from Peter Reinhart's (Wholegrain breads). The loaf is seen here. I happened to find a pullman pan-look-alike on sale, and i purchased it without hesitation. The difference in this loaf, is that i sifted most of the bran out of the milled flour. The dough had a distinct pale yellowish hue to it, due to the carotenoid pigments, as it is technically a green flour. The dough was lovely to work with, it was somewhat extensible, not thisty, and pliable. The flour made from it had few tiny brownish specks. I suspect that the flour is close to a medium extraction of about 80%.

I enriched the dough, as the recipe does, with butter, oil, and brown sugar. The biga and soaker were mixed to full gluten development by hand. The brown sugar, and the effect of the biga, caused a speedy fermentation.

(Notice the flour print. This was my floured finger poking the proofed dough)

The flavor of the bread is superb. creamy/smooth, rich, light in texture, fluffy crumb. It is especially flavorful when toasted.

can't replicate this experience often, as the whole process of wheat tempering, milling, sifting , and baking is time consuming, and tiring.

I wanted to proove to myself that my hard winter wheats are capable of creating good bread, and they did.

This is a Sandwitch bread i made (Not exactly Sandwich size) couple of days ago:

Recipe:

SOAKER:

500g Sifted Whole Wheat (high Extraction) Flour

350g Water

1/2 Tsp Sea Salt

BIGA :

500g All Purpose Flour

350g Water

1 Tsp Instant Yeast

-------------------------

1) As usual de-chill the BIGA 2 hours prior to mixing into the SOAKER, add extra 1/Tsp of sea salt, and mix/ Knead for 5 minutes for 5 minutes, rest for 5 minutes and continue kneading for another 5 minutes until you acheive a successful windowpane.

2) Leave to ferment in an oiled bowl for 2 Hours until doubled.

3) Scrape into a floured bench, and cut into 2 (375g) Doughs.

4) Preshape into a Loaf, leave for 5 minutes and then shape into a loaf.

5) Grease your pans, and insert your loaves, seam side down.

6) Leave to ferment for 1 hour, and Pre-heat oven to 450F.

7) When ready, spritz your loaves with some water, and load them into your oven, with some steam(optional).\. Reduce Oven Temp. immediately to 370F.

8) Remove steam source after 15 minutes, and continue baking for 30 minutes .

9) Remove from Pan, and leave to cool on a Wire rack.

REGRETS:

1) Should have Added another 1/2 Tsp of Instant yeast to the final dough to boost the Final Rise.

2) Should have added more sea salt to the final dough. (1/2 Tsp is not nearly enough)

3) Should have increased the size of the loaf in the pan, as i loave a tall Loaf for toast.

Other than that, it was a good bread with soft and tender crumb, and medium crust.

I baked this boule last week end.

As always, i have learned few thing from this bake:

1 - Never Underestimate the significance of Weighing Salt.

2 - Handling Fermented dough as if a new born baby, during inverting onto the baking stone / surface

3- For my gas oven: always switch the top elements on after 10 minutes of covered baking, as the bottom gets charred way before the top is browned.

4 - Always give the natural yeats time to do their work, hasting them with commercial yeast will reduce flavor.

5 - Never forget to place a parchment, i had a near escape due to the proper gluten development.

Other than that, the loaf tasted good, soft and airy. It was 50% Whote bread flour, and 50% Hard White mixed with Red Winter. Overall hydration was 70%.

A failed endeavour this time, when i hoplessly tried to braid a wholewheat challah as per Peter Reinhart's Wholegrain book, and ended up fusing the braids into a lump of dough and making a boule instead! I may have to reduce the hydration in the challah next time, and the braids may well hold shape.

Anyway, into the Boules i ventured, and this is how i made it:

(All directions are in accordance with P.R Wholgrain breads)

1- Day (1):

- Warm water 1.25 cups + Yeast 1 tsp (not recom. by P.R)+ fine wholegrain flour 3.1 cups

- Mixed by hand, Autolyzed for 10 min, shaped into a ball and set into an oiled bowl, covered with plas. wrap.(BIGA)

- Same ingredients as above but with salt (1 tablespoon) instead of yeast. (SOAKER), shaped and covered with a plastic wrap.

- First (BIGA) goes to fridge or a really cool place, for at least 4 hours and maximum 3 days.

- Second (SOAKER) goes anywhere you want except v. cold or v. warm. for 24 hrs. More than that it has to go to fridge.

2- Day(2):

- First Dough (BIGA) is to be removed from the fridge 2 hrs prior to mixing into dough 2.

- After 2 hrs, cut BIGA, and cut SOAKER into small pieces flouring them as you do so that they won't stick to each other. Mix pieces into a large bowl interchangeably, then add honey (2 tbl)/ Butter/ oil whatever you may savour, and mix vigorously.

- allow the final dough to rest for 1/2 hour.

- Cover with a plastic bag, and allow to ferment until 1 1/2 - double.

-after 45 min or so, scrap the dough into a floured/ oiled/ watered space, and shape into a boule, degazzing as little as possible.

- put the boule into a basket mold/ banetton/ brotform/ to hold shape while fermenting the final time. Meanwhile preheat your oven.

- When boule has risen in 20 minutes to 1.5 its size, put it in the oven on a stone/ cookie tray.. and pur hot water into a hot skillet to generate steam.

- and you all know the rest.. 

I swear, the taste of this bread is far far superior than the storebought... no comparison, i could it this all day!!

Boule 1 (well a hybrid batard/boule) Just out of the oven:

Boule 2: baked in a thick iron skillet:

and ofcourse, the crumb of boule 1

I set out to make what has become my standard 25% wholewheat rustic Italian loaf (blogged here) and discovered, well into weighing and mixing the dough, that I had run out of white flour. I had only 150 gm and the recipe called for 300 gm. But I did have plenty of wholewheat. And it was too late to stop and go get more. So I just made up the missing mass with wholewheat flour. Nothing ventured ...

The final formula was thus about 350 gm of biga at 75%, 150 gm white flour, 25 gm whole rye flour and 350 gm wholewheat flour, at a final hydration of 62.5%. So it was effectively about 40% wholewheat.

I generally knead this bread for about 6 minutes, and started doing so, and it came together just fine despite the extra wholewheat. But about 4 minutes into the kneading, the dough suddenly became quite sticky again. I don't remember that ever happening before, so I wondered, is that something that happens with high percentages of wholewheat?

Anyway, I allowed the dough to rise at room temperature for three hours then put it into the fridge overnight. Next morning I shaped a boule and put that back into the fridge for 8 hours. I brought it out while the oven was heating and baked at 220 degrees C for 10 minutes with a pan of water, then removed the water and baked for another 30 minutes at 200.

It came out far better than I expected.

I tried for the fan shaped cuts I've seen elsewhere, and they worked out well except that I think the loaf was probably underproofed, given the explosion.

The crumb was light and open and soft, and the crust not too thick, and good and chewy.

You can see that the crumb is denser near the top crust (bottom as the loaf proved) which along with the explosive opening of the crust makes me think it either needed to warm up more before going in the oven or else was just underproofed.

Anyway, overall I was very pleased and may now consider making loaves with a higher percentage of wholewheat in future.

Jeremy