The Fresh Loaf

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dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

SD YW Durum, Ricotta Bread with Pistachio Nuts, Pumpkin & Millet Seeds

With David Snyder recent post of his new take on SFSD with higher amounts of Semolina and Ian’s new bread with semolina, it was only natural that another semolina bread would fit in this week. This one had a small amount of Desert Semolina - 150g.  We wanted to see if the high gluten, not just protein, claims were true.

  

The bread has 35% whole grains that included millet, another yellow grain and Kamut a durum variety that has a yellow cast too.  We didn’t want the whole grains to take away from the yellow crumb color we were shooting for the Desert Durum.  The small amount of honey was there to sweeten the non yellow AP flour since the yellow ones are pretty sweet all by theselves.

  

This bread was leavened with combination yeast water and mainly whole grain SD starters.   For the liquid in the dough we used the left over soaker water from our last 100% whole grain pumpernickel bread.  We added some ricotta cheese in keeping with this Altamura shape and Italian leanings of this bread – plus we are growing to like cheese in bread and the moisture it imparts to the crumb.

  

Since the color of the dough was yellow we thought green add ins would be appropriate and included pumpkin seeds and pistachios along with some millet seeds.  This bread isn’t as complex as some of the others we bake but it wasn’t meant to be since this is about as white a bread as we usually get around to making and we were getting low on white …..eeerrrr….yellow bread.

  

 

The levains were built separately over two builds and 8 hours.  The SD portion has spent a few days in the fridge before the final build to get it nice and sour.  The method is similar to or recent bakes but only this time only a 1hour autolyse, with the salt, was used.  We did 10 minutes of slap and folds until the dough was silky smooth and the gluten well developed. 

  

We incorporated the add ins on the first of 3 S&F’s which were done 15 minutes apart.  After 1 hour of ferment on the counter, the dough was bulk retarded for 14 hours.  In the morning it was allowed to warm up o the heating pad for 2 hours.  It was then shaped Altamura style but once again, it came out too long for the 12” mini oven so we folded each end under to shorten the shaped dough without having to redo it all.

 

After a 2 hour final proof on the heating pad, we started up the mini oven for preheat with the bottom of the broiler pan 1/4 full of water.   The bread was baked at 450 F with (2) of Sylvia’s steaming cups on the top of the broiler pan with the dough.   After 12 minutes we removed all of the steam and turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time.

 

After 5 minutes 3we flipped the bread over on its top  to brownnthe bottom since the bread had sprung well and the top was getting done before the bottom,  5 minutes later we turned the oven down to 400 F convection androtated the bread 180 degrees.  5 minutes later we flipped the bread over and continued to bake for another 5 minutes until the bread reached 205 F on the inside.  All total the bread baked 32 minutes 12 with steam.

  

The bread crust came out that usual durum color.  It was nicely brown, blistered  and crispy that went soft as it cooled.  The crumb was fairly open but not as much as we expected with the nice rise during proof and the spring in the oven under steam.  Still, it was very soft, moist and airy with the green and brown splotches of the pistachio and pumpkin and the yellow millet bits that stayed crunchy.

Can’t really makeout the ricotta cheese but the soft moistness of it was left behind.  This bread reminds me of bread with cream cheese in it.   We like the taste of this bread and it made a fine sandwich for a late lunch today.  We will be making a version of the bread again.

Formula 

Starter Build

Build 1

Build 2

Total

%

Whole Grain SD Starter

10

 

10

1.63%

Spelt

15

15

30

4.88%

Dark Rye

15

15

30

4.88%

AP

50

 

100

16.26%

Yeast Water

50

 

50

8.13%

Water

30

 

80

13.01%

Total

170

30

300

48.78%

 

 

 

 

 

SD Starter Totals

 

%

 

 

Flour

165

26.83%

 

 

Water

135

21.95%

 

 

Starter Hydration

81.82%

 

 

 

Levain % of Total

21.52%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

Kamut

78

12.68%

 

 

Semolina

125

20.33%

 

 

Millet

47

7.64%

 

 

AP

200

32.52%

 

 

Total Dough Flour

450

73.17%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

9

1.46%

 

 

Dough Soaker Water

350

56.91%

 

 

Dough Hydration w/ Starter

77.78%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add - Ins

 

%

 

 

Pumpkin Seeds

50

8.13%

 

 

Ricotta Cheese

130

21.14%

 

 

Pistachio

50

8.13%

 

 

Honey

5

0.81%

 

 

Millet

50

8.13%

 

 

Total

285

46.34%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Flour w/ Starter

615

 

 

 

Total Water w/ Starter

485

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration w/ Starter & Adds

79.27%

 

 

 

Total Weight

1,394

 

 

 

% Whole Grain

34.96%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ricotta Cheese not included inhydration calculations.

 

 

 

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Another update to the sandbox site

I've just updated the sandbox (development) version of this site.  If you are so inclined, take a peek!  Username crust, password crumb to get to the site.

For a recap of changes, read my previous post.  Since then I've refreshed the database, worked on the side rail, and put considerable energy into making the mobile and tablet versions work right.  There are still adjustments to make, but it definitely is useable on Android and iOS devices now and a much better experience than what we have now.

Hey!  Check out the Maple Oatmeal Bread recipe featured on the sandbox homepage.  I am using a new module called Recipe that provides a more structured recipe format. It has some neat features like being able to scale the recipe up and down.  If you try it, let me know what you think.  In the past I've steered away from recipe organizers because I didn't want this site to become "just another recipe archive", but at this point our community is well enough established that it won't be threatened by having a section where people can quickly store or look up recipes.  The community will still be front and center.

Also, thank you to the folks who gave me feedback on the previous revision of the sandbox site.  It was very helpful.  What items I couldn't act on have still be noted and I still hope to address them. 

The timeline for the migration to the new version of the site remains unchanged: next week we're heading to Poland to visit my wife's family, so I won't be able to move this foward further until after Easter.  It is getting pretty close to ready though, I think, so I'm hopeful that a week or two after I get back I'll be able to port the site over.  I have a new, faster server with more memory all set up waiting for it.  

There are certain to be some bumps in the switch over, things I didn't think to test before hand, but the sooner we're over to the new version the sooner I can focus all of my attention on the same tool everyone else here is using. I'm looking forward to being responsive to your needs again rather than responding to feature requests with something like "Yeah, well... Uh... that'll be fixed in the next version." ;^)

Finally, the softest sell ever.  

This migration is a lot of work.  I've been turning down client work to carve out the time to work on it.  I think it is going to be really good and, after the initial suprises, folks here will really like it.  I know that today I prefer working on that version of the site to this one. 

In the past, folks here have mentioned that they'd be happy to pay for a membership to The Fresh Loaf or have some other way of making donations to support the site.  So when I started work on this redesign, I looked into various website membership models.  I also thought about a very-leaky paywall, something like "if you view more than 100 posts in a day, you get a little nag message that says "Wow, you really like this site!  Would you consider supporting it?"  Ultimately I wasn't happy with the dynamic either one would set up here, either "members vs. non-members" or "Floyd as the administrator who gets to decide how much access to content everyone gets."  Neither felt right.  So rather than impose a new funding/membership model, I simply set up a donation page on WePay and would gladly accept your support.  You can get to it here.  

I will pass the hat again later, perhaps after the new version of the site is live, so if you'd prefer to wait and see what we end up with before deciding whether you want to chip in, I totally understand.  As I said, this is intended to be a very soft sell, not a full blown pledge drive.  

Regardless, thanks for making this a great community to work for.  I hope the upgrade will bring the technology up to a level of usefulness and simplicity the community deserves!

Cheers,

-Floyd

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Kamut-Turkey Miche with Black Cherry Hard Cider

I was bored the other day so while surfing the internet for bread sites I revisited Breadtopia.com and was pleasantly surprised with some of the different flours and grains they offered for sale.  I decided to buy one of the ancient grains Kamut and also so hard red winter wheat called Turkey Whole Wheat Flour.  Below is some information from their website if you are interested.

Turkey Red Wheat, once the dominant variety of hard red winter wheat planted throughout the central U.S., is back in production in Kansas.  “Turkey” variety hard red winter wheat was introduced to Kansas in 1873, carried by Mennonite immigrants from Crimea in the Ukraine, fleeing Russian forced military service. In the mid-1880s, grainsman Bernard Warkentin imported some 10,000 bushels of Turkey seed from the Ukraine, the first commercially available to the general public. That 10,000 bushels (600,000 pounds) would plant some 150 square miles (10,000 acres). By the beginning of the twentieth century, hard red winter wheat, virtually all of it Turkey, was planted on some five million acres in Kansas alone. In the meantime, it had become the primary wheat variety throughout the plains from the Texas panhandle to South Dakota. Without “Turkey” wheat there would be no “Breadbasket.”

The Kamut flour is very similar to durum flour and here is some more information from their website.

Kamut® is an ancient grain and the brand name for khorasan wheat, a large amber wheat grain closely related to durum. Kamut is appreciated for its smooth, buttery, nutty flavor, and its high protein and nutritional content.  It contains a high mineral concentration especially in selenium, zinc, and magnesium with 20-40% more protein compared to modern-day wheat. It has a higher lipid to carbohydrate ratio, which means the grain produces greater energy and has a natural sweetness to counterbalance the occasional bitterness present in traditional wheat.

I went this weekend with my wife to the outlet stores and discovered a new store that sells only New York State wines, beers and spirits.  I picked up a mixed 6 pack of ales, stouts and ciders and decided to use the Black Cherry Hard Cider in my next bake.

I made a levain using my AP starter and some of the Turkey flour and AP flour.

For the main dough I used the Kamut flour along with Turkey flour, some molasses and dried onions that I reconstituted in some water and the Black Cherry Cider.

I followed my normal procedure below for making a miche and I must say I was very happy with the results.  You can taste the nuttiness of the 2 flours along with the hint of cherry from the cider.  The crust was nice and thick but the crumb was a bit tight which was probably due to the high percentage of the Turkey flour along with the Kamut flour.

Levain Directions

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  I usually do this the night before.

Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours, and 275 grams of the cider together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Let it rest in your work bowl covered for 20-30 minutes.  Next add the salt, starter (cut into about 7-8 pieces), molasses, and rehydrated onions and mix on low for a minute.  Add the rest of the cider unless the dough is way too wet.   Mix on low-speed for another 3 minutes.  Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.  I made 1 large miche but you can make 2 boules or other shapes.  Place your dough into your proofing basket(s) and cover with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray.  The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature.  Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, score as desired and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 450 degrees.  Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 205 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

beakernz's picture
beakernz

noobie, very confused over recipes calling for "1 cup sourdough starter", do they mean pre-ferment?

So I've got a good healthy starter.  I feed it once a day which is removing all of it but 50grams, then adding 100gms water and 70gms organic rye.  Over the next 24hrs it doubles and I repeat the process.  Now I have all this leftover starter I do not want to throw away.  I then see recipes for pancackes and biscuits.  They call for 1 cup starter + 1 cup flour etc.  But someone here in new zealand says to me that that would be WAY too powerful, that they would only need 1 cup starter to make 75 loaves.  So is the recipe right?  I actually use an entire cup of raw starter?  I don't want to cook something nasty or overpowering that makes me ill.  If it's pre-ferment then why don't the recipes call for it.  I'm not even sure how to make a pre-ferment that meets the requirements of said recipes so that I have "1 cup starter".  Thanks for any help clearing this up.

jeffesonm's picture
jeffesonm

Converting white starter to rye starter... is it supposed to rise?

I've been making sourdough for a few years now, refreshing my starter at 1:2:3 and it works just swell.  Lately I've been baking more and more rye bread.  I usually just use my white starter and recipe, subbing in about 50% rye which I hydrate the night before a la Reinharts WGB technique.

Well I'd really like to try the Vollkornbrot from the BBA (or WGB) and it calls for rye starter.  I figured I could just change my white starter into a rye by feeding it rye flour instead of white.  The trouble is, it doesn't seem to rise at all.

I've tried 1:2:3 and most recently 1:4:4, thinking a little more water and a little more food might help it get going.  But both times it doesn't really rise... maybe just swells a bit, but no more than 10% expansion in volume, and definitely not double/triple like the white starter.  Room temp is usually around 65 and for a few days I kept it near the wood stove up high so it was closer to 75... still no rise.

Now I can tell there's activity because it smells sour and you can see little air pockets forming within the starter, but it terms of rise, pretty much zip.  Am I doing something wrong, or just expecting too much?  Suggestions?

evonlim's picture
evonlim

sourdough loaf with raisin yeast water and red wine

after reading last couple of week's blogs.. lead me to experiment with new ingredients.

with kiki's help, she gave me this tutorial website on yeast water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GmnAD4J7E

started soaking my raisins with water in a clean jar as showed in the video. to my surprised it work wonderfully.. on the 8th day i used it to make this bread. mixed 75gram yeast water with 75gram of bread flour, left it 8 hours in room temperature to mature. 

my formula

bread flour   100%     750gram

water             75%      563gram 

salt               1.5%       11  gram

starter                         150gram

since i have some 320gram of Chateau Charmail 2009 left over from saturday's dinner, thinking to myself why not.. so i did :) water 243gram. mixed with AP flour and left overnight. 2nd day added the starter. autolysed for 30mins. added the salt after. rest for 40 mins and SF. realising i had a couple of small Tasmanian purple carrot in the fridge.. i grated and added in the dough when i did my first SF. 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds and 1/2cup of soaked n drained raisins went into the dough as well. (this is because i am baking for a friend who loves raisins!!) 2nd SF after 40mins.

left it rest for another 40mins, put in the fridge to retard. 3rd day, in the afternoon after my work, took dough out from fridge. rested for an hour, scrapped out from bowl and divide into two and preshape. rest for 30mins. transfered into 2 small loaf pan. covered and proof for 1 hour. score the top, sprinkled with blue poppy seeds. baked 450F for 20 mins covered with aluminium foil. uncovered for further 15 mins. 

it smells divine during baking. lots of depth in flavor ends with a nice bitter in the mouth as you chew on it.

my lucky experiment inspired by kiki, Ian and Yuko :) thank you

happy me

evon

more pictures..

 

 

 

 

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Malting and Aging Home Gound Whole Flour

I have heard that you can and should age and malt home ground whole flour.  I use about 50% whole grain home ground flours in just about all of my breads but have never malted or aged it after grinding.  Does anyone do this and why?  What are the advantages?

dazzer24's picture
dazzer24

sourdough preferment

Hi all

I've been baking sourdoughs a couple of months and messed about with all sorts of variables. Lots of starter,little starter,short fermentation/long prove after shaping, fridge proving,warm water, cold water and many more. I've a tendency to change more than one variable at once too which doesnt help evaluation! Just cant help myself;)

Anyway current method

Mix 50g starter, 200g flour and 125g of water. Cover and ferment at approx 70f for approx 16 hours.

Mix the fermented batch with 304g flour and 221g water achieving 70% hydration(my starter is 100%)

Making 900g in total

Knead this mixture for 10 to 15 mins adding 8g of salt after 10 mins or so.

Pop back in bowl and do 3 stretch and folds at approx 40 min intervals

I then split the dough in two for 2 mini loaves. degass a little then preshape into boules. Final shape 10 mins later.

Into baskets, into plastic bags and prove at 70f for about 2 hours.

Bake! Im lucky to have an oven with multifunction including bottom heat only function..this has transformed my ability to achieve bloom/ears...now I've realised it anyway!

I bottom heat for first 10/12mins, then fan only 15 mins,then off the stone and 5 to 10 mins with top and bottom heat to crisp up the bottom as well.

I suppose in short...how am I doing? My loaves look great(in my opinion-feel free to critique!), have a nice rich flavour, soft texture and lovely fruity aroma-not that much sour flavour though.

I'm thinking should I be bulk fermenting the whole dough? I suppose currently I'm simply feeding a small amount of starter and letting it grow overnight..? I think i read somewhere yeasts grow more rapidly at room temps but the lactobacillus are responsible for more of the sour notes and these develop more(or more in proportion to the yeasts) when in the fridge. Have I got this right? 

I had previously been fermenting the whole dough for 4-5 hours and then shaping and proving overnight in the fridge. This has the advantage of course of being able to bake first thing in the morning but seems a little less controllable?

Sorry I'm writing an epic here! I'll stop now and be very grateful for any thoughts/feedback.

Cheers and thanks for your patience. Hopefully I'll be able to help people too..one day!

Darren

Kneads_Love's picture
Kneads_Love

Sourdough Preferment

I have seen (at least) two types of recipes…

One calls for a preferment which is made the night before and makes up only a portion of the total weight of the dough’s water and flour.

For example…

  • 2 oz Sourdough Starter (fed 12 hours previously and left out on counter. i.e. just starting to sag)
  • 3 oz Water
  • 5 oz Flour 

This is mixed and sits overnight before being added into a recipe. 

The second type (i.e. Pan Au Levain) calls for mixing the entire dough (all the flour, water, starter, salt, etc) and putting in the fridge overnight.

When is it appropriate to mix up a preferment as a component, and when should I simply ferment the entire dough recipe?

Today I am making a brioche dough enriched with eggs, sugar, and oil. Since I did not know how all of these extra ingredients would react with the starter, I chose to create the above preferment. Not sure if that was the best way to do it or not.

Also, most sourdough preferments (and Pan Au Levain recipes) call for letting the dough sit over night in the fridge. But standard preferments are left on the counter. I left my Sourdough Preferment on the counter.

Is it better to refrigerate the sourdough preferment or leave on counter at room temp? 

Thanks

Kneads_Love

Frequent Flyer's picture
Frequent Flyer

Eric's Favorite Rye

....or my "tinkered with" version.  I love Eric's bread but needed to refrigerate the dough for time sake and chose to do that after shaping.  I shaped two loaves (used 1/2 recipe), placed in a couche, covered with oil sprayed plastic and refrigerated immediately.  The next morning I removed the loaves, placed on the counter while the oven preheated (about 30 to 45 minutes) and baked on a stone with steam for 12 minutes.  I rotated the loaves, and baked (I guess) another 30 minutes at 375F.  

Other variations were molasses vs sugar (about the same weight) and an egg glaze.  I've not got the cornstarch glaze method working right now.

 

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