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Hi All,
Just wanted to let you all know I'm still baking even if I'm not posting as often...  Here's the latest from my kitchen:
1.  Invisible Pizzas (We forgot to take pictures)
2.  Baguettes
3.  Olive Oil Brioche with Dried Pears and Toasted Walnuts

This recipe makes 2 pizzas, 2 baguettes, and 2 olive oil brioches...  Bear with me through all the madness:
Recipe: (Makes approx 3000g of base dough)
Stiff Levain:
400g @ 50% hydration

Sponge:
200g AP
200g Water
1/2 tsp instant yeast
402g Total

Final Dough (approx 65% hydration):
1196g AP
52g WW
36g Rye
808g Water
38g Kosher Salt
1 1/2 tsp Instant Yeast
402g Sponge
400g Stiff Levain

For Olive Oil Brioche with Dried Pears and Toasted Walnuts
180g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
175g Dried Pears
175g Toasted Walnuts

Tools:
Digital Scale
Large Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl
Measuring Spoons
2 - 4L Plastic Tubs with Covers
Rubber Spatula
Plastic Scraper
Bowl with Water
Large Plastic Bag
Baking Stone
Steam Pan with Lava Rocks
Oven Thermometer
Instant Read Thermometer
Peel
2 Loaf Pans
Baker's Linen

Method:
1.  Prepare stiff levain, mix, let ferment for up to 1 hour, and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.

2.  4:45pm - Mix sponge, cover and let rest for up to 1 hour.

3.  5:30pm - Mix base dough by hand in large mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients, and then dry ingredients on top.  Mix from bottom up with rubber spatula.  When shaggy dough forms, mix dough with wet hands for a few seconds to work out all lumps.  Place in bag and let rest for 1 hour.

4.  Roughly cut up dried pears, and toast walnuts in pan and let cool.  Lightly oil 2 tubs with olive oil.  6:30pm - Stretch and fold dough and divide into 1600g and 1200g portions.  Place 1600g gram portion into oiled tub, cover and let rest.  7:00pm - Turn baguette dough, and in the mixing bowl with the 1200g portion, add 180g of olive oil and slowly mix by hand until olive oil is combined completely into the dough.  This takes about 10-15 minutes.  Then add the toasted walnuts and dried pears.  Mix until combined evenly, place into plastic tub, rest for 45 minutes.

5.  7:45pm - Turn baguette dough, and brioche dough, rest for 1 hr 15 minutes.

6.  9:00pm - Arrange baking stone in oven on 2nd rack from bottom.  Preheat with convection until oven thermometer on baking stone reaches 600F.  Divide baguette dough into 4 pieces at 400g.  Preshape 2 baguettes.

7.  9:15pm - Final shape baguettes, place on bakers linen couch, cover and let proof for 60-90 minutes.  Oil 2 loaf pans with olive oil, divide dough into 2 equal portions (900g approx), shape brioche, brush tops with olive oil, cover with plastic wrap and leave to proof until dough reaches top of pan, then refrigerate.

8.  9:45pm -  Prepare pizza as you like, turn off convection and oven temp down to 550F, and bake for 6-7 minutes directly on stone.  Boil some water in a pot for steam pan.

9.  10:30pm - Turn oven down to 475F, Pour boiling water into steam pan, and place on top rack of oven.  Turn baguettes out on to flipping board, slash and place in oven.  Bake 10 minutes at 475F with steam, then 15 minutes at 450F without steam.  Cool completely before cutting.  Take brioche out of refrigerator.

10.  Turn oven down to 400F, remove plastic wrap from brioche, place in oven in pan directly on baking stone.  Bake for 45 minutes until internal temp reaches 190F to 200F.  Turn oven off.  Remove from pan, return loaves to oven directly on baking stone for 10 minutes.  Cool completely before cutting.

Whew!

Enjoy…

Tim

Apricot Yeast Water Pullman Loaf

Previously, I posted a short Pullman loaf leavened with Potato Yeast Water (PYW). Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23793/potato-yeast-water-pullman-loaf-shorty

In that post, I concluded that “Although, I found PYW worked well, and made a good loaf, I decided that the making of the levain, and creating another YW seems unjustified just to introduce potato flakes and sugar into a loaf.” In this post, I simplified the process by introducing the sugar and potato flakes in the Final Dough, and used a strong Apricot Yeast Water (AYW) culture as very nearly the total water used in the loaf. The only other water was the approximate 3.8g contained in the unsalted butter used.

The formula above provides the Baker's Percentages of the ingredients, as well as the weight of ingredients actually used for the reduced sized Pullman pan, which only required 482g of dough. The percent hydration level was about 62.2%HL.

A fuller account of the formula, Apricot YW (AYW) 2-stage levain builds, method, and observations can also be found in a PDF of my baking log at this link:

D-b_110529_Apricot YW Pullman 482g_[Photos]_110602-1635 .pdf - https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_MScoZfDZkwMWFjMWNiMzktYjNjMy00MzU1LTkxNjQtOTAyZjM5ODQzMThm&hl=en_US

Actually, a 3-Build Levain had been planned, but in a hectic kitchen moment, I started the Final Dough with only the first two levain builds. Fortunately, I caught my error in time to simply add the remaining 100g of AYW and 100g of AP flour into the Final Dough mix and all worked well.

The short Pullman loaf measured (5-5/8” x 4” x 4”)/(14.3 cm x 10.2 cm) and the 482g batch size managed to fill the pan with a 9 hour rise at 82ºF ( 27.8º C) . For additional details, see the notes in the above mentioned PDF.

The crumb texture was soft, but firm, moist and quite flavorful, with a very pleasant fragrance, however, there was no discernible taste of apricot that I could detect.

It worked very well as both a sandwich bread and for excellent toast.

It has survived three and one half days, as of this writing (I had a loaf in front of it to eat, too). I just had another sandwich made from it and it seems as moist and fresh as it did when first cut. The flavor enhancement resulting from the Apricot YW, rather than just the Potato YW used in some previous loaves, is a fine improvement of the formula. I do think, however, that I will do the Build-#3 as a levain build on the next loaf, rather than mixing the 100g of AYW and AP flour in the final dough. On the other hand, this accident demonstrated that a great loaf can be made this way, as well.

Ron

...you return from a wonderful weeklong boat trip on the Rhine river, through Germany and France, with only one souvenir: a Kugelhopf baking pan.

Today, I baked my first ever Kugelhopf. The original recipe came from here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19577/gugelhupf. I modified it slightly.

Kugelhopf  (recipe from TFL; Hezi, IsrealiBaker :modified)

Ingredients:

500g Flour (at least 60% AP)

7g Osmotolerent  IDY

50g sugar

3 large eggs

100g water

200g whole milk

zest of 1 lemon

10g salt

200g unsalted butter, well softened

Brown sugar to dust pan

For post-bake sugar glaze:

            100g water

            120g sugar

            2 or 3 lemon peel strips

Directions:

In mixer bowl, combine flour, sugar and yeast; whisk to combine.  Add eggs, water, milk and lemon zest.  On low speed (KAid speed 1) combine until well incorporated; increase speed (KAid speed 2) for 2-3 minutes. Cover and rest for 20 minutes.

Add salt and continue kneading (speed 2) for seven minutes. Scrap bowl occasionally.

Add butter in thirds, combining each third on low speed until butter disappears.

Increase to moderate speed (KAid speed 4) and knead, scraping bowl occasionally, until dough just begins to clean the bowl’s sides (about 10 mins.).

The dough will be very wet and sticky, but satiny. Collect into a coherent mass in the mixer bowl, cover and rest in refrigerator for 1 hour. Stretch and fold in bowl, degassing vigorously.

Return dough to refrigerator, covered for one-and-one-half to two hours, until it doubles in bulk.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

While dough rises prepare the pan by liberally coating inside with soften unsalted butter, sprinkling brown sugar of entire inside. This brown-sugar and butter mixture will caramelize, giving the cake’s exterior a delicious color.

Also, mix the glaze sugar, water and lemon peel in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about five minutes. Set aside to cool

Transfer dough to Kugelhopf pan, or Bundt pan, filling to slightly more than half. Cover, and allow cake to rise until slightly below the pan’s top edge.

Bake on lowest shelf until top ( the cake’s bottom) is deep brown, and internal temperature reaches 195°F to 200°F

Remove from oven, and let cool in the pan for about five minutes; then remove from pan. Let cake cool completely.

Brush the cooled cake liberally with the sugar glaze. Let it dry until tacky; then sprinkle with granulated sugar or powdered sugar.

Overall, I'm pleased with the result. I had a little dough left over that I baked in a tube pan, glazed it like the one pictured, and tasted it.  Crumb is moderately closed, light and airy, with a nice spring but no chewiness. flavor not overly sweet.

I made the dough entirely with King Arthur AP flour. I didn't want to run the risk of a "chewy" loaf. The picture loaf is going to a dinner party tonight, so no crumb shot. I'm going to do another in about ten days, for another dinner party,  but will do a 60% high gluten flour, 40% chestnut flour, and incorporate brandy soaked currants, and chopped, roasted chestnuts. Since the party's at my house I'll post a crumb shot of that version.

David G

I don't know why I've waited so long to make this bread, after buying hamelman's book. I've done it before, from intructions giving on this blog, which were very helpful, btw. For grains, I used a mix of fennel seeds, flaxseeds, spelt berries and oat bran. I retarded the dough overnight, omitted the yeast as instructed, and I baked it directly from the fridge. For the final fermentation, the instructions weren't very clear to me... in case I opted for retarding the dough overnight, it still gets an hour of fermentation on room temperature, or after shaping goes directly in the fridge??

Final fermentation. Approximately 1 hour at 76 degrees. [The dough can be retarded for several hours or overnight, which case the bulk fermentation should be 2 hrs with 1 fold, and the yeast left out of the mix.]

Not knowing what to do, I let it stand 45 minutes at room temperature (78F), but I still don't know if that was good, or this step shoud have been skipped. Maybe someone can clarify this.

Also, I don't know if baking directly from the fridge was the right decision, I wonder if it would have risen more if I let it stand 1 hour at room temperature before baking?

Anyway, I'm extremely pleased with the result, the taste is absolutly amazing.

More pictures and the addapted recipe (recipe in romanian, translator on the sidebar) can be found here, at my new blog  Apa.Faina.Sare