The Fresh Loaf

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Isand66's picture
Isand66

SD Kamut Challah Porridge Bread

  I made a similar version of this bread a while ago and it came out great.  I wanted to change up the flour a bit and swapped out the whole wheat in the original formula with Kamut and some potato flour.

I also used Greek yogurt instead of the original ricotta cheese.

I was very happy with the end result on this one.  It's one of the tastiest challah breads you will ever eat.

Download the BreadStorm File here.

 

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 used my proofer set at 83 degrees and it took about 4 hours.  You can use it immediately in the final dough or let it sit in your refrigerator overnight.

Porridge Directions

Add about 3/4's of the milk called for in the porridge to the dry ingredients in a small pot set to low and stir constantly until all the milk is absorbed.  Add the remainder of the milk, plus the ricotta and keep stirring until you have a nice creamy and soft porridge.    Remove from the heat and let it come to room temperature before adding to the dough.  I put mine in the refrigerator and let it cool quicker.

 Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours, egg yolks and the water for about 1 minute.  Let the rough dough sit for about 20 minutes to an hour.  Next add the levain, cooled porridge, butter, honey and salt and mix on low for 5 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.  (Since I used my proofer I only let the dough sit out for 1.5 hours before refrigerating).

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 30 minutes.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.

The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature and will only rise about 1/3 it's size at most.  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 515 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.

Lower the temperature to 450 degrees.  (I lowered the temperature for the last 15 minutes to 425).  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.

benjamin163's picture
benjamin163

Question on amount of starter to use in a recipe.

Hello,

I have been making sourdough bread for a while now and I'm mostly pleased with the results, certainly when it comes to crumb and texture.

However, my bread is never particularly sour, if at all in fact, which niggles me a bit to say the least.

I am wondering why this is and in wondering, I realise there is so much I don't know.

one big question I have is...

how much starter should I use in a recipe?

I've plumped for about 200g of 100% hydration starter, mixed with, say, 1kg strong bread flour and, say 670ml water which turns out a 70% hydration dough. (I sometimes use a bit more flour and water, sometimes a bit less. I get similar results whatever).

I'm wondering what would happen if I doubled or even tripled the amount of starter. I have no idea what that would do. Would it speed up the proving process? (at the moment I prove my bread for a good four or five hours before shaping into loaves and then proving for a further couple of hours).

More importantly for me, would it alter the taste in any way and make my bread sour?

Or is it just something to do with my starter in general? I have been using the same 100% starter for a good three years now. I store it in the fridge, feed it once a week and activate a portion of it the night before baking by taking half a cup of cold starter and mixing with a cup of flour and the same amount of water. I leave that overnight then add another cup of flour and same amount of water and leave for another four hours and use that as my active starter, taking 200g of it to make my loaf. The rest I add back to my cold starter and put back in the fridge.

As I said I'm not unhappy with the bread in general, it looks good, toasts well, has good texture and crumb, but it never ever grabs the sides of my tongue like some of the best stuff I've had in a restaurant does.

Do I just need to start again with a new starter and hope for the best? Or am I doing something wrong in the process?

Just to add, I have tried proving my loaves then putting them in the fridge for 12 hours to develop sourness. Same results. A nice loaf but no sourness.

Any help most gratefully received and thanks for ploughing through this!

delphi1's picture
delphi1

Commercial high extraction flour for Tartine No 3 Ode to Bourdon

I don't want to sift (won't bore with the reasons), so wanted to rely on the community. I am looking for a few options to purchase High Extraction (Wheat) Flour for Tartine No 3 Ode to Bourdon. I haven't been able to find this sifted flour anywhere. Any recommendations? I live outside of San Francisco, but would likely purchase online. Thanks!

Miller's picture
Miller

How to store starter in a refrigerator?

I bake once a week and I keep my starter in the refrigerator on days that I don't knead it (pun intended). It's in a tightly closed mason jar. I notice that when I open the jar there is a popping or small whoosh sound coming from it. I'm wondering if the way I keep my starter in the refrigerator is fine or not.

FoodieVic's picture
FoodieVic

Visiting Altamura's two famous bakeries (Oct 2019)

 Visiting Altamura's two famous bakeries (Oct 2019)

I first read about Daniel Leader's experience in Altamura about a year and a half ago.  So enchanted by the rich history of Altamura's DOP bread that I said that I had to go to Altamura whenever I visited Italy.

My husband and I were only going to be in Altamura for less than a day so we visited the Forno Antico Santa Chiara after 6pm on the day we arrived. In retrospect that was not a good time since they were no longer baking. We purchased a small loaf of their DOP bread for 2.5 euros plus a bag (1.5 Kg) of their semolina flour (Semola Ramacinata Grano Duro) for 4 euros. Interesting to note that all exterior signage read " Forno Antico Santa Chiara" while plastic bag and labels read "Anticuus Fornus Sancta Clara". 

The bread was hand sliced and I estimated to be 6+ hours old. Crusty exterior, golden yellow colour interior, moist and slightly dense with a sweet, mild cornmeal type flavour and very mild acidity. Our phone camera at night did not do justice to the colour of this bread. It is actually more golden yellow. The following morning, we passed outside of this bakery and there was a large group of tourists outside so we decided to proceed to Forno Antico Santa Caterina instead.

The Santa Caterina bakery was busy with local patrons, with loaves of bread freshly out of the oven cooling on a wooden bench and foccacia baking in the wood fired oven. We again purchased a small loaf of bread for 2 euros and a bag (1.7 Kg) of semolina flour for 2 euros. The bread was still warm. After taking a couple of photos whole, I took it back in to be sliced which was done by machine. Outside the bakery, a local patron, holding his child, told us how the people of Altamura  love this bread, fresh then used in soups and bread salads. This bread is never wasted.

 The flavour was very similar to the Santa Chiara bread but the interior texture was very slightly lighter. Note that we ate this Santa Caterina bread on Day 1, 2 and 3. By day 3 (about 48hrs old) it was getting a bit stale, dried out although it was well wrapped.

  Making Daniel Leader's Semolina Sandwich loaf with Altamura semolina flour

 I am sure that we were the only crazy tourists to lug semolina flour to two more cities by train before returning home to Toronto.  I decided that there was no way to recreate the Altamura bread without the actual mother and a wood fired oven. The next best option was to make Daniel Leader's Semolina Sandwich Loaf.

 Two semolina flours side by side, note that the Santa Caterina's has a finer granulation than the Santa Chiara's  which is probably why we detected a slightly lighter texture in the Altamura Santa Caterina loaf. The Santa Caterina bakery also charged a lower price for the semolina while the Santa Chiara seems to be now geared to the tourist population charging a higher price for both bread and semolina.

  Unlike other baker's results, my loaves did not rise as high as anticipated.

 

 As well during the mixing, the Santa Chiara's dough was too wet. I added a little flour at the very end  before rising as I did not know how long it would take for the semolina to rehydrate. Both loaves were very moist but a bit heavy.

 I remade the loaf again with the Santa Chiara semolina and reduced the water to 250g, doubled the yeast to 2 tsp and replaced the olive oil to partially melted butter (personal taste). The dough texture was perfect after mixing for 8 mins. The Altamura semolina definitely needed the higher amount yeast.The result was much improved with  a moist loaf with still some denseness.

 

  All three sandwich loaves had a sweet, slight cornmeal note. Texture great on the first day especially warm and firming up after. It would all come down to personal preference for texture. For a sandwich loaf, I would anticipate that more people would prefer it lighter.

 I shared some of the Altamura semolinas with a friend who has also been using it.

 My future experiments with semolina flour in other recipes will be with durum atta which is easily accessible to me .  I will likely replace 40% of the semolina with bread flour. 

 All in all,we had some wonderful memories of the beautiful town of Altamura and its historic bakeries. 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Honey Oat Porridge Loaves

I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks due to an impromptu trip to Oklahoma City for a horse show and then another trip to Las Vegas where my daughter ran her second half marathon. She did amazing finishing well in the top half even though she hadn’t trained for 5 weeks due to an arthritic flare.

 

It feels good to get back to baking. A friend requested a loaf with whole grains. So some oat porridge, some Fed Fife, some Einkorn with a touch of honey and butter!

 

Recipe 

 

Makes 3 loaves 

 

Porridge 

100 g rolled oats

200 g water

45 g honey

40 g butter

 

Dough

700 g unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled whole grain Red Fife flour (200 g Red Fife berries)

100 g freshly milled whole grain Einkorn flour (100 g Einkorn berries)

50 g flax, freshly ground

700 g water

23 g salt

30 g yogurt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain flour of your choice for feeding the levain

 

Two mornings before:

  1. Take 2 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 4 g of filtered water and 4 g of wholegrain flour. Let sit at cool room temperature for the day. 

 

The two nights before:

  1. Feed the levain 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

 

The morning before:

  1. Feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 75 g of wholegrain flour as well as 25 g of strong baker’s flour. Let rise until doubled (about 6 hours). 
  2. Place into fridge until the next morning. 

 

The night before:

  1. Mill the Red Fife and  Einkorn berries. You can sub out any type of berries that you can get your hands on like Spelt, Durum or Kamut or hard spring wheat. Place the required amounts in a tub. Add the unbleached flour to the tub. 
  2. Grind the flax seeds in a bullet and add to the flours in the tub. Cover and set aside.

 

Dough Making day:

  1. Early in the morning, take out the levain to warm up. I usually give it a good stir at this time.
  2. Put 700 g filtered water in a stand mixer’s bowl and add the flours from the tub.  Mix on the lowest speed until all the flour has been hydrated. This takes a couple of minutes. Autolyse for at least a couple of hours at room temperature. 
  3. Make the porridge: Add the water to the rolled oats and cook on low until water is absorbed and porridge is creamy. Add the butter and the honey. Stir until well distributed. 
  4. Once the autolyse is done, add the salt, the yogurt, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed for 7 minutes. At the end of the 7 minutes, add the porridge and mix another 2 minutes or until incorporated.
  5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on). 
  6. Do 2 sets of stretches and folds at 30 minute intervals and then 2 sets of sleepy ferret folds (coil folds) at 45 minute intervals, and then let the dough rise to about 30%. This took about another half hour. It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and  bubbles on top as well. 
  7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~800 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 
  8. Do a final shape by flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and cross over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.
  9. Sprinkle a  mix of rice flour and all purpose flour in the bannetons. I also sprinkled some rolled oats as well. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight. 

Baking Day

  1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 
  2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

Yum!

ElHefe's picture
ElHefe

Why does my bread come out like this?

Hi,

first post in this forum. I hope someone here can help me figure out what's wrong with my bread.
I used to bake beautiful bread, but I stopped baking during the summer because I didn't want to
turn on the oven while it was too warm already in our flat.

About two months ago I revived my sleeping starter and haven't been able to bake a single loaf
that I wanted to eat. They all come out gummy and dense, don't have much oven spring and the
crust is uneven and soft.

The recipe for this bread (2 loaves) was:

100g whole rye
100g whole wheat
300g wheat Typ 550 (the "normal white flour" in Germany)
400g wheat Typ 1050 (a bit "stronger" wheat flour)
200g mature levain
21g salt
680g water (i.e. 78% hydration)

I did a 30 min autolyse, mixed for 5 minutes, and then did a bulk fermentation for 10 hours at 19C/66F. During the first three hours I did three stretch & folds. After shaping I placed the bread in the fridge and baked it the next morning.  Even after 10 hours of bulk fermentation, I still have a feeling that the dough is underfermented. It was really easy to handle and did not spread at all.
Is this normal? Should I leave it out even longer? Or might there be a problem with my starter? It is reasonably active, I did a 1:1:1 feeding (half white wheat, half white rye) and it doubled in about five hours. The next time I will scale down the recipe and bake only a single loaf because I cannot fit more croutons into the freezer ...

 

 

Doughbert's picture
Doughbert

American oven! (gonna mess up my mind.. i think)

Fellow bakers, I am in dire need of your wisdom (dear moderators, if this post is in the wrong forum - please move it)

The gist: I produce good bread at home in Sweden but here in the U.S. I rather seem to be producing american footballs. I think it is the oven that give me trouble, it vents too quick so no chance to keep the steam. I am thinking about covering the vent - any experiences out there anyone want to share? Or could it be me making the assumption that the 1/4" standard Baking Steele should do deliver enough heat to a couple of loaves - when it doesn't? Or is there something else missing in the equation.

Long version follows: I moved to DC from Sweden (due to the missus new job), cultured a starter and bought a Baking Steel right away. Not only due to the depressing bread situation in the US capital but most because I bake myself, have so been doing for years and enjoy both the handicraft as well as the outcome (unfortunately no income, only input)

So, I bought a selection of bread flours (King Arthur, Gold medal something, and whatever I found at the local Safe Way) and while the starter got stronger and developed the right characteristics I perfected pizza (make 96h pizza dough, set the oven for pyrolytic - and Bobs Artisan is your uncle!). And then it was time - for bread.

After I had been crying for a couple of weeks when exploring the bread counters in the neighborhood (either due to lack of quality, crazy prizes, or both - DC, remember) I started off with my standard, go to, basic, run of the mill, 70% hydrated - loaf.

1 kg (~2.2 lbs) of bread flour (BRM Artisan tasted and behaved OK in the try outs), 700g  (~1.5 lbs) filtered water (DC...), 200g (~.44 lbs) alive and kickin' levain/sponge/starter whatever you want to call it, 22g (~.77 ounce) salt. Straight forward as you can see, dough come out as expected, ~3h proofing, ~8h fridge, on the pizza shovel, score, onto baking steel that had been preheated 1h 550f. So far so good.

First mistake. Do it like a Swede - half a cup of boiling-ish water on the bottom of the oven for steam. And two drops on the American glass and, well, the glass became kind of crumbly... Bread came out a disaster to no surprise of anyone.

A few days later - a new glass in place and homework done (Thank you TFL). Lava rocks in oven pan, preheated from t-1h. Dough on steel, water on rocks and sauna is a fact - lava rocks are a great invention! Wait for oven spring, not 10 minutes like at home, by 15 something start to happen, by 20 the loaves have turned into american foot balls, oven is vented with no trace of sauna (!) and set for 440f and another 25 mins. Edible but far from what it should be.

These are made in the banetton for loaves, but do believe me the bâtard - as american as a football can get

This is the story more or less, time and time again. I try to avoid blaming the gear so I experimented with different levels of hydration (up to 75%), upped the hot water to ~1-1/4 cup (3dl), tweaked temperatures, found out about the towel trick to accompany the sauna steamer for continuous steam, but alas - I find myself at a loss.

Hot towels? Hot lava rock, anyone? All in one hot steaming package...

Back home I have a standard oven, a 3/4" hefty ceramic slab (cordierite, proper kit) and a cup for the water. Out of the oven comes beautiful, blistered, tanned loaves with ears, crispy crust that crackles during cool down and an open, shiny crumb. I am not tooting my own horn, after a few years of mistakes bread comes out that way and that is what I want. But here? Nope.

I do not think the baking steel is the problem, it is a standard 1/4" at 15 lbs, should pack all the punch that is needed (right?) The crust on the underside became quite tough in the beginning but I learnt about semolina (another great invention!) and then that problem was solved.  

I have understood that ovens 'over here' tend to be vented much more than back home, any steam is vented out too quick. I think this might be the problem as it takes so long for oven spring to kick in, and when it happens the scoring is no good as the surface of the dough has dried/the crust has formed. I think this might be the culprit and I intend to cover the vent with some aluminium foil but want to ask someone here first so I not do any more stoopid assumptions based on knowledge of Swedish ovens (yes, the glass and the water par example..)

Can I just patch up with some aluminium foil?

So, here I am at a loss, and asking for your help, because I have run out of ideas.

Agape99's picture
Agape99

Sourdough starter

 

Hey Everyone, I’m making my first sourdough starter and I have a few questions. 
1. Day 3 ...bubbles on top and scattered throughout with foul odor, like fermenting fruit. But started overflowing my 3 cup mason jar. I poured about a cup off into a second container. And am feeding both. Is that ok? So at day 4, I poured off a small amount of hooch, and smells mildly sour.

2. Do I continue feeding 3-4 times a day up to day 7? Or once daily?

I appreciate any advice. Thanks

donnnaaai's picture
donnnaaai

Why is a starter all active and bubbly but doesn’t pass the floating test?

Hello everyone, anyone knows why is a starter all active and bubbly but doesn’t pass the floating test? I’ve discarded half and fed it again, it doubled in size but still doesn’t pass the test. Help

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