The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Most bookmarked

April 9, 2019 - 1:59pm
not.a.crumb.left's picture
not.a.crumb.left

Marbled Champlain....

I always enviously looked at posts on IG and here when I saw marbled loaves.

They remind me so much of baking "Marmorkuchen' with my Mum and evoke some of that feeling making it as a bread. I remembered a thread where Dan experimented with chocolate malt.

I could not get any so just used some dark roasted Barley malt instead with some cocoa nibs that I had in the larder and grounded. 

I mixed a Champlain, halved dough after 7 hours AL and then added salt and developed in different containers. This loaf from Trevor is like an old friend now and I use it as the basis for so many of my baking experiments with it's lovely ratio of spelt, rye and white flour.

Bulk was approx 4 hours or so at 76F with 2 -3 folds and I folded the two doughs gently together at the last fold and then let the dough bulk for another hour or so...

Pre-shape, 30 min bench rest

Final Shape, 45 min ambient proof and then 12 hours in the wine cooler at 4C

I was very happy with this as a first attempt...The taste just has a hint of cacao and quite a hearty taste from the malt....   I must try this again.... Kat

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 9, 2019 - 3:38am
ATHK72's picture
ATHK72

I made this

I have been baking terrible loaves lately. They were like more discs than loaves. I  decided to throw out time watching and feel the dough instead. Switched out the stainless steel pan for a cast iron skillet to generate all that steam. Abe was really encouraging with his pointers. I learned plenty from Trevor Wilson's Breadwerx and videos. And from Full Proof Baking (she has amazing hands) videos. 

I think I am almost there. 

Regular Bakers Percentage Recipe

100% bread flour (i ran out of wholemeal flour)
2% salt
20% starter (100% hydration) 
72% water

6 hours autolyse with salt added.
Hand mixed the starter in.

The rest of the process below is a guess as I did not track. I only recalled I did the autolyse on Friday, mix on Saturday morning before heading to work, baked on Monday.

SnFx2 with 20mins interval.
Bulk ferment in fridge. Remove, shape, back into the fridge again. 
Bake direct from fridge at 240dc, 20mins with steam. 
Reduce to 230dc, 20mins. 

But I dozed off and the timer didn't go off, I think it actually baked at 230dc for 30-40mins.  

 

 

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 7, 2019 - 9:24pm
David R's picture
David R

"Special" add-ins

Inspired by elsie_iu and the fish-cake bread.

Difficult/tricky/outrageous/"interesting"/"special" add-ins for bread. Mainly a fantasy challenge, mainly not to be taken seriously... but hey, if some brave souls actually try one of the wacky suggestions - or perhaps they even beat me to it and had done them already - then that's great.

Please feel free to add to the list, or to make whatever other comments.

The rules:

  1. Must actually be edible. 
  2. Must be baked inside the crumb of the bread, not a topping. 
  3. Rules 1, 2, and 3 shall be the only rules.
  • Oysters
  • Chunks of black licorice candy
  • Vegetable pieces (peas-and-carrots bread?) (sweet-potato cubes?) (etc)
  • Hot-dog chunks
  • ?
Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 7, 2019 - 7:47pm
Riley's picture
Riley

Saturday white bread Forkish

I understand the wisdom of not watching the clock but I can watch the dough all day and not know what I’m supposed to be looking for.  This has doubled but not tripled.  Does this look anything like it’s ready to shape?

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 7, 2019 - 4:10pm
dom1972's picture
dom1972

Quicker sourdough bread/recipe

Due to my hectic work schedule I am not able to commit to making sourdough the “traditional way” meaning stretch and folds long proof in refrigerator. Is it possible to make a decent loaf or buns for lunches by using mixer for kneading and just proofing at room temp and baking same day? Looking to finish whole process in around  5 to 6 hrs. I can build the Levain in morning. Or am I better off going back to using commercial yeast recipes?

Thanks

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 7, 2019 - 1:32pm
Anonymous baker's picture
Anonymous baker (not verified)

Auvergne Rye / Seigle d'Auvergne

Lovely recipe from Stanley Ginsberg "The Rye Baker". A two day process with a two stage sponge. This is definitely one well fermented sourdough. Each stage of the two sponges taken to the outer limits of fermentation. Very high hydration, allowed to peak and fall back to the original size reducing the sponges to a very frothy mixture with a lovely aroma. 

Had to go out after mixing the salt into the final dough so placed the bowl in the fridge intending to carry on with the bulk ferment till it's doubled in size as recommended. Came back to find the bulk ferment done. Recipe calls for a 2.5 hour room temperature bulk. After placing it in the fridge for 5 hours with no time at room temperature (apart from the short rest after mixing the dough to adding the salt) it was ready. 

This is a 1761g dough which is too much for my Pullman (as I found out) but not enough leftover for another loaf. Recipe recommends two loaves but half as much would be too small for the pullman. I went ahead and made one big loaf only to find that it grew so tall I couldn't get it out of my oven unless I tipped it on its side. 

Certainly the biggest loaf I've made. It's now cooling and will be cut into tomorrow. With the long process, two high hydration long ferment sponges and aroma coming from the oven I'm sure it'll taste excellent. 

Thank you Stanley. 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 7, 2019 - 11:01am
bread1965's picture
bread1965

Red Rice, Almonds, Oat and Raw Honey Bread

I keep making much to much starter and my fridge has been littered with glasses and jars of left over starter. I had one left to use up and this is what came out.  I had 100 grams of starter that hadn't been fed in a week and no plan. It kind of all worked out. I fed it 1:1:1 and then added another 600 g of water and 800g of unbleached bread flour as that's all I have in the house right now. Based on last week's bake and the impact oat bran had on creating a soft crumb I decided to add some steel cut oats to this bread. I added 100 g with 70 g of very hot water to soak while I got everything ready. I then thought about all the posts I see with rice so I thought I'd use some red rice I had and cooked, cooled and then added 125 g of that too.  I was hydrating some old and too try almonds and thought why not - so they were thrown rough chopped and added too at 40 g.  Thinking of Sarah Owen's spelt honey oat bread I've made in the past I decided to also add 50 grams of local raw honey to the bread too.

All in the recipe turned out to be (inclusive of the starter) 100% bread flour, 86% water, 13% cooked red rice, 10.5% steel cut oats, 5% honey, 4.5% hydrated almonds chopped and 2.1% salt.  I started making the final dough around 5pm yesterday afternoon, used a proofer box and didn't get to shape them until about midnight - by then the dough had doubled. Ideally this was a same day bake given the amount of starter, but it was late. Into the cold until this morning - 10 hours later. They were left too long before the bake but didn't fully collapse on me. I baked them in a dutch oven that was a bit small for how much they had expanded by morning.

This was a VERY sticky dough and hard to work with - very slack because of the hydration and I didn't have time to develop much structure.  Next time I'd bake same day, work on creating more structure with folds, I'd double the almonds, reduce the hydration to about 75% and maybe increase the honey to 7.5% given the rice is a bit bitter. That said, this has a very nice firm crumb that has a great resistance when being pulled apart and a nice mouth feel. It's nicely moist, and on the edge of too moist but isn't. I'd play with this idea again at some point. I threw some flax seeds on the bottom of the baskets too.

Considering I used a week old starter without a feed build-up and no plan, I'm happy with it!

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 7, 2019 - 1:39am
msneuropil's picture
msneuropil

Milk in salt rising starter

Simple question...but couldn't find it actually addressed. 

My question is...  Could I use dried milk?? 

I ask because I don't usually buy milk anymore.  I keep canned milk and dried milk.  It's just too hard to find a store bought milk that works well for making cheese at home...due to the problems with homogenizing and pasteurizing and I don't have access to a local dairy now. So milk is not something I pick up at the store.  I don't mind buying a qt of milk...but IF I do...should it be 4%, 2% or skim and does it matter??

Based on my experience with cheese making and store bought milk...I felt this could be a potential problem and I wanted to head off problems if I can.  I want to make some for a group of elderly folks that remember this old type bread.

In the 70's, when I made cheese frequently, or salt rising bread, I bought my milk at a produce stand...so that may be why I had no problems making a starter.

 

 

 

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 6, 2019 - 4:52pm
Lmw4's picture
Lmw4

Pugliese - wet dough learning curve

Thanks to some very detailed posts, some beautiful photos, and troubleshooting advice on my first attempt with the Bread Baker’s Bible Pugliese recipe, I baked a loaf closer to what I had hoped.  Chewy, moist interior, and crispy crust.  

There is room for improvement, but this one is definitely better than my first. I am learning SO much from this website and the generosity of strangers!   

I tripled the recipe, used non-diastatic malt instead of diastatic, added an additional 2 minutes to the mixer time (Bosch Universal) and added about 3 minutes of the rubaud hand mixing method before moving to the stretch and folds.  The dough had a lot more structure and didn’t collapse when I took them out of the Bannetons. Please excuse the orientation of the photo - not my forte. 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
April 5, 2019 - 7:23pm
hydestone's picture
hydestone

Par Baking Bread

I’ve got a loaf of bread that will be finished proofing in 30 minutes.  I want to bake it tomorrow. 

 

Can I just put it in the refrigerator overnight. Then pull it out and let it come up to room temperature before baking?

 

It’s a loaf of soft rye. 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo

Pages

more