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Although I’ve been to South Korea before, I haven’t learnt of Gyeran-ppang, a popular kind of Korean Street food, until I came across its picture a week ago. Being a soft sponge cake with a molten egg in the centre, what’s not to love?

Fancified YW Gyeran-ppang계란빵 (Korean Egg Bread)

Inspired by Maangchi from https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/gyeran-ppang

Total flour:

60g      100%      Freshly milled red whole wheat flour

For leaven:

20g      33.3%      Yeast water

20g      33.3%      Flour from total flour

For batter:

40g      66.7%       Flour from total flour

~60g     100%       1 large whole egg

40g      66.7%       Whey

40g      66.7%       Leaven

6g           10%       Diastatic barley malt

0.6g          1%       Salt

Toppings:

-g              -%       3 large whole eggs, cold from fridge

5g         8.3%       Freshly shredded Parmesan

Combine all leaven ingredients and let sit until doubled, around 5 hours.

Mix together the batter ingredients and ferment for 3 hours. Divide the batter among 3 oiled ramekins. Retard for 10 hours.

Preheat the oven at 200°C/392°F. Remove the ramekins from the fridge. Crack an egg into each ramekin then sprinkle the Parmesan on the edge. Bake for 15 minutes for molten yolks. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

I made my first yeast water starter with dried dates a week ago, which was then fed with raisins. To try it out, these cakes were leavened purely with yeast water.

Whey was used instead of water or milk to keep the bread light and moist, in the absence of butter and oil. The bread is spongy and springy with a slight chew so don’t expect a chiffon cake texture out of it.

Unlike the authentic version, the sponge cake at the bottom isn’t merely an edible container for the egg, which often gets all the attention. It is a real star on its own. Since there’s no butter to district you, the richness of the egg, and the sweetness and maltiness of red wheat and barley malt truly come through. The Parmesan added the savory factor that brought the bread to another level.

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Durum is another grain I’ve long wanted to work with other than kamut. Since the two grains share similar yellow colour, I was curious in knowing whether their taste resembles each others as well. As durum is most commonly used in pasta making, the components of this bread are some of my favorite pasta ingredients.   

50% Durum Italian Pasta SD with 25% Sprouted Durum

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

150g      50%       Whole white wheat flour

75g        25%       Sprouted durum flour

75g        25%       Whole durum flour

For leaven:

10g       3.3%       Starter

45g        15%       Bran sifted out from dough flour

45g        15%       Whey

For dough:

255g      85%       Dough flour excluding bran for leaven

177g      59%       Water

60g        20%       Whey

100g   33.3%       Leaven

6g            2%       Freshly grated Parmesen

9g            3%       Vital wheat gluten

3g         1.5%       Salt

Add-ins:

45g       15%       Caramelized brussel sprouts, cut into one eighths

15g         5%       Toasted pine nuts

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305g      100%        Whole grain

287g      94.1%       Total hydration

Sift out the coarse bran from the dough flour, reserve 45g for leaven. Soak the rest, if any, in equal amount of water taken from dough ingredients.

Combine all leaven ingredients and let sit until doubled, around 4 hours.

Roughly combine all dough ingredients except for the salt, leaven, and soaked bran, autolyse for 15 minutes. Knead in the reserved ingredients and ferment for 15 minutes. Fold in the add-ins then ferment for 2 hours longer.

Preshape the dough then let it rest for 15 minutes. Shape the dough and put in into a banneton. Retard for 12 hours.

Preheat the oven at 250°C/482°F.

Score and spritz the dough then bake directly from the fridge at 250°C/482°F with steam for 15 minutes then without steam for 25 minutes more or until the internal temperature reaches a minimum of 208°F. Let cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

The dough was noticeably stiff but I held onto adding more water. This was because lower hydration is usually chosen for dough composed primarily of durum according to my observation. However, it happened to be a mistake, as evidenced by the closed crumb.

Not too surprisingly, durum has a flavour profile that reminds me of kamut. This bread is again, sweet and sourness is barely detectable. I was hesitant about putting brussel sprouts into bread but my worries were unnecessary: their sweetness and slight bitterness go really well with durum. Everything you can find on top of pizza would be nice in sourdough :)   

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A gift loaf: pistachio dark chocolate 100% whole spelt SD

Blending raisins into red enchiladas sauce after taking Dabrownman’s suggestion

Using half of the sauce for this plate of crisped-homemade-corn-tortillas-topped udon

Cold soba noodles with garlicly sautéed summer veggies

Between a fair amount of time away from home and baking the same old reliable stuff, I haven't been much of a blogging presence around these parts lately.

On our last morning in Trieste last month, I stopped into the small Despar supermarket to check out their flour section and came across a flour called Tritordeum, which I had never heard of before.  Those in mainland Europe may be familiar with it as well as a few old-timers on TFL who may recall reading our Abel Sierra's few postings about this flour in 2014, including a posting for baguettes.

Tritordeum is a new hybrid grain, a cross between barley and durum, originally bred and cultivated in Spain (hence Abel's familiarity with it) and available mostly only in Spain and Italy and perhaps a few other European countries.  I picked up a 500g bag and slipped into my suitcase for the long ride home.

A single bag wasn't going to get me very far and, indeed, I used all 500g on this dough.  No room for do-overs, this was a one-shot deal for me.

Somewhat following Abel's outline, I changed around a few things.  Here is his writeup on his related YouTube entry.  Even for the non-Spanish speakers, the majority of this should be understandable:

• Autólisis de 15 minutos. Amasar todos los ingredientes hasta conseguir una masa elástica pero no muy fina. Dejar reposar en bloque unas 2 horas en un lugar fresco. Doblar la masa una vez en medio de la fermentación en bloque. Formar con delicadeza. Fermentación final de una hora, aproximadamente. Hornear a alta temperatura con vapor, y bajar a 200 grados al cabo de unos minutos.
  
  Consejos a la hora de trabajar con tritordeum: no amasar en exceso. No sobrefermentar. Meter al horno cuando la masa aún esté joven. Horno caliente y con vapor.

I didn't have enough tritordeum @20% prefermented flour to also make the levain.  Here are differences:

• 125% hydration AP levain vs. his presumed 100% hydration Tritordeum levain.
• Added a pinch of Diastatic Malt Powder to compensate for this unmalted flour.  I don't have a clue whether this is kaput or not, having bought it 4 years ago and can't recall the last time that I used it.
• Overall hydration at 70 % vs. Abel's 65%.
• Autolyse 20 min. vs. Abel's 15 min.
• 75 French Folds, 5 minute rest, 75 FF more vs. Abel's modest bench-top kneading.
• Letter Folds at 45 and 90 min. vs. Abel's 1 fold at 60 min.  2 hr. total bulk rise before the retard.

Due to the long cold retard, I eliminated the IDY.

The dough was magnificently easy and handleable throughout the French Folds, and incredibly extensible during my bench-top Letter Folds.  A dream.  Off to cold retard it went.  And that's when Happy Days ended and trouble in River City began.

Upon divide, and pre-shape I realized I was dealing with a wholly different animal (vegetable?).  This dough was quite moist, still unbelievably extensible.  But getting a baguette shape out of it was a step away from trying to wrangle cats.  As the dough is a hybrid of barley and durum, I opted to coat two of the three in sesame seeds - my go to version for a semolina bread.  And even that was a challenge.  

I was pretty dejected as I placed them onto a well floured couche for the remainder of their overnight retard.

I can state with certainty that this was right up there with one of the two most difficult doughs that I have tried to shape so far.  And no second chances.  I unfurled the couche early this morning to find that they had flattened out.  Grr.  Scoring them was less of a challenge than I anticipated, and off they went into a steamed 460dF oven.

Surprisingly, the dough was quite forgiving as it baked, and although I am unimpressed with the final grigne (for me) and the baguettes are still flat, the results are way better than I could have anticipated.  And most surprisingly is how open the crumb is.  So far the taste is most similar to a semolina bread.  And yes, the crumb is that yellow.

You can read about Tritordeum here.

The 500g bag with my bubbling AP levain in the background.

Post French Folds, when the blob was still well behaved.

3 baguettes/long batards x 350g

And just for fun:

Flours in a Porec, Croatia supermarket

Flours in a small market in Krajska Gora, Slovenia in the midst of the magnificent Julian Alps.

 alan