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June 29, 2018 - 4:26pm
stephen.c's picture
stephen.c

Spelt Ricotta Cheese Sourdough Rolls

Hi There,

I am glad to share with you my latest baking experience.

I have tried to revise a bread recipe from my own country, Sardinia. In particular the Ricotta Cheese Rolls. Spelt is not so popular in Sardinia but I fell in love with this flour hence could not resist to try to make my Spelt Ricotta Cheese Sourdough Rolls :)

The Ricotta Rolls have a delicious ricotta flavor and have a very thin and crunchy crust. They are also very soft. Some people also add Saffron to the dough but I probably prefer to add it when I use normal wheat flour to give it more character and taste indeed.

Here he final result :)

Ingredients:

150gr Semolina flour

350gr White Spelt Flour

50gr Vital Gluten 

500gr Ricotta Cheese (drain it before adding to the dough)

260gr Water + 40gr for the Salt

12gr Salt

200gr Spelt Starter (100% Hydration)

Method:

- Mix together the flour, the semolina and the VWG and 260gr of water and autolyse for 30 min/1hour

- Add the 40gr water with 10gr salt and the starter and the ricotta cheese to the dough and knead for 10/20 min till all the ingredients are incorporated. The dough will be crazy sticky but no worries, keep kneading till the gluten structure builds up and it will be easier to manage ;)

- Bulk Ferment for 2/3 hours depending on the room temperature etc (I BF for 2 hours @25 Celcius)

- Divide your dough into 4 or 6 parts and shape it to form 4/6 nice rolls. Put them to proof on a baking try. You can either cover the try with some cling film or just put it to proof into the oven making sure it is switched off ;)

- After 2/3 hours just before doubling in size or passing the poke test, remove them from the oven and preheat the oven @250 Celcius

- Score the rolls, put a pot of boiling water in the bottom of your oven, bake the rolls for 30/35 minutes @ 220 Celcius till they sound hollow when  tapping at the bottom.

- Let the rolls to cool down and enjoy your Ricotta Cheese Rolls ;)

I hope you like this recipe and please let me know how you get on with it ;)

Happy Baking 

 

Stefano

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June 29, 2018 - 5:25am
DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

We need a good “first” SD recipe

How many times have we read from a new SD baker of the elaborate formula they have chosen to bake? I know that I’m certainly that kind of guy. Why waste time crawling when you can run? I can imagine me picking Dab’s most complicated formula, you know the one with 47 ingredients ;-)

Please post a recipe/formula or link with instructions that are simple, concise, and methodically laid out. I lean towards the 123 SD, but I don’t know of one that comes with clear and precise instructions. I know it exist, I just don’t know where it is.

I’d like to have this information for the many new bakers that are striving to succeed. It doesn’t have to be the 123 SD, any recipe that meets the criteria would be great.

UPDATE; The formula and recipe have been finalized. I plan to use this link as a suggested first bake for those new to sourdough or those struggling to succeed. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56678/123-sourdough-no-knead-do-nothing-bread

Thanks in advance,

Dan

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June 28, 2018 - 12:18pm
Nominingi's picture
Nominingi

Sourdough keeps me humble! Please help diagnose this fail

I have been chugging along merrily baking all of my family’s bread for some years now. This is a 68% hydration loaf ( Cindy Hall’s Same Day Sourdough formula) that I assembled yesterday whrn it was hot and humid here in British Columbia. BF was waybshorter than usual and I did 24 hour secondary ferment in fridge. Baked from fridge as usual with steam. I’ve never retarded this long. Might that have been the problem? Thank you

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June 27, 2018 - 9:49pm
Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

Smoked Chipotle Onion and Parmesan Sourdough

It’s been a while since some strong-flavoured bread came out from my oven. I decided it’s the time for the comeback of my most-loved bread type.

Smoked Chipotle Onion and Parmesan Sourdough

 

Dough flour (all freshly milled):

120g     40%       Whole white wheat flour

90g       30%       Whole spelt flour

60g       20%       Whole red wheat flour

30g       10%       Sprouted spelt flour

 

For leaven:

5g         1.7%       Starter

20g       6.7%       Bran sifted out from dough flour

20g       6.7%       Water

 

For dough:

280g   93.3%       Dough flour excluding bran for leaven

208g   70.6%       Water

52g     17.3%       Whey

45g       15%        Leaven

9g           3%        Vital Wheat Gluten

6g           2%        Dark barley malt powder

5g        1.7%        Salt

1/4 tsp      -%       Smoked chipotle chili powder

1/2 tsp      -%       Dried thyme

 

Add-ins:

15g         5%       Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

15g         5%       Dehydrated onions

 

For crust:

3g          1%       Poppy seeds

 

___________

302.5g      100%       Whole grain

282.5g     93.4%       Total hydration

 

Sift out the coarse bran from the dough flour, reserve 20g for leaven. Soak the rest (I got 14g) in equal amount of whey taken from dough ingredients.

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

Rehydrate the onion in enough hot water. Set aside until needed.

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 30 minutes. Fold in the add-ins then ferment for 1.5 hours longer.

Preshape the dough then let it rest for 15 minutes. Shape the dough and put in into a banneton. Leave to proof for 20 minutes before retarding for 20 hours.

Preheat the oven at 230°C/446°F. Remove the dough from the fridge to warm up at room temperature for 40 minutes. Spray the dough with water and sprinkle the poppy seeds onto its surface.

Score the dough and bake at 230°C/446°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 3 hours before slicing.

There was decent oven spring and the crust even blistered a little. It’s not common for me to a lot of blisters so I was pretty excited about it. However, I obviously have to work harder on my scorings…

 

Rye is the typical grain to go with onion and cheese. As I happened to have none on hand at the moment, the amount of dark barley malt powder used was doubled as compared to my usual 1% addition. Not only did it give a darker-colour-bread, but also enhanced the flavour profile by contributing some bitterness and toastiness. 

The onion-cheese-smoked-chipotle combo works so well. This bread smelled terrific while baking! Waiting for it to cool long enough before slicing was a arduous task. The spelt imparted some sweetness, adding to the complexity of this bread.

_____________

 

Whole spelt sourdough naan, spice stuffed okra, and mushroom and soya chunk in tomato cashew curry

Corn and black bean enchiladas with onion and pineapple salsa 

Shimeji mushroom, pea and egg tofu saute with oyster sauce 

 

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June 27, 2018 - 11:54am
WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

Ru's Seeded Sourdough -- My Attempt

A week or so ago Ru posted her seeded sourdough, and I felt inspired to give the recipe a try.

The recipe is unusual for me in that with the sole exception of nine grams of salt there are no additional ingredients on the second day.  No more flour.  Not even any new water.

The night before, I combined 20 g of starter, 40 g of whole wheat, and 36 g of water for the levain.  (Ru uses a rye starter; mine is a 50/50 combo of AP and whole wheat fed on a 1:2:2 basis.)  I toasted 15 g of black sesame seeds, 40 g of white sesame seeds, and 25 g of flax seeds and then poured 66 g of boiling water on the mix.  (The 66 g exceeds Ru's 55 g, but seems about right.)  Lastly, I mixed 330 g of bread flour, 80 g of whole wheat, and 296 g of water into a somewhat shaggy mass.  After a little time in the fridge for the seeds and dough mix, all sat out for the overnight.

Just before 9:00 am the next morning, I combined the salt, levain, seeds, and dough and repeated Ru's four sets of mixing (2-3 min.) with ten-minute rest intervals.  After fifty minutes I did a stretch-and-fold, and there were three of those sessions.  After the third S&F the dough sat in my cool kitchen as the afternoon warmed a bit.  Eventually the dough went onto the countertop around 5:45 pm, was pre-shaped, and had a thirty minute bench rest.  After final shaping into a batard, the dough went into a banneton.  I expected a slow rise, but the wee beasties had sprung into action, and by 8:00 pm I sensed the need for refrigeration.  My intent had been to retard overnight, but I could see as the night wore on that waiting until the next morning to bake could be a mistake.  By late evening the dough nearly filled the banneton, and the poke test produced dents that sprung back, but not fully.  Time to heat the oven.

The dough went into the oven shortly before midnight.  The first twenty minutes were at 475 degrees (F), and then I reduced to 450 degrees.  The total bake time was forty minutes, and the loaf weighed 815 g.

A fun loaf to make, and the seeds definitely add something both in taste and texture.  My wife tends to like seeded loaves, so I am waiting for her reaction when she has a chance to try some tonight.

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June 26, 2018 - 11:23am
Simonb's picture
Simonb

Keto bread - small problem

Hello everyone, I've dived into the world of bread making and so far I'm enjoying it!

As the title suggests I have been trying some keto bread recipes and most are great but not similar to a normal sandwich bread from the store. I found one that uses yeast and actually rises and I've been mastering how to make bread at the same time, but in the end last night I was left with a very nice looking loaf but rubbery though crust.

The recipe I am following is https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/650xr6/fp_i_am_excited_to_share_with_you_the_best_low/

at first i was having problems with the rise, so i purchased the Saf instant yeast as suggested and this seems to have fixed that issue. When the loaf was not rising the taste and texture was very good.

With last nights loaf cooled for 10 minutes, it was easy enough to cut a slice and the crust didn't seem that rubbery, only once it was cooled it seemed to be worst. When it was hot I tapped the top and it seemed hard. Now cooled its soft. 

Before i try again I wanted to make adjustments but was not sure what could of caused this, here are a few items that I think could of caused the issue,

  • Would over kneading cause this rubbery crust?
  • Cooking temperature too high?
  • Didn't let the loaf cool

I've included a picture of the loaf (sorry some reason the forum is rotating it)

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June 25, 2018 - 12:37pm
Jay's picture
Jay

Hello from an old/new baker in Sacramento

I've recently decided to throw myself back into bread baking after about a 25 year hiatus, and ran across this forum in the process of scouring the internet for information on sourdough baking. I tried making sourdough back in the day, but from those little pouches that you buy in tourist traps in SF and reconstitute, and never had even the slightest luck.

This time around I've found the internet is a fount of all sorts of information on any kind of baking you could possibly want, and I've gotten my own starter going very nicely from scratch with no trouble at all. It's a little over three weeks old now, and I baked my first loaf with it the middle of last week. For a first effort in decades I was pretty happy with it, it had great oven spring and decent sourdough flavor, but despite the spring was very heavy and close-textured. So I'm trying again this week with a different recipe... and it's very possible I've bitten off more than I can chew, but what the heck, right? It's all about trial and error. 

I'm definitely suffering from some serious information overload, though. There's just so much out there on so many different techniques and styles and even when 2 people are making the same bread it's still almost all different. I'm hoping to get some tips from all you seasoned bakers around here. It seems like a great community of bakers with a wealth of information to share and a wonderful attitude towards this great hobby. 

Hope to be around for a long time,

Jay

ETA: if anyone could recommend a favorite recipe or book on the subject that I might be able to grab at the library I'd really appreciate it. My husband has become disabled so money has become incredibly tight the last few years and buy specialty things like cookbooks just isn't an option anymore. It makes me incredibly grateful for the internet and all the information available on it, even if it does end up giving me a headache trying to sort through. The one book I've managed to hold onto over the years is Baking Bread, Old and New Traditions by Beth Hensperger, but it has nothing on sourdough, which is what I'd really like to focus on since it's my family's favorite. 

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June 25, 2018 - 12:12pm
franbaker's picture
franbaker

hello from a new baker taking on a challenge

Greetings from a not-totally-novice baker living near Philadelphia, Pa., in the US. This seems like a very friendly and helpful place, and I'm glad I found you all.

I've recently re-started my bread baking adventure, taking it up again every few years. This time around, there's a lot more information available so easily, but I'm still having trouble finding exactly what I'm looking for, so I think I may have taken on a bit of a challenge.

My heart's desire is to bake the healthiest possible breads, which to me means 100% whole grain from freshly-ground flour, naturally leavened bread, with fantastic flavor.

This is itself does not appear to be too difficult.

The challenge is that I want the other eater in my family to be enthusiastic about eating the bread I make, too. This is  someone who uses conventional, industrially-produced white breads for his sandwiches and who likes some bakery breads as long as they're not too sour, don't have too many big holes, and don't have that slightly bitter whole-wheaty taste to them (which most of the whole grain ones unfortunately do).

The good news is that I'm more than 50% there. Using freshly-milled flour (from organically-grown Red Fife wheat) and either a soaker- and biga- method a la Peter Reinhart or using a sourdough starter from breadtopia that I reconstituted, the flavor is fantastic (the sourdough was a little more sour than we wanted, but I think I let the bulk fermentation go on too long for an ambient temperature in the 80s Fahrenheit). I do have a couple of other starters of my own going, that aren't quite ready to try yet.

The issues are texture and shape. So far my breads are denser than he would like. Also, if I want him to use my bread for sandwiches, I need to bake them into a more square-shaped loaf of a usual sandwich size. I do have a standard loaf pan and a small pullman loaf pan. Also a batard-shaped clay baker.

I'm thinking I've taken on a real challenge because it's hard to find 100% whole grain bread recipes or formulas in serious (artisan) bread-baking books or bread-baking websites. Less hard in books that focus on things like using ancient grains, but they seem to either add vital wheat gluten for loft or accept a denser loaf.

I'm content with a fairly dense loaf myself; flavor is more my thing, then nutrition and health factors. My other eater is eating my bread so far (even the slightly sour, really quite dense one that I think I over-fermented) without special urging from me, but it's not what he uses when he wants a sandwich. He hates food going to waste, so I think he would eat it as long as he didn't dislike it, because he knows it's hard for me to eat it all myself. (You've got to bake a lot of bread if you want to learn.)

Part of the time, I think I should bake some white sourdough loaves to get a better idea of what the dough is supposed to feel like, look like, how it's supposed to behave. But that's not what I really want to eat. I'm really still learning all this basic stuff; it's surprising that I haven't baked an actual brick yet, I think, considering what I've apparently taken on. (Hoping I didn't just jinx myself there!)

If anyone can point me to threads, recipes, formulas, books, websites, or whatever, that address texture in 100% whole grain bread-baking, I would appreciate it.

Fran

 

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June 24, 2018 - 10:15am
Got-to-Baguette-Up's picture
Got-to-Baguette-Up

Open Crumb Fraudery

Hello All,

Trevor J Wilson has a book out called "Open Crumb Mastery" which, like his videos, purport to teach you how to get a nice open crumb from various kinds of dough.  Personally, I call bullshit.  

Has anyone here ever made a nice open crumb with a dough less than 75% hydration?  And I don't mean its an airy bread.  I mean big, irregular, artisan style holes.  

Why is it my local bakery can't seem to make open crumb bread?  Only their shitty looking ciabatta has irregular holes.  

There is something else folks, something else that leads to the open crumb we see on blogs and books.  It isn't gentle dough handling, I'll tell you that.  I've been babying my dough lately.  It isn't having a good starter.  I have a super active one.  It isn't judging the proof right.  I've tried every possible ferment/proof time combo.  No open crumb.  

Is it flour type, is it a secret ingredient, is it misrepresentation?  Don't know yet.  What I do know is the book "Open Crumb Mastery" is a retarded meander through one man's opinion on what makes open crumb.  It sounds really good, but apply the principles, and you don't get open crumb.  Do not waste your money on this E-book.  

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June 24, 2018 - 5:09am
zhitomir's picture
zhitomir

GOST Borodinsky Rye - subbing whole rye for medium

Hello! I'm here to solicit advice on how to improve my rye breads with the considerable limitations I have in flour variety and quality available to me.

After baking my way happily through his blog, I recently bought The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg and started dog-earing recipes to try.

The second one I made is this Borodinsky bread, based on 65% medium rye, 20% bread flour and 15% course rye meal fortified with red rye malt and molasses. Like other black Russian and Baltic breads it combines a lot of ripe sourdough sponge with a malted scald into a turbo sponge that leavens the loaf in only a couple of hours without any additional yeast, and perfumes the kitchen with outrageous smells of coffee, toffee, spices, booze and fruit.

Not having access to medium rye or coarse meal, I subbed fine meal for all of the rye flour. I also subbed T60 crystal malt for the red malt based on a suggestion by Stanley. Instead of the ~2300 cc bread pan he calls for, I subbed a deep, 2000 cc Cadac cast iron bread pot, the closest thing I had, figuring the whole rye would give me a weaker rise anyway.

The sponges and dough trucked along happily in my hot kitchen, happily hitting all the required benchmarks in more or less the time given, until I got to the 90-120 proof. 40 minutes in, I found myself rushing to preheat the oven as the dough threatened to overflow the pan. 

The bread took 15-20 minutes longer to bake than indicated, which I chalk up at least partially to my sluggish oven. The end result, as you can hopefully see, was not bad at all, deliciously flavor and fragrant though a little bit too far on the sour side, with a tender, glossy and open crumb. The bottom third was not as good at the rest, coming out gummy and dense.

Here are my take-aways; I'd love corroboration and tips from other rye heads on this venerable forum:

- it seemed like everything was on schedule, but I suspect that due to the fast proof and sour flavor that it was actually ahead of schedule and over fermented slightly resulting in the dreaded rye goo - the higher fiber content meant that the sponge and dough expand less despite fermenting faster, and in my hot kitchen I should have moved on to the next stages earlier.

- you can see that the right side of the loaf, which faced the colder front of my oven during the initial high temp steam bake, rose less and was just a tiny bit gummier. This makes me think that a longer preheat and a thinner walled aluminum pan could reduce some of the density. 

- six inches is too deep a pan for high percentage rye bread - the depth and narrow sides may have squeezed the gasses out of the dough at the bottom. The bread may also have been slightly under proofed when I baked it. Next time I'll use a shallower aluminum pan and scale the recipe.

- the scald didn't seem as sweet as it should have been - perhaps the use of flour instead of coarse meal lowered the effective hydration, hampering sugar extraction? It was difficult to effectively moisten all the flour when I mixed it. 

- obviously, subbing whole for medium rye resulted in a denser, more vigorous dough, maybe next time I could use 30% high extraction flour instead of 20% BF to get a more similar ash/protein profile? 

Any and all comment and tips welcome! 



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