In "The Making of a Chef" Michael Ruhlman describes a sourdough bread with sauerkraut and red onion that was so good the president of the Culinary Institute of America ate half a loaf a day. It was a regular feature in their bakery at the time (1996). Does anybody have a recipe?
This is a 50% wholewheat loaf at 83% hydration!
I rolled the final dough after shaping into a bowl of sesame and poppy seeds so the loaf has a uniform crust all over.
226g bread flour
210g wholewheat flour
355g water
55g wholewheat starter at around 100% hydration
9g salt
Directions:
Mix all the ingredients minus the salt and starter in a bowl until all the flour is dry. Leave to hydrate for a few hours. Sometimes I let autolyse overnight in the fridge.
Fold in the starter and salt. Proceed with about 6 stretch and folds over the course of 5 hours. I only did 3 with this loaf so the oven spring wasn't as high as I would've liked, but the crumb is still nice.
After S&F are done, shape tightly and then roll the entire ball into the seeds. Place seamside up in a proofing bowl and proof overnight in the fridge then take out the next day and let proof on the counter for about 2-4 hours. Bake at 450F for 20 with dutch oven lid on and another 20 with it off.
PS a good tip for sticking the seeds on is rolling the dough in a damp towel to get the surface a little tacky. I didn't have a clean tea towel on hand so I wet my hands and rubbed them over the surface of the ball of dough, then took a paper towel and gently dabbed at it to remove the excess moisture and achieve that tacky surface. The generous coating of seeds completely coated the dough so I didn't need to line my proofing bowl (in my case, a metal mixing bowl) with flour to keep it from sticking to the sides.
Process pics
The next day:
After 20 minutes with steam: (ps I don't have a sharp razor so my scoring is pretty depressing)
20 minutes uncovered
I was gifting this loaf so I couldn't cut into it but I've made this recipe often and this is a worst case scenario of the crumb:
After a visit to the co-op, I decided to mix some of the flours into my normal country loaf.
| Pct | Grams | |
| Bread Flour (ABC) | 75% | 750 |
| Kamut | 17% | 170 |
| Whole Wheat | 5% | 50 |
| Rye | 3% | 30 |
| Water | 75% | 750 |
| Leaven | 25% | 250 |
| Salt | 2% | 20 |
| Wheat Germ | 7% | 70 |
| Total | 209% | 2090 |
A last-minute request from a friend to bring 'something sweet' to a Sunday brunch led to putting this together from whatever I had in the kitchen. It was very well received, very moist and great flavor, though I think it could have had a lighter crumb had I been a bit more gentle when folding in the flour.
Recipe:
1. Preheat oven to 180F, and grease a loaf pan.
2. Combine in a large bowl: 90 ml oil, 125g (could've been closer to 150g - I was not measuring strictly) plain low-fat yogurt, zest of one lemon and 1/2 tsp of lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 150g of white sugar.
3. Mix until completely smooth, then beat in 2 large eggs.
4. In small bowl, combine: 210g flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt. Probably should have sifted these but I just stirred them and it worked fine.
5. In another small bowl, mash 150g blackcurrant preserve until it’s mostly a puree with a few chunks of fruit left.
6. Fold dry ingredients into wet, eliminating any large lumps. Pour 1/2 of batter into baking tin, top with 1/2 of puree and swirl with a fork. Repeat with remaining batter and puree.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar to serve.
I suspect that this is better on the second day than the first and would bake the day before serving next time if I have more warning!
This really interested me... I took a time-lapse video of the ten hour period after a [1:1:1] refreshment of my 2 week-old wheat starter (3:1 white/wholemeal),
The first phase was as expected: a near-exponential growth in volume that peaked out after 3hrs (at 22 deg C) and then 'held' for 20-30 mins.
The next part really surprised me, with two or more apparent cycles of collapse and regrowth. Anyone got any idea what is going on to cause this? LAB digestion of wheat releasing food for the yeast?
Anyhow I'm rather intrigued to see what point is best to use the starter for volume/flavouring of a final dough.
Ideas, comments, suggestions welcome :)
MARTIN
I baked a batch of six Sunflower Flaxseed Levains from Tartine 3 this morning. I made the dough last night and let it sit in the basement (my version of 'cellar temperature') overnight, then shaped it and proofed in baskets this morning. It proofs a lot more quickly than the five hours Robertson recommends so I had to have the oven and the cast iron pots hot and ready. The dough was quite sticky this morning but stretchy, and it shaped well into boules. These were 750 grams (wet dough weight) boules, baked in 3 quart pots. Turned out very nice!
After quite a few white breads in a row I was worried that Lucy may have gone to the white side and then she came up with this one. Originally it was supposed to be a 40% rye Jewish Corn Bread but that got lost in the translation of having to replenish our very old NMNF stiff rye starter.
We started the process of replenishing the starter at 100% hydration and, at the end of the 3rd stage, it had tripled so we retarded it for 24 hours. Then we split it in half. We then fed half the sprouted rye bran and enough water to make it 100% hydration and let it double again and then retarded that part.
The other half was fed whole rye at 66% hydration and when it had risen 25% we retarded it as our new NMNF starter we will use over the next half year with no maintenance whatsoever. The HE sprouted flour and some whole rye was used as part of the dough flour for this Friday’s bake. In the end this bread ended up being 10% whole grain rye and 30% sprouted whole grain rye with the remaining 60% was Albertson’s bread flour.
It looked pretty naked so Lucy added in 10% each toasted walnuts and black mission figs, 2% caraway and 2% total of equal parts of anise, coriander and fennel seeds – or favorite mix of bread spices. Overall hydration of this bread was 80%.
Since retarding the old NMNF starter for 24 weeks, the new starter build and the levain for 25 hours each for this bread was not enough….. we decided to retard the shaped loaf in the Oriental Pullman for 12 hours too – nothing like 4 retards to make a loaf of rye bread – 3 just won’t do for a purebred German like Lucy – even though Germans probably didn’t even retard their rye breads at all I’m guessing.
This one had a 1 hour autolyse with the PHSS sprinkled on top. Once the levain finally I the dough, we did 3 sets of slap and folds, 4,10 and 4 followed by 3 sets if stretch and folds from the compass points. all on 30 minute intervals, go get the add in’s incorporated. Once we shaped it and plopped it into the sprayed Pullman pan, we let it sit for 30 minutes before putting it in the fridge for 12 hours.
There is that salad for Lucy
When we took it out of the fridge the next morning we fired up the oven to 500 F. When the pan went into the oven between the two tones we turned the oven down to 450 F for 15 minutes of covered steam and then another 15 minutes of covered steam at 425 F. After 30 minutes of steam we removed the lid and continued baking at 425 F convection for 20 minutes.
We then removed the bread from the pan and finished baking it directly on the rack for 10 more minutes. When we took it out of the oven at the 50 minute mark it read 207 F on the inside. It browned up beautifully but we will have to wait n the inside until we let it sit wrapped in plastic wrap overnight to redistribute the moisture before slicing for breakfast.
This one came out just the way we had hoped. Soft, moist and open on the inside with that bread spices giving off aroma as well as flavor. The figs and walnuts are wonderful additions to what would be a plain Jewish Deli Rye bread. The additions make it special and handsome to look at as well. It is one delicious bread. Now we have to toast it and put some cream cheese on it for breakfast.
Here are the ribs and the strip steak for Lucy's baker
Formula
15% prefermented whole grain rye and sprouted rye bran flour levain at 100% hydration. 8% whole rye and 7% sprouted rye bran
Dough
2% whole rye
23% high extraction sprouted rye
60% Albertson’s bread flour
80% overall hydration
10% Mission Figs
10% Toasted Walnuts
4% Bread spices – half caraway the other half, amice, coriander and fennel
2% Pink Himalayan sea salt
I would like to make my husband a beer bread (stout) with rye. Anyone have a great recipe? I don't have a started yet. I live in the north so we don't have fancy items at home.
Anyone willing to share?
Thanks !
This is a relatively simple bread made with fresh milled Kamut flour, KAF Millet flour and KAF Toasted Almond Flour. I added some smoked pecan maple syrup for extra sweetness which complimented the nutty flavor of the almond flour.
All in all, this one came out very tasty and made some great grilled bread with olive oil for dinner this week.
The crumb could have been a bit more open but it was nice and moist.
Download the BreadStorm File Here.
Greetings
14 days ago, I began making a new yogurt starter with 40g yogurt + 40g ww flour) in very warm temp, around 95f (I kept the jar on the mesh behind the fridge). By day 3 it expanded 4x, probably due to Leuconostoc bacteria. Then I moved it on the counter. Room temp at my end is around 85-90. It stopped expanding for a day, then yeast began to show up little by little. By day 7 I could smell yeast and it expanded 3x in 10 hours. All that time it was a stiff starter. I began switching to 100% hydration because its easier to mix. The following days yeast showed less presence, and it took longer to peak. Now my starter hardly peaks, and all sour, but no power. I tested it twice to make a dough, but it turned our flat with no rise.
What did I do wrong? why is the Lactobacilli taking over? was it the 100% hydration that caused the disappearance of yeast power?
How do I develop yeast power in my starter? should I make it stiffer again? should I retard it in the fridge? its been 14 days now..