The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

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BXMurphy's picture
BXMurphy

Why is it always 500° F?

Say, how come every recipe starts the bake at about as hot as you can get your oven? Has anyone tried low and slow?

Murph

Maxbob002's picture
Maxbob002

Sourdough French Loaf

I made a French bread size loaf from a sourdough baguette recipe. It's a recipe I got in a sourdough class that I make regularly but usually in typical baguette form. It has about 50grams of starter and 2 gram sof commercial yeast for a 900 gram total dough. We are having roast beef melt sandwiches for dinner so I made some larger loaves than normal. I did everything I thought would decrease oven spring. I used a lower oven temperature, bulk and proofed longer than normal and held my lame completely vertical. Between Charlotte and the commerical yest, the end result was among the best oven spring I have had in a loaf. Not sure how it happened but will have to keep experimenting and learning. Bread baking is so complex.

Thanks for reading.

wheatbreadco's picture
wheatbreadco

Toasting/Browning Flour and Gluten

Hi All, 

I am relatively new to the baking scene - been doing it for a little over 2 years now, using sourdough and my beloved starter as a spring board into other adventures. Those adventures have lead me to toying with flavors and ways to treat the wheat etc which brings me to the question.

I have been toying with the idea of browning my bread flour in a pan - no oils or butter or anything, just dry heat to toast the wheat before using it in my sourdough loaf. My question is this - will browning the wheat denature the gluten to the point where it will not rise and give me the fluffy crumb that I love so much?

I am interested to see if others have tried this and what were the results?

Thanks,

WBC 

joc1954's picture
joc1954

100% Buckwheat Gluten-free Bread With Yeast Water

I started to experiment with yeast water made from raisin or pears and wanted to test if it is possible to make 100% buckwheat flour bread that is actually gluten free. Buckwheat is quite popular here in Slovenia. "Ajdovi Žganci", the Slovene word for buckwheat maize porridge, is a typical Slovene food prepared by farmers. 

The recipe is simple: in my case I used 900g of freshly milled buckwheat flour (milled on my own mill at home), added 1000g of water, 20g of salt and 3 tablespoons of psyllium and 30g of olive oil. A day before I have used 30g of raisin yeast water and 30g of buckwheat flour to prepare the levain. After doubling I added another 100g of water and 100g of buckwheat flour and waited about one hour that the levain started to raise rapidly. Then I have mixed everything with handand put in a model covered with parchment paper. The dough was proofing in my oven at 35 dC until it doubled. Then I just turned on my steam oven with max amount of steam and baked at 230 dC (the maximum available temp) for 45 minutes (the oven had to warm up within this time) and then without steam for next 15 minutes at 210 dC.

The bread turned out great and was quite soft although still quite dense, but much better what I was actually expecting. The raisin YW performed a great work.

I am eagerly waiting for any comments and suggestions for improvement.

Happy baking, Joze

Runnerfemme's picture
Runnerfemme

Seeded Sprouted Spelt Sourdough with Walnuts & Figs (AKA Alliteration Sourdough)

Waiting for bread to cool before slicing is an exercise in restraint and one at which I usually fail.  Not this time and it paid off.  So pleased!  A creamy, cool, light interior despite the heavy ingredients of soaked seeds, fruit and nuts.  I went full throttle on heat and was nervous that I'd burned the bread, but I had not. The burnished crust was just perfect for my preference.  My husband is sitting next to me eating a hunk as I type this and he JUST said, "Mmm mmm gooood."  Recipe & pics attached.  Happy baking!

 

Seeded Sprouted Spelt Sourdough with Walnuts & Figs (2 loaves)

400g KAF bread flour

400g KAF Artisan Bread Flour

200g One Degree Organics Sprouted Spelt Flour

250g 50/50 rye/spelt fed and bubbly starter (about 85% hyd)

880g water 85-90 degrees 

22g fine sea salt

2 TBL honey

2 TBL walnut oil

scant 2 TBL diastatic malt powder

200g or more toasted walnut halves

200g or more Black mission figs (soaked; rough chop)

1/2c KAF Harvest Seed blend - soaked for a few hours in hot water; drained if needed

 

Do soaker of seeds and figs separately; draining if needed before use. Reserve 50g water from fig soaker.

Toast walnuts – 325 for 10-12 minutes and cool completely.  Set aside. Mix 830g of water with honey, all flour, diastatic malt powder. Cover bowl and autolyse somewhere warm (around 78ºF) for 1.5-2 hours. After autolyse, add starter, salt, reserved 50g fig soaker water, walnut oil, & seeds (can add ¼ tsp instant yeast at this point if starter needs oomph). Mix by hand to incorporate ingredients - don’t over mix. Complete 4 stretch & folds spaced out by 30+ minutes (1st S&F after 30 min; store dough someplace warm during rests).  Gently add figs/nuts at second stretch & fold - don’t worry if they are not well dispersed at this point - they will be by the end.  After completing the 4 S&Fs, cover & complete bulk ferment in refrigerator over night (about 7 hours; alternatively let bulk ferment at rest for additional 2-3 hours on counter/warm room).  After bulk ferment, divide dough into 2 masses. Pre-shape into boules, let rest seam down for 20 minutes UNcovered.  After 20 min rest, shape each into batard or boule. Proof in bannetons (lined with linen dusted with rice flour, covered) for 3 hours in fridge and 1 hour on warm countertop while oven preheats. (Or approx. 1.5 hours on countertop or in warm room. If you have chosen the shorter countertop bulk fermentation, consider doing final proof in refrigerator over night/about 7 hours for flavor development).  (Choose whichever fermentation/proofing method meets your schedule needs.)

Preheat oven & cookers for 1 hr. at 500º. Turn out loaves onto parchment rounds. Score. Spritz with water.  45 min. at 500º. After 45 min, reduce oven to 450º, remove cooker lids & bake for an additional 10 min. Watch for scorching figs if any are sitting on the surface of the breads - can loosely cover with foil to prevent scorching, although this may interfere with deep browning of crust. Remove from the oven & cool on wire racks. LET COOL 100% - BEFORE SLICING (difficult, but I swear it’s worth it particularly b/c the walnut oil and soaked seeds/fruit have added to the moist crumb — slicing early will result in gumminess).

 

Ru007's picture
Ru007

Sweet potato, walnut and pecan sourdough

I’ve been meaning to bake a bread with potatoes in it, and I got some great tips from Isand66 and Dabrownman last week for potato bread , i thought why not start with a sweet potato loaf.

My formula is based on a recipe by txfarmer "Sweet potato sourdough with walnuts"

I didn’t change much, except I did use a bit more water in the autolyse. Things were just feeling bit stiff and my levain was only going to be 80% hydration, instead of the 100% called for in the recipe. I skipped the maple syrup and used a combination of walnuts and pecan nuts.

Formula:

 

 

Weights (g)

 

Final dough

%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain (80% hydration)

 

            125

 

 

 

 

Water

 

            205

 

 

                 260

67%

Flour

 

            320

 

 

                  390

100%

Unbleached white bread flour

            302

 

 

            302

 

78%

Whole wheat four

              18

 

 

              85

 

22%

Rye Flour

 

 

 

                3

 

1%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

 

                9

 

 

9

2.3%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add ins

 

            195

 

 

195

50%

Walnuts

              40

 

 

              40

 

10%

Pecans

              40

 

 

              40

 

10%

Sweet Potato

115

 

 

115

 

30%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total dough weight

 

854

 

 

854

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Method:

1. Levain builds in three stages (using my NMNF rye starter), all with whole wheat flour.

I retarded the levain overnight once it doubled after the 3rd feeding.

2. Boil the sweet potato, until it’s really soft, then mash it (skin and all).

I just used fork to mash it, so it wasn’t particularly smooth.

Toast the nuts, leave to cool before chopping them up.

Mix the flour and water to make a fairly stiff dough, chill for a few hours and then leave to come to room temperature overnight.

3. In the morning, remove the levain from the fridge two hours before mixing, stir down and leave to bubble up again. Mix the dough, sweet potato mash, salt and levain, using a series of stretches/slaps or whatever gets everything mixed in really well.

The sweet potato added a lot of moisture to the dough, but it wasn’t too wet for me.

4. Develop the dough using stretch and folds.

I did another 4 sets at 45 minute intervals and added the nuts on the first set after the initial mixing. Leave the dough to bulk ferment for a few hours (I left my dough undisturbed for another 3 hours) until its increased in volume and there’s some nicely visible bubbles.

5. Pre-shape and leave to rest for 30mins before shaping and retarding overnight.

I left the dough to proof for another hour before putting it in the fridge for 19 hours.

I baked this loaf for 40 mins at 230dC, with steam for the first 30mins. I left the loaf in oven for another 5 mins after i turned it off, with the door ajar. 

 

The loaf sprang and bloomed pretty well.

 

I was worried i had over proofed it, but i think i got away with the long fermentation times. The crust is thin, crispy and really quite fragile. 

The crumb turned out well, i think. It has little bits of purple in there from the walnuts, which i think looks cool. 

I really like the taste of this loaf, it has a lovely nuttiness. The crumb is really moist, probably due to the sweet potato. Just had a slice with a bit of butter and my favourite strawberry jam! It was awesome. 

I'm really happy with how my first potato loaf went :) Next time, i might up the sweet potato a bit just to see what happens. 

Happy baking every one! 

bread1965's picture
bread1965

Pane di Matera vs Altamura

Hi bakers.. 

I've been away for a while and back home. I've had the good fortune of spending many weeks traveling through Italy this summer. One place on my bucket list was Altamura for the bread. I wanted to try the authentic big loaves we know as Pane di Altamura (not to be confused on this board with Alfonsomura!), as I had never tried this type of bread.

I was in Matera, about an hour away from Altamura, sight seeing the city and Sasi (caves, long story, google). We were in Matera for our first full day and the next morning we were going to detour to Altamura and find a bakery and try the bread.  As I'm walking along the main square in Matera that afternoon, I see a jumbo sized loaf of bread that looks like the classic Pane di Altamura. So I walk in and there's a wall of fresh loaves in different sizes. As I talk to baker behind the counter he essentially tells me that they too make bread from 'rimacinata' flour from fields just down the road -  I end up buying a kilo of flour from him and bring it home to try, labeled as from Matera.

He goes on to tell me, after I ask if they copy the Altamura bread style that in fact it's Altamura that copies their bread style! (classic). And he says in fact that their bread is better!. You have to love the competition! I ended up buying a small loaf him that he slices.  A few minutes later I'm sitting on some church steps (it's italy after all) eating his bread.

 

 

Suffice it to say, it was a wow moment.  Interesting flavour and mouth feel, earthy yet sweet. It was dry, but not in a way that I'd complain about - not sure how to describe it. But truly great bread.  I'm sure the entire experience is influenced by my sitting in the shade of a church, overlooking an Italian piazza, surrounded by my family, munching on ridiculously good bread. It's now been too many weeks for me to be exact about how it tasted. But it is a great memory. We never made it to Altamura in the end, but that was fine with me after that experience. I put the flour in my freezer when I got home and this fall I'll try my hand at making a loaf with it. 

In the bigger picture, we had some incredible bread and pizza along our travels. I couldn't begin to tell you how good they all were. But of the other experiences, one that stood out was olive bread braids that I had up on the Dolomite Mountains at this small restaurant. I didn't have my camera with me, but they were truly great. It was simple, flavourful and memorable. I'll have to try recreating them too.

Ok. Back to reality and baking bread.. bake happy.. bread1965

alfanso's picture
alfanso

SFBI Pain au Levain w/caraway seeds

I had such a good bake with my one previous turn at David's SFBI Pain au Levain (my way!) , a mostly all AP flour dough, that I knew I'd be returning to the scene of the crime soon enough.  Again using my 75% hydration levain and adding water to make up for the difference vs. a liquid levain, I also decided to add caraway seeds to the dough.  A good slather of cornstarch glaze before and after the bake.  More caraway seeds were sprinkled on top, post-bake, between two final glazes.

Once more a slight error in rolling out a baguette caused a bludgeon-like shaping in the final result.  Plus a funny "tuck" visible on the end of the batard, also evident in the final result.  As I mentioned in my recent blog entry about my do and don't lists, any early error is magnified in the downstream results.  But I'm pretty pleased with the finished product once more.  Still waiting for the cool down before inspecting the interior, or for that matter, sinking my dentures into one.

3x350g baguettes, 1x575g batard.

 

Crumb shot added

semolina_man's picture
semolina_man

Tom Cat's semolina Filone

 

Formula from this site.  24 hour poolish followed by a 12 hour refrigerated bulk ferment with stretch and folds.  1 hour warm moist proof, 55 minute bake at 405F.  

Refrigerated bulk ferment tames this very slack and difficult to manage dough.  

 

 

 

 

tuziksmith's picture
tuziksmith

Is Stone-Buhr bread flour unbromated?

Have been trying to get an answer from Stone-Buhr but so far no response. Does anyone know if Stone-Buhr bread flour unbromated? The package says it's unbleached but I am not sure about bromate. Any help would be very appreciated!

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