I want to try my hand at a raisin sandwich loaf like the ones we used to buy from different bakeries in South Africa. From what I can recall about the taste, it's basically an enriched white bread with raisins. Would a brioche baked in a sandwich pan work?
This summer we had the occasion to pass by the King Arthur bakery and store in Norwich, VT several times. The cafe is quite good, and we tried to time our visits for lunch or dinner. Of course, we always pick up some bread to scope out too. One of these was a walnut ciabatta that had a remarkably nutty flavor. Couldn't figure out what was in there until I saw a 'walnut raisin ciabatta' in V2 of Hamelman: ah, toasted wheat germ.
I've made this a few times since, increasing the hydration a bit to open the crumb more. It's good, and my homegrown food critics say its pretty close to what we brought home.
Here's where I ended up.
| 26.7% | ripe white levain, 125% hydration |
| 100% | AP flour |
| 6% | wheat germ, toasted |
| 83.5% | water |
| 2% | salt |
| 1% | IDY |
| 21% | walnuts, toasted |
This Batard i made without any fresh or instant yeast. After an autolyse of half an hour I mixed everything by hand and kneaded it till it was nice and firm. Then I let it rest for two hours during stretchs and folds every half an hour before I two batards and put them in the fridge (ca 10°C) for 18 hours.
590 g Flour
380 g Water
- Autolyse
120 g Sourdough (100% hydration)
14 g Salt
67 % Hydration, 9 % leavening
I tend to bake large batches of basic wheat bread for my family. Right now, I have a regular oven range. I have the opportunity to get a double oven range but I am curious if anyone has had any experience baking bread with one of these? Can you bake bread in the top oven?
Right now, I put a batch of about 4-5 loaves in my regular electric oven range then I have to wait until it is done before putting my next batch in. It requires a bit of 'babysitting' since I can't let the loaves waiting to go into the oven rise too much or I have to punch them down and rise again. With the double oven range I am hoping to fit all 8-9 loaves in the bottom and top oven at the same time, as this would make things much easier and quicker!
Has anyone had any success baking bread in the double oven ranges?
Thanks!
Did I mention how much I love making sourdough? Its very frexibly, you can fix it around you schedule and it is quite quick. Yes, I said quick - not like 5 minutes quick, but it is possible to have a tasty sourdoung mixed and made in a single day,
I came up with a lovely honey and oat sourdough recipe which toasts incredibly well is delicious with lashings of butter and a drizzle of honey.
Full recipe on my blog here my blog here
This is perhaps one of if not the CRAZIEST idea to make bread. I don’t know what struck me to think of this but it worked! I just posted my most decent lean bread that I made a few days ago yesterday with good results but I want the top crust to be crisp just like oven baked bread so I made another experiment.
My problem with breads of this type when baking in a clay pot is pale tops and burnt bottoms; so I then thought, what if I cooked the bread at a lower temperature to cook the inside and set the structure then finish at high dry heat to just develop the crust? The high heat necessary for the second cooking isn’t a problem with my pot (it turns bread into charcoal :P) so the only problem is the first cooking method.
I’ve read that steam is necessary for the crisp crust of lean hearth breads but only at the beginning of the baking process so I thought of separating the process; steam the bread in the steamer then finish the crust in my clay pot, easy right? The bread is already cooked and only surface browning is what I’ll be looking for so no risk of raw dough and burnt crust. Not really, the uneven heat in the pot will only brown one side of the bread, so I then thought that one side’s crust should be already developed before going into the pot.
I suddenly remember my favorite treat from Chinatown, Shanghai fried siopao! Outside my country I think it is known as ShengJian Bao/ShengJian Mantou. Buns are fried until crispy at the bottom then hot water is poured to steam the top. I think it will solve my problem so I went to make the bread.
I made the usual 70% hydration 50/50 Bread and all-purpose flour mix and made a cold autolyse for 24 hours! I originally planned to have a 16 hour cold autolyse but my mom defrosted the refrigerator and I don’t want to mix in the yeast without a place for a retarded bulk rise, so I just put it in a cooler for 8 hours until I was sure that the fridge is clean and cold. I then mix in the instant yeast and salt and gave it a bulk rise for 2 hours with 3 sets of stretch and folds before putting it in the fridge. The next morning, I pre-shaped it into a boule, rested it for an hour then shaped it into a tight boule and finally proofed it seam side up on a cloth for an hour.
To cook the bread, I preheated a frying pan during the last minutes of proofing and pour a thin layer of oil; I made sure the pan is hot enough so the dough won’t stick. I slide the dough and fry the bottom until it is brown, about 3-5 minutes then boiling water is poured and I covered the pan to steam for another 15 minutes, I check the water from time to time so the bread won’t burn.
For the second stage, I let the bread cool a bit then put it UP-SIDE DOWN over two oiled llaneras, then baked it in the pot over high heat for 8 minutes, every 2 minutes I check and rotate it so the top gets evenly browned.
The crust was nicely browned and charred, I must admit that I left it a moment longer that's why it was charred on some areas. Yes I like a bold bake but not to this extent (I just said to myself, at least it is not "charcoal" and still edible) so I was surprised that it added a whole new dimension to the flavor profile; the bittersweet caramelized notes of the crust is delicious; now i know why some breads are intentionally charred like pizza napoletana. Also, It looks like it was scored but it wasn't. Those white "spots" are just areas not directly exposed to the radiant heat at the bottom of the pot which came from how I positioned the two llaneras to support the bread. A pretty accident indeed!
The fried bottom, it is also crisp but in a different way!
Crumb shots
The bread is sweeter and richer than my previous attempt, the crumb is chewy and the thin crust is crisp all over. One problem though is the lack of spring because of the lower cooking temperature so the bread a little flat with a slightly tight crumb but the trade-off is worth it, I will probably try next time with a dryer dough for an already tall loaf and a better support of the structure in that wet environment.
This is what was left 5 minutes after I served the bread...
Graduation is near and i will move to my dormitory in the next few days to have my on-the-job training in another town, a 3 hour drive from where I currently live. I will really miss my pot for almost two months that's why I'm baking as much as I can.
This is my hero and my best friend since 2011. I bought it using my savings from my daily allowance without knowing if I will succeed. I'm glad I had the courage to try it, many delicious breads and baked goods that my family ate and loved came from it. Thank you very much!
It is supposed to rain for the net two days here in the AZ desert but be clear for the Super Bowl on Sunday. No worries anyway since the stadium has a real grass movable field and a movable roof too. Still, Lucy was thinking about how beautiful, if dry and desolate, the desert usually is while I was thinking about how much the desert and Lucy’s brain are alike. It’s odd how the names of her breads come about.
This one was a mix of 5 sprouted and whole grains including, wheat, spelt, rye, einkorn and emmer (Hayden Mills Farro) The whole and sprouted grains totaled 40% of the flour and half of them were sprouted. The levain was 13% of the flour and the hydration was 77% so, it was not too wet for a change.
With sprouted grains in the mix, we start on Tuesday for a Friday’s weekly bake. First the grains have to be soaked for 3-4 hours and sprouted up to the 24 hour mark or so – stopping them when they first begin to ‘chit’ showing their first tiny toots Then o Wednesday we dry them in the dehydrator at 105 F and then grind them with the other whole grains.
Then the milled whole grain sprouted flours are sifted to remove hard bits (in this case 28% extraction) that we feed to the starter in 3 stages (2 -3 and 4 hours in this case) to make the levain. This left the 72% extraction for the dough flour mix. Once the levain doubles after the 3rd feeding it goes into the fridge of a 24 hour cold retard at 36 F.
On Thursday we got out the levain from the fridge and the yogurt whey from the freezer. We zapped the whey in the microwave to thaw it out and warm it up for the autolyse which was an hour as the levain warmed up. We sprinkled the salt on the top of the autolyse so we wouldn’t forget it.
Once the levain hit the mix, we mixed it in a bit with a spoon before beginning the 3 sets of slap and folds on 8, 1 and 1minute and 3 sets of stretch and folds from the compass points . All were done 20 minutes apart, and the dough stopped sticking to the counter at the end of first set of slap and folds.
A yummy cheesecake and a deep dish chicken pot pie!
We then let the dough ferment and rest for a half and hour before putting it in a plastic oiled bowl for a 8 hour bulk ferment, followed by a shaped 12 hour cold proof making this bake a quadruple retard - a week for the starter, 24 hours for the levain and 8 hour bulk ferment and a 12 hour proof.
How Lucy comes up with these methods just goes to show how much she has slowed down. It has been forever since we tried to do this quadruple madness and the last time wasn’t pretty if I remember right - which proves beyond a doubt how much I have slowed down too.
Thank goodness geneticists have isolated a jellyfish gene that makes people not be so forgetful – great for Alzheimer’s cases. You can now be genetically modified to perk up the old brain pan in ways like never before. I’m trying to get them to put it in wheat so I can kill two birds with one stone!
Once the dough came out of the fridge after the 12 proof, we let it warm up on the counter heating pad for 1 ½ hours before starting up Big old Bets to 500 F preheat. We un- molded the dough onto parchment paper on a peel, gave it one big slash, onto the bottom stone it went and quickly covered by our heavy aluminum MagnaLite turkey roaster bottom for 20 minutes of steam . After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 450 F
Once the lid came off, we continued baking at 425 F convection for 20 minutes until the temperature read 205 F. Once the oven was off, we left the bread on the stone for another 5 minutes until it hit 208 F and then removed it to a cooling rack. The dough sprang and bloomed pretty good under steam and browned up well enough too. It was a bit over proofed but not horribly so.
Can’t wait to see the crumb once it cools down. The crumb came out not as open as the rise and spring would suggest. Still, it was very soft moist and glossy. A perfect sandwich crumb. This is the kind of crumb we get when we do a long bulk ferment in the fridge and then a long shaped proof in the fridge too -just too much messing with the dough. Once the again, the taste was great and quite different than the porter bread. The whey added a sharper tang but not too much. The sprouts really came through too. A fine loaf that we can't wait to make toast out of tomorrow for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch.
Taco Tuesdays are always a hit as was the sandwich for lunch.
SD Levain Build | Build 1 | Build 2 | Build 3 | Total | % |
1 Week Retarded Rye Sour Starter | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 1.53% |
28% Extract Sprouted & Whole 5 Grain | 10 | 20 | 43 | 73 | 11.18% |
Water | 10 | 20 | 43 | 73 | 11.18% |
Total | 30 | 40 | 86 | 156 | 23.89% |
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Levain Totals |
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Flour | 78 | 11.94% |
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Water | 78 | 11.94% |
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Levain Hydration | 100.00% |
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Levain % of Total Flour | 11.94% |
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Dough Flour |
| % |
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72% Extraction Sprouted and Whole 5 Grain | 185 | 28.33% |
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KA Bread & LaFama AP 50/50 | 390 | 59.72% |
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Total Dough Flour | 575 | 88.06% |
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Salt | 13 | 1.99% |
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Yogurt Whey | 425 | 65.08% |
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Dough Hydration | 73.91% |
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Total Flour w/ Starter | 653 |
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Yogurt Whey & Water | 503 |
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Total Hydration w/ Starter & Adds | 77.03% |
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Total Weight | 1,169 |
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% Whole & Sprouted Grains - half each | 40.28% |
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Lucy reminds us to never ever forget to add a good salad to any meal.
I am looking for a list of flours that contain gluten and how much gluten each of them have. I am allergic to wheat and want to start experimenting baking bread without wheat. I am not gluten free, I can have gluten in other flours like rye and barley. I dislike gluten free bread mixes, recipes and flour mixes because they have little nutrition, are high in calories and mostly made from starchy flours - rice, potato, etc. Notes about baking with these other flours would also be helpful.
Years ago I found a web page that had such a list, but I can't seem to find in again.
Any help would be appreciated.
Jann
Hello bakers!
Im a long time reader, but finally achieve a bread that Im not ashamed to share with you guys.
This is a Tartine-style bread with some dry figs and brazil`s nuts. Its basically the Tartine recepie from the Weekend Bakery website (weekendbakery.com), so they describe the steps much better than I could do it.
My levain is fed with a 1-3-3 ratio (usually 20g of levain, 60g water and 60g whole wheat). Usually I make the poolish the night before baking, in the counter, and it sits the whole next day in the fridge (I work all day, so nightime is where the magic happens here). After the autolyse stage, I added the water part II (see recepie in the website), salt and dry figs (60g) along with brazil`s nuts grinded in a food processor (30g).
I pre-heat my oven 1 hour before bake time. The bread goes to the oven inside an old oval shaped cast iron casserole (see pictures below), 30min with lid on and another 5-7min without it. Inside my oven theres a piece of soapstone that I use as a base for the cast iron.
Here it goes:
Cheers!!
I was intrigued by dabrownman's "more than 15 but less than 30 ingredient challenge" so I decided to give it a try by modifying Reinhart's BBA Basic Sourdough. I bought a package of Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain 10 Grain Hot Cereal, which appears to be coarsely milled whole grains, and chose to substitute 5 oz of starter with 5 oz of dry whole grain (Reinhart's recipe calls for 10.2 oz of preferment, in this bread I used about half as much). I made a bit of a mistake here as I added enough water to soak the grain overnight which totaled 7 oz of water ... my intention was an 82% hydration loaf using 100% hydration preferment and soaker but it's pretty obvious the soaker exceeded 100%.
100% hydration preferment (I did it in 2 builds, first build was 50 g water and 50g flours, second build was 100g water and 100g flours):
KAF Bread Flour
KAF White Whole Wheat
Arrowhead Mills Rye flour
Mature starter
Water
Main dough:
KAF Bread flour: 8 oz
KAF White Whole Wheat: 6.25 oz
KAF AP: 1 oz (I intended to use more but the bag ran dry)
Arrowhead Mills Sprouted Wheat Flour: 2.5 oz
Arrowhead Mills Rye Flour: 2.5 oz
Whole grain soaker: 12oz
(the whole grain cereal I used for the soaker is whole wheat, whole rye, corn grits, whole triticale, whole oats, soybeans, whole millet, whole barley, whole brown rice, oat bran, and flax meal ... it was 5 oz of the dry cereal and 7 oz water)
Salt: 0.6 oz Pink Himalayan
For the fluid I used Flying Dog "The Truth" Imperial IPA (12 oz) and 5.5 oz of additional water.
I autolysed the flour overnight for 12 hours, then added the salt, soaker, and preferment.
I mixed the mess with my Kitchen Aid using the dough hook ... then proceeded to knead in 5 minute intervals with 10 minute rests in between each interval. I let it sit out of 2 hours at room temp, then let it ferment in the coldest room in my house (about 55dF) for 5 hours, then into the refrigerator overnight. I preshaped it in the morning and then put it back int eh fridge ... it was very wet and sticky but I was able to stretch it and form a boule. Back into the refrigerator for 8 hours. Then for the final shaping I gently stretched it and formed into a boule, then into the brotform ... then into my utility closet (90dF) for 1.5 hours for final proofing.
I preheated my DO to 550dF and put the dough in and lightly scored it. After 5 minutes in the oven I reduced the temperature to 515dF and baked another 10 minutes. I then removed the bread from the DO and put it on the baking stone, and reduced the temperature again to 475dF. After 15 minutes I measured the internal temperature which read 195dF, so I left the bread in the oven for another 10 minutes ... at this point it was pretty dark so I removed it from the oven.
Crumb shots later, unless my wife decides to give the bread away, lol.
-Dave
EDIT: I couldn't wait so I lopped a slice off a few minutes ago. I'm pleased with the crumb. I think some of the hops came through, the outer crust is a touch on the bitter side. The crumb is moist, likely from the corn, and was delicious with butter. Will be interesting to observe the flavor as the loaf ages.
