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bakingbadly's picture
bakingbadly

From German Bread Roll to Curry Roll

About a month ago I began my quest of making Brötchen (German bread rolls). There was a demand in town for such rolls and I had to fulfill it. I mean, I had to. I'm opening a German-ish bakery albeit in Cambodia. And a German bakery without Brötchen is like a poem without words.


Thanks to Karin's (Hanseata) blog post and detailed descriptions from German expats, I knew what I was aiming for. I adapted Karin's recipe and baked the first few test batches of Brötchen.

Too hard, too heavy, too dense, too yeasty, too light, too... too many problems.

 

Three weeks later my freezer, my business partner's freezer, and my parents' freezer were full of experimental bread rolls. But behold, I was finally satisfied with my results: 

Thin, delicate, crispy crust; soft yet substantial crumb; and a pleasant yeasty, nutty aroma. 

One of my Swiss-German friends sampled my Brötchen, with a boiled Depriziner (spiced sausage). To my surprise he said, "It was the best meal I had in months," with much enthusiasm for the Brötchen. Of course, thinking it was an anomaly, I had others taste-test my bread rolls---friends and acquaintances. One after another, they all gave positive reviews, some of them rather lofty.

 



Some tips and suggestions:

The crust contributes a lot of flavour to Brötchen. Thus, to improve its flavour profile, I shaped the rolls into "ovals" instead of "balls". This way, the ratio of crust to crumb is increased.

Also, for my rolls, I reduced the oil / fat amount and did not fully develop the dough's gluten. Personally, I like my rolls with larger holes and a shreddy texture for one sole reason: it holds heavy sauces and condiments better.

Another tip: If you want seeds to stick to your bread, without an egg wash, I recommend brushing your dough with a mixture of flour (or anything starchy) and water, then adding the seeds atop. The majority of the seeds will stick, even when the bread is frozen, re-heated, and / or dropped onto the floor from chest-height!




From April 13th to April 16th is the Cambodian New Years. During this time, major festivals occur across the nation. One of these events is a three-day concert in the Angkor Wat complex (i.e., the largest religious monument in the world).

My business partner Michael requested that I produce something special for this event. My idea: Curry Rolls.




This idea was inspired by the Japanese "Yaki Kare Pan" (Baked Curry Bread). It's not uncommon for Cambodians to eat curry with bread as separate entities, so I thought it would be nifty to combine the two.

The bread roll wasn't a big deal. I used the same recipe for my Brötchen. The curry, on the other hand, was out of my expertise. Collaborating with Michael (a seasoned, professional chef) and his wife's family, we adapted a traditional Cambodian curry and transformed it into a bread filling.

Today marks the end of the Cambodian New Years. Truth be told, the Curry Rolls didn't sell as well as we wanted. Why? Perhaps a variety of reasons: poor location, too many competitors, lack of details...

But I have good news. Two bars in town have expressed keen interest in our Curry Rolls. We're confident that we'll attract other clients and will eventually produce the Curry Rolls by the hundreds, including other fillings, on a daily basis. 




One final comment. Last Friday our upcoming bakery was featured in a local news article, which you can view here: 

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/siem-reap-insider/new-sourdough-bakery-promises-home-delivery

This publication has garnered much attention from hoteliers, restaurateurs, and bar owners in Siem Reap. That's right, my dream of running a sourdough bakery is coming into fruition, and I have to say, it's surreal. How did I get to this point, I know. Without encouragement and assistance from my family and friends, including this community (a tremendous source of my inspiration), I wouldn't be where I am today.

With my utmost gratitude, I thank you all!

Zita
Head Baker
Siem Reap Bäckerei

mwilson's picture
mwilson

Hot Cross Buns with Lievito Madre

These buns were a make it up as you go along effort. I was still deciding on the numbers with the mixer running, working the dough I had thus far and I liberally added spices in the style of a well seasoned chef.

Having worked up a sweat mixing this dough partly by hand as well as in the mixer and the dough complete I saw I could have added more liquid. I knew the dough would tighten up a bit upon adding the dried fruit but I didn’t compensate enough. Still I was fairly pleased with finished dough considering this was an off-the-cuff, part improvised endeavour.

In keeping with the theme of improvising I picked a random weight at which to scale these. At circa 85 grams I had enough dough to make 18, more or less equal buns.

First dough:
300g flour
100g milk
75g LM (Lievito madre), refreshed 3 times
75g sugar
68g egg (1 large)
50g butter

Second Dough:
300g flour
150g milk
50g egg (1 medium)
75g sugar
125g butter
30g honey
9g salt
180g mixed fruit
# 1n orange zest
# 1/4tsp clove oil
# 1/4tsp orange oil
# 1/4tsp all spice
# 1/4tsp nutmeg
# 1/8tsp ginger
# 1.5tsp mixed spice
# 1.5tsp cinnamon

Traditionally the crosses should be made of just flour and water but I added some butter in there to shorten the flour slightly. And I used juice from the orange which I zested with some sugar to make a sweet glaze for the buns.

Happy Easter!

Michael

ibor's picture
ibor

The Double Rope 3 Strand Braid

From: The Art of Braiding Bread

http://myfoodaddress.blogspot.com/

largeneal's picture
largeneal

Definition

I frequently "Tartine" used to describe many of the SD loaves/methods here.  Could someone clarify specifically what that means?  All I've been able to extract is it's based on the SF bakery & seems to always have a boule shape.  I've also seen that it's a preference that the loaves be cooked in Dutch ovens, but I saw a Tartine video where they DON'T cook their loaves in Dutch ovens.  Just curious, given so many posts describe the bread as Tartine style.

emkay's picture
emkay

My Tartine tale (a photo heavy post)

Now that my baby starter is quite active and I've had a few successful naturally leavened loaves, I wanted to try making some Tartine bread. I dined at Bar Tartine recently and the idea of baking my own oat porridge bread was stuck in my head. I used breaducation's formula for the Tartine oat porridge bread.

Let's just say mine turned out nothing like breaducation's beautiful bread. My dough was very wet and sticky and I had trouble handling it. You can see that my loaf hardly rose at all.


tartine_oat_porridge_0402a

tartine_oat_porridge_0402d

Even though it was more pancake than bread, the flavor was very good. In fact, the flavor was very close to the porridge bread they sell at the bakery. I could taste the oatmeal and it had that sourness I've been trying to achieve in my breads.

Thinking that the oat porridge may have been too ambitious, I tried the Tartine basic country bread recipe instead. This did not go so well either. I think I see the Batmobile parked in there.


tbcb_fail_1

tbcb_fail_3

After searching for clues on TFL, gluten underdevelopment was the most likely culprit. Even though I bulk fermented at room temp (70F) for 3.5 hours with 5 stretch-n-folds during the first 2.5 hours, I was making the newbie mistake of watching the clock instead of watching the dough.

I vowed to be patient during my next attempt at the Tartine basic country. I bulk fermented until the dough volume had increased by at least 30%, the top of the dough was slightly domed not flat, and I could see bubbles along the sides of my container. This took 5 hours at 70F.


tbcb_apr9_bulk_ferm

My patience really paid off!


tbcb_apr9_a

tbcb_apr9_b


tbcb_apr9_c

I even made pizza with some of the dough.


tbcb_apr9_pizza_a

tbcb_apr9_pizza_f

I hoped that my success wasn't just a fluke. I made another batch of dough the next day.


tbcb_apr10_proofed

tbcb_apr10_a

tbcb_apr10_c

This time the crumb was even better than in the previous bake.


tbcb_apr10_crumb_b-2

tbcb_apr10_crumb_a-2

tbcb_apr10_crumb_c

The take away message is "Watch the dough, not the clock".

:) Mary

monashguy@yahoo.com's picture
monashguy@yahoo.com

Tartine bread recipe starter

I have a white flour starter for about 14 days already, can i convert it to tartine starter recipe by mixing 50% white bread flour and 50% whole wheat for few days and convert or I need to do it from scratch? Is it because different flour composition attract different yeast or taste? I am a bread amateur and I hate to waste, in the past , my starter is small, 1 tablespoon flour and about one and one tablespoon water, recently my starter is two tablespoon flour and one and half tablespoon water, next feeding two tablespoon flour and one tablespoon starter, sometimes when i ran out of starter, i use one teaspoon starter and two tablespoons flour, is the water composition important in starter?  So the question is I started the starter using white flour, so the yeast all is white flour yeast, so will it work if i shift to tartine bread recipe flour?

tchism's picture
tchism

I found this inspiring ...

and sobering at the same time!

Josey Baker Breads

https://vimeo.com/77071595

pmiker's picture
pmiker

Irish Brown Bread (soda bread)

I used the recipe on the King Arthur Flour site and the bread turned out nicely.  I varied a bit from the recipe in that I used a 5 qt dutch oven.  I put the dough into the cold dutch oven, covered it and placed it into a pre-heated oven at 450F for 5 minutes and then turned the heat down to 350F and baked for 45 minutes.  

The dough that I made was shaped into a ball and slightly flattened.  It looked small in the dutch oven.  Should I have flattened it down to a thick disk?  Should I have made more dough for the dutch oven or perhaps used a smaller dutch oven?

In the picture it's hard to gauge size but it is about 3 inches tall at center.  Should it have risen more?

I like the bread and the recipe but if I can do it better I'd like to.

 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

trying something new

What an interesting and tasty experiment. I usually don't  bulk ferment my dough but I decided to try it due to time and space constraints. I made the dough and did a couple s &f's q 20 min .then rest for 1 1/2 hrs then in the fridge it went. I removed it this AM and shaped cold. I always shape cold when I make Ian's buns and love the way the cold dough feels and handles. I made 3/650g boules. It is incredibly easy to shape and get the "free form" burst when the dough is cold as it doesn't really want to stick terribly well. Into the banneton and rising time of 2 1/2 hrs. Lovely..but then I had to go out again !  So back in the fridge for a couple hours. Home and preheat pots 500 degrees. Into the hot pot...down to 460/15 min covered and 15 uncovered. Lovely shape, great rise and wow...the color of the crust and very blistered and nice crunch. Then there is the crumb...oh...my....tender doesn't even come close. The AYW makes magic of the crumb while leaving the crust very crisp and thin and oh so caramelized. The crumb is quite cool and more sour than usual. I am sure it is the extra time in the fridge, the flour combos, the amount/type of levain etc. Whatever...it is so good and I love the very soft fine texture. It went perfectly with the vegetable curry, Basmati rice and toasted almond/pineapple/coriander chutney/raisins/siracha sauce. 

 photo IMG_6938_zps9175b6a1.jpg  photo IMG_6942_zps6e0beddd.jpg  photo IMG_6943_zps4009a29a.jpg  photo IMG_6944_zpsbeb2caf5.jpg I have been feeding my starter durum and AYW, nothing else. Love the way it is responding. 544g AP King Arthur 100g Sprouted spelt 100g Semolina 163g whole wheat 510g whey from my cheese making 14g EVOO 14g honey 22g salt 453g kamut AYW levain 100% hydration mix auto lyse add oil/honey/salt. speed 1 for 1 minute and speed 2 for 3 minutes. s & f as needed..this dough was so responsive out of the mixer that it could have done without any additional s&f so these were token gentle shapings. Rest at room temp for 2 - 2 1/2 hrs. Into fridge overnight. Shape cold...rise 2 or so hours..watch the dough. Bake as noted above. Enjoy ! c

WoodenSpoon's picture
WoodenSpoon

Maple Sap SD

For the past few weeks I've been in my native homeland of New Hampshire visiting my folks. And  being in the north east in the early spring means maple sugar. Some of our family friends have a sugar shack and I went and visited and got some of the sap, One batch I made from full on raw maple sap, then the other batch was made with sap that had been run through their reverse osmosis machine. 

The full loaf in the title image is the one with plain sap 

  • 620g BF 78%
  • 40g WW 5%
  • 40g Rye 5%
  • 196g Levain (12%flour 12%water)
  • 599g Sap 75%
  • 16g Salt 2%

The Crumb shot is from Mel's reverse osmosis sap bread and also has some soaked rolled oats.

  • 566g BF 80%
  • 141g WW 20%
  • 141g Levain 20%
  • 566g Sap 80%
  • 71g (dry weight) rolled oats 10% (really wring em out after soaking em if ya know whats good for ya)
  • 15g Salt ~2% 

 

We did a one hour autolyse followed by some pretty minimal slapping and folding, the batch with oats took a little more working to get it to come together but it eventually did. Then as all the ingredients were cold we started the bulk ferment at room temp for an hour then retarded it for around 12 hours. Then we let it warm up at room temp for around an hour shaped and proofed until ready, some loaves were proofed in the oven with warm water, those took around three and a half hours and some were proofed on the counter, those took a bit longer.

If you have access to some maple sap I strongly suggest you try incorporating it into yer baking, because why the heck not!

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