October 25, 2011 - 4:24pm
Flax & Sunflower disaster!
Yikes! I started a WW loaf from Tartine today. Dough looked beautiful, until it came to adding Flax & Sunflowers. Way, way too much liquid. Disaster! I checked & double checked the amounts listed.
Could this be a print error?
Has anyone else made this bread?
Margie
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Margie, I've made the Country Rye and the Semolina, but not this particular wheat loaf, and especially not the particular one that you are referencing. I noted the four cups of boiling water for the two cups of seeds, surely the recipe is missing a note or two. I'm wondering, was the water to simply be poured over those flax seeds, and not held?
I'll be watching your thread. In the meantime, I'm going to Google to see if I can find any results from other bakers.
Thanks for the heads-up!
I bet they skipped "drain the seeds."
I would try again, but drain the seed mix thoroughly before continuing. And if that doesn't work, it might mean the seeds soaked up too much water ...then I'd try cutting the soak time down until both the seed consistency and the dough hydration comes out correctly. OR ...tada... write the author and ask. I'm betting that a "drain the seed mix" remark is missing and/or there's a typo on the soak time. Now that I've said all that, I think I'll go read the recipe... heh heh
Brian
I actually cleaned away all of the seeds that wouldn't absorb (I had already mixed-not too smart). I had a really slimmy, not very coherent dough. But I hate to waste all those ingredients, so I just kept working it as a very high hydration dough, until I thought I could bake. It actually wasn't bad, we did eat it all, but definately not one I would have shared outside the family :)
Anyone else done a good job with this formula?
I made this bread once ... foul mess. The linseeds soak up most of the liquid turning into a jelly like consistency. Dough was way to wet from memory. Remember thinking I would never use that formula again.
Phil
I feel better, not just me.
Does anyone have a favorite Flax/sunflower formula?
Margie
I recently did a version of Peter Reinhart's Multi-Grain Struan. Flax and sunflower were the majority of the seeds. See my blog entry here for pics. It came out delicious.
Hamelman's flax seed rye from Modern Baking is a winner.
Here is a link to Hans Joakims blog where he has a link to a modified formula.
Cheers, Phil
Add some rolled oats (they are real soaker uppers) and salt (2% of oat weight) and let the dough sit 10 minutes before adding more oats.
Next time, make the soaker only double the water of the flax by volume (one cup flax, one cup of water) sunflower seeds don't soak up much if anything at all. That would make it easy to reduce the amount of seeds (if one chose to) and still come out right.
I have been making the Tartine country bread and it has been great so I thought I would try the flax seed one and it just didn't work out well.. I don't think you are supposed to drain the seeds because he says in the recipe it will be gooey but I didn't expect it to be that jelly like! It just seemed to be too many seeds also. He describes the bread as moist because of this, but I just didn't like the taste or texture. It was almost too moist when baked. I had a very hard time shaping it and it was slippery. I wish I would know where I went wrong.
Maybe there was something missing in the recipe? Has anyone been successful with it? Maybe I should have tried his ww before trying this one.
Penny
I baked Tartine's sunflower and flax loaf today and too had problems, despite only using slightly over half of the flax seeds called for (which still seemed like too many). After realizing how wet the dough had become, I decided to bake one of the loaves in a bread pan (I divided half of my dough in to 1 large boule and the other half into two smaller batards). It came out much more pleasant looking, but I still wouldn't claim it a success.