Saturday bakes
Here are a couple of photos of my baking. Both are sourdough/commercial yeast hybrids because I have been baking only occasionally and my starters require a bit more attention to give then some more vim and vigour, although the biga I made for the Italian-style load and the poolish for the other were both showing good levels of activity after their overnight fermentation.
This first loaf is Italian-style, made using Shipton Mill ciabatta flour and a lovely pale yellow semolina.
The bread is lovely and soft with a soft but with a little chew to the crust, a nicely flavoured "white" loaf with a but more taste than plain white and it goes really well with EVOO and a good balsamic to dip it in!
This one is Shipton Mill #4 white flour and wholemeal rye, with Gilchesters Wholemeal wheat flour.
The crust was lovely when toasted, thin and crispy and the flavour profile, although not sour, was robust enough to compliment a duck and plum pate.
They look like good loaves, I like second one - well done. I buy Shipton Mill too, have you tried the light malthouse flour? It's really good and I use actually their recipe to bake the malthouse bread, very tasty.
That's not a flour that I have used, I'm afraid. Interesting to hear your opinions though and I may try it in the future.
It was the staple for my "maltster" loaves for the past 3 years - I was making 15-20 of them a week using this flour (and sourdough starter). Not allowed to call them granary due to the trademark on that word... I've recently switched to FWP Matthews flour and their "Cotswold Crunch" is their granary style flour - it's a bit more malty... most mills make something similar - a flour with a portion of wholemeal, malted wheat flour and "bits" of some sort...
Shiptons 3-malts and sunflower is nicer though, but they never did it in big sacks, just 1Kg bags, so I never made it commercially.
-Gordon
I didn't realise granary was a trademark although should have, thinking about it. The light malthouse is my fallback bread, if starter is dead or I can't be bothered to bake anything more elaborate than that.
What proportion of sourdough starter would you add instread of yeast?
I'm using 30% (100% hydration, white wheat starter) of the flour weight and aim for about 63% hydration overall. I mix and let it ferment overnight in a coolish place (18°C is my aim) then do the scale/rest/shape/prove/bake in the morning.
And yes about the trademark - owned by Hovis or whoever owns them these days.
-Gordon
So you basically replace the white flour with wheat sd starter? That's quite a lot, no? I'll certainly try it next time, thanks for the tip.
So a typical recipe for my "maltster" looks like 275g flour (the light malthouse, etc.), 83g starter (100% hydration, white wheat), 170g water, 5g salt. mix/knead, leave overnight, tip-out, shape proof, bake in the morning. Depending on the mill's "malthouse" flour, you may need to alter the hydration - I substitute some of the mix for white flour to FWP Matthews "Cotswold Crunch" mix. (about 10%) as it seems a little too "malty" for my likings.
-Gordon
thanks. with yeast I do it all in one go in the morning. do you keep it at room temperature or in the fridge?
My overnight is in a cool place, but not the fridge - my aim is for 18°C bit it's a shade warmer here right now, but it seems OK. However I know others have had issues following my method - most likely because of the time the dough ferments - I do the mix/knead usually starting at 8pm (I'm making 20-60 loaves daily here) and get up usually at about 5-5:30 to start the scale/shape/proof part of it all. The proofing is in a warm place - the little bakery I run once I've turned the ovens on - it gets up to 30°C or more in there by the end of the morning...
-Gordon
to achieve those temperatures in residential conditions, no pantry! I tend to make the mix last thing (just 1 loaf!) if it's the kind of 7-8 hour prove dough - to avoid getting up at 5. Or stick it in the fridge for an hour or two initially and then leave overnight at room temperature. Probably awfully unorthodox to do that but it works for me.
I have baked with the 3 malts and sunflower seeds flour and agree, it is a good tasting flour.
Those look lovely! Were they baked in pots or on stones? And do you have crumb shots (or is the bread all gone now? :) )
I bake on a stone in an oil-fired Aga (a cast iron heat storage cooker) and rarely use a pot or dutch oven. The loaves were cooling so I didn't cut into them but I will post crumb shots when we cut the bread - IF I remember :-) . I prefer to avoid holes that are really large as butter and marmalade fall through onto my shirt :-( !
Crumb shot of Italian style loaf added. Not tasted it yet but with 40ml of EVO I expect it to be soft.
Eager to see the crumb photos and tasting notes.
David
Crumb shot of Italian style loaf added. Not tasted it yet but with 40ml of EVO I expect it to be soft.
Another crumb shot and tasting notes added to original post.
Well done and happy baking
Very well done, such even air bubbles!
Thans, CF. I would sometimes like larger, more irregular, holes but I need to do most of the mixing with a machine and I also suspect that my dough handling is not as gentle as it could be because my right hand has reduced sensation following a stroke. However, the benefit is that butter and other toppings stay on the bread rather than falling through onto my shirt and, let's not forget, air has no taste :-) !
Perfectly justified not to want large holes!!! I still struggle to understand what aeration exactly depends on and I thought largely on hydration and how well you stretch and fold the dough. But I do most of mine in the machine too and you might be right there, you won't get big bubbles without elbow grease.
I think dmsnyder uses a mixer but still gets larger, irregular, holes but my Kenwood raises dough temperature a lot and I probably don't mix for long enough, although the gluten is developed. Especially after a dozen or two slap and folds after mixinging and a couple of stretch and folds in the bowls during bulk fermentation so I'm at a bit of a loss to know why it occurs. Having said that, it isn't an issue with eating, only the visuals so - what the hell. If the bread tastes good and is quite light then I won't worry too much (just a little bit).
Sometimes it must be the recipe not processing the dough so levels of hydration etc. For instance I got decent bubbles in Jason's Coccodrillo ciabatta, recipe is somewhere here:
I've not tried that ciabatta recipe yet but all the bread was 70%+ hydration.
In your loaf with the ciabatta flour (the first one), what semolina did you use? Is there a proper (very fine) semolina flour? All I ever use is the so called 'fine semolina' but it's still quite grainy.
It is described as "Italian Semolina Flour from Altamura 1kg" and is grainy but less so than other semolinas that I have used (eg Shipton Mill's offering) but the supplier is no longer listing this semolina and as the packet is in Italian I struggle to know what it says :( .
There's also Bakery Bits, they have various flours and semolina too I think but it's such a hit and miss with customer service that I've given up on them a while ago.
Anyway thank you - the loaf does look nice and yellow hence my question!