Maurizio's 50-50 WW, alfanso style
Other than on his The Perfect Loaf site, I can’t remember where I saw Maurizio’s 50-50 WW SD posted by anyone. I warehoused the formula until this week. Not being a big fan of bread that leans too heavily on WW, I was cautious about this one. I generally find that they taste a little too “earthy” for me. I decided to tinker with this a bit. I added ~12% chopped figs and ~12% pecans to the dough on the first Letter Fold. And therefore Maurizio’s 50-50 WW became Alfanso’s 50-50 WW with figs and pecans.
Maurizio uses a combination of higher gluten AP flours than I do, but my KA WW has a little more protein than his Guisto’s Stoneground WW does, so all in all, it seems to be a somewhat even trade. Mixing this by hand with French Folds yields an unsurprisingly super slack dough. It comes in at ~89% hydration, a region that I've rarely ever visited, or even come anywhere close to. And it took the majority of the 5 Letter Folds to tighten up. Into retard and then a late night shaping where the dough was much more cooperative. but still quite wet and slack.
From experience I know that I generally do not get a big grigne from oven spring nor much of an open crumb when there is a rather large quantity of fruit & nuts. And especially when there is high hydration, as this monster has. The additions to the dough have a tendency to weigh the dough down and interrupt what would probably be a more open crumb. So there was some initial disappointment in the mid-bake outcome when I released the steam - until I remembered those few minor, but important details.
It is a lovely bread with a nice crispy crust and a soft crumb. The figs were added to provide some sweetness to the mix, but they should have been chopped up smaller. I may visit this bread very soon again, next time without the fruit or nuts. I’m curious as to how the final product will play out and whether I can attain some of the beauty that Maurizio produces for his bread.
These were pretty big batards for me. The smaller was ~600g and the larger ~1000g (and there's a reason for that).
One funny shaping incident: I originally shaped 3 baguettes and the smaller batard, couched them, and then went to retard. Somewhere about a half hour later I realized that the baguettes were not the best solution for so much additive. And so the retarded dough was un-retarded, the 3 baguette were un-couched, balled together and then reformed and shaped into the larger batard before going back on the couche to join the other. A little crazed, but it seemed to work.
Comments
at the un- retarding though. they look great though, very tempting (even if I don’t like figs particularly) but pecans are my new favourite nuts (I have avoided nuts as I don’t like peanuts or walnuts) along with macadamia nuts. How is the Crumb? and how much sweetness do you get from the figs - is the fig flavour very strong?
Your bakes are always interesting and I still have a way to go to consistently produce loaves like you do. lovely..
Leslie
The fruit and nuts were a decision I made after the initial final dough mix, thinking that they may hold the goop together better, and also add some sweetness to offset all that wheatiness. I was reaching into the pantry for golden raisins, realized that I was out of them, so went for the figs instead. If I had time i would have toasted walnuts instead, but as mentioned, the clock was ticking for the first letter fold, so no time to waste. They definitely provide some sweetness.
If you remember RU007 who was with us as an active member until about a year ago, she also claimed to not like figs, but gave them a try in her bread and found that she actually liked the flavor.
I've cut into only the big one, and the crumb is tighter than I imagined, but with some good reason. With all of the manhandling that this batard went through from pre-shaped baguettes, to shaped baguettes, to baling it all up and then reshaping again as it morphed from baggies to batard, I suppose that I had given the dough a hearty workout and it responded as such.
thanks, alan
Looking great as usual. Looks like they sprang just fine with all the add ins and slack dough. What are French folds? I have always read them but have already forgotten how they do that.
There was oven spring of some sort, but it just didn't translate to the crumb very much.
French Folds also go by the name of slap and folds or the "Bertinet Method" and there are a number of videos out there demonstrating this. But since this is the alfanso show, here are part 1 and part 2 of me, me, me and me (did I mention me?).
thanks, alan
Looking nice and crispy!
Great adaptation and interesting twist at the end.
I also do not enjoy working on wet dough. Do you think the add ins helped to reduce the slackness?
getting marquee billing for a while, that bread is beautiful.
I'm not opposed to high hydration doughs, although this one is just about off the charts. I suppose with freshly ground WW it would be even a little tighter than it otherwise becomes.
A lot of TFLers seem to be constantly chasing the very high hydrations or super open crumbs. And that's fine by me. To each his own. But I've been there already, and so with the addition of the Hamelman book to my minuscule collection of three books, I've settled comfortably back into doughs that are lower hydration (upper 60's to low 70's) which still open nicely.
As far as the additions reducing the slackness, I have a mixed feeling. On the one hand they seem to hold the dough together a little better. On the other hand, their existence in this very slack dough interrupts the ability of the gluten to likely mesh a little better than it may otherwise do. So, no definitive answer on that.
thanks, alan
How did the crumb turn out with all those goodies packed inside?
the crumb on the big boy is tasty but tight. Something I was anticipating considering how I beat up the dough when I reshaped it at the last minute Once I get to the smaller loaf, which only went through one cycle of shaping ;-) I'll have a better idea, but still expect all of that stuff to weigh down the fairly wet dough. But I suppose that I'll try this again without any additives now that I know what I'm getting into (vs. this first time black hole).
Was in NYC last week to attend to the in-law' needs. Thermometer never breached 32 degrees and we had that one very minor snow day last week. And now it's snowing again, and in truth I don't miss it in the least. Pretty to look at, and it ends there for me.
I was just telling this story the other day on the IRT 6 line to someone about shoveling snow for money when I was a teen. Store owners ponied up a few coins for us kids to shovel their storefronts. And what did I do with the money? Save for a car or college? Nope. It came with me up to the 2nd floor pool hall. But somehow it never accompanied me back downstairs.
Happy New Year, alan
you do vs a bulk retard is that the crumb is likely to be more pen since you have handled it one less time. I would think that the crumb on these would be like any 50% whole grain bread with a bunch of add ins that what bulk retarded and the then shaped again the next morning for baking with the exception that your batard was never really at room temperature for proofing so it probably needed to proof a bit on the counter before it was baked rather than going in right out of the fridge. Still, I bet it isn't horrible either with that bloom. A 50% wehol grain bread just isn't going to be open like a 15% one.
Still, the outside is killer as usual and you could sell both in SF for $10 no problem. Well done Alan ans happy balkng in 2018