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Hi everybody. I made a light loaf with 19% rye flour. I took my inspiration from hamelman's Vermont Rye Sourdough and from txfarmer http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23852/light-rye-cumin-and-orange. I used a liquid levain 100% and 20% of the total flour was in the preferment. The dough had a 72% hydration, but I was surprised of how easy was to handle it. I usualy have difficulties in handling very wet dough, especially in final shaping.

The formula was:

270g AP flour

80 g Rye flour

230 g Water

160g Liquid Levain 100%

9 g salt

9 g caraway powder

zest from a big orange.

After autolyse, I added the salt and caraway, I mixed the dough with my tiny spiral mixer, I added the orange zest, and did the rest of the mixing by hand. I let the bulk ferment for two hours, with 2 S-F at 40 minutes interval. It is very hot here, maybe 29-30C, or even more. After shaping I put the dough directly in the fridge for 10 hours. It increased its size very much during second fermentation. I baked it directly from he fridge, on a baking stone, with steam in the first 15 minutes.

I thought the taste from the orange zest would be more fragrant, but it wasn't. Even the caraway flavor got lost somehow... it's distinct, but not like it would have been if I'd used whole caraway seeds. The loaf was very very light, like a feather, I have no idea why. The crumb is sweet, soft, with no sour taste at all. I liked it, but I don't consider it a favorite.

You can read full post with more pictures at my romanian blog, with sidebar translation. Apa.Faina.Sare.

If one prepares and freezes stocks and stews and sauces, and breads, it  is necessary to re-organize one's freezer frequently.  In my case, "frequently" means approximately annually.

I recently went on an expedition in my freezer, to determine whether there was a stash of frozen pesto there (there was not, so I have another project when I didn't need to have another project).  In the course of my expedition (picture pitons and ice axes), I realized that I was reorganizing my freezer.  Fine, it needed it.

In the process, I came to a useful realization: Bread that isn't very good frozen and then thawed (e.g., my cheese-onion-curry bread) just sits in the freezer, gathering age, with no real prospects for a happy future.  This is especially true of breads that don't make good croutons or bread crumbs or altus (the proper destiny of most mediocre loaves).  So, I've adopted a new rule: don't make more cheese-onion-curry bread than we can eat or give away within a day of baking.

Also, in the process of organizing my freezer, I found a forgotten treasure.  Way in the back, in the bottom, behind and/or beneath the 2010 baguette experiments (destined to be crumbs) and the 2010 Smoked Turkey Gumbo (destined to be dinner this week), I found one of the first pan loaves I ever baked.  Labeled "Honey Whole Wheat Bread September 2010", it appears from my blog that this bread was baked on September 28, 2010, approximately one month after I started baking bread.  I didn't really remember this bread, but I had bacon, lettuce and tomatoes on hand and I was not interested in a BLT on stale baguette.

So out came this frozen specimen, like a Mastedon from the Arctic ice.  Unlike a Mastedon from the Arctic ice, however, it thawed quickly and I sliced it up, toasted it up, mayoed it up and ate it with the above-mentioned B, L and T.   And here's what I found: (1) a well-packaged sandwich loaf keeps very nicely for 10 months in the freezer, (2) that honey-whole wheat formula (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/wholewheathoneybread) is pretty dang good and I should try it again, (3) forgetting things in the back of the freezer can be exciting (if you don't have a life), but doesn't really make for much of a blog post.

So, do any of you have a shorter memory than the freezer-shelf-life of your breads, so that you make exciting "discoveries" when you go on an expedition in your freezer?

Happy Thawing!

Glenn

Another very productive weekend, with two beautiful brioche loaves. Can’t tell you how pleased I am with them, the loaves came out beautiful and light, with a wonderful texture and taste.

I gave one loaf away and already finished another one, well, I did freeze a couple of slices to have later on as a treat, plus I want to see how well the brioche freezes.

Wonderful photos courtesy of my husband –a real improvement to my own ones, taken with an iPod :)

Full story and more photos on my blog here

Okay. I know this is a baking forum, but consider: Rye bread cries for pastrami, and pastrami sandwiches cry for pickles. In fact, the respondents to my recent blog on Jewish Sour Rye Bread  and Eric's blog on home-made pastrami have more or less demanded I share my mother's recipe for the best ever garlic pickles.

But, first,  you have to hear a story about them, you should be warned.

I don't make pickles often. Typically, several years go by between picklings, so there are things I forget.

A few years ago … about 25 years, actually … I put up a case of my mother's garlic pickles. (See the recipe, below.) My wife and I disagreed about the process, which is a normal step in the pickle-making procedure, but I am in charge of pickling in our household, so I did it as I remembered my mother doing it.

Well, after the pickles were in the jars and three days had passed, we took the jars out of the box to tighten the lids. The brine in the jars was fizzy with gas, and the contents were extremely cloudy. My wife, whose first career was as a clinical microbiologist, wanted me to throw them out; they clearly had bacterial contamination and were unsafe to eat. My memory was that my mother's pickle jars always got cloudy. This was normal. They hadn't killed anyone yet. I was sure they were just fine.

We continued this “discussion” for several days. Then, in exasperation, I called the University of California, Davis Agricultural Extension Service, after getting my wife to agree they would be a reliable source of health safety information regarding home preserved vegetables.

I spoke with the nice young women to whom I was transferred who identified herself as a consultant on home canning. I described the condition of my pickles. She asked for my recipe, and I gave it to her. There was a long pause. She asked, “No vinegar?” I confirmed that the pickles were made without vinegar. She told me that vinegar was absolutely required. Acidification of the brine was essential to prevent growth of bacteria, including Clostridia botulinum. Another long pause. “Sir, I believe you have a very dangerous product there,” she announced, with considerable emotion.

My wife, of course, reminded me she had “told you so!” But, I was unconvinced. I told the nice Cooperative Extension Service Canning Consultant I was just positive my mother's pickles always turned cloudy and gave off gas, and they hadn't killed anyone yet. I was sure they were fine. She said she was still sure I had a lethal “product,” but she would talk to the Cooperative Extension Service Pickle Consultant when he returned from vacation in 2 weeks and get back to me.

Two weeks later, as good as her word, the Cooperative Extension Service Canning Consultant called me back. She had talked with the Cooperative Extension Service Pickle Consultant, and she had learned something new which she shared with me: “You have not made pickles,” she announced. “Pickles are made with vinegar. What you have made is fermented cucumbers.” The Pickle Consultant had told her to tell me the way to be sure they were safe to eat was to look for carbon dioxide gas generated by the fermentative process and a cloudy precipitate in the brine, which was made of dead yeast bodies.

After waiting a week after I had eaten a few, to be sure the pickles didn't kill me or make me sick, my wife and children joined me in enjoying the delicious fermented cucumbers. 

Phyllis Snyder's Garlic Not-Pickles

Ingredients

1. Pickling cucumbers

2. Peeled garlic cloves

3. Celery cut into 1/2 x 3 inch sticks

4. Dried hot red peppers

5. Fresh dill weed

6. Pickling spice

7. Brine made with 1 part un-iodized salt stirred until dissolved in 21 parts water.

Equipment

1. Glass canning jars and lids

1. Large pot to sterilize jars and lids

2. Tongs to handle hot jars and lids

3. Clean kitchen towels to drain sterilized jars and lids

4. Large colander

Procedures

1. Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water. Rinse thoroughly.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place jars and lids in the water and boil for 7 minutes.

3. Remove jars and lids from water and drain on kitchen towels until they are room temperature.

4. Scrub pickling cucumbers well. Drain in colander.

5. Pack each jar tightly with a layer of cucumbers, upright.

6. Over this layer, pour 1 tsp pickling spice, 1 or 2 garlic cloves, 2 dill sprigs (stems and flowers) and 1 pepper. (These quantities are for quart jars. If you are using pint jars, use half these quantities for each jar.)

7. Pack the rest of the jar tightly with cucumbers.

8. Insert 2 or more celery sticks in among the cucumbers. (These supposedly help the pickles stay crisp. Anyway, they are good to eat too.)

9. Fill the jar with the brine to cover the jar contents completely.

10. Screw the lids onto the jars loosely.

11. Leave the jars in a cool place for at least 3 days. (If you want “half-pickles,” refrigerate the jars immediately at this point.) There will be significant carbon dioxide gas generate which will appear as tiny bubbles in the brine, and the brine will become cloudy with a white sediment which will eventually settle to the bottom of the jars.

12. Tighten the jar lids and store them. The pickles can now be eaten, but will keep for a few years.

 Enjoy! 

David