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GSnyde's picture
GSnyde

Of course, different people prefer different breads.   I like variety, but I am here to say that I love challah.

Being a newcomer to baking, I’ve only tried eight or ten different breads.  And probably half my bakes have been some variation on Sourdough Pain de Campagne (Hamelman and dmsnyder, for instance).  I’ve managed to learn “on the job” pretty quickly, thanks to lots of reading, TFL tips and occasional chats with David. 

But challah seemed like a different animal.  All those ingredients, and the braiding and all.  So I had decided that I wanted to try baking challah for the first time in a “science lab” setting. You know, with the teacher partly showing you and partly telling you how to do it.  Letting you make your own mistakes, but with a safety net.  “No, it isn’t really best to tie the challah in a slip knot shape; try this nice three-strand braid.” 

I was fortunate enough to find myself this weekend in Dr. Snyder’s bread lab.   With all the ingredients for challah, and with a lot of turkey to be sandwiched for a lot of Snyders.  What were we to do?

David gave excellent instruction.  I know my kneading, strand-rolling and braiding technique were enhanced by the guidance of an experienced challah-er. And the results were more than merely edible (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20820/thanksgiving-2010-baking).  There’s something really fun about team baking.

Having returned from Fresno yesterday, in time to roast some turkey parts for sandwiches, my self-assigned homework today was to bake more challah, but this time all alone!  Without trainer wheels or a net!  [oooooh!]

I used the same formula as a few days earlier—Maggie Glezer’s “My Challah” from A Blessing of Bread.  It is a yeasted dough and the whole things takes about 7 hours.   It’s easy if you know how to do it. Here's today's homework.

IMG_1822

IMG_1824

I am happy with everything about this bread: appearance, melt-in-the-mouth texture and –especially- the flavor.   Just sweet enough, just eggy enough.

I know that sourdough challah is supposed to have a longer shelf life, but with bread that tastes this good, I’m not worried about it getting stale before it disappears.  During the course of a quick dinner of Turkey sandwiches, between “yummms”, my chief bread-tester informed me: “this would make great cinnamon toast.” “this would be great for grilled cheese sandwiches,” and “this would be great for French toast”.   I think we have a winner.

Thanks for the recipe, Ms. Glezer.  And thanks for the seminar, David.

Glenn

 

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

My grandson's 17th Birthday Party was Saturday.  After returning from a fun afternoon of Paintball sportpark a pizza party was planned.  I made the pizza dough and sauce, my daughter and another mom took care of the rest.  It has been a busy fun week of family and friends.  I assembled the pizza's along with lot's of volunteer's...who needed no instructions :)  My daughter tended to the oven baking of the pizza's.  They couldn't come out of the oven fast enough and requests for toppings were coming in fast!  What a production we had going!  I would like to share some of the day and my family with you, along with how I managed to make enough dough and sauce for 30 pizza's, last I counted. 

I starter Friday night armed with my little kitchenaid artisan mixer.  Not being able to hand mix this amount of dough and not wanting to be at it for long, this is what I did and the dough turned out perfect and the tomato sauce.  The pesto, chanterelles, shrimp, sausage, pepperoni, assorment of different cheeses where also some other toppings used.  Back to the dough mixing...I made one batch, yes one batch at a time.  I made 6 batches of the basic good old stand-by, Neo Neapolitan Pizza Dough from Peter Reinhart's 'American Pie'. 

My version used: To mixer bowl added in this order:

1 3/4 cups room temperature water

2 Tablespoons of EVOO and using the same Tablespoon I added 1 Tablespoon clover honey...sides off real easy from the previous oiled measuring spoon.

23 oz. King Arthur All Purpose flour

1 teaspoon instand yeast

3 1/4 teaspoons sea salt - a little less salty

Using the paddle, turned on mixer until dough was mixed and formed a rough ball.

Rested 10 minutes - Attached the dough blade, continued mixing until light gluten began to form and the dough was sticking slightly to the bottom of the bowl and starting to slap the sides.   Removed the dough, shaped into a nice smooth ball and placed into a oiled bowl.

Started the next batch, using the same method.  During the mixing and resting of each batch, I would give the previous dough in the oiled bowl a stretch and fold testing for good a window pane...when that was reached, I placed the dough-all into a very large plastic tub.  It was actually a large plastic cake cover turned upside down...perfect and used the bottom for the lid.  All the dough balls were placed into the large oiled tub.

When 6 batches were completed and placed into the large oiled inverted cake cover.  I placed it into the refrigerator for an overnight bulk ferment.

While making the dough, I also assembled my sauce...easiest part making the sauce! 

Sauce:  My version of PR Crushed Tomato Sauce Recipe in 'American Pie'

4 28oz. cans San Marzano Crushed tomatoes

1 28 oz. can SM chunked tomatoes- drained

1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

5 teaspoons dried basil

5 teaspoons Mediterranian Oregano

apx. 25 minced fresh garlic cloves

2 TBsp. red wine vinegar, 6 TBsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice

5 teaspoons sea salt to taste

Placed all into my 5 lb. plastic flour canister, just filled it..the ten pound would have been roomier, but did not fit into the frig..

The next morning: 

Floured 3 tin foil pans..one was very large and two smaller ones..the large pan was little crowded and next time :? would use 2 more smaller tin foil pans instead of the one large.

Dumped all the cold, doubled in bulk dough, onto my wooden dough board and cut, weighed and shaped individual 8 oz. dough balls.  Placed them into the well floured tin pans, keeping them floured inbetween, so they did not stick together as they final proofed...on the way to the party!

I cut and weighed and shaped 8oz. pizza dough balls..did a few 10 oz..but thought a little large, so changed to making all 8 oz. pizza balls.

I did a pretest single batch of this dough...to see how it would work bulk fermented and then divided cold the next morning, shaped into individual pizza balls, proofed for a couple of hours and then shaped and baked..it worked perfect.  The weather has been very cool and allowed the dough to proof nicely on the drive to my daughter's home and ready when we where to make the pizza's.

I don't have a lot of photo's..I was busy and didn't even get to bring out my camera..would have loved to catch some photos of my daughter making the pizza's in the hot oven...she did manage time to catch a few photos and e-mailed them to me this afternoon..

I only managed to get 2 of the dough and sauce finished...I was ready for some bed rest, doing Thanksgiving dinner the day before, dough and sauce Friday, party was Saturday.

 

                                        Enough dough for 30 pizza's ........... more than enough sauce...I forgot there were other sauces, so made to

                         much....won't go to waste with some mozzarella stuffed meatballs and pasta!

                

 

 

                                                       Grandson enjoying Red Velvet cupcake decorated like a paint-ball splatter.  Made by a mother of the other boy who was also celebrating his 16th Birthday!

                               

 

                                                 

            

                                               

 

                                

 

                              

 

                                              

                                               It is very cool and breezy outside.  I quess when your that young you don't feel it.

                                           

 

                                                         Mom on the left baked the

                                                         paintball splatter cupcakes and some serious pizza making in the lovely outdoor kitchen area

                                                         with the Wood Fired Oven.

 

                                            

 

                                                        

 

                                              

                                  There's what's left of a couple of pizza's..we forgot to take photo's of the pizza's!

 

                      

                                               

 

                                        

 

 

 

 

freerk's picture
freerk

Hey guys, I need your help!

So my brother saw my breads and now he wants in on it :-)

He wants me to make him and his wonderful family my variation on a traditional regional Dutch currant-bread associated with the holidays. At Xmas, New Years, but also at Easter, in the East and North of the Netherlands a lot of people eat this traditional "krentenwegge" (a heavy currantbread with an almondpaste filling). This is what the original loaf looks like...

 

You'll have to imagine the almond paste filling in the middle, I could not find a very satisfying pic.

 

There are numerous traditional recipes going around on the net, BUT.....

I never really liked these breads as a kid. I'm not too big on currants, but a big lover of almond paste, so as a kid I always found myself in a dilemma; I want the almond paste, but do I really need to eat ALL those currants to get it...? After getting too old to eat the almond paste and feed the rest to the dog, I just left the bread for what it was...

 

Until now! I want to make a lighter version of this bread. I want it to look like a buttermilk cluster (fresh out of the oven here today :-)

 

and preferably with the sweet taste of polenta dough, where I replace the currants with a decent amount of dried candied cranberries (also fresh out of the oven here today):

 

The idea is to fill each individual roll in the cluster with a little almond paste whilst forming the rolls. I'm not at all certain about the polenta dough, but somehow I feel it could give me the crumb that I'm looking for (light, airy, yellowy...). Also the sweetness of the polenta could taste great with the almonds and cranberries. That is; if I manage to get it as light and airy as I have it my mind's eye :-)

 

Before embarking on this triple-fusion baking experiment I would like to hear your input on what dough to choose for this sweet bread. I've also been thinking about the dough for the cream cheese braid. Could that be a viable option?

 

Thanks to the members here who originally posted these two recipes here. I can't really find out anymore who posted the originals, but you guys know who you are; Thanks a bunch!

 

I'd love to hear from you guys

 

Freerk

 

happylina's picture
happylina

 

 

Hello TFL loafer:

 

I'm glad to come here as a new member. I'm a new baker. I just start baking western bread from 1 month ago. I find here 2 weeks ago when I want to find pot bread. I like here many charming breads. And I'm very interesting with here Tartine bread pot experiment now! Thanks for information about baking bread. Thanks for this website organizer.

 

I want to take dumpling in this weekend. So I buy pork and celery. Daisy_A ask me if I know char siu bao. I know this South China bread from my tongue. I been take this in restaurant when I stay in  Guangdong. The char siu pork is my favate dish in Guangzhou. But here Beijng no many char siu. I been try to baking this pork last month. It's not same with restaurant. But already ok.  Package,pack, bundle; packet; parcel;bag; yurt all call "Bao" in China.  char siu bao is wheat flour parceled with char siu pork. Many people no take lunch and dinner in Guangdong. They like to take morning tea with small cake and midnight snack with big dish in restaurant.  So Guangdong have many delicate snack.  char siu bao so popular and came from Guangdong. So normally char siu bao meaning  Guangdong style char siu bao.

 

I search in net. If I want making it samilar with restaurant. I need making a along time raising sourdough. But I want take now(#^.^#). So After 1 day waitting for pork saltd. I finishd char siu baking. I start to making char siu dumplng.  Dumplng dough no need yeast. So I can get quickly. I already have char siu now. So I will making Guangdong char siu soon. And now this my style char siu bao(char siu dumpling)

 

BBQ sauce:

Soybean sauce 2 T(30ML)*,

Red colour preserved beancurd 1 piece,

Sugar 45G*,

Five-spice powder 1/2 t(2.5ML),

garlic chopped 5G,

Cooking rice wine 1T(15ML),

oyster sauce1T(15ML)*,

Red rice or preserved beancurd sauce 1T(15ML)(optional)

meat:pork 250g

brushing liquide:Maltose(or honey) 30g,water 30ML

 

 

Pork mix with BBQ sauce, 2 OR 3 days later, Brushing liquide on pork, 200 degree 35-45 minutes. 3 or 4 time Brushing liquide.

Cha shao Bao fillings:
1.cha shao 400g, diced meat
2.ginger 2 piece green onion 1, cut up
3.water 1/3 CUP(This receipe is for Bao, For dumpling,about half)
0,light soy sauce 2t,   dark soy sauce 1T,BBQ sauce 1T, oyster sauce1.5T, surgar 1.5T,  sesame oil 2T,
4.Cornstarch 1T mix with 2T water.
5.plant oil 1T
WATER for Bao 1/3 CUP, For dumpling, Just a little

Making filling:
Cha shao FILLING: Frying pan big fire-> 5.plant oil 1T->add 2.ginger 2 piece green onion fry ->add 3.boiled-> add 4.-> add 1.chaoshao ,mix, cold, ok
VEGETABLE: Half green onion, half piece ginger, 300g celery, chopped,mix with plant oil 1T,
mix with five spices powder 1/4t, mix all with sesame oil,chicken essence ,salt,

Dough: 250g all porpose flour 125g water 4g salt 1 egg white,   knead 3 or 4 time every5 minutes at first. Can add little  water. 50% dough to 60% dough all ok.

wrap dumpling: Waitting about 30 minutes, kneed and making the dough to a  long strip. cut to small pieces about 2cm diametical 2 cm long. rolling pin  make it to about diametical 7Cm.

put vgetable,after BBQ pork,after close the dumpling. If it dry ,can use some water for easy making.

Fry: For one pan fried dumpling: 100g water 10G all porpose flour mix
1T plant oil on Pan, medium heat,place dumpling as flower looking. Move the pan often. when bottom get yellow colour, pour into wheat flour water on pan. cover tha pan. Move the pan, all the place same heat. After 5 minutes for cooked meat and vegatable, 10 minute for no cooked meat. open cover,stop heat.
 Take a big plate, cover the dumplings, and  the pan cover the plate quickly.

 Ice flowers fried dumpling coming. It's Chinese festival food.

Boiled dumpling: After water boiled, Put dumpling to water. High heat until boil then low heat and add cold water, boil again, add water, until dumplings as ball floating on water. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also use my electric cooker aluminous pot baking my pot bread. This bread I use many DIY material: I use millet rose ferment(I made in 1 week ago) mix with soy bean and ginkgo dregs(residue from beans after I making tofu) and full wheat (11/3cup all purpose wheate 11/3 cup whole wheat no bran and 1.5 cup  whole wheat with bran )   80G 100% yeast(20g all porpose flour 20g whole wheat flour). I use about 350Ml  wine and 50 water. ferment and bean dregs all wet. So my dough more than 80% water flour I think. And in room 14 degree 12 hours it's already big up. I think maybe from my wine. I take it out room. It's already cold enough outside. About 33 hour later. It's more big. I take back room in 14 degree. After I finish my Chashao Bao lunch. I remember my big bread. It's already very big and sticky.So I preheat my oven with pot in 200 degree in 10 minutes. After I take dough to hot pot close lid 250 degree 20 minutes. after I take the lid away, 20 minutes 210 degree. After I take pot over and move bread 10 minutes again. After I turn the bread top down. top heat 200 degree open 10 minutes. After stop I open the oven door. Not so happy feeling. so I open oven 200 degree 10 minutes again. After really stop,I open oven waitting about 5 minutes. I take the bread out. And quickly open it.  The time from I start his dough already 48 hours.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your reading

 

have a good weekend

 

Happylina

 

happylina's picture
happylina

This my first time making Chaoshao Bao. I'm lucky this bao open flower----Smiling ball.  although it's not big  laughing bao. They are shy(#^_^#)


When I introduce my baking experience.  Kindly new friends talk with me in TFL blog. They tell me they also interesting with Chinese bread.  Daisy_A ask me if I have good recipe for Cha siu bao. And Daisy_A already try to making delicious Cha siu bao. This food we call Cha shao bao.  Since it's from south china rice area. They making this as cake. It's sweet bread with cha shao meat.  I take many Cha shao pork When I live in Guangzhou. But for Cha siu bao. I always thought restaurant for saving money no put enough fillings. And maybe I more like salt pork bao than sweet bao. So I no often take this cake. For me the BBQ pork more interesting. 

I search in internet 2 days ago. There's many receipes for Cha shao bao. But normally they use ammoniapowder for bulking. Many home recipe no flower. I been taken festival opening flower mantou(steamed bread) from my friend before. That bread had very big bursting head. It's familly making tradional food. I think they no use ammoniapowder. At last I find a receipe. The long time leavening sour loaf reacts with baking powder. Big quicklly steaming. After can get big opening flower. So I try this recipe  and get my first Cha shao bao at last night. I know here have many good baker. And texfarmer making very nice bao. So I'm shy to show my Chinese bao. I just want to share this recipe with you: 

Dough Recipe:

 

A:

leaven dough:

water:125g

caster sugar: 1/2T

Instant yeast:1/2t

low protein flour: 225g


B:

sweet main dough:

leaven dough: all

low protein flour: 225g

powdered sugar:125g

lard oil(or white oil):60g

baking powder:2t

water:40~50g


Makng:

1) Mix A to a smooth dough.waitting one night.

2) dough turn into paste. fuller vinosity.

(Mine no change into like this)

3)Mix A and B, kneed to smooth and soft sweet leaven dough.

4)Apart to 14 pieces. For one about 53g.  roll to ball. 

5)squash(or crush???) to wrapper,fill into about 33g fillings. 

(If you want big flower no put many fillings. close the ball like a ball. No need making fronce. And thick top better for open flower)

6)You can use cooking paper for every piece(I use one thin gauze). place to steamer. warm place 30 minutes.

7)Boiling water pot. Up the Chashao bao steamer. steam 12 minutes on medium strong heat.   

 


I made some mistake when I making. This loaf need enough time polish. The recipe write polish time is one night. I made polish loaf in early morning. Mix with half main flour and house made sweet sour rice wine in morning. So it's only 5 hours. And south China very warm. Here my room only 14 degree. So Maybe I need find more warm place. So I have to waiting  to midnight until I think it's ok.  

This is cake not bread. I made half of this recipe. I use 20ml my homemade sweet rice wine  instead of water. I no like very sweet. so I use half sugar of this recipe. 

Cha shao pork and fillings recipe you can see here: 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20835/water-fried-chashao-vegitable-dumpling-water-boiled-chashao-dumpling-millet-ferment-full-

 If you want to know how to making, you can see from here:

 

http://blog.yam.com/homeeconomics/article/28118784

You can get infomation from google translator.

 


Thank you for your reading


Happylina  

 

 

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

to Thanksgiving Day.  I baked several different kinds of bread in advance of Thanksgiving Day and these were just a few, I managed to get a couple of photos of along the way to the big day.  I baked challah, sourdough, cornbread, pugliese and tried the buttermilk rolls from  BH Bread Bible.  I tried a sourdough out in my new cast iron baker...It bakes up a wonderful loaf but the cast iron was a little heavy and hot to handle and limited to only one loaf at a time...all in all, I love cast iron dutch oven pan!  I especially like this one most of all for stove top cooking..just right size little fry pan and real nice pot for frying chicken or any deep frying, I'm very happy with this set, so much so I gave my extra large iron pan, I was using for lava rock. to my DIL with instructions how to get back the once lovely seasoned coating it had...I also have another extra large very well seasoned/aged one...but it will keep that lovely seasoning, that took so long to build.

 

            

 

                                       

                                                    I love my new Lodge Cast Iron multipurpose dutch oven set

                         

 

                                                    Steaming a couple of sourdough loaves

                                

                                                               Sylvia

                         

proth5's picture
proth5

 Even in what passes for "normal" in my life, mid-November to the end of December ranges from busy to insanely busy.  There are jams to package, candies to make, and cookies to bake.  Being the designated holder of family culinary traditions, the doing, packaging, and shipping can take on a life of its own.

As the one or two of you who read my blogs know, 2010 hardly started out as a "normal" year.  I had high hopes it would quickly settle to normal. But it was not to be.

 Doesn't mean I don't keep up with the bread, though.

 Lately I've been getting some big bear bites as I try to adjust my usual formulas to use two pre ferments.  I'll have to admit, my mental mise en place was somewhat lacking and some very, very odd things came out of that fancy, new oven.  Today, however, I looked over at the days baking and thought - "It's far from perfect, but that's some nice looking bread."

Twp Preferments - same day

I've been varying the percentage of flour in the preferment all over the map.  What I found, is that reverting to my old faithful of 12-15% of the total flour pre fermented once again, did the trick.  

 The formula (for 6 loaves of about 10 oz of dough per loaf) (And y'all are going to have to put up with ounces...):

 Total percentage of flour pre fermented: 15%

 Poolish

Percentage of flour in the poolish: 10%

 King Arthur All Purpose Flour           3.7 oz

Water                                            3.7 oz

Instant yeast                                        generous pinch

 Levain

Percentage of flour in the levain: 5%

Hydration: 100%

 

King Arthur All Purpose flour                   1.7 oz

Water                                                  1.7 oz

Seed                                                    0.35 oz

 Final dough

67% hydration

Desired Dough temperature 76F

 

King Arthur All Purpose Flour                   31.35 oz

Water                                                  19.2 oz

Instant Yeast                                         0.05 oz (Yes, that little - that's 0.135%)

Salt                                                        0.55 oz

All of the poolish

All of the levain

 

Mix the flour, water, polish and levain to a shaggy mass.  Autolyse for 30 mins.

Mix in mini spiral for 3 minutes at single speed.  Moderate gluten development. (Could also be mixed by hand or stand mixer.)

 (At this point I divided the dough in half, with one half receiving a normal bulk ferment, and the other half sent into the refrigerator for a retarded bulk ferment of about 10 hours.)

 Bulk ferment 4.5 hours at 72F, stretch and fold at 2 hours.

 Divide and pre shape.  Rest for 25 minutes.

Shape. (At a mere 7% of the flour in the levain, I achieved a dough that fought back during shaping.  This 5% of flour in the levain handled very nicely.)

 Proof for 1 hour 30 minutes.

 Slash and load.

 Bake 5 minutes with your favorite home steaming method at 500F conventional bake.

 Switch to convection bake at 480F (I love my new oven...) for 12-13 minutes.

 Since I have the convection oven, all my loaves (even the ones where the bear gets me) sing pretty nicely and the crusts are quite crispy even after the bread is cool.

 The taste?  Not a really assertive levain taste, but definitely more flavor there than a typical poolish baguette.  The crumb is much more yellow than I can capture with my negligible photographic skills.  I would describe the taste as "creamy."

This formula hasn't passed the "I baked this for many weeks and it is consistent" test, but I though I would share.

 We'll see how the other half turns out tomorrow (In general I've not been best pleased with shaping after retarding with these mixed pre ferment breads, but we shall see...)

 Happy Baking!

Added by edit:  The batch of baguettes that received the retarded bulk ferment were removed to a proofing box at about 72F for an hour and a half before shaping.  Thye still fought back a bit, but not nearly as badly as other batches.  Unfortunately time ran out for picture taking, but they had a more open crumb than the first batch.  My official bread tester declared them, the best bread, yet. I, of course, was unhappy with the shaping...

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello, I really love Rose's walnutty-oniony bread. I found a maple-veined cheese a few years ago and it paired amazingly well with this walnut bread! Any good cheese is great with this bread though.  This is a 69% hydration loaf using milk, with the addition of some roasted walnut oil. I like to substitute shallots for onions; I like their nice pink color and great flavor.  Regards, breadsong

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello, Here is an attempt at the Pear Buckwheat Bread from Advanced Bread and Pastry by Mr. Michel Suas.
What a wonderful book!!!!
The shaping instructions for this bread can be found here (thank you Susan!):
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2010/01/31/pear-buckwheat-bread/

This recipe requires dried pears. I tried drying diced pears in the oven and it worked out OK; with thanks to Eric Kastel, who writes about drying apples in his book Artisan Breads at Home (I just did the same thing with the pears):
Preheat oven to 400F or 380F convection; start with twice the weight of dried fruit you require; peel, core and dice (1/2-inch) fruit; spread on baking rack and set on top of parchment lined baking sheet; bake 15 or 20 minutes (may need to move diced fruit around so it dries/browns evenly); turn oven off and let fruit dry for a bit longer (I left the fruit in for another 20 minutes or so to let it dry a bit more). I stored the fruit in the fridge until I was ready to make the bread.

I poured a couple of Tablespoons of pear liqueur over the dried pears and let the fruit absorb the liqueur before mixing the bread, and used toasted hazelnuts instead of walnuts. Here's how it turned out!:


Happy baking everyone!  This was a fun project.  I don't have a crumb shot yet, but will be cutting into one of these loaves later today & will try to take a picture then. Regards, breadsong

amolitor's picture
amolitor

This is the next in a series of blog posts, regarding my quest to reproduce Acme Bakery's Walnut Levain. See:

previous post

and

original post

I think I'm pretty much there. My loaf is quite large now, because we like it. There are two preferments, one "old dough" (yeast raised) and one a sour sponge for flavor. The loaf itself is basically yeast raised.

Day 0, Evening

Sour Sponge:

  • 3/4 cup rye flour
  • 3/4 cup bread flour
  • 1 and 1/2 cups warm water
  • 2-3 tablespoons active liquid sour culture ("enough")

Old Dough Preferment

  • 1 small ball old dough from any white (or mostly white) yeast-raised bread. I use a ball about 1 1/2 inches across, previously frozen (see: this post).
  • 1/3 cup warm water
  • enough bread flour to make a stiff dough (3/4 cup to 1 cup)

Thaw the old dough, if necessary, break it up into the warm water and let soften. Mix in the flour, knead to mix thoroughly (you don't care about gluten development at this point).

Let both preferments stand overnight, covered, at room temperature.

Day 1, Morning

Second Stage Old Dough Preferment

  • previous old-dough preferment
  • 1/3 cup warm water
  • enough bread flour to make a stiff dough (1 cup to 1 1/4 cups, probably)

Repeat the operation from the first stage: break up the now-risen old-dough preferment into the warm water, let soften. Mix in flour to make a stiff dough, knead to mix thoroughly.

Let this new old-dough preferment stand for another 4 hours or so, until soft and well-risen.

At this point the sour sponge should have had 12 hours or so to ferment, and should be well ripened, active and bubbly. When the old-dough preferment is also well risen, place BOTH preferments into the fridge for at least an hour.

Day 1, Afternoon

Now we're going to make up dough. Take the preferments out of the fridge and let them warm up, ideally to room temperature.

  • sour sponge preferment
  • old-dough preferment
  • 1 cup warm water (this might be QUITE warm, since you're working with cool preferments, but not so hot as to kill anything of course)
  • 1/2 to 1 tsp active dry yeast (I use a scant half tsp of "instant" which seems to be more vigorous than "active") depending on temperature (use more if cooler)
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • sufficient bread flour to make a moist dough (about 3 cups, probably)
  • 2 to 2 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

Set aside all but 1/2 a cup of the chopped walnuts, and chop that half cup up Very Fine. I chopped mine to the consistency of very coarse sand (with a few large bits, consistency is not required).

Proof your yeast in a little bit of the warm water (which may be cooler than the rest of the water). Break the old-dough preferment up into a large bowl, and add the rest of the water, heated up as needed to bring the dough temperature up to at least room temperature (i.e. Quite Warm if your preferments are still cool, and Slightly Warm if everything is at room temperature), let soften.

Mix in the sour sponge, and stir well. You may still have some soft lumps of old dough preferment at this point.

Incorporate enough flour to make a wet dough. You're shooting for dough that will stick to the board and to your hands, but not excessively. I'd say more than 65% hydration, but less than 70%. I knead it by slapping the dough down on the board so it sticks, pull it out like taffy toward me, fold it away from me over the stuck down part. Scoop it off the board with my hands, turn 90 degrees. Repeat. It's sticky enough for that process, but not crazily sticky.

I mix thoroughly in the bowl, by hand, adding 1/3 of a cup of flour and the mixing 40-50 strokes, add the next 1/3 cup, etc. This gives some gluten development in the bowl.

Mix in the salt before it's too hard to stir, but before you've incorporated all the flour. Keep going until you can't stir any more, or until you've got enough flour worked in (that is, it's ok if you can't stir a 70 percent hydration dough by hand, not everyone can! The point is, get the salt in there before you can't stir and have to start kneading).

The last thing before you tip it out to knead, mix in that half cup of finely chopped walnuts.

Knead until it's pretty well developed. I only kneaded about 10 minutes. You don't need TOO much work to get good gluten development at this point, since your preferments are well developed; and if you use my (actually Joe Ortiz') technique of mixing in the bowl a lot, you're pretty well developed by the time you dump it out. Windowpaning will be hard with all the walnut bits, but the dough should want to windowpane even if the walnut won't let it!

Knead in the rest of the walnuts at this point, just to get them evenly distributed in the dough.

Bulk rise an hour and a half or so (until it poke tests). This last loaf I made, my dough was frankly too cold, since I didn't have time to warm my preferments up enough (I forgot about them!) so I did a couple of stretch and folds to warm more evening, and my bulk rise was more like 3 hours.

Shape into a boule and drop into a banneton. Final rise until poke-test. Expect about an hour.

Bake at 450F for one hour, with steam for the first 10 minutes. The crust winds up quite dark brown.

Remarks

The key to getting a more or less evenly purple crumb seems to be kneading with the finely chopped walnuts in. Adding them after kneading doesn't seem to have an effect on flavor, but does make the purple color very blotchy and uneven. (see previous posts)

I make have overbaked this last loaf, I want the dark crust, but the crumb seems a trifle too dry.

At this point I am really quite happy with my imitation of Acme's bread. It's not a perfect copy, but it has all the properties that I like about the Acme product, and it's extremely tasty (especially toasted). Also, my version is Quite Big, this thing is about a 3 pound boule, so there's lot of bread to eat and even give some away!

Pictures

There's plenty of pictures of previous variations in the earlier posts, so this is really just about showing the color of the crumb and of the crust:

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