Recent Blog Entries

Recently I experimented with a basic lean pizza dough and made these rolls. They were great for sandwiches and my sons favorite, cheesy bread. They're similar to focaccia rolls however its hollow in the middle and more like a pita. 

http://neo-homesteading.blogspot.com/2010/11/pita-rolls-basic-pizza-dough.html

I've had a hard time with bagels.  I have asked a few questions here about my wrinkled bagels that I've made (thanks Mark Witt).  I made Bagels while being a recipe tester for Peter Reinhart's "Artisan Bread Every Day".  I also have made them from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" but they were always wrinkled.  While testing recipes for Norm & Stan I had some success with their Montreal Bagels.  I did not do anything very different, these just turned out.  So I have been frustrated with bagels.

Completely unrelated, I had borrowed "Dough" by Richard Bertinet from our library and in there saw how he shapes rolls and in one chapter he cuts rolls into stars.  The star rolls looked great and I tried out this technique on some Buttermilk Clusters (recipe found on this site).

It occurred to me to try this cut on bagels and so here are my results.  I used the recipe from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart.  I did not retard the dough over night.

After mixing and kneading, I let the dough rise while I did some outdoor chores.  I then scaled them into 130 gram portions and shaped them into tight balls using Richard's method.  Question: Why do we do this for Boules but not bagels or did I miss this?  I then let them rest for about 20 minutes.

I got out a Starbucks gift card that was all used up (it is also doubling as a dough scraper until I find a real one).  I then put a little oil on the edge that will do the cutting and made my first cut.

I then made 2 more cuts.

Once the three cuts have been made you turn the dough inside out so that the points of the star are on the outside.  Put the best side up on the oiled parchment paper.

Here is one batch of bagels proofing for about 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes I boiled them (actually the water was not quite boiling) for 20 seconds a side, put topping on and baked on a hot stone.

I made two batches of bagels and it used up all but about a cup of flour from a 5 lb. bag.

I tried Onion for the first time.  I took some dehydrated onions and let them steep in hot water and then drained them.  I sprinkled some of the onions on the top of the boiled bagels just before putting them in the oven.  I also used Poppy seeds and Black Sesame Seeds.

Here are a few more pictures.

So, many thanks to Peter, Richard, Mark, Norm and Stan.  I am pleased the way these turned out.

Happy Baking,

Dwayne

I made a potato bread today, using Dan Lepard's recipe from The Art of Handmade Bread (AKA The Handmade Loaf) as the basis and tweaking it a bit.  If memory serves me right, I used:

300 grams water

200 grams mashed potatoes

500 grams bread flour

1 tablespoon sourdough starter (cold from the fridge)

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast

I gave it quite a while, 10 minutes or so, in the mixer, then let it rise slowly most of the day, folding it a couple of times when I noticed it cresting over the edge of the bowl..  I shaped it an hour or so before I wanted to bake it, then baked it with steam at 465 for 15 minutes then 400 or so for another 20 to 30 minutes.

It has a relatively tight crumb but is really nice and soft.  I'm thinking I may make this as rolls for my Thanksgiving day feast this year.

My kids and I also made fresh butter in Mason jars as discussed here. 

The kids had a blast dancing around the living room shaking the jars (we put some music on) and the butter was truly delicious.  It is well worth the effort!

Well, this week was a little disappointing one in baguette land.

I only made two seemingly minor (intentional) changes from last week:  First, I endeavored to proof until the baguettes "felt ready" (about 65 minutes this week), rather than waiting for a 75 minute proof.  That I think went well.  Second, I switched from KA Bread Flour to Stone Buhr White Bread Flour.  I generally prefer the Stone-Buhr, but my local grocery stores stopped stocking it.  Last week,  all of a sudden Save-Mart had a small supply with a "Close-Out" price-tag, and I snapped up 3 bags while I had the chance.  In the past, I've gotten much more sweet, nutty wheat flavor out of the Stone-Buhr in breads that rely heavily on the flour for flavor, such as baguettes. In particular, Stone-Buhr gave better results than the KA, Gold Medal, or the Sunny-Select store brand with Peter Reinhart's formula for pain a l'ancienne, which I used to make pretty frequently.  For several editions of my weekly baguette quest, when I've liked the shape and scoring, but not the flavor, I've wondered if a little Stone-Buhr would fix everything.

Anyway, the big problem this week is that the poolish over-proofed after only 10 hours on my counter--I could smell the booziness of it but forged ahead, and ended up with somewhat pale, chewy bread. Ah well. The big question is this: why did it overproof so fast?  I have a few potential theories:

1. The flour is to blame: Perhaps Stone Buhr has more free sugars, which explains my experience of great flavor, and a fast proof.
2. The yeast is to blame: I may have over-yeasted the poolish.  I've been trying to approximate 1/16 teaspoon of yeast by half-filling a 1/8 teaspoon measure, and it isn't easy.
3. My apartment is to blame: The apartment was a bit warmer than usual Saturday morning when I took temperatures in order to figure out the right water temp.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, here are the results.  Only two baguettes are pictured because I sent one home with my parents (who had stopped by to see their grand-daughter) prior to taking a picture.  Take my word for it that baguette #3 looked much like #1 and #2.

Exterior

Crumb

Crust was pale, and very tough and chewy.  Scoring placement was pretty good, although I'm thinking part of the problem is that I'm not scoring deep enough.  Crumb was moderately open, but oddly dry.  Flavor wasn't too bad despite all that.

At least I had more luck with my Sunday bake, a rendition of dmsnyder's lovely San Joaquin Sourdough.  Haven't sampled the inside, but the outsides look nice and they smell phenomenal.  Still, for a picture I decided they needed a cute-ness enhancer.