Recent Blog Entries

Well, here it is!  My first ever blog post.  I have been thinking of starting a blog for awhile, if only to keep a catalog of the progress I've made in my bread making over the last year or so.  It is difficult to quantify progress without something down on paper, as it were, so I hope this will be useful for myself and others, being able to look back through recipes and pictures for future reference.  Anyway, I should give some background on my interest in bread baking.  I am an American living in Britain, and was visiting home for a family wedding over a year ago.  My mother had been experimenting in bread making, as she was trying to re-create my parents' favourite loaf from the local bakery.  My mother has baked bread on and off for years, and I dimly recall some relatively dense and fairly dry bread-maker bread from my childhood (her hand baking is much better!).  Anyway, she had recently gotten into the habit of making all the bread they ate (except for the occasional bakery purchase), and my husband I were really impressed with her bread.  One morning we were there, she asked me to put the loaf in the oven for her after it had finished rising, and then because of my interest, she wrote down the recipe she used for her everyday bread.  As soon as I got home, I got some baker's yeast, strong white and wholemeal flour, and I was busy baking.  It took a number of attempts to get the rise right, figure out how to remove the clingfilm without deflating the loaf, etc, etc, but all in all every loaf I made tasted delicious.  Over time, I really got the daily bread down pat, and started braiding loaves for fun, and adjusting different ingredients to get different textures. 

(Sesame, Pumpkin and sunflower seed braided loaf)

Then, in the fall of last year, I came across info about creating your own starter at home, and eliminating the need for commercial yeast.  Ever in search of the healthiest nutrition for my family, I decided to have a go at making sourdough.  Although it seemed impossibly easy, I stirred up equal amounts of white and wholewheat flour and water, covered loosely, and left overnight.  The next day, I discarded half and fed it again, re-covered and waited another day.  By the third discard and feed, there was clear activity, and I was excited!  I baked my first loaf from my brand new starter in a loaf tin, with great anticipation.  I was thrilled to produce a nicely risen loaf with a few big bubbles on top and lots of lovely little bubbles on the crust!

Now, although this bread was delicious and a real triumph, I felt the need to make a yeasted bread for my husband who is less adventurous, and only likes icky cotton wool white bread for toast.  *Sigh* It really does discourage one after all the effort put in.  Nonetheless, our favourite winter lunch is soup and bread, so I was confident that a round loaf for soup dipping would be a hit, and a good way to slip in some wholesome nutrition.  =)  After much research, I started baking round loaves in a covered glass casserole dish and here was my first result:

Not the most amazing loaf, I know, but not bad considering it was a first attempt, and I had no clue about scoring, overnight retarding, stretching and folding, etc.  With each loaf (despite the lop-sidedness due to dumping the proofed loaf into the hot bowl) I saw improvements...

I was even brave enough to attempt a freeform boule, and was very pleased with the result!

Next I tried a sourdough baguette and tin loaf, which were both excellent:

With the discovery of stretching and folding, overnight retarding and a firmer (lower hydration) dough, I managed my best loaf yet, a freeform poppyseed (can't remember the name of the shape):

Everything about this last loaf was an utter triumph for me.  The fantastic opening of the slash, the shiny crackly crust, the soft and moist crumb, and the deliciously smooth and subtle sour taste.  I cannot describe my joy in being able to create such a beautiful and delectable loaf, from nothing more than the usual baking drawer ingredients.  What a joy and a privilege!  Here's to many more loaves to come, and thank you to everyone on the Fresh Loaf from whom I've gotten tons of information which is helping me to continually improve and hone my baking skills!

It was raining outside my tea room.  Polly my dog was happy in her house.  I was in heaven painstakingly (not contradictory in terms) typing the French letters (the annoying à and é and ç) into my on-line translator.  The music was vibrating the thin rice-paper calligraphies on my mahogany-colored wall.

I consulted a couple of translations for Lionel Poilâne's Pain Rustique recipe in his Le Pain par Poilâne, page 143.  The 390-page book contains a dozen recipes.  I studied the translations.  I read the recipe very carefully.  And in the end, I said to myself, disbelieving, "Is that it, so simple?"  "Is this the recipe that makes the famous Miche Poilâne?"  (No.)

One of my sisters told me there is a single product hawker's stand in Taipei which sells red bean pancakes.  Any time of the day you go there, there is a long queue waiting to buy the man's red bean pancakes.  He has a dedicated pot to cook his red bean paste at home; the pot is never used for anything else.  He has several other dedicated utensils for the job.  My sister gave me his recipe.  It sounded so simple, I said, "Is that all? You are not leaving any steps out?"  She said, "No."  She gave me the man's list of ingredients: red beans, sugar, flour, and water.  I said, "You are not leaving any secret ingredients out?"  She said, "No."

Still disbelieving from reading the Poilâne formula, I got up from my chair and walked past a neglected pile of books left there since I came back from Taipei last October.  At the rate I buy books there is no way I can finish reading all my books in my lifetime, but I keep on buying.  The postman, the DHL man, and the Fedex man, as well as the occasional sub-contractor for Australia Post, all know there is somebody whose name sounds like (to pronounce slowly) "shopping" that lives behind that gate (and what an annoyance having to ring the bell for the gate to open!).

Anyway, I retrieved from that pile a book which is, on the surface, dedicated to baguettes, a Mandarin translation of the best Japanese baguette formulas.  And, boy, can you get any more perfectly shaped baguettes than those any where else in the world?  My oh my, the formulas are so detailed!  And, interesting!

                                  Baguette no Gijutsu (Baguette Techniques), published by Asahiya Shuppan, Japan    

   right: Totszen Baker's Kitchen, Yokohama (page 28)    

   middle: Fournier Bakery, Osaka (page 8)

   left:  Lobros Bakery, Tokyo (page 124)

The way I see it, this book is about methods of pure fermentation of flour.  Baguette is only the form in which the result is show-cased; the bread could be in any shape or form.  There are 35 very detailed baguette formulas by today's top Japanese bakers in a very easy to follow format.  The bakers play with fermentation possibilities in a wide ranging ways and dough hydrations of between 57 and 83%.  The book reads to me like 35 flour fermentation love stories.  The baguettes are solid works of fine craft and done in tightly controlled environment (the Japanese way!).  Using the simplest ingredients, their objectives are all the same: to bring out the best flavour in flour through their individual fermentation methods.  Only a third of recipes use levains, and not even at high baker's percentages, for a more clean taste of flour.  Some use other pre-ferments; but pre-ferments are nothing new.  What I find interesting is pre-fermenting the main dough flour. 

Have you ever heard of autolysing flour and water for 12 hours?  Maybe you have, but I haven't.  With this post, I am making baguettes using Fournier Bakery's formula on which the gorgeous looking crumb pictured in the middle above is based.  The book says Fournier won the 2006 French Baguette Competition organized by Torigoe, the oldest Japanese miller of French style of flours. 

Fournier Bakery's baguette formula

Ingredients in baker's percentages

• 100% bread flour (I used 650 grams of Australia's Kialla Organic unbleached plain flour)
• 70% water (I had 455 grams)
• 15% liquid starter (I had 98 grams. See note * below)
• 0.1% instant dry yeast (I used two-thirds of a 1/3 tsp)
• 1.9% salt (I had 12 grams)

Overall dough hydration is 72.1%.  My dough weighed about 1200 grams.  I did three times the formula in three days, totaling 18 baby baguettes of 200 grams each (see below).

Note *: As most of us are weekend bakers, it is best that our starter undergo at least two refreshes (ie, refreshment build and levain build) before being incorporated into the final dough.  I did three builds for my levain, each time discarding all but 20 grams for the next build.  I timed the last build to coincide with the 12 hour autolyse of flour and water (see step 2 below). 

1. Place only flour and water in the mixer, turn on first speed for two minutes.
2. Autolyse for 12 hours at 16 ºC.  (I did about 9 hours.  As it is summer here in Australia, my temperature averages around 25 - 27 ºC.) 
3. Add liquid starter and instant dry yeast and mix in first speed for one minute.  (The book says the levain is ready for use when its pH is 3.7.  I had no way of knowing the exact pH of my levain but because it had just gone through 3 builds, I would guess that the pH value might be a lot higher than 3.7.)
4. Add salt and mix in first speed for 2 more minutes, and second speed for 1 minute and 30 seconds.  When kneading is complete, the dough temperature should be 22 ºC.  (Note: I did all my mixing and kneading by hand.  It was very messy, especially trying to get the liquid starter mixed into the dough.  I did not use ice water to try to get my dough temperature exactly as per the formula.  I figured that I would just watch the fermentation carefully.)
5. Bulk fermentation is 3 hours in total at 22 ºC as follows: three times 2 letter-folds in a plastic container at 20 minutes intervals, then twice more 2 letter-folds at 60 minutes interval, totaling 5 times.  (As my room temperature and dough temperature was about 25 - 27 ºC, I did only 2 hours bulk.)
6. Divide the dough into 350 grams pieces and pre-shape them (I divided my dough into 6 pieces of 200 grams each because my baking stone is small, 34 cm x 34 cm.)
7. Shape into baguette, 60 cm long. (I shaped mine into 32 - 34 cm long).
8. (Note that it should only be 30 minutes from Divide to Shape, including the rest in between, during which time the dough pieces should be placed in temperature controlled room at 22 ºC.)
9. Proofing is 60 minutes at 22 ºC and 70 degree humidity.  (The book says when the dough completes its fermentation, its pH should be 5.2.)  (For the last 30 minutes of proofing, I moved my dough into the refrigerator as I was afraid that it might over-prove.)
10. Pre-heat oven to 250 ºC.  Score the dough with 7 slashes.  Steam the oven before loading the dough.  Once the dough is in the oven, turn the oven down to 240 ºC.  After 3 minutes of baking, steam the oven again.  Bake for a total of 30 - 32 minutes.  (My dough only needed 23 minutes of baking at the highest temperature my oven could go.  I could only manage 4 slashes on my dough.)

To recap: Fournier's fermentation is 4 1/2 hours all-up at 22 ºC.  I did 3 1/2 hours at 25 - 27 ºC, including 30 minutes in the refrigerator, which had an added advantage of chilling the surface of the dough for easier slashing.

The challenge of baguettes to me is how to shape them uniformly.  There is no better way than repetitive practice.  It was only towards my last 3 baguettes (those pictured above) that I worked out how to do them with same length and thickness.  The key for me is, after pre-shaping and rest, pat the dough out to very flat (not to worry, I was not squeezing the gas out by patting).  Then, use minimal movements possible to shape the dough.  I find that excessive handling serves no purpose.   Out of the 18 baguettes that I made, the three next best ones are below:

I find slightly under-proof works better than slightly over-proof.  As my dough pieces were small, just 15 minutes more than necessary could make it over-proved.   Once the dough is done fermenting and ready to go, no amount of chilling in the refrigerator can arrest it because of the internal dough temperature.  The flavour will still be good but oven spring would suffer.

It would be interesting to try out more formulas in the book to learn more ways of pure fermentation.  There is nothing wrong of using other type of flours (for instance, various whole grains flours) on these baguette formulas, paying attention to temperature and time issues etc., and see how they affect fermentation outcomes.  I learn in this book that there are infinite possibilities.

Just as I was cleaning up from today's mess, it's almost time to go and pick up my son from his tennis.  I tied up two baby baguettes to give to Andrew's coach.  Don't people just envy us because we possess these presents to give away?

I was late collecting my son.  When he saw me, he said, "Soft effort, Mum, soft effort."   Gee.

It has stopped raining now.  It is lush and green outside the window.  Polly would not be allowed to go out for a while yet, not until the grass is dry.

Shiao-Ping

Because of the snowstorm, I have been housebound since last Friday so what's  better than playing with flour. I have made Pain de Campagne au Levain in many incarnations using different kind of flour mixes, different types of levain, different dough hydrations, so this time I decided to try another variation using basically all high extraction wheat flour.

Having some T80 high extraction flour from La Milanaise on hand, I mixed it with 5% Dark Rye from Bob's Red Mill and used it for both my Levain build and final dough. I wanted to try using a semi-stiff Levain at approximately the same hydration as the final dough for ease of incorporation after autolyse so I did a 2-step Levain build at 70% hydration. I decided to go with 1/3 proportion of levain to flour.

Formulation:

1st Levain Build:

- 15 gms White Liquid Levain (100% hydration)

- 30 gms Flour Mix

- 20 gms Water

This build took 12 hours

2nd Levain Build:

- 50 gms 1st Build Levain

- 80 gms Flour Mix

- 56 gms Water

This build took 4 hours

Final Dough:

- 500 gms Flour Mix

- 167 gms 2nd Build Levain

- 375 gms Water

- 13 gms Grey Sea Salt

I mixed the flour and water and autolysed for 30 minutes. I set out to use 70% hydration but during mixing, I added more water to get the right dough consistency and upped it to 75%. I performed S&F in the bowl 5 times at 45 minutes interval. Total bulk fermentation was 5 hours. I refrigerated the dough overnight. Next morning, I divided the dough in two, preshaped, rested for 60 minutes, shaped in 2 batards, proofed 45 minutes and baked at 450 degrees with steam for 12 minutes, then without steam on convection at 420 degrees for 20 minutes.

The oven spring was good and the crust came out crunchy with nice dark color. There was an enticing nutty fragrance when it came out of the oven.

The crumb was fairly soft with irregular holes. It has the gelatinous quality that I always look for.

The crumb had good mouthfeel, soft and slightly chewy. The toasted wheat flavor came through mixed with sweetness and a pronounced tang, a little more than I wanted.

This is the first time that I have made a Pain de Campagne using all Levain. I normally use around 20% levain and added 1/4 tsp of instant yeast to boost the leavening power. I tend to prefer a less tangy and less dense Levain bread so the lower levain percentage and the addition of Instant Yeast made the bread taste creamier and sweeter than an all levain bread. Otherwise, I did not detect a lot of difference in terms of oven spring, appearance and fragrance.

Happy Baking!

Don

I've been reading a lot lately about Spelt flour. My interest was sparked by a seemingly Spelt flour interest-spike among TFLer's, and that I've never baked with Spelt. I've also been wanting to create a 40% Whole Wheat sandwich sourdough bread. We routinely bake a pan-shaped 40% whole wheat straight dough, we're very happy with; however, I wanted a similar, but free-form baked sourdough primarily for grilled sandwiches. I thought it would be fun to do a side-by-side comparison, substituting Spelt flour for the Bread Flour, leaving everything else unchanged, and keeping my dough techniques as nearly identical as possible.

Here's my formula:

Levain:

11 g seed starter (refrigerated, feed every two weeks or more frequently) fed 1:1:1 three time over twenty-four hours yielding 300 g ripe levain. Whole wheat flour used for all builds (represents 16% of total dough flour); levain hydration 100%.

Final doughs:

140 g ripe levain (from above)       16% of total flour contributed

105 g Whole Wheat flour               24%

265 g Bread or Spelt flour             60%

305 g Water                                 70% (includes 70g from levain)

 9 g Salt                                        2%

11 g Olive oil (1 Tbs)                      2.5% 

Procedures: (for both doughs)

Hand-mixed all ingredients to bowl side-cleaning ball; 30 minute rest; French-fold until dough passed window-pane test; retarded bulk proof for five hours @ 55°F with one Stretch and Fold at 45 mins. (The retardation was done only to accomadate my schedule.) Removed from chiller, preshaped, and further bulk proofed at 76°F for two hours. Shaped two batards, and final proofed for one and one-half hours. Scored, and loaded into pre-steamed oven, at 500°F. Immediately lowered oven temperature to 450°F. Baked first ten minutes with steam, removed steam source and vented oven, finished baking: spelt flour loaf 15 more minutes, bread flour loaf 17 more minutes. Cooled completely.

Although these doughs are relatively high hydration, because of the high protein flours the doughs formed soft balls. From the beginning these doughs were different to the touch. Both exhibited comparitive extensibility, but the Bread flour's gluten developed noticeably stronger than the Spelt flour's.  The Bread flour dough shaped more tightly than the spelt flour, proofed more firmly, and exhibited more oven spring.

Obviously, the Bread flour loaf is in the foreground.

The crumb. The bread flour loaf's crumb, while closed (as desired) is lighter, and softer than the spelt flour crumb which borders on the edge of 'dense".

My wife and I taste-tested both breads. The bread flour loaf exhibited the familiar whole-wheat flavor we both like, and the crumb was soft, again as we like in a sandwich bread. The spelt flour loaf had an agreeable flavor--I presume "it" is the flavor of spelt flour--but the whole wheat flour flavor seemed entirely masked.  We shared a second slice of each, but our impressions didn't change. We like them both, but the bread flour formula will stay in our repetoire; spelt flour will have to wait for another formula, another day.

David G

Following the advice of a couple of you, today I baked a 40% whole spelt flour version. Its dough was considerably more slack than the 40% whole wheat flour, everything being the same except for the spelt flour. Consequently, I wasn't able to shape it as tightly, and it spread more during final proofing. Nonetheless, it had comparable oven spring--the crumb appears more open than the whole wheat version.

We like the flavor; it's more subtle than the whole-wheat presence in the alternative loaf. I think for now, we'll keep this formula in our book, and look for a local source for white spelt flour.

The loaf:

and the crumb.

Thank you all for sharing your expertise and advice.

David G.