The Fresh Loaf

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May 26, 2009 - 4:21pm
Rosalie's picture
Rosalie

Brother Juniper's Four-Seed Snack Crackers

I tried to include a picture, but I'm not adept enough with my photo editor and the online host.  Maybe another time.  But, trust me, they look and taste good.

They're the Four-Seed Snack Crackers on page 122 of Brother Juniper's Bread Book by Peter Reinhart.

Grind 1 cup each sunflower and pumpkin seeds into a flour in the blender.  Also grind 1/2 cup flax seeds in the coffee grinder.  He has you grinding all three seeds together, but the flax seeds did not break down properly.  Mix with 3-1/2 cups ww flour (or ap if you must), 1 cup sesame seeds, 1 teaspoon salt, 5 tablespoons honey, and 1/2 cup oil; add 6-8 ounces of water as needed to make a ball of dough. Knead about 10 minutes "until smooth, firm, but elastic, satiny rather than tacky" about 10 minutes.  Then place in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap for at least 10 minutes (I left it overnight).**

Divide into six pieces.  I rolled each piece into a ball and flattened it.  Then I placed five of the flattened balls on a cookie sheet in the freezer for a few hours before placing them in a freezer bag.  They'll keep up to three months.  Roll today's dough out to about 1/8 inch thick.  (It was still stiff from the refrigerator, so I nuked it for a few seconds before rolling.)  I found that my Sil-Pat (little brother to the Roul-Pat) was adequate because the dough was oily enough, but he warns that you should re-flour as needed.  Then he has you use a biscuit cutter or a pizza roller knife to cut out round or diamond shapes, but I used a plastic dough scraper - gently - on my Sil-Pat and cut out random shapes.  I just wanted crackers and wasn't trying to impress the bridge club.

Finally, you can mist the top of the crackers with water and sprinkle with more sesame seeds or other toppings, but I didn't.  I just baked in a 340-degree F oven for 20-25 minutes until they're light golden brown.  You're warned to let them cool for at least 20 minutes so that they'll crisp up.

My first batch is now almost gone.  When I'm ready, I'll pull out another piece of dough, defrost it, and repeat.  I can keep the crackers coming with just a little effort.

Rosalie

**EDIT:  PLACE IN REFRIGERATOR - Details! Details!

May 26, 2009 - 3:33am
Yippee's picture
Yippee

20090525 Susan's 63% Hydration Sourdough

The ‘force’ was very strong this weekend, because I had the blessings from Susan of San Diego.    It was so strong that I could feel it as soon as the bouncy boule-shaped dough rolled out of my palm after one of its many S&Fs. From that moment, I knew I was going to make it.  Here it is, and Susan, I’m forever grateful to you!

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157618730642157/

 

May 26, 2009 - 3:23am
Yippee's picture
Yippee

090525 76% Hydration Baguette Make-over - Before and After

Same formula as the 76% hydration baguettes in my 090510 entry.  However, a few changes took place:

 

Flour - switched to KA organic all purpose flour from bread flour

Having become more comfortable handling slack dough by referencing to dough kneading and shaping techniques from Susan of San Diego, SteveB of Bread Cetera and Mark of the Back Home Bakery.

And for the first time, I heard the 'singing' of my baguettes.

 

Next time:    Study David's Bread Scoring Tutorial and handle the dough even more gently.

 

After: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157618813197876/

Before: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33569048@N05/sets/72157617904188161/

May 25, 2009 - 7:37pm
BobS's picture
BobS

Lurker Rises to the Surface

I've been baking bread (like sandwich loaves) for a long time, but in the past few years have gotten interested in making 'really good' bread. TFL has helped a lot. Here's a bit of what I've learned.

This is a Rustic Italian Bread from Cook's Illustrated.

 

I fiddled for a while with jonkertb's multigrain bread recipe, and eventually got it the way I wanted:

 

Multigrain Bread

Multigrain Bread Crumb

Here's a direct-method white bread from Bertinet's Dough, using his kneading technique:

Bertinet White Bread

 

Lately I've been mostly working with 'Fred', my sourdough starter. Some success, but no pictures yet.

 

May 25, 2009 - 3:51pm
xaipete's picture
xaipete

DiMuzio's Baguettes with Liquid Levain

These baguettes turned out surprisingly well in spite of a number of recipe mishaps--I improperly jury-rigged some ripe firm levain into an instant liquid levain, made two large loaves instead of three smaller, and left the oven at 500º. The crumb was somewhat open and had a nice buttery flavor, but the loaves lacked a crispy crust owing to their too high and brief bake. I really owe this one another try before deciding on its merits!

dimuzio french baguette

 

dimuzio french baguette

450 g KA AP flour

290 g water

10 g salt

3.5 g instant yeast

100 g liquid levain

Put together in the usual fashion.

--Pamela

 

May 25, 2009 - 12:10pm
AnnieT's picture
AnnieT

Good news and bad news

The good news is that I have baked a couple of Susan's sourdough using Wheat Montana Natural White All Purpose flour and find that it is much like KAF Bread Flour. In fact I get the same oven spring and the flavor is wonderful. I bought a 10lb bag because it was slightly cheaper that way - the price here on the island is about the same as KA. Because I have limited storage space I asked at the "bakery" in my grocery store for icing buckets and they called to say they had saved a couple for me, one 5 gallon and one 1 1/2 gallon. The bad news is that the 5 gallon bucket had held dill pickles and I don't think I will ever get rid of the smell! The smaller one held fruit salad and is pretty much odor free after scrubbing and airing. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I will use the smelly one for weeds or recycling. I suppose I should have been more explicit when I asked for buckets for storing flour. Hope other members have better luck with bakery buckets, A.

May 25, 2009 - 10:24am
xaipete's picture
xaipete

DiMuzio's San Francisco Sourdough

Happy Memorial Day, Everybody!

I made Dan's SF SD bread yesterday, baked it last night (it got a lot of oven spring), and let it cool on the counter overnight. When I sliced into it this morning, I was very pleased with its structure and open crumb. I would have liked a bit more tang but think that could be achieved by retarding the proof overnight in the fridge. I'm not sure if that would required reducing the amount of starter, but perhaps Dan will supply an opinion. Dan's formula for SFSD was both easy and rapid. Another benefit to Dan's formula (indeed all of the formulas in Bread Baking) is that you can use KA AP, which can be purchased is 25 pound sacks, instead of KA Bread flour. I was amazed that I could turn such a professional looking loaf in a mere day, not counting the time required for getting the starter ready. Dan's formula also incorporated a lot more starter in it than I'm used to! I think this was a very successful bake and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to reproduce an authentic San Francisco Sourdough!

dimuzio san francisco sourdough

Formula for two loaves:

700 g bread flour (because KA bread flour is so strong, I used KA AP)

500 g water

20 g salt

480 g firm ripe levain (67% hydration)

My method: mix the water and ripe levain together to combine, add the remaining ingredients and mix with the paddle on speed 1 for 1 minute. Turn off mixer and let rest 5 minutes. Mix with dough hook on speed 2 for 4 minutes. Let dough rest covered in mixer bowl for 20 minutes. Dump dough on lightly floured counter and do a stretch and fold. Put dough into an oiled dough bucket and let rest another 20 minutes. Do another stretch and fold. Let rise until double in the covered dough bucket. Form into two loaves and proof onto a well-floured linen-lined banneton until nearly double. Bake at 450º on a hot stone with steam until done, about 27 minutes. Let rest in a turned off oven for about 10 minutes to darken and harden the crust.

dimuzio san francisco sourdough

--Pamela

May 24, 2009 - 3:19pm
AnnieT's picture
AnnieT

First waffles with the Belgian Waffler

Today was the first attempt at waffles in the vintage iron, and the results were pretty good. The iron smoked a lot while it was heating so I planned on tossing the first waffle anyway. Never having made waffles I wasn't sure how the batter should be - I made the KAF sourdough recipe and I thought maybe it was too thick. They puffed up beautifully and my food critics voted them excellent. One went with syrup, the other opted for agave. Any input on the batter consistency would be appreciated, A.

May 23, 2009 - 11:39pm
jj1109's picture
jj1109

200% hydration sourdough batter

Necessity is the mother of invention, it is said. And last night, it was necessary in my kitchen. We were having Honey Chicken, a delicious deep fryed dish of loveliness, and my regular (read - the last time I made it) batter recipe called for beer. After all, everyone knows that beer batter is just the best.

Not any more! I couldn't be bothered going out to get the beer. I was just going to make a very boring yeasted batter, but then remembered Peter Reinhart saying "Beer is liquid bread, bread is solid beer"... I ran to the refrigerator and pulled out the sourdough starter.

50g mature starter (100% hydration)

308g water

35g rye flour

107g bread flour

I whisked all that together and left that to sit in a warm place for about 2-3 hours, and it went very well. Delicious odour to it...

toss the chicken in some cornflour, coat in the batter and deepfry until done. This sourdough batter was the best I have made in 6 years making this dish (ok, so I usually only make it 3 or 4 times a year ;)) It was crunchy crisp and had an amazing flavour, and when I tossed the fried chicken in the honey mixture (stirfry a finely chopped chunk of ginger, add 1/3 cup honey, add chicken when honey is bubbly, once honey is coated mix together 1 tbs soy sauce and 1 tbs cornflour then stir that through) the batter stayed crisp!

A great meal. Now I'm on the lookout for more things I can deepfry in this batter! Unfortunately no pictures as we ate it too quickly!

May 23, 2009 - 9:48pm
xaipete's picture
xaipete

Leader's Polish Cottage Rye--the helium really helped with the oven spring!

This was a delicious bread! It was everything I hoped for (thank you David!). This massive loaf had a delightful sourness with a nice rye flavor, a well-developed structure without any hint of heaviness, and a wonderful aroma. I would definitely make it again.

This was a three-build bread: I made the German rye sourdough Thursday night and the rye sourdough Friday night. I used KA bread flour and home-ground unsifted rye (the formula called for white rye so this was a substitution). Everything ticked along exactly as expected. I put the final dough mixture together Saturday morning and mixed it in my Kitchen Aid on speed 4 for 14 minutes (again, thanks for your help on this David!), scraping the sides down twice. After I literally poured the mixture into a dough bucket, I let it ferment at room temperature for about 2 1/4 hours. Meanwhile I scoured the house for an appropriately sized proofing basket for my 2 1/2 pounds of dough finally turning up a basket from a closet.

After rubbing a considerable amount of rye flour into a flour-sack couche, I emptied--again almost poured--the dough into its center. The dough was too slack to shape, so I just lifted the whole thing into the basket, covered it with plastic wrap, and let it proof for another 1 3/4 hours during which time it nearly doubled. I then placed a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet, sprayed it with PAM, placed it over the basket, flipped it over and watched the dough come tumbling out.

After three quick scores about 1/2-inch deep, I slid the spreading mass onto a preheated oven stone on the middle rack, plopped 3/4 cup of ice cubes in a skillet beneath the stone for steaming, shut the door, and hoped for the best. As I watched through the oven window I was delighted to see a lot of oven spring. The dough expanded both upwards and sideways increasing in volume nearly 50%. I was very pleased and hopeful. I threw a piece of foil over the loaf after 20 minutes because I worried that it was getting brown to quickly and then checked it to see if it was done at 40 minutes. It registered 96º C. so I removed it to a cooling rack. I was very happy to feel that the loaf was wonderfully light. I knew I had a winner.

Notes: I used the rye sour from Leader's book. It had sat in the refrigerator un-refreshed for a month but seemed to perform just fine after only one feeding and 12 hours on the counter (actually, I let it sit on the counter for 24 hours before using it); no doubt, this is a testimonial to the rehabilitation properties of rye flour.
You can see the hole in the top of the loaf where I injected the helium. polish cottage rye
I took some more pictures but didn't have the CF card in the camera so I'll post more tomorrow.
Here are some more pictures. Vodka is the traditional accompaniment.
polish cottage rye
polish cottage rye crumb
This is a picture of about one-third of the loaf in its proofing basket; I'm including it so you can see how really large this massive loaf was.


After our dinner of sausages, grilled red peppers, and sautéed onion relish, we enjoyed a fre$h cherry pie. The pie's crust was perfectly flakey and delicious owing to the incorporation of a small amount of solid Crisco with the butter (as usual, I promised myself that this was absolutely the last time I would use the white stuff!).
fresh cherry pie

--Pamela

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