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I think that this batch is a bit better than the first, as I changed the proofing schedule a bit, making the dough late yesterday and letting it proof overnight.  I also hand kneaded it, rather than use the mixer as the recipe detailed. You learn something every time.  They seemed to puff up more during the boiling (that's the fun part; I love boiling the bagels!)   I made some homemade tuna salad, and my husband and I are going to try the still warm bagels topped with onion and garlic with the tuna salad for lunch.

We were jonesing for some blueberry pancakes this morning, so I threw together the following:

2/3 cup buttermilk

2/3 cup milk

2 large eggs

1/4 cup oil

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 cup whole rye flour

1/2 cup whole oat flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup fresh blueberries

First I whisked all of the wet ingredients until they were thoroughly blended.  Then I added the dry ingredients and whisked them to form a uniform batter.  Then the blueberries were stirred in.  This was allowed to stand 15-20 minutes so that the flours could hydrate somewhat.

The pancakes were cooked on a dry non-stick griddle over medium-high heat.  When the first side browned, they were turned and cooked until the second side was also browned.  The first side didn't display as much bubble formation as an all-wheat batter would do.  Once flipped, though, the now-upper crust helped trap the steam, making each one puff up.  I found it helpful to loosen the edges before attempting to lift the pancakes for turning or removal but didn't experience any problems with sticking.

The flavor was wonderful, in spite of my wife's initial skepticism about rye in a pancake.  Not only were they tasty, they also gave us a good shot of complex carbohydrates and antioxidants.  This amount of batter made 7 pancakes that were approximately 8 inches in diameter.

The flour blend wasn't by design; I just used what happened to be on hand.  Some experimentation with spelt or barley or whatever else you have will probably be equally delicious.

My wife's final comment was "You did write this down, didn't you?"  And now I have.

Paul

With English muffins and bagels out of the way this week and breakfast taken care of for several weeks, we moved on to our normal Friday bread bake.  We wanted to stick to our 100% whole grain recent theme, this time 99.89% while getting back to some of favorite add ins and return of the neglected; Toadies,  ground flax and sesame seeds.

Lucy wanted to shy away from the chewy bits in the crumb this week so, no sprouts or  scalded whole berries were used but, to make up for the missing, we added yogurt whey that we had frozen from the last batch of NF yogurt we made.  The protein will be kicked up and notch with the whey making this even healthier than it looks.

With the whey for dough liquid we were really going for the sour so we decided to pump it up some with a new levain retard schedule where we took out our stiff 66% hydration whole wheat and rye starter that has been in the fridge for a week and retarded the levain for 24 hours after the 2nd and 3rd stages rather than our usual retard after the 3rd stage only.

We fed the levain the 25% portion of bran that we had sifted out of our home milling of rye, spelt, farro and wheat.  We had 101 g left so it went into the levain in stages to make a 100% hydration leaven.

This put most of the whole grain equivalent into the levain so it would soak and soften for a as long as possible.  The rest of the whole grain equivalents; malts and Toadies, went into the 2 hour autolyse with the King Arthur white whole wheat.

We held back 36 g of water to squish the higher than normal salt though the autolyse when it had finished as we added the levain.  Normally we would have 1 or 2 g less of salt but with the whey in the mix we decided a little over 2% with the whole grains might slow things down a little bit and keep the dough from exploding while in the fridge.

We did our normal 10 minutes of slap and folds which was 2 slaps and 1 fold as the dough was on the stiff side even though it was at 85% hydration.  90% or more probably would have been better in hindsight but ti eventually smoothes out.  We rested the dough for 20 minutes before the first of (3) sets of S& F’s were dome on 20 minute intervals

After a 20 minute rest following the last S&F, we pre-shaped the dough into a boule and then 10 minutes later finished the job.   We put it into one of our favorite baskets, retrieved from the garage, which we had not used for a while.  Since the basket was well used it didn’t take much rice flour to get it back into bread shape before the dough went in.

A grilled cheese and chicken Tzitzel lunch on shaping day.

We then got out a new trash can liner and placed the basket inside before sealing with a rubber band and placing it into the fridge for an118 hour retard.  We liked what the long 20 hour cold did for the bagels earlier this week so we thought this bread would do well at 18 hours - even with the whey as liquid.  Luckily there wasn’t too much spelt bran in the mix

After 20 hours, we were a little shocked that the dough wasn’t fully proofed so that we could bake it straight out of the fridge.   So, on the counter it went for proofing until it had risen 90%.  We de-basketed it onto the parchment lined vented top of the mini oven’s broiler pan and styled it with Ian’s T-Rex slash.

We decided to do a cloche with a stainless steel mixing bowl for steaming instead of our normal (2) of Sylvia’s steaming cups.  The bottom of the broiler pan was preheated to 500 F in the mini oven.   Before the stainless covered bread went into the heat we tossed a quarter cup of water into hot broiler pan bottom and then covered it with the vented top holding the cloched bread above the water for a new kind of mega steam technique – under the dome.

 After 2 minutes we tuned the oven down to 475 F and continued to steam for another 13 minutes before removing the bottom of the broiler and the steam with it.  E then turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time and baked the bread for another 10 minutes rotating it 180 degrees every 5 minutes until it read 205 F on the inside with the probe thermometer.

The bread sprang, bloomed and browned as my apprentice expected.  She sometimes reminds me of ancient Grecian oracles of note who could see the future as easily as Lucy can see the long nose on her face. 

What a great sunset last night to go along with today's lunch.  Just a delicious sandwich bread .

The crumb was soft, open, moist and very sour - just the way we like it.  Tomorrow we hope it is even more sour - and it likely will be.  The crust stayed crispy as it cooled  and was the tastiest part by far.  We like this bread a lot.

Formula

I hope to be baking full-time again reasonably soon ... within weeks hopefully, and I can't wait to post a photo of the first loaf coming out of the oven.

... but this has meant some patience and waiting on my part.

So while we were waiting, Nat and I decided to head south to Tasmania for a chilly winters holiday. I am not sure how many of you have heard of Tasmania or know it's history ... but I live in Australia and seemed to know very little of this island tucked beneath the mainland of Australia. With a push from Ian at Ars pistorica we planned a weeks holiday full of road trips, relaxation and good food.

We left Brisbane on a warm 24°C afternoon and landed in Launceston on a wet and cold 10°C evening ... and then the weather proceeded to get even wetter and colder. Tasmania's climate compared to northern states of Australia is very changeable. A clear cold winter morning can quickly change to horizontal rain by mid-morning followed by clear skies and a wicked wind at lunch before dropping to even cooler temperatures by early afternoon and evening. We dressed in layers!

We spent a few days with Ian in Launceston where he proudly showed us through the construction of his new bakery. Launceston is about to be treated to some great bread. It is very apparent that Ian loves this state and that it breaks his heart to see it struggle compared to the mainland. From Launceston we travelled south through the centre of Tasmania. Large forests opened out into clear rolling hills that reminded me of the darling downs where I grew up except that these were super-sized and saturated versions!

Probably the place I was most excited about visiting in Tasmania was a town called Oatlands. For many years I have watched the restoration of the towns windmill, Callington Mill which had been built in 1837. Three years ago the mill was finally complete and once again had begun to produce stone-milled flour from locally grown grains. I also knew of Oatlands as being the home of Companion Bakery which was started by Graham Prichard a few years before the completion of the mill. Graham may be well known to many of you as the founder of sourdough.com.

Graham's bakery has a 6ft x 8ft Alan Scott oven built by Dennis Benson of Chester St fame that fits perfectly within the sandstone buildings that line the streets of Oatlands. Graham very generously invited Nat and I into his bakery and even let me shape a few of his loaves before we rushed over the road to do a tour of the mill. Due to health and safety regulations I was unable to take my camera on the tour as flour is combustable and electrical equipment is a fire hazard. A mill wright from the UK had been flown out to take measurements and over see the restoration of the timber work—the sounds of creaking timber throughout the mill is reminiscent of an old sailing ship—the craftwork is breath taking.

From Oatlands we travelled further South past the capital city of Hobart and caught a ferry across to Bruny Island. Apparently summer is the time that most tourists visit Tasmania and this was most evident on Bruny Island. The environment and quietness were spectacular. At the Bruny Island lighthouse on the very most southern tip we looked out over the southern ocean in horizontal rain and felt a solemn appreciation for the people who manned these stations so many years ago. It must have been rugged for them.

After almost drifting into a relaxing state of nothingness we departed the island and travelled back to Hobart to visit the world class Museum of Old and New Art: MONA. This was almost a mind melting experience. Sheer amazement is the only way to describe the feeling as you descend into the gallery. After three hours of exploring I was exhausted and at the point of being overwhelmed. An amazing experience! As we left MONA I noticed they had a fantastic looking pizza oven finished with a rusted metal enclosure. Stunning!

Actually, we found many wood ovens across Tassie and there were more that I didn't have time to visit and even many, many more that I am sure I have not even heard of ... even now I am discovering stories of ovens that have been lovingly restored. One such oven is in a small village called Ross. The semi scotch oven is the centre of the Ross Village Bakery which may have a connection to many of you that you didn't realise. It is rumoured to be the inspiration for the bakery used in the movie Kiki's Delivery Service. If you have not seen this movie, please do ... it is a beautiful movie for young and old.

After many more road trips full of discovery (and even snow) we finally had to head for home, and as we walked across the tarmac again in horizontal rain, it was hard to believe that in a few hours we would be landing back home in a city that is twice as warm and has almost four times the population of this little state of Australia.

Lucky for me I had a little (actually it was large and heavy) package awaiting my arrival to beat the post holiday blues. I have decided to join the ranks of Proth5 and her band of manual millers. I pondered the purchase of a manual grain mill for quite a while and after much research decided upon the Grainmaker 116. I hope to achieve the control over my flour milling that I am currently unable to develop with the Komo mill. I will be sacrificing speed for quality.

With the Grainmaker I can control the speed of the crank, the fineness and even the flow rate of grain. The first batches of flour have been very impressive with lovely room temperature flour and excellent bran separation. In the coming weeks I hope to find some time to do some whole-grain baking with it and see just how well this flour performs. On a brief side note I knocked up a version of Andy's seeded sourdough ... I will do a post on this bread in the near future ... I highly recommend it!

While at Callington Mill I couldn't help myself but purchase some of the light sifted stoneground flour they produce. I didn't get the chance to talk to the miller about their process but it seems that they are milling the grain in one pass before it is sifted through three grades of mesh to produce this flour. I decided to try this flour in a fairly safe formula that I use quite often. 

I mixed a dough at roughly 75% hydration with 25% of the flour pre-fermented in a stiff starter. The dough had a little more strength than I anticipated and after a few minutes of slap-and-folds I left it for two hours in bulk with one fold half way through. The shaped batards were retarded overnight before being baked off in a hot oven. The stoneground flour produced a loaf with a little less volume than with roller milled flour ... but the flavour and crumb texture is to die for. YUM!

... my bag of Callington Mill flour will run out shortly and I think another trip to Tassie is a bit out of the question so I may be back to milling and sifting on a small scale ... and possibly getting very tired arms in the process :)

Cheers,
Phil

p.s Nat took some of the more spectacular scenery photos :)