Recent Blog Entries

June 27, 2013 - 4:33am

evonlim

Cherry and Strawberry.. toasted

today i toasted a slice of the Cherry YW Sprouted winter wheat SD with roasted balsamic strawberries, sesame seeds , purple carrot and black mission fig bread. i got a whiff of balsamic tang as i opened my mini toaster .. caused my mouth to water! yum! i thought with a smile :)

i had it for lunch.. like so

Topped with procioutto and grilled flat white peaches

Dressed with cold pressed coconut oil and molasses . More topping .. Shaved Pecorino romano, avocado n toasted sesame seeds and a dash of good black pepper! ( wanted to have with toasted walnuts but i ran out )

Bon appetit :)

if you love balsamic, this is a winner

happy baking

evon

Read more about Cherry and Strawberry.. toasted
evonlim's blog
5 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 26, 2013 - 11:05pm

golgi70

Andrew's Monster Rye

A 60% Fresh MIlled Whole Rye with toastd dried onion and toasted dill seeds

Starts with a Rye Sour which makes up 25% percent of the dough.

.25% yeast gives it quicker and more predictable times for me to fit it in.

Mixed on speed 1 for about 7 minutes, then to speed 2 (on a 4 speed mixer so not very fast and developed for a further 7 minutes, scraping the bowl every couple and coaxing the dough off the bowl a bit) It pulled a away slightly and showed signs of development but not true window pane pass. But also not too sticky.

2 hour bulk with 2 folds (carefull book folds with less stretching goin on). I had a good lively dough at this point with some strength

Divded at 900 g each. Shaped into floured bannetons (I scored befoer putting into bowl) I assume this may only work if proofing open on a couche but i want to try and see. The loves prescored cracked a bit and didn't bloom as well as the freshly scored. Why white flour on the outside. To attempt a few scoring patterns I had in mind and I really wanted to see the contrast and how I achieved bloom.

Anyway Happy Baking.

Josh

June 26, 2013 - 6:09pm

Isand66

Grilled Plantain Sourdough

A couple of nights ago I grilled some ripe plantains brushed with some olive oil and sprinkled with some cinnamon sugar. As you can imagine it tasted amazing and I could have eaten the whole thing all by itself. Luckily I managed a small amount of self-control and saved enough to use in a bread.

I have made a plantain bread in the past, but this time I used a completely different flour mix and ingredient list and I have to say it couldn't have come out any better.

I used the 36 hour technique which I recently posted about last week and it delivered again with a moist, open crumb and crusty crust. I added some Greek Yogurt which really upped the hydration although it is not indicated as such in my formula below. This dough was very wet and was not easy to handle when shaping. To make matters worse, I baked this today while working and forgot to add extra flour to my bakers linen and ended up with some stickiness issues. I should know better, but in the end the bread came out great anyway.

I also used some walnut oil to add a hint of nuttiness to the final bread.

I hope you give this one a try and I am sure you will love it.

Directions

Starter

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours. The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.

Main Dough

Mix the flours, yogurt and the buttermilk together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute. Next add the plantains and mix for another minute. Put the dough in a slightly covered oiled bowl and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

The next day add your starter, oil and salt to the dough and mix by hand until it is thoroughly mixed and evenly distributed. Due to the high water content in the 100% hydration starter this dough is very easy to mix by hand and is very silky and smooth.

Bulk rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours until it grows around 1/3 in volume doing stretch and folds every half hour until it has developed the correct amount of strength.

Put the dough back into the refrigerator for around 20-30 hours.

When you take the dough out of the refrigerator you want it to have almost doubled in volume. Mine only rose about 1/3 in volume. Let it rise at room temperature for around 2 hours or until the dough has doubled from the night before. (I used my proofer set at 83 degrees for 2 hours).

Next, shape as desired. I made 2 loaves and placed them on my bakers linen.

Let it sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.

When the dough is ready to bake, score as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

Set your oven for 500 degrees F. at least 45 minutes before ready to bake. When ready to bake place the loaves into your on your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 450 degrees. When the loaves are nice and brown and reached an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. you can remove it from the oven.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an 3 hours or so before eating as desired.

Read more about Grilled Plantain Sourdough
Isand66's blog
10 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 26, 2013 - 1:42pm

Elagins

A Very Good Day at the San Diego County Fair

Entered six items in Baked Goods category, with the following results:

First Place Sourdough and Best of Yeast Breads Division:

Old School Jewish Deli Rye (ITJB pp. 74-76)

First Place Other Breads:

Sweet and Rich Challah (ITJB pp. 33-34)

Second Place (Rolls, Sourdough, Cookies):

The Classic New York Water Bagel (ITJB pp. 98-100)

Mixed-Grain (NYB Farine Rustique) Sourdough Miche

Rainbow Cookies (ITJB pp.223-224)

And my Russian Coffee Cake (ITJB pp. 167-168) got an Honorable Mention, probably because I underbaked it initially and had to return it to the oven after I finished it with apricot syrup, which darkened the top and produced a slightly charred note.

All in all, not a bad day.

Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com

Read more about A Very Good Day at the San Diego County Fair
Elagins's blog
24 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 26, 2013 - 7:13am

Tedmonkey

Raspberry, white chocolate and chaia seed sourdough

Is being enjoyed at the cafe this week.

Catherine

Read more about Raspberry, white chocolate and chaia seed sourdough
Tedmonkey's blog
5 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 26, 2013 - 3:17am

greedybread

Rosewater, Cardamom and fruit Challah...

Rosewater, Cardamom & Fruit Challah…Posted on June 26, 2013

Gorgeous!!

5 braided Challah

half poppy seed half fruity

Sliced….mmmmmmm

3 braided…fruity

I am still eating this bread and I made it on Sunday!!

Nice, moist but not too rich….

A little bit of effort required but well worth it.

Plus there is so many variations on the challah breads, you could make them for ever!!

What will you need?

6 cups of flour

4 tsp dried yeast

1 cup of warm water

1 cup of castor sugar

twist of salt

4 eggs plus 1 yolk

1/2 cup of olive oil

1 egg for glazing:)

2 cups of mixed fruit (I used cranberries, sultanas and raisins)

3 tsp cardamom

4 Tbsp of Rosewater .

the dough resting…

ready to shape …

dough ready to be shaped…

ready to be rolled…

What do you need to do???

Warm water, add in a tsp of the sugar with the dried yeast and mix well.

Add in 2 cups of flour and mix until resembling a smooth paste.

Cover and allow to stand for 40 minutes until soupy and frothy.

Whisk the eggs, oil, and extra yolk together with the sugar in a separate bowl.

Place all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, cardamom) into a bowl and combine well.

Add the eggy mix to the spongey yeast mix and combine well.

Add wet mix to the dry ingredients forming a dough.

Knead the dough for about 8-10 minutes, adding in lightly dusted with flour fruit in the last few minutes.

Place dough in a well oiled bowl and cover, allowing to rest for 90 minutes.

rolled and resting

3 braid…

5 braided …

glazed and ready to bake…

half and half…

Peeking half way baked:)

Turn rested challah out onto a lightly floured board.

Punch down and knead for 1-2 minutes and shape into a ball.

Cut into the pieces you want.

I made 2 loaves, 1 x 3 braid and 1 x 5 braid (so 8 pieces).

You can do 1 loaf or 3 loaves ….up to you.

Have a play and maybe do 1 this time and 3 next?

Experimenting with flavours too.

To make this plain, do not add in the rosewater, pistachio and cardamom.

MMMMMM cooling…

5 braid cooling…

fruity….

Roll your pieces into balls (as shown above) and cover with a tea towel and rest for 30 minutes.

This will relax the gluten and make it easier to work with:)

Roll each ball out into a long sausage or baton.

Join braids together at the top of the top and plait (if doing a 3 braid), or use an under over formula.

I will post a braiding video that Alex and I did in the weekend.

Secure the ends of the braid and transfer loaf to tray with baking paper and cover with damp tea towel.

Allow loaves to sit for 60 minutes.

Brush with beaten egg and a little milk…wait 2 minutes and repeat.

Add on poppy seeds or sesame seeds at this point if you are using.

Pop into the oven and bake for about 35-45 minutes depending on your oven.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on wire racks.

Leave for at an hour before slicing.

When ready, slice a piece or pull off a piece …

ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY.

lovely…

have a slice…

The grand finale…

Yummm!!

Want more?

Have you tried these bready delights???

Gubana? The Festival bread of Friuli Venezia

Pandoro? The festival bread of the Veneto.

I would sell my children for this!!

or Lovely Flat breads?

Scoop up that yummy winter stew!!

mmm Gubana

Gorgeousness adapted from the ever wonderful recipes in ” Inside the Jewish Bakery” by Stanley Ginsberg & Norman Berg…

Check it out…Wonderful..

Read more about Rosewater, Cardamom and fruit Challah...
greedybread's blog
2 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 25, 2013 - 7:22pm

dabrownman

Yeast Water, Tang Zhong Hot Dog Buns

After our last crack at buns that was a ADY poolish / YW version found here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33585/yw-poolish-hot-dog-buns

we decided to try a YW version only that also included a Tang Zhong portion of flour with the intent of further softening the crumb.

We also made some other changes by upping the hydration from 65% to 78% which was probably a little….eeeeerrrr…..a lot too much with the tang zhong and we got rid of the dry add ins; VWG, Toadies, white malt and the honey. We made them smaller in length this time; 4 at 102 g each and the 2 longer ones were 131 g

The result was a bun that spread rather than springing like the last batch. For some reason it didn’t color up as well even though it was egg washed and baked exactly the same as last time. I’m guessing they won’t taste as good either since there were no toadies present but we shall see when we eat them for dinner

Don’t forget to brush the buns with milk when they come out of the oven to keep them soft. We have Hot Italian sausage that require a larger bun length, white Brats, Boudin, and smoked sausage on tap for the filling with the usual Chicago pickled red onion, poblano and jalapeno peppers and home made Dijon mustard.

The crumb turned out as we expected. No mustard will fall through it. It took 20 minutes of slap and folds to get this dough to come together so… high hydration does not mean big holes every time. We only fermented the dough for 45 minutes on the counter after 3 sets of S& F’s. It also final proofed for 2 hours which probably wasn’t enough but…. we needed buns for dinner.

The crumb came out like we thought it would, not so open the mustard would fall through. Soft and moist and after the meat and the buns were grilled we plastic wrapped the meat in the buns so they could be steamed soft from the hot meat, Delicious! The pickled onion, poblano and jalapeno was the perfect topper. We liked these buns and they turned out better than we thought they would.

Formula

	Build 1	Build 2	Build 3	Total	%
Yeast Water	50	50	10	110	31.43%
Semolina	25	25	0	50	14.29%
AP	25	25	30	80	22.86%
Total	100	100	40	240	68.57%

Yeast Water Levain		%
Flour	130	37.14%
Water	110	31.43%
Hydration	84.62%

Levain % of Total	35.14%


Dough Flour		%
Semolina	54	15.43%
AP	166	47.43%
Dough Flour	220	62.86%

Salt	8	2.29%
Milk	125	35.71%
Dough Hydration	56.82%

Total Flour	350	100.00%
Water	235
T. Dough Hydration	67.14%
Whole Grain %	0.00%

Hydration w/ Adds	78.71%
Total Weight	683

% Whole Grains	0.00%

Add - Ins		%
Egg	30	8.57%
Butter	30	8.57%
Cream Cheese	30	8.57%
Total	90	25.71%

20 g of dough flour was used for the Tang Zhong but 80 g of water was not included in the hydration calculations.

Read more about Yeast Water, Tang Zhong Hot Dog Buns
dabrownman's blog
14 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 25, 2013 - 12:21pm

dmsnyder

Reinhart's Multigrain Struan from "Whole Grain Breads"

Peter Reinhart's Multigrain Struan Bread

Reinhart's Crust and Crumb was one of the first baking books I bought. It introduced me to the basic concepts of bread baking. It was the first cookbook I had encountered that dealt with the science underlying the techniques described. Never mind that some of what Reinhart wrote in that book was not exactly correct, and some of his terminology was idiosyncratic. I didn't know better at that time, and the book inspired me to learn more and make breads I wouldn't have attempted otherwise.

All of Reinhart's books are personal in part, and I learned something about his history, including the role played in his life by some of the breads in Crust and Crumb. Among these was “Struan Bread,” which he developed when he had Brother Juniper's Bakery in Northern California. It was a best seller, was somewhat unique, and it helped establish him as a significant player in the “bread revolution.” Those who have made Struan Bread seem to enjoy it a lot. Many have written it is the best bread for toast they have ever had.

Somehow, I never got around to making Struan. I'm pretty sure this is because, in the version I first encountered in Crust and Crumb, Reinhart made much of the role played by leftover brown rice in the wonderful texture and flavor of this bread. I am not a brown rice fan. If Struan Bread required brown rice, it wasn't going to happen in my kitchen. On the other hand, his 100% Whole Wheat Bread became a favorite of mine and my wife's, and I made it quite often.

By time Reinhart wrote Whole Grain Breads (WGB), he had developed a 100% whole wheat version of Struan that was almost the same as his contemporaneous version of 100% Whole Wheat Bread. The newer version was also much more “permissive” about what cooked grains could be used. This weekend, I found myself with a bowl of leftover bulgur, and it occurred to me I could use it rather than brown rice in Struan Bread.

Now, Struan Bread is a multi-grain bread, but, in Reinhart's original formula, the main grain was bread flour. I have never made this version. I made the version in WGB which used all whole wheat flour. The other grains I used, besides bulgur, were polenta and rolled oats.

Struan, proofed and ready to score and bake

Struan baked and cooling

Struan cut profile & crumb

Struan crumb close-up

I followed Reinhart's instructions but found that the dough was very sloppy. I ended up adding about a quarter cup of flour during the mixing, and still ended up with a very loose, sticky dough – not what Reinhart described as slightly tacky. Rather than add yet more flour, I added a couple stretch and fold in the bowl episodes during bulk fermentation. By time the dough was ready to shape, it was still sticky, but easily managed with a light dusting of flour.

I searched TFL for members' blog entries on this bread after my loaf was out of the oven. I learned that the majority had baked earlier versions using bread flour, but several had baked the WGB version with whole wheat. Everyone who had, remarked on having to add significant amounts of flour to get a workable dough. I then went back and compared the versions of the Struan Bread formula in Crust and Crumb, The Bread Baker's Apprentice and Whole Grain Breads. I found that, in the earlier two books, Reinhart treated the cooked grain as a separate ingredient in the final dough, whereas in WGB it is included in the soaker. Reinhart's soaker consists of equal weights of water and grains, including the cooked grain. Thus, the cooked grain is, as it were, hydrated twice – once when it is cooked and again in the soaker. I think it is this change that accounts for the dough being so much wetter than the book says it should be. Why wasn't this caught in testing the recipes for the book? I don't know. If anyone else has a better and more complete explanation of this seemingly common issue with this formula, I would certainly like to hear it.

Reinhart's formula has a surprisingly high percentage of instant yeast, and I found that the dough expanded during bulk fermentation and proofing significantly faster than expected. In fact, by time I baked the loaf, it was so puffy, I was afraid I had over-proofed it, and it would collapse. So, I scored it very shallowly. Although it did not deflate, it had very little oven spring.

I sliced the loaf after it had cooled for about 2 hours. The crust was firm. The crumb was rather dense but reasonably well-aerated and moist. The flavor was complex and intense, with a strong whole wheat flavor and a strong honey background. My first impression was that this was a bread that one could make a meal out of, at least from a nutritional perspective. As expected, the flavors mellow and meld by the day after baking. It does make very good toast, but I believe I prefer Reinhart's “100% Whole Wheat Bread” to this whole wheat Struan. I plan on trying the “transitional” version of the Struan in WGB and, perhaps one of the earlier versions that got such wonderful reviews.

If I make this version again, I will 1) treat the cooked grains as Reinhart did in earlier versions of Struan, and 2) reduce the amount of instant yeast by a third to a half.

I think my wife would be perfectly happy if I just kept making this version. She loved it. This bread is so full of flavor and is so substantial, the versions with lesser proportions of whole grain flour may taste dull. We will see.

David

Read more about Reinhart's Multigrain Struan from "Whole Grain Breads"
dmsnyder's blog
22 comments
Log in or register to post comments

June 25, 2013 - 3:53am

evonlim

Cherry and Strawberry..

Cherry YW Sprouted winter wheat SD with roasted balsamic strawberries, Japanese toasted sesame seeds , purple carrot and black mission fig :)

exchanged a loaf of my sourdough bread with the organic shop for a bunch of organic cherries ( which were considered not in good condition) i tot i could cut them up and make cherry YW. it turned out very bubbly :) this cherry thing had been stuck on my head for sometime since Ian's beautiful very very cherry bread post.

i want to impart more red into the dough.. had some strawberries in the fridge. i did a balsamic strawberry jam before for my very bitter (80% cocoa) chocolate layered cake sometime ago. why not.. cut up the strawberries sprinkled some sugar and 2 tblsp of aged balsamic, popped it into my mini oven for 10mins at 150C. came out nice, gooey and caramelized. scraped into my mini moulinex blender gave it a few pause. tasted yummy.

and all that went into the dough plus a small grated purple carrot, a cup of toasted sesame seeds ..(after autolysed)

added soaked figs with amaretto when i did my shaping.

this is the sprouted SD bread formula that i tweak it a little http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33618/sprouted-rye-sourdough-toasted-flax-seeds

.. it was a very cheerie cherry bake, thanks Ian :)

evon

June 25, 2013 - 1:06am

JDYangachi

Fluffy Milk Bread

I've been playing around with enriched dough lately. I modified my sweet dough formula from here, basically replacing 1 egg with milk and decreasing the amount of butter slightly. I should note that I have been Inspired by many recipes and photos for Hokkaido Milk Bread using tangzhong (including Floydm's).

Tangzhong

20g AP flour (I use King Arthur unbleached)

100mL whole milk

Final dough

380g AP flour (about 3 cups)

200mL whole milk

75g granulated sugar (about 6 TBSP.)

50g egg (1 large)

5g instant yeast

5g salt

28.5g butter (2 TBSP.)

all of the tangzhong

This yielded around 850g of dough for me. I cut off and shaped 3 x 200g* portions and arranged in a small loaf pan (25.4cm x 11cm x 7cm).

No egg or milk wash this time because I was feeling lazy. Yes, I realize the irony of that statement given that I was making homemade bread.

I baked at 325F for 30 minutes.

NOTE: I had long suspsected that my oven was running hot, so I finally picked up an oven thermometer. With the oven dial set to 325F, the temperature reading on the deck near the heating element was indeed 325F. But when I hung the thermometer from a rack so that it was roughly around the top of a baking loaf, the temperature reading was 350F. I don't know if this means my oven is at the right temperature or if it's running hot, but I think this bread should probably be baked at 350F. In any case, when I say I baked at 325F, I mean that the oven dial was set to 325F with the intention to achieve an oven temperature of 350F.

* The astute reader will note that I had 250g of dough left. This I formed into 50g balls and baked in muffin tins at 325F for 15 minutes. The top left one was sacrificed for a temperature check. I realized later that I could have just as easily poked the side or bottom of the roll.