The Fresh Loaf

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Masterofnothing's picture
Masterofnothing

Hi All

I am new to bread making but want to make a gluten free loaf that doesn't turn out like a brick!

 

I am wondering if I can use yeast and baking powder to make it lighter - as there is no gluten to "stretch" and lighten, no kneading is required.

 

Help?

Jerrywatts's picture
Jerrywatts

    I made this bread because my whole family love Italian food and baguettes and homemade sun-dried tomatoes are just heaven! I dry them in my oven and soak them in olive oil with Italian spices. I use them in everything and one day I heard someone was using them in bread and I designed this recipe so I could put everything I love in it.

    I love baguettes and for me,holes are not the ultimate goal. Good baguettes should have a crispy crust, nice taste and a bouncy crumb, not necessarily having lots of holes. I had one of the most delicious baguettes in England and it didnt even have many holes but the texture was merely light with a thin crust, full of flavour. One of my husband's quotes is" I dont like my baguettes full of holes. How would I put my buttter on it ? I'd get hungry in a minute with them holes!" You know, English people just have to eat their bread with butter. Obviously, everything is better with butter. Anyway, my point is, good baguettes should always taste nice and that's it.

    I call this baguette greedy baguette because I couldnt help putting loads of things in it and it ended up looking bloated. It was a hit with our family though and if you tried it, I believe you would agree with us. It has a very strong flavour and the crust is very crusty, largely thanks to the olive oil in the sun-dried tomatoes. With one bite, you're ensured the tastes of pine nuts, tomatoes, olives and Italian spices. Can you imagine all  the flavours explode in your mouth? We simply had one piece after another, nonstop. 

    Ok, after all the waffle, here is the recipe. I made two baguettes out of it and they are best when enjoyed fresh.

Sourdough starter  136g( 100%hydration)

AP flour 263g

Water 154g

Sun-dried tomatoes and olives 99g(I put in 69g tomatoes and 30g olives)

pine nuts 50g

Salt 5g

1. mix sourdough starter with water and put in the flour

2. autolyse for about 30mins

3. mix in all the other ingredients.

4. ferment for 4 hours, stretch and fold at the first, second and third hour.

5. rest for 30 mins and shape into baguettes

6. proof for 2-4 hours( you can even retard it overnight in the fridge)

7. bake with steam at 247°c for ten mins and then decrease the heat a bit, bake for 35mins in total

8. cool and enjoy

I made them a while ago and only managed to find two pics of them, so...

We had them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, not butter, trying to make my husband eat healthier. The lazy wife just mixed the oil and vinegar together. I hate doing dishes!

Franko's picture
Franko

 

This post is really more of a test with the new site than anything else. I wanted to see what, if any, differences there were between posting on the old site V the shiny new model Floyd has come up with. I was curious if the edit bar would show up when posting since it's been missing more often than not at this end over the last 24 hours. I began to wonder if posting a blog entry along with photos would have to wait for a time until things with the new site config was sorted out but as soon as I clicked on the text field the edit bar appeared and everything has worked just fine so far, just as it did on the old site. Clicking around the site just now I see the edit bar has reappeared on top of all the text fields for comments so it looks like Floyd and Dorota are getting things in order pretty quickly. Thanks you two, nice work!

The bread is a couple of Ciabatta made last weekend that I hadn't intended on posting but they were handy enough for a quick post here.  

The formula is based on Hamelman's Ciabatta with Stiff Biga from "Bread" that has been slightly adapted for hydration, one of those rare occasions that I actually lowered the water content, in this case from JH's 73% to 65%, which with the flour I'm using (Anita's Organic AP) has given me a better final result overall.

 

Ciabatta with Biga-adapted from Hamelman's "Bread"   
Ingredients%Kilos/grams 
Biga   
Bread Flour100.00%130.9 
Water60.00%78.5 
Yeast-instant0.02%0.03 
Total160.02%209 
ripen 12-16hrs @ 70F   
Final Dough  1100
AP Flour100.00%524 
Water67.20%352 
Yeast-instant0.40%2 
Sea Salt2.50%13 
Biga40.00%209 
Total210.10%1100 
DDT- 76F BF-1.5hrs with 2xSF in bowl @30&60 minutes   
S&F on counter before overnight fermentation   
Total Formula   
Total Flour100.00%654 
AP Flour100.00%654 
Water65.76%430 
Yeast-instant0.32%2 
Sea Salt2.00%13 
Total % and Weight168.08%1100 
Total prefemented flour20.0%131 

If anyone has had concerns with the new site about issues with inserting photos or pasting in formulas and such, all I can say is I didn't run into  any  problems whatsoever with this post, it worked perfectly. FYI- My system is Windows 8 64 bit and my browser is Chrome.

Happy baking and posting!

Franko

 

Bluwberry's picture
Bluwberry

I'm a "newbie" to baking, got Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" for 2012 Christmas gift which seems to be a great book for beginners.  Reinhart says '"You can keep this (Pate Fermentee) in the refrigerator for up to 3 days ...".  If you are not going to use it until 4 days should it be frozen in that first three day and then unfrozen, or just go the 4 days in the fridge?

I'm trying the recipe again for the third time, I liked what I got the first two times.  This time I added a 1/2 tspof diastatic powdered malt to the Pate.  Has anyone got any info on what to expect with this change?

Bluwberry

Wingnut's picture
Wingnut

Pizza Night with the wife. Sourdough with Sausage, Roasted Onions, and Mozz. Finished off with the green pepper sauce.

Cheers,

Wingnut

evonlim's picture
evonlim

hello everyone, been busy with work and family. of course i do bake as usual for friends and family and myself. just have no time to sit down and have a clear head to write. everyday, i do read all the new blogs that all of you contributed. it is a joy to read.

here, i share a recent bread i baked.. 50% organic Australian white spelt sourdough with seeds n cranberry.

happy baking

evon

Juergen Krauss's picture
Juergen Krauss

Having got a bit into baking big miches recently (Hamelman's Miche Pointe-A-Caillere and Shiao-Ping's interpretation of Gerard Rubaud's formula), one of the big obstacles I faced in my home environment was to transfer a 2300g loaf into the oven.
Here is how I managed to do it:

1. The shaped dough (2300 g) sits on a couche

After Shaping


2. I wrap the dough very loosely with enough space to spread a bit

Wrapping it up 1


3. The dough is proofing, fully enclosed in the couche, and it can spread to 30cm width, just the width of my baking stone

Wrapped and proofing


4. The dough is proofed and ready for transfer - I transfer it onto a silicone baking sheet, which is very easy - just turning over the whole thing: dough inside couche

Ready for the oven


5. This is the still wrapped dough on the baking sheet, upside down

Transferred to a baking sheet


6. In the process of removing the couche

Unwrapping the monster


7. Slashed

Slashed


8. This is the loaf, 15 minutes into the bake. Not much spare room in my oven ...

In the oven


And this is the finished product

Finished

Cheers,
Juergen

laureejeankissack's picture
laureejeankissack

Ok, I finally have given in..I can read from here, learn from here, but now I can see I need (knead) lol to read and learn so much more..can anyone out there give me some advice about which book to buy for my bread baking shelf?

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

Springtime is outdoor time.  Meaning less baking time :-(.  So I'm pleased to have worked up this 36h labor-lite levain.  It has very satisfyingly complex flavor, surprisingly light crumb and an irresistible crust when baked boldly.  Prep is facilitated by using the same flours (a modified Rubaud mix) for both levain and dough.  Many thanks to Ian(ArsP) via PiPs for novel (to me) process pointers.

Click the table below to go to a working Google spreadsheet

First Morning    
1.  Mix final levain build in 25˚C (77˚F) water.  Incubate @ 25˚C (77˚F). If possible (not essential), aerate levain and let rise 1-2X before using.                    
2. Mix final dough's flours in RT water.  "Enzymatically preferment" at 20-22˚C (68-72˚F).

First Evening
3.  Mix salt and levain into autolysed flour with pincer & FF until dough comes together.                     
4.  Bulk ferment ~2h @ 25˚C (77˚F) w/2-4 folds early.  Rest, shape & refrigerate.

Second Evening    
5. Proof 1-2h @ 20-25˚C (68-77˚F).                    
6. Bake 20' @ 230˚C (450˚F) w/steam, then 12' @ 215˚C (420˚F) with convection  (watch it), longer for loaves > 750 gr.

The "Rubaud*" flour mix is a slight modification of Gerard Rubaud's formula.  My "*" version is

35% AP
25% Bread Flour
30% Whole Wheat
7% Spelt
3% Rye

The process exploits Ian(ArsP)'s "enzymatic preferment" during Day 1.  In theory, this saltless soaker is intended to release free amino acids by proteolysis from seed storage proteins, enhancing Maillard activity in the oven.  It also performs as much conventional autolyse as any dough could ask for.  Aerating the levain (stirring it down) releases more free amino acids in the levain, and it's interesting to see it grow back up, in the couple of bakes (weekends) where I actually had a chance to do that.

As Ian(ArsP) points out in his blog, it's convenient to start the levain build and enzymatic preferment at the same time.  Easily done before leaving for work in the morning.  Mixing, folding and bulk are performed that evening, with the dough rested, shaped and refrigerated before bed.  The dough moves slowly during the 24h fridge retard, but comes back to life when retrieved to warm up while the oven is doing the same, or a bit longer. 

Earlier bakes (below) with this process were at 78% hydration.  Cutting back to 75% unflattened the profile nicely.

This one's a keeper.  I'm anxious to apply this process to formulae I've previously come to know and love.

Happy Baking and Happy Spring!

Tom

Floydm's picture
Floydm

I make another batch of the Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong this weekend, this time adding 2 cups of soaked sultana raisins.  

That was two cups of raisins before soaking. After soaking it was more like 3 or 3 1/2 cups, which was a lot of raisins. I was afraid it was going to be too much and really weigh the loaves down, but they still rose quite nicely.

As you can see, I split the dough into smaller pieces this time and divided it among three pans.

It wasn't as fluffy and cloud-like as the first batch, which isn't surprising given the additional weight I added, but it was still an extremely soft, pillowy dough.  We've all be munching it straight and it made wonderful toast when sliced this morning.

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