The Fresh Loaf

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ibor's picture
ibor

To those interested in bread braiding I wish to inform that I have published "The Art of Braiding Bread ", an e-book available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords

The book is now sold exclusively through: 

https://myfoodaddress.blogspot.com/

Juergen Krauss's picture
Juergen Krauss

Just made the Rich Sourdough Barches from Inside The Jewish Bakery for the first time.

The dough is a bit wetter than I am used to for Challah, but still manageable.

The taste and texture are great!

Thank you, Stan and Norm!

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello everyone, and Happy 'World Bread Day'!
Here are some breads baked over the last while, lovely flavors from different countries :^)

 


                                                                                     



For Canada (Victoria BC and Manotic, Ontario),
Cliff Leir’s 50% Whole Wheat (with thanks to MC-Farine for her post), baked with Watson’s Mill Flour,
a lovely flour kindly sent to me by Franko (his post on Watson's Mill is here):
 

***


For the United States (San Francisco, CA), SFBI Miche, a formula posted by dmsnyder - thanks so much, David!:
 

 

***

For the United States and Sweden, two breads presented at WheatStalk 2012 (Chicago, IL):
Richard Miscovich's 100% Sprouted Whole Wheat       Solveig Tofte's Vort Limpa Rye (Orange, Anise, Fennel)
    

 


***

For France, Roasted Garlic Fougasse, from Jeffrey Hamelman’s book Bread, and MC-Farine’s Pain de l’Abbaye Saint-Wandrille:
 



***


For Germany, a variation of Jeffrey Hamelman’s 80% Rye with a Rye-Flour Soaker (honey, walnuts, spice):
 



***

For Russia, Andrew Whitley’s Borodinsky (from his book, Bread Matters), flavored with beautiful coriander:
 

 

There was a world of great flavor with these breads - very happy to remember how good these breads tasted,
for World Bread Day :^)

Happy baking everyone!
:^) breadsong




 

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

I have made baguettes following many different formulas. Some of the most interesting have been various versions of “pain à l'anciènne,” including those of Reinhart in The Bread Baker's Apprentice and of Leader in Local Breads. Sometime back in 2008, I found an e-mail that Peter Reinhart had sent to a bread bakers' Usenet mailing list in 2003 which described the formula for pain à l'anciènne as he got it directly from Philippe Gosselin. The version that ended up in BBA was simplified somewhat by Reinhart, adding all the ingredients before the mixing, omitting the double hydration and delayed addition of the salt.

When I first made baguettes from Gosselin's original method, they were the best-tasting ones I had ever made. I finally got to taste Gosselin's baguettes tradition (from the rue Caumartin shop) last year. To my taste, they had a bit of a tang suggesting they might have been made with levain, so I modified the formula to use a liquid levain and found I preferred the result to that leavened with commercial yeast. In fact, I preferred what I had baked to Gosselin's own.

This is the version I used for today's bake:

Ingredients

Wt.

Baker's %

Organic AP Flour

400 g

100

Ice Water

275 g

69

Salt

8.75 g

2

Liquid Levain

200 g

50

Instant yeast (optional)

¼ tsp

 

Total

883.75 g

221

Notes: Accounting for the flour and water in the levain, the total flour is 500 g and the total water is 375 g, making the actual dough hydration 75%. The actual salt percentage is 1.75%.

For today's bake, I made 3/4 of the dough amount in the table above.

I mixed the levain the night before starting on these and retarded it in the fridge overnight. 

Method

  1. The night before baking, mix the flour and levain with 225 g of ice water and immediately refrigerate.

  2. The next morning, add the salt and 50 g of ice water to the dough and mix thoroughly. (I did this by hand by squishing the dough between my fingers until the water was fully incorporated.)

  3. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl with a tight cover.

  4. Ferment at room temperature until the dough has about doubled in volume. (3 hours for me) Do stretch and folds in the bowl every 30 minutes for the first two hours.

  5. An hour before baking, pre-heat the oven to 500ºF, with baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

  6. Divide the dough into 4 more or less equal pieces and stretch each into a 12-14 inch long “baguette.”

  7. Score and bake immediately at 460ºF, with steam for 10 minutes, and for about 20 minutes total.

  8. Cool on a rack before eating.

Notes: In Step 7., I specify shaping the loaves by simply stretching the dough pieces into a rough baguette shape. This is a very slack dough and a challenge to handle as one might a lower-hydration baguette dough. If you are very comfortable handling slack dough, have a firm grasp of the “iron hand in a velvet glove” principal and are feeling up to the challenge, you can shape the pieces as you would shape a baguette ordinarily. That is, in fact, what I did for this bake.

You will also note that I scored these baguettes with a single, longitudinal slash. I find the results more satisfactory than the traditional 5 or 7 cuts when scoring a very sticky dough like this. However, the difference is merely cosmetic.


These baguettes had a chewy crust, except for the ears, which were crunchy. I think they could have baked 5 minutes longer, or I could have left them in the turned off oven for another 5-7 minutes to dry the crust. The crumb was nice and open. The flavor was sweet, complex and moderately tangy. I attribute this to a combination of factors – retarding the levain overnight and fermenting the dough, after the final mixing, at 85 dF.

This baguette is still a favorite.

David 

Submitted to YeastSpotting

Justkneadit's picture
Justkneadit

First go-around with Epi's and Fougasse, so critique but be kind. Just messin...they are all the Pain de Campagne recipe from BBA. Absolutely delicious bread!

Then just a boule...

By the way, almost all of that bread is gone...ah, fresh bread...can't be beat!

Lane

 

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Sending this toYeastspotting.
Click here for my blog index.

A couple weeks ago Phil's Fig & Anise bread caught my attention, sounds like a great flavor combo to try. Went out of my way to buy nice and moist organic figs just for this purpose, only to discover last minute that I ran out of anise. Oops, had to use fennel instead, which I think has a similar flavor to anise, but less intense? Also throw in some really delicious toasted hazelnuts since I love the nut&dried fruit combo in breads.

- Levain
rye starter (100% hydration), 9g
water, 68g
rye flour, 86g

mix and rise at room temp for 12 hours.

- Dough
bread flour, 510g
dried fig, 100g, chopped
fennel, 4tsp
hazelnuts, 100g, toasted
water, 350g
salt, 12g
levain, all

2. Mix flour, levain, water, together, autolyse for 20 to 30min. Add salt and fennel, mix @ medium speed for 3-4 min until gluten starts to develope. Mix in hazelnuts and dried figs by hand.
3. Bulk rise at room temp (~75F) for about 2.5hrs. S&F at 30, 60, 90, 120min.
4. Shape into batard, put in basketes smooth side down, put in fridge over night.
5. Next morning take the dough out to finish proofing, about 60min for me. Score.
6. Bake at 450F with steam(either put in preheated cast iron pot and cover with lid, or put dough on preheated baking stone and pour water in another cast iron pan to create steam) for the first 15min, take out the pan with water, keep baking for another 30-35min. Turn off oven and crack the door open a bit, and leave the breads inside for 10min before taking out.

Can you see the hazelnut peeking out from under the "ear"?

Fairly open crumb for so much add-ins

Fennel, hazelnuts, and figs play well together in this bread. However, this means I still haven't tried the "fig & anise" combo, soon...

PiPs's picture
PiPs

Two years ago Nat purchased Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread for my birthday and wrote an inscription on the inside cover … ‘To inspire you’

When I want to shake things up in my kitchen and try something different this is the book I turn to. I love the restlessness and pursuit of perfection in the stories. For me, this is its inspiration. It is not a manual and it is not a handbook … it’s the story of a journey.

While I have baked many of the formulas in Tartine Bread over the years I have not experimented enough with Chad’s schedule for maintaining a leaven. This was to be part of my inspiration this week so I converted a portion of my firm levain into a 100% hydration starter fed with 50% freshly milled wheat and 50% plain flour.

The trick is, you see, to catch Chad's leaven at the perfect time. I find this is even more critical for me using fresh milled flour and I have on many occasions had to do an intermediate build to save an over-fermented leaven. And the best (and cheapest) tool I have found for judging leaven readiness? … my nose!

After fermenting in the cool night air the leaven passed both the float and sniff tests (sounds gross) and was then mixed into the dough. Tartine’s sesame loaf uses the basic country bread formula with a cup of toasted unhulled sesame seeds mixed through the dough in the early stages of bulk fermentation.

The slow gentle dough manipulation is relaxing, but I still find it a high maintenance bread to prepare. Keeping temperatures maintained with a small amount of dough over a four period can be tricky during the seasons and the constant attention required for turning the dough can be frustrating. In the end however I was rewarded with subtle dough that shaped easily and bloomed beautifully in a hot oven.

The sesame flavours are subtle. I think Nat was expecting stronger flavours from this bread and was surprised by its sleepy nature. A tablespoon of sesame oil in the dough could be a nice addition without overpowering any of the future flavours that would be stacked on a slice or two.

 

My miche adventures continue …

My experimentation with creating high extraction flour has moved on to the process of tempering. By slowly adding a controlled amount of moisture to grain over a period of time, the bran will toughen allowing easier (and larger) separation when milling. My process of tempering is high-touch. I don’t own a grain moisture meter so I was extremely careful that the grain was dry to touch before milling.

One percent of water a day was added to the grain over a four day period followed by a final 24 hours rest before milling. Normally I mill cold grains from the fridge but have heard that this can lead to the bran shattering into smaller pieces so I instead milled room temperature grains. I feel like I am a bit stuck with this. The small stones on my mill have a tendency to heat up the flour quite substantially but I do end up with larger pieces of bran and softer flour using this process. Hmmm …

The resulting flour was sifted to 80% extraction in one pass and was not re-milled or re-sifted. A more complicated miche was planned for this bake. I would use a rye starter in addition to my standard levain, plus include a small amount of barley malt extract for flavour and colouring only.

 

Tempered High Extraction Miche (2 x 2kg miche)

Formula

Overview

Weight

%

Total dough weight

4000g

 

Total flour

2286g

100%

Total water

1714g

75%

Total salt

43g

1.8%

Pre-fermented flour

571g

25%

 

 

 

1. Rye sour – 12 hrs 25°C

 

 

Starter (Not used in final dough)

10g

10%

Freshly  milled coarse rye flour

55g

50%

T130 rye flour

55g

50%

Water

186g

160%

Total

296g

 

 

 

 

2. Levain – 5-6hrs 25°C

 

 

Previous levain build

174g

50%

Flour (I use a flour mix of 70% Organic plain flour, 18% fresh milled sifted wheat, 9% fresh milled sifted spelt and 3% fresh milled sifted rye)

348g

100%

Water

201g

58%

Salt

3g

1%

 

 

 

Final dough. DDT=25°C

 

 

Rye sour (1.)

270g

15%

Levain (2.)

722g

42%

Sifted fresh milled wheat (80% extraction)

1715g

100%

Barley malt extract

50g

3%

Water

1267g

74%

Salt

40g

2%

 

Method

  1. Mix rye sour and leave to ferment for 12 hours at 25°C
  2. Mix levain and leave to ferment for 5-6 hours at 25°C
  3. Combine flour and water then mix to shaggy consistency - hold back 100 grams of water.
  4. Autolyse for one hour.
  5. Add levain and rye sour to autolyse then knead (french fold) for five mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and remaining 100 grams of water. Squeeze the salt and water through the dough to incorporate (the dough will separate then come back together smoothly). Remove from the bowl and knead a further 10 mins.
  6. Bulk ferment for two hours with a stretch-and-fold half way through. Mine was ready after 1.5 hours … watch the dough!
  7. Divide. Preshape. Bench rest 30 mins. Shape into large boules and proof in floured baskets seam side up.
  8. Final proof was 1-1.5 hours at 25°C
  9. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for 10 mins with steam then reduce temperature to 200°C and bake for a further 40 mins. 

One and half hours into a planned bulk ferment of two hours I could tell the dough was ready for division and shaping. Perhaps it was the inclusion of the rye starter, perhaps the malt or perhaps both … either way, the dough was moving fast.

I am becoming braver with both my proofing and handling of these large breads but peeling one into my home oven is still a stressful moment. Our poor little oven does its best to punch it up while I sit and dream of a masonry oven or stone floor deck oven and the results I could achieve.

The sifting method, malt and rye starter created a darker crumb than previous miche but gave the bread a deep flavour that was nicely balanced. I had suspected the rye starter would have a large impact on the flavour but this was not the case at all.

So will I continue to temper grains before milling? I am really not sure. It creates more planning and logistics before a bake. I do end up with softer flour, but the heat generated by the mill really bothers me. I think some experimenting with tempering and using the fridge to cool the grains before milling may be in order.

Cheers,
Phil
p.s. Happy World Bread Day everyone!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

A few weeks ago I finally had some good results with TxFarmer's 36 Hour Baguette recipe and I have been wanting to try making some boules with this technique and see how they turned out.  I decided to make a Durum starter and I cut the hydration down slightly from the baguette recipe.  I followed the same basic method for mixing and retarding the dough with some slight modifications including using my mixer for the initial mix.  I doubled the recipe from the baguette recipe so I could make 2 large boules.

The end result was a nice open crumb with an excellent crunchy crust and a nice buttery flavor.  I do have to say while mixing this dough following this method it created one of the smoothest and most silky dough I have made to date.

Directions

Semolina Starter Build 1

30 grams Seed Starter (Mine is a 65% White AP starter)

60 grams Durum Flour (Do not use the Fancy Course Semolina)

60 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)

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.    If your kitchen is warmer than mine which is usually about 70-72 degrees with my air-conditioning you can proceed sooner.

Semolina Starter Build 2

Add to Build 1 Starter:

100 grams Durum Flour

100 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around  4 - 6 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.    If your kitchen is warmer than mine which is usually about 70-72 degrees with my air-conditioning you can proceed sooner.

Main Dough Ingredients

300 grams Durum Starter  from above (note: you should have a small amount left over)

400 grams Durum Style Flour (KAF)

150 grams Whole Spelt Flour

300 grams French Style Flour (KAF)

590 Ice Water

20 grams Sea or Table Salt

Procedure

Mix the flour and the ice water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Put the dough in a slightly covered oiled bowl and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

The next day add your starter 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 20-24 hours.  I took it out about 20 hours later.

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.

Next, divide the dough and shape as desired.  I made 2 boules and placed them in their respective baskets.

Cover the dough with a moist towel and let sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Score the loaves 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 both loaves are golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 205 degrees F. you can remove them from the oven.  .

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

Please feel free to visit my other blog at www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com for all my recipes.

cookingbyheart's picture
cookingbyheart

http://vimeo.com/48925507

My guy, Paul, is a lover of bread. In particular, he loves a good baguette. Through him, I have been initiated into the life of baguette enthusiasm.  A good baguette is dark and crusty on the outside, fluffy and light on the inside. That seems simple enough, most baguettes should fit that description vaguely, but there is a scale within that description. In France we found that the artisanal handmade loaves are usually best and everything else is, well, not best.

In France, bakeries prepare baguettes and other breads daily, usually preparing a morning batch and an evening batch in order to provide the freshest loaves all day long. In order to stock the shelves with the freshest breads when the shop opens at 6a, Boulanger William Courderot begins his day at 1am. When we arrived to meet him at 5am, he was well into his daily routine. Each day, Courderot rolls out 600 traditional baguettes and each day they fly off the shelf.

There are many types of baguettes. The hand rolled ones are usually called tradition or l'ancienne, they are made in the old French way. You can literally taste the love with which they are made. This is why I advise you to steer clear of the standard machine made baguettes! They are usually lighter in color, less crispy. They are longer and more uniform, there is no trace of flour on the finished crust, and they are maybe 10 cents cheaper. I'm not sure why anybody buys them.

In the states, it's getting more and more possible to find quality bread but it's still always fun to see what you can do yourself. When we were in France, I made a pact to learn how to make a good baguette by baking them daily. But after a couple of sad attempts, I gave in to the fact that everywhere I looked I saw perfect baguettes for €1 or less. I was in the land of incredible baguettes and I wasn't about to waste time and empty calories on bad ones! It takes a lot of patience to come up with a method that works for you in your setting. It's tough for a recipe to account for the moisture or dryness of the air in your environment. Consumer ovens just don't get as hot as industrial ones. But have no fear, Julia Child is here! Julia offers a thorough recipe with helpful pictures in her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1, and you can see her recipe sans photos here.

One useful tip I can offer to fresh bread lovers: the best way to keep baguettes and other breads fresh and tasty is to wrap them in aluminum foil and freeze. If you have a big country loaf, cut it into smaller more manageable meal-size pieces and wrap each piece separately. When you want to eat some bread, place it in the oven or toaster oven at 350°F for about 10-15 minutes. When you can easily squeeze the baguette in your hand (with a glove of course), remove the foil, turn off the oven and put the bread back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so to crisp it up. Enjoy!

William Courderot's French Baguette

Ingredients

1 kg farine / ~7 cups flour

650 g eau / ~3 cups water

20 g sel / ~3.5 tsp salt

20 g levure / ~5 tsp yeast

Method

Mix all ingredients in kitchenaid or cuisinart mixer until smooth. Let rest for an hour and a half.

Flour prep area and separate dough into three equal pieces. Generously flour a linen cloth. Gently fold the dough over itself and roll while pushing the dough outwards until it becomes a long snake. Notice how little Courderot handles the dough as he forms it into baguettes. Don't handle the dough more than you have to. Place the baguettes on your floured linen cloth, cradling each loaf in fabric so they don't touch one another. Leave to rest for one hour.

Preheat oven to 550°F (or as high as your oven will go).

Use a new razor blade or very sharp knife to score the bread with evenly distributed diagonal marks, about 4-5 scores per loaf. Fill a cast iron pan with ice water and place it on the bottom rack of your oven. This helps keep a good amount of moisture in the oven while the bread bakes. Place the baguettes in the oven for 20-30minutes or until they are crusty and brown. When they're done, let them cool on a rack for 10 minutes or so before you break bread.

Enjoy!

-Cookingbyheart.org

Acidique's picture
Acidique

Here are a couple photos of my latest breads.  I also had some cinnamon rolls, but they're already pretty much gone.  Hee!

Buttermilk and Honey Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, recipe courtesy of JMonkey.

 

And then my first attempt at Vanilla Challah, recipe by PMcCool.  I braided the dough in a traditional way instead of his swirl, but I think the swirl would be lovely too!  I just wanted the practice:

 

Loved to braid the dough!  It was a huge hit.  I gave one loaf away and the other was gone in a flash.  :D 

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