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My wife asked for a sandwich loaf that was made with whole grain, mainly whole wheat and a tiny bit of sweetness supplied by honey.  She wants a replacement for her old favorite Oroweat Whole Wheat.

She doesn’t like sprouts or seeds or soakers in her bread which makes it easier if more boring.  So we came up with a loaf she can take for lunch every day and not be forced to read the ingredient label that scares folks to death.

The whole grains include home ground whole; wheat, spelt and kamut with more emphasis on wheat.  Since wheat would be the dominate flour, we decided to use our Desem starter that is fed only whole wheat and tends to produce bread that is less sour and more sweet than our rye sour starter.

Method

We levain was a 5 hour single all in one shot kind of build, which had the same variety of home milled whole grains in it.  We like using whole grains in levains and at220 gthis one was 23% of the total dough weight - right in the 20-30% range we like. 

While levain was building itself up to full strength we autolysed all the other ingredients including the salt for nearly 5 hours.  When the levain was finished we mixed it by hand with the autolysed portion of the mix.  Once mixed we did a full 12 minutes of French slap and folds before allowing the dough to rest in a plastic covered  and oiled bowl for 15 minutes.

After the brief rest, 4 sets of S&F’s were done one 15 minute intervals with the resting done back in the covered bowl.  Once the S&F’s were completed the dough was allowed to develop and ferment for 1 hour before being pre-shaped into a loaf and allowed to rest for 10 minutes before being final shaped and place into a loaf tin.

As soon as the tin was filled with dough,  it was placed into a plastic bag and refrigerated for a 15 hour retard at 38 F.  The dough was taken out of the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature for 1 hour.

With 15 minutes left for the warm up, (2) of Sylvia’s steaming cups were prepared with dish cloth, Pyrex cup 1/2 full of water and micro-waved to boiling and the Mini Oven heated to 500 F.

One of Sylvia’s steaming cups were placed in the back of the oven, the bread tin slid in and the other steaming cup placed in front.  It is a perfect fit that ensures maximum steam if you throw in ¼ C of water on the bottom of the mini oven when you close the door like we did.

We steamed the bread for 2 minutes and then turned down the mini oven to 450 Fand steamed for another 8 minutes – 10 minutes of steam total.  When the steam was removed the MO was turned down to 400 F - convection this time.  Every 5 minutes the tin was turned 180 degrees.  After 5minutes the bread was removed from the tin and baked directly on the oven rack.  In 10 more minutes the bread tested 205 F and in Fahrenheit degrees too.  Total bake time was 25 minutes.

Since we wanted a softer crust the bread was removed to a cooling rack instead of being allowed to crisp in the off oven with the door ajar.  It was surprising how nice this bread really is - no kidding.  The taste is nice and wheaty and the sour is mild.  The crust baked up blistered and softly chewy like we had hoped for.  The crumb is glossy, soft, and very moist.  A real challenger to Oroweat Whole Wheat that tastes and looks better too.   

Nothing like laying down in the cool grass when it is 104 F outside - if you are a tired baking apprentice.

Formula

Each day I try and find some time to write. It’s a habit I started years ago. And although I am sometimes shuffled along in life, and occasionally forget my place, it's a practice I always return to. It is not so much a diary, more like a snapshot in time and atop of every page I start with a grateful list for that particular moment in time.

So here goes for today:
I am grateful for the phone call from Dennis
I am grateful for a hot coffee next to me
I am grateful for my day off spent with Nat
I am grateful for an amazing find at an antique shop and the idea it spawned for another blog post
I am grateful for the new Grizzly Bear CD

Some of our plans are beginning to burble into life and as we watch where they might flow, many life lessons are being learned—patience, it seems, is lesson number one! These ‘in-between days’ need something special to lift our spirits and help us stop and appreciate our lot in life. These ‘in-between days’ require comfort food.

Our love of fig & anise bread is well known. I have mentioned it in postings here quite a few times, but it is still kept as a rare treat for us. A giddy excitement comes over us as it emerges from the oven—quick fingers pick at caramelized figs oozing from the crust—suddenly breakfast the next morning seems too far away.

The initial inspiration came years ago from the Pearl Bakery’s fig and anise panini formula in Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking. Over the years I have tinkered and experimented with ingredients and methods. I have crushed the aniseed, toasted the aniseed, used different varieties of figs, pureed the figs and added walnuts—and do you know what?

I think the ingredients are best left alone. Simplicity wins again it seems.

Fig & Anise levain (2 x 1105g Batards)

Formula

Method

1. Mix levain and leave to ferment for 5-6 hours at 25°C
2. Mill spelt flour and combine with bakers flour.  Mix with water holding back 50 grams of water.
3. Autolyse for 5-6 hours.
4. Add levain to autolyse then knead (french fold) for three mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and remaining 50 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 three mins.
5. Begin Bulk ferment. After 30mins add in dried figs and aniseed. Squeeze through the dough until evenly distributed.
6. Bulk ferment for a further three and half hours untouched.
7. Divide. Preshape. Bench rest 30 mins. Shape into batards and proof in couche seam side up.
8. Final proof was approx 2 hours at 24°C - watch the dough – we had friends over so I watched the dough not the clock as I was easily distracted.
9. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for 10 mins with steam then reduce temperature to 200°C for a further 30 mins.

I distinctly remember pre-shaping the dough and commenting on how silky and extensible it felt. The figs draw some of the moisture and the dough feels very easy to handle for a 75% hydration dough. It smells heavenly as it bakes and becomes almost intoxicating when pulled from the oven. This bread never disappoints.

Kids need comfort food from time-to-time and the fig & anise flavours are too much of an acquired taste for them to be excited over—in fact I would say it is almost the opposite reaction. A quick scan of the fridge revealed some egg-whites leftover from a custard tart baked earlier in the week—Meringues!

The Bourke Street Bakery cookbook has an interesting recipe for meringues that involves heating and dissolving the sugar in egg-whites over a bain-marie. This mixture is then beaten to stiff peaks before being rustically dumped onto a tray for baking. I love the visual appeal of this and was further intrigued by an option that called for rolling balls of meringue in cocoa powder. They tasted as good as they looked!

The kids are meringue lovers now—the trick is now to convince them that these crunchy, gooey and delicious puffs are treats only!

Cheers,
Phil

I’m still experimenting and making observations my with my natural “lievito 2.0”. All that experimenting and nothing to show for it… So while I had the time I decided to actually make something. Something different to Panettone…

I adapted the original recipe (from Dolcesalato), scaling down the formula, making just one modification to include white, along with the milk and dark chocolate chips.

		Veneziana al Cioccolato by Giovanni Pina VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

First dough – left to rise at 30C for 10-12hrs

• 225g ‘00’ flour
• 75g lievito naturale
• 56g egg yolks
• 64g caster sugar
• 90g water
• 75g butter

Second dough – left to rise at 30C for 6-7hrs

• 83g ‘00’ flour
• 56g caster sugar
• 56g egg yolks
• 4g salt
• 15g honey
• 38g water
• 98g butter
• 165g chocolate chips (55g each of white, milk and dark)

I glazed the dough with an egg and sugar solution and scored a Y shape on top as per original instructions.

Last week I did a three-way miche taste test, with the same formula using three different flours: King Arthur High Extraction, King Arthur First Clear, and a blend of 60% KA Bread Flour/40% KA Whole Wheat Flour. Here are what the loaves looked like:

Clockwise from the top they are First Clear, Hi-X and the hybrid.

My judges were Michael London, a very well-known baker in upstate New York, and Cindy Corbett, an accomplished home baker with a wood fired oven in her back yard whom I'd met at a KAF workshop. The results of the taste test are detailed on my blog at http://wp.me/p1S3Ig-kY . But to give you a preview, the High-X and First Clear finished neck and neck with the hybrid well behind but still a good choice for the baker who doesn't have access to these other flours.

One of the reasons I'd wanted to do this test was some discussion on TFL in which First Clear and High-X are discussed as equivalents. They're not, per Martin Philip, the staff baker at KAF who provided me with research and advice: "In terms of comparing Type 110 with an ~85% extraction rate to First Clear which lacks the patent portion would be to compare apples and oranges at least from a functional standpoint (the patent portion contains the highest quality protein in the endosperm). " Yet the finished loaves were very close in nose, texture and taste and after a few days I couldn't tell them apart.

I am now doing a follow-up test with the KAF Hi-X pitted against Type 85 Malted from Central Milling. Stay tuned.