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Given my flour delivery was put back a week, and the weather has done nothing except rain here in the UK, seemingly incessantly, and forever, my baking schedule has been somewhat interfered with.

So, here are a few loaves I've baked recently.   The Gilchesters' loaves were made today, and I will repeat again tomorrow as I dive into a dissertation on UK Organic Wheat, and prepare for a trip to Dunbar in Southern Scotland to introduce a training programme at a great local Bakery Co-operative

Borodinsky using the Auerman Process

Rye Sour build:

Final Paste:

Method:

• Build the sourdough as described above.   Make the “scald” as follows:   crush the coriander and add it to the red rye malt and dark rye flour.   Weigh the molasses into a pan, add water and bring to a rolling boil.   Tip this onto the flour mix, and add any extra boiling water if there is evaporation.   Stir well to ensure full gelatinisation.   Cover and cool.
• Once sufficiently cool, add the scald to the sour to make the sponge.   Cover and leave to ferment for 4 hours @ 35°C.
• For the final paste combine the sponge with remaining flour and the salt, mix with the paddle beater in an upright machine, 2 minutes on first speed and 2 minutes on second speed.   Scrape down the bowl to ensure thorough mixing.
• Bulk proof for 2 hours with DDT at 28°C.
• Scale and divide into 5.   Shape and drop into 5 Sandwich Pans, prepared with lining of shortening and coating of rye flour.   Smooth off and top with freshly crushed Coriander seeds, then apply lids.
• Final proof for 2 hours at 28°C, then bake.
• Pre-heat the oven to 280°C.   Load the pans, apply steam, after 10 minutes turn the oven down to 110°C, and move to Convection setting.   Keep a supply of steam in the oven and bake for 6 hours.
• Cool on wires; wrap in linen and leave 24 hours before cutting into the bread.

 This is a video demonstrating how best to scale these loaves, and shape them for the pans.   In years gone by at Village Bakery, a team of 2 bakers would produce 2 x 150kg batches of this type of Rye paste and scale it off in this way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf36f0Fw0_E&feature=youtu.be

 Roasted Brazil Nut and Prune Bread

Method:

• Prepare the Biga the night before.
• Combine all the ingredients in the mixer except the fruit and nuts.   Mix on first speed until clear, scraping down as needed.   Mix for 6 minutes on second speed with the hook attachment.   Rest the dough for 20 minutes then add the fruit and nuts and mix to clear using a Scotch cutter.   DDT 28°C.
• Bulk Ferment 1½ hours.
• Scale and divide into 3 x 1kg pieces; mould round.   Rest 15 minutes then shape as bloomers.   Glaze with beaten egg.
• Final proof 1½ hours.
• Score the tops of the loaves with 4 diagonal cuts and bake in a pre-heated electric oven at 170°C with convection for 55 minutes.
• Cool on wires.

Both the Borodinsky and the Toasted Brazil Nut and Prune Breads were lovely.   My apologies, the photographs don't really tell the best story.   It seems to be permanently dark in our house at the moment...and it was our longest day very recently too!!

 Gilchesters’ Miche

Makes 2 loaves @ 1350g

Levain build:

Method:

• Build leaven as schedule.
• Mix Farmhouse flour and water for 3 minutes on first speed, then autolyse for 1 hour.   Add leaven to Autolyse and mix for 5 minutes on first speed.   Add the salt and mix a further 4 – 7 minutes on first speed.   Scrape down the bowl as necessary.   DDT 24°C.
• Bulk proof 3 hours; S&F after 1 and 2 hours.
• Scale, divide and mould round.   Rest 15 minutes, covered, and prepare the bannetons.   Re-mould dough pieces and place upside down in bannetons.
• Final proof 2 – 3 hours.
• Score top with an “A” and bake in a pre-heated electric oven at 250°C with steam for 10 minutes.   Switch to convection, drop the heat to 200°C and bake a further 30 minutes.   Drop the heat to 160°C and bake out 12 - 15 minutes.
• Cool on wires.

Crumb shots!

This all leaves me with a good bit of baking to do next week as the Alnwick Farmers' Market takes place on Friday.   After that, it's Hexham on Saturday week.

The Summer looks busy; Alnwick Farmers' Market end of July; Powburn Show early August, more on this soon; holiday on Paxos for 2 weeks; August Farmers' Market; Bank Holiday party for friend's 50th.   Then in September it's Alnwick Food Festival, where I'm doing a presentation and taking a stall along with my colleague Ann from Doughworks [ http://www.doughworks.co.uk/ ]

Happy Baking everybody!

Andy

Hi TFL. I'm a long time lurker on here. I've been baking bread for about 3 years now. First as a home baker and now professionally. I owe much of what I know to the fresh loaf(I've been using it as a resource almost the entire time I've baked!). I figure it's about time I contribute to the site.

I'm planning on posting about my home baked experiments  in the future but in the meantime I'll share what I think is the best way to learn about baking bread.

For my first proffessional baking job I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to start a bread program at a local restaurant. I made essentially the same kind of bread everyday but I also made sure to experiment nearly every single time I made it. A little longer bulk one day, a slightly higher oven temperature the next, maybe try a new steaming method for a week. I tried everything I could think of to improve my bread. I learned more about bread doing this than any other experience I've had. Experimenting with one kind of bread over and over to see what effect small changes make on the end result is invaluable to a baker. I cannot think of a better way to learn.

To illustrate this point, here are my first loaves I baked at the restuarant:

And after one year of baking the same bread and experimenting everyday:

I'm not saying you have to go out and bake the same loaf for a year but do try baking the same formula a few times in a row. If you haven't already done this I'm positive you will learn something valuable from the experience.

Earlier this week while rummaging around in our local cookware store looking for unfluted French tart rings I spotted this nifty looking 18" long baguette style brotform.

I've seen them online in the past, never paying them much attention for some reason, but knew as soon as I picked this one up for a closer inspection I wouldn't be leaving the store without it. The idea of a dark, crusty loaf full of mixed grains and seeds contrasting with the white pattern of the brotform immediately came to mind rather than using it for a typical white baguette. While I continued my search for the tart rings I started considering possible recipe sources to use for the loaf I had in mind, thinking I'd likely find what I was looking for in Jan Hedh's “Swedish Breads & Pastries” or possibly Dan Lepard's “The Handmade Loaf“. After finally locating the one and only straight sided tart ring in the entire store, I drove home with the new purchases and immediately started going through my baking books looking for the type of bread I'd envisioned. Dan Lepard has a good looking formula for a Sunflower bread in his book that I almost went with, but it called for a levain and I'd already decided that I wanted to use a yeasted preferment of some kind for this loaf. As is often the case I found what I was looking for in Jeffrey Hamelman's “ Bread”. The two recipes I drew inspiration from were the Five Grain Bread with Pate Fermentee and his Sunflower Seed Bread with Pate Fermentee, on pages 129 and 131 of the book. Between the two, I opted for the higher percentage of pate fermentee he uses in the Five Grain Bread, swapped out the malt syrup used in his Sunflower Seed Bread for honey, and used an 80/10/10 combination of white AP flour, whole dark rye, and barley flour for the final mix.

 The percentages used in the initial formula came fairly close to giving me a workable mix, but needed a few adjustments for hydration, reflected in the formula below. The mix should be fairly slack, but not so much that developing it over the stretch and fold sessions becomes a matter of having to scrape it off the counter after the first S&F. The bread isn't as crusty as I'd hoped for, likely due to the higher percentage of honey used in the final mix, but I can live with that given the slightly sweet flavour and soft chewy texture of the crumb. For the next bake of this bread I'd like to include some of the   black currants we dehydrated last year in the mix to add a note of tart to the flavour profile. I'm sure this bread would lend itself to savoury additions such as cheese, fresh herbs or roasted onions as well. Formula and procedure included below. 

Best Wishes.

Franko

Procedure for Multi Grain Baguette with Seeds and Pate Fermentee 

• Mix all ingredients for pate fermentee and let sit in a covered bowl for 14-16 hours @ 70F

• Mix all ingredients for the multi grain soaker at same time as pate fermentee and leave in covered container at room temperature. 

• Final dough:

  Mix the flours and pate fermentee with the water, adjusting for hydration if needed. Autolyse for 40 minutes. 

• After autolyse is complete add the salt and instant yeast and mix till the dough is slightly developed. Add the grain soaker and honey and develop by either doing stretch and folds in the bowl or slap and folds on the counter until a slight windowpane can be achieved. The dough should be slightly sticky and moderately developed. 

• Bulk ferment at 76F/24C for 90 minutes giving a full stretch and fold every 30 minutes.

• After the last S&F round the dough to medium tight ball, cover and allow 15 -20 minutes for the dough to relax before shaping. 

• Shape as a baguette or batard, and place seam side up in a floured brotform. 

• Preheat the oven and baking stone to 485F/251C for 45-60 minutes prior to baking. 

• Final rise of 45-50 minutes at 74F/23C covered with plastic sheet. 

• Tip the loaf on to the underside of a parchment covered 18 ”/45cm long sheet pan or a peel if shaped as a batard. Score as desired, and slide loaf onto the preheated stone, with steam system in place and oven vents blocked. 

• Bake at 485F/251C for 10 minutes, unblock the oven vents, remove the steam system and lower the heat to 465F/240C. 

• Bake at 465F/240C for 10 minutes, rotating the loaf periodically for even colouring. Bake a further 10-15 minutes at 455F/235C or until the internal temperature is 210F/98.8C 

• Turn the oven off, prop the door open slightly and leave the loaf in the oven for 20 minutes to cool gradually. 

• Wrap the loaf in linen and place on a wire rack for 4-5 hours before slicing. 

• NOTES: The bake times are based on a 680 gram loaf. Longer bake times will be needed for larger loaves. For transferring the loaf to the oven I recommend using parchment paper to avoid any likely sticking. The dough is soft and difficult to handle in a baguette shape. After the first 10 minutes of baking the parchment can be removed easily from beneath the loaf.

  Link to full sheet [HERE]

  

   

Hello everyone,

This month, Elle and the Bread Baking Babes are baking MC-Farine’s cute and charming Morning Cuddle Breads,
as ‘Summer Twists’.

MC, on her always-so-interesting blog!, recently featured a beautiful Barley Bread - in her post she recalls the sucre d’orge (barley candy) she had as a youngster. 
I was curious so looked up barley sugar candy online (noting its pretty golden color), and read on Wikipedia “Barley sugar was often made into small spiral sticks, and the name is… sometimes used for…twisted legs and spindles in furniture…”.
                          (So that’s where ‘Barley Twist’ furniture got its name!).

MC‘s Barley Bread post motivated me to make these breads as ‘Barley Twists’ … using a bit of barley malt extract , and some of the *lovely* Fairhaven organic whole barley flour MC gave to me (*many thanks!*), in place of oats. 
The barley flour was scalded, to help retain moisture and hopefully add a bit of extra sweetness.
For fruit, I added golden raisins, their color reminding me of the golden color of the sucre d’orge :^)

                  Barley Twists        
                                           Cinnamon Cuddles

Two breads were shaped as ‘Barley Twists’, egg washed, and sprinkled with barley flakes prior to baking.

The other two breads were shaped in a ‘C’ shape, for ‘Cinnamon Cuddles’ (the raisins in this bread seemed to call out for some cinnamon! ). I added some cinnamon to the egg wash, sprinkled cinnamon sugar along the edges of the twists, where the strands joined, and for a bit of extra golden color, sprinkled some turbinado sugar on top, prior to baking:
 cinnamon egg-wash :^)
                                   just before baking

                                                                 crumb

The bread has a soft and moist crumb, nice sweetness from the golden raisins, and the bread itself having a lovely complex flavor that I don’t quite know how to describe!, but this is a wonderful breakfast bread.

Thanks to MC for the lovely ideas in her posts, and thanks to Elle, too, for featuring this bread this month!
Here is the formula I worked out, inspired by these ladies' efforts :^)

Happy baking everyone,
:^) breadsong

Submitted to YeastSpotting :^)