Could anyone tell me whether it is possible to combine Canadian flours (and specifically which ones) to equate an approximate 10 grams of protein in US all-purpose flour bought in the Philadelphia, PA area? All all-purpose flour available in the Toronto, ON area and according to Canadian requirements has about 13 grams of protein. It always requires more liquid than the US flour, and I don't use it in any US cake recipes because the end result is not the same. Also, all-purpose Canadian flour contains bensoyl peroxide as its bleaching agent, and it has been banned in some countries. The chlorine in US all-purpose flour probably isn't any better, but it is my understanding that both are used to soften the texture of the baked product. Without a softening agent, the baked product is heavier somehow. I have learned that Canadian unbleached pastry flour with lower protein (about 9 g), will not yield the same results as 10 g of US all-purpose. I had a flopped biscotti-type of cookie, when I tried using the Canadian unbleached pastry flour. Is there any way to combine specific types of Canadian flour or with an imported flour to produce a US-like flour? I might add that I have been purchasing US flour once a year for 30 years to avoid this problem, but I am unable to travel as frequently and can't find it here in Canada. Plus, the US flour expiry dates are usually 9 to 12 months ahead, which limits its use. Is there an unbleached or bleached alternative in Toronto, ON Canada  or anywhere in Canada which would solve my US all-purpose flour conversion dilemma? Thanks to anyone who may be able to contribute even a small suggestion, because I am stumped!

Hi folks,

Moroccan food is excellent and it's all the better with fabulous bread!

A couple of years ago, I travelled around Morocco with my wife and some friends. Since returning, I've been working on replicating the ubiquitous ksra bread. Morocco has so many fabulous breads but this is the one you see everywhere on the street.

It would appear at every meal; alongside jam, honey and fresh goat cheese for breakfast, with chickpeas and hard boiled egg inside or grilled sardine kefta for lunch, to scoop up tajine for dinner. It's half staple, half utensil.

I found a pretty good yeasted recipe for ksra spiced with fennel seed (heaven!) in Flatbreads and Flavours (good book, by the way; http://www.harpercollins.ca/books/Flatbreads-Flavors/?isbn=9780061673269) and have modified it to my liking. I found the cornmeal caused the loaf to be heavy and using atta flour (durum) instead of some or all of the whole wheat made for a nicer flavour and crumb.

Most recipes I've seen online are poor imitators of this simple, delicious bread and many of the associated pictures are quite sad looking! Flat and pale!

I'm throwing this out here to see if anyone has any other good recipes for this bread, especially with a sourdough starter. My fledgling starter is currently bubbling away on the countertop and I'm itching to use it!

Thanks!

Chris

i had followed lesson one (with a slight modification) and failed utterly though...i will tell my story and see if anyone can help. (i might as well introduce my self too)

so i put the three cups flower 2 ts salt 2 ts yeast and 1 with 1/8 cups water and added a few sesame seeds and flex seeds to the mix. i think i went wrong because i put the yeast with warm water, now either it was too warm it and killed off the yeast or it was instant yeast that´s not supposed to go in water or something but nothing was happaning (we´re having very cold days but i put the mix in a heated room quite close to the heating and waited more then 2 hours and NADA... took it out and kneeded it some more put it back for a couple more hours and still nothing! so i stuck it in the fridge and decided i will try to read what to do with a mix like that the next morning.

i read somewhere here that it´d be ok to just mix more yeast... i then mixed more yeast in water again (this time less warm, thinking it was probably too warm) and waited more....

nothing! and i waited enough time... stuck it in the over none the less (managed to burn it because i had no idea how to use my gas oven!) the outcome was a tasty block of dough, not really adible but tasty (a little too much salt but other then that i liked the taste)

i concluded that the yeast i was using was too old and i probably wasn´t using it right?

or maybe for some reason the seeds were getting in the way somehow?

so the next day i bought fresh yeast and we tried again, this time i stuck to the basics, but the mix came out VERY sticky... i probably had to put more flower but i insisted it was probably ok...  it grew but not doubled (in about two and a half hours! i went out of the house so this time the waiting wasn´t so bad) we came home late and i took it out to shape it for the mold but had to add some flower because it was too sticky to handle, so i kneeded it some more and in the end just dumped as best i could in the mold... it didn´t so much grow as expended and because it was so late we didn´t wait too much before just sticking it in the over (about an hour) in the oven it did grow a little and it came out adible but certanly with a lot of room for improvement, it was too dense but i didn´t mind, it´s a welcomed change haha.

my conclusion is too much water impeding the expansion?

any help would be greatly welcome,

thanks in advance,

Simisu

hi everyone - 

i have just recently come down with the baking bug and have been giving it a go with pizza dough, basic french bread and just began my sourdough starter.

one thing i am extremely confused about is the different yeasts that are out there and referred to in recipes.

when i begin to make my sourdough, i have been told in the 'goldrush' starter recipe that if i want a less dense loaf, i need to add 'instant' yeast.  am i right in saying that instant yeast is breadmaker yeast?

things are labelled a little different in the UK so that doesnt help me much either.

any feedback would be appreciated.

thanks,

tami

Most of my new adventures into baking have been shaping baguettes, ciabatta loaves & rolls, batards and boules. All great successes :-)

Now want to try & use dough rising baskets or banetons. Oh oh! Seems very confusing!

Some baskets have couche / cotton duck material lining the basket, others are plastic moulds (brotforms) with holes for air, some solid with no air holes. Then there are banetons I've seen that have no linen but the dough is placed directly onto the coiled wicker or cane after flouring generously. Is there really a difference or is it really a matter of aesthetics? Also, would appreciate informed comments on the ratio of dough to the size of the basket. Half to allow for a doubling up in the final proof? Thanks fellow bakers!!

I am a beginner....! Thursday night I made a poolish so I could bake my first bread on Friday, leaving it out overnight. It turns out I cannot bake the bread until today (Saturday)...so I put the poolish in the refrigerator. It doesn't look the same anymore and is watery underneath the surface. Should I start over again, or can this be used. Sorry for the novice request! But I have my my shirtsleeves rolled up and ready to rock!

Does anyone have experience in using clay sand pots to bake bread in?  They have to be soaked for 24 hours in water and go into a cool oven so they don't break.  They are the perfect shape to proof in,  should steam great and work for breads that go into a cool oven like some challah's and others.

I've been baking bread for a while, I'm not a professional by any means, still learning and still have a lot to see and learn  I have question for you guys and girls, maybe was already posted and I did not bother to check.  

I see many times when the yeast is dissolve in warm liquid, water, milk, what ever, then sugar is added and then flour (with a little salt) is added to the liquid.  Some other times, I see where they add all the dry ingredients together, flour, yeast, sugar, salt and mix all that well and then add the liquid.  I have done it both ways, I can't seen to either taste or see the difference.  Does anybody knows when should you do one way or the other? is there any particular way when one method should be use instead of the other?  

I don't know, like I said, I have a lot to learn, I just love to bake, in fact, I'm baking a Pan de leche, (Milk bread) as I'm writing this.  I'll post the pics later.

Anyway, if anybody have the knowledge about this, I would love to hear the comments.  Also, I apologize, if this particular subject was discuss previously.  Thanks in advance!

Norman.

A question please. Is it possible for the taste of a bread recipe to change if the flour used is changed? I have a bread that I make all the time, it uses a cup of starter. I always use King Arthur regular flour (AP) and the taste is really good, changes in your mouth as you chew. I had to use another brand as the store was out of KA. It is a well known leading brand and I thought nothing of it. However, this morning when I toasted the first slice from this bread, I noticed something was missing and I could not put my finger on it. Bland. Mediocre taste. Then it hit me, I had changed flours. Am I making more of this than is really possible, is it my imagination? Nothing else had changed but the flour. Thanks in advance for any replies. Jean P.(VA)

Hello

I was originally posting before looking for bread solutions for our hotel and happily came to a few conclusions as a result of the great help from this board, as well as a base recipe to work from to achieve the bread we need. I've tested things out (mostly testing the recipe + our new oven) in a slightly different way than the recipe was mainly intended and have come across mixed results that maybe a few people can fix up based on the details of the prep and baking. 

I'll post the recipe first followed by the results after (courtesy of Ford--Thanks!!):

WHITE BREAD (SUBSTITUTIONS FOR ♥)

For the poolish

3 cup (12.8 oz.) King Arthur Bread Flour
1/4 tspn. dry active yeast
3 cup (24.9 oz.) chlorine-free water

Poolish hydration: 188%. Note: for half a cup of the bread flour you may substitute half a cup of whole-wheat flour to modify the taste and texture.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in a little of the water, then add the rest of the water and flour and mix enough to wet all of the flour. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let ferment for 8 to 18 hours at room temperature. If desired, the poolish may be refrigerated after 4 hours of fermentation.

For the dough

All of the poolish
2 1/8 cup (17.6 oz.) warm scalded milk (or skim ♥)
1 tspn. dry active yeast
10 1/4 cup (43.6 oz.) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
1/4 cup (2 oz.) melted butter (or corn oil ♥)
1 1/2 Tbs. (1 oz.) salt
1/4 cup (2 oz.) of melted butter (or corn oil ♥) for greasing pans and brushing the loaves
water in a sprayer

Dough hydration: 69%.

Into the bowl containing the poolish, beat in the milk, the yeast, and about 6 cups of the flour, or as much as can be readily mixed by hand. Cover and let stand for half an hour or an hour (autolyse).

Mix in the 2 ounces melted butter, the salt, and as much of the rest of the flour as convenient. Scrape the dough on to a surface dusted with bread flour and thoroughly knead the dough, adding flour from the measured amount as necessary until the dough is smooth. For a more open structure, minimize the amount of flour. For a more dense structure, add additional flour. Allow the dough to rest for about ten minutes and then knead some more. This dough will be elastic and smooth. Place the dough into a greased bowl (about a teaspoon of corn oil) and cover to rise to double the volume, about an hour. Gently degas the dough by folding it on itself.

With melted butter, thoroughly brush three loaf pans (2 qt size, 9 5/8" x 5 1/2" x 2 3/4"). Divide the dough into three equal pieces (about 32 to 34 oz. each). Shape each piece to fit the bottom of each pan, puncturing the large bubbles. Place the loaves in the pans, seam side down. Brush the top of the loaves with melted butter. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and let rise until the domes are about 2 inches above the tops of the pans. Bread benefits from retardation. (Place in the refrigerator when dough just reaches the top of the pan and remove next day and allow to come to room temperature.)

Preheat oven to 450°F with a pan of boiling water on the bottom shelf, with the middle shelf being reserved for the bread pans. A large broiler pan works well. When the dough has risen above the tops of the pans (about an hour), spray them with water, and immediately place them into the oven. Spray the loaves 2 additional times at 1 minute intervals to permit additional rising. After 15 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until the interior loaf temperature reaches 195°F, an additional 45 minutes (about one hour total). The loaves should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom. Turn out on to a cooling rack, brush with melted butter, and cover with a damp paper towel until cooled. Bread may then be packaged and frozen.

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Firstly, the recipe stated that it would be for bread loaf pans, whereas we really get off on the idea of serving a more country-style oblong loaf. Our bread seems to not rise much after kneading - We let it rise in a huge metal bowl. Is it possible the large shape of the bowl would give off a less impressive first rise, or maybe just less noticeable? 

Also when we put it away in the fridge for a slowed-down proofing overnight the dough balls tend to get flatter and also the surface is somewhat bubbled. I let it come to room temp. for an hour or so and then start the baking, but there isn't much obvious oven spring and the flattened logs tend to then make super-flat loafs to the dimensions of 25x35x7 cm. The first time it rose a bit better but this time the only change is a touch more salt than originally added and I also added in a half-tablespoon of honey. The breads taste is absolutely wonderful, the crust is a perfect crisp thickness and the inside is moist, perhaps too moist. 

Any other questions or details I can answer to help you help me with this?