Over the weekend, I finally worked up the courage to try making Bruno's Pandoro from Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking. I followed the the formula almost exactly. The one thing I changed was to replace all of the whole eggs in the formula with an equal amount of egg yolks by weight. I had the idea in my mind that this would give the final product better color and flavor (more on this later).

Though time consuming, the process was much easier than I anticipated. The dough wasn't entirely successful. As you can see in the photo below, there were little coagulated chunks that never broke up. I'm guessing they came from the step where I added flour and egg yolk to the first dough. The egg yolk bound with the dry flour to form little chunks that couldn't be dispersed by mixing. 

It took a full 27 hours at around 72 degrees F for the dough to go from this:

to this:

Here's the result (from the larger mold)

In retrospect, I should have filled the molds just a tad more to get that big pillowy base that pandoro should have. Given the limited amount of oven spring, it was the correct decision to bake when I did, or the loaves would have collapsed. I had to decrease the oven temperature from recommended 350 F to 325 F about twenty minutes into the bake because the tops were getting too dark. 

The crumb:

I wasn't too happy about the crumb, which had a spongy cake-like texture. I'm looking for a pillowy soft bread-like texture with shreddable strands. I'm not sure how much of this shortcoming is attributed to the amount of egg yolk I used, and how much is attributed to adding the butter/cocoa butter to the mix too rapidly or too soon. The uneven chunks indeed proved to be unpleasant in texture. 

The egg yolk flavor turned out to be too strong and gave the bread a "gamey" flavor, if that makes any sense. Next time, I'd like to make the loaf a little sweeter, use whole eggs just as the formula prescribes, increase the vanilla, and perhaps increase the proportion of cocoa butter, which I would like to stand out more in the flavor profile. 

Despite the pandoro not being perfect this time around, it still makes for a great breakfast (smeared with nutella), and it was a lot of fun to work with the silky, runny dough. 

This is from Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking.  Wonderful flavor, glossy sheen to the crumb and slightly chewy, can't wait to make it again.  The only issue I had was that the large holes were clustered just under the top crust, rather than being more or less evenly distributed throughout the crumb.  And the crumb in the bottom half of the loaf was more dense, with no large holes.  Anyone know how I might improve upon that?

My thoughts focused on either more aggressive dimpling, or on proofing less.  It's a yeast-leavened dough with a 24hr biga and a touch of whole rye and whole wheat.  My biga was supposed to triple in 24 hrs but only reached 2.5x by 28 hrs, by which time I went ahead with the recipe.

Well, I quite failed to get around to blogging last weeks' ciabatta attempt, and now here it's Saturday and I have another bake to describe.  

Last week I made another stab at SteveB's double hydration ciabatta.  If you recall in week 1, I got very nice flavor and crust, but an unimpressive crumb.  I also found the process, which involves almost 30 minutes of mixing, rather cumbersome.  The first time I modified Steve's process to add a French fold halfway through the rise, and I figured this time I either needed to modify the recipe more, or stick strictly to Steve's directions.  I went for the latter, cutting down the mixing time, and adding 2 stretch-and-folds to the rise.  The results, however, were quite similar to week 1:

Crumb was perhaps a little better, flavor a little worse.  So much for modifications.

Anyway, this week I took a shot at Craig Ponsford's ciabatta, as interpreted by Maggie Glezer, as interpreted by these two blogs (the first has better directions, the latter had weight measurements).  This formula involves a very stiff biga with a little bit of whole grain and just the teensiest bit of yeast, which is fermented for a full 24 hours (28 in my case).  Hydration is just north of 80%, and it takes 4 stretch and folds to make it behave.  

The results, however, were phenomenal

And here's the kicker:

You may notice the loaf on the right is a little funky looking--it stuck to the couch a bit, and I failed to get it all on the parchment when flipping it over, and so I had to manhandle it a bit to clear the couche and slip a scrap of parchment underneath.  

As you can see, nicely caramelized crust (nice and crispy too), crumb wonderfully open (nicely chewy too), and the flavor...oh the flavor.  This was one of the best tasting breads I have made, period.  The combination of a big dose of poolease-y nuttiness, a tinge of sour, and notes of whole grain in the background was just heavenly.  

I think this formula is a keeper.  Beyond getting fabulous results on this occasion, I enjoyed making it.  I like doing stretch-and-folds, feeling the dough and watching it mature and come together.  Even if it gets the same results, I'd take a recipe with stretch-and-folds over one with none and a long mixer time any day.  Just a matter of personal taste there.

There's still some work to do--I still need to work out my flipping technique, and I still have some kinks to work out in the formula itself, in order to get the exterior shape more even (enough kinks that I'm going to refrain from posting my take on the formula just yet).  But this is a positive step for sure!

Happy baking, everyone,

-Ryan 

Does anybody know whether "A Blessing of Bread" is now out of print, or if another edition is in the pipeline? It seems to be in limited supply on Amazon.

I visited "De Zandhaas", a working grain mill close to Amsterdam. Together with two fellow bread enthusiasts we had a one on one with the miller. He gave us loads of really useful info on the local, regional, national and European ins and outs on grain.

For some time already I suspected that my shaping problems originate right at the start; it's the flour we have acces to here. And the miller made it a fact! Our local grains aren't nearly as strong as the Northern American varieties. We also learned that American grain is hard to come by around here nowadays, so no need to go hunting for it. The differences are so big that all formulas that originate in the U.S.A need serious tweeking over here. My friend joked that "now we finally know that our water hasn't more water in it after all"  It certainly seemed that way every now and than with some formulas (especially this Filone that started this thread)

Loaded with information and of course the freshest of flours imaginable (the miller gave us some wheat germ to taste that was amazing) I returned home inspired. Whether it was a stroke of luck or a moment of genuine learning remains ro be seen, but I think I shaped, slashed my first more than average batard!

Meet my Golden Semolina Torpedo from the Bread Bible.

Thank you all for helping me get better. Sunday I'll post a wonderful recipe for a very local Frisian Sugar Bread that I think hasn't been posted yet here on The Fresh Loaf. Check it out!

X Freerk

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original post:

My latest Filone came out fine, but shape-wise it is just not what I'm looking for.

The mistake is consistent  though;  each time the loaf has a wonderful open crumb on the ends but gets denser in the middle part, and ends up looking more like a barbell than the nice sleek torpedo I'm looking for :-/

So; I 'destroy' the air pockets in the middle part of the dough during shaping, and leave the holes on the two ends intact, I guess.

After trying just about every possible way there is in shaping the filone, after watching numerous videos and studying breadbook pictures,  none of them seem to be working for me, yet...

I know that shaping is a 'hands on' type of affair. My question to all you master shapers out there is; which shaping method would you suggest me to commit to? My guess, after fooling around with them all, is that choosing and practicing one method is my best chance to get it right fast.

I am more and more gearing towards the wetter doughs :-) Which of the methods of shaping would be the most logic for higher hydration doughs?

Am I too sissy in "punching down" before shaping? I tend to handle the dough as carefully as I can manage. I expect to see some irregularity in the baked loaf, but mine just goes haywire on me during oven spring! The more evenly the holes are distributed in the dough, the cleaner looking the loaf comes out, right? Am I too careful?

Maintaining surface tension is also proving to be a challenge with wetter doughs. Any practical tips?

I have been tweaking the Glezer formula a little in my last attempt.

Like a lot of people here I have found the dough it produces rather "gloppy" and hard to work with. I also found out that the dough becomes a lot easier to work with after the first proof with three folds. I have reduced the water percentage (following Glezer's somewhat complicated way of measuring out as little yeast as humanly possible) by subtracting the yeasted water from the amount used in the final dough, so a total of 1 cup of water, instead 1 cup plus the yeasted bit.

After that the dough did everything the recipe promised, so my guess is I might have been misinterpreting Glezer's instructions.

The taste Durum flour produces in it's loaves is so close to my "dream bread" I want to try out more with it. If you can point me towards other formulas and recipes I'd be very grateful!

Thanks!!!

Glezer versus Reinhart

After getting Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice" for X-mas this year (thank you sis!) I baked my first bread "from the heart" and I loved it!!! So far I've been a "follower" of the Maggie Glezer-way of going about business:

I've been meticulously studying formulas and weighing ingredients to the milligram, producing very nice loafs as a result. But after baking with my head so much, it is time to start baking with my heart!

Reading Reinhart made me take a leap of faith; or to be more exact; it awakened my faith in myself! Look at the dough, feel the dough, work it the way you feel it's right! I love this whole approach, and I guess I was ready for it, knowing about the basics of bread by now (thank you Maggie!)

So, when I was looking around for a good formula using the chestnut flour I brought back from Rome two weeks ago, I decided to just go ahead and DO IT! Based on the general knowledge about the chestnut flour I concocted my own little dough and produced a batch of wonderful rolls, fragrant with the smell and taste of chestnut, with a nice crust and an okay crumb (I guess this would be the moment where, if Glezer were to read this post, she would comment: If you would do it my way, your crumb would have been more than okay as well...)

Very tasty! If you want to see my "year in baking" slideshow, you can find that here

I really hope you all enjoyed a wonderful X-mas. Check my blog in the coming days if any of you TFL'ers in the good old USA are interested in some traditional Dutch New Year's eve baking. I will show you how to make  "oliebollen", the precursor to what you guys have turned into.... donuts! I will also be baking the traditional "knieperties", a New year's treat that stems from the region in the north that i grew up in, and that I love because there is a wonderful simplistic symbolism attached to them. More to follow! Have a good week!

Freerk

I decided to try my hand at making this bread.   I don't think I quite have the hang of making the starter.  Need to work on that.  Glezer's book seems to indicate that the starter should be made in a semi-airtight container and I've read elsewhere that the starter should be allowed to breathe and collect wild yeasts from the environment.  I ended up with a not-quite-sour starter but used it anyway.  Instead of using the non-diastatic malt syrup I settled for a barley malt powder from my local brew shop.  I let the first rise go for 3 + hours, divided it, rested it, then shaped it before proofing for another 2 to 3 hours.  I put both batards on a silicon mat to proof and then just transferred everything to the baking stone when the time came.  I thought I had botched the batard shaping process but the loafs were very forgiving and came out looking better than I expected.  The recipe called for spritzing the loaves with water before baking and the use of a garden sprayer arrangement to add additional moisture.  I opted for a pan in the bottom of the oven to which I added a cup of water immediately after inserting the loaves.

I liked the color and crumb however the taste was not sour enough(have to work on starter) and the malt flavor was not subtle enough.  I'll try reducing the amount of malt powder the next time as well as using a more sour starter.

This spectacular bread is made with bread and a little wholewheat flours, potato and a little honey.  If you haven't made it yet, you've got to try it. It's fabulous!

- Elizabeth

my take on the recipe: Tortano, based on Royal Crown's Tortano in 'Artisan Baking Across America' by Maggie Glezer

For a recent dinner featuring shrimps in Pernod, there was special request for the bread to be made WITHOUT using my wild yeast. So I fell back on one of our favourites from Maggie Glezer's book Artisan Baking Across America: Acme's Rustic Baguettes.