Benito's blog

This first time I tried making one of these I used Full Proof Baking’s Kristen’s formula. It was great, but I had some technical issues related with shaping and transferring the dough from the countertop into the pan.  This time I thought I’d try a different one, Maurizio’s The Perfect Loaf formula.  Some of the minor changes I made are in brackets.

This recipe is for 11”x17” that I have decreased to 80% of the original weights. 

Having to practice more to get the rust out of my processes and shaping.  I was able to get my preferred organic all purpose flour similar to T55 for baguettes.  Also continuing to see how far I can push fermentation with every so slightly more gluten development with each bake.  In this bake along with the Rubaud kneading in the bowl when adding the levain and later when adding the bassinage water, I did a total of 300 slap and folds.  These recent bakes do support the fact that doing more gluten development does support longer fermentation without loss of grigne/ears.

Being back in Toronto I have access to ingredients that I couldn’t find in Fort Lauderdale Florida.  Yesterday I went to Chinatown and picked up some purple sweet potatoes and some BBQ Pork.  I’ve been wanting to try making fully sourdough (not hybrid with IDY) Baozi for a while, the last attempt at it didn’t go well.  Given the expense of buying BBQ Pork these needed to be successful and they were.  

I was disappointed in my last set of baguettes so had to bake another set.  With this set, I was using this new AP flour again and based on the last set decided to go with 76% hydration and do hand mixing so I could better assess how the dough felt.  I also didn’t do any cold retard because the dough in the last set really resisted stretching as it was still a bit cold during shaping.

I still have some rhubarb from a friend’s farm from last year frozen in my freezer.  We are hosting a dinner party for neighbours tonight so wanted to bake a pie with a pate brisée pastry crust using the rhubarb.  I couldn’t source any sour cherries so decided to try a spiced peach rhubarb filling for the first time.  I recently purchased a Fat Daddio’s pie dish.  I have always used glass pie dishes because I could see the crust and tell if it was fully baked.

I am definitely out of practice shaping baguettes.  Looking at my index I see it has been almost exactly 6 months, much too long.  Based on the three baguettes I baked you can see the improvement with the shaping from the first to the third.  Another variable is that I couldn’t find my preferred flour that I have been using for baguettes so had to use a flour I haven’t used for baguettes before.

We’re back home and as usual out of bread.  I found some Einkorn flour so decided to use it in this loaf.  No bread flour or VWG will be used for this loaf.  As I have recently started to use a stiffer tangzhong and have increased the percentage up to 20% I haven found that I don’t need to use any VWG at all and can still get a great rise for this style of bread.  So this loaf is 100% whole grain, 20% of that whole einkorn.  I also like the flavour that einkorn gives to bread, but it is definitely hard to come by around here.

For our final dinner party we are hosting down here in Florida I wanted to make pulled pork sandwiches so I needed to have a large enough bun that while soft would hold up to the sauce, pulled pork and roasted pineapple.  So I decided that increasing the whole wheat would make the bun a bit firmer while the addition of the sweet potato would enhance the flavour.  I unfortunately didn’t get photos of the sandwiches, however, I do have some pulled pork and buns leftover so I’ll try to remember to take some photos of the assembled sandwiches.

OK last dinner party of the Fort Lauderdale season for us as hosts.  One last pie that I’m making here in Fort Lauderdale until next visit whenever that is.  I loved the simplicity of the lime coconut pie but wanted to make it with the Ritz Cracker crust for a bit of saltiness to contrast the lime coconut flavor.  Also with the Ritz Cracker crust instead of the graham cracker crust I can control the amount of sugar and reduce it which is better in my mind.  I do find the graham crackers down here are very sweet so the crust turns out too sweet for me.

A close friend is having a dinner party today down here in Fort Lauderdale so I offered to bring rolls.  I’m almost out of bread flour to in order to ensure that I have enough for one last bake I’ve been adding some whole wheat to my bakes, even for company.  I switched Alan’s starter to whole wheat and it seems fine with it.  Instead of a bread flour tangzhong I used whole wheat.  Another change I made is that I added the butter to the tangzhong while cooking it.