Benito's blog

I’ve posted a previous purple sweet potato sandwich loaf which was enriched with brown sugar and butter. I wanted to try making a loaf with the sweet potato but without the animal fat enrichment of the butter and using honey instead of brown sugar. So based on the formula that Maurizio posted on theperfectloaf.com I added mashed purple sweet potatoes to his formula and made adjustments to incorporate the sweet potato.

These are a traditional Christmas time dessert from Provence France.  They are a vegan brioche so rather than butter there is olive oil used instead.  This recipe was posted by Melissa over on Breadtopia and I followed her excellent formula.  I did make some changes.  I did not have ground anise so instead used Chinese Five Spice.  Also instead of just orange, I used a combination of Meyer Lemon and a smaller amount of orange.  Pompe å L’Huile recipe

Ingredients

Because of the babka debacle from last weekend I had to come up with another bake for some friends.  I decided to bake this christmas cake again as it is really quite good.  I like the combination of the tart cranberries with the sweet honey crisp apples with the spices and rum in this cake.  I like to do a lemon drizzle icing more for the look than anything.

For three loaf pans

7.5 cups flour

2.5 tsp baking soda

1.25 tsp salt

3.75 cup vegetable oil

7.5 large eggs

3.75 cups granulated sugar

1.25 cups packed brown sugar

I love the taste that seeds impart to my sourdough breads both on the inside or outside of a loaf.  I love using black sesame seeds because they are sesame flavour amped up and great inside the loaf for that contrast in colour in the crumb.

Total Dough Weight 900 g

Total Flour 494 g 

Bread Flour 80%

Whole Red Fife 20%

Total Water 377.5 g 76% hydration

Salt 2% 10 g

Mix 

Bread flour 352 g

Whole Wheat 97 g

Water 320 g

Levain 115 g 

Salt 2% 10 g 

Diastatic Malt 0.5% 2.5 g

This is my third time baking semolina sourdough baguettes and I ran a bit short on the Semola rimacinata flour that I usually use for this. I also hadn’t baked a baguette in some time so I felt a bit rusty, but I think overall the bake went well.

These are likely a bit overproofed I’m guessing based on the so so ears. The kitchen was pretty warm and I didn’t account for how fast they would proof on the counter, that and my starter is now creating levains and dough that ferment more quickly. I will need to take this into account in the future.

This is my first bake of rye at this percentage, prior to this I have only used 5-10% in my sourdough breads.  I’ve followed Eric’s original recipe but followed Dan’s procedure building the gluten before adding the levain, salt and holdout water.

The crust is soft after it cools and will slice better the next day. If you need bread that will stand a few days, this mix is good for mailing across the country. Sealed in a plastic bag after cooling, this rye will be great 4-5 days later and freezes very well.

For one loaf

I’ve always loved the idea of babkas when I first saw them on the internet.  They look so shiny and sticky and yummy.  Now that I have sent John Dough to rehab and have him on an all rye diet I thought I would test him out and build a white levain to raise this my first babka.  My old starter could never raise a good white starter, I’d always have to add some whole grain of some sort to it for it to have an adequate rise.

I baked Maurizio’s formula for this bread which I share below copied from his website for those interested in trying this bake.  At the end I’ll post what I will do next time I bake this based on the final results.

This tangzhong pan bread is a direct bake, meaning it’s baked the same day you mix (except for the levain, which is created the night before).

I wasn’t planning on making such a large loaf, but it turned out to be just over 1 kg, I guess that doesn’t qualify it as being a miche, I’ll call it a mini miche ?. It was with this bake that I noticed how extremely sluggish my starter had become, it’s now in starter rehab on a diet of whole rye and bubbling along quite nicely.