bread1965's blog

I had a friend make this recently. He had trouble with the dough being too slack and this loaf ended up dense. I thought I'd make it to figure out where he might have lost his way. I soon realized it wasn't him. There's a problem with the recipe IMHO. While making the dough I googled and realized many others struggled with this recipe. It calls for seed additions that are excessive and much too much water in the seed soaker. For a 500g loaf it's asking for about 145g of flax that's soaked in water twice that amount. That's a 30% seed addition. And it calls for another cup of toasted sunflowers - another 30%. And that's on top of a 70% whole wheat to bread flour blend with 80% water (not counting that added to the flax). Clearly a challenging bake!

Mixing that much goopy soaked flax and sunflowers was a problem so I ended up adding a cup of rolled oats (to soak up the moisture - thanks Mini, you mentioned that on a previous post for this bread) and an additional 100 grams of bread flour!

That makes my final mix 350g whole wheat flour, 250g bread flour, 400g water, 150g flax soaked in 300g boiling water, 150g toasted sunflower seeds and a 150g rolled oats!

I ended up realizing that i should make these bread pan breads. I opted to bake one late that night and the second in the morning after a retard in the fridge. The first loaf was a bit gummy, had a poor rise and wasn't very flavourful. The second loaf was actually quite good with an amazing aroma and flavour.

I've read people suggest you drain the flax seed after being soaked, but that's not an option as it turns into a gel.  If anyone's made this bread exactly as written in the recipe let me know. Thanks..

With plenty of ripe sourdough and a love of chocolate I came across this recipe: https://www.farmhouseonboone.com/sourdough-chocolate-cake Without a doubt this is the best chocolate cake I've ever baked and probably eaten. I used two cups of dark brown sugar and a bunt pan. There's no need for frosting or the like. It's a great way to use extra starter.

After bringing my starter in from the cold he's had a few very active days on the counter-top. Inspired by the Poilane Masterclass I baked her signature Poilane style wheat loaf. It's a very low hydration, very high levain hearty loaf. The wheat really shines in this loaf and the crumb is firm and hearty. The crust is thick and crunchy. Grandma and Mom would have been happy.. as am I! She talks about keeping the bread wrapped in linen so I'm going to try that this week and see how it dries out.

This week I followed David and baked this beautiful bread. It uses buttermilk in place of water other than for the levain. I made the levain two days before using it. This bread has a super soft crumb and notwithstanding the dark colour (from the buttermilk) the crust is delicate. The tang from the rye sour, buttermilk and long ferment make this (for me) an instant classic. It's truly a beautiful bread and worth trying. I followed the recipe found here:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66611/buttermilkspelt-sourdough-bread-rye-sour  Thank you David!

This morning I baked Sarah Owen's Buttermilk Rye. This is a nice bread! It's interesting in that it uses banana in the starter as a Japanese influence. Otherwise it's (for rye I think) a relatively straight forward bread. Personally I'm after making a seeded rye bread that I can use as a "go to" loaf. But I read this recipe in her book "Toast and Jam" and thought to give it a try. It is so good!! I"m actually not a huge rye bread guy. And I find it so strange to work with dough that feels like I'm a stone mason handling concrete! But this is fun and tasty! I'll definitely make this again!

I've decided to work on dense seeded rye breads this winter. This is my first attempt. The recipe is fairly straight forward - it's a blend of high extraction (I used whole) spelt and whole rye flours with a large number of sprouted rye berries. It includes sunflower, pumpkin, flax and sesame seeds. It calls for un-hulled sesame seeds which I didn't have so I used hulled. For liquids it uses buttermilk, dark malt and dark beer (I used Guinness) and water of course.

Here are the results:

I ended up having a bit more dough than could fill my two pans. I should have made a third smaller pan as they proofed beyond the pan's capacity.

In the last 15 minutes of baking I felt the top was too pale so I put the oven onto convection mode and it browned up the top well. I'll do that again in the future - and probably a bit earlier in the bake.

After baking I let them come to room temperature and wrapped them in cling wrap for 24 hours (thanks Mini!). I opened the first a few hours ago. The crust is still dry and the inside has a moist wet sheen to it. Not too much, but noticeable and I wouldn't want more moisture in it.

Aroma, taste, mouthfeel, etc. All good. This is a good loaf thin cut, toasted and buttered. When not toasted it's a just a bit more wet in the chew than I'd like but still pleasant. In fact, good. But I'd like it a tiny bit drier.

What I'd like to know is how to make this a bit drier? Should I reduce the water or perhaps the large quantity of flax seeds?  My experience with flax is that when wet they create a bit of a viscous "goop" if you know what I mean. Maybe they've caused the bread to retain more water during the baking process given their volume? There's 27% whole flax and 13% course ground.  I'd appreciate any feedback.

This last picture may give you a sense of the moisture in the loaf:

Thanks - frank!

After an absence from bread baking I often come back to this bread to get myself back in the groove. It's Sara Owens' Honeyed Oat Spelt Sourdough bread. This picture is right after taking the lid off the combo cooker.

I'm getting back into baking after a busy summer.

I made this tonight and continue to be a fan of Sara Owens' recipes. Everything I've made from her books I've really enjoyed. This cake has only 30 grams of brown sugar and only uses whole wheat flour. It has five ripe bananas in it - which are placed in the oven with the brown sugar and a bit of rum to roast for 15 minutes before you make the batter. It uses ripe starter but I don't even think it's necessary given baking powder and soda powder are used in the recipe.

I literally took it out of the oven about half an hour ago and we couldn't resist so some is missing from the pic below!   Her recipe calls for a ganache to accompany it but we used Nutella instead! :)  I'll definitely be making this again! It's so good!

I've been experimenting lately with left over starter. I'm creating a stiff Pate Fermentee with it and a few days later adhoc a recipe. The breads are fine but nothing wow yet. This was my recent attempt. I'm posting this for recording keeping more than anything else.

Pate Fementee was 1 part ripe starter, 2.5 part water and 4.5 part AP flour - or 60, 132 and 270 respectively. I left it out for an hour and then put it in the fridge.

Final dough was made two days later:

- 150g pate fermente

- 125g whole wheat flour

- 375g all purpose flour

-12g salt

- 2g diastatic malt

- 2g gluten flour

- seeds: 35g pumpkin; 15g flax, 10g sesame; 40g hemp hearts

Autolyse was 30 minutes without salt, malt or gluten flour. I then added them and used the mixer for 7 minutes. I let rest for about 40 minutes and then did a letter fold during which I added the seeds. I then did two sets of coil folds 45 minutes apart.

Timing - autolyse around 11am and baked around 6:30pm.

Soft crumb and crust. Nice mild taste - but a bit bland. Would use more whole wheat next time but ran out. I used 20% seeds but could have added more. Loaf was large, so it could have been made into two batards instead. I preshaped but then left it as the dough was stiff. I could have upped the hydration another 10% too.

I have more pate fermentee in the fridge for one more bake. Any suggestions on a next loaf with recipe would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

I decided to venture into enriched breads this week and make Pain de Mie from The Perfect Loaf: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/pain-de-mie/ 

It's a great bread with a lovely buttery smell and taste. One loaf's already gone. Tomorrow we'll use the second for french toast! I suspect it was only slightly over fermented given the larger crumb holes just under the top crust - but just. The loaf with the dull crust colour was a bit smaller than the other and probably shoudl have come out of the oven a few minutes earlier.