bread1965's blog

Someone somewhere on the site posted the suggestion of a summer solstice bread challenge. This is my answer to that call. It's a sourdough summer solstice sun twirl with Ontario Maple Syrup, Quebec wild blueberry jam, sugared almond slivers and topped with cinnamon sugar. Happy summer to all..

Life's gotten the better of my time lately and Charlie's been well neglected in the fridge.. but thankfully he doesn't mind.. that said I decided to send him on journey and now part of Charlie is baking up a pizza storm in Virginia Beach with a good friend of mine..

Meanwhile, I finally got around to baking last week and made a Tartine whole wheat loaf and made Danni's version of the Swiss Raisin Muesli bread that I've been trying to replicate. Danni - great recipe..

First the Tartine - standard recipe crusted with oat bran..

By all accounts a great bread and what seems like a fool proof recipe..

And below is the swiss raisin muesli..

It was a good replica of the original but not yet there. I forgot to dig out my bread lame and after I put the loaf on the combo cooker bottom ended up scrambling and grabbed a knife and butchered a score before putting the lid on. Oh well.. regardless the bread spread out more than i thought it would. Not sure why.. I don't think it was from the score, or that I over proofed/retarded it.

The taste was good but more subtle compared to the original. I think I'll double up the raisin water, the honey and the raisins.. and see how that works. I also think I might add a bit more oil. 

Danni - a great recipe, thanks for your efforts! This is the link to her recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55422/stonemill-healthy-artisan-swiss-raisin-muesli-bread-copycat-recipe

Bee well.. bread1965

All Is (not) Lost.. first let me say that I'm referring to this weekend's bake and the movie by a similar name - All is Lost with Robert Redford (100% rotten tomatoes in my book).

Last week I made a Honey Oat Loaf with all purpose, bread and a tiny amount of whole-wheat flour. This week I decided to use Canadian maple syrup as the sap is flowing in these parts and amp'd up the whole wheat flour and hydration as I always find that loaf a bit dry to handle. I also thought I should increase the hydration given the increased whole wheat flour content.

I prepared the overnight soaker using 70g flaked oats and 140g boiling water.  And fed my very active starter at the same time with 100% hydration using AP flour. I also gave the flour an overnight on the counter autolyse using 115g bread flour, 90g whole wheat and 20g AP flour (total flour 225g) with 165g of warm water (hydrated to 73%).

Including the water in the oats, the dough hydration was about 135%. I'm not sure if you calculate the hydration differently when using a soaker (anyone?).  

The next morning I combined the soaker, with 20g of maple syrup, 6g salt, 55g of levain and the hydrated flour.  It was pretty soft and sticky so I thew it into the mixer for five minutes at medium until I got a windowpane. The dough was very silky to handle. Over the next three hours I gave it about four stretch and folds. I then let it sit for about six hours until it doubled. I tried to be gentle but it mostly deflated as I poured it onto my bench. It was very tacky so my attempts at a good pre-shape were useless. I decided to pour it into a Pyrex loaf pan and threw it into the fridge.

This morning I brought it to room temp and in total it might have doubled again. I baked with the loaf pan on a pizza stone and added about a cup of hot water into a pan to steam the oven a bit. I baked at 450 for about 35 minutes or so to an internal temp of about 205 degrees. It was a bit tricky to get out of the Pyrex loaf pan and used knife to pry it out - is there a trick to getting a non-stick result in a glass loaf pan when baking a high hydration bread? I'd rather not use grease or the like on the pan. We had some for lunch today. Here she is:

Indeed, all was not lost. I'm surprised it turned out edible at all. The crumb is very soft and not too moist. The whole wheat flavor dominates and I don't get a strong sense of the oats and can't perceive the maple syrup. I would definitely dial back the hydration next time and I would probably double the maple syrup.

For whatever reason I have far too many half eaten bags of oats lying around my pantry.  So this week I baked a version of Sarah Owens' honey spelt oat bread - without the spelt.  As has been a theme of late for many of us, Trevor Wilson was the inspiration. Trevor has been posting on Instagram some great fluffy-crumb pastry flour breads. I didn't have any pastry flour to use so I improvised with some all-purpose, whole wheat and bread flours. I thought using an all-purpose flour with it's lower protein content would be a reasonable substitute for pastry flour. 

I used : 140g of flaked oats in an overnight soaker with a 110g mature levain (using AP flour) ; 45g of amber honey (I think next time I'll use maple syrup as "tis the season" in Canada) ; 105g AP flour ; 45 g whole-wheat flour ; 400g hard bread flour ; and 11g salt. Total flour (including the levain) was 605 g (26.4% AP, 7.5% whole-wheat and 66% bread). Total water (including levain and soaker but not the water content in the honey) was 575g.  So the hydration is about 92% - but it wasn't anywhere near as slack a dough as you'd think given that number because the oats were thirsty. I'd increase it to 100% next time just to see how it changed it.

This was a stiff dough. I worked the levain and water into a slurry and it took a while to incorporate the soaker and break down what by the next day became a dense clump of moist oats. Trying to create structure to build an open crumb was near impossible as the dough wasn't very extensible. 

After all was mixed together I gave it three additional stretch and folds (as best was possible) an hour apart while it sat in a warm spot in my kitchen. I then placed it into my oven with the light on for bulk - another four hours. When it had clearly doubled I divided the dough, pre-shaped into boules and gave it a short bench rest before shaping into batards for an overnight fridge retard. Bake was mid-morning at 450 for 20 and 15 in a combo cooker.

They had a great rise and bloomed very well.

The one issue I had with them was that in the morning the dough seam had split open a fair bit on both loaves (they were loaded seam side up in the baskets). I wet them a bit with my hand and then tried to stick them shut just before loading them into the combo cooker. The crumb below is very soft and fluffy - it's very nice and the flavour is very earthy.  The oats really come through. The honey is noticeable but not overwhelming. At the base of the loaves you can see the spot where I tried to wet and then stick the dough together just before loading - it's a 'damp spot'.  This was just a shaping technique mistake - I should have made sure to properly close the seam when I shaped them the night before.

Overall, a great bake and one I'll repeat many times! Bake happy..

I started building a starter for a weekend bake over the past few days, but on Friday morning got a bit ahead of myself and created a bigger amount of starter than I normally do.. I find feeding 1:4:4 works for my kitchen temp and starter strength when I'm feeding every 12 hours.. but then I came home late Friday night to this..

It was about 500+ grams of starter that by this stage had more than trippled.. I guess on the one hand I should be happy to have a virbrant and active starter!

So I decided to put it to good use but didn't have a formal plan. So I added 800g of unbleached bread flour, 200g of whole wheat flour, 720g of water (autolysed for about an hour), 200g of starter, 20g of fine sea salt. I mixed this well and then thirty minutes later I added 100g of hemp hearts, 100g of brown flax seeds, 100g of oat bran (all three were toasted), 25g of chia seeds and 50g of amber honey. I gave it all a good mix and did so again thirty minutes later. But it was already late and the night's scotch was starting to make me sleepy! I decided to leave it on the counter for the night given the amount of additions.. it looked like this..

By the next morning I woke up to this..

It looked good and obviously rose well. But had little structure as I didn't give it much by way of stretch and folds.  I thought of it as a no-knead experiment.. I poured it  out on my bench and it  deflated a fair amount in the process despite my best gentle efforts. I pre-shaped and then shaped it into a few loaves to proof in baskets. I left them on the counter for almost four hours and they probably rose around 75% or so.. i always find it hard to know for sure..

Loading the proofed loaf into the combo cooker.. as I put it in the basket seam side down I didn't score the loaf.. (probably should have just the same)..

Here they are out of the oven..

Here's the crumb shot..

The aroma while they baked was earthy and great. The crumb is dense but not overly wet or under-cooked. It's just not open and is heavy.  It's very tasty, good and better toasted, but not ideal.

So my question is to ask: is this more about too much additives by weight of dough, or process? Can you make a more open/lighter crumb with this much in additions or did I cross the limit and added too much? Or was this about process, and by not creating structure with stretch and folds and making this an overnight no-knead that the outcome was inevitable?

Thanks in advance.. bread1965!

Well, this is my sixth attempt at making a more open crumb per Trevor's book. I'm not getting the wide open crumb Trevor does, but I'm enjoying some mighty good breads along the way. This is this weekend's bake.. first the pictures.

This loaf was made with 100g of 100% hydration AP flour starter at peak, 200g water, 285g flour (70% bread flour, 30% whole wheat) and 6g fine sea salt. I gave the flour an hour autolyse before adding the starter and salt. I gave the dough three sets of stretch and folds thirty minutes apart. Aside from the initial mixing of the starter into the flour/water, the three stretch and folds sets were each four simple quarter turn of the bowl stretch and folds. I tried to build structure but keep it gentle.

From adding the starter I let it bulk for a total of almost seven hours to get it to a double of the dough.  I then tried to pour the dough onto the bench as gently as possible, but it deflated somewhat. I gave it a simple and gentle pre-shape and let it rest for ten minutes. I then shaped and loaded it into a basket. But I could also tell that the shaping process deflated the dough as well. I think next time I'm going to dramatically reduce bulk and leave most of the expansion to happen in the basket to reduce touching the dough after most of it's rise. Let's see if that helps. I loaded it in the the fridge for about 10 hours before the bake this morning. Here's the crumb..

The crumb is gently moist, has good body to it and great mouth feel. It's a very nice bread.. I'm getting there..

Bake happy.. bread1965!

Well, the battle continues as I wage my own personal HOL-E war..

Life has been hectic and I've not been baking as much as I'd like, but I was able to get a bake in this weekend.  Too many things going on so I ended up using my starter a bit past peak (started to fall). Which is amazing considering I fed it 12 hours earlier with just over 1:4:4 and kept it in a mid 70 degree warm cupboard spot above a heating vent for the night..

150g of 100% hydration starter using AP flour

300g water

425 flour (250g bread; 150g whole wheat; 25g buckwheat)

A short autolyse, the regular routine of stretch and folds and a very long bulk. I started around 10am, finished my stretch and folds by noon and at 3pm had to head out so I put it in the fridge (it looked like it had almost doubled at that point) and when I returned around 6pm did a quick shape and retarded overnight. I was trying to push my bulk further than normal. It didn't expand too much more over night - maybe 10/15% more.  it was just a bit more dough than my combo cooker could handle but I stuffed it in there and put the lid on.  I think I'll reduce the dough volume by about 20% to give the dough more space next time.

Overall little to complain about - crumb was good and I'm increasingly getting better at creating a more open crumb per Trevor's open crumb mastery method.. but I'm far from anything resembling mastery! This clearly is moving in the right direction and is the most open crumb I've made using Trevor's method. The longer bulk fermentation made a difference in helping opening up the crumb. The starter could have been used a bit sooner. Getting there..

I'm not sure I'm a buckwheat fan, but I had some flour and used it. I think I'll use that flour for crepes going forward. The battle continues..