Cedarmountain's blog

When I began making bread a few years ago it was with a determination to bake nutritious and wholesome bread. What I did not fully understand or appreciate is the broad scope and variety, the many variables affecting the process, the simple and complex beauty of a well baked loaf of bread. And when I think of the countless varations of bread baked over thousands of years it is humbling to realize that each loaf I bake has very likely been baked before by someone else at another time. This was eloquently expressed in a blog comment by Andy (Syd-a) some years ago on TFL:

"I suppose the beauty in bread baking is often not the novelty but in the reproduction in as much a beautiful or faithful way to the old recipes and to add your own personal style to it.  I did nothing new with my baking today, but have made some ok bread...but nothing that hasn't been done by greater bakers previously." 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/34207/bread-according-ezekiel-49#comment-262728 

So, for today's bake, I too did nothing new but have made some ok bread... nothing that hasn't been done by greater bakers previously!

Turns out my idea for today's multigrain, multiseed sourdough bread has been done before by a bakery called Food for Life; they bake Ezekial Bread  (versions of this previously baked/posted by others on TFL; I baked a loaf a few weeks ago to see what it was like; it was ok) and a multigrain Genesis Bread - my bread today is a similar combination of sprouted and fresh milled grains, much the same ingredients but a different approach, as Andy says,  "....reproduction in as much a beautiful or faithful way to the old recipes and to add your own personal style to it"

I mixed and autolysed fresh milled, whole grain, organic rye, spelt, Marquis flour with organic white flour; then added sea salt and a young levain to start the bulk fermentation. After the first hour I added a porridge of cooked ground chia, millet, amaranth, quinoa, hemp, flax, sesame, cashews, almonds, basmati rice, steel cut oats, yellow corn, yellow peas, a soaker of coarse cracked pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, buckwheat and some mashed sprouted barley, oats, khorasan.  I estimate the FDH at 80%.  I cold proofed the loaves overnight and baked directly out of the fridge in pre-heated Creusets; covered 500 F for 25 minutes, 450 F for 10 minutes and uncovered 450 F for 20 minutes to finish.  I like this bread - it is on my short, short list at the top.

I don't know if this would be considered a traditional scone - perhaps a variation on a traditional scone?  Scone purists might even consider it an aberration.  I served these to a nice group of women at a Spring tea event a few years ago and several commented on how much they enjoyed the "biscuits", reminded them of scones!  In my thinking scones are more crumbly, tender whereas a good biscuit is fluffy, almost flaky soft...both benefit from minimal handling and lots of butter. For my "scones" today I was using up some extra fresh milled rye, spelt and Marquis wheat flour from yesterday's bread bake mixed with some organic all purpose white flour, baking powder, sea salt, a bit of sugar, some excess starter from yesterday, cubed pieces of frozen butter and enough buttermilk to make a shaggy dough.  I patted it down gently on a floured surface, folded it once and shaped into a round on a piece of parchment paper cut to fit the pre-heated heavy cast iron baking pan I was using and scored the pieces before baking at 400 F for 25 minutes.  Scone or biscuit, whatever you want to call it, they turned out nicely and taste like...a good scone!  

I served them warm with a wild blueberry preserve; sliced grapes, apples with a drizzle of raw fireweed honey, Sage Derby and Bergeron cheese.

...and this is the bread, started yesterday, cold proofed overnight and baked this morning before the scones - a 20% fresh milled whole grain dough with a coarse ground flax, chia, hemp, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin soaker. Still working on the scoring....

Common sense suggests to tweak bread recipe variables one at at time so as to be able to better isolate and understand the effect of each variable. That is my usual practice but this was a "let's try all this and see what happens" weekend bake.  

First of all, I received two flour sifters last week and decided it was time to get serious about milling and sifting my own high extraction flour.  With that in mind I decided to bake a variation of Chad Robertson's Tartine 3 "Ode to Bourdon" bread.  My bread is a mix of 500 g high extraction Marquis wheat /250 g whole grain Red Fife flour/ 250 g whole grain spelt/rye flour (substituted for the white whole wheat flour - I was hoping this would also balance out the hard red wheat flour). The autolyse was 3 hours at room temperature, 87% FDH.  I opted for a young levain to moderate what I expected to be a vigorous bulk ferment with all the whole grain flours; some of the sifted bran was used for the levain and some for coating the shaped loaves.  Bulk ferment was 3 hours; cold proof 10 hours.

And then the second tweak, after reading the recent post comments by Filomatic, Kat and Carole about Ecole internationale de boulangerie instructional videos, this one caught my attention:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn0INYBr1fA.  As Filomatic appreciated, there are some serious lame/blade skills on display but what intrigued me most was the explanation about the relationship between scoring and crumb structure. I decided to add yet another tweak to this bake and tried several of the scoring methods described and demonstrated in the video.  It's not as easy as the instructor makes it appear and my results were mixed, to say the least!  The boule opened up nicely, almost like the one in the video; my batard however looks completely random with only a slight resemblance to the example in the video.  Interesting to note the crumb structure is very uniform though.  And the bread tastes really good so it doesn't bother me as much that it doesn't have the same esthetic appeal as the Ecole internationale de boulangerie bread, just need more practice, more baking.

This is today's daily bread...made with rolled oats fermented overnight with levain and water before being mixed into a rye/spelt/Marquis wheat dough along with some chopped almonds; shaped loaves were dusted with sifted bran and some sesame seeds, cold proofed overnight and baked this morning direct from the fridge in pre-heated DOs. 

I was thinking about grass a few days ago while finishing the last lawn mowing of the season and while not really appreciating my lawn grass as such, was struck by the fact that wild grasses are the archetype for the many grains we use to make our bread.  Many species/strains of wheat and other grains can trace their origins as wild grasses that have been cultivated, modified and preserved over many years as food crops.  So, with that in mind, I baked what I decided to call "Grass Bread", as inspired by the grass roots of our modern grains. 

300 g fresh milled mix of organic rye/spelt/khorasan/Marquis wheat sifted to yield 250 g high extraction flour (bran set aside for coating the loaves); 750 g organic all purpose flour; mixed with 725 g water and autolysed for 2 hours at room temperature; then added 15 g sea salt, 250 g levain (4 hours, very active), mixed with a series of stretch/folds and set aside for a 4 1/2 hour bulk fermentation with more stretch/folds every 30 minutes for the first  2 hours; additions were mixed in after the second series of stretch/folds - 150 g cracked grain, steel cut oat porridge; 50 g cooked hulless oats; 50 g cooked hulless barley; 75 g cooked wild rice. FDH estimated at 85% after additions. Pre-shaped and rested for 1/2 hour then final shaped and cold-proofed overnight (10 hours).  Baked directly out of the fridge covered at 500 F for 25 minutes; 450 F for 10 minutes and then uncovered at 450 F for 20 minutes directly on the baking stone.  Oh, and almost forgot...before setting the loaves into the baskets I coated the loaves with some of the sifted bran, ground pumpkin and sunflower seeds (not grass, I know) and toasted hemp seeds (some would say "grass"!)  I am very happy with this bread. Of all the loaves I have baked this one is my absolute favourite - taste, texture, nutritional composition - who knew grass could be so good?

This bread is based on Chad Robertson's Tartine 3 brown rice porridge bread.  As Robertson says, "...combine well-cooked whole grain rice with a highly hydrated whole wheat dough and let the loaves fully ferment with natural leaven to make the nutrients contained within the finished bread readily available for digestion."  I opted to use organic black rice for its rich nutritional value and cut back on the total amount added to the dough to keep the bread a bit lighter; I also added a small amount of oat porridge for complimentary taste and texture.  The dough was mixed with 200g fresh milled, high extraction organic rye/Marquis wheat flour and 800g organic all purpose white flour autolysed with 750g filtered water for 1 hour; then 15g sea salt, 250g young levain was mixed/50 stretch and folds. After the second of four series of stretch/folds done every 30 minutes, 350g black rice porridge and 50g oat porridge was added. Bulk fermentation was 4 hours at room temperature; then pre-shaped and 1/2 hour rest before final shaping and cold-proofing for 10 hours. Baked covered for 25 minutes at 500 F; 10 minutes at 450 F and then uncovered for 20 minutes at 450 F.  The bread is very soft, chewy with a slight purple colour and a nice nutty, mellow flavour; sesame seeds and the sifted bran coating added an extra bit of flavour to the crust. 

Sourdough donuts....some coated with cinnamon sugar, some with a cardamom honey glaze.  I used an egg, milk, sugar, butter dough with a sourdough levain; slap and folded, proofed at room temperature for 5 hours; refrigerated over night; rolled/cut into rounds and proofed at room temperature for another 2 hours before deep frying at 350 F for about 2 minutes per side.  I didn't spend a lot of time folding and shaping each donut so they turned out pretty "rustic" looking but I think they tasted pretty good, nice soft bready texture too.   

Oat Flax and Sprouted Barley Sourdough

TFLers have blogged before about the therapeutic benefits of baking bread - this has been my daily bread over the past few months, nourishment for body and spirit in challenging times, my therapy....

200 g mix of fresh milled, organic rye, spelt and Marquis wheat sifted; 800 g organic all purpose white flour; 750 g filtered water; 15 g sea salt; 225 g levain;  200 g  porridge made with organic oat flakes, steel cut oats, fresh cracked brown flax; 150 g sprouted barley.  FDH estimate 85%. Cold proofed overnight and then baked covered 25 minutes, 500 F; 10 minutes, 450 F; uncovered 20 minutes, 450 F.  

This photo was taken at dawn a few days ago. It is a field of heritage Marquis wheat grown by Cedar Isle Farm. They have carefully nurtured an initial very small seed stock over a number of years and now have enough seed to grow Marquis wheat for a modest commercial harvest.  I saw this photo in their Late Spring Update e-newsletter and wanted to share it with the TFL community if for no other reason than it's a beautiful picture!  Here is the accompanying excerpt from the newsletter:

Late Spring Update 2018

    " ...planted our saved seed of heritage Marquis wheat again this spring, and the seedlings are flourishing. Take another look at the photograph (at the top), taken at dawn. Those tiny drops of moisture are not dew (condensation of moisture from the air), but guttation.  When the soil moisture is high, and there is little transpiration from the leaves because daily photosynthesis hasn't yet begun, water can accumulate in the roots, creating a slight root pressure that forces moisture to exude through special glands in the leaves.  Cool, eh?

Happy Spring from all of us at Cedar Isle Farm!

Jim "

Cedar Isle Farm - Organic Grains CSA

There are many reasons why people bake bread...for many it is a basic necessity of daily life to feed themselves and their families; for some it is a business while for others it is simply an enjoyable pastime, a hobby.  That's why I started baking bread a few years ago, just a hobby.  But after many loaves baked over the past few years I have come to appreciate there is much more to this hobby than I first thought; the reason I bake bread is because of the meditative and calming nature of the process, the honest and universally understood gesture of sharing fresh bread and of course, the simple pleasure of eating good bread. All this to say, bread baking is good for me, a process that takes me off the edge, calms and momentarily allows me time to breathe and think. 

I have struggled for many years with PTSD and all of the depression, anxiety, social stigma, anger, despair, isolation that goes with it. I have lost friends and comrades I served with to substance abuse and suicide because there has been little support, help or care available; more than 20 deaths by suicide in 2017 alone. But last month, after too many years of denial and inaction, hope....the government finally passed an amendment to the current workers' compensation legislation, a presumptive clause that presumes PTSD as an expected outcome for first responders rather than challenging and denying such claims. What's all this got to do with bread you ask?  Well, the last time I posted there wasn't much hope, now, with the new legislation there is.  So, for that reason, it seemed to me to be a good day to bake some Pretty Tasty Sourdough Bread.

• 200 g high extraction fresh milled rye and Marquis wheat
• 800 g organic all purpose flour
• 300 g porridge made with hulless oat berries, steel cut oats and cracked flax seeds
• 250 g young levain
• 20 g sea salt
• 750 g water

2 hour autolyse then an initial series of 50 stretch/folds to mix in the levain and salt.  Bulk fermentation for four hours with four series of stretch/folds every thirty minutes for the first two hours; porridge was mixed in after the second series of stretch/folds. I made two boules and set them in linen lined baskets to cold proof overnight.  The loaves were baked in pre-heated pots directly out of the fridge after 12 hours; covered at 500 F for 25 minutes then 450 F for 10 minutes; uncovered at 450 F for 18 minutes to finish.  I was happy to see the spring and scoring pattern when I removed the lids. The bread has a nice oat flavour and a chewy, soft crumb with bits of flax and hulless oats throughout.