Danni3ll3's blog

PS. Anyone else using Safari and found that the icons for inserting pictures disappeared when putting up a blog post? I had to use Opera to put the pictures in and now I am back using Safari. Under the edit button, they are back. Weird!

My daughter has rheumatoid/psoriatic arthritis and decided to try going gluten free to see if it would help her pain and fatigue. We have a wonderful gluten free bakery here but things are rather expensive and I found that their rolls went hard after one day. When I did some research on TFL, I came across this recipe for Gluten Free Flax Bread. When the OP said that her family couldn't tell the difference between the gluten free and the regular bread, I decided to give it a shot.

Well, for a first try, I don't think it turned out too bad. I didn't realize until after I put the yeast in, however, that the recipe called for ADY and I put in instant. That might explain why my dough was rising like a bat out of hell. What was supposed to take around 80 minutes happened in 45. I was trying to heat up my oven as fast as I could to get the dough in it but I think it over proofed it because it collapsed somewhat when it came out of the dutch oven.

Even with the loaf being somewhat flattened in spots, it tastes really good. I was quite surprised. It even tasted better than the rolls from the gluten free bakery. So I need to get some ADY and try again. I also need to figure out how much to let this rise. Maybe when the dough starts showing some holes at the top is the right time to bake. Mine actually had a pretty big canyon going into the oven. 

The crumb isn't great but it could be worse.

At the Health Food Store, I discovered whole Kamut/khorasan grains so I decided to sprout them and include them in a loaf. I also love the moisture I get from adding porridge flakes to my bread so that got included too as well as whole grain Kamut flour. So here is what I came up with:

Measure out 100 g of Kamut berries and spout them over two days.

The day before, take 5 grams of rye starter and add 5 g of dark rye and 5 g of water. Let double, then add 10 g of dark rye and 10 g of water. Let double again, then add 30 g of dark rye, 120 g of unbleached flour and 120 g of water. Let rise till double (~12 hours or so). This makes an 80% hydration starter (à la Forkish).

The picture below is actually my NFNM starter that I keep in the fridge. I just refreshed it. 

Toast 50 g of golden flax seeds in a frying pan (watch out for the flying seeds) and add them to 100 of Kamut flakes. Soak both together overnight in 300 g of boiling water.

Autolyse the sprouted berries, the soaked Kamut flakes and flax seeds, 678 g of unbleached flour, 194 g of whole grain Kamut flour, 96 g of dark rye with 550 g of water.

I put the water in first, then add the sprouted grains and the soaked seeds and stir well. Then I add the flour. I find this distributes everything more evenly.

Then, add in 23 g fine sea salt, 275 g levain and 60 g water. Use the pinch and fold method to integrate everything well.

Do four sets of 4-7 folds a half hour apart.

Let rise until double.

Divide into two loaves using the letter fold method and let rest for a half hour. Shape into loaves and put into floured baskets.

Put into plastic bags and retard in the fridge for 12-14 hours. Bake as usual in preheated Dutch ovens at 500F for 20 minutes, 450F for 10 minutes and then 25 minutes with the lid off.

Here is the coveted crumb shot.

We had some with dinner tonight and it was delicious with garlic butter.

I doubled the recipe and made 4 loaves. One of us and 3 for the soup kitchen. I think they are going to be happy with this one.

Since I baked earlier in the week, I decided to simplify my weekend and make a yeast bread that would not tie me to the kitchen for most of the day. Flipping through FWSY, I settled on the 50% Wholewheat with Bigga. 

I made this bread almost a year ago and redoing this weekend made me realize how much more confident I have become when it comes to baking bread. I no longer follow every single step the way Forkish lays them out in his book. I dirtied a lot less dishes and simplified steps. I also felt confident in using cold flour and water to slow down the dough to allow me several hours away from the house. I watched the dough, not the clock. I also learned that I hate scoring dough that hasn't just come out of the fridge. All of these I learned here so I am very grateful to all of you. Thank you! You are an amazing community!

The recipe is one that incorporates sourdough with real dried fruit instead of a bunch of candied pretend fruit. I can't remember how I stumbled on this but it sounded very good to me and not having made fruitcake before, I didn't have preconceived notions so I was open to any idea.

The full link is here. I checked for a copyright and not seeing any, I thought I would repost the recipe here but the full credit for the recipe belongs to the linked page. I didn't use organic fruit or ingredients for the most part since they were unavailable to me but I tried to stick to the spirit of the recipe as much as possible. Pictures included are my own.

What You'll Need

2 medium size loaf cakes

1 cup organic golden raisins

1 cup organic dried currants

½ cup organic dried cranberries

½ cup organic dried blueberries

½ cup organic dried cherries

 ½ cup organic, dried, unsulphured apricots 

1 cup golden rum or brandy 

Zest of one organic lemon

Zest of one organic orange

1½ cups organic whole wheat flour

1½ cups organic apple juice or cider (not to all be used at once) 

½ cup sourdough starter, fed in the last 12 hours

1 cup organic, unsalted butter 

1 cup rapadura or another unrefined sugar (no honey or maple syrup)

¼ tsp. ground clove

½ tsp. ground allspice

1 tsp. ground cinnamon 

1 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. unrefined sea salt

1 tsp. aluminum-free baking soda

3 free-range, organic eggs  

1 cup chopped, toasted pecans

1/2 cup chopped, toasted walnuts

Extra butter for buttering loaf pans 

Brandy for basting

1. In a medium size bowl combine dried fruit, lemon and orange zest and 1 cup of golden rum (I used Brandy). Cover and allow to sit overnight.

2. For your sourdough sponge, combine flour, 1 cup apple juice and sourdough starter. Cover and allow to ferment overnight or for at least 8 hours, but preferably no longer than 12.

1. Mix together macerated fruit, including liquid, butter, sugar, the spices, salt and the remaining half cup of apple juice in a large, non-reactive pot. Heat over medium, to medium high heat until mixture begins to boil. Reduce heat and allow ingredients to simmer for approximately 15-20 minutes or until you have a thick syrupy mixture. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 300°F. Butter loaf pans and line bottom with parchment paper.* While the oven heats up, allow the fruit mixture to cool for at least 15-30 minutes. Alternatively you could do this step a day ahead of time and then reheat the mixture to room temperature when you are ready to use it. 

* I've used a variety of different shape dishes to bake my fruitcake in. My favorite being small, 4" wide ramekins to make individual size fruitcakes. The smaller dishes require less baking time. In the case of the ramekin size that you can see in the pictures, the cake was done baking at about an hour.  I always line the bottom with parchment so I'm guaranteed the cake won't stick and will easily come out. There is nothing worse than going through all the baking effort only to have your end product stuck in the baking pan.

3. Add the sponge to the cooled fruit in the pot and then sprinkle the baking soda over top. Quickly stir everything together, making sure to well incorporate the baking soda and evenly distribute the fruit.

4. Stir in eggs one at a time until completely incorporated, then fold in the toasted nuts.

5. Pour half of batter into each prepared baking pan.*

*If you are experimenting with different size dishes you can fill them to about 1/3" from the top. This cake does not rise much.  

6. Bake loaf pans in preheated oven for 1 hour and 20 minute. Check for doneness a little over an hour, but most likely they will take longer. They are done when a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

7. Immediately baste cakes with brandy (I used rum), then allow to cool completely before removing from pans.

8. Store in an airtight container. Check on fruitcake every couple of days, if it feels dry baste with more brandy. These cakes are best if allowed to age for 2 - 3 weeks before eating. 

Enjoy!

I think we might dig into the half filled pan a little sooner than in 2 or 3 weeks just to get a taste. ;-)

ETA I have a question about storage. Can I leave the fruitcake in the ceramic loaf pans they were baked in and just wrap them up tightly? I searched the web and couldn't find an answer. Thanks! 

Well, I am not too sure what to think of this bread. It feels a bit like I baked four bricks. 

I followed the recipe exactly as written in Tartine 3 except for the baking part where I gradually reduced the baking temperature and covered the loaves for the first part of the bake as per DAB and Cedar Mountain. Oh and I lightly toasted the seeds. 

They are now wrapped up in parchment, foil and plastic wrap. I am letting them sit till tomorrow where I will have a taste. Hopefully they taste fine as some are going to the soup kitchen as well. 

Interesting to note that the loaves had 0 rise in the fridge and 0 rise in the oven. They did rise some before I put them in the fridge so my next attempt will be to let the loaves rise to the top before putting them in the fridge. 

I will also need to get 2 regular metal loaf pans so that I can get a higher loaf. These were baked in smaller loaf pans and I filled 3 of them about 3/4 full and the last had only enough dough for half full so these are pretty slim. 

That half full loaf is going to be kept for grating into my version of Rene's Meta Loaf which is anothe recipe in Tartine 3.  I think I will use the quantities and the ingredients of one of my other recipes but sub out the seeds for the grated bread. 

Well this is a redo of last week's bread with a few changes. Unfortunately, I don't feel like this was an improvement. 

The recipe is the same as last week with the following changes:

I sprouted the 75 g of Buckwheat groats rather than toasting and soaking them. 

I reduced the amount of water by 50 g. 

I added 1tsp of toasted sesame oil.

Bulk fermentation was about an hour shorter as the dough rose faster this week.

Proofing in the fridge was longer because I slept through my planned bake time.

Positives: The bread smelled amazing while baking. You could really smell the sesame. 

The crust colored up nicely. I hit a very dark bake on it. I wonder if the sprouted groats or the sesame oil caused that. 

Negatives or changes needed: The dough was still way too wet. Maybe soaking the seeds isn't such a great idea. In the future, either I soak the seeds and reduce hydration to 600 g or I leave it at 700 g and not soak the seeds. Maybe even doing the autolyse with 600 g of water and adding if necessary during the final mix might be a thought. That way, I can control the dough hydration better. 

The loaf feels very heavy and it had even less oven rise than last week. I am thinking of increasing the amount of levain to 275 g as I had such good success with that in Brenda's Oat and Seed Bread. I also didn't soak the seeds in that bread so that might be a factor that affects oven spring. 

These loaves are going to the soup kitchen so no crumb shot. I think that in spite of not turning out exactly  as I wanted, they will still be tasty and healthy. 

This bread was literally unplanned. I had started doing my builds of levain for this weekend's loaves when my daughter asked if I could make a couple of loaves for a friend that was in need. She wanted something healthy with seeds. So after weighing out the seeds I needed for my other loaves, this is what I came up with.

Levain - I took 30 g of my starter from the second build and fed it 30 g wholewheat, 120 g unbleached flour and 120 g warm water. I let it rise for about 6 hours. 

Seeds - I toasted 25 g black sesame seeds, 30 g sunflower seeds, 50 g pumpkin seeds, and 50 g hemp hearts. 

Soaker - I poured 250 g of boiling water over 100 g rolled oats and let cool while the levain was doing its thing. 

Autolyse - To 600 g of warm water, I added the Oat soaker, the seeds, 678 g unbleached flour, 194 g whole grain wheat flour, and 96 g dark rye flour. 

Final Mix - After the autolyse, I added 22 g salt, 275 g of levain (80% hydration), and found that the dough needed and extra 80 g of water. 

Fermentation - I did four sets of many folds 1/2 hour apart. I let the dough then rise until double which took 5.5 hours in my oven with the light on and the door cracked open. 

Divide and rest - I split the dough into two on a floured counter, preshaped it using the envelope fold method, and let it rest 15 minutes. I then did the final shaping and popped them into rice floured baskets. 

Proofing - The baskets went into ziplock bags and into the fridge for a cold rise of 11.25 hours. 

Baking - I turned out the loaves on a cornmeal dusted counter, scored the loaves with a sort of a D shape and put them in Dutch ovens lined with parchment circles. I baked as usual for 20 minutes at 500 F, 10 minutes at 450 F and then another 25 minutes with the lid off. 

I was pretty darn pleased with these unplanned loaves and thought these are perfect for Homemade Bread Day. I got great oven rise and they sure smelled good. I would expect the crumb to be pretty nice too. I plan to make these again for us one day. 

I got my inspiration for this bread from Cedar Mountain's Khorasan Spelt Seeded Bread. I was totally impressed with the crumb and look of that bread and decided to make something similar with the flours and seeds I had in the house. 

Levain - Build up to 230 g of 80% levain (132 g flour/98 g water) in 3 stages from my NFNM starter. I ended up using a tad more not to waste what was in the jar. 

Add-ins - Toast 50 g chopped almonds, 50 g pumpkin seeds, 50 g black sesame seeds, 50 g sunflower seeds, and 75 g Buckwheat groats in a frying pan. Pour 300 g of nearly boiling water over seeds and soak 15 minutes. Drain but reserve soaking water for autolyse. 

Autolyse - Mix all add-ins with 750 g water (next time I will reduce this to 700 g) and 678 g unbleached bread flour, 194 g wholewheat flour, 48 g Buckwheat flour and 48 g sprouted Buckwheat flour. The plan was to add in also a teaspoon of walnut oil but it turned out to be old so I didn't want to risk using rancid oil. Let sit for 30 minutes. 

Mix - Add in 22 g sea salt and 240 g of 7 hour old levain. I used pinching and folding to incorporate everything. The dough felt very hydrated. 

Ferment - I gave the dough 4 sets of many folds over the next few hours. We went out to dinner in the middle of this so timing between sets was not consistent. Dough fermented for 7 hour, some at 72 F and some st 82F, until it was 2.5 times the original volume. 

Divide and rest - I split the dough in two and did a very loose preshape. I let it rest 10 minutes and then had fun trying to do the final shaping due to it being so wet. It was hard to get a tight skin on it and I had to redo it several times to get it to the point it had somewhat of a skin. 

Proof - I popped the dough into the baskets and then into the fridge for a 13 hour proof. 

Bake - Baked at 500F for 20 minutes in preheated Dutch ovens, 10 minutes at 450F and another 20 minutes with the lid off until internal temp was 206F. 

The loaves didn't have a huge oven spring but the crumb actually turned out very nice. I love the flavour too. I am thinking of redoing this next week with the reduced hydration and adding some nut or sesame oil. 

I was very pleased with last week's experiment so I decided to try using a single variety of whole grain flour with the same type of flake or grain. I also made an extra 2 loaves to give away to friends (posting on Facebook earns you people begging for bread. Ha ha!)

So I made two using Spelt flour, a bit of sprouted spelt flour and spelt flakes, two more using Kamut flour, a bit of sprouted wheat flour and Kamut flakes, and last but not least, white wholewheat with a bit of sprouted wheat flour and bulgur. I am rather surprised at how consistent the loaves turned out in spite of using different flours. 

I am posting the recipe for the Spelt with the ingredients for the other two in brackets since the quantities were the same for all. 

Levain. Took 3 grams of my NFNM starter from the fridge and built it up to 25 grams over two feedings. I then added 100 g unbleached flour, 25 g wholewheat flour and 100 g warm water for an 80% levain. I let that rise for 7 hours ( I got up at 5 am to feed the silly thing). 

Soakers. I mixed 100 g of spelt (Kamut, bulgur) flakes with 100 g very warm water and let sit overnight. 

Autolyse. I mixed all of the soaker with 684 g warm water, 604 g unbleached flour, 226 g Spelt (Kamut, White wholewheat) flour and 50g of sprouted Spelt (sprouted wholewheat-couldn't get sprouted Kamut, sprouted wholewheat) flour. I then let sit for one hour. 

Mix. I then added 22 g of salt and 216 g of the 80% levain. By pinching and folding, I was able to get everything incorporated. I did have to add a bit of water to the white wholewheat/bulgur dough because it felt much stiffer than the other two. 

Ferment. I let ferment for a total of 11 hours in my kitchen that is at 72F. I did 4 sets of folds an hour or so apart at the beginning of fermentation. The dough ended up rising between 2 1/2 and 3 times in volume. 

Divide and shape. I cut each dough into two on a floured counter and did a quick preshape using the envelope fold method. After resting 5-10 minutes, I did a final shape and put into floured baskets, seam side down. 

Proof. I then popped the baskets into the fridge for the night. 

Bake. The next morning, I heated up my oven to 500F and baked the Spelt loaves first in hot Dutch ovens. They had proofed 10 hours by then. I scored the loaves even though I was baking the seam side up to be able to tell them apart. Twenty minutes at 500, then 10 minutes at 450 and another 25 with the lid off. I baked the Kamut loaves next (11 hours proof) and the White Wholewheat with bulgur last (12hour proof). 

This method worked well for my schedule this weekend. It is basically the same as outlined by Forkish except for the overnight retard in the fridge. He proofs in the counter but I needed to get some sleep and I wondered how they would turn out with proofing in the fridge and baking cold.

I was surprised that the loaves weren't huge in the baskets as my experience with Spelt is that it sure speeds things up when it comes to proofing. The one thing I was very pleased with was the oven spring. Hopefully the crumb is nice too as well as the flavour.