DesigningWoman's blog

Dan has organized another community extravaganza and already, there are some beautiful loaves posted.

First build Thursday night; had lots of 100% hydration rye starter, so used that, which most certainly affected the finished loaves. Fed 12g at 1:2:2.

Friday morning, realized that I was out of bulgur/buckwheat, which I'd meant to use in place of the cracked rye, which I can't find here (matter of fact, finding "cracked" anything is a bit of a challenge). So did the second build (1:1:1) and retarded it until I could get the marketing done.

I'd mentioned to Abe that I was thinking of rosemary and onion for my next bake (working on shaping and scoring) and he came back with a suggestion for this lovely recipe for tomato bread by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou.

Of course, why not?

The first surprising thing was the quantity of levain: 300g of 100% levain for 400g of flour! And since I wanted two 700g-ish loaves, I found myself building 450g of levain over the course of two days, after which I left it to retard in the fridge.

Having successfully followed Abe's advice and restricted the cold retard to just the bulk fermentation, the next step seemed to figure out the best way to score for optimal rise/bloom/oven spring.

This was basically a rerun of the previous bake, except that the add-ins were ground dried clementine peel and poppy seeds, as well as the multi-grain scald.

I started off by blowing the pre-shape, rolled them into logs, rather than boules, which was my intent.

Still very much liking Wendy (Lazy Loafer)'s 1:2.8:4 formula, I've been trying to come up with a way to bake during the week, and I think we're getting close.

These are a 50/50 mix of T65/T110 (I believe T110 is roughly equivalent to first-clear flour), with 150g of rolled-grain scald (1:2 flakes:water) and a small handful of miscellaneous seeds (poppy and fennel, mostly). And some improvised bread spice.

Day 1 (very) late: Made the first stage of the levain, left it to ferment at room temperature until morning. Made the scald.

It must have been a good year! T65, which passes for bread flour here, has usually maxed out at around 11% protein. A few months ago, I found a bag at 12% and felt as though I'd struck gold. Well, I must have hit the mother lode, because this new T65 organic flour clocks in at 13%! So I bought a 2.5-kilo bag of it and have been happy as a clam.

Another recent find was heritage/heirloom stone-ground T80. I believe that T80 would pass for "high extraction" flour in the States; at any rate, it's got 11% protein. It has a lovely color and perfume.

Something about the holiday season and the general prettiness of them gave me a hankering to try my hand at challah bread. Mind you, I don't think I've had it since childhood, but I remember a golden, shreddable crumb under a toothsome crust.

TFL is loaded with all kinds of challah recipes and I finally decided upon zolablue's sourdough spin on Maggie Glezer's recipe, which seemed accessible enough for a relatively new baker and an absolute beginner when it comes to challah.