leslieruf's blog

After my last attempt I decided to reduce the autolyse time and see if it helped.  I made 2 x 600gm loaves - one had 1 hour autolyse, the other had 2 hour autolyse.  I withheld 20 gms water in both and found this made a huge difference.  I did 100 SLAFs, rested 5 minutes then added salt and did another 100 SLAFs.  

I also shortened the rest periods between folds to 30 minutes - 1 fold before lamination and 3 afterwards.  Bulk ferment took in total six and a half hours for loaf 1 (1 hour autolyse) and 7 hours 40 minutes for loaf 2 (2 hour autolyse). Both loaves were shaped and left on bench for 30 minutes then retarded overnight.

Next day my bake started a little later than usual as I had an 8:15 appointment so overnight retard was about 14 hours. Baked at 240 deg C for 16 minutes in closed DO then lid off for another 16 minutes.

Top image is loaf 1.

Loaf 2.

Still getting to grips with my new oven and would have liked a bit more colour.

Crumb shot loaf 1

Crumb shot loaf 2

Side by side comparison

Looking at the side by side comparison, I think 1 hour autolyse (lower loaf) is better with my flour although I may try again another time.  Much happier with the crumb this time and dough seemed to have more strength to hold its shape.

It is a lovely bread and will get baked again I think.

Bake happy everyone

Leslie

a friend told me of this flour available for a brief time at our local supermarket

Well, another friend made a cakey slice and had real trouble and found the mixture much too wet.  so I decided to proceed with caution.  Hold back some water and bake 2 loaves (600 g each) side by side - one with flour as it and one with 1% added gluten.  I just made standard 1:2:3 doughs.

so here are the doughs at end of mix - autolyse 30 minutes, 100 SLAFs, add salt then another 120 SLAFs. 

dough 1 il Molino flour only

Initially held back 25 g water but added 10 g back to dough and the balance with the salt.  After autolyse dough looked quite unorganised but through the SLAFs became a lovely dough that  lovely smooth and non sticky.

dough 2 - il Molino + 1% gluten

The same process and added all the water. This dough was more extensible , softer and had more bubbles.

Both doughs had 4 sets of coil folds at 45 minute intervals then preshaped

and rested for 30 minutes. Final shaping was 6 hours after mixing. dough 1 on left, dough 2 on the right

Dough was left to proof and this took 1 hour 45 minutes and I then refrigerated dough for another hour 15 minutes (was dinner time) then both baked in preheated (@ 250°c) DOs for 15 mins lid on, 15 mins lid off at 230°c fan. 

crumb shot dough 1

dough 2

This flour made lovely dough and I am really glad I bought a couple of bags, one of which I have stored in the freezer. I am in process of moving so baking has to wait!

Does any one else know this Italian flour? I have never seen this flour before abut hope I can get it in future. I usually add 1% gluten but this flour alone was great!

Leslie

It’s been quite a while since I posted except for the CB earlier this week.  I pulled my starter out of the fridge on Sunday and did one refresh. Then 9:15 pm mixed the levain

9 g starter + 44 g water + 44 g flour and left on the bench over night.

Monday am popped it in the microwave to warm up as room temp was only 12°C, brrrrr. once it was nice and bubbly mixed final dough

335 g bread flour + 6 g gluten flour

94 g Durum

60 g freshly milled whole wheat

37 g freshly milled spelt

360 g water.

brief mix by hand followed by 100 SLAFs.  Added salt and an additional 10 g water followed by 120 SLAFs. Dough left to bulk ferment. After 45 minutes I did 1 set of coil folds  then 2 more an hour apart.  It was not warm so last hour or so the BF was done in microwave with door cracked open.  Once I had 30% increase in volume and bubbles were visible with a slight domed look I divided dough into 2 x 550 g loaves, pre shaped and rested for 30 minutes.  At 7:15 pm I decided dough was ready so baked in preheated DO for 15 minutes at 430°c fan with lid on and 15 minutes lid off.

Crumb shot

It is good to bake again.  happy baking everyone

Leslie

A couple of weeks ago I made the Tomato & Nigella seed loaf from Emanuel Hadjiandreou"s book "How to bake bread".  I was drooling over the photos and decided then I would make 2 more of these recipe's next bake.  So yesterday I prepped the levain in the morning and then about 2 pm started mixing dough.  I also did 300 slap and folds instead of 200.  It was about 31 deg C outside here, so I had to watch the dough carefully.  I won't detail method as it was fairly standard with 45 minutes between coil folds.  Bulk ferment until about 70% bigger, 20 minute rest after preshape and cold overnight proof.  All loaves were shaped and retarted 4 hours after mixing.

Beetroot bread was first up.  Lead photo

219 g bread flour

119 g water + extra 10 g

95 g grated raw beetroot

6 g olive oil

5 g salt

131 g 100% levain 

Interesting dough that was purple - and I added 10 g extra water as I felt it was a bit stiff.  half an hour after the start of bf, I realised I had forgotten to add the olive oil so added it with a lamination and carried on. The dough was lovely and silky 

Crumb shot - love the spots of red, wonder how purple dough turns into yellow bread!  Beetroot flavour is not obvious but maybe next meal ex freezer will be stronger.  so pretty!!

Cheese & herb Bread. 

191 g Bread flour 

128 g water

6 g salt

1 g chopped parlsey

106 g cheddar cheese (I used Tasty cheddar)

0.75 g chilli flakes (I chickened out and reduced this, it should have been 1 g)

142 g 100% levain

Lovely silky dough as well.  When I went to score before baking, the dough was very very firm. The smell when baking was amazing.

Crumb - disappointed I can't see the parsley.  maybe next time more and less finely chopped.  Cheese fairly strong in the bread, but because it was grated it has vanished into the crumb.  It is a little salty for my taste, maybe next time a standard cheddar might be better but will see what I think when the loaf has gone.     

Lastly I made 1:2:3 with Durum, rye, barley & potato flour

196 g bread flour

30 g barley flour

30 g rye flour

30 g durum flour

15 g potato flour

256 g water

6 g salt

9 g starter built to an 88 g levain (from recipe flour & water)

This was actually pretty wet and I did an extra 50 slap and folds.  Dough didn't rise much before shaping.  It spread a bit and you can see that I was still a bit short on dough strength.  Still it is a nice bread that I have made before (when it turned out better, oh well... still tastes good!).  The lid on DO wasn't shut properly and you can see the crust is a bit dull.

Crumb isn't too bad after all. 

Our summer is very hot with most days 28 - 32 deg C so I was happy things went so well.  The doughs had 14 hours in the fridge before baking.

A rainy day would be sooo nice, our last real rain was just before Christmas and we had 15 mm in January but spread over 3 days so it does not do much.   

Bake happy everyone.

Leslie

recipe by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou's book.  Inspired by Abe & Carole I had a go at this yesterday whilst making my 5 grain levain for the community bake.

Starter was refreshed the day before and in the evening I built the levain - 100% hydration with some bran included and left it overnight on the bench. 

Bake day was crazy - visitors in and out and bread on the go.

Mixed together 237 g flour & 6 g salt.  then I added 4 g nigella seed and went to get the celery seeds.  Oops, it is mustard seed.  What to do?  ok I have oregano (only 1 g as plant is tiny) and there was rosemary in the garden.  So I added 1 g finely chopped oregano and 1 g finely chopped rosemary.  Mixed with flour until well distributed. This is just another small  575 g loaf.    

Mixed together 24 g tomato paste (home made so not as strong as commercially made stuff), 6 g olive oil, 119 g water and 178 g levain.  To this I added the flour mix....  and mixed well.  Hadjiandreou mixes then rests 10 minutes, then does a series of folds at 10 minute intervals.  I decided to just do my usual 200 slap and folds to make sure I had enough gluten development.  I gave the dough 2 sets of stretch and folds 45 minutes apart.  At this point I decided I should follow instruction which had said bulk ferment 1 hour, shape and proof 3 - 6 hours.  So I patted dough out

it was a little poofy, so I folded sides to centre and rolled it up, popped in the banneton to proof

An hour and a half later it was like this

so I popped it in the fridge.  I wanted to bake it when I baked the 5 grain levain later in the day.  It was also fermenting much quicker than I expected.

An hour and a half later I turned the oven on, put the DOs in and left to preheat for an hour.  Here it is before I scored - a nice dough, hasn't spread much.  Not sure if it would have been better baked a little earlier though. 

So this was baked at 260 deg C for 15 minutes, then 15 minutes lid off at 225 deg C.  Don't seem to be able to get an ear at the moment :(   Still it baked up fine although I think there is now a hot spot in my oven.

Crumb shot

the colour is pretty true too.  An interesting flavour, had for lunch today with cold cuts and brie.  Not sure if it is the oregano or the rosemary coming through.

A good bake though, I will see how I feel about the flavour as I eat it and make adjustments then.  The celery seed would give a different flavour I think.  

Leslie

This was a repeat of this lovely bread, attempting to get more height and less spread.  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/58551/oaty-sourdough.  I also wanted to see if there was a difference between my two starters.

I scaled this to make just 1 smaller loaf.  The porridge was enough to make two lots of dough so I did a little experiment with my starters.  One I had converted to 60% hydration 3 weeks ago and it had been in the fridge all that time.  The other loaf used my standard 66% hydration starter that always lives in the fridge.  Both had been refreshed the day before and the l built a small 100% hydration starters in the evening with final build next morning using a bit of bran as part of the flour.  Levain matured for 7 - 8 hours before I used it.  Method was as my second attempt, with no lamination just coil folds. Dough hydration was 76% as opposed to 82% for the original.   The porridge also added to the hydration and I haven't calculated that.  The dough was very soft but manageable.  As I had to go out I popped the bulk fermenting dough in the fridge for about 3.5 hours. When I came home, I warmed it up for 30 minutes and this time did a preshape and rested 30 minutes before shaping.  It then had just over an hour on the bench before retarding over night. Baked at 240 deg C in two DOs at the same time for 15 mins lid on and 15 mins lid off.

I thought the 60% hydration starter dough was a little less sticky and easier to handle but the 66% hydration starter loaf had slightly better volume.

Is there a noticeable difference? in reality not much.  Flavour might be a tad different and I haven't checked that yet.  My crumb is no way as open as "fullproofbaking"  gets for this bread, but I am really happy with this bake. 

I will test my two starters again in a couple of weeks after they have been fed and left to see if the difference in hydration makes much difference in flavour. 

Leslie

I had some left over milled grain flour sitting in the fridge.   Need a brown bread!

So I started off weighing flour to see what sized loaf, the plan was for 600 g 1:2:3
9 gm kamut
45 g spelt
93 g whole wheat
30 g rye
ok,  need to make a bigger loaf than planned as I want whole grain below 50% and I had just enough levain ready to go.  So I added 217 g bread flour and 6 g gluten flour, autolysed with 245 g water and 21 g yeast water (warmed up from fridge) for 45 minutes.  Then added 133 g levain ( 100% hydration) and. did 100 SLAFs.  Added the 7.2 g salt + another 10 g yeast water. after another 105 SLAF I left the dough to bulk ferment. 4 sets of coil/ stretch & fold were done (dough was a a bit firm for the coils but I didn't want to increase hydration further. 3 hours after finishing the SLAFs I preshaped dough, rested 30 minutes then shaped and retarded over night in banneton in the fridge.  Nicely risen this morning and baked at 240°C in DO for 15 mins lid on and 15 mins lid off.

dough was lovely to work with although a little grainy from kamut. It held its shape well overnight although I did think it might overproof because of the yeast water.  Normally when I use YW I make a poolish but this time just added as part of the liquid. 

Flavour is lovely, couldn’t resist some for lunch yesterday before it was sliced and frozen. So perhaps a little more open with the YW, not sure, but it is definitely not a dense or heavy loaf.  Positive outcome, I will add some YW more often I think.  It wasn’t a big percentage either.  

Happy baking
Leslie

Came across this bread on Instagram posted by "fullproofbaking" - Milk & butter oat porridge sourdough.  I have attempted to follow her recipe, scaling it to make two loaves.  I tried to keep bakers percent as close as possible. This was baked on 31st December 2018.

29/12/18:  Refresh starter and convert offshoot to 100% hydration

30/12/18: 

8 am build levain – I needed 129 g 100% hydration

8:15 am Toasted 76 g chopped whole rolled oats (Kirsten used quick oats) with 21 g butter, adding 165 g whole milk and gently cooking.  Removed from heat and added 63.5 g ice.  This cooled it and thinned the consistency to a manageable level as porridge was very thick.  (Next time I will just add water if preparing in advance). Set aside until needed.

13:15 pm Autolyse  for 2 hours (A little shorter than Kirsten’s as I am wary of long autolyse with the flours here)

Bread flour 559 g (78%)

AP flour 90 g (12.5%)  

54 g rye flour home milled (7.5%)  

gluten flour 14 g (2%)

583 g water (81.4%)

15:15 pm Mix final dough – added 129 g levain then did 100 SLAFs before adding 14g (2%) salt and then 158 g cooled porridge.  (I froze the remaining porridge and used it in the next bake) and did another 100 SLAFs to incorporate.  Dough was very soft.

16:15 pm one set of stretch and folds

17:00 pm As per instruction – gently stretched and laminated dough.

17:45 pm One set of stretch and folds

18:30 pm One final set of stretch and folds. 

I divided the dough at this point then left until it was about 50 – 75% increased in volume. This was about 1.5 hours.  The dough was shaped and brushed with egg wash.  One loaf was rolled in rolled oats then placed in banneton.  The other loaf was rolled in oat bran.  Both were left at room temperature for 30 minutes before retarding overnight.  Baked in the morning in DO at 240 deg C  for 15 minutes lid on and 15 minutes lid off with convection. 

Crumb shot.

We loved this bread.  Crust is soft and flavour is delicate but very very nice.  Crumb is nice but dough spread more than I wanted.

10/01/19  Attempt no. 2. 

The plan was to reduce hydration, try and build more strength, no lamination.  This time I made only one loaf, same formula and method except about I used all bread flour, did about 30 more SLAPs and no lamination.  I forgot to engage my brain and forgot to do the egg wash and oat  topping! DARN!! 

Once again it has spread and then I realised I had NOT reduced hydration at all.

 Crumb shot.

Well I will have to try again and I have already edited formula to give a lower hydration – as this is well over 84% hydration (if I calculated correctly) if you include the porridge liquid.

A bit despondent, can’t seem to get enough strength in this dough.  A 1:2:3 made with yeast water and sourdough with 20% rye went much better so maybe it isn’t my technique… will keep trying

Happy baking all

Leslie

What recipe to make? Ihave been dithering for days. so decided to make 2 sorts and see what I end up.  Sorry Abe, might try your suggestion another tme.

Crusty Rolls

320 g flour 

3/4 tspn yeast

1 tspn salt

283 g water. 

Mixed it all up then did slap and folds, but it was a dreadful dough. reread recipe from web - its a no knead recipe, duh! I added about extra 60 g flour, did about 100 Slafs, rested 10 minutes, did a few more, ok it is a bit better now.  Leave to double. did a set of stretch and folds after 30 minutes. Then once it had doubled it tipped out on bench, and as per insteuctions did bunch of s & f. divided dough into 9 approx 70 g balls, proofed and baked at 230° c for 25 minutes.

Really disorganised today, forgot to write timings down so this was pretty hit and miss.  They have baked up ok, tasted ok with soup for dinner. No crumbshot, balance frozen.  Just disappointed in size after baking. Maybe should have proofed longer.

Soft rolls.

268 g flour

30 g wholegrain spelt

18 g dried milk powder - nope, dont have any, leave it out!

50 g sugar (that looks a lot, don’t want sweet dough, 15 g will do)

1 tspn salt

1 tbspn instant yeast

113 g whole milk (used 122g, to make up for no milk powder - my reasoning was a bit off I think)

1 egg

57 g butter. (only had 50 g that was soft so went with that).

Tangzong 14 g flour+ 43 g milk + 43 g water. Cooked then cooled.

All ingredients placed in bowl and using mixer kneaded until window pane.  It took forever.. maybe 25 minutes in my Kenwood chef.

Left to ferment and it was very active. After about 60 minutes I divided into 9 approx 70 g pices and rolled into balls. Proofed maybe 40 minutes, brushed with egg wash and baked at 180° c for 25 minutes

Wow! what a different bake. here they are side by side soft roll and crusty

We haven’t tried one yet, cut it though to see the crumb and will eat later.  They are feather light!

Well I will make this again for sure, next time in a cake form so they touch and go upwards during proof and bake as per recipe.  I didn’t want that this time so will try again.  Taste test will dictate any modifications.  

It is funny doing 2 yeast bakes, it sure was different to SD.

Leslie

Haven't baked in a while as dealing with family health issues.  Finally ran out of bread so had to bake and I wanted something different.  I liked the bread I baked for 123 community bake so that was my starting point. Pictured loaf is based on 123 but flour mix is:

bread flour 65.5%, Kamut 14.5%, Spelt flour 10% Durum 10% and hydration ended up at 84% approx with 1.8% salt.  Usual 200 slap and folds followed by coil folds 4* 30 minutes apart. preshaped, rested 30 minutes, shaped and left on bench for an hour before retarding over night.  

Really nice light yellow crumb, soft and delicious.

2nd bread was also based on 123 buts different flours and seeds.

Bread flour 65%, Barley flour 10%, Rye flour 10%, durum flour 10% potato flour 10% and 2% salt. Hydration ended up at 89%. Toasted seeds: chia 6%, Quinoa 6% sesame seeds 6%  and ground flax seeds 6% plus 2% yoghurt.

Method as above, incorporating seeds at autolyse. only 30 minutes bench rest before retarding. 

Nice loaf you can really taste the seeds.  Not sure about quinoa though.

Final bake was a straight forward white Yeastwater/sourdough with overall hydration of 80%.

This sprung and bloomed beautifully. really happy with it.

Sorry, time has run out for me today and I have to run.  It was a great overall bake especially after a month of doing no baking.

Bake happy everyone

Leslie