The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

loaflove's blog

loaflove's picture
loaflove

Hi all

When my starter peaks but I'm not ready to mix my dough yet, can I put the starter in the fridge for about 8-10 hrs then mix my dough? Will I have to bring it back to room temp before I mix? 

thanks

LL

loaflove's picture
loaflove

75% hydration.  I'm getting better at handling high hydration doughs but don't like how it doesn't hold its shape well and spreads immediately after coming out of the fridge. The oven spring wasn't great either.  And to make matters worse the heavy inclusions weighed it down even more.  So next time , it's going to be max 73% hydration if there are heavy inclusions.  I find the crumb isn't much more open in 75% vs 73% maybe because the 75% needed more stretch and folds. I'd probably get better oven spring too if I did more sets.  I only do 4 sets.  

loaflove's picture
loaflove

This blog entry is more of a diary for me to keep track of my bakes . This morning I woke up feeling adventurous and inspired by Benito's psychedelic swirly loaf and decided to modify my pain de mie recipe which i had great success with the one and only time I tried it.   Now this is an IDY formula from Betty Hung's  French Pastry 101 book.  She is the owner of a french patisserie in Vancouver.  I also was motivated by wanting to use up some leftover red bean soup and matcha powder nearing its BBD..  so I decided  to make a red bean matcha swirl pain de mie.  I cooked down the red bean soup and mashed the beans until not many whole beans were left.  That left me with a paste when it cooled down.  My next problem was how to incorporate the matcha powder into half of the dough.  After kneading with the KA mixer i removed half the dough and tried to hand knead about one tablespoon of matcha into the other half of the dough, a task that i found very difficult as the powder wasn't incorporating nicely to give me a homogeneous green dough.  i added a bit of water and machine kneaded it  but ended up with more of a marble green and white dough rather than a nice solid green.  I didn't want to over knead so I left it as it was.  After the both doughs doubled in volume i sandwiched the red bean paste between the green marble and white dough and rolled it up, placed into pullman to rise for one hour or so.  Just waiting for it to rise now then I will bake it! Be right back after these messages.

Hi i'm back. Yikes i  proofed in oven using proof setting and dough reached its height in 45 min.  i need time to preheat oven and by that time the dough hit the lid of the pan.  hope it'll be ok , oven temp acting funny.  anyway timed for a 40 min bake. supp to be at 375.   will rotate half way thru.  will prob add extra time due to the moisture from the red bean paste may need more time. yikes i forgot to rotate the pan half way thru the 40 min bake.  rotated with 8 min left. i added 5 min to bake. I love the consistency of using a pullman pan but the loaf seems to have sunken a bit with cooling   hope it's ok. 

Now for the taste.  It tasted good toasted with butter but i don't taste much red bean or matcha.  I'll have to put a thicker layer of red bean next time.  i forgot to note that i subbed 5% with WW and used APF instead of bread flour as stated in formula.  I'm really happy with the crumb. You can't beat the predictability and the consistency of commercial yeast i have to admit. 

loaflove's picture
loaflove

Tue Mar 16

Goal:  to see how open of a crumb i can get with this formula or what kind of a crumb. 

Artisan SD made simple modified cinnamon swirl dough formula . Modified to 450g apf, 50g ww, 73% hydration. almost fridge cold water  no inclusions.  recipe says BF at 21 c for 8-10 hrs. but if   i don't want to be shaping at  2-4 am i better slow it down.  so i autolysed it at about 18c then decided if i used fridge cold water i better just do it at 21c. I'm hoping dough will be ready to shape at about 6 am.  

5pm autolyse

5:45 -6 started BF

6:30 first round of s and f

7:00 second round then had to go to costco

8:45 third round , didn't do a 4th  as BF was already into almost 3 hrs. (didn't want to de gas) 

Wed Mar 17

slept in  

7am dough at 6.5 c mark, was at 3.5 to start.  surrounding temp was about 19.5  started shaping routine, pull dough out rest 10 min, first shape, rest 10 min tighten , into fridge .  I decided to do a second shape.  got brave.  dough seemed pretty strong. 

6:55 started preheating dutch oven to 450, planning to do one straight score down batard. not too deep

7:28 scored then into oven lid on for 20 min , removed lid after 20 , dropped temp to 420 for 30 min .  with 12 min left in the 30 i dropped to 415.  opened oven to turn the pot.  kinda dark with 12 min left to go and the recipe asks for another 10 min baked out of the pot which i didn't used to do. but will try it to prevent gumminess . i tented the loaf for the last 10 min

Also made basic no knead foccacia from same book.  followed to the tee.  with temperature variations.  everyone loved it but i thought it was kinda heavy.  topped with zaatar , sesame seeds sea salt.  used 2TB of evoo instead of 3.  next time put in smaller pan and even out more.  ends were thinner this time

crumb shot:  def more open than the 70% hydration one wit 10% ww.  would still prefer a lighter crumb.  it's a bit heavy i think

 

loaflove's picture
loaflove

These 2 loaves started out the same shape, proofed in an oval bannetton but scored differently.  

loaflove's picture
loaflove

Bench resting.  Crap I forgot to put the cinnamon sugar inside.  I guess I'll just have to sprinkle it on top of the loaf before it goes into the oven. It won't be a "swirl" anymore.  I can't wait to bake this loaf.  The fermentation of the walnuts release a pretty purple hue into the dough around it.  

Subscribe to RSS - loaflove's blog