Skibum's blog

One of my favourite recipes on TFL has always been Floyd's blueberry cream cheese braid. I used a batch of pulla dough I had on the go for a half batch of the recipe. The fruit filling was 1/2 cup diced strawberry, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/4 cup diced raspberries, 2Tbs lemon juice, 1 Tbs icing sugar, 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar and 1Tbs corn starch. I cooked it down until it was a syrup and otherwise followed the published recipe. What can I say but YUMMM!!!

Happy baking, ski

My summer project has been to learn the batard shape and actually achieve an ear. So far, very mixed results, with a sort of ear on this bake. Getting the right timing on both bulk and proofing stages so that I can actually score with a lame has been surprisingly difficult with more failures than successes. I would go back to baking Forkish style boules, but my seams likely won't open. hmmmmm.

On the plus side, I have been tweaking my pulla recipe for natural levains, adding a little more egg, cardamom and sugar. I tried using yeast water levain only and it makes a tasty loaf, but I find I get better balance and volume using half YW and half liquid levain. The original yeasted recipe called for two bulk rises of about an hour before shaping, but I have found with the natural levains, I get better crumb and volume shaping after a single bulk rise, doubling the dough.

I was pleased to host our own Floydm, his wife and two children a little more than three weeks ago for a short visit as they were passing through. I invited them for, what else? Pulla and coffee. He said they liked the pulla so I guess I should have baked two loaves.

The loaf I baked for Floyd was a YW levain only and two bulk rises. The last loaf I baked was 50/50 YW and liquid levain, a single bulk rise before shaping and a much larger volume on more open crumb. Yummm!!!

Ready to bake

Voila

Formula:

180 g whole milked scalded

6 large cardamom pods, seeds removed and ground, add to hot milk

1/4 cup sugar plus 2 Tbs raw cane sugar, add to milk

When milk mixture cools down to 90F add

40 grams YW levain, 40 grams liquid levain. I am at 4,420 feet above sea level. At lower levels you may want to up the levain to 50/50 g's.

You can also use 11/2 tsp instant yeast, 40g water and 40 g flour

To the levain, milk mixture add:

75 grams egg. Two large eggs are about 100 grams, so I have left over for the egg wash

180 grams strong bread flour

Let this mix get happy covered at room temperature for 2 - 4 hours with natural levain and perhaps a half hour with yeast.

Add 120 g AP flour and beat to add

Add 44 g melted unsalted butter and beat until the dough is smooth and glossy

Add 5 g salt and another 120 g of AP flour or more until a smooth dough is formed. 

Allow to bulk rise until doubled, then divide the dough into three equal pieces and roll out into long tubes and braid. Why do you braid pulla? As I discovered, if shaped as a batard the crust is over baked before the inside is cooked. Oops!

Proof until about 1.5 times volume, brush twice with an egg wash, ( that left over egg) and sprinkle well with sugar.

Bake at 350F for 15 minutes with steam and another 15 - 25 minutes turning until the internal temperature is 195F+

Let cool for 20 minutes or so and enjoy a slice with a shmear of butter and strong cup of coffee.

Enjoy and happy baking!  Ski

I simply have not been able to make overnight work! The last time I tried, I finished the final bulk stretch at 5:30 pm and refrigerated it until 11:30 to slow things down. Here is what I had at 7:30 the next morning:

From 1 liter to more than four in about 8 hours. The loaves tasted fine, but were impossible to score, being so over proofed. To quote Mr. Forkish, " When the dough is nearly tripled it's original volume or possibly a bit less in winter, 12 to 15 hours after mixing it's time to divide." Time to change things up!

For this bake I mixed the levain in the evening and mixed the loaf in the morning. At 10:30 I began the bulk ferment, S&F's at 45 and 90 minutes and by noon I thought I would let things sit on the counter and see what happens. After a little more than 4 hours the dough had pretty much tripled:

So based on the volume recommendation it was time to divide and shape. My kitchen was between 70 and 72F for the entire process and I am of the opinion the radical shortening of proofing times is more than just temperature, as Ken's home kitchen for testing was 70F.

I believe there are other factors at play. Ken is in Portland, OR, more or less at sea level. I am 4,424 feet above sea level. While Portland will have coastal high humidity, my humidity is 51% right now. I recall that when I first started baking 'French' style breads at 67 percent hydration, I could not get all the flour incorporated and had to up hydration by nearly 5 percent initially. Now water boils at a lower temperature the higher you go and mine boils around 204F. Perhaps the altitude affects the way dough rises? I am speculating, but unless my levain is WAY stronger and faster than Ken's how do I reconcile 4 hours bulk vs 12 to 15??? I doubt that my levain is stronger and faster, but the dough sure does perform differently!

"Proofing time should be about four hours assuming a room temperature of 70F . . ."  Using the finger dent test I was fully proofed and ready to score and bake in 1:10. I have been proofing seam side up in brotforms and scoring prior to baking. This was the first time I have been able to successfully score with a lame. While I didn't get the ear, I did get good bloom and great oven spring. A couple of satisfying country blondes!!!

I baked a half of a recipe with the final loaves into the proofing forms at 430 grams each. After 1:10 proofing, baked for 13 minutes with steam and another 14 without and voila! Properly proofed and baked loaves:

Conclusions? Watch and listen to what the dough does. Apparently while temperature affects proofing times, I believe altitude and humidity, or perhaps lack of it may also have an effect.

I have had over proofing issues as well with David Snyder's excellent  San Joachin Sour Dough, being unable to score. I am not sure how I will resolve this one yet.

Satisfying loaves to produce and eat!!!

Happy baking! Ski

I meant to start this batch early yesterday, but welcomed an old friend from out of town in the morning, pushing bake my mixing schedule back. It was HOT here yesterday with the mercury touching 32C outside and my kitchen 24 - 25C. I am following David Snyder's San Joaquin Sourdough formula, but with the elevated temperatures, reduced time between folds to 20 minutes for the first 4 and down to 30 minutes in the bulk stage. After the first 30 minutes the dough had risen by nearly a half.

After the second fold at 90 minutes at 6:00 pm it was far too hot to consider turning on the oven to bake bread. My compromise was dividing and shaping as a batard as per the KAF video, but rather than rolling out to a pointed free loaf, rolled it out into a tube to fit my oval brotforms. Then it was cover and put into the fridge overnight. My 7:00 am the next morning my first finger poke test showed the loaves over proofed . . . 

The loaves turned out tasty and attractive, but even fresh out of the fridge they were impossible to score with the lame. Does a lame dull scoring dough??? I had to use my laser sharp serrated bread knife and still didn't get a good score.

It is cool and rainy here today with a 68F kitchen temp and I have another batch of SJSD on the go, this time using the full 30 and 45 minutes rests in the dough development stage. I will follow through with the formula and bake in the morning. For practice, I will divide the dough into three and roll out three smaller batards for practice. I really do enjoy the flavour, crust and crumb of this bread!!!

Happy baking folks!  Ski

PS a parting pulla shot, from sweet levain rather than YW

I am getting my chops down now on the Country Blonde. I like the flavour, crust and chew of the crumb. This was aslo my first attempt at David Snyder's San Jose Sour Dough. My SJSD needs work, but this is a nice tasting bread!  I need to work on my shaping and scoring. At these high ambient temperatures 45 minutes was too long and the loaf tough to score with a lame. Forty minutes would have been better.

Ah well, some nice tasting breads to eat and share with my neighbours. I delivered a couple of half loaves today and their little girl, six, ran inside with the goods yelling, Daddy, we have Brian bread! LOL! Made my day!!!

Happy baking folks!!! Ski

Satisfying to get a good result on my latest take 6. Takes 4 and 5 were over proofed with my new summer kitchen temperatures. All winter and spring my kitchen was a steady 68F Now that we have real summer it is running 73-75F and BOY does this temperature change mess with bulk rise and proofing schedules!

With take four, I took the bulk rise time down to 8 hours from the 12-14 hours Ken rec's @ 70F. WAY too long. I got up to check in at 4:00 am after 6.5 hours bulk and it was already gone.

Okay, for take five, we will try an all day country blonde: Start the levain at 6:00 am, mix at 12:00 pm, finish bulk at 7:00 pm and proof and bake at 9:30. Still WAY over proofed.

For this successful bake, I started the levain at noon and mixed at 5:00 pm. With 30 minutes after the first S&F, the dough had risen by more than 1/3, so I dropped the next rest to 20 minutes and the final 2 S&F's to 15 minutes rest. I then rested the dough for 45 minutes and did a final fold at 8:00 pm. The dough had nearly doubled by this time, so the only way to save things was into the fridge overnight.

In the morning two hours on the counter, shape and proof for 1:40 rather than the 3:30 -4:00 rec'd at 70F. This baked at 475F in a covered DO for 25 mins and a further 25 mins uncovered, turning at the half.

I really like this formula! Happy baking folks!!! Ski

I always enjoy this enriched sweet bread with a cup of good strong coffee -- anytime! I only changed up one thing from my last  back and that was shoe horning it into my oval brotform to proof. Proofing in a hard sided form resulted in more vertical rise vs proofing a braided loaf on a linen couche. I liked the result:

After proofing I egg wshed, sprinkled sugar and ground almond along with a few almond slices. Time for another slice!

Happy baking folks! Ski

Well, I thought I would try out my new oval shaped brotform and I like the result. Like my round form it is made for 500g of dough. I used a half of KF's formula, then divided it for the two small forms.

The dough has just been placed in the brotforms to proof. After 3 hours the dough had risen above the forms comfortable. Each loaf was 612 grams and perhaps the upper limit for these forms.

Once again the loaf in the round form stuck badly, so I have worked on that problem today. The only thing I changed up was a longer autolyse of 6 - 7 hours to see if that would open up the crumb. It didn't.

I think I over did the bulk ferment as it peaked then fell back somewhat. I did the final mix at 3:30 pm which was too early. By 7:00 am the bulk had fallen.

Happy baking folks, Ski

Well it was nearly a complete gong show, but fortunately the bread turned out nicely. I followed Ken Forkish's directions to the T this time with a now healthy and very active levain. I baked this a couple of weeks ago with a pretty new levain and also put the bulk ferment in the fridge overnight. A re-read of the formula revealed no refrigeration of the bulk fermentation. After an overnight on the counter, I had a huge volume of 80% hydration dough -- at least 3.5x grown in volume. 

After shaping I had my doubts the dough would fit into the banneton. My fears were confirmed.

Sometimes you need to read ALL of the instructions. At 80% hydration, this loaf stuck all around the top two canes that apparently were not well enough floured, overflowed the baking parchment and peel, stuck onto the counter and peel and barely fit into the DO. This was a half a OCB recipe. When I checked, Ken uses a 9" banneton and mine is barely six inches. Oops!!! I need a bigger banneton, or cut the formula to 1/3 from 1/2.

Fortunately the bread tastes great. I really like this recipe and with a healthy levain, a great flavour and chew.

Happy baking folks. Everyone has their gong show baking moments . . .   Ski

I LOVE this bread!!! I recently made two full batches with onion sliced so fine it disappears in the crumb. This time I followed the recipe to a T, for a change.

One of my best friends had a birthday recently and I thought the best thing I could send him was some New York style deli rye. I sent big Tom a loaf a year ago. Now Tom is well over 300 lbs and said the loaf lasted about two hours. Tom is also the best non commercial chef I have ever known with a gifted natural touch in the kitchen.

This time I sent him a couple of large 825g boules and one 560g boules, frozen and packaged and mailed express post. Mailed at 4:00 pm Monday it's credit Canada Post delivered the package to Tom today at 2:00 pm! His comment was, " I just had my first slice with butter and it is spectacular!"

Hey flattery will get you everywhere friends!!!

Happy baking, Ski