Blog posts

Today's bake followed Abel's method posted here.

The biga prep went well.  I put the flour in a large bowl and dissolved the yeast in the biga water.  Water was added to the flour 2 tbsp at a time and gently stirred with a knife.  I concentrated on pouring the water on dry flour to get as much distribution as possible.  The biga was nice and crumbly with no gluten development.

Yay, happy today. Made a rye/wheat mix bread today, I was in a hurry and thought "heck just try". So used unfed starter and put it straight into the mix. Did folds every 30mins, for about 2hrs, then bulk fermentation for 4 hrs, shaped and left in fridge for about 14hrs. It turned out really nicely, I think ;) Anyone experimented with non fed starter? It does speed the process up a lot and might be a nice option every now and then -  was I just lucky and beginners luck or just the rye or is there actually a chance that this would work with other sourdoughs too?

We are having Christmas dinner with my side of the family this evening and I offered to bring bread, of course.  My partner and I often make a meal out of roasted vegetables and butternut squash is in the rotation.  Some of these squashes are huge and more than we can eat at a sitting so we have leftovers.  Incorporating some of this into a bread seemed a good way of using up some leftover squash so I decided to make these rolls.

8 buns in 9” round pan

Ingredients

Sweet Stiff Starter 

I was very intrigued by Dan's CB post of the Portuguese Sweet Bread, but I didn't have all of the ingredients to properly attempt the recipe he posted.  I did think this would be a good way to use my new mixer with an enriched bread, though, so I instead decided to attempt the Portuguese Sweet Bread from King Arthur.

I followed the recipe exactly, substituting 1.33 Tbsp of Fleischmann's ADY for the preferred 1 Tbsp SAF Gold.

Dec. 18, 2021. 74th bake.

A remake of #72.  

I think the rye is detracting a bit from the sweetness, so next time I'll leave it out and increase the durum, BRM WW, and AP flours.

One of the things I enjoy about Christmas is the opportunity to bake without having to ask myself “How are we going to eat all of this?”  I can have fun baking and give the finished goods away as Christmas presents.  Yes, I know, bread can be gifted any day of the year; it somehow seems even more enjoyable this time of year.  

Whole Wheat Cranberry-Orange Country Loaf

I haven’t had tons of success with spelt in any great quantity, but didn’t want to give up on this ancient grain.  It seems to taste good when paired with Kamut aka khorasan also an ancient grain.  Gluten is made up of gliadin and glutenin.  Gliadin is the substance that gives the stretchy feel to dough, and glutenin provides the elasticity and the structure to ensure that it holds its shape.  While wheat has a balance of gliadin to glutenin , spelt has a higher ratio of gliadin to glutenin.

It seems to be a fashion here, but it was my turn to try out Benny's version of Eric's rye.

The taste was very mild, even though I used wholemeal rye flour. I think that perhaps my rye sour wasn't sour enough - started with a very sour 50g of rye starter so thought that 4 hours of 27 deg C would be enough to get a rye sour, it sure smelt sour but obviously needed more time to develop a stronger sour taste.

Texture was lovely, very soft and just like I'd expect for a deli loaf.

I recently picked up a Mockmill 200 and have started experimenting with fresh milled grain.  I have a basic Country Loaf that I make with 15% whole grain.  This bake used was my first time using Black Emmer from Janie's Mill.  The baked loaf had a nice sour tang.  I would say more acetic than lactic, but I'm not sure I can identify the difference yet.  The sliced bread definitely had a tangy aroma.  Took the loaf to a lunch work meeting and it went fast.  :-)

Levain

67.5g Bread Flour

84.4g Water

13.5g Mature Starter

Here I am, listening to this today, enjoying a strangely warm December afternoon while counting the days/hours until we head home (I'm somewhere near Boucherville) and going through my increasingly short Christmas bake list.