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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.

This is the third time I followed Benito's version of Eric's favorite deli rye sourdough.  After the first two times, my biggest frustration was my inability to get the rye sour well incorporated with the bread flour after its initial development........enter my new toy.  My lovely wife got me an Ankarsrum mixer for Christmas, and even green-lighted me using it a bit early.

My two favorite kitchen appliances:

Nurnberger rye from Chicago Specialty Bakers:

 

Latvian rye from Racine Bakery:

 

Two rye mashes for upcoming Russian bread bakes. Both done together in the sous-vide bath.

First is a mash for Riga bread with homemade rye malt and T997 light rye; 2.5hrs at 66C:

Second made with Russian solod and home ground rye with the course bran sifted off; 5 hrs at 66C:

I just LOVE this technique of gluten development in two parts!! It is amazingly successful and completely eliminates all hands on except shaping . 

As an aside I do not shape my loaves . I dump out the dough cut it in half and pick up the long piece and drop it into my Batard  shaped cloth lined banneton. That’s it. The boule gets all four sides folded in and plopped down folded side down in the cloth lined banneton. No tightening no fuss no muss. 

and still kinda get away with it?  Answer - a lot.  

Background is rooted, but barely, in my recent enjoyment of an 80% PFF biga version.  I was refreshing the regularly neglected 75% mixed flour levain along with the workhorse 100% AP levain when I suddenly had this "brilliant" idea.  Why not change a few things at once so that I won't know what may have worked and what didn't?  

Things that changed, some not necessarily on purpose: