Blog posts

Ken Forkish's “Pain au Levain” and “Overnight Country Brown”

September 2, 2013

I continued my test baking of the formulas in Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast last weekend. I baked two new (to me) formulas. One calls for an overnight bulk fermentation and the other for overnight cold retardation of the shaped loaves.

This is my wife favorite recipe and pretty simple. The recipe is from german baking supply company Bäko Gruppe Nord.

Pane Olivia:

Bread flour ---------------------------------1000g

Water --------------------------------------- 720g

Fresh yeast/ instant yeast -------------- 15g / 6g instant yeast

Salt ----------------------------------------- 22g

Sliced olives ------------------------------ 100g

Sun-dried tomatos ---------------------- 150g

Knead all ingredients except Salt,Olives and Sun-dried tomatos on first/low speed for 4-5 min.

My first attempt at making black bread. I used the recipe from Gerhard Kellner's website ketex.de. Google translate worked great at making it a useful recipe. The rest I used Hanseata's guide to German flour and US equivalents.

Having gone through this recipe now I would suggest the following -

1. Soak the old crumbs first and smash them throughly - I found the pieces absorbed too much water and let some out after smash.

2. Soak nuts in a shallower bowl - the nuts at the top of a higher bowl didn't absorb as much water.

David said he had not tried this so I decided to give it a shot. I do it with every SD I bake. I  remove from baskets and bake right from refrigerator. It worked fantastically well !  I did 4 loaves as a test one day and then the other 12 the next. I mixed the formula in batches of 4 loaves in my KA for one minute to moisten the flour and transferred  them one batch  on top of the other to  my 13 qt bowl to autolyse. I then did "in the bowl" s and f for 3 turns...this is 6 kilo of dough !  ( I am 5'2" and 115 # :) )  Did 2 s and f on the board.

This sourdough pizza is topped with tomato sauce, caramelized red onions, sauteed chicken thighs in cubes, goat's cheese and arugula.

280 grams of farina di grano tenero 'tipo 00'

165 grams of water

7 grams of salt

100 grams of 100% hydration sourdough (fed with high gluten bread flour).

This gives a total hydration of 65%. 

Mixed all ingredients, allowed half an hour of autolyse. The sourdough was fed two days before and kept in fridge after reaching peak activity. 

Finally a good blueberry year in the Swedish mountains! After three or four very poor berry years, the woods and the lower mountain slopes are carpeted with luscious, ripe blueberries- some of them the size of grapes. The taste is intense, heightened by slow ripening during the long days and short nights of the the sub-arctic summer. (I am a bit too far south for proper midnight sun, but close enough).

Having stacked the freezer with enough jam to last us for the winter as well as for another stretch of poor berry years, I wanted to use some fresh berries in a bread.

Somewhere in a previous post (I cant find the post) I said I had this manual and if anyone wanted it to contact me on pbdegraaf@tadaust.org.au    This email address will soon cease so anyone wanting a zip copy of the manual can get in touch on barbdegraaf1@gmail.com.    I have had quite a few requests so hate to think someone might lose out when @Tadaust is cancelled.

After two months of almost constant sun, rain showers and grey skies have returned to southern BC.  It is still lush and beautiful, and most every day we are still getting some lovely breaks in the clouds, but it is quite apparent that we'll be seeing less and less of Mr. Sun for a good long while.  

And the kids go back to school tomorrow.  The long evenings outside riding bikes or playing with friends are soon to be replaced with more studying, reading, cooking, and baking.  Sad to see summer go, but those are all good things too, in my book. :)

* * *

Like so many of you, I hate to throw away my sourdough starter, so I made pretzels for the first time.  They really turned out very well; a much better first time bake than some of my other first-time experiments!   My husband is a bit picky, and he really enjoyed them.  We ate one fresh out of the oven.  I tried a few things that were different than the recipe, and I think I will do the same the next time I make them.  I really wanted a recipe where the pretzels were boiled, so I found one that was fairly simple.  The shaping will take some practice, but

Just a couple loaves so I don't have to by store bought. Plain 20% Whole Wheat and a Calamata Loaf.

[URL=http://s1292.photobucket.com/user/Steelhead503/media/Baking/91bake1_zps77ab5fa7.jpg.html][/URL]

The plain is for me really, with a spot of Jam fits my coffee just right.