Blog posts

A fellow user asked a great question recently:  How does a baker tell when bulk-fermentation is finished?

Of course, I do not think we can begin to answer this question without firstly asking some other questions, like:  What is fermentation, and how does one measure it?  And why ferment in bulk in the first place?

My favourite question to ask baking classes or new baking apprentices is, what is bread?

I am a Jim Lahey disciple, philosophically speaking.  There are not many in the professional-baking community.

I will forever remember the coffee-bean-like smell of torrefied wheat bran emanating from the original Sullivan St while walking past on my way home at 3 a.m.

Our tradition has always been, since my daughter can remember, to have pizza on New Year’s Eve.  This year my daughter’s boy friend wasn’t able to attend so we put off the pizza until he could – on New Year’s Day.

So pizza was the first bake of 2013 and after Pure Ugly Panettone for the last bake of 2012, we wanted to start off right.  We went back to our real old non SD, non whole grain dough at the daughter’s request.  Seem’s like kids get anything they want now a days.

The last bake of 2012, panettone, was supposed to cap off a year (actually 11 months) of usually decent individual and different bakes with different formulas that numbered well over 100 – quite an achievement that deserved a year end spectacular panettone.  But alas, it was not to be.

Sadly, baking gremlins worked their evil spells as soon as the fine looking, up to that point, panettone, hit the oven.

This was developed from a list of ingredients lifted from the display case at Arizmendi Bakery, in San Francisco. I consulted a few other similar recipes to help out with proportions. The technique is basically a stretch-and-fold approach I lifted from some Tartine recipe in a magazine.

Levain

City loaf

100% flour, stone-ground wheat, 80% extraction rate

89.9% water

24% starter

2.76% salt

Percentage of flour pre-fermented.  15%.

Final dough temperature.  23.5°C.

Autolyse.  2h.

Bulk ferment.  4h30m - 5h.

Divide & rest.  20m - 30m.

Proof.  12h - 18h, at 8°C.

This baby is simply divine..

Although cranberries are sweet, they are offset by the maple syrup and it is not too sweet.

Yummy....

You need to start this the day before, but its still a easy recipe.

Wanted to share this success. Like you all, I hate discarding so much starter, so I've been experimenting with uses - pancakes, english muffins etc. Got the English Muffins to where I'm happy - more batter-like than dough is the secret. Emboldened by English Muffin success, I wanted to experiment with some bread. I tried this formula:

2 days before baking:

Fed  25g of my 100% starter with 50g each KAP and water = 125 G.