It has been a while since we made pizza and this is a shame after having it again on Sunday. We have made Giant Strides in making pizza the past couple of years. Once we had Biaco’s pizza. the best in the USA, we knew exactly what to do take ours to another level that more than rivals Chris Boaco’s masterpieces.
Okay, okay, I know it's not bread, but today's experimenting touches on a couple of interests to do with my bread baking. One, I'm trying out the new Ankarsrum mixer in all kinds of different ways, and two, I bought a bag of durum atta flour to play around with. And as we needed something for dinner tonight, and the garden is starting to produce a few things, I thought I'd make pasta!
I was gifted a starter recently that was kept at 100% hydration and I have been maintaining it in that hydration -- mostly because its in a tall narrow jar and it is easier to pour it out. I always wanted to try the 1-2-3 formulation but was intimidated mostly by the fact that I had no idea how long to proof the dough and have always followed a recipe from either Tartine or FWSY. Well, this weekend I decided to take the plunge and used my newly acquired starter and made myself a loaf of bread from scratch.
Since I was on a roll making bread, I thought I would make a simple loaf with just flour and no add-ins. The plan was to have a couple of these loaves as testers for baking in the portable pizza oven that one of my brothers made for us.
So here goes:
I have been away from baking due to an unexpected work commitment. After 6 and half weeks, I couldn't settle on what to make so I decided to make one multigrain flour mix and try different add-ins. It was interesting to see how the add-ins affected the hydration of the dough.
Basic Multigrain Mix
This week, I have baked two batches of Forkish's "Field Blend 2." The whole rye and whole wheat flours in both batches were milled in my Mock Mill KitchenAid attachment (Highly recommended!)
One batch was baked in Lodge Dutch Ovens at 475 dF for 50 minutes (30 covered, 20 uncovered). The other batch was baked on a baking stone with my usual oven steaming method at 460 dF with steam for 15 minutes, then at 435 dF convection bake for 30 minutes. The DO loaves are the boules. The hearth loaves are the bâtards.
It was very strange this week to see a new show called Year Million. This week’s episode was called. Hey Dude, Where’s my Body? It was all about Lucy and my fascination with trans humans and our eventual transition of our brains and identity of who we are to the cloud to become immortal - getting rid of our weak bodies that get diseased and kill us off today – not to mention cost a fortune to maintain…. only to die.
My wife is off to a Dragon Boat race this weekend. I won't describe what it is, you can look it up if you have the mind to. The three main things they do there are 1) race, 2) spend a lot of downtime between races and 3) eat and nap during the downtime. I thought that I'd add to the groaning table by baking a rather, um, large golden raisin-pecan WW bread for them.
This is a 50% wholewheat loaf at 83% hydration!
I rolled the final dough after shaping into a bowl of sesame and poppy seeds so the loaf has a uniform crust all over.
226g bread flour
210g wholewheat flour
355g water
55g wholewheat starter at around 100% hydration
9g salt
Directions:
Mix all the ingredients minus the salt and starter in a bowl until all the flour is dry. Leave to hydrate for a few hours. Sometimes I let autolyse overnight in the fridge.
Last week I finally got my larva rocks so this week decided to have a go. I made 3 batches of 2 loaves, 3 different breads that I often make, so nothing new there. Made dough yesterday and did the final proof overnight in the fridge. Preheated the oven for about 1 hour with larva rocks and DO. 15 minutes before I baked added container of steaming towells. So first to bake was my version of Field Blend #2, one batard in DO the other on the baking stone.
