I currently proof wholemeal sd loaves (approx weight 900gms) for between 4 and 6 hours in warm kitchen (22 degrees). What can I do to accelerate this slightly ? I look forward to hearing thoughts.
With thanks
A basic white bread with the addition of onion, garlic, cheese, green chili and bacon. An excellent breakfast bread when serving egg based dishes.
This bread was mixed in a KitchenAid "Ultra Power" stand mixer, instead of the K5SS equipped with a spiral hook (my preferred mixer). In addition, the absorption was low, making mixing difficult. Even so, after about 12 minutes of re-mixing at fairly high speed, the dough began to soften. Dough temperature dropped from 81° F to 79° F (probably due to convection cooling). The motor housing surface temperature had reached 102° F, which convinced me that it was a good time to cease re-mixing. It took 90 minutes for the loaf to rise to the proper height for baking.
I just took this out of the oven, and hoping that
when we cut it for lunch I will see excellent crumb. I was pleased that there was good oven spring on this one, so I do have my hopes up. I experimented a bit on this loaf and used more white flour than wheat, as was called for in the recipe. I also made enough for two loaves, so I froze this dough.
Here is my morning experiment... 85% hydration organic whole wheat/rye with soaked steel cut oats added in. I was pretty pleased with how they came out. I keep trying to get maximum flavor out of my sourdough... weaning myself off store bought AP flour! This dough smelled great as I mixed it.... and the oats (soaked overnight) gave the finished bread another layer of flavor and texture. I gave the dough a 3 hour bulk rise, then shaped it and gave it an overnight 8 hour rise in the fridge, with 1 more hour at room temp before baking.
After reading Reinhart's various and sundry compliments of the Poilane style, I thought it would be interesting to give it a try.
I made half of a batch ... I may post a crumb shot later today. The flavor is nice, but the crumb is very tight. You might see in the pic that there was some oven spring but not all that much ... I'm sure some of that is because WW is less extensible than breads based on white flours, but I'm fairly certain that some of it has to do with hydration.
I have been taking a Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Bread class on Craftsy and these loaves are from the rustic bread lesson. Craftsy is an online learning platform for a wide range of subjects such as knitting, baking & cooking, weaving, crochet, quilting, and much more.
So in tradition, to 'close the kitchen' for this year before the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations, I decided to bake two loaves of sourdough boules.
Straight forward recipe of starter, water, flour and salt. 12 hour fermentation, shaping and into the oven it went!
Pretty good close to the year right?
Between sips of the left over home brewed stout, the Haloumi cheese cbes and diced onions were folded into the Turmeric douh over three intervals of stretch and bench rests before being shaped and dropped into foil containers that allows for easy transportation as they were to be baked on our own the next day.
With drinks drained very quickly from the plastc cups, Derek then got busy with a quick rise white bread with black sesame which was eventually shaped into numerous shapes and sprinkled with not only black sesame but white sesame and poppy seeds.
Ever since I received my new toy I've become obsessed with using freshly milled flour in my bread baking. Since I was traveling last week for a job interview I didn't have any time to bake until this weekend so I refreshed my mother starter, created a levain using some of the refreshed starter and just to see what would happen, I added some sour cream in place of some of the water to make the levain.
