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A few days ago, dvuong posted a beautiful image of Vienna bread with a Dutch Crunch topping applied. It was so beautiful I just had to try it for myself. I went straight to my copy of Reinharts BBA and followed the instructions for Vienna Bread and the following add in for the history and suggestions for Dutch Crunch. I learned that there are several variations including corn meal and farina that will work, providing different flavors.

...minus the yeast, with a hand chopped 100% skirt steak burger and her friend onion rings.

This is essentially a savory brioche dough. I didn't see the need for the yeast. There's a 24 hour preferment (I did most of it in the fridge,) another one for the dough, which is very highly developed by mixer. The long fermentations contribute a lot of flavor that would be missing due to the intensive mix, which is the thing that strengthens the dough and gives it its beautiful even crumb.

Poolish

250g all purpose flour
250g water
1/16 - 1/8 of a tsp yeast (more if it is cold, less if it is hot)

Mix together and leave for 12 hours.

Dough

300g white bread flour 
130g milk (scalded)
unsalted butter 6g
10g salt
3g instant yeast
a little less than 1/4 tsp of ascorbic acid

Ok, so I just made my first ever sourdough bread.  My pet (starter) took over a week to ferment since it's cool up here.  Surprisingly, my starter was perfect (thanks to some advice from my grandpa).  I let it sit in the fridge for about a week and, once we ran out of our other breads (I have a sister who bakes bread also), I decided it was time to bust out the starter and test my skills.  I followed some recipe on the Internet...probably not that smart but it seemed pretty legit and it was made in a really old-fashioned way.

This is My First Ciabatta Ever. The Preferment was not fermented thoroughly, which had some impact on the final color of the bread. The flavor is close to Hamelman's Baguette with poolish, very nutty, creamy! It is a hassle to go through, for the first time. Its a good change from wholegrain breads.

Today's bake was another 3 day sourdough with whole wheat and wheat germ.  The crumb wasn't as open as I'd like, but the crust was as lovely as usual with my Thai-style La Cloche, a terra cotta pot with lid.  I soak the lid before I heat up the pot and it steams the bread lovely.  The wheat germ soaked up a LOT of water and if I make this recipe again I will add more water.  It is delicious, interestingly, this time the sourdough is quite pronounced.  I was kind of nervous to do the refrigerated bulk ferment/retardation with the wheat germ because I had read ab

 (Apologies to Jimmy Buffett)

One of the many objectives of the formula development project is to gain understanding of the baking process.  I have found that nothing beats working with the same general dough over and over, with very minor variations to understand the impact of various elements of the baking process.

So when comments on my last entry wound around to "intensive mix" vs. "improved mix" and the somewhat weak crumb of my last loaf, I really wanted to give them full consideration.

It's been half term holiday week here; where has it all gone I'm asking, as I go back to work tomorrow.

I s to have spent much of the week working hard to tackle all the complex issues I have to deal with ready for next year.

A brief reflection on our trip to Bolton on Friday 18th February is quite calming and re-assuring that my job is a good one.   Unfortunately Faye was not in the "prize money" on this occasion, but we both had a great day out, and were very well treated by our hosts.

Hello,

Recalling Larry's wonderful cheese bread that we liked so much, I wanted to make [color=orange]cheddar cheese[/color] bagels (my husband's favorite bagel). We enjoyed these for breakfast today...so nice to have these warm treats on a cold, snowy day!

I followed Mr. Reinhart's Bagel formula in BBA, but added 172g of grated sharp cheddar to the flour mixture when mixing the dough.
I kneaded the dough by hand, and the some of the grated cheddar was still visible in the dough before baking.

I finally tried this recipe and I certainly was happy with the result. Thanks to Eric for the recipe.  It one of those that are on my repeat list certainly.  

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