Jan 4, 2022.
This is a remake of #71, scaled for 3 clay pots (4" diameter at top), but will be baked in regular sized muffin cups.
Soaker:
Happy New Year everyone. I'm back in Switzerland after holidays and baked my first bread with the local Ruchmehl flour - a Swiss version of high extraction flour. I followed a very simple recipe from https://www.homebaking.at/ruchbrot/
So, I got this gorgeous new pan but was at a bit of a loss as to what to do as I had no recipe for it. I found this recipe here https://myloveofbaking.com/sourdough-sandwich-bread-pullman/ and it looks and tastes great!
It is time for another two pizza nights as it had been some time since our last pizzas. If you haven’t tried tuna on pizza you owe it to yourself to try it. Make sure you buy good Italian tuna in olive oil, not the North American canned tuna because the Italian tuna is so much better. Since trying it several years ago I just can’t eat other canned tuna anymore, they are just lacking something in both texture and flavour.
For 4 9” pizzas NY style thin crust 200 g each
Levain Build 100% hydration 35 g needed
So I found this volume measurement-based Cream cheese bun recipe. I set out to just covert the formula to mass measurements, However, I was slightly uncomfortable with the statement, "more flour may be needed." At that point, I set out to determine the baker percentage and hydration. At this point, it became crystal clear why the formula might need "more flour." I determined (if my mathematics and assumptions are correct) over 90% hydration. I tweaked this on the front side for a more manageable 61% hydration. Seeing as the recipe called for a yield of 30 buns.
Felila posted a link to an article in the Washington Post newspaper on baking with a newly developed flour, Kernza. During the summer I visited with a friend in Vermont who was gifted a small bag of Kernza flour, apparently promotional as the one pound bag has no markings on it other than the Land Institute logo and "Kernza Perennial Grain Flour". Not even the weight of the contents. And handed it over to me.
Ok, so it took me WAY too long to make this after salivating over all of Benny's iterations of his lovely Hokkaido loaves, but I finally did it. Thanks to Benny's very detailed and clear instructions, my first Hokkaido loaf was a success (though I need to get some of his super yeast so I can replicate the explosive rise he gets!)
We had some voracious bread eaters staying over Christmas (always nice to see your bread consumed enthusiastically!), so I needed to replenish supplies rapidly.
I decided upon a variation of Gavin's 100% freshly ground WW loaf, for which he kindly provided the recipe here.
Inspiration
My wife asked for a bostock dessert for the holidays. A bostock seems to be slices of day-old brioche, brushed with simple syrup, spread with frangipane and almond slices, and baked again. A frangipane is almond meal with sugar, eggs and butter.
My final bake of 2021, a bit overproofed I’d say based on the bit of spreading. We’ll see when it is sliced, it could also have more hydration than the flours could take, that is another possibility to explain the spread. Without the porridge the hydration is 80% with the porridge the hydration is over 100%.
Unfortunately I didn’t weigh the grains, black sesame seeds with the water and milk in the pot prior to cooking them, so I don’t know what the final weight was since I had to add quite a bit more milk to compensate for the water cooking off.
