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We had a combined leaving/welcome/Christmas celebration at work today, so I wanted to make a festive bake, something fruity, with a little spices. And Abe shared with me a yeasted recipe from a bread machine which seemed to tick all the boxes. Here is a rescaled version converted to sourdough with a stiff starter and a stiff preferment: https://fgbc.dk/13ja

This was a stressful bake. Mainly because lots of things did not go as planned and I had to think on my feet. I prefer mindless baking... thinking baking is stressful. The loaf came out nice though, a bit gummy, but nice.

I was thinking how I would blog about this bake, if I walked through the bake in chronological order, the blog post would get even more tedious than my normal blog posts. So, I think I will write a short summary about what went wrong and then write down the bake as it actually occurred without including the missteps along the way.

Because of the babka debacle from last weekend I had to come up with another bake for some friends.  I decided to bake this christmas cake again as it is really quite good.  I like the combination of the tart cranberries with the sweet honey crisp apples with the spices and rum in this cake.  I like to do a lemon drizzle icing more for the look than anything.

For three loaf pans

7.5 cups flour

2.5 tsp baking soda

1.25 tsp salt

3.75 cup vegetable oil

7.5 large eggs

3.75 cups granulated sugar

1.25 cups packed brown sugar

It's been a while since I posted any of my breads, but two recent bakes, inspired by Michael Wilson's post about Semola Rimacinata are worth sharing. 

presentando pasta madre, signorina Valentina, Bria. La figlia del signor Slow-Mo.

(presenting mother dough, Miss Valentina, Bria. The daughter of Mr. Slow-Mo)

Time to start adding various ingredients to give this loaf some character. Not sure what ingredients to add, I asked for ideas in a separate post:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66656/help-narrowing-down-ingredients-add-recipe

I love the taste that seeds impart to my sourdough breads both on the inside or outside of a loaf.  I love using black sesame seeds because they are sesame flavour amped up and great inside the loaf for that contrast in colour in the crumb.

Total Dough Weight 900 g

Total Flour 494 g 

Bread Flour 80%

Whole Red Fife 20%

Total Water 377.5 g 76% hydration

Salt 2% 10 g

Mix 

Bread flour 352 g

Whole Wheat 97 g

Water 320 g

Levain 115 g 

Salt 2% 10 g 

Diastatic Malt 0.5% 2.5 g

This is my third time baking semolina sourdough baguettes and I ran a bit short on the Semola rimacinata flour that I usually use for this. I also hadn’t baked a baguette in some time so I felt a bit rusty, but I think overall the bake went well.

These are likely a bit overproofed I’m guessing based on the so so ears. The kitchen was pretty warm and I didn’t account for how fast they would proof on the counter, that and my starter is now creating levains and dough that ferment more quickly. I will need to take this into account in the future.

I want to tell you a story about a special flour.

One day, I spotted a flour on the shelf of a local shop and it was a sparkling moment: an organic flour with 12% protein content with a greyish colour. Of course, I bought the flour, I had to try it right?

Well, I had some other types of bread listed on my TO DO list but I decided to use it to feed my lovely sourdough Maya.