I am new to bread baking (about 9 months) and am glad to find a community of bakers, amateur and professional, that truly enjoy sharing their stories. I love the discussions about successful and not so successful baking adventures. I’ve quickly learned that there is no such thing as a bad loaf of bread if it has some of the baker’s heart and soul in it.
It was time to redo this recipe with a few tweaks. I toasted the buckwheat groats prior to milling into flour. And a few things were changed on the fly. I decided to use a set amount of water to soak the groats rather than soak them in an undetermined amount of water and drain them. I was very conservative with the water as my notes from the last time said that my dough was way too wet. Well that swung things in the other direction. I decided to add some honey as the main dough was quite stiff.
Followed some recommendations from Maurizio's recipe, adjusted the rest to suit my schedule/comfort zone. Feedback always welcome, I've only come so far with help from this community.
Oatmeal
50g quick oats soaked in water overnight then drained (used drained water for dough)
12g flax seeds, soaked with oats (4 tsp)
Dough
Whole Foods 365 Organic AP flour 450g (70%)
KAF whole wheat flour 150g (23%)
Jan 21, 2020. 17th TFL bake. Best so far.
Goal: 1200 g boule (fits in 1 gallon storage zipper bag), 90% home-milled flour, 10% AP flour, try more autolyse, reduce amount of Kamut, increase autolyse/soak, short ferment (not overnight).
9:15 am: Mix 354 g Prairie Gold HWSW, 91 g Kamut, 91 g HRWW, all home-milled, 429 g bottled spring water, 1/8 tablet of a 500 mg vitamin C tablet (approx 62.5 mg).
429 / ( 354 + 91 + 91 ) = 429 / 536 = 80% hydration.
~~ [1 hour, 55 minute autolyse/soak.]
Another day off, another baking adventure!
I don't have my notes with me as I write this, so I'll just give an overview.
After last weeks attempt at a basic french loaf, I went back to re-read a few things, including my copy of The Baker's Apprentice. This book has been a big part of my push to get into baking, and it includes a lot of great tips and ideas that are easy for me to get my head around.
My husband requested a recipe I'd made a few years back (before I got into sourdough) of kubaneh from the cookbook Golden. Since I now know a bit more about bread, I decided to make some slight changes. I didn't have time to convert to sourdough, but I did add 10% sourdough starter and added some whole wheat. It was even better than I remembered! Next time I'll convert the recipe to sourdough. This bread is baked in an 8-inch deep cake tin covered in tinfoil and the outside gets beautifully dark and caramelized. The burnt bits are the best part. Yum!
I bought some Glenn wheat berries from Kenter Canyon farm at the Atwater Village farmers market ( in Los Angeles). It was $2 per pound, not cheap but not too outrageous. The Glenn wheat is grown in Santa Rosa, California. I’m currently buying hard red spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains by mail, and I would like to transition to a more local supplier.
I came across this recipe a few weeks back. It talks about making a 40% hydrated starter to be left neglected for a few weeks while acid builds up and yeast permeates the starter. Later that "seed sourdough" is used as part of the bread recipe.
