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mountaindog's picture
mountaindog

Spelt Muffins - any fruit

I posted this somewhere here a long time back, but thought I'd post again to make it easier to find. I'll try to remember to get some photos next time I make them before they get all eaten! I may try to make these into a sourdough recipe like JMonkey did here in order to use up excess starter...I'll report on that when I do, but for now, these just use baking powder.

This is a recipe I developed about 2 years ago that people seem to love. I make it with whole organic spelt flour as I like the nutty taste of spelt - an ancient form of wheat that has very little gluten, so it's not as good for rustic breads but great in quick breads. You can also use whole wheat flour equally well but may need to adjust amounts depending on humidity. I added the whole brown flaxseeds for roughage, texture, and hopefully some health benefits, although the most benefit is derived from raw ground flax.

What I like about this recipe is it does not contain dairy - which I am allergic to (although it does have eggs so it's not vegan). It is also a little less sweet by using dark brown sugar rather than white, and is not too spicy as I omit nutmeg or clove, opting for the combo of cinnamon and ginger instead. I also make this same basic recipe with bananas or frozen blueberries or chopped apple rather than pumpkin and all come out equally great. If you like a sweeter muffin, add more brown sugar. Obviously, this can be made in a loaf pan as well as in muffin tins, but adjust baking time and temp. accordingly:

Spelt Flaxseed Muffins

 

Ingredients (makes 12 large muffins or 24 small muffins): 

Wet:

4 Large Eggs

1 c. Vegetable Oil (Sunflower, Safflower, or Canola)

1 c. Dark Brown Sugar (maple syrup also tastes great as a sub but need a little more)

2 tsp. Vanilla

1 c. Whole Flax Seeds 

Fruit of choice:           

For Blueberry Muffins: 2 c. frozen or fresh blueberries           

For Pumpkin Muffins: 2 c. canned pureed 100% pumpkin           

For Banana Muffins: 3-5 overripe bananas, depending on size (I usually freeze them once they get too ripe so I always have some on hand)           

For Apple Muffins: 4 apples, cored, peeled, and chopped into small pieces 

Dry:

3 c. Whole Spelt Flour (or substitute mixture of 2.5 c. whole wheat and unbleached white flours, if no spelt available. Wheat flours are drier than spelt, so use less or mixture will be too stiff, resulting in dense, heavy, “hockey puck” muffins).

1.5 tbsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Salt

2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon

1 tsp. Ground Ginger 

Directions:

1) In a large bowl, beat the eggs, then mix in the remaining wet ingredients, then mix in your fruit of choice and the flaxseeds.

2) In a separate bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients.

3) Pour the dry ingredients into the wet, and stir. If batter comes out too dry, depending on humidity levels, flour type, or fruit size, then add about 1/8 cup of water or fruit juice. Finished batter should be stiff enough to spoon into muffin tins without it dripping all over, but not so stiff that the batter forms peaks.

4) Grease 12 large muffin cups (or 24 small muffin cups) with canola oil-type cooking spray.

5) Divide the batter up into the cups with a ladle or large spoon and rubber spatula.

6) Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-50 minutes for large muffins, or around 30 minutes for small muffins. Tap on top for doneness -  they should be firm and crusty, not too soft or mushy.

7) When done, flip muffins out of pans onto cooling rack and let cool.

8) Use within a day or two, or refrigerate in plastic bags for up to 10 days or so. Freeze the rest for up to 6 months. Just reheat in a toaster oven and enjoy!

tony's picture
tony

high extraction flour

Does anyone know where to obtain high extraction wheat flour? I've made my own from flour I've milled myself, and it's too much work with the rudimentary tools I have. So far, Google hasn't found me a source. Another question is Does anyone know of a bolting machine or other sifting device for making high extraction flour that is appropriate for home use?

Yet another question is Does adding white flour to whole wheat produce a flour close enough to high extraction flour to make the search for the real thing unnecessary?

Thanks,

Tony

sadears's picture
sadears

Too funny

At baking911.com there is a troubleshooting section.  One of the problems listed is 'large holes.'  I find it funny since everyone here, as far as I can tell, want large holes, or somewhat large.  It says the problem is underkneading or over rising.  The remedy is thorough kneading.  Anyway, thought I'd share.

 

Steph 

sadears's picture
sadears

Working wet dough

I have some dough sitting waiting for me to knead it.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to get big holes, or at least bigger than I have been getting, the dough needs to be wet.  I have this issue every time.  It's really sticky.  How do I knead it without having sticky fingers?  EVERY time, it starts out wet, but I end up adding flour to stop it from sticking.  The bread turns out good....I've been posting pics, but I don't get big holes.  I've read about folding after the rise, but what about the initial knead?  Jim wrote to let the dough rest after mixing, before kneading.  Mine has been resting for an hour.  Hopefully, someone will respond soon.  If not, I'll use what I learn next time. ;-D

 

Steph 

Wayne's picture
Wayne

Proofing Box

Finally got around to building my "high dollar" proofing box.  First picture is the inside of the box w/transformer to the side.  Happened to have the transformer on hand from my day's as a research chemist.  Second picture is the outside of the box showing the temperature probe and the transformer.

mountaindog's picture
mountaindog

Desem?

Does anyone make desem and if so, do you have any photos, especially of the crumb that you could post here? I read the version of the technique and recipe in the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book and I'm intrigued, but not sure it is worth all the effort for me to try it. I would like to see what it looks like, and what those of you who have tasted it think of it - what other types of bread is it comparable to? Is it heavy and dense or light and open? Tough and chewy or tender and crispy?   Thanks...

JMonkey's picture
JMonkey

Good eGullet Sourdough article

I was poking around eGullet this morning when I happened upon an excellent sourdough article that really helped things click into place for me, at least mentally. I'm going to be travelling for a bit and so won't get back to the kitchen for sometime.

What Jim has been saying about time, temperature and the percentage of starter in a dough made sense to me, and has helped me improve my bread (thanks!), but I still didn't understand a few things. For instance, I know that I've had a more sour bread when I retard it in the fridge, but I've also had a more sour bread when I increased the proofing temperature to about 82 degrees. Why is that?

This graph from the article, I think, might help explain it. I realize now that it's a version of the graph that Jim posted, but at the time, I didn't realize that Candida Milleri in Jim's graph was yeast.



The key factor, if I'm reading the article and Jim right, is not necessarily the level of activity, but rather the respective levels of activity between the yeast and the bacteria. At room temperature (about 70-75 degrees F), for instance, the yeast and bacteria are roughly equal in activity. However, on the edges -- lower than 70 degrees and higher than 75, bacterial activity outpaces yeast activity.

Here's what the authors say:

The right temperature is the single most critical variable. Michael Ganzle and his co-workers did some studies on this. They found the following growth rates of L. sanfranciscensis and C.milleri as function of temperature. Growth rate is ln2/generation time, i.e. a growth rate of 0.7 is a generation (doubling time) of about 1 h.

The generation times measured in laboratory media are different from that in rye / wheat / white wheat dough. If the generation time at 20 C is 1/2 of that at 30 C in my medium, the organism will also grow 1/2 as fast at 20 C compared to 30 C in dough (we checked). So, it's not the absolute numbers that matter, but the ratio of growth rate to growth rate at optimum temperature.


There are a ton of other variables, of course -- the proportion of bacteria to yeasts in the starter, the species of yeasts and bacteria in the starter, etc -- but might this explain why both retarding the dough at a low temperaure and fermenting at a somewhat elevated temperature (~82-85 F) would produce a stronger sourdough than fermenting at room temperature -- because the bacteria are more active than the yeast?

Anyway, interersting article. I'd be interested to hear what others think. Is that your take, Jim? I think I'm finally wrapping my head around this stuff ....
Floydm's picture
Floydm

Shaping a flax seed torpedo

This is the Flax Seed Wheat Bread from Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf (a great book, but one not easy to find in the US).

flax seed wheat bread

Recipe for the Flax Seed Wheat Bread here.

mountaindog's picture
mountaindog

Starter, technique, and recipe comparisons: this week's baking

Stayed home today to nurse my lame dog, so I have time to make some notes for myself for future reference:

For this past weekend's baking, I decided to make the Thom Leonard Country French bread (Glezer) again, but using my rye starter, and compare it to the Essential Columbia (also Glezer) my current favorite recipe. For the Columbias, however, I made two different batches for further taste comparison: one with a wet rye starter (saving the step of making a firm starter if you don't keep one) and the other with the firm white starter called for in the original recipe in Glezer's book.

Here is how the Thom Leonard bread came out:

The crumb was beautiful as was the oven spring and crust. I also used King Arthur AP flour only, rather than a mix of AP and Bread, because the protein level of KA AP is as high as other bread flours (11.7%). The last time I made this bread using KA bread flour, the crumb was way too tough and chewy, even for me who likes chewy bread. Seems like the only reason to use a very high protein bread flour like KA (12.7%) would be to strenghten mostly whole grain breads. The Thom Leonard above tasted very nice for a mostly white French bread, however, I have developed a taste for a bit more whole wheat in my bread which is why I prefer the Columbia at the moment. Of course, the original Thom Leonard recipe calls for high extraction flour, not white AP flour. If I can ever get my hands on some, I will try it again with that.

Next, I made the Columbia using a wet rye starter, and omitted the small amount of rye called for in the recipe, replacing it with additional whole wheat and white AP. To first make the levain for this recipe using the wetter rye starter rather than the stiff white starter called for, I used a bit more starter, a bit less water, and a bit more flour, until the correct consistency was achieved and the total weight of the levain as an overall ingredient in the recipe was preserved. This was a pretty slack dough, as I like to work with wetter doughs for improved crumb, so when I tried to slash it for the batard, the darn razor dragged again despite oiling and I went over the same slash too many times and compressed the dough too much in those spots, you can see the results in the crumb shot below:

Despite the spread out loaf, I still got some nice holes and the crust was gorgeous! The taste was as great as before, with a slight flavor from the rye starter that made it taste mildly like a rye bread.

The next batch of Columbias were made with the stiff white starter called for in the recipe, my stiff starter uses 75% white bread flour to 25% whole wheat flour. I fed it 3 times at 12 hr intervals before making the levain with it for this recipe. Rather than making 4 smaller loaves, I made 2 large ones using bannetons. I had trouble with slack dough sticking to bannetons before so I got over-eager with the flour on these, and I had to brush a lot of it off after baking. I also think it inhibited the crust forming nicely as in the free-form loaves above which have the nice crisp crackly bubbles. The other thing I did differently was to degas them by pressing the flat of my hand all over the dough before rounding into boules, thinking I would try to even out the crumb more, but I overdid it, and I did not get as nice holes this time - there are some big ones, but not as many as I like to have and not as even. Below are photos of the large boules made with the stiff starter, and for comparison I stacked the previous batch's smaller rye starter batard on top of the sliced boule - the pic on the right is without a flash and shows the holes in shadow a little better, while the left shows the actual color of the crumb nicely:

I also found that I prefer making the smaller batards free-form for this recipe rather than using a banneton to make larger boules. Not only does this avoid getting excess flour on the crust, but it provides a greater surface area and ratio of crust to crumb, since the crust is so good on this bread. As far as taste difference in crumb between the wet rye starter method vs. the stiff white starter, it is very hard to tell the difference, but I like the stiff starter version's flavor slightly better - it has a bit more tang and wheaty flavor and slightly less rye flavor - the rye flavor in the rye starter batch may outcompete the wheat germ and malt flavors. I would probably get the same result using my wet white starter, so I will try that next.

Lessons learned:

1) levain: using a wet starter seems to work just as well in this recipe as using a stiff one - the type of flour used will make a bigger difference in flavor than the hydration does.

2) first fermentation: do not de-gas the dough completely, just fold it 2 or 3 times for strength during fermentation 30 min. apart. I also retarded the dough overnight in the fridge after a 2 hour room temp. first fermentation.

3) shaping and proofing: handle as little as possible without de-gassing as noted above, but do gently form smaller batards rather then large boules to get more crust ratio. Without pressing out the gas, do tighten the batard into a very tight cylinder as much as possible to create enough surface tension to avoid it spreading out too much or flattening when scoring.

4) when slashing a slack dough like this, don't score over it again or it will flatten it out too much.

5) avoid over-flouring bannetons as it ruins the crust and didn't really help with the sticking anyhow, maybe a spray oil is better - I'd like to know how people avoid banneton stickiness and resulting collapse with the coiled willow baskets.

That's it for this week...

 

Anonymous baker's picture
Anonymous baker (not verified)

Pane Biove

I like these Italian rolls. Nice shaped and great in taste!

Pane Biove

250 g flour
8 g fresh yeast
5 g salt
20 g lard
1/2 TL honey
~130 g water

How to shape them you find on my blog: http://kochtopf.twoday.net/stories/2958191/

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