Sourdough with Sesame Seeds and Sourdough Rye with Ground Caraway

Profile picture for user Bashert
Bashert on 13 Jan 2014 at 07:22

Hey guys, this is my first Fresh Loaf blog, but I have been reading these pages for a long time. Bread is my thing. As I know it is for a lot of you. Anyway, I am a part-time baker (bashertbakery.com), full-time school teacher, but.... Friday was a rain-out day in South Florida (our version of a snow day, sorry everybody in most of the rest of the country right now)! So, no school, which means I could bake!

I decided on experimenting with seeds. Check out the fruits of my unexpected day off below: two country sourdough boules with sesame seeds and two sourdough rye boules with ground caraway. I used ground caraway because I screwed up and ordered ground instead of whole. I am using the Tartine method for high hydration dough, modified to accommodate my schedule. Which today meant I did a bulk rise of 3.5 hours, then shaped the loaves, then had a relatively short, room-temperature (75 F) final rise of 2.5 hours.

 

I ended up being very pleased with the results! Both varieties had nice oven spring, crisp crusts, and a moist, open crumb. I love the earthy quality the sesame seeds lend to the mild tang of the country sourdough. As for the rye with ground caraway... Not a bad experiment! The flavor of the caraway came through and complimented the rye, as always, but it was a bit more mild and even flavor compared to using whole seeds. Below, I have the formulas I used. Thanks for sharing my bake with me!

Leaven (100% hydration; enough for 4, 1000g loaves, with some leftover)

300g - Water

3tbs - Sourdough starter

50g - Organic rye flour

250g - White/Wheat Flour 50/50 blend

Mix and cover with a towel. Seeya in 8 hours or so!

 

Final Dough

Country Sesame (75% hydration; yield: two 1000g loaves)

750g - Water

200g - Leaven

450g - All-Purpose flour

450g - Bread flour

100g - Whole Wheat flour

20g - Sea salt

1 cup toasted sesame seeds

 

Rye with Ground Caraway (80% hydration; yield: two 1000g loaves)

800g - Water

200g - Leaven

200g - Rye flour

600g - All-Purpose flour

200g - Bread flour

20g - Sea salt

1 cup ground caraway seeds

Looks like your baking apprentice has an eye on a few of your beautiful breads!  You better watch out or you may be missing one of them soon :).

Profile picture for user ElPanadero

ElPanadero on 13 Jan 2014 at 15:33

looking loaves there and some nifty scoring !  I might have a go at the Country Sesame :-)  You say you're a part-time baker.  How many days do you bake and is the profit margin worth the effort ?

Thanks for the nice comments! I bake every Friday night (making a total of 32 loaves or so), for selling at the local farmers market Saturday morning. I wish I could do more, but so far that is as much as I can do out of my house. Strictly for profit, it is probably not worth it... I am definitely not getting paid well for my labor. But I get a lot more out of it than just money. It's a passion that may turn into an occupation some day. Are you thinking of trying something like that?

First, let me say that those are top notch sourdough breads! Serious hardcore stuff! you definitely have experince, it shows.

And yes, it is hard to draw much profiting from a meager weekend bake, i know, i've just started baking for a market ( nothing like you 32 loaves, though). But, as you said, this is the inevitable road to success. Keep up the passion and baking!

khalid

Wonderful appearance to these loaves and I'm sure just as delicious.

I'm curious, did you add the sesame seeds after an autolyse?

I look forward to seeing more of your work!