English muffins inspired by browndog's baking

Hi,

Thank you for the compliments.

Ten English Muffins

From R.L. Beranbaum

1 cup AP flour

¾ cup water

1 Tbsp honey

½ tsp instant yeast (I omitted yeast, because I used 1 Tbsp of ripe sourdough leaven instead)

Beat for 2 min until very smooth and well aerated. I used paddle attachment in KA mixer. Let the sponge ferment for 1-4 hours.

Sponge

1 cup AP flour

2 Tbsp dry milk

½ tsp instant yeast (I omitted yeast completely, since I was making sourdough muffins)

3 Tbsp butter

1 1/4tsp salt

Mix everything except salt on low speed for 5 min. Cover and let the dough rest for 20min. Add salt and knead for 10 min on medium speed (#4 in Kitchen Aid).

Let the dough ferment for 1 ½ hours at room temperature. I fermented for 50 min, since I was working with ferocious sourdough.

 Roll the dough out about ¼” thick and cut out muffins. Place them on a sheet pan sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover and let muffins rise until ¾” thick. Yeasted dough will puff up in about 45 min. Sourdough muffins will puff up in 30 min to 1.5 hours, if kept warm and covered. I proofed muffins in humidified oven on ‘proof’ setting, so they rose really fast.

 Preheat griddle to 275F (medium low heat), cook for 10 min on each side.

Browndog, hello! All you questions are answered by the recipe itself, I guess. I give the brief version above, since Rose's text is 4 pages long and the process is many hours and even days long in execution (due to development of pre-ferment and retardation phase). My sourdough muffins took 3 hours, or so, and turned out just fine.

Hi xma, how are you? Glad to see you back and I hope that this time you stay longer : )  I liked these muffins. I prepared them in the evening and in the morning they were perfect to be split with fork and toasted for breakfast.   

L_M, darling, you always have kind words to say. You are so nice!  About Rose's books.. now, that I have 'conquered' sourdough, I am ready to boldly go ... and start baking pies from Rose's pastry book.  I am totally pie terrified right now, but I must learn or else. I hope this autumn I will learn to make pies and then, later, cookies, lots of cookies for Christmas.  Do you bake a lot? Other things, besides breads?

Jamila, hi! Tomorrow I am going to prepare your crepes. I finally consumed all sourdough starter. None is left. NONE. So how I can simply enjoy yeasty treats, like your pancakes with honey and butter. yummy.

Paddycake, I didn't know there were so many of us, bakers of RLB's breads. Wow. That feels great. I will try this dough as a sandwich loaf. I will. It's delicioius. Thank you !

mariana

Hi L_M,

You made me smile, again. Thanks.

The dough obviously doesn’t know that it is undergoing bulk fermentation now, or is proofing the next moment. It’s the baker who knows.

 The processes in the dough are continuous and more or less the same: yeast and bacteria produce 3 flavorless compounds, i.e. they don’t contribute to the flavor of a finished bread, such as water, alcohol, and gas, and many flavorful compounds, like acetic acid and hundreds of others, derived from alcohol and other precursors. The baker knows to give dough enough time to produce flavor through the chain of chemical reactions which take time. That is why the phases of pre-ferments and bulk fermentation last so long, require several rises and punching downs.  It’s the baker’s decision to make them last that long. Once the baker is satisfied with flavor development of the dough, s/he just lets the dough rise fully and bakes it.

One of the criticisms of ‘bad’ bread, modern bread, industrially produced bread, is exactly this lack of flavor due to the absence of pre-fermenting and long bulk fermentation in yeasted breads. Industrially produced bread is mixed by bakers intensively, ‘Frankenstein’ yeast type is added to produce enormous amounts of gas in record time, and then loaves are immediately proofed and baked.  Sugars and fats and other additives, like sourdough powder, buttermilk, etc., compensate for the lack of flavor produced by the living dough itself. That’s just an example of a different baker’s decision.

In the past, long fermentation and long cold proof were unavoidable: modern yeast, methods of temperature control, and mixing methods were not available. Today, they have become desirable features of the bread making, when a baker can afford it, when his profit margin lets him do so.

Personally, I like my sourdoughs to be just the way I like them: sometimes white and fluffy and mild, sometimes dense, gray, and sharply acidic. Occasionally I like white and fluffy and acidic, and I know how to achieve that as well. Knowing how fermentation times and microbiology affect characteristics of bread lets me choose this or that particular recipe for bread. I don’t really engineer my breads ad hoc; I just find a recipe that does it.  How about you, L_M? Do you tinker with your breads or faithfully follow the recipes?

mariana

Hi Eric,

I sent you Calvel's DVDs a couple of days ago. You'll get them next week. OK?

I loved your question, Eric. Where L_M was asking 'how does the dough know?', you are asking 'how does the baker know'. Well, with breads the effects of different procedures on final flavor of baked loaves are found by experimenting and due to old-fashioned discovery process. There are certain guidelines of working with yeasted and naturally fermented doughs, but of course all of them are violated here and there by creative artisans.

So, for us, who do not work with dough full time for decades, professionally, passionately, it is more a matter of finding good recipes, i.e. recipes that we can work with and which will produce in our hands bread that we like. 

When we learn, we learn by noticing certain rules of managing pre-ferments and doughs. They are guidelines, but useful nevertheless. So that we don't make gross mistakes in the beginning.

 For example, rules for sourdough sponges tell us that they should be fermented for at least 5 hours, but probably no more than 8, because otherwise gluten will be affected too much, and crumb and flavor bread will be affected. 

Yeasted pre-ferments have their own set of rules, i.e. pre-fermented dough (pate fermente, old dough technique)  should ferment for 3-6 hours, poolish - for 3-15 hours; sponges - for  1-4 hours; stiff biga - for 18 hours.  These are just guidelines for 'normal conditions' and 'normal compositions of pre-ferments', because all we want is mature pre-ferment, yeasted or sourdough. We don't want it to be too young or too old. Visually, maturity of pre-ferment is determined by the volume, amount of gas, appearance of the surface (domed, collapsed, bubbles breaking up, etc.)

Direct doughs have their own sets of guidelines. OK?

mariana

Xma, I baked your conr bread today. I did it with corn meal and in loaf pans - good for sandwiches. I belive this is the best recipe for sandwich loaf that I have made so far. Your recipe is excellent.  Instead of mixing kernels in the dough, I rolled shaped loaf in them. It is very pretty that way and conr kernels have roasted a bit during baking and taste delicious. Thank you for sharing.

Hi L_M,

I am relieved to know that I am not the only one who finds that P.R.'s recipes are not so easy to bake successfully and that his enriched doughs are too sweet. Generally, I find his breads to be more like cakes: too artsy, festive, unique. Once succesful, they are nice, but they are definitely not a daily bread. I am baking Calvel's breads lately and they are honest bread. Unmistakingly so.  I also want to bake Hamelman's and Leader's breads, since these gentlemen are actual bakers and hopefully they know how to transmit that sense of real bread through their recipes. But before that I will bake Thom Leonard's breads from "The Bread Book" that he published in 1990.

Your question about proofing is a good one, again. The answer is that it depends, mostly on the size of the loaves.  Having discovered the temperature gradient inside loaves, you now understand, that the middle takes longer to get ready than the outer parts, because the middle is cooler. So I would use oven proofing only for the smaller  or thinner items, not for big, round 2-4 pound loaves.  The sourdough muffins above, small and 1/2" thick, took only 15min to fully proof, instead of 45 min, outlined by Rose for yeasted muffins at room temp.

So, once you start using oven proof setting for your sourdoughs, test with your finger and hand and use 1Tbsp test dough method to track the progress. Then you will know, for your favorite breads, how long it takes. 

Finger and hand test are very important, IMHO.  You poke gently the surface with your finger to see how it reacts. A well proofed dough is giving in, but at the same time feels strong, i.e. capable of oven spring. And you also lift loaves with your hand to get the fell of their lightness and how evenly they have proofed: must feel light throughout, the center must be as well proofed as the outer layers of the loaf. 

 There is also this subjective test of gassines: the loaf should feel light for its size, hot heavy, not featherweight, but definitely lighter than it looks and surprisingly stronger than it looks.

mariana

Hi L_M,  how are you? What are you baking now?

Yes, Emily’s chapters on shaping and checking readiness of the dough are simply the best! I agree.  And she is such a nice person. I also loved her illustrated explanations of how the degree of proofing coordinates with the depth of cuts. Huge help. Have you tried her sourdough recipe?  I haven’t yet. I am confused by her ‘fully risen in 2 hours’ twice instruction before shaping. Can sourdough fully quadruple in 2 hours? It escapes me. However, the loaf on the picture looks good (p 254). I’ll ask her.

The problem with proofing sourdough in the oven is that the same oven should be preheated for 1 hour prior to baking (IF your use baking stone).  So, to use warm environment to speed up proofing sourdough, microwave method might be better. I tried it and it works, indeed, freeing the real oven for preheating.

1 Tbsp method is good for small pieces or for loaves proofed at room temp, yes. Gosh, you are so clever! Nice to meet you : )

I have no idea what other home bakers do with their loaves: underproof or not. No idea. I know I have never overproofed a loaf to the point of collapse, but severe underproofing, with cracks beyond slashes? … hmm, not really.

I was petrified to touch swollen dough in the beginning, like you are now, L_M . To the point of holding my breath and not batting my eyelashes, LOL. However, lots of baking and learning helps. Dough is a very resilient creature. If you have kneaded, shaped and proofed properly, it will hold just fine. I don’t pick up a loaf if it’s in a pan either. By definition, it’s much softer a dough, so poke test and overall height are enough of evidence, yes.

 Does your flour have vitamin C added? If not, you can try adding a tiny pinch. Your dough will become amazingly strong. If your starter liquefies gluten too much, you can moderate it by adding salt to the starter and sponges.  Also, proofed loaves have slightly dried surface which helps them hold their shape and be handled with ease. I lost the remainder of my fears when I saw Richard Bertinet in his video transferring the entire baguette from the couche to the baking sheet with hands (i.e. not using baguette board) and telling us, “don’t worry, it is strong, you won’t deflate it”. A fully proofed baguette was looking like a snake, hanging in the air as he was transferring and adjusting it, making it look straight on the baking sheet. Wow.

Yes, I am on a baker’s leave, LOL. I guess that’s why yesterday I baked 20 loaves of levain de pâte, because I found a quarter of cup of forgotten sourdough starter in the back of my fridge (milk based, that’s why it lived in the fridge). Lots of practice just because I didn’t want to discard a ¼ cup of starter, huh? I don’t have to bake, that’s what I mean by ‘vacations’. DH is not here to serve him fresh bread daily.  

Thank you for teaching me the jello test. Wonderful idea! Just wonderful! Thank you, my friend. I am a convert now. Please, teach me more of your good baking habits. I want to learn from you.

mariana

Hi, L_M,

Thank you! You are so generous; you are great! Please come back to teach me how to bake pizzas and tell me about your favorite recipes. I must learn as much as possible about pizzas, because I have to bake them every weekend. It’s practically a part of my marriage contract, LOL.  If you want, we can start a new thread, to make it specifically about pizzas. I promise I will follow your instructions. Thank you, L_M.

Xma, yes. While you were busy baking muffins of your own kind : ) , we’ve been doing nothing but chatting about things, LOL.  Glad to see you back!

Re: corn bread. This particular bread was made with yellow corn meal. Dark yellow. I discovered that it must be cooked prior to mixing it into dough.  When not cooked, even with long pre-soaking and nearly an hour long baking it stays hard, like grains of sand inside bread crumb.  Yours was with yellow corn flour, that’s why it was a brighter yellow. I have both white and yellow cornmeal and white and yellow corn flour to use in this bread, so there is plenty of possibilities for different crumb color and texture.

Re: sourdough English muffins. I don’t know if honey killed the starter, xma. Maybe. I suspect that the sugar content in your sponge was unreasonably high and sugar dehydrated yeast cells.

3 tbsp of honey (63g) contain 52g of sugar. The rule is not to add more than 3% of sugar to the water when working with regular kinds of yeast (wild or baker’s yeast, non-osmotolerant types). Up to 3% of sugar in water stimulates yeast and it ferments extremely vigorously. Between 3 and 6%, there is no more increase in fermentation rate, and above 6%, sugar actually decreases the rate. In such amounts, sugar begins to dehydrate the cells of yeast and lactic bacteria.

In your little experiment, you had 63g of honey and 180g of water in the sponge, to a total of 191g of water. Sugar to water percentage was a strong 29%, instead of 9% as in Rose L.B.’s formula. Even her percent sugar was high, and she had to overcompensate by adding 60% more yeast than normal.

Also, I didn’t use starter, but a tablespoon of sourdough sponge; this makes a lot of difference, IMHO. It was white sourdough sponge seeded with white flour starter. Rye starter is a starter on steroids, because rye flour is full of microorganisms and nutrient-rich. Using it to seed white sponge directly is probably risky for several reasons. I would rather convert the rye starter to white wheat starter and then make an intermediate sponge and use it to seed the pre-ferment for muffins. Whole Rye -> White Wheat Starter conversion takes me a couple of weeks, actually, and it creates two very different starters, flavor-wise and performance-wise.  Not worth the trouble, imho, to bake just 10 muffins, LOL.  I used a Tbsp of existing white bread sponge.

L_M,  thanks for reminding me of that Rose’s recipe. I read her blog a while ago when I was looking for errata for her bread book and now it would be the perfect time to bake that challah and for me to practice round shape which I have never done before. My husband is coming home for Rosh Hashannah, how convenient. : )  I trust your recommendation of this recipe.

As for sourdough breads, you must persevere. Do not give up. Please. There is nothing like a good loaf of sourdough, really.  I am nursing two different whole wheat sourdough cultures now, Calvel’s seven day recipe and classic desem, Thom Leonard’s recipe. My son surprised me with a gift of a roomy wine cooler that has just the perfect range of adjustable temperatures for slow dough fermentation and sourdough cultures storage. I am in heaven.  So today I baked my first baby desem loaves and they are stunning. I didn’t know that whole wheat could taste THAT good, wow.

As for frozen loaves, no, I don’t like freezing anything, and bread specifically. So those 20 loaves of delicious levain de pate went to the neighborhood store, whose owner kindly sold them for me. So they paid for a 25kg bag of light rye flour, a 10 kg organic hard wheat flour, and a 10 kg bag of whole rye berries.  I am all set and ready to begin baking rye breads. Wish me luck!

I hope to see you here on forums soon, L_M. Meanwhile, happy holidays!