Rosemary Polenta Pumpkin Seed Sourdough REVENGE!
A few bakes back I tried the recipe for this from Tartine Bread. The results were....well....unacceptable. The recipe as written in the book is flat out wrong, and while I was able to save the bread and have something to eat that week I knew it needed to be adjusted and revisited. See Original Post Here.
After reading some replies from other kind bakers here and doing some thinking I came up with the following formula.
RECIPE FORMULA AND CALCULATIONS HERE
The major change was to treat the dry polenta as part of the total flour weight and then calculating hydration for the entire loaf. While it clocks in at approximately 80% hydration, to me it felt closer to 72-75%. The resulting loaf had a fairly dense crumb but it was surprisingly light and almost fluffy. Not a bad thing but not the open crumb I want to get with this loaf. Next time I'll up the water percentage a little bit. The crust was crispy (and I say was because I just finished eating the loaf for breakfast this week as I post this and I'm kinda sad its gone).
Flavor Great, Crust Great, Crumb Needs Improvement. Over all a huge step up from the original version. Not perfect, but closer.
Comments
That's a beautiful bake (really lovely scoring) and I think the crumb is nice, especially given the polenta soak. I'm glad you posted this because I did an experiment with blue corn meal a short while back and had a heck of a time incorporating the soaked cornmeal during S&Fs and was curious about how to improve on that process the next time I made it. So, now I have some additional inspiration as far as the linked recipe you provided and your bake--I'll work the scalded/soaked cornmeal in during the initial autolyse and will then follow my usual process of staged levain and salt additions following that. I have some red corn that I've yet to grind and use, but I've definitely been itching to add some to another bake.
I certainly understand why you would be missing this loaf! ;-). I think cornmeal/polenta is a great addition in bread as far as flavor and crunch. Was the rosemary flavor about where you wanted it? The combination sounds divine.
Thanks so much for posting!
The flavor was spot on...the smell during fermentation is amazing as well. You could add more rosemary for a stronger flavor but that's personal preference at that point. Going to try a bit of a higher hydration next time but the flavor profile really hits she sweet (savory?) spot for me.
I agree with Leigh, that is one beautiful Steven. Gorgeous scoring, I wish I had some artistic talent. Given the polenta I’m not sure I’d expect a crumb that is much more open that what you achieved.
Benny