Community Bake - Infinity Bread
The "Infinity Bread" Community Bake
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For those who wish to limit or disengage from the flood of email notifications associated with long threads such as these CBs produce, Dan Ayo had written up how to do so
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66354/tip-how-stop-email-notification-any-topic
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Per Dan Ayo, the originator of Community Bakes: for those not familiar with our Community Bakes see THIS LINK. The idea of a Community Bake is for those interested learning and baking as a group. Be sure to post the results. This way we can all learn together. This is not a bread baking competition, everyone wins! All bakers with any skill level are welcomed to join the bake.
Although a long-time TFLer, this is my first foray into hosting a Community Bake. I'll do my best to keep things humming along. The "official" kick-off is this weekend to allow people to plan their bake but you can dive in now if you want.
I've had an idea percolating for a while for a bread that provides plenty of whole-grain goodness with lots of seeds and grains for extra texture and nutrition, while allowing for flexibility. In other words, a template for the basic structure with room for the baker's creativity and to adapt to the ingredients one has on hand. Since it can go in so many different directions, I'm calling it Infinity Bread. Admittedly, that's a bit grandiose but a lot more accurate than what we see in most advertising.
The other thing about this approach is that it is 2/3 wheat flour, so it will behave like a wheaten bread even though non-wheat flours are used for the final 1/3.
The basic outline looks like this:
34% bread or AP or plain flour
33% whole wheat flour
33% non-wheat flour(s) - baker's choice
10% seeds and/or cracked/chopped/flaked grains - baker's choice
1.5-2% salt
60-80% liquid (water/milk/beer/whatever) - baker's choice
Baker's yeast or levain for leavening - baker's choice
Sweetener (optional) - quantity and type are baker's choice
Fat (optional) - quantity and type are baker's choice
Other inclusions (optional fruit, nuts, cheese, herbs, etc.) - baker's choice
Three breads using the template, above, have been made since I floated the idea last week. A sandwich loaf by Gary Bishop, a sandwich loaf that I made, and a lean hearth bread that I made. While I haven't yet played with a sourdough version using the template, I can see that it would be a simple thing to preferment some of the flour (10-25%, say?) in a levain rather than using baker's yeast for leavening.
For our bakers who might feel they don't have the skills yet to take on this challenge, let me offer a bit of encouragement. First, you can look at each of the three breads in the preceding paragraph to get a sense of how the numbers translate into a real bread. Second, if you base your formula on a total of 1000g of flour, the math will be very simple (e.g., 60% of 1000g is 600g) and you will wind up with two large loaves or three smaller ones. You are certainly free to make a smaller batch if you want. Third, you can use techniques you are familiar with or you can use techniques that you've always wanted to try. For example, the seeds and grains component could be treated as a cold soaker, a hot soaker, a porridge, or receive no pretreatment at all.
Whatever you choose to do with this Community Bake, remember to have fun. It's an opportunity to exercise a little (or a lot) of creativity while still having enough of a framework to assure a good outcome. Ever see a kid using bumpers at the bowling alley? How they get the ball down the alley is up to them but they don't have to worry about throwing a gutter ball.
The fine print...
As always, the CB is a place created for a collaborative effort, both to enhance one’s skills as well as to help others with their skills. By no means is the template meant to be the be-all-and-end-all of the CB. Rather, it is a framework that allows multiple ways to achieve a bread that meets the general criteria. I encourage you to experiment and explore, to modify and to introduce to our CB participants your own experiences and versions. And most of all, to learn and help all of us to better ourselves as bakers. I also encourage you to find something you like, change one or many things about it and to make it your own!
And as Dan said:
All bakers of every skill level are invited to participate. Novice bakers are especially welcomed and plenty of assistance will be available for the asking. The Community Bakes are non-competitive events that are designed around the idea of sharing kitchens with like minded bakers around the world, "cyber style". To participate, simply photograph and document your bakes. You are free to use any formula and process you wish. Commercial Yeast, sourdough, or a combination of both are completely acceptable. Once the participants gets active, many bakers will post their formulas and methods. There will be many variations to choose from.
Here is a list of our past CBs. They remain active and are monitored by numerous users that are ready, willing, and able to help if assistance is needed. A quick browse of past CBs will provide an accurate picture of what these events are all about.
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Since many of the CBs grow quite large, it can become difficult to follow the progress of each individual baker. Things get very spread out. In an attempt to alleviate congestion and consolidate individual baker’s bread post, the following is suggested.
Links to baker’s BLOGs that have posted a compiled list of bakes for this CB
End note: Take notes while you bake. You may like the results so much that you want to make it again! And feel free to post more than one bread if you see something that inspires you to try more.
Things are beginning to come into focus. I will start today by building up my rye starter. I will blog all bakes and link 🖇️ them back here.
Kind regards,
Will F.
I’m looking forward to seeing some sourdough versions.
Paul
Love the Infinity Bread moniker, Paul! I'll have to see what I can come up with...
Lance
since there are so many directions a baker could take this. Looking forward to see your creation, Lance.
Paul
I'll try to bake something in this direction on the weekend. It's quite similar to what I often bake anyway (significant % of whole grain, with seeds - very common approach for me recently, but I don't really bother writing down or thinking through what exact amounts to use...). Thank you for organizing this CB! Been a while since we've had one.
No doubt you'll come up with something tasty this weekend.
Paul
Well, now you've done it, gone and pulled me back out of my spider hole again.
I took my go-to version of Scott MeGee's ciabatta to task here, bastardizing it further by using 40% AP flour, 30% dark rye and 30% semolina. The final two comprised the majority of the biga. At the end of the mix I slipped in toasted walnuts and cinnamon coated raisins (thanks Caroline for that trick).
The two hour BF saw a very nice rise with the dough looking thick and shiny, but thanks to the rye it remained quite sticky. It took a lot more flour on the couche than I desire to use, but I was perhaps overly cautious about the dough getting stuck on the linen
Due to the consistency of the dough it never had that elegant characteristic of a ciabatta dough and indeed the rise in the bake was minimal with the bread coming out unsurprisingly dense and exhibiting none of the characteristics of what one anticipates in a ciabatta.
It seems to be a fine bread for slathering with butter or cream cheese and/or jam. And I'm certain will make fine morning toast. And now? I'm officially off the hook for completing this CB!
Comparison to my typical ciabatta bake
That, is some nice looking healthy bread you made right there. With a little something for the sweet toothed too! So, after a long lament about my dislexia, I went into resident manager problem solving mode. Since Mr. Gates insisted I spend $$$$ before I could actually use the program, and hung a carrot out in front of me. He let me view the now working APP, but locked me out of editing. After spending too much time going back and forth from open office to make changes, then to excel to seeing the resulting mass numbers; I remembered Google sheets. The online database I used during the end of my time at NYU. Now I am ready to rock and roll. Through the years technology has always made compensating, easier and easier! Smile...
methinks you didn't mean to write "areola", that thing so many of us coming of age pimply teen boys lusted for a glimpse of so many decades ago.
Nice catch alan !
Just guessing that you were thinking of bubbles…
Paul
Instead, I was braced for something baguette-ish, based on your prior enthusiasm.
You may have just created a new category of bread: the “holiday” ciabatta, complete with fruit and nuts and spice. That’s also an interesting combo of flours. Rye will lend earthy and spicy flavor notes while the semolina will give rounded buttery flavor.
Overall, I’d be happy to munch on a slice of it, especially toasted.
Paul
Plus I have a vey big soft spot for my ciabatta bakes as well.
I was intent on following the path of righteous ciabatta up until BF has ceased and then retarding the dough for later baguette joy. However, I mistook my non-thinking cap for the other one, and used rye instead of WW. With the rye I had a 1-2 punch of assured stickiness as well as lack of gluten formation thanks to pentosans (or is that pentograms?).
Perhaps a second mis-step (I read in the rules somewhere that I'm allowed two per bake, verdad?) was making the biga predominantly from the two other grains which yielded a denser biga more similar to 50-55% hydration preferment, and didn't exhibit any of the standard AP biga characteristics.
And with that gift of rye instead of WW I was assured that a baguette shaping and bake would be equivalent to throwing good money after bad into something. Hence my bailout - which to the untrained eye might be mistaken for a ciabatta.
Actually, the taste is on the blander side of life, so I might just throw my beret into the ring again, adjustments under notice!
Alan, at first I saw the open crumb and thought wow! How did he do that with 30% rye along with nuts and fruit. Then I looked more closely and saw the bake corresponding to the spreadsheet. That makes more sense and that crumb looks great for the composition of your dough. This is most unique take on a ciabatta that I have seen yet. Love the crust with its typical ciabatta wrinkles.
Nice to see you joining in.
Benny
How are man ! Been a while. Hope all is well m8
Hey Geremy yes long time. I’m doing great. Reaching the end of our 26 d cruise this Friday. It’s been a blast. Hope all is well with you too.
Benny
Maybe a little bit of both? Smile...
After a 20 minute ride in the Bosch mixer, the dough looks reasonably developed. Smooth, slightly sticky, and tight. Bulk fermentation
The temperature in the fermentation vessel is 77°F. Timer set to one hour.
Did I mention, I hate the mess any kind of seeds make? Please stop by and have a look vat my blog post.
Infinity Bread community bake
Paul! Thanks for organizing a CB!
I’ve been away from TFL for almost a year with a long work assignment. Came back just in time for a CB!
I’m in your neck of the woods this weekend, but I will definitely participate in the CB and post something in the next couple weeks. 👍
You defected from Yooperland? Or is this just a temporary jaunt?
Either way, it’s good to hear that you will join in the fun.
Paul
Iceman weekend
Glutton for punishment, aren’t you!
Wow! Terrific soft crumb, not gummy at all. I took care not to use more than 20% barley. Then I went ahead with another 14% prefermented source rye . LOL.
Which is very good, indeed.
Paul
Az. Has also done wonders for my breads. It can't be coincidence. Thanks so much for your kind words.
Best,
Will F.
This looks amazing Will, excellent crumb and I love the seeded crust.
Benny
I have dough fermenting now for this bake. I had a bread planned already when I saw this community bake. The % of non-wheat flour is only 20% though. I’ll share more later. Thank you Paul for starting a community bake, it has been a long time since we’ve had one.
Benny
I always check by the frozen fruit even when I was in NY. I am sure it will turn up fresh in the spring or frozen at some point. I may try this barley bread with a wheat starter leaving it at 20% non wheat flour. However, it really does taste great as is. Maybe one big bread instead of two small will tickle my fancy more? I am enjoying a really cool morning right now. Such a relief from the scorching relentless heat! It's clear sailing now for the next eight months,!
Here's my first effort for this group bake. Besides the flours, flakes, and so forth in the basic template, I've added some cheese and - get this - salt-pickled sweet corn. I pickled the corn in early September. Some of the cheese ran out and left voids, and the corn kernels sticking out remind me of teeth, but the flavor is surprisingly good, with the acid from the pickled corn working against the heavy whole wheat/whole grain flavors to make an unexpectedly good combination.
The crumb is pretty open considering the ingredients, and it has a pleasant chew without being tough. The crust has a nice crispness without being tough.
Here's the formula-
Formula
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102g King Arthur bread flour
99g ww (stone-ground-97% extraction)
30g rye (Bob's Red Mill "dark")
45g masa hariña
15g rice flour
9g ground oats
30g (dry) scald - sifted bran + rolled oats **
6g salt
1 tsp sugar
105g buttermilk***
60g white starter 100% hydration
20g shredded cheddar cheese
30g finely diced cheddar cheese
90g pickled sweet corn/corn relish (rinsed and drained)****
** I used 3 gm ww bran (all that was sifted out) + 7g einkorn bran that I had left over + 20g rolled oats with 90g boiling water
*** I added 20g water during initial mixing and 62g more after a 45-minute rest.
**** I rinsed and drained the corn to try to minimize excess liquid and salt.
Process
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- Mix the bread and WW flours, and the salt and sugar, with the room temperature buttermilk plus the extra 20g water and let rest for 45 minutes;
- Mix in all the other ingredients except cheese and corn;
- Stretch & fold dough between the hands until a little springiness develops;
- Rest 45 minutes and do another S&F. This time, squeeze the dough with one hand to make it thinner so it can be pulled out more easily. The idea is to develop some extensibility as well as elasticity;
- Rest 1 hour and repeat the previous S&F;
- Leave the dough for a total of 5 1/2 hours bulk ferment;
- Refrigerate overnight;
- Warm up 1 hour, and shape, adding in the cheese and corn between layers as the dough is rolled up;
- Proof for 2 hours free-standing; uncover for final 10 minutes to develop a skin for better slashing;
- Bake with steam 40 minutes at 400 deg F plus another 18 minutes to dry out the interior.
Pictures -
group_bake-1.jpg
group_bake-2.jpg
group_slice.jpg
Be careful or you'll be stepping on Ian's (Isand66) toes with his approach to everything but the kitchen sink method of fine bakes. I'm a sucker for dark crusty baked bread.
And now that you've been initiated into the CB world, you may want to look back on the dozen or so that preceded this one. They remain open forever to those daring enough to backfill. The most recent from Jan 2022 hosted by Abe https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69775/community-bake-rye-bread .
Alan
Thanks, Alan! I don't think Ian has much to worry about from me, but I don't much like seeds for the most part (and they get stuck in between my teeth) so I had to come up with something else that might fall into the category of whole grain, flakes, etc.
I'm still getting my feet wet with rye and rye sours. I'll take a look at that CB - thanks!
TomP
Especially the part about giving Ian a run for his money. ;-)
Having never had pickled corn, I’m trying to imagine that flavor. It certainly sounds good! I have to confess that I’m not especially fond of cornmeal (masa harina in this case) in a predominantly wheat bread. I’m not sure why, since I really enjoy cornbread. It sounds as though it works in this bread.
That's a very pretty loaf, by the way. Thanks for sharing your bake.
Paul
Thank you, Paul! The pickled corn, at least this batch I made, is *really* sour. The kernels still have that nice little pop, but the summer sweetness isn't really there any more. I rinsed it to try to reduce the acidity, but even so it comes through in the bread, but not like the sourness of a sour loaf. I don't taste the masa harina per se, but somehow the WW, rye, bran in the scald, and masa marina are playing together in a way I really like.
That looks and sound delicious Tom. Excellent choice of ingredients to make that a tasty slice.
Benny
Thanks, Benny. It's a weird one, but really good.
TomP
Additionally, it yeided a great result. thanks, for joining in the fun!
Kind regards,
Will F.
This doesn’t quite follow the guidelines of the Infinity Bread for the Community Bake, but it is my contribution. My non wheat flour isn’t up to the 33% range that is in the write up. I chose buckwheat flour which I toasted well to bring out the nutty flavour to the maximum. I used the toasted buckwheat flour as all the flour in a tangzhong. The texture of the tangzhong is different from what I’m used it, it was clumpy in lumps rather than one big mass. I chose toasted black sesame and pumpkin seeds as the inclusions and used golden sesame seeds to top the loaf. Instead of butter I used avocado oil and instead of cow’s milk I chose a sweetened soy milk.
The details are in my blog post.
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I especially like how the crumb is studded with seeds. It makes me think that it has a nice, firm chew punctuated with crunchy bits.
Y'know, you could still do a “conforming” bake, too, if you like.
Paul
there's no such thing as not a nice bake, at the very least. I'm going to embarrass the man here by saying that he has quickly developed into a near virtuoso with dough. Always reinventing always experimenting and pushing, and because of his prodigious output, I doubt he has many intermittent clunkers before his next post arrives.
Once again you’re too kind Alan, but thank you very much. Hopefully we can connect again this winter if you’re staying in Fort Lauderdale.
Benny
being honest!
Thank you Paul, fortunately I am going on a very long cruise, including the 4 days in Barcelona at the start and 7 days in Fort Lauderdale at the end we’ll be away about 5 weeks. So I won’t have a chance to do another bake for this. But thanks again for getting people involved and interacting, its what makes TFL great.
Benny
Duplicate.
We'll miss your baking exploits while you are away. And thank you for posting this week's bake.
Paul
And you have toasted it too. Lovely bake and an amazing crumb, Benny.
Thank you Abe, I have to say that I think this was my favorite bread that I’ve baked using buckwheat flour. I was much more thorough in my toasting of it ensuring that it was quite aromatic before stopping.
Benny
Class !
This is the same 80% PFF biga at 79% overall hydration dough as before. One thing seems to be clear to me. This corrupted ciabatta formula is one of the few if not just about only that I've run across that just does not want to be a baguette. The dough seemed wrong at divide and shaping early this morning, and the inclusion of nuts and fruit made the task of shaping more challenging. Even after an overnight retard which included an extra fold at midnight to punch it down.
First off - with inclusions like nuts and fruit on a slender dough, shaping and scoring is always going to have its own challenges, more so here. But they were included in this bake to conform to most of Paul's Infinity Bread Template. The formula for this dough begs to be handled too gently, shaped with no deflation at all and to NOT be scored, as it was designed for a ciabatta bake. However, the scoring seemed just dandy until the bread emerged from the oven.
Changes - Still holding at 40%/30%/30% combination of flours here. All of the AP flour went into the biga which comprised 50% of the PFF, the other two grains were divided evenly at 25% each. But the major change was substituting WW for the dark rye and tritordeum* for the semolina. Beyond that, not much else changed in the composition of the dough nor the methodology until the retard phase.
*Introduced on TFL by Abel Sierra a decade ago, tritordeum is a true hybrid grain of durum and barley - not a mixture. Unavailable in the US, I was able to bring several Ks home from Barcelona on a prior trip and I like it. It handles well and bakes up quite nicely. On our recent trip back I was able to pick up several K more at our local excellent Forn Baltá bakery in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona.
I'm a bit disappointed in the outcome due to the misshapen shaping (the slackness of the dough combined with the craggy character of the dough thanks to the inclusions) and the lack of a decent score. But can't say I'm sorry for traveling this route, and indeed it is a tasty bread, much more to my palate's desire than the earlier bake.
These look fantastic! Your opps Baguettes are kin to my best efforts. I am intrigued by this tritordeum. Debbie, the sales rep at Hayden mills, mentioned how well durum grows here in the low desert. I will mention it. Maybe they can find a farmer interested in exploring the possibilities. Great bake Alan.
Kind regards,
Will F.
It would be an excellent grain to grow as it was engineered to be drought tolerant. However, It is a European grain, developed over decades in Spain. But before it can come to these shores it must somehow achieve FDA approval, something that hasn't happened yet. With the exception of Forn Baltá bakery and Handsel and Granel, a bulk bin store in Barcelona, no other bakery nor bulk grain store I walked into there or in Madrid had even heard of it.
Me? Got lucky and visited their HQ back in 2019.
What a beautiful couple you two are. With your permission, I would like to email this photo to Debbie, to introduce Hayden Mills to this rare hybrid grain.
management team with little old me in the middle. Agrasys was the company that promoted tritordeum before being folded into Vivagran. Sure send it on.
https://www.tritordeum.com/
Thanks!
Given the composition of the dough and the heavy inclusions I think the crumb is as expected and I’m sure the baked baguettes were delicious.
I haven’t tried inclusions like these in baguettes yet, I’ve only added chocolate and small seeds neither of which interfere so much with the shaping or crumb. I think you did great considering the challenges, no surprise from me whatsoever. They still have the typical Alfanso appearance, I could identify your baguettes in a lineup any day.
Benny
after a rough drinking binge and needing a shave and sleep than they do my "typical" baguettes/long batards. But I appreciate your taking pity on a geezer 😬.
I posted these probably before you had landed on Isle TFL, but I think they might be your cup of tea for an inclusion bake. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/54325/semolina-wfennel-seeds-golden-raisins-and-pine-nuts . It has garnered high marks from just about all whose tonsils it has passed through.
That combination of inclusions does sound delicious Alan, very original. I’ll have to try that out in the winter when I’m back home.
Benny
Those look darn good - slightly "rustic" and I usually like that. I wonder if it would be worth dusting with (white) flour before scoring, just because the contrast between the scored and unscored areas is low.
TomP
white flour dusting on my breads, although I take the plunge once in a while. Had I planned it out to be such a minimal grigne perhaps that would have made the surface landscape more apparent. I wish I had snapped a photo of them already scored and on the peel prior to the bake. For all the world I'd have sworn on a stack of Hamelmans that these would be compliant little critters and provide a nice oven spring.
I have this thing about never looking in on the bake through the window until it is time to rotate and release the steam, about 10-13 minutes in. My first surprise came at that moment. Unless I'm baking with someone else in mind I don't easily get distraught at the sight of a less than expected scoring, and this was an odd duck to begin with. Still tasty!
Bacon, eggs, and infinity Bread. The sunflower topped variety.
than the cinnamon roll and scrambled eggs I had for breakfast. On the plus side, mine did give me enough fuel to cut, split, and stack three face cords of firewood with my brother-in-law today.
Paul
Yesterday I made my freezer batch of pizza sauce, and two different freezer batch pizza doughs. I was exhausted.
Baked rye rolls this morning.
Soaked 100g whole rye kernels overnight from Friday to Saturday, about 18 hrs. They became soft, then I "milled" them in a food processor with some more water to help it go along.
Also overnight refreshed my rye starter, and added the equivalent of ~50g rye flour to the rye grains after they became nearly a paste, and mixed in the same food processor. Added some extra water for a soft consistency. Let it ferment a couple of hours, it rose a bit and became a little spongy. Not sure if it was really ready, but I went with it. Added 150 g white and 150 g whole wheat flour as per the ratio (so in the end 150g each type of flour, if you consider soaked rye as flour), 9 g salt, a spoonful of malt extract, and after combining and adjusting the water to reach a soft dough consistency, added a little olive oil.
Let it ferment with some stretch and folds for some time until it seemed a little risen and ready. Didn't note the time...
Then shaped into 8 rolls and placed into a nonstick baking tray with space between. Sprayed the surface with some water and sprinkled with sunflower seeds. Let it ferment overnight on the balcony outside, around 10 C supposedly. Baked with steam in a hot oven on a baking steel, then browned them without steam. I think the steel browned them a little too much on the bottom, but not too bad.
They look fabulous! Way to go, Lyia.
Best regards,
Will F.
Thank you Will!
Crunchy and delicious!
The inside looks very tempting.
Thank you!
Your rolls look fabulous Ilya, I bet they tasted as good as they look. I love the seeded tops on them as well.
Benny
Thank you Benny!
I wondered if someone would use the template for rolls. Et voila! You’ve done it!
Those look mighty fine, too. I can picture eating those with some sausage, pickles, and an aged cheese. Or just a smear of butter.
Thanks for your interpretation of this bread.
Paul
Indeed, the first one I tried I had half with just butter, and half with butter and some nice French cheese :) Thank you Paul.
Totally a coincidence (not inspired by Ilya's great-looking rolls), I just completed my own bake of Infinity Rolls. The form factor is supposed to be Sheboygan rolls, which are similar to Kaiser rolls but with a smooth top creased down the middle -
https://www.tastingtable.com/1429205/wisconsin-sheboygan-bread-rolls-little-known-regional-icon/
The Sheboygan rolls are white flour, fluffy inside with a bit of a hard shell outside, and used to contain bratwursts in a sandwich. Of course, with the whole-grain-heavy Infinity template they won't be light and fluffy inside, and will have an opinionated flavor, but what the heck!
infinity-rolls-2.jpg
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The notable changes from my first Infinity try was to add buckwheat instead of rice flour, and to include a tangzhong made with milk and beaten rice flakes. Oh, yes, there was way too much water because of some mental blip, so I had to compensate with additional bread flour. For the seed component of the template I showered the rolls with Everything Bagel Spice (EBS), which is mostly various seeds.
The flavor turned out to be superb. You can taste the rye but it is mild and complemented beautifully by the other grains, especially the buckwheat. The crumb is very open for a grain-heavy dough like this, and the roll has a slightly harder crust but not tough. These rolls may be the best-tasting grain-forward breads I have ever made.
Formula
=======
102g bread flour*
99g ww (stone-ground-93% extraction)
30g rye (Bob's Red Mill "dark")
30g buckwheat (Anson Mills)
24g masa hariña
15g beaten rice (in tangzhong)
6g salt
1 tsp sugar
30g oil
215g water
60g milk (in tangzhong)
60g starter 100% hydration (25% ww, 75% AP), overripe
30g Everything Bagel Spice sprinkled on outside of rolls**
* Plus 30g added later because hydration was too high.
** Reduced to less than half for the 2nd batch because mix was too salty.
I mixed the wheat flours with the salt, sugar, and all the water and gave it a 45-minute rest. Then I mixed in the rest of the ingredients and gave them a good stretching in my hands. The dough got two more S&F sessions over the next hour and a half.
Because the starter was very over-ripe, I expected that the bulk fermentation would be very slow and that's how it worked out. However, in the evening I portioned and shaped to rolls. Five of them went into the refrigerator after an hour proofing. The remaining two I proofed for nearly 3 hours and baked that night. This was partly to check to see if the planned amount of ESB was all right - it was much too salty so I reduced the amount for the remaining rolls.
The next morning I warmed up the chilled rolls for an hour and then baked with steam. I also broiled them for about one minute total to crisp up and brown the tops a little. These five are the ones in the photos.
I’ve never had, or even heard of, Sheboygan rolls. Gotta look those up next time I’m in Wisconsin. Thanks for the introduction!
Your version of Infinity Rolls looks every bit as appealing as Ilya's version. Lots going on here; rye, rice, buckwheat, masa harina, sourdough. Plenty of dark, grainy flavors, as you note.
Is the Anson Mills buckwheat flour made with hulled or unhulled buckwheat? I need to get my hands on some groats to mill.
Yet another creative twist on the Infinity theme. And rolls, too!
Paul
It seems Sheboygan rolls are unknown farther than 30 miles from Sheboygan. But they are similar to Semmel rolls, I gather.
The Anson Mills buckwheat is wonderful flour. Not only is it unhulled, but "A tiny percentage of our buckwheat is toasted and mixed back in, redoubling its flavor". Expensive, though.
https://www.ansonmills.com/products/133
Much appreciated.
Paul
These look awesome Tom, I love this style of roll when they have a tangzhong. I’ve never done one with beaten rice flakes, I’ve never even heard of beaten rice flakes, very interesting.
Benny
I stumbled onto them in a local (more-or-less Nepali-Indian, I think) store one day. Here is some info and images for beaten rice -
https://www.tarladalal.com/glossary-beaten-rice-poha-rice-flakes-flaked-rice-536i
I was thinking about the recent TFL thread about using instant potato flakes in a tangzhong, and thought these might work the same way. It was a bit hard to get them to fully mush down to a paste, though.
I used 5% of the flour weight of the rice flakes, and four times that for the milk. It seems to have allowed for a pretty good crumb openness and delightful chew.
TomP
Thanks for that information Tom, it’s so great how we learn so many new things on TFL.
Benny
An unsung hero. Under appreciated. A lot of people are unfamiliar with this pseudo-grain. It's a shame as this humble flour alternative is very tasty indeed and lends loads of flavour to breads.
Lovely bake, Tom.
this humble flour alternative is very tasty indeed and lends loads of flavour to breads.
That's a fact! 10 - 15% buckwheat makes for a fabulous sourdough English muffin, for example.
Based on this recipe.
Loaf.jpg
Recipe:
Method:
Crumb.jpg
This is the best textured buckwheat bread i've gotten from buckwheat flour. And the taste was a surprise. It tastes like it has sugar in it. Very surprised how this turned out. Definitely a method i'll be using again when making a 100% buckwheat flour loaf.
I had no idea that a 100% buckwheat loaf could come out so well. Nice work! It's given me a bunch of ideas. I better order some more buckwheat ...
TomP
I have always gotten a lovely texture when using the spontaneous ferment using buckwheat groats (are you familiar with this method?). However when using flour it never gets close to the same texture. There's always a dryness, crumbliness to it. I think scalding a large proportion of the flour works wonders. And on top of that the eggs, oil and seeds soak helped add to the very much improved texture.
Don't use the very dark (almost black) buckwheat which is very sandy and grainy. I don't think anything will make that into a nice textured dough. This is still wholemeal but lighter coloured. Think there are two types of buckwheat or two types of processing.
Don't use the very dark (almost black) buckwheat which is very sandy and grainy. I don't think anything will make that into a nice textured dough. This is still wholemeal but lighter coloured.
Where are you getting this lighter buckwheat flour, or what is it called?
on top of that the eggs, oil and seeds soak helped add to the very much improved texture.
I can understand that. I have a terrific skillet buttermilk cornbread recipe that uses mostly masa harina, and with two eggs and butter it bakes up to a good, if crumbly, texture.
Is regular wholemeal buckwheat flour. I think the very dark one, I once bought, must have been just the hull, or had extra ground hull added to the mix, which is black. Wholemeal buckwheat flour will be lighter in colour, like a light rye, with little specs of black in it. I think your regular buckwheat flour will be the right one.
I've done this one before without the scald and it was very nice but crumbly. With the scald and it's on a whole other level. After a few hours it takes on a different texture.
I agree with Tom Abe, that is a nice looking 100% buckwheat loaf, well done.
Benny
I was surprised how this turned out. Scalding a large proportion of the buckwheat flour really has improved this recipe.
That's a very impressive loaf of pure buckwheat, Abe. I would have expected a brick but this has a well-aerated crumb that supports the seeds. Do the eggs help to trap the fermentation gases?
If you had to guess, how do you think the scald contributed to the bread; as compared to making one without a scald?
Very impressive.
Paul
Non more surprised than me when I cut into the loaf. I've done the exact same recipe before without the scald. The eggs are supposed to be the [sole] binder in this recipe. It comes out quite nice even if it is a bit crumbly and a tad dry.
Throw in the scald and the difference is huge. After the scald cooled down the whole texture of the scald itself changed. I was sure it would benefit the bread even when I was mixing in the seeds but not prepared quite how much. But what I least expected was the sweetness of the resulting loaf. Won't go back to doing this type of bread without a scald now.
Thank you for the Community Bake, Paul.
Based on this recipe but the scald (with the inclusion of the seeded scald) is a gamechanger.
This bake has cemented Abe in my mind as the "Buckwheat King" ;-)
Interesting that the scald was such a high percentage.
Filing this one away for my next gluten free bake, thanks Abe, was impressed.
My aim with the scald was to make this bread less dry and crumbly which is so often the case when using buckwheat flour.
But the bug percentage of scald made it extremely soft. Too soft. So if I was to repeat this again i'd use the same method but lessen the scald. Maybe 150g instead of 300g?
My blog post for this bake.
First, a newborn daughter (congratulations to Mom and to you)! I hope all are doing well.
Then, a (very) high hydration bread experiment that was also successful! Did you buy any lottery tickets while you were at it?
No quibbles from me about the high-extraction flour covering both the bread flour and whole wheat flour bases. And rolled oats are very much within the framework of this CB. On top of that, you have polenta and rosemary and honey, which all bring different but harmonious flavors to the party. Oh, and sourdough, too! It all sounds delicious.
Even allowing for some water evaporation while the polenta cooked, that had to have been a really gloppy dough. I would probably have thrown more flour at it but you soldiered on. Any warnings or suggestions for someone who might want to duplicate this?
Well done!
Paul
Thank you, Paul.
For the record, the 99% number factors in the evaporation during cooking. I calculated it using the weight of polenta going into the dough, not the amount of water I started with.
I was actually surprised at the dough's ability to hold some tension during stretch and folds, but it was far too wet for me to even think about baking freeform, or even rolling it up for the pan like I normally would. I basically just preshaped into a boule as well as I could and then covered it with oats and tucked opposite sides in to get it into the pan. My biggest suggestion would be not to try to repeat this, but to stir the oats into the hot polenta instead.
Congratulations on your new daughter Fred. What a wonderful loaf to celebrate her birth with. Lots of goodness in that loaf with the cornmeal and oats.
Benny
Thank you, Benny. Your loaf looks incredible as always.
Kesra rakhsis is a yeasted Algerian flatbread that is cooked on a griddle (could be in a skillet). For example:
http://thetealtadjine.blogspot.com/2018/03/algerian-flatbread-from-constantine.html
From the link:
People normally cut wedges or break off pieces. It's normally made from semolina flour. I've made it that way a few times before. Today I adapted it to the Infinity Bake template (is nothing safe??)
First, the pictures, then the formula and the mistake I made.
kesra-rakhsis_overall.jpg
kesra-rakhsis_side.jpg
kesra-rakhsis_crumb.jpg
Formula for 300g flour
======================
33.3% 100g AP flour
33.3% 100g WW (stone ground 93% extraction)
20% 60g buckwheat (Anson Mills)
13.3% 40g rye (Bob's Red Mill "dark")
1 tsp sugar
6g salt
15g nigella seeds
15g sesame seeds toasted
1/2 tsp instant dry yeast
1 oz oil
water/buttermilk (see below)
Spurred on by Abe's bake with scalded buckwheat I decided to make a scald with the non-white flours and arbitrarily chose to scald 50% of each of them. That came to 100g non-white flour, and I needed 250g of water in the scald to hydrate the flour. My mistake was that that was way too much water for the rest of the flour. In addition, since I wanted to include some buttermilk, I went ahead and added 100g of it. After all, I told myself, I didn't know how much of the water in the scald would act like free water in the dough.
So the dough came out way too wet. I added about 50g of AP flour during mixing but though that helped, I didn't want to add much more. I decided to deal with the dough with stretch-and-folds even though this was a yeasted bread that would be expected to proof for around an hour. I mostly used wet hands during three S&F sessions over around an hour, and then proofed for another hour. Then I patted out the ball of dough into a disk about 10 inches across.
This worked, but the large heavy disk of dough was still soft and had to be handled carefully so that it didn't deform much while it was transferred to the griddle. I knew I would have to cook it at a lower temperature for a much longer time to drive out all that moisture. So the cook time became 50 minutes instead of the perhaps 15 minutes these breads usually take. Even so, and even with checking the interior temperature with a probe thermometer, the interior was still a little wetter than I would have liked. Also, I didn't bother trying to brown the edges as some people do, since it would have taken a long additional time of me standing there holding the bread on edge with tongs.
With all this, there's a pretty decent crumb, and the taste is quite wonderful. The nigella seeds really come through enough to add little pops of flavor that enhance the bite. The flavor is grain-heavy, of course, but excellent for all that.
I’ve never seen nor heard of this type of bread before. I am always learning new things around here. You did well getting this bread to work and I’m sure it was tasty Tom. You dealt well with the challenges.
Benny
Thanks, Benny! We used this bread to mop up some chili tonight. It was just right.
TomP
Thank you for sharing it with us.
Buckwheat flour is getting a lot of love in this CB. It’s good to see it have some time in the spotlight. I wonder what other “obscure” flours might pop up before the CB winds down.
Nice touch to toast the sesame seeds. That always ramps up the flavor.
You obviously managed the bake very well to keep from scorching the exterior while driving off a lot of the extra moisture. And the crumb looks good, too.
Paul
The crumb is springy yet soft. Couldn't ask for more.
Great looking bread and thanks for sharing! Looks somewhat similar to a Finnish rieska.
Here is my take on the brief.
It's got:
and here's a few pics:
This was the bulk ferment after a couple of folds. The dough was surprisingly stiff.
Not much oven spring on the batarde, but I've come not to expect much on these heavily seeded loaves, especially one such as this with a lot of wholegrain flour. I think they probably bake better as tin loaves, but I like to try!
Flavour was good with a touch of sour, crunchy seeds and a nice moist but well structured crumb.
Bread log here: https://docdro.id/d05iVv6
Lance
Now those are some dramatic-looking loaves, Lance! You might be sneaking into Benny territory. Nice work.
TomP
Thanks Tom - I don't think I'm ever going to be as prolific as Benny - or your good self!
Lance
The crumb is so lovely with its jewel like specks of orange. Of course I love the crust with that dense coating of seeds. This is a bread that I’d love to eat.
Benny
The carrots should add some sweetness even though you didn’t include any sugar. I like your combination of seeds and bran, Lance, and your decision to double up.
You mentioned the dough being stiff. What was the approximate hydration? In spite of that, I’d say the crumb looks pretty good for a bread with plenty of whole grain and lots of inclusions.
You have a bread to be proud of.
Paul
Thanks Paul & Benny. The carrot was interesting as I thought it would mush up and integrate into the crumb. I'm hoping its retained moisture will stop the crumb drying out and give good keeping qualities.
I estimate the overall hydration, if you include the seeds as a dry element to be hydrated, was 74%
And Paul, I would like to add my thanks to you for getting this CB up and running. It's given TFL a good shot in the arm and got a surprising and pleasing number of part time contributors (like myself) doing a special bake for it.
Lance
Paul, you really got something going with this CB! Thanks so much for taking it on! I would never have thought to try any of the three bakes I did without it. I've learned a lot, working them out. And I've learned so much from all the other takes on the theme, too.
TomP
Many thanks to you and the other TFL bakers who have taken a general outline and filled in the blanks in different and creative ways. I’m glad to hear that it has been a catalyst to try new things.
Community Bakes, no matter their subject, consistently bring out the best traits of TFL: exploration, encouragement, engagement, and education. (With a side of alliteration.) People share an experience. Skills are learned or honed. Support is given. Confidence grows. Everyone benefits; even those who don’t participate directly.
Yeah, I’m tickled to see how this CB is going. And I’m really curious to see what comes next.
Paul
image0.jpeg
image1.jpeg
1/3 bread flour
1/3 whole wheat flour
1/3 buckwheat flour, toasted & scalded with hot apple cider
10% grated raw sweet potato
5% grated granny smith apple
7.5% toasted pumpkin seeds
7.5% toasted sunflower seeds
1.5% salt
levain: 85g bread flour/85g whole wheat/50g buckwheat/50g rye sourdough starter/220g water
This was my first time trying a scald and the total dough hydration wound up being insane -- over 100% bc the scald took all the cider I had and I had to add extra water to get the final dough to come together.
Baked in a dutch oven for an hour at 450F, the first 22 minutes with the lid on.
Initial thoughts:
--this loaf is so moist that it feels almost like crusty cake rather than bread (probably a result, in part, of my heavyhanded addition of water to the final mix). I'm not sure that's what I would aim for if I were to bake with buckwheat again.
--despite all the great ingredients, the whole somehow feels less than the sum of the parts and I need to think about that -- how to bring the toasted buckwheat flavor forward or whether adding some aromatic seeds might increase the depth of the flavor or if I need to raise the sour profile to compensate for the cider sweetness.
--I might try this again dropping the buckwheat to 20% of the total and using bread flour for the rest -- to maximize the loft and airy quality.
Rob
Is the dark color attributable to toasting the buckwheat flour?
I'm a bit surprised to hear that the flavor was less than expected. The list of ingredients, plus toasting the buckwheat flour, would lead me to expect a flavor bomb. That you noticed a pronounced sweetness seems in line with the presence of the apple cider, apples, and sweet potato. Would using a dry hard cider in place of sweet cider shift the flavor substantially?
Overall, this sounds like a bread worth repeating, albeit at a more modest hydration level.
It just occurred to me that the buckwheat flour probably lost some moisture while toasting. So, even though the nominal hydration is very high, the effective hydration (after replacing the toasting moisture loss) might be less. The only way to know for certain would be to weigh the buckwheat flour before and after toasting. Further, the apple and sweet potato will both contribute moisture to the crumb; more during baking than during mixing.
Would there be any advantage to autolysing the bread and whole wheat flours and then combining them with the scald and other ingredients? Or would both be stiff enough that they would require extensive machine mixing to combine? Or maybe make a marbled bread with three colors: white (bread flour), tan (whole wheat flour), and chocolatey (buckwheat flour)? That would require some significant process changes but could be fairly striking in appearance. Hmm...
Thanks, Rob, for concocting such an interesting bread for this CB.
Paul
Would there be any advantage to autolysing the bread and whole wheat flours and then combining them with the scald and other ingredients?
That's what I've been doing lately. My thinking is to get the gluten-forming flours to start developing the gluten network without interference from brans or non-gluten flours. When they get mixed in later, the gluten network would already be in place. Whether or not that thinking is on target, the results have been good.
TomP
Honestly, it smells like chocolate, too!
I used Normandy extra dry hard cider ... 6% alcohol -- tho that undoubtedly burned off in the scald.
The autolyze idea is wonderful ... but it'd have to be a pretty dry one to avoid overhydration once the super hydrated scald is added.
The swirl could be the real deal -- maybe with some cinnamon. We could call it a bread & breakfast loaf.
Thanks, Paul!
As I had, in thinking you had used a sweet cider. You were already a step or three ahead of me.
So it smells like chocolate, too? That's cool! What if you subbed a porter or stout for the cider? That would play up the chocolate fragrance and flavor. You could even go so far as to include some cocoa if you really want to push the chocolate theme.
So many possibilities…
Paul
Glad I could inspire you. Love the idea of using raw grated potatoes. I’m sure with some further tinkering you will get this to the next level. It looks pretty good as is.
Best,
Ian
Paul, thanks for organizing this Community Bake. The result for me is a new bread that I intend to bake again (with some tweaks next time).
A preferment seemed a good idea, and I combined some starter (40 g) with bread flour (100 g) and whole wheat flour (100 g) along with water (250 g). That sat overnight and by the next morning had expanded nicely and become properly bubbly.
The first step after that was to mix everything except the levain and salt. Into the tub went bread flour (234 g), whole wheat flour (233 g), emmer flour (333 g), rye chops (50 g), oats (30 g), toasted sunflower seeds (20 g), and water (470 g). The mixture sat for thirty minutes, and I then added all of the levain and some salt (18 g). The components came together well, and I decided to do some French folds (eighty in all). Dough temperature was 73F, and my kitchen was 71F. Four stretch-and-fold sessions followed, with the first occurring twenty minutes after the initial mixing and then subsequent intervals of thirty, fifty, and fifty minutes. Total bulk fermentation was three hours and thirty-two minutes.
The dough then went onto the countertop for dividing and pre-shaping. After a twenty minute bench rest, the dough was shaped and placed into bannetons and then put in the refrigerator for an overnight proofing. The next morning one loaf went into a Dutch oven at 475F, and the other went onto a baking stone at 450F. Baking times, respectively, were forty-five and forty-three minutes.
The crust has a very nice flavor and an easily chewable texture. The crumb is flavorful too, and although somewhat dense, it is relatively light. The overall result is a bread that I will bake again, but with some changes next time.
One change will be to do a soaker of the add-ins. I opted to let the rye chops soak up water during the autolyze, bulk fermentation, and overnight proofing. They retained more crunchiness than I prefer. Another change will be to increase the hydration (which can be achieved in part via a soaker). Lastly, this dough probably needs only a couple of S&F (rather than four).
Although I have baked with emmer before, this was the first time that I combined it with whole wheat flour. My sense (perhaps I should say suspicion) is that those two grains produce a nice flavor, and the bread flour provides a lot of strength. One loaf was given to a friend, and I await her feedback.
Thanks to anyone reading this description, and I encourage you to give this combination of flours a whirl. Thanks to Paul, I did and am happy with the result.
Beautiful loaves and crumb!
When it comes to rye chops, cracked wheat, rolled oats, etc., I have been using a boiling water scald at 200% hydration followed by covering and cooling on the countertop for up to 8 hours. It does a great job of hydrating the grain without making a sloppy mess.
Sounds like you’re on that path too!
Yep, regarding the soaker, something along the lines of what I do for Hamelman's five-grain bread.
Hey, beautiful work! I've started working a bit with emmer, and thought about subbing it in this CB for the whole wheat. But I wasn't sure I could claim it to really be the whole wheat part of the template. I never thought of using it for the non-wheat component.
Like some others, I would be thinking about making a scald of bran/chops/other inclusions. I bet that would work a charm.
TomP
Thanks for your remarks. What caught my taste buds with this bread is the combination of whole wheat and emmer. The flavor produced by using those two together could be a hidden surprise from this bake, and I definitely want to see what happens with the next bake.
And it produced some pretty loaves, too.
I'm with you in wanting whole/cracked/chopped grains to be thoroughly soaked before they are incorporated in the dough. The same holds for harder and/or absorbent seeds, like chia, flax, hemp, millet, etc. Either a couple of hours in a hot soaker or an overnight cold soaker will soften them enough to avoid breaking teeth after baking. Chewy = good. Birdshot = bad.
It hadn't occurred to me to use an ancient wheat like emmer as the non-wheat flour component but this bread makes a good argument for doing just that. Good on you for thinking of it and giving it a try.
Interesting, too, how the emmer and the whole wheat flours combined to create a flavor that is something beyond your expectations.
From the photo, the crumb appears to be close but not dense. Based on the amount of ovenspring visible in the loaves, final fermentation might have been able to run a while longer. That might have lightened the crumb somewhat but I'd be thoroughly happy with it as it is.
Thank you for your Infinity Bread example.
Paul
The oven spring was good, but I suspect that the relatively low hydration contributed to the tightness of the crumb as much as a shorter bulk fermentation might have. Increasing the water should help the dough expand during the bulk phase, and doing an overnight soaker will take care of two issues (hydration and unwanted crunch).
Happy baking, and thanks again for heading up this Community Bake.
Thanks Paul for organizing this - what I appreciate about this one is the focus on the non-wheat component and the way it is presented as a framework. Gave me pause to think about this for a long time.
My first thought was to do something wild, perhaps using maize meal or polenta as an inclusion, but in the end I decided to play it safe and stick to rye, and to give myself a better chance of a good result I used sifted rye and some VWG. I also picked the flours carefully, and it is amusing that these are flours actually recommended by Paul himself - the bread flour is Eureka, the wholewheat is the amazing Lowerland estate blend wholewheat and the sifted rye is also from Lowerland.
The one loaf had rye seeds as a topping, I like the crunch it gives.
Had no idea how it was going to taste, did imagine it might be a little like Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough, but the end result surpassed my expectations and the crumb was more open than expected, especially since when I mixed up the inital autolyse the dough felt muddy like a high rye dough does and I thought I wouldn't be able to develop much gluten.
The flavour is more like a slightly tangy sourdough than expected and it didn't taste much like the wholewheat does on its own.
I did work the dough a fair amount - 10 minutes on the dough hook, 30 slap and folds and 36g of the water was added later by bassinage to up the hydration a little from the initial 70%. Think the bassinage also helps with gluten development as it is like a washing of the gluten. Because I need to go to sleep the breads were shaped and put in bannetons 2h50m after adding levain, and the small shrivelled breads went into the fridge. I took the bannetons out for 3 hours the next day before baking to let the loaves develop properly.
Thanks again, this CB certainly stretched me out of my usual baking slumber, and I actually think I've found a formula that I will use again and again.
I remember talking about flours in ZA. Eureka Meulens makes some very good products. Lowerland wasn't in existence while I was resident in South Africa, so I never had the opportunity to bake with their flours. Nice to know that they, too, have good stuff.
It looks as though you have a perfectly serviceable mischbrot, Jon. Lots of flavor, especially with the sourdough, and plenty of texture, thanks to the seeds. If you are among the non-fans of caraway seeds, you might try either dill seeds or fennel seeds in a future bake for another flavor boost.
From looking at the baked loaves, it's evident that you achieved good oven spring; both by the expansion of the slashes and the structure of the crumb. For a majority whole grain bread, partly rye at that, and the inclusion of the seeds, it is impressively light in texture. This is a good testament to your baking skills.
Thanks for jumping in for this CB.
Paul
Darned nice looking rye loaves!
TomP
Very nice looking loaves and excellent crumb!
I've started my additions to the CB. You can follow along on my blog post. I'll also post final pictures and comments here when they're done.
Tease!
Complete details in my blog post.
Roasted Cereal Grains (Total Ingredient List)
148.5g Bread Flour
148.5g Turkey Red (Fresh milled)
63g Whole Rye (Fresh milled)
18g Whole Spelt
18g Whole Einkorn
18g Bloody Butcher cornmeal (Roasted)
18g Buckwheat (Roasted)
18g Hulled Barley (Roasted)
225g Water
90g Blueberry-Apple Yeast Water
9g Sea Salt
13.5g Molasses
13.5g Honey
4.5g Coriander
22.5g Sunflower Seeds (Roasted)
0.5g Active Dry Yeast (ADY)
1st Poolish Build
18g Whole Rye
36g Yeast Water
2nd Poolish Build
45g Whole Rye
27g Yeast Water
Biga
45g Bread Flour
27g Water
0.2g ADY
Scald
18g Bloody Butcher
18g Buckwheat
18g Barley
22.5g Sunflower seeds
133g Water (boiling)
Honey Ginger Sesame (Total Ingredient List)
148.5g Bread Flour
148.5g Turkey Red
63g Whole Kamut (Fresh milled)
22.5g Whole Spelt (Fresh milled)
45g Coconut Flour
22.5g White Rice Flour
225g Water
90g Blueberry-Apple Yeast Water
9g Sea Salt
22.5g Honey
22.5g Fresh Ginger Root (minced)
11.3g Sesame Seeds (Roasted)
0.5g Active Dry Yeast (ADY)
1st Poolish Build
18g Whole Kamut
36g Yeast Water
2nd Poolish Build
45g Whole Kamut
27g Yeast Water
Biga
45g Bread Flour
27g Water
0.2g ADY
Scald
45g Coconut Flour
22.5g White Rice Flour
22.5g Ginger Root
11.3g Sesame Seeds
135g Water (boiling)
Roasted Cereal Grains on the right.
Roasted Cereal Grains
Honey Ginger Sesame
Looks like a labour of love, very neat looking loaves Troy. And how did they taste???
-Jon
Thanks Jon! Baked them this morning, so I haven’t tried them yet.
I’ve made the honey ginger before but with slightly different flour blend. The Kamut and coconut are new along with the non-bread flour components being higher. It is very aromatic from the ginger and is on the sweet side. It was excellent with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 😉
Less open than I thought I’d get going into the bake, but about what I expected after baking. Very soft crumb despite the dense look. Very similar in texture to a gluten free loaf. Excellent flavor with both the ginger and the sesame noticeable.
Such good looking loaves - makes me want to slice one right now!
TomP
Thank you Tom!
His bakes often have an "everything but the kitchen sink" vibe but you've produced two different breads, one with 16 ingredients and one with 14 ingredients. That's something!
Joking aside, either of those breads would be a treatise for imaginative use of ingredients and techniques. I wish I could taste them because I doubt that I'll ever be able to replicate them. (Side note: you might want to jump over to the thread going on right now about achieving a noticeable ginger flavor in bread to let them know your results with your Honey-Ginger bread.)
These are some beautiful breads, Troy, inside and out. I'm so glad that this CB coincided with you coming off a long period of not posting. You evidently had some pent-up baking to do!
Paul
Thank you Paul for the kind words. Dethrone…. never. Protege at best. I did have a lot of fun with Ian’s beer bread recipe and that bake did start me using things like coriander more in my bakes.
If it’s any consolation, I’m not sure I could repeat these bakes either. 🤣. If I were to try one though, it would be the Honey Ginger Sesame. Only because it’s atypical from what you usually see. To simplify it without really taking away from the overall concept, I would…
- replace the 2-build YW poolish and biga with a single build ADY poolish (or biga if you prefer) at 25% PFF using bread flour
- replace the coconut, rice, and Kamut flours with AP and use whole wheat in the scald
Thank you again for hosting the CB!
He’s certainly making my head hurt reading all of these ingredients! I will have to join the fun soon. Watch out Troy I’m coming for you 😂👑
🤣🤣🤣
Can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Okay, I didn't write down any notes, but I think I made this with:
159g whole rye flour
159g whole wheat flour
85g white flour (all-purpose), plus more for shaping
150g starter
235g pumpkin water
1tsp salt
2tbsps butter
48g raw pumpkin seeds, and about again as much for putting on the outside of the loaf, although a lot of those ended up inside the loaf due to shaping problems.
I mixed the salt, 205g water, and wholegrain flours together and let that sit for several hours, then I added the starter and white flour, kneaded it some, added 20g more water because it felt too dry, then added the butter and kneaded it more, then added the seeds and let it rise for some hours, then shaped it, adding more seed to the outside, put it in a loaf pan, let it rise more, then baked it at 375F for 25 mins in a roasting pan with water and 25 mins out of the roasting pan.
After the first rise, the dough was very sticky and not very stretchy. It was as if it were mostly rye. The end result also has that feel. It's hard and dense, but at least it's not gluey. Actually, it has sort of a creamy texture. The taste is a bit sweet (I assume from the pumpkin water), but also fairly bland. I probably should have added more salt. I don't mind the bread at all, but my family likes soft fluffy bread, so I don't think I will make it again.
We like hefty, seedy, wholegrain breads here!
Tell me more about the pumpkin water, please. How is it made? Is it purely for hydration and flavor, or is it part of the leavening?
It appears that it had some oven spring while baking, based on the cracking of the top crust, the domed top, and the appearance of the cross-section of the crumb. I wonder whether docking or slashing the loaf just before it was baked might have allowed it to expand even more?
You've come up with a thoroughly lovely (and I expect delicious) bread. Thank you for your contribution!
Paul
Oh, sorry, the pumpkin water is just the water drained from pumpkin after cooking it, or after thawing it. Pumpkin juice might be a better term. It's only for flavour (and possibly nutrition). I just have a bunch leftover from cooking up our Hallowe'en pumpkins and I don't like to throw it out. In this case I peeled and cut up the pumpkins and baked them for a few hours at a low temperature in a large roasting pan, and when the pumpkin pieces were soft, they were swimming in water, which I drained off, and I also put the pumpkin pieces into a collander to drain them even more.
You reminded me of this video of someone making a historical pumpkin water bread recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76Yv3Feazk . My pumpkin water looks more watery than his.
Yes, the bread had a modest amount of oven spring. Very modest. I put it in the oven just when the top of the dough reached the top of the pan, and it was about 1cm over the top of the pan when I took it out of the oven. I think it shrank down by a few mm while it was cooling, though. I find it very difficult to slash bread in a loaf pan when it hasn't risen over the top of the pan, since I only use a knife, but it might indeed have helped. Probably there are some problems with the amount of kneading and the rise times, too. The dough was actually quite stretchy and nice after I finished kneading it, but not so much after the first rise. Maybe I let it go too long (or not long enough), or maybe it's just too much whole grain and not enough gluten for a good rise.
We recently baked some pumpkin, too, and had plenty of water draining from it after it cooked. I just wasn’t sure of your meaning. Thanks for clarifying.
Thanks for the link, too.
Paul
Community Bake - Infinity Bread 11.13.2023 C1.jpg
Community Bake - Infinity Bread 11.13.2023 CR.jpg
My contribution to the community bake based on pmcool's specs - This is a delightful bread made with bread flour, fresh milled hard red wheat and bloody butcher corn, water, pepita seeds, diastatic malt, and honey (formula and process are in the original post). The crust turned out nice and crunchy with a toasty flavor. The crumb is soft with a semi coarse texture from the milled corn. My semi-biased tasters gave this bake a 2 thumbs up.
Here's the original post - https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/73182/community-bake-infinity-bread
Tony
They look great and nice mix of ingredients! Can’t go wrong with the milled corn. 👍
Thanks HeiHei29er, gotta love the corn and the honey.
Tony
It’s easy to see why your tasters give it a positive review. The variety of scoring styles for the individual loaves adds visual appeal, too.
Nice to see those russet shades that mark a robust bake.
Paul
Thanks for the complement Paul and thanks for getting the CB started. It is interesting to see the creativity folks are exhibiting with these bakes.
Tony
Great bakes!
Ian
I have been wanting to try this for a while now. My DH makes Kombucha constantly and I get tired of drinking it, so I thought, hmmm I wonder if I can bake with it? Starting small and just used it for a soaker, those oats smelled amazing in the morning I have to say. It turned out I didn't have as many hazlenuts as I thought, so I added seeds.
Here goes nothing....
Soaker:
25g Hazlenuts, roughly chopped
25g Sunflower Seeds
25g Pumpkin Seeds
90g Oats
100g Kombucha
100g Water
Soaked only 25 g of oats with other ingredients overnight and decided I wanted more oats in the am. So added 65g of oats and 100g boiling water to soak while I prepared the rest.
300g Fresh milled Rye
300 g Fresh milled Soft White Flour
310 g. King Arthur All purpose Flour
160 g. Chopped dates
Put all the above in the bowl of Kitchenaid with 350g of water. Stir to make a shaggy dough. Let sit for 30 minutes with 15g of salt resting on top.
Add 210g bubbly 100% hydration sourdough starter adjusted water adding about 90g.
Mix until internal temperature is about 76 df mix in 80g room temp butter, until dough cleans the sides of the bowl.
Cover and ferment about 2 hours, shape and rest in banneton for 3 hours. Bake in DO at 450df lid on 40 mins 10 mins lid off.
It's delicious, crunchy crust, buttery slightly sweet crumb. It's going to be awesome as my morning toast. I might have cut into it before I should have....
Thanks for a fun challenge!
I can hear Arte Johnson saying “Verrrry interesting!”
From what you’ve observed, how did the kombucha affect the dough and the finished bread? Is it about the same as putting beer in bread, other than flavor? Or does it have some unique traits of its own?
Although combing hazelnuts and dates hadn’t occurred to me, they seem like a very natural pairing now that you’ve mentioned it.
Did you use whole oat groats in the soaker, or rolled oats?
Thanks for sharing your creation with us.
Paul
Kombucha had no real difference in how the dough behaved from using beer for instance, but I only put it in the soaker. It is actually a very nice flavour. I didn't use enough or wasn't scientific enough to tell you if it has any unique traits, it tastes good, and didn't mess up the bake? ;-)
I have done hazelnut and fig before and it's delicious, but I didn't have any figs, so I went for dates, it's really quite tasty!
Rolled oats in the soaker.
It was a timely bake, I was itching to do something different. I get in a bread rut some times....
Carolann
The use of the fermented beverage in the soaker is genus!
Very nice.
Is this enough ingredients for you all 🫣. I made a bacon and cheese bread a few weeks ago which I haven’t posted yet. This challenge bread is completely different especially since I doubled the amount of bacon. I used freshly sprouted and milled green corn flour and freshly milled durum and rye. I toasted black sesame seeds and used almost an entire pack of bacon. I shredded the Vermont sharp cheddar. The durum was supposed to be sprouted but I didn’t dry out the sprouted grain enough and it got all jammed up in my Mockmill 200 so I had to change it up and just use “boring” old regular milled milled flour 🙄. I was very happy how this turned out. It tastes phenomenal and worth making again.
A hit! A most palpable hit! I just want to toast a slice and taste it right now.
"Green corn"? No one says that. I asked about green corn at some farm venue this summer and no one knew what I meant. You do mean sweet summer corn, right?
Nice loft on the loaf, too.
TomP
This does make amazing toast with some butter or a grilled cheese sandwich.
I kid you not, Barton Springs Mill has green, red and blue varieties.
Oaxacan GreenOaxacan Green corn is a centuries-old variety that is a favorite of the Zapotec peoples, utilized in their green tamales and tortillas.This dent variety exhibits complex nutty, earthy flavors and aromas, and is high in starch. It lends a subtle yellow-green hue when cooked or baked.I hope you get a chance to try this one.
Thanks again for your comments.
Ian
Dupe
Bacon and smoked maple syrup? Coulda used smoked cheddar and some freekeh, too, y'know.
The sprouted corn is something I don’t remember seeing before. What does it bring to the party?
It occurs to me that this bread might make some fantastic French toast. Bacon. Cheese. Add some eggs and more maple syrup. Yep, that should work.
That's a really nice, and pretty, bread, Ian.
Paul
I actually buy a smoked bacon Vermont Cheddar when we visit Vermont but that may have been overkill 🙄. You can sprout just about any grain so I figured I would try corn. It actually creates a “sweeter” tasting flour and was a good match with the fresh durum and rye. This definitely would make a killer French toast and I’m going to do that for sure. Thanks for your kind words and creating this challenge which was great fun and tasty too!
The degree of creativity and the willingness to push the envelope have been amazing so far. I’ve no doubt that any future participants will bring equally intriguing concepts.
Since this Community Bake has been up for a couple of weekends now, I’m willing to cede the floor to whomever would like to get a new one rolling. There had been some other suggestions when I first floated the idea for this CB. If someone wants to pick a bread or a theme and run with it, please do.
Many thanks to all of you for what you brought to this CB.
Paul
Paul, thank you for proposing and hosting this CB. It's certainly expanded my baking horizons. Since my first offering for the challenge in early November, I've so far baked 10 wholly different breads. Most of them wouldn't even have occurred to me, let alone made it to the stage of a loaf cooling on the cooling rack.
And that's not to mention the eye-opening submissions I haven't tried to reproduce. Wow.
Thank you.
TomP
I haven't done a community bake yet, and haven't been active here for a looong time, but this looked intriguing and I gave it a try. I had some blue corn flour so that is what I used for my non wheat flour. I'd been wanting to try a bread with some of this flour since I received it this summer.
Full post with formula and description is over on my blog post: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/73238/community-bake-infinity-bread
Thanks, this was fun as I was out of my element compared to what I usually bake.
Nice work!
I wonder if the density you mention might have been mitigated by room-temperature fermentation, instead of a retarded fermentation in the refrigerator? My starter in my refrigerator takes about a week to double, which is why I ask.
Whatever the case, you've achieved a bread that looks worth repeating. Thanks for joining the CB.
Paul
Perhaps it could have fermented at room temperature for longer, or allowed it to warm up more after shaping the next day. The starter fermented at room temp, was very active when mixed into the dough, the dough fermented at room temp for ~4 hours before going in the fridge overnight. But since I don't usually use the sesame seeds and corn flour additions I'm not sure how they change / slow down the rise. Anyway, not a disappointment by any means, the flavor is really good, even if I tend to favor a bit more airy crumb.
Was it corn flour and did you scald it?
I didn't scald the corn flour. After doing some research though it appears it would have been a good idea. I was starting to get lost in accounting for hydration due to the soaker already. (see the out of my element part in the original post) I've read a bit about accounting for moisture in the scald, but I'm still not sure how to calculate, or just estimate / account for it. Is there a tried and true method or a guideline?
I have some more of the blue corn flour so I'll be looking for ideas on how to incorporate it into another loaf, and it sounds like a scald is a definite consideration.
I have the same problem with hydration. Here's what I've been doing and it seems to help. I assume that all the water in the scald or whatever will contribute to the hydration, and then I withhold some water during initial mixing. 30g/1oz might be enough in many cases. I will work in more water if the dough seems too dry, during mixing or after an autolyse or even during a first S&F.
This is especially helpful since when you have a dough with wet inclusions and you don't understand the hydration effect of the inclusions, the dough will feel different from more usual dough, making it harder to gauge the appropriate hydration. Working in more water a little at a time helps you work around this and end up with a dough that handles well.
For example, I just made a loaf that included some wet ingredients that I cooked down first. I assumed that they included 80% of their weight in water (I weighed them) but I knew that some of that water would evaporate during cooking. I guessed that the end water would be 50%, not 80%, of the weighed value. So I subtracted that weight from the water I would have used for the target 70% hydration. Then I subtracted another 30g. During mixing there was obviously not enough water and I ended up adding back 20g. After a 30 minute rest, I thought the dough was still a little dry so I added back another 10g. That seems to have been about right.
TomP
Thanks TomP, those are good guidelines to start from.
That much corn flour would promote a dense crumb - and a top-notch taste!
TomP