Danni3ll3's blog

Amaranth/sesame on left, bulgur on right. 

This week I decided to go back to my roots in bread baking by baking the Overnight Country Brown recipe out of FWSY.  Of course, I had to put in a few add ins. Two of the loaves got a total of 100 g of bulgur soaked in 100 g of water and the other two got 100 g of sprouted amaranth (24 hours) and 25 g of black sesame seeds. I added the add ins at the autolyse stage but otherwise followed the recipe as written in the book. 

The bulgur version needed a bit more water which I added in when I mixed in the salt and the 80% hydration levain. I didn't measure this water, I just splashed some in as I was pinching and folding.

A lot of people complain that Forkish's times are off so I was especially careful with the timing. My bulk ferment was only 45 minutes less than the 12 hours stated in the book. Poofing on the other hand was quite a bit shorter. I baked the amaranth/sesame loaf after 2 hours and 46 minutes as it seemed ready. Forkish says to wait 4 hours. The other two loaves with the bulgur, I put in the fridge to wait their turn for baking so their total proof time was 4 hours with 1h15 of that time in the fridge. 

Another change was that I did a preshape and gave them a half hour rest which Forkish generally doesn't do. I also baked them as per my usual method: 20 minutes at 500 degrees, 10 minutes at 450 and another 23 minutes with the lid off the Dutch oven. 

The loaves feel a lot lighter than what I have been baking lately so I am hoping for a more open crumb. 3 are going to the soup kitchen but I am keeping one of the bulgur loaves as this add in is new to me. Crumb Picts to follow when it gets cut open. 

Cornmeal Mush

150g  cornmeal
30g butter
60g honey
250g milk

Dough

500g unbleached flour (I put in 150 g high extraction flour for part of the 500 g)
1¼tsp instant yeast 
10g salt
150g water

Glaze

1 egg
1tsp water
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
cornmeal

Makes 18 buns

1. Heat milk until almost boiling and pour over the rest of the ingredients for the cornmeal mush. Cool until just warm.

2. Mix flour, salt and yeast together. Add the mush and the water. Mix well and then knead for 10 minutes. I used the slap and fold method.

3. Let rest for 2 hours.

4. Divide into 18 portions on unfloured counter.

5. Shape into small tight rolls and let rise covered for about one hour.

6. Heat oven to 425 F.

7. Mix up glaze and brush carefully onto the rolls. Sprinkle lightly with cornmeal.

8. Bake for 20 minutes.

They are a fairly substantial roll with a really nice flavour of the cornmeal. I expected them to be lighter like my prospector buns but I guess the cornmeal weighed down the crumb. Still a very nice roll to have with dinner.

I decided to document in pictures all the steps I use in making sourdough boules for future posters or even lurkers that might be wondering how does one go from a recipe to the actual loaf of bread. I am no expert having only been baking just under a year but I thought it would be fun to do.

I believe that the only part I missed was toasting and soaking the seeds. So to toast: I put the seeds in a frying pan on medium high heat and keep tossing and stirring until they are coloured a golden brown and have a wonderful toasted fragrance. Then I soaked the farro in water overnight and drained before using in the recipe.

So here goes (be aware that there are a million pictures...):

The rough plan.

The recipe plus 24 g vital wheat gluten. I forgot to write it down in this picture.

The new toy.

Using the new toy. I put the drained farro, the toasted seeds, the water and the flours as well as the vital wheat gluten in the bucket.

The dough ready for the autolyse (I let it rest for one hour.)

Mixing in by hand (pinching and folding) salt, levain and crème fraîche, then let rest for one half hour in a warm place (oven with light on and door cracked open) for bulk fermentation.

Next the stretch...

... the fold.

After going all around the dough.

Back into warm place.

After a half hour, a second set of stretches and folds.

Third set of stretches and folds after another 30 minutes.

Last set of stretches and folds after 30 minutes. Now it sits till nice and bubbly.

After about 2 hours, it is ready to be divided.

Scraped out onto floured surface. Use a bit of flour along the planned cut to prevent sticking of the dough scraper.

Divided and ready to preshape using the envelope fold method. Flip top down 2/3 of the way, flip bottom up over top and repeat for sides. See below for pictures of this process.

Preshaped and resting for 15-20 minutes.

Flipped over after resting.

First part of envelope fold.

Second part of envelope fold. Don't be afraid to pull on dough to get it to fold over.

Flipped over and pulled to tighten skin.

Seam side down in rice/all purpose floured basket.

All four loaves.

Ready for proofing in plastic ziplock bags to conserve moisture in the fridge.

Next morning after being in fridge for about 15 hours.

Out of the bags.

Cornmeal on counter.

Screaming hot Dutch ovens. Oven has been heated to 500 F for at least 45 minutes with pots inside the oven.

Recycled parchment paper circles. This helps prevent the bread from sticking to the pot.

Cold dough tipped out on counter.

Slashed with razor blade.

Carefully placed/dropped into pot.

Pots in 500 F degree oven.

Bake at 500 F for 20 Minutes.

Drop temp to 450 F and bake another 10 minutes.

Take the lid off and have a peak at your bread. Continue baking at 450 F with lid off till loaf is nice and dark (15-20 minutes depending on dough and oven).

Loaves ready to come out of pots.

And voilà! Farro, sesame, hemp hearts, multi grain sourdough!

And finally (if you made it this far), the p... uh, crumb shot!

Since I was focusing on baguettes this weekend, I decided to do a redo of the Kamut Sourdough from last weekend but slightly changed it by increasing the Kamut.

This makes 3 loaves. 

1. Build up to 450 grams of rye/unbleached flour levain in two stages over 24 hour. 

2. Dissolve all of levain in 900 g warm water and add 800 g unbleached flour, 300 g Kamut, 200 g whole grain whole wheat and 50 g dark rye. 

3. Let sit for one hour (Not a true autolyse) in a warm spot. 

4. Pinch and fold in 32 g sea salt. 

5. Do 4 sets of stretches and folds one half hour apart (Total 2 hours). Then let rise another hour until dough is billowy and bubbles appear on the edges. 

6. Divide and Pre-shape. I ended up preshaping twice as I was not happy with the first preshape done with the bench knife. Second preshape was the letter fold method. 

7. Let rest 20 minutes and shape again using Robertson's technique. Place in floured baskets seam side down and put baskets into plastic ziplock bags. 

8. Proof in fridge for 7.5 hours. 

9. Heat oven to 500F for at least 45 minutes with Dutch ovens inside. Take two loaves out of fridge and tip them out into your hand to keep the seam downwards when they end up in the Dutch oven. Place on counter dusted with cornmmeal, seam side down, and slash with razor blade. 

10. Drop/place gently in hot Dutch ovens that have been lined with a circle of parchment paper. (I am finding that I can reuse these time and time again). 

11. Bake covered 20 minutes at 500F, 10 minutes at 450F and then remove lid to reveal lovely oven spring! Bake another 15-18 minutes till desired darkness. 

12. Repeat from #9 on with third loaf. 

I usually let the loaves burst open at the seam by baking seam side up but because I had done a lot of rolling when I shaped the loaves, I wondered where they were going to burst so I decided at the last minute to score the loaves and bake them seam side down. The bonus is that I don't have a bunch of flour in the top of my loaf from the bottom of the basket, however, the negative is that I don't have those lovely basket marks. Oh well, you can't have everything!

These loaves are going to the soup kitchen so no crumb shot. Sorry!

A while ago, I had asked for baguette help and Alfanso was kind enough to share three formulas.  My mom had knee surgery almost 3 weeks ago and being French, she loves baguettes. Does she want my other bread? No! She wants baguettes.

So I went back to Alfanso's post and made the first formula. Of course, mine are nowhere near as pretty as his but they still thrilled my mom. 

I followed the recipe as posted below aside from sneaking in 25 grams of wholewheat and 25 g of dark rye. Here is the link: 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/45057/baguettes-formulas

PS. The darn picture is sideways and I can't fix it. :-( And on my phone, it isn't even showing the right picture!

Okay now I hope it is fixed!

Since I had some levain left over from my other bakes and I hate throwing good stuff out, I weighed it and decided that 125 g was enough for a 1-2-3 loaf. 

I just threw all of the following stuff together, no autolyse, into a bowl and right into fermentation:

125 g half rye, half AP levain

250 g warm water

200 g unbleached flour 

120 g white wholewheat 

55 g kamut

7 g salt

Six sets of folds a half hour apart and then left to finish fermenting for another hour and 20 minutes. The dough felt very different than what my doughs usually feel like. It was super extensible and silky. 

I preshaped it, ly it rest for a bit, then shaped again and into the fridge in a basket for a 14 hour retard. The next day, it really looked as if it hadn't risen very much at all but I baked it as per my usual anyway. It was in the oven not quite the entire time I usually do because it was a smaller loaf. When I lifted the lid, it was "Holy oven spring!" The loaf had a huge ear on it!

Well it is pretty tasty as half the loaf is gone between the hubby and the daughter. I have had one measly slice! I told hubby to take it easy on the loaf as I want to use some to float on top of a mushroom onion gratinee soup tomorrow. 

My pottery instructor gave me some of her organic apples so I dehydrated them in the hopes of making bread with them. So surfing TFL, I found DAB's Apple Prune Bread and took my inspiration from that. 

I soaked separately 150 g dried cranberries and 50 g dried Apple bits. I toasted 50 g walnuts, 20g chia seeds and 20 g flax seeds. After a whirl in the mini chopper, the chia seeds were soaked in 60 g water and the flax in 40 g water. 

I drained the water from the apples and the cranberries and got exactly 600 g. Into that water I put in all of the add-ins plus 600 g unbleached flour, 100 g buckwheat, 200 multigrain, 100 g white whole wheat and 30 vital wheat gluten. I let all of that autolyse for one hour. 

After the hour , I added 22 g salt, 200 g levain and 55 g water. The last was bit by bit but if I had to do it again, I would probably skip this as the dough was quite wet at the end of fermentation. 

I did 6 sets of folds a half hour apart and let it sit in a warm place (my oven with the light on) until bubbles showed up on the edges, about another hour. 

The dough was divided, preshaped, rested, shaped and put into floured baskets for a 13 hour retard. 

I then baked it as per my usual methods. 

I have company coming tomorrow and i hope that this will be part of their breakfast. Crumb shot to come when we cut into it. 

I am super pleased with the oven spring on this one. This is a variation of Tartine 3's Flax Sunflower Bread. 

I toasted 140 g of sunflower seeds and 140 g of flax seeds. I gave the flax a whirl in my mini chopper and then soaked them overnight in 180 g of water. 

The next morning, I put 700 g of warm water in my mixing tub, added the sunflower seeds and soaked flax. I had to work the flax a bit to loosen it up as it had gelled quite tightly. To that I added 500 g unbleached flour, 100 dark rye, 100 spelt, 100 g white whole wheat, and 200 multigrain flour. I let that autolyse for one hour. 

After the hour was up,I added 22 g salt , 200 g of a 3 stage 100% hydration part rye/part wheat levain as well as 60 g water as the dough felt tight. 

I then did 6 sets of folds a half hour apart and then let the dough sit until I saw bubbles forming on the sides of the bucket. 

I divided the dough into two, preshaped it, let it rest for maybe 10 minutes, shaped it, and then into baskets for an overnight retard of about 12 hours. 

I baked the dough straight from the fridge into a hot Dutch oven as per my usual 20 minutes at 500, 10 minutes at 450 and then another 20 minutes uncovered. 

I am learning that I like to mix in my add-ins with the water if the autolyse, put the flour on top and mix everything up. It seems easier than trying to add things at the first fold stage. Less messy and way less sticky. The add-ins seem better dispersed too. 

The second thing I am learning is that I get better oven spring if I retard my loaves for 10 to 12 hours instead of 18 to 24. Not sure why but mixing the dough in the early evening and baking 12 hours later seems to be giving me better results. 

Crumb shot will happen when we cut one open. ;-)

In the middle of baking these loaves last night, I was rudely interrupted by a skunk who decided that hanging around the pen of our two dogs in the backyard, was a good idea. I had the chinchillas out of their cages for a run and was heating up the oven to bake when I smelled that lovely odour of "Eau de Pepe le Pew". I ran out to grab the dogs, hoping against hope, that our streak of luck of skunks staying out of our yard continued. Well, the luck ran out. I ran to the dog pen and just off to the side against the main fence was the biggest skunk I had ever seen with her tail (my dad tells me the bigs ones are female) straight up into the air. She was stomping her front feet and making little rushes at the dog pen. Hubby and I managed to get the dogs in the house with the skunk glaring at us and me yelling at her to get back. The dogs got some overspray on them but no direct hit. No matter, it still smelled awful. So I bathe these dogs around midnight with skunk shampoo and then finished my bread baking at 2:30 am. What a night! 

I guess as a reward, my bread had the best oven spring that it has had in a long time. It made up a bit for it until I cut the loaf I kept, open this afternoon. Anyhow, I am doing a photo presentation again... saves me typing tons. He he!

My recipe

Soaking the seeds and the 10 grain cereal

My levain after stirring it down.

Following the autolyse with all the flours, buttermilk, seeds and 10 grain cereal, this is the dough after mixing in the levain and salt. I find adding the add-ins at the autolyse stage much easier.

Half hour bench rest.

The dough after a 10+ hour retard.

Out of the basket onto the counter sprinkled with cornmeal.

Into the hot dutch oven on a piece of parchment paper.

Some of the loaves. I am really pleased with the oven spring on these!

Another of the 5 loaves I made

The baby loaf made for one of the clients from the soup kitchen. This person wanted to buy a loaf from me because they really enjoyed the bread. Of course, there is no way I would take payment but I did make a small loaf for him or her to enjoy.

Okay, I always strive for an open crumb but this is ridiculous! I am putting up another post to find to find out what the heck happened here. I sure hope that my other loaves don't look like this one although this is the one that had the highest oven spring.

The story is going to be told in pictures today. ;-)

The only changes were that I added 50 g of liquid and subbed out 100 of water for buttermilk.

After the one hour autolyse, I added the salt and levain. Then I integrated the add-ins using slap and folds. Six sets of folds were done to develop the dough.

Ready to go to bed for the night in the fridge.

The next morning, ready to go into the oven.

Cooked at 500 for 20 minutes, 450 for 10 minutes and then another 25 minutes with the lid off.

The finished loaf.

I made 4 loaves, one for a friend, one for us and two went to the soup kitchen.

Half of the loaf sliced up for freezing.

A close up of the crumb.

The loaf cut in half which I call "The moment of truth!" Ha ha!