tpassin's blog

For my first foray into baking with spelt flour, I made a loaf with 50% spelt, 50% bread flour.  The spelt was stone-ground from a local water mill.  Using a kitchen sifter I was able to sift out a little bran, which I scalded with water and left overnight.  The amount of extraction was only around 6 - 7%, though.  The bread flour was King Arthur's.  The total amount of flour exclusive of the starter was 420g plus a few more for the bran scald.

To try to counter the lower amount or grade of gluten that spelt is reputed to have, I used a little more salt than I usually would, a lightly lower hydration - 70% including the starter ingredients - and more starter (35%) than I otherwise would have to get a faster fermentation.  I also included the starter and salt in the initial mix.  This was a hand mix, just enough to hydrate the flour and mix everything reasonably uniformly. 

After a rest of 30 minutes, I kneaded and stretched the dough briefly, and then did two more S&F sessions after 30 and 45 minutes.  For this last one, the dough had enough extensibility that I stretched it between my hands so I could pull it out further than I could have using coil folds in its tub.

The dough had doubled in 4 hours, and I shaped it without needing a preform.  I stretched it and worked it enough that it seemed to have enough elasticity to proof free-form, and I shaped the dough into a batarde loaf.  After proofing covered for 45 minutes, I slashed it and started the bake with initial steam.

You can see from the photos that this all worked very well and produced an attractive, well risen loaf with a reasonably open crumb for this kind of flour.  The crumb seems a little soft. and it has a good flavor subtly richer than ordinary whole wheat usually does.  

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I recently bought a sack of Hayden AP flour.  This flour features Sonoran white wheat, which is supposed to be very extensible, rather soft flour.  In this AP it is combined with some bread flour.  Sonoran white is used to make those incredibly thin, large Sonoran tortillas - see

https://ladyandpups.com/2021/05/13/paper-thin-soft-chewy-sonoran-style-flour-tortilla/

Here's a link to the flour -

https://haydenflourmills.com/products/white-sonora-all-purpose-flour

I tried it out and was able to make very good tortillas - not as large and dramatic as in the linked article, but close.  The dough was amazingly stretchy.  I wondered whether this characteristic would make a difference in making a loaf of bread.  So I made what is basically my standard baseline sourdough bread.  I planned to make a single, small loaf using 10 oz of flour and 3 oz of 100% hydration white flour starter.

Normally I would use 6.5 - 7 oz of water for this bread.  What a surprise!  The flour soaked up water like a sponge. I had to add enough more water to get to at least 95% hydration to have the dough feel like I expected.  At 65% there wasn't enough to even moisten all the flour.

I followed my baseline process - mix, rest 1/2 hour or more, knead/stretch, then bulk ferment with a few more S&F sessions.  To my surprise the dough was not very extensible at first, nor after the first s&f. Only at the 3rd (and last) s&f, after several hours, did I notice some real extensibility.

I had started bulk ferment on the late side so after it had risen close to 2X I refrigerated the container until morning.  By then it had risen something more than 2X.  I patted the dough into a fairly thin rectangle on my counter so it could warm up more effectively than if it were a ball.  After half an hour I shaped the dough into a single batarde.  This was easy since the dough was still cool.

After 2 hours proofing I baked it with initial steam at 435 deg F (224C) for 34 minutes. The loaf turned out much like the same bread but made with Gold Medal or King Arthur AP.  The flavor may be subtly different.  The crumb is modestly open, the crust is crispy, and does not shatter into lots of flakes when bitten.  The flavor is a mild buttery very pleasant flavor.

This bake has been interesting but I'm not sure there's enough difference from my usual AP flours to justify getting this flour for bread. Now for tortillas, that's a different matter!  Photos follow -

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I make a delicious masa harina skillet cornbread.  The masa harina vs cornmeal brings a tasty, subtle flavor. because I like it so much, I've been thinking about trying a sourdough bread with masa harina, and now I've tried it.  I was surprised how easy it was.

There have been some other posts on this site about cornmeal or corn flour bread, and now I'm adding my own.  First, some pictures, then the formula.

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All baker's percentages for this formula are based on the added flour not including flour in the starter. This flour added up to 10 oz, a small loaf but good for experimenting.

- Masa harina: 35%

- KA bread flour: 65%

- starter (white, 100% hydration): 20%

- liquid: about 100% (see below)

- salt: 2%

- beaten egg: 15% (1 US large egg)

- sugar: 3%

The hydration is unsure because I started at 85% (masa harina can really soak up the water) and added "enough" more without actually measuring it.  The added liquid was going to be milk, but I didn't have any so I used a mixture of half-and-half with water (for non-US readers, half-and-half is a near-cream with fat content between  light cream and milk).

The egg is there to provide some extra structure to try to make up for the lack of gluten in the masa harina.

Mix by hand, rest 1/2 hour, initial knead and stretch.  3 S&F sessions during the first part of the 5 1/2 hour bulk ferment.  Form the loaf, proof 1 hour, bake with steam at 450 deg, reducing to 430 after 20 minutes.  Baked 36 minutes to an internal temperature of 208 deg F.

This is basically my standard day-in, day-out sourdough process.

I didn't know how long to proof for since with the masa harina in the dough I knew its properties would be different from a wheat bread. In the end, the load depressed without springing back when I gently touched it with my finger, but I thought it could go a little longer so I gave it another 10 or 15 minutes.

You can see the loaf developed fabulous ears and had a good amount of expansion.  The crumb is surprisingly open, although the loaf is on the dense side.  It weighed in at 18 oz, whereas an all-purpose flour loaf of this size would be about 16 oz.  Maybe it's the 1.5 oz of egg...

The bread slices well. It has a mild pleasant taste with the corn obvious but not overwhelming.  The crust is chewy rather than crisp or crunchy (despite its appearance).  The crumb is very chewy (not tough, but it stays in the mouth as you chew) so thin slices would be best.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out, the dough was pleasant and easy to work with, and I will probably increase the masa harina content next time to (gulp) 50%.

I've been wanting to try Dave Snyder's San Joaquin formula, and I've also been wanting to try my hand at making a Pain Rustique loaf a la Prof. Calvert. So I combined the two, and it worked great.

Here's the formula, which I think has been updated a few times, with this maybe being the most recent -

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/53813/san-joaquin-sourdough-two-ways

I used the amounts as is, which gave me two loaves: a Pain Rustique and a small batarde.  I made the levain Friday evening and let it ferment overnight on my room-temperature counter (72 - 75 deg F). Mid-morning Saturday I mixed the dough and let it ferment with about 3 S&F sessions for about 5 hours, after which it had risen more than the target 50% but less than doubled. Then the dough went into the refrigerator until the next morning.

At this point I deviated slightly from the formula because I didn't make a preform form the Pain Rustique, since the loaf itself was essentially a preform.  I fermented it for 45 minutes and then baked with steam.  Here is how it came out:

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I don't have a photo of the crumb because I took it to our local bread bakery to share with the baker and staff, something I sometimes do (they comp me one of their loaves in return).  The crumb was nicely open with a good sprinkling of larger pores.  The taste was lovely, mellow, complex with hints of the whole wheat and rye.  The crust was thin and crackly.  It may have been cooked a little bit hot since the crust flavor was pretty strong - not burnt but strong.

I made a preform for the batarde when I formed the Rustique, and shaped it about an hour later.  It proofed in about 45 minutes.  The crumb of this loaf was a little tighter and more regular than the Rustique, and the flavor was the same.  Here's what it looked like:

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Overall I'm very happy with the results.  Thanks, Dave!