The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Benito's blog

February 20, 2021 - 5:07am
Benito's picture
Benito

75% whole stoneground red fife honey sourdough 85% hydration


idaveindy challenged me to bake a bread with more whole grain so I decided to take the plunge and bake a 75% red fife loaf.  I don’t recall having baked anything more than 40% whole grain before so this was going to be different for sure.  Red fife is a heritage wheat and I believe one of the first to be grown in Canada so it is dear to my heart and is what I use instead of whole wheat.  Despite the pandemic I’ve been able to reliably source it here in Toronto.

Going head first into this project I decided to write my own formula for this bread.  I recently have been trying to write my own formulas or adapt other formulas from the net.  I expected this whole red fife to be thirsty so my original recipe called for 95% hydration, however, I was shocked at how relatively not thirsty it was and ended up around 85-86% hydration.

Levain 92 g needed whole red fife 

Overnight build 1:6:6

8 g starter + 48 g water + 48 g red fife

 

Dough mix 

115 g bread flour 25%

299 g whole stoneground red fife 75%

9.2 g salt 2%

 

322 g water for 86% hydration

27 g honey 6%

 

Overnight saltolyse

The bran in whole grain need sometime to absorb water and soften.  I believe that this long saltolyse really helps that happen.

 

 

In the morning add levain to saltolyse dough, mix to incorporate with Rubaud mixing.

Slap and fold to good gluten development. 600-700 

Rest 30 min then bench letterfold ferment at 80ºF removing 30 g of dough for aliquot jar

Rest 30 min then lamination

 

Then every 30 mins coil fold - six done

 

Final shaping when aliquot jar reaches 60% and dough is domed, jiggles well and has fermentation bubbles visible.

Placed into banneton and left to rest on the bench until aliquot jar show 80% rise.

 

Cold retarded overnight.

 

Next day

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside.

Once oven reaches temp, turn dough out of banneton, score and bake in dutch oven for 20 mins at 450ºF with lid on.  Drop temperature to 420ºF and bake 10 mins with lid on.

 

Remove lid and bake for 20 mins or until done with the bread out of the dutch oven on rack directly.




February 18, 2021 - 12:35pm
Benito's picture
Benito

Matcha, Black Sesame, Swirl Sourdough Milk Bread




This recipe is an adaptation of a recipe by Chiew See author of the cookbook Autumn Kitchen.  She is on Instagram under the name Autumn Kitchen.  I’ve wanted to bake a swirl milk bread with Asian Flavours and saw her post of a similar bread I think back in summer 2019 and filed it away.  In her original recipe the black sesame seeds are prepared as a paste that becomes one of the layers of the swirl similar to how one adds the filling in a babka.  My adaptation adds the black sesame to the smallest third of the dough and incorporates it into that third.  Another third of the dough get matcha paste incorporated while the final third is unadoroned.  The three are laminated and rolled into a tube before being placed in a Pullman pan.  The following recipe is for a 9x4x4 inch Pullman pan without the lid.

Overnight levain build

14 g starter + 86 g cold water + 86 g bread flour left to ferment at 77ºF overnight.

Prepare the Matcha paste and Black sesame powder as follows.

For the Matcha paste

Mix 8.5 g Matcha, 8.5 g sugar and 18 g water until smooth, cover and set aside until the morning.I

For the Black sesame powder

Grind 96 g of toasted black sesame seeds (I used a coffee grinder) then combine with 18 g of sugar.  Cover and set aside until the morning.

The next morning mix the following except for the butter.

312 g bread flour

1 large egg

30 g sugar

126 g milk

6 g salt

180 g levain 

30 g room temperature butter.

Using a standmixer, mix until incorporated at low speed.  Then mix at higher speed until gluten well formed.  Then gradually add the butter and mix until the dough is elastic, shines and smooth.

Remove the dough from the mixer, shape into a ball and divide into approximate thirds.  Shape the largest third into a boule and set aside covered with a towel.

Take the smallest third and combine with the black sesame powder and knead by hand until the black sesame powder is well incorporated.  Shape into a boule and set aside under a tea towel.

Place the final medium sized third into the stand mixer along with the matcha paste.  Mix until the dough is a uniform green colour and smooth.  Shape into a boule and place under a tea towel to rest for 5 mins.

Lightly flour a work surface and the plain dough boule.  Roll out to at least 12” in length, set aside.  Continue to do the same with the other two balls next rolling the matcha dough out to 12” and placing that on top of the plain rolled out dough.  Finally rolling the black sesame dough out again to 12” and finally placing that on top of the matcha dough.

Next tightly roll the laminated doughs starting with the short end until you have a swirled log.  Place the log in your prepared Pullman pan (I like to line it with parchment so it is easy to remove from the pan).  Place in the proofing box set to 82-84ºF to proof until the dough come to approximately 1 cm below the edge of the pan.

At about 30 mins before you think your dough will be at 1 cm below the edge of the pan, preheat your oven to 355*F with a rack or baking steel/stone on the lowest rack.  At this time prepare an egg wash and gently brush it on the top of the dough.  When the oven is ready 30 mins later, brush the top of the dough again with the egg wash.  Bake for 45 mins turning once halfway through.  Keep an eye on the top crust and be prepared to shield it with either aluminum foil or a cookie tray above if it is getting dark too soon.  After 45 mins remove from the pan to check for doneness.  Place the bread back in the oven for another 5 minutes to ensure that the crust on the sides is fully set and baked.

Remove from oven and place on a rack to cool completely before slicing.

Enjoy.

Edited to add sugar to better balance the matcha.





February 14, 2021 - 5:06am
Benito's picture
Benito

Sour Cherry Raspberry Pie and half Palmiers

I had a theme going for this Valentine’s Day weekend of sour cherries.  Of course I needed a dessert so what better than sour cherry raspberry pie.  I decided after reading through a pie cookbook that I would try to bake it differently.  I blind baked the crust and then baked cut outs that I then painted some with red gel food colour.  I also cooked the filling on the stovetop and then assembled the whole thing placing the red cut outs in a heart pattern for Valentine’s Day.

The all butter pastry was a new recipe for me, one written by Kate McDermott in her book Art of Pie.  I’m still trying to find pie crust nirvana.  Although I was quite happy with Stella Parks Recipe, it was at times less tender than I would prefer.  So I’m still trying other recipes to see if I can find one I prefer.  This one certainly has the lamination and layers of buttery pastry that I like.  

Since these pie pastry recipes are American, I had to combine my 10% protein all purpose with my 13.3% protein flours to get it around 11-12% protein.  I didn’t use any baking powder or vodka or vinegar for that matter to tenderize the crust.

All the leftover bits of dough after trimming the edges of the pie crust were layered and chilled.  Later I rolled them out, sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on them, then rolled it up like a log and chilled again.  I later sliced them and baked them from frozen for about 30 mins and make half palmiers.  If they are any representation of the pie crust, then I think the pie crust is a success especially given the extra handling that these scraps of dough had.  Definitely don’t throw your scraps of pastry dough away.







February 13, 2021 - 5:43am
Benito's picture
Benito

Black Sesame 40% Whole Kamut 85% hydration Sourdough Loaf


I’ve baked with Kamut up to 30% in the past but never tried 40% and never with inclusions.  I have however, baked with Semolina up to 100% but that wasn’t whole grain.  So based on my past Kamut recipes I’ve increased both the Kamut and the hydration and added black sesame seeds on the inside rather than seeding the crust.  

Overall I think this was a successful bake.

Total dough weight 900 g

 

Levain 86 g needed 9% PFF

Overnight build 1:6:6 Bread flour 74ºF 

7 g starter + 42 g water + 42 g Bread Flour

Wasn’t ready after 9 hours

 

Dough Mix overnight saltolyse 

Water for 85% hydration 364 g hold back 20 g so 344 g at mix

Bread Flour 244 g

Kamut 192 g

Salt 9.58 g

Levain 86 g

 

Total Formula 

Total flour 479 g

40% Whole Kamut = 192 g

60% Bread Flour = 287 g

Total water 407 g 85%

 

In AM

Add 86 g Levain and hold back water 20 g 

Rubaud mixing and then slap and folds until full windowpane approximately 550 slap and folds done

30 mins bench rest then bench letterfold

30 mins rest then lamination

Add black sesame during lamination 

30 mins rest then series of coil folds 

Aim for aliquot jar rise 60% before shaping

Allow further bench rest until at least 70% rise before cold retard.  This bake 75% then cold retard

Retard Overnight

 

Bake

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside

Once 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score as desired.

 

Transfer to dutch oven placing the lid on top place in over lower ⅓ of the oven.  Turn oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for 20 mins.  The drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake for 10 mins lid on.  Then remove lid and continue to bake in the dutch oven lid off for 10 mins further.  Remove bread from dutch oven and bake directly on the oven rack for another 10-20 mins until fully baked.






February 12, 2021 - 7:18am
Benito's picture
Benito

Irish Mist Soaked Sour Cherry Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk Cocoa Sourdough


This is my first time with this recipe I put together.  Based on Dan and JC’s experiences with cocoa sourdough I’m hoping that my formula is a good tasting cocoa bread.  I used the usual 2% salt rather than lowering it because salt had hide bitterness.  I’ve added a bit more honey to try to balance the bitterness of cocoa.  I used a rich Dutch processed cocoa again with the alkalinization to help reduce acidity.  I added semisweet chocolate chunks and I used dried sour cherries that I soaked overnight in Irish Mist liqueur.  For those unfamiliar with Irish Mist it is made from aged Irish whiskey, heather and clover honey, aromatic herbs, and other spirits, blended to an ancient recipe claimed to be 1,000 years old.  The left over soak was so flavorful that I added it back to the bottle of Irish Mist, the sour cherry going so well with this liqueur.

Because the tannins in the cocoa tighten the gluten and increase the elasticity of the dough, I attempted to counter that by adding spelt to the dough and also using a relatively high hydration for a dough with only 20% whole grain.

Despite my alterations to the recipe hoping to increase extensibility the dough proved to be quite elastic.  So much so I was only able to do half coil folds most of the time.  Next bake I would consider using 10% protein all purpose to replace the bread flour, this dough doesn't require the extra strength of the 13.3% protein bread flour we have here in Canada.

 

For one 900 g loaf 90% hydration 

300 g white bread flour.              80%

41 g whole spelt flour (for added extensibility)             20% (including levain)

205 g water     (Next time 225 g and hold back water back down to 20 g)

40 g water for mixing later

6.75 g salt  

30 g cocoa powder alkalinized (Dutch Process) 8% cooked with 60 g water to make a syrup, then added 20 g honey to balance the bitterness of the chocolate

70 g levain   

 

20 g Honey 5.3%

70 g Chopped 60% semi sweet dark chocolate 20%

 

Total flour 376 g

Total water 320 g for 85% hydration 

Since added 40 g water during bassinage 90% hydration

 

68 g dried sour cherries 20% soaked in rum (or kirsch or Irish Mist) overnight

34 g toasted hazelnuts chopped 10% (consider dec to 10-15%)

 

Levain build 1:7:7 for overnight 74ºF

 

5 g starter + 35 g water + 35 g spelt

 

Overnight saltolyse

 

Bulk Fermentation 80-82ºF 

Add levain to dough, pinching along with hold out water, Rubaud for a few minutes then 700 French folds fully develop gluten.  

  1. + 30 min Bench letterfold, set up aliquot jar
  2. + 30 mins Lamination.  Place dough on wet counter and spread out into a large rectangle. Spread walnuts and cranberries on the dough in thirds. 
  3. + 30 min half Coil Fold
  4. + 30 min half Coil Fold
  5. + 30 min Coil Fold
  6. + 30 mins Coil Fold
  7. + 30 mins coil fold
  8. + 45 mins coil fold

 

End of BF - Shaping aliquot jar 60% or greater - the bench rest until aliquot 70% or greater.

 

Retard Overnight

 

Bake

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside

Once 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score as desired.

 

Transfer to dutch oven placing the lid on top place in over lower ⅓ of the oven.  Turn oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for 20 mins.  The drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake for 10 mins lid on.  Then remove lid and continue to bake in the dutch oven lid off for 10 mins further.  Remove bread from dutch oven and bake directly on the oven rack for another 10-20 mins until fully baked.

 





February 6, 2021 - 6:18am
Benito's picture
Benito

Seven Grain Sourdough


Based on my last bake which I felt didn’t have enough water, I wanted to see what would happen if I greatly increased the hydration for this bake.  If you do not include the soaker water the hydration is 70%, but with the soaker water it is a crazy sounding 109% hydration.  There was some spreading of the dough as it baked which I don’t like so I suspect the ideal hydration might be 5% less or just what the original recipe calls for.  The original recipe is Hamelman’s Five Grain which is super popular here, but I wanted to play around with hydration and used a 100% hydration levain instead of his > 100% hydration.

This is my third time attempting a decorative leaf score on my bread and I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.  Had I achieved a better oven spring on this loaf I think the leaves would have stood up more from the loaf.  As well, between the end of steam baking and end of baking I lost some of the contrast between scored and unscored areas losing definition of the leaves.  Although I brushed off excess rice flour it is obvious that I didn’t brush enough of it off and when handling the bread to get it out of the dutch oven much of the loose rice flour shifted into the scores.  It’s too bad because the leaf scores actually looked decent this time.  Something to work on to improve next time along with adjusting the hydration.

 

Levain 74ºF overnight 

18 g starter 110 g water 110 g red fife 

 

Dough mix saltolyse overnight 

Bread flour 214 g

Spelt 71 g

Rye 36 g

Water 189 g (held back 20 g until next day added with levain)

Salt 8 g

 

Soaker overnight

34 g oatmeal, 0.68 g salt, 34 g black and white sesame seeds, 34 g poppyseeds, 34 g mix pumpkin and sunflower seeds 174 g boiling water

 

Overall 31% inclusions

 

1.    Liquid Levain   --- Make the final build 8-9 hours before the final mix and let stand in a covered container at about 74°F. Mix Levain and Soaker at the same time.

2.    Soaker   --- Pour the boiling water over the grain blend and salt, mix thoroughly, and cover with plastic to prevent evaporation. Make the soaker at the same time as the final build of the levain and let stand at room temperature. If grains that don't require a hot soaker are used (such as rye chops in lieu of the cracked rye listed here), a cold soaker will absorb less water, and therefore it's likely that slightly less water will be needed in the final dough.

3.    Mixing   --- Add all ingredients to the mixing bowl. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes, adjusting the hydration as necessary. Mix on second speed for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. The dough should have a moderate gluten development. Desire dough temperature 76°F.

4.    Bulk Fermentation   --- 76ºF until 60% rise by aliquot jar

5.    Folding   --- the bulk fermentation should be 3.5 hours with 2-3 folds

6.    Sharped and placed in banneton.

7.    Final Fermentation   --- After shaping leave on the counter at room temperature for 1 hour aliquot jar reached 75-80% rise, then place in fridge at 3ºC for 24 hour cold retard.

 

8.    Baking   --- With normal steam, 450°F for 20 mins then drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake lid on for 10 mins.  Remove lid and bake for another 10 mins.  Then remove bread from dutch oven and complete baking directly on the rack for another 10 mins.






February 5, 2021 - 6:19am
Benito's picture
Benito

Rum Soaked Apricot Toasted Walnut Sourdough


I’ve wanted to do another fruit and nut bread for a few weeks and decided to finally see how apricots and walnuts would do together.  I loved the rum soaked fruits I’ve done in the past so decided to rum soak the apricots overnight.  Toasted walnuts are always better than raw and finally to see if I could amp up the walnut flavour I added some walnut oil as well.  I tried another decorative score, of course my lack of practice and artistic talents impair the outcome.  I also think that perhaps a fruit and nut laden loaf may not be the best vehicle for this type of decorative scoring.

For one 900 g loaf 80% hydration (2 loaves)

311 g white bread flour.    (622)           

46 g whole wheat flour.     (92)          

21 g dark rye flour.           (42)             

274 g warm water, then         (548)   

21 g water for mixing later       (42)  

7.5 g salt  (15)

2 g diastatic malt powder 0.5%  (4)

12.5 g Walnut oil 3%

 

77 g levain   (154)

 

Total flour 416.5 g

 

76 g dried apricots 20% chopped soaked in rum overnight

76 g toasted walnuts 20%

Double batch 152 g each

 

Final dough weight 906 g

 

Levain build 1:6:6 for overnight 74ºF 

6 g starter + 38 g water + 38 g red fife

 

Overnight saltolyse

 

Add walnut oil at the end of mix by drizzling over and stretch and folding.

 

Bulk Fermentation 80-82ºF 

Add levain to dough, pinching along with hold out water, Rubaud for a few minutes then 500 French folds fully develop gluten.  Then stretch and fold to add walnut oil.

  1. + 30 min Bench letterfold, set up aliquot jar
  2. + 30 mins Lamination.  Place dough on wet counter and spread out into a large rectangle. Spread walnuts and cranberries on the dough in thirds. 
  3. + 30 min Coil Fold
  4. + 30 min Coil Fold
  5. + 30 min Coil Fold
  6. + 30 mins Coil Fold
  7. + 30 mins coil fold
  8. + 45 mins coil fold

 

End of BF - Shaping aliquot jar 60% or greater - the bench rest until aliquot 70% or greater.

 

Retard Overnight

 

Bake

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside

Once 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score as desired.

 

Transfer to dutch oven placing the lid on top place in over lower ⅓ of the oven.  Turn oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for 20 mins.  The drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake for 10 mins lid on.  Then remove lid and continue to bake in the dutch oven lid off for 10 mins further.  Remove bread from dutch oven and bake directly on the oven rack for another 10-20 mins until fully baked.

 




February 2, 2021 - 2:31pm
Benito's picture
Benito

Sourdough Pizza


We love our sourdough pizza for dinner.  We always make one for each of us.  Today’s pizza was Italian tuna, sun dried tomato, artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper, stuffed green olives, taggiasca olives, peperoncini and mozzarella cheese.  I’ll post the sourdough recipe below, but I really haven’t changed much since using this during the pizza Community Bake a couple of years back, thanks again to Will the Pie King for sharing his recipe.

 

For 4 9” pizzas NY style thin crust 200 g each

Levain Build 100% hydration 35 g needed

 

433 g bread flour

43 g Whole grain flour (50:50 whole spelt:whole wheat)

4.76 g Diastatic malt 

252 g water and

41 g water hold out

8.43 g salt

2.5 g sugar

4.8 g olive oil

 

(1) In your mixer bowl(or by hand) dissolve the Starter in all of the Final Dough Water except the HOLD OUT Water.  (Add diastatic malt too)

(2) Mix in the flours until well hydrated 

(3) Allow to fermentolyse for 1hr 

(4) Mix in the remaining HOLD OUT Water, salt and sugar, mix until well-incorporated. 

(5) Slowly drizzle in the oil until well combined. 

(6) Beat or knead by hand until dough is moderately developed. The dough will be sticky and elastic. If kneading by hand, use slightly wet hands and avoid adding more flour. 

(7) Oil your hands and a suitable container. 

(8) Shape into a tight ball.  I divide the ball into four smaller ones each for one 9” pizza at this point.  Each goes into a small oiled bowl and allowed to bulk ferment at 80ºF for 1 hour.

(9) Cold ferment in the refrigerator for minimum 48 hours and up to 4 days.

(10) Remove to warm up to room temp 1hr or so before use, or you can ferment at room temp. for 6hrs. I have found about 2 hours at 80ºF in the proofing box to be ideal.

(11) Stretch the balls into your desired size skins (see video below), top and bake at 500F-550F (as high as your oven will go) Until the crust is browned and the cheese has melted. Spin the pie at least once to avoid burning due to oven hot



spots. I have included a link to a skin stretching tutorial. 


January 30, 2021 - 6:32am
Benito's picture
Benito

Benny’s Country Sourdough 80% hydration


I have settled on this formula for my go to plain sourdough as I like the flavour and in fact it can act as a nice basis for most inclusions.  I had been playing around with ratios of low protein vs high protein flours hoping to enhance the oven spring and crumb and I’m hoping that it worked.

Overnight levain build 1:6:6 72ºF 

7 g starter + 44 g water + 44 g red fife

 

Dough build Mix ingredients for saltolyse

Bread flour 250 g

All purpose flour 10% protein 150 g

Whole red fife 30 g

Whole rye 25 g

Water 340 g 

Salt 9.97 g

Diastatic Malt 2.49 g

 

Levain 90 g

 

In the morning mix 90 g of levain into the dough and add a further 15 g of water if your dough requires it, mine did.

Rubaud mixing for 5 mins followed by a 5 min rest.

The slap and folds x 400 with a 5 min rest in the middle.

Try to fully develop the gluten at the start of bulk.

Bulk ferment at 74 *F

Then 15 mins rest.

Strong bench letterfold then rest 30 mins

Lamination then start a series of coils folds at 20-30 mins intervals to build structure until the dough doesn’t spread very much after coil folds.  I did six coil folds over 2 hours then allowed the dough to rest until it had risen (not the aliquot jar) about 50% or so.  Because I use a square low Pyrex dish it is hard to judge rise, but the dough should be very jiggly and domed and have bubbles on the surface.

 

Preshape in a fairly taut boule, then rest 20 mins.

Final shape, dust with rice flour and place into banneton for cold retard until next day.

 

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside.

30 mins before oven is ready place the dough in banneton into the freezer to firm it up in preparation for attempted decorative scoring.

Remove dough from banneton, smooth out rice flour on surface and score.  I am obviously not very artistic but attempted to score a couple of leaves on my dough.

Transfer to dutch oven and place lid on.

Drop temperature to 450ºF and bake 20 mins.

Next drop temperature to 420ºF and bake another 10 mins with the lid on.

Remove lid rotating the dutch oven and bake another 10 mins.

Remove bread from dutch oven and bake on the rack for 10 mins.

Check doneness the bread may need another 5 mins or so.

 




January 23, 2021 - 11:08am
Benito's picture
Benito

Purple Sweet Potato Black Sesame Sourdough 84.5% hydration


You might know that this is one of my favourite flavour combinations that I’ve baked a few times now.  However, being me I keep tinkering to see if I can make it better than before, it doesn’t always work out that way.

I made some changes, I haven’t been happy with my lazy preparation of the sweet potatoes so instead of microwaving them, I used the instant pot this time, 18 mins at normal pressure.  This results in a nicer sweet potato that is easy to remove the peel and mash.  The resulting mash is more moist and much better than the drying effects of microwaving.  I did several and froze the mash in portions for future use.

I increased the hydration to 84.5% and pushed bulk quite far, for me in total 80% rise when the bench rest after shaping is included.  I wanted to see if I could achieve a more open crumb than I usually get.

 

Total flour 409 g

Levain 20% 

6 g starter 36 g water 36 g red fife overnight build

 

Saltolyse overnight

81% bread flour 331 g

19% red fife flour 41 g 

Salt 2% 8.18 g

Water 300 g

I added 8 g water during bassinage 84.5% hydration

 

160 g purple sweet potato

 

The dough was developed with initial Rubaud mixing when the levain was added to the saltolysed dough in the morning and 8 g of additional water added.  Further gluten development with 200 slap and folds were done.

30 mins later a bench letterfold was done

30 mins lamination was performed adding both the sweet potato and black sesame seeds.

three sets of coil folds were performed at approximately 30 mins intervals each time waiting until the dough fully relaxed.

Bulk was ended when the aliquot jar reached 60% rise.

Dough shaped into a batard and placed in a banneton and left on the counter for another 60 mins until the aliquot jar reached 80% rise.

Cold Retard until the next day.

 

Preheat oven to 500ºF with dutch oven inside.

Once at 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score.  Brush with water and transfer to the dutch oven, drop the temperature to 450ºF and bake for 20 mins with the lid on.  Drop the temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake lid on for 10 mins.

Remove the lid and continue to bake in dutch oven for 10 mins lid off.

Remove from dutch oven and place on oven rack to complete bake additional 15-20 mins.

 

Post bake analysis.  I think that the combination of higher hydration and moist sweet potatoes along with the bulk pushed to 80% caused the flatter profile of this bake.  That being said, I’m not disappointed with the crumb which is generally more open than what I usually achieve.  At least I know I can achieve this style of crumb if I want to.  Well, I don’t know that I can achieve it consistently yet, more bakes will need to be done to confirm that.

 

I do still enjoy the flavour of this bread.  Regarding the baking, the additional 10 mins of baking with the lid on does, I’m convinced, lead to a thinner crust.  Removing the bread from the dutch oven for the final 15-20 mins of baking also helps thin the bottom crust.  I do need to be careful to fully baking when using this method because this bread was borderline a bit too moist in places where there was a lot of the sweet potato so an additional 5 mins might be needed when there are a lot of wet inclusions and higher hydration dough.

I also think I prefer the sweet potato when it is added earlier in the process to the dough to more evening distribute it.  But it was worthwhile trying this method to compare.





 


Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Benito's blog