dabrownman's blog

After Evon’s post of her bread with Japanese Black Rice in it, we knew it had to get to the top pf the bake list like Hanseata’s Wild Rice bread did when it appeared.  We had run across some of this rice a couple of months ago at Sprouts and had cooked it for dinner.  We knew it would end up in bread eventually and Evon’s post was the impetus.

The question was what kind of bread to put it in?  My apprentice went back and looked at our take of the Karin’s wonderful Wild Rice Bread and quickly knew that we would do something similar to it, perhaps not as dark or complicated.

Since I started medicating my apprentice with Sylvia’s Dog Bones, she isn’t as determined or anal as usual - even though she has taken to licking the glow in the dark, black light intensified picture we have of Elvis performing in Las Vagas.   Here was that bake:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28806/hanseata%E2%80%99s-wild-rice-sd-w-yeast-water-multi-seeds-prunes-beer-and-sprouts

Here is Karin’s original post :

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24092/wild-rice-sourdough-bread-ended-cold-war

Here is Evon’s inspirational bake, if a little dark, : Sprouted Organic Wild Black Rice SD Bread

It isn’t often we have a new bread ingredient like Japanese Wild Rice but Evon’s bread also had edamame in it – a second ingredient we have never seen used in bread before.  And as luck would have it, we had 3 kinds of edamame in the pantry and freezer.  We had fresh shelled edamame in the freezer. Wasabi dried edamame (my favorite after a few beers) and regular dried edamame.

You can tell we eat it a lot around here since it is my daughter’s favorite veggie.  We decided to be our normal conservative self when it comes to baking, as opposed to my apprentice’s solution for cleaning tile grout or magnesium rims on fine, if old, motorcycles.  So, we went with the non Wasabi dried edamame even though the black rice is Japanese.  You just can’t make apprentice’s think after leading them to water.

We sprouted the black rice and thought we had killed it when we forgot it was soaking and let it go for 8 hours before draining and putting them between damp paper towels.   But the rice loved it and after 2 days had sprouted well.  My apprentice was especially thrilled since this was her first time sprouting any kind of rice.

We did the standard (3) 4 hour levain build by putting all of the whole multi-grains in the levain.  Since it was white flour in the dough, we autolysed it for 1 hour only with the VWG, Toadies, red and white malts.  Once the levain and autolyse came together we did 10 minutes of slap and folds.

My apprentice sang one of her favorite tunes while doing the S& F’s - an Oriental cowboy song called - ‘Yippee Oh Kiyae, I am a Japanese Hot Dog, Bun Making Sandman.’  I reminded her that we wouldn’t be making hot dog buns till later in the day but she was in the groove and just wouldn’t be stopped with her being a hot dog and Japanese rice in the mix.  I’m guessing it won’t be the last time I hear this odd tune today.

After a 15 minute rest we did 3 sets of S& F’s on 15 minute intervals and added the edamame, black rice sprouts, ground non aromatic and aromatic seed variety and prunes on the first set.  By the 3rd set they were well distributed.  After another 15 minute rest, we divided the dough in half, shaped each and placed them into rice floured baskets and then into used plastic trash can liners.

After a 30 minute rest on the counter the baskets were placed into the fridge for an 18 hour retard.  By the next morning they had risen well in the fridge.  They came out of the cold for one hours to warm up before we fired up Big Old Betsy with Sylvia’s and David’s Patented Steaming Combo.

It took 45 minutes for the oven to get to 500 F including the 20 minutes for the top and bottom stones to get to that temperature lagging 20 minute behind.  We really cut back on the rice flour this time and worried that the dough would stick to the baskets but they came out no worries after a rap on the parchment covered peel.  A quick slash and into the oven they went.

After 2 minutes of steam at 500 F we turned the oven down to 465 F for a further 10 minutes of steam.  After removing the steam, we turned the oven down to 450 F, convection this time and let the bread finish baking to 205 F on the inside while rotating the bread ever 5 minute on the stone.  Total baking time was 27 minutes with 15 of it without steam.

It browned up, bloomed out had a few blisters and an ear where we tried to get one.  I like the color of this bread and the pattern that the baskets put on them.  They smell like they will be tasty if not delicious.  Have to wait for the crumb shot till after lunch .

The crumb is soft, light, open and moist.  The taste is totally unique and unlike Hanseata's Wild Rice bread.   We really like this bread.  the dried edamame will be a routine bread ingrediant from now on - we love the mouth feel and taste of them in thsi bread very much.   We love rhe contrasting ncolors and textures of teh crumb - very appealing!  It is another fine bread of late and a shout out goes to Evon for her inspiration and fine post of her bread.  One more crumb picture for Lucy!

Formula

I found a WW levain lurking in the back of the fridge.  It had been there for at least a week and maybe two.  It was a 100% hydration one since the hooch had separated out and was lying on top.  We poured off the liquid and fed it twice with multigrain flour and water on 4 hour intervals and it doubled in 2 hours after the last feeding.  So what to do with it?

WW Sourdough                                                                       White Yeast Water - love those toadie specks

We had our monthly hamburger night coming up and were without the required buns again.  After doing our normal whole grains in the SD levain we used AP flour for the rest of the mix.  After a 2 hour autolyse using milk, we mixed the levain with the wet flours.  To enriched the dough we added butter, egg and honey.

Since we have no idea what the pedigree is for the 10% protein, AP flour in the Winco bins, we added some VWG to ensure decent gluten structure.  The hydration came in at 81% which was pretty high for a 35% whole grain bread.  After 10 minutes of slap and folds and 3 sets of S&F on 20 minute intervals the dough went into the fridge for an overnight retard.

When putting the SD in the fridge I noticed that the YW had gone unused for a while and probably needed refreshment but would wait on that till the morning.  First thing in the morning I got out the YW and mixed up an enriched white dough similar to the SD but added ricotta cheese and the only whole grains were the Toadies.

No levain build, no autolyse and no retard required.  It felt much wetter than the 74% hydration it calculates to.  Still, this too is very wet for something that is supposed to be a shaped, rope roll of some kind.   So if you want more coil definition, use less liquid for both of these dough preparations.

We just tossed everything together, did 10 minutes of slap and folds and 3 sets of S&F’s on 15 minute intervals and then left the dough on the counter to ferment for 2 hours,  At the end of 2 hours we retrieved the SD out of the fridge to let it warm up for and hour.   This is when Lucy sort of went berserko with her wild, hair brained ideas that she is known for executing poorly if at all.

She thought it would be cool to make Franz Joseph rolls by making ropes out of the 2 varieties of dough and then twist 1 of each kind together to make a 145 g  twisted rope.  This twisted, half step sister rope could then be shaped  into Franz Joseph rolls, which are the same as Kaiser rolls but named properly from a historical point of view.

We didn’t need or want 12 buns, so we took half of each  dough and used that to make a 6 strand round challah since these mixes sure looked and smelled like challah to me… only way more wet.

It was a bad choice since the dough was too wet and should have been in a loaf pan instead.  Always listen to Mini Oven when she says, (paraphrased) something like, ‘if its not ciabatta and over 80% hydration, it belongs in a tin! 

I couldn’t remember what temperature to bake enriched dough at so looked at the beet infused buns and saw 350 F.  Since I know my oven is 25 F low, I baked at 375 F with steaming lava rocks in a CI skillet. I put the egg washed challah on the top stone 4 minute before the egg washed and sesame seeded rolls went on the bottom stone.  After 8 more minutes out came the steam and on went the convection at 350 F this time.

We rotated the bread and rolls every 5 minutes on the stones and at the 25 total  minute mark the rolls looked done and out they came to cooling racks without testing for temperature.  8 minutes later the challah hit 202 F.  We turned off the oven and then when the challah hit 205 F we removed it from the off oven.

Everything browned nicely, no blisters were expected since you can’t get them at 375 F no matter how much steam you have.  We sliced open the challah and found that the SD portion was more open than the YW one and it looked like the YW portion was way under proofed compared to our normal crumb but the bread.

We should havelet the YW ferment for at least 2 hours more on the counter, 4 total or more hours before getting out the SD from its retard.  The cool part was the slightly darker SD portion that has tang.  Gives a unique looke to the bread. Not as dramatic a contrast as the Chaccon for Eric by far, but it is s subtle thing you can’t help but notice and taste.

Would expect the same thing for the rolls but won’t know till dinner time.  The rolls were much like the Challah on the inside adn made the perfect vehicle for the high rise hamburger where my architectural training was needed!  These burgers were 6 oz with soy sauce, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper seasoning.  The toppings were BBQ sauce and ketchup,  grilled and caramelized onions, mushrooms, red yellow, green and Hatch peppers, apple wood smoked bacon, smoked Gouda and brie cheeses, home grown; tomato and lettuces. The sides were sweet and white rose baked potato wedges and a nice salad. When you only have ham,burgers once a month you have to go all out.  The buns held up exceptionally well structurally and their grilling really made them tasty. 

With our daughter coming home tonight we thought home made pizza was in order since she loves it more than taking final exams at college.  We had built a YW levain for it on Monday and stuck it in the fridge to chill till this morning. To give it a boost we also made a 120 g, 100% hydration poolish this morning.  Both were ready to go to work in 4 hours of warm up and ferment

This was an all white flour affair which we have not done in years. No autolyse, 10 minutes of slap and folds, 3 sets of SF’s 20 minutes apart where the minced; fresh rosemary, clove of garlic and sun dried tomato were incorporated on the first fold.

There was the 30 minutes of counter ferment and then into the fridge for 3 hours to develop.  We took the dough out 2 hours before we formed it into 3 pizzas and one batch of Parmesan and Pecorino cheese, herb and Mojo de Ajo twisted bread sticks.

Docked and brushed with Mojo de Ajo before par baking

Pizza topping included hot Italian sausage, pepperoni, 3 fresh peppers; jalapeno, Hatch Green and  red bell, 3 cheeses; Mozzarella, Pecorino and Parmesan, caramelized, mushrooms and onions with a garnish of green onion and fresh basil flowers.

We par baked the crust for 3 minutes at 500 F between 2 stones top and bottom and loaded the crust up and finished them off in another 5 minutes.  The crust wa super thin and crisp – just the way we like it.

Very thin and crsip crust - no bending allowed even when piled high with toppings.

The bread sticks happened when we ran out of pizza toppings besides the cheeses.  My daughter sliced the last already rolled out pizza crust into strips with the pizza cutter.   She then brushed on the garlic infused olive oil, put the grated Parmesan and Pecorino cheese on and then the fresh basil flowers.

Pizza #2

She folded the strips in half to enclose the goodies and then twisted them to make them prettier than normal.  Baked these at 400 F right on the stone and then dipped them I pizza sauce to really top them off – delicious.

Pizza #3 and some bread sticks.

My daughter said the crust was good but only middle of the road in all of our crust efforts over the years - likely due to not being retarded overnight.  It was easily pliable yet strong enough to work with, easy to roll out very thin without tearing even one hole.   All in all, a good treat on a Friday night.

And a salad.

Formula

We were out of white bread again and with Lucy in the middle of her rye bread experiments, it didn’t look like we would get a chance to make one either.  But we built the rye levain for her and at the same time a whole wheat one for this bread and a YW one for some possible pizza - possibly tomorrow or Sunday.  Saturday is out since we are off to Tucson to finish moving my daughter back home.

This levain build was 3 stages, 4 hours each, levain build like the last one with the exception that, instead of an overnight 12 hour retard of the levain after the 3rd feeding, this one had a 36 hour retard after the 3rd feeding.  It was allowed to come to room temperature for 2 hours when it more than doubled.

That same 2 hours was used for the autolyse of the dry ingredients with the exception of the seeds and sprouts.  The liquid was the reserved soaking water from the sprouts for this bake and the soaking water from last one with some honey.

The dry included toadies, WW, Spelt, oats, corn, red and white malts, a small; amount of VWG, and some medium ground white and black sesame seeds with some golden and  brown flax seeds.

Once the autolyse was mixed with the small amount of levain, we did 10 minutes of slap and folds where the gluten developed very well.  We then did 3 sets of S&F’s where the remaining hemp, black, white and brown poppy seeds and the WW sprouts were incorporated on the first stretch and fold.

Once the S&F’s were completed we let the dough rest for 30 minutes before shaping it and placing it in a rice floured basket and then immediately retarding it for 15 hours.  The dough had doubled during the retard so when we pulled it out of the fridge in the morning we then fired up old Betsy to 500 F to bake the bread as soon as possible.

We used our usual Sylvia’s steaming pyrex pan with two towels and David’s, lava rock filled, CI 12” skillet both half full of water for the mega steam which was placed on the bottom rack when the temperature hot 425 F.  When Betsy beeped she was at 500F we set the timer for 15 minutes to allow the top and bottom stones to get to the 500 F and get the steam billowing.

We un-molded the bread from the basket, gently since it was an inch over the rim, and over turned it onto parchment paper on a peel.  We quickly scored it and placed it on the bottom stone and steamed it at 470 F for 15 minutes before removing the steam and turning the oven down to 435 F, convection this time.

The bread was rotated 90 degrees on the stone every 5 minutes to ensure even browning.   20 minutes after the steaming scheme came out of the oven, the bread was at 200 F.  We turned the oven off and left the bread on the stone with the door closed.  When the bread hit 205 F 5 minutes later, we opened the door and allowed the crust to further crisp on the stone till it hit 207 F.

Total baking time to 205 F was 40 minutes with an additional 5 minutes for the bread to crisp on the stone from 205 F to 207 F.  The crust was blistered with small hole, boldly baked to a mahogany color and quite crisp.  The crust went soft as it cooled.  We will have to wait for the crumb shots when we slice this bread for lunch.

The crumb is soft, moist and flavorful with a very nice nutty background and seedy crunch of the hemp and poppy seeds  This is another bread we like very much.  It may not look as delicious as it really is but that is because it is subtle and not to be taste bud trusted.  It grows on you .... and we will let it do so :-)   It is a welcomed treat to have so many good bakes of late and then have the baker at Sprouts give me a decent SFSD too!  Don't say anything but my apprentices breads are way better than Sprouts  but I am glad Sprouts is selling something decent for very little hard earned cash.  I saw a very small selection of  bread at Whole Foods that is baked in a small bakery in Coolidge . AZ.  I'm going to take a bike ride there and see what that bakery is all about.  Their bread looked very good on the outside and baked in a WFO!

Formula

My apprentice, Lucy, has been on a quest to make some rye breads that really pack the flavor of what she thinks a rye should taste like.  Her last bake really came out well with a 40% rye and I thought for sure she wouldn’t try to improve on it any time soon but, she fooled me again.

Her reasoning this time was that how can she call a bread, rye bread, when only 30% to 40% of the flour is rye?  To her, this is a white bread with twice as much wheat flour in it as rye that it should be called 60 to 70% wheat bread instead.  So she wanted to rectify this by having at least 50% whole rye flour in the mix.

She also wanted to get the whole grains over 60% while keeping some coarse grounds corn in the mix.  The hydration ended up at 85%.   Lucy recently found out that part of my wife’s family came from Odessa, Russia and they love dark rye breads there.  So she used a dark Russian Baltika Porter for the majority of the liquid.

To get the bread leaning more to the dark side she used some barley malt syrup, molasses, instant coffee and cocoa to bring out the color.  She put in some Toadies, oats, potato flakes and 6 grain cereal to help round out and deepen the flavor.  We loved the Eric Hanner dried minced onion inclusion in the last bake so much that we took his tip to use the soaker water from them this time too.

Lucy put the usual red and white malts and little VWG to boost the white unbleached  AP and bread flour’s gluten content since these are bin flours from Winco and not much over 10% protein.  The aromatic seeds are the usual caraway, fennel, anise and fennel with the emphasis on caraway.  This time she used 100 dry grams of wheat berries that she soaked for 3 hours before sprouting them for an additional 25 hours until they chitted.

Unglazed crust.

Rather tan baking this as a free form loaf in the MagnaWare Turkey Roaster, she decided to proof and bake this in the small enameled, cast iron DO and bake it to 200 F.  We used our usual levain build for the rye sour but this time only used 10 g of seed.  It was built over 3 stages of 4 hours each but it was refrigerated after the 3rd feeding overnight to develop the sour.

Glazed Crust

When the levain came out of the fridge the next morning for its 3rd 4 hour build we started the autolyse with all the dry except the salt, sprouts and seeds along with the dough porter and onion water liquid.  After 4 hours the salt went in with the levain and we did 10 minutes of slap and folds and 3 sets of S&F on 15 minute intervals.

The seeds, sprouts and re-hydrated onions went in on the first S&F and were evenly distributed by the 3rd set.   After resting for 1 hour we shaped the dough and placed it in an oil sprayed DO and put it in the fridge for a 15 hour cold retard. 

By the next morning it had doubled and we allowed it to warm up on the counter for an hour.  We fired up Big Old Betsy to 450 F and after she came to temperature we allowed the top and bottom stone to come up to the same temp 15 minutes later.  We T-Rex slashed the dough and placed it, lid on, in the oven for 17 minutes of steam.  We then took off the lid and turned down the oven to 425 F, convection this time and continued to bake for 8 minutes.  At this point we took the bread out of the DO and it tested 129 F on the inside.

We continued to bake the bread on the oven rack between the stones for an additional 20 minutes until it read 200 F.  At that point we turned off the oven but left the bread in it until it reached 202 F 5 minutes later.  Total baking time was 50 minutes.  We removed the bread to the cooling rack ad glazed it with a corn starch glaze to make it shine.

It didn’t spring much but didn’t fall either and was at or near 100% proof.  The bread baked up dark brown and very crusty as was expected.  We hope the corn starch glaze and the 24 hour’s it will be wrapped in a cotton towel will soften the crust.  If it tastes half as good as it smells, Lucy has another winner on her paws.   Will have to wait to cut it and get a peek at the crumb so will get back to this post then.

We were not disappointed with the crumb.  Open, moist, soft, tasty; plain, tosted or as a sandwich This delicious sammy was an Irish Swiss and home grown tomato grilled cheese.  This bread is every bit as good as Lucy'e 40% Jewish Deli Rye adn this one is darker, mysterious, full of flavor and lovey to eat.  I didnlt thin that Lucy woulf do another Rye so soon but I am glad she did.  Now I Have to talk her into a Tzitzel so Varda di=oesnlt think we have forgotten the quest entirely:-)

Formula

Lucy has wanted to work on a Jewish Deli Rye for some time.   She has really - ever since Varda was trying to come up with the Tzitzel that Pratzels used to make in St. Louis, a bread we too like very much.  My wife and Varda share the same home town and Jewish bakery!

Then with Eric Hanner’s passing we made his Eric’s Favorite Rye several times.  No wonder it was his favorite and we like it too.  So my apprentice starts her JDR quest with good underpinnings.

Starting on the outside, we love the corn meal on the Tzitzel and the corn starch shine on EFR – so we decided to do both because my apprentice is just that kind of anything goes floozy baker.  Plus, we want to keep our recent track record of corn in the mix intact.

Lucy wanted to up the rye in EFR’s mix and the % of whole grains to 40%.  we wanted to get the hydration to around 72-74% thinking that, with a higher percent of whole grains, this wouldn’t be too wet to shape into a free form loaf.  Seems most all Jewish Deli Rye you will find out there in Bread Land is shaped into a batard.

We loved the idea of using re-hydrated onions in the dough like Eric recommended but, we didn’t read his recipe about using the left over onion water for the liquid until it was too late – so we saved it for the next iteration of this bread.

Stan and Norm did a Tzitzel in the fantastic book; ‘Inside the Jewish Bakery’ that Varda leaned on to get her recipe right.  Here is the link to Eric’s Favorite Rye recipe:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/31047/it-took-me-forever-find-erics-favorite-rye

Varda’s beautiful Tzitzel post can be found here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/26383/tzitzel-bread-journey-ends

My example won’t be as professionally baked or as pretty as theirs but we are hoping the taste will come through.  We love combining similar breads to see what comes out of the union.  No first first clear flour available locally but, we did have rye berries to grind and bread flour - Lucy thought there must be some first clear to be found in there somewhere!

Changes from both (or one of the two) of the recipes include: No commercial yeast or sugar so we upped the % of rye sour levain to over 30%.   Added red and white malts with some Toadies for flavor and VWG to help the rye and get the poor bin based bread flour up in gluten content.

Other changes included:  baking the rye bread in the oval WagnerWare turkey roaster with 1 T of water, 10 minutes of slap and folds in place of mixing to develop the gluten,  no counter ferment, way too hot in this AZ kitchen for that and straight into the fridge for a 12 hour autolyse after 4 sets of S&F’s 15 minutes apart where the aromatic seeds and onions were incorporated on the 2nd and 3rd folds.

In the morning, we let the dough rest for an hour on the counter to come to room temperature after its overnight snooze.  After shaping we loaded the bread into a trash bag for final proof at 85 F on the counter.  The kitchen heat helped for once!

An hour later it was shaped, rolled in corn meal (per Varda’s Tzitizel) and slashed  3 times right before it was gently dropped onto the trivet of the roaster by holding onto the parchment paper.  The water was added to the bottom of the DO before the lid was securely placed on top and the whole shebang placed in the hot oven.

We preheated Big Old Betsy to 450 F with stones top and bottom and baked with trapped steam at 425 F for 2 minutes before turning the oven down to 400 F for another 8 minutes of sweat baking with the lid on.  When we removed the lid at the 10 minute mark, we turned the oven down to 370 F, convection setting this time.  After 10 minutes, we lifted the bread out of the DO with the parchment paper and placed in directly on the stone - rotating it 180 degrees.

We continued to rotate the bread on the stone every 10 minutes until it reached 200 F.  At that time we shut off the oven and let the bread come up to 205 F before removing it from the oven to a cooling rack and brushing it with the corn starch to shine it up some per Eric’s Favorite Rye.  Total baking time was 35 minutes.

It browned fairly well but not as boldly baked as Varda’s was nor even our usual.  Eric said to bake to 190 F but we have always thought this is a tad too low for my taste in crumb texture.   We didn’t want to go past 205 F either so it would still be moist.  This is the crust we got at 205 F.  It is what it is.  The crust went soft after the shine application.

It smelled great baking and still does on the cooling rack.  The re-hydrated minced onions dominate the nose even though there wasn't very much of them but this is a good thing as far as my apprentice is concerned.  Will have to wait on the crumb and will check Eric’s and Varda’s recipes to see when they recommend to cut it.  We couldn't wait that long so we cut it and we were really stunned.  The crumb is unbelievably soft and moist like it had cheese, YW and was Tang Zhonged!  Never had deli rye like that before.

This bread just plain tastes great.  We made a grilled pork, Brie and Smoked Gouda grilled cheese sandwich with the usual fixings.  Normally we cut a slice of bread in half for the sammy but not this time - no way - this bread is too good to limit!.  Everything on the plate was at it's very peak and the best my apprentice can muster and she put home made Dijon on the sandwich too!  Home grown tomato, home made kosher dill pickle, oil cured and kalamata olives, super ripe and sweet red bell pepper, salad from the garden with the same two cheeses, steamed and grilled vegetable medley, black berries, strawberries, the sweetest most ripe Minneola from the back yard and a combo salsa (Pico de Gillo, chipotle and grilled onion and peppers left over from CDM) on chips. 

Lucy is begging for some applause for this one!

Lucy won't have to come up with a better formula until we get tired of this one - and we won't ever do that.  This bread was also tasty for breakfast toasted; with butter, a schmear and caramelized minneola marmalade - with berries and mango.

Formula

Dabrownman's;  green Mexican rice, a  chorizo burrito, grilled peppers, onion and squash, Black re-fried beans, grilled . salsa, pico de gillo and  Mexican Creama.

A fine breakfast made from two of our recent breads,  with back yard Minneolas, applewood smoked bacon, strawberries, an egg, caramelized Minneola marmalade and a basil blossom stalk.

 Above is David Snyder's Pugleise we baked on Friday and below is an equally fine Aroma Bread by Hanseata (Karin). Both are fine for breakfast or any other time!

A A lovely white bread lunch with Italian dipping sauce of Parmesan, Pecorino, cracked black pepper,  fresh basil, EVOO, balsamic vinegar, grilled chicken sandwich  and the usual veggies, fruits and avacado.  A tasty Pecan granola apple crisp for dessert. 

Happy CDM to all! 

Willie Mae’Big Mama’ Thornton is a Blues Legend.  She didn’t write but had her biggest hit with Hound Dog which was written for her.Elvis had a big hit with it later.  She was a 6’tall, large in; voice, frame and width being well over 200 pounds.  She drank hard too and never turned down a drink from a listener.  She taught herself to play harmonica and drums as well as anyone could and often played both while on stage as she sang. 

She had the biggest blues voice anyone ever heard.  In the early 70’s we would always try to catch her when she played Rick’s in Waldo - KCMO the home of some fine Blues at that time - not 12th Street and Vine where you could get killed pretty easy enough.  She died, in 1984, from a heart attack and complications from cirrhosis of the liver. She was penniless at the time of her death.  Even though she sold 1,000,000 copies of Hound Dog she only made $500 off it.  She wrote and recorded Ball N’ Chain which was another big hit for her. Janis Joplin supposedly met sang with Willie Mae when they both lived in San Francisco and later recorded Ball N’Chain for a big hit.  Both Elvis and Janis did much better than Big Mama ever did – just by covering her songs.

With dark breads, darker DaPumpernickel breads and fruit and nut breads behind us, I decided to do an about face with a simple sort of SD white bread loosely based on one of our David Snyder favorites - Pugliesi  Capriccioso.  Keeping true to our 2 most recent resolutions, we added a little corn flour and Tang Zhonged 25 g of the flour mix with 100g of water. This water was not included in the hydration calculations.

I know some might be dumbstruck with the purer, comparative simplicity of this bake’s ingredient list but, there is a reason for it.  My apprentice was looking pretty frazzled after her long series of more complicated creations and was at the beauty parlor getting her hair done to be beautiful for next week’s festivities.  So, the bread was naturally way more sane than usual in her absence.  Without an apprentice under foot, I’m way to lazy to work that hard.   Ahhh, peace and blissful, no work retirement at last!

Another Hound Dog -a hot one with a pretty purple bow.

The rye, whole wheat and spelt sourdough levain was the one we had built on April 24 form a multigrain 3 leaven bake we posted thatday and refrigerated the rest of it.  We used half of the left over levain for the Yellow Mellow bake earlier this week and we used the rest of it for this bake.

We fed it 60 g of AP flour and 60 g of water and it doubled and was ready to go in 2 hours.  The formula shows that the levain was a 1 stage build but it was really a 4 stage one.  When the levain was originally made we refrigerated it after stage 2 and then did the 3rd stage build the next day before refrigerating it again.  It was in the fridge for over a week before we did the AP 4 stage build today.

We hope at least the longer cold spell in the fridge will impart many more labs that yeast into this bread so it will have a decided sour taste.  There isn’t much else taste enhancing going for it besides the corn flour and other 10% whole grains in the levain.  With guests coming in next week for our daughter’s college graduation, they might prefer some white SD bread instead of all the other kinds of bread in the freezer.

The method was a 2 hour autolyse, with salt, while the levain doubled, making the water roux in a sauce pan and then mixing the levain with the autolyse with a sturdy SS spoon. Almost forgot the corn flour. Then 10 minutes of slap and folds brought this much wetter than 70% feeling dough together nicely – silky smooth just like white bread should be at this stage

We sang Big Mama’s 12 bar blues version of ‘She’s My Sweet, Sweet Angel’ while doing the slap and folds this time.  I’m not sure where the song came from but the lyrics are a little risqué for this forum as 12 bar can get sometimes.  She never recorded it as far as I know but I heard her sing it several times since folks would request it and buy her a drink.  Clay Walker did a very clean Country version he called Sweet Sun Angel not long ago.

We developed the gluten further with 3 sets of S&F’s where, each time, we gently stretched out the dough into a rectangle and folded it in thirds from the E, W, N and South.  We let the dough ferment for an hour on the counter in an oiled plastic tub, before its 20 hour retard in the fridge, to help the sour along a steeper, pucker curve.

In the morning, we took it out of the fridge and let it warm on the counter for an hour before pre-shaping and then shaping it into an oval that went into a rice floured basket seam side down.  After 30 minutes of final proof it look like it was going to take off and it did.  After an hour it had over proofed again – we are getting good at this over proofing thing.

This would eventually not even be close to fitting, un-slashed, seam side up, into the mini oven - which is officially banned to the outside patio for the summer.  We have to learn to make these breads less gargantuan in the summer months so they fit the mini oven!  Where is that apprentice when you need her to help think and plan things out right anyway?

So we fired up Old Betsy to a preheated 500 F with the (2) stones - top and bottom, 1 large Sylvia’s Pyrex steaming pan with (2 ) towels half full of water and a 12” CI skillet with the bottom filled with lava rock, per David Snyder  and half full of water for the required mega steam.  This set up trally puts out the steam.

The mini oven is famous around here for putting the best blisters one has ever seen on bread of all kinds when the steam is fierce.  But Old Betsy can blister bread pretty good too on occasion.  We steamed the bread for 2 minutes at 500 F and 13 more minutes at 450 F and then removed the steam while turning down the oven to 425 F, convection this time and continued baking for 15 more minutes when the bread hit 205 F on the inside.  We rotated the bread every 5 minutes 120 degrees on the bottom stone to get even browning.

We left the bread on the stone with the oven off and door ajar for 8 minutes to crisp the bread even more.Betsy didn’t disappoint and neither did the bread.  The bread baked boldly, blistered and nicely brown.  The crust came out crisp but it went softer as it cooled.  Will have to wait to see what the inside looks like after it cools.

We don't often make the same bread twice but, when we make white bread, a version of David's is always the one we go back to again and again - so we do make this bread often.   The crumb came out less open than usual but it was much softer and moist this time - both probably due to the Tang Zhong.  The crust went chewy soft and was delicious.  We think the corn flour addition really improved the already fine taste of this bread some too.  We like it very much and this bake again shows why David is so famous for his SF style SD breads.  He spent a lot of time developing and perfecting them and we get those benefits every time we make them even if we add a tiny little bit more whole gain to them.   If you haven't made the Pugleise, SFSD or San Joaquin you really need to do so.

The bread went extra tany the nexr moring for breakfast and toaasted well. If you like SD white bread you shoud give this one a try.

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Mellow Yellow - by Donovan

I'm just mad about Saffron
Saffron's mad about me
I'm just mad about Saffron
She's just mad about me

{Refrain}
They call me mellow yellow

With the 3 GMA’s baking their fine cornbread I was all set to make one of my favorite ones with jalapeños, creamed corn, homemade apple and maple smoked bacon and who knows what kind of cheese but Donovan’s song kept spinning around in my apprentices tiny head.

I think sometimes folks just don’t trust their intuition as much as they should, especially left handed women whose intuition is almost never wrong.  Science has been baffled for some time why this might be so but, they, being scientists, are fairly sure it doesn’t have much of anything to do with bread baking even though Donovan’s song does, at least as far as Lucy goes, which isn’t very far due to short legs and her sleeping most of the time.

We have another corn bread recipe, not the sweet kind, that I really like to make to have cornbread for Thanksgiving stuffing, but it isn’t nearly as good as stand alone bread.  So Lucy thought, not that long or hard, that we should keep some corn flour in today’s recipe but, to really go with her intuition, by putting in every mellow yellow ingredient she could find in the pantry.  She gets like this sometimes, being a determined German and I’m pretty sure she is left pawed too.

She found 3 kinds of semolina flour, the little left over bit of that fine Desert Durum, some Golden Temple Durum Atta where I had sifted out most all of the atta to use in the last batch of Toadies and some semolina we had picked up out of Winco’s bins.

Although a dog’s color acuity is far less than their baking masters, they aren’t totally color blind either.  Still, I suspect my apprentice’s long and gifted nose helped her distinguish one color of flour from another and she managed to pick out the yellow ones quite easily.  I wonder what she could do with truffles?  Then she hit on the garbanzo flour in the freezer and those beautifully yellow quinoa seeds that she had me grind into flour– not too much of either though.

On the wet side, orange juice came to mind right away but she jumped right into the last home made bottle of limoncello and it was all I could do to keep her away from it but did manage to limit her to 1/2 shot for the bread.  She didn’t want the bread to be too acidic from the citrus so she whipped up a saffron soaker to really give the bread a yellow color and also fit the lyrics of the Donovan tune still driving her crazy.

Even though they are not all liquid, she found some yellow ingredients in the fridge; she dumped in an egg yolk, some butter (even though American butter isn’t nearly as yellow or tasty as Kerrygold brand from Ireland) and some very pale yellow ricotta cheese which really hit her Italian theme with the durum semolina.

A knotted roll in the center surrounded by 8 balls and a rope, then covered by a huge bialy.

But, she wasn’t done, hardly ever is really and is pretty full of it most always.   For add ins she grabbed some dried Turkish apricots that she re-hydrated and then used the left over yellow, sweet, soaking water for part of the dough liquid.  She had been hoarding a huge pile of tiny yellow millet seeds just for this occasion too.

Then, thinking the bread wasn’t yellow or mellow enough, the Turkish Apricots sparked the thought of a yellow spice used in Turkey – turmeric.   She remembered that Shaio-Ping and used it in conjunction with orange juice in her fine Turmeric and Orange Juice Bread so…..In went a 1/8 tsp of this subtle yet earthy spice to flavor and color the dough even more.   Whew!!

This bread made a fine breakfast with some mango, staw and black berries, a minneola and some fine minneola caramalized marmalade.

Being a nut herself, she eventually realized that there weren’t any in this bread.  Doing the unexpected last in a long line of fruit and nut breads (that we said we would not do again after the last one), without the nuts just isn’t done.   She looked everywhere for a yellow nut but came up paw empty.

I just couldn’t stand the look on her cute little face so I put my designer thinking Joaquin Sombrero on and told her she needed to have something to contrast and compliment all that Mellow Yellow and some green Pistachios were just the ticket, Turkish and just in time for Cinco de Mayo too – a three’fer if there ever was one.

David Snyder may have his famous San Joaquin bread but it doesn’t hold a candle to keeping the hot AZ sun..... de la cabeza.  Lucy wanted a very soft moist crumb feeling this was a much mellower option than a hard dry one, so she took 25 g of semolina and Tang Zhonged it with 100 g of water – instead of the usual 125 g.

Her last wishful addition was to throw in some small pieces of an old yellow kitchen sponge because she knew this dough would end up feeling (and this bake is really all about feeling) way more wet than its published 68% hydration.  I told her, me duele la cabeza, so she stopped pushing the sponge even though she can’t speak a lick of Spanish.

For the rise, we had a rye whole wheat SD leaven left over from last weeks bake that had peaked in the fridge and fell and inch.  We cut it in half and fed it 50 g of semolina and 50 g or water.  It was still plenty potent as it doubled again in 3 hours.  We also wanted a Italian side so we made a biga out of a pinch of ADY and 25 g each of semolina and water.  It too had risen nicely in 3 hours due to the AZ heat in the kitchen at 90 F.

We followed our usual method of late but only did a 2 hour autolyse for these yellow flours and 10 minutes of slap and folds.  Singing the Mellow Yellow song actually made the time fly and coordinating the slaps with the melody was…..soothing and quite mellow.

We did 3 sets of S&F’s 20 minutes apart and incorporated the apricots, pistachios and millet seeds on the very first one.  We covered the dough between the S&F's with my yellow straw Joaquin Sombrero.  By the end of the 3rd set these incorporations were well distributed and seemed happy enough.

After and hour of bulk ferment in our color coordinated, yellow topped, well oiled, plastic box we chucked it into the fridge for a 16 hour retard.  After warming up for an hour in the morning we decided to make a Chacon out of this dough since the original chacon shape came from our Italian Altamura shaping experiments and is probably named for a Spaniard of Turkish decent for all we know.

After 2 hours of final proof on the counter in a trash bag, it looked like Old Betsy needed to be fired up to 500 F with stones top and bottom.  A large size Sylvia’s Steaming Pan with 2 towels and a 12” CI skillet full of lava rocks - ala David Snyder - both filled half full of water supplied the steam for the first 15 minutes of the bake.  It went in over proofed by an inch or so but it was still mellow yellow to the core and not likely to fall if we put some hot spurs to her before she noticed.

Three minutes after the steam bath started, we turned the temperature down to 475 F for the next 12 minutes of steam.  At the 15 minute mark we removed the steam, turned the temperature down to 425 F, convection this time.  After being spun on the stone 120 degrees every 6 minutes, 3 times, it was done,.

 t smelled fantastic and looked splendid for such a mellow heritage…… Chaconing does that to bread nearly every time.  We turned the oven off at 203 F and left it on the stone with oven off to finish and hit 205 F at the 33 minute mark.  We then left the oven door ajar with the bread still on the stone to crisp the skin even more before removing it to a cooling rack after 8 minutes.

A nice salad already made for dinner.

It cracked and browned boldly as a chacon should but spread more than it sprang the usual thing for a wet, over proffed bread.  The basket we used was indented up on the bottom rather than a round bottomed round one, so the bread really has to spring just to get back to flat on top.  

The crumb came out moist, open and soft.  It has the sweetness that semolina brings to bread too.  I have to admit that semolina isn't my favorite flour by far but this bread isn't bad at all.   It made a great tasting sandwich for a late lunch and should sub nicely as a hamburger bun for dinner.  The crust stayed crunchy for a change as it cooled and it tasted as good as it looked.

Picked the first tomato today. Summer is here!

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We use a lot of cranberries around here mainly as part of our snockered fruit bled we put in so many baked good.  Evon published her beautiful cranberry bread she made her Mom and we have been making a bunch of different breads with dried fruits and nuts of late.  The only ones we missed were cranberries and pecans.  Then we saw a beautiful cranberry and pecan batard at Whole Foods when we were there stocking upon whole grain berries.

That sort of moved the cranberry and pecan bread up to the top of the list.  My apprentice just couldn’t leave it at that so she went - with whole; rye, spelt and wheat in the levains only along with some corn flour in dough.  We are trying to get out tongue around corn flavor wise and have seen it so many bakes of late like Janet’s Anadama Bread.

Lucy found some apricot soaking water from the last bake (which we added the cranberry soaker water to) and ricotta cheese in the fridge. She also scalded up multigrain berries as she does for just about every bread.  It must be a German thing.  She also used our normal flavor, color and rise enhancers of malts, Toadies and VWG.  Not including the multigrain scald, we kept to our healthy and tasty minimum of 30% whole grains.

Because of the Tang Zhong, ricotta, scald and re-hydrated cranberries, this dough does not look or act like a 70% hydration bread.  It is very wet feeling, like 78% or more - so not quite ciabatta.  The Tang Zhong took 25 g or the flout mix and 125 g of water not included in the formula to make the roux.

We built 2 separate levains over 3 stages.  One a YW and the other a rye sour.  Both levains had doubled at the end of 2nd 4 hour stage.  At the beginning of the 3rd stage, right after feeding, we refrigerated the levains for 12 hours.  The next morning we took them out of the fridge and allowed them come to room temperature and double again in 4 hours.

We did our usual 4 hour autolyse, starting when the levains came out of the fridge, including everything except; salt, ricotta, YW and rye sour levains, the scald, cranberries and pecans.  When the autolyse met the 2 levains, we added the salt and did 10 minutes of slap and folds.  After a 15 minute rest we did (4) sets of S&F’s on 15 minute intervals.  On the first S&F we incorporated the ricotta.  On the 2nd we put in the scald.

 After the 2nd we divided the dough in half.  On the 3rd we added the cranberries and on the 4th we made sure everything was incorporated for one half.  The other half of the dough was S&F’ed without the fruit and nuts.  This way we get a breakfast toast and a lunch sandwich bread.

 After an hour of counter fermentation the dough was retarded in the fridge for 15 hours.  In the morning they were retrieved from the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature for 1 hour before being shaped into a batard for the fruit and nut version and an oval for the plain.

 Both were placed into a trash can liner to proof for 2 hours before Big Old Betsy was fired up to 500 F with Sylvia’s steaming pan and David’s CI Lava Rock steam in place.  Once Betsy beeped she was at temperature we waited 20 minutes before un-molding the bread, scoring and placing onto the bottom stone.

 After 5 minutes we turned the oven down to 475 F. Our oven reads 25 F low so adjust your temperature accordingly.  After a total of 15 minutes of steam we removed it and turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time.  We rotated the bread every 10 minutes and after 20 minutes without steam the bread reached 205 F in the center.

 We turned off the oven and left the bread on the stone, with the door ajar for 10 minutes to crisp the skin before removing it to a cooling rack.  The crust browned nicely with small blisters and went from crisp to softer as it cooled.  The spring and bloom were OK too.  The cranberry, pecan version browned more for some reason.

 The crumb of both versions was about the softest, moistest and tastiest we have ever managed to bake into any bread.  it is just fantastic as a sandwich bread and we hope it toasts just as well for breakfast in the morning.  It is like eating two different breads one more cranberry sweet and pecan nutty.  Both are terrific!  Thanks Evon for the cranberry inspiration, to Ian for the cheese and to my apprentice for the nuts. 

 We love spaghetti and meatballs.  Hopefully the plain version will grill up nicely for garlic toast or bruschetta or breakfast.

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