ifs201's blog

My sourdough adventures this past week were to make potica rolls (essentially cinnamon rolls that used a tangzhong) but I substituted levain for the instant yeast. 

My other bake was for anadama bread which I also converted to sourdough and made about 80% whole wheat. I milled the corn myself for the corn porridge and it was a really tasty loaf - will definitely make again. 

My grain source is undergoing some changes and is temporarily closed so I'm running really low on supplies (other than rye). I am breaking more intuitively these days since I'm short on time, but the bread is about 35% rye, 5% whole wheat, and 5% whole spelt. The remainder is KABF. 2% salt, 20% rye levain, and 6 hour bulk around 70 degrees followed by overnight in the fridge. 

I had made some trail mix for my husband as he needed to take a short road trip (dried banana, cranberries, raisin, walnut, and almonds). I threw what he didn't finish into one loaf. In the other loaf I added everything but the bagel seasoning from Trader Joe's (salt, garlic, onion, sesame, poppy seeds). 

Really tender and delicious loaves. Nothing to look at, but I like these a lot. 

I decided to make one of my favorite Community Bake recipes again and made two of the Hamelman Five Grain loaves using cracked rye, oats, sesame seeds, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I used a mix of bread flour, hard red winter wheat, and rye. I also upped the hydration a bit. I tried to develop the gluten before adding the soaker, but then the large volume of soaker made it hard to I corporate.

I've been on a sandwich loaf kick lately since Danny introduced me to the whole grain sandwich loaf through one of the community bakes on this site. I'm not getting enough steam in the oven so the crusts tend to be dull, but I'm fine with it. 

In no particular order:

1. Bagels from The Perfect Loaf but I made them with a good portion whole wheat. I liked these, but Maurizio says to bake the sheet pan on top of cast iron and the bottoms burned well before the tops browned so I wouldn't follow that instruction again. 

2. Baby Ruth

3. Sourdough Bananas Foster enriched bread from Bryan Ford's book New World Sourdough (all my bananas slid off during the bake!)

4. Lots of whole wheat sandwich loaves 

My father requested pumpernickel bread for Thanksgiving sandwiches so I found this Breadtopia recipe to try. Of course I didn't really follow the recipe, but I did do 50% KABF and 50% home milled rye flour, the fennel seeds, molasses, and orange rind. I threw in some beer just because I had an open bottle from a previous bake. I'm not happy with how thick the ear is on the Batard - looks like the bread might be a bit underproofed, but I'm sure it will still be flavorful. 

I made two pumpkin boules, but one with pumpkin seeds and the other with walnuts. I did 40% pumpkin (added during autolyse) and the flour mix was 40% KABF and 60% home milled in equal parts rye, hard red winter wheat, and spelt (20% each). 2% salt and 20% levain. It's a nice tasting loaf!  

This was my first bake since giving birth last week so I wanted to keep it fairly simple and also start working through my enormous rye berry stash. This was a recipe by Artisan Bryan for KAF using 40% rye and 60% KABF. I followed the recipe, but used home-milled rye instead of medium rye and substituted apples and cinnamon for the peaches used in the recipe. I would recommend this recipe. It's not too sweet and I think it would also make a great turkey or chicken salad sandwich bread. 

You really have to oil the pan for the bread not to stick, but this resulted in the bottom of the bread catching a bit more than I would like. Luckily it looks more burnt than it tastes. 

I just bought a 25lb sack of Danko Rye berries from Farmer Ground Flour and am excited to experiment! I decided to go with the Rye Sourdough recipe from The Perfect Loaf. I didn't feel like sifting the rye so I mixed up the flours used a bit and did 40% whole grain rye, 30% whole grain spelt, and 30% whole wheat. For the 15% seed soaker I used pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and steel cut oats. 

I'm in the process of waiting at least 24 hours to cut into the loaf - fingers crossed. 

I try to keep my loaves around the 50% whole grain level for health reasons and decided I should just bite the bullet and go for 100% this time.

Ingredients:

• 350g home milled hard red winter wheat (Redeemer)
• 75g home milled spelt
• 85g starter at 100% hydration (my starter did contain some KABF so technically the loaf is more like 95% whole grain)
• 360g water
• 10g salt

Process:

• Mill grain 
• Sift out biggest pieces of bran and soak in hot water to reincorporate later (only got about 20g of bran since I don't have a real sifter) 
• 2-stage levain build
• 3 hour autolyse
• Added starter and soaked bran to autolyse at 4:45pm followed by 5 min Rubaud method 
• After 30 minutes add salt followed by 6 min Rubaud method 
• After 15 minutes do 2 more min Rubaud method
• fold on counter
• laminate 30 min after fold
• let dough rest for 1 hour
• coil fold, wait 30 min, coil fold again (I had planned on 3x coil fold, but when I went to perform the 3rd I decided the dough was at risk of overproofing at the 3h 45min mark with room temp around 77)
• Shape and proof in fridge for 7-8 hours
• Bake in DO for 22 min at 500 and then with lid off for 21 min at 475 

I made two more 50% whole grain laminated loaves this weekend. One was filled with black and white sesame seeds and the other had raisins and toasted walnuts. I did a one hour autolyse for both doughs followed by a 3.5 hours bulk ferment (coil, laminate, 3x coil). These loaves had more spelt than I've done before because I was running low on whole wheat. Very happy with the taste of both loaves, but looking forward to being reunited with my dutch ovens, banneton, and lame to see if I am still capable of producing a decent looking loaf!