Librarian's blog

Been trying out a lot of recipes since my last entry, nothing worth to mention what had not been done before, I played around with my sourdough starter

I exclusivly use white flour/bread flour now. The rise may it be bulk fermentation/proofing is nothing much sensational on the contrary, but every

bread i make lifts off in the oven. A guy at the mikrobiology department told me over time strains take over others, one may become dominant, and it is not

said that visibility of activity always indicates the lack of it, this starter is easy to test with the water test, when you taste it it tingles on the tongue and i have a 2-3 day window of using it since right after refreshing it goes right in the fridge, a day later to 4 days its potent, this allows for more flexibility, with

rye starters i could see more development during the rest phases but the window of opportuinity was smaller using the starter. With this i get constant great results and it is also apt to venture into spiking bakers yeast recipes with sourdough. (sourdough/bakers yeast pizzy is a delight) I was pretty amazed at this result country bread form tartine bakery....

I used bread flour instead of white flour, it has more aleurons, and much higher protein content, you could say it is partly wholegrain :)

I came across this recipe in paper and thought it was worth a try, all the ingredients make this one a pocket full of flavour, which I am sure you will enjoy.

I try my best to explain where and why I deviated from the original recipe with bold and italic letters...

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Time to bake: ~ 1h15

Fermentation time: 18 hours sponge ( original )  // 13-14h my way

20 min , another 40 min ( original )   // 30 min autolyse / 1h / 1h

for the final dough.

Makes 2 loaves

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Ingredients:

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500g bread flour

250g semolina

150ml(g) milk lukewarm

150ml(g) water lukewarm x2 = 300 ml

60g butter

50g Wheat germs  

20g Malt               // I used 30g barley malt syrup

10g live yeast = 3.3g dry yeast = 1.1 instant active dry yeast ( If I am correct, please recheck to be sure , i only use live yeast )

some olive oil

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The sponge:

Combine 250g bread flour, 5g of the yeast an 150ml of water to a smooth, pliable dough The recipe didnt specify, I mixed 10 min with my Kitchen Aid on setting 3. I knew in advance that 18h  just would not work for me, so I added a teaspoon of sugar to accelerate the process a tiny bit and got away with around 14h. This is a rather small ammount of yeast, the time letting the sponge rest so long is well invested. It should double. I left it in a sealed plastic dough container at room temperature.

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Knead the dough 10-12 minutes forceful with your hands on a counter well dusted with flour. This is a VERY sticky dough.

The original recipe states to oil up the dough and then let rest for only 20 min at a higher temperature in the oven. Being I worked with semolina before I knew it would take more time to absorb the water so I decided to let the dough autolyse for 30 min. Furthermore it makes it easier to shape the bread and gives more structure.

Much better after 30 min and still slightly sticky, but thats ok. knead again for 2,3 minutes. Instead of 20 min at higher temperature I decided to put oil on the surface as stated, but let the dough rest at room temperature for an hour

Divide the dough in 2 and roll it up on the counter, I am sure you can do better than I did.

Roll over the short edge into loafs:

Let the end be on top like in the picture this way you have the flour on the upside later on. The original states 20 min proofing time. I gave it another hour, covered with a moist towel

The bread will rise a decent ammount, at this point I thought I should maybe have rolled it up much flatter...maybe next time.

Baking:

Bake for 10 minutes at 250Celsius/485 Fahrenheit thend turn down to 190/375. Depending on your oven you might want to keep it open for a few seconds,

250 is rather hot and the bread turned dark very quickly.

I cheated with the flour afterwards abit. I didnt have enough down on the counter when rolling up, I always find it hard to make make rolled up bread like that stick together if you use to much flour, I forgot to add on top before putting it into the oven :(

Here the crust/crumb shot while still cooling off:

Resume:

I will definilty be making this again, the long fermentation adds suprising taste for "just" a yeast bread. The wheat germ adds a slightly nutty taste along with the texture of the semolina this is a very good bread. When I had a taste while it still was a bit warm it almost tasted a bit like a panini. I have seen much more ammount of enrichments in other breads, with quite less taste. I do hope, that if you try this you will enjoy every bite of it.

Submitted to YeastSpotting

Austrian Easter bread, farmer's recipe

It is that time of the year again, where I can't wait for the taste of sweet bread with smoked meats, hardboiled eggs and

freshly grated horseraddish. It is very traditional to eat this kind of bread for the Easter holidays, some even put raisins

in it and there is a much softer almost no crumb version out there. Oddly everyone seems to fancy the contrast of

meat/radish/horseradish on a very sweet bread, but only for the holidays. It is a tradition,what can I say. My mom

scored this recipe from a farmer and she called me very excited to try this. I thoght it was about time to not only soak in

so many wonderful reciped but share a somewhat special and different one. So this is the 2nd year I have a go at it,

I have gotten a bit tired of the neverending sourdough fermentation times and my inability to keep track of time.  

This although is very different , it is a straightforward bread, you do not need a lot of time for it, and since it is so

enriched it does not benefit from long fermentation periods. I forgot how much fun it is to work with live yeast and

the sensational rise you get out of it, i doubt there can be a good sourdough version of this bread it is jsut perfect the way it is:

If former easterbread disappointed you because it was too soft, too little crust for you then you really

should try this it will reward you with a mouthwatering smell in your kitchen and a great aftertaste for your tastebuds

besides it is a LOT of fun to work with such a potent dough without all the wait usually included :)

Ingredients:

1000 g of bread flour

500ml of milk ( regular version, no skim milk )

130g of softened butter

1 lemon ( organic )

40g of live yeast

6 tablespoons of sugar

1 tablespoon of salt

lard ( from the pork )

I got very lucky these days finding the right kind of flour, more so because it is also very cheap it seems to have

an extreme tendency for perfect gluten development. Here bread flours are marked W700 this one is marked the

same way but milled a bit rougher than all the rest and binds very well. I recommend flour just like that.

To get started warm up the milk just a tad over handwarm, take a small bowl and dissolve first the sugar then

the live yeast in it. It is important to work with warm milk be careful to not get it too hot to kill off the yeast.

I followed a little discussion some time ago on sugar/yeast yes no.... All you need to do 

is take 2 bowls add yeast into it once with sugar, once without and observe. I always add the sugar it helps

your bacteria much faster along the way :) Let me prove that point, i started halfway with the bowl,

5 min later....

If you do not have live yeast I believe the correct formula is 2/3 dry yeast and 1/3 instant yeast instead

of the ammount of live yeast:

Pour the yeast and rest of the milk into the center of the bowl add the softened butter and one skin of a zested big lemon

be generous when you grate your lemon , add the salt and knead by hand, it is a fun dough to do so, once the dough is

firm and it should be firm, add one scooped table spoon of pork lard it will make the dough very silky and tasty.

I do not recommend omitting the lard and lemon since these 2 ingredients are what make this bread so special....

In the meantime put your oven on 180 degree Fahrenheit. As I mentioned before this dough does not benefit from

long fermentation and that is exactly the fun part for a change. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at

least to double( better triple ) in size within an hour at room temperature, the dough should be warm from the warm

milk still and smell sweet/lemon like, an awesome smell :). Here is my dough not even after 40 min, it tripled:

Knead the dough down to original size, a technique I almost never see in American recipes but very common here, is to do

exactly that, a double rise. Since time is no issue we can help the process along with our oven at 180F( 80celsius). Once the

dough is kneaded down divide in 3 parts and generously slash an X on top. Since this dough is highly active, try getting some

surface tension onto it as described in Peter Reinhards BBA. I kind of failed here a bit as you can see later. I didnt have a

baking stone nor did I find the right rack as I baked at my friends house. I would definitly use a stone if i I had one there...

There is no need to prepare the oven for hearth baking whatsoever even for phase 2:

I had to wait maybe 10 minutes till this happened at only 180 . Guess I did not build up enough surface tension.

Once doubled in the oven slide out the rack and cover the breads with a 50% egg yolk 50% milk mixture, crank up

the oven to 370 degrees Fahrenheit /  180 degrees Celsius

and slide the bread right back in, no need to wait till it reaches that temperature. Wait until the bread is golden

brown and makes a hollow sound when tapped.  I use hot air surround fan setting, if you do not have one

add 10 degrees.

Here is a shot of the final result, last year I had the height a bit better under control, you can also make the surface

more even when shaping, I did not bother it gives the bread a rustic look, and it is a farmer's recipe after all.

Here is a comparison shot the next day between an enriched sourdough I created ( curd cheese as enrichment/

pumkin seeds) You can see there definitly is a crumb and crust on this bread, much different than the storebought

ones that feel and taste like sweet Mc Donalds buns. This is one of the few breads that once taken out does not

benefit much from being toasted it will stay fresh quite a while and goes great with jam but also with the ingredients

I mentioned within the introduction. A special tip would be butter/hardboiled egg and some grounded horseraddish on top.

If you decide to make this bread I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did. Submitted to the YeastSpotting page