ll433's blog

It might seem somewhat incredulous that there would be yet another bachelor party bake within two weeks of the previous one, but yes - seems many men in our circle are getting married. 

This was a somewhat small party of 5 men, so I produced but 2 durum semolina matera-type loaves and 2 five-grain five seed/nut loaves. These went down very well, with the semolinas being the clear preference.

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Interesting points on the bread bake:

1. The semolina loaves had 30% levain and the multi grain/seed/nut loaves had 40% levain. Before mixing, I measured the pH of the levains. The semolina levain came in at 4.43 and the other at 4.88 (both had the same ratios and were mixed 10 hours before).

2. After mixing, both doughs ended up with the same pH: 5.13!

3. Due to the morning rush, I baked them a little earlier than I usually would. I baked the nut/seed ones, then the semolina. Both were baked at 4.45. My semolina loaves had the craziest oven spring ever!

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I also decided to reproduce a macaron bake that I had attempted a few days ago for a gluten-free party. These took me three tries! (pic above)

To make 28 single shells

1. Prepare 70g of egg whites (from about 2 eggs). Briefly warm up over bain marie.

2. Blend 93g of blanched almonds with 93g of icing sugar. Pass through a fine sieve twice.

3. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt and 55g of caster sugar until stiff peaks. Invert the bowl above your head to be sure.

4. Mix almond-sugar mixture in three parts. Use a folding movement rather than a stirring one. Keep folding until the mixture flows from the spoon barely breaking but still keeps a figure 8 in the mixture that stays for a couple of seconds. If the mixture feels like soup or if the figure 8 disappears within a second or two, it is overdone. For me, this step took about 15 folds.

5. Pipe and let the shells dry on the tray until they are dry to the touch. Bake at 145 degrees for about 12 mins.

6. For the filing: I did a lemon buttercream and chocolate coconut buttercream. 

Notes for reference

1. Egg whites should be slightly warm. Do not skip this step.

2. Blending almonds and icing sugar is very important. Do not skip this step even if you're using almond flour. 

3. Inverting the bowl is a great test for stiff meringues. Very important that beater and bowl are completely clean. Even if you believe they are clean, it's better to wash and dry them again before using. 

4. While piping - if the mixture seems thick and doesn't settle into nice circles (e.g. tips remain visible and don't sink), give the mixture another fold or two and it should be fine.

5. Drying the shells is important. Don't skip this step.

6. Baking on a steel pan produced the best results. Aluminium failed me.

This was hectic. Baked 12 loaves (2 of each type) and 3.5kg of granola for the bachelor's party that the husband was organizing. Prepped the levains all in the morning before I left for work (cycled to the train station in record time), and started mixing dough the moment I was home at 8 pm. Was done baking 10 loaves at 3:30 am, and then had to bake the oat loaves at 8 am as they need a much longer rise.

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Recipes:

60% rye

40% einkorn-emmer malt

100% durum semolina

50% oat

50% spelt (I replaced the 30% autolysed emmer in the original recipe with 20% red spelt)

The holey white was a request from my brother-in-law AKA the groom for whom the bachelor party was organized. When asked what bread he would most like me to bake, he said "a very holey mostly white bread with a thick crust". 

I initially went with a simple full white SD loaf, 20% levain, but I was really disappointed with the taste. It surely was holey, but after eating really colourful grainy loaves for so long, it's very hard to go back to a full white loaf.

I then decided to do a 90% white and 10% wholewheat. I thought that with a mostly white bread, a good long poolish for most of the white and a little bit of SD complexity with the wholewheat might be interesting. So that's what I did, and it tasted fabulous. I was very pleased with it. For the sake of completeness, this is the very basic recipe:

Holey white 

For a 800g loaf

Make a 24 hour poolish with 300g of white flour, 300g water and 1/10 teaspoon of IDY. 

Make a 10 hour levain with 50g of wholewheat, 4g of starter, and 45g of water.

When mixing the dough, simply add enough white flour to the levain and poolish to make a manageable dough. I ended up mixing 89g of flour, making it 78% hydration. Add 12g of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of IDY.

BF took 4 hours and proofing took 1.5 hours. I should have scored this deeper than my usual wholegrainy type loaves as the oven spring with this was tremendous. Baked it at 220 C for 40 mins. 

And yesterday, for a little treat with my parents-in-law, we decided to have some molten chocolate cake (picture above). My go-to quick dessert for extreme satisfaction. 

Molten dark chocolate cakes

For three individual cakes

Melt 60g of chopped 70% dark chocolate with 30g of unsalted butter over hot water. In the meantime beat 1 egg and 1 egg yolk with 3 tablespoons of sugar until very thick, about 8 mins (whisk leaves very clear trail in batter when lifted).

Mix the chocolate+butter into the egg batter gently, then also gently whisk in 1 tablespoon of flour. Put about 3 big tablespoons of this into each ringform which has been buttered and floured (it should come up to about half the form), each set on a square of baking paper.

Chill in the fridge until you need to eat, heat up oven to 200 C then put these in on a baking tray for about 9-11 mins. Keep an eye on them at the 8 mins mark - you know they are ready when you see the sides rise, and the middle is only slightly set, still very wobbly. I transport each to a plate, pull off the baking paper below while holding the form, and gently encourage the cake to slide down the form as I pull it up (use a small knife to dislodge any small sticky sides).

This recipe uses way less sugar and butter than most others, so increase amounts if you want something sweeter and more molten...

Loaf is exceptionally tasty. Really deep flavour with very little sourness, excellent complex crust. Smoky, earthy and smooth. Definitely my best rye bread so far.

I wanted to try making a 60% rye (whole and medium 50/50) that was flavourful, not too sour, and had most of the rye in the pre-ferment so that the grains were more broken down (for flavour, but also digestibility), and BF and proof would be relatively fast, about 5 hours or so, with some sort of rise in the oven. 

I decided to do separate levains, one for the medium rye and the other for the wholegrain rye. For the medium rye, I thought I would go for my standard 1:3:3 ratio, which leaves me with levain at peak after 10 hours of overnight rise, ready to be used in the morning. For the wholegrain rye, I decided to experiment with a 1:10:10 ratio, which I would also use after 10 hours, when it would only be at 1.5x (this ratio usually requires about 14-16 hours to peak here). Part of the liquid used here would also be malt syrup, to further slow down fermentation. The idea was that some flavour would be developed, but hopefully with a manageable about of LAB and yeast to not mess up BF, given that 60% of the flour would now be pre-fermented.

In the morning, the medium rye had tripled and the wholegrain rye had risen by 50%. Mixed everything. BF took 4 hours, proof 1 hour, and baked at 220 degrees for 40 mins.

Figures for a 565g loaf (excluding inclusions):

Wholegrain rye levain: 8g starter, 92g whole rye flour, 73g water, 20g malt syrup

Medium rye levain: 30g starter, 92g medium rye flour, 96g water 

Final dough: 122g bread flour, 47g water, 4g salt

Cranberries and walnuts added during shaping

Overall hydration is about 70%.

Would be adding this loaf to the baking spree for the husband's party next weekend.

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I was pleasantly surprised by this loaf. This is a 40% whole einkorn loaf, hydration 70%, with some barley malt syrup mixed in and poppy seeds on the crust. All the einkorn is in the overnight levain. The high PFF makes this a fast bread to bake on the same day as mixing - I mixed it at 8:30 am, baked it at 12:30, and (don't frown) ate it at 2 pm with carrot lentil soup.

I wasn't expecting myself to develop strong feelings over this loaf (yes, intense relationship with bread), but I actually loved it. The slightly grassy flavour of einkorn paired with the deep, almost caramel notes of the malt syrup, further lifted by the nutty, almost seaweed-umami crunch of the poppy seed-studded crust ---- all that eaten fresh, even almost slightly warm, with butter.... .... .......

Figures for a 610g loaf:

Overnight einkorn levain: 24g starter, 135g whole einkorn flour, 115g water

Final dough: all of the levain, 203g white flour, 128g water, 10g barley malt syrup, 5g salt

Process

Levain took 11 hours to peak.

Mixed the dough together and did 4 mins of walk-and-stretch (my mobile version of SF lol). Rested and did actual SF thrice during 3-hr BF at room temp 23C. Shaped and proofed for another hour and baked at 220C for 33 mins.

Will need to try out another two or three types of loaves for a big bake coming up next weekend. The husband is organising a stag party and I'm keen to offer ten loaves. 

A friend recently asked if I could try making some semolina loaves. He missed them after his vacation in Italy and sent me references to the Matera bread.

After reading a couple of posts here, I ventured on my first loaf.

First loaf - Complete failure

I started off with what seemed to be a standard recipe. 500g semola rimacinata, 100g 70% hydration starter, 350g water, 1.5% salt.

BF took 7 hours without dough degradation but also without much gluten development. I did a final proof of about an hour and then shaped it before putting it into the oven.

There was very little rise in the oven. Crumb was dense. Most importantly: poor flavour. Bland and flat. Sour. No durum taste.

Verdict: Very disappointed. Decided to not cut any corners. Converted my wheat starter to a semolina starter.

Second loaf - Better flavour but flat 

Kept to the same recipe but used a semolina starter. Taste was better. Still too sour and overpowered the durum, I thought, but the dense crumb problem persisted.

Verdict: Still not right. Need to find a way to increase oven rise. Perhaps knead the dough more and stretch BF and final proof.

Third loaf - Even flatter

I extended BF to 8 hours and final proofing to almost 2 hours. The dough collapsed considerably during shaping, before going into the oven. As a result, the loaf was even flatter.

Verdict: Ready to throw in the towel. How can durum wheat be harder than spelt and rye? I've worked with it so much with pasta and lower % in standard loaves. Then I remembered: this is a new brand of semola rimacinata that I'm using. I remember that what I used previously was a just a little finer. Could this explain it? Ordered three bags.

Fourth loaf - Some volume, but sourness bugs me

 Dough felt so much better during mixing. Increased hydration slightly as this flour seemed to soak up much more. I went back to BF 7 hours and final proof 1 hour, this time using the newer, finer semola rimacinata. Dough felt so much better during BF - good strength. Final proof and shaping went well, and loaf doubled in the oven, major improvement.

Verdict: Achieved the volume I wanted. But I think the durum will come out better if I can reduce the sourness. Decided to increase the % of PFF.

Fifth loaf - Happy for now

Final recipe for now gives 76 % hydration and 17% PFF.

In numbers for a 1kg loaf: 454g semola rimacinata, 332g water, 206g 90% semola rimacinata starter, 8g salt.

The bizarre thing is that BF still took 6 hours despite the increase in PFF. Very pleased with the flavour profile now. This loaf baked for a total of 45 mins at 250/240/230/220 degrees with the decrease every ten mins. Think for my next loaf I might increase the bake by just a little more, though it was completely cooked. I think the crust can take a little more thickness!

Overall: Fun journey, and will be making this loaf as one of my standards.

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This is a follow-up to Precaud's interesting post on enhancing oatiness. And my, what a journey. I love my oats, and have lots of experience making them for granola, incorporating a portion into my bread and so forth, but at a high percentage, oats do very funny things. 

So I made three oat breads this weekend, all with the same ratios of 5:4:1 for oat: white bread flour: red whole wheat. Apart from the first bread being made with SD and the other two made with IDY, the most significant change was the hydration.

The idea was to do what I have always done for my granola, albeit at a higher hydration. I found that soaking the oats for a couple of hours before baking them really brought out their oatiness (aside: I started doing it to make them more digestible for family members, but in the meantime found out that this was a great method to also make granola clusters!!!)

For this bread, the method is as follows: The night before baking, I soak the oats in milk, some lemon juice and a sprinkle of rye flour, and leave overnight in the fridge. The next day, I mix the soaked oats with the white and wholegrain flours, water and yeast. Note: I use normal cooking oats, not quick-cooking or steel-cut.

First loaf

For the first loaf I decided to apportion some of the bread flour and all the whole wheat flour to a levain. I went with a conservative 100% hydration of the oats (so equal weight oats and milk). The next day, all the oats had soaked up the milk and were not mushy at all. I mixed up the dough, levain and added enough water to make a dough that felt like 80% hydration. BF and final proof took 8 hours.

Results: Very tasty, but sourness overpowers oatiness. Dough got drier and drier during BF, which told me that the oats could have soaked up more water overnight. Pleasant loaf, but could definitely be more moist.

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Second loaf

Decided to increase hydration of soaked oats to 130%. Mixed in instant dry yeast to dough the next day. Added water to go beyond what I'm comfortable dealing with in a loaf, anticipating dough becoming drier like previous attempt. I was not comfortable, indeed. But dough ended up being where I wanted it to be, and bread turned out extremely well. Oatiness comes through much better now. But I wondered if the rise would be even better with increased hydration?

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Third loaf

Encouraged, I decided to increased the hydration of the soaked oats to 150%. I think this version is the one I'm most happy about (the picture right at the top of the post). Here are the figures to make a 600g loaf :

Oak soaker: 150g normal cooking oats, 225g room temp or cold milk, squeeze of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of rye flour

If possible, leave this at about 22-25 degrees for 3 hours before refrigerating it overnight. If not, just dump it into the fridge. The next day, all the oats would have soaked up the milk - there should be no milk left in the container. Add to the oats: 120g bread flour, 30g wholewheat flour, 1g instant dry yeast, 4g salt, 10ml agave syrup (optional), about 65g water.

Note: We do end up with the ratio of dry:wet ingredients being 1:1. (I'm cautious about calling this 100% hydration because most of the liquid was used as a soaker.)

When first mixed, the dough is unruly and hopeless.

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But after 3 hours, it gets better.

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BF took 8 hours and final proof took 2 hours. I baked it for 25 mins at 220C and 15 mins at 205C.

Too late here now to take a crumb shot, but essentially the same as the second loaf - moist, not crumbly at all, good bite with oats texture.

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The real winner of this loaf is the crust - it is insanely delicious, like eating a granola crumb. I really have never achieved anything like this before. I will certainly be baking more of this bread in future.

Some notes:

1. It's a horribly wet dough to be confronted with. I simply used a spatula to fold the batter-dough upon itself, a couple of times over the first 4 hours of BF. Obviously there's no kneading whatsoever. I suppose it could work with a mixer but I don't have one.

2. I think my oats probably reach maximum hydration overnight in the fridge at about 120%, so it is possible to apportion more liquid content to be added to the final dough the next day, instead of soaking the oats in more liquid overnight. I do this simply to break down the oats a little more, and to be hyper sure that the oats have soaked up enough such that they don't start drying out my dough. If you prefer your oats to have a firm bite, I advise sticking with an overnight hydration of not more than 120%, then adding more water to the final dough.

3. I think the wholewheat does contribute a distinct flavour and bite to the loaf. I like it, but if you want even more oatiness, that would be something to completely omit. I would incorporate spelt, emmer or einkorn instead. In fact I will try that soon.

4. There is barely any rise during BF. I shaped it when it started smelling really good and yeasty, and the surface of the dough had some tension. Again, no real idea when to bake it. The bread looks and tastes good, so the timings kind of worked. Don't know what would have happened if I waited longer, but I was hungry!!!

5. I think replacing the agave syrup with oat malt, and further coating the bread with oats will bring the oatiness to the next level. 

And finally, a shot of my granola to bring an end to this oaty post:

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I had a bread party in the office a few days ago and brought three breads:

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The 60% spelt-emmer was the unanimous winner, which struck me by surprise. It was flavourful, complex, but I had assumed a little "heavy" for people who were not so much into wholegrain. The bread was based on the 30/30 levain/autolyse method I used for the spelt bread experiment conducted a few days ago, which I will now describe.

My father-in-law recently read that our Olympic marathon winner consumes only spelt bread, that everything else gives him a bad stomach while running. He asked me to make some wholegrain spelt breads for him to try, but to keep the % around 50 so that my mother-in-law, too, could eat (too much fibre is a problem).

I made two 60% wholegrain spelt loaves. One had all 60% pre-fermented using a double-build levain. The other had 30% pre-fermented using a single-build levain, and the other 30% autolysed for 12 hours in the fridge. 

This is the one made with the double-build levain:

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And this one is the 30/30:

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As predicted the double-build levain loaf was more sour and had a significantly more complex flavour profile (my sister-in-law cut a slice thinking it was the family's everyday wholewheat bread from the bakery and commented "wow what is this bread??"). It was also harder to shape, and as you can tell, had a somewhat weaker structure due to the overall longer fermentation duration of the spelt. Both loaves were around 72% hydration and very fun to make. 

Moving forward, I might play around pairing spelt with other ancient grains and see how the flavour profile changes. I find spelt such a complementary grain, and such fun to work with.

And finally we needed a birthday cake last weekend, and I was given the prompt "chocolate" and "marzipan". Not feeling particularly inspired, I therefore made a chocolate marzipan cake. Such fun rolling out the marzipan and making the dinosaurs. The cake is a basic dark chocolate fudge cake.

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So there we have it. Final weekend of leisurely baking before the teaching semester starts next week. Might work on an oat bread.

I'm making three loaves for the office bread party next week, and in addition to the 40% rye and 60% spelt, I thought I will bring this...decadent loaf.

This really is not a super rich or high-caloric loaf - no, not anything like that, but it is very soft, moist, deeply nutty, and its sweet notes perfectly balanced by a very gentle tang in the aftertaste. There's nothing like a slice of this with velvety, salty butter. I suppose decadent because I struggle not to eat more on the day its baked (I have no discipline re slicing into bread when its relatively fresh out of the oven). And ofc with just 10% wholegrain it's maybe a little on the sinful side, but yes once in a while it's very nice...

This bread uses a relatively long overnight BF without cold retardation. No levain, just old starter from the fridge.

For approx 550g loaf:

40g starter; 28g wholegrain wheat; 252g bread flour; 18g raw cocao powder; salt; dash of agave syrup, 220g water

Overall hydration is 78.5% 

I left this to ferment on the counter for 10.5 hours (22C room temp), then folded my walnuts in, and then proofed for another 2.5 hours before baking at 220C for 25 mins.

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This is a follow-up bake to my 90% hydration ciabatta minis using different levain proportions. From that experiment I became more confident of using up to 50% rye levain in my dough, so I decided to apply it to this bake.

The goal is an everyday family loaf that has 1) good flavour; 2) extremely subdued sour tang; 3) is not too dense; 4) does not require much mixing; and 5) has most of the whole grains in the pre-ferment for easier digestion (husband suffers).

I made two loaves, one with 40% rye levain in the final dough, and the other with 50%. The measurements for the 50% loaf are:

Levain: 245g

Rye starter: 35g; Rye flour: 105g; Water: 105g

Final dough: 500g

Rye levain: 245g; Bread flour: 152g; Water: 100g; Salt: 3g

Total hydration of the dough, accounting for the levain, is 78%. % of rye/total flour is 40%.

Mixed the ingredients together in the morning and just left it to do its thing. Bulk fermentation to 50% took 4.5 hours at room temp 22C. After shaping, it rested for an hour before it was baked at 220C for 35 mins.

Verdict

Good. Both are keepers. The 40% levain actually did not taste sour at all and had a really fragrant profile. The 50% had a more pronounced character and was only very mildly sour.

Lovely aroma; husband says: "This bread smells like beer." Did not expect the children to eat it, but our 2 year old polished off one slice (extracted the walnuts, though).

I don't know if I will pursue an even higher rye levain loaf. This works for what I wanted. I might incorporate a soaker to to enhance the flavour profile.

I'm experimenting with the same recipe for my red wholegrain spelt. Yesterday was a flop; the dough did not behave. I shall try again.

Picture on left (top): 50% crumb. Picture on right (bottom): 40% crumb.

These little things are very good. I first had them in a fancy restaurant in Antwerp after multiple courses of little plates. Didn't care much for the plates, the bread was lacklustre, the dessert nothing to write home about, but the canele that came with the coffee, damn that was good.

Since then I've been trying to make them that good. Crunchy and caramelized on the outside, soft and custardy on the inside. It's a really spectacular sweet thing.

Good results today.

For 15 of them:

1 egg, 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 240ml milk, 80g sugar, 50g low-protein flour.

Mix and rest in the fridge overnight. Next day pour batter through a sieve into oiled molds (I used clarified butter) without excessive stirring (you don't want air in the batter). Bake in a 250C oven for 13 mins then 180C for 40 mins.

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