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Martadella's blog

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Martadella

No time for experimenting and recipe writing.  No time for weighing the ingredients and keeping track of time! This is purely grandma style rye made in one day 

Morning

2 cups rye flour,  1 cup warm water,  4 tablespoons rye starter,  mix into a paste,  let ferment in a lukewarm spot 

Late afternoon 

All preferment (should be expanded and partially collapsed,  acidic in smell and taste) 4 cups rye flour,  2 cups warm water,  2½ teaspoon salt,  ½ cup flax seeds, mix into a sticky dough, work with wet hands until the dough feels cohesive, slippery and somewhat slimy on the surface 

Bulk ferment 1½ hour,  final proof in pan 45-60 min

Glaze and dock, bake 15 min at 475°F, then 45 min at 390°F

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Martadella

Grandma style, but I will be making it again and measuring the ingredients. One apple is in the starter, another one as a part of hydration. Taste is very good, the structure of the crumb not too bad as well!

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Martadella

This is the same as in previous post but I tortured myself with using devices, like scale and even the thermometer 😀 Oh, dear .... 

It can be done without any commercial yeast,  but I prefer it this way. More practical  and richer taste (yup, that's true) 

There we go:

Day one, stiff starter:

240g dark rye flour

20g rye starter, unrefrehed

Enough water to make rather dense, but not to dry dough (140g)

Fermentation at 26-28°C for a few hours, then at rt for a total of 16-24 hours (I did 22 total, rt was 18°C)

Day one, altus soaker:

70g of oldish bread (a good slice) torn into pieces

Enough water to cover it completely 

Optionally,  especially if you want to skip yeast,  add a good pinch of rye starter. Soak at rt until ready to make dough, then drain reserving water and break into a pulp with your fingers 

Day two, dough:

All preferment (or save a piece as a starter for a new bread )

All altus

+/- 400 g water (including the one from soaker)

4g  dry yeast 

20g salt

80g dense date paste or plum butter (powidla)

260g wholegrain rye flour 

260g whole wheat flour 

First break starter into pieces and whisk with some liquid to destroy the clumps.  Then add altus and the rest of ingredients.  Mix patiently with your fists, adding tiny amounts of water,  if necessary. The dough should be relatively dense, but soft. It will try to stick to everything it touches.  At some point it will become kind of slick and almost slimy on the surface, will also make specific sound when kneaded,  that means it's ready. Smooth it out and let ferment at 26-28°C for 60min (I did it in the oven with a light on)

Forming the loaf is frustrating,  I always try to do it in the air, but can be done on silicon mat with wet hands

Place the dough in the pan, press it down and smooth with silicone spatula.  Cover and let proof at 26-28°C, 45 min, then, if necessary, another 15 or so, at rt, while you preheat the oven 

Dock and glaze the surface (I used rye flour and water slurry)

Bake 10 minutes at 475°F, 30 minutes at 400 and final 20 minutes at 350. 10 minutes before taking out of the oven glaze the crust again 

This bread is very tasty. The acidity is pronounced,  but at the same time countered and balanced with sweetness of fruit preserves.  The aroma is very rich, typical of hybrid fermentation. The long incubation of preferment assures that there is no chance of enzymatic destruction of crumb. Without any problems this can be baked as a 100% rye

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Martadella

This went well. Taste is as I remember from Poland

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Martadella

First days of really warm weather and after working in the garden all day yesterday we thought we really deserved pizza.

Fast recipe, inspired by one on the back of the bag of flour: 

1kg Anna Napoletana 00 flour 

680 g lukewarm tap water

12-15g salt

7 g dry yeast 

Mix everything into a rough dough.  Do 2-3 stretch and folds.  Let the dough double,  then divide into balls ( I did 6)

While the balls proof,  preheat 2 terracotta saucers in your outdoor bbq grill, about 30-45 minutes at least.  You may, but don't have to,  use round grill pans and parchment paper circles. And, unfortunately, you will have to experiment with times and temperatures,  because grills have their own quirks and caprices. You may of course use a regular pizza stone as well. 

For my hubby and son I made cheese and pepperoni pizza and for

all of us tomato and vegan nduja

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Martadella

Recipe in Russian (run it through the google translation) https://brotgost.blogspot.com/2018/12/blog-post.html?fbclid=IwAR2XYpM14tgTXPgoKt1db3XS9petMTSEBnKbZpbSktLuj4YMkiQ_rIiUXxY&m=1

I baked this bread several times with great success,  but this time I made several mistakes and the crumb surely shows it.

First thought looking at this crumb: weak starter

My liquid starter (made by fermenting white rye malt and raisins with small addition of vinegar)  was less bubbly and fizzy than I wanted. I can think of two reasons: 

-temperature of incubation was too high 

 -addition of vinegar was too big (and a piece of vinegar mother got into my jar, too)

Opara made with this ferment worked really slow. And I also made it too dense. 

Final dough was overhydrated.

So the final result is an extremely tasty and flavorful loaf with really ugly looking crumb. It's rather acidic (which isn't a feature of this bread, if made properly) but really nice to eat. The dense crumb has a pleasant,  soft, cakey mouthfeel.

And down below, a picture from my archive,  showing how this magnificent bread should look like:

 

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Martadella

I love this bread and the whole process is so nice

https://youtu.be/p_zZggD827c

In a pint jar I added some rye malt and raisins,  topped it with lukewarm tap water and then splashed in some homemade apple scrap vinegar. After just 10 hours at 38°C it's already showing the signs of fermentation. It's still not ready yet for making a starter, but maybe tomorrow? 

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Martadella

Incredibly soft and delicious. It's slightly sweet, slightly acidic and very gently bitter from things that I used to make it.

Grandma style, which means non measuring or using volume units. With some normal and some a little weird add ons: old flour scraped from board and dried, old oats and poppy seeds that fell off a previous loaf, some roasted grains of rye, barley and wheat, a big handful of rye altus, dried apricots,  prunes and walnuts. Leavened with stiff rye preferment,  while store bought whole wheat (I think it was Gold Medal) is in the dough

The procedure can be summarized as follows:

Stiff preferment: (2 cups rye, 2 tablespoons old starter, enough water to make a stiff dough) let ferment 12-16 hours at rt

Old scraps: dried bits and pieces  scraped from the working board, burned flour from baking stone, also stuff that fell off of other loaves, like oats etc.,  kept  dry in a jar; ground roasted grains , add lukewarm water and a pinch of starter, let ferment 12-16 hours at rt

Altus (large handful of dried rye bread cubes) let soak in water until very soft, then squeeze and add to the dough 

Mix preferment, altus and fermented scraps together with their liquid,  add 4 cups of whole wheat flour, regulate hydration to your liking. Autolyse 20-30 min, then salt to taste. Let ferment some time then add chopped fruit and nuts (I don't laminate, I just knead them into the dough) Proof until nice and puffy, place in banneton,  wait until nicely expanded then bake

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Martadella

Lovely rye/wheat rolls, mostly wholegrain. I made them with two preferments, one rye with rye starter,  and the second one made with whole wheat flour and a pinch of yeast. Both of them were 100% hydration,  for the sake if simplicity and easiness of mixing. I let them ferment for most of the day, about 8 hours. 

I also boiled and mashed a smallish potato and, while still hot, mixed it with 2 tablespoons of rye flour and then kept it nice and warm for several hours. 

In the final dough I used plus minus 50% rye, 25% whole wheat and 25% bread flour. Salt, of course, and a mix of spices: caraway,  fennel and fenugreek. 

Dough was very sticky but with some gluten structure present. Quite nice to work with, but it was necessary to use a very gentle hand. 

Smell while baking, really delightful. 

And I also made some fresh plant based cheese.

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Martadella

My old trusty recipe with tiny modification

7 am

Preferment 

160g old starter

160g warm water

160g rye flour

Mix , cover and place in a warm place (I put it in the oven alongside a pot of very hot water or leave the oven light on) 

 

Scald, 7 am

80g rye flour 

240ml boiling water

1 tbsp ground coriander 

Mix until smooth, wait until no longer hot but stil very warm,  add 1 tbsp rye flour,  mix in, cover, place in the same spot as the preferment

 

3 pm

Dough 

The preferment should start collapsing 

The scald should be smooth and have a pleasant gently sweet taste and smell 

All preferment

All scald

18 g salt

480 g rye flour 

320 g warm water

Sweetener and spices as desired ( I didn't use any this time, I wanted simplicity )

Mix into soft, sticky, smooth dough

Cover, leave at rt 

 

Bulk ferment 1½ -2 hours 

Place in prepared pan ( it's a lot of dough, use a large pan )

Final proof 1-1½ hours 

 

Bake without steam 

5 min 490°F,  30 min 425°F, 25 min 390°F or until brown and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom

The modification was adding 30 g of toasted grains, scalded with all 340g of hydration water.  I did this in the morning and left together with preferment and scald until afternoon, when I made the final dough. This small amount of grain provided interesting taste nuance: bread smells and tastes a little bit like gingerbread with subtle caramel notes. Really nice 😋

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