mwilson's blog

…based upon a formula by Francesco Favorito.

Oh my. These are some damn fine tasting doughnuts, easily the best I have ever eaten, seriously!

• 500g strong flour, I used Canadian wheat
• 100g lievito madre, refreshed*. I made three refreshments
• 50g mashed potatoes
• 3 whole eggs, about 155g
• 110g whole milk
• 50g sugar
• 5g salt
• 100g softened butter
• Zest of one lemon
• Vanilla extract

*Lately I have been conserving my lievito in water. In addition to this I have taken to refreshing at three hour intervals. As a result my lievito is low in acid and bacteria with a pH of 4.8-5.2. It triples its volume in just two hours at 28C.

Mix flour, salt, sugar, lemon zest, lievito, potato, eggs and milk to a smooth dough. Add butter to finish the mix. Wrap and leave in the fridge overnight. In the morning transfer the dough to a warm room at 28-30C, After 1 hour divide dough into 65g pieces and round. Proof at 28C for 6-7 hours. Fry in oil at 180C for 90 seconds each side. Drain on paper towel and coat in sugar mixed with lemon and orange zest.

These were pretty big for just 65 grams of dough! I had enough to make 16 doughnuts.

I filled these with custard / pastry cream:

500ml whole milk 100g sugar 40 corn flour 4 egg yolks seeds of one vanilla pod one piece of lemon peel Cream egg yolks with sugar and then corn flour. Bring to the boil milk with vanilla and lemon. Strain into the egg yolk mixture and return to the pan. Cook gently until thick, stirring all the time. Cover and chill overnight.

Two formulas I've not tried before.

Renato Bosco Panettone

Renato Bosco maintains his madre in water which means it's less acidic and hence why his formula includes it at 50% in the first dough.

first and final doughs risen

Recipe source: http://lacuocadentro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/panettone-lievitazione-naturale-di_17.html

Francesco Favorito Pandoro

A formula for Pandoro that doesn't include commercial yeast is hard to come by but this is one courtesy of Francesco Favorito. 

final dough after mixing and after rising

Recipe source: http://dolcinema.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/il-pandoro-con-lievito-naturale.html

Happy new year to all...

Michael

"Extra paradise" panettone from Cresci

Amendments:
I made two changes, one was to omit the added compressed yeast and the other was substituting some of the walnuts with candied orange peel.

One of my finest panettoni. Incredibly soft and light which makes hard work when slicing. A fantastic bready texture that tears beautifully when pulled apart.

This is a very difficult formula to achieve success. The enriching ingredients in ratio to the flour are higher than any other panettone. This is due to there being no flour added in the second dough.

I confess, I am in no way skilled at lamination and hardly ever make croissants. It’s something I’ve done only a handful of times. These were my best yet and not only that, these are solely leavened by natural means, a first.

Original recipe found here - I scaled it down and used a lower ratio of butter for folding in.

*original recipe says to use 2.5Kg of butter per every 4.5Kg of dough. I used 1/3 butter to dough.

Unfortunately they got too warm (31.5C) whilst proving, consequently some of the butter started to melt out and there was a slight unwated acidity in the finished product. They also rose a lot making things rather cramped!

After the bake

Crumb with errors

Incredibly delicate like clouds that just flaked and melted away in the mouth!

Thanks Luciana for posting this recipe.

Gotta love chocolate!

Recipe source: http://www.panperfocaccia.eu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=16418

Final dough moulded and later fully risen.

Primo Impasto:

• 230g flour, I used very strong
• 90g sugar
• 120g egg yolks
• 100g water
• 80g butter
• 100g natural yeast, refreshed three times prior

Secondo Impasto:

• 50g flour
• 20g egg yolks
• 15g sugar
• 60g butter
• 2.5g salt
• 60g cocoa paste (1/3 cocoa +1/3 butter + 1/3 sugar)
• 130g candied orange cubes
• 100g chocolate chips, I used 50g milk / 50g dark
• zest of 1 lemon
• zest of 1 orange
• seeds of 1 vanilla pod
• 15-20g water to adjust dough consistency

Up close before before being scored with a cross and cooling upside down after the bake.

After cooling completely, this panettone was wrapped and left to mature for 5 days before being cut into… The texture was the best I’ve had so far, very bready and very shreddy. For my taste this could have done with a little more salt even though I did raise it to 3 grams already.

Various photos of the crumb.

Close-ups

-Michael

For a few weeks now I have been maintaining my typical Italian style sourdough, experimenting, trying to increase the pH level at it's maturity. I've managed to go from 4.1 - 4.6.
Depending on which schooling of Italian sourdough you follow, methods and guidelines vary slightly. But according to one source optimum pH at maturity is 4.5 but can vary between 4.3-4.8.

Lately I have taken to the method of keeping this sourdough in cold water over the tied in cloth method. But I still use both to keep the acidity under control.

Under pressure - Natural yeast wrapped and tied

Naturally leavened white bread

Panettone by Iginio Massari

Colomba Pasquale by Achille Zoia


 

Hello fellow Fresh Loaf'ers.

I would like to announce that today is my birthday. Thanks to everyone here that has made me feel welcome in this wonderful forum. This is a great community full of enthusiastic bakers and I wouldn't be where I am today without you all.

Cheers and Merry Christmas.

Christmas is fast approaching and life has been quite hectic recently... 

I simply don't have time to maintain my beloved lievito 2.0. So instead with the little time I have had, I made my regular yeasted version of Pandoro.

It has a wonderful aroma thanks to the cocoa butter, vanilla, lemon, and fancy pandoro sugar. Although this version lacks the softness typical of the real thing made with natural yeast.

Well mixed dough.

Primo (30C ~4hrs)

62.0 Biga (50% hydration)
62.0 Flour
2.0 Instant yeast
4.0 Water
21.0 Sugar
48.0 Egg

Secondo (30C ~4hrs)

140.0 Flour
82.0 Sugar
96.0 Egg
14.0 Water

Terzo (24C ~12-14hrs)

140.0 Flour
62.0 Sugar
10.0 Honey
5.5 Salt
48.0 Egg
17.0 Milk
31.0 Water
228.0 Butter
16.0 Egg Yolk
23.0 Cocoa Butter
Flavouring (seeds from one vanilla pod + zest of one lemon)
1111.5

Final dough, total % ingredients:

100.0 Flour
59.5 Butter
50.1 Whole Egg
43.0 Sugar
18.2 Water
6.0 Cocoa Butter
4.4 Milk
4.2 Egg Yolk
2.6 Honey
1.4 Salt
0.5 yeast

Pandoro sugar

100 Icing sugar
70 Potato flour
6 Cocoa butter
6 Rum
- Vanilla seeds

Sorry for the rushed post... errand's to run.

Michael

To me, the pinnacle Panettone. Formula comes from Iginio Massari.

This is the most challenging formula for Panettone, hence why I have been so drawn to it. I rise to technical challenges. I followed the formula, timings and temperatures without compromise.

Iginio Massari’s formulas typically use only 25% natural yeast and cooler temps for the first dough. The result, more flavour… I can still recall that familiar aroma after the first rise. So aromatic!

Oven spring was huge. I didn’t know when it was going to stop… Lasting nearly 20mins.

The taste and texture was perfect. I made the choice to use super strong Canadian flour to get that fluffy character I was looking for. A clean taste, not a hint of acidity or sourness. Just sweet, light, fluffy goodness, natural and nutritious.

The volume increase from dough to finished product was about 6 fold. All that lift created by my natural yeast...
 
Here it floats in water fermenting away. Beloved lievito 2.0! 

-Michael

I’m still experimenting and making observations my with my natural “lievito 2.0”. All that experimenting and nothing to show for it… So while I had the time I decided to actually make something. Something different to Panettone…

I adapted the original recipe (from Dolcesalato), scaling down the formula, making just one modification to include white, along with the milk and dark chocolate chips.

		Veneziana al Cioccolato by Giovanni Pina VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

First dough – left to rise at 30C for 10-12hrs

• 225g ‘00’ flour
• 75g lievito naturale
• 56g egg yolks
• 64g caster sugar
• 90g water
• 75g butter

Second dough – left to rise at 30C for 6-7hrs

• 83g ‘00’ flour
• 56g caster sugar
• 56g egg yolks
• 4g salt
• 15g honey
• 38g water
• 98g butter
• 165g chocolate chips (55g each of white, milk and dark)

I glazed the dough with an egg and sugar solution and scored a Y shape on top as per original instructions.