pmccool's blog

I'm beginning to wonder whether I bake better when the weather is cool.  This is the second bake in a row to turn out very well.

The bread is based on a rye levain that matures overnight.  It also has a hot soaker that consists of cracked rye, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, oats, and all of the salt for the formula.  For this bake, I subbed bulgur wheat for the cracked rye since I have more on hand than I can easily use up other ways.  The soaker is allowed to rest overnight. 

The next morning, the levain and soaker are combined with the rest of the ingredients. The final dough includes a smalll yeast kicker to ensure a good rise.  After the dough was kneaded (I used my KA mixer), it was put in the proofer to rise for an hour.  It was then given a letter fold and allowed to rise for about another hour. 

I elected to shape the dough into three medium size loaves, rather than two larger loaves.  Given the inherent stickiness of the rye in the dough, I dusted the shaped loaves with rye flour so that the plastic wrap draped over them wouldn't stick.  That turned out to be a good call.

After proofing, the sheet pan containing the loaves was placed in the preheated oven with steam.  Although well risen, they still had a substantial oven spring that caused two of the loaves to "kiss".  Once baked, the loaves felt light for their size, which was another indication of having been well proofed. 

On the cooling rack, I could hear faint crackling noises as the loaves "sang" while they cooled:

One might look at the crumb and think "That should be more open."  I think the combination of the rye levain and the soaker militate against a lacy crumb.  Still, it is moist and firm, with a very pleasing chew because of the soaker additions.

This is a seriously good bread that serves just as well in a sandwich as it does as an accompaniment for a bowl of homemade soup.

Paul

The formula for this bread is from the second edition of Hamelman's Bread.  It's a 50/50 white/whole wheat bread with a multigrain soaker.  It is leavened with both a sourdough levain and a yeast kicker in the final dough.  The multigrain soaker composition is entirely up to the baker.  In this version, I used flaxseed meal, whole millet, and a blend that includes sunflower seeds and flaked wheat, barley, rye, and oats.

The levain and the soaker were set up before I went to bed.  Since nights are getting frosty here in northern MIchigan, the levain was stashed in the B&T proofer at 75F.  It was 11:00 a.m. the next day before I could start the final dough, so the levain was nice and bubbly. 

All of the ingredients were placed in the bowl of my KItchenAid mixer.  Hamelman's recommended mixing and kneading times resulted in a fairly firm, though not dry, dough. The dough went back into the proofer for bulk fermentation, which proceeded very nearly as described in the book.

Since it just two of us (and a lot of days just one of us) who eat the bread, I elected to shape three medium-size loaves, rather than the two large loaves mentioned in book.  The shaped loaves were placed on a lined sheet pan for the final fermentation.  Happily, the dishwasher was running, which meant that the countertop immediately above the dishwasher was nice and warm; so that's where I placed the sheet pan with the loaves. 

When the loaves had nearly doubled in volume, they were slashed and placed in the preheated oven.  I added boiling water to the steam tray and closed the oven door.  The loaves expanded very well in the humid heat, forming prominent ears.  Hamelman notes that the oven temperature can be lowered if the bread browns too rapidly.  I didn't and the breads is, to use Hamelman's own words, boldly baked.  At least that's what I told my wife when she said it was burnt.  It wasn't, as you can see here:

I've made a note for myself to add some more water the next time I make the bread.  It rose well and had a good oven spring but the crumb would have been more open if the dough was looser. 

The bread tastes wonderful, as is typically the case with Hamelman's breads.  The crumb is firm and moist.  The crust is crisp, with a bit of crunch at the ears.  Lots of wheaty, nutty, roasty flavors to enjoy.

Paul

I was jonesing for some rye bread and wanted it sooner rather than later, which ruled out taking time to refresh my starter and build a levain.  In leafing through The Rye Baker, I came across a Yogurt Rye bread that was leavened with yeast and thought "That looks interesting."  It's also a bread that I haven't made previously.  So I made it.

The basic template is a 50/50 mix of rye and whole wheat flours.  The book calls for the rye fraction to be half light rye and half dark rye.  I used freshly milled whole rye flour, reasoning that it would be a fairly effective substitute.  The bread also features sunflower seeds, which are almost always a good thing in a whole-grain bread.

Since it's a straight dough process, the steps were pretty simple.  Get everything mixed together and kneaded (I used my KitchenAid mixer), bulk ferment, shape, final ferment, and bake. 

The crumb, while firm, is moist and reasonably tender.  It's also not nearly as tight as one might expect with the flours involved.  The wheat and rye flavors harmonize wonderfully.  I've had it toasted, in sandwiches, and as an accompaniment for soup; it performs admirably in all roles.

Paul

I've had Daniel Leader's Living Bread book for a couple of years now but have baked scarcely any (one?) of the breads that it features.  One reason for not having dived into it enthusiastically is that I am, admittedly, a rather pedestrian baker whereas many of the breads in the book exemplify a high degree of the baker's craft.  Another reason is that some of the breads are in the "That's cool but it isn't what I want" category.  And, a number of the breads call for ingredients that, here in northern Michigan, range between exotic and Unobtanium.  Since I'm cheap thrifty, spending $10 or more on flour alone for one loaf doesn't appeal. 

Still, I thought I owed it to myself to at least take a stab at some breads that do appeal to me. 

The Pain au Levaine Moderne was appealing, so I chose that as my starting point.  I've made a lot of pains au levain over the years, so I have a good baseline for working with this style of bread.  The Moderne in the title is apparently a reference to the use of a liquid levain.  I maintain a stiff starter but didn't worry about it since the levain only requires 25g of starter, knowing that it wouldn't shift the final hydration by even a tenth of a percent.  The levain itself, at 100% hydration, isn't very loose.  It's on the boundary between a soft dough and a thick batter.

The formula calls for Type 65 flour.  I have none.  A bit of reading led me to the suggestion that a combination of 77% bread flour and 23% whole wheat flour would make an acceptable approximation of the Type 65 flour.  So, not the real deal but close enough for my purposes. 

The process outlined in the formula begins with an overnight levain.  The next morning, the final dough flour is autolysed with all but 90g of the final dough water.  The autolyse is then combined with the levain, salt, and yeast and mixed for 2 minutes at speed 2 on a KitchenAid mixer, then another 4 minutes at speed 4.  Finally, the remaining water is dribbled in over a 7 minute period, still at speed 4, untill the bassinage is complete.  Then, still at speed 4, the dough is mixed another 4 minutes "until the dough is elastic and shiny".  The dough is turned out onto the countertop and given a letter fold.  It is then placed in a container for 1.5 hours, at which time another letter fold is performed.  After a further 1.5 hours in the container, it is placed in the refrigerator for an 8-12 hour retard.  It is then removed from the refrigerator and allowed to warm up for a couple of hours, rounded, bench rested, shaped into a large boule and placed in a banneton for final fermentation.  It is then baked in a preheated Dutch oven.

A couple of comments are appropriate at this point.  First, the final dough hydration is just slightly more than 80%, hence the bassinage.  Second, Mr. Leader refers to speed 4 on a KitchenAid mixer as "medium low" speed.  True enough, in terms of the mixer's range of selectable speeds.  But it's a relatively high speed for kneading with the dough hook.  And it goes on for a total of 15 minutes at speed 4.  From what I observed, the dough was already well-developed at the end of the bassinage and did not require the last 4 minutes of mixing, even though I followed the instructions for the first attempt.

My third deviation from the formula (if you're keeping count) was to skip the cold retard step and subsequent warm up.  My fourth deviation was to shape the dough into two boules, rather than one large boule.  My fifth deviation was to bake the bread on a baking sheet in a steamed oven, rather than in a Dutch oven.  Now you know why I appended "sorta" in the header. 

What I got for my first attempt was an extremely sticky dough that was also quite extensible.  This, eventually, baked up into two loaves that were each the approximate size and shape of a smallish Frisbee.  They are currently in the freezer awaiting their fate as croutons or bread crumbs.

My second attempt, which is pictured in this post, had a better outcome.  The two changes that I made from the first attempt was to lower the hydration to 75% and to shorten the mixing time.  The resulting loaves have a higher profile and a more-open crumb that those from the first attempt.  

While I like the bread, I doubt that I will use this formula again.  It leaves me with the feeling that Leader chose to push the boundaries as far as he could for this particular style.  That may be appropriate for Olympic gymnastic routines but it isn't necessarily what I want to do when making my daily bread.  Life is too short for doing things the hard way.

Another couple of pics:

I will admit that the shape was particularly useful for the BLTs that we made for dinner last evening.

There are some other breads in the book (the ryes, especially) that look interesting, so I'll check those out, too.

Paul

Sometimes you get the bear.  Yes, really.  After a number of recent thoroughly edible but not very interesting bakes, I finally have one that gets me excited.

Sure, I could have let the final ferment go a bit longer but ... I'm getting ahead of myself.

We got home last Friday from a 3.5 week trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji.  Which was absolutely wonderful, by the way.  We are happy to be back home and sleeping in our own bed after 15 flights and 11 different hotels. 

Before leaving, I had fed my starter twice.  The second feeding was extremely stiff, almost like a biga or bagel dough, since I wanted it to have enough food during our prolonged absence.  Upon returning, I gave it two more feedings just to ensure that it was at full strength.

Since we needed bread, I cast about for ideas and this bread was the one that caught my eye. 

The rye sour and the hot soaker were mixed Saturday evening.  Since I was out of sunflower seeds, I substituted chia seeds in the soaker. 

On Sunday morning, I mixed the dough.  What with the rye sour, the soaker, and the honey in the dough, I was happy to use my mixer to do the work instead of mixing and kneading by hand.  As Mr. Hamelman notes, the dough had ample gluten development in spite of all of the seeds and it was rather sticky.  I chose to cut the yeast in half, knowing that I would be away from the house for a couple of hours.  That worked well to keep the dough from over-fermenting while I was out. 

Once the dough was near doubled in volume, it was divided and shaped into three loaves; each slightly more than 1.5 pounds pre-bake weight.  These were placed on a baking sheet, dusted with rye flour, and covered with plastic wrap for final fermentation.  When they were about 75% of the way toward doubling, I preheated the oven.  Once the oven was up to temperature, I poured water in the steam tray, slashed the loaves, and popped them into the oven.  Per instructions, the oven was turned down from 460F to 450F after the first 10 minutes. 

The slashes opened beautifully, forming sharp ears as the loaves expanded.  The crust is a beautiful deep brown with russet notes and is rather thick and hard.  The interior is moist and cool and crunchy/chewy with all of the seeds from the soaker.

So, yeah, maybe a longer final ferment would have led to a more open crumb.  I'm still happy with the outcome, though.  And, it didn't drip any mayonnaise on my lap while I enjoyed a turkey sandwich for lunch today.

Paul

A few months ago, I was given a one-pound package of einkorn grain.  While I've been interested in einkorn and other primitive wheats, the high cost (relative to modern wheats) has put me off.  I don't have any compelling health issues that would militate against using modern wheats, so my curiosity hasn't been enough to override the high price point.

Since I was at the point of needing to make bread again, and since the einkorn was sitting on the shelf, I decided it was high time to mill the grain and use it in a bread.  I spent quite a bit of time noodling through the archives here on TFL, looking at einkorn posts.  The bulk of those were levain-based breads.  Since I wanted to get a sense of the einkorn's flavor without other influences, and since there was so much commentary about einkorn's weak gluten, I went in search of a yeasted version.  What I eventually settled on was a recipe from Jovial Foods for an Easy Einkorn Whole Grain Bread.

The recipe produces a fairly straightforward no-knead bread.  The one tweak that I made was to bump the salt content up from 3g to 8g.  After combining the water, honey, and yeast, I milled the flour straight into the bowl, added the salt, and stirred everything until all of the flour was absorbed and a rough dough formed.  The dough was left in the bowl, covered, and allowed to ferment for 30 minutes. 

At the end of the short bulk ferment, the dough looked puffy and was perhaps 50% larger.  At that point, the dough was scraped from the bowl into a well-greased 8x4 loaf pan.  I smoothed the top of the loaf off with wet fingers.  The loaf was covered and allowed to ferment for another 30 minutes.  The oven was preheated while the loaf fermented.

At the end of the final ferment, I ran into a snag.  The loaf had expanded nicely and was domed about half an inch above the rim of the pan.  The dough lived up to einkorn's reputation for stickiness and did not want to release the plastic wrap that had been draped over the pan.  I used a bowl scraper to gently coax the dough loose from the plastic but still wound up with a scalped loaf.  Once again, I wet my fingers and smoothed it out as much as I could without causing further injury.

Fortunately, baking went off without a hitch.  At the end of 40 minutes, the internal temperature was between 195F and 200F, and the bread was a lovely shade of brown.  The dough was allowed to cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then turned out to cool on a rack. Once cooled, the loaf was placed in a plastic bread bag.

I used the bread the next day to make a ham sandwich for lunch.  The bread is delicious, without any hint of the bitterness that some people have noted in einkorn.  Does it taste significantly better than whole wheat bread made with modern wheats?  Not that I can perceive.  And certainly not enough to justify paying multiples of the price for modern wheat if flavor is the primary selection criteria. 

If you look closely at the crumb, you'll notice that the bread was just slipping across the border between well-fermented and over-fermented.  The crumb in the upper part of a slice is rather coarse and open while the crumb at the bottom is showing signs of compression.  Overall, if I were to use this recipe again, I'd reduce the yeast content from 7g to 4-5g.  I'd also dial the hydration back to about 70%, since the bread is extremely moist at the recipe's 77%.

Here are a couple of pics that show the loaf:

Barring the tussle with the plastic wrap, it would have been quite pretty.

Paul

Go Chiefs!

Ahem.  Well.  Yes, that needed to be said.

Tomorrow's Super Bowl festivities will feature pulled pork sandwiches because Kansas City.  A superlative sandwich requires a superlative bun.  For superlative buns, it's hard to improve on Portuguese Sweet Bread (this one compliments of Mark Sinclair.)  Although Ian, bless him, continues to experiment.

These are all suited up and ready to play:

And, since Mardi Gras is drawing near, some king cake, too:

Paul

It's a Brod & Taylor lightweight sheeter that my wife bought for me.  Due to various commitments, like our oldest grandson graduating from Missouri State next week, it will probably be three weeks or more before I get to play with it.  That may be a temporary reprieve for my waistline but I’m concerned about the long-term risks.  

This is what 14+ pounds of PSB dough looks like after it is turned into sandwich rolls and a loaf.  The loaf was egg-washed, the rolls were not.  The rolls are for a church picnic tomorrow. 

I used Mark Sinclair’s Back Home Bakery recipe to make a double batch.

Paul

The trip was a gift to our oldest grandson for his high school graduation--two years after the fact.  Yup, COVID got in the way of that, too.

Since it was Josh's trip, we built it around his interests.  Much fun and lots of great memories but bakeries didn't figure into the mix.  In spite of that, my wife and I were both blown away by the bakeries/patisseries that we did notice in our perambulations.  The creativity and craftsmanship of the bakers who turn out such beautiful loaves and pastries is beyond impressive.

Since most of our dining was done in restaurants, our exposure to baked goods was limited to what was available with our meals.  Overall, quality was pretty good, some even very good.  Even the French version of a cheeseburger that I had in one bar came on a bun that was delicious in its own right.

Assuming that we get back to Paris at some future date, I definitely want to devote part of our time there to a bakery crawl, or two.

Paul