sadkitchenkid's blog

This was a super tasty bread! When dusting my countertop before shaping, I used a mix of cocoa powder and wholewheat flour. 

500g Bread flour

200g Spelt flour

100g Rye

700g Water

100g rye starter at 100% hydration

18g Salt

200g Hazelnuts

100g Chopped dates

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I got almost no oven spring on this one, which I've noticed happens when I don't do as many stretch and folds and skip retarding the dough overnight.

Crumb is really soft and chewy. This bread tastes amazing, probably my new favorite.

I mixed walnuts and cranberries into the other half of the dough

Happy baking!

My mom made some fillo dough yesterday and gave me some to play around with:

The first picture is of traditional nut baklava. I made a paste of walnuts and orange blossom water. 

The second picture is sometimes called birds nest baklava, and the fillo is cooked first, covered in syrup, and then filled in the center with either whole nuts or powdered nuts.

My mother and I have been baking up a storm this week! Here are some examples of what we've been making:

snowball cookies made with toasted almonds and rose water, cookies (similar to shortbread but finer) stuck together with homemade apricot jam and dipped in ground pistachio, a special middle eastern cookie called Ghorayeba which is a very creamy rich cookie, short bread cookie with chocolate and pecan, short bread filled with homemade apricot jam, and so on. We made about fifty of these platters so far and will be gifting them to neighbors and friends.

Happy baking!

This dough was pretty hard to work with and the crumb and oven spring wasn't as exciting as my other loaves, but I think it is my new favorite bread. The flours I used are white bread flour and 20% wholewheat. I'll probably add more wholewheat or grain to this dough next time. Since a 50% wholewheat dough at 88% hydration would be much easier to work with than a 20% wholewheat at 88% hydration.

Here are the process pictures:

After mixing the flour and water together sans the levain and salt, I let it autolyse for 10 hours and although it was much more extensible after that period, it had relaxed to the point where it was almost soupy. The next day I mixed in the levain and salt and the dough got even waterier. To pull it together, I followed the method demonstrated by Trevor J Wilson on how to mix wet dough. In his video, the dough he used was much firmer than mine (because of the added whole grains and slightly lower hydration) so I just followed his instructions but adding an extra 15 minutes of kneading (scoop and stretch motion), making it 30 minutes of hands on kneading time in total. By the time I was done, the dough was still pretty loose but it held together enough to be lifted up in one piece and transferred to a clean bowl. I wish I got pictures of this process because the nuances of the dough texture aren't properly described in words, but my hands were matted with wet dough the whole times and I didn't want to kill my camera. 

Next I let the dough rest for an hour, did a stretch and fold, rest for thirty minutes, and added the toasted walnuts and cranberries. 

The added cranberries and walnuts somehow helped the dough pull together a bit. I proceeded with gentler stretch and folds after incorporating them to keep the whole walnuts from tearing the dough excessively. 

After four folds:

after the sixth fold:

The walnuts started to react with the flour giving those pretty purple stains. 

After shaping, I let proof at room temperature for about two hours, which might not have been enough. I usually retard the dough overnight in the fridge and proof the next day, but today I wanted to be done with my day and clean  the kitchen. 

Mediocre oven spring.

Crumb is okay. I like the purple and pink splotches. 

I just made a batch of fresh ricotta and will be having it with this bread tomorrow for breakfast. 

Happy baking everyone!

This is a 50% wholewheat loaf at 83% hydration!

I rolled the final dough after shaping into a bowl of sesame and poppy seeds so the loaf has a uniform crust all over.

226g bread flour

210g wholewheat flour

355g water

55g wholewheat starter at around 100% hydration

9g salt 

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients minus the salt and starter in a bowl until all the flour is dry. Leave to hydrate for a few hours. Sometimes I let autolyse overnight in the fridge.

Fold in the starter and salt. Proceed with about 6 stretch and folds over the course of 5 hours. I only did 3 with this loaf so the oven spring wasn't as high as I would've liked, but the crumb is still nice. 

After S&F are done, shape tightly and then roll the entire ball into the seeds. Place seamside up in a proofing bowl and proof overnight in the fridge then take out the next day and let proof on the counter for about 2-4 hours. Bake at 450F for 20 with dutch oven lid on and another 20 with it off. 

PS a good tip for sticking the seeds on is rolling the dough in a damp towel to get the surface a little tacky. I didn't have a clean tea towel on hand so I wet my hands and rubbed them over the surface of the ball of dough, then took a paper towel and gently dabbed at it to remove the excess moisture and achieve that tacky surface. The generous coating of seeds completely coated the dough so I didn't need to line my proofing bowl (in my case, a metal mixing bowl) with flour to keep it from sticking to the sides.

Process pics

The next day:

After 20 minutes with steam: (ps I don't have a sharp razor so my scoring is pretty depressing)

20 minutes uncovered

I was gifting this loaf so I couldn't cut into it but I've made this recipe often and this is a worst case scenario of the crumb:

I fermented this guy for about 24 hours total (7hrs on the counter after mixing, 13hrs in the fridge, 4hrs proofing) which I knew was a lot for this batch but it was the only way I could fit it into my schedule. Anyway the smell of the dough and bread is so beyond words amazing. The bread has a great flavor, and though overproofed, the crumb is soft and chewy. 

The second issue was, when I was flipping the bread out of the proofing bowl, onto the hot baking steel, it stuck to the tea towel lining the bowl!!! aaah. Anyway I gently peeled the dough away from the towel, trying not to break the surface. By the time I was done, the dough had flattened and spread out significantly, ruining any good oven spring potential. BUT that is okay I was still left with an amazing loaf. I do plan on remaking this recipe on a weekend where I'm free to give it the treatment it deserves, because the taste really is worth a dough over.

Recipe:

690g Bread flour

560g water

140g starter at 100% hydration 

34g poppy seeds

6g lemon zest (this was about two lemons for me)

17g salt

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Mix the flour with the water, poppy seeds, and lemon zest, and leave for two hours to hydrate. Then fold in the starter and salt.

^mixing in the ingredients minus the salt and starter. Mix until combined, don't knead. Leave for two hours before:

After mixing in the starter, do gentle stretch and folds in the bowl, by stretching up one piece, bringing it down, and stretching it up again, over and over. Do this for about fifteen minutes until the dough smooths out. Set the dough aside for an hour, then start doing stretch and folds once every 30 minutes. I did 8 folds. 

Here was my mistake: I left the dough on the counter for about five hours while I dealt with another dough. Then place it in the refrigerator and took it out the next night after 13 hours. Then let it proof in a very warm place for four hours. Poor guy. Went through so much.

I baked at 500F in a steamed oven for 15 minutes before removing the water in the oven, reducing to 460F and bake for another thirty minutes. 

This bread doesn't have sugar in it so it isn't an inherently sweet bread, but I drizzled some honey onto a slice and it was good as heck.

So again, I will be remaking this and possibly updating the results.

Happy baking doods

I made these cookies using my great aunt's famous secret recipe. It feels like a betrayal to post it here but it also feels like a betrayal to post this picture without adding a recipe so if anyone is interested, let me know and I'll post in the comments. These are so good and highly requested that my aunt, no matter how old and tired she gets, makes over twenty batches during the holidays and gifts them to friends, family, and neighbor. Growing up I'd sit on the kitchen floor with her for hours and decorate and snack on hundreds of these. 

Anyway this is one of the platters I made for my friend's wedding tomorrow! Instead of a cake, they wanted tiers of cookie. Long night ahead!  Happy baking everyone!