Thegreenbaker's blog

I dont have any photos as the camera's battery went flat :S But the pumpkin bread was soooo great and tasted wonderful. it even had pumpkin flavour and was quite yellow.

Ingredients.

2/3 of a butternut pumpkin/squash chopped. seeded, peeled, boiled, drained and mashed.

500 grams of bread flour. (I used 1/3 cup of gluten glour which was approx 50g and made up the excess of weight with 100g spelt flour, 200g wheat wholemeal flour, 100g of white flour and made the rest up with rye approx 50g maybe a bit more.)

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast.

1/2 to 2/3 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup of buttermilk-extra incase dough is dry.

1 pinch nutmeg

1 pinch cinnamon (like 1/8 teaspoon each) 

peppittas or pumpkin seeds to decorate.

Extra flour for kneading

1 egg beaten for egg wash.

Method.

Put the flours, salt and yeast in a large bowl. mix to distribute.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the mashed potato...still warm, the spices and the buttermilk. Mix to combine into a sticky ball. add extra buttermilk if too dry and add extra flour if too wet. it should come together into a sticky ball. it will be moist and sticky, but not difficult to handle.

Knead this for about 10-12 mins, keep flouring the bench as I found it was very sticky. After 8 mins or so it does become pliable and soft, but still sticks easily to your hands.

oil a bowl and leave it to rise for about 90 mins or until it doubles in size.

Fold a few times to give it some extra strength and leave it to rise again for maybe an hour.

Shape, cover in pumpkin seeds and let proof. It actually proofs quite fast, I think it is because of the sugars in the pumpkin and preheat the oven to 200deg celcius.

Slash the loaf and coat with egg wash. place in the oven and steam. keep spraying walls (or what ever your steaming habbits are) for the first 5 mins at 30 sec-1 min intervals.

Bake for about 45 mins.

Let cool.

We cut it when it was still warm and the crumb was still a tiny but sticky or moist but today it is fine. It really is a lovely bread. great with stuffed squash (thanks for the recipe jmonkey)

I will be making this again, and next time I will take a picture!

I hoipe who ever tries this they enjoy it. Myself and my dinner guests did!

thegreenbaker

I looked here for a recipe for pumpkin bread and all I found was the chemically leavened one and a link to a yeasted recipe that my computer wouldnt open :S

Monday night for me is a seasonal feast and we are eating all the seasonal vegies like pumpkin, squash, apples and corn. Kind of odd considering that in the northern hemisphere ya'll are eating that stuff in October/november. :) but, it IS Autunm turning winter down here in the deep deep south! (Aust)

So, I searched google for a recipe and they all have sugar and spices in them. I found a few but am now getting some ideas.

I am going to try "my own" recipe possibly using spelt flour and I think a little bit of honey would be nice....... and will post the process and result (good or bad) here. :S fingeres crossed!

I've 2 days to work it out in my head........

I love cooking :D and baking :D

thegreenbaker

I began my sourdough journey last week on the 16th. My starter was active on day 2, died down and remained quiet until day 6. I fed it over those two days to make sure it was alive and kicking and it looked great. each time with in feeds it doubled even trippled and I decided yesterday that I was going to start my first sourdough loaf. I followed reinhearts baasic sourdough from BBA and put the starter (biga type I dont know the word) in the fridge over night. Took it out this morning, and began my permentation. I was so excited to see it grow to much. after 4 hours it had doubled in size and I was very happy!

I then shaped the dough into 6 torpedo rolls and one boule. I proofed the boule in a ceramic bowl in a plain teatowel covered in lots of flour. It came out of the mould with ease and everything came out very brown but very nice.

The loaves are half wholemeal and half white flour. They taste slightly tangy and smell good.

To be honest I am still worried I am growing something other than yeast in there and am very wary about eating my beautiful looking and smelling bread. Yes, I am paranoid. ;P

Here is my starter as it is now :)

and here is it closer

And my very first sourdough loaves!

thegreenbaker

I started my first ever sourdough starter last night. So tonights feeding is feeding 2...24 hours after it began.

Here is where it is up to now. No sign of anything happening yet but I know it can take up to a week, so my fingers are crossed.

I also made the buttermilk cluster today with wholemeal wheat and wholeleal spelt flour.

Yummo! I am eating it as I write!

I also made my own version using rustic bread as a base and adding cornmeal, oats, semolina, and spelt flour.

It was dense and filling, but tasty. :)

Look at that slashing! and with a terrible serrated steak knife and all!

I also found a good site to buy Lames and Bannetons in Australia

it is http://sourdough.com.au/

I am happy about my progress and cannot wait to be maybe baking sourdough in about a fortnights time!

Thegreenbaker

Since my faith in my baking skills has come back I have been baking every 2 days or so.

I made a batch of rustic bread last night and it was soooooooo tasty. We couldnt get enough of it......needless to say we have almost finished the first loaf :)

Each time I bake I get more and more excited.!

heres a link to my flickr bread photo site.   

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7688602@N04/

So when I make Rustic bread, I add 3 tablespoons of Rice bran oil and 1/2 cup of semolina flour. (fine ground semolina really)

It adds to the taste and is AMAZING!

thegreenbaker.........one day I will be able to post pics properly. 

Woo! Hoo!

Referring back to my blog about not being able to make my bread rise..........well, it rose!

I adapted a recipe from BBA. I have been wanting to make Pane Siciliano but time wasnt permitting so I used the Anadama Bread recipe but didnt use the soker. I added 1 cup of fine semolina,

1 cup gluten flour and 2 1/2 cups of wholewheat flour (wholemeal) 2 teaspoons of yeast, salt, 2 TBSPN Barley Malt and about 2 1/2 cups of water.

I did this as I didnt have time to do the soker over night then then let the shaped dough rise in the fridge etc.

I had just about EVERYTHING crossed watching the dough rise much more strongly than it has before. I folded it let it rise again then cut it into two pieces and made a sandwich loaf out of one and a batard out of the other.

They still looked a bit dubious when I put them into the 500 degree oven (approx....it was 250 celcius-I'm in OZ) Well after a few times misting, I looked in to see my batard and grown about 20%. I squealed with such delight. I made My partner and 4 year old daughter come over to look.

When the baking was done, I put my Batard on the bread board and danced around with it.

My sandwich loaf rose higher than they ever have. And this is difficult as I dont have a proper loaf tin. It is very wide and has quite low sides compared to the loaf tins I have seen on this site. So I was quite chuffed at my success.

It was never my technique, it was my ingredients!

The crust is lovely, I had pretty holey crumb *bounces* The bread is a bit, chewy maybe, but I think I could stand to reduce the gluten flour and add a bit of fat to that recipe to soften it :)

I am soooo happy! *said with mouthful of vegemite toast*

thegreenbacker

And I have forgotten how to make bread.

Not only has life gotten so much more busy with the onset of school, new friendships to maintain and entertain, but I just cant get it right!

My bread is heavy, moist or dry (just depends) and even though it rises when being ferments or proofed, it doesnt do much in the oven. It is crubmly although it has that elastic bread feel.

It is just so dense. *frustrated look*

I cook with wholemeal flour. I wonder if I just got used to eating "Comercial Bakery" bought breads that are light, soft and usually 70% white highly processed bleached flour, and 30wholemeal flour.

I never buy packet off the supermarket shelf bread, but the bakeries around here are few and far between, so I have been buying from a bakery called "bakers delight" Nothing like real bread but closer than plastic bread hey.

Anyhoo, I digress somewhat,

I am wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to what the *insert curse word here* is going on. Have I lost my knack? Do I ned more practice? Do I need different flour?

I just puirchased some high gluten flour and was thinking of mixing it with my wholemeal flour to give it extra strength incase it is the flour quality.

I know I could search the archives, but please forgive me, time is short ATM.

Thanks in advance.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday season :)

its almost time for the next one isnt it?

thefrustratedgreenbaker.

At the moment I am lingering between the recipes from lessons 1 and 2. Slowly improving my skill in kneading and learning my observing the dough as it rises and with little things I do differently.

I made a double batch of lesson one basic bread dough two days ago. One loaf was for us, the second for Xmas day at the brothers house.

I left the second rise an extra hour (or thereabouts) and the breads lookd as though they might collapse. They were light and a bit wobbly and the air holes in the top were visable. So I quickly put them into the preheated oven and came out with the best breead I have made in all my trying. They were so tasty, and the texture was wonderful. They were full of small holes. some bigger and were nice surprises :)

I am sooooo happy. All night my partner heard about nothing else.

I will attenmpt lesson three soon (after we come back from a few days away)

I also was given The Bread Bakers Apprentice yesterday :) So I am so excited about trying out Peter Reinhearts recipes :)

yay for good bread!

Since I found this site and joined up, I have been baking ever 2 or 3 days. FOcusing mainly on the "basic loaf" recipe from lesson 1. My bread making has improved with each loaf. My kneading skills have improved immensely and with it my bread quality.

I have had trouble making rustic loaves and had resorted to baking in a tin. Which is fine, it tastes grerat, but I love rustic loaves. I was dishearted. But a few days ago, I had my first success quite by accident. I'd left my bread to rise and noticed that it rose UP not OUT like all my previous attemps at rustic loaves. (they became tasty flat breads, with tooo much crust and not enough centre :S)

So I punched it down and crossed my fingers.  After the second rise (which is all I have been doing) it was high and round. I heated the oven, steamed it and gently placed the loaf inside. There wasnt much (if any actually) oven spring, but it baked beautifully. The crust was hard and crackly, the crumb nice, little small bubbly holes through out, and best of all, it was a lovely looking rustic loaf!  YAY!!! I was so happy. All I could talk aout for the next half hour was my triumph. lol.

I then moved on to lesson two. I made that loaf rustic also, but it didnt rise as high as the previous loaf. I am becoming confident in my baking skills and look forward to the day I can post a pic of my home made sourdough bread made with home made sourdouch starter! I've a long way to go yet!

 The-not-so-green-baker *wink*