The Roadside Pie King's blog

40% W.W. English muffins

Hello friends, the aim for today’s experiment, will be to modify an existing recipe, (http://www.cooksrecipes.com/bread/english-muffins-recipe.html,) to create a formula for 40% W.W. English muffins.

Formula:

The Will Falzon method, 40% W.W. English muffins

Ingredients:

Milk (I used unsweetened Almond) 370G                      61.6%

Water                                                     120G (Divided)    20. %

W.W. Flour                                             240G                     40. %

 A. P.  Flour                                             360G                      60. %

Yeast                                                        21G                         3.5%

Melted Butter                                        32G                          5.4%

Sugar                                                          4G                          0.6%

1 Lg. Egg                                                  (60G)                        10%

Salt                                                               4G                          0.6%

Vinegar                                                        4G                          0.6%

Corn meal (As needed)

Method:

1.    The Autolyse

Combine milk, 70G water and all the flour, till the flour is completely wet. Set aside to rest covered for 1 Hour.

2.    Combine yeast, sugar and the remaining 50G of water at 100Deg.F. Mix well, allow to rest for 5 minutes, till frothy.  Incorporate the yeast mixture well into the autolysed dough. Cover and set aside.

3.    In a small bowl combine the melted butter, 1 egg, salt and vinegar. Once cooled, incorporate the egg mixture into the dough. Mix well.

4.    Allow the dough to rest for a few minutes. While still in the bowl work the dough with very wet hands for a few minutes, until a shaggy dough ball is formed. At this point the dough will be very wet and unmanageable.

5.    Cover with well-oiled plastic wrap and a dish towel. Set aside to rise in a warm draft free place.

6.    At 15 minute intervals, preform stretch and folds at the four corners. Continue for one to one and one half hours, until the dough achieves enough strength for a “window pane” to be pulled.

7.    At this point, coat your work surface generously with corn meal. Begin to preheat the griddle to medium heat (350F).

8.    Turn out the dough on to the work surface, coat the top with corn meal.

9.    Using your preferred method, roll out the dough to a thickness of ½ inch.

10.                      Using a cookie cutter or jar lid cut out 16, 3inch muffins.

11.                      Place the muffins on the griddle and cook for 7 minutes on each side. Or until they are well browned and the sides are stiff.

Today’s exercise was mostly a success. However, I rolled out the dough much to thin, (1/8th”) so most of the muffins are way too small. Also I feel the muffins need a little more sweetness. Next week when I revisit and tweak the formula, I will eliminate the sugar and substitute 3 TBS of raw wild flower honey. Also I used almond milk because I realized I did not have enough cow’s milk.

My starter is at day five, Slow-Moe2 is looking active and smelling delish! However, still far from a stable strong starter. I needed to bake something, quick bread was just the ticket! One spur of the moment Irish soda bread. http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-products/a42756/irish-soda-bread-recipe/

Photo #1 - Good housekeeping recipe, Irish Soda bread.

Photo #2 - Slow-Moe2 at day five after 40g/40g/40g feeding. Such a happy little guy! 

Next week we will be celebrating my daughter Valerie's 23rd birthday. I asked her what she would like me to make for her. She  said, she wanted to help me try and make my moms Pastizzi to keep the family tradition going. I got the recipe from my sister and did a test run. We will need to  adjust a few things next week.

1. salt and pepper they were bland.

2 The shaping needs lots of work

The Puff pastry ( The hardest part) I was pleased with, It was light and flaky. I think Valerie will have her birthday wish come true!

Will slick Method 100% naturally leavened, white  Maltese bread.

Flour 100% ( Including flour from starter )

Starter 33% ( 100% hydration )

Water 67% ( Including water from starter)

Salt 1.6%

Sugar 2.5%

Butter 2.5%

Milk 1 TBS @ 600G total flour

The final dough was built with two additions of flour and water keeping the braum at near 100% Hydration. Then the addition of the remainder of flour and the other ingredients.The final dough was kneaded into a fairly smooth elastic ball, then fermented till nearly doubled with one stretch and fold after about two hours. the fermented dough was shaped and proofed till near double then baked at 475f for 30min.  total time from start to bake about 11hours.

Will

I don't want to hijack Kathleen's thread any further so I will Blog about my first attempt at at sourdough starter.

It's day four about 4hours before I was scheduled to discard all but 1/4 cup and start feeding 1/4 cup water & 1/4 cup A.P. flour. Two TFL members who's advice I respect felt that the starter had already peaked so I fed Slow Moe early. On a whim I used the discard in a formula for white bread I have been making regularly. We will see how it turns out. Here is Slow Moe two hours after his first white flour feeding He is growing nicely! I will give him a stir before bed and feed him tomorrow.

 I checked on slow Moe at around 7:00P.M. Last night To my surprise the bubbles were gone and he went completely flat. Oh my! I gave him a stir he smelled pretty much the same. Not a bad smell at all but hard for me to describe. I gave him another stir at 10:00P.M. At 8:00A.M. this morning There was no change, smell was not unpleasant. No activity at all the mixture looked very thin. I decided to go on my gut and feed slow Moe again. Happy right after his second white four & water feeding Slow Moe was bubbling once again. I was so perplexed that slow Moe was inactive I did not take any photos. Here he is at 10:20A.M. today. That's my boy!

DAY 5

DAY 5 TOP

Here is aside by side crumb shot of the bead I made using the discard from Slow Moe before his first white flour feeding, and whats left of a bread I made Sunday. I used the exact same procedure on both. Except I used only 1/2 teaspoon of yeast on the slow Moe bread. After setting aside 1/4 cup of slow Moe I weighed the rest at 64grams. I assumed a 100% hydration so I add 32g less water and 32grams less flour in the finale dough. You can see that the Slow Moe bread has a more open crumb. Nice! I would not expect a very open crumb this being a very low hydration dough. I can not say for sure if it was Slow Moe that made the difference, But I can not say it was not.

 New entry 4:00PM 01-20-10

I was busy most of the afternoon today, work sometimes gets in the way of my hobbies. Slow Moe looks like he needs a feeding. Very liquidity and not as many bubbles. discard all but a 1/4 cup and fed a 1/4 cup flour and a 1/4 cup spring water. At the next feeding in 8hours I am going to use grams instead of volume. I am going to a three times a day feeding. Seems to me Moe is going though his meals quite fast!

 Here's a photo before his 4P.M. feeding.

New Entry 01-21-10 Day six

Last night at 11:00 P.M. It looked to me like slow Moe had peaked again, and began to reseed. Remember This is my first try at this so I have no idea how it should smell or look like I am going on my gut. Moe had a nice smell but I could not put my finger on it. So I asked my wife to take a whiff. It took a min. to convince her then she did. She said right away it smelt like beer. This made me very happy. OK so now I took about 58 grams of Mow mixed with 58grams of water and 58 grams of flour. Mini help! right after I mixed it up it lost that nice smell. It just had a faint smell of flour. I checked in on Slow Moe before I went to bed some small bubbles he had  no smell. Boo Hoo. So now Moe is a lot thicker I was using 120% Hydration without knowing it. ( Thanks Mini) I think I may have slowed the process down with my enthusiasm. Its been 12 hours now and there are bubbles but not near as much as yesterday and still no nice aroma. I am going to stir him once or twice till tonight then feed him in another 12hours.

Here's what he looks like today

Started this bake last night at 7pm. I was done at Ten A.M. this morning. Mixed Berry braids for the shower and my staff. Chocolate raspberry Braid for the shower. Three loafs of Maltese Bread for my sisters I slashed there first initial on them. All in all I am a Happy baker. My wife was not so happy she had to lug the stuff with her and wait for the chocolate braid to be done.

Will