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I bought Hamelman's book "Bread" last week on the recommendation of David, Floyd, Howard, and many other TFL members. Of course, it did not disappoint. I wish there were more photos, but as it is the book is full of great tips, recipes, and more. My first attempted recipes were flaxseed bread (pg. 211), since I love both rye and flaxseed,

and Pointe-a-Calliere miche (pg. 165).

The flaxseed dough, which is 60% rye and 40% bread flour, was tougher to work with than the rye breads I've been making from Local Breads. I usually don't add any commercial yeast to my sourdoughs, but decided to follow Hamelman's recipe exactly the first time. I'm glad I did:

And the miche, which is true sourdough, turned out well too. To approximate high extraction whole wheat I used 90% KA 100% whole wheat flour and 10% bread flour. The loaf rose well and had good oven spring (I put water in a roasting pan for steam and sprayed the loaf a couple of times during the first 5 minutes of baking).

Can't wait to try out some more recipes!

all of my baking is done with the exception of some rolls for tomorow's breakfast which i will do starting at 4 am along with some fresh danish and puff pastry

this is a picture post and once again if you are in my neck of the woods come on in and sit a spell

the whole 6 foot table

MERRY CHRISTMAS ,GOOD  HANUKAH AND HAPPY HELTHY NEW YEAR TO ALL

IT HAS BEEN MY PLEASURE AND AND AN HONOR TO BE A MEMBER HERE AND I HOPE TO ONE DAY MEET SOME OF YOU IN PERSON

Sunday I made a holiday bread that was pretty much like a stollen.

I didn't have marzipan and I baked it in a loaf pan, but otherwise it was basically the BBA stollen recipe.  It was excellent.  I think I'm going to bake a double batch today and give some to the neighbors.

You may have heard, Oregon got walloped with a doozy of a snow storm.  Keep in mind that we rarely get more than an inch or two of snow here.  Yet here is picture of me yesterday climbing back up the hill after sledding down it with the kids.

And it is still snowing today.  Sounds like it won't warm up enough to start melting until tomorrow.

I cracked and opened my Christmas present early - Peter Reinhart's wholewheat breads.  I have tried 100% wholewheat before but I always seem to gravitate back to 50% white because of the texture.  But this load (WW flaxseed) was a revelation!  The texture was great - open, light and very tasty.  The only thing I would change is to reduce the honey a little, as it was too sweet for my taste. The basic approach is to make about half the flour as a soaker the previous day, and the other half as a starter.  Then they are mixed with a little more flour and a good amount of yeast on the day of baking.  The soaker really seems to make a huge difference.

This bread is my regular sourdough baked in a cast iron pot.  Usually it is the NYT no-kneed, but this time I mixed in the bread machine.  It came out denser than usual, but still nicely tasty.  I like the rustic look out of the cast iron pot, as I can't slash it too well when it's in the bottom of the pan.

I made Magic Squares yesterday, which the kids are happily snacking on right now.  We also made pecan-cranberry bars and shortbread cutout cookies, which the kids decorated.

Since the oven was on and we were snowed in, I also made pizzas.  We had pesto pizzas, one with shrimp and the other with chicken.

Happily I have enough dough left over for two more pizzas, so I'm excitedly waiting for lunchtime.

I'm baking a sourdough loaf to go with a pot of soup tonight, and I'm thinking of making a holiday bread, something similar to a Stollen or Clayton's Pain Allemande Aux Fruits.  I forgot to pick up marzipan, but I have plenty of dried fruits, nuts, and Amaretto, so I ought to be able to come up with something tasty.

BTW, anyone else notice that we crossed post number 10,000 here?  That is pretty exciting.  The site just grows and grows.

This topic is not about the auricular anatomy of elves (or Vulcans). It's about scoring breads.

Scoring loaves creates a visually pleasing pattern, and it helps control the expansion of the loaf as it bakes. This was discussed not long ago in this topic:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9046/effect-scoring-loaf-shape

The San Francisco Sourdough breads I baked today illustrate a more "advanced" aspect of scoring that is alluded to by both Hamelman (in "Bread") and Suas (in "Advanced Bread & Pastry.")

San Francisco Sourdough Breads (from Peter Reinhart's "Crust & Crumb")

Detail of bâtard crust, with "ear," grigne" & "bloom."

So, what is the point of an ear?

What Suas called "the classic cut" is parallel to the long axis of a baguette or a bâtard. The cut is made with the blade at a shallow angle to the surface of the loaf. The cut should be shallow - about 1/4 inch deep. Paradoxically, this shallow cut results in the flap lifting better than a deeper cut would, thus forming a nice "ear." Hamelman (pg. 80) points out that "a deep cut will simply collapse from its own weight."

The angle is also important. "If the angle is not achieved and the cut is done with the blade vertical to the loaf, the two sides of the dough will spread very quickly during oven spring and expose an enormous surface area to the heat. The crust will begin to form too soon - sometimes before the end of oven spring - penalizing the development of the bread. If the cut is properly horizontal, the sides of the loaf will spread slower. The layer of dough created by the incision will partially and temporarily protect the surface from the heat and encourage a better oven spring and development." (Suas, pg. 116.) 

The second photo, above, illustrates a fairly nice "ear," but it also shows that the bloom occured slowly, as it should. Notice that the color of the crust in the opening has 3 distinct degrees of browning, decreasing from left to right. The darker part on the left obviously opened first and was exposed to the direct heat of the oven for longer. If the bloom occured too rapidly, it would have a more even coloration. For example, see the photo of the boule, which was slashed with the blade held at 90 degrees to the surface of the loaf:

Boule scored with the blade held vertical to the loaf surface. Note the even coloration of the bloomed crust.

In summary, in order to achieve an optimal bloom in baguettes and bâtards, one must attend to 3 variables when scoring them:

1. The cuts should be almost parallel to the long axis of the loaf.
2. The blade should be held at about a 30 degree angle to the surface of the loaf.
3. The depth of the cut should be shallow - about 1/4 inch.

Variable shading of the bloomed crust confirms that the desired slow but prolonged opening of the cut during oven spring occured.

Cool, isn't it?

 David

After 1 year from the birth of our son I have returned to baking bread. The steam thing for crust and rise has never worked for me with certainty, and my wife thinks that it is a bit overly dramatic to have plumes of steam in the kitchen. So, I started to get the outer surface of the loaf really wet and every 5 min(for the first 15-20 until starts rising) remove the loaf and re-wet. All this from a cold start.

A child has been a phenomenal aid to the motivation of time management and systematic trial and error.  For those visual learners out there, I would like to share this side by side comparison below.

It seems that the loaf did not quite double. As can be seen by the rip at the upper left, it could have proofed a while longer, maybe until it showed a more pronounced clearing of the lip of the bread tin. The wetting technique allowed me to get this rise whereas before with steam I could not.

Below are 3 pictures:

1. The first successful sourdough 65% hydration.
   1. Crust was way too thick on the sides from the baking tin(450deg and too long time)

1. Same sided by second loaf same formula(for size and rise comparison).
   1. The first had just crested the lip of the baking tin but expanded to fill the shape of the tin.

1. The second loaf but the horizontal consequence of over proofing.
   1. filled with sharp cheddar and cracked pepper, while a monster to look at, it is to be reckoned with next to a pot of homade chicken soup.

      Strangely the second loaf at 65% hydration, when folding, when overproofed felt more like 85% hydration at mixing.

Merry Breadmas and may this season be full of life to you and your kitchen,

Parousia

rathar that scater this all over the board i will post all holiday bakinmg pics here and some of the formulas that were used

the picks first and i will edit in the formulas when i have time this is only the start and have many more days of baking left

please do not "reply" to any ot the posts with pictures . that wat i can go back when i have time and edit  in the formulas just add a post at the end of this blog page thanks

White pan bread YES that is my scale in the backround (i have been baking for a long time)

Panatone

i should say that these are all the same wieght but the tall one was in a 6 inch pan and the others were in 7 inch pans  they did not collaps i realy neet to get more 6 inch round forms. no excuse for me not having them.

Checker board Cake

Pound cake

                                                                                                                                                                                                              This is a recipe I made

called Steakhouse Blackbread...It is made with a combination of Rye, Whole Wheat and Bread Flour...It turned out to be a very nice dense, tender, flavorful dinner roll...I was very tempted to add some raisins..next time I will as raisins would go very good with the rich flavor.

Sylvia

Hi Everyone:

This is my first time on this website and have a question for you all. I am a recreational baker. I bake sourdough bread every weekend and have several brotforms. Several years ago I found a beautiful brotform with a starburst design on the bottom and am looking for more designs, does anyone have any suggestions of where to find them?