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This is my first attempt at multigrain bread using an overnight "soaker" for the grain.  These loaves are made from Mark Sinclair's recipe for Multigrain Bread, taken from his wedsite Back Home Bakery (under recipes).  I followed his recipe except I used King Arthur's (KA) mixture of multigrain (total of 188 grams), which I recently purchased in one of my orders from KA.  This bread is delicious.  Thank you Mark for sharing this great recipe.  The recipe produces 4 1/2 pounds of dough.  I divided it into three 1 1/2 pound loaves and used 2 unlined brotforms and an unlined boule bannton for the loaves. I dusted the brotforms and banneton using a mixture of half KA AP flour and half rice flour.  Incidentally, as you can see from this photo, I use a large plastic bin to cover the loaves during final proofing, which works well for me.

Brotforms after final proofing.  At 1 hour final proofing time (75 deg. F) the loaves were ready for the oven.

The scoring needs practice but the loaves came out pretty well.

The crust was excellent and I was very pleased with the crumb and this bread tastes delicious.  Again, thank you Mark for this terrific recipe.

Anis-Boabsa-baguettes

Anis-Boabsa-baguettes Crumb

Last month, Janedo visited the bakery of Anis Bouabsa in Paris. This young baker had won the prize for the best baguettes in Paris this year. Jane was able to acutally meet M. Bouabsa, and he generously shared his formula and techiniques with her, which she then generously shared with us at TFL. See her blog topic: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8066/great-baguette-quest-n%C2%B03-anis-bouabsa Eric (ehanner} and Howard (holds99} have successfully made baguettes from the recipe I extracted from Jane's notes. I attempted them once with poor results, but that was while on vacation, in a rented house on the Oregon coast. I was eager to try these baguettes again with my familiar home oven and equipment. I was happy with the results, although not completely. Formula for Anis Bouabsa's Baguettes Flour 500 gms (about 3.85 cups of AP flour) Water 375 gms (about 13.25 oz or about 1-2/3 cups) Yeast 1/4 tsp (for instant yeast) Salt 10 gms (about 2 tsp) Mix ingredients and knead. Ferment for 1 hour, folding every 20 minutes. Refrigerate for 21 hours. Divide right out of refrigerator and pre-shape. Rest for one hour. Shape. Proof for 45 minutes. Score and Bake at 250C (480F) for 20-25 (?) min. Notes: I used King Arthur French Style Flour, filtered tap water, Balene Sea Salt and SAF instant yeast. The dough was initially quite gloppy. I did a few french folds with minimal change in it. I then placed it in a covered glass bowl and folded every 20 minutes for an hour. Even before the first of these, after a 20 minute rest, the dough had come together nicely. It was still a bit sticky, but the gluten was forming surprisingly well. After the 3rd folding, I refrigerated the dough for 22.5 hours, then proceded per the recipe above. The dough actually almost doubled in the refrigerator. It continued to form bubbles after preforming and the formed baguettes rose to about 1.5 times during proofing. I baked with steam at 460F with convection for 10 minutes, then for another 10 minutes at 480F without convection. I let the loaves rest in the turned off and cracked open oven for another 5 minutes. I got nice oven spring and bloom. One of the loaves burst along the side. In hindsight, I probably didn't seal the seam well enough in forming it. The crust was more crunchy than crackly - a bit thicker than standard baguettes. The crumb was fairly open with a cool, tender/chewy mouth feel. The taste was not bad but not as sweet as classic baguettes. I wonder why. I'm going to have some tonight with chicken cacciatore (made yesterday), buttered broad beans and fedelini. Matter of fact, I better go get it all going! David

Ive been looking into various recipes and explanations of creating a starter, and i thought id put a summary here.

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Pretty well all of the recipes include a replication step like "divide in two, disposing of one half, and adding back a particular ratio mixture as a replacement". A very few have slightly different steps in the first few days but end up with this process at the end.

Additionally almost all recipes have the same general description for success: a mixture that when replicated displays a leavening effect (rises to about double its size) and a sort of "large bubble" foam on a consistant basis over several days. Notably many authors mention that it is common to see a false leavening effect caused by undesirable bacteria in the early phase of the process that then disappears after several days only to be replaced by the real leavening effect a few days later.

By far the most common recipe comes down to: take a 1:1 by weight mixture of flour and water and replicate every 24 hours until stable. Some recipes suggest 12 hours, and some require specific types of flour, with many recommending wholemeal or rye flour until the mixture is stable and then switching to AP afterwards. Most suggest that the unit be a cup of water. Also a number suggest using a 1:2 mixture (1 cup flour to 1 cup water is about 1:2 flour to water by weight),

Occasionally a few additives are suggested:

Acidic additives: These usually include some kind of acidic juice, with pineapple or orangejuice in the initial steps. The idea is that the juice lowers the ph preventing undesirable bacteria from growing but providing a good environment for wild yeast while at the same time providing sugars for the wild yeast to feed on. Vinegar is also suggested occasionally for similar reasons.

There are a much lower number suggesting using milk products. In this case the intention seems to be to encourage lactobascili, and also possibly the same justification as for the acidic additives.

Diastatic malt is also sometimes recommended with a tiny amount being added in the initial steps, also people that use AP flour will be unknowingly including tiny amounts of this as it usually added by the miller. The intention of this seems to be to provide sugar to the wild yeast, but enzymatically from the starch from the flour. Sometimes sweetener is suggested for similar reasons.

A few sources seem to suggest that you can manufacture wild yeast from commerical yeast, or that commerical bakers yeast will revert to wild.

One or two seem to suggest using things like unmilled rye or barly, or using the skins of wild or field grown grapes.

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When i decided to make a starter I had access to a commerical starter "Seitenbacher(c) Natur Saurteig" that is widely available in grocery stores where I live in Germany.

Since I thought that was kind of cheating I decided I would make two, one a replication starting from some left over dough from a batch i made with the starter, and one with raw material. Aside from the fact that one included a small part of the dough I did exactly the same thing with both: replicating of a blanced blend of rye and wholemeal flour mixed at 1:1 with water with the base weight being 200 grams. I was very careful not to contaminate the wild one with the commerical, always working with the wild one first. On the third day I added a tiny amount (0.1 of a gram or so) of diastatic malt after I replicated (i didnt have any to add on the first day), And by the 8th day i had stability. The two behave somewhat differently with the wild one being a little slower to rise, but rising further in the oven, and they make a nice loaf mixed together. :-)

My opinion of this is that Im not all that convinced by the additives, with the exception of the diastatic malt. For the juices the reason is that I think its hard to control how acidic the formulation goes, and that citrus frust have their own associated bacteria and yeasts, which are probably not as appropriate as the yeasts we see living naturally on grain. (I will say though that I have seen one particularly cogent argument, incidentally posted here, in favour of using juice.)

For the milk i think its just generally a bad idea, some of the bascili in milk can kill you and also most milk you can buy is pasteurized anyway, and i think that the bascili we want grow naturally on the grain and on our hands and other places. We dont need it from milk. Sweetener I think is a bad idea. In general they are preservatives,

My feeling is that one wants to encourage the wild stuff on the grain to replicate and that introducing things that are totally foreign wont help. Diastatic malt is an exception because it is a substance that does naturally occur in wheat and other grains and so adding a bit more doesnt drastically change things. Also its effect is slower, something that i think is important, providing a steady supply of sugar over time instead of a huge amount at the start which tapers off over time, something which doesnt seem to me to be inclined to make for a stable environment, and after all one thing we are looking for is a stable environment.

Anyway, Im no expert, form your own opinions. But most importantly try it, it isnt very hard. :-)

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sourdough loaf

sourdough crumb

Yesterday I made my first loaf of sourdough based on the Norwich Sourdough recipe from Susan's wildyeast blog. I have been baking bread regularly for the past two or three years -- mainly breads with overnight pre-ferments -- but had never attempted to make my own sourdough because I don't like the flavor of an overly sour bread. After learning a lot more about sourdough from books and this site, I realized that most of the information I was getting reinforced the idea that sourdough isn't necessarily all that sour. Plus, my kitchen is a nice 75-78 degrees these days, which seemed to be ideal for nurturing a new sourdough starter. So, I mixed together some flours and water, waited, fed it, and waited some more. After a week, my starter was more than doubling in four hours when fed a 1:2:2 mixture of starter, water, and flour by weight (I used KAF organic AP flour and a little rye in the first mixture, all AP after that) so I figured it was ready to test the starter with a real loaf. And it worked! I was extremely pleased with the whole process, and the bread tasted better than I had hoped. It really isn't sour at all; in fact, my husband and I thought it had a somewhat honey-like flavor. The loaf was baked on a pre-heated stone and covered for the first 15 minutes of baking with a pre-heated wide, shallow clay pot (it's about 11" in diameter and 5-6" deep and doesn't have a drain hole) that I bought specifically for that purpose. I love the color the crust gets when using the pot, although it limits my shaping options.

Thanks to everyone on this site who contributes such helpful information. I can hardly wait to try more sourdough recipes that I wasn't able to attempt before.

Bread and all of its manifestations. That's what this blog is about. Particular emphasis is upon earth ovens, sourdough bread baking and flatbreads. Currently, I'm scouring the web and my book collection for photos of earth ovens from around the world. Whenever possible, I list my sources to give the photographer or agency credit for any photos used.
If you have photos of earth ovens and would like to share, please email them to me, and I'll try to put them on my blog.
For lots more information on bread and ovens, please visit my virtual storefront at: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=775822

Breadhunter's website:
http://breadhunter.com

Breadhunter's bread blog
http://breadhunter-breadforall.blogspot.com/

  I baked these rolls using a recipe from a book published in 1918 and meant to help in the conservation of wheat flour. It has many interesting recipes using other grains such as corn, buckwheat, etc. and the recipes that I tried all turned out beautifully. These rolls contain a minimal amount of sugar and butter and taste great.I made them for bread baking day #12.

Ingredients

1/2 cup scalded  milk

1 egg, well beaten

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp melted butter

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

zest of 1 (organic) lemon

1/2 cup (60 g)  corn flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill brand)

1 tsp active dry yeast dissolved in 2 tbsp warm water

3/4 cup to 1-1/2  (105g to 210 g) cups bread flour (or as needed) (I used King Arthur bread flour)

Pour the scalded milk over the sugar and salt, mix well and set aside to cool. Once the milk mixture is lukewarm add 3/4 cup of bread flour and the dissolved yeast. Mix vigorously and let the sponge ferment,covered, until doubled.

When the sponge is light add the melted butter, egg, grated lemon rind and corn flour. Mix well at low speed then add just enough bread flour to make a dough that is very soft but well developed and just slightly tacky.  Do not add too much flour or the rolls will turn out dry and heavy.

Lightly grease a bowl and place the dough to rise, covered, until doubled in bulk.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Gently transfer the risen dough onto a lightly greased surface and divide it in 12 equal pieces. Shape each into small round rolls (the dough is too soft to keep well any other shape more complex than rounds or ovals). Place each roll onto a rimless baking sheet and lightly brush with milk.

Let the rolls rise, covered, until doubled. Brush again with milk then with sharp kitchen scissors cut a decorative pattern on each roll.

Bake for about 20 minutes until nice and golden.

These rolls are great to eat either warm or cold. They can also be split and toasted to have with jam or marmalade, and can be frozen once cooled.

http://bakinghistory.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/corn-flour-rolls-bbd-12-small-breads/

i fired up the mud oven on thursday, and had a hectic evening of trying to time everything correctly.

i made pizza, brussel sprouts with garlic, onions and breadcrumbs, sourdough rye, french bread, and roasted corn, sweet potatoes and garlic.

as you can see, i overproofed the french bread, but the sourdough came out perfect, with a great oven spring. i soaked my door a second time before the bread to increase the amout of steam in the oven, and it really seemed to work.

sorry for the lousy pictures, but by the end of the evening i was exhausted. getting the timing down to maximize the oven is really going to be a challenge.

here's the group shot. i took this while all the veggies were roasting. leftover pizza, sourdough, french and brussel sprouts:

i saw the brussel sprouts at the farmer's market and knew we had to try them in the oven. i roasted them at about 600 degrees. they look ugly but taste fantastic:

the bread. the sourdough was about 25% rye made from my 100% hydration starter, thaddeus. thad's been lounging in the fridge since the weather started getting hot, so this is not only his inaugeral run in the mud oven but first bake in about 5 weeks.

the french bread in the back is based on reinhart's recipe in BBA. i overproofed it because of timing issues, and it tastes okay but is really a disappointment.

i'm going to try and fire the oven again next week. i just brought in a fresh supply of almond wood, and the starter is back to living on the counter. i'm going to try and see how many loads of bread i can cook in one firing.

My starter is extremely active these days. I think that's one reason this bread turned out so incredibly well. When I started to make it, I was sort of sneaking around about it. It was a bit warm outside (around 28C) and I wasn't absolutely certain that turning on the oven would be a big hit.

My fears were unfounded. We loved this bread. And no wonder. It was fabulous!

It was equally delicious on its own, or buttered, or toasted and buttered. And it made the most stellar Reuben sandwiches (made with home-made red cabbage sauerkraut)! Did we take photos of the sandwiches? Ha. Of course not. We were too busy stuffing them down our gullets.

I was particularly thrilled with the slashes on the bread. I've never managed to have slashes stay so well defined. I only hope I can reproduce this! I can't wait until we have enough freezer space so I can make it again.

For a more detailed account, please see:

• blog from our kitchen: wild onion rye bread


• recipe for wild onion rye bread (based on Mary's (aka Breadchick) Dark Onion Rye)

The all-purpose flour I use is "No Name" (Loblaws) unbleached (about 11.5% protein). The rye flour is "Five Roses" Dark Rye flour (no idea how much protein). The bread flour is "Robin Hood" 'best for bread' flour (about 13% protein).

And I used my shiny new digital scale to weigh the ingredients!

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