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After some encouragement and ideas from BlueZebra, and Kjknits, here is an oddball bread.

Apple-Onion-Bacon Sourdough

The brownish color crust is due to large amounts of Spelt flour.

In below pic there is Apple to the right, Some onion and bacon on the left, and you will see bacon up top. With a mild apple cider flavor throughout. In case you were wonderin..

Well, if your interested in the recipe, dont even bother askin, it all went by in a blur.  I COULD give the recipe for the original Normandy Apple Bread, but not this....I even measured all the ingredients on a scale, and each time I thought something along the lines of "ok as soon as I add this in I gotta write down the amount" but it was kinda like, Attention Deficit.  Oh look at the apple cider, boy that stuff is good, where was I, oh yeah I gotta put in more flour.. Dang it forgot the weight of the bacon..

So now Im thinking, heh this might work...

So now I have this mixed and kneaded mass, and split it in half.  Placed two halves in bread pans, let rest for 1 hour 30 minutes, and fired it right into the oven at 375 for 50minutes.

And the best part is, its great........Dang I wish I wrote it down....

TT

Today we had a large barbeque party with our various neighbors and their children and dogs (it was our dog's 10th birthday). So, I just had to make Hamburger buns and hot dog rolls.

Hamburger Buns

On Friday, when my other baking was going on, I did a quick trial run with Hamelman's recipe. They were OK, but for the production run I made two changes:

• Upped the butter to 15% (from 8%)
• Used a wash from one egg and some milk to glaze

I made 4.3 lb of dough, and used 3 oz per bun, making 22 buns. The original recipe calls for shaping by rolling out a preshaped (mini) boule. That hadn't worked out so well for me, so for production I made nice tight mini boules, and flattened them a little (but not all the way). I used the milk/egg wash, added some sesame seeds, and baked for 15 minutes at 400F. For the hot dog buns I shaped like mini baguettes, except rolled them a little so they were even. Both were a great success.

Buns, cut

Since I was baking again, and my guests on Saturday ate all my Spinach Cheese Boule, I made another one today as well. Used a 4 sided cross cut slashing which worked out much better. Again, half is gone already!

It has been a busy time on the farm so the baking has been streamlined accordingly. RC asked for sandwich bread which inspired me to adapt a recipe that I had baked a dozen times or so last year and abandoned for heartier, tastier breads found here on The Fresh Loaf. This recipe is quick to prepare so the sourdough flavor doesn't develop much. Even with an overnight retard in the refrigerator I didn't get a noticable tang. When it was "my sd bread" I added ascorbic acid for taste. I used excess starter in this baking which always seems virtuous in the waste-not-want-not way. I finally got around to purchasing some single edge razor blades and wow, do they do a nice job of slashing! I noted that this recipe said to slash before the final proof and gave that a try as well for a little different look-

Sourdough Hybrid Loaf

The most interesting thing was that with the practice I'm getting handling a variety of doughs since finding the good folk of The Fresh Loaf, I am able to tweak a recipe enough to get the taste and texture I have in mind. Folding the dough to a good surface tension just "felt right". Many thanks to all!

So I find this cool web site about Artisan Baking, only to find out I have been registered for it for a year and a half. Go figure.

Anyhoo, if you read my intro from "Mid-Michigan check-in" you will note that this isn't the first dough I've thrown.

I became intrigued with Sourdough lady's pineapple juice starter so I started one myself on May 6, 2007 using orange juice. Needless to say it went fantastic as I now keep 2 batches alive and healthy (it's that Engineer / Redundancy thing) This weekend has been my test bed for my new culture and I can say without reservations that it has to be the best thing to ever come out of my oven.

My first Sourdough Loaves

I basically took my starter and created the BBA barm, then replaced the poolish with the barm in my regular Ciabatta recipe and left out any other yeasts.

I'm just getting used to this posting of bread porn pictures, but I'll get better. I'm considering a studio for the photo sessions along with some cheesy guitar music in the background

Today was a good day so far.  I was able to produce two great loaves of Normandy Apple Sourdough, two loaves of Brownbread, and I have a Olive Sourdough in the fridge for baking in the morning.

Here is the Normandy Apple Sourdough, using my starter Miracle Max for the build.

The crust browned up real nice, but I feared it may be a bit too crunchy.  As the loaves cooled though the crust softened up nicely.  The crumb is nice and moist with the apples making a really nice kick of flavor.  The loaves arent even fully cooled yet and the first loaf is half gone.  The family loves it.  And to think they all looked kinda puzzled when I had so many starters growing in the kitchen.

Next up was Boston Brown Bread.  I deviated from the recipe in that I used frozen blueberries in place of dried ones.  I thawed, drained excess juice and then added with my liquids.  I was hoping for a very overpowering blueberry flavor.  I didnt quite achieve that though.  The molasses in the recipe came out a little stronger than I would have thought.  They are good still the same, but not exactly my cup of tea.

Okie Dokie, after that, I have a loaf of Olive Sourdough that has already been shaped, it is just doing an overnight retardation in the fridge.  I will update the finished product after Mondays Bake.

TT

I walk out the door and all hell breaks out here, eh? Thank you JMonkey for doing your best to stay on top of it. I owe you a bottle of wine.

The people spammer has been banned and I've deleted all of the old people spams.

SD Guy has been banned. His ISP has been banned. Every IP he has ever used has been banned. I'm sure he'll figure out a way to sneak around it, but he is banned for good this time. As soon as I figure out it is him, I will kill the account again.

This is the fourth time he has been banned.

I have bent over backwards to try to accomodate him. He is the only person I've had to ban (except for plain old spammers). I don't even think I've had to ask anyone else to mellow out but once or twice. Every drama on this site that has happened in the past year has involved him. The rating feature, which took me a weekend to program, was one attempt to try to accomodate him. So was redoing the front page and the comments list to allow multiple conversations to occur simultaneously. It isn't worth it. I won't allow that kind of vemon on this site even if the baker wins the James Beard Award. That does not mean I hate him or have it out for him, but that won't go here.

I know he has at many times (most even) been helpful. People who still want to ask him questions can find him on rec.food.sourdough. I don't think it will take you long to figure out which user he is.

This is my fourth challah. I decided to stray from the traditional braid "out of a pan" to braiding first, then letting it rise in the pullman pan today. I am pleased so far. It's hot out of the oven, so I will post the cut picture later this evening. ;)

 

Luv4Country Soaps
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Yesterday was a spring day so pretty it made your heart hurt, sunny after days of storm, air so sweet and gentle on your skin it made you feel five years old. I baked a Vienna rye to use up leftover beer (yes, leftover beer) and tried my hand at pain rustique, which other people have dispatched so credibly around here. Having also lately tiptoed into Ciabatta territory, I'm amazed to find myself not utterly defeated by these somewhat wetter doughs, in fact there's a real charm to their water-balloon nature. Like picking up worms or climbing on a plane, I feel I've faced a demon and survived. Texture and consistent results are still birds in the bush but this handful of feathers has got me feeling jaunty..

My first attempt at using my new KAF pullman loaf pan. The recipe I used was their insert that came with the pan. It's cooling as I type this, so I won't have cut pics till sometime tomorrow.

Bryna
Luv4Country Soaps

Many a Sunday my wife and son buy a boule at the local farmer's market which they call Spinach Cheese Bread, even though it has lots of other veggie stuff in it too. They like it, so for last week's baking session I decided to try and make my own.

First problem was no recipe available on the Internet that seemed to make what I wanted. So I had to make my own. I decided to use frozen chopped spinach, mild gouda cheese (what else to expect from a Dutchman), and I also wanted to have a portion of whole wheat flour in it. I've made whole wheat bread before and using a poolish did wonders for my schedule as well as for the dough and overall taste. So, I decided this one was to use a poolish too!

I've also been working on a spreadsheet the allows me to do all baker percentage calculations (helps with recipe scaling and design). While I was at it, I added an ingredient database to it with cost information, hydration information and specific gravity for ingredients so I can correctly convert weight measurements to volumes for those we like to bake that way. You'll find a PDF of this recipe here.

A few words about the spreadsheet

The spreadsheet's yellow cells is where you input your desired values (this includes ingredients). A "Y" in the "Pre" column indicates an ingredient that is part of a preferment. A "P" indicates an ingredient that is a separately created preferment. Although there are different options for baker's percentages when using preferments, I have chosen to express everything as percentages of dough in the overall recipe. Note that tap water temperature, mixer friction and baking loss are specific to my situation (and an estimate I am still refining for each type of bread for the loss, mostly evaporation, and friction).

The component temperatures are to be entered on the bottom, if you want to be precise with final dough temperature. If necessary it will calculate how much ice to add to the water if it needs cooling (rarely the case in my home baking). The spreadsheet automatically adjusts for the number of components that have a temperature specified so if you do not enter a value for the preferment (presumably because you are not using one), the factor will be 3 instead of 4.

Some measurements in the "US Weight" column are given in tablespoons etc. The spreadsheet does this if the actual value as a weight becomes so small that, with most scales, you can not accurately measure. Since I have (pretty accurate) specific gravity values for the ingredients, I can quite reliably (subject to all the fallacies of measuring volumes: packed, spooned, shifted) give the volume. I use a scale accurate to 1 gram myself, but for these small amounts, a small measuring spoon workds great (I have a set for dashes, smidgens, and pinches as well).

Hydration is calculated by computing the water content of all ingredients that are composed 50% or more of water and adding them up. That catches water, milk, eggs etc., but does not count water content in dough. Cost is based on a home baker buying pretty regular ingredients in a super market. The exception is that I use KA prices for my flour as I will not use the cheap stuff.

The recipe

Making the poolish is straightforward. I make it the night before and leave it on the counter (about 68F), and it'll be close enough to ready the next morning around 11AM. The amount of final dough in this recipe is about right for an 8" banneton (scaled up from what I used to make the one in the picture above, which got misshaped whe inverting onto the peel). Nevertheless, it is borderline not enough to knead properly in my KitchenAid so I finish with manual labor.

In the last minute or two of kneading I add the cheese (room temperature, cubed in 1/4" pieces), and spinach. I made the mistake of not squeezing enough water out of the thawed spinach, so my dough got too wet and I had to add flour (not represented in the recipe because you should squeeze it out).

Next bulk ferment, about 90 minutes in my case. I did a fold about half way through. Next degas and preshape. Twenty minutes relaxing and final shaping.

I preheated oven at 500F, with water for pre-steam added in a baking pan in the last few minutes. Invert the bread out of the banneton onto parchment paper on the peel. Scored in a \ | / pattern, a sprayed with water. Into the over on baking stone, more water in the pan for steaming. Spray oven walls with water twice, 30 seconds apart after putting loaf in the oven. Then reduce to 475F.

Baked for a total of 35 minutes, oven vented for last 10. Here was the result.