Feedback On My Recipe Please....
Hello everyone,
Ive worked out the bugs of my Whole Wheat bread recipe. This is just a simple sandwich loaf bread. Nothing too fancy...
I have included my recipe for your review. If you see anything that needs to be changed or any have any suggestion please feel free to let me know. Blessings,,,,
Bread Recipe
Soaker:
4-6 cups of WW flour
1 tsp of yeast
Enough water to make a loose dough
Directions:
Combine all ingredients and cover in a glass or SS bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to sit on counter for at least 16 hours up to 24. If it’s going to be longer then place the soaker in your fridge until you are ready to make the bread.
Bigga:
6-8 cups of WW flour
3-4 cups of King Author White Bread four
1 tbsp yeast
Enough whole milk to make a stiff dough
Directions:
Mix for 10 min on a low speed
Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge until you are ready to make the bread. At least 16 hours but it can go as long as a week in your fridge and still be great.
The Dough:
Place both bowl on your counter until they both come up to room temp. About 8 hours.
Cut the Bigga into small cubes and places back into your mixing bowl.
3 tsp salt
2/3 cup honey
1 ½ stick of real butter softened (do not use margarine)
Add the Soaker and mix on low for about 10 min. Add white flour if needed to make a very tacky but not a sticky dough. You may need to add more water to get the consistency you are looking for.
Prep a bowl with cooking spray and let rise until doubled. Covered by plastic wrap.
Punch down and weigh out 800g loaves, should make 4 or 5 dough balls.
Prep your loaf pans with cooking spray.
Allow your dough balls to rest for 20 min on the counter, covered with a damp towel.
Shape your loaves and place in prepped loaf pans.
Spray the top of each loaf with cooking spray and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise until doubled.
Meanwhile preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Once the dough has doubled brush the tops with milk and place in the oven. Immediately lower the oven to 350.
Bake for about 45 min or until the internal temp reaches 200.
Cool on a rack
Brush tops with melted butter.
Once they are cool, place them in bread bags. Should last about 5 days on your counter.
Your "soaker" is really a biga and your "biga" is really a kind of Pate Fermente. Personally, I would not add enrichments to anything I'm fermenting.
If you want to do it like Peter Reinhart does (a combination of soaker and biga mixed with enrichments on the second day) your soaker should be wheat, water, salt and your biga should be flour water and a (tiny) bit of yeast. The final amount of yeast and enrichments should be added the second day.
In addition, if you are making a recipe to share with others, I would strongly suggest listing the dry ingredients by weight. Two whole cups of flour varience is huge - and I understand the "baking by feel" principle, but I think its important to figure out what you want the final hydration to be.
Ok,Obviously I have been talking to my non baking friends so long I forgot to change my measurements to mean something relevant to the baking community, Please forgive me. Obviously these are just estimates but I hope that you see what I'm attempting to accomplish. I am very much a add till it feels / looks right kinda guy. Ad for Hydration % I have never really been that scientific about baking. Maybe this is a sign that I should start getting a little more detailed in my recipe development... I'll take that...
To determine Hydration rates Im assuming that I weight my water and flours and then determine the percentage from there. So If I added 1000g of flour and 900g of water then I'd have 90% hydration. IS that correct? do I need to take any other ingredients into consideration when determining this?
So, let me see if I have this right:
1. I'm miss labeling my Biga as a Soaker? I was under the impression that a soaker was a wetter mixture than the Biga. However, I'm wrong frequently, you can ask my wife...
2. Hold off on adding the sugar, yeast, and salt to the Pate Fermente until day two when I combine the two dough mixtures. Not sure why that is important. I've been getting pretty good results this way. I will try it to see if I get even better results.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment...
That is the most important question. Or are you trying to tweak some aspect?
It took me the longest time to figure out what was being talked about with "biga", "poolish" ,"pate fermente" ,"leaven", etc etc.Everyone used the terms differently (and still do). There were long discussions a few years ago and finally correct definitions emerged. It certainly helps to have standard terminology. So take a look in the "Handbook" or "Lessons" at the top.
This recipe actually brings "Artisan Bread in 5 minute a Day" to mind-the large batch, high amount of yeast and long cold retards.
There are MANY ways to make bread so you may need to be a bit more specific on what you want people to comment on.