This Week In My Kitchen

I was teaching all week and had no interest in computers at night, so this is my first update aside from my rye loaf post.

Monday night I thought I'd do a sweet treat for the folks in the office. I got this recipe for "Chocolate Babka" from a book Wifey bought me, Bread Illustrated. It was the hit of the office and brought such comments as: "The best bread I've ever tasted", to "Ridiculously delicious" to "Simply orgasmic". Basically it's a dough similar to Brioche with filling made with butter, cocoa, and dark, semi-sweet and milk chocolates.

Tuesday night Wifey found a recipe in that same book for a loaf with WW and white flours with walnuts and dried cranberries. That tasted fantastic, such a mouthful of different flavours. I thought I took a picture of the loaf but can't find it, so here's the crumb.

Thursday night I started this 67% white sourdough loaf that I baked this morning. I had overnight fermentation of the levain at room temperature, and then a 16 hour over night proof in the colander in the fridge. 

This one had a couple of issues. Scoring wasn't deep enough as the loaf blew up like a balloon and actually ripped open in a seam on the bottom. Also it had several large air bubbles, one on top just underneath the crust. I don't know if some flour didn't incorporate right or if I just did a poor job of S&F and forming. Either way, the texture of the crumb is fantastic and the flavour has a pronounced but not overbearing sourness to it. My granddaughter loved it too.

Last night I started this one on a whim after feeding my starter, 25 gms WW, 25 gms rye and 350 gms white AP with 180 gms of white starter at 100%. I intended on making it at 65-67% but somehow fooled up the math and upon double-checking this morning, realized it was a tad over 70%. Not long out of the oven so no crumb shot yet. You can see scoring on this one wasn't deep enough either.

This one isn't as crispy as I'd like, but it was at 210 deg F internal so I yanked it.

Now I have a levain on for sourdough bagels in the morning and will probably do something with the leftovers from tonight's starter feeding.

I guess it's clear I like to bake on weekends?

Jamie