Ziggy's back in town
Hamelman Golden Raisin Bread, alfanso style. With no evidence posted of this being made as baguettes, well, that opened the door for me with a welcome mat.
At 69% hydration these are way too dry to French Fold. The oatmeal flakes and WW work in tandem to ensure that. By adding a few teaspoons of water over the course of kneading, the dough became (barely) more manageable and I probably raised the hydration to about 71%. Rye was used instead of the designated white flour for the 125% levain, and I gave the mix a 10 minute hydrating rest period before adding salt and moving on to the hand mixing.
The IDY was cut from 0.37% to 0.27% as these were destined to be retarded overnight instead of the prescribed straight linear bulk rise-divide & shape-proof-bake cycle. And I probably could have eliminated the IDY totally.
The bulk rise was cut down from 2 hours to 1.5 hours with two folds instead of the published one. I added the fruit at the first letter fold.
These took just about no flour on the couche, shed a fair amount of water, but released from the couche with delightful ease.
Quite a dense crumb on the baguette despite the oven spring and modest grigne. However, the taste was completely ordinary, and other than to boast that I made a bread with oatmeal, I really don't see returning to these again anytime soon. In fairness, there is nothing wrong with them and they make a fine toast. There just doesn't seem to be quite enough right with them.
My second opportunity to make a Ziggy style batard (Ziggy is our own Abel Sierra's designation for this scoring), and I find it so easy using a straight ceramic blade and a lot of fun seeing it open. comparison of the first and second Ziggy...
425g x 2 baguettes / long batards
725g x 1 Ziggy.
Comments
Interesting looking loaves. In fact it looks like Mack The Knife is back in town, too. Sorry for such a 'lame' pun. Sooner or later I'm going to have to take the plunge on artisan style loaves just to widen my horizons from POSL (Plain Old Sandwich Loaves).
However your puns are razor sharp!
Nothing wrong with POSLs, and when we find something we often tend to stick with it. But these other shapes and combinations are fun to work and work with. Far be it from me to talk up "exotic" mixes such as Danni, Ian, dabrownman and a host of others use in their breads. I tend to remain on the "safe" side, so even oatmeal flakes is on the verge of too much.
But do it. The worst that will happen is that it will be good for bread pudding but you'll learn a few things along the way, and you already know there's a wealth of support on TFL.
thanks, alan
With a lovely colour crust and perfect scoring and I knew it was you Alan.
You say the taste is ordinary but they sure don't look ordinary. Sometimes it's nice to work with a lower hydration dough and have an uneventful ordinary bake without fighting a high hydration dough. I'm thinking a large percentage low hydration levain for a bake like this. One which has been built a couple of days previously and refrigerated. Can bring out some lovely flavour too.
kendalm's blog page! The coloration was exceptionally dark. I used the raisin-soaking water, so I'll take a guess that it helps with caramelization. Yes, they did come out lovely looking, but sometimes beauty's only...you know the rest. If I did these again, I'd eliminate the oatmeal and perhaps add toasted walnuts or pecans.
As long as the 125% levain is mixed in up front, then under "ordinary conditions", the hydration is probably about right, and as you know, Mr. Hamelman often gets his levain in for the "autolyse". And I've making dough now more often with the 125% than my old 75% standby or the standard 100%.
thanks, alan.
rye, WW Raisin Ziggy Zigto's. See it already has a commercial name. Just dust with cinnamon powdered sugar and some maple syrup and there you are. I can see where even a baguette, non purist, like Don Baggs would have a hard time with these beauties. Oh well, at least they look really nice on the outside - really nice!
Happy baking Alan.
I love the smell of French Toast in the morning (or Napalm - your choice!). The oatmeal siphoned off so much water from the rest of the dough that I had concerns about the skin tearing when I was shaping the batard.
Yeah, a lovely bake, with a great mahogany color but, sigh, I just wish I was liking the flavor more than I do. And since this is a short exchange, I'll leave you with a quote about aging attributed to George Burns: "First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down."
thanks, alan
Too bad they don't meet your standards for flavor but I'm sure you can grill them and throw some olive oil, cheese and some spices and they will be tasty enough.
Regards,
Ian
I haven't gotten around to the batard yet, so I don't know what evil lurks within. My wife has been slathering on some whipped honey/lemon goat cheese to the toasted little devils, so your thoughts were already festering in her devious mind. Really I just think that they need a sprinkling more salt on the buttered toast to bump up the joy.
thanks, alan