Pepita and Sunflower Yorkville Sourdough Baguettes.
I had a technical issue with this bake that I hadn’t experienced in quite sometime. I didn’t dust the couche or the bottoms (bottoms facing up in the couche) of the baguettes sufficiently, so when I attempted to transfer them off the couche, onto the transfer board and then finally onto the parchment lined cookie tray, two of the three stuck at each point. This resulted in some pretty significant degassing and really compromised the crumb. The third baguette did suffer nearly as much and was much better looking. The flavour of course isn’t affected by the degassing, but certainly the texture of the baguettes was.
Overnight Levain build ferment 75°F 10-12 hours
In the morning, to your mixing bowl add 327 g water, 10 g salt and diastatic malt 4.9 g to dissolve. Add levain to water and cut the levain into small pieces in the bowl. Next add 448 g AP flour to combine. Allow to saltolyse for 20 mins. Slap and fold x 100 then add hold back water 25 g gradually working in until fully absorbed by massaging and then Rubaud kneading the dough, then slap and fold x 200. Alternatively mix in a stand mixer until good gluten development. Add seeds.
Bulk Fermentation 82*F until aliquot jar shows 20% rise.
Do folds every 20 mins doing 3 folds
Could do cold retard at this point for up to overnight. (Aliquot jar 20% rise)
Divide and pre-shape rest for 15 mins
Shape en couche with final proof until aliquot jar shows 55% rise then (optional) cold retard shaped baguettes en couche for at least 15 minutes for easier scoring. I often do this for convenience as the oven is pre-heating.
Pre-heat oven 500*F after 30 mins add Silvia towel in pan with boiling water.
Transfer baguettes from couche to peel on parchment
Score each baguette and transfer to oven, bake on steel.
Bake with steam pouring 1 cup of boiling water to cast iron skillet dropping temperature to 480*F.
The baguettes are baked with steam for 13 mins. The steam equipment is removed venting the oven of steam. Transfer the baguettes from the baking steel to next rack completing baking directly on a rack to minimize the browning and thickening of the bottom crust. The oven is dropped to 450ºF but convection is turned on and the baguettes bake for 10 mins rotating them halfway. The baguettes are rotated again if needed and baked for another 3 mins to achieve a rich colour crust.
Comments
So the baguette that I sliced for the crumb photo was the best of the three with the least amount of degassing from sticking. Good reminder to use enough flour!
I’m otherwise quite happy with how the baguettes turned out. Using the La Milanaise All Purpose Flour which is essentially a T55 at a hydration of 76% works well. I used to think that I had to mix by hand to get a nice crumb, using my Ankarsrum Assistent to mix and achieving a good gluten development prior to folds has allowed me to push fermentation much further than I used to with less gluten development. I used to aim for baking at a rise of 30-35%, but now with greater dough development I am pushing fermentation to a rise of 60% to get a lovely open crumb and still get ears/grigne.
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Can't beat pumpkin seeds in bread. Especially if they're toasted. Did you toast the seeds?
If only my mistakes turned out as nice as yours.
Lovely, Benny.
I knew you’d like the pepitas Abe, I believe they are one of your favourite seeds for bread aren’t they? I didn’t toast the seeds, they had great flavour without toasting but perhaps I should consider that in the future. Your mistakes? They’d be so rare Abe!
Benny
Even with your technical issues these look great and the one you cut open can't be much better.
Well done Benny!
Thank you Ian. Well the one I cut and photographed was definitely the one that stuck the least. The others had a much much more closed crumb as expected. However, they still tasted great and in fact the tight crumb was ideal when we had it with a rather loos baba ganoush.
Happy baking
Benny