My bread log

Today I baked this bread from The Rye Baker. My two sponges were very vigorous and more than doubled. The second sponge doubled after only 4.5 hours. The recipe suggested it would not be ready for 6 to 8 hours, but I was worried that it would over-ferment if I let it rise any longer, so I moved onto the next step at that point. After adding the remaining ingredients and mixing in my KA mixer, I “poured” it into the 9”x5” loaf pan and waited for it to rise to about the top of the pan. It barely rose after about 75 minutes at which point, I turned on the oven as directed. As you will see from the picture, it did finally rise somewhat in the bake, but in a strange fashion which suggests to me that it may have needed some shaping or additional kneading. My dough was not as pourable as was suggested in the recipe, probably because I used dark rye for the second sponge and as a consequence the dough was more dense. I won’t know how it tastes until tomorrow, since a 24 hour wait is required before slicing!

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I baked it for a much shorter time. After the oven registered 460° I baked it for 20 minutes, turned the oven down to 375° for only another 20 minutes, since it tested done at 207 to 210°. It took 16.5 minutes for my oven to reach 460°, so the bread was baking in the oven for only a total of  56.5 minutes. I will see if it baked properly tomorrow!

This simple bread, totally leavened by my rye starter turned out delicious!

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This is what I baked today. I fed my rye starter twice before following the recipe- 8g starter, 16g each dark rye and water. After about 10 hours on the first day, I refrigerated it overnight, fed it the next day and refrigerated it, so I could start the recipe in the morning. I then followed the steps in the recipe fairly closely choosing to make 2/3 of the recipe. I inadvertently used dark rye for the first sponge, but it was only a very small amount, so I doubt that made any difference. After stage 2 the sponge should have doubled and begun to fall back, but after at least 12 hours, it had not quite doubled. I proceeded with the next step (final dough) anyway. After mixing the final dough as directed, it took about 4 hours to double. I increased the proofer temperature for the last hour from 72° to 75°. The shaped boule took just about an hour to proof. I used my Challenger pan for baking, preheating the oven to 475°, lowering to 460° when I put the bread in. I then followed the rest of the temperatures and times as directed. All together it baked about 50 minutes. I now need to wait 24 hours to cut into it! 

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I had reported on this bread last week, but somehow my descriptions got deleted. So from memory, these are my notes. I made 2/3 of the recipe because I didn’t want too much bread accumulating in the freezer! Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe. I fed my rye starter twice before starting with the recipe to ensure that it would be strong. The stage 2 sponge did not quite double, but I continued with the steps anyway. When making the final dough, it took 4 hours to double. I then shaped it into a boule and proofed in my proofer for about an hour. I preheated the oven to 475° and immediately turned down the oven to 460°when I put the dough into the Challenger pan. After 10 minutes I reduced the temperature to 400° and removed the cover. I continued to bake for 20 minutes, then reduced the temperature to 300° and baked for about 20 more minutes.

The result was a delicious, but dense bread. The flavors were really pleasing, and I will definitely repeat this formula.

LOOKS LIKE I HAD NOT LOST THESE NOTES. THEY WERE JUST ON THE NEXT PAGE!

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So, suddenly I realized that my bread supply in the freezer was almost all finished and I needed to make a bread that did not take the usual 3 days of planning. I looked through Hamelman’s Bread and decided to make this 50% rye bread again that uses some yeast along with the rye levain. This is really one of the easiest breads to make. I made the levain last night and I have bread before noon today.

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I adapted the formula from Marc Vetri:

100g whole wheat flour

150g KA “00” flour

150g bread flour

200g levain

300g water

15g salt

I mixed this following instructions for hand mixing from a YouTube video:

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I made the Shishito and corn topping using 2 cups of Trader Joe’s roasted corn, defrosted and 12 oz. of the peppers, stemmed. I roasted the peppers, tossed with 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper, in the preheated 500°F oven on a sheet pan. I then added the corn for the last minute or so.

I took the dough out of the bowl and stretched it a bit onto a floured board, just to get it floured and ready to go into the other sheet pan that I had oiled with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I pressed it out with my fingers, allowing the dough to rest a few times until I was able to stretch it out to cover the pan.

I topped the dough and sprinkled on some Parmesan cheese. I put it in the preheated 500°F oven on the baking stone for 10 minutes, turned the pan around and baked for about 10 minutes more. I then topped it with about 10 ounces of fresh mozzarella cheese that I had coarsely torn up and returned the pan to the oven until the cheese melted, about 3 minutes.

I had baked the pizza on a stone in the middle of the oven and that may have been the cause of the peppers becoming a bit too brown, so next time I may put the stone further down in the oven so hopefully the outcome will be improved.

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I made this bread from Hamelman’s Bread 3rd edition last week, so I can’t report as many details as I would like. What  I remember is that the dough was very loose which might have been the cause of the quite flat loaf. It rose enough for the bread to be a nice consistency, but because it spread too much in the baking, the slices aren’t the best for sandwiches. I used some bolted flour that I had in my freezer from a local farmer’s market. If I repeat this formula, I might reduce the water somewhat. I did use the bassinage method, but thought maybe the consistency of the dough was better before I added the last 10%.

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I used Hamelman’s formula as a starting point. The main change I made was to use half whole wheat flour. I also added some vital wheat gluten because I did not have actual high gluten flour. The result was decent- they look good, but they were much too chewy, either because I added too much gluten or kneaded the dough too much. I should have been more careful mixing in the pâté fermentée because I ended up kneaded a long while in order for it to be fully incorporated. Also I used 14g of the vital wheat gluten for the 503 grams of total flour. I will reduce the amount next time. The dough was also a bit dry, though in the end it behaved fine. I used honey in the boiling water since I did not have barley malt syrup.

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This bread is from Hamelman’s Bread, 3rd edition p.230. This bread is 66% whole rye flour and I expected it to be very dense, but I was delighted by the taste and texture. It calls for red rye malt which I had been planning to make according to the directions in the recipe, when upon going to my local make-your -own-beer store, the proprietor showed and gave me a taste (!) of his chocolate rye. So that is what I used here. The flavor and texture of this bread really makes homemade bread rewarding. I highly recommend this formula. The bulk fermentation was 4 hours at 78°F and the proofing in the pans was about 1.5 hours. I was amazed how well the dough expanded during the bulk fermentation, considering how minuscule the amount of starter it begins with. I used my white and whole-wheat starter and started with only 4 grams. I made 1/20 of the metric formula to yield about a kilogram of dough. 

The one issue was with my result was I had used pans that were too large to get a decent height. The recipe actually suggested some very small pans for about 350g of dough. Lacking those pans I thought I could put 500g in my 8:5” X 4.4” pans, but realized that these really are too big for that amount of dough. Next time I will plan to add 50% more dough to each pan and increase my amounts by 50%. I also baked them for less time, 15 minutes at 450°F and about 20 to 25 minutes at 420°F. One warning: I followed the instructions on how to prepare the pans, and the loaves stuck and were hard to release, even though the pans may have had a non-stick coating. Next time I will line the pans with parchment.

Overall, these were a success.

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I made Hamelman’s Busy Farmer Bread last week. It is a 50% whole wheat sourdough bread.it was easy and worked well. It is a great all purpose bread that makes good sandwiches. I topped it with sesame seeds for added appeal. It looked good and tasted good. I highly recommend!

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This time I followed the recipe from Cook’s Country. I followed it exactly, except that I used the Detroit Pizza pan that I already owned. It called for Monterey Jack in place of the brick cheese that is in the original recipe, but difficult to source. I thought it worked well and worked nicely with the Cook’s Country uncooked pizza sauce for it. I served it with some sweet and spicy jalapeño peppers from Trader Joe’s.

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I just baked Hamelman’s “80% Sourdough Rye with a Rye Flour Soaker,” from Bread, 3rd edition, p. 239. I was inspired to make this from another “Fresh Loafer,”Louis Cohen. I followed the recipe quite closely, but scaled it to a kilogram loaf, mostly because I was worried that this unusual recipe might not work for me, and I would rather a small failure than a large one!

So it appears to have baked well- I baked it for a total of 45 minutes because my loaf was smaller than the larger loaves that Hamelman was suggesting. Following Hamelman’s suggestions, I will wait 24 hours before cutting it.

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The 80% rye turned out very flavorful with a dense crumb. I made smoked turkey sandwiches with it yesterday. We liked this formula a lot.

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I baked this bread from Hamelman’s Bread, 3rd edition, p.184 a little more than a week ago. I love the flavor of this bread. My only disappointment is the bread was a bit flatter than I am used to. I think my breads come out better when they are given an overnight cold proofing, and this recipe did not suggest that as an option. I think next time I will try that. On all other respects, we like this formula a lot. It is great toasted with cheese melted on top.

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I just started the process for making Hamelman’s Five-Grain Levain from Bread, 3rd edition, p,180. I may learn some valuable lessons from this, as I started this with with less than optimal conditions. First, my starter had not been fed for a month. I did feed it twice before creating the levain for this recipe, but it did not show signs of much robustness, just barely doubling. Secondly, I forgot that when planning to proof overnight, I usually start the process at 1 PM, so that the bread does not proof too long in the refrigerator or wine cooler, and I started the dough in the morning. That means, it will get about 18 hours of cold proofing. So, I will see what happens when I bake it tomorrow.. I could have added the optional yeast in the formula, but I really wanted to test this formula with an overnight proof where the yeast should be omitted. I did bulk ferment for about 2.5 hours, although the recipe suggested only two if proofing overnight.

I also made dough for this Egyptian bread today. The formula is from Modernist Bread, p.304. I have made this before. It is really a variation on pita. What makes it different is that it uses corn flour and fenugreek. I have no source for corn flour, so I use Trader Joe’s popcorn kernels and put them in my grain mill to produce a flour. I did this the first time that I made this and it worked really well. I have made the dough balls and they will have an overnight stay in the refrigerator for baking tomorrow.

Here it is:

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I just baked this from Hamelman’s Bread 3rd Edition, p.225. The yeast was optional, I decided to try it without to see the result this way, and maybe next time I will try it with it to see if it is any different. I scaled it to make a 1K loaf and I used mostly medium rye. I will impatiently wait the recommended 24 hours before cutting into it, and I will report on the results tomorrow.

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The crumb is very dense, I am not surprised given that it is 80% rye. I just had a small taste since I just got back from a big lunch out. It has a pleasant tart taste, but I am not sure it tastes as good as the 80% rye with rye soaker that I had made previously. 

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I am a bit behind reporting on my bread making. I made this bread From Bread, 3rd Ed., p.168,  probably 2 weeks ago. It turned out to be a nice whole grain sandwich bread. I did use the optional yeast and baked it the same day that I mixed the dough as the recipe described. It worked fine, but I wonder if I would have preferred making it without the yeast and an overnight rise. I think this bread as written lacks some of the sourdough nuances that I have gotten with completely sourdough leavened doughs.

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I have made this many times over the years. The formula is from Cook’s Illustrated. I made them with half whole wheat flour and they worked well. I think next time I will try a whole grain sourdough for the dough. I think that would make them even more interesting.

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I followed this: Slow, Lazy Sourdough Bread – Breadtopia

It was an interesting experiment. I made the dough as described using what might have been King Arthur whole wheat flour and KA white whole wheat. I added about 8g of vital gluten  because I wasn’t actually sure that the whole wheat was the KA flour that has a high gluten percentage. In any case, it was a 100% whole wheat formula of 80% hydration.

I  started  with just 2 or 3 grams of starter as was described. The starter that I used came directly from the refrigerator where it had not been fed for more than 2 weeks. I followed the instructions for mixing, and after 12 hours, it had risen by a small amount. I then did 2 folds a half hour apart and then allowed it to proof until it had doubled. After 16 hours  the dough had doubled. It was really dramatic how much it rose in the last four hours. I then shaped it, put it in a banneton, and then put it in the refrigerator, covered as usual.

I then baked it as directed after it spent about 14 hours overnight in the refrigerator. I am amazed what a tiny amount of old starter can do. 

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So generally you shouldn’t cut into a bread before about two hours, but I was hungry and it didn’t make any sense to wait another hour! So I tried it.  It worked so well and had a really fantastic flavor. I can’t wait to make it again with maybe some variations.

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I decided to make the above bread again with the addition of seeds. I added them at about 10 hours into the bulk ferment, just when the dough was beginning to rise. The seeds, toasted sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds that I toasted,  were  25% of the total flour weight. This my be why the bread, while tasty, is a bit dense.

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Yesterday, I finally used some sourdough discard that had been in the refrigerator for a very long time to make some sourdough following this: https://matthewjamesduffy.com/sourdough-cornbread-with-buttermilk/, suggested to me by fellow freshloafer, Louis Cohen. It turned out to be fun to make and a bit challenging when I realized that I was low on cornmeal and it was about to storm. So. I did what anyone might do if they have a grain mill and some popcorn kernels kept in the freezer:  I ground the popcorn into cornmeal and it did the trick. I thought it came out well, but perhaps it was a little less sweet than I am used to. I appreciated the fact that cornbread does not really need any sugar, but it may have been sweeter had I used regular cornmeal. It is possible thar corn used for popping is not as sweet as corn generally used to make cornmeal. Or, it may be that we are not used to cornbread that has little sweetness. I actually don’t like cornbread that is very sweet where it is more like cake, but maybe I would like a result somewhat in between.

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I made this about a week ago. I made this pretty much as written, using a liquid starter in the levain build. I used the yeast along with the sourdough as specified in the recipe. Somehow, I always feel like I am cheating when I do this, but the result was really nice. It is 40% whole wheat and resulted in a nice hearty and sweet bread. I made one tenth of the metric formula and put the dough in three 8.5” X 4.5” loaf pans.

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I just made this bread yesterday. It was an interesting method. It started with an overnight levain that included onions and whole grain rye flour (that I milled because I had some rye berries). The next day, you mix, knead it briefly, shape it, and put it in a banneton. There is no real bulk fermentation. I allowed the bread to rise at 79°F for about 2.25 hours and then baked it in my Challenger pan. Unfortunately, I should not have baked it in such a hot oven, as the bottom was a bit scorched. It was not inedible- just darker than I would have liked. I scraped some of the bottom off, and it tasted fine. The bread has a bit of a cakey texture, maybe because of the molasses or because the gluten was not well developed. I did, however, really enjoy its taste and will make it again.  The recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-pumpernickel-bread-recipe

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I wanted to make a bread a bit more standard than I usually do, so I decided to make this one. I wanted to make a rye bread reminiscent of the kind I grew up on, only better! I think I succeeded with this recipe. It has a nice texture fresh and toasted as well. I added one tablespoon caraway seeds to the full recipe and followed the recipe as directed. I would definitely make this again.

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• I just baked this bread, making one loaf, halving the recipe because I did not have enough medium rye flour to make the entire recipe. I basically followed the recipe with just a couple of minor changes. I did not have any active rye starter available, so for the 5 grams of starter I needed for the recipe, I used my white/whole wheat starter that I have fed more recently. Also, while mixing the dough, the roughly 50% hydration dough was so stiff that the mixing movement on slow speed caused the bowl to disengage from the Kitchen Aid stand, so I added a small amount of water to loosen the dough a bit. I bulk fermented the dough for 6 hours in which it didn’t quite double, and then let it proof for 1.25 hours. I baked it on a stone, covered for 15 minutes and uncovered for 25 minutes more. I will wait for it to cool completely before cutting and trying it. As you can see, there was no dramatic oven spring! 

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