March 5, 2022 - 9:06am
My bread log
I have once again decided to document my bakes. I think I did not do this correctly a few moments ago, so here is a link to my last entry where I added my latest bake and explain what I did. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57785/multigrain-loaf-la-dmsnyder
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For my recent birthday, my daughter bought me a gift certificate to Janie’s Mill. So, after looking at the many recipes on their site, I ordered a variety of flours, so I could try some of them. The first bread recipe that I tried was for whole grain bialys: https://www.janiesmill.com/blogs/recipes/hearty-bialys-from-maritime-bread-co, and except that I need to learn how to create the proper depression for the filling, I thought they came out really well. I followed the recipe fairly closely, shaping the dough into balls and giving them an overnight rise in the refrigerator. I halved the recipe, but made 8 instead of 6, so they would be a little smaller. I don’t know if it was the flour that I got from Janie’s or if my starter was particularly robust, but I was pleased with the rise and crumb of these, considering they are all whole grain and sourdough risen. I did feed my starter twice before making the recipe, but mostly because I have a tendency to neglect my starter when I have enough bread in the house!
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Your bialys have a particularly great crumb
I made the statutory dozen Janie's Mill 100% whole grain bialys photos proofed and baked on a crowded 11" x 17" sheet pan. I added a little more water than the formula called for in order to fully hydrate the dough during the mix, so they may have been slightly larger than regulation.
When I brought them out of the fridge to bake, there was no room on the sheet pan to flatten them, so I just used the little Dutch boy technique and stuck my thumb into each one, moving it just a bit to get a slightly larger depression.
I still have no idea why the tops of mine whitened in the oven. Maybe the tops dried out a bit in the fridge?
I think the ones that I made were whiter on top than I expected, but I had dusted them with rice/AP flour while shaping them, so perhaps that was the reason. I did cover them while in the fridge with oiled plastic wrap. I wonder if my successful crumb and rise were due to the whole kernel bread flour that I got. I also enjoyed the nice chew that it had. (I won’t know whether the flour had any impact until I make them in a future bake and run out of that flour and need to substitute.) I will definitely make these again. They will be great for almost any sandwich.
I loved this formula so much that I made them again. I don’t know if the success was due to the flour from Janie’s Mill, but I was so pleased with the texture that I got from 100% whole grain flour, using only sourdough for its leavening. II scaled the recipe to make 12 bialys, weighing 92g each unbaked. I watched a video on shaping bialys and these came out better than the first batch. I have decided that I like these more than any bagels that I have made in the past. I wonder if I could actually tweak this formula and make bagels with it.
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They look great, I thought shaping was to roll into a ball, proof, then flatten just a bit and use your thumb to make a depression just before baking.
Mathematicians versed in topology will tell you that you can make a bagel from any dough you can shape into a torus. But philosophers will argue about whether it's a bagel or not if you have not boiled the shaped dough before baking (I'm no philosopher, but if the dough was not boiled it's not a bagel).
Yes, you are right about the shaping. I just needed to make the indentation bigger and wider to account for the rising in the oven. I agree that it is not a bagel, if it is not boiled! I am thinking that I may need to tweak the hydration for bagels, boil them and add some different toppings.
I decided to make seeded baguettes from Janie's Mill https://www.janiesmill.com/blogs/recipes/seeded-baguettes-poolish-starter last week. I might have followed the recipe exactly, but I wanted to make them using sourdough instead of the polish method in the recipe. So, I instead made Hamelman’s Sourdough baguettes (3rd Ed.) using Janie’s Mill whole kernel bread flour (100%) extraction). I scaled down Hamelman’s recipe to make 2 14” baguettes and added toasted seeds to the loaf and spread tahini on the loafs during shaping. I also coated the loaves in more seeds (untoasted) after they were shaped. I definitely liked the outcome.
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I do need to work on my shaping and scoring for these! I have been enjoying these as small sandwiches. I cut them crosswise and then lengthwise to use them as rolls.
I tried a new formula, a recipe from Janie’s Mill https://www.janiesmill.com/blogs/recipes/sifted-durum-sourdough-bread from where I received a number of different flours as a birthday present. The recipe worked well, and the texture and flavor are very good. However, when I was moving the bread into the Challenger pan, I misjudged and the dough didn’t fall into the pan properly and ended up causing the loaf to have an odd, buckled shape. I think the mishap caused the loaf to flatten as well. It is still a good formula!
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I made this bread about a month ago, but waited until now to report on it because there had been problems with The Fresh Loaf website. This formula is from Breeadtopia: https://breadtopia.com/sourdough-multi-wheat-fruit-and-nut-bread/. It was easy and worked so nicely in my long Pullman pan.
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Today, I decided to repeat this bread because I really enjoyed it and decided to bring this on a second trip to the Jersey shore this season. My previous notes suggested that it was easy, but this time the dough was very loose and difficult to shape, so I just jammed the dough in the pan! I don’t know if this contributed to the problem, but upon reviewing the recipe, I didn’t realize that I could have used some durum flour in this that I most likely used last time. I did, in all, use the same weight of flour as I did in the last bake. I will bake this soon and report back with the results!
I think in spite of the uncontrollable loose dough, the loaf turned out fine. This bread is delicious with goat cheese or yogurt cheese.
My wife loves Hamelman''s Workday 100% whole wheat, with walnuts and cranberries; I was inspired to try the add-in's after seeing a sourdough loaf at Whole Foods on Houston St in NYC loaded with nuts, fruit, and seeds.
Here is the latest one, posed with a can of Riga smoked sprats that I got in Riga Sprats & Workday 100% Whole Wheat
First, I didn’t understand what the sprats were. I associate sprats with sausages that people eat in Wisconsin! Now that I see that they are fish, I find your food “composition” very inviting! I definitely would eat them with your fruit bread.
On the Fourth, my daughter and family from Hollywood Florida came to visit and I made 6 pizzas using my pizza oven. I recently bought a pizza book which I highly recommend for the author’s wonderful pizza ides and salads. The salad was enjoyed as much as the pizza. Her book is, “Pizza Night.” The author is Alexandra Stafford who also has multiple food blogs. Her content is outstanding.
i made the snap pea salad with lemon dressing, and besides 4 red sauce pies, I made her kale and Sun-dried tomato pesto pizza.
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Your pizzas and bread all look fabulous Caryn. The salad sounds interesting, I’d love to see the recipe.
Benny
I would be happy to share the recipe or recipes. Which one or both would you like?
If you are after the salad recipe, I have previously scanned it for a family member. So here it is:
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Thank you Caryn, that is super.
Benny
I baked this bread and although it did not seem to work well, the outcome was delicious! The recipe: https://www.janiesmill.com/blogs/recipes/sprouted-einkorn-bread. It took forever to proof in the bread pan, and then I finally gave up and baked it. The recipe suggested that it would take 20 minutes covered and then 35 minutes uncovered at 475° F and 440°F respectively. Fortunately I tested the bread after a total of about 38 minutes and it was just short of burnt on the bottom. I am, however, determined to make a similar recipe for it that I found on Breadtopia (https://breadtopia.com/naturally-leavened-einkorn-bread/ ), since it was so good. I loved it toasted.
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It looks great, and I bet it was pretty tasty.
There are just too many kinds of breads and flours to fit in our kitchen cabinets and freezer (which already overflow to the hall closet with as-yet unopened bags of flour). To keep from going crazy I am specializing in whole wheat and rye sourdoughs. Depending on the bread I get on our upcoming trip to Scandinavia and the Baltics, I may have to add malt syrup to the inventory. But for now, these are the only flours I stock:
Seven kinds of flour is plenty enough, and that's not counting the rice flour for the bannetons or the wheat bran and corn meal for muffins.
I just made the formula that I cited above from Breadtopia. The only thing that I changed was lowering the temperature to 450°F at the start of the bake. I also made the enriched version which included milk and a small about of honey. I can’t wait to cut it tomorrow!
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I mostly followed the recipe from the website, “The Perfect Loaf.” The only real change that I did was that I only did the autolyse for about 30 minutes. This is the recipe: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/whole-wheat-sourdough-sandwich-bread/. I loved how easy it was to proof it overnight in the pan. The dough looked too full for the 9x5 pan, but it worked wonderfully. I baked it 450°F with a quick steam method for 20 minutes, and then reduced the temperature to 425°F for about 35 more minutes (internal temperature was 210°F).
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looks tasty
I haven’t tasted it yet, but Alex did! It has a nice soft crumb perfect for sandwiches.
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I baked this a few days ago: https://www.janiesmill.com/blogs/recipes/spelt-rye-country-bread. This formula seems to work okay, but I didn’t get nearly the oven spring that is shown in the recipe. I think my starter wasn’t as robust as it should have been. Next time I will give my starter an extra feed before baking this. I baked one loaf in a loaf pan on the same day as making the dough and another the next day in my cast-iron Challenger pan. The crumb was much more open with the cast-iron bake. I attribute this to the slow overnight rise in the refrigerator. This dough was very loose, and that is why I made the pan loaf for the same day proofing. I figured that the overnight cold proofing would help with the structure of the loaf.
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I just made this: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/jalapeno-cheddar-sourdough-bread/. I haven’t tasted it yet, but the aroma is amazing. I chose this recipe because it has some whole grain, about 30%.
I had a bit of a problem with the dough at first. The recipe suggested holding back some of the water to add later in the mixing (bassinage), and adding some or all of the additional water after some mixing was done. So I, being somewhat overconfident, just added all of the rest of the water, and as a result the dough really was too wet. I then added a bit of flour to compensate. Fortunately for me, it looks like it turned out fine. I think the reason that the water quantity is variable is that the recipe calls for a medium protein flour, and I only had a small amount of bread flour available and my AP flour was not King Arthur, which is a medium protein flour. Higher protein flour can absorb more liquid.
The loaves baked for a total of about 38 minutes, 450° for 15 minutes and 425° for about 23 minutes. I uncovered the bread after 20 minutes.
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So after baking the jalapeño cheese bread from The Perfect Loaf website, I decided to take the author’s book out of the library (ThecPerfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo). The book is an excellent source for sourdough baking. Though I have been baking sourdough loaves for years, I still found his book useful and inspiring. He put links using QR codes in the book for many instructional videos which are very informative. i followed the instructions for this loaf, pretty much as directed. I did not add what he called “water 2” because I was afraid of overhydrating like I did with the last brea and given the result, I think I made the right decision. I baked the breads in my Challenger pan for a total of 35 minutes (20 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered).
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