Sweet Lievito Madre and Panettone
Caramel apple panettone made with sweet lievito madre.
I have been developing my sweet LM for a while now, initially to help with making sourdough shokupan, but now also to use with SD brioche and panettone. I am still adding a small amount of regular LM "just in case", but as you can see, the sweet LM rises very well. The flavor of the panettone is outstanding.
Sugar is adjusted in the LM care, and some of the sugar content in the dough was moved to the first impasto, to maintain the desired sugar level. The pH of the first impasto after 12 hours fermentation at 23C was 4.87. The final rise was complete in 3.5 hours.
I am primarily maintaining the sweet LM at room temperature (not cycling warm and cool), with the exception of when I want to store it for a few days. Then it is simply refrigerated. This LM can be easily revivied with about 10 hours at room temp after a bagnetto and feeding. Longer term storage is TBD, as I am using the LM for several baking projects, and haven't been binding it.
I am getting better results by maintaining a sweet LM separately, vs making a one-time build of sweet LM (as is done in several popular recipes). The maintained sweet LM continues to have an elastic texture long after a regular LM would be showing gluten damage.
The primo impasto maintained a relatively high pH, and the dough still had good gluten development after 12 hours of fermentation. Even though this is an apple panettone with a lot of additional moisture in the recipe, the resulting crumb is delicate, light and soft.
The same LM makes excellent sourdough shokupan and brioche. I will be using it for croissants also, and hope to be able to reduce or eliminate the need to maintain a separate liquid starter.
Comments
Wow, what a result! Would you say more about creating and maintaining the sweet LM? And what is the LM's pH at maturity?
TomP
I originally tried working with a liquid starter with different percentages of sugar added, as done by a couple of Instagram bakers. However, I found it to be too volatile, due to the high water content. In addition, they were looking at percentages, not saturation. Ian Lowe uses a "stiff starter", which I found to be an improvement, but my SD shokupan still had an acidic note that I did not like.
Meanwhile, I was baking panettone regularly with regular LM, trying all the various protocols suggested by notable panettone bakers. Over a period of a couple of years, my LM had improved, but it was still a challenge to prepare for a panettone baking cycle.
It seemed logical to me that I could go further in the direction of a stable starter by using my LM and the Chambelland universal method of measuring sugar content in the dough. About this time, Romero's book Remember 28C came out, and made the point that controlling sugar in the dough was key to controlling acidity. I had numerous data points to support this finding.
I calculated how much sugar to add to my LM to bring it into the high 30s in %Cu, and started working with shokupan. This wasn't too risky, because it doesn't have all the expensive ingredients that go into a panettone batch. Right away my results improved, and so I went a little further. I still had the idea that I needed to do a one-off build for each batch, but soon tried a maintenance LM (a different calculation as there is already sugar in the LM), and it was a success.
I can't really comment on pH at "maturity", as I'm not really handling it that way. I find that it never gets down to 3.98, which was a common 24 hour number for my regular LM. Rather, pH is slow to fall (as intended), while yeasts are quite active. I am using the concept of 10 hours of development after a morning feed, with a shokupan first dough mixed in the evening. The remaining LM is refrigerated for up to 5 days, then fed again.
There is much more to this, but I hope this gives you an idea... Cheers, Sue
Thanks, Sue. I haven't actually made a panettone, but the subject has come up a lot on TFL and I am always hoping to learn something to apply to my ordinary breads. It's interesting that your LM works well in making shokupan too.
I've been tinkering with my starter so that I can leave it out longer on the counter without it turning to mush or over-fermenting overnight. One thing I've done is to add a little salt (1%). I've gotten good results, and I find that by stirring the starter in the morning it can keep developing into the afternoon. Of course, the longer it goes the more acidic it gets. I'm thinking I should add some sugar to counter this... once I learn how to figure out how much.
TomP
Wow more stunners Sue. Remarkably beautiful and they must taste divine.
Benny
Thank you Benny! These are very good, and I think the sweetened LM is a large part of the reason. I have been re-reading your 2021 post on sweet starter, and that is good information. My next try will be to make a batch of perhaps shokupan using leftover sweet LM that has been sitting in the fridge for a week, with no 10-hour refreshment. It *looks* quite puffed and active still.
Happy to hear from you!! As always, your blogs are amazing, it truly inspires people to make panettone with LM. Let me ask you, do you buy dehydrated apples? if so, can you please share the brand?
Thanks!!!
JC
Hi JC!
Yes, the apples are dehydrated, unsulphured. They are from Nuts dot com. For a batch of 3 panettoni, (1 kg size), I use about 340 grams of dried apples (210 grams dried apples, covered with warm water for 30 minutes, then drained and placed on a dry paper towel. Do not squeeze out, but just lightly toss in the towel to get surface water off). They are put in at the end of mixing the second impasto, as is done for all inclusions, only mixing in for about a minute. So the mixing process doesn't squeeze them unduly. The panettone has a pronounced apple-y flavor that is very nice. I also use some standard pie spices.
Sue, any chance you could give some details of the daily maintenance of your sweet LM, in terms of feed ratio, sugar addition, temperature, storage method, etc
Lance
I use Chambelland's way of measuring sugar saturation, if you're familiar with that. To suppress acidity, I have found that a %Cu of around 37 works well, and so I adjust the feeding ratio accordingly. Whenever doing a feeding, it is important to only count the *new* flour as the basis for sugar addition.
A typical feeding might be: 140g sweet LM, 140g flour, 56g water, and 28g sugar, which gives 37%Cu. The existing LM portion of the mixture is assumed to already be at that sugar saturation, and the new ingredients are just being added.
I mix the LM for 7 minutes in a KA mixer, let it rest for 10 minutes, then either roll into a coil, or knead and fold back on itself several times and form into a ball. Place in plastic storage box and allow to ferment at warm room temperature for 8 to 10 hours. If it has tripled/quadrupled (expected), baking can proceed. Otherwise, allow to ferment overnight and then feed again the morning.
I refrigerate the unused portion of LM between bakes, usually no more than 6 or 7 days.
Many thanks Sue - that's a big help. I will have another try at the sweet LM sometime. If the results are half as good as yours, I'll be happy!
Lance
When using the LM in a recipe, reduce the sugar in the recipe by the amount of sugar in the LM you are putting in.