The Fresh Loaf

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The bachelor's party bake

ll433's picture
ll433

The bachelor's party bake

This was hectic. Baked 12 loaves (2 of each type) and 3.5kg of granola for the bachelor's party that the husband was organizing. Prepped the levains all in the morning before I left for work (cycled to the train station in record time), and started mixing dough the moment I was home at 8 pm. Was done baking 10 loaves at 3:30 am, and then had to bake the oat loaves at 8 am as they need a much longer rise.

Recipes:

60% rye

40% einkorn-emmer malt

100% durum semolina

50% oat

50% spelt (I replaced the 30% autolysed emmer in the original recipe with 20% red spelt)

The holey white was a request from my brother-in-law AKA the groom for whom the bachelor party was organized. When asked what bread he would most like me to bake, he said "a very holey mostly white bread with a thick crust". 

I initially went with a simple full white SD loaf, 20% levain, but I was really disappointed with the taste. It surely was holey, but after eating really colourful grainy loaves for so long, it's very hard to go back to a full white loaf.

I then decided to do a 90% white and 10% wholewheat. I thought that with a mostly white bread, a good long poolish for most of the white and a little bit of SD complexity with the wholewheat might be interesting. So that's what I did, and it tasted fabulous. I was very pleased with it. For the sake of completeness, this is the very basic recipe:

Holey white 

For a 800g loaf

Make a 24 hour poolish with 300g of white flour, 300g water and 1/10 teaspoon of IDY. 

Make a 10 hour levain with 50g of wholewheat, 4g of starter, and 45g of water.

When mixing the dough, simply add enough white flour to the levain and poolish to make a manageable dough. I ended up mixing 89g of flour, making it 78% hydration. Add 12g of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of IDY.

BF took 4 hours and proofing took 1.5 hours. I should have scored this deeper than my usual wholegrainy type loaves as the oven spring with this was tremendous. Baked it at 220 C for 40 mins. 

And yesterday, for a little treat with my parents-in-law, we decided to have some molten chocolate cake (picture above). My go-to quick dessert for extreme satisfaction. 

Molten dark chocolate cakes

For three individual cakes

Melt 60g of chopped 70% dark chocolate with 30g of unsalted butter over hot water. In the meantime beat 1 egg and 1 egg yolk with 3 tablespoons of sugar until very thick, about 8 mins (whisk leaves very clear trail in batter when lifted).

Mix the chocolate+butter into the egg batter gently, then also gently whisk in 1 tablespoon of flour. Put about 3 big tablespoons of this into each ringform which has been buttered and floured (it should come up to about half the form), each set on a square of baking paper.

Chill in the fridge until you need to eat, heat up oven to 200 C then put these in on a baking tray for about 9-11 mins. Keep an eye on them at the 8 mins mark - you know they are ready when you see the sides rise, and the middle is only slightly set, still very wobbly. I transport each to a plate, pull off the baking paper below while holding the form, and gently encourage the cake to slide down the form as I pull it up (use a small knife to dislodge any small sticky sides).

 

This recipe uses way less sugar and butter than most others, so increase amounts if you want something sweeter and more molten...

Comments

squattercity's picture
squattercity

hectic, indeed.

Hat's off to you for getting all the timings right for all this fantastic baking!

The bachelors got some serious eating, which I hope they could appreciate amid what might have been some serious drinking.

Rob

ll433's picture
ll433

Thanks, Rob. The groom requested for serious endurance sports, though, so the men needed both the bread and alcohol!

-Lin 

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Wow, you crazy person!

I'd truly appreciate all this effort if someone did something like this for me. Truly impressive. And appreciate you taking the time to write about it here so that we could join in online and celebrate your baking success! Well done.

-Jon

ll433's picture
ll433

I was tempted to post here in the midst of the craziness in the middle of the night, just for some baking support and company. Glad the breads turned out fine. I enjoyed it and would do it again!

-Lin 

ReneR's picture
ReneR

Simply amazing Lin. Wow, just wow. What loaves what work while also doing the day job. I hope the bachelors appreciated what an amazing offering you gave them.

The photo could be from some professional bakery. Awesome.

ll433's picture
ll433

You can't see it from the photos but my holey whites had some bursting through the bottom seams from the incredible expansion. The bachelors appreciated it, as far as reports go. The durum semolina was their favourite.

-Lin 

Benito's picture
Benito

Lin, I cannot imagine how you did all of that and worked a day at your job to boot.  Extremely impressive time management.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to handle that at all.  Well done you.

Benny

ll433's picture
ll433

Really appreciate the encouragement. It was time management and just lots of luck. I staggered the mixing so that they would go in at different times but that clearly didn't fully go to plan! At one point I needed six loaves to go in but only space for four. Had to choose to let the spelt proof for just a tad longer than I would have preferred. Luckily it held its shape in the oven!

-Lin 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

What a work of passion, and such lucky recipients. The bread looks great, and that molten dark chocolate cake takes first prize.

Best regards,
Ian

ll433's picture
ll433

Yes I really enjoyed the cake. Was nice to indulge after all that baking. I did have fun with the baking though at 3.30 am I did wonder what on earth I was doing! It was worth it for people who appreciated it. 

-Lin