I like these Italian rolls. Nice shaped and great in taste!
250 g flour
8 g fresh yeast
5 g salt
20 g lard
1/2 TL honey
~130 g water
How to shape them you find on my blog: http://kochtopf.twoday.net/stories/2958191/
So I set out today to try the new technique that we've been discussing from the New York Times article. I created a dough like what he described the night before and gave it an 18 hour rise.
This morning, I dusted off a Le Creuset pot
18 hours later, the dough was extremely bubbly. Personally, I thought it smelled a little overfermented. Slightly alcoholic.
Around 80% hydration, folding it was a pain.
Despite flouring the bowl like crazy, it stuck.
I baked it anyway. It came out ugly, but with pretty nice crumb.
The pretty loaf was a sourdough I baked the same way (in the pot covered for 25 minutes, in the pot uncovered for about 20 or so at 450). It was a damp dough, but not *that* wet. More like 65-70% hydration. Much easier to handle.
I may try it again, but I'm not overwhelmed by the results. They are good and it is a little simpler, technique-wise, but I enjoy a more traditional approach too.
I used the starter than I have been carefully feeding since last thursday night. All indications were right, smell, bubbles etc..and baked somethng that looked great, and felt like a doorstop. It was a VERY dense loaf, not what I would choose to have again. So I fed the starter and popped it into the fridge...perhaps I will try again next week.
However, today I taught Ramona how to do the cottage loaf from last weekend. Again, excellent colour and crust and a reasonable crumb. I sprinkled cornmeal onto a greased baking sheet and the bottom crust is wonderful. And used poppy seeds over the egg waah.
Ramona did not get the wash evenly around the lower loaf, so you can see where it dripped and where she missed. ...but she will see this tomorrow and learn from it...
Perhaps I should get her to have a try at the sourdough....
I am going to play with this recipe and introduce whole wheat and seeds into the loaf ..
stay tuned...
For a while, my starters (white and rye) were very active, rising dough quickly and making light, open crumb. Now I'm getting very sluggish rises and dense, chewy crumb (most notably the white starter) from the same recipes. I do get a huge oven spring out of them, so *something* is alive in there!
I feed or use the starter once a week. When feeding, I keep about 4oz and add 2-3oz of flour and 3-4oz of water to make a poolish-like mother starter. When making plain sourdough, I make a firm starter from the mother starter, like French bread dough.
I've tried overnight proofs in the fridge, and using a pan of hot water in the oven to simulate a proofing tent.
Any suggestions on making my starter more zippy are welcome :)
-Joe
A number of tools exist on this site. Such as:
This is the bread I made on Friday, I started off by soaking
1 1/2 cups organic oat flakes in boiling water and resting it for 30
minutes from there I added a cup of fresh milled whole wheat, 1 cup
water 1/2 cup milk 1 tablespoon raw sugar and 2 1/2 teaspoons of
yeast, 2 cups bakers flour, mixed well, rest 30 minutes added 2
tablespoon butter and enough bakers flour to make nice dough, kneaded
in DLX 6 minutes adding 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt.
Removed from bowl, kneaded into a ball by hand, rest until double
plus, size, shape rise and bake, 400' 50 minutes.
qahtan
Mine has been in there for more than a day, after developing at room temperature for 8-10 hours. Still usable? What's the outside limit?
Any advice deeply appreciated. Thanks!
Since I'm a bread nerd, I have picked up a lot of gadgets over the years, but mostly have old favorites. I thought it might be fun to compare what tools we have and how we like them. It might also be helpful for newbies who are just adding to their collections.
So here's a "survey". Feel free to add to this if you think of more, I was just brainstorming here:
1. Mixer: Which mixer do you use, or are you a hands-only purist? :)
2. First Proof: Do you have a favorite bowl or container for rising doughs, preparing poolish, or saving sourdough?
3. Shaping Loaves: Do you use a scale for weighing ingredients or loaves? What do you use for dividing dough and shaping loaves?
4. Second proof: What are your favorite baskets, couches and pans for rising your loaves?
5. Baking: What kind of hearth stone do you use, tools for slashing laoves, and do you use a peel to transfer loaves into the oven? And ovens--what's your preference: Gas or Electric, convection, or do you prefer the weber grill? :)
Don't mean this to be serious (or a competition!) but have fun and show my your toys! :)
Let's try something new: anyone up for a photo contest?
The theme: harvest season, since for all of us in the northern hemisphere it is getting to be that time of year.
If you are a site member, you should be able to upload an image here. I created a new gallery for this contest that your images can go in (click on the categories link while uploading the image to select the gallery). You can also just add a comment to this thread linking to any photo of yours you post on your own site or on photobucket.
My first entry:
At this point, I'd say there aren't any rules because there aren't any prizes. Obviously baked goods should be involved though.
If you run into any trouble posting images, email me your image and I can post the image for you. Just be sure to include your screen name and any comments about it so that I can attribute it to you properly.
Updated 9/19: I'm going to start including some of the cool pics people are uploading here, so people don't have to go hunt around for them.
There is wendyshum's rustic bread full of flax, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds:
and beenjamming's sourdough with NY apples:
Whoa! I just noticed Joe Fisher's loaf shaped like a pumpkin:
(click on the image to see a large pic and what he wrote about it)
My wife purchased a copy of BBA as a birthday present some weeks back and I finally got around to using a formula from the book; in this case, the New York Deli Rye sandwich loaf. It is a definite keeper. I have been admonished to put a big star next to that particular formula.
The bread is a wonderful base for a corned beef and swiss cheese sandwich, to start with. We'll keep experimenting and see what else works, too. The onions in the bread are a a delicious complement to other savory flavors, but somehow manage not to overwhelm the other components.
Since it was my first attempt for this formula, I made sure to follow the instructions closely. I opted out of the use of caraway seeds, since my wife does not enjoy that flavor. Next time I may try either dill or fennel seeds, since it seems either of those would make a good flavor complement.
The use of commercial yeast, brown sugar and buttermilk in the formula were a bit surprising. I think that the buttermilk (and the shortening) contributed to the finished bread's moistness. For the next attempt, I will probably skip the yeast. My starter seems to have plenty of boost, so the yeast really isn't necessary to ensure an adequate rise. I do need to follow some of JMonkey's recommendations for increasing the sourness of the starter. Mine is more mild than wild in the flavor department, even with having refrigerated the second build of the starter overnight. A longer, cooler rise with no commercial yeast would probably increase the sour flavor.
The other thing that I should have done was keep a closer eye on the dough during the final rise. When I came back in from some outdoor chores to check on it, it was almost 2 inches above the edge of the pan, instead of the recommended 1 inch! Warm day plus commercial yeast--who'd have thought it? Anyway, I got lucky in that there aren't tunnels and that the bread holds together instead of crumbling in the middle of the slice, like some other over-risen breads that I have made.
All things considered, this was a very satisfactory experiment with a new recipe. And it will definitely be back for an encore.