dabrownman's blog

We love these English muffins and try to make them a little bit different each time we make them.  This time we used some of the left over SD levain for the panettone.  We made them the thickness that is called for in the recipe at 3/4” for the first time.  Normally we make them thinner since the puff so much. 

This is a levain, flour and milk on the counter overnight then sugar, salt and baking soda in the morning is added, 4 minutes of kneading and then shaping, I used a plastic drinking glass, followed by a 45 minute proof and then dry fried.  Ian used an electric skillet for his earlier this week.  After not even being thought about for decades, I saw our electric skillet in the garage the other day and it seems time to put it some good use for a change.

This batch came out the best yet but will make them ½” next time.  The EM’s made a great sandwich for breakfast this morning toasted, with butter, marmalade, sausage and egg on top.  Yummy!

If you haven’t made these yet, put then on the list - they are just too good to pass up and one of the few recipes we make over and over again – like bagels.

After the last panettone fiasco where they were under baked and plopped themselves onto the carpet when overturned on the skewers to cool, we decided to do some origami panettone molds out of one inside layer of parchment paper and one outside layer of regular printer paper.

There is no problem with the outside paper burning at 350 F.  I had seed on Susan’s Wild Yeast blog on chocolate panettone that she had made some origami panetonne molds in the shape of Easter baskets but thought that there must be some other shape that you could make to get the more traditional vertical look of panettone rather than a loaf shape.

Sure enough Sue was right.   I found an origami tall trash can liner on the internet and used that to make the panettone molds.  They came out very nice but didn’t work all that well in the end.   My apprentice was as apprehensive as last time but heck, she is afraid of her own shadow and not a reliable disaster predictor – except apparently for panettone plopping on the floor.   . 

 2 of the 3 panettone fell out of the molds when overturned to cool again, even though they were baked to 205 F (the right temperature if you ask me) on the inside instead of the recommended 185 F.   At least this time we were ready with a cutting board underneath so it didn’t plop on the kitchen tile.

The problem was that the parchment on the inside of the mold was so slippery and the bread so heavy, it just fell out even when baled correctly.  You really need paper to stick to the bread so it doesn’t slip for this to work if you want to hang them upside down to cool.  Instead of the paper on the outside, it should have been on the inside to stick to the bread.

Live and learn.   At least we were able to save on of them this time and there was no blow out on at the base.  We used Sue’s recipe with a few changes found here:

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/12/07/panettone/

The changes were instead of using commercial yeast with the SD we subbed 83 gof Yeast Water based levain for the yeast.  For the fruits we used raisins, cranberries, red and green cherries, pineapple, citron, lemon and orange peel and some home made orange peel and Minneola zest in place of the orange zest.  We also used the glaze on top too but no other toppings.

This is some pretty darn tasty, if totally; fattening, sweet, buttery and unhealthy as bread can get. 
But, if you only make it for special and rare occasions and walk 4 miles extra every day for every slice you eat – then why not!   The one that we cooled on its side, rotating every so often until cool, was not the worse for wear so no more panettone hanging for me or my apprentice.

Toasted and buttered with Minneola marmalade.  Normally I would put whipped cream on top with some chocolate sauce but i'm trying to eat better these days!

We had some left over YW levain from out panettone bake we will try to pull off today.  Rather than toss it we decided to make a baguette so we could practice our slashing and have some bread for tonight’s bruschetta.

The levain was20 god SD seed and50 gof YW that eventually totaled 160 g at 75% hydration with 50% of the flour rye, WW and spelt with  the remainder AP.   The levain was a 3 step build 4 hours apart.  The dough flour was 40 grams of the whole meal mix plus 240 g of AP along with 185 g of water and 10 g of salt. 

The total weight was 640 g and the total hydration was 66.25%.  With such a low hydration you can tell we weren’t going for holes and didn’t want bruschettta falling through them. 

We autolysed the dough flour for 2 hours and after mixing everything together we did 10 minutes of French slap and folds letting the dough rest for 20 minutes and the did 3 French folds every 20 minutes.  We let the dough rest for 20 minutes and shaped it into a 16” long fat baguette and let it proof in a basket for 2 hours before firing up Big Old Betsy. 

We should have let this dough double in volume – probably 4-6 hours but we didn’t have room in the fridge for it and time had run out so we baked it 2 ¾ hours after it hit final proof at 450 F with steam.  After 12 minutes we removed the steam and turned down the oven to 425 F, convection this time and continued to bake the baguette for 10 more minutes until the inside hit 208 F.

It browned up nicely and bloomed but no spring.  We didn’t expect much which is what we got on the inside.  Pretty dense crumb with a few small holes,  I’m sure it would have been fine if rested in the fridge for 24 hours and then allowed to finish proofing on the counter before baking.

This should warn others if you don’t have time don’t waste it by baking something that isn’t ready just because you wanted to use up some starter.  Always make sure that you have room in the fridge for a retard if you run out of time - especially if you are making  YW baggie.

This bake was similar to the last one with a few additions.  We added some spelt and rye upping the whole grains to 60%.  We upped the water roux another 40% or so because we liked the last bake so much and 40 percent more of fine tasting has to be teeth dropping,.  We added aromatic seeds including coriander, anise, black and brown caraway and fennel.  We also put in some pumpkin and sunflower seeds and some pistachio nuts.

Since this bread got larger and more weighty, we decided to make a boule instead of a loaf and hope to be able to turn it out into a round cake pan before putting it into the hot MagnaWare turkey roaster.

This bread is even wetter than the last one, in the very high 70’s at least and we didn’t want it to spread out too much so, the cake pan would have been useful to hold the boule together and keep the spread to a minimum but it wouldn't fit.

We stuck to the 4 and 40 hour method of the last bake hoping the extra whole grains wouldn’t cause the loaf to ferment too much in the fridge.  After 24 hours it looked fine so we cross our fingers and hope that it will hold up after the last loaf over proofed.

This time we will bake this bread cold out of the fridge hoping to catch it before this one can over proof.  Since we had so much add ins to incorporate, we divided them into 3 separate adds – one for each S&F.  The scald went in first followed by the aromatic seeds and then by the rest of the seeds and pistachios all 15 minutes apart.

Also trying to keep the bread from over proofing, instead of an hour of ferment on the counter after S&F’s and  after shaping we cut these down to 30 minutes each.  And instead of S&F’s this dough was so wet we did French swlap and folds to incorporate the add ins instead.  It is really weird to have an apprentice speaking French with a German accent.

The bread un-molded easily onto parchment that was lowered after a quick T-Rex slash into a cold aluminum DO.  The DO was placed into a cold oven that was set for 450 F.  When the beeper went off (about 20 minutes later), saying the oven was at temperature, we set the timer for 25 minutes of steaming woth the lid on. 

After 25 minutes we took the lid off and turned the oven down to 425 F convection this time.  5 minutes later we took the bread out of the CO and placed it on the stone where it hit 205 F on the inside in 6 minutes.  Total time in the oven cold and hot was right at 56 minutes. 

We let the boule crisp on the stone in an off oven with the door ajar for 10 minutes.  Can’t wait to cut into this bread because the smell off the aromatic seeds is quite nice and near intoxicating.  I was hoping to wait 24 hours to cut this bread open but ……

Sadly, this bread also had little spring and bloom but it didn’t collapse either – just like the last bake.  It may be that the 40 hour retard is too much when using a YW and SD levain in conjunction with a biga and Tang Zhong.  That is the great thing about bread.  With a baseline established there is no telling what might be possible.

Janet's mash with the whole multi-grains and 3 yeast boosters, seeds nuts and scald really made this bread taste fantastic.  If you were stranded on an island this is the bread you would want to take with you.  I thought the last batch was tasty but this puts it to shame. the aromatic seeds really put it over the top.  The crumb isn't as open as the last bake but this one is more glossy and it has way more whole grains that we love so much.  My apprentice finds it much more difficult to eat holes anyway.... and this bread is plenty airy enough as it is.

Formula

I had some KA WWW flour that was almost 8 months old hanging around doing nothing.  We like whole grains around here mostly but needed to get rid of the WWW in some kind of bread.  We hate throwing flour away for any reason if possible even if it flour we don’t use much.

We also wanted to try out the water roux method by using 25 g of flour mixed with 125 g of water and cooked on the stove top until it sets up like a thick gravy.  It weighed 135 g when done.  The roux was not used in the hydration calculations in the formula.  We also made a scald with wheat berries and saved the soaker water for the liquid in the dough.

After reading lumos’s post on adding a pinch of yeast to his last baguette post  we decided to go all in on a 3 way leavening by making a quick 4 hour poolish with50 gof autolyse and a pinch of yeast along with separately prepared YW and SD starters.  This is a first, at least for us if you include my faithful apprentice Lucy, at making a triple threat leavening for one loaf of bread

We were into 4’s so after we did the 4 hour scald and 4 hour poolish we did the 4 hour autolyse with the soaker water and the rest of the non leavening and  soaker ingredients.   After all of these 4’s we decided to continue with them a little longer.

We thought we would limit ourselves to a 4 hour maximum, after the autolyse met the leavens, before the finished dough hit the fridge, panned up, for a 40 hour retard as has been our norm of late.

After mixing them together with a spoon we let the dough sit for 15 minutes before starting 12 minutes of French slap and folds.  By the time you take out the time for scraping up the counter a sew times we figure we had about 10 good minutes of slapping and folding the dough around and it made a beautifully smooth ball when formed.

We then let the dough sit for 15 minutes before doing the first of 3 S&F’s that were performed 15 minutes apart.  We incorporated the scalded and soaked wheat berries on the first set and they were fairly distributed after the 3rd.

Red sky in the mnorning , baker take warning. 

We let the dough rest for 1 hour to ferment and develop before panning it up using S&F’s to try to corral this wet dough into something resembling a loaf.   Even though the dough hydration is low at 68% it really is much wetter with the roux and scald contributing extra water. It felt like a high 70’s hydration and the reason we panned it. 

We let it proof for 1 hour on the counter, in a used trash can liner (for bread only), before placing the tin of dough in the fridge for its anticipated slow proofing for 40 hours.

My apprentice gets all excited when we try something new and is always skeptical that her master can pull off these odd bakes we seem to make on the fly.   With a water roux included and an added commercial pinch poolish, her master wasn’t too sure that a 40 hour retard could be met either in all truthfulness.

You don’t know for sure how things will work out till you do and my apprentice thought we, meaning I,  could always keep and eye out for the dough to double and bake it off ahead of time if required, if we weren’t asleep - and my apprentice is asleep nearly 16 hours a day it seems.  But, it looked OK after its long proofing rest and had risen just above the lip of the tin and near ready for the oven.

We decided to bake off the loaf in the big oval Magnalite Turkey Roaster like we do some tinned other breads on occasion.  It can really do steam with the trivet insert and water on the bottom.  It puts the best crust on bread that we have discovered to date.

We took the dough out of the fridge to warm up a little and finish proofing for and hour before Betsy was fired up to heat the roster to 450 F.  The loaf was slashed right before the tin went in the roaster with a half a cup of water.  The lid went on and the roaster went back in the oven.

We steamed the bread for 15 minutes before taking the lid off, removing the bread and let it continue baking at 425 F, convection this time,  another 10 minutes.  We rotated the tin 180 degrees every 5 minutes to ensure even browning.  We also removed the bread  from the tin at the 30 minute mark and finished the baking on the oven rack.

The bread did not spring at all in the roaster or out of it but it or bloom at the cut either.  It did blister and browned up as expected though.  Well. At least it didn’t over-proof so much that it fell when slashed or in the oven.  40 hours with 2 levains  adn poolish working must have been too much for it even though it only rose to the rim of the pan. 

Can’t wait for the bread to cool and slice to see how it compares to our normal boule crumb for this kind of bread after adding in a water roux and a 3rd leaving with the 4 hour poolish. 

It is now sliced and eaten.  Just delicious.  Very wheaty in taste.  The crumb was pretty open for a bread with whole grains and so much soaker.  It had to be the 3 leavens working together.  they couldn't get it to spring and bloom but the crumb was moist as can be, tasty and chewy with the soaker.  This is a really =nice sandwich bread that can be sliced very thin which is great for those of us who need to watch out bread intake.  We like it a lot.  Toasted with butter is a dream come true.

Formula

The last bake was so nice and this one is very similar except for a few differences that….. made a difference.  The sprouts, seeds, nuts, prunes and dough flours were nearly identical except we ran out of barley berries.

Yeast water replaced the SD starter.  The YW levain used white whole wheat flour as half of the mix instead of the home milled whole grains of the previous bake.  The amount of whole grains and the hydration was increased 5% to 59% and 74% respectively.

The first 15 minutes of the bake was at 500 F instead of 450 F (because we forgot to turn it down after the pre-heat) and the resulting total bake time was reduced 15 minutes to 35 minutes.  We think the higher initial temperatures reduced the spring and the higher hydration caused the chacon to spread more as well.   The openness of the crumb was affected in that the usually large holes of the yeast water were muted .

Another change was that instead of putting the dough into the basket right after the  S& F was complete and then allowing the dough to ferment in the basket, on the counter for 1 and ½ hours before being retarded, this dough was allowed to ferment in the bowl for 1 ½ hours before being placed in the basket and then it was then immediately retarded.

Both bakes had a 40 hour retard and a 4 hour warm up on the heating pad before baking.  Instead of using decorative knots in the chacon we used balls instead since the dough was too slack to make into ropes without adding some flour. 

We were going to add some aromatic seeds like coriander and anise but forgot to put them in.   I thought that if we just put them on the top they would burn after seeing the color of the crust after yesterday’s bake. 

One thing we noticed was since the dough was much wetter it absorbed the rice flour in the basket so the white surface outlines of the last bake were mainly gone and we had a better picture of the deep, dark, mahogany color that must have been under the white on the last bake.

The crumb is more moist than the SD as was expected since YW makes a more moist crumb in bread than SD for some reason.  Glad we baked this to 206 F instead of 203 F like the SD version since it was still moist and soft.

The crumb is as open as the SD but the largest holes are in the YW version.  The most uniform holes holes are in the SD.  I never thought I would say this but, the YW multi-grain bread is more tasty, at least to my pallet which is quite unlike the Brownman I know and my apprentice loves sometimes :-)  Both breads are terrific ans some of the best that have come out of this kitchen.

Formula

This is an continuation of the last multi-grain SD bake except that the hydration is slightly lower at 68%, the multi-grain flours were 54 %, the add in goodies are increased substantially since this bread has multi-grain sprouts to go with the multi-grain soaker and we also have pumpkin and sunflower seeds, as well as, pistachio and filbert nuts with a hint of prunes too.

We like the last bake very much but we decided to bake this bread differently in that rather than baking on a stone with a combination of Sylvia’s and David’s steam, we baked this bread on a stone with a Goodwill bought DO bottom overturned on the chacon.

We followed the same method as last time with 10 min of French lap and folds but instead of using S&Fs to incorporate the scald, sprouts, seeds and nuts we used French folds every 15 minutes 3 times to incorporate the add ins and then used one S&F at the end of an hour to round out gluten development..

The dough was rested for 10 minutes before shaping the center ball of the chacon, its 4 surrounding knotted rolls and the really big bialy, made by stretching it like a pizza from the edge hanging down to cover the rest of the shapes in the basket.  Each was put into rice flour, basket side only, before being placed in a rice floured basket.

We then let the dough develop on the heating pad for 1 1/2 hours before refrigerating for 40 hours at 38 F in a plastic trash can liner.  It rose about 50% in the fridge which is what we were expecting.  We then took it out of the fridge and put it back on the heating pad for 3 hours before starting up Big Old Betsy to preheat at 500 F.

By the time Betsy got up to temperature and we added 20 minutes to the preheat, to get the stone up to 500 F too,  The dough had been on the pad for 4 hours and was still about 50% in volume greater than when it went into the basket.  We un-molded the chacon using a parchment covered peel and slid the chacon onto the stone while covering it with the DO bottom as a cloche.

After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 450 F and continued to bake it a total of 20 minutes covered and then removed the DO bottom and turned the oven down to 425 F, convection this time.

Every 5 minutes we rotated the bread on the stone 90 degrees and in another 30 minutes the bread hit 203 F and we turned off the oven cracked the door and allowed the bread to crisp on the stone for 8 more minutes before removing it to a cooling rack.  It reached 207 F while resting on the stone.

The bread really looks great on the outside, beautifully cracked and brown as one would want even though it didn’t spring much in the oven.  We didn’t expect it to spring though after it didn’t do much on the heating pad for 4 hours either. It smells terrific enough.   We sure hope this fine looker is not a brick on the inside but we will have to wait until we slice it later today, well after it cools.

Formula

We had one more batch of saved white Italian starter left over from the panettone bake which produced so much excess starter it is nearly obscene.  It was built up over 3 stages and had been previously refrigerated for several days. We decided to do an Italian bread and was torn between an Altamura Pope’s Hat or the Chacon it eventually inspired.

For breakfast a couple of days ago, we were finishing off the last 3 slices of the Eric’s Chacon; a marbling of challah with Eric’s Favorite Rye, toasted with a schmear of grilled salmon and cream cheese and decided to do a chacon in a way we had not done before.   It is funny how bread decisions get made sometimes.

We used the same whole grain variety of Kamut, rye, WW, quinoa, barley and oats with a little potato and Toady Tom’s Tasty Toasted Tidbits this time but reduced to 22% of the flours used so that the rest of the add in goodies could possibly come through a little better.  We kept to the 72% hydration of the last bake and hoped that it wouldn’t end up feeling as wet overall since the scald was deleted from this bake too.

We also decided to reduce the 36 hour retard and final proof in the fridge back to 24 hours after the last batch over-proofed at the 36 hour mark.  Reducing the whole grains in the mix should slow things down a little bit my apprentice noted as well.  She would be pretty smart sometimes if she wasn’t so dumb, if cute, otherwise.

We used a high percent of levain (20%) of the total dough weight again, which is more than we normally would use if we were going for sour, but that is what we had left over and after refreshing it to bread speed.

Some fine bakers like to use large levain amounts in their bakes like Peter Reinhart and our own Ian.  This might have contributed to the over proofing of the last bake though and another reason to go with a 24 hour retarded proof this time. But, after 15 hours it sure hasn’t proofed itself up much in the fridge.

The method was the same this time as the last bake except for the 24 hour final proof and retard in the fridge and we divided the dough into two, not to make two different loaves but to make two different kinds of bread in one chacon.

One half of the dough had kalamata olives, home made sun dried tomatoes and grated asiago cheese added to it and the other half had fresh rosemary, garlic and grated parmesan cheese.  Now that sounded pretty Italian to me but I cut the salt down some to account for the salt in the add ins.

The chacon started with an olive knotted roll in the middle surrounded by a rosemary twisted rope.  The rope was surrounded by balls of alternating doughs.  The remaining dough was separated into 2 ropes each and made into an alternating 4 strand round challah shape.

The ends were braided but instead of being tucked under they were rotated to the side to make the challah larger in diameter.  This was placed on top of the rest of the shapes in the basket.  It didn’t quite cover but we didn’t want to smoosh it up too much to see what the shape would be like on the bottom of the loaf after baking.  Why should top get all the pretty decoration?

This dough was still pretty wet, much wetter than our normal chacon dough, so it will be interesting to see how the shapes come though the cracking stage when baked.  Hopefully it will still crack as expected.  If it tastes half as good as it smells before baking, we will have some fine Italian bread to eat.

Just checked on it and this bread needs much more time in the fridge to proof right so, 36 hours is back on the table but it will have to be 40 hours because I’m not putting this bread in the oven a 5 AM!  Or 10 AM either.

Just put it on the heating pad to warm up and proof before we heat up Big Old Betsy.  It should bake it in A DO to be consistent with the last bake but consistency is far from my baking prowess.

Wow! After 42 plus hours in the fridge and on the counter this bread baked up the deepest, richest, mahogany color with blisters I have seen on any bread coming out of our Big GE.  It was baked on a stone at 500 F for 2 minutes and then an additional 12 minutes at 450 F all under steam with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming pans and a 12” skillet with lava rocks, ala David Snyder, that I threw a half cup of water into as I closed the door.

 This chacon is awfully handsome on the outside and it sure smells just as tasty too.  Can’t wait to slice this bread and have a taste but I will – at least till it cools.  Sadly, all the intricate balls didn't crack due to too much hydration.  The challah on the bottom didn't even show a sign of being there much less crack.

I turned the oven off and cracked the door when the chacon got to 203 F since it was so dark and let it sit on the stone till it hit 205 F on the inside.

The crumb came out not quite as open as the last bake but it was moist and soft.  The crust went softer as it cooled but was mighty tasty and chewy.  This bread is delicious and I can't wait to have it with some lemon flavored olive oil, fresh Italian herbs, black pepper and Italian grated cheese.  This is some kind of delicious that should be patented or illegal.

Formula

This is the first bread bake in 2013 and we wanted to get back to our favorite every day bread type; a sourdough multi-grain with a multigrain scald or with multigrain sprouts or both.  This time we use a scalded soaker and finally got around to putting some cream cheese in the mix ala Ian’s many breads with cheese.

2 days before dough mixing we got the 100% hydration levain going over two builds that took 12 hours and then it was retarded for 36 hours in the fridge

The day before the dough mixing, we scalded the multi-grain berries and set them aside to soak for 24 hours.  We used a little more water than normal in hopes of having some left over soaker water that we could use for part of the liquid in the dough.

The night before dough mixing we strained off the soaker water, replacing it with fresh hot water, and used this along with additional water to autolyse the flours, potato flakes, malts, salt, Toady Tom’s and Tasty and Toasted Tidbits overnight on the 64 F counter.

The whole grain home ground flours included oats, rye, whole wheat spelt, Kamut, quinoa and barley.  Home made red and white malts were used as was the new favorite flavor booster; TTTTT’s, a toasted mix of wheat bran, wheat germ, oat bran and sifted middling of various home ground flours.

Once the levain and autolyse came together in the mixing bowl and were hand mixed to incorporate the wet with the dry, we started French slap and folds.  The gluten developed very well and after 10 minutes the 72% hydration dough was taught, smooth and glossy.

After a 15 minute rest in a covered, oiled bowl, the first of (3) S&F’s 15 minutes apart, was completed.  The soaked grain berries were drained and dried with a paper towel and incorporated with the cream cheese on the 2nd S&F.  By the 3rd S&F, the cream cheese and grain berries were evenly distributed and the dough was much looser and wet.  It felt like about a 78% hydration dough.

The completed dough was allowed to ferment and develop on the counter for 1 hour before dividing into two loaves and pre-shaped into balls.  The final shaping into boules happened 10 minutes later and the dough was placed seam side up into rice floured baskets.

The baskets were sealed into a nearly new, trash can liner and allowed to ferment and develop on the counter for 1 hour before being placed into the fridge for a long and low temperature 36 hour retard at 36 F.

No peaking was allowed but my apprentice did look at the 24 hour mark.  After a peek she thought we should bake them off after letting them warm up but I decided to bake them off after the full 36 hours and bake them off cold instead.

We fired up old Betsy to500 Fand put our two favorite thick aluminum DO’s, the Magna Ware Oval Turkey Roaster with trivet insert and a great round Goodwill find,  inside the beast to heat.

After 36 hours the dough looked over proofed by volume but, after poking it, the dough was so cold it didn’t know it was even being poked.  I took this as a sign to get them in the DO’s very cold so they wouldn’t collapse.

I considered not slashing them at all to keep possible deflating disturbances to a minimum but finally did one with a single central slash and the other with a top mounted triangle.  Both took a nose dive in height afterwards but we hoped they might recover in the oven.

Into the hot DO’s they went with a ¼ c of water and into the oven followed.  We lowered the temperature to 450 F 2 minutes after the DO’s hit the oven and continued to steam them for a total of 20 minutes before taking the lids off and baking them at 425 F, convection this time, for 10 minutes rotating the DO’s ever 5 minutes.

At the 30 minute mark we took the bread out of the DO’s and finished the baking on the stone.  This took another 10 minutes, rotating them every 5 minutes, before the inside temperature reached 205 F.  They then rested on the stone with the oven off and door ajar for 10 minutes before being moved to the cooling rack.

The boules didn’t spring so much as spread.  We expected this due to the over proofing but they did blister up, crack and brown deeply with a decent bloom.  The crust was very crunchy crispy as it acme out of the oven and stayed more crispy than chewy as it cooled.

The crumb is open, moist, slightly glossy and soft.  The cheese really helped out the crumb and it is one of the nicest ones we have baked for this kind of bread.  It tastes terrific and will be one of favorite sandwich breads going forward.

We really like this bread and if the hydration was a little lower, say 68, before the soaker went in, we think it would have lifted more and spread less.

Karin had a great post for Dan Lepard's brat filled Stilton cheese puff paste appetizers here:

Dan Lepard's Stilton Crust Sausage Rolls - My First Bake of 2013

We used half Johnsonville Hot Italian sausage and half Jimmy Dean Sage breakfast sausage in place of brats.  We cooked them together in a skillet, as Breadsong suggested, to try to reduce the fat as much as we could.

We also decided to bake them on their side so that any fat could drain though instead of onto the puff paste below.  This allowed the paste to puff up nicely all around the sausage.

In order to get the cooked sausage to hold itself together in a log, we added some grated aged white cheddar cheese to it while it was still warm and then rolled it into a log using plastic wrap before refrigerating  – it worked.

We rolled the puff paste out thinner than normal like Karin and put grated asiago cheese on it, instead of blue cheese, and then folded it over to make a double thickness with the cheese inside. 

The cooled sausage log was put on top of the puff paste with some slices of brie cheese and then the puff paste was folded over the top and the edges crimped with a fork before refrigerating.

Once cooled, the log was sliced into 6 pieces and the slices were placed on parchment meat side up.  After egg washing additional grated cheese, this time 6 Italian cheese blend, was placed on the meat circles like topping a pizza.

Into a 400 F convection oven it went for 25 minutes and rotated  90 degrees every 6 minutes until golden.

Yummy,Yummy, Yummy…….Thanks Karin – No Hemps seeds in mine either - so I served them on the side!