dabrownman's blog

This chacon is a tribute to Eric Hanner.  His gifts to the world were many and his passion for balking was great.  His fine character attributes included his generosity that made him willing to help and teach others what he knew.  Eric’s legacies are many and this bake commemorates them.  He was a giant and this chacon is especially large to recognize his largess.

The white portion of the dough is a 6 strand zolablue SD Challah that we converted to a poolish from SD.  The 4 braided ends were not tucked in to give the chacon more of chance to crack making a pretty design on the top.

The dark portion is Eric’s Favorite SD Rye – his Jewish Deli Rye was used as a monster bialy to cover the braids of the challah in the bottom of the basket.  This is the largest bialy we have ever attempted and flipping it over was sight to be seen.

The 5 recipe changes I made to Eric's Favorite were minor ones.  First one was to use 95 g of the challah poolish in place of yeast in Eric’s dough.  We only had 2.5 g of caraway so I added a like amount of coriander.  We added 1 g each of red and white rye malts to improve enzymatic action, the rye flavor and color – while Eric wasn't looking.

My apprentice used caramelized onions and the water from it and the deglazed pan instead of re-hydrating minced onions as Eric recommended.  The flavor and color of caramelized onion should make this as exciting as Eric wrote about using onion and the water from it in this bread.  He wanted everyone to give this option a go!

I also didn’t have any first clear flour and have never seen any, so we tried to replicate it using David Snyder’s ideas on how to do so from another thread by using some WW mixed with AP and bread flour.  We don’t know what it should look like but David’s advice is usually spot on.  I don’t think Eric would have minded theses changes.

Method changes included using French slap and folds for both of the breads - for about 12 minutes.  Eric’s Favorite Rye was a two slaps and one fold process since the dough was so stiff and required the extra slap to stretch it out enough to fold over.  Eric was the one who got me doing French slap and folds and my breads have been greatly improved as a result.

2 sets of (4) S&Fs were also performed on 30 minute intervals for the first hour of development and then the dough was rested for an hour.  After shaping and putting the dough in the rice floured basket ,we let it proof for an hour before putting it into the fridge for a 15 hour retard.

This is not part of Eric’s method but we just ran out of time to bake it off and this was the best we could manage.  We fired up Old Betsy to preheat at 450 F with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming pans and a 12” iron skillet with lava rocks inside like David Snyder  sort of uses- while the dough warmed upon the counter for 40 minutes.  This is huge lump of dough, 3.8 pounds of it and it need lots of steam.

Once the dough went in and we threw a half a cup of water on the lava rocks as we shut the door and turned the temperature down to 370 F.  We decided to steam for 20 minutes instead of 10.  At the 10 minute mark the cracks had barely opened on the huge loaf and more steam was needed.

At the 20 minute mark, the steam was removed and the bread continued to bake at 370 F, convection this time, for an additional 26 minutes rotating it 70 degrees every 7 minutes until it registered 190 F in the center.  We left it on the stone for another 10 minutes with oven off and door ajar to crisp the skin before removing it to a cooling rack.

It browned up a dark mahogany color that was so nice I decided not to coat it with the corn starch and water mix.  Even the challah portion was the same color.  It blistered very well on the challah portion but not on the rye side for some reason?

It bloomed while cracking beautifully and at least looks the fitting tribute to Eric that we had hoped to achieve - at least on the outside.  Well, coundn't wait 24 hours to cut into it since showed promise and smelled tantalizing.  The crumb was soft nice and moist and medium open especially on the rye side. 

The taste would be straight Jekyll if there wasn't a Hyde Side.  One bite is a fine Jewish Rye with subtle caraway and coriander hints, the next a straight Shabot Challah and then comes a half and half combo bite.

Here are the formulas should you want to make a Chacon for Eric.  I sure enjoyed doing so and we learned much from this baking experience. It was great time to reflect, day dream a little and think about the past, present and future.

The sunset was very niuce the day we baked this bread.  I think someone really important knew a nice one for Eric was in order.

Eric’s Jewish Deli Rye – Eric’s Favorite Rye

My Daughter’s summer kitchen apprenticeship with my other apprentice seems to have stuck.  She recently made Thai Green Curry Chicken for her boyfriend, - from memory and she quickly impressed Ole Dad with her remembering how to do French slap and folds and stretch and folds on her Thanksgiving rolls that she is always in charge of making for dinner.   

She also is in charge of the gravy since she is the Gravy Queen and this year’s was the best yet and she decided to not put a splash of cognac in to start the de-glazing – no wine either!  Who knew gravy could be so good without either?

Look at those yellow specks from Toady Tom's Toasted Tidbits !

We made up this recipe as we went along.  After we scraped the small polish plastic tub down thoroughly to make the last bread for the stuffing, we put some more flour and water in the tub hoping the leftovers would be enough to start a new batch of polish.   24 hours of counter fermenting later, it was bubbling and ready to go.

We decided to make 8 rolls of 100 g each and wanted the polish to be 15% of the final dough.  We used 5 g of Toady Tom’s, Tasty, Toasted Tidbits for some extra flavor and brown speckles, 25 g of WWW flour, 25 g of butter, 2% salt and 72.2% hydration.

The final exam Bakers percentage test question was:  If the butter was 20% water and using equal parts of cream and water for the liquid, how much AP and Bread flour were required if the AP flour was 3 times as much ad the bread flour and how much cream and water were used?

Yep the mini put some blisters on these rolls.

We hear that professional bread baking instructors use questions like this for their students even though they aren't allowed to beat them for answering incorrectly like the old days and private instructor’s still can today…..  The trick follow up question was, if we would have remembered to put milk in for the water portion of the liquid, added 10g of potato flakes,  1 egg and 10g of honey in to make them more soft roll like, instead of french bread like,  how many grams of extra milk or flour would you have to add to keep the hydration the same?

Very nice french bread but not really the soft rolls we usually enjoy.  Great with butter and jam though . My wife said they would make fine croutons or bread crumbs and my daughter said she is making biscuits next holiday in a month or so :-)

Daughter's French slap and fold tutorial....hard to believe it became that beautiful dough ball.

We didn't have time for an autolyse because the turkey, that my furrier apprentice was in charge of, was going to be done in 5 hours - so time was as short as her legs.   After mixing everything together, my daughter got right into a good rhythm of French slap and folds for 10 minutes. 

Next thing you know the dough was resting in a plastic covered bowl for 30 minutes before a set of S&F’s were done and it was back in the bowl for 1 1/2 hours of fermenting after once again impressing with her boule shaping and skin tightening techniques. 

The dough was divided into 8 pieces.  6 of the dough balls were divided again into two pieces.  The remaining 2 large 100g pieces were folded and then free formed into rolls on parchment and the other, smaller pieces were used to make 6 rolls in a muffin tin - 2 to a tin opening.  Then they were to proof for a couple of hours and be ready to bake.

Sadly, the increasingly de-focused appearing apprentice somehow managed to get the really big chicken done 1 1/2 hours early.  This was probably through faulty calculations that did not require the actual calculus poorly used - if not totally incorrectly applied.

The other college educated apprentice’s fine rolls were no where near proofed and would not be ready for the mini oven’s blistering heat until after the Thanksgiving dinner dishes were done.

They were eventually baked at 350 F in the mini oven for 8 minutes with steam and the baked for another 15 minutes at 350 F, convection this time.  We rotated the rolls every 5 minutes to make sure that they baked up evenly brown.  They sure puffed themselves up well once they hit the steam 

Thankfully, we have Thanksgiving Dinner all over again the next day, usually a Friday for some reason, as a bizarre, if totally fulfilling, as well as, filling, tradition started by my Great, Great, Great, Granny C now deceased neigh on 150 years.

The Ozark Mountains have never been the same since Granny C died and was buried at Dooley’s but Uncle Jed, Ellie Mea and Jethro were all better for her lording over and caring for them and the rest of us wouldn't even be here without her either.  So the rolls will be half polished off tonight in the Thanksgiving Dinner After.

When I went to freeze half the rolls last night, I noticed that 1 was missing and it is hard to freeze half of 7 without making a mess of one of them.   I suspected the badly calculating, if cute, apprentice managed to sneak a taste of the missing when I saw her licking her chops and sticking her tongue out at me in her ‘that was delicious’ grin.

So we won’t be able to take a look at the inside or have a taste till later tonight but I’m guessing they are pretty good from the look on Lucy’s face.

Happy Thanksgiving to all Fresh Lofian’s everywhere. 

It has been over a week with the stollen being wrapped in cotton and sealed in its tin coffin where the back porch would be if we had one.  Instead we have a covered patio.  So we took it out, leaving its sister to ripen until the next Holiday and decided to gussie it up some to be traditional - a non traditional Brownman trait.  Here it is naked but looking like a million dollars  on a pretty 50 cent Goodwill Stollen Plate.

Then we buttered it up with a pastry brush.

Then, taking a cue from a fine Fresh Lofian Baker suggestion, gmabaking,  we decided to make a lemon juice and powdered sugar glaze to sprinkle off a spoon for decoration.

Then to get back to the traditional stollen page we dusted it with some powered sugar to make it look like the first time it has ever snowed at the Brownman AZ abode.

Then it was time to slice it open and see if it was as festive on the inside as the outside.

The snow was melting fast in the hot AZ desert but is sure was purdy on the inside.

It tasted wonderful and a grateful shout out goes to nellapower for her original Dresden Stollen recipe that was used as the basis for this version of Not So Stollen.  The citrus peel, pistachio nuts and snockered fruits really come through.  The lemon /sugar drizzle was especially nice too thanks to gmabaking.  Not at all as heavy as a fine English fruit cake or a German one like my apprentice.   Can't wait to see what the sister will look and taste like in about another 4 weeks or so. 

Served with some cold French Silk ice cream and a little chocolate sauce.

Can being sealed in a tin and subject to the 40 F to 75 F daily AZ temperature fluctuations really be good for Not So Stollens?

Here is a link to the original Not So Sollen post if yu want the recipe and methods:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30996/not-so-stollen

And our choice for a perfect Not So Stollen accompaniment - a Not So Champagne Cupcake Prosecco

Thanks goes out to John01473 for foindin the errors in the spreadsheet for thos and the SD Stuffing Bread Post.  Same spreadsheet - same errors.  Now all is fixed.  Nice catch John!

We made the SD portion of the Thanksgiving really big chicken stuffing yesterday and today we did the polish version of white bread for the stuffing.  We only have 8% whole grains in this bread and started the poolish for it yesterday. 

We made a little extra poolish for some Parker House rolls we don’t need at all, with the piles of dressing too, but we make them anyway so we can blitz the leftover rolls into bread crumbs for other stuff.

The poolish was started with 1/8 tsp of active dry yeast with equal amounts of AP flour and water and allowed to ferment at room temperature for 5 hours before refrigerating it overnight.

While the poolish warmed up for two hours the next day we autolysed the flours, salt toasted bits and water to make sure the flour was hydrated.

After mixing the autolyse with the poolish we did 10 minutes of French slap and folds and then allowed the dough to rest and develop for 2 hours in a plastic covered oiled bowl - with no stretch and folds – not one.

After 2 hours we pre-shaped and then final shaped an oval for the oval rice floured basket and set it aside to proof for 2 hours at room temperature in a grocery plastic shopping bag.   It was handy and people don’t get nearly as upset with me as normal when they find out the dough was proofed in used trash can liners.

When the dough was proofed it was un-molded onto a parchment covered broiler pan for the mini oven, smartly slashed and placed into the 500 F pre-heated mini oven with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming cups.  We tossed in half cup of water into the bottom of the mini oven for some instant steam shut the door and turned down the temperature to 450 F after 2 minutes..
 We steamed the oval for a total of 12 minutes before removing the steam and turning the temperature down to 425 F, convection this time.  We baked it for another 15 minutes, (27 total), and turned it 120 degrees every 5 minutes to make sure it baked evenly and actually turned it on its top for 5 minutes to make sure the bottom baked as well as top.

When the internal temperature registered 205 F, we turned off the oven, left the bread inside the mini with the door ajar for 10 minutes to let the skin crisp.  The bread’s temperature rose to 210F while resting. It was then moved to a cooling rack for an hour to cool. 

It sure baked up nicely on the outside, sprang well, has the mini's blisters and nice brown color.  We had one slash that blew out for some reason too.  Sure smells good, but we will have to wait for it to cool before we can look inside,

The crumb came out fairly open, was a beautiful light yellow color, moist and tasted terrific - especially with butter.  You forget how good commercial yeast bread can be if you haven't made it for awhile.  It really is delicious even if it isn't sour :-)  It will be perfect for tomorrow's stuffing.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Formula

Thanks goes out to John01473bwho found the errors the formula spreadsheet and the one for Poolish Stuffing Bread too.  Nice catching John!

Originally we were going to make some soup bowls for the squash soup our daughter requested when she comes home today from college.  But, we just wouldn’t eat that much bread at one time and it would go to waste once it got soggy.

So we decided to make some whitish SD bread that we can use to make Thanksgiving stuffing for the really big chicken we plan to have for dinner on Thursday.

The whole grains were rye, spelt and whole wheat and the toasted bits, which we like very much, were inspired by Toady Tom’s.  These were a combination of the extraction from some white whole wheat we sifted out in a moment of insanity, some wheat germ and some oat bran.

The levain was built from 1 g of rye sour and Desem starter that was allowed to double over 12 hours.  The only weird thing we did for this bake was to use toasted coconut juice for the liquid in the dough.  It has 14 g of sugar in it according to the label but we ate the toasted coconut part and just used the juice.

Since our standard dressing has everything in it but the kitchen sink, a surprise to many of you I’m sure and goes against our Spartan outlook, we though a sweet coconut bread would go well with the dried fruits in the stuffing mix.

This bread has followed our recent trend of long slow levain build at room temperature using 1 g of starter.  A 2 hour autolyse the with the dough flours, liquid and salt is included before a quick mix of autolyse and levain with a spoon, 10 minutes of French slap and folds followed by 3 sets of S&F’s on 30 minute intervals.

We then shaped the dough into a boule and rice flour basketed the dough for a 90 minute of proofing / ferment at room temperature in a nearly new trash can liner before 12 hours of cold ferment in the 36 F fridge. 

Out of the fridge it came to be allowed to ferment some more at room temperature for 3 hours before being un-molded, slashed with Ian’s signature T-Tex moniker and into the 500 F mini oven it went with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming Pyrex cups heated in the microwave.

After 2minutes we turned the temperature down to 450 F and continued to steam for 12 minutes total.  The boule sprang and blistered nicely as the mini + steam is prone to put on bread.  We then removed the steaming cups and  baked at 425 F, convection this time, for 15 minutes turning the boule 120 degrees every 5minutes.

5 minutes after the steam came out, we turned the boule over on its top for 5 minutes to make sure the bottom got nicely browned too.  At a total baking time of 27 minutes, the internal temperature hit 205 F.  We shut down the heat, left the door ajar and the boule in the mini to crisp the crust a little further.  After 10 minutes we took the bread out to cool on a cooling rack.

It sure smells good but we will let it rest before cutting it open and see what it looks like.  Its cu now and we have the nice open crumb we get with this process.  Nice and glossy crumb that is moist and flecked with toasted bits.  It tastes delicious too.  A very nice bread that when combined with some poolish white and somce SD dark should make for a nice stuffing with variety and color - just like the lunches we like..

Formula

After the difficult and tedious Not So Stollen bake earlier in the week, we decide to continue our Thanksgiving bake list with something much simpler, less stressful even if not as enjoyable.

After seeing Toady Tom’s fantastic large miche bake and the excellent crust he managed to put on it, we decided to do a large loaf too only using the chacon shape we love to make since it too can produce a beautiful crust if it naturally splits where we would like as it springs and blooms in the oven heat.

We also wanted to try out a toasted wheat germ, soft white wheat extract and oat bran component similar to Toad’s to see what it tasted and looked like in the chacon.  All but 10g went into the dark side.

Instead of using our recent 1  starter and 24 hour counter levain development we went back to our roughly 20% seed levain for the SD starter required for this bake.   One levain was Rye Desem combo SD for the heartier darker portion of the loaf that has 2all of the whole grains listed for the starter. 

The other levain was a YW one that was fed with cake meal, another new ingredient for bread making for us.  Many folks use this ground matzo altus for their lemon, poppy seed walnut cakes or possibly a chiffon cake of any number of possible flavors.  We decided to try it out in the whiter portion of this bread only to see what it tasted like and how it performed in two different kinds of bread.

The instant coffee and the cocoa were only used in the dark portion to, you guessed it, make it darker than the light colored portion.  We also used some yogurt whey water for some of the liquid in both portions with 2/3rds of it going into the dark side.  The sprouts were also split between the two sides in the same proportion as the whey water - 2/3rds to the dark. 

In order to finish the breakout, the white portion ended up being 500 g with 100 g of the AP and bread flour and 80 g of the whole grains in the bread flour and 10g of the toasted bits.  Total flour and toasted stuff was 290 g and the liquid was 210 g (42 g whey) for a little over 72.4% hydration not counting any of the 1/3 of the sprout total that went into it.

With the malts, oats, and potato flakes on in the dark side the hydration of it was 82%.

The fun part was putting together the largest chacon we have ever made.  The center knotted roll is made from the light side and the side going down into the basket is sprinkled with rice flour.  It was surrounded by a twisted rope from the dark side.   The 4 other knotted rolls, on the cardinal direction points, were made from equal portions of dark and light that were ropes twisted together to make one rope.  The 4 little balls between the 4 twisted knotted rolls were from the light side.  Remember to rice flour anything that will touch the basket so it doesn't stick - and don't rice flour anything else so it sticks together.

What was left over was two light ropes that were placed on the spread out remaining dark side.  The long sides of the dark were folded over the light ropes to encapsulate them making a long rectangle.  The shot sides of the rectangle were folded over to the middle making a near square where the corners were folded into the center making a circle that was quickly shaped as a boule.

This boule was pressed out gently into a large bialy with the center indentation equal in size to the circle of knotted rolls, ropes and balls already in the basket.  The large bialy was floured around the edge that would contact the basket with rice flour and flipped over so the indentation covered the knotted rolls and the assembly was basically flat on top when finished. 

We hope this assembly will make a very pleasing marbled look when the chacon is cut.  Otherwise it was a waste of time and effort…something every baker is well used to if they have been baking more than a couple of minutes with an apprentice that is nearly all paws, bark and ankle bite.

The levains were formed by mixing, letting them double over about 4 hours or so and then chucking them in the fridge for 24 hours to build the labs while suppressing the yeast.   The flours and toasted bits were autolysed with the liquids and the salt for 2 hours as the levains came back to room temperature a day later.

Once the autolye and the levain were combined for each, the gluten was developed with 15 minutes of French slap and folds.  Then 4 sets of S&F’s wee done fpor each where the sprouts were incorporated on the 3rd set.  The dough’s were allowed to develop for 1 ½ hours on the counter before being retarded in a36 F fridge for 15 hours.

They were allowed to warm up for 1 ½ hours before being formed into the chacon and the allowed to proof at room temperature for 2 hours before firing up old Betsy and her16”round stone,  to preheat at 500 F for 20 minutes before 2 of Sylvia’s steaming pans were added.

After 45 minute of total pre-heat the chacon was un-molded easily from the basket using parchment and peel.  It slid into the oven off the peel when a 1/2 C of water was thrown into the bottom of the oven for extra initial steam and the door closed.  The temperature was turned down to 450 F the steaming was done at the 20 minute mark when the pans were removed and the temperature turned down to 425 F, convection this time.

In another 20 minutes the bread was exactly 205 F in the middle and beautifully and evenly brown from rotating it 90 degrees on the stone every 5 minutes after the steam came out.  At the 40 minute total mark, we turned off the heat and left the oven door ajar as the chacon continued to crisp on the stone for another 10 minuets before removal to the cooling rack.

The chacon didn't spring all that much and might have been a little over proofed but it did bloom and crack as expected.  It is a very pretty large chacon and we can’t wait for it to cool down and rest for awhile before we cut it ....   and see if anything interesting happened inside.

Now that it is cut..... the light and dark did learn to play well together.  We are pleased that it is so pretty on the inside and fitting for such a gorgeous outside.   The crumb is fairly open for so many add ins and whole grains.  The dark is tangy sour while the white is a little sweet, maybe sue to the Cake meal, has no tang and is a little moister as YW tends to impart in crumbs everywhere.  A very nice combination of two tastes.  The toasted bits tend to come through more on the dark side and the millet crunch is prevalent throughout.  This bread will have to to to the top of the chacon list and into the top 15 of our all time top 5 favorites.  I'm glad we made a big one.

Formula

  10 g each of instant coffee and cocoa went into the dark side only.

This So Not Stollen is based on a modification to a real Dresden Christmas Stollen recipe that was posted by nellapower here:  Refer to it for most of the method with a few exceptions below.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25407/dresden-christmas-stollen

I just figured that if you replaced the commercial yeast with SD it would be SD Stollen and if you replaced some of the white flour with other grains..... it would be SD Multi-grain Stollen?  But others might not think so.

I'd be surprised there isn't a SD multi-grain stollen out there somewhere since just about everything in the bread world has already been done by some baker like nellapower already. But it might be called something else like Sourdough Multi-grain Dried Fruit Bread.

Of course that is not all my apprentice did to this recipe either. She is diabolical with her changes and modifications – and can’t be stopped when she gets rolling along.  She wasn't sure SD alone could lift this lump of multi-grain properly so...... instead of the commercial yeast in the recipe we threw in some YW into the SD levain to give it an uplifting boost.

We used a 24 hour 1% starter counter top levian build with all of the whole grains (30%) in the levain. I think long slow levain builds with whole grains enhance the flavor and sour of the bread.  We used home ground spelt, rye, kamut and some farina for fun.  We made our own citrus peels by taking off the skin only with a XOX veggie peeler and boiled them 3 times before drying them and coating them in home made vanilla sugar.

We upped the alcohol some by adding some home made limoncello and arancello to enhance the orange and lemon peel and also used the traditional dark rum and amaretto too - in total about 50% more proportionally so...... no water was required in the fruit soak.  The fruit soaked up all the hooch but it was still wet.

She decided to cut back some of the dried fruits a little and added walnuts and pistachios in their place for a little crunch.  She also added a large amount of YW marinated apple and cherry pieces used to feed the YW (that we had frozen previously) to get closer to the original recipe fruit amounts.  We found them hanging out in the freezer door doing nothing but talking up precious Holiday freezer space – so in they went..

To cut some of the fat, not that it reduces it much with all the butter and lard in this recipe, we replaced some of the cream with Mexican Media Creama.   We really like the flavor of it in flans and thought it would work well here too.  She decided to replace some of the white sugar with dark brown sugar hoping it would pair better with the dark rum which is still made from molasses if you buy the good stuff - but this dark rum wasn't good enough for that.

We added some nutmeg to the spice list too thinking a little more spice would go well with the extra liquors.  We forgot to add the ground almonds to the fruit to sop of some of its wetness and put it into the dough flour by mistake.  So, we added 125 g or bench flour when we added the fruits to keep the overall hydration closer to the original.  We ended up using  50 g more hooch than we should have according to the recipe.

We were basically cutting this recipe in half and the kneading would have been easier with half a lump but, also we changed the methods slightly by cutting in all the fat into the flours before adding the 2 creams.  The creams were supposed to be part of the levains but, with theYW in the levain, we used water there instead.

This made the kneading easy since we could do 15 minutes of slap and folds before adding in the fruits and nuts and the 125 g of bench flour.  The dough tightened itself back up as we folded the add ins into the dough.  This method is much closer to short crust pasty and stollen is much closer to short crust pasty than it is to bread if you ask me.

We retarded the bulk dough in the fridge overnight after allowing it to proof on the counter for 2 hours.  We shaped the dough right after coming out of the fridge and allowed it to proof for 8 more hours on the counter before baking.

We made the dough into 2 boules because they needed to fit in the round tin my apprentice found in the garage.  My apprentice thinks she is related no only to Emperess Ying but also to Rin Tin Tin.  So finding one was easier for her than it would have been for me.

These Not So Stollen will be wrapped in cotton cloth and placed for 6 weeks in a beautiful blue holiday tin with silver snowflakes.  It held last year’s Holiday Topsy’s Pop Corn from KCMO and Lucy saved it for a reason like this..  The outside temperatures at night have finally gone into the 40’s and the daytime temps are in the mid 70’s so we hope that will do for the stollen siesta.

We baked it for 1 ½ hours at 350 F and turned off the oven when the stolen hot 203 F.  We didn’t know what temperature it was supposed to be in the inside and we had to cover the Not So Stollen at the 50 minute mark so it wouldn’t get too brown.  They spread rather than sprang but they will still fit in the tin, yea!!  This Not SO Stollen looks and smells terrific and not being able to eat it for 6 weeks…… should be illegal !!

Once again, we are getting pretty far away from the nellapower’s original recipe for this Modified Dresden Christmas Stollen even though they are still quite similar in concept except for these minor changes :-)  I do plan on storing it for 6 weeks wrapped in cotton like a stollen, even though thsi probably isnlt one.  The Not So Stollen is the perfect name for this different, if not unusual attempt to make a stollen of some 3^rd kind.

Thanks to nellapower for posting her original recipe and her help in our making something close to it conceptually.

 Formula 

Continuing our experiment with 1% SD seed and long counter top ferment and proofing we tried out several new ideas with this bake.  The average kitchen temperature over the 24 hours was 77 F degrees.

First we upped the whole grains to 17.5% to try to improve the flavor and sour further and we changed to prunes and brazil nuts, one of Andy’s favorite combination that we like very much, while keeping the pumpkin and sunflower seeds.  We added a bulgar scald to improve the flavor and texture of the bread and also upped the hydration slightly to compensate for the slightly more whole grains.

We combined and mixed everything except the nuts, fruits, seeds and bulgar scald and let it autolyse for 30 minutes.  Then we did 13 minutes of French Slap and folds before adding in the rest of the ingredients and doing another 2minutes if slap and folds to incorporate the add ins.

The dough was then left on the counter top for 21 hours to ferment and develop.  We learned from out last bake that 20 hours was better with another 4 hours on the counter after shaping to proof.  But we didn’t get up in time so we have what we have – just like always - no worries.

We shaped and panned this bread as a loaf this time with a few seeds on top and let it proof for 4 hours on the counter before going into the 450 F oven with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming pans to steam for 12 minutes.  At the 12 minute mark the steam was removed and the oven was turned down to 425 F, convection this time.

It baked for another 10 minutes after being turned 180 degrees after 5 minutes and removed from the pan.  When it registered 205 F we turned the oven off and let the loaf crisp for 10 minutes before being removed from the oven to the cooling rack. This bread tastes as amazingly sour as the fig and pistachio bread did but it has a deeper flavor thanks to the bulgar scald and the extra whole grains.  The crust was so crunchy and stayed that way even after it cooled - very nice.  The crumb is  not as open as the previous bake but it is just as soft and moist.   We also like the extra seeds with the fruit and nuts too.  Much better bread all the way around.

Formula

We decided to take our 1% SD starter experiment to the dark side by using much more whole grains; mainly rye and add some yeast water into the mix to try to open the crumb.  Our previous YW experiments show that YW can open the crumb dramatically more than what SD seed can do on its own when it comes to high percent whole grain breads.

With Thanksgiving less than 2 weeks away we decided to make a small cocktail loaf of rye bread flavored with cocoa, coffee and caraway.  To bolster the flavor and texture of the medium rye bread further we added some scalded rye chops to the 82.5 % hydration mix.

Like Phil says - When it cracks it is ready to go in the oven.  In this case the bran flakes worked perfectly. 

We have no experience to go on using low amounts of SD and YW seeds and long counter top fermentation when using higher amounts of home milled grains.  So we made a wild guess at how long the process should take.  We decided to knock 5 hours off the total 24 hour time and to not add the 5 g YW to the mix until 5 hours after the fermentation started.

It was ready to pan up in 16 hours and it proofed, nearly doubling and cracking the bran sprinkled on top in 4 hours  We baked it with 2 of Sylvia's steaming cups in the mini oven at 450 F for 15 minute. The steam was removed and the temperature was turned down to 350 F and baked for another 10 minutes before being de-panned and baked for another 5 minutes after turning the bread 180 degrees on the oven rack. 

It was left in the off oven, door ajar for 10 minutes to continue to crisp the crust and then removed to he cooling rack.  From the outside the loaf has potential.  It smells beautiful and is quite attractive for a brown lump of a bread covered in bran.  We hope that the crumb is as open as the last rye bake that was 100% whole rye.  We await 24 hours to see if the yeast water worked its magic once again.

24 hours later and this bread turned out open, moist 1/4"slicing is no problem and best of all just plain delicious.  You don't taste the coffee and cocoa and even the caraway is subtle.  It is lovely plain, toasted, buttered and a nice coctail bread for the Holidays.

Formula 

To see the beginning of this bake go to the following link and go down below *********************************

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30755/sd-starter-experiment-how-long-can-it-ferment-counter-goo-overtakes-it

This is about as fool proof, something we need around here, SD bread imaginable that only takes 7 g of starter and 24 hours of basically doing nothing.  No retard, no levain building, no refrigerator required.

Just take7g of starter, mix it with 66 g of whole grains, I used equal amounts of spelt, rye and ww.  Add 2g each of red and white malts made from the same grains, 315 g each of AP and bread flour with 72% hydration (505) g of water.  Once mixed let it sit for 30 minutes to autolyse, add 11 g of salt and do 15 minutes of French slap and folds. Once done let it sit in a plastic covered oiled bowl on the counter for 20 hours until it doubles.

The split it in half and shape one into a SFSD boule  to see how tasty and sour this bread is and make the other one into what ever you want.  I put (2) kinds of figs, some pistachio nuts and some sunflower and pumpkin seeds in the mix and shaped it into an oval SD seeded Fig and Pistachio boule.

In 4 hours they both went into the 450 F oven with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming loaf pand and baling stone

 I had thrown some of the seeds into the bottom of the oval basket before the dough went in so when the seeded bread was un- molded I slashed 2 crescent moon shapes on the top where the seeds stopped, about 1/3 the way down from the top.  I cut a triangle on the top of the none seeded boule

They steamed for 12 minutes and then the steam was removed, the oven was turned down to 425 F convection and the breads baked together for another 10 minutes.  Each was rotated 180 degrees on the stone after 5 minutes. 

At the 22 total minute mark each bread read 208 F and my apprentice deemed them done with a wag of her tail.   We left them on the stone for another 10 minutes with oven off and the door ajar

Both of the boules baled up nicely brown without incident.  Spring was good, the plain SFSD was well blistered and the seeded bred much less so.  The crumb was more open on the plain SFSD as expected but the seeded bread was airy.  Both were glossy on the inside with the plain one more so.   Both were moist but the seeded fig bread even more moist.

Both were nicely sour and we expect them to get more pucker going by tomorrow.  If I had to pick my favorite of the two, I would go for the fig bread this time.  It may not be as easy as no-knead but if you are looking for an easy way to make decent SDSF this is it.

Formula