dmsnyder's blog

Nothing new in today's baking, but these are two of my favorites.

The San Francisco Sourdough is from Suas' "Advanced Bread and Pastry." I fed my stock starter to make a firm levain with KAF Bread Flour and BRM Dark Rye. The final dough was mixed with KAF AP. The San Joaquin Sourdough was made as previously described (many times). This batch was made with a 73% hydration dough.

I feel my bâtard shaping is coming along. I'm using the technique described in Hamelman's "Bread."

San Francisco Sourdough crumb

San Joaquin Sourdough crumb

I also made a batch of tagliatelle. I use Marcella Hazan's recipe which calls for 2 large eggs and 1 1/2 cups of AP flour. However, I have been curious how it would be made with Italian doppio 0 flour. I used Caputo red label. To my surprise, it was much thirstier than KAF AP, and I had to add a couple tablespoons of water to the dough for it to come together. Even with the added water, the dough was drier than usual. I was surprised because Marcella says the recipe usually used in Italy is 1 cup of flour to one egg. I wonder if Italian eggs are usually larger than our "large" eggs, or if there is another explanation. Maybe one of our Italian members has an explanation.

In any event, the pasta, made with an Atlas crank pasta machine, sure seems lovely. I'll see how it tastes at dinner tomorrow, with a sauce of home made ground turkey Italian sausage and kale.

David

Maybe this belongs in the "You know you're a bread baker when ..." topic.

I'm going to visit my younger son and his family next week. I haven't started packing, but I have the breads baked. 

This is basically my San Joaquin Sourdough but made with the Gérard Rubaud flour mix. I tasted this loaf's mate yesterday (as in 4 slices). The truth is, Rubaud's flour mix is better when baked using Rubaud's formula and methods, and the San Joaquin Sourdough is better using my usual AP with 10% dark rye. Live and learn. Not that this is bad bread. It's just not astonishingly wonderful. (My grand daughters deserve astonishingly wonderful bread.)

These boules are the San Francisco Sourdough from Michel Suas' "Advanced Bread & Pastry." It's a wonderful bread. I spiked my starter flour mix which already has 10% rye with extra rye and made a very firm starter which was allowed to ferment for about 16 hours at room temperature. I got a bit more sour tang than previous bakes, which was what I was shooting for. 

The crust is nice and crisp, and the crumb is quite open for moderate hydration (67%?) bread.

And, mostly because of how my wife's face lights up when she walks into the house while it's baking ...

The Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut Bread from Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." 

I feel better, knowing we won't starve in Las Vegas.

David

A few days ago, DonD blogged about some gorgeous baguettes he baked using a combination of unconventional mixing and fermentation techniques adapted from formulas developed by Pierre Gosselin and Anis Bouabsa, both very highly regarded Parisian boulangers. His description can be found here: Baguettes a l'Ancienne with Cold Retardation

Don used both the long autolyse under refrigeration of Gosselin and the cold retarded bulk fermentation of the complete dough employed by Bouabsa. He got such wonderful results, I had to try his hybrid technique.

I had been concerned that the double cold retardation would result in a dough that had so much proteolysis as to be unmanageable. However, Don described his dough as "silky smooth." Well, my dough was sticky slack. It was all extensibility and no elasticity. Fortunately, i have worked often enough with doughs like this to know they can make the most wonderful breads, so I shaped (best I could), proofed, slashed and baked. Voilà!

Since I was already afraid I'd over-fermented the dough, I erred on the side of under-proofing. The baguettes had almost explosive oven-spring. They about doubled in volume during the bake.

The crust was crunchy. The crumb was .... Oh, my!

The flavor was very good, but not as sweet as I recall the "pure" Gosselin Pain à l'Anciènne being.

These baguettes are worth baking again with some adjustments. I would endorse Don's decrease in the amount of yeast. I'll do so next time. And I will try a slightly lower hydration level. These were 73% hydration.

Thanks, Don, for sharing this very interesting twist in baguette techniques.

David

It has been a few weeks since I last made my San Joaquin Sourdough. I had become so enamored of breads made with the Gérard Rubaud flour mix, I was starting to wonder if I would still like the flavor of the San Joaquin Sourdough as much as I had. Well, I do.

Yesterday, I made the breads with a 73% hydration dough and divided it into two 250 gm ficelles and one (approximately) 500 gm bâtard.

Procedure

1. The night before baking, feed the starter at 1:3:4 ratio of seed starter: water: flour.
2. Mix all the ingredients and allow to rest, covered for 20-60 minutes.
3. Stretch and fold in the bowl for 30 strokes, three times at 30 minute intervals.
4. Transfer the dough to a clean, lightly oiled bowl and cover.
5. After another 30 minute rest, stretch and fold on a lightly floured board. Replace in the bowl and cover.
6. Rest for 30 minutes, then repeat the stretch and fold, and replace the dough in the bowl.
7. Refrigerate the dough for 21hours.
8. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and immediately divide and pre-shape it. Cover the dough with plasti-crap or a towel and let it rest for 60 minutes.
9. One hour before baking, preheat the oven to 500ºF, with a baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.
10. Shape the loaves as desired and place on a floured couche. Cover the loaves.
11. Proof for 45 minutes.
12. Pre-steam the oven. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score them as desired and transfer them to the baking stone. Steam the oven.
13. Turn down the oven to 460ºF and bake for 12 minutes. Then remove the steam source.
14. Continue to bake until the loaves are done. (20 minutes for the ficelles. 30 minutes for the bâtard.)
15. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack and cool completely before slicing.

The crust was nice and crunchy, and the crumb was pleasantly chewy. The flavor was wonderful, as always. There is no perceptible rye flavor, but the rye adds to the overall flavor complexity. This batch had more of a sourdough tang than usual, which we like.

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting

I'd bought some smoked salmon to have with Greenstein's sour rye which I baked last week. My wife's comment was, "It's too bad we don't have bagels." It happens I had a couple bags of Sir Lancelot (KAF's high-gluten flour) in the pantry, as well as all the other necessary ingredients, on hand. I also had a lecture to prepare, and I was running out of excuses to delay finishing it. So, I made bagels.

I used the formula from Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." This entailed making a sponge, then a final dough which is mixed and immediately divided, then shaped and retarded overnight before boiling, topping and baking. I'd used this formula before, but never with high-gluten flour.

The dough was a pleasure to work with, and my shaping method "clicked" with this batch. I shaped each piece as I would to make challah, using Glazer's method of flattening the pieces then rolling them up into tubes. I then rolled each tube as if I were making baguettes to about 9 inches, shaped them over my hand with the ends together in my palm. I gave the ends a gentle squeeze and then rolled the sealed ends on an un-floured board to seal them. Then, I gently stretched each resulting ring gently to enlarge the hole and placed each bagel on a sheet with oiled parchment paper for retarding.

The next day, after boiling the bagels in water with baking soda, I topped them with sesame seeds or re-hydrated onion flakes and baked them.

Onion bagel

Sesame bagel

Bagel crumb

Although the crumb was very well aerated and looked "fluffy," the bagels were delightfully chewy. They had a delicious flavor plain, without any topping, and were even better with cream cheese and smoked salmon.

Bagel with cream cheese and lox

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting

I like variety, so I could never say that any one bread is “my favorite.” However, I can say that the “Five-Grain Sourdough with Rye Sourdough” from Hamelman's “Bread” would certainly be one of the candidates. It has a wonderful crunchy crust and a delicious complex flavor. It is fabulous fresh-baked. It stays moist for many days. It makes toast to die for. It is good unadorned or buttered, by itself or with other foods, for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's, incidentally, full of really healthy stuff. Moreover, it's really easy to make, and it's beautiful to look at. What's not to like?

This bread is made with a rye sourdough but is also spiked with commercial yeast. The sourdough is fed and a soaker is soaked 14-16 hours before mixing, but once the dough is mixed, the fermentation and proofing are rather short. I started putting the dough together at around 12:30 pm, and the bread was out of the oven at around 4:30 pm.

Notes on the formula

1. The overall hydration of the dough is 99%, but much of the water is absorbed by the soaker. The final dough is sticky, but like a rye bread dough not like a high-hydration white bread dough.

2. Also note that all the salt is in the soaker. This is to inhibit enzyme activity. The salt percentage may also seem high (2.2% of the total flour), but the grains in the soaker also need salt, so the bread does not seem overly salty in the least.

3. This formula makes a large batch of dough. It would have been difficult to mix it in my KitchenAid. I mixed it in my Bosch Universal Plus, which handled it with ease. If using a KitchenAid or similar stand mixer, you should consider scaling down the formula to 2/3 of that specified below.

Method

1. Mix the sourdough and ferment it at room temperature for 14-16 hours.

2. Prepare the soaker at the same time as the sourdough. Weigh out the grains and salt. Mix them. If cracked rye is used, boil the water and pour over the grains and mix. If using rye chops or coarse rye flour (pumpernickel), cold water can be used. Cover the soaker and leave it at room temperature.

3. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly in a mixer bowl at low speed, then increase to medium speed (Speed 2 in a KitchenAid or Bosch) and mix to moderate gluten development. In my Bosch, I think this took around 10 minutes.

4. Transfer the dough to

   a lightly oiled bowl. Cover tightly and ferment for 1 hour.



5. 
   

   Divide the dough into three equal pieces and shape into boules, bâtards or a combination.

   
   


6. 
   

   Proof for 50-60 minutes in brotformen or en couche.

   
   


7. 
   

   Preheat the oven to 480ºF with a baking stone and your steaming method of choice in place.

   
   


8. 
   

   Pre-steam the oven. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score them and load them onto your baking stone. Steam the oven. Turn the oven down to 460ºF.

   
   


9. 
   

   After 15 minutes, remove your steaming apparatus, rotate the loaves if necessary for even browning, and turn the oven down to 440ºF. If the loaves are getting too dark, you can turn the oven down to 420ºF.

   
   


10. 
    

    Bake for 15 minutes more (or 10 minutes longer, if baking 2 lb loaves) and check for doneness. (Internal temperature 205ºF. Bottom sounds hollow when thumped. Crust nicely browned.)

    
    


11. 
    

    Turn off the oven but leave the loaves in, with the oven door ajar for another 7-10 minutes to dry the crust.

    
    


12. 
    

    Transfer the loaves to a wire rack and cool thoroughly before slicing.

    
    

Enjoy!

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting

This weekend I made a miche with Gérard Rubaud's flour mix for the first time. It's nowhere near as beautiful as the ones with which Shiao-Ping introduced Rubaud's formula to TFL, but it is delicious. The miche does seem to have a more mellow flavor than the other breads I've made with this flour mix, but then I didn't slice and taste it for a good 15 hours after it was baked.

The flour mix and formula I used was ...

I also made a couple 1 lb boules of the San Francisco Sourdough from "Advanced Bread & Pastry" by Michel Suas. It was an extremely extensible dough, made this time with WFM AP Flour (non-organic. They were out of the organic). I retarded the loaves overnight but wanted to give them an early start, so I took them out of the fridge and turned on my oven when I first got to the kitchen this morning.

I trust you correctly inferred this was done before my first cup of coffee. Always risky. 

Well, I did have my baking stone in the oven when I turned it on but not my steaming setup. I discovered this when the loaves were ready to load, of course. I did give the oven a series of spritzes with a spray bottle, but my result was a nice illustration of why we bake with steam. So, for your interest ...

Note the dull crust and the modest bloom and spring.

I haven't cut it yet. I'm sure it's fine eating, but beautiful it ain't.

David

Pat, who has is enduring earthquakes, tsunami warnings and, worst of all, no access to bread baking this week shared with us the thought that having some bread to critique might lift her spirits. What better bread than that made from her own baguette formula?

In anticipation of Pat's need, I baked a couple baguettes this afternoon. For the formula, see Baguette crumb - 65% hydration dough. I used some leftover levain with the G. Rubaud flour mix to seed the levain. The rest of the flour was KAF European Artisan-Style flour. This is a supposedly the same protein content as KAF AP flour, but it always seems to absorb a bit more water than AP. I didn't add any extra water, so the dough was quite dry - not even tacky after a couple stretch and folds in the bowl.

So, Pat, have at it.

The baguettes

Grigne

Crumb

The crust was deliciously crunchy and sweet from the caramelization of a bold bake. The crumb was chewy with a nice, baguette flavor, but the taste of the tiny fraction of whole wheat flour used in the levain was discernible. It seemed a bit "out of place." However, this didn't stop me from consuming half a baguette with dinner.

David

I'm continuing my exploration of bread baking with Gérard Rubaud's mix of flours. Today's breads were made with a firm levain, as used by Rubaud, and a high-hydration final dough. I made about 1500 gms of dough. The flour required is shown in the first chart.

I divided the dough to shape two 500 gm boules and two 250 gm ficelles.

We had some of the baguette with dinner. It is a mildly sour bread with a delicious flavor, like the other breads made with this mix of flours.

David

My wife and I have a problem with cinnamon rolls. She dislikes the gooey, too-sweet frosting found on most, and she gives me a hard time about sweet doughs with too much butter for my health. So, I'm on a new quest: A breakfast pastry we both like that is still kind to my arteries. (I'm not that concerned about the cholesterol, but my wife's persistent expressions of concern can't be good for my heart.)

Last week, I got Ciril Hitz's latest book, “Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads.” Like his previous book, “Baking Artisan Bread,” it is aimed at the home baker. While providing clear and detailed instructions that do not assume the reader has a degree in culinary arts, the formulas are in no way “dumbed down.” He teaches professional techniques and tricks for mixing doughs and making classic fillings, all adapted to home baking equipment and quantities. Also, like his previous book, he introduces a small number of basic doughs – for quick breads, sweet rolls and laminated dough pastries – then provides a number of formulas for products made with each and suggestions for additional applications.

When I … well … we saw Hitz's formula for sweet dough, we were struck by it appearing less enriched than most. His formula calls for only 10.6% butter and 10.6% sugar. I made a batch last night and retarded it in the fridge (as Hitz prescribes) until this evening. Hitz has formulas for cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, but I wanted a pastry that was less sweet. Among his recipes for pastry fillings I found one he calls “nut filling.” It looked good, since we love nuts, and looked less sweet than ones that are mostly sugar. So, I also made a batch of nut filling last night and stuck it in the fridge.

This evening, I rolled out the dough, spread it with nut filling, rolled it up and cut it into 1.5 inch rounds. (Actually, I just cut half the roll-up. I froze the other half for another day.) I put some pecan halves on the top of each, proofed, egg washed and baked them in a 1/4 sheet pan on parchment. I did not glaze them.

As expected, the dough was less sweet and less rich than most, but with the nut filling, the pastry is just sweet and rich enough for my taste. This is a nice solution for those who find most cinnamon rolls and sticky buns just too sweet. If one wanted a richer dough, another formula for sweet dough could certainly be substituted.

The nut filling (makes about 1.5 cups)

Method

Use purchased nut flour or make your own by pulsing frozen nuts in a food processor. Combine all the ingredients except the water. Slowly add the water to make a nice, spreadable consistency. It should not tear the dough when spread. It can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week. The consistency can be adjusted by adding water on the day of use.

I made the filling with frozen unsalted dry-roasted almonds. I processed them to a rather coarse consistency – coarser than coarse-ground flour but finer than “finely chopped.”

As I said, this is a “quest,” so stay tuned for further developments.

David