Floydm's blog

After two months of almost constant sun, rain showers and grey skies have returned to southern BC.  It is still lush and beautiful, and most every day we are still getting some lovely breaks in the clouds, but it is quite apparent that we'll be seeing less and less of Mr. Sun for a good long while.  

And the kids go back to school tomorrow.  The long evenings outside riding bikes or playing with friends are soon to be replaced with more studying, reading, cooking, and baking.  Sad to see summer go, but those are all good things too, in my book. :)

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I biked around town today and found a shop that carries a bunch of fancy flours including Anita's Organic Mills products, which I've heard good things about from other BC bakers, so I picked as much as I could lug back.  And I fed my starter today for the first time in weeks.  Let the baking commence in 5... 4... 3...

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A funny story from a week or so ago.  We found ourselves in one of those interchangeable suburbs found anywhere in the US doing some back to school shopping (yes, we're becoming those kinds of Canadians now).  We got hungry and looked around while standing in a parking lot near a Best Buy and a Kohl's and all the other big box stores.  The nearest restaurant was a well-known chain restaurant with many of the trappings of an artisan bakery and which has a fairly safe sounding soup, salad, and sandwich kind of menu which I'd actually never eaten at. Truthfully, I was actually a bit curious to see how it was and whether what they sold might at least provide a hint of artisan bakery food (par-baked, of course) the way, say, Starbucks actually serves a decent enough cup of coffee that in many places it was a pretty big step up from what you could find there before they came to town.  Besides, greasy fast food is one thing, but how bad can a sandwich be, right?

The sandwiches we got? They were bad. I mean really, really bad, like "I've gotten better sandwiches in hospital cafeterias and in those little triangular plastic boxes sold at grocery stores and gas stations" bad. I was ... actually awed by how bad they were, considering the price and the description on the menu.  I've gone to computer conferences where they cater box lunches containing sandwiches for 5,000+ attendees and never gotten anything as bad.  How could our made-to-order sandwiches be so nasty?

It made me a bit sad to think there may be some folks out there who associate what they serve at this chain with artisan bread and reminded me of certain "factories" or "gardens" I've been to that serve ersatz Italian fare. While the joints do have red checked tablecloths and play Dean Martin on the stereo, if that is one's experience of Italian food then you really have no idea what Italian food is like. 

Fair to say I won't be eating there again.

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Aside from that disappointment, our cross border run went well.  Among other things accomplished was picking up a parcel delivered to my parent's house on that side of the border (save money on shipping).  Here's a little snippet from  the box:

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Some of you, I'm sure, can figure out what I picked up from that.  I am very excited and looking forward to putting it to heavy use this winter, and the next... and the next... and the next!  Much more to come about it as I start putting it to use. 

I've been overloaded the past couple of weeks, so I've fallen a bit behind on my blogging and baking. 

Going back the furthest: BreadSong gave me a heads up about an Advanced Baking class being taught very close to where I live at the UBC Farm a few weeks ago.  The class was being taught by Florin Moldovan, an accomplished Vancouver-based baker who ran a popular bakery in the Kitsilano neighborhood here.  Sadly Florin closed the bakery right around the time I moved here before I had a chance to visit.

Florin's blog is definitely worth checking out.

There were about a dozen of us in the class.  In his intro class, Florin covers the basic steps in baking (mixing, fermenting, shaping, etc). In the advanced class, he introduces preferments, soakers, sourdough, baker's math, and other things that folks had questions about.

Everyone was asked to bring a large mixing bowl with them. 

Florin provided the ingredients and had the soakers and starter ready to go. At the end of class we each got to leave with a bowl full of dough.

The next day the dough we'd prepared baked up beautifully. My photo doesn't do it justice.

Florin is an extremely accomplished baker, but one thing that struck me about the class is you wouldn't have to be that good to teach a class like this: a lot of us could do it. Gear-wise, since everyone was asked to bring a bowl and none of the baking was done there, all you really need is space you can occupy (and get dirty) for a few hours and about twenty bucks of ingredients.  Pre-measure the ingredients, have them ready in plastic cups or bowls before the class starts, and hand out a couple of print outs about the basics of baking and some simple formulas. Good times, and a great way to introduce folks to baking or meet other bakers.

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Last week was a travel week, down to Oregon to see friends and wrap up our final loose ends there.  The storage locker is empty now; we are now fully settled in Vancouver.

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After returning, I baked a nice loaf using a soaker and starter similar to what we did in class.  

Starter

100g rye flour

100g water

20g starter

Soaker 1

130g cracked wheat

140g water

Soaker 2

100g whole wheat flour

120g water

Final dough

300g Robin Hood "best for bread multigrain blend" flour

400g all-purpose unbleached flour

20g salt

330g water

The starter and soakers

The exterior shot is at the top of this post.  Here is a crumb shot.

After my previous sourdough loaf that I baked in a pot came out so pretty, I went out and picked up another cheap enamel pot so I could use this technique with two loaves at a time.  

This technique works well for me and is unlikely to damage the oven in the apartment we are renting.

My loaves this time were around 73% hydration, a little wetter than last time. My formula was:

starter:

• 20g starter
• 100g water
• 100g rye flour

final dough:

• 900g bread flour
• 100g whole wheat flour
• 710g water
• 20g salt
• all of the starter

I stretched and folded twice about an hour apart, then took advantage of the cool weather we were having to ferment the dough slowly outside for another three hours.  I brought the dough inside, divided and shaped it, and then gave it just over an hour for the final rise.

Baked in the covered pots at 465 for 15 minutes, then reduced the temperature to 435.  I removed the lids at the 30 minute mark, baked them another 20 minutes before turning the oven off, and then removed them from the oven 10 minutes later (1 hour in the oven total).

The flavour was better on these than the previous loaf, and the crumb was more uneven too. I'm very pleased with this one.

My sourdough loaf came out really nice today.

I used a firmer starter than I usually do. I believe it was 30 grams starter, 50 grams water, 50 grams rye flour that I left out overnight.  In the AM I added 500 grams bread flour, 370 grams water, and 10 grams salt.  Folded 3-4 times over 3-4 hours, shaped it, baked it in a pot for 45 minutes.

We'll be slicing it shortly.

As Breadsong already posted about, this past weekend the Bakery Congress 2013, the largest annual baking industry event in Western Canada, was held in Vancouver, BC.  As tradeshows go it was cheap and I was looking for an excuse for a bike ride on a beautiful sunny day, so I pedaled over to the PNE to take a look.  

The minute you walked in the door you could smell that this wasn't just any tradeshow.

Breads and sweets everywhere!

I chatted with Ross from Nunweiler's Flour Mill quite a bit and picked up a couple of bags of their organic flour, including their Red Fife Flour. I'm looking forward to giving it a try!

Lest we forget we are in Canada: hockey-themed giveaways.

Ah, the slicers. Do those every bring back memories...

Need a mixer, anyone?

This picture I took for Song of the Baker, who is always telling me about how great the flour from Anita's Organic Mill in Chilliwack is. I will get out there to check out their store, one of these days.

Baking presentations were running throughout the day.  Here Craig Ponsford, former BBGA chairman and part of the Gold Medal winning Team USA at Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, and Tracey Muzzolini, from Saskatoon and who has also competed in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie with Team Canada, prepare to present on making whole wheat baguettes.

Scoring the loaves.

Craig asks "How many of you are getting asked by your customers about gluten free?"  He then went on to talk a bit about the benefits of "whole-milled" whole wheat flours as opposed to whole grain flours that are actually reconstituted from white flour.   

Back on the floor, you can see that there were a lot of vendors and attendees here. Vendors were selling ingredients, machines, packaging, ...

Errr.... probes too.  I think this was to measure the volume of the loaves?  A bit over the top, IMO, but if you bake tens of thousands of loaves a day that kind of precision matters, I suppose.

I had an enjoyable time and was able to snack on enough samples of sweets that I was thankful for the long bike ride home to work off some of it!

I guess I woke up feeling a bit combative this morning... more on that another time. The long and short of it is I put together a bit of TFL merchandise. A t-shirt...

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an apron...

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   And a bumpersticker.

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Dorota, on the other hand, was of a more peaceable temperment.

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These should show up in the Zazzle.com storefront in the next 24 hours.  

I've actually never ordered from Zazzle but they have a good reputation.  I ordered a few stickers, so we'll see what they look like in a little bit.

There is also some TFL gear for sale over on Cafe Press. I just ordered myself a TFL t-shirt, which I've been meaning to do since we first set that up and never got around to.  Again, I'll let folks know how the quality of the shirt and the printing is.

I want to do another shirt/sticker with "CARBIVORE" on it.  If anyone else has good ideas for a bread-themed shirt that they'd actually wear, let me know!

I only recently discovered that one thing that doesn't appear to be available in Canada is Hawaiian Sweet Bread.  At least on the West Coast in the US, King's Hawaiian bread is easy to find at most any grocery store.  It's something I grew up with and that I associate with being a kid and snacking on in the car.  We certainly fed it to our kids a number of times on road trips.

I've tried making Hawaiian sweet bread a couple of times in the past.  While the flavour was right, I've never been able to get close on texture. 

The other day it dawned on me that the Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong was quite similar to Hawaiian Sweet Bread, both in flavour and texture.  With a few tweaks to that recipe, I got as close to Hawaiian Sweet Bread as I've ever come in the past.

Hawaiian Sweet Bread

 

makes 3 loaves

Tangzhong

2/3 cup pineapple juice

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup all purpose flour

Final dough

800g (around 5 C) all purpose flour

1/2 C sugar

50g (1/2 C) milk powder

1/2 C half and half

3/4 C milk

2 eggs

4 T butter

4 t instant yeast

1 t salt

1 t vanilla extract (optional)

1 t lemon extract or some lemon zest (optional)

1 t orange extract or some orange zest (optional)

all of the tangzhong

1 more egg, beaten, for the eggwash

 The tangzhong I made the same as the previous time: 1 cup of liquid (milk or water or juice) to 1/3 cup flour, or a 5 to 1 liquid to solid ratio (so 250g liquid to 50g flour) and mix it together in a pan.  Heat the pan while stirring constantly.  Initially it will remain a liquid, but as you approach 65C it will undergo a change and thicken to an almost pudding like consistency.  Here is a video I made of it undergoing that change.

Let the tangzhong cool for at least a half an hour, then combine it and the rest of the ingredients.  Mix it very well, for 10-15 minutes with a standmixer.  Cover and let rise until doubled in size, approximately an hour.

Divide the dough into three even pieces.  Place them in greased pans, cover loosely, and let them rise for 45 minutes to an hour until they are approaching twice their original size.  Glaze them with eggwash before putting them in the oven.

Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes.  If you can, cover the loaves with a pan or foil for the first ten minutes to trap some of the steam in with the loaf and to keep them from browning too quickly.  I acually used a large metal mixing bowl which I inverted over each loaf when placing them in the oven.

I like the way the loaves puckered as they cooled (compare this photo with the top most photo), just like King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread. This is definitely the closest I've gotten to making Hawaiian Sweet Bread at home.

I haven't baked with my starter in a couple of weeks, so Wednesday evening I fed my starter some rye flour and water.  Thursday mid-day I made my dough (1kg bread flour, 20g salt, 730g water, "a bunch" of starter).  It has turned cool again in Vancouver though and my dough was moving slowly, so I bulk retarded it overnight until Friday morning.

Our fridge is really cold so there was very little action overnight.  I removed the dough from the fridge Friday morning and stretched and folded every couple of hours so the dough would warm evenly.  By late-afternoon the bulk dough was starting to move and getting close to double in size, so I shaped the dough into boules.  I was hoping to bake it later that evening, but it was moving slow enough that I decided to cover it and refrigerate it overnight again.

Saturday morning I removed the loaves from the fridge around 7am.  Again, very little action overnight and even a bit of ice on the outside of one of the loaves.  By 11 or so they looked ready to bake, so I tossed them in the oven, covering them with an inverted aluminum pan for the first 10 minutes or so.

As you can see, I accidentally squished the edge of one of the loaves with the aluminum pan, but the breads came our really good, really sour, as one would expect from such long, slow fermentation.  Lots of blisters, too, which I like.  They went really well with cheese, wine, and pasta e fagioli.

Things are finally starting to settle down a bit.  I baked today the first time since kicking off the site move, another batch of the Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong.

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Man is it good and easy to make.  The only difficulty is it is so sticky that I spend half the mixing time scraping the dough off the hook and back into the bowl.  This is the first bread in a long time that has me seriously contemplating a mixer upgrade at some point. 

I'm continuing to fix things and chip away at the wishlist, as well as just generally be active on the site and "eat my own dogfood."  Now that we're geting settled into this new environment, it is much easier for me to make changes. Well... not all changes, but many things that I didn't have easy access to I do now.  So things should keep getting better.

FYI for tracker junkies: you may have seen (or will see soon) a bunch of updates to old content.  That was me. First I was editing them by just switching input format because I was trying to fix the issue with some posts blanking out, which I have now fixed.  I'm now editing some older posts to attach one of the images already in the post to the new "Image" field at the top.  Having that image lets me do all kinds of cool tricks like auto-generate thumbnail images for posts in search results or in list, which I'll start to do once more posts have images attached like that.  I am not editing folks's content in any way.

-Floyd

I make another batch of the Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong this weekend, this time adding 2 cups of soaked sultana raisins.  

That was two cups of raisins before soaking. After soaking it was more like 3 or 3 1/2 cups, which was a lot of raisins. I was afraid it was going to be too much and really weigh the loaves down, but they still rose quite nicely.

As you can see, I split the dough into smaller pieces this time and divided it among three pans.

It wasn't as fluffy and cloud-like as the first batch, which isn't surprising given the additional weight I added, but it was still an extremely soft, pillowy dough.  We've all be munching it straight and it made wonderful toast when sliced this morning.