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One of the things I enjoy about Christmas is the opportunity to bake without having to ask myself “How are we going to eat all of this?”  I can have fun baking and give the finished goods away as Christmas presents.  Yes, I know, bread can be gifted any day of the year; it somehow seems even more enjoyable this time of year.  

Whole Wheat Cranberry-Orange Country Loaf

This bread from the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook went to my brother and my sister who live nearby.  It is fragrant with orange zest, orange juice, dried cranberries, and toasted pecans.  It smelled so good in the dough stage that I pinched off a small piece for a bun before shaping the loaves.  That gave my wife and I a chance to sample it, too.  

Honey Oatmeal Sandwich Bread with Cinnamon Swirl

Granted, my list of favorite breads would probably require a couple of pages, but this bread would be there.  The cinnamon swirl makes for some delightful toast.  Two of my nieces will receive these this afternoon when they arrive for a cookie baking extravaganza.  This bread is also from the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

Frisian Black Bread

This one from The Rye Baker is for us.  I've been hankering for some rye bread lately and this one looked interesting.  It's 50/50 rye flour and bread flour.  Flavor for this bread is entirely from the flour and fermentation; there are no inclusions such as spices or seeds.  The first sponge matures overnight.  The second sponge moves faster during the morning of the next day.  The final dough (batter, really) is fermented in bulk, then again after it is poured into the bread pan.  One different feature of this bread is that the bake begins in a cold oven.  

Unfortunately, I let the final proof go 15-20 minutes longer than it should and wound up with a cavern at the top of the loaf.  Docking wasn’t called for but it might have helped.  Maybe.  Anyway, the bread tastes wonderfully of rye, which is exactly what I wanted.  

Paul

I haven’t had tons of success with spelt in any great quantity, but didn’t want to give up on this ancient grain.  It seems to taste good when paired with Kamut aka khorasan also an ancient grain.  Gluten is made up of gliadin and glutenin.  Gliadin is the substance that gives the stretchy feel to dough, and glutenin provides the elasticity and the structure to ensure that it holds its shape.  While wheat has a balance of gliadin to glutenin , spelt has a higher ratio of gliadin to glutenin. This makes the gluten in it much more fragile, which means it breaks down more easily.  To try to combat this I’ve added vital wheat gluten to try to help improve the quality of the gluten in this bread.

I once again sifted the bran out in order to develop the gluten in the sifted flours separately.  However, this didn’t go exactly as planned.  I decided to sift both the whole spelt and whole Kamut, but I didn’t take into account the larger particle size of Kamut.  As a result quite a bit of the Kamut ended up being sifted out with the bran.  I went ahead and scalded the bran/Kamut with 200% by weight of boiling water.  Unlike the fluffy bran that usually results from this scald, the bran/Kamut scald was much heavier so definitely had Kamut flour in it in addition to the flours.

As a result of such a great portion of the water going into the scald, there was much less water to hydrate the levain and sifted flours, the hydration would have been far to low.  So instead of the planned 80% hydration I gradually added water when mixing the levain and flours and the resultant hydration of this bread went up to 92%, which was much much higher than I thought would work for a spelt loaf.

Whole Spelt 325 g

Whole Kamut 117 g

VWG 17 g

Salt 9.7 g

Levain build overnight 76ºF 60% hydration

Starter 11 g + Water 26 g + Whole Kamut 44

10 hours pH 4.17 in the morning at mix.

Scalded Bran

Bran sifted 124 g and 248 g boiling water then refrigerated overnight

Dough mix in AM

174 g water, 9.7 g salt and all levain - break down levain in water

Next add sifted mix of spelt, Kamut and Vital wheat gluten rested 15 mins.  Kneaded to moderate development.

Add scalded bran/kamut through a series of stretch and folds in the bowl and then kneaded on the counter to fully incorporate.  Rest 30 mins.  pH 5.5

Bench letterfold pH 5.5

Then a series of coil folds every 30 mins x 3.5 (the last set was a half coil) pH falling from 5.5 to 5.25 after the last half coil.

Shaping was done when the pH reached a delta of 1.0 or pH 4.5.  Placed in a banneton and allowed bench proofing until pH reached 4.22 then placed in freezer until oven heated to 500ºF for baking.

Bake with steam x 25 mins 

This is where I made another error, I was distracted and forgot to drop the temperature during the bake so rather than my usual 450ºF then 420-425ºF the temperature stayed at 500ºF for the whole of the bake.  When I realized this there was 5-10 mins left of baking but I noticed how dark the crust was and pulled the rather dark loaf out of the oven.  I wonder if the oven spring could have been better if I had baked at a lower temperature?

In any event, decent oven spring with very little spread, so I’m not too mad about this bake.

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It seems to be a fashion here, but it was my turn to try out Benny's version of Eric's rye.

The taste was very mild, even though I used wholemeal rye flour. I think that perhaps my rye sour wasn't sour enough - started with a very sour 50g of rye starter so thought that 4 hours of 27 deg C would be enough to get a rye sour, it sure smelt sour but obviously needed more time to develop a stronger sour taste.

Texture was lovely, very soft and just like I'd expect for a deli loaf.

Next time I'll try adding Caroline's "trio" of EVOO/buttermilk/honey to it, and will be sure to use the raisin YW too. Might even consider some malt then. I'm not used to instant yeast, forgot to degas the dough prior to shaping!

The separate gluten development process is a winner. Had my doubts at first when the mixer got stuck into it, but old lady Kenwood eventually managed to produce a beautiful supple dough.

Oven spring surprised me! Think I should have scored horizontally across the loaves instead of at an angle.

I'm a beginner when it comes to corn starch glaze. I painted it on 10 minutes before the end of the bake, at least I thought it was 10 minutes before but the bake needed to go longer and so repeated again. It seems Benny paints it on after the loaf comes out the oven though?

I like the winebottle couche idea, even though it is a little dangerous in that there was a bottle or two of unopened wine left out there on the counter just begging to be opened.

-Jon

I recently picked up a Mockmill 200 and have started experimenting with fresh milled grain.  I have a basic Country Loaf that I make with 15% whole grain.  This bake used was my first time using Black Emmer from Janie's Mill.  The baked loaf had a nice sour tang.  I would say more acetic than lactic, but I'm not sure I can identify the difference yet.  The sliced bread definitely had a tangy aroma.  Took the loaf to a lunch work meeting and it went fast.  :-)

Levain

67.5g Bread Flour

84.4g Water

13.5g Mature Starter

Final Dough

180g All Purpose Flour

112.5g Bread Flour

67.5g Fresh milled Black Emmer

22.5g Barley Flour

90g Raisin Yeast Water

118.1g Water

9g Sea Salt

Method

The night before

1)      Prepare levain by combining all ingredients and stir until flour just wetted.  Let sit on counter in covered container for 20 minutes.  Stir roughly 300 turns until levain is smooth and gluten strands are pulling from the side of the container.  Ferment for 12 hours at 72 deg F.

 The next morning

1)      Combine all ingredients except salt and start to mix.  Mix until flours are wetted.  Adjust hydration if needed.

2)      Fermentolyse for 20 minutes

3)      Add salt thinly with bench folds to evenly distribute it.  Perform 200 Slap and Folds with a 5-minute rest after the first 100.  After Slap & Folds, put dough in a bowl and rest for 5 minutes.  Perform one set of bowl kneading for final gluten development.

4)      Bulk ferment at 76 deg F.  Bowl folds every 45 minutes until “puffy”.  Let bulk continue until the dough has increased roughly 75%.

5)      Pre-shape into boule

6)      Bench rest for 15-20 minutes

7)      Final shape as oval and place in banneton with seam side up

8)      Final proof at 76 deg F

9)      Pre-heat oven at 460 deg F.  Place dough on oven steel with steam pan on bottom rack.  Bake at 450 deg F (20 minutes); vent oven; reduce heat and bake at 425 deg F (10-15 minutes)

This one had more of an open crumb than I usually get.  I did make one change in my method.  Normally, I do 4 sets

of bowl kneading with 10-minute rests.  This week, I used the Slap & Folds.  Can't draw too many conclusions yet.  It

was also the first time using Emmer, but I'll have to explore the two methods of gluten development some more.

Here I am, listening to this today, enjoying a strangely warm December afternoon while counting the days/hours until we head home (I'm somewhere near Boucherville) and going through my increasingly short Christmas bake list.

Normally, around this time I'd have done the basic stuff like preparing and freezing pasta frolla, tourtière crusts, or cookie doughs, gathering stuff for a cake or two, but not this year. This year, hubby's work took over and gave me a LOT of time to catch up on my readings and chill time :D So, we'll probably end up with the boozy fruit cake (she's missed a feeding!) and a tiny few goodies, if I can manage the time. And there's no time and room in the fridge for turkey now so the he'll have to be happy with just tourtière with bouilli (assuming all the winter veges are available) this year. :D

These few bakes were made just a few days before we left on this trip and I thought I'll post them here as probably the last post for 2021. :) I didn't even get to make Benny's whole wheat sd loaf yet!



This loaf was inspired by Maurizio's Jalapeño-Cheddar Sourdough Bread. Cumin is one of the most common spice I use besides turmeric and garam masala. I really enjoy having jeera in rice or broths or curries and was really curious how cumin would blend with cheese in this loaf.

Jeera / cumin & cheese sourdough
70g sourdough starter (100% hydration)
240g water (I used 30°C)
240g all purpose flour
5g vital wheat gluten
70g atta flour
15g sugar
6g salt
5g coconut oil
80g cheese (I used Havarti)
3g jeera / cumin seeds

Room temp: 20°C
Autolyse 1 hour
Bulk fermentation 5 hours at 20-22°C; stretch & folds x 3, add-ins were laminated in, coil fold x 2.
Preshape, overnight cold retard at 4°C
Score and baked at 230°C for 25 minutes with DO lid on, then 20 minutes without lid.

I made the mistake of preheating the DO in the oven at 250°C instead of 230°C and the DO was just too hot at the start of the bake. Must remember to use several layers of parchment or add a bake sheet beneath that rack! And I absolutely loved the use of cheese with jeera seeds here! :D

And here's the very last piece





The next bake a last minute bake to use up leftover citrus syrup, sd discard (switched the starters to 100% WW) and I subbed the egg for yogurt and skipped the tangzhong. It does stay soft for up to 3 days!

Citrus loaf with yogurt & SD discard
130g milk (30°C)
60g plain yogurt
80g citrus syrup*
140g sourdough discard (100% hydration)
3g mixed citrus zest (orange + lemon)
2g instant yeast
220g all purpose flour
10g vital wheat gluten
100g atta flour
6g salt
30g coconut oil

*Syrup at thread stage - this was leftover from making candied citrus peels. Assumed sugar concentration 80%; 64g.

Brushed with milk and baked at 180°C for 50 minutes. A light brush of butter all over the loaf after removal from the loaf pan.




This last bake, was an attempt at recreating flapjacks with less sugar and butter. I wanted a version that wasn't too buttery or sugary, so a little bit of tapioca starch was added in to aid with binding but these came out crumblier, harder to cut, slightly healthier (HA!) and tasty!
The broken bits were mixed with some chocolate and left to set. Then, used as breakfast cereal. In a way, this was a version of homemade granola!

Chocolate, walnut and coconut flapjacks
60g unsalted butter
60g coconut oil
60g maple syrup
40g brown sugar
250g rolled oats
1/4 tsp salt
10g tapioca starch
20g unsweetened desiccated coconut
30g toasted walnuts, chopped

Chocolate topping
100g dark chocolate, chopped
20g unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1/8 tsp light olive oil
Optional topping: coconut, walnuts

Make the flapjacks
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a quarter sheet or 20cm/8" square pan with butter and line the base with parchment paper with overhands on 2 sides.

In a large saucepan, heat butter, maple syrup and brown sugar over low heat. Stir until all the butter has melted, then remove from heat. Do not allow this mixture to boil. Let it cool slightly for about 3 to 5 minutes.

To the butter mixture, add rolled oats, salt, tapioca starch, coconut and walnuts. Fold in the mixture until everything is evenly coated in the warm syrup.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and flatten with the back of a spatula or base of a glass (lightly oiled).
Bake at 180°C for 15 to 19 minutes until the edges begin to turn golden brown. For crispier/firmer bars, bake until 20-22 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let the flapjack cool in the pan for about 30 minutes. Then lift it out with the parchment overhang onto a cooling rack and let it cool completely. With a sharp knife, slice the flapjack into bars or squares, or proceed with chocolate topping, then slice after the chocolate has set.
There will be bits falling off here and there. Keep those bits to mix with chocolate!

I tried cutting with a bench scraper instead of a "sharp knife" at first.


Make the chocolate glaze
Melt chopped dark chocolate, butter and salt over a bain marie, stirring constantly. Once all the chocolate has melted, stir in oil until the mixture is thick and glossy.

Options to add chocolate glaze to the flapjacks: dip flapjacks in it or drizzle the chocolate on using a fork or a resealable/piping bag. Another method: pour glaze all over cooled flapjack, let it set, then slice.

Lay each glazed bar on parchment or silicone mat. Optional topping: add coconut or chopped nuts over the chocolate as it sets.

Chill the bars for about 30 to 60 minutes to set and firm up the chocolate layer.

Until next time or next year, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :)

- Christi

This is the third time I followed Benito's version of Eric's favorite deli rye sourdough.  After the first two times, my biggest frustration was my inability to get the rye sour well incorporated with the bread flour after its initial development........enter my new toy.  My lovely wife got me an Ankarsrum mixer for Christmas, and even green-lighted me using it a bit early.

My two favorite kitchen appliances:

So, I followed the process in Benny's blog post faithfully making the rye sour overnight, developing some strength in the bread flour/water, bringing the two together, etc.  The mixer performed beautifully (thanks to reading ALL of the posts on here about them), and I had a nicely developed and well integrated dough after about 12 minutes of mixing at the 3'oclock position on the Ank.

Baked it up and ended up with this (I was out of poppy seeds, so used black sesame for contrast:

I also made a couple of my "standard" loaves to test out the mixer with my weekly formula:

Sliced into the rye this morning:

Looking forward to a sandwich with my Kasseler Ripchen (cured/smoked pork loin):

A delicious bread, and thanks again, Benny, for sharing your version of Eric's rye!! :)

Rich

Nurnberger rye from Chicago Specialty Bakers:

 

Latvian rye from Racine Bakery:

 

Two rye mashes for upcoming Russian bread bakes. Both done together in the sous-vide bath.

First is a mash for Riga bread with homemade rye malt and T997 light rye; 2.5hrs at 66C:

Second made with Russian solod and home ground rye with the course bran sifted off; 5 hrs at 66C:

Store in the fridge. Breads to be made later in the week.

Lance

I just LOVE this technique of gluten development in two parts!! It is amazingly successful and completely eliminates all hands on except shaping . 

As an aside I do not shape my loaves . I dump out the dough cut it in half and pick up the long piece and drop it into my Batard  shaped cloth lined banneton. That’s it. The boule gets all four sides folded in and plopped down folded side down in the cloth lined banneton. No tightening no fuss no muss. 

I changed up the original formula and did my “trio” of EVVO , honey and buttermilk in equal portions. I used 75 g each and adjusted the water down that amount. Works perfectly . I run the KA on 2 for 5 min and add the levain and again 5 min. Turn out on lightly floured counter and give a 4 point fold and put it to rise. My raisin YW is crazy fast so 1 hr at warm temps was plenty. It ROSE in the fridge overnight as I love a retard. Anyway this is definitely a fantastic formula. Oh I also used 1/2 and 1/2 t65 and Arrowhead Mills AP for the white . The loaves were 1111g before baking and 964g after. Very light with exceptional browning on the crust. The crumb is very tender and moist and the keeping quality is excellent. YW plus the added fat makes it very fresh. 

and still kinda get away with it?  Answer - a lot.  

Background is rooted, but barely, in my recent enjoyment of an 80% PFF biga version.  I was refreshing the regularly neglected 75% mixed flour levain along with the workhorse 100% AP levain when I suddenly had this "brilliant" idea.  Why not change a few things at once so that I won't know what may have worked and what didn't?  

Things that changed, some not necessarily on purpose:

• 3 hour countertop autolyse became a 6 hour countertop autolyse, became an overnight retarded autolyse.
• 3 stage build of a 75% AP levain became an overnight retarded build on the 3rd stage. 
• Pushed the levain percentage in the dough from 20% to 40%.  Just because.
• Didn't allow retarded components to return to near ambient temperature. 
• Autolyse and levain went into the mixer at refrigerator temps, therefore ciabatta dough emerged from the mixer at near retard temps.  Not a good thing!  Don't try this at home without parental supervision.
• Prior to mixer, I did my standard 100 French Folds to the dough, with a 5 minute break halfway between.  The dough felt quite "mature" and ready for BF, but dropped it into the mixer anyway.  Probably shouldn't have and just gone straight to BF. 
• The very low dough temp. created a much longer Bulk Ferment than typical.
• Eliminated the olive oil and IDY from this run, 40% PFF levain be sufficient to compensate for the lack of a final IDY add.

Once the dough had BF'ed the remainder was biznez as usual, although my shaping should have been better.  I also must not have paid attention during the period in life whereby one learns to successfully eyeball a block of dough and get close to a three-way even divide.

Despite my dark thought that I had no idea what might or might not work due to myriad changes listed above, the bake came out just fine with two distinct differences.  The loaves took on a sheen that is pretty uncharacteristic for my own ciabatta bakes, but I like the look.  The other and odder difference is how closed the crumb is for a ciabatta.  

Considering how things were off during the process, I'm fine with the results however odd, and the bread is as tasty as ever.  I'd like to try this again with the obvious corrections applied.

1500g total, supposedly divided into ~500g each.  But we know that ain't the case, Sherlock.