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64th bake. Oct. 18, 2021.

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  I’ve been making pretzel rolls for years and I’m always tinkering with my formula to make them better.  Recently I started adding some butter to soften them a little and I really like the results.

This version had some fresh ground whole wheat added which bumped up the flavor.  I was very happy with the taste profile on these.

I decided to get creative and used some pastry cutters I had to give them a cool look.  I also used some scissor cuts for some more fun.

If you haven’t tried pretzel rolls yet, give these a try.

One note, if you use pretzel salt like I do on a portion of the rolls, you cannot cover the rolls with anything or the humidity in the air will react with the salt and you will get mushy salted rolls.  It’s best to freeze any you don’t use right away.

Lye really does make a big difference.  I know a lot of people are afraid to use it, but honestly you are using such a small amount in the water bath that unless you pour it in your eyes, it will do very little to your hands, etc.  The lye really gives you the authentic pretzel flavor and look.

Caution:  When using the Lye make sure you wear gloves, long sleeves and protective eye gear. Also, never add Lye to hot water or it will bubble over and probably burn you.

Formula

For Lye Bath (3.5% Solution

2 Liters (1836 grams) of Cold water

70 grams Sodium Hydroxide Crystals

Make the Levain

Add your seed starter (20 grams) to the indicated amount of flour and water and mix until incorporated.  Cover and let sit out at room temperature of in your proofer until nice and bubbly around 6-10 hours depending on your temperature.  Use immediately or refrigerate for a few days until ready to mix the main dough.

Procedure

Add the diastatic malt powder to the water and stir.  Add the flours in your mixing bowl and slowly add the water mixture.  Mix for about 1 minute until combined.  Cut your starter in pieces and lay on top of the flour mixture and cover and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour so the flour can absorb the water.

Next add the salt and butter (Softened) and mix for 6 minutes on low.    Place the dough in a slightly oiled bowl and do a couple of stretch and folds.  Cover the bowl and let it rest for 10-15 minutes.  Do another stretch and fold in the bowl and let it rest another 10-15 minutes.  Do another stretch and fold and let the dough sit out in the covered bowl for another 1.5 hours.  Place the dough in the refrigerator until ready to bake the next day.

When ready to bake take the dough out and leave it covered in your bowl for 2 hours.  Next divide the dough into pieces that are 110 grams each or 135 grams for larger rolls .  Shape as rolls and place on a baking sheet and cover with either a moist towel or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray.  Let it rest for around 60 minutes to about 1/2 proof.

While the rolls are proofing, fill a large stock pot with 2 liters of cold water.  Measure out the Lye and slowly add it to the cold water.  (DO NOT EVER ADD LYE TO HOT WATER).  Cover the pot and bring it to a rolling boil and then shut off the heat.

Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees.  When the rolls are proofed sufficiently, prepare to dip them for about 15 seconds in the lye bath upside down.  Let them drain on a bakers rack over a cookie tray covered with a towel or parchment paper.  After draining for a minute you can transfer them to a cookie/baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  You want to use a stainless steel cooking sheet as aluminum may react with the lye and peel.  Note: do not ever use parchment paper as the rolls will get stuck to the bottom.  I know this from experience and I had to cut off the bottoms of half the rolls I made.  I actually use my Silpat non-stick sheets which work like a charm.

When ready to bake, score each roll as desired and sprinkle with pretzel salt or topping of your choice.  

Bake for about 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown and register about 200 F in the middle.  Let them cool on a bakers rack until you can’t wait any longer!

Note: you cannot store these in a plastic bag or covered really otherwise the salt will react with the moisture in the air and you will end up with soggy tops.  I place them in a paper bag and leave it open so the air circulates.

Enjoy!

A good part of yesterday was spent helping my brother-in-law cut, split, and stack firewood for his winter heating.  After that, I came home to clean up (and take some ibuprofen!) and make hamburger buns.  Those will be used for this afternoon's Halloween gathering.

Paul

Today's bake used a small inoculation a long, slow bulk ferment.  I wanted to see what kind of flavor I could build with my new starter and a little blueberry yeast water in a dough that was over 90% AP/Bread flour.  I added just a little bit of whole grain for flavor and color.  Wanted to get a crumb color that was a pale blonde. 

Makes 1 loaf

247g AP Flour

169g Bread Flour

11g Whole Wheat Flour

11g Semola Rimicinata Flour

6g Rye Flour

6g Barley Flour

225g Water

68g Blueberry Yeast Water

9g Sea Salt

16g Starter

12g Honey

Method

Combine all ingredients and mix

Saltolyse for 60 minutes

2 sets of bowl kneading with a 45 minute rest between.  Place in proofing box at 75 deg F.

Bowl stretch and folds every 90 minutes until dough starts to get puffy (3 sets for me)

Pre-shape in a boule and bench rest 20-30 minutes

Final shape and final proof.  This method may have a long final proof (2-3 hours).  Watch the dough and not the clock.  It should be "jiggly".

Cold retard for up to 8 hours.

Bake at 450 deg F for 18 minutes with steam.  Vent oven and reduce to 425 deg F for 10 minutes.  Internal temperature should be 205 deg F.

Scoring and Loaf Shape

I experimented with different scoring because I had 6 "identical" loaves.  I baked 3 at a time.  For the first bake, I did a single center line score, three cross diagonals, and two long diagonals.  The long diagonals started at the center end of the loaf and went about 3/4 of the length to the side.  In all cases, the loaf opens perpendicular to the score.  A loaf that's split along the center line tends to open out and get wide.  A loaf scored multiple times across the loaf tend to open along the length.  They stay the same general width but get longer (the loaf if the first bake was spreading just a bit before the score.  Not a puddle but noticeably spreading, so I think a bit wider than a typical loaf).  The long diagonals produced a loaf that was both a bit longer and wider, but was also a little "twisted" and produced a irregular shaped end to the loaf.

For the second three, I repeated the multiple cross loaf scores.  I wanted to see if it would get longer without spreading like the first one.  I also did two different scoring patterns that were a continuous score along the centerline (one zig-zag and one holding the lame at no angle with multiple short cross scores).  In this case, the cross scores produced a loaf that was definitely longer and narrower.  In both cases with the continuous center line scores, the loaf opened up and got wider without really changing in length.

Unfortunately, all these loaves were spoken for, so I can't say if there's any difference in the crumb. 

What did I get out of it?  I tend to like my bread to be uniform in shape.  Call it the engineer in me.  So, I think going forward my scoring will be long diagonals or multiple cross scores.  

This is a Halloween candy corn themed coconut chocolate babka, as suggested by my husband. No candy corn was used in this recipe (I'm not a fan). I couldn't resist giving this a try. I think he may have been in the mood for some chocolatey goodness, and he kept nudging me along with ideas. 

I followed Maurizio's recipe again. Once the dough was almost mixed to where it needed to be, I split it into 2 randomly sized balls. Then I started adding food coloring to the dough.... The only other colored bread recipe I found had suggestions for how much to add, and it was wayyy more than I intended for the orange color. The yellow came out a little less intense, but still more than expected. I lost count adding it 1-2 drops at a time, but I think it was about 10-12 drops. Apparently the color intensifies after a couple of minutes. Lesson learned....

Crumb shot tomorrow, after we get to a family gathering. The kids will be all sugared up before they even go Trick or Treating. 😆

Hi, I just made this and it was delicious. Worth trying if you haven't yet.

Just a really pleasant flavour that permeates the loaf, along with a very light, soft, fluffy crumb. Sourdough flavour was very mild, if any.

The dough, which includes both yeast and levain, was quite active, rising at least 80% or so by the end of bulk. It expanded quite a lot while proofing too. 

Made sure not to bake too hot (in a dutch oven, started at around 230c fan, dropped down to 200c by the end, around 50 minutes total) so as not to burn the cheese, and it came out nicely golden brown.

I made quite a large loaf (1.18x the recipe) as I accidentally weighed the total flour (forgetting to subtract the flour in the levain) and mixed in the salt and yeast before I realised. So I just scaled everything up, except the levain obviously. But the size works well, because the crumb is probably the best part of this loaf. It was quite an impressive sight coming out of the oven.

The cheese I used was 'grana padano', a hard cheese similar to parmesan.

Pumpernickel Yudane

I decided to try a pumpernickel yudane sourdough baguette.

• pumpernickel means freshly-milled whole grain rye kernels
• yudane means a process of gelatinizing a portion of flour and mixing it into the dough. The portion is 20% of total flour weight with an equal weight of boiling water mixed in, then left to sit overnight. Gelatinizing the dough helps soften all the bran in fresh milled kernels, and gives a moist, creamy texture and soft chew
• baguette means my low-fi version of Maurizio Leo's sourdough baguette, made in half lengths

My yudane is 100% freshly ground whole rye kernels. The rest of the dough is Canadian All-Purpose flour.

This is the third in my series of yudane experiments. I previously used toasted buckwheat, and before that, milled wheat. See the links below.

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69147/yudane-toasted-buckwheat-sourdough-baguette

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69116/yudane-milled-wheat-sourdough-baguette

Making the Yudane

I sourced rye kernels from Yu Pik, a packaged brand sold in 1 kilo portions on Amazon, where I have free shipping. I ground the kernels in my Porlex manual coffee grinder on its finest setting. I added boiling filtered water, folded it in, covered in plastic and left on the counter overnight. I then put it in the fridge for an additional 24 hours to see what effect an extended time might have. I have nothing to report there... would have to try a short and long and then compare.

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My dough consisted of three main parts: a 30 minute autolyse of all purpose flour, a 100% hydration dark rye flour levain, and the freshly-milled rye yudane. NOTE: I reduced water by 100ml with no noticeable effect on the crumb... but the dough was less slack and easier to work with.

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Next morning, you can see how much the dough grew during retarded fermentation in the fridge.

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Loaves, Crumb, Texture, Taste

Here you can see the finished loaves. They look lighter than I expected.

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I've noticed that the two fresh-milled flour yudane versions of my baguette have a more creamy texture than the buckwheat flour version. 

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I got my shipment of grain from Daybreak Mills. It was time to reorder as I was literally at the bottom of my storage buckets. I chose to make this so the grains could be the star. 

Recipe:

 Makes 3 loaves

125 g spelt flour (125 g Spelt berries)

125 g rye flour  (125 g rye berries)

125 g Kamut flour (125 g Kamut berries)

820 g Strong Bakers unbleached flour

50 g freshly ground flax (50 g flax seeds)

865 g filtered water + 25 g

24 g Himalayan pink salt

30 g local yogurt

250 g 100% hydration levain (procedure for this is in recipe)

 The night before:

1. Mill the Spelt , Rye and  Kamut berries to obtain the needed amount of flours. Place the required amounts in a tub.
2. Add the unbleached flour to the tub. 
3. Ground the flax seeds in a bullet and add to the tub. Cover and set aside.
4. Take 10 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 20 g of filtered water and 20 g wholegrain flour if your choice. Let rise in at room temperature for the night. 

Dough making day:

1. Early in the morning, feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 50 g each of wholegrain flour and unbleached flour. Let rise 5 hours in a warm spot. Mine was ready in 4.5 hours. Must have  been all those new freshly milled berries. 
2. Two hours or so before the levain is ready, put 865 g filtered water in a stand mixer’s bowl and add the flours from the tub.  Mix on the lowest speed until all the flour has been hydrated. This takes a couple of minutes. Autolyse for a couple of hours at room temperature. 
3. Once the levain is ready, add the salt, the yogurt and the levain to the bowl. Add the extra water if needed. I usually judge this by poking the dough as well as watching if the dough climbs the hook. If it does, it needs more water. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed for 9 minutes. 
4. Remove dough from bowl and place in a covered tub. Let rest 45 minutes at room temperature (73F). 
5. Do 2 sets of coil folds after 45 minute intervals and then 2 more set after 30 minute intervals. Let rise about 30-40%. This only took another 20 to 30 minutes. 
6. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~820 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 
7. Do a final shape by flouring the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities or big bubbles. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make as tight boule as you can.
8. Sprinkle half rice/half AP flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Cover with plastic bowl cover or shower caps. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 11-12 hours. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Then take the loaves out of the fridge. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205F or more.

I definitely can’t complain about these guys! Great oven spring and nice colour! Hopefully the crumb is just as nice. 

You've been there.  Nibbled on cold french fries but they were "ok, but could be better" you tell yourself.  Then they end up in the trash or soup but not really outstanding shriveled up and cold. No? Wait. What happens if they get chopped up and tossed into roll dough?  Ha!  I did it.  And with cheese on top!

This year's CSA organic grain share has arrived and it was a good harvest despite pandemic and incredible summer heat and wildfire challenges.  I received several bags of organic rye, a bag of Canadian Marquis heirloom wheat and a bag of Manitoba wheat, a cultivar of Marquis. Marquis was first developed as a cross between Red Fife, Canada's oldest wheat variety and a variety from India called Hard Red Calcutta; it combines the best traits of both parent lines and by the early 1900's was grown on over 20 million acres, about 85%of the wheat acreage in North America. Many other new varieties of wheat have been bred in Canada over the past hundred years but the heritage of every one can be traced back to crosses made with Marquis.  It's always a treat, a privilege, to receive such high quality organic grain; the connection with the local farm where it is grown and the heritage of the wheat makes me grateful for every loaf of bread. 

My first bake with this year's harvest, bread for the farmers - a 30% Rye Seeded Onion Sourdough with Dark Malt Beer - 40% fresh milled sifted Marquis flour; 30% fresh milled sifted rye flour; 30% organic all purpose flour; 22% levain; 2% sea salt; 67% filtered water; 15% dark malt beer; 15% caramelized onions; 10% mix toasted black and white sesame seeds and poppy seeds; 3.5 hour bulk ferment with 4 sets of stretch/folds, then shaped and into the fridge for an overnight cold proof.  Baked in pre-heated covered pots, 500 F for 21 minutes, 450 F for 10 minutes and finished out of the pots on a baking stone, 450F for 19 minutes.