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Aug 31, 2021.

Goals here are to use 100% Patel brand stone-ground whole grain durum, 1.33% salt in order to have about 150 grams sodium per tortilla, and to use both commercial yeast and baking powder for a fluffier and softer tortilla. Salt is 39.34% sodium by weight.

I try to use  30 grams flour per tortilla, and then add a few grams to the batch because some dough gets lost along the way.

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For 5 tortillas:

152 grams Patel brand stone-ground whole grain durum, product of Canada. ($8 per 20 pound bag, $.40 per pound.)

3/16 tsp baking powder, Rumsford.

1/16 tsp instrant dry yeast, Fleischmann.

2.0 grams Himalayan pink salt. 1.32%.

101.3 grams bottled spring water. 67%.

Hand-mixed and hand-kneaded for a few minutes.

Rested dough for 1 hour, 23 minutes.

Worked in 4.5 grams of grapeseed oil. 3%.

Rested dough for 23 minutes.

Put dough in a sealed plastic bag, and placed it in refrigerator.

Overnight in fridge is enough waiting time.

The following was 4 days later.

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Rolled out to 7" using AP flour to keep from sticking. Ok, so it's not 100% WW any more, but at this point, WW durum doesn't have enough time to absorb any moisture. It would come out underbaked and gritty.

Cooked in a skillet on an electric burner, setting 4 out of 10, until spots appeared. Flipped, added turkey pepperoni and shredded cheese.  Let it cook about 30 seconds more, folded it in half, and flipped/cooked until both half-sides were nicely spotted.

Voilà, pepperoni quesadilla.

I have a quest to improve the rise and softness of a 100% Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread. This is the third time baking this and I have been tweaking the formula with each attempt. There has been a gradual improvement with each bake and this time I got a good rise, soft crumb, and wonderful flavour. Debra Wink has graciously given her advice and ideas given that it is her recipe in Hamelman’s 3rd Edition of Bread.

The key for this bake was to raise the protein per cent of my whole-wheat flour. I can only buy 10.8% protein wholemeal flour here and DW is currently using WWF that is 16-17%. She suggested I try Vital Wheat Gluten to raise the protein per cent. I searched TFL for ideas and found alfanso’s June 2017 comment describing how to use a Pearson’s Square to calculate the amount of VWG to add.

Flour mixing - High gluten and pastry flour vs AP flour | The Fresh Loaf

I followed the instructions and set up a spreadsheet. I know that the protein in my WWF is 10.8%, the VWG is 75%, and the desired 16% protein flour. The calculation arrived at a baker’s per cent of WWF 91.9% and VWG 8.1%.

I mixed the dry flour ingredients thoroughly before adding in. I immediately noticed very good gluten development while mixing.  I was pleased that the dough behaved as DW described.

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After seeing so many beautiful creative babkas for the community bake, I decided to give it a try. I read through Melissa Clark's recipe (at the end of this post) and decided maybe I can try 1 loaf with a chocolate mousse filling - this mousse is good on its own too, I smother each slice of the babka with more of this!




Dough
30g milk
30g orange juice
2 large eggs
150g all purpose flour
100g Kamut flour
30g sugar
4g salt
3g instant yeast
1/2 tsp orange zest
60g unsalted butter

Egg wash
1 large egg
1 tbsp milk
A pinch of salt

Chocolate and yogurt mousse
(adapted)

100g chopped dark chocolate
5g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp espresso powder
25g milk
25g unsalted butter
25g sugar
A pinch of salt
50g Greek yogurt
40g walnuts, chopped fine

Orange syrup
40g caster sugar
50g orange juice


Preparing the dough:
Day 1: Mix milk, juice, eggs, sugar, orange zest and instant yeast. Then, add in flours and salt and mix until the dough begins to form and no dry bits can be seen. Gather the dough into a ball, cover the bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Add in blobs of butter one by one, to the dough. Pinch and fold until each blob (ha!) of butter is absorbed before adding the next one. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic (this took me about 12 minutes, to get a lovely windowpane)

Stretch and fold the dough into a ball, place in a greased bowl, cover and let it rest at room temperature (about 25-26°C) for 1 hour. Then, gently deflate the dough, stretch and fold it once again into a ball. Flatten and shape it into a disc or square. Wrap in 2-3 layers of clingfilm and place it in an airtight container or resealable bag. Freeze the dough for 1 hour before transferring to the refrigerator for at least 4 hours to overnight (from past experience of chilling wrapped doughs in resealable bags, directly in the fridge they grew so fat they got stuck between racks! These days I freeze, then chill)

Filling (prepare the same day as dough or 1 hour before assembly):
Chop chocolate into smaller pieces. In a saucepan, whisk together cocoa powder, espresso powder, milk, butter, sugar and salt over medium low heat. Continue whisking until all the butter is melted and the mixture is close to boiling (steam appears). Reduce heat to a simmer and sprinkle in chopped chocolate. Leave the chocolate pieces untouched in the hot milk mixture for 1 minute. Then, slowly stir with a spatula until the chocolate melts into the milk.

Remove from heat and continue stirring until the chocolate mixture is smooth and not grainy. Fold in chopped walnuts.

In a medium bowl, stir the yogurt until smooth. Fold in chocolate mixture until fully incorporated and creamy.


Assembling the babka:
Day 2 (or 4 hours of chilling later): Line a loaf pan on all sides with parchment paper with an overhang on each longer side. I fold the ends together so the dough only comes in contact with parchment paper on all sides.
 
Place the chilled dough onto a lightly floured counter. Press the dough out into a rough rectangle. Then, with a rolling pin, begin to roll the dough into a rectangle about 40cm x 30cm (16 x 12"), turning it 90° to roll each side.

Spread a thin layer of chocolate filling all over the dough leaving one longer edge about 2" space free of filling (as this mousse is a thinner than usual babka filling). Begin to roll the dough from the opposite side to the free edge. Roll the dough snug (not too tight that the dough tears) into a log. Then, let the log rest seam-side down for about 5 to 10 minutes for the edge to seal.

Then, slice the rolled log/dough in two lengthwise with a knife or bench scraper. With the exposed dough-filling facing up, twist the dough halves together, by crossing each other, with the exposed filling facing up at each cross. Gently tuck the ends under slightly while pushing both ends towards the middle, compacting the twists and the dough to fit the prepared loaf pan. Transfer the shaped babka into the loaf pan, cover and let it rise at room temperature until puffy (not quite doubled) and about 2cm (nearly 1") from the rim of the pan, about 1 to 2 hours.

Toward the last 30 minutes of the proof, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).

Bake:
Once the babka is ready for the oven, brush the tops lightly with egg wash (lightly beat 1 egg with milk and salt). Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 40 to 50 minutes until the tops are golden brown, carefully tenting halfway should it brown too quickly. The internal temperature of the babka should reach at least 90°C (190°F).

While the babka is baking, prepare the syrup by heating orange juice with sugar over medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, let the mixture begin to boil. Reduce the temperature to a simmer for 1 minute. Remove from heat and let the syrup cool slightly before use.

Let the loaf pan cool for about 5 minutes before removing the babka from the pan with the parchment paper overhang. Brush the babka all over once removed from the pan and parchment paper. Let it cool completely before slicing.

Note: I baked my babka till 48 minutes before checking the internal temperature - entirely my fault for forgetting. The internal temperature was already 97°C. While I find this recipe a lil dry compared to others I've made before, the mousse made it all worthwhile. :)


Melissa Clark's recipe from https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018045-chocolate-babka or https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/a-better-chocolate-babka/

DOUGH
1/2 cup/118ml whole milk
7g (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
67g (1/3 cup) granulated sugar, plus a pinch
531g (4 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour, more as needed
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp grated lemon zest (optional)
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
140g (10 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing bowls and pans

FUDGE FILLING:
100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
174g (3/4cup/177ml) heavy cream or half-and-half
Pinch of  salt
170g (6 ounces) extra bittersweet chocolate, preferably between 66 and 74 percent cocoa, coarsely chopped
112g (8 tbsp/1 stick) unsalted butter, diced, at room temperature
2 teaspoons/10ml vanilla extract

CHOCOLATE STREUSEL:
60g (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
45g (3 tbsp) granulated sugar
11g (1 1/2 tbsp) cocoa powder
½ tsp salt
64g (4 1/2 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
60g (1/3 cup) mini semisweet chocolate chips

SYRUP:
135 grams granulated sugar
158g water

1. Prepare the dough: In a small saucepan or a bowl in the microwave, warm the milk until it’s lukewarm but not hot (about 43°C/110°F). Add yeast and a pinch of sugar and let sit for five to 10 minutes, until slightly foamy.

2. In an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook, or in a food processor, mix together flour, 1/3 cup sugar, the salt, the vanilla, the lemon zest (if using) and the nutmeg. (If you don’t have a mixer or processor, use a large bowl and a wooden spoon.) Beat or process in the yeast mixture and eggs until the dough comes together in a soft mass, about two minutes. If the dough sticks to the side of the bowl and doesn’t come together, add a tablespoon more flour at a time until it does, beating very well in between additions.

3. Add half the butter and beat or pulse until the dough is smooth and elastic, three to five minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed. Beat in the rest of the butter and continue to beat or pulse until the dough is smooth and stretchy, another five to seven minutes. Again, if the dough sticks to the sides of the bowl, add additional flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.

4. Butter a clean bowl, form the dough into a ball and roll it around in the bowl so all sides are buttered. Cover the bowl with a clean towel and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place (inside of a turned-off oven with the oven light on is good) until it puffs and rises, about one to two hours. It may not double in bulk but it should rise.

5. Press the dough down with your hands, re-cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight (or, in a pinch, for at least four hours, but the flavor won’t be as developed).

6. Prepare the filling: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, cream and salt. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar completely dissolves, about five minutes. Scrape mixture into a bowl. Stir in chocolate, butter and vanilla until smooth. Let cool to room temperature. Filling can be made up to a week ahead and stored, covered, in the fridge. Let come to room temperature before using.

7. Prepare the streusel: In a bowl, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Stir in melted butter until it is evenly distributed and forms large, moist crumbs. Stir in the chocolate chips. Streusel can be prepared up to three days ahead and stored, covered, in the fridge.

8. Prepare the syrup: In a small saucepan, combine sugar and 2/3 cup water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then simmer for two minutes, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves.

9. Butter two 9-inch loaf pans, then line with parchment paper, leaving 2 inches of paper hanging over on the sides to use as handles later.

10. Remove dough from refrigerator and divide in half. On a floured surface, roll one piece into a 9-by-17-inch rectangle. Spread with half the filling (there’s no need to leave a border). Starting with a long side, roll into a tight coil. Transfer the coil onto a dish towel or piece of plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer for 10 minutes. Repeat with the other piece of dough.

11. Slice one of the dough coils in half lengthwise to expose the filling. Twist the halves together as if you were braiding them, then fold the braid in half so it’s about 9 inches long. Place into a prepared pan, letting it curl around itself if it’s a little too long for the pan. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for 1 to 1½ hours, until puffy (it won’t quite double). Alternatively, you can cover the pans with plastic wrap and let them rise in the refrigerator overnight; bring them back to room temperature for an hour before baking.

12. When you’re ready to bake, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Use your fingers to clump streusel together and scatter all over the tops of the cakes. Transfer to oven and bake until a tester goes into the cakes without any rubbery resistance and comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. The cakes will also sound hollow if you unmold them and tap on the bottom. An instant-read thermometer will read between 85 and 99°C (185 and 210°F).

13. As soon as the cakes come out of the oven, use a skewer or paring knife to pierce them all over going all the way to the bottom of the cakes, and then pour the syrup on top of the cakes, making sure to use half the syrup for each cake.

14. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

 Saw this made in one of those French bakery videos and thought, wait a minute, even I can do that!! I made a relatively small batch of baguette dough and voila!!

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This is the bread I am going to bring our friends who we are seeing for the first time in over a year.  They do seem to prefer a softer bread so what better than a sourdough Hokkaido milk bread with Tangzhong.  This is the second time I am making this bread and I hope they enjoy it.

The recipe that follows is for a 9”x4”x4” Pullman pan open.

Ingredients

Sweet Stiff Starter 

• 53g bread flour 

• 24g water 

• 18g light brown sugar 

• 18g sourdough starter ~100% hydration 

Tangzhong classic 1:5 ratio

• 89g milk (adjusted down to 1:5 ratio from original)

• 18g bread flour   

Dough Dry Ingredients 

• 360g bread flour or 330 g and use 30 g to mix with butter

• 59g sugar

• 7g salt 

Dough Wet Ingredients 

• 139g milk 

• 59g egg beaten (about 1 ⅕ of a large egg)

• 67g room temperature butter

Total flour = 431 g

Total weight 899 g

Pre-bake Wash 

• 1 egg beaten

• 1 Tbsp milk

Post-bake Wash 

• 1 Tbsp butter

Instructions

Starter 

Mix the starter ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 100% growth.  At room temperature, it typically takes 7-9 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.

Tangzhong 

In a sauce pan set on med-low heat, whisk the milk and flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.

In the meantime, mix butter with 30 g of flour, this will make the butter much easier to incorporate into the dough for mixing by hand or by machine.

Dough 

Mix the following in a bowl, milk, egg(s), sugar, salt, tangzhong and stiff levain to combine and dissolve/breakup the stiff levain.  Add bread flour and knead until good gluten development.  Then gradually add the butter flour mixture until fully combined and full gluten development.  The dough should pass the windowpane test.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, form it into a ball, flip it smooth side up, cover and let rise for 6-12 hours depending on room temperature. If you refrigerate the dough, plan for longer rise times.  I did cold retard for 26 hours.

Prepare your pullman pan by greasing it or lining it with parchment paper.  Transfer the dough to the countertop and divide into four equal parts rounding each into a small boule.  One by one roll each dough ball into a long rectangle and do a letterfold.  Turn 90* then roll out again into a long rectangle.  Finally, roll into a tight roll.  Once you have rolled each dough ball into a roll place them into the pullman pan so that their swirls alternate.

Cover and let proof for 2-4 hours (more if you put the dough in the refrigerator).  I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash.  Just before you place the dough into the oven brush again with the egg-milk wash.

Bake at 350ºF for 50 mins rotating halfway through.  Keep an eye on the crust and be prepared to shield it if it is getting too dark.  After 50 mins of baking take the bread out of the pan and place it back into the oven for another 5 mins to crisp up the crust.  Remove from oven and let cool on a rack.  Enjoy!

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Haven't posted anything lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been baking!! Baguettes galore, Ciabattas, and crazy different fruit and nut sourdough breads including Blueberry Pecan and Apricot Walnut! On tonight's menu, one of my favorite "treats", the erstwhile New York style Bialy topped with everything mix and onions! I prepared a Pâte Fermentée in advance and refrigerated overnight, which definitely added some extra nice flavor to the finished product. Fairly typical preparation, bake in a 500F oven for approx 12 - 14 minutes.

Ingredients:
Pâte Fermentée
• 120 g water plus 1 teaspoon
• 180 g bread flour plus 1 tablespoon
• 2/3 teaspoon instant dry yeast
• 1 tsp table salt

Main Dough
• 320 g water
• 465 g bread flour
• 150 g pâte fermentée
• 3/4 tsp instant dried yeast
• 18 g table salt

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I just finished reading an advance copy of Eric Pallant's Sourdough Culture, which is coming out in a couple of weeks.

There are a few different threads to the book. One thread is an attempt to trace the lineage of the Cripple Creek starter he was gifted and which sparked his emthusiasm for sourdough. The other works forward in time from the earliest known evidence of breadmaking in Egypt, through the Roman Empire into Europe, and eventually from Europe to North America. It includes quite a bit of recent research including information on the industrialization of breadmaking and the move from sourdough to commercial yeast, something Professor Pallant won a Fulbright scholarship to study.

The last history of bread I recall reading was 6000 Years of Bread, which was originally published during World War II. A lot of research has been done since then. Professor Pallant's book brings that history up-to-date with recent scholarship and science to provide a much more complete picture of the evolution of bread. If that sounds like your kind of thing, check it out!

Found a little gem at the end of last week on Available for Barter Fremantle and Surrounds and although Frances said she was happy for me to just have it i said i would bake some Cinnamon buns on the Monday, unfortunately she is gluten intolerant but her son and husband are not so i hope they enjoy some of these.

holds just under 2 kgs, perfect for when i have just opened a bag

note the tray is well buttered to prevent sticking and combine with the sugar and cinnamon to make the gooey toffee like bottom

ready for the oven and filling the pan

out and about to be slipped ontothe cooling rack

Have been loving the yeast water. 

I've recently made Hamelman's Swiss Farmhouse bread from the community bake. So interesting and it surprised me that my somewhat fizzy water has such great leavening power.

Since there was leftover yeast water from making the CB bread I wondered what a yeast water bread would taste like without the raisins and if it would still have as strong a raisin flavour to it. And I do like what seeds and nuts as inclusions bring to a bread, so made this loaf, replacing the walnut and raisin inclusions with 50g of a seed mix of my own (pumpkin, sunflower, brown and golden linseed, sesame) and another 50g of nuts (almonds, pecans and walnut).

Other than that most of the method followed was as per Hamelman's recipe.  The nuts and seeds were laminated in. This time around the fermentation, although lightning fast compared to sourdough was slower than with the Swiss Farmhouse, possible because of the lack of raisins. Bulk fermentation was 2.5 hours and final proof just shy of 2 hours, with the aliquot showing 120% increase at the end. With the original recipe the aliquot grew even larger - to 167% and perhaps I should have let it raise even higher, but still learning what I can get away with with the yeast water!

I did err on the side of caution and popped the banneton into the freezer while the oven was warming just in case the dough would spread when it came out. I never know how long you can get away with the freezer for, but it seems to be longer than I expected and up to an hour has been fine. For this bread it was around 50 minutes.

Taste was exceptional. The pecans really came through (most of the nuts did, actually). There wasn't a raisin taste either, although there was certainly no sour taste as you'd get with sourdough. It was especially lovely to eat with a nut butter, but we went to town and also tried it with avo, a 'Labneh' cream-cheese and Speculoos spread.

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So I had two different kinds of raisins that I tried. Ended up using the jar on the left which had the larger raisins made from Hanepoort grapes. Raisins are seeded and still have stalks.

Simple but delicious. One of my most popular loaves. 

Like last week, dough was moving really fast and it got 3 folds rather than 4. It also spent more time in the fridge than usual. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge 

100 g rolled oats

200 g water

45 g honey

40 g butter

Dough

700 g unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled whole grain Red Fife flour (200 g Red Fife berries)

100 g freshly milled whole grain Einkorn flour (100 g Einkorn berries)

50 g flax, freshly ground

700 g water +25 g

23 g salt

30 g yogurt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain flour of your choice for feeding the levain

The night before:

1. Mill the grains and place in a tub. Grind the flax seeds in a bullet and add to the tub. Add the unbleached flour to the tub as well. Cover and set aside.

2.Take 10 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

Dough Making day:

1. Early in the morning, feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 50 g of strong baker’s flour and 50 g wholegrain flour. Let rise until doubled (about 5 hours). However, today, my levain peaked at 4 hours and 30 minutes. I caught it just as it flattened and was about to head back down. 

2. About two hours before the levain is ready, put 700 g of 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. Make the porridge: Add the water, the butter and the honey to the rolled oats and cook on medium heat until the liquids are absorbed and porridge is very thick and creamy. Let cool. 

4. Once the autolyse is done and the levain has doubled, add the salt, the yogurt, the porridge, and the levain to the bowl. My dough needed an extra 25 g of water. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed for 9 minutes.

5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 45 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on). 

6. Do 2 sets of coil folds at 45 minute intervals and then 1 more set after 30 minutes. Let rise about 30%. This dough was moving fast so I skipped the fourth fold I would normally do. This is the second week this has happened. I’m not sure why. Maybe I just have a super happy starter these days. 

7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~810g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 

8. Do a final shape by 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. Finally stretch the two top corners and cross 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 a nice tight boule.

9. Sprinkle a  mix of rice flour and all purpose flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight. I try to keep proof under 12 hours, however, due to life happening, the first batch went in after 14 and a half hours and the second after almost 16 hours. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, about 11 hours later, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. 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 20 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.