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I love the rich flavor Guinness adds to bread. The combo of fresh milled Barton Mills Danko Rye and Ruby Whole Wheat was a winner. The maple syrup helped add just the right amount of sweetness and the ricotta cheese helped create a moist open crumb.

I added some toasted onions to the top of the loaves by adding them to the inside of the bannetons. I love onions so this really took this one over the top.

This bread made excellent pastrami sandwiches with melted cheese and it was pretty good toasted for breakfast as well.

Levain Directions

Mix all the levain ingredients together  for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.   You can use it immediately in the final dough or let it sit in your refrigerator overnight.

 Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours and the Guinness together in your mixer or bowl for about 1 minute.  Let the rough dough sit for about 20 minutes to an hour.  Next add the levain,  ricotta cheese, maple syrup and salt and mix on low for 10 minutes.  (Note: I used my Ankarsrum which mimics hand mixing so if you are using a different mixer 4-5 minutes may be sufficient).  You should end up with a cohesive dough that is slightly tacky but very manageable.  (Note:  if you are not using fresh milled flours you may want to cut back on the water). 

Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.  (Since I used my proofer set to 79 degrees F. I only let the dough sit out for 1.5 hours before refrigerating).

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.

The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature and will only rise about 1/3 it’s size at most.  Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 540 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to it in the oven, score as desired and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

Lower the temperature to 455 degrees.  Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 205 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

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This babka recipe is by Maurizio Leo I’ve made few changes to it except that I added a small pinch of IDY because this dough can be very very slow to ferment and I didn’t want the dough to be too sour if it took that long to proof.

I did not do an overnight cold retard instead retarding only for about 1.5 hours to make the dough cooler for ease of rolling.

Vitals

Total Formula

Dough Mix

My final dough temperature for this dough was 76°F (24°C).

2. Mix

Before mixing, take out the butter called for in the recipe and cut it into 1/2″ pats. Let it sit at room temperature until called for.

I used my KitchenAid stand mixer to mix this dough. To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, add the mature levain, flour, whole milk, large eggs, salt, and half of the sugar. Set the mixer to low and mix until everything is incorporated. Let the dough rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minute rest, turn the mixer up to medium and mix for 5 minutes until the dough starts to pull from the sides of the mixing bowl. At this point, slowly stream in the remaining sugar while the mixer is running. Mix for another 1-2 minutes until the dough comes back together.

With the mixer still set to medium, add the room temperature butter, one pat at a time, waiting to add the next until the previous is absorbed into the dough. It might take around 5 minutes to mix all the butter into the dough. After all of the butter is added, continue mixing for another few minutes until the dough smooths out and once again begins to cling to the dough hook. The dough should be almost fully developed at this point (it won’t completely pass the windowpane test, but almost).

Transfer the dough to a container for bulk fermentation, cover, and keep somewhere warm—78-80°F (26-27°C)—in your kitchen for bulk fermentation.

3. Warm Bulk Fermentation – 2 hours. (or longer, as needed)

During this time, give the dough 2 sets of stretch and folds where the first set is 30 minutes after the beginning of bulk fermentation and the second set is 30 minutes after the first. After the second set, let the dough rest, covered, until the next step.

4. Cold Bulk Fermentation – (next day)

Assess the dough: has it risen a little in the bowl during the warm bulk fermentation? It should be a little puffy and smoothed out. If it looks like there’s no activity at all, give the dough another 30 minutes to 1 hour and check again.

Once you see some rise in the dough, place the covered bulk fermentation bowl into the refrigerator overnight.

Same day option: 

I much prefer making this over the course of two days, but you could make this all in one day: let the dough finish bulk fermentation for 2-3 hours on the counter. When the dough has risen around 50% and feels puffy, proceed with the rest of the steps below. However, I do recommend placing the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour after this warm bulk fermentation to chill before rolling out!

5. Roll, freeze, cut, and shape 

Before taking the dough out of the refrigerator, make the fillings, if making jam prepare a day ahead to allow it to cool.

Divide the dough into two, shape tightly into balls.

On a lightly floured surface roll one dough ball into large rectangle 16” x 12”, first spread half of the jam, cocoa, butter mixture on, then sprinkle half of the chopped chocolate sugar mixture.  Roll into a tight roll then transfer onto a cookie tray.  Repeat for the other dough.

Important: 

Place the rolled-up log on a baking sheet and place it into the freezer for 15 minutes (this makes it much easier to cut and braid).

After the 15-minute freezer rest, take the baking sheet out of the freezer and return the dough log to the counter. Using a sharp knife, cut the log to split open the log from one side to the other. Pinch the two top halves together and braid the dough one strand over the other. At the bottom, pinch the two halves together again. Don’t worry if filling spills out or things get messy — it’s all good.

After the dough is braided, pick up the braid and place it on the parchment right in the middle, then pick up the sides of the parchment and lift the dough up and drop it into the pan.

Cover the pan and place it somewhere warm, ideally, 78-80°F (26-27°C), to proof.

6. Proof 

This dough can be slow to rise at this point. Give it the time it needs to rise up to about 1/2″ below the rim of the Pullman pan. For me, at 78°F (26°C), it took about 3.5 hours. See the image below for how high my dough filled my pan.

7. Bake 

Preheat your oven with the rack in the middle to 350°F (176°C) — no fan assist (no convection). When the oven is preheated and the babka dough is fully proofed, place the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (to catch any sugar spilling over). In a small bowl, whisk together one whole egg and 1 Tbsp water and brush a thin layer of the egg wash on the top of the dough. Then, slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 55  minutes until the center of the babka reaches 200°F (93°C) then leave in oven with the oven off for another 5 mins.. Keep an eye on the babka in the last 10 minutes of the bake, if it’s coloring too quickly drop the temperature to compensate.

Once out of the oven brush a layer of the raspberry syrup on the babka.

Raspberry Jam

400 g frozen raspberries

425 g sugar (should reduce a bit more still very sweet)

½ lemon juice

Mash together raspberries and sugar in a saucepan on medium heat.  On sugar dissolved add juice of ½ lemon.  Gradually bring to a boil.  The jam should reach 221ºF for the pectin in the lemon juice to thicken the jam if not using jam sugar.

For the Filling 

• 3/16 cup raspberry jam
• 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 oz. 113.4 g bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped 
• ⅛ cup sugar

Syrup

• 1⁄8  cup sugar
• ½ cup fresh raspberries, mashed
• 1 tbsp water

Make the filling: 

Combine jam and cocoa powder in a small bowl; using your fingers, add butter until moist and crumbly and set jam mixture aside. Combine chocolate and 1⁄8 cup sugar in a bowl; set chocolate mixture aside.

The jam mixture is the first to be spread on the rolled out dough, then the chocolate sugar mixture is sprinkled on top.

Make the syrup: 

Combine raspberries, remaining 1⁄8 cup sugar, and 1 tbsp. water in a 2-qt. saucepan over high; reduce heat and simmer until sugar has dissolved, 1–2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes; strain through a fine mesh sieve, discarding solids

This is a 60% whole Kamut 80% hydration sourdough loaf I put together testing what I believe works well for pH guided dough development.

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Because I didn’t do an overnight saltolyse I did add 0.5% (2.48g) diastatic malt to the dough at the time of wet aultolyse.  By wet autolyse I mean I mix all the water with all the whole Kamut and diastatic malt without the salt, bread flour or levain.  The idea here is that I want to quickly hydrate the bran while also making it easier to add the stiff levain to this 1 hour later.  I believe this is working well for me although this bake is just the second time trying it.

The overnight levain was cool room temperature fermented with a low hydration of 60% to ensure that it wasn’t overfermented by the morning.  The pH of the levain at the time of use was 4.04 and had risen almost 4x.

After the 1 hour wet autolyse I added the levain and salt mixing it in the wet batter like slurry of the dough.  Once well incorporated which took like time, I add the bread flour and mixed until no dry flour remained.  After a ten minute rest I reassessed the dough and added the hold back water and mixed.  After another ten minute rest slap and folds were done to moderate gluten development (700).  pH at this point was 5.42

At 30 minute intervals first a bench letter fold was done, then three coil folds until the dough felt strong and wasn’t relaxing.  This was done at warm room temperature of around 78-80ºF.  Bulk was ended at a pH of 4.47 corresponding to an aliquot rise of 50% and the dough was shaped and placed into a banneton and left to ferment further until a pH of 4.07 was reached.  At this time the aliquot jar showed >90% rise.  The dough was then placed in a 3ºC fridge and left to cold retard for 20.5 hours.  

The next day (19.5 hours later) the oven was preheated to 500ºF with the dutch oven inside.  After 1 hour when the oven was up to 500ºF the dough was removed from the banneton onto a sheet of parchment.  The pH at this point was 3.97 using my automatic temperature control pH meter.  Some of the rice flour was brushed off and the dough was scored.  The dough was transferred to the dutch oven and baked as usual.  20 mins at 450ºF lid on, then 10 mins 420ºF, then lid off 15 mins 420ºF.  

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August 27, 2021. 56th bake. 100% WW tortilla / focaccia dough.

I usually don't blog my tortilla "bakes," but this came out good enough to document so I can remember it and share.

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53 grams Patel brand stone-ground whole grain durum flour, product of Canada. 25%

53 grams Swad brand Sharbati Gold whole wheat flour, product of India. (I have some doubt as to whether this is 100% whole grain.) 25%

106 grams Bob's Red Mill stone-ground whole wheat (hard red wheat), product of USA.  50%

Total flour: 212.

4.6 grams Himalayan pink salt.  2%

1/16 tsp instant dry yeast, Fleischmann.

1/4 tsp baking powder, Rumford.

143 grams bottled spring water.  143 / 212 = 67% hydration.

Mixed and then kneaded for about 3 minutes. Finished kneading at 5:50 pm.

Let it rest 1 hour 15 min.

7:05 pm, worked/kneaded in 6.3 grams of grape seed oil. 3%  

The reason I let it rest before adding oil is that oil interferes with how the whole grain durum absorbs water.

7:12 pm, covered bowl with cling film and placed in fridge.

Left it in fridge overnight.

Next day, 8:00 am. Weighed out a 50 gram piece of dough.

Flattened it a little by hand, dusted both sides with AP flour to keep things from sticking, and rolled it out to about 7.5 inches, or 19 cm.

Cooked it on a cast iron griddle at medium-low heat,  until brown spots appeared, flipped, and cooked 2nd side until brown spots appeared.

Put in a plastic tortilla warmer for moisture to equalize and for it to soften.

After about seven minites, it was nice and soft.

I forgot to take pics.

This combination of baking powder and yeast seems good for flat bread.

Place holder.

Place holder.

Hey everyone,
It's been very HOT lately! I'm so glad August is almost over and the weather is getting slightly cooler. On our way home from Niagara, we stopped by a branch of Panchvati for some Indian snacks and sweets. I left with a bag of Sharbati atta and murukku. I like how smooth this version of atta is compared to others. And at about 25°C, this flour made my starter double in 2.5 hours! I converted my AP/spelt starter to atta for by feeding it 1:5:5, 3 times. I'm convinced this flour would create new starters way faster (I made mine with spelt long time ago).

So, I made some breads these last few weeks between trips to Gaspésie and going for a 'shower' at the Niagara Falls (poncho kept my bag dry only). My apologies for the long post. :P

Braided atta loaf


A lil bit of instant yeast was added to this loaf as I wanted this loaf ready in a few hours and I didn't know how the atta starter worked. Baked in a 9 x 5" loaf pan at 180°C 40-45 minutes

Tangzhong
20g all purpose flour
100g milk

Dough
165g soured milk (1 tbsp lemon juice + 160g milk)
90g atta starter (100% hydration)
1 large egg
40g sugar
2g instant yeast
207g atta flour
84g Kamut flour
64g all purpose flour
7g salt
40g ghee

Eggwash: egg, milk and a pinch of salt

Matcha coconut loaf


I made two loaves of the same bread for our trips. I wanted to see how the colors would look like with different ways of rolling the doughs. I think laminating the doughs together might give me more uniformed lines. Either way, matcha + coconut is tasty! Baked in a Pullman 9 x 4 x 4" 180°C 25 minutes with lid on, 20 minutes without. The second loaf had a longer 2nd proof because life got in the way. :)

Tangzhong
20g all purpose flour
100g milk

Dough
All of the Tangzhong
115g soured milk
90g starter (100% hydration)
1 large egg
40g sugar
4g instant yeast
6g salt
200g all purpose flour
120g Kamut flour
20g unsalted butter
20g coconut oil

Just after mixing the dough:
to 1/3 of the dough:
Mix 2g matcha powder with 5g water. Add to the dough and mix until dough is pale green and smooth.

to 2/3 of the dough:
Add 20g unsweetened desiccated coconut to the dough and mix until smooth.


Blueberry sourdough with atta flour


While making blueberry compote, I reserved some blueberry skins (I read about this from: Natasha's Baking) to test with atta flour in a sourdough loaf. This is a same-day loaf that I find rose faster than the others before probably due to higher ambient temperature on that day and the flour. The blueberry skins  were laminated into the dough with some pulp. I forgot about adding a lil bit of citrus zest for a lil burst of flavor. While this was fun to make, I realize it's much too tedious just to get blueberries in the dough without changing its pigments' intensity. For a same-day loaf, this one had a light sourness which I like!

Dough
200g water
80g atta starter (100% hydration)
110g atta flour
100g all purpose flour
50g Kamut flour
5g salt
5g coconut oil
40g blueberry skins (from about 150g blueberries)
3 tbsp blueberry pulp


Onion & yogurt flatbread
Qashqari patir and qatlama layered breads



Adapted from: The Art of Uzbek Cuisine and Tasty Arbuz

Unlike piyozli that are usually rolled with onions (raw or caramelized), these were topped with a mix of chopped onion, yogurt and egg yolk.

Shaping the dough for qashqari patir was quite easy, but I wanted to see if the dough can be used in layered bread/qatlama patir instead. This method of making flaky flat bread is very similar to our Malaysian roti canai (I must attempt this soon).



The atta and Kamut made this dough soft and easy to stretch and shape. Once baked the layered version had crispy layers and tasted so good thanks to the brushing the dough with some ghee, onion topping and cheese. The normal qashqari patir is softer and chewy. Onion + yogurt + cheese =  yum!

190°C 25 to 30 minutes until the edges and topping are golden brown - I noticed Malika did not include baking temperature and time on her site.

Dough (6 flat breads)
230g *onion water
90g atta starter (100% hydration)
2g instant yeast
115g Sharbati atta flour
240g all purpose flour
7g salt
10g ghee / butter, a bit more to brush on dough for layered version

*Onion water
200g onions, chopped fine (I used Vidalia)
200g water
Short cut: mix these roughly chopped onions in a food processor with water, use 'chop' mode and pulse for 30 seconds until the onion bits are smaller than 1cm.
Pour the mixture through cheesecloth or a sieve and squeeze out the water. Set aside the leftover onion pieces for the topping

Onion topping
Onion bits
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp plain yogurt (I used plain Greek)
Optopnal: shredded cheese (I used cheddar and Swiss


Cinnamon twists


We love these cinnamon buns/twists as they're really great snacks on our road trips. I have posted one in the past, but this time, I used my other recipes. There are so many ways to shape buns, I simply spread the filling, letter fold the dough, roll it out a bit, slice into 8-12 strips, and twisted each strip until they formed a bun, almost like making a hair bun!

Bake at 180°C 18 to 25 minutes until the tops are golden brown.

Tangzhong
20g all purpose flour
100g milk

Dough
All of the Tangzhong
120g milk
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
280g all purpose flour
50g Kamut flour
5g salt
a pinch of ground cinnamon
25g sugar
6g instant yeast
60g unsalted butter
10g light olive oil

Filling
15g unsalted butter, melted
80g brown sugar
15g all purpose flour
3 tsp ground cinnamon (or more)
a pinch of salt



Banana bread with blueberry compote
Here's where the blueberry compote went into.


Mix wet and dry ingredients separately, then mix them together until just combined. Pour half of the batter into the greased pan, drop teaspoonfuls of compote over the surface. Top with the rest of the batter. Add spoonfuls or pipe the rest of the compote and swirl.

Bake in 8 x 8" pan (have yet to test in a loaf pan), 180°C 40 to 50 minutes

Wet ingredients
300g mashed ripe bananas, with some chunks (about 3 bananas)
50g coconut oil
30g sugar
30g brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
120g yogurt

Dry ingredients
140g all purpose flour
60g whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Filling & topping
1/3 cup blueberry compote



Banana coconut baked oatmeal


There's barely any traces of flour in this one. It is one of my favorite breakfasts with a bit of cinnamon and milk and sometimes with some fruits or berries. A tray usually gives me breakfast for about 4 to 6 days depending if hubby is eating as well or not. He eats them like a soft cookie. I place these baked and sliced bars in a resealable bag and chill them to keep moisture and air out.

Wet ingredients
300g mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
20g unsweetened desiccated coconut
240g milk
120g Greek yogurt
30g maple syrup (or honey)
1/2 tsp coconut extract (optional)
1 large egg
30g unsalted butter, melted
20g coconut oil

Dry ingredients
200g rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Topping
120g blueberries tossed in 1 tsp flour or fine sugar
Other toppings or add-ins: cranberries, toasted nuts, sliced banana, chocolate chunks/chips, cinnamon crumb or anything you like with breakfast

Mix wet and dry ingredients in 2 separate bowls. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour into greased and lined baking sheet (quarter or 8" square). Add toppings and bake at 180°C for 50-60 minutes until the top is firm and golden brown.


Okay, until next time! :)
- Christi

While in NY last month, I noticed this irresistible Sourdough Bread Making Kit in the window of a "health foods" store.  I resisted. 

We visited with my brother and sister-in-law last week in New Mexico.  Sandra wanted to bake a few different breads than those she had made before and wanted to try her hand, and taste buds, on these two.  I brought out much of the goods and formulas for her, and off she went...

Hamelman SD Seed Bread.

My version of Amy's Bread / Susan's Wild Yeast Semolina with pine nuts, fennel and golden raisins.

She wanted to mix and bake both concurrently.

The eastern view from their house.

The sunset view from their house.

 A pleasant time was had by all.

Tried to make a French-style rye bread following this recipe from Stanley Ginsberg: http://theryebaker.com/sourdough-tourte-de-seigle/ The recipe is very simple, but also very different from what I am used to (i.e. very short fermentation times, very high hydration for hearth bread, basically no shaping).

I halved the amount to make just one bread. Due to that on top of using warm water to mix the different stages, I also kept the dough in a warm place at about 28°C - I thought a smaller mass would lose the heat faster, and the fermentation times were scary short. The first stage more than doubled overnight (not tripled though, like said in the recipe, but I've never had my rye do that). I gave full 2 hours for the second stage, despite warm temperature, since I didn't observe any clear cracks or broken bubbles at 1.5 hrs. The dough however looked ready at 1.5 hrs with some broken bubbles on the surface.

The final proof is ridiculously short. Checking out the original video Stanley Ginsberg used as a basis for his recipe, the dough is not shaped at all, just scooped into generously floured bannetons and left for 15 min. I lined the banneton using my linen couche and generously dusted it with rice flour, and dusted the surface of the dough in the bowl with white rye flour. Since I just had dough for one bread, I simply inverted the bowl over the banneton and made the dough fall down, and scooped what stuck tot he bowl on top, and gently smoothed the surface. Left for 15 min again at 28°C.

Baked on a preheated steel without steam, generally following the instructions. But figuring out when to stop baking was tricky, and I might have stopped too soon: with the bread covered in flour, it's hard to see the colour of the crust. I tapped the bottom of the loaf and thought I heard good hollow sound, although time-wise it was quite a bit sooner than in the recipe. I gave it extra 5 min just in case, and pulled out.

Left to cool and only cut this morning for breakfast, it was baked around 1pm yesterday.

As you might be able to see above, the center is just a little gummy and a touch sticky. It's not terrible and still completely edible, but could be better. So I wonder if it's a little underbaked, or there is an issue with fermentation. I found it difficult to judge the fermentation here, since the times are so short, and in particular the final proof. But still I'd guess it's slight underbaking, since I baked for a significantly shorter time than in the recipe: only about 40 min vs at least an hour.

The flavour is very good anyway, very clear rye taste and a nice aroma! I might repeat it at some point and bake more thoroughly to evaluate it more fairly. The recipe is incredibly simple and very quick on the baking day (as I said, starting the second stage in the morning, the bread was baked at around 1 pm!).

AS a follow up to the Horse shoe rolls project for a small bakehouse museum