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And I baked a blue or bluish sourdough bread.. with butterfly pea flower and blue berry. 
I have a potted butterfly pea flower plant on my balcony that I harvest daily. Some days there were 10 and others maybe 4 or 5. I cold dry it in the fridge by wrapping with a paper kitchen towel. So once a month I get to make a blue bread! 

it’s a basic sourdough dough bread at 75% hydration. A combination of flour and seeds. Overnight proofing in the fridge. Baked in a Dutch oven.

hope you like blue bread as much as I

😜 happy baking 

evon

My oldest son and his wife moved to Denver and have not found a good bread bakery. 
I will visit next week and got the assignment to find one. 
Any direction would be appreciated. 
They live in Littleton.

Thanks

Thomas

There have been quite a few posts lately regarding various rye breads, after finally getting my hands on a barley malt syrup, I decided I would try to bake one myself.  I had borrowed Southern Ground by Jennifer Lapidus and decided to try baking her Danish Rye bread since I had almost all the ingredients.  Being from the south of the US she includes sorghum syrup which I understand is common there, so I subbed the barley malt in for it.

Her recipe created a lot more levain than one needs, I didn’t check the calculations ahead of time and only realized that when the levain was being weighed, I’ve adjusted the recipe so there wouldn’t be any waste with future bakes. Her recipe was also for a 8x4” pan where I have a deep 9x4x4” Pullman so I think I would want to increase the final dough weight  even more than I already have in the future to get a slightly taller loaf.  That being said, it would be smart to actually taste this bread before baking it again in a larger size, I haven’t had a 100% rye bread in many many years so I don’t recall if I actually like them or not.

I wondered if I had underproofed the loaf given its short stature, but I think it would have torn as it baked if it was underproofed.  The final proof went much faster than the recipe estimated taking only 2h45min instead of the 4-8 hours.  When I saw a few holes appears on the top crust I started the oven and put the dough into the fridge to try to slow it down to avoid overproofing.  As always the crumb will be most important and I won’t slice it open until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.

Because I keep such a small amount of starter I added a first stage levain build in order to make enough levain.  The ingredient weights for the 8x4” pan are from her book without adjustment other than adding the first stage.  The weights for the 9x4” pan are my adjusted to fit a 9x4” pan but not yet increased to make a larger/taller loaf.

YIELD: 1 (8 X 4-INCH) PAN LOAF

First stage 

10 g starter

40 g water

40 g whole rye flour

LEAVEN (8 TO 12 HOURS)

150g water

75g starter

100g whole-rye flour

SOAKER (8 TO 12 HOURS)

150g hulled pumpkin seeds

75g hulled sunflower seeds

100g cold water

DOUGH

100g warm water (about 85°F)

200g leaven

200g whole-rye flour

1½ teaspoons sorghum syrup or light molasses, I have barley malt

10g fine sea salt

soaker (above), drained

For 9x4x4” Pullman

First stage 

6 g starter

24 g water

24 g whole rye flour

LEAVEN (8 TO 12 HOURS) I’ve recalculated the levain so there isn’t waste.

106g water

52g starter

71g whole-rye flour

SOAKER (8 TO 12 HOURS)

169g hulled pumpkin seeds

87g hulled sunflower seeds

113g cold water

DOUGH

113g warm water (about 85°F)

226g leaven

226g whole-rye flour

1½ teaspoons sorghum syrup or light molasses, I have barley malt

11.3g fine sea salt

soaker (above), drained

I would increase the ingredients by 50% if you wanted to fill the Pullman. 

1. Make the leaven: Measure the water into a small clear container with a lid, such as a widemouthed 1-quart mason jar, then add the starter. Using a spoon or your fingers, break apart the starter into the water. Add the flour and mix until fully incorporated. Cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 8 to 12 hours (it’s possible to let it go even longer, say, 14 hours), until fully developed (see image on this page).
2. Make the soaker: In a container with a lid, stir together the sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and cold water. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours, then drain and set aside.
3. Make the dough: Once the leaven is fully developed, measure the water into a large bowl, then add the leaven and dissolve it in the water, breaking it apart with your fingers. Add the flour, sorghum syrup, salt, and drained soaker and mix until fully incorporated, squeezing and mixing all the ingredients together vigorously to make a smooth, claylike dough.
4. Final rise: Grease an 8 x 4-inch standard loaf pan with olive oil or butter (if you’re not vegan, the butter is more commonly used in this Danish bread).
5. Place the dough directly in the prepared pan, using wet hands to smooth the top of the loaf. Cover with a cotton or linen kitchen towel and proof at room temperature for 4 to 8 hours, until small holes appear in the top of the loaf. (The final proof time depends on how active your leaven is and the temperature of your kitchen.)
6. Bake: Preheat the oven to 450°F. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another 45 minutes, or until the internal temperature reads 206°F.
7. Remove from the oven and immediately transfer the bread from the pan to a cooling rack. Let cool completely, ideally for 24 hours, before slicing. If you would like a softer crust, remove the loaf from the pan and let cool for 10 minutes, then return it to the pan and let it cool completely.

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Decided that a combo of Parmesan and Rosemary is what was needed for this weekend’s loaves. Of course, this has porridge in it. I added olive oil to it and skipped my usual yogurt in the dough. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge 

100 g large rolled oats

200 g water

30 g Virgin olive oil

Add-ins

200 g Parmigiano Reggiano, grated coarsly 

3 g rosemary, chopped finely 

Dough

800 g strong bakers unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled wholegrain Red Fife flour 

700 g water (650 + 50 g)

20 g pink Himalayan salt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain and unbleached flour of your choice for feeding the levain

The night before:

1. Mill the grains if you are using Red Fife berries. Otherwise use the freshest wholegrain Wholewheat flour that you can find (freshly milled flour does make an incredible difference in flavour). Place the required amount of flour in a 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). 

2. About two hours before the levain is ready, put 650 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 at least a couple of hours at room temperature. 

3. Make the porridge: Add the water  and the olive oil to the rolled oats and cook on low 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 porridge, the cheese, the rosemary, and the levain to the bowl. Add 50g water as well. 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 two more sets st 30 minute intervals. Let rise about 30%. This was done after 30 minutes for a total bulk of 3 hours. 

7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~835 g. 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. 

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.

• I baked these after exactly 12 hours in the fridge. I didn’t get any ears but they still turned out huge! These are the biggest loaves that have come out of these new cast iron pots. The recipe for the last three weekends have basically been the same aside from the add-ins. I’m not quite sure why these are so big but I’m not going to complain. Unfortunately, these are all sold so no crumb shot. 
  
  
  

I chanced upon this recipe for wholemeal rolls on Abel Sierra's wordpress blog. I liked the look of them and thought I would give them a try.

Sadly, Abel's blog no longer exists, but it can still be accessed via The Wayback Machine.

Here is a screenshot with my English translation of the ingredient list:

I decided to do a classic English 4hr sponge:

440g BF 13%

389g H2O

3.1g diastatic malt flour

2.65g IDY

DT 26C

While this was fermenting I Mockmilled 350g Millers Choice heritage wheat grain and sifted at #30. I scalded the bran with 142g boiling water.

I made the main dough as follows:

sponge

scald

WW pass through

90BF 11%

18g sugar

45g butter

48g liquid whole milk

DT 26C

Mixed in the Kenwood to windowpane

BF 75mins with S&F at 45mins

Scaled at 90g

FP 30mins

Potato starch wash tops for seeds/oats

Baked 10mins with steam, 10mins vented.

I think these turned out pretty well - nice soft crumb and good flavour from the Millers Choice grain. I find some of the heritage grains, eg Red Lammas, too "branny".

Lance

This is one of my favorite breads. I used freshly ground Durum flour and bumped up the % along with a slightly higher % of fresh whole wheat.

I cooked the grits and added some butter and grated cheddar cheese just because that’s the way grits should be eaten!

I was very happy with how this one came out. I love the softness the ricotta cheese adds to the crumb and the flavor the grits impart. It’s an excellent bread to grill with some good olive oil and throw on a fresh garden tomato with some mozzarella and your good to go :).

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 water for about 1 minute.  Let the rough dough sit for about 20 minutes to an hour.  Next add the levain,  ricotta, cooked grits and salt and mix on low for 4 minutes.  (Note: with the Ankarsrum I adjusted the speed from low to medium).  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.

 A few photos from the summer gardens.....

I received a wonderful surprise this week when I opened an unexpected package sent to me by Anita’s Organic Mill.  They were kind enough to send me the flours, cereal and swag in this photo.

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Butter toasted seven grain porridge sourdough is a new recipe I put together to highlight the wonderful steel cut organic seven grain cereal and organic sprouted whole wheat flour from @anitasorganic  The cereal is toasted with butter and then cooked but still left al dente.  

I used a stiff levain of 60% hydration to help handle the heat of the summer yet still allow an overnight fermentation.  I wanted to give time for the whole wheat to fully hydrate but also wanted to make adding a stiff levain easier so in the morning 1 hour before the levain was ready I added the sprouted whole wheat to all the water.  When the levain was ready pH 4.09 I added it to this slurry and easily incorporated it. Next I added the salt and rest of the bread flour.  The porridge was cool when added during the first set of stretch and folds.  

Bulk fermentation was ended when the dough reached a pH of 4.22 corresponding to an aliquot rise of 40%.  After shaping bench proofing continued until a pH of 4.0 was reached corresponding to an aliquot rise of 60%.  The dough was cold retarded at 3ºC overnight.  In the morning at the time of baking the pH had dropped to 3.89.

I’m very pleased with the oven spring and bloom on this loaf.  I think I’ve found the right pH values to aim for with my rye starter and my flours.  As always the crumb will tell the final story.

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The Tartine book has an interesting variation on the semolina bread called "Golden Raisin, Fennel Seed, and Orange Zest." I've got a friend who makes this bread, but substitutes the raisins for cranberries and calls this her "Christmas bread."

I used a 100g bag of cranberries which were presoaked in boiling water (120g after drainage).

Also, I've struggled in the past with semolina 'rinacinata' in bread, so I developed two doughs and laminated them together with the inclusions, this let me develop the gluten in the semolina dough at  lower hydration and get quite a strong dough upfront. In the pic below of the two doughs the semolina dough (70% of the flour) is the bowl on the right and the bowl on the left (30% of the flour) is strong bread flour dough. I used a little bit less water than Chad (used 330g of water in total, whereas the book had 375+25g listed), but followed what the dough felt like it could hold.

The bread had the lovely yellow semolina colour, and was my first successful high semolina bread! Think I have the double dough lamination to thank for that!

Taste wise the fennel seeds do dominate, so it isn't an everyday bread, but the combination with orange zest, coriander and cranberries was quite interesting to try out. Perhaps too, that floral linalool flavour from the toasted coriander seeds is the thing that held the flavour and made this an interesting bread.

In the light by my window it looks a little golden.

I'm definitely starting to get into a regular baking routine. Is this even normal behavior? 🤣
I started a batch of Pane Francese on Friday, cold fermented a half dozen demi baguettes overnight and baked early Sat AM.

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I started a levain for a loaf of Pecan Cherry Sourdough later yesterday afternoon, and baked the batard straight out of the fridge this morning.

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And just to keep myself amused I pulled a quick Pain De Campagne together today, too. I absolutely LOVE how my kitchen smells these days!!!

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It was time to try replacing all the water in the main dough with beer. I looked for a locally made lighter tasting golden beer. And of course, this is another porridge bread. The porridge is made with water, butter and honey. I blame Ian for getting me hooked on porridge breads! 

I’m also experimenting with doing only 2 builds of my refrigerated starter instead of 3. I make sure to give my refrigerated starter a good stir before putting it back in the fridge. If it’s getting low, I feed it so that it’s quite thick and pop it back in the fridge without counter time. Since I bake once a week, the beasties have time to build up, but still have lots of food. I don’t want it going too acidic again. It definitely smell better with this routine. I don’t have any hootch on top and no acetone odours. So far, so good. 

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge 

100 g large rolled oats

200 g water

40 g Honey

40 g butter

Dough

800 g strong bakers unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled wholegrain Red Fife flour 

650 g Sleeping Giant Northern Logger Beer + 25 g

23 g pink Himalayan salt

40 g yogurt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain and unbleached flour of your choice for feeding the levain

The night before:

1. Mill the grains if you are using Red Fife berries. Otherwise use the freshest wholegrain Wholewheat flour that you can find (freshly milled flour does make an incredible difference in flavor). Place the required amount of flour in a 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). 

2. About two hours before the levain is ready, put 650 g beer 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 at least 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, the extra 25 g of beer, and the levain to the bowl. 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 2 more set at 30 minute intervals. Let rise about 30%. 

7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~780 g. 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. 

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.