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I'm infrequently in the habit of reposting breads from the past without a change of something or other.  However I can't seem to find any prior reference of mine on TFL of having posted this one here before.

The background: My initial levain, true and trusted friend all these years, was this 75% mixed flour affair, and from that grandpa sprouted all subsequents.  These past two years I seem to always bake with the 100% hydration AP levain, and occasionally work some other levain requirement off that.  

I've been ignoring my old friend, which my notes say was criminally last refreshed in Sept. 2020, and even then only as a recurring courtesy.  I didn't wish to take the minimal risk of refreshing that ancient and waylaid levain, so I did the unconscionable and sadly relegated it to its final resting place it, making a new two stage levain from my trusty 100% AP.

Looking to get the new gal off to a start, I found this WW Levain Baguette formula quietly sitting in my ever thickening looseleaf binder bursting with those compatriots I've made in the past.

I make it my duty to always post who was the original author or inspiration for all my breads, but I could find no reference to anyone other than me, so I guess this is the rare "original" alfanso.

A third build was in store to create my levain for this bread.  As there was no method associated with the formula, I just followed rote.  

• Autolyse all ingredients for 20 minutes,
• 50 French Folds, 5 minute rest, 50 FFs.  
• Oiled covered container for 2 hours with bench top Letter Folds at 40 & 80 minutes.   This dough was incredibly extensible.
• Retard for ~12-16 hours with shaping, then onto couche sometime around the halfway point.
• Bake in 460dF oven with steam for 13 minutes, remove steam, rotate loaves, bake 12 minutes more, 2 minutes venting at end.

The taste is hearty with 25% whole grains there is a slight tang and nose to the levain, something that infrequently comes through in my other bakes. 

310g x 4 baguettes/long batards

First time trying a Pain de Mie style bread. Generally followed Maurizio's recipe, except used smaller inoculation, and just directly used my refrigerated rye starter. Formula, scaled for 1 loaf: https://fgbc.dk/1kbm

Mixed everything except butter, left to hydrate for around 30 min, then kneaded in soft butter and developed some strength with slap&folds. I actually started really liking kneading in butter by hand: takes some time, but leaves hands smelling buttery, and the dough feels very nice and silky smooth. Left to bulk at 28C. Got distracted with a long work meeting and by accident left it to grow more than double in size, in around 11 hours altogether! The biggest bulk rise I've had, probably, and way more than what I wanted, and should have stopped much earlier. Regardless, it was late, so shaped into a pan loaf (already felt a little overfermented, but totally manageable) and put in the fridge overnight. In the morning wanted to let it rise, so warmed up at 28C until it felt like room temperature, and clearly rose (didn't rise much in the fridge). Baked as Maurizio recommended, after giving it an egg wash. Had a very big oven spring, so probably could have final proofed even more. Top crust got torn a little too.

Tastes good! A little more sour than I expected, but that's what I get for getting distracted for a few hours. I'll bake it again with more attention :)

Also, nice to have an enriched dough rise so well after the recent fail, although the level of enrichment is not really comparable.

I decided to see how the new "outdoor kitchen" would do with an artisan loaf, instead of a pan loaf. I followed this recipe, with a very few tweaks below. (Thanks, @SunnyGail, for your recent post of this bread, which gave me something new to try out. 😁)

A few of my notes:

350 gm KAF AP flour

100 gm home milled hard white wheat

50 gm home milled hard red winter wheat (was using up a bag of berries).

350 gm water

100 gm starter (100% hydration, very active, might have been just past peak?)

11 gm salt

Mixed flour and water, left covered at room temperature 4 hrs while we went to lunch with family and ran an errand (which was not supposed to take so long, lol)

Hand mixed salt and starter into the autolyse. Bulk fermentation 5.5 hours with hourly coil folds as he recommends. Aliquot was at approximately 60+% and dough was a little jiggly. I didn't want it to go much longer m, so shaped, placed in cold banetton (had pre-chilled it), placed in a bag and refrigerated overnight. 

Banetton out of fridge after 14 hour retard. Toaster oven preheated for 30 min with a cast iron skillet inside. It JUST fits, lol. Lightly spritzed the dough and the inside of a stainless steel bowl with water. Baked at 450F covered with the stainless steel bowl for 20 min, then uncovered for additional 20 min.

Observations:

What a goofy shape, lol! 😂 This was shaped as a batard. It spread out more than up while baking, so half of it took on the shape of the bowl. Now it looks like a boule on one side, with a flat edge on the other. There wasn't much clearance between the bowl and the bread. So when I went to take the bowl off, part of the bread had started sticking to the bowl. I had to quickly work with a butter knife to pry them apart, which left a little scar, lol. The baked bit tasted nice. 🤭 Note to self, grease the bowl a bit if I do this again. And I neglected to notice if it was the front or the back of the loaf that changed shape.

Like my previous bake, the side of the loaf closest to the back of the oven baked faster than the front. Rotating the loaf during baking helped even it out.

And this little oven does a great job maintaining a steady temperature, even after getting the bread in and out a couple of times. Likely the cast iron skillet helped even things out as well. Still, it seems up to the job overall. 

Edit - crumb shot added below, and clarification of a process step above.

May 11, 2021.

This is a bread-machine bake.

405 g Patel brand stone-ground WW durum.

45 g Arrowhead Mills organic AP.

8.5 g of salt.

350 g bottled spring water.

Mixed by hand in a bowl, and let soak 3 hours in fridge.

Slowly kneaded in, by hand, 1 tsp instant dry yeast.

Put in bread machine on Whole Wheat setting.

Dribbled in 19 g more water.

Used a silicone scraper to help the dough along.

During first knead phase threw in some dry whole poppy seeds. Did not measure. Then threw in some dry whole chia seeds, did not measure.

Oops, those seeds need some water, so dribbled in more water, did not measure.

Oops, too wet, threw in about a tsp more of AP flour.

Dough seems a litttle loose, but it's moving around and getting kneaded well.

Dough gets really high during second rise.

Dough collapses before the bake cycle is half-way through.

At finish, there is a deep well in the top of the bread. Top crust indicates too much water was used.  Sides and bottom are well crusted.

Atter cooling, I can't resist and pull off parts of the upper crown or rim. Doesn't taste bad. Put in plastic zipper bag over night.

Next day, bread tastes even better. Crumb shows over-fermentation too, as if the collapse wasn't enough evidence.

The photos were taken after I pulled off and ate the upper rim.

The lower hole is where the bread machine paddle was removed.

400g very strong canadian flour

75g plain flour

25g strong wholemeal 

360g water

10g salt

45g starter 

I fed my starter and it doubled, however it didn't have much structure to it so perhaps that is where it first went wrong. I autolysed for 30 minutes then added the starter and salt (5.30pm). Then I let it rest for 2ish hours. Then a coil fold. I let it rest (until the dough had relaxed) and then coil folded around 2 more times. Then I let it rest overnight and the next morning (5.30am), I preshaped, bench rest, and then final shaped for the cold ferment for exactly 12 hours. Before the cold ferment, the dough held it's structure well and was light bouncy and glossy. 

When I took the dough out from the fridge the dough lost all it's shape and structure and completely like spread out. I could barely manage to move it into my cast iron. 

The final bread didn't have too much flavour and was quite chewy. It makes for a nice piece of toast I guess though!

Is this overfermentation, underfermentation? Where did I go wrong, did I push the cold ferment too long? Was it to do with my starter ?

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I made this carrot swirly bread as one of the things to do with a big bag of carrots. 🤣

Here’s the recipe, just prepare the yudane a few hours ahead of time (some recipes call for it to be chilled overnight). Also it’s easily modified to exclude the sd discard. 

Yudane

• 100g all purpose flour 
• 100g boiling water 

use 100g for white dough, 70g for carrot dough 

 White dough

• 100g yudane
• 120g sourdough discard 
• 180g all purpose flour 
• 50g whole wheat flour
• 5g salt
• 20g sugar 
• 3g instant yeast 
• 1 large egg (50g), beaten
• 80g milk (I used 2%)
• 20g lght olive oil
• 30g unsalted butter, softened 

 Carrot dough

• 70g yudane 
• 100g *carrot purée
• 180g all purpose flour
• 30g whole wheat flour 
• 3g salt
• 20g sugar 
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 2g instant yeast
• 20g egg, beaten (to the balance egg, add 1 tbsp milk and pinch of salt - use as egg wash)
• 15g milk (I used 2%)
• 15g light olive oil
• 20g unsalted butter, softened 

*carrot purée: steam carrot chunks for 20 minutes. Remove from heat, mash the carrot. Weigh and mix 80g of mashed carrot with 40g water (2:1). Blend this mixture until smooth or with tiny pieces scattered (adds nice specks of bright orange). Use 100g in the recipe

180°C Loaf pan (9x5”) 45-50 minutes; freeform loaves like braids, 25-30minutes. Braided version here where one is folded under to make a small loaf and the other not folded 👇🏻

This past week, I made some of my favorite baked goodies: crostata with a woven crust and home made jam, mocha cake and espresso Swiss roll (did a fantastic mess cutting into this one), with espresso ermine frosting and rum raisin sandwich biscuits - lil things I miss baking back home in Malaysia.

TFL'ers bakes list...  Week #3.  This week's bake was inspired by Abe's Dip and Dab Polenta Sourdough.  Plan A was to follow this bake as described.  However, I had a great pour of bourbon last week with a friend who's into it a bit.  That led to a discussion on what it takes for a whiskey to be classified a bourbon.  One of those "rules" is that the mash has to be >51% corn.  In addition, this was a high rye bourbon.  And...  An idea was born.

I already had the rye, and I stopped to pick up some polenta (or corn meal to make some).  However, the co-op had a high lysine corn flour, so I grabbed that instead.

Mixed up a 60:40 (corn:rye) mash and cooked it per Reinhart's method for 2 hours.  Definitely had a corn smell to it.

Started bulk late and let it go over night.  When I got up, the aliquot was showing 25%, but the dough didn't look overly puffy.  Was not abnormally high on the sides of my usual bulk ferment bowl, but did seem high in the center of the bowl.  Gave it the 2nd kneading,  On each of the subsequent kneadings, the dough hardly spread.  The aliquot jar was rising rapidly, but I didn't see it in the dough.  It was staying tall in the center of the bowl, but it wasn't spreading like I'm used to seeing.  Therefore, I thought the aliquot was misleading.  However, the dough was relaxed and I did notice gas bubbles in the bulk of the dough on the 3rd kneading.  Didn't really know where I was at, so I shaped it when the aliquot was at 75%.

During final proofing, the dough continued to take off, but also did not spread.  I moved to cold retard when the aliquot was at 100%.  The center of the dough was well over the banneton rim, but didn't rise much on the ends.  It continued to rise during cold retard, and looked like a football before removing from the banneton.  So, in hind sight, the aliquot was probably correct.  This dough fermented really fast and actively.  Not sure if it was extra sugar from the corn mash or if extra microbes from the corn flour.  It's by far the fastest and most active fermentation I've had on any of my bakes.

Baked up nice with good color in the crust.  It filled out nicely, but not a ton of oven spring.  Guessing this one is going to be close to being overproofed.  Will see in the morning when I slice it.  Really curious to see how this one tastes!

Recently I changed from Robin Hood Bread flour to Anita’s Organic All Purpose flour.  I did a flour stress test and found that Anita’s is more extensible than Robin Hood, however, I’ve discovered in my past couple of bakes that it cannot absorb as much water.  In this bake I’ve reduced the hydration of this formula from 80 to 76%.  I did a bake of this formula that came out flat.  At first I thought it was over proofed, since I’ve been pushing proofing, but when I sliced it open it showed no signs of overproofing so my feeling is that it was over hydrated.  If you’re interested in the formula, I’ve posted it before the only changes made this time were to replace all the white flours with the all purpose and to lower the hydration to 76%.  I allowed this to ferment to 60% rise in the aliquot jar as has been my usual lately.  After shaping I allowed a further warm 82ºF final proof until the aliquot jar rose to 95%.  Based on the expansion and bloom of this loaf, I’m guessing I could have gone further, but the crumb will tell for sure.

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I've been making variations on this loaf for years starting from this recipe from txfarmer. With my tiny pan I've been able to pick up the pace often baking every 2 or 3 days. 

I've now got something that I really enjoy. It is soft, sour, strong enough for thin slices, and tastes great. Besides all that it is easy to make. I've even quit using my mixer. 

You can get a live version of the Google Sheet here. The bold numbers are intended to be adjustable.

I mix it by hand in a bowl. Maybe 5 or 6 gentle folds at each interval.

Too sour for your taste? Just drop the amount of preferment, the other numbers will adjust.

Want to bake a larger loaf? Just set the flour to 0.2g per cubic centimeter. I bake in my 10x10x10 pullman pan without the lid because I like the domed top. You'll need to scale it down a bit if you want a flat top. It will easily scale to larger pans. 

Don't want to use sourdough at all? Just set the preferment to 0 and up the yeast to about 1%.

I'm using KAF starter and flours. I refresh my starter about every 2 weeks. 

May 6, 2021.

10:35 am. Mix (by hand/spatula) to homogeneity:  (Thank you, Mariana, for that phrase.)

• 520 g Patel brand stone-ground whole wheat durum. See: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/3302E5FA-9B56-4866-AD46-A7C67FD84C2A.jpeg
• 60 g Arrowhead Mills organic AP. (Was on the clearance shelf at Kroger, $2 for 5 pounds.
• 12.0 g salt.
• 452 g bottled spring water.  80% (416 g) for the SGWW durum, 60% (36 g)  for the AP. 

10:42 am. Put it in the fridge.

3:55 pm.  Take out of fridge. Mix in 40 g cold starter, last fed 3 days ago, 100% hydration. 

4:00 pm. Mix/knead in (by hand) 25 grams more water. I just went by feel to determine the amount.

4:00 - 4:15 pm. Knead by hand.

4:35 - 7:42 pm. Did various stretch and folds, at least 5, maybe up to 7.

8:45 pm. Put dough in lined 8" inner-diameter banneton. Liner was just a thin "flour sack" style tea-towel, doubled over, dusted with 50/50 mix of white rice flour and AP flour.

8:50 pm. Covered, placed in plastic shopping bag, put in fridge.

May 7, 2021.

7:45 am. Remove from fridge and bag. Not any noticeable expansion. Leave at room temp until time to bake.

7:50 am.  Start oven preheat to 475/450* F.  With Lodge 3.2 qt combo-cooker on 3rd rack up from bottom. Bottom rack has a 14" cordierite pizza stone, 1/4" thick, to block radiant heat from the bottom heating element.

8:24 am. Desired oven temp reached.  Give it about 10 more minutes for combo-cooker to achieve desired temp.

8:35 am. Sprinkle corn meal on surface of dough as it sits in banneton. Place 8.5" circle of parchment paper on top of corn meal. Invert the deep pot half of combo cooker over the banneton. Invert banneton and pot together so dough falls in. Remove banneton from pot. Cornmeal and parchment paper now insulate the bottom of the dough from the pot. Dust/scrape off excess rice-and-AP-flour from top of dough.  Score a plus sign with a bare double edged razor blade.  The dry "skin" on the dough is noticeable, and you can see the wetter inside. This will make for a nice oven bloom.

Previous experience showed that the crust of whole grain durum loaves, which had soaked/autolysed for multiple hours, carmelized too much when initial baking temp started at 475/450. So this time, I'll start at 450/425*.

8:39 am. Bake covered, 450/425* F. 15 minutes.

8:54 am. Bake covered, 425/400* F.  22 minutes.

9:16 am. Nice oven bloom!

9:16 am. Bake uncovered, 425/400*.  14 minutes. 

9:30 am. Crust and ears look browned just right.

Internal temp: 208.8 F.  Passes thump test.

* First number is oven thermostat setting, second is actual.

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Paper plate is 9" in diameter.