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I have a stash of seeds in the fridge that need using up so I thought that Hamelman’s 5 grain levain would be perfect for this, plus it is so incredibly good! I kept the weight the same but went to town with the selection of seeds. I also changed the selection and quantity of flours. Because of all these changes, I’m not calling it 5 grain levain. ?

For some reason, I thought that Hamelman did a ferment-autolyse without the soaker so that’s what I did. When I went back to check, he puts everything in the bowl except for the salt. Oh well! ??‍♀️

Recipe 

Makes 3 large loaves

Soaker:

50 g cracked rye berries 

50 g cracked oat groats

50 g raw sunflower seeds

50 g old fashioned oats (large flake)

36 g millet seeds

36 g amaranth seeds

25 g black sesame seeds

25 g chia seeds 

50 g flax seeds (freshly ground)

7 g salt

448 g boiling water

Levain:

70 g twice refreshed starter (procedure in recipe)

275 g strong baker’s unbleached flour

345 g filtered water

Extra wholegrain flour to refresh the levain

Main Dough:

600 g strong baker’s unbleached flour

100 g freshly milled Selkirk flour

50 g freshly milled Rye flour

77 g freshly milled Durum flour

30 g plain yogurt from the local dairy

330 g filtered water

21 g Pink Himalayan salt

Extra 50-70 g water

Two nights before:

1. Before bed, take 5 g of your refrigerated starter and refresh it with 10 g of filtered water and 10 g of wholegrain flour, and let it rise overnight at cool room temperature.

The morning before:

1. Feed 30 g of filtered water and 30 g of wholegrain flour, to your levain and let rise throughout the day at cool room temperature.

The evening before:

1. Coarsely mill the rye berries and oat groats  to crack them. 
2. To this combo, add all the seeds aside from the flax. Toast in a 350 F oven or in a dry frying pan until lightly golden and fragrant.
3. Grind the flax seeds in a “Bullet” or coffee grinder and add to the toasted seeds.
4. Add the salt and the boiling water. Stir, cover and let cool overnight 
5. Measure out the flours for the main dough and place in a tub. Reserve.
6. Eleven hours before the the final mixing of the dough, add the 275 g of strong baker’s unbleached flour and the 345 g of water to the levain and keep covered at room temperature (74 F).

Dough making day:

1. Place the dough water in the bottom of a mixing bowl, add the yogurt and 620 g of the levain. Stir and add the reserved flours. Using a stand mixer, mix on the lowest speed until you have a shaggy dough with no dry flour. Let sit for one hour.
2. Add the soaker and mix on speed one for 3 minutes. If the dough start climbing the hook, add the extra water bit by bit until it smooths out. I made 4 batches and some needed 50 g, others needed more. 
3. Add the salt and mix on speed two for 4 minutes.
4. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a tub. 
5. Let the dough rise for an hour in a warm spot, do a coil fold and then let rise another hour until double (I gave my dough an extra hour as it wasn’t moving very fast and it never did double. Maybe I should have let it go longer but I had other things to attend to). 
6. Pour the dough out onto a bare counter and divide into 3 loaves of about 900 g. (I differed from this. I made boules of 830 g and combined the leftover 210 g of the 4 batches into an extra loaf. I wasn’t sure that 900 g would fit my Dutch ovens during baking). 
7. Lightly flour the top of the portions and gently round into boules using a dough scraper. Let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 
8. 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. 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. Use your hands and a bench knife to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice right boule. This dough was quite sticky so I used more flour than usual during shaping. 
9. Sprinkle a mix of rice and AP flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed overnight in a cold (38F) fridge.

Baking

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475 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 place the dough seam side up inside. 
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 475 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes. Internal temperature should be 205F or more.

Oven spring wasn’t what I’ve been getting lately but then again, there are a ton of seeds in this bread. 

Thanks to yozzaause’s wonderful post, I made a dozen of these knotty buns for a little weekend trip with hubby. They’re an adaption from KAB and gozney. Glazed with warm orange syrup instead of a sprinkle of powdered sugar. 

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Long week at work and wanted to do a simple bake to start the weekend before trying my Go Out of Your Comfort Zone CB tomorrow.  I got this recipe from Abe, and it works really well.  Has room for flexibility on the flour selection.  I just got a bag of barley flour in, so I added some of that into the mix this time.  First time using barley flour with an AP/Bread flour base (have only used it with WW before this), and the aroma of the barley definitely comes through more on the finished bread.

Method is similar to a 1-2-3, but much lower inoculation and longer bulk ferment.  Mix and develop medium gluten at the most.  Despite the barley being low on gluten, this came together really fast.  Just a few turns of hand kneading is all it took.  Just stretch and folds after that to continue gluten development.  Woke up for a few minutes in the middle of the night, so gave it a quick bowl S&F then before it got too puffy.

Tried a new scoring pattern to get good bloom and expansion, but keep the gas flow uniform vs channeling it to a single score line.  Will see how it worked later today/tonight.  Hoping for a sandwich loaf type crumb with a few open spaces.

Still trying to improve my 100% whole grain baking.  In this iteration I changed two things I believe needed to be addressed.  I’ve lowered the hydration and reduced the final proof.  I believe those changes have helped but still not quite where I want this to be, particularly the oven spring.  Despite the dough coming out of the banneton and standing tall, there was still more spread during baking than I want to see.  So it is still overproofed.  As some more knowledgeable whole grain bakers have identified, red fife doesn’t seem to be very fermentation tolerant.  

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This time did a morning levain build 1:3:3 15 g + 47 g + 47 G

Morning saltolyse starting in fridge and then taking out before going to work.

Greatly reduced hydration from 86% to 80%

1220 pm bulk started levain added and in bowl Rubaud done

1250 pm 500 slap and folds completed with good gluten development

110 pm bench letterfold

140 pm lamination

210 pm coil fold

240 pm coil fold

310 pm coil fold 

Shaped at 60% 445 pm

510 pm 75-80%

The dough was fermenting very rapidly, I wanted some bench time before cold retard, but barely caught it before it was almost at 80%.

I think I’ll need to shape when the aliquot jar shows 50% and start cold retard at 60-70% next time.  I’m not sure that I need to reduce hydration more or not.  I’ll have to look at the crumb later to assess.

Anyhow, better than my previous, but I really need to shape a bit earlier and cold retard sooner or bake after the bench rest without cold retard. 

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Followed Helen Rennie’s focaccia recipe on YouTube but mine lost its rectangle shape during the final proof. 

Any tips on how to prevent this? Many thanks in advance. 

- Christi

Somehow or other I landed on an Italian web page with a recipe for Colomba di Pasqua. Being nearly Easter, it did seem like a good time to make an Easter dove. Besides, I wanted to send my sister a birthday present, having not seen her for a long, long time - like so many people.

This is the recipe, found on the giallozafferano website. I figured that this must be a well tested recipe, since it has well over a thousand comments! It's a yeasted recipe (I used SAF Gold), but nevertheless, fairly complex.

First problem - no mould and no time to order paper ones. Answer: make one! I liked the look of a single winged metal one that I saw a picture of, so with a piece of scrap thin aluminium sheet, a pair of tin snips and a pop-riveter, the dove was born. All done free-form and the head is a little small, but I was happy enough with it.

And here is the dove at the end of final proof:

And after baking:

Out of the tin after cooling for a few minutes:

No crumb shot, as this was going off as a present, but I did make a small sister loaf with excess dough:

Lance

This was an easy one and wonderful with chowder earlier today. 1 hour’s proof after mixing, divide and shape then, baked at 230°C/450°F for 10-12 minutes.
Recipe appears in the books Dough and Crumb by Richard Bertinet

• 500g strong bread flour (I used Canadian AP)
• 350g water
• 3g instant yeast (10g fresh yeast)
• 10g salt
• Olive oil for brushing 
• Optional add-ins: olives, roasted peppers, garlic powder,  rosemary, thyme 
  

 I recently had another birthday tick over,  this one  3 Score and 10 which i enjoyed with a friend who also celebrated his 78th birthday 2 days after mine . We were away fishing on the south coast of Western Australia and did very well catching the daily bag limit of Black Bream each day!

Now that i have returned i turned my attention to the fact that the exercise group that i belong to will help celebrate the achievement of my birth with the subject providing some goodies for the post exercise coffee time. i decide to make Cinnamon buns but different from the usual scrolls so i did a test run in readiness for tomorrow mornings early 4.00 am bake. i was very pleased with the result and confident in the mix size and bun size and very confident they taste great and the group will love them! Might even get marriage proposals like last year with the scrolls! 

 the dough as mixed

placed into the bowl for BF

nicely proven

shaped and placed in muffin tray

Double size baked free standing on a sheet

The complete ensemble

 Sliced in readiness for a good Wodge of Butter

1 Dozen Black Bream on the old ironing board  filleting bench

The clean up crew removing all the offal 

Finally just going to try it and see what happens. Updates + pictures as I go.

Soaker: Combine and occasionally stirred for 3 hours, or until dough is fully cohesive. 

• (500 ± 10) g  CM 12% Red Hard Red Wheat Berries, Twice milled (Mockmill), no sift.
• (400 ± 5) g Tap Water, Lukecold
• AFTER COHESIVE: Knead in (11± 1) g salt.

Leaven: 

• (100 ± 2) g 50% Pasta Madre fed with KAF AP night before.
• Mix with (50 ± 10) g very warm water right before incorporating with Soaker

Final Dough:

• 100% WWF
• 20% Stiff Leaven
• 2.2% Salt
• 90% Hydration

Note: Calculating from raw ingredients, this is a 84% Hydration dough! The water added to the stiff leaven throws things off ;)

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Fresh Milled flour and just-mixed soaker.

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Soaker after 3 hours + 3 stirs: Pinching and pulling on a small bit can lift the entire dough out of the bowl cleanly without ripping. I consider this hydrated enough to add my salt and begin bulk

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Mix in the Leaven well. Final dough temp is 75F, which is about what I want since WW fermentation can get a bit crazy 

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Dough goes in the proofing container, and is folded up to one side. As the gluten relaxes, it stretches itself via gravity. I do a coil-fold when it nearly covers the floor of the container, about every 30 minutes.

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Coil 1: 1:45 PM
Coil 2: 2:15 PM
**Work Meeting :( **
Coil 3: 3:15 PM
Coil 4: 3:40PM

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At 3:50PM I give the dough one last coil foil because I notice that it is puffy enough to start taking up its own slack as it ferments. I will watch the dough and divide it when it jiggles.

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Divided dough at 4:50 into two 500g Boules. Let them rest until 5:15, and proceed to final shaping (1 batard, 1 boule because I only have one of each banneton lol)

The batard is proofed in a box at 78F until ready to bake.

The boule is proofed in a box at 78F until 5:55 ( 40 minutes) and the n placed in the fridge for baking tomorrow.

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5:55 S.O. has commandeered the oven to roast a chicken for dinner ??
Will try reducing temp of the batard proof to 70 so it can last a little longer before baking

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Finally got the Loaf in at around 7:25. Baked in an oven preheated to 500F with icecubes at 450F until 7:38, after which I vented the steam and lowered the temp to 400F for about 25 minutes. I shut the oven off and let the loaf and oven cool together with the door cracked

Loaf 1 Analysis:

This loaf had only very slight oven spring, which led me to worry it would be a brick upon cutting. When I removed the loaf from the oven, I felt how light it was and became less worried :). Without further ado:

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The crumb is not the best. It doesn't have the irregular holes granted by extreme oven rise. But the loaf is certainly not "dense"!

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 It easily squishes, and the interior is VERY soft and aerated. (Note the loss of crust, in support of hypothesis 1 below)

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But let's slow down, I'm not taking a victory lap yet! Quite the opposite! This bread is a mystery that needs to be solved ?

Why is the crumb soft and yet "closed"? I don't believe it's under proofed -- this bread proofed for longer than my 80%WW and it doesn't have the characteristic intra-hole density and gummy quality. In fact, the crumb seems uniformly aerated, almost like a soft sandwich loaf.

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This brings me to consider that, in this 100%WW bread, the interior is not fully expanding for one reason or another. Here are my top hypothesis:

1. Water Content: WW Flour is notoriously thirsty, hiding 10% or more water in the germ and bran than white flour. Let's look at some physical facts about water:
   • It has an incredibly high specific heat (relative to most organic compounds and oils) due to the extreme polar nature of the molecule. Translated into baking, this means it takes a lot of heat to produce an increase in temperature of water. In terms of our bread, all things held constant, this means that the average temperature within the very hydrated WW loaf is going to be significantly lower than the white loaf during the first 10-20 minutes of baking. This appears consistent with searchable baking experiments that show the crumb after baking at various temperatures. When the first 10 minutes of baking occur at temperatures of less than 400 for a white loaf, you essentially lose the big irregular holes. The hydration of the WW seems to suggest that the minimum baking temp for big open crumb is probably a lot higher. If this is a contributing factor, the solution is to bump up the oven temp to the max it will go for the preheat, and bake at 500+ for the first 8-10 minutes.
   • It is dense, as anyone who has handled WW dough knows. The extra weight in the large starch is clearly going to have a detrimental effect on the overall rise. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that there is a way to circumvent this without materially changing the bread, e.g. adding enzymes to break the porous, hydrophilic complex starches down into simple sugars with no tertiary structure to hold water. One possible hack may be to do as much proofing in as low a temperature as possible, so that the starches and gluten are slightly more rigid, and can hold vertical growth better.
2. Crust formation: The crust in WW bread may form faster/harder than its white counter part due to the bran and starch that interpenetrates the exterior gluten network. This would act like a Pullman pan and force the kind of crumb uniformity we are seeing. The solution to this would be to amp up the steam. 

I still have the other loaf in the fridge. I'll bake him the same way so we can try to learn something! 

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I lied, I'm bumping the temperature!

Boule loaf loaded from fridge at 10:25 into oven preheated to 550.

Added ice and lowered temp to 515. 

Lowered to 475 after 8 minutes

Lowered again to 400 after 10 more minutes. Opened oven door to vent steam for a bit.

Shut off oven after 15 more minutes, letting bread cool with oven door open

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Loaf 2 Analysis:

HOLEY LOAF! I consider this hard evidence for the water-content & specific heat argument!! Reminder that I baked this at 515F in an oven preheated to 550. Look at how the crumb is open at the edges but closed deep in the bulk where the temperature rises much more slowly!!

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I think the next step on the 100%WW journey is clearly pushing the limits on baking temperature and shape.

EDIT: I started eating it and cut into a different part of the bread and wow! Surprise crumb shot anyone? Even better than the center cut!

So, I was inspired by Dan's post to try a new drug, errr... ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in my baking. And I also did a little bit of reading up on this site and saw that Doc. Dough recommended a much lower amount than was used in Dan's original post - 20-30 ppm of ascorbic acid.

The flours that I bake with typically have a low protein percentage of around 11.4g/100g or so, and in the past when I've tried to push the hydration too far I've ended up with flat breads, so my thinking is that the effect ascorbic acid has through  strengthening the gluten by oxidative bonds is something that could help my particular breads at the higher hydration.

By adding some vital wheat gluten, I've been successfully baking with these flours at high hydration, but the 'mouth feel of the bread' isn't the best. The bread becomes a little bit too springy for my taste, and some of that soft feel in your mouth can get lost.

As you can see from the photo above, the ascorbic acid appears to have allowed me to continue making soft bread, even at the higher hydrations, and without adding VWG. Got a great crumb at 80% hydration, even an ear.

Why I say 'appears' though is that I didn't really bake a control bread without the ascorbic acid, so this is still unconfirmed. And to be fair, my baking method pushed the dough to develop gluten quickly. This may have allowed for my flours to cope with the higher hydration. The baking method used on this bread had a lot of dough manipulation up front: after the 1 hour autolyse the Kenwood mixer was used at speed 2 for 5 minutes to incorporate the levain; then for the next 10 minutes hand bassinage was used to slowly increase the hydration from 70% to 80%; thereafter the salt was mixed in by hand, and finally after that it still needed another 5 minutes in the mixer again on speed 2 before the bowl was running clean again. So a fair amount of dough strengthening immediately after adding the levain. Never mind that a lamination was done after that to incorporate the olives into the bread. It is still an outstanding question for me then if the dough strengthening manipulations on their own were what made this bread better; or even if the vitamin C allowed them to work effectively.

Adding such a small amount of ascorbic acid in the home kitchen isn't simple. By mass, and by my math, 25 ppm of ascorbic acid means the 400g of flour used in this loaf works requires 0.01g of ascorbic acid. A 500mg vitamin C tablet was dissolved in 500g of water in a jar (see photo below). I just let it sit for two hours swirling occasionally. There were still sediments in the solution once the pill was fully dissolved, for which I made the optimistic assumption that that would be insoluble parts of the binder as I think ascorbic acid itself, even in crystalline form should dissolve into the water in a couple of hours. Only 10g of that solution was then used as part of the water added to my bread during the autolyse. The remaining 490g was not used in the bread, but I did drink half of it and boy you can certainly taste that it had ascorbic acid in the solution!

I'm enjoying the soft feel of this bread, and keep going back for more and more slices. Hopefully I'll manage to work out where this bread went right, either it isn't a fluke and the ascorbic acid trick is the reason or it may simply be that hitting it hard and working the gluten strongly from an early stage is what made all the difference.

Swirl of sediments as the tablet dissolves.

 Bread in profile.