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I got a bag of Rouge de Bourdeaux (85% extraction) flour from Dayspring Farms recently and have been wanting to test out the flavor of it.  Here's a quick write up of my first go-rounds with it.  

My first attempt was a purist attempt to get an unclouded sense of the flour:

100% Rouge de Bourdeaux flour (85%) extraction

80% hydration

standard process and timing (as much as this current heat will allow) except for a slightly longer autolyse

I was anticipating doing 85% hydration, thinking that a whole(er) wheat flour should be able to handle that.  I added all but 5% of the water, with the intention of adding the remainder with the salt.  But it became apparent that even at 80% I was bordering on more water than the flour could handle.  While it would feel like I was developing gluten doing stretch and folds, the dough would never hold shape.  I was able to somewhat shape it and do a cold proof, which made it somewhat possible to get the dough into the dutch oven with some structure.  Surprisingly, it baked up ok, with a decent (very wet) crumb.  Pretty good flavor, no bitterness.

Round 2 involved taking a Tartine No. 3 recipe for Wheat-Rye loaf with coriander and carraway.

Central Milling bread flour- 45%

Dayspring Rouge de Bourdeaux- 45%

Dark Rye- 10%

Wheat Germ- 7%

Water- 85%

Leaven- 5%

Salt- ~2%

Fennel Seed, Coriander Seed, toasted, rough ground- ~ 1tbsp each

Standard process.  Despite higher hydration, dough was much more manageable.  I expected a better crumb based on the feel of the dough as it developed, but the final bread was a little lackluster- a little dry.  Crumb not especially open, nor especially chewy.  Flavor pretty good.  The seeds are a nice flavor without being overpowering.   Weird note- partway through baking, I think sometime after I dropped the temp down to 450, I ran out of propane and had to switch out tanks.  While that should have been after the critical oven-spring period and not affected it too much, it probably had some less-than-ideal impact.  

All in all, I'm not super excited by this flour.  Maybe I just need to feel it out more.  Maybe going back to a more standard bread flour heavy loaf might provide a good comparison point.  

I’ve done swirled, flavored milk breads before but they were based on another baker’s formula. This is my first time doing a swirled milk bread based on my 25% whole wheat Hokkaido milk bread recipe. If you look closely at the formula I’ve greatly increased the percent pre-fermented flour. The reason for this is that this dough is even more enriched than usual. Both the matcha paste and cocoa have extra sugar added to them. Without the extra fermentation from the larger amount of levain, there is a great risk that the dough would ferment extremely slowly. Despite the fact that this uses a stiff sweet levain which reduces the LAB. Given a long very slow fermentation they would eventually catch up and make the dough very sour. This has happened to me before so now I compensate by increasing the pre-fermented flour, which works very well.

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7 g dark cocoa powder (5%) with 10 g sugar
8.5 g matcha 17 g sugar and just enough water to make a thick paste

Instructions
Levain
Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth.
Press down with your knuckles or silicone spatula to create a uniform surface and to push out air.
At a temperature of 76ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak. For my starter I typically see 3-3.5 times increase in size at peak. The levain will smell sweet with only a mild tang.
Tangzhong
In a sauce pan set on medium heat, stir the milk and flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until well thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl. Theoretically it should reach 65ºC (149ºF) but I don’t find I need to measure the temperature as the tangzhong gelatinizes at this temperature. You can prepare this the night before and refrigerate it, ensure that it is covered to prevent it from drying out.

If you plan on using a stand mixer to mix this dough, set up a Bain Marie and use your stand mixer’s bowl to prepare the tangzhong.

Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk (consider holding back 10 g of milk and adding later if this is the first time you’re making this), egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar, diastatic malt and levain. Mix and then break up the levain into many smaller pieces. Next add the flours. I like to use my spatula to mix until there aren’t many dry areas. Allow the flour to hydrate (fermentolyse) for 20-30 minutes. Mix on low speed and then medium speed until moderate gluten development this may take 5-10 mins. You may want to scrape the sides of the bowl during the first 5 minutes of mixing. Next add room temperature butter one pat at a time. The dough may come apart, be patient, continue to mix until it comes together before adding in more butter. Once all the butter has been added and incorporated increase the speed gradually to medium. Mix at medium speed until the gluten is well developed, approximately 10 mins. You will want to check gluten development by windowpane during this time and stop mixing when you get a good windowpane. You should be able to pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.

Place the dough on the countertop and fold to create a nice round of dough. Divide the dough into three portions. Form a tight boule with the largest portion. Place one dough portion into the stand mixer adding the cocoa sugar mix and mix until well incorporated. Remove and form a tight boule. Clean the bowl and the dough hook. Add the final portion of dough and gradually add the matcha paste until you get a good green colour that is well incorporated. I find that this dough is stickier than the other two because of the matcha. Form a tight ball on the counter.

Lightly flour a work surface and the plain dough boule. Roll out to at least 12” in length and almost as wide as the length of your pan, set aside. Continue to do the same with the other two balls next rolling the chocolate dough out to 12” and placing that on top of the plain rolled out dough. Finally rolling the matcha dough out again to 12” and finally placing that on top of the chocolate dough.

Roll the laminated three doughs out to about 16-18” in length. Next tightly roll the laminated doughs starting with the short end until you have a swirled log. Score the dough diagonally across at approximately 1 cm intervals. Place the log in your prepared Pullman pan with the seam side down, buttering the pan or lining it with parchment paper. Place in the proofing box set to 82-84ºF to proof until the dough comes to approximately 1 cm below the edge of the Pullman pan. This takes about 9-10 hours at 82ºF. This is an enriched dough so it will be slow to proof despite the increase in pre-fermented flour.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash. Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF. You can brush the top of the loaf with butter if you wish at this point while the bread is still hot to keep the top crust soft.

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My index of bakes.

The other request for the weekend was a porridge bread.  I've made this one quite a few times now, and it's becoming a go-to bread when I get a request for a loaf.  To-date, I've always made the porridge as a soaker about 1-2 hours before final mix.  This time I made it as a mash following Benny's recent post.  My usual mash method followed Peter Rhinehart's (heat water to 165 deg F, add grains, hold temp at 150 deg F for 1-3 hours).  For this bake, I cooked the porridge in the microwave until it just started to boil (about 40 seconds) and then set in on the counter top to cool.  Porridge temp after removing from the microwave was just over 200 deg F.  Let cool to 150 deg F and then add 0.5g of malted wheat berries (crushed).  

Biga
120g    Bread Flour
72g      Water
0.4g     Active Dry Yeast
Mix until flour wetted and then ferment at 70 deg F for 12-14 hours

Porridge (Made as a Mash)
24g    Rolled Oats
12g    Corn Meal (or polenta)
6g      Hulled Millet
5g      Flaxseed
5g      Chia Seed
5g      Roasted Sunflower Seed
4g      Almonds (finely chopped)
0.5g   Malted Wheat Berries (crushed) (or diastatic malt powder)
107g  Water

1)   Set Crockpot to warm with Inkbird temp controller set to 148 deg F. 
2)   Add 1.5-2 inches of 150 deg F water to the Crockpot, put lid on, and cover with towels to insulate it.
3)   Combine ingredients except malted wheat berries in a microwavable bowl (preferably clear) and cover to avoid losing too much water.
4)   Microwave until the mixture just starts to boil 
5)   Allow mixture to cool at room temp in a covered bowl until it reaches 150 deg F.
6)   Stir in malted wheat berries
7)   Keeping bowl covered, place it in the Crockpot for 3-6 hours (I went for 4 hours)
8)   Remove from Crockpot and let cool to <110 deg F before using in Final Mix.

Final Dough
200g   All-Purpose Flour
20g    Bread Flour
60g    Whole Wheat Flour
152g  Water
8.8g   Salt
2g      Active Dry Yeast

1)   Combine all Final Dough ingredients except salt.  Mix until flours are all wetted.  This will be quite a stiff dough.  Let rest on bench in a covered bowl for 15 minutes.
2)    Break up biga into chunks and spread across autolyzed dough.  Starting working the biga and salt into the autolyzed dough along with small amounts of the porridge.  Slowly fold in the porridge until the dough is uniform.  The moisture from the porridge will loosen the dough.  Let rest for 10 minutes.
3)    Develop medium gluten by doing 3 sets of bowl kneading with 10 minute rests.
4)    Place in oiled bowl and bulk ferment at 74 deg F.  Do a fold at 30 minutes.
5)    Let dough double in volume.  Degas and preshape.  Bench rest 15 minutes.
6)    Final shape and final proof at 74 deg F.
7)    Preheat oven at 465 deg F with Fibrament baking stone in place for 45-60 minutes.  Pre-steam oven with 1/4 cup of water 5 minutes before loading dough.
8)    Bake at 465 deg F (1 minute); 400 deg F (19 minutes); vent oven; 425 deg (10-15 minutes); remove from oven when you get a hollow thump.

This one progressed a little faster through bulk and final proof than previous loaves.  Best guess...  The mash process converted more starches to sugars than my regular soaker process.  Crumb is moist and tender!

it’s been a while since I posted, I still check TFL from time to time.  Today’s visit showed some really interesting posts.  This bake was just a straight up 1:2:3 bake.

My starter was refreshed the day before and had a final feed in the morning. I was late getting home in the afternoon but as the starter was looking really good I went ahead.

4:20 pm Weigh flours and Mix dough

Flour mix:  58 g spelt+ 100 g rye (both milled about 2 weeks earlier and the surplus stored in the fridge) + 100 g whole grain Emmer (ex Australia) + 595 g bread flour & 5 g diastic malt

Added 500 g water and mixed in kenwood about 5 minutes before adding 15 g salt and mixing for about another 5 minutes.  Dough didn’t look smooth but I like to finish off with 50 SLAFs. dough looked smooth and was just tacky. 

4:40 pm Divide dough into 2 and leave covered.

5:15 pm Lamination followed by 3 sets of coil folds 40 minutes apart. It is winter here so heating was on and room temperature wax 22°C

7:20 pm dough left to rest after final coil fold.  

10:20 pm dough looked good so I preshaped and left to rest for 30 minutes.

10:50 pm shaped dough and left on bench for about 20 minutes before retarding over night.

Next morning when I turned the oven on to pre heat I removed 1 loaf from fridge to warm up a bit. After an hour on bench I slashed loaf, spritzed top and baked in preheated DO at 240°C for 16 minutes before removed lid and baking another 20 minutes. then turned oven down to 235°C and repeated with 2nd loaf. 

I am really happy with the bake.

crumb shot to follow - need to resize it and other photo! :(

Leslie

My parents are visiting this week, and my mom likes rye bread.  I made this once before with good success using a LAS.  I've been able to keep my "sour" raisin yeast water going and refreshed so I decided to make this loaf using that instead of the LAS.  The concept being the sour yeast water provides the leavening and acidity that a rye needs without using a traditional sourdough starter.  Similar concept to a LAS without having to take 2-3 days to make one.  The method uses a 2 stage levain build with the rye followed by a final proof after the spelt and soaker is mixed in. The 1st levain build is at 120% hydration to promote microbial activity.  The 2nd build is at 80% hydration (brings total down to 100% hydration).

Really happy with how this turned out!  Bread has a reasonably open crumb and has noticeable chocolate overtones, which I find ironic considering there is no sugar or cocao in the formula. 

Levain 1
150g   Dark Rye (Bob's Red Mill) or Medium Rye (KAF)
180g   Sour Raisin Yeast Water (or LAS)

Levain 2
150g   Whole Rye (coarse milled on Mockmill at +5 units open from stones just touching)
120g   Sour Raisin Yeast Water (or LAS)

Soaker
25g    Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
25g    Brown Flaxseed
25g    Boiling Water

Final Dough
200g    Whole Spelt Flour (fresh milled)
40g      Water
10-40g Bassinage Water
10g      Sea Salt

1)   Combine ingredients for Levain 1 and ferment for 8-9 hours at 80-82 deg F.  Watch for the islands described here.
2)   Combine all of Levain 1 with ingredients for Levain 2 and ferment for 3-4 hours at 80-82 deg F.  Watch for the islands.
3)   At least 1 hour before final mix, prepare the soaker by toasting pumpkin seeds until lightly browned (I used frying pan on medium heat for 5-10 minutes) and combining flaxseed with boiling water in a covered bowl. After 15-20 minutes, stir toasted pumpkin seeds into the flaxseed soaker and re-cover to maintain moisture.
4)   Once Levain 2 is ripe, stir in spelt flour, soaker, salt, and final dough water.  (I used my hands with food service gloves to minimize sticking)
5)   Add bassinage water 10g at a time squeeze/fold the water into the dough.  Once incorporated, perform bowl folding/kneading until it is absorbed by the flour. 
6)   Repeat step 5 until the dough gets mildly sticky when folding/kneading.  The dough should be soft and pliable.  It should not be a stiff cookie dough consistency.  Add more water if too stiff.
7)   When desired consistency is met, gently press dough into a greased bread pan and flatten top with moist hand (or spatula).
8)   Final proof at 80-82 deg F until the first pin holes are seen (Final proof for this loaf was about 3 hours).
9)   Preheat oven to 460 deg for 1 hour.  Place pan on middle oven rack with steam.
10) Bake at 460 deg (1 min); 400 deg (19 min); vent oven; 400 deg (10 min); remove loaf from pan and place directly on rack; bake 375 (5-10 minutes)
11)  Internal temp above 205 deg.

We frequently get questions around here about how to take care of your starter.  I thought I’d share what I do which is simple and waste free so long as you plan your bakes a bit ahead of time.

You’ll notice it has been quite sometime since I last posted a starter discard recipe.  The reason for that is that I don’t have starter discard.  I feed my starter only once per week and it otherwise lives in the fridge.  So my maintenance system is really simple and very little work.  By the end of the week, I aim to have only a few grams of starter left, say between 3-5 g.  I will then think about what I might bake for the next seven days.  I estimate how much starter I’ll need for those bakes and then feed my starter to ensure that I have enough to build those levains and then be left with 3-5 g again at the end of the week.  For example, if I will bake twice and need 10 g and 15 g of starter I’ll need to ensure that I have 25 g of starter plus a small amount left to refresh again.  If I start with 4 g of starter I’ll feed it 13 g of water and 13 g of flour.  Thus I’ll have a total of 30 g of starter so when I use 25 g for baking that week I’ll have 5 g leftover to refresh.

My starter (John Dough) is kept at a simple 100% hydration and I only feed it 100% whole rye.  My starter comes out of the fridge only to remove what I need to build a levain and then after seven days to feed it again.  I know many bakers do a couple of levain builds to get their levains or starters really active for baking, but I haven’t found the need to do this.  When I feed my starter, it gets placed in the proofing box at 82°F and is left there to ferment until it has reached peak.  Remember peak is the dome just starting to flatten.  Once peak is reached, my starter goes directly into the fridge until it is needed.  No other feeds are done.

When I build a levain, I remove the amount of starter I need and do a single build of levain, that’s it, no multistage levain builds.  Now what if my planning wasn’t great and I’m short of starter?  Simple, I’ll either do a two step levain build to make enough levain, again without any discard.  Or I’ll just do a much larger ratio levain build and give it the time it needs to peak and be ready for use.

What if I don’t need all the starter that I have and 7 days has elapsed?  I don’t like to waste my starter and although this seldom happens instead of collecting the excess starter I’ll smear it onto parchment paper and allow it to fully dry.  I’ll then add it to the ziplock bag of dried starter flakes that I keep in the freezer as a backup should anything dire happen to my starter.  This way I’m not needing to keep an extra bottle in my fridge of discard that I’d have to bake with and also creating a little bit of extra starter backup as insurance for killing my starter somehow.

Anyhow, that is what I do, it is easy and zero waste, just as I like it.

Benny

It has been a while since I had my initial thoughts dealing with Bakers Percent and all that goes with it. Knowing that spreadsheets & baking are made for each other was one thing, however, figuring out the slightly complicated initial & overall Baker’s Percent did seem discouraging at first. Getting it onto a spreadsheet, even more so.

So, I asked myself an initial question? What if Bakers Percent was Re-Imagined so that it didn’t mean dividing the weight of each ingredient by the weight of the flour & then multiplying the resulting decimal form by 100 to convert it to a percentage?

Answer..... Enter only the weight of ingredients & allow a spreadsheet to self-calculate all the percentages involved.

To do that I’ll have to sort out a Detailed, Fully Formulated, Formatted, Self-Calculating Weight-To-Percentage Spreadsheet, taking into account.

• Ingredients, Formulas, Conversions, Entering & Extracting Data. Above all, what it looked like and how easy it would be to use.

Considering each the list seems endless, given the detail that is required to get the best from the spreadsheet it will need to include;

• Separate sections for Soakers, Sourdough/Levain, Preferments (Pâte Fermentée, Biga, Poolish, Sponge, etc.). Main recipe with a variety of flours, wet & dry additions.
• Formulas to calculate each ingredient's weight displayed as a percentage. A way of maintaining percentages throughout when increasing or decreasing Total Dough Weight. 
• Conversions to save searching for; Yeast, Temperatures, Customary to Metric, Volumes, Bakeware, Recipe Ratios, Ingredient Water Content, Distribution ratios.
• Adding details, real times, rating, extra notes, methods, links, 
• Viewing multiple recipes on one sheet, to add new, update old & compare numerous simultaneously. 
• Selecting rather than typing. preload drop-downs for recipes, bakers and bakeware. A-Z sorting of additional entries beyond preloads.
• Use a tablet, pad, phone or printed paper layouts for method, workflow times & temperatures. Hydrations a gaggle of other info with non-essentials filtered
• Formatting, fonts, cells, display and anything else that comes to mind  

This may take some time!!

Finally starting to get the hang of my Ooni Koda 16 pizza oven.  The dough had mostly Caputo 00 flour with a little fresh whole wheat and rye.  I used two types of sausages with one being chicken stuffed with cheddar and the other a pork variety with no nitrates or artificial anything.

The dough was fermented after being balled up and refrigerated for 36 hours.  I was very happy overall how this came out.  

I was so impressed by the original Semolina Sourdough I made from Tartine Bread that I decided I had to try the variation listed in the book. The variation should be a sweet take on an amazing savory bread. 

The modification lists that you take the original bread and add some more Fennel, coriander, golden raisin, and orange zest. However, the quick write up about the bread in the book is not clear. Do we use the full recipe seeds and all? Do we add the fennel amount listed to the original or is it a replacement amount? This is another situation where I am disappointed with the editing of the Tartine Bread Book. I went back and read the original recipe again and also noticed that at a given point it says "Add poppy seeds"....but does not list any amount or even have poppy seeds listed in the ingredients. Thankfully this time the bread is not a complete failure, but will need some tweaks before I'm fully happy with it. 

FULL RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

Tasting Notes: Interesting. I think this one needs some adjustments. The Fennel is a strong savory flavor that kind of fights with the sweetness of the raisins. I honestly think that in this exact bake there was too much fennel. The golden raisins are a revelation though, I'm very very pleasantly surprised by how much I like them. The sesame is delicious as always. I included some poppy seeds in the topping but don't know that they bring anything to the party. The orange zest is hard to identify in the flavor and I think the Fennel is to blame. 

Time/Effort: 3 days (Growing Levain, Mixing Dough, Baking) Normal for sourdough for my process.

Would I make it again: Yes, with some adjustments. I think that I will use the original recipe base (the semolina itself is amazing), but the additions will be tweaked. Keep the sesame, increase the coriander, keep the orange, and reduce the Fennel.  I think there is a lot of promise for this to be an amazing loaf of bread, and probably is, but the editing and lack of detail in the text is another disappointment. Guess I'll just have to fix it myself. 

My usual sourdough routine has been streamlined and I generally don't have discard. In fact if I want to make pancakes I have to build extra levain when I'm prepping bread so I can make pancakes later. So when Hendrik at The Bread Code  posted a video of this bread, and said it was one of his favorites, I knew I had another bread to try. I slowly built up some discard but the process was very slow and actually took a few months to build up enough to make a tiny loaf of bread. This entire loaf was about 350g total weight!  

FULL RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

Because of how small the loaf is I ended up baking it in a small spring form cake pan covered with a stainless steel bowl! It actually worked out quite well. 

Sensei's Report Card

Tasting Notes: Nutty, Flavorful, and Sour! The old was nice and sour and that carried over well into the bread. The nuts provide a nice contrast to the sour. The turmeric adds a wonderful color and a slight flavor that is hard to describe. It's just a subtle flavor in the background that is pleasant.     

Time/Effort: 4 hours...maybe? Because you are using a large amount of preferment (discard) it was quick to mix up, prove and bake. I did this after work on Friday night and it was baked before bedtime. It also made for a tasty breakfast toast with coffee the next morning. 

Would I make it again: Yes! But for me I would have to plan a week or two in advance. Build the extra amount of levain I would need for this loaf, and then give it a couple weeks in the fridge to age and slow ferment.

If you want more information for this bake please check out the video that inspired it here: