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I recently read a book on 19th century yeoman farmers in the Georgia upcountry.  As porridge loaves sound rather peasant-like, I decided to make one with a Georgia palate- oats, rye, and whole wheat flower (all typical crops of 19th century subsistence farmers in Georgia), peanut flour (because it sounds very Georgian even if no one was making peanut flour in the 19th cen.), barley (just because I enjoyed the sweet rich flavor in the loaf I made a couple weeks ago).

Bread specs. 2 loaves

Total flour 1000g

Central Milling bread flour- 635g (65%)

Dayspring Farm whole wheat flour- 200g (20%)

Hawthorne Valley Farm rye (home milled)- 100g (10%)

Oliver Farm peanut flour- 50g (5%)

Wheat germ- ~70g (7%)

Water- 750g (75%)

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Salt ~5-6tsp

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Oat/Barley/Whey porridge- 400g (40%)

This really ended up being a trial in pushing the limits of adapting the bread making to my social and environmental conditions rather than vice versa.  I wanted to have a loaf to bring to a gathering on Saturday, and I wanted to bake it's close as possible so the humidity wouldn't destroy the crust. The schedule that ended up making most sense was thus:

Wednesday night: Take out starter and ferment oat/barley/whey porridge 

Thursday morning: feed starter (~70°)

Thursday midday (during afternoon siesta): mix dough, autolyse 1hr., add salt, stretch and fold series over next 3 hrs. Add in porridge after 1.5 hrs. (~80-85°)

Thursday afternoon to Friday morning: bulk ferment, first in refrigerator (40°) for a couple hours to slow down the development then in root storage walk in (60°) overnight.

Friday morning: shape, refrigerate 

Friday morning to Saturday morning: refrigerate/retard (40°) though the power went out for a few hours Friday afternoon so it may have warmed up a bit. 

Saturday morning: bake (500° covered 20min, 500° uncovered 10min, 400° uncovered 30min.+)

Upon taking loaves out of refrigerator Saturday morning, I was pretty sure that I had over proofed them, either too much fermentation before shaping or too long proofing after shaping OR maybe refrigerator warmes up too much while power was out.  Feeling them as I turned them out and scored them, they didn't feel awful, but the lack of oven spring clearly shows some manner of issue in the fermentation timing department, though the crumb is fairly consistent at least. Flavor is fine but nothing like the barley porridge loaf. More bitter flavor.

The first time I baked brioche I did a test bake baking them as buns.  For today’s bake I decided that I’d plait my brioche dough and bake it in a pullman pan for fun.  I reduced the butter because I ended up not having enough for 50% so decided to go ahead and make adjustments and make it at 25% butter, poor man’s brioche LOL.

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Levain

Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth. 

Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.

At a temperature of 78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.

Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk, eggs, salt, sugar and levain.  Mix and then break up the levain into smaller pieces.  Next add the flours.  Mix on low speed until there is no dry flour remaining.  Once incorporated increase the speed gradually to medium.  Mix at medium until the gluten is moderately developed.  With the mixer running add the room temperature butter one pat at a time until it is fully incorporated, waiting until each pat is well incorporated before adding the next.  Continue to mix until you can  pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.

Shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 3-4 hours at 82ºF.  There should be some rise visible at this stage.

You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier, remember if you do so the final proof will take longer.  Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight.

Prepare your pans by greasing them with butter or line with parchment paper.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Transfer the dough onto the bench and divide it into four. Shape each into a roll, allow to rest 5 mins.  Next like a baguette, shape each roll into a long log with tapered ends.  Next do a 4 strand plait.  Tuck the ends underneath and transfer into the prepared pan.

Cover and let proof for 6-8 hours, longer time if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash (1 egg with 1 tsp of milk and pinch of salt).  Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 35-40 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 35-40 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.

I realized that I hadn’t baked a crumble topped pie in at least 3 years so I decided it was time to do a crumble pie again.  I’m using Kenji Lopez-Alt’s pastry recipe again because it is now my go to recipe.  It is a reliable way of baking a buttery yet tender pie crust every time.  Rather than cutting in butter, you make a  butter flour paste with ⅔ of the flour.  This essentially coats ⅔ of the flour with butter.  So later when water is added that flour encapsulated in butter cannot form gluten and guarantees a tender buttery crust.  I’ve posted the recipe in an earlier post so if you’re interested have a look.

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Brown Sugar Crumb

MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS; ENOUGH TO TOP 1 (9-inch / 23-cm) PIE OR 12 (2-inch / 8-cm) MINI PIES

½ cup / 40 g rolled oats

½ cup / 62 g all-purpose flour

½ cup / 96 g packed light brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon fine salt

6 tablespoons / 85 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Put the oats in the bowl of a food processor and pulse the machine to grind the oats to the texture of coarse cornmeal. Add the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt and pulse the machine 5 times to combine.

Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl. Add the melted butter and blend with a fork or your fingers until the butter is incorporated and the mixture gathers into small clumps. Transfer the bowl to the refrigerator and chill the crumb for 5 to 10 minutes before topping a pie.

2 pounds / 906 g strawberries, hulled and quartered

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup / 144 g granulated sugar

¼ cup / 48 g finely ground instant tapioca (see page 45)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Follow the instructions on pages 20–23 to roll, pan, and flute the dough. Transfer the pan to the refrigerator to chill the crust while you make the crumb and filling.

Prepare the crumb as directed on page 81. Set the bowl in the refrigerator and chill the crumb while you make the filling.

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, toss the strawberries with the lemon juice, orange zest, and vanilla extract. Toss to combine.

Whisk the sugar, ground tapioca, and cornstarch together in a small bowl. Sprinkle the sugar mixture over the strawberries and toss to combine. The mixture may seem dry at first; let it sit 5 to 10 minutes, and the lemon and sugar will draw the juices out of the fruit. Then give the mixture another good tossing to thoroughly moisten all of the sugar and tapioca granules.

Retrieve the prepared crust and crumb from the refrigerator and set the pan on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Pour the filling into the pie shell. Top the pie with the crumb, spreading in an even layer and covering all of the fruit.

Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake 25 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (175°C) and bake 25 to 30 minutes more, or until the juices bubble up through the crumb. Tent the top with foil if the crumb or crust starts to over-brown.

Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and let the pie cool and set, uncovered, at room temperature, overnight (or up to 3 days) before slicing and serving with buttermilk ice cream.

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My Index of Bakes

Grandma style, but I will be making it again and measuring the ingredients. One apple is in the starter, another one as a part of hydration. Taste is very good, the structure of the crumb not too bad as well!

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RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

It’s golden week in Japan which means we have a few national holidays in a row, which also means time to cook and bake. I knew that I wanted to make some crispy pork belly and turn it into a Perfect Bhan Mi Sandwich. 

One of the most important parts of this is a good baguette. I’ve tried different recipes but having a super small oven makes it hard to make a real baguette. Instead I can make some mini baguettes and when I want a real one I go to a professional bakery. 

This recipe uses all purpose flour in combination with bread flour. Instead of the AP flour I used Spelt instead as it is the closest thing that I stock in my baking pantry to AP flour. 

I’m terrible at shaping baguettes and end up degassing the dough a bit too much and have a tight crumb but that’s fine in this case. Once all the toppings are added the baguette from Tartine has a nice crisp crust and good chew. Exactly what I was hoping for.  

What surprised me even more was the fact that this dough is also used for English Muffins? What? How? Well, when it comes time to shape the baguettes for a final rise, you can refrigerate the rest of the dough overnight on a flat tray and use it for English Muffins the next day. A two for the price of one recipe….LET’S GO!

The next morning I didn’t bother to cut the dough into rounds but decided to cut it into rectangles and cook it that way in the pan. It’s super important to hit the dough and the tray with rice flour to prevent it from sticking as this dough becomes quite sticky overnight. I thought I flattened it too much, but even though it was really flat and the dough was extensible it still puffed up in the pan. Super happy with the results and flavor. 

Tasting Notes:

Baguette - Crisp crust and good chew on the interior. 

English Muffins - exactly what I was hoping for. Great flavor that works for breakfast or if toasted would also be good for a sandwich. 

Time/Effort: 2 - 3 days - Two days for baguette, 3 for the English Muffins because of the overnight retard in the fridge. 

Would I make it again: Yes. It’s the best baguette I’ve made and the English Muffins are exactly what I hoped for. The fact that I can make a full batch and have both for the same amount of work is a huge bonus. I almost wonder what would happen if instead of making baguettes I decided to toss the dough for the final proof in a pullman pan or even as a boule. 

RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

I’ve used semolina in my “weekly” bread for quite a while, but I’ve never done a mostly semolina bread before. Originally this bread only called for fennel…but I didn’t pay attention to HOW MUCH fennel it needed and I didn’t have enough. Necessity is the mother of improvisation in this case so I used anise seed to make up the total weight needed. There was another bread that had the combination of fennel and anise so I figured why not. 

This dough was remarkably easy to work with and was a rich golden yellow in color thanks to the semolina. I decided to do a bit of decorative scoring this time which was fun. I think I should do more of that in the future. 

Tasting Notes: Delicious. The sesame is very pronounced and the anise / fennel combination is there but not at all overpowering. The increased amount of semolina also results in a VERY crispy crust with a nice chew. 

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

Would I make it again: Yes, but with different flavors. Not because the flavor was bad but because I’m curious what other flavors would go well in this bread. The crispness is great and would likely be very good as just a plain sourdough.

My original plan was to test bake a bread raised by sakadane, however, that didn’t get bubbly enough to raise anything.  So plan B was baked instead.  I have a small amount of einkorn that I haven’t touched recently and thought that it would be perfect to use as a tangzhong.  It has poor gluten so gelatinizing it in a tangzhong is a perfect way to add it to a bread.  I also enjoyed a test bake of buttermilk bread that I did recently so decided on a buttermilk bread.

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Instructions

Levain

Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth. 

Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.

At a temperature of 78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.

Tangzhong 

Put about 1” of water in a sauce pan set on medium high heat. In the bowl of the stand mixer stir the buttermilk and flour until blended. Then place the bowl on the sauce pan to cook the tangzhong (Bain Marie) for several minutes until well thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Theoretically it should reach 65ºC (149ºF) but I don’t find I need to measure the temperature as the tangzhong gelatinizes at this temperature.  Let cool in the bowl and then refrigerate until the next morning.

Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk, egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar and levain.  Mix and then break up the levain into smaller pieces.  Next add the flour and vital wheat gluten.  Mix on low speed until there is no dry flour remaining.  Once incorporated increase the speed gradually to medium.  Mix at medium until the gluten is moderately developed.  With the mixer running add the room temperature butter one pat at a time until it is fully incorporated, waiting until each pat is well incorporated before adding the next.  Continue to mix until you can  pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.

Shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 3-4 hours at 82ºF.  There should be some rise visible at this stage.

You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier, remember if you do so the final proof will take longer.  Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight.

Prepare your pans by greasing them or line with parchment paper.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Transfer the dough onto the bench and divide it into four. I like to weigh them to have equal sized lobes. Shape each tightly into a boule, allow to rest 5 mins. Using a rolling pin roll each ball out and then letterfold. Turn 90* and using a rolling pin roll each out to at least 8”. Letterfold again from the sides so you have a long narrow dough. Then using a rolling pin, roll flatter but keeping the dough relatively narrow.  The reason to so this extra letterfold is that the shorter fatter rolls when placed in the pan will not touch the sides of the pan.  This allows the swirled ends to rise during final proof.  Next roll each into a tight roll with some tension. Arrange the rolls of dough inside your lined pan alternating the direction of the swirls. This should allow a greater rise during proof and in the oven.

Cover and let proof for 6-8 hours, longer time if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash (1 egg with 1 tsp of milk and pinch of salt).  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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Thick slices of Cabot cheddar , buttered Challah and a 100 yr old iron skillet. Nothing could surpass the flavor and fragrance. 

Same old same old. Only new thing is using sweetened 1/2 and 1/2 on the dough pre bake. I love the flavor rather than the egg yolk wash. 

Baking exactly the same formula every 2 weeks. Make a levain with  stored Apple/ raisin YW and flour and another one in equal amounts with a spoonful of stored YW starter and YW and flour. Both tripled in a few hours . Dough rose and puffy and light in 2 hrs. Shaped and it was ready for the oven in 30 min. Beautiful fragrance. 

I have no problems with my stored YW I carried it to Florida for a month and used it 2x there. I’ve  been leaving the sludge in the bottom and keeping large pieces of fresh orange rind in it and only changing the apples and raisins when they sink. Works perfectly no dough deterioration when mixing , rising or shaping. Very happy with this series of successful  YW  Challah bakes so moving on to some other ideas . 

I started my first yeast water culture last weekend with a mix of dried fruit (raisins, dates and apricots...mostly raisins).  I didn't really know what to expect.  After four days, it looked like most of the fruit was floating and I had good fizz.  Some of the larger pieces of apricots and dates were still on the bottom but I had read that was to be expected (and made sense).  The 'test' starter was mixed up that evening and left in the cold oven with the light on over night.  It had nice activity by morning, having nearly tripled, so I mixed up a full levain that morning.  Three hours later it had tripled so I decided it was OK to bake with.

Wanted to make a 'normal loaf' bake first.  I used my 'standard' loaf recipe so I could evaluate everything fairly.  But, instead of using just 50% YW in the dough (subbed in for the called-for water) I went with 100% for some reason.  The final dough had a strange consistency, almost lumpy (mentioned in other posts here), resisted sticking together during shaping and was too sweet for a plain loaf.  The crumb was nothing special either.  It was a different kind of bake.  Not much aroma coming from the oven or the final bread, although the crumb was very tender, but almost too much so.  I'm assuming the heavy hand with the YW addition all played into this significantly.  Probably true with YW as with traditional sourdough starter...they should improve with age.  Evaluation of this inaugural bake: meh.  But, I'll try again next weekend with less YW subbed in for the water and see what happens. 

However, the YW pizza dough experiment was much more successful!  I used the YW starter and only used 50% YW in the dough.  Used my usual pizza dough formula, let it cold proof for 48 hours, rounded off portions, rest at room temp for around 1.5 to 2 hours, shape and bake.  The dough was very extensible and stretchy but still delicate.  It baked up lovely.  We all agreed it was probably the best pizza crust yet--thin but not floppy on the base, and soft, pillowy and puffy cornicione at the edge, with just the right amount of chew.  I will continue to cultivate the YW just for my pizza dough (if nothing else).  It was fantastic!

Sharing my adventures here since there seemed to be a some ongoing interest in YW.  Starting it was simple and maintaining it seems straight forward enough.  Thanks to all the info posted here by Jon, TrailRunner, et al...immensely helpful!

Strained yeast water: 

YW starter:

YW Pizza!  (was a little heavy handed with the cheese)

Recently after starting to go to work every day I don't have much time to bake during the week, so we completely ran out of bread by the weekend, and I wanted to quickly bake some nice bread. So I turned to CLAS in combination with IDY.

Made two seeded breads in my small bread pans. Toasted 30 g sunflower and 50 g pumpkin seeds. Soaked 30 g crystal rye malt with boiling water, together with those toasted seeds, and also added 30 g crushed linseeds. Used together with the soaking water in the dough. I wanted to try using altus in this bread, but forgot!

For the flour, I made a mix of 500 g total, ~220g ruchmehl (high extraction wheat flour - used up leftovers), ~80 g whole rye, 100 g whole wheat and 100 g white flour. Used together with ~80 g CLAS, 11 g salt, 3.3 g IDY and enough warm water to make a very wet dough. After mixing using a hand mixer with spiral attachments and some folds about 30 min later the dough was somewhat stronger. Fermented about 1.5 hrs at 28C until looked about doubled in size. When preshaping I actually thought it could have worked as a hearth loaf, but my banetton was too small, so I just split into two small bread pans as I was planning originally, filling them about halfway. Sprinked some sesame seeds on top. Proofed at 30С until dough filled the pans. Tried slashing them, but the dough was too soft, even with a razor didn't leave a nice score. Baked with steam for 20 min, and without steam until nice colour, then also browned the sides after removing from the pans. Scores are almost not visible, the oven spring wasn't huge (I guess I proofed them just to the edge of overproofing).

The bread is very nutty and very clear seed flavour, with a soft and pleasant crumb, and thin slightly chewy crust.