albacore's blog

A slightly experimental bake, with a stiff French levain (for raising power), a liquid levain (for pH reduction) and an overnight yeasted sponge (for flavour).

All went well, but bulk (to 60% vol increase) was rather fast at 2hrs 10m. Retarded, shaped and baked the following day.

As soon as I turned out the loaves from the bannetons onto the peel they started to spread and I realised the loaves were "classically" overproofed.

Sure enough, the ears and loft were poor and the crumb was closer, more regular and more "frogspawn" than I like.

A recent comment by Michael Lily regarding dough bulk volume increase got me thinking about a topic I have already given a lot of thought to - volume increase during bulk and it's effect on the final bread.

In that post Michael suggested a bulk volume increase of 20% to improve oven spring, which I would agree with, but I think there may be a downside in terms of flavour development.

I recently bought some French Foricher T65 flour whilst shopping for some other flours.

I hadn't got a particular recipe in mind when I bought it, but then it became obvious that the first thing to try was an authentic "pain au levain".

I became rather interested in the original method for making pain au levain which dates from 1778 (or earlier) as detailed in Parmentier's "Le parfait boulanger, ou Traité complet sur la fabrication et le commerce du pain (Éd.1778)". The method is known as "travail sur trois levains", or work on three levains.

I chanced upon some interesting YouTube videos of the JWU Bread Symposium 2021. One of them was a prebiotic bread by Michael Kalanty He uses a sourdough leavened soaker of home milled wheat grits, oats and flax seed to develop prebiotic bacteria.

It sounded interesting so I decided to give it a go and (painfully!) transcribed most of the recipe from the video and guessed a few missing bits.

It went something like this:

Prebiotic Bread Michael Kalanty

Description 

The quarter sponge system was a method of professional breadmaking developed in Scotland and was designed to produce tall, airy tin loaves with the minimum amount of yeast possible. The quarter refers to the fact that a quarter of the total recipe water is used in the first sponge.

I've tried it a few times before, but the loaves were never as tall as they should be and lacked oven spring.

Not liking to give up on my breadmaking missions, I decided to have another go.

This is a follow up to my post  in the "Besuschio - The Definitive Panettone" thread, with a bit more detail.

Starter

I decided to make a fresh starter for my LM - probably not necessary, but never mind! I followed the instructions at https://www.homebaking.at/sauerteigansatz-herstellen/ 

using a homegrown organic apple, flour mix of Marriages organic BF and some Italian Manitoba flour (+ a little malt) + spring water.

A simple yeasted roll recipe from King Arthur with 67% whole wheat content.

I made this recipe recently when I needed a quick bake and I was really surprised at how well they turned out. A nice fluffy, soft crumb and pleasant mild wholewheat flavour.

A few recipe notes:

I used 7g IDY, mixed with the flours

Bread flour - Marriages organic strong white

Inspired by a picture of Derek's (Yozzause) recent Chelsea bun bake and also by some Fitzbillies of Cambridge UK buns that our daughter sent us, I thought it was time to try my hand at them.

Similarities to cinammon buns of course, but a surprisingly steep learning curve to get them right. I will need a couple more bakes to get them nearer how I think they should be. But I'm happy enough for a first attempt.

There are lots of different ways to make chapatis; this is how I do it.

Here's my equipment:

I'm lucky enough to own a vintage Indian chakla, but of course any smooth flat rolling board will do

and a belan/rolling pin

A tawa for cooking the chapatis

Otherwise known as South Tyrol Farmers' Bread

I made this a while ago but it wasn't entirely successful, turning out a bit "solid". The recipe calls for Austrian T960 flour which I think is the same as German T997.

The first time I made it I used home milled wholegrain rye sifted at #50. This time I had planned to use Shipton Mill T997 light rye, but it was out of stock and I was sent Doves Farm white rye as a substitute - a bit whiter, but close enough.