Benito's blog

I’ve wanted to make a mashed potato bread for some time and just got around to it.  This has 25% butter mashed potatoes, 82% hydration, 9% prefermented flour.  I did an overnight levain build which grew to over 3x and was used young just as the dome started to flatten.  A saltolyse was done also overnight, both starting in the fridge to slow things down.  The mashed potatoes were added to half the dough after Rubaud mixing when the levain was added.  Then was fully mixed with slap and folds on the counter.

We loved the Kamut flavour in the last loaf I baked last week but wanted a stronger flavour from the Kamut.  This week I decided to inch up they percentage of Kamut to 30%.  Still being unsure about going higher because I wasn’t sure how thirsty Kamut is and what effect on the gluten it would have.  I increased the hydration to 78% with the assumption that more whole Kamut would make the dough thirstier.  I still think that the Kamut adds a lot of extensibility to the dough and doesn’t seem that thirsty compared to other whole grains.

We LOVED the blueberry rhubarb galette I made last week so much I had to make it as a double crust pie this week to bring to friends.  Because of the pandemic we haven’t seen our best friends since 2019.  We are allowed to have a bubble of 10 people but haven’t really taken advantage of this so far.  

This is my second go at baking a 20% Kamut sourdough. I wanted to try an overnight levain build and saltolyse (autolyse with salt included) because it would allow me to get the bake done on the same day as the mix while still including a short cold retard.  I think this actually works out quite well and I may continue to do this int he future.  I once again used the aliquot jar and ended bulk fermentation when the aliquot jar showed a rise of 50% and after final shaping did a short bench rest of 15 minutes.

This is set number 15 of my baguette trials and tribulations and in some ways one of the most successful baguette bakes I’ve had where I figured something out that has turned out to be critical to my baguettes.  I have been stumped by the lack of ears and grigne on my baguettes, but happy with the crumb.  Well in this bake I reduced bulk fermentation aiming for only a 25% rise in bulk and then eliminated bench room temperature proofing of the shaped dough instead putting the baguettes into the fridge after final shaping.

I first started baking pies about two and a half years ago, I’ve gone through a pile of different pasty recipes until I tried Stella Parks recipe in Bravetart cookbook.  I’ve mentioned this one before, but if you haven’t tried it you really need to.  It is the easiest to make, the one challenge for us bread bakers is not to knead.  Once I have a dough in my hands I automatically want to knead it, with pastry you really shouldn’t knead it.  In fact, I barely bring this together.

OK still on a miso kick, not my homemade as that will take sometime yet, but red miso again.  I was happy with my previous bake of miso with furikake, but decided to change it up just a bit by adding toasted black and white sesame seeds.  Since I love sesame seeds and have baked a previous black and white sesame seed bread I thought that it would be great with the flavour of miso.

Bread flour 352 g

Sprouted Whole Wheat 97 g

Water 320 g

Levain 115 g 100% hydration Sprouted whole wheat 

After my go at the Red Miso Furikake Sourdough bake, Cedarmountain gave me the idea to make my own miso.  I actually use a lot of miso in my cooking and now I’m also gradually using it in my baking.  So why not make my own miso?  The first hurdle was to source koji rice.  I was able to find some here in Toronto as we have a local sake producer called Izumi and they sold me some koji rice.  Well the ingredient list for a simple miso is even shorter than bread, Koji rice, soy beans, salt and water.  OK perhaps it is the same as for bread.

I’ve been participating the baguette CB and realized that I hadn’t documented any of the baguette bakes in my blog.  I find it can be nice to go back and see how my baking has progressed with its various ups and downs.

The formula I’ve settled on to hone my baguette craft with is Abel’s Baguette au Levain.  This is the formula I’ve been following.

For three baguettes about 280 g (to account for aliquot jar)