I am continuing my quest for a more open crumb and oven spring using some of Trevor Wilson and Dabrowman's methods. We got "lovely" weather (pouring rain till 3 am which then froze and turned into snow on top of the ice). That made travel rather treacherous so I decided to stay home and bake bread. New things that I tried this time:
Like others, I have been reading Trevor's book and hoping to improve the openness (is that a word?) of my crumb. So I worked on a few things while making this loaf. I probably should have changed only one thing at a time but impatience and all of that. So my changes were:
1. My levain builds: I went from 1:1:1, 1:0.6:0.6, 1:0.58:0.59, 1:1.4:1.76 to 1:1:1.2, 1:1.8:2.25, 1:2.5:3.19. Instead of tripling in 4-5 hours, it took 10-12 hours to slightly more than double. I am rethinking this way of doing things.
I have been wanting to make a cinnamon raisin recipe but after my last experience with cinnamon (bread took forever to rise and I found out that cinnamon impedes the growth of yeast), I have been wary of it. I found a recipe here on TFL that seemed to account for the cinnamon’s action on yeast and it had a lot of good reviews. So here is my adapted version from that adapted version from the Bourke Street Bakery Spiced Fruit Sourdough Recipe.
This is a copycat version of Bread1965‘s loaf from his Blame CNN post. I enjoyed the loaf he gave so much that for this weekend, this was the loaf to make! I tweaked the method and the amount of Levain to what works for my schedule but I tried to be as faithful as possible to the ingredients.
This makes 3 approximately 650g baked loaves.
I have had a number of breads that include onions bookmarked, but never got around to trying them. So this is my attempt at this.
1. Caramelize 3 diced onions in 1 tbsp each of butter and olive oil. Since I quadruple my recipes, this took me 3 hours! Normally, it takes 45 minutes to an hour. Set aside to cool. I prepared mine a few days ahead and put them in the fridge. I let them come back to room temperature before using them.
Like Bread1965, I have been collecting the left over levain from my bakes because I just couldn’t justify throwing out perfectly good starter. I didn’t feel like making waffles or pancakes and I had done a bit of research on using Starter in bread dough without refreshing it. I also took a peek at FWSY for how much yeast to use in a hybrid dough. So armed with that info, I came up with a recipe.
Thanks to everyone's input, my second shot at this bake turned out much better. I might have underproofed the loaves a bit but at least, I got decent if not great oven spring. Here is the changed recipe:
1. Toast 100 g of buckwheat groats. Cover with hot water and let soak for an hour. Drain. Add 50 g of yogurt.
This is a repeat of last week’s bread without the cranberries or pumpkin seeds. Bread1965, have no fear, I made you one with the add-ins unless you prefer one without. Let me know. :-D
Here is the recipe again so you don’t have to go searching for it.
1. Toast 125 g of large flake oats in a dry frying pan. When toasted add 25 g of oat bran to the oats.
2. Mix together 345 g of water and 75 g of organic plain yogurt.
I am continuing my exploration of true porridge breads and for Canadian Thanksgiving, I decided to add pumpkin seeds and cranberries to the basic loaf. I did make one batch without the cranberries and pumpkin seeds to take to my brother's house tomorrow and it turned out wonderful so the cranberries and the pumpkin seeds are optional. You could actually add any type of add-in that doesn't require soaking or doesn't absorb too much moisture from the dough such as sprouts, sunflower seeds, nuts or dried fruit.
I must admit that there is something special about making “true“ porridge breads. The loaves sure seem to stay fresh longer and the crumb is incredibly soft. After making loaves using this method for a second week, I found that it isn’t too onerous if I do all the the porridge for my 12 loaves all at once. Then I divide the porridge by four to add it to the four batches I make (each batch makes 3 loaves). I am very pleased on how this turned out!
I forgot to toast the Kamut flakes but this is definitely an option if one wishes.
