Lazy Loafer's blog

Happy today - I baked my biggest single batch for the pre-order customers, and everything actually worked out! It was 13 loaves of Rye Sourdough using Peter Reinhart's recipe from Crust and Crumb (with a few minor modifications). Over 10 kg of sticky rye dough and Max (the 30 quart Univex mixer) handled it without a whimper or a wobble, even at almost speed 2 for six minutes. The dough was strong and elastic and I was SO glad I didn't have to mix all that by hand. I hate dealing with dough that has a high rye flour content; it's so sticky!

I tried the Rye Porridge bread from Tartine 3 the other day. I like this bread a lot - it provides a very nice sour-ish rye flavour with the texture of a good wheat levain. Very moist crumb and the bread benefits from sitting for 24 hours before slicing it. I followed the recipe but did not add any nuts or nut oil as Robertson makes them optional and I don't particularly like nuts in my bread. I also changed the method. I was not having much success with Robertson's methods (room temperature bulk ferment with a long shaped proof in the fridge; always over-proofed).

The perfect opportunity presented itself this week for me to make no-measure bread. We're staying in a timeshare for a week (Lake Okanagan Resort, for those of you in BC Canada), and I was getting itchy (not baking for a week?!), plus we needed fresh bread. I wanted some fairly plain bread, nothing fancy but with a good crust and creamy open crumb, and good flavour.

So, let's see what we have on hand - an oven, mixing bowls, roasting pan, one glass measuring cup and a set of measuring spoons. Off to the grocery store to buy supplies:

I made Bag-End Levain for the bread shop yesterday. I did end up with one loaf left (it's in the freezer now) so if no one buys it I will slice it and post photos of the crumb (and comment on the taste). For now though, I'm happy the way it turned out. One never knows with dumping in whatever comes to hand!

This one had a blend of flours:

Today I baked a couple loaves of the Overnight Whole Grain Sourdough from the Handbook recipe section. It certainly looks good, and smells divine! I'll cut it later (or tomorrow) to check the crumb, but happy so far! Bulk fermented overnight, then shaped and proofed for 2-3 hours in baskets. Onto peels, slashed and baked with steam on the granite slabs. The whole wheat starter smelled fairly sour and there's a good dollop of rye flour in the loaf so I'm interested to taste it!

I'm having fun finding new, yummy add-ins for my standard Pain au Levain (see the Sage & Onion blog post for the formula). Today I made some loaves with roasted garlic, parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes and a bit of chopped rosemary.

Last year's garlic is starting to sprout (and sadly, this year's won't be ready to harvest until July), so I'm using it up. The sun dried tomatoes were soaked in hot water for a few hours then chopped, and the rosemary was fresh out of the garden.

Lovely dough, as always, after a few stretch & folds:

I'm having a bread-tasting open house on Sunday. This year the theme is "Fruits and Flours"; fitting as it is 'spring' here in beautiful Victoria. The "flours" part of that consists of a variety of breads using combinations of bread flour with whole wheat, whole rye and whole spelt, and/or wheat germ or wheat bran. Methods vary from same day mix and bake (with a starter or pre-ferment made the night before) to bulk retard, shape, rest, bake to bulk ferment with an overnight proof in bannetons. Some are made with dry yeast, some with levain and some with a combination of both.

This morning I baked Ken Forkish's 40% Whole Wheat Overnight bread in loaf pans, just to try it out. I did this for a couple of reasons - it's a great bread for market because you can bake it right out of the fridge in the morning without warming it, and the oven heats up to 475 much more quickly without the stones or iron pots in it. So I can bake for an early market without getting up at a stupid time of day!

I haven't sliced it yet (it's for the shop), but here is a shot of the crumb of the same bread baked in iron pots.

Well, I am excited. For the first time I created a recipe from scratch, not from a published recipe or modified from anyone else's recipe. I created it in a spreadsheet based on my own experience gained over the last year of intensive baking (knowledge of hydration, percentages, flour performance, etc.) and then went ahead and mixed. I only made one small change during mixing and the whole thing was a great success!

So here it is - The Lazy Loafer's Barley Apple bread:

Starter:

I baked my Rye sourdough in the iron pots the other day for the first time. I've been using Ken Forkish's method of forming the boules, proofing them seam-side down then baking them seam-side up, letting them bloom naturally. However, when I did this batch I mistakenly put on in the pot smooth-side up. The difference is amazing! No bloom on the mistaken one, though it did split a bit on one side. The others all rose higher and are much more attractive.

Here is the same bread baked on stones, with regular scoring before baking: