leslieruf's blog

Ice Demeter gave me a little challenge a couple of weeks ago to get a great crumb etc on a 1 day bake as I did for an overnight poolish. So today I made a variation on Ken Forkish's  Saturday 75% wholewheat bread.  My variation below:

Bread flour (40%) 254 gm

Wholewheat flour (30%) 191 gm

Rye flour (20%) 127 gm

Spelt flour (10%) 64 gm

Water (80%) 487 gm (I kept back 21 gm - should have been 508 gm)

Salt (2%) 14 gm

Instant yeast (0.3%) 2 gm

 Decided it was time to make a multigrain loaf. Sunday night grabbed starter from fridge and mixed up the levain. made up hot water soaker with salt and left on bench.

We've been away  visiting family in Switzerland (with a side trip to Ireland) for. the last couple of months.  While there I  couldn't resist having a try with Swiss flour etc.  So a niece had a rye starter that I was able to use.  I just used  30% rye flour and the rest the white bread flour.  just a basic 1:2:3 loaf. Funny baking in someone else's kitchen, using an unknown starter, unfamiliar flours and equipment and oven.  

 Last week I finally got my larva rocks so this week decided to have a go.  I made 3 batches of 2 loaves, 3 different breads that I often make, so nothing new there.  Made dough yesterday and did the final proof overnight in the fridge.   Preheated the oven for about 1 hour with larva rocks and DO. 15 minutes before I baked added container of steaming towells.  So first to bake was my version of Field Blend #2, one batard in DO the other on the baking stone.

Another baguette attempt, this time using Trevor Wilson's easy SD baguette recipe.  I doubled the recipe and made 4 x 350 g baguettes and a small boule with remaining dough.   It was a bit cool and dough was slow, I got hung up on time so I think I did not bulk ferment enough. Still, baguettes are a big improvement on last lot, I used my new larva rocks so although my steam technique still needs improvement I think there was definitely more steam in the oven.  The boule didn't fare so well and although I scored the top, I obviously didn't score suffiently.

 It is really difficult to buy fine ground semolina (durum) flour here in NZ. I found a supplier who could remill it and today tried the above for the first time. 

Sponge: 

140 g durum

140 g bread flour

195 g water

yeast 3 g IDY and 13.9 g sugar.

mixed and left to mature 2 hours.

Added 237 g water and 34.8 g olive oil and mixed well before adding 209 g durum, 209 g bread four and 12.5 g salt.

This is my first attempt at this which is similar to one which my swiss sister-in-law used to make.  The recipe came from www.swissmilk.ch/rezepte and is in german. I used IDY instead of fresh. 

Well I finally gave in, the temptation was just too much.  Today I had other tasks in the kitchen so thought I could work this in around them.  The recipe I followed was txfarmers baguette, just a simple yeasted dough.  I started with much trepidation, followed her recipe as closely as I could.  Here are my first baguettes ready to proof

My timing was out, had to shape when I should have been cooking dinner so no cross!  

Used Hamelman's recipe from bread, scaled to give 20 buns at about 80 gms.  ready to proof.

The only changes were to replace peel with cranberries and similar amount of raisins, reducing currants a little and my own spice mix (don't remember where I found this recipe)

very yummy recipe!

Leslie

 I saw this recipe at Christmas but decided to make it today to take with to a gathering of friends.

mix together

300 g flour

40 g sugar

1/2 tspn salt

4 gm instant yeast

add 150 ml warm milk. and knead by hand. It was so dry I added probably 10 ml more milk and 10 ml water. then I tried to incorporate 40 gm butter but gave up and used my kenwood until I had windowpane. left to double about an hour and a half. rolled out into oblong, spread 100 g apricot jam over and the following mix leaving border around all edges