proth5's blog

After many, many weeks of waiting it hit my doorstep yesterday.

I am engaged in other baking projects right now, but I had to take a look.

What already excites me: The vienoisserie section, that all recipes are in baker's percents, the sugar work, and the section on how to analyse a complex formula.

OK, there may be mistakes or things that are not to everyone's liking, but I am so anxious to get my other baking done and sit with this book that I can hardly stand it.

Woo Hoo!

Happy Baking

Oh the controversy!  So I thought to myself, the recipe cited in some posts was from a "Best Worker of France."  Why not consult the bread book I bought last April with recipes from the MOFs in Boulangerie.

Sure enough, we find the formula, method, and pictures from M. Auzet himself.  Although he hails from Avignon and at the time of publication lived in Cavaillon, one can consider him just a "stone's throw" from Beaucaire.  His picture makes him seem like a right jolly old elf and he is an MOF - so I'm going to take his advice on this.

“The sun did not shine,

It was too wet to play…”                         From “The Cat in the Hat” Dr Seuss

Yes, a day of rain and record cold in the Mile High City and we all go nuts.  We aren’t accustomed to anything but sunshine.

So I decided to finally write up my two levain experiment.

Lest anyone who reads my posts think I know what I'm doing, I've decided to post my latest adventure as an illustration to the contrary.

The story of how the tandoor got into my back yard is one for which the world is not prepared, but it is there, the weather is too hot to turn on the oven, and I thought to myself “Well, this is a good time to learn to make naan.”

The first step is getting the right tools.  After watching and watching the YouTube video of a chef making naan, I decided that the little tool seemed pretty handy.

No wait, strike that – reverse it.

Summer is here and it’s too hot to fire up the oven which makes it a perfect time to take the electric griddle outside and make English muffins.

The problem, of course, is getting those great nooks and crannies.  My old formula and technique got me plenty of little holes in the muffins, but not those great nooks and crannies (well, the little holes caught the melting butter, but still, the drive for “just a little better” is strong.)

So I thought about both my formula and my technique.

Anyone old enough to remember those guys?

Poor Goofus could never do anything right and Gallant - well, he was just annoying.

Anyway, I just pulled the weekly baguettes from the oven and they reminded me of those guys. In the spirit of learning/teaching I'd like to use poor Goofus to illustrate something.

I've posted a picture here:  http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/proth5/GoofusandGallant.jpg

The tests results are in! (It takes so little to make me happy.)

This particular batch of wheat was tempered for 48 hours with 20% of water added by weight of the grain.

It was then ground as follows

1 – Coarse pass sifted through #20 sieve – contents of sieve returned to mill

2 – Medium coarse pass sifted through a #20 sieve – contents of sieve returned to mill

3 – Medium coarse pass sifted through a #20 sieve – contents of sieve removed from process.  This was about 20% of total weight

Nature seems to have granted me an abundance of patience and in the past few weeks I have been undertaking experiments that seem destined to use it.

I have been wondering why my levain – which given the way I feed it should be dead by now – lives, thrives, and raises bread every week.  I have also been wondering about the results of soaking my home milled overnight prior to a mix and bake.

As promised I did a test loaf with my home milled high extraction flour.  I used .01% of diastatic malt by weight of the flour and baked using my standard "test loaf" formula.  Once again, I went by the numbers - strokes, folds, dough temperature, and fermentation times as for my other loaves.

The results of the .01% malt are posted here: http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/proth5/Homemilledmalt1.jpg