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After my first rushed attempt at a naturally leavened panettone without much research, I decided to try again, but with more planning and using what I think is a more respected formula, with all due respect to Gluten Morgen. However, I am still reluctant to try to build a LM. I invigorated a new 50% hydration version of my starter over two days with feedings of 1:0.5:1 at 82°F to ensure that it could triple in 4 hours. To deal with the overnight, I decided to try using a sweet 50% starter by adding sugar to equal 50% of the water (not the flour).

I recently bought some stone milled flour from a local mill and also came back from a trip to Japan where I visited a few sake breweries, which renewed my interest in sakadane (a starter made from koji rice, which is also sometimes called malted rice). So I thought, why not combine the two all at once? That was not the brightest idea I've ever had, but here we are lol.

As mentioned in my intro post, I finally managed to sort it all out and just need to fine tune the things.

To start, this was attempt #1:

Hi TFLers! It's that time of the year again that I have little more time to post. Pasta and phyllo are still my obsessions these days. This is not bread but I still wanna share some of my adventures with you.

I made the Naturally Leavened Brioche-Style Kugelhopf by Maurizio Leo. It cames out great! Wonderful recipe, I highly recommend. I'm the only one in my family that likes dried fruit, so I added very little. I soaked dried apricots in brandy and added some macadamia nuts. I'm really happy with the way it came out and the Nordic Ware Kugelhopf pan was perfect.

I have only posted hearth loaves so far because that's where the bulk of my experimentation goes on, but I do bake soft loaf pan bread for my kids twice a week. Preparing breakfast and lunch sandwiches for the kids five days a week means a lot of bread, and I prefer to know what goes into this significant part of their diet!

The usual formula for the kid's bread is simple. For a 1.1kg loaf, I combine 25% whole grain with 75% bread flour, milk, 1.5g yeast, 10g salt, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 1 tablespoon of sugar, around 77% hydration.

Today's bake: Danish Rye Bread   Ragbrod (Denmark)

Source: The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

Notes: Scaled to 2 loaves @ 1.575kg ea. from 1 loaf at 1.800kg.

Substitutions: None

Probably the best of my Panettone bakes so far this season! Lucky number 5!

I have been using the Milanese bound method exclusively to manage the LM this Christmas, in attempt to really get to grips with it and try to develop a deep understanding of what it does and how to use this technique wisely. Except for one occasion weeks ago where I made the over night in water, Piemontese style, as I felt the leavening seemed a little sluggish and as expected it massively ramped up yeast leavening power! Otherwise bound method all the way.

First up, Hamelman's Quarkbrot.  The formula calls for 60% bread flour, 20% medium rye flour, and 20% rye chops.  It also includes quark cheese.  Since the medium rye flour and rye chops and quark cheese are scarce as hen's teeth in my corner of northern Michigan, I was forced to adapt.  My trusty Komo grain mill does just fine at producing whole rye flour and cracked rye, so I used those.  The cracked rye was treated to a hot soak, rather than the cold soak for the rye chops; this per Hamelman's suggestion in a different recipe.  And Hamelman suggests that yog

Let me start by saying I haven't made them yet. But I saw these cute little meringue Christmas trees on America's Test Kitchen over the weekend and thought it a timely way to use up some egg whites left over from holiday panettone baking (I hope to get another bake in soon myself!). Since it was on the show, I think it is a free recipe, but if not, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Meringue Christmas Trees | America's Test Kitchen Recipe (americastestkitchen.com)

At some point I imagined that a sourdough bread made with mostly cake flour would have a delectable soft sweet crumb texture. Or at least a better 'bite' than loaves made with bread flour. Perhaps softer on the tongue, with a good sweet flavour! And without the chew or bounce that I've come to expect with lots of gluten.