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This experiment worked out very well.  It's an everyday bread that I'll be using. It has no egg, only milk, and is suitably simple to use even if you're retired and aren't up for a kneading session.  Most Celiac diagnoses happen after mid-life, so my series is meant to empower everyone to make their own bread, even if they're limited in mobility.  My focus is on nutrition and simplicity.  Please comment and tell me what you think.  There is more detail in the article I'm linking to, but the recipe is reprinted here with a picture of the crumb.

      With a rainy day off work, this past Tuesday I decided to make some sourdough bread. I fed my sourdough starter (composed of King Arthur bread flour) that afternoon, which left me until that evening to decide on what recipe I would follow. 

      Being a fan of Richard Bertinet, I eventually decided to use a version of his “White Sourdough” recipe from his book, “Crumb”. This is a great book for all things bread, by the way. I highly recommend it!

Changes compared to round 1

1. Accidentally made the hydration way too high.
2. Add-ins were ~29% total flour weight compared to ~38% last time. Didn’t soak the nuts and dates beforehand though, and forgot to toast the walnuts
3. Baked for much longer and at a lower temperature, seems like I could have still baked for even longer
4. Let the starter grow for 3 hours instead of 1.5 hours, rise of the dough was much better this time

Loaf 1 - 100% wholewheat, 450g
90% hydration
30% starter
2% salt

Long overnight autolyse in fridge.
Also proofed overnight in fridge and baked in the morning.
Baked at ~230c for 20 mins covered & 20 mins uncovered

This worked out well - a beautiful colour and tasted great. Alas, needed more time in the oven, and the crumb wasn't as open as I would have liked. Also, I used the wrong baking paper and it stuck to the bottom!

465 g all-purpose, 390 g whole what, 50 g rye, 81% hydration, retarded bulk fermentation, short retarded proofing, 55 mins on baking stone ∴ single 1556g loaf

I had another go at this bake, but made a few mistakes right at the start.  Rather than using the recommended 214 g of bread flour and 109 g of water for the final dough, I accidentally use 321 g bread flour and 243 g of water which I reduced to 236 from the total formula column, yikes.  Other changes I made include reducing the soaker water to 150 g.

This is another twist on Hamelman’s 5 grain levain. I am using the same amounts as my last attempt at this but once again, I tweaked the method and I did not sift out the bran. I am also going to do some bassinage with this dough as my notes from the last time indicated that this was a stiff dough as well. 

Recipe:

Makes 3 loaves

Soaker:

100 g cracked rye berries (coarsely mill 125 g of rye berries)

86 g raw sunflower seeds

86 g old fashioned oats (large flake)

    This is the same basic formula as my last post except this time I added some cranberries and reduced the egg amount slightly.  I love the flavor of these rolls and they are worth giving them a try as I know you will not be disappointed.  Keep in mind this is a pretty wet dough and is not the easiest to form into rolls.  I used wet hands and a dough scraper to help me.  I don't like adding a lot of extra flour when shaping rolls, but you can certainly do that if you desire, just don't end up making them too dry.

Being a twin and the 2nd one born, my twin has always said I was a real 'Born Loser'.  But this year's birthday is a very special one because my birthday is on 02-02-2020 .....the same day as the Super Bowl.  It seems fitting that my Chiefs are favored to win by 2 by the bookies.  But they are oh so wrong!  I think the Chiefs will win by 20.  So I'm taking the 200 to 1 odds that they will do so and putting 20 bucks on it.  I'm getting ready to celebrate their huge 20 point win by making pizza in the toaster oven using home made tortillas.......

I have never baked a ciabatta in all the years of baking. I wanted to take some nice bread to friends for late afternoon drinks that would pair nicely with cheese and selected wines. My usual bake for these events is baguettes with a poolish, but I wanted to try something. I went with Hamelman's ciabatta with biga which is a 73% hydration loaf.

The result was better than I was expecting, The crumb is not as open as some prefer, but I don't like the holes so large that the toppings fall through. I may experiment with upping the hydration a few points to test my nerve.

Cheers,