This morning I baked my version of Hamelman's 5-grain Levain. I think this is one of the best breads in Hamelman's book - it is tasty, it is easy to make, and it never fails. Needless to say, I make hardly any changes to the original recipe. Some of the details of my version are:
Hello TFLers! I've been very busy this early in 2019, I almost have no time to post and check TFL. I'm glad I had a little time to post this. I baked this early this January but I'm only posting it now because, you know, teachers have a lot of paperwork aside from actual classroom teaching.
I have been meaning to sprout some flour again and finally got around to doing it. Boy am I glad I did! The unique flavor from using freshly ground sprouted flour is amazing.
I made 1 big loaf and about 5 rolls which I ended up eating in 2 days ?. I do have to say the rolls were probably some of the best ones I have made to date. The combo of rice, potatoes and sprouted flour made them nice and soft and full of so much flavor. I am going to make another batch of just rolls next time and freeze them for later use so I don't eat all of them right away!
I needed to refresh two starters, a whole wheat and a rye, and being a positively parsimonious sort of fellow I was reluctant to send 200g of perfectly good starter down the drain. I also needed a new loaf of sandwich bread. What to do? Oh, what to do? Well, I did a discard loaf.
In all fairness I should at this point provide a 'trigger warning' for sensitive sourdough folks. I did use some IDY. However, I offer in mitigation the fact that all flour used in the loaf and the starters was whole grain and home milled.
From How to Make Bread by E. Hadjiandreou
79% hydration
4 pull and fold style kneads, 10 minutes apart
overnight rest in fridge (12 hours)
2 hours on counter to come to room temp before shaping
proof in round banneton 2 hours at 75 degrees-ish (oven with periodic blasts of bread proof setting)
This is the most amazing bread I have ever created. I used a banana bread recipe for the base. The original is on Perfect Sourdough Teresa L Greenway’s Facebook site. I had previously made her formula. In an effort to clear out my pantry I decided to incorporate new fruits but keep the other essentially the same. I have canned green Victoria rhubarb from a friend in Wisconsin. I used applesauce that I made from wild apples I picked. I created enough bubbly levain to double the formula making 4– 8x4 loaf pans. The original recipe as published by Teresa calls for discard.
Now that I have discovered a good source of Montreal smoked meat in town, I determined to do the deli rye from Peter Reinhart's, "Bread Baker's Apprentice." I have baked this recipe often, but this was the first time I built a fully rye starter. My previous starters were a wheat/rye mix. this time I starting from my mother, I fed with rye flour four times over three days and for the fourth and final feed added the sauteed yellow onions. After a few hours it was time to mix and bake.
Kalamata Olive and Asiago Cheese sourdough , had a nice taste
Artisan Bread School is running the following courses:
Winnipeg, Canada 1 - 5 April 2019 COURSE FULL
Fattoria degli Usignoli, Tuscany, Italy 6 -10 May 2019 PLACES AVAILABLE https://www.artisan-bread-school.com/course/five-day-course-at-fattoria-degli-usignoli-italy-may-2019/
Fattoria degli Usignoli, Tuscany, Italy 14 - 18 May 2019 COURSE FULL
I'd mentioned to Abe that I was thinking of rosemary and onion for my next bake (working on shaping and scoring) and he came back with a suggestion for this lovely recipe for tomato bread by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou.
Of course, why not?
The first surprising thing was the quantity of levain: 300g of 100% levain for 400g of flour! And since I wanted two 700g-ish loaves, I found myself building 450g of levain over the course of two days, after which I left it to retard in the fridge.
