One of our closest friends are vegan so it is a fun challenge to have them over for dinner. I still have frozen rhubarb from another friend who lives in the countryside so decided that the sour cherry rhubarb combination was so good it needed to be repeated, but this time without my all butter crust.
I haven’t made a 100% (or pretty close) Durum bread in quite some time. After seeing some excellent posts of recent Durum bakes on TFL I decided to try a new version myself.
I decided to do a 2 step build for the levain to make sure it had a lot of strength to give some nice rise and structure to the Durum flour and it really did make a big difference.
I had a bit of mashed sweet potato leftover from a previous bake and wanted to use it up. I decided to try adding it to a Hokkaido Milk Bread done with 30% whole wheat and this is what I came up with.
Don suggested I try scoring with 3 slashes. Hm… I was in a huge hurry trying to shape preheat oven and get to Yoga then race back home to slash and bake. Not bad but certainly can be better and I have a better idea of how to proceed.
This is the best flavor and crust/crumb so far so I think 40% is the sweet spot. Everything handled the same. I’m going to lower temps to preheat 475 and then 450 after the 13 min covered bake. Otherwise the cold shaping etc and YW levain are great.
Aug. 11, 2022. 98th bake.
Added some ground "chocolate rye malt." I.E., malted rye that was roasted to a dark color and has a chocolatey almost coffee-like aroma/flavor. Purchased, as whole kernals, from a home-brewing supply store, then ground in a coffee/spice grinder. (It's malted/roasted so it is not as hard on the grinder as raw kernals.)
Wanted to try making a mostly lean but soft sandwich loaf for my wife to try. Did a slight variation on my semolina bread hearth loaf. Subbed a little more AP in and added 5% WW. Also increased the EVOO just a bit.
Sliced about a third of the loaf after 3 hours of cooling and was really happy with it. Wonderful aroma and very soft. Will see how it ages over the next few days.
Wanted to have a light rye bread for sandwiches and of course some extra flavor and crunch from things like seeds and nuts are always welcome. I had considered doing a sweedish limpa rye with sunflower or even a 100% rye but stumbled across this recipe from Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice and figured I'd give it a try. The original calls for some commercial yeast and can be baked on the same day the dough is mixed. It is also shaped completely differently in the book. I decided to omit that yeast and treat it as a normal sourdough with an overnight cold rise.
My past. I did post this before, way back in 2016, in the wake of all the chatter on TFL about pane di Altamura. And just in the past few days Benny and Caroline have been posting semolinas, just about my favorite subject when it comes to bread. Benny's was his take on the Altamura bread, which, although the original Altamura bread has an odd beauty all of its own, on its best days looks like something Victor Frankenstein might have left aside in a large glass jar.
Still same formula and times. I did one extra set of folds to develop the gluten even further because of Semola. I also proofed them a full hour before baking. I also took Kendalm’s advice on shaping and am well- pleased with the improvements on that “ score” which is also better. Better color which has always been good but really love this bake. Better grigne throughout scoring.
