How to get a beautifully FULL Pullman loaf! Use too much dough 😂
My levain was definitely exuberant. I haven’t made this formula in quite awhile. So easy and so incredibly delicious.
The crust is amazing. The butter and temp. baked at really works to create a crackling rich crust with the most delicate tender flavorful crumb. The spelt isn't a predominate flavor . I am going to make again and do 50% spelt and also try other grains. The Trinity again as always enhances flavor and crumb. This is definitely a success.
I milled 250 g Barton Springs Mill spelt and the rest was Arrowhead Mills BF .
I don’t sift . I don’t do folds except with a rubber spatula in the bowl. I don’t do a bulk ferment.
I do mix everything at once. I do a 1 hr autolyse. I do in bowl folding the dough while turning the bowl about 3x in an hour. The dough after the autolyse is so full of gluten development that the turns are just a performance rather than a necessity.
I heavily butter my Pullman and lid and place dough in using a wet spatula to press into place. This is not a wet dough and could easily be made into boules etc.
I let it rise ( TOO MUCH) til pan almost full. ( usually) . I got busy and it took off. Pushed the lid in place and refrigerated overnight. Pulled off the dough that had found its way out ( 100g) and added it to my levain jar.
Preheat bake 375 30 min lid on
Lid off ( a slight struggle 😬) 20 min
The breadsticks from the curled ends of the Pullman are delicious!
Formula : Large Pullman ( will adjust down total dough by 100g next time)
515g BF
250g Spelt whole grain
500g + - 50 g water ( let the dough tell you)
42g each Trinity - honey,EVOO,yogurt
13g Kosher salt
126 g active levain
Mix everything. Autolyse 1 hr. In bowl folds x 3 in an hour
Butter butter butter the Pullman and lid. Rise in pan ( no bulk ferment except this) . Retard x hrs. Makes no discernible difference how long usually -15 hrs.
Bake. 375 30 lid on 20 lid off . More pics to come when I get it out of the pan! Fragrance is outstanding and the “ breadsticks “ were delicious. 🤤
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Looking good, Caroline. Looking forward to a cross-section pic. I usually plan on about 450g flour for my 4 X 4 X 9 Pullman pan. Your post reminds me I haven't tried your Trinity yet. Maybe this is the time.
TomP
The crumb shot, so much like what I would have hoped for.
If you look back at the Pullman loaves I have made in the past this crumb is exactly like all of them and the making of this is even more simplified than most of those. There isn't any need to much of anything as far as mixing. Time is your friend and all you do is mix and wait. My kind of bread !! c
For years, that is the phrase I've used the most about baking bread!
But judging from most TFL posts it hasn’t caught on yet. 😬😂👍
Definitely try the Trinity. Due to that I didn't even think of doing the Yudane with this loaf. It's already so tender. Held up prefectly to a ham and swiss sando. Will be trying more %'s of Spelt and other grains. Lots of possibilities. c
And here is my stab at this bread. I reduced the recipe for my 4 X 4 X 9 Pullman pan, and I reduced slightly too much, down to 400g of flour. That wasn't quite enough and the loaf rose slightly short of the lid. It sure came out tasty! Here's the crumb shot:
After mixing, the dough was so wet that it was really a thick paste. After an hour's rest I turned it over half a dozen times with a spatula as Caroline suggested, and I was surprised that it had absorbed all the extra water and now felt like an ordinary dough.
10 hours of ferment, then overnight in the fridge. Baked cold.
I preheated the oven to 450 deg.F but forgot to lower it to 375 as planned. At 25 minutes I realized and turned it down, then baked 15 minutes more with the lid removed. This got the internal temp to 207 deg F and I decided that was enough.
The bread seems a little soft but I cut into it after only an hour of cooling so what would I expect! Next time I'll go for a higher temperature. I'm not going to worry about the oven temperature very much since even though I messed it up the bread came out so well.
I'm going to try this again with kamut and see if there's a difference. It's awfully good with the spelt.
You are amazing!!! That looks great! I usually leave out 100 g of water just because there are so many variables with grain milling and even honey viscosity. I think you made a gorgeous bread Tom. I’m going to try other grains and more spelt. Keep the dough rollin’. c
I’m not getting all these notifications of responses. Not sure what’s going on with TFL
I'm getting notifications now. If I didn't earlier I don't know because I've been away from the computer for some hours.
I'm so sympathetic about your thumbs I can hardly bear it, having had my share of long-to-cure issues. Isn't that a bummer - you pull off some tricky feat like your self-arrest, congratulate your self, and then it turns out you almost wish you hadn't. Good luck with the healing.
TomP
I’m not very patient had I babied my hands for longer after the fall… 3 years ago in March I’d probably not be suffering now. Oh well. I’m going to do better 😬🙏
Keep posting Pullman breads and we can have a very informative interesting thread. c
Thanks for posting another great sounding loaf. This will be my next loaf. The simplicity really appeals to me.
Gary
Short of a box mix this is about as easy as they come. Believe me with my hand situation getting worse by the day I am all for easy. Let us all know how it goes. By the way I flaked 2 c oat groats yesterday and got 6c flakes. All perfect. LOVE that motor !! I had done 2 qts of barley a while back and they are all gone now. Made a lot of porridge for breakfast and soaker for bread. I have a LOT of barley grain left LOL. I think of you every time I get out the flaker. Thank you Gary . c
The motor really does make it better.
I'm surprised at the lack of compression in the crumb. By my calculations you have 1530g of dough and lost 100g to overfilling. 1430g of dough in a 13x4x4 pan works out to 1430 / 3300 = 0.43g/mL. I recently made a loaf with 80% of that TDW (0.35g/mL) and it was very compressed and my crumb looked much tighter.
Caroline has the touch!
I’ve never had a compression of crumb . If I’m using a whole grain I always aim 1300-1400 g in my big pan. Maybe baking temp? I can’t think what else other than rising enough? c
My loaf was whole grain with 800g of dough in a 9x4x4 USA Pullman pan.
I baked at 350 in a Mainstays toaster oven (because our main oven died).
It had risen to nearly the top of the pan when I started baking in the cold oven in Toast mode (both top and bottom elements as recommended by Yippee.
I've got to eat up my current loaf before I try yours. I'll report back.
Thank you for your contributions to this community.
I bake at preheated 375 big oven. But today I had preheated to 425°! Turned back immediately as I noticed my error and of course the loaf was really cold . But it got a nice toasting to the outside and the hotter temp certainly agreed with it. I’d definitely do a preheated oven never cold start particularly because if you are retarding the loaf is really really cold and a toaster oven can’t hold any heat to speak of. I think that’s the whole issue with compression of crumb . I’d make those changes .
In fact with your small oven situation I’d rise bread and not retard and definitely preheat oven and I bet you see better crumb 🙏
Our new oven is projected to arrive on Wednesday 🙏. We've been waiting since 7 January! I'll go back to preheating in it for sure.
I have always preheated but never that much hotter. Since I am baking in a cold metal baking pan and the dough is also cold there is a lot of heat taken up after I put the pan in the oven. I am going to make notes to remind myself to preheat much more aggresively from now on. Obviously needs the extra boost.
Thank you for helping me see a new direction...even though you didn't plan to ! c
He posted his bake and it almost completely filled the 9x4 Pullman that he has. c
The waiting kills most - oh well! Enjoy!
I never use my Pullman. I will have to “pull” it out of storage 😆 and give this one a try.
I’m sorry to hear your hand is hurting you. Did you injure it?
Best regards,
Ian
Years and years of abuse plus inherited tendencies and trauma when I fell while camping three yrs ago. Carrying stuff from car to campsite and lost balance and slid down a steep slope caught myself with my hands.
The whole area at the base of each thumb/ wrist area. It swells and gets pink when I overdo it. Which I seem to do all the time.
Yard work, gym lifting weights, stirring and lifting pots while cooking . Making the bed and lifting the mattress. Everything hurts now. Can’t hold my cell phone either.
If I do nothing it gets way better but that’s pretty difficult to do!
Thanks for asking 🙏 it’s why I’ve reduced effort as much as possible in my bread making. c
That sucks. I don’t have issues with my hands but my back is always stiff along with my legs. It’s hard to try and slow down and I’m the same.
Hope your hands feels better soon.
Best,
Ian
Beautiful pullman loaf Caroline. I too love spelt, such a nice grain for these types of loaves baked in pans. Sorry to hear about your hand.
Benny
Sorry I didn’t see your comment or Tom’s bake. Not sure what’s going on with TFL.
This is a great bread and I hope you will try it when you get back from your amazing adventures!
I have L and R hand braces on at the moment and though it really limits my movements….duh… they both feel better.
I have Quervain’s tenosynovitis. Big words for my hands hurt.
Enjoy your great friends, food and trips! c
Bummer.
I have one of those long Pullmans but have never used it, this may be the nudge needed to do so :)
I make a 50/50 spelt/whole wheat with CLAS that I love, very similar simple recipe. BTW, walnuts go really well with spelt taste, both have "mellow depth".
@GaryBishop, if your pan has the gray outside finish like this long Pullman, it doesn't absorb infrared as well as a black surface would, so you might want to increase the temp of the Mainstays oven to compensate.
A tip when using the Pullman. Butter butter butter. Never use a nonstick spray. Always make sure it’s impeccably clean and dry when you put it away. If you have the lid butter it also, don’t put it on til you are finished monitoring the fermentation. Else it can stick and pull the dough when you try to open it over uncooked dough. Also there is no reason to remove the bread from the pan midway in the bake. The buttered pan makes an incredible crust.
I love my Pullman. Take good care of it and it will reward you! c
Your Pullman loaf looks great Caroline! Spelt seems to be the grain of the moment - and with good reason!
Lance
I baked it in my 1 liter Pullman pan. I mixed it, let it rest one hour, moved it into the buttered pan and let it rise for about 15 hours at an average of 65F until it reached the top of the pan. I baked in the Mainstays toaster oven because our replacement oven is delayed again!
No signs of compression. I cut it while it was still a bit warm producing that ragged surface. It looks to my eye about like Catherine's.
The only problem is it is too sour and I like sour. My starter is LAB heavy. I typically use a tiny bit of IDY to move things along but didn't on this trial.
I'm thinking this could make a good experiment to determine how much yeast I need to add to balance rise with sourness.
Gary
I noted that both you and Tom had very very long fermentations. I had about 4 hrs and then into the fridge. Has to be the levain. Mine isn't sour at all. I hate sour and will do most anything to avoid it. I don't know about how you test for LAB etc in your starter. Mine must be low as I don't have a problem with sour.
I started using YW in order to avoid sour and to enhance the freshness aspect of breads as it seems to increase the freshness. I just tossed my YW of several years as I am just not baking often enough to keep it fresh as I like it. I even continued using orange peel but it was getting an off odor and taste even though it was rising bread well.
I am happy with my starter now and am going to make it very very stiff and store it when I am gone in March. That has worked well in the past.
Try speeding it up with a pinch of ADY . If I use any when I bake breads now it is never more than a pinch.
Your crumb looks great !! Caroline
It could be the fermentation temperature. Do you know what yours was? We have 15hrs/65 (Gary) and 10 hrs/72 (me).
You have forgotten who you are asking ! The Queen of no rules or regulations or monitoring LOL. I have a Walmart heating pad with L-M-H on it. I have it in a small cooler and I put it on high and stick the dough in there in the Pullman and when it's risen enough out it comes.
No thermometer in the mix. c
Caroline,
I would love to know the dough temperature when you remove it from your heating pad/cooler set up.
Gary
I will do it the next time I make a loaf which will be next week. I would like to know as well. c
Caroline reports in her new thread that the DT after proofing is 101.8! Very warm.
That explains the difference in proofing times that we experienced.
Gary
But I cut it still warm. The fragrance and crumb are incredible delicious light flavor and oh the crust is spectacular. So pleased!
The loaf looks good, doesn't it? My try fermented for 10 hours at about 72 deg F, then it was refrigerated overnight. I didn't get sour, at least not more than a tiny hint. I wonder why the difference?
My starter doesn't double quickly but can sure bring the sour.
Mine is hard pressed to make sour.
Try Doc Dough's starter maintenance plan.
About like Caroline's, I think. The sour isn't to the "toxic" level I have accidentally hit in the past but more than I prefer.
Now that it has cooled, it's not nearly as sour.
like you say and then if I don't slice and freeze right away and it stays out at room temp over a couple days it gets way sour. I hate sour!! It goes into croutons or toast...which seems to cut the sour or into the compost .
My loaf hasn't gotten sour while it's stayed out.
That doesn't happen to me either. Mine typically get less sour. I assume that initial sour taste comes from some volatiles.
But other SD loaves often do. I always slice and freeze Pullman loaves since we eat toast every day and sandwiches frequently.
The Trinity helps keep the sour away also I think.
Our new oven arrived on Wednesday so I baked another loaf following Caroline's approach. I'm very pleased with the result.
Just as she predicted:
I missed slightly on the scaling resulting in a couple of rounded corners.
My heavy buttering of the lid resulted in a mess on the bottom of the new oven when butter dripped out but happily self-cleaning worked.
This is my everyday loaf with all freshly ground grains (white wheat, red wheat, spelt, oats, rye) and Caroline's trinity.
I'm loving her relaxed approach.
Gary
Isn't it great how easy a good loaf can be? Another thing I like about this method is that you can be way, way off with the hydration and the baked loaf will still be very fine.
I've been preheating the oven for my Pullman loaves, and it has always worked well.
TomP
Glad you are pleased as well. I changed up the grains a bit this morning. The dough is so beautiful after 3 sets of bowl folds . Just placed in buttered Pullman and set to rise. DT is 73°. House is chilly . It’s in the custom dough riser… 😳 heating pad in place . Will measure final DT before I bake. I may or may not retard in fridge. I have a lot going on to get ready for our trip. More later. 🙏
You are certainly doing great with carrying on the methods. I guess I should have said “ butter” for lid not x3! 🤣
I’m making a loaf as we speak annnnnd…I’m measuring the Dough Temperature!!! Yikes! A new thing for me. Headed to gym . More later.
Congratulations!!