Being the neat and tidy freak that I am my preferred gluten development technique is stretch and folds in the bowl. This week Carole and I are doing Ian's Broa di Milho. His delicious take on this traditional Portuguese Corn Bread. One of my favourite recipes.
Everything went swimmingly well until the shaping. For some reason my technique went down the drain and ended up with a mess after it started to stick everywhere. What to do?
Now while i avoid the slap and fold when I can I often resort to it when saving a dough. So after a brief panic started the slap and folds. Eventually it came together and while my strength was in tatters my dough was holding itself together and looked better than me by this stage. No strength left I opted to dump it into the silicone pouch rather than carry on with the more "artisanal" approach.
While the pouch does support the dough it was still high hydration and it will spread outwards rather than upwards. So what started off as a boule, at the end of the proofing, it ended up elongated and filled out the bottom half of the bowl like pouch.
Didn't score it and put it in a preheated oven hoping for the best. What a nice surprise! The oven spring was excellent and the natural scoring is better then I could have done.
So this dough has had stretch and folds, bulk ferment, slap and folds then straight into shaping and a final proof. While I didn't keep any the bubbles from the bulk ferment it still had time to develop flavour. Hopefully the slap and folds has given me a nice enough crumb and while today we tend not to de-gas completely at one time it was the standard and everything you got crumb wise was from the final proof.
It's now cooling. Here's hoping.
he's got something up his sleeve!
Sticky and all! Love a challenge and think I will keep the salt and yeast at 2% each. Catch you later on the summer solstice bread challenge thread.
What do you think about a topping of horseradish/sour cream with smoked trout fillets? ...after baking...
I'm betting already that you will come up with your own gorgeous spin on this.
Topping sounds great, if not too much horseradish/sourcream, at least until you've tasted the crumb unadorned. But smoked trout? Yum.
would include spelt flour with a rye starter on Alto Minho’s Corn Bread.
Hi Mini,
Seems to me a nice flour combination. Just be ware not to let it ferment too long as it may get a bitter taste. This bread doesn't rise much during fermentation - and no proofing time: right into the oven after shaping, and shaping in a bowl with lots of flour. Takes a while to bake (60 min minimum) top dry the crumb. No steam.
regards
That's stupendous. Will you post step-by-step pix?
..and finally smoke my cheap mixer to death.
The Southern girl in me wants to add in a can of sweet corn (or fresh cut & wring out cob for starch and water...another time perhaps) and use bacon instead of sardines, or eat with bacon drippings. First authentic as can be, then experiment more!
I wonder what makes the loaf bitter if fermented too long. The corn? Wheat starter with corn? Dead instant yeast residue? Na. Curious how the all-sourdough loaf tastes. I do like a longer ferment on my whole flours... I think tossing the dough around in a bowl will come naturally as that is how I coat my "breaded" meat with bread crumbs. The bigger the bowl, the easier it is. Why coat the dough with just flour? For those wanting to experiment, try something else in the bowl. For the first loaf, I'm saving a little of the corn flour and adding a little salt.
Been working on sugarless cherry compote and low sugar jam lately, picked the gooseberry bush clean yesterday. Red currents also ripe, their berry juice burns like lemon juice on skin cuts and can substitute nicely in rye for an acid. Will dry the tiny ones and replant a better bush, one with larger berries. Yesterday, sitting on the ground between the berry bushes, the late afternoon sun backlit the red current berries against the dark green leaves. So beautiful. Little glowing clusters of ruby red gemstones.
Did a "Summer pinching" prune on my peach tree to thicken up the new branches. The one peach is not in danger. Next year should be a bigger crop. The tree seemed to tell me it wanted a prune so I looked it up, sure enough! It's a straight type potted dwarf that I planted a few yrs. ago on the sheltered south side of the house. It's smiling now.
So I drained a can of sweet corn and added the 50g or so water into the liquids. I didn't smoke my mixer, I ground it to a halt! Had to separate the mixer from the stand and hold it while the hooks mixed away. Pretty stiff stuff this dough. After tossing in the corn, the dough got softer and after a minute, could put it back on the stand and let it run for 8 minutes.
I did a half recipe of Alto Minha Corn Bread
300g corn meal
50g spelt flour the fine one with more carbs and less protein
150g rye flour also fine "white"
50g rye starter very ripe
350g water Split, 175g boiling on corn, 175g in the dough
10g salt
3 g instant yeast
Ground 80g corn meal with 1.5g salt for the shaping.
Following 30 min corn autolyse, 10 min mixing in machine, 1 hour bulk rise, baking after shaping in bowl with flour in dark star ceramic form slathered with bacon grease. In process... teaser photo:
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The shape just went, wow, needed more flour and ended up grabbing the AP to prevent sticking while flopping and flipping in the bowl. Got it into the form and waiting on the oven to finish preheating. The dough was very bubbly like a peaking starter and very soft! Tore half way through will tipping out into the floured bowl. I just scraped it out and piled it on top. Tried to take a few photos.
Image
Its rising like crazy and making up for any collapse. Smells wonderful. Went into the oven at 240°C ten minutes ago. It rises before your eyes like a soda bread. Fun!
we were supposed to bake together last week, and I gummed things up. So these are not Fausto's:
But I'm quite happy with the way these look.
Will try the trigamilha perhaps in midweek, I can't wait.
Looks very authentic with the floured crust and cracks.
Shaping the breads is kind of fun! Isn’t it?
Dan
I'm so bad at shaping, and this is just so forgiving!
And to think that this thread began only because an experienced baker decided not to throw out a bunch of (now obviously) usable dough. The story has evolved, enriched us all with additional recipes, and caused several other bakers already to bake some great bread.
This is the recipe that Fausto posted the photo from...
So a sourdough version will look like this:
At 1.2% the bakers yeast sounds like dried yeast
Salt is 2%
The rye is optional so if you wish for a stronger dough then make it 50% bread flour
The cornmeal is scalded by its own weight in boiling water and left to cool for 30 minutes. The remainder is cold water.
I've made a small batch of dough to be used as a starter for the main dough. Kneading by hand will be tough.
Bulk Ferment for 3 hours (?)
Steam the bread in a preheated oven at 230°C for 15 minutes then 75 min (?) at 200°C without steam.
Here is the webpage
And it looks like they use T65 flour, rather than the stronger T80; I should work up the nerve to try that.
Yes it looks like we're to bulk for 3 hours, or until the flour that we've spinkled overtop has begun to "crack" on the surface.
I wonder if their T65 had additives like ascorbic acid or malt: mine is has none and is less than 10% protein. Hmmm.
is a total of 1 1/2 hrs. (15+75min.)
is T80 stronger? I thought it would be more whole flour, perhaps not as finely ground. T65 is bread flour, no?
but it has only less than 10% protein, whereas the T80 -- in addition to having little bits in it -- has 11 (I need all the help I can get!). That said, Hester has gotten some beautiful bread with T65, so perhaps my bad experience has more to do with other factors than the flour.
When is your bake?
T65 is strong bread flour
https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/understanding-flour-types/
They list much higher protein content than what I can get:
my T65 has less than 10% protein et T80 less than 12, whereas they're saying T80 has 14… I will try another experiment on my next 1:2:3 bake with only T65, just to see where it gets me.
What say you?
T65 seems to be what we call bread flour and the numbering system is just how much ash % there is. Which means basically how much wholemeal is in there.
Since in the UK even our white flour isn't as white as French flours we don't have such a numbering system. Our flour is never fully white and it's never! bleached.
But everywhere I look it seems to be that T65 is the UK equivalent of bread flour and that should fall in the range of 12-13% protein.
and there is more protein in the outer bran layers... that's what makes it so confusing. Upping the protein doesn't equate with upping gluten. So one can have a high protein flour with little gluten. Wish the packages would be specific but if you take a good look at the protein spec. sheets on different grains you can guess at a lot of the gluten amounts while looking at the carbohydrate and fiber amounts.
OK, I grok that a higher level of protein does not necessarily equate higher gluten. But is it possible to have a low percentage of protein and still have a respectable level of gluten?
I shall photograph my different flour packages when I get home later, since I don't know how to extrapolate gluten amounts by reading carb and fiber amounts. Would you be able to help me? Or point me to a source that would?
Thanks alot,
Carole
i googled: spec sheet vital wheat gluten
I clicked on this one (of many hits) This would be an extreme gluten sample. Low fiber or ash content, high protein and high gluten. (Like rubber.) Use by the teaspoon. This is like gluten extract. A little dab will do ya. I avoid the stuff after the melamine scandal.
Low protein would also indicate low gluten in a glutinous flour. But gluten isn't the only "glue" one can toss into dough to trap gas but certainly the most common. :)
My loaf is out of the oven and bake aromas are fantastic! Light caramel, nutty, sweet. 55 min bake first 15 min at 240°C, the rest at 215°C. I cut into the solid still warm loaf wondering if I should cut into squares, wedges or slices. Got a corner off and the crust right now is a real tooth breaker so I plan on bagging it when cool. May throw a big bowl over it right now. It's got a good flavour profile but the crust is too hard. Can't see me serving this fresh & warm although I've been nibbling on it like a church mouse. Perhaps a dairy addition, lower oven temp or the overnight bagging would help. Update tomorrow but I like the sweet corn I added and the salt into the shaping flour. I'm trying to post a pic but having trouble. Can't seem to scroll down the uploading window to submit.
Crust softed somewhat overnight but still has "biss" or a bit of texture to it. Looking at the crumb shot, it did compact after the oven spring, more than desired. Next loaf with less yeast or sd only should help. I think (as warned) it fermented too much during bulk. Crumb photo taken of machine sliced bread. Too heavy for making a closed sandwich so "open faced" seems to serve up better. Corn flavours come thru nicely. Not too sweet, not to bland.
Good idea with the whole grain corn pieces. That's very much the kinda crumb one would expect from what is basically little to no gluten. I did the trigamilha and it toasts up very nicely. I did bake for quite long but stop short of 1hr 30min. While it is baked through it's come out like a rye which might have needed a bit more time. Although I still don't see 1hr 30min being correct. The crust is hard and while the crumb is dense it's soft.
Hi Mini,
I was suprrised for what you've written before concerning the oven spring, as this bread is much of a riser. It may have to do with the yeast: the recipes state 20gr yeast, but it's baker's yeast (wet), so if you're usind dry yeast you should come down to 2-3gr, depending on room temperature.
But the final product seems fine to me, the crumb is supposed to be dense and humid - not sticky.
congrats
The loaf dough weighed close to 1200 (900g dough + 300g canned corn) 60% corn meal plus it ate up my 80g of corn flour for the crust which got marbled into the dough before shaping finished. I was surprised it was done baking in 55 min. It did spread and glad I had a baking dish. It was spreading already in the flour bowl before I got it into the dish. Don't know if that is common.
Mixed dry ingredients including 3g idy adding on top of sourdough/water mixture poured over the soaked corn. I loosened the dough before turning into the floured bowl but only around the edges, my mistake, should have gone completely under the dough with the wet spatula. The bottom stuck It ripped in half, but it puffed up so fast after getting the dough into one blob, I wasn't worried about it rising before baking. I was worried about the speed of the rise. My dough seemed wetter than the pictures in the posted videos/pics.
With sourdough only I would reduce the mixing time which I'm sure raised the moisture as it beat the whole corn pulp into the dough gradually making the dough thinner. I would now add the corn later. I like little pockets of moisture in rye letting the steam slowly giving rye's 35% matrix a chance. Nothing worse for rye than a destructive fast rise. This loaf was 60% corn. The rye and spelt give it nuttiness but corn is the main flavour. Can't taste the bacon drippings directly. Crumb is not sticky and it is moist. I think with salted butter it comes close to tasting like home made popcorn. Now to toast some....
Hi Mini,
Suppose you will have to recalculate the water since adding the canned corn. And I agree with you to add it after mixing or alse it will be mashed and incorporated in the dough.
Cornmeal is not easy work, its a try and fail process.
Now, bread tasting to home made popcorn is a must. Might be of great sucess for kids parties.
regards
Hi All,
As promised, hereafter my sunday baking pictures.
Baked 3 loafs of my grandmothers wheat SD, 1 loaf of 47% whole rye and the Trigamilha.
Grandma's SD loaf and crumb
Trigamilha crust and crum.
47% rye crust and crumb
Grandma's SD and 47% rye came out as usual, only thing is the oven wasn't warm enough: I prefer SD loafs a little darker. But family is happy with it as I'm the only one that fancy's well baked bread!
The Trigamilha was fine on the taste (20gr salt), the crumb was nice and humid but not sticky. Should have mixed longer but the mixer is a little limited... :)
WFO are tricky to work with as your fermenting times have to match exactly the oven pre-heating. And I was guiding myself by the Trigamilha and forgot that the pther loafes still needed proofing time. So they all came a little too late in the oven: not much of a problem for the rye and corn (they stayed in the oven for over 2hr drying good) but the grandma's SD need this initial hot oven (280ºC approx.).
regards