Overnight Challah

In general, I'm not a huge fan of enriched doughs, but I do love Challah. When I was a kid, most of my friends were Jewish so I went to about 52 barmitzvahs and batmitzvahs over the course of 2.5 years. While I enjoyed parts of the ceremonies, I often looked forward to grabbing a piece of challah afterward.

Challah also was one of the first breads that I made back in my early days of bread baking at school. It was the first no-knead bread I ever baked. Most importantly, it was the first successful bread that I made upon returning home after graduation after a series of incredibly disappointing failures. Mostly out of nostalgia, I have always used this recipe, which was the first one I found. However, I decided to try Peter Reinhart's recipe from Artisan Breads Every Day. Except I couldn't help myself-- I had to modify the recipe (quite substantially).

Challah from Artisan Breads Every Day (significantly adapted)
Makes 1 large loaf or 2 small loaves

Ingredients

• 130g lukewarm water (about 95 degrees F)
• 1/2 tablespoon + a pinch dry active yeast (approximately 5g)
• 4-5 egg yokes (85g) Instead, I used 2 egg yokes and 1 egg. However, had I read the recipe notes, I should have realized that I needed to reduce the amount of water. I didn't so I ended up incorporating a lot more flour. If you want to use whole eggs, reduce the water by about 28g per egg. So in reality, I should have used 2 egg yokes and 2 eggs with 74g water
• 2.5 tablespoons vegetable oil (35g)
• 2.25 tablespoons honey (43g)
• 357g bread flour
• 250g white sourdough starter, 100% hydration
• 1.25 teaspoons salt (9.5g)
• 1 egg white and 2 tablespoons water for egg wash

Directions
Day 1:

• Combine the dry active yeast and the water in a mixing bowl and stir with a whisk to dissolve.
• Add egg yokes (or eggs or both), oil, and honey. Stir to break up the egg yokes.
• Add in the sourdough starter, the flour, and the salt and then mix. In a mixer, mix for about 2 minutes on the lowest speed. By hand, mix with a dough whisk or a wooden spoon for a minuter or two until you form a course, shaggy dough.
• Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
• If using a mixer, switch to a dough hook for about 4 minutes on medium-low speed. Or, mix by hand or with a wooden spoon for about 4 minutes. Make sure your hands or the spoon are wet.
• Turn the dough onto a very lightly floured surface and knead for 1-2 minutes, or until it passes the windowpane test. Incorporate as much flour as needed to make the dough tacky but not sticky.
• Then, let the dough sit out for about half an hour. It should rise just a little bit. Then put it in the refrigerator overnight or for up to 2 days.

Day 2

•  Remove the dough for the refrigerator 2h10 before baking.
• Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and cut it into the desired number of pieces. Challah loaves are traditionally braided so if you are making 2 small loaves, divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. 
• Roll the pieces into ropes. The length depends on your own aesthetic, although you want all of the pieces to be the same length. Consider that the bread will increase about 1.5-2 times in size, so don't roll your ropes too thin or too thick.
• Braid the loaves. Braid out from the middle toward each side. This will ensure the proper tapering of your loaves.
• Let the loaves rise, covered, for 2 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (300 degrees F convection) about 15 minutes before the bread is ready to go in the oven.
• Brush the loaves with egg wash and sprinkle seeds if desired. You can then either load them onto a pan or a peel to be baked on a stone.
• Bake for 35-50 minutes, until the internal temperature is 190 degrees F and the bottom sounds hollow when thumped. If you want, you can steam for the first 20 minutes, but it's probably unnecessary. I will steam one and not steam the other so I can demonstrate the difference.

I haven't finished this project. The loaves will come out of the oven tomorrow so I will post pictures then.

The 100% Whole Wheat Project, Part I

85% Whole Wheat Loaves

So everyone knows that 100% whole grain bread if the most nutritious. For a long time, I have wanted to make a 100% whole wheat bread that tastes delicious, but I've run into issues. Red whole wheat tends to be bitter when in levels above 70% or so. And, honestly, I just don't like the flavor of white whole wheat on it's own, so when I use it I supplement it with red whole wheat and other grains like barley which tends to ameliorate the distasteful flavor. I did this with great success in my last loaves.

Crumb shot

However, I still wanted to work out a 100% Red Whole Wheat loaf. Not yet satisfied with the loaves from Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, although the book is an unbelievably rich resource for information about bread baking (a topic to which I will return in a forthcoming post), I looked for other possibilities. My goal, ultimately, is to make a 100% whole wheat bread with an irregular, open crumb, a crunchy crust, and a hearty, complex, wheaty, but not bitter, flavor. The catch is that I want to make the bread out of only wheat, flour, salt, and sourdough starter. Can it be done? I don't know, but I'm going to find out.

Amazing Bloom on the Loaf

I was very excited when I noticed a 100% whole wheat in Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread. However, when I actually stared reading the recipe, it sounded very much like one of my favorite recipe's, Tartine's 70% whole wheat bread, with the notable exception that it was 100% whole wheat. So I figured that I would start by changing the Tartine version into an 85% loaf, and if it seemed to go well, I would make a 100% loaf. It did go very well, although the crumb was not quite as open as I had hoped, either because of my folding method or because I left it for 16 hours in the fridge instead of 12. Also, the bottom crust was a little too bitter, but it was good.

Ingredients

• 200g Leaven (1tbsp starter, 100g whole wheat flour, 100g water)
• 850g +50g water (75 degrees F)
• 150g unbleached bread flour
• 850g whole wheat flour
• 20g salt

Directions

 The Leaven ("young" starter)

1. Take 1 tablespoon of mature starter and put it in a small bowl.
2. Add 100g water (about 75degrees F) to the starter.
3. Then add 2000g whole wheat flour and mix them into the water and starter until it comes together as a dough.
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or similar and let sit until it passes the float test. This should take about 12 hours, depending upon the vitality of your starter. When it is ready, it should smell very sweet-- like overripe fruit.
5. There will probably be 10-20 grams left over. You can add these in or use them to mix a new starter.

The Final Dough

1. Mix the leaven (all of it) with the 850g water.
2. Then add the whole wheat and bread flours and mix until the dough comes together.
3. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or equivalent and let rest (autolyse) for 45-60 minutes.
4. After the autolyse, add the salt and the last 50g of water in a little bit at a time, using the water to help the salt dissolve and incorporate into the dough. Make sure that you pinch the dough around the salt and incorporate it throughout the dough. Try not to tear the dough, but you do want to vigorously incorporate the salt.
5. Move the dough into a heavy glass or plastic bowl, preferably a deep on with a fairly small diameter on the opening in order to keep the heat in.
6. Stretch the dough and bring it in toward the center like this. Be careful not to degas the dough too much. Do this all the way around the dough to make sure that you develop the dough evenly.
7. Place the dough in a place between 78 and 82 degrees F. You can improvise a proofbox by placing a pot of boiling water in an unheated oven beside the dough.
8. After 30 minutes, stretch and fold the seeds, oats, and germ into the dough. Incorporate them a few into each fold.
9. Repeat the stretch and fold this procedure every 30 minutes for 3-4 hours. In general, the wheat rises faster and only needs 3 hours. As the dough rises, be more careful not to degas the dough. The dough should become very billowy on top.
10. When the bulk rise is complete, turn the dough out onto a floured surface.
11. Fold the dough in half so that the outer surface is lightly floured (although you want to incorporate as little flour as possible into the dough).
12. Fold the dough like an envelope. Fold the bottom up 1/3 over the dough. Then fold the left side in 1/3 and the right side over it. Fold the top all the way over the bottom  and pinch it slightly into the bottom.
13. Turn the dough seam side down and let it sit under an overturned bowl for 20 minutes.
14. After the 20 minute bench rest, do the final shaping. I usually shape my dough into a boule. To do this, follow the same pattern as the pre-shape, and then gather the corners together to tighten the surface tension and pinch them together.
15. Put the boule seam side up in a floured branneton or a bowl lined with a floured cloth. Use both wheat and rice flour because the rice flour soaks up more water and prevents the dough from sticking.
16. Let the dough sit for half an hour and then put it in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours.
17. To bake the dough, 30 minutes before baking take the dough out of the refrigerator and preheat the oven with either a stone and a oven-safe pot or a combo cooker.
18. When the oven is heated, turn the dough onto a peel and score it. Put it onot the stone or into the combo cooker and put the broth pot or lit over it.
19. Bake for 35 minutes and then remove the lid. Bake for another 10-15 minutes until the outside is an chestnut brown and the interior temperature reads 212 degrees F.
20. Wait at least 30 minutes before cutting.
    

Enjoy!

Some more pictures:

More posts to come on all of this whole wheat stuff!
 

TED Talk by Peter Reinhart

I can't believe I missed this!

Peter Reinhart's TED lecture in 2009.

A New Kind of "Oat" Bread

I've wanted to make this recipe ever since I received Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I finally made it two weeks ago.

Oat Bran Broom Bread

My apologies; I forgot to take a shot of the crumb. However, it was quite a tight crumb...slightly tighter than the other sandwich bread's I've made, but I don't think it was as tight as the picture in Reinhart's book.

Recipe for Oat Bran Broom Bread (modified from original):

Ingredients:

Soaker

• 184g whole wheat flour (medium to fine grind)
• 28g Oat Bran (4tbsp)
• 14g flax seeds (1.5tbsp)
• 4g salt (1/2 tsp)
• 198g water

Starter (or starter straight out of the jar if your starter is fairly vital and 75%)

• 50g starter (100% hydration)
• 177g whole wheat flour
• 120g water

Final Dough:

• All the soaker (429g)
• All the starter (or 398g starter)
• 56.5g whole wheat flour
• 5g salt
• 1tsp dry active yeast (3g)
• 20 g water
• 2 tbsp honey (42.5g)
• 1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil

Method: 

Day 1: 

• Mix all of the ingredients for the soaker together in a bowl until they form a reasonably wet dough. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit for 12-24 hours. If it will be longer than that, place it in the refrigerator.
• Mix all of the starter ingredients together and mix them until they form a fairly stiff dough. Knead for a minute or two in the bowl before covering with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 8-48 hours.

Day 2:

• About 2 hours before mixing the final dough, take any refrigerated ingredients out of the refrigerator.
• Chop or tare the soaker and the starter into pieces and dust them with the flour.
• Hydrate the yeast in a cup or bowl (no need to make it bubble, just mix it with the water). Pour the hydrated yeast, the oil, and the honey over the dough. Mix with wet hands or with a spoon. If you don't like the stickiness, you can also slightly oil your hands. Add water or flour for adjustments-- due to the different protein content of whole wheat flours, you may need to adjust. The dough should be soft and slightly (but not very) sticky.
• Knead the dough for about two minutes in the bowl.
• Lightly flour your hands and a work surface with whole wheat flour. Coat the dough in flour and knead by hand for 3-4 minutes. Try to incorporates little flour. I found this step very frustrating. My hands got sticky and the dough didn't cooperate well, so I changed the next few steps from the book.
• Put the dough in a clean bowl and do a stretch-and-fold. Do the stretch and folds with wet hands.
• Wait 5 minutes and then do another stretch-and-fold.
• Wait 10 minutes and do another stretch-and-fold.
• Wait 10 minutes and do a final stretch-and-fold. By this point, the gluten should be adequately developed.
• Let the dough rise under plastic wrap for about 2 hours at 75 degrees F.
• After the 2 hours, turn the dough onto a floured surface.
• Gently stretch it out into a rectangle and roll it up; then seal the seem.
• Place it seem-side down into a loaf pan (I tend to spray my loaf pans with oil and then lightly flour them so the dough doesn't stick, but this might be overkill).
• Let the dough rise for another 2 hours in the loaf pan.
• 30 minutes before you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. If you would like to bake under steam, prepare whatever you will use for steam (this is not really necessary, but I baked it under steam).
• When ready to bake, turn the oven down to 350 degrees F and place it in the oven for 20 minutes. At the 20 minute mark, take off the steam (if you chose to use it), and rotate the pan 180 degrees. Then bake for another 20 minutes (so 40 minutes altogether).
• Check the loaf to make sure it's at least 190 degrees F.
• Transfer the bread to a cooling rack and cool for at least 1 hours before slicing and serving.

Review of Oat Bran Broom Bread: 3 Stars
One of the things that really bothers me about this book is that Reinhart puts absolutely absurd amounts of yeast in everything. It's really unnecessary and it doesn't give the dough the time to develop that wonderful flavor. With bread, quick and delicious very rarely coincide (except maybe with sourdough crumpets). So I slowed this bread down. But even then, it didn't have the flavor I wanted. I need to play with the recipe.

Furthermore, the bread doesn't taste anything like oats. The oat bran in it is minimal. I've decided I will rewrite the recipe and try again.

Pizza Party

Egnatius' Homemade Mozzarella

Two nights ago I made some pizza for a bunch of friends. The pizza seemed to go better than ever before. I didn't get any pictures (I was making pizza for 8 people and trying to juggle the timing). I learned a number of things that I thought I would share.

The last time I made pizza for 8 people (bread baking day), one of the people I was teaching had worked at a pizzeria for a few years in between undergraduate and graduate school. He taught me how to shape pizza dough so that it has fluffy edge of crust. The method he taught me was to make a circle of finger indentations in a circle about 1-1.25 inches from the edge. Then, stretch the interior of the dough by flipping it from one hand to the other. This is the way that the make the lovely Neapolitan pizza at the pizza place near school. It also is the way that Eric seems to make it in this video. I am looking for another video that might have some better footage of the same technique.




While it has taken me a while to manage this technique (and I still have not mastered it), it turned out a lot better this time. This is the only picture I have. I made too much pizza so I refrigerated this one and I unfortunately only got to take it after it came out of the refrigerator. Also, sadly, this pizza does not have the cheese Egnatius made because we ran out of it. A gallon of milk only makes a small amount of cheese.

Pizza with Heirloom Tomatoes

I also modified my sourdough pizza dough slightly (reflected in the current recipe). I had to make two batches. For the first batch I substituted 90g of semolina for the bread flour. The recipe now reflects this because the flavor was so much nicer. I did this once with fancy grind durum as well and it improved the flavor but I only substituted about 50g that time so it was not the entire flavor revelation. But the semolina really changed the texture and the flavor of the dough. The dough was thin and crispy while still soft on the inside of the edges. It was delicious. I also let the dough sit out for longer during the kneading process and only aged it in the refrigerator for about 6 hours.

The second set of dough that I made, I forgot to make the starter beforehand. Instead, I used some fruity-smelling whole wheat starter that passed the float test (226g to replace the starter). I then compensated for the added whole wheat by making the 50g of  whole wheat into bread flour. They were a little heavier, but still delicious.

The party was lovely. Sue and her husband plus Egnatius, another friend from my program, and her sister. The friend from the program brought over a lovely Zinfandel.

I suggest that if you have the chance, try the new version of the pizza dough. It is fantastic. I also used the pizza sauce recipe from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day (p. 70). It was fantastic. Here is a modified version of the recipe (this is the recipe I used):

• 1 can crushed tomatoes (28oz)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh basil, roughly chopped
• 2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 5 cloves pressed garlic
• 1 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt

I mixed this and simmered it for about 20-25 minutes.

The Poilâne "Miche"

Not really as burnt as it looks in this lighting, I swear.

I think I have finally become a real baker! I took two stunning (although not with my lighting and my camera) loaves out of the oven this morning of the famous Poilâne miche. I did, however, make a few modifications because the dough and I weren't getting along. I substituted a little durum flour and a little whole wheat flour for the high extraction flour and I added about 1oz extra water.

Part of the reason that I made it was because one of my favorite professors went to Paris. I told her to pick up a Poilâne miche, but sadly, her only day off from the conference was Sunday so the shops were not open. I decided to make one for her to show what she missed.

The crusts bloomed nicely and they sang. However, I messed up with the oven temperature on the batard because I forgot to turn it down the final time to 425 degrees F.

The baby miche

Sister loaves

The formula as I meant to make it was as follows (from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, essentially):
Day One: Make the Starter

• Starter
• 198g (1 cup/7oz) Starter (I will use 100%) 
• 255g (2 cups/9 0z) first-clear flour 
• 113g (1/2cup/4 oz) water, at room temperature 
• Mix until it comes together. Then knead for 3 minutes. Let sit for 4-6 hours (or until double in size) and then refrigerate overnight  

Day Two: Make the Dough

• Take out of the refrigerator 1 hour before making the dough. Dissolve the starter in the water. 
• Final Dough
• All of the starter
• 907g (7 cups/32 oz) first-clear flour 
• 23g (3.25teaspoons salt/0.81 oz) salt 
• 510-624g (2-2 3/4cups/18-22oz) water, lukewarm (90-100 F) 
• Mix the dough 
•  Knead for 12-15 minutes or until window-pane test
• Ferment for 4 hours or until the dough nearly doubles in size 
• Shape 
• Retard for 2-3 hours OR let proof overnight  

Day Three: Bake the Bread

• Take the bread out 4 hours before you plan to bake
• Half an hour before baking and preheat the oven to 500 degrees
• Turn down to 450 degrees and steam for 25-35 minutes
• Turn down to 425 degrees and bake for 30-40 minutes

I messed up on the fermentation. It was too cold and I did not adjust the time sufficiently, so the crumb wasn't perfect.

I gave some to my professor. The bread tasted great so I am not upset with my decision, although I do wish that it had been my best work. Oh well.
d

Sweet Transitional Sourdough

My Most Aesthetic Bread Yet

I made some bread today for our Downton Abbey picnic. It was absolutely fantastic. I realized that by refreshing the wild yeast a few hours before using putting it into the starter in the bread recipe, it gives the bread that amazing sweet flavor with no sweeteners of any kind. It was far too tempting-- we ate the whole first loaf between the three of us tonight.

I wanted to put this up on Yeast Spotting so I decided to repost the recipe. It can also be found on my original post, A New Sourdough, and on my Recipe Page.

Ingredients: 
Starter

•  56.5g 100% hydration starter
• 227g Whole Wheat Flour
• 150g Water, room temperature

Dough

•  All of the starter
• 445g Water (warm)
• 567g Unbleached Bread Flour (I used a combination of bread flour and-- when I ran out of that-- a high-protein all-purpose flour-- King Arthur's)
• 18g Salt

Directions
Starter (Day 1)

• Mix the ingredients for the starter together about 8 hours befor you plan to use it.
• Make sure you mix it with a for or something that will help incorporate a little air.
• Cover the bowl or jar and leave it to mature overnight at room temperature. Otherwise, the starter can rest in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Final Dough (Day 2)

• The starter, by now, should be all bubbly and smell slightly sweet.
• Dissolve the starter in the water.
• Then add the unbleached flour and the salt and mix into tacky ball. Let the dough rest for five minutes.
• The knead the dough by hand for 3 minutes. Try to incorporate air.
• Then do the first Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold. Do four total with 10 minutes in between each.
• Depending on how warm your kitchen is, let the dough rest out (covered) for 1.5-2 hours before placing in the refrigerator. It was about 75 degrees in my kitchen and I let the dough sit out for 2 hours. Place it in the refrigerator overnight.

Shaping and Baking (Day 3)

•  Take the bread out of the refrigerator 5-6 hours before baking. Let it rest on at room temperature for 2-3 hours, depending upon the room temperature. The bread was still very cold at 2 hours, so I waited the extra hour.
• Then turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it. It can make two 1.5lb loaves or three 1lb loaves. Preshape.
• Let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes, and then do the final shaping. Cover the loaves and let them rise for 2.5-4 hours. My loaves needed three hours. The first loaf we baked after two hours and I think that it could have used a little extra rising time, while the second one we baked at three hours and it turned out better.
• 20 minutes before baking, heat up the your oven with your stone-and-broth-pot or dutch oven to 500 degrees F.
• Turn your dough onto a floured peel and score it right before you put it into the oven. Turn the oven down to 450 degrees F (425 convection). 
• Let the dough bake under steam for 30-35 minutes, making sure that the edges of your scoring marks have turned golden.
• Then bake it for 20-25 minutes without steam, ensuring that it has an internal temperature of 212 degrees. It should be fairly light in weight and dark brown in color.
• Wait at least 30 minutes before slicing.

It was absolutely fantastic. One or two notes:

First, I've been using parchment on the dough as I slide it into the oven. It take the parchment paper off the bottom when I take the bread out from under steam. The reason that I've been doing this is twofold. First, sometimes my breads stick to the peel a little and stretch as I slide them into the oven. This does not happen with the parchment paper. Second, it means there is less flour that burns in the oven that I have to clean up later.

A New Sourdough

Boule

I mentioned in my blogpost yesterday how much I loved this bread. It's really fantastically sweet-- which may be a combination of the flour mixture and that I managed to use the starter right at the peak of it's feeding when it smells slightly sweet. I am including the recipe here so anyone can try it. It is a modified version of Peter Reinhart's San Francisco Sourdough Bread from Artisan Breads Every Day. This bread spends an incredible amount of time rising, but it does not require a significant amount of interference.

Ear-- finally able to use the lame properly

 This bread is 76% hydration. However, I used a lot of all-purpose instead of bread flour this last time so I might up the hydration to 77% to compensate. I also need to incorporate a bit more air when I am kneading as my last two breads have not had quite the open crumb that I desire.

Not perfect crumb, but still quite good

Ingredients: 
Starter

•  56.5g 100% hydration starter
• 227g Whole Wheat Flour
• 150g Water, room temperature

Dough

•  All of the starter
• 445g Water (warm)
• 567g Unbleached Bread Flour (I used a combination of bread flour and-- when I ran out of that-- a high-protein all-purpose flour-- King Arthur's)
• 18g Salt

Directions
Starter (Day 1)

• Mix the ingredients for the starter together about 8 hours befor you plan to use it.
• Make sure you mix it with a for or something that will help incorporate a little air.
• Cover the bowl or jar and leave it to mature overnight at room temperature. Otherwise, the starter can rest in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Final Dough (Day 2)

• The starter, by now, should be all bubbly and smell slightly sweet.
• Dissolve the starter in the water.
• Then add the unbleached flour and the salt and mix into tacky ball. Let the dough rest for five minutes.
• The knead the dough by hand for 3 minutes. Try to incorporate air.
• Then do the first Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold. Do four total with 10 minutes in between each.
• Depending on how warm your kitchen is, let the dough rest out (covered) for 1.5-2 hours before placing in the refrigerator. It was about 75 degrees in my kitchen and I let the dough sit out for 2 hours. Place it in the refrigerator overnight.

Shaping and Baking (Day 3)

•  Take the bread out of the refrigerator 5-6 hours before baking. Let it rest on at room temperature for 2-3 hours, depending upon the room temperature. The bread was still very cold at 2 hours, so I waited the extra hour.
• Then turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it. It can make two 1.5lb loaves or three 1lb loaves. Preshape.
• Let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes, and then do the final shaping. Cover the loaves and let them rise for 2-3 hours. My loaves needed three hours. The first loaf we baked after two hours and I think that it could have used a little extra rising time, while the second one we baked at three hours and it turned out better.
• 20 minutes before baking, heat up the your oven with your stone-and-broth-pot or dutch oven to 500 degrees F.
• Turn your dough onto a floured peel and score it right before you put it into the oven. Turn the oven down to 450 degrees F (425 convection). 
• Let the dough bake under steam for 30-35 minutes, making sure that the edges of your scoring marks have turned golden.
• Then bake it for 20-25 minutes without steam, ensuring that it has an internal temperature of 212 degrees. It should be fairly light in weight and dark brown in color.
• Wait at least 30 minutes before slicing.

 Enjoy!

Fruits of Our Labor

Yay!

I made some bread over the past few days. The bread is a modified version of a Peter Reinhart recipe in Artisan Breads Every Day. I will post the recipe soon. It was absolutely fantastic. My family had a picnic while we watched the first episode of the new season of Downton Abbey. The first episode was pretty amazing-- even thought I've been reading spoilers all week it still went a lot of different ways that I imagined (especially with Mr. Bates' story line). It was a little bit uneven in the pacing, but still great. Can't wait for next week! The show and the bread were fabulous. The bread was a sourdough, but it was really sweet and nutty in it's flavor. My dad gave the crust of the bread a 9/10, which was pretty fantastic.

Crust was Fantastic.

Not Perfect Crumb, but YUM!

The bread was about 60:40 white:whole wheat. It was just lovely.

Picnic Spread

We also included one of our fresh home-grown cucumbers in the spread.

Cucumber from the Yard

School Bread

It's been a while since I've been in school. Although I have been working and continuing my education, without a full day of formal classes life is a little more relaxed. Some days I had the day to read and make the wonderful Tartine Country Bread or my whole wheat breakfast bread. However, studying for these exams, I realize that these days, with the exception of special occasions, are coming to an end.

Yet, I simply cannot give up my bread, especially as winter approaches and meals of soup and bread are so appealing. So what to do? Well, there are some recipes that take as much time, but less intervention. I have had a lot of success with breads from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, and so today I am trying to make (a modified version, of course) of his San Francisco sourdough. Pictures and analysis to come. I also will try some breads that take a little less time such as Wild Yeast's Norwich More Sourdough which I attempted recently.

I have also been considering venturing into the territory of no-knead bread. Although this does not have the stress-relief of kneading, it also has less of the clean-up stress. I have been very skeptical in the past (with the exception of the no-knead challah I make). One bread that captivated my attention was an Italian No-Knead featured on Yeast Spotting recently. That may be my next experiment.

Bagels: A Fun, but Questionable Enterprise

So I decided to go wild and make some bagels. I now realize while some authors caution people about bagels: they're really hard. A bunch of the mistakes I made were from attempts to alter the recipe. However, most of the problem was that I was simply not prepared for the difficulty of the boiling process. I tried to make a modified version of Wild Yeast's Potato Peppercorn Bagels and a modified version of the whole grain bagels from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.

Soudough Potato Peppercorn

Spiked Sourdough Whole Wheat

You can see that the bagels were not exactly perfect. I accidentally did not let the Potato bagels rise enough before they went in the refrigerator, and consequently there were very small and dense. I changed the whole wheat bagels so that they used sourdough starter spiked with 3/4 teaspoon of baker's yeast. I left them out for slightly too long and they overproofed. They became really wide and did not rise very much. However, they still taste fairly decent. I need to add more honey next time.

Maybe I'll try again some time in the next few weeks.

Indian Food

Cernithus and I went to my favorite Indian place of all time tonight. It was amazing. I kept half of it for tomorrow and started a batch of naan to eat with it. I am really excited to try it. I have been drooling over the recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Yum.

I will report on the verdict.

An Extremely Modified Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread

Multigrain Bread

I love whole grains. More and more I find that white bread without at least 15% whole wheat is just too bland and I savor anything above 50% whole grains, with the 70% Whole Wheat Tartine Loaf being my favorite bread that I've made. I realized recently that I have a lot of unbleached starter sitting around and I needed to use it for something. So I decided to make Peter Reinhart's Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread from Whole Grain Breads which is one of the few multigrain breads I have seen that does not require high gluten flour.. Instead of the Biga, I used my white starter.

Here is how I modified the recipe (it is now about 71% water instead of 61%):
Day 1: Soaker and Starter
Soaker

• 170g water
• 56.5g red whole wheat flour
• 56.5g rolled oats (I used steel cut by accident)
• 56.5g semolina flour (I didn't have any cornmeal around)
• 42.5g white whole wheat flour
• 7g flax seeds, whole or ground (I used toasted whole flax seeds)
• 7g wheat or oat bran
• 4 salt

1. Mix soaker ingredients together in a bowl for about 1 minute. It will form a dough that resembles thick porrage.
2. Cover loosely with plastic wrap at room temperature for 12-24 hours.

Starter

• 200g mature starter (unbleached flour)
• 100g unbleached bread flour
• 128g water
• 28g whole wheat flour

1. Blend ingredients together until fully hydrated.
2. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.

Day 2:
Final Dough

• 456g starter (all of it)
• 400g soaker (all of it)
• 100g whole wheat flour
• 5g salt
• 20g sunflour seeds
• 20g pumpkin seeds
• 20g sesame seeds
• You may need a little bit of extra whole wheat flour for adjustments

Two hours before making the dough

1. Take the starter out of the refrigerator
2. Toast the sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds. Let them cool.

For the final dough

1. Mix together the starter and soaker until fully combined. Warning: this was an oddly challenging process, but it does work. I used a danish dough whisk. The dough will be very wet and sticky.
2. Add in the whole wheat flour a little bit at a time and mix it into the dough.
3. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
4. Mix in the salt and the seeds. Make sure the dough fully absorbs the salt.
5. Using wet hands (the dough is very sticky) need the dough for two to three minutes.
6. Use the Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold technique, but do two stretch and folds in a row every ten minutes for 40 minutes. This dough is very troublesome. Note that it will probably not come completely together until the second stretch and fold and it should become significantly silkier by the fourth stretch and fold. [1]
7. Let the dough rise between 78-82 degrees for four hours. Do a stretch-and-fold after the first, second, and third hours of the rise.
8. After four hours, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it in half so both sides are lightly floured.
9. Then gently stretch it into a rectangle. Fold it up 2/3 of the way, and then fold the left side over 2/3 of the way. Fold the right side directly over the left side and pull the top down over the bottom to develop surface tension. Turn the dough seam side down and let rest under a large overturned bowl.
10. Let the dough bench rest for 20 minutes.
11. If the gluten structure seems weak, repeat this process again. If the dough spreads out with fairly even thickness, proceed to the final shaping.
12. Shape the dough any way you like for the final shaping. I decided to make a large batard. My shaping skills are pretty terrible, so I would suggest looking at some videos (e.g. Bread Cetera) for shaping suggestions. Place in a banneton or in a bowl or pan lined with a floured dishcloth.
13. Let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1 hour under plastic wrap or similar
14. Then, place the dough in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.

Day 3:

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with a combo cooker or brothpot and stone. 
2. Take the bread out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before you are ready to bake.
3. When you are ready to bake, turn the bread onto a floured peel and score it.
4. Put the oven down to 450 degrees F and bake under steam for 20-25 minutes.
5. Remove the lid for keeping the steam in and bake for another 20-30 minutes until the outside of the bread is a rich brown and the internal temperature reads 212 degrees F.
6. Wait at least 1 hour before slicing.

Crust

Crumb

The bread is great. It's very hearty and seedy and it has a lovely, rich, nutty flavor. I will most definitely make it again.

I am sending this into Yeast Spotting. I hope it doesn't look like too much of an ugly duckling among the beautiful breads.

Endnotes

1. I did mixing techniques by trial and error which is why I don't think my bread rose as much as it could have it did not develop quite the crumb I was hoping. I am hoping to have better luck with this technique as written.

The 100% Whole Wheat Experiment, Part #2

This is what I did to make the loaf I posted about recently. I am going to try out small emendations and re-post with my next loaf. The recipe is an altered version of the "100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Hearth Bread" from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day. d

Ingredients
Starter

• 57g 100% hydration whole-wheat starter
• 170g whole grain flour
• 170g water (about 90-95 degrees F)

Final Dough

• All of the starter
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 350g water about 80 degrees F (I only used 340g in my last attempt and it was denser than I would have liked)
• 454g whole wheat flour
• 14g salt

Directions
Day 1:  Note: if you start this in the morning, you can make this bread in two days. If you start it in the afternoon or the evening, it will take three days.

1. Stir the starter, water, and flour together. 
2. Cover with plastic wrap or equivalent and let it sit for 6-8 hours at room temperature (presumed as between 68-72 degrees F).
3. After the 6-8 hours, you can use it or refrigerator overnight for up to two days.
4. To make the dough, after the 6-8 hour period, put the starter into a large mixing bowl and stir in the water. Distribute the starter throughought the water.
5. Stir in the flour and salt. Mix the dough until it becomes a shaggy mass.
6. Let the dough sit for five minutes to fully hydrate the flour.
7. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. It will be quite sticky.
8. Slightly wet a surface (or slightly flour it) so that the dough won't stick and use the stretch-and-fold technique, completing the 4 stretch-and-folds within 40 minutes.
9. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or equivalent and let the dough to rise for 2-3 hours at about 72-75 degrees F.
10. Put the dough in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours. If you want to, you can divide the dough into two before you place it in the refrigerator to bake on two separate days.

Day 2 (baking day)

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator four hours before baking. Lightly flour a surface and put the dough on a surface and divide the dough into two pieces.
2. Let it sit under plastic wraps or an overturned bowl for 20 minutes
3. Shape the dough into loaves and let them rise in bannetons, on a couche, or similar. Let them rise for 3.5 hours at 75 degrees.
4. Preheat the baking stone to 450 degrees F (or 425 degrees F convection) for 30 minutes and preheat a broth pot or similar for the last 15 or heat a combo cooker for 30 minutes.
5. Prepare a floured peel and turn the bread onto the peel and score it. Put it in the oven and place the top of the combo cooker or the overturned brothpot on top.
6. After 15 minutes, take off the pot or lid. Let the bread cook for another 30-40 minutes.
7. Take the bread out and place it on a cooling rack (it should bet about 205 degrees F on the inside). Let it sit for 45 minutes before cutting into it.

Shaping Bread

One of the areas of bread making in which I need the most work is bread shaping. It is easy to learn a recipe or chemistry from a book and I am fortunate to have been given some great books and that my local library system has a lot of other great cookbooks. But the one thing that I find difficult to learn without an expert leaning over my shoulder is bread shaping. Even the videos I watch online are difficult to follow because sometimes my dough behaves differently. I did find one great shaping video from the Back-Home Bakery I would like to share and I will let everyone know how it goes.

On a slightly different note, I have mentioned Peter Reinhart's stretch-and-fold technique. Here is a great video from the man himself to help you see what I mean.


Happy baking!

An Addendum to "Things I Still Don't Know"

More Tartine Bread

I thought I would answer some of my questions from my "Things I Still Don't Know" blogpost and show off some pictures of my other Tartine loaf.

Crust

Poor scoring.

Open crumb...a little too open?

I had a fabulous breakfast this morning of the whole wheat tartine loaf. Amazing.

Toast with almond butter and a cup of Earl Grey (with skim milk)

One of the original problems that I cited in my previous blogpost was temperature vs. time for proofing bread. Here are the two things I have found in my reading. According to Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice, 17 degrees Farenheit up or down causes the time to half or double, respectively. As an example, he says that if the bread takes 1 hour to rise in a 90 degree F proof-box, it will take 2 hours at 73 degrees F (Reinhart 40) and he gives further examples illustrating the same principle (Reinhart 88). The temperature around the dough is going to effect the dough, obviously, but even more important is the dough temperature itself (which comes from a variety of things like the temperature of the water put into it). To check dough temperature or even bread temperature in the oven, you can use the same kind of thermometer you would use to read your turkey at Thanksgiving (or some other holiday) to ensure you don't kill your guests. You can also use this thermometer to check the temperature of the water. Just make sure that you have on that reads as low as 60 degrees F and as high as 220 degrees F. Some bread books will also give advice about their particular recipes. In Tartine Bread, Chad Robertson mentions that if the dough is mixed using cooler water, at around 65 degrees F and fermented between 55 and 65 degrees F (rather than the traditional 78-82 degrees F with 80 degree F water), then it will take 8-12 hours instead of 3-4 (Robertson 74-75). his means the time doubles if it is 15 degrees F or so cooler (about the same as Reinhardts 17 degree F approximation).

I also wondered aloud what might become of my accidental mixture of sourdough starters. As it turns out, the two different types of yeast seem to coexist peacefully. The indication of this is that the new mixture smells like an exact half-half mixture of the home starter and the Alma Mater starter. Go figure.I can't guarantee this would happen with any mixture, but it seems to be the case from mine. I also discovered a recipe that mixes two different starters which I am excited to try: txfarmer's baguette recipe (although I will replace the rye with whole wheat because I am not a huge fan of rye).