I have once again decided to document my bakes. I think I did not do this correctly a few moments ago, so here is a link to my last entry where I added my latest bake and explain what I did. https://weightloss-slim.fit/node/57785/multigrain-loaf-la-dmsnyder%3C/a%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%C2%A0%3C/p%3E%3Carticle class="media media--type-image media--view-mode-default">
Hi Caryn. I was following your forum thread because I've had the occasional issue with Ginsburg's recipes over the years – but Ginger-Plum sounds so good and the loaves you baked look mouth-watering with that pretty craggy crust. I've been waiting for your crumb shot and "tasting notes" (to borrow a phrase). I might have to give this one a try, with the changes you suggest. Thanks for posting this bake and sharing your learnings.
–AG
Since my last bread bake was a dense loaf, I wanted to make something lighter, so I baked Hamelman’s Pain Au Levain with Whole Wheat Flour. I scaled it as usual to make a 1 K loaf and added 126g of chopped toasted walnuts. I will cut it in a few hours and try it for lunch.
Yes, I think this bread worked nicely. The thing is, I didn’t try to be overly fuzzy when making it. I followed the timing in the recipe and didn’t try to second-guess whether it had fermented or proofed to the right point. My starter must have been active enough to just work.
Yesterday I decided to bake some bread using some extra starter I had in the refrigerator. I followed this recipe for waste, not want not bread:
https://www.culinaryexploration.eu/blog/waste-not-want-not I substituted honey for the barley malt syrup because I didn’t have any and baked the loaf in a 9 x 5“ pan. It is a basic bread with 15% whole rye and 15% spelt. I also had no spect so used whole wheat instead. It should make nice toast and sandwich read. I had forgotten to take a picture until I had already packaged it for the freezer!
I made another bread yesterday that I baked this morning. I took the recipe from The Foodgeek for Sourdough Walnut Cranberry bread (https://foodgeek.dk/en/wprm_print/41075 ) and substituted dried apples for the dried cranberries. I thought the substitution worked really well. I also scaled it to make a 1K loaf which is the size I like to bake in the Challenger pan. I preheated the oven to 475°, put the loaf in the pan and immediately turned down the oven to 450°. I bkeed for 20 minutes with the lid on and about 20 minutes with the lid off, reducing the temperature to 440° as soon as I took the lid off.
Crumb:
Today I made Naan to go with tonight’s soup dinner. I had made the soup a couple of days ago and thought naan would go well with it. I followed the recipe (https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/homemade-naan.html) closely except that I substituted whole wheat flour for half of the flour. They worked well, but I am not sure naan should be so soft. It tasted good, but it didn’t have much of a bite. Maybe that is how naan is supposed to be.
I highly recommend the soup. Roasted Cauliflower and Potato Soup (https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/256519/roasted-cauliflower-potato-curry-soup/). I made some changes to the recipe, omitting the white potatoes and tomato sauce, using 2 large sweet potatoes which was probably more than called for, and adding about 2 cups of chick peas at the end to make it a main dish soup.
Today I baked this bread from The Rye Baker. My two sponges were very vigorous and more than doubled. The second sponge doubled after only 4.5 hours. The recipe suggested it would not be ready for 6 to 8 hours, but I was worried that it would over-ferment if I let it rise any longer, so I moved onto the next step at that point. After adding the remaining ingredients and mixing in my KA mixer, I “poured” it into the 9”x5” loaf pan and waited for it to rise to about the top of the pan. It barely rose after about 75 minutes at which point, I turned on the oven as directed. As you will see from the picture, it did finally rise somewhat in the bake, but in a strange fashion which suggests to me that it may have needed some shaping or additional kneading. My dough was not as pourable as was suggested in the recipe, probably because I used dark rye for the second sponge and as a consequence the dough was more dense. I won’t know how it tastes until tomorrow, since a 24 hour wait is required before slicing!
I baked it for a much shorter time. After the oven registered 460° I baked it for 20 minutes, turned the oven down to 375° for only another 20 minutes, since it tested done at 207 to 210°. It took 16.5 minutes for my oven to reach 460°, so the bread was baking in the oven for only a total of 56.5 minutes. I will see if it baked properly tomorrow!
This is what I baked today. I fed my rye starter twice before following the recipe- 8g starter, 16g each dark rye and water. After about 10 hours on the first day, I refrigerated it overnight, fed it the next day and refrigerated it, so I could start the recipe in the morning. I then followed the steps in the recipe fairly closely choosing to make 2/3 of the recipe. I inadvertently used dark rye for the first sponge, but it was only a very small amount, so I doubt that made any difference. After stage 2 the sponge should have doubled and begun to fall back, but after at least 12 hours, it had not quite doubled. I proceeded with the next step (final dough) anyway. After mixing the final dough as directed, it took about 4 hours to double. I increased the proofer temperature for the last hour from 72° to 75°. The shaped boule took just about an hour to proof. I used my Challenger pan for baking, preheating the oven to 475°, lowering to 460° when I put the bread in. I then followed the rest of the temperatures and times as directed. All together it baked about 50 minutes. I now need to wait 24 hours to cut into it!
I had reported on this bread last week, but somehow my descriptions got deleted. So from memory, these are my notes. I made 2/3 of the recipe because I didn’t want too much bread accumulating in the freezer! Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe. I fed my rye starter twice before starting with the recipe to ensure that it would be strong. The stage 2 sponge did not quite double, but I continued with the steps anyway. When making the final dough, it took 4 hours to double. I then shaped it into a boule and proofed in my proofer for about an hour. I preheated the oven to 475° and immediately turned down the oven to 460°when I put the dough into the Challenger pan. After 10 minutes I reduced the temperature to 400° and removed the cover. I continued to bake for 20 minutes, then reduced the temperature to 300° and baked for about 20 more minutes.
The result was a delicious, but dense bread. The flavors were really pleasing, and I will definitely repeat this formula.
LOOKS LIKE I HAD NOT LOST THESE NOTES. THEY WERE JUST ON THE NEXT PAGE!
So, suddenly I realized that my bread supply in the freezer was almost all finished and I needed to make a bread that did not take the usual 3 days of planning. I looked through Hamelman’s Bread and decided to make this 50% rye bread again that uses some yeast along with the rye levain. This is really one of the easiest breads to make. I made the levain last night and I have bread before noon today.
I adapted the formula from Marc Vetri:
100g whole wheat flour
150g KA “00” flour
150g bread flour
200g levain
300g water
15g salt
I mixed this following instructions for hand mixing from a YouTube video:
I made the Shishito and corn topping using 2 cups of Trader Joe’s roasted corn, defrosted and 12 oz. of the peppers, stemmed. I roasted the peppers, tossed with 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper, in the preheated 500°F oven on a sheet pan. I then added the corn for the last minute or so.
I took the dough out of the bowl and stretched it a bit onto a floured board, just to get it floured and ready to go into the other sheet pan that I had oiled with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I pressed it out with my fingers, allowing the dough to rest a few times until I was able to stretch it out to cover the pan.
I topped the dough and sprinkled on some Parmesan cheese. I put it in the preheated 500°F oven on the baking stone for 10 minutes, turned the pan around and baked for about 10 minutes more. I then topped it with about 10 ounces of fresh mozzarella cheese that I had coarsely torn up and returned the pan to the oven until the cheese melted, about 3 minutes.
I had baked the pizza on a stone in the middle of the oven and that may have been the cause of the peppers becoming a bit too brown, so next time I may put the stone further down in the oven so hopefully the outcome will be improved.
I made this bread from Hamelman’s Bread 3rd edition last week, so I can’t report as many details as I would like. What I remember is that the dough was very loose which might have been the cause of the quite flat loaf. It rose enough for the bread to be a nice consistency, but because it spread too much in the baking, the slices aren’t the best for sandwiches. I used some bolted flour that I had in my freezer from a local farmer’s market. If I repeat this formula, I might reduce the water somewhat. I did use the bassinage method, but thought maybe the consistency of the dough was better before I added the last 10%.
I used Hamelman’s formula as a starting point. The main change I made was to use half whole wheat flour. I also added some vital wheat gluten because I did not have actual high gluten flour. The result was decent- they look good, but they were much too chewy, either because I added too much gluten or kneaded the dough too much. I should have been more careful mixing in the pâté fermentée because I ended up kneaded a long while in order for it to be fully incorporated. Also I used 14g of the vital wheat gluten for the 503 grams of total flour. I will reduce the amount next time. The dough was also a bit dry, though in the end it behaved fine. I used honey in the boiling water since I did not have barley malt syrup.
I took out a couple of bagels (from the freezer) and toasted them for lunch today, and for whatever reason they did not seem to be as chewy as they did when fresh. They were fine. I will, however, adjust the gluten and be careful of the kneading the next time.
This bread is from Hamelman’s Bread, 3rd edition p.230. This bread is 66% whole rye flour and I expected it to be very dense, but I was delighted by the taste and texture. It calls for red rye malt which I had been planning to make according to the directions in the recipe, when upon going to my local make-your -own-beer store, the proprietor showed and gave me a taste (!) of his chocolate rye. So that is what I used here. The flavor and texture of this bread really makes homemade bread rewarding. I highly recommend this formula. The bulk fermentation was 4 hours at 78°F and the proofing in the pans was about 1.5 hours. I was amazed how well the dough expanded during the bulk fermentation, considering how minuscule the amount of starter it begins with. I used my white and whole-wheat starter and started with only 4 grams. I made 1/20 of the metric formula to yield about a kilogram of dough.
The one issue was with my result was I had used pans that were too large to get a decent height. The recipe actually suggested some very small pans for about 350g of dough. Lacking those pans I thought I could put 500g in my 8:5” X 4.4” pans, but realized that these really are too big for that amount of dough. Next time I will plan to add 50% more dough to each pan and increase my amounts by 50%. I also baked them for less time, 15 minutes at 450°F and about 20 to 25 minutes at 420°F. One warning: I followed the instructions on how to prepare the pans, and the loaves stuck and were hard to release, even though the pans may have had a non-stick coating. Next time I will line the pans with parchment.
Overall, these were a success.
I made Hamelman’s Busy Farmer Bread last week. It is a 50% whole wheat sourdough bread.it was easy and worked well. It is a great all purpose bread that makes good sandwiches. I topped it with sesame seeds for added appeal. It looked good and tasted good. I highly recommend!
This time I followed the recipe from Cook’s Country. I followed it exactly, except that I used the Detroit Pizza pan that I already owned. It called for Monterey Jack in place of the brick cheese that is in the original recipe, but difficult to source. I thought it worked well and worked nicely with the Cook’s Country uncooked pizza sauce for it. I served it with some sweet and spicy jalapeño peppers from Trader Joe’s.
I just baked Hamelman’s “80% Sourdough Rye with a Rye Flour Soaker,” from Bread, 3rd edition, p. 239. I was inspired to make this from another “Fresh Loafer,”Louis Cohen. I followed the recipe quite closely, but scaled it to a kilogram loaf, mostly because I was worried that this unusual recipe might not work for me, and I would rather a small failure than a large one!
So it appears to have baked well- I baked it for a total of 45 minutes because my loaf was smaller than the larger loaves that Hamelman was suggesting. Following Hamelman’s suggestions, I will wait 24 hours before cutting it.
I see you made the Litovsky as well from Hamelman 3. This bread is like a minimal version of that one to me, without any malt or spices. But keeping the scald.
I made this recipe with his "baker's variation" adding 18% each dried fruits. It was different but delicious: the prunes and apricots and raisins, and their sweetness, goes nicely with the plain scalded loaf. I liked the fruit combo enough I am going to try adding it to the Salzburger Wheat Germ bread also new to third edition. Have you tried that one yet? It is also delicious.
I'm sure it's delicious but I just don't want to stock another ingredient. I already have these in the cabinet or freezer:
I'm sure the spelt, kamut, Khorasan, etc breads and multigrains are delicious. But for me, the flavor isn't so much better that it's worth the effort and storage space for the ingredients. YMMD
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with these recipes. I did notice the variation with the dried fruits, but have not tried it yet. Now you have inspired me to do so. I love apricots, but always struggle to find good tasting ones that don’t have a string SO2 aftertaste. If you know a good online source, I would appreciate it. Maybe the SO2 additive will be attenuated when baked in the bread.I did not notice the wheat germ formula, but will look at that one as well.
—Caryn
I baked this bread from Hamelman’s Bread, 3rd edition, p.184 a little more than a week ago. I love the flavor of this bread. My only disappointment is the bread was a bit flatter than I am used to. I think my breads come out better when they are given an overnight cold proofing, and this recipe did not suggest that as an option. I think next time I will try that. On all other respects, we like this formula a lot. It is great toasted with cheese melted on top.
I just started the process for making Hamelman’s Five-Grain Levain from Bread, 3rd edition, p,180. I may learn some valuable lessons from this, as I started this with with less than optimal conditions. First, my starter had not been fed for a month. I did feed it twice before creating the levain for this recipe, but it did not show signs of much robustness, just barely doubling. Secondly, I forgot that when planning to proof overnight, I usually start the process at 1 PM, so that the bread does not proof too long in the refrigerator or wine cooler, and I started the dough in the morning. That means, it will get about 18 hours of cold proofing. So, I will see what happens when I bake it tomorrow.. I could have added the optional yeast in the formula, but I really wanted to test this formula with an overnight proof where the yeast should be omitted. I did bulk ferment for about 2.5 hours, although the recipe suggested only two if proofing overnight.
It looks pretty tasty from the formula.
I have been feeding my rye starter once a week, in the morning before mixing the levain/sourdough that evening. It pretty much doubles after 12 hrs at 75 F. 80 - 85 F will double faster and sometimes almost triple. We have company coming so I have fed the starter this morning for an evening rye sourdough. I'll feed it again tomorrow AM for tomorrow evening's whole wheat levain.
Fermentation times vary more than I thought; I think it helps to check for signs like a shaky texture and especially bubble or holes on top.
My starter quickly goes dormant in a retarded proof; I put the bowl with the dough in a big ziplock bag in the fridge; I'm not sure that a few more hours makes much difference. You can either proof at room temp for a while before retarding, or go right in the fridge and let it come back to room temp in the morning for 15-25 minutes before scoring and baking. I'm sure there is a difference in the results but it's too subtle for me to tell the difference.
So, I am guessing that you use your rye starter for all of your breads? I fed both my rye and mixed starters (bread flour and about 1/3 whole wheat) after having neglected both for about a month. The rye starter showed more signs that it was re-invigorated than the mixed one, but I used the mixed one for this bread. I will know much more tomorrow when I bake the bread. Depending on what it looks like in the morning, I may let it sit out while the oven and pot are preheating.
Which rye are you making tonight? I am a little unclear how you schedule your bakes. I usually follow Hamelman’s method of creating the levain overnight, making the dough and bulk fermenting with folds and then proofing and baking the same day, or I refrigerate the levain that I created overnight until 1PM, make the dough and proof overnight in the refrigerator or wine cooler.
I have one whole/dark rye culture at 100% hydration. I like the flavor of rye, and with 10% or less of culture in the wheat bread you need a better palate than mine to taste the rye.
My typical schedule is:
Day 1 AM Remove culture from the fridge, feed 1:10:10, place in the proofer at 75 F
Day 1 PM Mix levain/sourdough, place it in the proofer; remaining culture back in the fridge
Day 2 AM Mix final dough; bulk ferment in the proofer
Day 2 PM Preshape, shape, place in a dish towel-lined bowl, proof part way if needed, place the bowl in a ziplock and retard in the fridge; set oven time to preheat w/dutch oven, 6 am on weekends, 4 am on weekdays
Day 3 AM Proof in the proofer 15-25 minutes if needed; spritz, score, and bake starting 7 am on weekends, 5 am on weekdays for off-peak electricity rates
Some rye breads, especially in "The Rye Baker" have multiple stages which can add a day to the process. I have not tried a Detmolder 3-stager; it's too much work for a casual home baker.
When the discard container starts filling up, I make muffins, cornbread, pancakes, or crepes for breakfast. With recent regular weekly bakes, the discard doesn't accumulate as quickly. I found hooch in the discard container this morning.
Thanks for that info, Louis. I think my method is similar, but I am not very consistent with my feedings. I may try to emulate what you do, so that my starters do not get neglected. I get your point that there probably is no reason to maintain multiple starters. It is really terrific that you build into your routine using the starter discard. I looked back at some of the files that you had previously shared with me, but I didn’t see a recipe for cornbread. I frequently make corn bread when I make soup and chili, so that recipe would be very useful to me. Is there possible a general rule to follow to convert a recipe to use leftover starter?
Actually I just googled and found a bunch of sourdough cornbread recipes. If you have a favorite, please let me know.
This works really well
I have also added the link to Bread Formulas
Sourdough discard is just a batter with 100% hydration (or whatever you use). So anytime a recipe calls for flour and water you can use discard, understanding that 100g of discard = 50g flour + 50g water, and then add flour or water if needed. The discard, especially rye, will be acidic so you might need baking soda in addition to baking powder, or maybe a little extra baking soda if there is already some in the recipe.
Louis- Thank you for the recipes. The cornbread recipe looks delicious. I will definitely try it soon. My standard recipe is from the Joy of Cookinhg. It has a small amount of sugar and less fat than yours. I like the idea of making cornbread without any sugar. It will be interesting if we like it as much as the one we are used to.
I also made dough for this Egyptian bread today. The formula is from Modernist Bread, p.304. I have made this before. It is really a variation on pita. What makes it different is that it uses corn flour and fenugreek. I have no source for corn flour, so I use Trader Joe’s popcorn kernels and put them in my grain mill to produce a flour. I did this the first time that I made this and it worked really well. I have made the dough balls and they will have an overnight stay in the refrigerator for baking tomorrow.
Here it is:
I just baked this from Hamelman’s Bread 3rd Edition, p.225. The yeast was optional, I decided to try it without to see the result this way, and maybe next time I will try it with it to see if it is any different. I scaled it to make a 1K loaf and I used mostly medium rye. I will impatiently wait the recommended 24 hours before cutting into it, and I will report on the results tomorrow.
The crumb is very dense, I am not surprised given that it is 80% rye. I just had a small taste since I just got back from a big lunch out. It has a pleasant tart taste, but I am not sure it tastes as good as the 80% rye with rye soaker that I had made previously.
I am a bit behind reporting on my bread making. I made this bread From Bread, 3rd Ed., p.168, probably 2 weeks ago. It turned out to be a nice whole grain sandwich bread. I did use the optional yeast and baked it the same day that I mixed the dough as the recipe described. It worked fine, but I wonder if I would have preferred making it without the yeast and an overnight rise. I think this bread as written lacks some of the sourdough nuances that I have gotten with completely sourdough leavened doughs.
I have made this many times over the years. The formula is from Cook’s Illustrated. I made them with half whole wheat flour and they worked well. I think next time I will try a whole grain sourdough for the dough. I think that would make them even more interesting.
I followed this: Slow, Lazy Sourdough Bread – Breadtopia
It was an interesting experiment. I made the dough as described using what might have been King Arthur whole wheat flour and KA white whole wheat. I added about 8g of vital gluten because I wasn’t actually sure that the whole wheat was the KA flour that has a high gluten percentage. In any case, it was a 100% whole wheat formula of 80% hydration.
I started with just 2 or 3 grams of starter as was described. The starter that I used came directly from the refrigerator where it had not been fed for more than 2 weeks. I followed the instructions for mixing, and after 12 hours, it had risen by a small amount. I then did 2 folds a half hour apart and then allowed it to proof until it had doubled. After 16 hours the dough had doubled. It was really dramatic how much it rose in the last four hours. I then shaped it, put it in a banneton, and then put it in the refrigerator, covered as usual.
I then baked it as directed after it spent about 14 hours overnight in the refrigerator. I am amazed what a tiny amount of old starter can do.
So generally you shouldn’t cut into a bread before about two hours, but I was hungry and it didn’t make any sense to wait another hour! So I tried it. It worked so well and had a really fantastic flavor. I can’t wait to make it again with maybe some variations.
I decided to make the above bread again with the addition of seeds. I added them at about 10 hours into the bulk ferment, just when the dough was beginning to rise. The seeds, toasted sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds that I toasted, were 25% of the total flour weight. This my be why the bread, while tasty, is a bit dense.
Yesterday, I finally used some sourdough discard that had been in the refrigerator for a very long time to make some sourdough following this: https://matthewjamesduffy.com/sourdough-cornbread-with-buttermilk/, suggested to me by fellow freshloafer, Louis Cohen. It turned out to be fun to make and a bit challenging when I realized that I was low on cornmeal and it was about to storm. So. I did what anyone might do if they have a grain mill and some popcorn kernels kept in the freezer: I ground the popcorn into cornmeal and it did the trick. I thought it came out well, but perhaps it was a little less sweet than I am used to. I appreciated the fact that cornbread does not really need any sugar, but it may have been sweeter had I used regular cornmeal. It is possible thar corn used for popping is not as sweet as corn generally used to make cornmeal. Or, it may be that we are not used to cornbread that has little sweetness. I actually don’t like cornbread that is very sweet where it is more like cake, but maybe I would like a result somewhat in between.
I made this about a week ago. I made this pretty much as written, using a liquid starter in the levain build. I used the yeast along with the sourdough as specified in the recipe. Somehow, I always feel like I am cheating when I do this, but the result was really nice. It is 40% whole wheat and resulted in a nice hearty and sweet bread. I made one tenth of the metric formula and put the dough in three 8.5” X 4.5” loaf pans.
I just made this bread yesterday. It was an interesting method. It started with an overnight levain that included onions and whole grain rye flour (that I milled because I had some rye berries). The next day, you mix, knead it briefly, shape it, and put it in a banneton. There is no real bulk fermentation. I allowed the bread to rise at 79°F for about 2.25 hours and then baked it in my Challenger pan. Unfortunately, I should not have baked it in such a hot oven, as the bottom was a bit scorched. It was not inedible- just darker than I would have liked. I scraped some of the bottom off, and it tasted fine. The bread has a bit of a cakey texture, maybe because of the molasses or because the gluten was not well developed. I did, however, really enjoy its taste and will make it again. The recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-pumpernickel-bread-recipe
Today I baked the walnut and raisin ciabatta from Hamelman’s “Bread”, third edition I followed the recipe exactly as written, scaling down to two loaves, dividing the metric weights by 10 and then halving those numbers ( 5%)). I recommend the formula, a nice twist on standard ciabatta. The crust had a nice bite, but the crumb was not as open as I though it could be, maybe because this formula’s hydration (75%) was not as high as ciabatta typically is. As a consequence, the dough really was easy to handle. I inverted the dough from my rectangular rising container over a floured board, cut it in half and placed the loaves onto parchment paper. Then I cut the parchment paper in two and moved the loaves back to the board and covered them for the final proof.
I think I have made the three times now because I am a big fan of this formula. The final proof took only an hour and not the hour and a half specified in the recipe.
I just made this again (Sept 20, 2023), adding about 110g of white whole wheat in place of some of the bread flour.
I am in the middle of making this again 10/5/23 and this time I substituted more whole wheat flour- 150 grams. I used 275 grams of bread flour.
The recipe is from Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/detroit-style-pizza-recipe
I added jalapeño peppers (uncooked) and omitted the pepperoni. I could not find brick cheese, but my Monterey Jack worked fine.
I made Hamelman’s Vermont Sourdough. I pretty much followed his formula, scaling it down to 1 kg. I did not do an overnight proof. Instead, I proofed the shape dough for about 1.5 hours when it appeared to test done.
Build
KA AP flour 87g
Water 109g
Culture 24g
Dough
KA AP Flour 436g
W.W flour 28g
Rye flour 30g
Water 298g
Salt 11g
Levain 197g
I am just not getting it. Someday, maybe, I'll hit on it accidently.
Just made matzah! This is from Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads. I added sesame seeds and za’atar to most of them.
I made this formula today as written, just substituting stout for the lager because that is what I had and scaling the recipe to 1K. As usual, I baked it in the Challenger pot. I was amazed that the levain that included a bit of salt rose nicely overnight at 70°. I forgot to curve the loaf as directed in the recipe and probably should have scored more deeply.
Levain
Whole Wheat flour-144g
Water- recipe called for 89g, scaling to a 1K loaf , but I used 85g because my starter was liquid
Salt- 2.58g
18g liquid culture to substitute for the 14g of stiff
Dough
Whole wheat flour- 86g
Bread Flour- 230g
Rye-69g
Barley- 46g Used hulled barley and toasted it in pan
Lager or stout- 207g
Water- 118g
Salt- 7.76g
Levain- 236g
Today’s bake was from King Arthur: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-hamburger-buns-recipe
I pretty much made the recipe as written.
I am baking this today and have scale the recipe to 1 kg:
I tried a technique new to me for mixing the dough. I left out 10% of the water, did the autolyse, then kneaded in the salt and levain until mostly developed and then gradually added the water that I had originally left out. The dough seemed to be a nice texture after kneeling for a few extra minutes. At first it looked like the water would not incorporate, but it did. The term for this is bassinage. I don’t know if I added the extra water at the correct point, but I watched a baker who runs a bakery and I think I added the water like he did. I need to work on my shaping. I will add a link to the baker’s video the next time I edit this post. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/7lIDKLDWjDU The shaping demonstration is at 43:05 into the video.
It looks like my shaping was not too bad. I also want to note that I proofed for 1 1/2 hours at 78°F. Will get to taste for dinner.
Wow, it looks great. I am currently bulk fermenting another B & T country sourdough.
I held back 10% of the water from the final dough mix, and needing just a bit more to incorporate the flour. The dough feels pretty strong so far (3rd fold coming soon) but is still very sticky (maybe because of the 100% rye starter) and a bit of rye flour in the mix). It seems pretty similar to last one I made that did work OK.
.
That’s a pretty loave Caryn, you must be pleased.
Benny
Thank you!
Yes, I was. I’m always a bit startled that naturally risen sourdough breads can work! I look forward to tasting it tonight. I also love that I am always learning something new like the bassinage technique.
I am behind posting a couple of breads that I have recently made. In the case of the semolina bread, it may be that I have not been so quick to post a bread that was a bit of a failure, at least in appearance. However, documenting breads that don’t have the best outcomes may actually be the most instructive. I had three problems with this bread:
1. I didn’t bother to test the proofing soon enough, and it may have over-proofed.
2. The dough was rather moist and I didn’t bother to line the banneton with linen as I often do, and as a result the dough stuck to the banneton when I was inverting it before transferring it the the baking pot.
3. When putting the lid on the baking pan, I slipped and hit the dough with the hot lid, causing the already compromised shape to be even more so!
In spite of all this, the bread still had very good flavor and texture.
I scaled the recipe for a 1K loaf.
I followed Hamelman’s Harvest Bread as he wrote it, adding the small amount of instant yeast that he called for. I made 1/20 of his metric formula, using 2 grams of instant yeast ((.12kg/20)/3)).
The taste and texture were good, but again I slipped putting the lid on the pot, plus I need to work on my shaping!
I just made Hamelman’s “Sourdough Seed Bread.”, p. 186 3rd edition. I made the levain overnight, and then I refrigerated it until noon, then let it sit at 76° for about an hour. This way I was able to allow the final dough to proof overnight in the banneton for the proper amount of time. I put it in the refrigerator 3 hours, then the wine cooler at 42-44° for the remaining time for a total of 15 hours. I wasn’t trying to be super fussy about the temperature; it was just that the cooler was first being used to cool wine at the beginning. I thought it better to have it proof mostly in the cooler where it would be a bit warmer than the refrigerator.
I highly recommend this formula. I think it may be a new favorite. The texture and taste were terrific!
Mostly because I really like this bread, I made it again last Friday. I fed my starter twice over 2 days, refrigerating in between and then I used it to make the levain for this recipe. The only reason for feeding it twice was that I had not fed it for a while and I wanted to make sure that it would work. The only change I made to the recipe is allowing the dough to sit out for an hour before the bake while the oven was heating. I preheated the pot at 475°F and then immediately turned it down to 460°when I put the bread in the oven. I left it covered for 20 minutes and uncovered for about 15 minutes.
I am considering this a “dry” run as I am planning on serving this as part of a lunch gathering in a few days, so I will repeat this process in a couple of days. I am hoping the result will be as good!
If only I could get that kind of result. I made a loaf of Pain au Levain w/ whole wheat today, with more gentle handling than usual (3 sets of coil folds only) and possibly better shaping. It felt pretty good, but we'll see tomorrow early when it goes into the oven.
Louis- Lately I have been following Hamelman’s directions fairly accurately and sticking with the one or two folds that he suggests. I usually do two because I think it it only help and not hinder. I have another seed bread in the oven now. I will have to see how this one goes. I think I made it close to how I did the last time, but with sourdoughs, unless you are running a bakery with a lot of controls, the results can be variable!
Also, since I don’t always bake once a week, I take out about 8 grams of starter from the refrigerator a couple of days before I make the levain for the bread and feed it 16 grams of water and 16 grams of flour (including some rye or whole wheat). I let it work at 82°F for about 8 hours- It usually just doubles in that time. Then I might repeat that a second day if it has been a while since I have used the starter from the refrigerator. Then I make the levain and let it work at 70° as suggested by Hamelman for 12 to 14 hours. I then put it in the refrigerator, since I don’t want to start making the bread dough right away. I usually then take it out of the refrigerator at noon and let it sit again at 70°F before I start making the dough at about 1 PM or so. When I bake this way, I don’t do many tests- I just follow this and it seems to work.
Bread just came out of the oven!
I decided to bake this bread again, though now I realize that I should have reviewed my previous notes on this loaf. For some reason I had decided to bake this in my large Pullman loaf, not realizing that it was obviously not the right pan. I am not sure why but this time the loaf did not proof enough overnight, and so the result was a very diminutive loaf which I just decided to call it a “cocktail” loaf. Renaming quasi-failures is a way to obfuscate the results! I certainly would not call it a success, but it still tasted really good, so that was somewhat redeeming!
Take three! This is the third time making this formula, and I think it is the best result so far. I think it is also the best 100% whole wheat bread that I have tried to date. The flavor and consistency were really good. I think I will continue to use this formula when I want an all whole wheat bread and maybe try some variations with some add-ins. I baked it in my Challenger pan, lowering the starting temperature to 460°F. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe using KA whole wheat flour.
The shape was not as I would have liked, however. It spread out while baking. I would like to figure out how to get more of an upward rise with this formula.
I have been inspired to revisit this dough formula by fellow Fresh Loafer, louiscohen | The Fresh Loaf. He has given me some tips which certainly contributed to my best result ever with this formula. Hamelman in this recipe instructs to skip any folds during bulk fermentation with this formula. Louis informed me that he does do folds, so I did. I think it resulted in a better structure for proofing. Hamelman also suggests that you can increase the hydration to 85% from 80%, as Louis does, so I did that too. I also loved his idea of adding walnuts, so I added 25% (baker’s %) toasted walnuts during the second fold that I did.
In addition, I used King Arthur whole Wheat flour which is 13.2% protein. Before I used whatever whole wheat flour was the cheapest. It may not have made a difference since I have not done a controlled comparison, but the dough seemed to have handled much better than I can remember even with the increase in hydration.
Now there were some changes that happened unintentionally. I attempted to get the dough to the DDT (desired dough temperature) of 70°, but I ended up with a dough measuring 75°. I worried because Hamelman suggested that a lower temperature would be better for this bread formula and schedule. I managed to get it down to 72° by leaving it at my room temperature of about 67-68° and then leaving it in my warmer at 70°. I think it never went below 72°. This may have accounted for the fact that the bulk fermentation was faster than the recipe specified. By testing with a shot glass with a dough sample, I discovered that the dough had roughly doubled at about seven and a half hours. So, fearing over-proofing, I preshaped it at that point and then shaped it, added seeds to the top and put the dough in the banneton for the refrigerated proof. I baked it 14 hours later directly from the refrigerator, though considered leaving it out for a bit first. Again, I did not want to risk over-proofing.
I do think this was my best 100% whole wheat yet, and I learned a lot from making it again. Lately, I have become aware of paying more attention to the bulk fermentation process. In some cases when a recipe suggests a time for the BF, it may be too short or have the potential to be too long depending mostly on the dough temperature.
Thanks for the mention. I think Hamelman says something like, if your baking style is comfortable with higher hydration, ... but I don't think he goes into specifics.
I don't ever go past 15% for the weight of garnishes. With 25% walnuts and 85% hydration you must be a lot better at building gluten than I am (which is no surprise).
I probably should watch DDT more closely than I do, but I figure with the B & T proofer set to the DDT the dough will get there eventually.
We are having a colder winter in San Diego than usual (no fake sympathy from those in snowy areas needed). Sometimes it seems that the B & T proofer can't fight mother nature, so I have to turn the temp in the proofer up a few degrees, eg, from 70 F to ~73 F to get the expansion that I expect in the formula timeframe.
I think I was lucky with this last outcome of this bread. I looked up other of Hamelman’s recipes and he has called for 25% of inclusions, so I went with it. I have a feeling the reason for my best result for this formula was that the dough doubled during its bulk fermentation. It might be worth testing the degree of rise by putting a small amount into a jigger or very narrow container in order to more easily see how much the dough has risen. That way, if the dough doesn’t rise as well when it is colder, you can consider extending the bulk fermentation time. In my case, I accidentally produced a warmer dough and it fermented faster than expected, so I stopped the bulk fermentation earlier.
I baked this bread the same day that I made the dough. As usual I scaled the recipe to 1K. The recipe is from King Arthur: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/pro/formulas/night-moves-anadama
I may try using all bread flour next time instead of half and half because I ended up adding about 64g of additional AP flour.
This is my first bread from The Rye Baker. I made it mostly because I had all of the ingredients for it! As I often do, I scaled the recipe to 1K and made one big loaf. The bulk fermentation took longer for me, but maybe because I did it mostly at 72° when I realized it would have been better to bulk ferment at a higher temperature. The proofing time on my peel was just a little more than 30 minutes. I will, of course, wait a while to cut it.
That looks really good, with nice volume. I am looking forward to slicing day to see the crumb. Probably very rich as well with egg and molasses.
Thank you. I was a little concerned that my new rye starter might not be completely developed, but because this recipe uses instant yeast as well as the starter, I decided it was not a big risk. It looks like rising was not an issue. I also baked it my Challenger pot. I love how bread bakes in it. It is a bit of an extravagance, but I love how well it works. I slid my bread from the peel right onto the pan bottom. It worked easily.
Well, sometimes you learn a lot from your mistakes. I was looking to find rye meal for a bread recipe in The Rye Baker and could only find rye berries and rye flakes. I looked at the rye flakes and they looked to me what could be similar to rye meal, so without much hesitation, I substituted them for the rye meal in the recipe, hedging my bet a bit and added half rye flakes and half dark rye flour for the amount in the recipe. (Right now I don’t have the recipe’s name because I returned the book to the library in anticipation to buying it soon. It was a French rye.) The dough looked very dense, and after the amount of time for bulk fermentation specified in the recipe, the dough showed no signs of rising at all! I had been especially interested in this formula because it was to be totally leavened by rye starter and I wanted to see how well it would work. I then decided I had better find out more about the rye flakes that I had added to the mix- a little a-backwards, do you think?! I found out that the rye flakes are a bit like rolled oats, cooked, I think, and pressed. So, in effect, I had added an ingredient that would behave much differently than rye flour. At this point, I would have to dump the whole batch of dough or do something to try to save it. So I then mixed some instant yeast (4g) in a small amount of water, added about 50g of AP flour and let the dough rise for another hour, put it in a pan for maybe another hour and baked it in the pan on a stone for the specified amount of time. The result was a heavy dense bread that actually was flavorful! No, I would not advise doing this again, but at least this bread will serve as something to eat with soup! I waited until the next day to test it.
are just not going to rise much, and won't usually maintain their shape without a bead pan. The do make very tasty bricks, great as a base for lox or wiping down soup/stew bowls.
I don't thnk yo ge much rise or shape-holding without some wheat flour (even whole wheat has more gluten than rye).
Actually the recipe was not 100% rye. It was not supposed to have any instant yeast, just rye starter. I think the formula was for 50% rye and the rest AP flour. I added the yeast thinking that the rye meal would be too thick a paste to be able to rise properly. All that said, I will retry the recipe using the described ingredients and see how well it ferments and proofs.
My hunch is rye flakes are the kind of thing that can be used as a soaker or scald, for flavor and texture; rye meal probably the same - treat them like some non-gluten multigrain in a wheat bread.
I wonder what rye flakes would be like for a hot breakfast cereal, like rolled oats.
Provençal rye is the bread that I had tried in my previous post. As I explained, it “failed” because I used rye flakes in place of some of the rye meal or flour specified. It actually tasted quite good and has been nice toasted with butter 😀. So, not one to give up, I am remaking the recipe now. The main reason that I selected the recipe in the first place was to see how a rye bread would behave with only an overnight rye starter sponge and no other added yeast. First of all, this time the bulk fermentation worked well, doubling at 72° for about an hour and a half. I did add about 3 extra tablespoons of AP flour to the mix before fermentation because it had seemed overly sticky. I proofed it for about 45 minutes after shaping it on parchment paper and am baking it as directed. I will update this after it comes out of the oven.
I just made this bread and though the sponge and dough were sluggish to rise, the outcome was good. The sponge has only 2% (baker’s %) rye culture and after 15 hours it only rose by about a third, instead of doubling, so I waited about an additional hour before proceeding with the recipe. The next step was a fermentation for 45 to 60 minutes in which again doubling was supposed to occur. I think I waited an extra hour or so and again, it rose but maybe only about a third again. In both cases I put them in my proofer at 72°F. Maybe next time I will up the temperature. After shaping as directed and placing the loaves in the specified sized pans, I think I waited about an hour and a half in the hopes that the dough would reach the rims of the pans. Again, they were about an inch below the rims. Assuming that the doughs might collapse if I didn’t bake them after that much time, I baked them as directed. This was yesterday. Today I cut into them and they tasted really good. I presented some of this experience to a forum in which a number of Fresh Loafers had some insightful advice: https://weightloss-slim.fit/node/71333/hearty-seeded-rye-rye-baker%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%3Carticle class="media media--type-image media--view-mode-default">