txfarmer's Croissant and Dainish Converted over to SD and YW - 3 Ways with Chia Seeds

We were inspired, even though the wrong time of year for laminated doughs with it being 8o F inside and 105 F outside in AZ, by txfarmer's croissants and Danish pastries.

Hers are just fantastic to look at and professional in every way - unlike mine. But, I thought we would give it a go now and get back to them later next winter. Her posts can be seen here: http://weightloss-slim.fit/node/22677/poolish-croissant-pursuit-perfection%3C/a%3E%C2%A0and here http://weightloss-slim.fit/node/26777/cheese-danish-sourdough-all-american-beauty%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cimg src="/files/u41844/DSCN2214.JPG" width="800" height="487" loading="lazy">

We needed to change her recipe from yeast to sourdough and yeast water since I no longer stock any commercial yeast. I didn't expect my first attempt at laminated dough to be anywhere near txfarmer's and I was right. Freezing some of the croissants and Danish didn't help any either I suppose :-) But I did learn many important things about lamination which will help my assistant out later.

A very nice grilled; Amish Swiss and pepperjack cheese with grilled chicken sandwich made for lunch with this fine white sandwich bread. Love the chia seeds. The sweet potato and the pickled tomato, red onion and cucumber salad were also nice.

We made this enriched dough (can't believe it didn't have cream in it too) into 3 variations with various flavors; a non -laminated white sandwich bread (half of the dough split off before lamination), 3 kinds of Danish (blueberry, strawberry and dried apricot) and 2 kinds of croissants (plain and with a sweet home made mince meat filling made with beef shanks - those are the fat ones that didn't have 7 steps).

Used 27.5% of the total dough weight in roll-in butter (180 grams), txfarmer recommends 30% but we had a few more add ins than her recipe that upped the total weight. Txfarmer also said to hold the hydration down al little and I managed to somehow up it slightly,at least a couple of percent, if I calculated properly. We used dried apricots and they burned on the top and I should have reconstituted them in bourbon or water. We wanted to take them out of the oven at 25 minutes but by mistake took them out at 22 minutes and they could have used another 3 minutes in the oven. If you live in AZ it is best to do this in the wintertime.

My wife summed it up best. They don't look too good but they taste OK. I give the sandwich loaf a solid B and the rest a C only because it was a first attempt - my apprentice is worried she will soon be replaced since she said she was a lamination freak - well, at least the freak part was right:-)

The formula and method follows the pictures.

Method

Build the levain over 3 - 4 hour steps. I mixed the YW and the SD together from the beginning as is our usual now a days. Mine had more than doubled over 12 hours and then I refrigerated it overnight.

The nest morning, mix everything except the levain and the salt together in the mixing bowl and autolyse for 1 hour. Add the levain and the salt and mix on KA 2 for 4 minutes and KA 3 for 1 minute. Remove to an oiled bowl and rest for 15 minutes. Do (4) S &F’s every 15 minutes. At the 1 hour mark let the dough develop and ferment for 1 hour.

At this point I split off half the dough and formed it into a boule and let it ferment for another hour. Then it was formed into a loaf, placed into a Pyrex loaf pan and refrigerated for 4 hours. It doubled in the fridge. It was then removed and allowed to final proof for 3 hours. When it tripled in volume from when it initially went into the loaf pan, we slashed it and put it into a425 Fmini oven with steam for 10 minutes. The steam was removed and the temperature turned down to 375 F convection this time. The loaf was turned 180 degrees every 4 minutes 2 times. At this point the loaf was removed from the Pyrex and allowed to finish baking turning 2 more times at 5 minute each. When the loaf reached 205 F the loaf was allowed to stay in the off oven with the door ajar for 10 more minutes to crisp the crust.. It was then removed to a cooling rack.

The other half of the dough was used for lamination and I followed txfarmer’s method and procedure. I used180 gramsof roll-in butter for 645 g of dough (27.5%). The croissants and Danish were retarded overnight in a plastic bag in the fridge where the back half of them froze – no harm done though. In the morning, they came out of the fridge for final proof – this took about 2 ½ hours. Then they were placed in the 425 F oven for 22 minutes (should have been 25 minutes) rotated half way through and the temperature turned down to 375 F convection. When done they went onto a cooking rack from the parchment covered baking sheet.

Formula

YW and SD Laminated Croissant Dough

Mixed Starter	Build 1	Build 2	Build 3	Total	%
SD Starter	25	0	0	25	3.80%
Yeast Water	30	20	20	70	16.28%
AP	55	50	110	215	31.40%
Water	25	30	50	105	24.42%
Total Starter	135	100	180	415	96.51%

Starter
Hydration	82.42%
Levain % of Total	32.40%

Dough Flour		%
AP	425	98.84%
Dough Flour	430	100.00%
Salt	9	2.09%
Milk	206	47.91%
Dough Hydration	47.91%	0.00%


Total Flour	657.5
Total Water/Milk	393.5
T. Dough Hydrat.	59.85%

Hydration w/ Adds	71.76%
Total Weight	1,281

Add - Ins		%
VW Gluten	5	1.16%
Sugar	40	9.30%
Butter	50	11.63%
Egg	90	20.93%
White Rye Malt	5	1.16%
Barley Malt	16	3.72%
Chia Seeds	15	3.49%
Total	221	51.40%

dabrownman's Blog
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DA doesn't look too shabby to me. I'm sure come winter you will perfect your technique for sure.

I have yet to try such an endeavor but it is on my never ending list.

That white bread looks better than a "b" to me! Why such a low grade?

Maybe your too jaded by all of your recent multi-step assorted flours concoctions!

Best

Ian

it is already half gone I'll give it B+, just not as good as teketeke's 'This Isn't Your Slimey White Slice' sandwich bread thad had cream in it and made great panko too. The laminated pastries had some problems with quality of looks due to poor baker with no experience and fat fingers, under baking by 3 -5 minutes, freezing in fridge and high temps inside the kitchen. Maybe these laminated doughs do need commercial yeast to look good on the inside. But I'm not giving up so easily It will make for a nice winter project. They tasted great though so I give them a C + since they will be gone this morning :-)

80F out huh? You are as crazy as me to laminate in that kinda weather!

It's interesting you are using only sourdough with no commercial yeast. Even with commercial yeast (along with sourdough), the final proof takes 3-4 hours for me, I wonder whether your batch could use more proof time? They have to be really loose and puffy. Anyway, definitely a worthwhile experiment! I eagerly wait for more results from you!

addition of yeast water would make up for the lack of commercial yeast. But yeast water dough can take forever to rise dough too as teketeke warned not to try to rush it. Patience comes to those who wait a long, long, time! You are right - the laminated dough was probably under proofed. The bread tripled in volume after 1 hour on the bench, 4 in the fridge and about 3 for final. The frozen butter had to slow thongs down for the laminated portion. I think we should have doubled the final proof times for the laminated doughs. After doing nothing in the fridge for 12 hours and some freezing, they could have used 6 hours of final proof. But at 80 F in the kitchen (105 F outside), I was worried that the butter would leak out everywhere. Makes you work fast, and faster yet :-) They did taste fantastic though and the sweet mince meat was delicious in the croissants. I too wish I could find sheets of butter!

Next time and there will be another, I'm going to try to freeze the butter, then shred it, form and press it into a square using a suitable jig and then refrigerate it.

Sometimes you just have to have some pastry..hot or cold weather!..I wouldn't pass one up...good for you giving it a go in AZ. climate. They turned out delicious looking...pile me some extra fresh fruit on top with a side of ice cream : ) Lovely bread!

Sylvia

on the outside than they do on the inside but they taste fine. Most every desert or pastry is at least a little better with extra fruit, ice cream and chocolate sauce - don't you think? If it's not, we probably should not eat it in the first place :-)

Thanks for your fine comments - the bread was delicious (french toast was the calling) - and now long gone. Didn't even get to make panko out of any of it.

Looks to me like the dough/gluten is not developed enough?

See the first several pics in my photoset.. and one past the bread.. those are from txfarmer's recipes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52713318@N08/sets/72157625818510441/show/

is that the loaf of bread is the very same dough - same batch- and it was developed and proofed (in half the time) and baked well but the laminated dough was under baked first, probably under proofed and probably froze during retard. I did so many things wrong with the laminated portion we might never figure it out :-) One thing is for sure the Yeast Water didn't replace the commercial yeast in the original as well I we had hoped but we will endeavor to persevere.

I just love your pastries and cakes - the cake for Anna stands out.

BUT.... isn't there something missing.......? Only chia seeds......?

Happy baking,

Karin

till you see what I did to your fine (if nearly not as seedless as I once thought) wild rice bread. We more than made up for a lack of seeds in this bread and pastry bake, plus we used another secret, intoxicating element beside hemp and multi-grain sprouts. We looked for a more authentic Germanic kicker. It is a 3 day bread with a 24 hour autolyse for the flours and 12 hour retard for the SD, YW combo starter and the final dough. I think we will call it 'Seedy Germanic Wild Rice and Blank Bread '. Ooppppssss.... almost let the secret out !