The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Recent Blog Entries

September 14, 2023 - 12:01am
aly-hassabelnaby's picture
aly-hassabelnaby

The Breads of Egypt - Eish senn

Hello everyone,

I've posted the latest recipe on my blog for a type of bread we have in Egypt called "Eish Senn". It's a pocket-style bread with lots of wheat bran mixed into the dough. Have a look and let me know if you give it a try and what do you think of the flavour?

 

The Breads of Egypt - Eish senn

September 13, 2023 - 4:10pm
The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

100% improvisation, 100% semolina remicinata Sicilian Filones

Sicilian semolina bread, with short fermentation biga. Same day bake. Commercial yeast leviened.

 

September 13, 2023 - 12:13pm
tpassin's picture
tpassin

50% Spelt

For my first foray into baking with spelt flour, I made a loaf with 50% spelt, 50% bread flour.  The spelt was stone-ground from a local water mill.  Using a kitchen sifter I was able to sift out a little bran, which I scalded with water and left overnight.  The amount of extraction was only around 6 - 7%, though.  The bread flour was King Arthur's.  The total amount of flour exclusive of the starter was 420g plus a few more for the bran scald.

To try to counter the lower amount or grade of gluten that spelt is reputed to have, I used a little more salt than I usually would, a lightly lower hydration - 70% including the starter ingredients - and more starter (35%) than I otherwise would have to get a faster fermentation.  I also included the starter and salt in the initial mix.  This was a hand mix, just enough to hydrate the flour and mix everything reasonably uniformly. 

After a rest of 30 minutes, I kneaded and stretched the dough briefly, and then did two more S&F sessions after 30 and 45 minutes.  For this last one, the dough had enough extensibility that I stretched it between my hands so I could pull it out further than I could have using coil folds in its tub.

The dough had doubled in 4 hours, and I shaped it without needing a preform.  I stretched it and worked it enough that it seemed to have enough elasticity to proof free-form, and I shaped the dough into a batarde loaf.  After proofing covered for 45 minutes, I slashed it and started the bake with initial steam.

You can see from the photos that this all worked very well and produced an attractive, well risen loaf with a reasonably open crumb for this kind of flour.  The crumb seems a little soft. and it has a good flavor subtly richer than ordinary whole wheat usually does.  



 

September 10, 2023 - 6:03pm
CalBeachBaker's picture
CalBeachBaker

Honeyed Spelt and Oat Levain

Today's bake: Honeyed Spelt and Oat Levain

Source: Sourdough Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads Sweets, Savories, and More - Sarah Owens

Notes:

Substitutions:  None

Discussion: This is another bread from Sarah Owens that I have been planning on baking for some time. The crumb is nice and soft due to the oatmeal soaker and  ~20% spelt flour, with a slightly sweet flavor from the honey. The crust is nice and crunchy with toasty malt flavoring. This is a nice bread to toast up in the morning for breakfast or for lunch.

Make again? - Yes, definitely.

Changes/Recommendations:  A little less bake time.

Ratings:






Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 10, 2023 - 11:33am
Sugarowl's picture
Sugarowl

Pizza, chocolate and beer

I attempted to make pizza with King Arthur 00 Pizza flour using their recipe on the back of the bag. The recipe was called "Detroit Style Pizza". I have no idea what that is but I had hoped it would make 1-12" pizza if I halved the recipe. It did not. Also, this was my first attempt at homemade pizza dough. It is not pretty and way too crispy. But for better or for worse here it is.

Next up, I made another 123 sourdough bread in a bread pan. My additions were: milk powder,regular Hershey's cocoa powder, and maple syrup. The liquid was a Guiness stout. The flour as mostly all purpose, with 20g rye, 10g wholewheat, and 30g bread flour.

Here's the recipe:

100g starter

200g Guiness beer

300g Flour (as said above)

2T of hershey's cocoa powder (regular kind)

1T milk powder

1T maple syrup

1tsp of salt

I mixed it all together for a bit, maybe 5 minutes. Then I let it sit out for an hour and then popped it into the fridge over night. This morning about 9am, I took it out and let it warm up. at 10am I did a lamination with it. Since I could stretch it thin, I shaped it and left it to rise in the baking tin. I then baked it at 350F for 10 minutes and then at 325F for 40 more minutes. I brushed butter on it at the 30 minute mark. My pans are dark, so I have to bake at a lower temperature. The internal temperature was 201F.

The bread is soft, with a light chocolatey flavor. It was not overly sour as it as last time when I made a plain white bread with a Yuengling lager. I'm guessing the "smooth" on the label means something? I don't know anything about beer. All I know is that I hope my father in law likes the other beers I had bought since I don't drink. I did find a non-alcoholic Guiness black label on the shelf, but I was unsure if it would perform the same or not.

So far the bread is good, but I think I'll leave the pizza part up to Dominoes for now since I may have gotten myself into a baking frenzy starting next week. Our church is having a fall festival and I volunteered to help them out if they wanted bake sale items for their pumpkin patch.I casually mentioned 3 dozen muffins and cookies. I'm thrilled they want some samples but also super nervous at the same time. Either way this will be a good way to test out if there is actually a demand for non-cake mix muffins in my area.

In other news, I've been working on a garden box and it's almost done. As soon as hubby puts the last of the supports in I'll order the compost/dirt from a local place that delivers. My kids want to plant sunflowers and other colorful flowers. I'm going to put veggies on my side, and being that I'm in zone 9 means I can still plant beans, corn, tomatoes, and possibly little squash if the weather stays warm this year. the kids are excited to see broccoli trees growing too. I try to grow interesting looking things, so I'm on the hunt for long eggplant and sesame seeds. One year we grew yard-long beans and we didn't harvest them soon enough. The kids ran around with "dreadlocks" on their heads. :D

September 7, 2023 - 10:12pm
jkandell's picture
jkandell

Schwarzbrot (70% rye) - Salt-sour experiment

I‘ve been looking for a way to try out the Monheim Salt-sour process for a while, as I've been researching ways to get complex rye flavors without the pain of a 3-fold Detmolder. It's described as having a good aroma and being "almost as good" as a full detmold. And we recently had the perfect weather for it in Tucson: 90s in the day and 70s at night  The Salzsauer process is unusual in that it adds salt to the elaboration of the rye at 2% This is similar to what classic French bakers sometimes do with pain-au-levain in warm weather; or it might be thought of as a "rye pate fermentée". Because of the salt, the souring takes longer (18-24h) with the trade off of a longer period of stability.  Also due to the salt, one requires 10% of the flour in the inoculation (i.e. 20% seed starter if its 100% hydration, instead of a more typical 5% or 10%.). 

So I decided to adapt Hamelman's 70% Rye with Rye Chop Soaker from Bread to this method. For this riff I subbed out whole rye flour for the medium, and I substituted a Monheim Salzsauer process for the one-stage Detmolder. But--with 35% whole rye flour, 30% whole wheat flour 35% rye chops--should this be called a Mischbrot? Despite the fact it's almost 50% wheat (if you count the chops as an addition rather than a flour), it really doesn't have the smooth-grey color or texture of typical Mischbrot. Not that surprising given it's 100% whole grain including chops. Moreover, it tastes and looks quite similar to volkornbrot . So I'm sticking with the  Schwarzbrot label .

 Formula:

hamelman 70 percent rye mischbrot

Process:

Build the rye sour, with final elaboration 18-24h prior to baking, going from 95F down to low 70Fs over the range.  Because I bake infrequently, with a rye starter in the fridge, I first built it out at 1:2:2 an extra 12 hours earlier to get the ripe 36g inoculation needed for the final Salzsauer. Note that I took out an extra 9g for storage at the end of the first-build, rather than the usual second build, because I didn't want my storage chef to be salted. (If you have 36g active rye starter, jump right to the salzsauer, as this is in theory a one-step process.) 

Using 113F water in the final build will let things start at DT 95F snd gradually decrease. Let the final sour ferment for 18-24h until it smells good. (I left it outside in the 96F desert afternoon and it had dropped to 73F by next morning, at which point I brought it in for the remainder.) The literature says start 30-35C and drop to 20-25C.

Soak the rye chops about 6 hours prior. I used my coffee grinder to approximate chops, but it was closer to a mix of meal and chops. I used a cold soak with 2% salt. (If any water evaporates, add it in later.)

Mix the dough. It's 70% rye, no kneading needed. However, note the 78% hydration in the formula is the low end. Since it's rye you'll likely need to add lots more water to get the texture to where it's like clay that holds together but is loose enough it can expand.  In my case it took tons more water than stated, so was more of a bassinage. It's going into a loaf pan, don't worry about over-doing the hydration. I used 0.6% IDY, but I'm not sure it's needed. (I thought it interesting I had a higher percentage of salt in the levain than the final overall bread!)

Bulk ferment 30 minutes (with IDY). Proof in floured loaf pans 60m. No scoring of any kind needed. 

Bake 450F covered for 15m then drop heat to 410F or lower to finish for 40-60 minutes until it sounds evenly resonant (rather than a dull thud) when tapped on all sides and across the bottom. Take out of the pan for the last 15 minutes or so to dry out the sides. Cure for at least 24h covered in a towel before slicing. Peak flavor was about 3 days in.

Comments:

  • I'm now a fan of the Salzsauer process and will try it with other ryes. As advertised, it had a rich aroma together with a nice balanced sour flavor. I liked that it didn't take much fuss, just leave it out a day ahead of time. This would be great if you wanted to set things up on Friday to bake on a Sunday. I'm skeptical on how important the 95F > 70F is. That was fine this time, and the 95F isn't hard to achieve with hot water. But cooling it might prove a problem much of the year in my climate. The 1-step Detmold supposedly benefits from this same temperature drop to balance the lactic and acetic; but plenty of people just ferment 16-18h at 77F with 5% or 10% ASG; so I'm tempted to just leave it on the counter willy-nilly for 24h and see what happens.
    And do you really need the full 2% salt? I'm curious what exactly the salt does to the yeasts and enzymes-- I was surprised the salt-sour didn't have--for want of a better word--the neutral flavor or smell of a wheat pate fermentée. It was a real sour. And on first glance the odor and flavor did seem better--but I'll need to do more experiments. 
    Because I don't keep such large quantities of active starter, I ended up needing to use 2-stages anyway, so maybe a better comparison is versus 2-stage Detmold process that I also like a lot.  That one requires more temperature control though, whereas this just gradually falls.
  • The bread itself is a solid basic German rye!  Recommended, going into rotation. Aroma very nice around day 3, the flavor was sour but mellow, which surprised me given the 35% pre-fermented flour. The soaked chops were very subtle, mostly adding texture.  I couldn't taste the wheat, but I think it took the edge off of the sourness, making the bread somewhat more adaptable than a volkornbrot.
  • I think DSnyder's nailed the flavor: "The crust was firm but not hard. The crumb was soft and moist but slightly crumbly and less dense than I expected. The aroma is powerful with rye, yet the flavor is relatively mild. It is rye with no distinctive whole wheat tones, yet the whole wheat must have mellowed the rye flavor. There is a sweet note to the aftertaste. This bread has lots of character."
  • This formula is a good “base” recipe to explore German mixed ryes.  Using medium rye instead of whole would make a more standard graubrot / hausbrot. Taking out the wheat entirely would make a volkornbrot. Add flax or sunflower seeds at will. Add scald at will. For instance, I think Kellner’s  Sauerland Schwarzbrot is just a complicated version of the same formula? Unless I'm mistaken, that's even the monheim  sauersalz they're calling a "sponge" along with a bunch of other tricks? This one's a lot simpler though! 

 crumb very similar to volkornbrot

September 7, 2023 - 2:06pm
CrustyJohn's picture
CrustyJohn

Big Mess = Success (sort of)

Normally the loaves I record here are the successful one.  There are plenty of so-so loaves that don't offer too much to dwell on worth writing about.  And then there are the total disaster loaves.

 

This one falls in that category.  It is a buckwheat porridge loaf.  I think I over loaded it with porridge and ended up with a loaf a bit too much on the wet side.  It was manageable enough ti shape, but it must have seeped moisture while doing the final cols proof in the banneton because when I went to turn it out to bake, it was not just a little stuck but totally adhered to the banneton.  I had to scoop it out with a dough scraper!  So I just dumped the dough mess on the hot stone, covered it and hoped for something with a shape.

Fortunately it kept somewhat of a shape and rose alright.  It actually has a very nice soft airy crumb.  This is not the first time something like this has happened to me, and I imagine others have experienced this as well.  Sometimes those total mess loaves, if you can manage to get them into and out of the oven, can actually be quite nice bread, if lacking shape and beauty.  So here's to ugly bread that still tastes good!

September 6, 2023 - 3:19pm
OldWoodenSpoon's picture
OldWoodenSpoon

Just to say I can still "walk the walk" :)

I have not been very active here in many years, posting only occasionally in reply to member questions, and even more rarely to my own blog.  Perhaps so much so that I may even appear to only talk the talk.  I decided today that I should, if not change that, at least speak into the silence a little bit.  So, I will tell you of  my latest bake.

This is a very straight forward 68% white sourdough.  The last year or two I have adopted/adapted the 3-stage approach of Danni3113, for which you can find the basics here.  The principal adaptation I use is to refrigerate the completed starter after the last feed, then on dough making day I pull it out early, give it a stir, and wait till it gets "jiggly" to start my dough.  This adapts better to my schedule.

I also bake in dutch ovens because my oven uses so much top heat that crusts turn black long before the loaves are finished.  I bake covered for 15-18 minutes, then finish uncovered for 10-12 minutes, to center temp of +/-205F.  Here are today's results (crumb shot when available).

and

Edit:  Added Crumb Shot

Just saying...  (Am I boasting?  Of course!  Don't we all?)

Still baking happy!
OldWoodenSpoon

September 6, 2023 - 1:29pm
The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Jewish Sour Rye

Hello, friends.

My new rye sour is taking to the rye flour like a horse to water in the desert! This means a "New York" Jewish Sour Rye bake no later than tomorrow. The formula I selected comes after a visit to my Pisani  (Villager) Island 66 blog page. From there I was directed right back here. I landed at everybody's friend, and a fine baker David Snyder's blog. 

For this exercise (performance) I will attempt David Snyder's, Jewish Sour Rye. Which is based on Greenstein's formula. Boy that was a lot of acknowledgements! 

Onwards.

This proformance will be done as it happens, live without a net. For better or worse, success or failure that is my way. Smile...

Phase 1

The rye sour.

 

September 6, 2023 - 12:53pm
WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

Einkorn Bread -- My Bake

Earlier this year, Tony (CalBeachBaker) posted a bread made with einkorn flour.  I modified the recipe a tad, and this is my second attempt (these bakes were my first experience with einkorn).

For the levain, I mixed 3 grams of sourdough starter, 72 grams of einkorn flour, and 54 grams of water.  There is a soaker, and for that I mixed 48 grams of rye chops, 48 grams of sesame seeds, 120 grams of boiling water, and 2 grams of salt.  The levain and soaker sat overnight covered at room temperature.

After about twelve hours, it was time to combine the final dough ingredients.  These were 407 grams of einkorn, 329 grams of water, 8 grams of salt, and all of the levain and soaker.  I mixed by hand using a small plastic scraper, and the components came together fairly easily.  Three stretch-and-fold sessions spaced thirty minutes apart followed, and then the dough sat for a total bulk fermentation of two hours and ten minutes.

For those unfamiliar with einkorn, perhaps a word or two.  If you think rye is sticky, you haven't worked with einkorn, which is super sticky.  It also has no gluten strength, doesn't rise, and has no structure for shaping.  If some of you with einkorn experience can chime in with some tips or comments, that would be very much appreciated.

After dumping the dough onto a floured countertop, I shaped (sort of) by using a scraper to flop the dough onto itself and let it sit for five minutes.  Then I used the scraper and a bench knife to get underneath the mass of dough and plop it into a 9"x5" loaf pan that had been lined with parchment paper.  I smoothed the top of the dough with a spatula, and the loaf pan went into a plastic bag.  The proofing phase lasted about an hour and forty minutes, during which time I saw no rising to speak of, but the dough did settle nicely in the loaf pan.

Eventually I put the loaf pan into a 450F oven that has pie pans filled with lava rocks for steam, and the bake lasted forty-five minutes.  Watching the loaf expand during the bake was neat.

Here is the loaf, and you can see where the dough rose from its level at the start of the bake until the end.

The crust is tender, and the crumb is chewy with a nice flavor.

Given the slightly gummy center evident at the very bottom of the loaf, I think the next time the bake will be perhaps five minutes longer, but everything else seemed to go well.

Einkorn is one of the ancient grains, and I wanted to give it a try.  Glad I did, and there will be more bakes with it.

Happy baking.

Ted

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