Faux Ciabatta

      I started out with the good intention of replicating a recipe from the "Farine" blog for Pain Pave.

http://www.farine-mc.com/2010/01/pave-au-levain.html

 Traditionally, the loaf is minimally shaped to look something like a paving stone. After looking at the formula, I thought I'd end up with a loaf that would be somewhere between focaccia and ciabatta due to the hydration, which I guessed is somewhere near 80%.

I didn't quite stay within the guidelines but did end up with a tasty bread. High extraction flour is called for but that's one that I don't have around the house so I used King Artur AP and Heartland Mill Bolted Turkey Red flour instead.

Starter
150g at 95% hydration, fed with 80% AP, 20% bolted Turkey Red flour in a two stage build.

Main Dough
304g AP flour
74g bolted Turkey Red flour
287g water at 73F
9g kosher salt
All of starter
Attention to detail, patience, and time

Farine called for some different procedures than my usual methods. There are details provided in the linked blog post. The late addition of salt is one that I found particularly interesting because of the effect on the slack dough.

Authenticity wasn't a priority on this first attempt at this style of bread. I was close but not to the letter and still got a good bread. The formula yields two ciabatta type loaves, half of the original yield.

A straggling hummingbird stopped at the neighbors' feeder today.
There might have been some more migrating Monarch butterflies in the yard this year, but I don't recall seeing more than a few. It's really too late in the year to expect others.
While I'm trying to clean out the garden and flower beds for the winter, I did take some time today to plant a couple short rows leaf lettuce for a late crop. Fresh lettuce is simply so superior due to freshness that the store bought pales in comparison.
There's an attractive, simple sourdough with whole wheat cooling off in the kitchen this evening that seems to be asking for some kind of chili, soup, or stew to be matched with the autumnal weather. The equinox is almost here and the great migrations of waterfowl should be starting soon. The garlic will be planted around election day as usual because one stinker deserves another.

Visitors to the blog lately include page views from Argentina, Czech Republic, and Singapore.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

A Comfortable Batch of Ingredients

 When I began to build my starter for this loaf, I decided to use a comfortable combination of ingredients that has worked before. A little bit of spelt, some white whole wheat, and a not too dangerous amount of water. I know I have to try something new before the end of the month but it wasn't going to be today's loaf....   

Starter

150g at 80% hydration

Main Dough

20g Spelt flour
90g white whole wheat
290g bread flour
280g water at 92F
10g kosher salt
All of starter

The days are getting noticeably shorter now and much cooler. We did have some days in the high 80s but with cool nights in the 60s, it wasn't worth using the air conditioner. Other than the cherry tomato plant, there'll be no more size worthy fruit set this year.
Friday means pizza night at Chez PG so I'm going out on a culinary limb and use some of my basil for a pesto to put on the pizza. Not much pesto is called for a 14" crust so the clean up will be worse than the work. I'm still working with the sponge crust formula so another veering off the path to pizza heaven isn't a big deal.
I may not get there, but the journey is fun.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

A Vermont Sourdough Imitation and the Sponge Crust Pizza Saga Continues

 J Hamelman's recipe for a Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat  recipe has survived translation into Kansan. Besides being one of the most popular recipes from Hamelman's book, "Bread", the recipe has been repeated so often on the internet that if royalties were to be collected, Mr Hamelman could buy a large share of his employer, King Arthur Flour. 

My first attempt at the recipe was plagued by errors on my part but this second try has turned out a very nice and easy (for me, that is) to replicate loaf. As usual, I couldn't leave well enough alone and added my own variations to the formula's procedures.

When my levain build had achieved a nice bubbly personality, I scraped it into my mixer bowl, rinsed the levain container with the water for the dough, and added the whole wheat flour. I then used the mixer's whisk attachment for about a minute to aerate and mix those ingredients into a thin slurry. Next, I added the rest of my ingredients to the bowl and used the dough hook to mix at low speed for a minute to a shaggy mass of dough. After covering the bowl, I let the dough rest for 20 minutes in the expectation that the water would spread out and moisten the dough more evenly. It didn't seem to hurt anything.

From there, I went about my business in the usual manner and it worked out very well for me. There was some of the flavor of the hard red whole wheat in the bread but Mrs PG and I don't mind that. A hard white whole wheat flour could fit in this recipe very well.

Liquid Levain Build

70g bread flour
89g water
14g mature starter as seed

Dough

385g bread flour
53g hard red whole wheat flour
222g water at 85F
10g kosher salt
All of levain

I continue to play around at developing a pizza crust using a sponge preferment. This is a vanity/curiosity thing since there seems to be no call for this reinvention of the pizza dough wheel so that rules out the excuse that my exercise is an intellectual pursuit. BUT, its fun and so far, the resultant crust does taste good.

Sponge
185g water at 85F
25g whole wheat flour
100g AP flour
1/4-1/2 tsp active dry yeast or instant dry yeast, depending on how pressed for time you might imagine yourself to be.

In a large mixing bowl, hydrate the yeast, mix well and cover. Let rest at room temperature for at least 4 and better yet, 6 hours. The sponge should be well covered with bubbles.

175g AP flour
6g kosher salt
1 Tbs olive oil

Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and mix to a shaggy mass. Let the dough rest, covered, for about 10-20 minutes and then form into a ball before placing in an oiled bowl or Cambro container and cover. I let my dough rest on the counter for about 45 minutes before placing it in the refrigerator for use later on. It rose slowly in the fridge and after I took it out into room temperature, it got up to doubled in size in about an hour. This crust at a 70% hydration is more suited to use in a sheet pan but I stretched it out to use in a perforated, round "pizza" pan of about 14".

That's where the sponge crust recipe stands so far. It is a work in progress and will probably be lower in hydration next Friday but I haven't given up yet.

The garden is fading fast out there. The summer really put the big hurt on my peppers and basil this year, two plantings that usually scoff at hot days. It is time to start ripping the under performing plants out and cleaning up so I have less to do later on when the weather is less conducive to working outdoors. The lawn is making a feeble comeback after an application of Milorganite fertilizer and rain on Friday afternoon. We still need a lot more rain to get out of the drought and to soften the ground to make weeding much easier.

Recent visitors to this blog's visitors list have come from S Korea, Egypt, and the Ukraine.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Resolving the Picture Backlog

  Now that Google fixed the problem that was preventing bloggers from uploading from their Picasa program to their Blogger accounts, I can get up to date. I also found a new scale that I hope will eliminate the measurement consistency problem that I've been wary of in the past few loaves.

The first few pictures are a pain complet au son or whole wheat with bran. I was trying to work out a formula that's smaller in size than my usual 400g total of flour. It wasn't the right time for my scale to display problems in measurement. Not a bad loaf for eating but my recipe didn't follow expectations. 



       





























The next two pictures are from a pan marino, an Italian bread with rosemary and olive oil. The bag of flour in the background is White Lily Bread Flour which I had expected to be a little bit softer than my usual Dakota Maid BF. I started with a 60% hydration biga that I made overnight. My recipe math was set up to deliver a dough with 70% hydration but it didn't feel like 70% dough to me. The crumb photo shows a dense texture. While I need to do much more work on the recipe, I do enjoy the flavor the rosemary imparts to the bread.

















This final set is from my first attempt at J Hamelman's "Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat". This is the loaf that convinced me that my old scale was falling down on the job. I had the whim to try a loaf that used a 125% hydration starter and this came up at the top of my list. This loaf turned out to be about 275g larger than most of my loaves. In the matter of procedure and execution, this wasn't one of my finer loaves but I did give myself good grades for my seat of the pants adjustments. Mrs PG has requested that I try it again and soon so I guess I can relax for now.

Here on the city limits of the First City in Kansas, we've been fortunate enough to get 2.5" of rain in the past five days. That's more than we got over the previous three months. The lawns are starting to green up in the patches that survived and many of the plantings in the flower beds are reviving as well. We're also fortunate enough to have large numbers of cardinals flying in and cheering us with their song.

Football season has returned to the Midwest and the NFL season starts tomorrow night. Oktoberfest beers are plentiful in the liquor stores, just in time for the season.

Have I ever mentioned that NFL football and US Presidential elections are my favorite spectator sports?


Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Technical Problems; a short explanation

After I took some time off to visit my sister in Corinth, MS, I came back with a bag of White Lily Bread Flour and lots of intention to find out how well I could bake with my new find. As soon as I was ready to post about a revisited pain complet au son, the Picasa photo processing program wasn't working and has yet to return to operational status. I've checked the Picasa help forums and it appears that I'm not the only one who isn't able to upload photos over to Blogger. I also baked a batch of pan Marino, an Italian bread with rosemary and olive oil, and a Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat from Hamelman's excellent book, "Bread". Since I lack the computer proficiency to overcome or work around this problem, the pictures will just have to wait until Google fixes the problem at their end.

As if the Picasa problem wasn't enough, my inexpensive little scale is performing poorly as well. That can be fixed with a trip to a local Bed, Bath, and Beyond store tomorrow because they're having a big sale on soon to be replaced stock and have flooded the media with 20% off coupons as well. I do miss having a reasonably reliable scale.

As soon as the Picasa problem is fixed by Google, I'll have pictures. If someone has a simple explanation for a work around, I would be very grateful and willing to give it a try.

Leavenworth County Fair 2012 Swag

          On Sunday morning, after the Fair had closed and the dust from the demolition derby settled, I went back to collect my prize ribbons. When I got to the exhibition hall, I found that Red Star Yeast, a sponsor for the competition provided some extras for the "Grand Champion". Included was a baker's apron, a spatula, two dial thermometers, and an oven mitt. The gifts weren't great in cost but I do appreciate the gesture. There's not much chance of landing an endorsement deal from Red Star Yeast in the future.

Today's bread is one where I used some the home milled hard red wheat that I bought at the Farmers Market. I've enjoyed using it and expressed my thanks by giving the vendors a small- 90g, piece of starter that I built up with the flour I purchased from them. I also gave them some dried white flour starter and instructions on how to revive it so they can have a plan B.

Using the hard red wheat flour really did add something extra to the starter. During the second stage of the build the starter tripled in about 4 1/2 hours at room temperature around 78F.

Starter
165g at 75% hydration, fed with 75% AP/ 25% home milled Montana Milling wheat

Dough
275g bread flour
25g whole rye flour
100g home milled Montana Milling hard red wheat.
280g water at 85F
10g kosher salt
1 Tbs Easton Hillside honey
All of starter

Sometime on Sunday, the blog received its 3000th page view. I'm baffled as to how that happened but my thanks to the readers who have found what is essentially my exercise in writing. I'm as good at writing as I am at baking with lots of enthusiasm but still a work in progress. 

The newest country to find its way into the blog has been a page view from Sweden.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

A Change in the Weather

    There's a possibility that the drought producing weather conditions around here may be breaking as I type. We had a short, sharp thunder storm roll through town a couple nights ago to deliver the first substantial rainfall in a couple of months. The long range forecast is calling for more rain on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. I know I'm not a farmer but I'm trying to be optimistic about that forecast. The quality of the daylight has changed more than a little over the past ten days or so. Maybe it's just my eyes but it seems to have a more golden quality to it now, a sure sign of autumn approaching.

The best part has been the cooler temperatures to the degree that we shut off the A/C today and opened up the windows for fresh air. The morning low for tomorrow is forecast to be 59F, something we haven't seen since late April-early May. Tomorrow will be comfortable but typical August temperatures in the low 90s are coming back by Sunday. After enduring the daytime highs in the 100s, it will be tolerable. With a little more rain, I may be able to resume weeding the flower beds.

The bread for today is another simple sourdough typical of what I've been doing lately. While my desire to improve my craft at baking remains, the creativity seems to be on hiatus. I wanted to finish off a bag of some Dakota Maid stone ground whole wheat so that was brought to the fore. I think it turned out pretty well with a good chewy crust and a reasonably open crumb.

Starter
165g 75% hydration starter, 85/15 AP/rye flour

Dough
300g bread flour
100g stone ground whole wheat
280g water at 85F
10g kosher salt
All of starter


I started developing a new procedure for making pizza dough this morning. There was no scientific reason, just a whim that holds some promise. I have been using a straight, yeasted dough procedure that is heavily influenced by, if not stolen from, a recipe in Maggie Glezer's "Artisan Baking". This morning's effort used a sponge preferment that is both easy in method and produces a better tasting dough that was easy to handle when shaping the pie. If any one tries it out, I hope you'll leave a comment for me with your results.

180g water at 95F
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
20g stone ground whole wheat
120g AP flour

All of sponge
126g AP flour
5g kosher salt

After mixing the sponge, I covered the bowl and let it sit out at room temperature for about 4 hours.I mixed the salt into the AP flour and slowly added the flour to the sponge. Because the sponge was quite active before mixing, I just put the resultant dough in an oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap, and then let it rest in the fridge for about 4 1/2 hours. After an hour's rest at room temperature, the dough easily stretched out to fit a 14" perforated pizza pan. The dough is approximately 67% hydration and should be able to handle a Tbs of olive oil or a little more water.Whole rye flour could be substituted for some of the whole wheat. This is an easy procedure where the clean up took as much time as the work of mixing and measuring. I'm not the neat and tidy baker I should be.

New visitors to this blog site over the pat few days include guests from Austria, Ghana, and Panama.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Leavenworth County Fair 2012 Results; What a Difference a Day Makes!

When I posted the first pictures of my entries for the County Fair, I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about my chances. I figured that if there was any competition in the categories, I couldn't be too dissappointed if I didn't win. Still, it's good to have the self confidence to enter into even a small time County Fair.

My breads were entered this morning and I returned to the Fair this afternoon, twenty miles each direction, there and back, to get the results of the judging.

After I entered the Crafts building and found my loaves, I was pleased to see blue ribbons for both of my entries. Better than that, my sourdough loaf was under consideration by the judges for "Grand Champion" of the yeast breads category. The judges asked me to make myself scarce while they finished their work so I went out to grab some pictures of the goats whom I always find amusing and photogenic. When I returned to the Craft Building, My attitude was further improved by finding that I had been awarded "Grand Champion" in the Yeast Bread Class. Not bad for a raggedy home baker such as myself.

Both loaves used the same starter. In order to add some punch to flavor and encourage more activity, the first stage feed was elaborated with whole rye flour. The second stage was fed with some AP from Wheat Montana.

Sourdough Loaf

Starter
165g 75% hydration

Main Dough
360g Dakota Maid bread flour
20g   whole rye flour
20g   Wheat Montana Prairie Gold WWW
280g water at 85F
10g kosher salt
All of starter

Rye Loaf
165g 75%hydration

Main Dough
300g DM bread flour
100g whole rye flour
280g water at 85F
10g kosher salt
All of starter

As I said before, the recipes are simple but they worked.


Comments, humor, and questions are welcome. 

Still Warm from the Oven, Going to the Fair

    These are loaves that are going to the County Fair tomorrow morning. The top loaf is a sourdough and the other is a light rye. Neither one seems to show up well in the photos but they did smell great coming out of the oven. I'll have them entered by 9AM CDT and the judging should be done by 2PM.

I think that I'll take next year off from the competition. After figuring out how to maintain and use my starter to advantage, its time to work harder on my shaping. The size and weight of my loaves, around 850g or 30 oz before baking may be a large part of my problem. I also prefer my hydration levels to be around 70-72% so I guess I'm asking for trouble. But these problems can be overcome with more practice.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Malted Wheat Flake Miche

    Is a miche the result of an overhydrated dough for a boule? That could happen. Or is it a dough with too much gluten slicing ingredients such as whole wheat flours and/or grains? As long as it tastes good, the result is more important.

After ignoring the malted wheat flakes in the freezer for a while, I decided to make another loaf with them to see if I could get a more aesthetically pleasing loaf. After all, our eyes are involved in eating too.My starter needed a feeding as well to get it ready to go to work for my entries in the Leavenworth County Fair so I had motivation.

My two entries this year will be another sourdough loaf- I'm going for three blue ribbons in a row, and a sourdough rye bread that might be called a Polish rye, a Pain au Seigle, or a Maslin rye bread. I seem to keep finding breads that are cross border perhaps pan regional. It's either that or I'm cultivating a vivid imagination.

Soaker
50g stone ground whole wheat
50g malted wheat flakes
100g water at room temperature

Starter
165g white flour at 75% hydration

Dough
350g bread flour
180g water at 85F
10g kosher salt
All of soaker
All of starter

Despite my good intentions when attempting to shape a boule, the dough did flatten out before I could slip the stainless steel bowl over the dough. I don't know that if I had warmed the stone for a longer time whether or not I would've gotten bigger oven spring. The recipe on the back of the wheat flake packaging was for a pan loaf so that just might be the way to go next time as long as I don't develop an aversion to printed recipes.

By the way, the starter is doing really well.

New page viewers over the past week include some one from the Netherlands, Georgia, and Latvia.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.