Kansas Poolish Focaccia

Yesterday was a snow day in the Greater KC area, a good day to shovel snow, bake some bread, make some of my industrial red sauce, and eat spaghetti. The Knob Creek bourbon on the rocks at 5PM after shoveling seemed appropriate as well.

I baked this bread in a 10" pie pan though in retrospect, I think I'd have been better served using either a 1/2 sheet pan  or using some parchment paper on the baking stone. There was too much dough for the pan but that's the lesson learned yesterday.  

I used Western Family bread flour on this project, something I found in Jackson, WY. It seems to be weak as a bread flour goes but the soft resultant dough worked well enough for a casual bake such as a flat bread. It also tasted good enough that the neighborhood birds didn't have a chance to try any.  

Poolish
75 g Western Family bread flour
25 g white whole wheat flour
100 g water at 90F
1/8 tsp (.63 ml) active dry yeast

Main Dough
140 g WF bread flour
68 g water at 90F
1/2 tsp  (2.5 ml) active dry yeast
5 g kosher salt
All of poolish
Sea salt and grated parmesan (optional) to sprinkle on top
In the first edition of J Hamelman's "Bread" is a formula for ciabatta at about the same hydration and almost identical ingredients so that's another direction for me to investigate the next time I want to serve spaghetti.

We also had some rare visitors here during the snow storm. A flock of blackbirds, numbering 20 or so, landed and stayed in our pear tree which is just outside my window here. They didn't seem interested in the food in and on the ground below the feeders but did eat some of the remaining pods on the pear tree. Blackbirds are native and year round residents in this region but  I haven't seen any at the feeders since we put up them up. They didn't return this morning but I'll be looking for them on Monday and Tuesday when we may see some more snowfall.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

A Simple Pao de Caseira and a Malted Wheat Flake Loaf, Again

The first loaf is something I'm working on and it's based on a formula from Mr Forte's Portuguese Breads blog. Traditionally, the loaf is round in shape but since I baked it to mail to a college room mate and his wife, I used my oval brotform instead.

Anyone who looks carefully at my formula might think that it's almost identical to the horiatiko psomi recipe that I posted in 2011. That's what I thought as well but since the psomi was so good, I'm hoping that Gary and Jeannie will confirm my expectations.

Starter
140 g at 75% hydration, fed with 75% AP and 25% white whole wheat, built in two stages.

Main Dough
300 g bread flour
60 g white whole wheat
250 g water at 92F
8 g kosher salt
10 ml olive oil
10 ml honey
All of starter


I still haven't run out of malted wheat flakes and since I keep them in the freezer, there are no grounds to suspect that they're reproducing themselves. So I grabbed them to soak while I was waiting for my 125% hydration starter to hit its stride. I'm beginning to like the results from using a 125% starter but I admit to guessing on quantities because I don't bother to learn how to use a spread sheet to save myself the time I spend hammering a calculator to establish either a ground point or an alibi. My guess work on the results is that I could have used less water in the soaker or adjusted the main dough water down 10 g. On the other hand, considering the use of the flakes and 25% whole wheat flour, a spectacular oven spring may have been out of the question to begin with. It still tastes good with winter foods so I did alright.   

Starter
160 g at 125% hydration

Soaker
80 g malted wheat flakes
80 g water at room temperature

Main Dough

300 g bread flour
100 g whole wheat flour
260 g water at 90F
15 ml honey
11 g kosher salt
All of starter
All of soaker


It seems as if all my fine feathered friends are loading up on food in expectation of the snow storm that is supposed to arrive late tomorrow night. I finally managed to identify another woodpecker type. It's a Northern Flicker, sometimes called a black shafted flicker, and sometimes a vulgarity or two since they will drum on houses in a fit of misguided expectations of food. It's a male as far as I can tell since it has a bright red, triangular cape on the back of its neck. Most of the time he can be seen digging away at the suet feeder but sometimes he'll go to the seed feeders in search of the peanuts and raisins found in that food blend.

New countries have been added to my pageviews recently. They've come from Sweden, Venezuela, and from the home of some of the world's finest beers, Belgium.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Pane Di Como Antico O Pane Francese

I got the motivation to try my hand at baking an Italian bread after dining at an Italian restaurant in Omaha, NE on Friday night. The food was very good but the bread sticks should have been an embarrassment to the establishment. They were bland and soft as American white bread from a supermarket.

The formula for this loaf is derived from Carol Fields "The Italian Baker". I tweaked the formula by using a starter of the same weight and hydration as the biga that she utilized. I also added a smidgeon of active dry yeast to the main dough to help move the proofing stage along. Ms Fields prefers using an overnight proof in a refrigerator but I needed a loaf for this morning so I went on my own road there with a room temperature proofing. The pictures don't lie about the loaf being under proofed but the bread was still more than good enough to eat. The ADY didn't affect the flavor in the least. The formula, for a smaller loaf than Ms Fields' suggested size, is good as is.
That doesn't excuse me from more homework in shaping and slashing or judging the readiness for baking.

Pane Di Como Antico

Starter
144 g at 82% hydration

Main Dough
348 g bread flour
52 g whole wheat flour
280 g water at 92F
8 g kosher salt
1/8 tsp (0.63 ml) active dry yeast

1. Prepare starter.
2. Hydrate ADY in water for about 10 minutes.
3. Add starter, flours, water-yeast solution to mixer bowl. Mix briefly, up to 1 minute, to a shaggy mass. Cover mixer bowl and rest for 20 minutes.
4. Mix for 3 minutes at first speed.
5. Add salt and use a spatula to quickly stir in some of the salt.
6. Mix at second speed for 4 minutes. The dough should clear the bowl, leaving only a small strand attached to the bottom of the bowl.
7. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, knead briefly, and place in an oiled container. Cover and bulk ferment for three hours with stretch and folds at 60 and 120 minutes.
8. Turn out dough and preshape. Cover and rest for 15 minutes. Shape and place in a brotform or on a couche, seam side up. Proofing in a refrigerator is suggested by Ms Fields, the developer of this formula, but I proofed for 2 1/2 hours at 70F before loading into the oven.
9. Preheat oven and baking stone to 450F. 
10. When dough is proofed, place on peel and slash before loading. Spritz the top of the loaf with water lightly and place in oven.
11. Bake at 450F for 15 minutes. Turn the loaf around, lower the oven to 425F, and bake for 20-22 minutes. Loaf is done when the internal temperature is 205F.
12. Cool on a wire rack for at least 3 hours before serving.

On a lighter note, I've been accepted into the Master Food Volunteer Program sponsored by the Kansas State University Research and Extension Service. I don't expect to exclusively do bread baking projects but do hope to get the opportunity so I can use some of the skills that I picked up for my degree in Elementary Education during my overextended adolescence period in my life. The idea of teaching adults who want and expect to learn something is somewhat daunting after 42 years out of the classrooms and halls of academia. On the other hand, it does sound like fun.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Mediterranean type Sourdough, again

First of all, let me bring attention to another blog that specializes in posting about baking Portuguese  breads. I ran across the blog while looking for Portuguese bread recipes for something to send to a college room mate and his wife who live in New Bedford, MA, a town with a large number of people of Portuguese descent.

    http://portuguesebreads.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html

I found Mr Forte's recipes interesting and admire his determination to make and bake breads the way his grandmother did when he was growing up. The measurements are by volume rather than weight and he thoroughly enjoys kneading by hand.

Mr Forte almost exclusively uses what he calls a slow rise starter. After reading his instructions for building a starter, I suspect that it's a 125% hydration sourdough starter.

Mr Forte doesn't appear to be blogging for the glory of seeing his posts on the internet. He just enjoys baking and wants to pass on knowledge about the breads he ate when growing up. It's worth our while to see what he's done and will be doing in the future.

My recent bake is similar to Mr Forte's Pao de Caseira or "house bread". In turn, it's similar to a Greek pain de Horiatiko and an Itailian pane al Olio. I think there's a Spanish loaf that fits in as well. It's a good bread to have around the house.

Starter
160 g at 100% hydration

Main Dough

267 g bread flour
133 g whole wheat flour
260 g water at 90F
10 g kosher salt
1 Tbs olive oil
All of starter

While driving home from Omaha, Mrs PG and I saw several large flights of geese in the air and in some open water in the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge area. I can only estimate thousands in the air at different altitudes and flying in different directions stretching for at least a couple miles. The refuge is located in one of the great migratory flyways for N. American birds and should be visited when the flocks are in residence. There is a website that page that posts counts of the number and variety of birds.

http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Squaw_Creek/wildlife_and_habitat/waterfowl_count.html

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Superbowl Chipotle-Tomatillo Salsa and Sourdough Rye

I had no intentions of inflicting punishment on the bathroom scale after this weekend but it did happen.Besides some excellent barbecue at the Smokestack in N. KC, these two culprits aided and abetted in my caloric intake.

The salsa recipe is similar to one that has been posted on the internet as a clone of one developed by Rick Bayless for his restaurants in Chicago. It's simple in the techniques required and needs only four ingredients. Makes about 2 cups or 16 oz of salsa, sometimes more.

8 medium sized tomatillos, stemmed, washed, and cut in half
6-8 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
3-4 unpeeled garlic cloves
2-3 large, thick slices of raw onion
1/4 C. water to moderate heat from chiles, optional

Prepare the tomatillos, garlic cloves, and onion slices. Preheat your oven broiler. Line a half sheet pan with aluminum foil and place tomatillos,skin side up. Spread onion slices across one end of the pan and find room for the garlic cloves among the slices. Slide pan into the broiler for about 10 minutes or until the skins of the tomatillos are browned. Remove the pan and let the contents cool. Remove the skins from the garlic and trim the scar end.
Place the tomatillos, roated onions, and garlic into a large food processor or blender. Add chipotles to the food processor. Use the pulse mode initially to break up the tomatillos and then puree the contents.

Divide as needed and place in refrigerator for at least four hours before serving. The salsa will taste quite hot before refrigeration. After chilling, it will have a tart, smoky flavor where the heat of the chiles won't be immediately tasted upfront. It's a really sneaky heat. Extra salsa can be frozen for at least 14 days.

Since the hosts of the Superbowl party, Rob and Sachiko, were planning on serving a barley and beef vegetable soup, I made a sourdough rye bread for the event. The loaf might be considered a Pain de Meteil in France since it was 33% rye. I added a little molasses for crumb color so that might disqualify it as being French but my intentions were more of the stomach and pleasing our hosts rather than being a purist. It turned out to be a success with a nice chewy crust and a sweet, moist crumb. I exercised my baker's prerogative and grabbed the heel before anyone noticed.

Starter
160 g at 70% hydration, fed with 75% organic AP/ 25% whole rye flour in two stages.

Main Dough
300 g bread flour
150 g whole rye flour
300 g water at 90F
2 g active dry yeast
11 g kosher salt
1 Tbs molasses
All of starter

I took a peek under the straw mulch in my garden today. There are a few short sprouts from the garlic but I don't expect terrific growth for a while until the soils warms up. The rosemary branches have all browned out but since rosemary is a perrenial plant, it should be good for the Spring as long as I keep the straw mulch in place. My sage plant doesn't look like it has suffered much at all through this mild winter. Out by the chain link fence, our poppy plant is a bright green and hasn't been bothered by weather or animals. Daffodils are coming up slowly by the driveway and moles have made an unwelcome return in the front lawn.

It feels like its time to make a large batch of my all-purpose industrial red sauce for pasta and pizza. Just the motivation I need to delve into my files for an Italian bread recipe.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.


     

Light Whole Wheat with Wheat Germ

I was just playing around with some dough, nothing very serious, adding some wheat germ because my doctor said "Eat more fiber" and I thought the wheat germ wouldn't hurt. Don't look to me for nutrition advice but even if it doesn't come under the fiber classification, wheat germ has a lot of flavor merit when I add it to a loaf of bread.  YMMV.

Soaker
60 g Bob's Red Mill wheat germ     
80 g water

Starter
180 g at 72% hydration

Main Dough
300 g bread flour
100 g white whole wheat flour
280 g water at 85F
11 g kosher salt
All of soaker
All of starter

At the end of mixing, the dough was on the sticky side, something to be expected with the hydration level. The slash down the middle of the loaf did lead to a wide expansion of the loaf but since I didn't have a sourdough pancake loaf, it's OK. The size matches the flavor. I used a bold bake and got rewarded with a nice, crisp crust that still left a lot of pieces on the cutting board after an overnight rest. The wheat germ is relatively invisible in the crumb so this formula could be used to slip a few good ingredients past a fussy eater.

The current roller coaster weather has brought quite a few birds to our feeders in the past few days. A yellow shafted flicker, a usually ground feeding variety of woodpecker, has been dropping by to partake of our suet feeder. The rest of the usual suspects have been hunting through the shallow snow cover under the feeders which is fine by me. The finches that stop and eat are guilty of atrocious table manners in that they spray more food over the surrounding real estate than they manage to eat for themselves. I suppose the juncos, ground feeders, are grateful that the finches are in sore need of more etiquette.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Multigrain Country Loaf

This loaf was worked up so I could see how much Montana Milling 9 Grain cereal I could add without it collapsing as soon as I inverted my loaf bearing banneton onto the the sheet pan I use as a makeshift peel. I haven't found that out yet. The loaf is just fine as for taste and crumb characteristics. The pre-soaked cereal doesn't even show up in the crumb. That can be taken either as a sign that I can sneak the cereal in without people noticing its presence or there's more work to be done. Of course, I can just enjoy the bread and start looking for a new formula that I haven't tried for my next bake.

Starter
170 g at 70% hydration

Soaker
75 g Montana Milling 9 Grain cereal
75 g water

Main Dough
267 g bread flour
100 g white whole wheat flour
33 g rye flour
280 g water at 85F
10 g kosher salt
All of soaker
All of starter

There have been lots of birds at the feeders over the past few days. The forecast is calling for chances of rain over the next four days but I have no idea if that would make a difference in the feeding habits of my feathered visitors.

A new page view from Panama showed up this week.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.
     

An Abfrisch Imitation

This bread has its beginnings in a book about Viennese bakers in the 1930s and was brought to my attention in a post on the Wild Yeast site by a blogger who uses the handle of "Plotzblog". He has excellent taste in the formulas he chooses to post and his execution is outstanding. His posts are in German, a language whose surface I barely scratched in two years of study in high school and now have have very little retention at all after some 45 years. Google translator may be my friend in some cases but the translation from German to English seems to indicate that there are troubled relations between the languages these days.


Be that as it may, I was ready to take a second attempt at this bread. The translated formula starts off with a two stage build of a really stiff biga clocking in at 50% hydration built up over 5 hours. Plotzblog used fresh yeast, a commodity that isn't readily found in retail outlets in the KC, MO area. So I improvised by using a small amount of starter and expected a much longer build that finally finished in 24 hours.When I uncovered the starter, I could hear a sizzling sound which I took to be fermentation gas escaping through the moistened starter.
The posted formula for the main dough specifies 5 g of yeast. His formulas are usually very precise so I figured that dry yeast was intended. The bulk fermentation is listed as 30 minutes at 24-26C so I used 4 grams of active dry yeast for a slower bulk fermentation that I could observe and control better.  I threw in a stretch and fold after 45 minutes and began the preshape at 1 hr 30 minutes.

Even though I proofed the loaf in my very cool garage, 50F temperature, the dough rose vigorously and after 2 hours it was time to fire up the oven. I thought I was getting really close to over proofing.
After slashing the loaf, I loaded the loaf onto the baking stone in a 450F oven for fifteen minutes. The oven was lowered to 400F for the final 22 minutes after I turned the loaf around. At the 37 minute mark, the internal loaf temperature was 205F and it was time to cool off on a wire rack.

I didn't slice the loaf for 20 hours after drawing it from the oven. Even though I estimate the hydration to be around 64-65%, it turned out to be moist, soft, and somewhat sweet. Mrs PG really likes the crust on this loaf. Since I have another loaf cooling off as I type this post, I plan on slicing the remainder of this rye bread to freeze and use the slices when I want to eat something that I expect to go well with this bread. It does merit regular bakes once I get the final tweaks in. I think it can stand a little more hydration and I'd like to try caraway seeds, a combination of caraway and chernuschka seeds, or rye chops.

First Stage (Frischel)
36 g whole rye flour
18 g water
6 g starter

Second Stage (Abfrisch)
All of Frischel
123 g whole rye flour
62 g water
At this point I added 22 g more water to make the mixing easier. It helped but it was still very dense. This adjustment was subtracted from the main dough water.

Main Dough
All of Abfrisch
340 g bread flour
220 g water at 85F
4 g active dry yeast
10 g kosher salt

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

A Nice Pair, Of Loaves

These came out of the oven Wednesday. The boule is our house loaf currently. It's a white whole wheat and wheat bran loaf. The oval loaf is a sourdough rye with caraway, something that will go well with sandwiches and soups. I mailed the rye loaf to my cousin who lives on Southport Island in Maine. Hopefully, Paul will email me a jpg. file of the crumb for me to add sometime in the future.


White Whole Wheat with Bran

Soaker
28 g wheat bran
52 g water at room temperature


Starter
150 g at 68% hydration

Main Dough
267 g bread flour
133 g white whole wheat flour
280 g water at 90F
10 g kosher salt
All of soaker
All of starter 

Sourdough Rye with Caraway

150 g at 70% hydration
Main Dough
267 g bread flour
100 g whole rye flour
33 g whole wheat flour
280 g water at 90F
10 g kosher salt
10 g caraway seed
1 Tbs Molasses
All of starter
 
The boule is consistent with other similar loaves that I've been baking lately. A doctor told me that I shouldn't expect any great health benefits from adding bran to my loaves but it does add a little bit of nuttiness to the flavor. I had it, I used it, and I'm in a "lets clean out the odds and ends in the cupboard" mode again.

Lately, I haven't been doing too much retarded proofing. Proofing for 3-4 hours at room temperature as needed appears to give me a more consistent open crumb without the squashed bottom. It's only aesthetics but how many bakers, even raggedy home bakers as myself, don't aspire to a better looking loaf. Appearance does count when eating.

Even though the snow has melted away and the ground is exposed, we have quite a few of the usual suspect birds at the feeders. I fixed the chain for the suet feeder and have been rewarded with daily visits from woodpeckers. A pair of red bellied woodpeckers drop by and a downy woodpecker will push aside any chickadee in the path to the feeder.

I just noticed that I have two more countries to recognize for page views, Denmark and Lithuania.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.   

A Bully Boule with Malted Wheat Flakes

       

For those not too enamored with the study of archaic American slang, the adjective "bully" has been most associated with the early twentieth century Republican Party president, Teddy Roosevelt. A quick glance at his Wikipedia page will mention his public service as New York City Police Commissioner, as a colonel in the Spanish American War, a noted conservationist who championed the US National Park system, and the first major politician to propose a national health care system back in 1912. I doubt that the current Republican Party would accept him as a candidate for dog catcher these days. He was also a noted xenophobe among other shortcomings so the man didn't and still doesn't qualify for sainthood.

While I did bake two loaves for New Year's Eve, I failed to take pictures. I did another pan loaf with a pre-ferment that confirms my previous formulas that I worked on for my Christmas loaves. The other loaf was a cranberry-walnut bread that requires more work. It had no real shape and looked more like an oval focaccia loaf. It tastes good but with such a shape, even my forgiving mother would arch an eyebrow and ask me if the shape was intentional.

On the other hand, I think the current house loaf came out rather well. The crumb seems to be reasonably open, moist, and has a sweet flavor.  There have some changes in my procedures that may or may not be significant. My starter seems to be thriving on an organic AP flour from the local Kroger affiliate, Dillon's. It doubles somewhat faster though not the much sought after eight hours on the counter. That's to be expected since I don't refresh the starter on a daily basis. 

I'm seeing better oven spring even without added sweeteners and that matters but there may be other explanations than the revitalized starter for that. Rather than using the refrigerator for a retarded proofing, I'm placing the loaf in the basement where the average temperature at this time of year is 60-62F. The yeast component of the starter may slow down but it doesn't go into a suspended animation. The shaped dough can sit in the basement for four to six hours without over proofing. Another 1 1/2-2 hours at a 70F

room temperature on the counter and its ready for a 425F oven. I'm wondering if the slightly lower oven temperature allows for greater oven spring because the internal temperatures don't kill the yeast as soon or the outer crust doesn't dry and firm up as quickly, stopping expansion. With the bread books I've got sprawled over the floor in my man cave, there must be an answer somewhere.

Soaker

50 g malted wheat flakes

50 g water

Starter

160 g at about 70% hydration

Main Dough

267 g bread flour

100 g hard white spring wheat flour

33 g whole rye flour

270 g water at 85F

9 g kosher salt

All of soaker

All of starter

Sesame seeds for topping (optional)

The recent snowfalls have meant an increased patronage at the bird feeders. The juncos and cardinals are particularly welcome because they will feed at ground level and clean up after the finches and sparrows throw seed around from the feeders. On occasion, woodpeckers have shown up and some titmice have found out about the buffet stations outside my window. 

The last time I checked, the sage and rosemary in the garden were still alive and doing well with the wheat straw around them for cover.

During the past six days or so,  there have been some page views from Serbia and Malaysia. It's fun to be an obscure blogger on an international basis.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.