Mock Pane Rustica

I've been baking a lot lately. Besides my baking household loaves, I'm still intent on having five recipes to hand out to the class that the extension service has asked me to lead.


The first loaf pictured is another sourdough house loaf with 33% stone ground whole wheat. I did make an adjustment in the formula that I've used by simply adding 10 g less of water. This seems to compensate well for the 150 g of starter that I find more convenient to build up and use. Using a thirty minute autolyse also helped in getting a nice oven spring.         

Starter
150 g at 100% hydration, fed with KAF AP

Main Dough
240 g bread flour
120 g stone ground whole wheat
230 g water at 85F
All of starter
8 g kosher salt.

The second loaf, my mock pane rustica, is shown to the left of household loaf. it's going to be one of my handouts when I teach my class.  It's a mock loaf because I used a poolish rather than a biga. After shaping the loaf, I proofed it in my couche. It appears that using the couche, which I recently added to my "tool box", has an advantage over a brotform because it gives more opportunity for expansion in the loaf resulting in a more open crumb. This particular loaf had a total of 315 g of flour as compared to the 435 g in the house loaf. I'm not making any scientific or professional discovery here but I plan on further comparisons just of curiosity.

Mrs PG and I both enjoyed this second loaf. I started out with intentions of making some focaccia but ending up with a loaf. We had average room temperatures of 76-78F with low humidity on that day so the yeast had great conditions for application. The sticky dough was hand mixed and kneaded briefly, four minutes, but responded well to four stretch and folds in the first 90 minutes. Proofing took about 75 minutes before the dough was introduced to the oven.

Poolish
100 g KAF AP
100 g water at 85F
1/8 tsp (.63 ml) active dry yeast
Mix and rest on counter at room temperature 12-14 hours

Main Dough
170 g bread flour
45 g white whole wheat flour
132 g water at 85F
7.5 g (1/2 Tbs) olive oil
6 g kosher salt
1/4 tsp active dry yeast
All of poolish

The third loaf was meant to be a gift to a friend who was in town for her 40th year high school class reunion. It's a variation on the mock loaf being slightly larger but Kay won't get a chance at trying it since she has to leave to return to San Diego before I could give it to her. Don't worry Kay, I'll send pictures and let you know how it turned out.

Its strangely quiet outside this morning. The crickets and cicadas that had been so obnoxiously loud for the past couple of weeks seem to have moved somewhere else. The usual suspect birds at my feeders just about disappeared when the crickets and cicadas showed up in force. Now that the sparrows are flocking to my feeders this morning, I'm wondering if the insect noise drove away the birds who couldn't communicate. Of course, there's also the possibility that the noise attracted more and more birds to eat the insects until their numbers reached critical mass, decimated the insects, and left feeders like mine as the best free lunch once again.

Visitors to my blog in the past week or so included views from Indonesia, Bahrain, Greece, and the UAE.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Caraway and Rye Rolls

 Of the two breads included in this post, I'm more excited with the second, the caraway and rye rolls. This first bread isn't bad but its more a testament to my luck in recognizing an error and then adjusting for my mistake. I simply added too much water for the final mix because I forgot to write down my planned formula before baking. This has happened before and it'll happen again. It's good thing I'm not trying to make money at this.      

Starter
150 g at 80% hydration

Soaker
48 g nine grain cereal
51 g water

 Main Dough
300 g bread flour
90 stone ground whole wheat
260 g water at 85F
9 g kosher salt
All of starter
All of soaker

I'm pleased with how my caraway and rye rolls turned out. They're a formula that I've developed for my upcoming bread class for the Kansas State Extension Service. I scaled out these rolls to 180-185 g before baking. They are big but just big enough for the rather large hamburger patties I like to grill. Even better than that, they didn't fall apart while we were eating our sandwiches. My yield was four of these large rolls  but the next batch will be set up to yield six 150 g rolls which should be closer to the "normal" size hamburger roll. The pepper in the photo is a "Jimmy Nardello", an Italian frying pepper. The tomatoes are San Marzano.

Preferment
70 g whole rye flour
48 g water at 85F
<1/8 tsp active dry yeast
This all rye preferment didn't expand very much. One way to judge its growth would have been to sprinkle rye flour over the top and observe the preferment cracking open the flour. I just let it set undisturbed at room temperature for about eight hours. When I lifted the plastic wrap covering, it was making a continuous sizzling sound much like Rice Krispies cereal working double time in a bowl of milk.

Main dough
360 g bread flour
240 g water at 90F
9 g kosher salt
6 g caraway seeds
1/2 Tbs olive oil
1/2 Tbs honey
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
All of preferment.

The resultant dough was a bit sticky but not trauma inducing sticky. The bulk ferment, with two stretch and folds at 30 and 60 minutes, took about two hours to double in size. After dividing and shaping the rolls, they were proofed for an hour under an oiled plastic wrap cover. Baking was done at 400F for 28 minutes on a preheated baking stone.

Our summer time heat is almost over. We just opened up the house windows in anticipation of much cooler weather over the weekend. I'm still hoping for more rain to ease the removal of the weeds and tree saplings that have taken root over the summer when I wasn't looking. There are still some cucumbers growing and a more than adequate supply of tomatoes for the next few weeks at least. The chile peppers didn't do much this year but, as in baseball, there's always next year.

In closing, I'd like to note the passing of Gary W. Sherman of New Bedford, MA, a college classmate and roommate at Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg, MA. Gary was an admirably cheerful man who married his high school sweet heart Jeanne and together they raised four children and became grandparents to three. Gary was also fortunate enough to put his college education to good use as an Elementary Education grades teacher over his entire career. As if all that wasn't enough to keep him busy, he also volunteered his time for his church and an outreach ministry. While he never achieved front page fame and international notoriety, he was a connoisseur of the occasional fine cigar, a good man, fine friend, and considered a friend by many over his lifetime. That's a good track record by my accounting.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Building a Better Batard

The arrival of my couche from Amazon and the first loaf formed in that couche motivated me to find simple answers as to how to get better looking loaves. This second loaf is a little bit better shaped  but I did observe that using the couche allows for greater horizontal expansion of the dough. Perhaps what I'm looking for is a loaf that is more stout than long with more of a belly. I used the shaping method as diagrammed by Mebake over at The Fresh Loaf.

There's also a possibility that I may be running into a wall here because of my usual inclusion of a good portion of whole wheat flour. An additional 40 g of wheat germ in the form of a soaker may have contributed to weakening the gluten.

Finally, I may have to start planning smaller loaves or changing my recipes to be big enough for two loaves, something I'm loathe to do for two reasons. First, I think my mixer isn't large enough to handle that much dough, 1200 g give or take a few grams. Second, storage space in my freezers is limited by their capacity. They're small from an American viewpoint and things have a knack of being overlooked when they get full.

Until I find the technique or answer that I've overlooked so far, I think this recipe would be just fine for use in a boule.

Starter
150 g at 80% hydration

Soaker
40 g wheat germ
30 g water

Main Dough
All of starter
All of soaker
270 g bread flour
90 g stone ground whole wheat flour
240 g water at 85F
10 g kosher salt

Somebody from Albania stopped in for a look during the past few days.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.







 

First Couche Loaf Experiment

As first tries go, this wasn't a terrible experience with my new couche. I ordered it from Amazon and it appears to be well made with the linen being stiff enough to fold around a loaf. There's still much to learn about shaping dough in order to make better use of the couche. I'll get there eventually.

This particular loaf had a bit of mashed potatoes added in place of some flour. I like the flavor from the addition of potatoes or potato flakes but do have some trouble guessing how to correct the hydration level when using the cooked potatoes. The tactile feel of the dough also seems to change but that may be my own lack of experience baking bread with potato. It's still worth doing again.

Starter
150 g at 100% hydration

Main Dough
270 g bread flour
80 g stone ground whole wheat
27 g mashed potatoes
230 g water at 85F
10 g kosher salt
All of starter

The summer time heat has returned with a vengeance, with daytime highs in the upper 90s, lots of pollen, other allergens, and poor air quality. Tomorrow may be the first time for a high temperature of 100F this year. If I have to work outside, it has to be done in the morning. There's a curious lack of birds at the feeders and in the neighborhood as well. I wish I had a lack of crabgrass in the lawn instead.

Some recent page views for my blog came from Norway and Hungary.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.  

Multi Flour Loaf

I'm hoping that it was a bit of whimsy that motivated me to use a little bit of this and some of that in this loaf because Mrs PG and I have enjoyed this one quite a bit. The couche I ordered from Amazon.com arrived today so the loaf I start tomorrow should take a different appearance from the many that were shaped for the brotform. I'm planning on looking up all the Youtube clips I can find on shaping batards for my newest acquisition for the tool box.

Starter
150 g at 75% hydration

Main Dough
240 g bread flour
80 g stone ground whole wheat
20 g whole rye
20 g Spelt flour
240 g water at 85F
9 g kosher salt
1 Tbs (15 ml) honey

Some visitors from Denmark and New Zealand stopped by for a visit to this blog in the past week.      

Multi grain (breakfast cereal) Boule

Mrs PG prefers that I use my oval brotform when baking bread but she was on the way to Omaha when it was time to shape this loaf. So I grabbed my floured towel and trusty colander for a change of pace boule. It has a healthy addition of  9 grain cereal from Montana Milling that was soaked and an almost sweet flavor from a lean dough. The oven spring was very good so I'm feeling pretty good about how it turned out.

Starter
150 g at 75% hydration, KAF AP flour

Soaker
70 g 9 grain breakfast cereal
57 g water

Main Dough
285 g bread flour
75 g stone ground whole wheat
240 g water at 85F
9 g kosher salt
All of starter
All of soaker


Lots of fine feathered friends at the feeders and in the yard this morning. There are a couple of hummingbirds flitting about the Rose of Sharon bush. There's titmouse pair and nuthatch flying back and forth from the feeder to the tree. We also have a brilliantly colored solo goldfinch trying to get a share of food from the finches, sparrows, and pine siskinds that are crowding onto every perch that has access to food. They're all very noisy or perhaps just full of songs this morning
Comments, humor, and questions are welcome. 

33 1/3 Loaf

I'm happy enough with my line of investigation on 360g flour loaves to continue for a while. There may be the occasional deviation into something off the wall for me but I can't help myself about that.

Anyways, I previously mentioned that I thought I may have been using too much dough for my brotform and now I'm fairly confident that I was right. The 360g loaves are similar in size to my 400g loaves at the end of proofing. I do need to tweak the hydration levels down but that's no big deal. Another pleasant result is that the texture of the crumb is turning out to be much softer and additional ingredients such as wheat germ or my 9 grain cereal only compliment the flavor and don't affect the texture very much if any. This isn't reinventing the wheel or something like that, only just another method in the tool box for building that better bread.

Starter
165g at 80% hydration, KAF AP

Soaker
24g wheat germ
16g water

Main Dough
240g bread flour
120g stone ground whole wheat
245g water at 85F
1 Tbs (15 ml) honey
9g kosher salt
All of soaker
All of starter


The weather has taken an unexpected turn to the pleasant for this corner of Kansas in August. If it continues on like this, as the forecast calls for, I may feel invigorated enough to wash and wax Mrs PGs car. It's really that nice. The color quality, if there is such a thing, of the sunlight is starting to change as well.  I think that if you're a photographer, you might know what I mean.

I took out the "English cucumber" plants a couple days ago in order to give the watermelon vines a chance to fill out the three watermelons that actually appeared this summer. The chile peppers remain an example of the vagaries of Kansas weather and why only the foolhardy or gamblers would put money into truck gardening in Kansas. The production levels coming out of my garden are quite convincing. In any case, the local supermarkets are promoting the arrival of Hatch, NM chile peppers and in my book, there may be a few that are better but I haven't found them yet so I'll stick with the Hatch when I want a chile at its best.

This week's guest of note on my blog dropped in from Thailand.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.
     

Multigrain(Breakfast Cereal) Sourdough

Don't be mislead by the less than sterling pictures today, this turned out to be one of my better looking loaves when viewed in person. It also tastes very good as well.

This is the second loaf in my series of what can be called my 360g loaves. I had been baking loaves with 400g total flour and decided to cut down on the total flour by 10% to see if the loaves would be easier to shape on a consistent basis. I also had suspicions that the overall weight was causing my loaves to flatten out between knocking them out of the brotform and the beginning of the oven spring period. My conclusion from yesterday's bake is that I was putting too much dough into the brotform, limiting the expansion of the dough. I'm not totally comfortable with the wording of that explanation but it seems to be a line of thought worth pursuing. A 360g loaf has a volume of dough after proofing that is really close to the volume of a 400g loaf. I haven't measured this with precision so I won't seek the Nobel Prize for that work.

The multi grain aspect of this loaf derives from the use of a 9 grain cereal mix equalling 22% of the flour by weight. The cereal was soaked in water for two hours.

Starter
170 g at 82% hydration, using KAF AP

Soaker
80 g 9 grain cereal
56 g water

Main Dough
270g bread flour
90 g stoneground whole wheat
245 g water at 90F
All of starter
All of soaker
9 g kosher salt

 The recent rains have made a great deal of difference to the health of the plants and grasses in the yard. It also seems that they've been a boon to the insects in the yard as well. The forecast calls for another 2+" of rain starting tomorrow afternoon. These rains aren't monsoon rains coming up from the US Southwest but after a period of drought, I can't discriminate against their origin.

Next year's garden may be a little different. I obtained a copy of  "Straw Bale Gardening" from the library. Not only does it make sense, it looks like it would lend itself to my garden very easily. If I can find the straw next spring, I may plant half the usual garden in straw bales to see how well it works out. If it can make gardening easier and more productive, then I'm for it.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.     .

French Country Loaf Hybrid, An Experiment

I don't have my usual full length shot here because Mrs PG got to the loaf before I got around to taking pictures. Yes, she is still alive, she's been forgiven, and we're still married as well. After all, bread is meant to be eaten.

The experiment part of this bake was to reduce my total flour weight by 10% to see if I could get a better looking loaf with the brotform. I'm OK with those results for the first smaller loaf. The hybrid part of the experiment was using 1/8 tsp active dry yeast added to the dough during mixing. I admit that after starting late, I didn't want to stay up until past midnight to shape my dough. So I just folded in the ADY after the autolyse without hydrating. It worked out and the dough was shaped by 1130PM and placed in the fridge 15 minutes later.

Even though the loaf followed the 1 part 100% starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour method for sourdough bread, the bread doesn't have a lot of sour at all. The flavor is somewhat light on the tongue, not disagreeably so, but more than I expected considering such a small quantity of ADY.

Starter
120 g at 100% hydration, 80% AP/20% stoneground rye

Main Dough
240 g bread flour
100 g stoneground whole wheat flour
20 g stoneground rye flour   
240 g water at 85F
8 g kosher salt
All of starter
1/8 tsp ADY

The rains have returned for a while with about 2" total over the past week and more expected by tomorrow morning. It could be just my imagination but it seems that there are lot more insects out there right now. The garden plants have new vigor and its good thing because the weeds seem to have the same enthusiasm for growth.

The cucumber in the first picture is a variety that some in the area call an English cucumber. They're long and skinny and not my favorite but acceptable. I do have some of my favorites, Marketmore 76, available now as well. That tomato is a "Whopper Improved", one of three favorite tomatoes.

Today's guest of note on my blog is a viewer from Denmark.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.

Using Leftovers

I did manage to successfully rebuild my starter after two a day refreshments for three days in a row. It's now reasonably vigorous for something kept in a refrigerator. The process did leave me with a lot of discarded starter that I refused to dump down the disposal or put in the compost bin. The thought of wasting 200 g of starter didn't sit well with me so I applied the discard to making some bolilos, a type of Mexican enriched roll.


The process started by building a large quantity of starter to 70%. I then mixed that with an autolysed dough, followed with olive oil, brown sugar, and salt. Not necessarily authentic but good enough for a raggedy home baker. The four rolls were scaled out to around 215 g or so.

The sesame seeds were on the towel I used for proofing but didn't stick very well. I should have just used an egg white wash and sprinkled the seeds. While I got a decent oven spring, the crumb wasn't very open. The flavor was on the sweet side due to the brown sugar but certainly not offensive. I'm just not someone that goes crazy over rolls. I can appreciate the work involved but my tastes lead me elsewhere.They were a good lesson.

Starter
340 g starter at 70% hydration

Main Dough
300 g bread flour
200 g water at 85F
10 g kosher salt
1 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs brown sugar

The other two loaves are a 33% whole wheat and a 30% whole wheat with extra bran added. The dough is behaving differently in this summer heat so my answer for the next loaf is lower hydration and perhaps smaller in size. I haven't found a brotform smaller than the oval shaped one I've been using for quite a while so I may be adding a sheet of bakers linen to my inventory. As some wit from days past once said, "the only difference between man and boys is the cost of their toys". I suspect that she has been proven right many times over.

The most unexpected guest dropping in on my blog recently was from the island of Guernsey along with other guests from Sweden. S. Korea, and Romania.

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.