Bread Number 82: Patience Saves a Gorgeous Rye

A rye awry?
I made the first version of this somewhat-under 20 percent rye bread a few weeks ago and it turned out perfectly. I did not taste it, but gave it away to my younger daughter when I visited her college town while on a business trip. Into the luggage went a freezer bag with two frozen breads and ice packs. I warned security as I've had issues before flying with large blocks of frozen food. Sounds like a comedy, especially if you are flying with raw ground fish to use for gefilte fish.

Back to the rye: This time, the white flour sponge went well. I mixed the dough; did the stretch and folds, and put the dough in the fridge. The next morning, I expected a buoyant dough, ready, enthusiastic even, to be baked. 

Indeed without looking at the dough, I preheated the oven with the dutch oven inside. But when I retrieved the dough, I stared. Not a good sight. A flat dough. To bake, to return to the fridge for perhaps another day, or to leave out, possibly until the afternoon (this being early morning)? Certainly, awry went the plan to have the bread baked and rested by lunch. Not happening. Hardly risen, definitely not buoyant or enthusiastic.

Rice flour mentioned below. Why you should have it and use it.

Not with a muffin

A muffin, a cake, a cookie, none of them do this to me. You mix, you bake, the same result each time, given equivalent ingredients, of course. Maybe I need to do some muffins for a while. To test whether I want to be a muffin proprietress. Corn, blueberry anyone?

So, I write down the time and muster the patience to wait to see if this dough is a dud or 
whether it wakes up and prepares itself to become a lovely bread.  Not everyone wants to be Cinderella. Happy to say the patience rewarded me with a lovely bread, one the spouse singled out for praise. Of course, with 80-plus percent white bread flour, I feel a bit like I cheated.

Still, excellent taste, pretty crust and crumb, and wonderful breakfasts of slices of bread, butter, and something hot to drink. I actually drink hot water - think tea without the tea bag.

Ingredients - totals
100g starter
400g bread flour
100g rye flour
310g water
10g salt

Sponge
100g starter
200g bread flour
200g water

Mix, cover. I left this out overnight for 9.5 hours and found a bubbly sponge in the morning.

Dough
200g bread flour
100g rye flour
110g water
10g salt - half remainder of the Himalyan mineral salt and half regular kosher salt

I admit that at first I only put in 100 grams of water. This was a watch and wait because the first time I ended up putting in 125 grams of water at this stage. With 100 grams, the dough seemed a bit dry, so I added a bit, 10 grams, and then it was fine. All depends on the hydration percentage of the starter, other ingredients, and humidity. Better to add slowly than to regret.

Patience is a virtue for a reason.

Mix, cover. Do two stretch and folds. Mine were each a half hour wait.

Are you going to rise already?
Patience, like yoga I, is a set of lessons I need constant refreshing in. I put this dough into the freezer overnight. Without looking at it, without even considering to look at it, I put on the oven and popped the dutch oven right in to preheat. Well, 10 hours in the fridge is not nearly sufficient. Dough was expanded about one third of the way, but flat.

Turned off the oven. Rested the dough on the counter. Waited. Peeked at the dough every half hour or so. I left the dough out for 4.5 hours.

Rising nicely, but not there yet, real life demanded my attention. Sunday walk, Sunday artwork, well Sunday. Put the dough back in the fridge at mid-day. Four and a half hours later, after a walk with a friend: Now that's a dough.

Thank goodness for refrigerators
Dough was ready, but lots of oven traffic congestion and I was way back in the line. Spousal cooking. On the plus side, the oven would be nice and almost sufficiently hot without an extra hour to heat up the oven. Nice spouse allowed me to steal the lower rack to let the dutch oven just sit in the oven as it heated from zero (well, unheated) to fully hot.

After dinner, with 20 minutes to  allow the oven to fully heat up, oven ready. By this time, dough had been in the fridge for another 7.3 hours. Total times below.

Sponge - rest time 9.5 hours

Dough - two stretch and folds, each separated by .5 hour

Dough fermentation - total fridge time of 17.3 hours, counter time of 4.5 hours

Baking preparation - don;t forget those oven mitts
Oven preheated, with dutch oven inside, to 470 degrees for an hour or the equivalent thereof. (I have a law degree and therefore am entitled to use such words as thereof, wherefore, etc.) 

Now for the dance and the extra mental care to remember to don oven mitts at the appropriate time. Also tidbits on an essential tool - rice flour.

1. Have ready: Dough slasher - lame, some water in a cup or bowl, a pastry brush or equivalent, rice flour, caraway seeds (because this is a rye bread, which means I'm wanting those seeds on top even though I completely forgot to mix any into the dough).

2. Sprinkle some rice flour on a board or on the counter. Rice flour is grittier than all-purpose flour, so it is better at preventing sticking of dough.

3. Take dough out of fridge. Quickly, sprinkle a little all purpose flour on and underneath dough so that you can gently lift it out of the bowl. Then, on the rice-flour-covered board, in less than 30 seconds, shape the dough.

4. Quickly - that's the theme - sprinkle water on top of the dough, generously sprinkle on those caraway seeds, and do a cross slash (or fancy design, up to you).

5. Quickly - oven mitts on your hands, open oven, uncover dutch oven, and - yes, quickly - spoon out a nice amount of rice flour to cover bottom of the dutch oven. This will prevent sticking.

6. Plop the dough into bottom of dutch oven.

7. Turn around, put oven mitts back on.

8. Cover dutch oven and close oven.

9. Remember to put on timer for when you want to check the dough. 

10. Congratulate yourself that once again you donned the oven mitts at the appropriate times and saved yourself from a burn. I actually bought super-duper - up to 600 degrees - oven mitts because the heat went through my normal cute oven mitts.

11. Wait

And the reveal
Lovely oven spring. That white flour knows how to promote a rise. Seductive,gorgeous, but not as good for you as a sensible majority whole grain. Total baking time of 49 minutes, though only 44 minutes the first time. 

Excellent taste, winning spousal praise. Makes a wonderful breakfast.

Intimate Look at Steam in the Oven

See postscript below for additional suggestions from freshloaf members.

Last night, I ruined a perfectly good dough, a dough waiting to turn into a beautiful bread, by forgetting to provide steam. The bread turned out flat and sad, like an emoticon in gray with a frown and tired eyes. This was a valuable lesson because it is pretty simple to make sure that the oven has steam, in fact, steam sufficient to fool your dough into feeling like it is baking in a professional oven or even a backyard brick oven or in an oven reminiscent of the Roman ovens.

This can get expensive. Easier strategies involve some money, but there are alternatives.

Foundation
Buy a baking stone or use oven-safe tiles to put the dough (or parchment paper) on. I have heard of using a baking sheet, preferably with parchment paper, but my breads improved significantly when I started using a baking stone. The bottoms of your breads will be equivalent to that produced by the best bakeries.

Perhaps this did not fit in a "steam" essay, but it has to do with crust and, further, what will go on the stone, if anything. I consider a baking stone a must. It needs little cleaning and no other maintenance. Just preheat before baking and keep it in the oven until it cools down. I generally just leave mine in.

Easiest
Pay the money, about $60, and buy a la cloche. The Wild Yeast blog has instructions to make a DIY la cloche top that will cost a lot less than buying one. Advantage: You get a Roman oven within your oven. The clay bell-shaped contraption covers the dough and becomes a small enough oven that the moisture from the one dough is sufficient for nice oven spring. Disadvantage: Only one bread at a time can be baked, versus maybe two to four without such a space-consuming accouterment. The DIY la cloche mentioned above is small enough for two to fit on an oven rack.

I just use the top of the la cloche over the baking stone. The exception is that I sometimes use an oblong la cloche, the top of which also works well over loaf pans to ensure that sandwich breads get a good rise as well.

Dutch ovens
As far as steam, dutch ovens do the same thing as the la cloche. They create a small oven within the oven and use the moisture from the dough to produce oven spring during the first 10 minutes of baking. Four caveats: (1) Check the maximum oven temperature for the dutch oven. Mine has a maximum of 475 degrees, but cast iron ones can go higher. (2) Aim seems to be everything: The dough has to be dropped into an incredibly hot receptacle. I have done terribly at this, getting my dough all over the side of the dutch oven, and somehow the breads and their shapes turned out fine. (3) Put flour, seeds, and/or parchment paper at the bottom of the dough so that it does not get stuck in the dutch oven. If it does, wait a few hours for the dutch oven to cool before fighting to liberate the bread. (4) Be careful. The dutch oven gets way hotter than anything else I've put into my oven at the same temperature. I use an oven mitt and a kitchen towel when handling it. Stay calm, breath, and be confident.

The dutch oven produces magnificent results in turns of steam. It retains heat like nobody's business and, in a very small space, efficiently converts moisture to steam to get a rise out of a dough while it turns into a bread. The only disadvantages are the intense heat and the spacial aspect as only one bread at a time can be baked.

Ice or water
Most bread books recommend that either ice or water be used to produce steam in the oven for those first crucial 10 minutes of bread baking. The advice will be to put a pan on the lower rack, underneath the baking stone. Preheat the pan with the oven before baking. I always preheat for an hour to make sure everything I am using - whether a baking stone, a dutch oven, or whatever - is sufficiently hot when the dough goes in the oven.

Immediately after placing the dough on the baking stone, pour a cup of water or ice cubes into the pan. Quickly close the oven door!!! The quicker the H2O is poured and the oven door is closed, the more steam that stays inside the oven and the more steam available to the dough for a lovely oven spring burst of rising.

Beware
The advantage of ice is that it is a solid and easier to throw quickly into the pan. It also will not turn to steam - in your face - as quickly. Water can drip. Be VERY careful not to let the water drip onto the oven door because it can crack the glass. Also, the steam from the water can be dangerously hot. These are the reasons why I have only used ice cubes, which, by the way, work quite well.

Rocks
Disclaimer: I have not tried this. Just intrigued. Many sources recommend preheating lava rocks, the kind used for barbecue, in a pan. They are available at local hardware stores or Home Depot. Pouring water over the rocks just after putting the dough in the oven provides sauna-quality steam. Some recommend pouring a cup of water right before loading the dough as well. Just google "lava rocks bread" and plenty of information will appear at your fingertips.

Dont' cry; eat
The ending to the ruined bread story is a happy one. The freshly ground whole wheat flour infused the bread that hardly rose with such a good taste that I enjoyed the bread and learned my lesson. The bread was dense and not very pretty, but delicious. 

P.S. Suggestions from the freshloaf that I have not yet tried - go at your own risk
These are quotes from a freshloaf (bread forum) conversation.

Steamed towel strategy - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20162/oven-steaming-my-new-favorite-way   I can get an oven fully steamed five minutes before the bread goes in and then only need to add 1/2 cup of very hot water to the pan once the bread is loaded onto the baking steel.  The time the oven door is open is minimal and I don't have to remove a heavy, hot cast iron skillet full of lava rocks after the first part of the bake.

I wonder at the safety of putting towels, wet or otherwise, into a hot oven, but there are a few people who have tried this method and they have lived to proclaim its wonders.

Another hot-water-in-the-oven strategy - I find it helpful to preheat the water for two minutes in a Pyrex vessel in a microwave oven before putting it in the oven. It then turns to steam more quickly.

Using an aluminum roasting pan - Inverting an aluminum turkey roasting pan over the loaf "on the stone" with parchment underneath will yield perfect steam results every time (the baking bread creates its own steam).

Spritz the inside of the roasting pan with water before inverting over the loaf - bake the loaf for 10-15 minutes before removing to allow the crust to brown. Cheap roasting pans that come three or four-to-a-pack work great and they're reusable. Center it on the loaf and pooch up the middle of the roaster a bit if your loaf has that much spring (make sure the rim still sits flat on the baking stone's surface).
Wild-Yeast  

I love this idea; it's cheap, easy, and requires no hot water or heavy equipment. Plus, unlike my la cloche, with its two long, thin cracks, the roasting pan can be replaced for very little cost and will not fall apart when it goes quickly from hot oven to cold kitchen. Cheap and effective go well together.

Bread Number 76: Proof of a Bread Divinity

There are at least two gods, or one with two priorities: bread and parallel parking. If the mishap of getting my dough into the dutch oven this time could result in anything other than disaster, then there are surely mysterious forces at play in the universe. The same for the occasional miracle of successful parallel parking at times when there is no avoiding it. (By the way, when we get driverless vehicles and human parallel parking becomes an event in the Olympics, my husband will be the first U.S. gold medal winner. New York's Upper West Side's challenging parking situation was not only made for him, he relishes it. I think that is why he actually likes to take the car when we visit the city, because DC and its environs provides little in the way of parking challenges at his high level.)

I know, there is starvation, war, sexual assault, child abuse, poverty, and all manner of horrors in the world, so why should divine forces care about bread and parking? We are made in G-d's image, or we made gods in our own image, so our own superficialities and cares are reflected right back. Seriously, I often wonder, and I did yesterday with the disastrous transfer of dough to dutch oven (disastrous until I saw the miraculous result), why I care so much how each bread comes out. But I do care in the same way as when I paint or draw or do a collage. There's something about babying, if you will, a creation. Just like with children or sourdough starter, though, one is never actually in control, but really a part of helping another being (or, with starter, many one-celled beings) realize its own potential.

And with bread, you get to eat the realized potential. That photograph of bread #76 is worth some number of words and shows a bite-worthy bread as well.

Speaking of gods
I was reading about the mentor of a few famous bakers, the one Dave Miller of Chico, California, and for this bread I followed a recipe of his 100 percent whole wheat bread at 104 percent hydration. I followed the recipe and it went okay, with a small loaf of dough that was so un-shapeable that I made it in a loaf pan. See photo below.

More information about Dave Miller's baking and his website.

Could be that I misinterpreted the recipe, hence the mediocre results. The second time, however, I doubled the recipe and I got great results by heeding the hydration percentage, following some parts of the recipe, and wholly adhering to the spirit of how those 100 percent whole wheat breads are achieved.

Recipe

Ingredients
520g water
500g whole wheat flour
20g starter (details below on the small amount)
10g salt

The recipe called for an autolyse of 30 minutes with just the flour and water. Mix thoroughly and cover. This produced a nice, strong pre-dough. I then incorporated the starter and the salt. Despite instructions to add almost five times as much starter, I wanted the dough to rise overnight and the very warm evening could mean too rapid a rise with the suggested amount. The much-reduced starter amount worked well.

After mixing the dough, I let the dough rest, covered, for 20 minutes and did three stretch and folds, each 20 minutes apart. The dough was strong, and very elastic, no doubt due to the high hydration percentage. It was not, however, especially sticky, though I did wet my hands before doing each stretch and fold.

How did the dough wake up in the morning?
The kitchen cooled off by about 12 degrees overnight, from the low 80s Fahrenheit to approximately 70 degrees. The nice thing about warm spring evenings is that the heat does not last all night. I woke up at the perfect time, the dough having sat out for nine hours and allowing me to sleep past 6:30 and to heed the not-before-5-a.m. rule. Sometimes it is impossible to sleep when I am so tempted to peek at a dough. Again, the reason for only 20 grams of starter, low enough, given the temperature, that I would not be anxious to check that the dough was ready in the middle of the night.

The dough was perfectly puffy, but not out of control.

I wet my hands and sprinkled plenty of flour on a cutting board for a stretch and fold. Left the dough covered for 15 minutes and then tried to shape it. Shaping is not the word for manipulating 104 percent hydration dough. It does not keep any form without some structure holding it up, such as a bowl or a loaf pan.

Heavy bowl mistake
I admit I was afraid to put this dough, wet as it was, on a well-floured towel in a basket. I thought the dough would get stuck even with tons of flour. So, I used non-stick spray and flour in a heavy bowl. Lots of flour.  Covered the bowl with a shower cap, which works perfectly, a genius idea that I did not come up with on my own.

I preheated the oven for one hour to 475 degrees with the dutch oven inside. With such a high hydration percentage, a good 25 percent over what I usually work with, I figured the super-hot dutch oven would be the best vessel for baking. I let the dough rest for that same hour. Perfect.

Messy transfer
So, there I am with the oven door open, 475 degrees of heat blasting in my face, the wire rack holding the now open dutch oven pulled out to the maximum extent feasible, and I'm holding the heavy bowl with the dough. I even have the lame out to score the dough once it goes into the dutch oven. Then I have to position the bowl so that the dough is aimed correctly to fall right into the dutch oven.

That part did not go well. I'm not proud of my use of profanity in this situation. I screamed SHIT! about 10 times, which would be during the misfire of the dough onto the top and side of the open dutch oven - and a few shout outs directly thereafter. Despite this clear sign of disaster, I put the lid on and said shit a couple more times. 

It's only bread; it's only bread

After shouting, then mumbling, that same expletive several times, the thought floated across my mind that my mantra is it's only bread, which means failure is no big deal. Some deep breaths and some it's-only-bread repetitions later, I was not exactly in my happy place, but I had some perspective.

And here's the part that proves there is either a bread god or that the one divine being cares about bread. Checking on the bread 43 minutes after the awkward transfer of the dough, I saw an almost-done gorgeous bread. Six minutes later, absolutely beautiful, I removed the bread from the oven. It slid right out of the dutch oven; it crackled; it practically had movie music playing right out of the crust. Total baking time at 475 degrees was 49 minutes. Only 49 minutes for the deity to transform disaster into a perfect bread.

Amazing and ...
Amazed. A very good taste. Oh there is a but. This bread screams out to be made with better whole wheat flour. Someone in the household purchased a rather generic brand of whole wheat (maybe me) and this 100 percent whole wheat needs a better flour.

Bread Number 72 - Perfect Crust and 2/3 to 108

Probably my best crust ever and a wonderful bread. I feel like I've made this before, but not a completely no-knead 40 percent whole wheat. Here's my post-Passover quest (one of a few): returning to higher percentages, perhaps even completely, whole grain breads.

Seduction
I've been seduced by white flour, to be sure. Who would not be? That color in the bread, that spectacular oven spring, those crusts. It's addictive in its own way. 

Plus, when one buys a whole grain flour from a grocery shelf - even at Whole Foods or a food coop - who knows how long that flour has sat in its bag each step of the way or how long it has remained in that same spot on the shelf before one buys it. I keep the whole grain flours in my freezer, but I wonder whether I am getting anywhere near the taste and freshness I should if it has spent days, or, more likely, weeks, at room temperature before I use it in a dough. This is another post-spring cleaning and post-Passover quest, to do a little investigation of how long these flours take from grinding to sale.

Parenthetical
(If I declare these quests out loud here, then I feel a bit more confident that I will actually follow through. Yes, and also pushing off until after Passover visiting the local bakeries on my short list. Add to that the updating of my bread spreadsheet, which actually is a big aid in keeping track of what happened with each bread and which ones I want to repeat.)

Adapted=more hydration

Because I wanted to use a significant amount of whole wheat flour, I added additional water to the dough. The original recipe, I believe, was only 350 grams of water, but that was for an entirely white flour bread. The whole wheat flour is more thirsty. So 76 percent hydration instead of 70 percent. 

The recipe is an adaptation of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's recipe on Serious Eats, for which he is the managing culinary director, a job I could never hold, for too many reasons to list.  

Ingredients
380g water
20g starter
300g bread flour
200g whole wheat flour
9.5g salt

Day one
Late afternoon, mixed all ingredients together thoroughly and covered. No kneading, no stretch and folds. Just waiting. Right after mixing, of course, I think it would have been nice to have done a soaker with the whole wheat flour.

Day two
The dough has sat out for 21.5 hours, some in a cool kitchen, but not freezing winter cold, and some in a warm daytime kitchen. Dough pretty puffy. I put the dough in the fridge.

Day three - All day in the fridge. Real life delays dough-related tasks.

Day four
Baking day! Preheated oven, with dutch oven inside, to 475 degrees for one hour. Wary of heating oven to 500 with dutch oven after disaster of last loaf and bread entirely stuck. Right before baking, I removed dough from fridge, shaped, sprinkled flour on bottom and flaxseed meal on top (did not weigh any of that). Did a couple of slashes on top.

Removed lid of dutch oven at 30 minutes. Total baking time of 52 minutes, amply demonstrating my patience, admittedly won with the use of the internal thermometer. To my credit, however, I am checking the temperature of the bread much less often, thereby reducing loss of heat from an open oven door for a minute or so. 

Gorgeous, a little burnt on top, but a marvelous crust. A great taste and an easy bread that I shared with my writers' group. Definitely, a yummm .... mmy on this one.

Deserves a couple of extra photos

2/3 to 108
Number 72 is two-thirds of the way to 108. Too busy to celebrate at the moment. That goes on the post-Passover list as well. At the beginning, I could not imagine getting this far; so very committed of me. 

Okay, in case I'm getting cocky, I now have a beer bread dough that is supposed to be rising on the counter that is not actually rising. It's for my daughter to take back to school, but I think the dough's lack of activity is a pre-Passover message to cease with the dough obsession and to finish the spring cleaning. 

Bread Number 69: Outstanding Bread, Clumsy Position (in Dutch Oven)

I figured out this weekend that I hate parties. I like the idea of a party, but once I arrive the whole gathering is just people standing around talking, often in a crowded, noisy space. I'd rather be talking to the same people without the party. Or I could be home looking at a dough, painting  or studying. In fact, I find more and more that I value my time alone. I'm living so much of my life in my closet, doing my artwork and studying there, including much of the writing of this blog. Ha, ha, yes, literally in the closet, though actually a tiny room.

One wet bread 
At one percent below 80 percent hydration, this was one wet dough; given the number of the bread - 69, there is no minimum to the mileage on the double entendres. The position referred to in the title of this post has nothing to do with sex; it's the unlikely placement of the dough - super wet - in the Dutch oven. I was glad, frankly, to get it in there at all. 

In this dough are an arbitrary mix of different flours, mixed in intentional proportions - teff and coconut flours, whole wheat flour and bread flour. I used the cold of the kitchen to extend the sponge phase. I also did a soaker for a few hours before mixing it into the sponge, a pretty wet sponge. I used so much bread flour because the last bread bothered me with its lack of oven spring. And the oven spring here was divine. That white flour, darn it, can't be beat in this respect. 

Ingredients
By the way, all of these unusual flours, as well as the whole wheat flour, I keep in the freezer to preserve freshness. I'm still thinking of a way to get fresh, local grain to grind myself, but I'm not there yet. Except for the fresh-ground flour guy at a different farmers market downtown DC, I have no connection to the local grain scene, if there is indeed one at all.

24 percent whole grain.
79 percent hydration - calculating with the hydration percentage of my starter, such as I guess it is. I almost never measure what goes into the starter.

Soaker
50g teff flour
20g coconut flour
90g water

Mix and cover. I waited 3.5 hours, but this could have sat overnight.

Sponge
Soaker
114g water
73g starter
58g bread flour

Mix and cover. I let this sponge rest for 17.5 hours because the cold kitchen overnight meant activity in the sponge came to a standstill. It waited for the heat to be turned on in the morning to become exuberantly bubbly, with larger bubbles than I usually see in a preferment. Three hours of warm kitchen air did the trick.

Dough
Sponge
218g water
336g bread flour
70g whole wheat flour
10g salt

The mixing took quite a while as I added little bits of more flour to decrease the mushy, wet texture of the emerging dough. 

Total ingredients
50g teff flour
20g coconut flour
394g bread flour
70g whole wheat flour
73g starter
422g water
10g salt

Mix and cover the dough. I did three stretch and folds in the first 90 minutes - at 45 minutes, 60 minutes and at 80 minutes. Now, with such a wet dough, the stretch and fold will be less doughy than with a less hydrated dough. Also, remember to wet your hands before manipulating this dough so that it will not stick to your hands. 

I let the dough sit for three hours in a warm kitchen, maybe 70 degrees. As this bread was being made by feel, pretty much, I looked at that dough quite frequently, staring at it, pondering whether to hold tight or move on.

Pause- advice for when you're in New York
Not sure why it felt important to get this bread done by evening when New York bagels were coming home via my husband's trip there. You can't buy just enough bagels. No, buy a dozen - make that a baker's dozen - and then freeze them. But the real reason to buy a bagel is to make a delicious platform for fish so sublime you will groan when you eat it. I'm not kidding, we actually scream out, exiled New Yorkers that we are, about how good it is.

First, a schmear, a thin layer of cream cheese, followed by red onion pieces flattened. Then the fish - some baked salmon (called kippered salmon in DC); be generous; followed by thin, translucent, freshly sliced nova lox. Do not buy anything packaged or even sliced that morning. That is not fresh. That is a reason to give a dirty look, as in are you kidding me? That's so far from fresh it does not dignify an explanation.

No, go to a place where they slice in front of you and so thinly that you have pantyhose thicker, definitely tights, than what is being cut. While you eat, appreciate, and keep munching between bites on tastes of the baked salmon without any embellishment, just on a fork, or, really, on your finger. If you are lucky, very lucky, or skilled you will make bread that gives you the same sublime happiness as a nice bagel with lox and baked salmon. Now that is eating.

(If you're a tourist, 72nd Street Bagel, on 72nd between Broadway and Columbus, is very good and close to the park. They'll make something decent for you.)

Baking preparation
The dough rose very nicely in the three hours and with that good puffiness from emerging bubbles, large and small. Did a stretch and fold on a well-floured board and left the dough covered for 15 minutes. It spread. Use plenty of flour, more than usual, for covering hands and board. I'll be repetitive. This is a wet dough.

After 15 minutes, I shaped the dough, though the wetness meant that no shape would be sustained without some structure. I shaped, using more flour for the cutting board, and left the dough covered for another hour. 

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with the dutch oven inside. I figured the dutch oven would give the shape that the dough could not hold on its own. Before putting the dough in, I did the slash while it sat on the board instead of dealing with the intense heat with the oven and dutch oven open. That thing can generate a scary heat.

After plopping the dough in the dutch oven and quickly covering it, I reduced the oven temperature to 460 degrees. That dough plopped on the side of the dutch oven had no shape whatsoever. Worried. I quickly took off to pick up my husband at the local train station, leaving my daughter nominally in charge of the oven situation. This is what cell phones are for. I took the kitchen timer with me, returning with four minutes to spare. Total oven time was 44 minutes, with the last two uncovered. (Oh don't judge that I left a neophyte in charge of the bread. I had two non-negotiable, simultaneous tasks: my husband returning home and my dough ready for the oven. Due to the timer and cell phone, neither had to be sacrificed.)

One nice bread

Lovely oven spring. Gorgeous crust. I did not listen because we were in a rush to eat the bagels and the lox sliced by my favorite Zabar's guy. The next morning, I had my favorite day-off breakfast of hot water and buttered bread (okay, I do that at the office as well). OMG great! The crust had almost a malted taste and such crunchy crust. Sublime. Can't wait to eat more. (No comments from the peanut gallery about how my favorite breakfast is dangerously close to prison food).

P.S. A second try at this bread almost resulted in disaster. I did the final stretch and fold, shaping, and final rise on wet surfaces, which went quite well, only to have the bread stuck to the bottom of the dutch oven at the end of baking. Fortunately, a couple of bread buddies on the freshloaf forum offered suggestions. After I followed their directions and loosened the bread (I'm not backing away from that position), my husband came along and swiftly liberated the loaf. I also did a long autolyse and a longer soak. Have to say, not my favorite combination of grains, but solidly good. Did not feel OMG great this time, perhaps due to fear that this bread almost did not make it unscathed out of the dutch oven.

Bread Number 62: Amazingly Delicious 80% Whole Wheat

Tried not to buy more stuff
I don't want more kitchen stuff, whether appliances or cookware. I don't even have anything larger than a tiny hand mixer I received as a holiday gift about 15 years ago. No bannetons, no proofing boxes. Not a saint, though. I cannot exist in the kitchen without my pretty dough bowl and Danish whisk. Yes, and two la cloches, round and oblong. And a baking stone. Those are necessities.

I finally broke down and purchased a dutch oven. I kept hearing about how wonderful dutch oven breads are and I had to find out for myself. Plus, I rationalized, a dutch oven is a versatile tool and useful beyond baking. I bought the Emile Henry from breadtopia because it is lighter than cast iron and it was on sale, with a bonus of a cyber Monday deal.

Dutch oven delivers on first try with farmers market whole wheat
The dutch oven was magical right out of the box. I am sure it helped to use good, freshly milled flour that I froze recently right after purchase at a farmers market. I'm sure I benefited from tweaking an already good recipe. I am sure the decision to leave the bread baking uncovered for the last 11 minutes - which produced a divine crust that would tempt any immortal to come to earth just for a bite - made a big contribution to the overall taste. 

Still, this 80 percent whole wheat bread is so good I am actually daydreaming about returning home right now to eat more. How good? OMG amazing. 

This is my best bread in a while. I suspected that I had become so accustomed to good breads that nothing could taste exciting anymore. A nice byproduct of the 108 quest is that I am forcing myself to try new methods, flours, equipment and ingredients. I am thankful for making the choice to bake so many new breads and for the mouth-watering surprises along the way. Even thankful for the mistakes. (The blue cornbread rolls come immediately to mind.)

Total Ingredients
84g starter at 65 percent hydration
334g water
440g whole wheat flour freshly milled, bought the next day at the farmers market and frozen for the past two weeks
68g bread flour
10g salt
 
Day 1

Sponge 
84g starter
200g water
200g whole wheat flour described above

Mixed the sponge ingredients well and covered. Put in fridge overnight.

Odd amount of starter was due to the fact that I was getting so low that I was starting to scrape the bottom of the starter jar. I made due with less starter and added a bit more flour and water to the final dough. I did not really have to add more time to the sponge stage - on day 2 - because the kitchen warmth made up for the slightly less than 100 grams of starter I would normally have put in.

Day 2

Dough
sponge
134g water
240g whole wheat flour described above
68g bread flour
10g salt

Day 2 morning - Go to the refrigerator. Take out the sponge and leave out all day on the kitchen counter. I have done this in all seasons. Just make sure the kitchen is not cold all day. In the summer, I put the sponge in the basement so it will not be in a hot, humid kitchen for hours.

Day 2 evening - Mix the sponge and the final dough ingredients. Cover and let rest on the kitchen counter. Do four stretch and folds over the next hour to hour and a half. I usually do one about every 15 minutes. Afterward, shape the dough, cover, and put in the fridge for the next 18 to 30 hours. Generally, I am in the 22 to 24 hour range.

I did end up adding some extra water right after mixing the dough, which is reflected in the amounts listed above, but nowhere near where I thought this dough would need considering that it was 80 percent whole wheat. Not sure if this was a weird batch of whole wheat flour or particular to the local wheat that was grown.

This time around I was very happy with the dough strength. Much better than bread #61.

Day 3
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees because the dutch oven instructions said it was good up to 480 degrees. Let the dutch oven and the oven itself heat up for an hour prior to baking.

Open hot oven. Use oven mitts and pot holders to remove amazingly hot dutch oven cover. Dump dough into the hot dutch oven and quickly do a nice slash (or design) on the lid of the dough. Remember to put back on the mitts and use those pot holders to replace the still burning hot lid. Close the oven and pray. I prayed hard because my aim was not perfect and the dough was plopped against one side of the dutch oven.

I put the timer on for a half hour. 

Tick tock, tick tock.

Remove the lid of the dutch oven. Be careful; it's very hot. Leave in for 10 to 15 minutes more. Mine took 11 minutes and I used my thermometer to get the internal temperature to make sure the bread was ready. It fell right out of the dutch oven when I turned it over. As I let the bread cool, I could hear those little crinkly sounds coming from it.

Total baking time: 41 minutes. What a beautiful bread. 

Day 4
Ate slices of the bread the next morning for breakfast. OMG amazing! Possibly the best - or near to it - bread I have ever made. What a great decision to remove the lid. I have not done this enough lately. The crust developed so nicely. Incredible taste. Really magnificent, especially considering how this is an 80 percent whole wheat bread.

Later in the week
I have eaten the bread for breakfast ever since baking it. 

This bread is the reason for homemade anything: to make something wonderful from scratch, to watch the raw ingredients transform and to taste the incredible results. To think that my starter, some local grain, water, and a bit of salt came together for this luscious treat. I feel proud that I had a hand in it and that I get to be one of the lucky few to eat it.