It is true that I am unable to follow anyone else's recipe except for my sister's challah recipe. Bread #95 bread is roughly the Reinhart recipe of a 100 percent whole wheat sandwich bread, but with the significant differences of using sourdough starter and changing the timing due to real-life needs to leave the house and to sleep occasionally. I've now made it twice and it had lovely oven spring each time. The first try was immediately frozen for offspring to eat healthy-bread-from-Mom.
I managed to make multiple breads for the offspring before they left the nest following their winter vacations. I have also discovered another local bread soulmate, who has furnished me with some challah recipes, one sourdough, and what looks like a nice rye.
Not a quick bread
This bread is at least a two-day affair because it involves a soaker, a biga, and running out to the store for yogurt when you find that you ran out. A biga is basically a dough-like pre-dough, more solid than a sponge, and a soaker allows flour to sit in a moistened state, with some salt, anywhere from overnight to a few days. This is similar to an autolyse, except for the much longer duration and the salt. I used a full-fat yogurt with part of the layer of cream that sits on top. It's also grass-fed and I am sure the happy cows were well brought up and were educated at highly-esteemed cow/cattle institutions of higher bovine learning. (You need to watch the early Portlandia episode to get that joke completely.)
Ingredients and instructions
Soaker
226g whole wheat flour
5g salt
198g yogurt (mine was not watery)
Mix well and do not add water, milk, or more yogurt until finished mixing. This pre-dough will appear dry, but do not worry, the liquid is most likely sufficient. Cover bowl after mixing and leave on counter. I left mine out for almost nine hours, but you have up to 24 according to Reinhart's recipe.
Biga
229g whole wheat flour
100g starter (mine is part whole wheat at this point)
160g water
Mix and cover. The instructions call for a prolonged refrigeration, but I wanted it to proceed that evening, so I only put it in the fridge for about five hours and then left it on the counter in a warm kitchen for another two.
Dough
Soaker
Biga
14g coconut oil - melted (Trust me, I did not melt it the first time and the second try went much better.)
10g honey
6g salt
I mixed and then let the dough sit for five minutes, at which point I kneaded for two minutes and did a stretch and fold. I have little patience for kneading. Perhaps I have to listen to better music or have something to watch on TV. I did three more stretch and folds at half hour intervals. Then, the hour being late, I covered the dough and put it in the fridge for 23 hours.
Baking preparation
FYI: This bread gets baked at a rather low temperature and takes relatively long to bake. Preheat the oven to only 425 degrees. I preheated with the oblong la cloche inside so that I could get a longer, thinner shape, though not nearly a baguette.
I also have been trying putting rice flour inside BEFORE preheating. This accomplishes two things, but heed the warning that follows.
1. Less heat loss when putting in dough.
2. Less time standing in front of hot oven.
BUT - here is the warning:
When opening the la cloche, stand back because the slightly baked or burnt rice flour can sometimes be smoky and cause your eyes to tear. This did not happen with the oven on this relatively low temperature, but I have experienced that when the oven is hotter.
Sprinkle the counter with rice flour. Right before baking, take the dough out of the fridge and shape into an oblong loaf on top of the rice flour counter area. This is very easy with a cold dough, plus the rice flour gives more anti-sticking protection for your dough. If you have ever been unable to get a dough out of a la cloche, a Dutch oven, or other contraption, you know what a desperate situation it is to look at a beautifully risen loaf and be afraid it will be ruined because it is stuck to whatever you baked it in.
Sprinkle the top of the dough with water. I did not use seeds on top, but go ahead, it would be great. Do a few slashes, maybe four or five, and then put that baby inside the la cloche or whatever and bake.
Baking and voila
After putting dough in, reduce oven temperature immediately to 350 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes and turn around la cloche. Do NOT open it. Let that hot air and steam stay inside. Total baking time 50 minutes. Perfect. I love it when I guess the timing exactly right. So proud.
Beautiful oven spring! Taste: Mixed voting here. I really like this one; it's a good basic bread either for sandwiches (because the yogurt softens the dough and makes the bread easy to cut) or for just some bread and butter. Perfectly lovely addition to the bread repertoire. However, a spoiled family member, whose tastes run to a strong preference for rye breads and now breads with rosemary (with a decided dislike for spelt), found this bread eh, as in average, okay, but definitely edible as he has managed to voluntarily eat it a number of times and without complaint.
Now there are two proofs that a divine presence exists in the universe: (1) I have parallel parked (seldom, but it has happened), and (2) a glob of a dough turned into an amazing bread.
I remade bread #76 with changes, making it larger and with some fresh rosemary. I have been working for so long with my standard recipe, with slight variations, that I had forgotten what it is like to babysit a dough and not know when it will be ready. Felt like the parent of a newborn.
Autolyse
501g whole wheat flour
523g water
Mix, cover and let rest for 20 minutes.
Dough
autolyse
100g starter
1g fresh rosemary
11g salt
104 percent hydration makes for a dough, but a wet one.
Let rest for 20 minutes and tried to do two stretch and folds, each 20 minutes apart. Actually ended up kneading for about a minute each time. Let rest to rise, covered, of course.
Anxiety and time pressure
At 3.5 hours I did a slight mix/knead because some liquid had pooled slightly around the edges. At 6.66 hours, the volume of the dough was looking good, much expanded, but not popping of a few large bubbles - think pizza, not sponge or starter bubbles.
Math skills off: I thought I had nine hours to let dough rest, but I had only seven, and dough was being prepared for New Year's Eve dinner party for which husband was whipping up a storm of impressive appetizers, soup, and many dishes. On the plus side, the dough smells heavenly with the freshly ground wheat flour mixed in with the rosemary. Love that fresh rosemary right off the backyard plant. You have to love a plant that thrives without any maintenance whatsoever.
So, at 6.8 hours, did a stretch and fold, though not sure at 104 percent hydration, with wet hands and a goopy, though cohesive, dough, whether one can actually call what I did a stretch and fold.
Moving on blindly
Now we go into uncharted territory.
Toping ingredients:
rice flour
sesame seeds
ground flaxseed (not flaxseed meal)
Start with rice flour and sprinkle generously into a bowl. Rice flour is between you and sticky disaster of a dough that will not come out of the bowl. Then follow with sesame seeds and ground flaxseed. These will add to taste and look lovely. Cover bowl with plastic, beeswax, wet towel, or, in my case, a shower cap that gets reused a million times.
Promise myself NOT to touch dough for 1.25 hours.
Baking
Because dough is quite wet, I decide to use the Dutch oven. AND sprinkle generously with rice flour before putting Dutch oven in the oven. Why? I have never tried this before. Usually I do my sprinkling, if any, of rice flour over a million-degree oven just before placing the dough inside and the Dutch oven gets particularly hot and scary. But I'm in an experimental, though anxious, mood. I know the rice flour will burn, but maybe it will work and save a good 30 seconds of accumulated heat when I plop that dough in the awesomely hot Dutch oven in an hour.
Preheat oven to 480 degrees with Dutch oven - and its rice flour - inside. Wait for an hour.
1. Grammatical tense agreement, as you see, has gone out the window.
2. More anxiety to follow.
I am anxious because I did the rice flour thing in the dough bowl instead of spraying or wiping it with oil. I could have put on sesame seeds and flaxseeds just before baking. Will the dough stick to the bowl like the gloopy mess it could be and not even make it into the oven? What was I thinking? And will the burned rice flour at the bottom of the Dutch oven ruin whatever chances of a good bread?
For the hour of anxiety I do KP duty and attempt to keep up with cleaning of bowls, measuring cups, and other accoutrements of husband's prolific cooking. This will end up making no difference as the next morning I clean up for three hours, which had been preceded by three minutes of wondering how to start and thoughts of never again having a clean kitchen. I must say that the water in the sink the next morning was about as dirty and greasy as an environmentally toxic disaster area.
In theory
Experimentation, innovation, all wonderful in theory, but not safe and when compared to the recipe followers of this world with their known outcomes and their accomplishments of set goals time after time, one can doubt. In fact, doubt is part of all creativity and seeking really. Certainty keeps one in the same hole. Enough philosophy; back to bread.
I was imagining a messy disaster and felt I was merely going through the motions to see how badly this bread would turn out. It was a mess of a dough - no shape. It could not be placed on the counter, shaped, slashes done on top. No, I plopped it, in the purest sense of the term, quite unglamorously into the bottom - really bottom corner, if a circular-shaped bottom can have a corner - of the Dutch oven. I quickly sprinkled some more ground flaxseed and sesame seeds on top, put the top on the Dutch oven, and prayed, but only briefly because this was not going to turn out well.
Baking results - must peek
Baking time: 45 minutes at 480 degrees, the whole time covered with top of Dutch oven so could not peek.
OMG! Miracle! Show tunes practically blasting in the air, though only I am hearing them. A gorgeous, deep brown bread with perfectly sprinkled organic, artisanal stuff on top. This unattractive, unshapen dough was actually the ugly duckling of a later incredible Cinderella of a bread, a perfect dinner party ooh-it's-beautiful-and-delicious-amazing bread. Resorting to mixing fairy tale metaphors inappropriately. Cinderella was always beautiful; she just needed time off, nicer clothes, and definitely a shower.
Kept eating it the next few days as the husband enjoyed his frozen bagels over the winter break. More bread for me. Incredible and must make again. Perhaps anxiety was key ingredient.
Divine bread making spirit in the universe - only half kidding
Received so much more than I deserved unless bread deity believes, like me, that worrying produces good results. Perhaps a kindred spirit. Deity of bread making clearly was smiling upon me with favor. I felt blessed and relieved that dinner party bread did not turn out to be punishment for experimenting. Grace, gratitude, and selfishness.
Taste: Fantastic, amazing, great. Do not want to share.
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.
