Bread - Number 29: Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Bread - Number 30: Wimpy and confusing

This whole wheat honey molasses bread is an adapted recipe from the Art of Baking with Natural Yeast. A nice taste, but again I find myself contemplating that kneading instruction would be helpful.

Warning: This recipe might be irritating. I converted a non-preferment recipe to make a sponge and then only partially made the switch from volume measurements to weight measurements.

Ingredients in recipe
1 1/4 cups water (I used cold water because my kitchen was very warm)
1/8 cup honey
1/8 cup molasses
3 1/2 to 4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt

Sponge
3 oz. water
4.5 oz. starter
2.5 oz. white whole wheat flour
(Used cold water and little starter to slow down sponge development in a warm summer kitchen)

Dough
Add starter to:
7 oz. water
1/8 cup honey
1/8 cup molasses
3 to 3 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt

Refeeding the sponge
In a very warm, summer kitchen, the sponge was flat at nine hours, so I fed it with part of the upcoming dough ingredients - 2 ounces of water and 2 oz. of flour. The sponge appeared much happier and bubbly afterwards. Otherwise, I would have wasted the sponge.

I also made an autolyse by combining the remaining flour and water and leaving that to sit alone for 20 minutes, lightly covered. I then mixed the rest of the dough ingredients with the autolyse and the sponge.

I allowed the mixed dough to rest for 10 minutes and then kneaded for 10 minutes. Still lack confidence in my kneading. I also wondered whether my months-old white whole wheat flour would perform well. Though the recipe called for a rise of six to 12 hours, mine seemed ready in two - maybe the warm kitchen, maybe a misjudgment, maybe the sponge stage altered the need for a long rise at this stage.

Did a stretch and fold and left the dough loosely covered by plastic on a board for 12 minutes. Put the dough in a non-stick sprayed loafpan for a final rise of two to two and a half hours. At one hour, I preheated the oven to 475 degrees. I used a la cloche over the loafpan and baked the bread for 31 minues.

Unsatisfied with the result. I do not think the dough rose sufficiently and I do not know exactly why. The taste was decent, chewey. This is worth a second try. The post will be updated accordingly.

Bread - Number 28: Summer Heat Calls for Timing and Other Adjustments

Bread - Number 28: Knowing when to stop

Knowing when to stop is critical, not only for lawyers doing cross examination, but in life and bread making. I am not good at this. I continue on long past when the work is complete - with giving my daughters some message, with my crappy art work, and with cooking vegetables. Dough has no flexibility for overdoing. With dough, there is a moment of no return; but no light flashes on to announce when that moment has arrived. So it's guesswork - sometimes educated, sometimes not. Forgiveness for oneself must be learned, fermented, as it were, because for the casual amateur baker, mistakes will happen, attempts at something or other will not turn out well, and one has to be willing to be patient with one's imperfections.

I have to learn to adjust my recipes for an 80-to-90 degree kitchen. The sponges and dough seem to rise literally twice as fast as in a winter or spring kitchen and I should be employing only half as much starter. This, of course, has yet to happen. Instead, the alarm of a sense in the middle of the night that a sponge or dough has risen sufficiently - and is on the verge of an over rise - wakes me up, sending me to the kitchen.

Later ...
As it turned out, one white bread is merely one bread and does not begin to pierce the surface of possibilities. This particular white bread, speckled with bran flakes, is adjusted from Laura Chattman's book, Breadmaking: Crafting the Perfect Loaf from Crust to Crumb. I have yet to finish the book, but I will say that Chattman gives simple, comprehensible explanations and goes into depth on types of preferments, starters, and breads. She starts with basic, commercial yeast, mix-the-dough recipes and proceeds pretty far down the road. The book, however, goes far afield with flat breads and breads from several countries. I am not a big fan of the "everything bread in one book approach," but I like her accessible attitude.

This bread was made in between two crumb cakes, which my family calls my signature recipe. (They are brutally honest and do not request my pies.) So, with the distraction of the Fourth of July, family in town, and other baking, I made this bread twice. The first time, the bottom came out burned - due to an error in oven temperature - but with a good taste.

Please note that my recipe is two thirds of the original, which is almost a giant bread (or, in fancy terms, a miche.)

Instructions 

Sponge
1.5 oz. starter
1.6 oz. water
2.4 oz. bread flour
.2 oz. rye flour

Hot kitchen: Disaster averted via refeed of sponge
This sponge is supposed to take from eight to 12 hours to fully rise. In a very warm kitchen, the timing was five and a half hours. I should have added half of the starter and I might do this on a third try. To avert disaster on the first attempt at this bread, after allowing the sponge to sit overnight for eight hours, I just added a small - proportioned - feeding, with time for the new sponge to rise. Remembering that a sponge is merely a fed starter, I took the "feeding" amount out of the later dough ingredients. This worked perfectly. [Photo of autolyse before mixing in sponge and dough ingredients.]

Dough
9 oz. water
15.6 oz. bread flour
.7 oz. wheat bran
1 tsp. salt

Autolyse and kneading
Confession that I forgot this step the first time around. The second time, I followed the recipe for a 20-minute autolyse phase, which means mixing the dough ingredients of water and flour together and leaving it alone - sans starter and before adding salt. I don't think it matters whether the wheat bran goes into the autolyse or whether it is added right after. The claim of autolyse adherents is that gluten strands are formed and less kneading is required. My sense of a good knead and what a dough's texture should be is not sufficiently developed for me to trust my thoughts on this.

After 20 minutes, mix together the autolyse and the sponge. Add salt and mix together well. Though the instructions called for 15 minutes of hand kneading and 12, if I recall, if using a machine, I kneaded for 20 minutes. I have small hands and they are not strong. [Photo of sponge on left and autolyse on right.]


Rising on and on
This bread recipe calls for four to five hours of rising, with human intervention every hour or so. I have yet to get this part right. For me, this requires diligent use of a kitchen timer and being in said kitchen.

• 1 hour rise in kitchen bowl sprayed with baking or other non-stick spray (for the second try, I used a well-floured bowl and a good spatula). Cover with plastic.
• Turn the dough by picking it up and plopping it down on one of its sides.
• 1 to 1 1/2 hours rise again in same bowl.
• Shape and let rise in a basket or bowl for two to three hours. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel or plastic. This is where I screwed up the second time and mine slightly overrose. I shaped it again, per Chattman's advice on this topic, and it rose pretty well. (This is part of the reason I refuse to draw conclusions yet about autolyse and kneading. Mine is far from a controlled experiment.)

Baking
Preheat oven to 500 degrees and reduce to 475 when placing dough in the oven - on a baking peel.  I used parchment paper. For this size bread, I recommend about 42 minutes. Mine could have used a few more than the 39 minutes I tried.

The bread crackled nicely both times when it was taken out of the oven. The taste is good, though very white, which in our house is a weird experience. The bread is pretty. Did not get a huge oven spring, though I was impressed both times. Might make something like this in a no-knead version to compare.

[Note: If I make this bread a third time, this post will be significantly edited to reflect that.]

Bread - Number 26: Getting Closer to Rye Perfection and a Book Already There

Bread #26: The rye journey takes off with the words of wisdom that caraway seeds and the pre-bake cross slash are critical to success.

Before getting to these two related breads, I have to express my daily praise for the book Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History, a treasure of culture, religion and history. I wish that this book would go on forever; the writing, the research and scholarship are such a pleasure to read that I savor the book as my last reading each evening. I am grateful that the author spent 20 years on this masterpiece, a word I have used only once before to describe anything in my usual reading mix of history, bread, social affairs or fiction (that exception being A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth). If I were to begin writing a book today, it would be the story of the Six Thousand Years author, H.E. Jacob, who sent his notes for the book out of Nazi-era Germany, who saw his history of bread and culture forgotten, and whose book was resurrected at the start of the modern era of artisan bread making.

Six Thousand Years chronicles the history of bread from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Jews, to the Middle Ages and the Christians. From there I do not know exactly where the book will go as I am currently enjoying the explanation of the culture wars at the start of the protestant sects, with the question of whether they would accept the doctrine of transubstantiation - whether the communion ritual in church actually transforms the unleavened bread (that's an interesting discussion in itself) into the body of Christ. There are connections drawn between cultural currents and who is milling the grain, making the dough, selling the bread, and the masses purchasing and eating the final product.This is also a book that describes farming and types of grain and the beliefs of the people and their conquerors as history proceeds from one era to the next.

This is not a book of recipes, rather it is more in the spirit of Michael Pollan, yet with a rich tapestry of mythology, religion, government and culture. It is a book that makes me consider never writing anything again because I will never create such beautiful, informative and still poetic prose as H.E. Jacob. [Photo: Outside of a bakery in Roswell, N.M. Did not try the alien baked goods.]

Back to the bread
Breads #26 and 27 are both rye sourdough breads, about one-third rye, with caraway seeds. Number 26 was a straight dough with a first rise of over 10 hours; it was a repeat of bread #10, but with ingredients measured by weight (well, not entirely). Number 27 - coming soon in the next blog post - employed a sponge and was a do over of breads #20 and 21.

Bread #26 - dough mixed together at once

Ingredients
5.7 oz. bread flour
5.2 oz. whole wheat flour
5.9 oz. rye flour (next time make this 6.7 to 7.1 oz. rye flour)
2 uneven tablespoons starter 
1 tbsp caraway seeds - plus more to cover the dough before baking
1 tsp vital wheat gluten
1.5 tsp salt
16 oz. water

Instructions
Mix separately the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. Mix these together well and let rise. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic. My dough sat for 10.5 hours on the counter on a warm summer night. Placed in the fridge for 3.5 hours. 

Baking preparation: This was a very wet dough. Could have used more flour; I would suggest a little more rye, but this time I worked in all-purpose flour during a stretch and fold. Sprinkled flour onto the dough and under it in the bowl. Put a nice amount of flour on my hands. Poured some dough onto a board and made sure the board was well covered with flour. Stretched and folded the dough, well sprinkled with flour. Let the dough sit for 15 minutes, loosely covered with plastic.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with baking stone and top of la cloche inside. Shape the dough and place it in a well-floured bowl for about an hour (I lost track of time). Cover with a well-floured kitchen towel. 

Baking
I placed parchment paper on a baker's peel because the dough was wet and because the parchment paper offers the security that the dough will not stick to the peel when transferring the dough to the oven. Right before placing the dough in the oven, brush a nice amount of water on the top of the dough and sprinkle - and very gingerly press - a generous covering of caraway seeds. Take a lame or a good bread knife, and slash the top. I slash a star. Upon placing the dough in the oven, immediately reduce the oven heat to 450 degrees, something I only remembered about 10 minutes later.

At 32 minutes, I removed the parchment paper and the top of the la cloche. The bread only took four more minutes - a total of 36. Thanking my internal thermometer, I took the temperature of the middle of the bread so that the bread did not become dry. However, it could have used two more minutes.

The bread was beautiful and crackling. On top it showed the cross slash, of course. The taste was very good - almost there. I am motivated to do another rye immediately.

 
 




 


 

  

Bread - Number Six

Bread - Number Six: Spelt Flour with Yogurt 

Dedicated to my sister, who gave me the recipe for my first bread, which I still make often, and think of us both making it when I prepare the dough.

Adjusted olive spelt recipe from the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day book. Photographs of this bread are below.

Purchases
The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast $20 
Barnes and Noble membership $25 - purchased as held onto a list of about 10 bread books that could well be purchased over the next year.
(Do not wish to have bread books on a tablet or other device because sometimes open a few at a time when contemplating recipes.)

Ingredients
2 cups spelt flour 
1 cup bread flour 
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 tsp yeast
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt (prefer with the fat)
1 cup water
Note: Left out from the recipe the 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten and the 1 cup olives. Also adjusted yeast and baking instructions.

Instructions 
1.  Mix dry ingredients well.

2. Mix in yogurt. Prefer whole milk rather than nonfat. 

3. Mix well to get all of the flour. Mixing is easy as the dough is wet.

4. Cover loosely with plastic. Leave out for 12 to 18 hours. See if dough has risen and has some small bubble-like holes formed. Left mine out for 15 hours in a cool kitchen. Warmer the kitchen, the less time the dough will need.

5. Next day the dough was still wet and added a little whole wheat flour. 

6. Spread flour onto a board or countertop and cover dough with a thin layer of flour. Put dough on board and flatten gently. Fold in three parts as if putting a large piece piece of paper in an envelope. Fold in half. Let sit for 15 minutes. 

7. Though recipes say to cover loosely with plastic to prevent drying out, this dough needed some dehydrating, so left it uncovered.

8. In large bowl. spray non-cook spray and cover with nice layer of flour. Place dough in bowl and let sit for 60 to 90 minutes. Will not rise much. Again, skipped the loose plastic or kitchen towel to cover. Wanted the dough to dry out as much as possible as it remained quite wet.

9. At one half to one hour before baking, put top of la cloche in oven on top of baking stone (my baking stone remains in the oven 95 percent of the time). Let them stay in oven as it gets hot. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

10. With still wet dough, added a little more whole wheat and shaped into a boule. Cut slashes into dough with bread knife. No movement is necessary. Just cut into dough about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in one motion. Do not slide knife as if cutting a slice of bread. This is literally a single motion of putting the knife sufficiently into the dough. (If this does not work, eat a tasty bread and try this again with another one.)

11. Put dough onto parchment paper (instead of directly onto baking stone) because it was wet and had little confidence it would fall onto baking stone without great mess. Placed dough-on-parchment-paper onto baking stone and covered with la cloche top. Left in at 500 degrees for 20 minutes.

12. Reduced heat to 450 degrees and left dough - with la cloche top on - for 15 minutes.

13. Removed la cloche top and left dough in oven for another 10 minutes.

14. Take that beautiful bread out of the oven. Mine was crackling, a lovely sound in a quiet and warm kitchen. Immediately ran out to farmer's market with a smile. 

Christmas music playing
Maybe it's the cheesey Christmas music playing or the fact that family will be visiting soon, but there is confidence building with each bread. 

And how does this spelt beauty taste? Very nice indeed. My husband and Brad enjoyed it. It crackled when first cut. Ate so much, need to make another bread dough for the week. Here's how the spelt beauty looks inside and out.

Look at those wonderful holes. And the crust? Marvelous. 

Bread Pause – Between Three and Four

Bread Pause – Jotting Down Observations Between Three and Four

Spent a good part of the weekend immersed in this new obsession, searching through bookstores for bread books. Even better was searching a used book store, exploring previous bread baking trends, finding something good. Love picking up a book that someone has already read, especially if the book has underlining and writing in the margins.

Observation #1

This niche of bread baking, in the larger baking literature, includes many books, which themselves contain about 50 percent of what are called “dessert breads,” though they are consumed, really, as cakes. This leads to the following observations. Not counting dessert breads in the 108.

Observation #2

There are too many websites with bread making information to possibly read in one lifetime, particularly if that lifetime includes any of the following: Children, work (including housework or volunteering), watching stupid television, reading, playing games, or hobbies.

Observation #3

The vast majority of “whole wheat” bread recipes are not 100 percent whole wheat. Many are two thirds whole grain, such as the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day master recipe. Saw a recipe yesterday in what looked like a wonderful book on bread baking technique and properties of bread that was 25 percent whole wheat. At this point, it seems to me, one really is stretching when calling that loaf “whole wheat.”

Many recipes include a good deal of, or at least some, sugar, honey, molasses or other sweet ingredient. Do not rule this out. After all, my basic recipe for the bread machine contains one-quarter cup honey. With this 108 project, aiming for something authentic, which gets me to the next step in this journey. In addition to the plan to buy myself a bunch of bread baking books for the holidays, might search for book on history of bread making. When reaching back to my great and great-great grandmothers, what ingredients did they grow up with; did they use communal ovens and what is the history of those; how did humankind go from – oh, that’s a nice wheat stalk – to set the oven to 450 degrees for a little more than a half hour? Very curious.

 [London flags in a window just after the jubilee.]

Post Scripts

P.S. Between a work-at-home day and mail delivery of the King Arthur’s Flour Company catalog – or, as we call it, food porn – spent my lunchtime flipping through the pages and adding to my holiday wish list. Indeed, they sell a baking cloche (something I had not even heard of until the other day), giant spatula-like things for scraping dough, oven thermometers, digital scales, and large vacuum-packed packages of different kinds of yeast. Really have to think about whether to buy and where to store what could be an extra kitchen’s worth of baking paraphernalia.

P.P.S. Wish list of tools growing to include razor blades, not for shaving or killing, but for slicing into dough before baking. Serated bread knife not working well. Must find time to head over to Barnes & Noble to make my preliminary wish list of books.

Confession 

Easier than you think to become addicted to youtube breadmaking videos. Many, many of the easy-ways-to-make-artisan-bread variety. An entire genre.