Miraculous Remake: Bread Number 76 = Tons of Water + Anxiety

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.

Bread Number 81: A Tasty Variation

The variation on Bread #81 is a stretch on the term variation because I changed quite a bit from the original recipe. This is a delicious whole wheat and requires no sponge phase. I did do an autolyse, partly because it's an easy way to build strength in a wet dough. This bread also fits with the whole wheat theme of my last couple of breads. Because this bread turned out so well, it is worth its own blog post.

The only reason I did not bother with a sponge was pure laziness. We enjoyed the winter storm festivities of gathering with neighbors for long dinners, watching two feet of snow accumulate, doing some artwork, and my solitary snowstorm accomplishment of binge watching a season of Girls. (Yes, the characters are spoiled and self-absorbed, but I love watching shows about New York, particularly Brooklyn, and it's well written. I thought the disrespect toward Iowa was a bit much.)

So there I was on a Sunday morning without any dough. 

Autolyse
553g whole wheat flour - freshly milled
528g water

Mix, cover, and let sit for 25 minutes. Incredible how quickly just the two ingredients combined and rested magically become so dough-like.

Dough
Add to autolyse:
100g starter 
12g salt

Hydration percentage: 96 percent

I did two stretch and folds, each 40 minutes apart. Be careful, the dough is slippery and extra stretchy due to its high hydration percentage. I let the dough rise in a 70-degree closet (my little warm spot in the house) and then put it in the fridge for seven hours. No bread on Sunday, but it was ready on Monday. Love DC because with two feet of snow over the weekend, no one was going anywhere on Monday and we had fresh bread.

Baking preparation
Preheat oven to 470 degrees for one hour with dutch oven inside. Sprinkle rice flour onto the bottom of the very hot dutch oven. Shape dough, though it will not hold a shape due to its wetness. Slash the top a few times. Not sure how well a pretty slash design would work, though it might if you get that dough very quickly into a hot oven.

Baking time: 52 minutes
Taste: Absolutely wonderful 

Next try: Shape the dough on a wet surface and with wet hands because - you got it - it's a wet dough.

Bread Number 81: Many Tries to a Solid Whole Wheat

For the last two months, in between travels, in between artwork, in between studies and work, I kept returning to the quest for a perfect whole wheat bread - or at least one I really, really like so much that I want to keep eating it - and making it.

I've been playing around with high hydration percentages, in the 90 to 100 percent range. I finally added stretch and folds, an autolyse phase, and a fridge-to-oven strategy. I also ground the flour in my nice flour mill (thank you German engineering), which lends a nice aromatic - in a good way - to the dough-making process.

A small money wrench in this game of trial and error was that I started playing around with this bread in the high heat of summer, so I was using very little starter, thereby allowing for a long first rise period of fermentation. Making the bread again in the autumn meant that the length of time for fermentation went from long to extremely long.

Dancing allowed in the kitchen
I practically danced this time when I opened the dutch oven and saw a beautiful oven spring and a pretty bread. Success - tasty slices of bread that I ate for breakfast, smeared with butter, this morning.

Now, perhaps, after months away, I will return to the bread forums I used to peruse and participate in. I have gotten so involved in my artwork and studies that bread has taken a back seat. I also feel like I have accomplished much, though not all, of what I set out to learn and do when I picked that high number of 108 and began to make 108 different kinds of bread, arbitrarily determined, of course.

Now for that lovely whole wheat. I will only give the information for the last try of this bread as it was the only satisfactory result achieved.

Ingredients
574g water
41g starter (60 percent hydration)
597g whole wheat flour
12g salt

Instructions 
Make sure to wake up your starter. I forgot the morning before, which meant my starter was not quite ready when I mixed the dough the next morning, probably adding to what ended up being an even longer first rise (more on that to follow).

Ground the whole wheat flour - about 200 grams of whole wheat flour per 1 cup of wheat berries. Good to have a benchmark because I hate milling too much more than I use.

Autolyse - Mixed the flour and water. Slow process because I was listening to an interesting radio program. Covered and left for 30 minutes. Cleaned up kitchen. This also allowed the starter to warm up for a while more.

Mixed dough - Added starter and salt to the autolyse. Mixed well and covered.

Stretch and folds - Did two stretch and folds, one at 40 minutes and the second at another 25 minutes, just before going out to breakfast on Sunday morning (carefully timed before the farmers market and the yoga class - what a stereotype, except I do not wear Birkenstocks or much fleece).

Tick, tock
That fermentation period of the first rise ended up being 21.33 hours, during which time I left the dough in nice warm rooms, followed by leaving it out overnight in a cool kitchen of approximately 68 degrees. That's cool for me. (I'm freezing when it's 65 degrees in the house.) Not a winter kitchen, which stops fermentation, but definitely slowing down the process.

Indeed, before leaving the dough out overnight I had pretty much given up on it. I had no idea it would blossom after several more hours. The dough was exuberant, bubbles practically popping in front of me, on Monday morning. Big smile first thing in the morning when I peeked. Work beckoned, so I put the dough in the fridge. 

15 hours later
After work and after an evening event, a full 15 hours after I put the dough in the fridge, the dough went in the oven. I had actually planned. That morning, I put the dutch oven in the oven and I left a note for someone to preheat the oven at 8 p.m. to 470 degrees. After the one-hour preheat, I threw some rice flour in the hot dutch oven (to prevent the dough from sticking), I shaped the dough, did a cross-slash, and plopped that dough right into the dutch oven. Quickly covered it.

Doing nothing can be the best strategy No stretch and fold. No final rise on the counter. Straight into the oven after shaping. Indeed, this time around the bread turned out so much better than on previous tries when I let the dough sit on the counter (covered, of course) for a rest period and then a final rise of an hour.

Baking took 53 minutes. Lovely oven spring. Wonderful taste the next morning. 

So happy. Time to order more wheat berries and this is definitely a bread to add to the basic repertoire. 

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.