Benito's blog

I had a theme going for this Valentine’s Day weekend of sour cherries.  Of course I needed a dessert so what better than sour cherry raspberry pie.  I decided after reading through a pie cookbook that I would try to bake it differently.  I blind baked the crust and then baked cut outs that I then painted some with red gel food colour.  I also cooked the filling on the stovetop and then assembled the whole thing placing the red cut outs in a heart pattern for Valentine’s Day.

The all butter pastry was a new recipe for me, one written by Kate McDermott in her book Art of Pie.  I’m still trying to find pie crust nirvana.  Although I was quite happy with Stella Parks Recipe, it was at times less tender than I would prefer.  So I’m still trying other recipes to see if I can find one I prefer.  This one certainly has the lamination and layers of buttery pastry that I like.  

Since these pie pastry recipes are American, I had to combine my 10% protein all purpose with my 13.3% protein flours to get it around 11-12% protein.  I didn’t use any baking powder or vodka or vinegar for that matter to tenderize the crust.

All the leftover bits of dough after trimming the edges of the pie crust were layered and chilled.  Later I rolled them out, sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on them, then rolled it up like a log and chilled again.  I later sliced them and baked them from frozen for about 30 mins and make half palmiers.  If they are any representation of the pie crust, then I think the pie crust is a success especially given the extra handling that these scraps of dough had.  Definitely don’t throw your scraps of pastry dough away.

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I’ve baked with Kamut up to 30% in the past but never tried 40% and never with inclusions.  I have however, baked with Semolina up to 100% but that wasn’t whole grain.  So based on my past Kamut recipes I’ve increased both the Kamut and the hydration and added black sesame seeds on the inside rather than seeding the crust.  

Overall I think this was a successful bake.

Total dough weight 900 g

Levain 86 g needed 9% PFF

Overnight build 1:6:6 Bread flour 74ºF 

7 g starter + 42 g water + 42 g Bread Flour

Wasn’t ready after 9 hours

Dough Mix overnight saltolyse 

Water for 85% hydration 364 g hold back 20 g so 344 g at mix

Bread Flour 244 g

Kamut 192 g

Salt 9.58 g

Levain 86 g

Total Formula 

Total flour 479 g

40% Whole Kamut = 192 g

60% Bread Flour = 287 g

Total water 407 g 85%

In AM

Add 86 g Levain and hold back water 20 g 

Rubaud mixing and then slap and folds until full windowpane approximately 550 slap and folds done

30 mins bench rest then bench letterfold

30 mins rest then lamination

Add black sesame during lamination 

30 mins rest then series of coil folds 

Aim for aliquot jar rise 60% before shaping

Allow further bench rest until at least 70% rise before cold retard.  This bake 75% then cold retard

Retard Overnight

Bake

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside

Once 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score as desired.

Transfer to dutch oven placing the lid on top place in over lower ⅓ of the oven.  Turn oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for 20 mins.  The drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake for 10 mins lid on.  Then remove lid and continue to bake in the dutch oven lid off for 10 mins further.  Remove bread from dutch oven and bake directly on the oven rack for another 10-20 mins until fully baked.

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This is my first time with this recipe I put together.  Based on Dan and JC’s experiences with cocoa sourdough I’m hoping that my formula is a good tasting cocoa bread.  I used the usual 2% salt rather than lowering it because salt had hide bitterness.  I’ve added a bit more honey to try to balance the bitterness of cocoa.  I used a rich Dutch processed cocoa again with the alkalinization to help reduce acidity.  I added semisweet chocolate chunks and I used dried sour cherries that I soaked overnight in Irish Mist liqueur.  For those unfamiliar with Irish Mist it is made from aged Irish whiskey, heather and clover honey, aromatic herbs, and other spirits, blended to an ancient recipe claimed to be 1,000 years old.  The left over soak was so flavorful that I added it back to the bottle of Irish Mist, the sour cherry going so well with this liqueur.

Because the tannins in the cocoa tighten the gluten and increase the elasticity of the dough, I attempted to counter that by adding spelt to the dough and also using a relatively high hydration for a dough with only 20% whole grain.

Despite my alterations to the recipe hoping to increase extensibility the dough proved to be quite elastic.  So much so I was only able to do half coil folds most of the time.  Next bake I would consider using 10% protein all purpose to replace the bread flour, this dough doesn't require the extra strength of the 13.3% protein bread flour we have here in Canada.

For one 900 g loaf 90% hydration 

300 g white bread flour.              80%

41 g whole spelt flour (for added extensibility)             20% (including levain)

205 g water     (Next time 225 g and hold back water back down to 20 g)

40 g water for mixing later

6.75 g salt  

30 g cocoa powder alkalinized (Dutch Process) 8% cooked with 60 g water to make a syrup, then added 20 g honey to balance the bitterness of the chocolate

70 g levain   

20 g Honey 5.3%

70 g Chopped 60% semi sweet dark chocolate 20%

Total flour 376 g

Total water 320 g for 85% hydration 

Since added 40 g water during bassinage 90% hydration

68 g dried sour cherries 20% soaked in rum (or kirsch or Irish Mist) overnight

34 g toasted hazelnuts chopped 10% (consider dec to 10-15%)

Levain build 1:7:7 for overnight 74ºF

5 g starter + 35 g water + 35 g spelt

Overnight saltolyse

Bulk Fermentation 80-82ºF 

Add levain to dough, pinching along with hold out water, Rubaud for a few minutes then 700 French folds fully develop gluten.  

1. + 30 min Bench letterfold, set up aliquot jar
2. + 30 mins Lamination.  Place dough on wet counter and spread out into a large rectangle. Spread walnuts and cranberries on the dough in thirds. 
3. + 30 min half Coil Fold
4. + 30 min half Coil Fold
5. + 30 min Coil Fold
6. + 30 mins Coil Fold
7. + 30 mins coil fold
8. + 45 mins coil fold

End of BF - Shaping aliquot jar 60% or greater - the bench rest until aliquot 70% or greater.

Retard Overnight

Bake

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside

Once 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score as desired.

Transfer to dutch oven placing the lid on top place in over lower ⅓ of the oven.  Turn oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for 20 mins.  The drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake for 10 mins lid on.  Then remove lid and continue to bake in the dutch oven lid off for 10 mins further.  Remove bread from dutch oven and bake directly on the oven rack for another 10-20 mins until fully baked.

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Based on my last bake which I felt didn’t have enough water, I wanted to see what would happen if I greatly increased the hydration for this bake.  If you do not include the soaker water the hydration is 70%, but with the soaker water it is a crazy sounding 109% hydration.  There was some spreading of the dough as it baked which I don’t like so I suspect the ideal hydration might be 5% less or just what the original recipe calls for.  The original recipe is Hamelman’s Five Grain which is super popular here, but I wanted to play around with hydration and used a 100% hydration levain instead of his > 100% hydration.

This is my third time attempting a decorative leaf score on my bread and I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.  Had I achieved a better oven spring on this loaf I think the leaves would have stood up more from the loaf.  As well, between the end of steam baking and end of baking I lost some of the contrast between scored and unscored areas losing definition of the leaves.  Although I brushed off excess rice flour it is obvious that I didn’t brush enough of it off and when handling the bread to get it out of the dutch oven much of the loose rice flour shifted into the scores.  It’s too bad because the leaf scores actually looked decent this time.  Something to work on to improve next time along with adjusting the hydration.

Levain 74ºF overnight 

18 g starter 110 g water 110 g red fife 

Dough mix saltolyse overnight 

Bread flour 214 g

Spelt 71 g

Rye 36 g

Water 189 g (held back 20 g until next day added with levain)

Salt 8 g

Soaker overnight

34 g oatmeal, 0.68 g salt, 34 g black and white sesame seeds, 34 g poppyseeds, 34 g mix pumpkin and sunflower seeds 174 g boiling water

Overall 31% inclusions

1.    Liquid Levain   --- Make the final build 8-9 hours before the final mix and let stand in a covered container at about 74°F. Mix Levain and Soaker at the same time.

2.    Soaker   --- Pour the boiling water over the grain blend and salt, mix thoroughly, and cover with plastic to prevent evaporation. Make the soaker at the same time as the final build of the levain and let stand at room temperature. If grains that don't require a hot soaker are used (such as rye chops in lieu of the cracked rye listed here), a cold soaker will absorb less water, and therefore it's likely that slightly less water will be needed in the final dough.

3.    Mixing   --- Add all ingredients to the mixing bowl. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes, adjusting the hydration as necessary. Mix on second speed for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. The dough should have a moderate gluten development. Desire dough temperature 76°F.

4.    Bulk Fermentation   --- 76ºF until 60% rise by aliquot jar

5.    Folding   --- the bulk fermentation should be 3.5 hours with 2-3 folds

6.    Sharped and placed in banneton.

7.    Final Fermentation   --- After shaping leave on the counter at room temperature for 1 hour aliquot jar reached 75-80% rise, then place in fridge at 3ºC for 24 hour cold retard.

8.    Baking   --- With normal steam, 450°F for 20 mins then drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake lid on for 10 mins.  Remove lid and bake for another 10 mins.  Then remove bread from dutch oven and complete baking directly on the rack for another 10 mins.

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I’ve wanted to do another fruit and nut bread for a few weeks and decided to finally see how apricots and walnuts would do together.  I loved the rum soaked fruits I’ve done in the past so decided to rum soak the apricots overnight.  Toasted walnuts are always better than raw and finally to see if I could amp up the walnut flavour I added some walnut oil as well.  I tried another decorative score, of course my lack of practice and artistic talents impair the outcome.  I also think that perhaps a fruit and nut laden loaf may not be the best vehicle for this type of decorative scoring.

For one 900 g loaf 80% hydration (2 loaves)

311 g white bread flour.    (622)           

46 g whole wheat flour.     (92)          

21 g dark rye flour.           (42)             

274 g warm water, then         (548)   

21 g water for mixing later       (42)  

7.5 g salt  (15)

2 g diastatic malt powder 0.5%  (4)

12.5 g Walnut oil 3%

77 g levain   (154)

Total flour 416.5 g

76 g dried apricots 20% chopped soaked in rum overnight

76 g toasted walnuts 20%

Double batch 152 g each

Final dough weight 906 g

Levain build 1:6:6 for overnight 74ºF 

6 g starter + 38 g water + 38 g red fife

Overnight saltolyse

Add walnut oil at the end of mix by drizzling over and stretch and folding.

Bulk Fermentation 80-82ºF 

Add levain to dough, pinching along with hold out water, Rubaud for a few minutes then 500 French folds fully develop gluten.  Then stretch and fold to add walnut oil.

1. + 30 min Bench letterfold, set up aliquot jar
2. + 30 mins Lamination.  Place dough on wet counter and spread out into a large rectangle. Spread walnuts and cranberries on the dough in thirds. 
3. + 30 min Coil Fold
4. + 30 min Coil Fold
5. + 30 min Coil Fold
6. + 30 mins Coil Fold
7. + 30 mins coil fold
8. + 45 mins coil fold

End of BF - Shaping aliquot jar 60% or greater - the bench rest until aliquot 70% or greater.

Retard Overnight

Bake

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside

Once 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score as desired.

Transfer to dutch oven placing the lid on top place in over lower ⅓ of the oven.  Turn oven temperature to 450ºF. Bake for 20 mins.  The drop temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake for 10 mins lid on.  Then remove lid and continue to bake in the dutch oven lid off for 10 mins further.  Remove bread from dutch oven and bake directly on the oven rack for another 10-20 mins until fully baked.

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We love our sourdough pizza for dinner.  We always make one for each of us.  Today’s pizza was Italian tuna, sun dried tomato, artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper, stuffed green olives, taggiasca olives, peperoncini and mozzarella cheese.  I’ll post the sourdough recipe below, but I really haven’t changed much since using this during the pizza Community Bake a couple of years back, thanks again to Will the Pie King for sharing his recipe.

For 4 9” pizzas NY style thin crust 200 g each

Levain Build 100% hydration 35 g needed

433 g bread flour

43 g Whole grain flour (50:50 whole spelt:whole wheat)

4.76 g Diastatic malt 

252 g water and

41 g water hold out

8.43 g salt

2.5 g sugar

4.8 g olive oil

(1) In your mixer bowl(or by hand) dissolve the Starter in all of the Final Dough Water except the HOLD OUT Water.  (Add diastatic malt too)

(2) Mix in the flours until well hydrated 

(3) Allow to fermentolyse for 1hr 

(4) Mix in the remaining HOLD OUT Water, salt and sugar, mix until well-incorporated. 

(5) Slowly drizzle in the oil until well combined. 

(6) Beat or knead by hand until dough is moderately developed. The dough will be sticky and elastic. If kneading by hand, use slightly wet hands and avoid adding more flour. 

(7) Oil your hands and a suitable container. 

(8) Shape into a tight ball.  I divide the ball into four smaller ones each for one 9” pizza at this point.  Each goes into a small oiled bowl and allowed to bulk ferment at 80ºF for 1 hour.

(9) Cold ferment in the refrigerator for minimum 48 hours and up to 4 days.

(10) Remove to warm up to room temp 1hr or so before use, or you can ferment at room temp. for 6hrs. I have found about 2 hours at 80ºF in the proofing box to be ideal.

(11) Stretch the balls into your desired size skins (see video below), top and bake at 500F-550F (as high as your oven will go) Until the crust is browned and the cheese has melted. Spin the pie at least once to avoid burning due to oven hot

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I have settled on this formula for my go to plain sourdough as I like the flavour and in fact it can act as a nice basis for most inclusions.  I had been playing around with ratios of low protein vs high protein flours hoping to enhance the oven spring and crumb and I’m hoping that it worked.

Overnight levain build 1:6:6 72ºF 

7 g starter + 44 g water + 44 g red fife

Dough build Mix ingredients for saltolyse

Bread flour 250 g

All purpose flour 10% protein 150 g

Whole red fife 30 g

Whole rye 25 g

Water 340 g 

Salt 9.97 g

Diastatic Malt 2.49 g

Levain 90 g

In the morning mix 90 g of levain into the dough and add a further 15 g of water if your dough requires it, mine did.

Rubaud mixing for 5 mins followed by a 5 min rest.

The slap and folds x 400 with a 5 min rest in the middle.

Try to fully develop the gluten at the start of bulk.

Bulk ferment at 74 *F

Then 15 mins rest.

Strong bench letterfold then rest 30 mins

Lamination then start a series of coils folds at 20-30 mins intervals to build structure until the dough doesn’t spread very much after coil folds.  I did six coil folds over 2 hours then allowed the dough to rest until it had risen (not the aliquot jar) about 50% or so.  Because I use a square low Pyrex dish it is hard to judge rise, but the dough should be very jiggly and domed and have bubbles on the surface.

Preshape in a fairly taut boule, then rest 20 mins.

Final shape, dust with rice flour and place into banneton for cold retard until next day.

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside.

30 mins before oven is ready place the dough in banneton into the freezer to firm it up in preparation for attempted decorative scoring.

Remove dough from banneton, smooth out rice flour on surface and score.  I am obviously not very artistic but attempted to score a couple of leaves on my dough.

Transfer to dutch oven and place lid on.

Drop temperature to 450ºF and bake 20 mins.

Next drop temperature to 420ºF and bake another 10 mins with the lid on.

Remove lid rotating the dutch oven and bake another 10 mins.

Remove bread from dutch oven and bake on the rack for 10 mins.

Check doneness the bread may need another 5 mins or so.

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You might know that this is one of my favourite flavour combinations that I’ve baked a few times now.  However, being me I keep tinkering to see if I can make it better than before, it doesn’t always work out that way.

I made some changes, I haven’t been happy with my lazy preparation of the sweet potatoes so instead of microwaving them, I used the instant pot this time, 18 mins at normal pressure.  This results in a nicer sweet potato that is easy to remove the peel and mash.  The resulting mash is more moist and much better than the drying effects of microwaving.  I did several and froze the mash in portions for future use.

I increased the hydration to 84.5% and pushed bulk quite far, for me in total 80% rise when the bench rest after shaping is included.  I wanted to see if I could achieve a more open crumb than I usually get.

Total flour 409 g

Levain 20% 

6 g starter 36 g water 36 g red fife overnight build

Saltolyse overnight

81% bread flour 331 g

19% red fife flour 41 g 

Salt 2% 8.18 g

Water 300 g

I added 8 g water during bassinage 84.5% hydration

160 g purple sweet potato

The dough was developed with initial Rubaud mixing when the levain was added to the saltolysed dough in the morning and 8 g of additional water added.  Further gluten development with 200 slap and folds were done.

30 mins later a bench letterfold was done

30 mins lamination was performed adding both the sweet potato and black sesame seeds.

three sets of coil folds were performed at approximately 30 mins intervals each time waiting until the dough fully relaxed.

Bulk was ended when the aliquot jar reached 60% rise.

Dough shaped into a batard and placed in a banneton and left on the counter for another 60 mins until the aliquot jar reached 80% rise.

Cold Retard until the next day.

Preheat oven to 500ºF with dutch oven inside.

Once at 500ºF remove dough from banneton and score.  Brush with water and transfer to the dutch oven, drop the temperature to 450ºF and bake for 20 mins with the lid on.  Drop the temperature to 420ºF and continue to bake lid on for 10 mins.

Remove the lid and continue to bake in dutch oven for 10 mins lid off.

Remove from dutch oven and place on oven rack to complete bake additional 15-20 mins.

Post bake analysis.  I think that the combination of higher hydration and moist sweet potatoes along with the bulk pushed to 80% caused the flatter profile of this bake.  That being said, I’m not disappointed with the crumb which is generally more open than what I usually achieve.  At least I know I can achieve this style of crumb if I want to.  Well, I don’t know that I can achieve it consistently yet, more bakes will need to be done to confirm that.

I do still enjoy the flavour of this bread.  Regarding the baking, the additional 10 mins of baking with the lid on does, I’m convinced, lead to a thinner crust.  Removing the bread from the dutch oven for the final 15-20 mins of baking also helps thin the bottom crust.  I do need to be careful to fully baking when using this method because this bread was borderline a bit too moist in places where there was a lot of the sweet potato so an additional 5 mins might be needed when there are a lot of wet inclusions and higher hydration dough.

I also think I prefer the sweet potato when it is added earlier in the process to the dough to more evening distribute it.  But it was worthwhile trying this method to compare.

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Up until today, the only time I’d worked with semolina was using about 50-60% for baguettes and I loved the flavour with sesame seed crust.  I didn’t want to reproduce a batard with the same composition so I thought I would try to put together a formula myself and see if it might work.

I thought I had read that semolina hydrates very well, so I thought I’d aim for 80% hydration if the dough seemed ready to absorb that much during mixing adding the levain.  I also remember Michael Wilson saying that he had the best results with this flour when he developed the gluten well.  I wasn’t in the mood for machine mixing and thought I’d see if I could do the flour justice totally by hand.

Levain build

1:6:6

12 g starter, 70 g water, 70 g Semola rimacinata 

ferment 74-76ºF overnight.

Saltolyse Overnight build

429 g Semola rimacinata 

313 g water cold 

15 g hold back water for bassinage

143 g levain

10 g salt

In the morning add 143 g levain to the saltolysed dough, poking and then pinching and finally stretch and folding.  Gradually add 15 g of water.  Rubaud x 5 mins.

Then 250 slap and folds.

Bulk at 78ºF 

30 mins bench letter fold - set up aliquot jar.

30 mins lamination

30 mins coil fold

30 mins coil fold - window pane achieved

Allow to rest at 78ºF until aliquot jar shows 60% and the dough is appropriately jiggly.

Final Shaping as batard, then transfer to wet towel seam side up to dampen the outside.

Transfer to a plate with black and white sesame seeds (toasted)

Transfer to unfloured banneton seam side up.

Bench rest until aliquot jar 70% rise then start cold retard 7 hours.

Preheat oven 500ºF with dutch oven inside.

Remove dough from banneton score and transfer to dutch oven on a parchment sheet.  Spritz some water into dutch oven.

Bake lid on dropping temp to 450ºF for 20 mins.

Drop temp to 420ºF continue to bake lid on for 10 mins.

Remove lid and remove bread from dutch oven and continue to bake on the rack for 15-25 mins until crust colour sufficiently and baked through. 

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Wanting to recover from my last two disasters of babka bakes and applying what I learned from them.  We do truly learn more from our disasters than our successes (thanks Dan).  I decided to try to use some Matcha powder I recently purchased and make a babka with a much drier filling that would avoid the pitfalls of soggy crumb.  I am adapting the same recipe for sourdough babka by Maurizio of theperfectloaf.com.  

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At the end of bulk fermentation and shaped into an angel food pan.

Vitals

Total Formula

Dough Mix

My final dough temperature for this dough was 76°F (24°C).

Levain Build 6 hours

30 g starter 100% hydration, 60 g bread flour and 60 g water.  Should be mature in about 5-6 hours at 78-80ºF. 

2. Mix – 1:00 p.m.

Before mixing, take out the butter called for in the recipe and cut it into 1/2″ pats. Let it sit at room temperature until called for.

I used my KitchenAid stand mixer to mix this dough. To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, add the mature levain, flour, matcha powder, whole milk, large eggs, salt, and half of the sugar. Set the mixer to low and mix until everything is incorporated. Let the dough rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minute rest, turn the mixer up to medium and mix for 5 minutes until the dough starts to pull from the sides of the mixing bowl. At this point, slowly stream in the remaining sugar while the mixer is running. Mix for another 1-2 minutes until the dough comes back together.

With the mixer still set to medium, add the room temperature butter, one pat at a time, waiting to add the next until the previous is absorbed into the dough. It might take around 5 minutes to mix all the butter into the dough. After all of the butter is added, continue mixing for another few minutes until the dough smooths out and once again begins to cling to the dough hook. The dough should be almost fully developed at this point (it won’t completely pass the windowpane test, but almost).

Transfer the dough to a container for bulk fermentation, cover, and keep somewhere warm—78-80°F (26-27°C)—in your kitchen for bulk fermentation.

3. Warm Bulk Fermentation – 1:25 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. (or longer, as needed)

During this time, give the dough 2 sets of stretch and folds where the first set is 30 minutes after the beginning of bulk fermentation and the second set is 30 minutes after the first. After the second set, let the dough rest, covered, until the next step.

4. Cold Bulk Fermentation – 3:30 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. (next day)

Assess the dough: has it risen a little in the bowl during the warm bulk fermentation? It should be a little puffy and smoothed out. If it looks like there’s no activity at all, give the dough another 30 minutes to 1 hour and check again.

Once you see some rise in the dough, place the covered bulk fermentation bowl into the refrigerator overnight.

Same day option: I much prefer making this over the course of two days, but you could make this all in one day: let the dough finish bulk fermentation for 2-3 hours on the counter. When the dough has risen around 50% and feels puffy, proceed with the rest of the steps below. However, I do recommend placing the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour after this warm bulk fermentation to chill before rolling out!

5. Roll, freeze, cut, and shape – 8:00 a.m.

Before taking the dough out of the refrigerator, make one of the fillings below (keep the filling covered until ready to use). 

Black Sesame Filling

150 g ground black sesame seeds, use mortar and pestle to grind

37.5 g sugar mix with ground black sesame seeds 

64 g honey

21 g butter room temperature 

Cream together honey and butter to make smooth spread

I had too much of the sesame and sugar mix, could reduce by 25-30% I think.

In the morning, take the dough out of the refrigerator and scrape the dough out to a floured work surface. Flour the top of the dough and using a rolling pin (or dowel), roll the dough out to a rectangle approximately 16″ x 12″ in size with a short edge closest to your body. 

If you want a less-sweet, less-sticky babka, spread less filling over the rolled out dough.

Using your hand or an offset spatula, spread the honey butter mixture over the dough leaving about 1″ clean on the short side farthest from you. Sprinkle the sesame sugar mixture over the dough.  Starting at the side closest to you, roll up the dough into a tight cylinder. It’s important for the dough to be rolled up rather tight, so pull the dough at each revolution of the cylinder.

Important: Place the rolled-up log on a baking sheet and place it into the freezer for 15 minutes (this makes it much easier to cut and braid).

Using an angel food cake pan, cut parchment to fit into the bottom of the pan, butter the sides and central tube of the pan.

After the 15-minute freezer rest, take the baking sheet out of the freezer and return the dough log to the counter. Using a sharp knife, cut the log to split open the log from one side to the other. Pinch the two top halves together and braid the dough one strand over the other. At the bottom, pinch the two halves together again. Don’t worry if filling spills out or things get messy — it’s all good.

After the dough is braided, pick up the braid and place it on the parchment right in the middle, then pick up the sides of the parchment and lift the dough up and drop it into the pan.

Cover the pan and place it somewhere warm, ideally, 78-80°F (26-27°C), to proof.

6. Proof – 8:30 a.m. 12:00 p.m. (or until ready)

This dough can be slow to rise at this point. Give it the time it needs to rise up to about 1/2″ below the rim of the Pullman pan. For me, at 78°F (26°C), it took about 3.5 hours. See the image below for how high my dough filled my pan.

7. Bake – 12:00 p.m.

Preheat your oven with the rack in the middle to 350°F (176°C) — no fan assist (no convection).

When the oven is preheated and the babka dough is fully proofed, place the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (to catch any sugar spilling over). In a small bowl, whisk together one whole egg and 1 Tbsp water and brush a thin layer of the egg wash on the top of the dough. Then, slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 55  minutes until the center of the babka reaches 200°F (93°C) then leave in oven with the oven off for another 5 mins.. Keep an eye on the babka in the last 10 minutes of the bake, if it’s coloring too quickly drop the temperature to compensate.

Yuzu Simple syrup

While the babka is baking, make the simple syrup. In a small saucepan heat over low 52g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar with 59g (1/4 cup) water and about 1 Tbsp Yuzu extract (adjust to taste). Heat until the mixture bubbles a bit and stir occasionally until the sugar fully dissolves in the water. Transfer this simple syrup to a container to cool. If covered, it will keep indefinitely in the fridge (I reuse over and over for babka, other baked goods, or even cocktails).

When the babka is fully baked, remove the pan to a cooling rack. Using a plastic spatula, free the short sides of the babka (the sides without parchment) from the sides and bottom of the pan by pressing the spatula down from top to bottom.

Using a pastry brush, brush on a thin layer of the Yuzu simple syrup. The amount you put on is up to you: the more you add the sweeter the crust will become. Let the babka rest for 10 minutes in the pan. Do not let the babka rest for longer than 10 minutes or it’ll be hard to remove from the pan.

After the 10 minute rest remove the babka from the pan.  Remove the sides of the pan by resting the bottom of the pan on a heat proof object such as a tall can.  Then you should be able to remove the babka from the base and center of the pan with the help of one or two spatulas.  Rest on a wire rack until cool to the touch.

Post bake edits

I will make the following changes for future bakes of this.  Increase the total recipe by 25% to allow a full wreath with even final height.

Increase matcha to 6.125 to 7.5% to bring out more match flavour.

Do a total bake time of 70 mins, perhaps with an extra 5 mins at the end with the oven turned off and door kept closed.