The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Benito's blog

Benito's picture
Benito

On the weekend we decided that it’s been much too long since I’ve made pizza.  So using the same recipe for sourdough pizza that Will shared with us all during the Community Bake, I put together 4 dough balls so we could have four 9” pizzas over two days.  I didn’t use the diastatic malt, but I think without it I could allow the dough to cold ferment much longer.  Usually I bake after 48-72 hours in the fridge, today’s bake was the 48 hour cold ferment.  I’m thinking without the diastatic malt 72-96 hours would probably be even better.

Benito's picture
Benito

My partner requested a cheddar and apple bread so I put together this iteration based on Kirsten’s Basic Open Sourdough recipe.

Levain build 1:2:2

20 g mature starter

20 g bread flour

20 g whole wheat flour

40 g water

 

311 g white bread flour.               74% including levain

46 g whole wheat flour.               21% including levain

21 g dark rye flour.                         5% 

287 g warm water 74% hydration 

7.5 g salt 

77 g levain  9% prefermented flour

2 g diastatic malt powder 0.5%

 

Total flour without levain 378 g with levain 416.5 g

 

1 Honeycrisp Apple diced then baked in aluminum with maple syrup and cinnamon. 

Cheddar cheese cubed.

 

1.    Liquid Levain   (0:00) --- I build mine at around 1:2:2 and let it sit at about 80°F until it more than triples in volume and “peaks”. For my starter, this takes approximately 5-6 hours.

Flour for my starter feeds is composed of a mix of 10% rye, 90% bread flour

2.    Autolyse  (+3:00) --- This is a pre-soak of the flour, diastatic malt and water. If concerned about the hydration hold back some of the water. You can add it back later, if necessary. Leave the autolyse for anywhere from 2-4 hours (I prefer 3 hours) while the levain finishes fermenting.

3.    Add Levain  (+6:00)  --- Spread on top of dough and work in using your hands. This is a good time to evaluate the feel (hydration) of the dough.

4.    Add Salt  (+6:30)  --- Place salt on top of dough and work in with hands. Dough will start to strengthen.

5.    Light Fold   (+7:00) --- With dough on a slightly wet bench do a Letter Fold from both ways. NOTE: If baking more than one loaf, divide the dough before folding.

6.    Lamination  (+7:30) --- Place dough on wet counter and spread out into a large rectangle. Add the baked apples and cheddar spreading on the laminated dough.  Do a Letter Fold both ways.

7.    Coil Fold   (+8:15) --- Do a Coil Fold inside the BF container.

8.    Coil Fold   (+9:00) --- Do a Coil Fold inside the BF container.

9.    Coil Fold   (+9:15) --- Do a =Coil Fold inside the BF container.

10. End of BF - Shaping   (~11:30) --- The duration of the BF is a judgement call. Shoot for 50-60% rise (assuming my fridge temp is set very low). Warmer fridge (above 39F) means your dough will continue to rise... so in this case, bulk to more like 40%. Divide and shape

11. Retard Overnight & Bake   --- Score cold and bake in a pre-heated 500F oven for 20 minutes with steam

12. Vent Oven 20 minutes into the bake --- Vent oven and bake for 25 or more minutes at 420F.

 

I think that I need to cut the cheddar into smaller pieces next time, these were too large and impeded the oven spring somewhat and too many of them broke through the skin of the dough and melted and then burned.  I think I would also drop the temperature more after taking off the lid and bake longer and lower to hopefully avoid as much burnt to a crisp cheese.

 

I do like the blisters : )

Benito's picture
Benito

This is an adaptation of a Tartine recipe with one of Maurizio’s and using generally the methods of FullProofBaking.  I attempted to score a leaf on the dough but was hilariously unsuccessful in my attempt.  It just looks like random scores on one side.

 

Levain build 1:2:2

20 g mature starter

20 g bread flour

20 g whole wheat flour

40 g water

 

311 g white bread flour.               74% including levain

46 g whole wheat flour.               21% including levain

21 g dark rye flour.                         5% 

287 g warm water 74% hydration 

7.5 g salt 

77 g levain 

2 g diastatic malt powder 0.5%

 

Total flour without levain 378 g

 

1 ⅛ cups pitted olives (black and green)

¾ cups walnuts toasted and coarsely chopped

¾ teaspoon dried herbes de Provence

Zest from 40% of a lemon 

 

In a bowl stir together the olives, nuts, herbes de Provence and lemon zest

 

1.    Liquid Levain   (0:00) --- I build mine at around 1:2:2 and let it sit at about 80°F until it more than triples in volume and “peaks”. For my starter, this takes approximately 5-6 hours.

Flour for my starter feeds is composed of a mix of 10% rye, 90% bread flour

2.    Autolyse  (+3:00) --- This is a pre-soak of the flour and water. If concerned about the hydration hold back some of the water. You can add it back later, if necessary. Leave the autolyse for anywhere from 2-4 hours (I prefer 3 hours) while the levain finishes fermenting.

3.    Add Levain  (+6:00)  --- Spread on top of dough and work in using your hands. This is a good time to evaluate the feel (hydration) of the dough.

4.    Add Salt  (+6:30)  --- Place salt on top of dough and work in with hands. Dough will start to strengthen.

5.    Light Fold   (+7:00) --- With dough on a slightly wet bench do a Letter Fold from both ways. NOTE: If baking more than one loaf, divide the dough before folding.

6.    Lamination  (+7:30) --- Place dough on wet counter and spread out into a large rectangle. Add the mixed olives, walnuts, herbes de Provence and lemon zest spreading on top.  Do a Letter Fold both ways.

7.    Coil Fold   (+8:15) --- Do a Coil Fold inside the BF container.

8.    Coil Fold   (+9:00) --- Do a Coil Fold inside the BF container.

9.    Coil Fold   (+9:15) --- Do a =Coil Fold inside the BF container.

10. End of BF - Shaping   (~11:30) --- The duration of the BF is a judgement call. Shoot for 50-60% rise (assuming my fridge temp is set very low). Warmer fridge (above 39F) means your dough will continue to rise... so in this case, bulk to more like 40%. Divide and shape

11. Retard Overnight & Bake   --- Score cold and bake in a pre-heated 500F oven for 20 minutes with steam

12. Vent Oven 20 minutes into the bake --- Vent oven and bake

for 20 or more minutes at 450F.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

I baked this bread a second time and adjusted what I was doing based on some comments and suggestions I received here and elsewhere.  Because the sweet potato should already be adding sugars to the dough I skipped the diastatic malt.  I also did bulk fermentation at a slightly lower temperature because I thought the last bake could have been a bit overproofed.  I also baked the bread differently based on an idea that Kirsten of FullProofBaking posted.  On the lowest rack I placed a roasting pan with rack and then baked the bread in my Dutch oven on this rack.  This helped shield the bottom while keeping the top of the bread further away from the top of the oven.  As of result of this I didn’t need to shield the top of the bread from burning by covering it and then achieved a more even bake.  I think I will be doing this now going forward.

Before baking I tried to more thoroughly brush off the rice flour and the brushed on a fair amount of water, I hoping to achieve a shinier crust with better blisters.  I didn’t get a shiny crust but I did get better blisters so I will probably do this again in the future.

I will post photos of the crumb once we cut this open but I’m hoping that the crumb will be an improvement from my first bake of this recipe.  Oh another thing I changed, I recently had been wetting the counter when doing final shaping rather than using flour.  I decided to go back to using flour as I thought perhaps the use of water on the counter contributed to a wetter outer skin of the bread which would then decrease the tension achieved when final shaping.  I think that using flour for me works better, because I was able to get better tension this time so I think I’ll go back to this shaping going forward.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

To celebrate the naming of my almost one year old starter John Dough, I decided to make biscuits for the first time.  Because I have just enough discard I am making the biscuits using John Dough’s discards.

 

I made small adjustments to a recipe from thekitchn.com.

 

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
  • sourdough starter discard (227 g)
  •                 3 scallions chopped finely

 

INSTRUCTIONS

  • Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 425ºF. 
  • Place 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine. 
  • Grate 1 stick frozen unsalted butter on the large holes of a box grater. Add the grated butter to the flour mixture and use your fingers to toss and coat the butter in the flour, breaking up any clumps of grated butter.
  • Make a well in the flour mixture and add sourdough starter discard and chopped scallions. Stir together with a spatula until a rough, shaggy dough forms. 
  • Scrape the dough out onto a clean work surface. Pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick rough rectangle (about 5 x 7-inches), with a long side close to you. Sprinkle the dough with a little more flour, if needed. Fold the dough using book turns. Repeat with the folding and patting, alternating folding from each side, the bottom, and the top until you have completed a total of 8 folds. At the end, the dough should be a little springy to the touch.
  • Pat the dough until 1-inch thick. Use a 2-inch round cutter to cut out biscuits. Gather the scraps together and then do a few more book turns again patting it out about 1 inch thickness.  Cut out more as needed. Discard the scraps of leftover dough.
  • Place the biscuits on a skillet arranging them so they just barely touch each other. Bake until golden brown, 17 minutes. Serve immediately with butter. 

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

This is my first time working with purple sweet potatoes.  I find that the flavour is slightly more floral than the more common orange variety.  I was hoping to have more oven spring from this but overall I’m fairly pleased with the bake.

To make about 900 g total dough 

Levain 20% 74 g 1:1:1 6 hours @ 78ºF

35 g starter 35 g water 35 g whole wheat flour 

 

Autolyse 2 hours

90% bread flour 331 g

10% white spring flour 41 g (I used Einkorn)

Diastatic malt 0.5% 2.045 g

 

Water 275 g

Add levain 74 g

30 mins later add sea salt 2% 8.1 g

 

Split dough in two and fold in steamed cooled mashed sweet potato 20% 81 g in one half using slap and fold.

 

30 mins later laminate the two doughs with the sweet potato dough on top of the other and spread on toasted, roughly chopped pecans 13% 54 g

 

Bulk fermentation lasted 6 hours at 74ºF, 3-4 coil folds 60 mins intervals following lamination.

 

Shaped and proofed at room temperature for 20 mins then overnight at 38ºF in fridge.

 

Baked straight from fridge in Dutch oven.

Heated 500ºF with Dutch oven inside.

Baked in Dutch oven @ 450ºF 

Then removed lid and bake at 420ºF 20-30 mins.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

I’ve been looking for purple sweet potatoes to make an interesting bread for months without any luck, so I finally decided I would try it with regular orange sweet potatoes.  Yesterday after having roasted my sweet potato and with the levain build going I decided to go for a walk to Chinatown where I haven’t been recently.  I went very early in the morning well before it gets busy at all.  The first grocer I went to had a ton of purple sweet potatoes so I bough a few and next week I think I will use it for a sourdough bread.

I based this on FullProof Baking’s recipe that I saw on her Instagram feed.

10% whole einkorn

90% strong white flour

84% hydration

0.05% diastatic malt powder

Roast sweet potato mash and let cool 20%.

Roast walnuts and pecans and cool (I didn’t have enough of either so used both) 13%

100% hydration levain 20%

Autolyze for 2 hours

Add levain then 30 mins later add salt 2%

split dough into two equal halves, add sweet potato to one half and incorporate via slap and fold.

30 mins later laminate the two dough together with the sweet potato dough on top.  Add nuts during lamination

Bulk fermentation 6 hours at 76ºF with 4 sets of coil folds.

Final shape and into banneton left at room temperature for 20 mins and the retard in fridge overnight.

Preheat oven 500ºF with Dutch oven inside.  Bake in 450ºF oven in covered Dutch oven 20 mins.

Remove cover and bake at 420ºF for 10 mins.

Replace cover leaving gaps and continue to bake for 15 mins.

I didn’t get the oven spring I was hoping for with a few reasons I believe.  I think that the hydration was too high for my skills so I wasn’t able to shape the dough tight enough.  The sweet potato and nuts also weight down the dough and also interfere a bit with oven spring possibly, but on the other hand Kirsten certainly doesn’t have that issue with this dough.

Crumb shots to be posted later when bread is cut.  It does smell lovely with a hint of the sweet potato.

Benito's picture
Benito

We are all seeing how flour is harder to come by lately with the pandemic and everyone baking.  So, when I went to one of my go to places for organic flours here in Toronto I picked up more than I usually do including some Einkorn which I’ve never tasted or baked with on a whim.  I then found an instagram post of Kirsten’s Full Proof Baking that had some einkorn in it and decided to give it a go.

 

100% hydration levain - 1:1:1 6 hours @ 78ºF 

Levain need 97 g 100% hydration

40 g starter

40 g water

40 g whole wheat flour 

 

Autolyze 3 hours

Total water in dough before adding levain 405 g (85% hydration) - Use 324 g for autolyze

Holding back 20% of water

Whole Einkorn flour 53 g 10%

Whole White Spring Wheat 53 g 10%

Strong White Flour 378 g 71%

Diastatic Malt 2.66 g 0.5%

 

Then add Levain 97 g 

30 mins later added 10.5 g salt 2% using 41 g water for mixing 

Can add more if needed  

 

6.5 hours Bulk Fermentation at 72-73ºF with 1 light fold, 1 lamination and 3 coil folds separated by 45-60 mins each.

 

Final hydration 82% including water added during bulk fermentation.

 

Final shaping then straight to fridge 38ºF 

 

Cold retardation 12 hours

 

 

Bake straight from fridge.

 

I didn’t get the oven spring I wanted, the dough may have been a bit over proofed and/or the hydration a bit too high for my skill set.  I did have a bit of an issue getting good tension while shaping.  Maybe I should have considered doing a pre-shaping to see if that might have helped with the tension.

 

I also probably didn’t bake it long enough given how pale the sides of this are.  I usually bake 800 gm loaves and I only baked it a few minutes longer.  It did reach an internal temperature of 210ºF but the crust is too pale in places.

Benito's picture
Benito

I’m really sorry if I’m boring you guys, but I’m learning a lot as I repeatedly bake the same recipe.  I did this with Maurizio’s Beginner Sourdough and then Kirsten’s basic sourdough and now this 50% whole grain sourdough.  Up until now I hadn’t done any sourdough with this high a whole grain percentage, prior to this my 40% was a flat pancake.  However, after learning a few things in particular lamination when we did the CB with Kirsten, I feel that I’m getting a better handle on building structure.  With this particular dough I built structure with slap and folds, and then during bulk fermentation a lamination and 3 coil folds.  I pushed the hydration a tiny bit up to 81% this time and also added some diastatic malt powder 0.5%.  My strong white flour isn’t malted and I noticed that the original recipe had malted strong white flour.  Bulk fermentation at 80ºF went for 3.5 hours and the dough looked nicely fermented so I did a pre-shape trying to make the skin nice and taut (since spelt doesn’t have great gluten) and then tried to get a good taut batard shape.  After getting the dough into the banneton I did some stitching of the seam to try to keep the surface nice and taut.  I think this was quite successful, hopefully the crumb is nice and even and relatively open when I cut it.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

I’m still trying to hit the sweet spot on this recipe from Maurizio’s The Perfect Loaf.  I’ve posted the recipe that I followed two blog posts earlier.  

I didn’t extend the bulk fermentation this time as I believed that my starter was more active now than for the first bake which I felt was underproofed.  After final shaping I did leave the dough in the banneton on the counter for 30 mins before placing it in my 3ºC refrigerator for its cold retard overnight.

Slap and folds were employed after mixing, and again I did three sets of coil folds and one lamination to build structure.  Finally I’m continuing not to use any flour for pre-shaping or shaping instead using water which does seem to be working.  I think when I tried water only for shaping months ago and had a really bad experience with it, I probably used too much water.  Now I wet my hands and spread water on the countertop lightly and this seems to work.

I won’t be cutting this bread until later on as it has just come out of the oven.

The oven spring seems quite good but I’m hoping that I hit the fermentation so that the crust is good, we’ll see later on.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Benito's blog