I have been baking challah bread for about a year and am planning to make about 30 next weekend. In order to bake a few a day ahead I have been looking into some natural products that extend the bread's shelf life. Has anyone used dastatic malt powder in their yeast breads? Does it really help keep it fresher longer?
I would love some input.
Sharon
Susan from San Diego Sourdough
Susan's Sourdough Crumb
It was time to get back to basics. My wife and I love sourdough bread. I have been having lots of fun exploring other breads, especially rye breads and baguettes of late, but I was missing "plain old" sourdough bread.
The formula that Susan from San Diego developed has been made by many on TFL, and, if there is anyone who has not loved it, they have kept it to themselves. So, Susan's sourdough has been on my "to bake" list for quite some time. Here is how I made it:
450 gms Giusto's Ultimate Performer (High Gluten Flour)
50 gms Giusto's (Whole) Rye Flour
340 gms Water
50 gms Active Starter
10 gms Sea Salt
Mix the water and flour in a large bowl until they form a shaggy mass. Cover tightly and allow to rest (autolyse) for 15-60 minutes.
Add the starter to the autolyse and mix it in. Then add the salt and mix it in.
On a lightly floured bench, do 4 or 5 French folds. Cover the dough for 30 minutes. Repeat the folds and resting for 30 minutes. Then, do the folds a third time. (At this point, I had moderate gluten development.)
Place the dough in a clean, lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly. Allow to rise until doubled. (I used my favorite Anchor Glass 8 cup/2 liter glass pitcher with a tight-fitting plastic cover. My dough doubled in 6 hours.)
Divide the dough into two equal pieces and pre-shape as rounds. Cover and allow to rest for 10-20 minutes.
Shape as boules and place in floured bannetons. (I used French linen-lined wicker ones.) Spray lightly with oil and place in food-grade plastic bags or cover with plastic wrap.
Proof for 1 hour, then place in the refrigerator over night (8-12 hours).
Take the loaves out of the refrigerator at least 4 hours before you plan to bake them. Allow them to warm up and rise to 1-1/2 times their original size.
45-60 minutes before baking, pre-heat the oven to 450F with a baking stone on the middle shelf and a cast iron skillet and metal loaf pan on the bottom shelf.
When the loaves are ready to bake, bring a cup of water to a boil and place a handful (4-6) ice cubes in the loaf pan. Shut the oven door.
Sprinkle semolina on a wooden peel. Transfer a loaf to the peel. Score it, and load it on the baking stone. Do the same with the second loaf. Then pour the boiling water into the skillet, being careful not to scald youself, and shut the oven door.
After 10 minutes, remove the two water recepticles from the oven. Bake another 10-15 minutes, until the loaves are nicely colored, the bottoms have a hollow sound when thumped and the internal temperature of the loaves is at least 205F. When they are done, turn off the oven but leave the loaves on the baking stone with the oven door held open 1-2 inches for another 5-10 minutes to dry the crust.
Remove the loaves from the oven and cool them thoroughly on a rack before slicing. (2 hours, if you can stand it.) You are allowed to smell the loaves and listen to them sing while they are cooling.
Notes
1. My sourdough starter is "1:3:4" (starter:water:flour). If your starter is more liquid or more firm, you should adjust the amount of water you use in the dough accordingly.
2. The 2-pan oven humidification and steaming method is from Hamelman's "Bread." Susan bakes her loaves under a stainless steel bowl for the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the time. I would have done this, if I had made a single large boule. But Hamelman's method gives me the second best oven spring and bloom.
3. With overnight cold retardation, this bread was moderately sour when first cool. The crust was thin but crunchy. The bread had a firm chewiness but was in no way "tough." It was, in short, what I regard as a "classic San Francisco-style Sourdough." Since this is precisely what I wanted, I am delighted with this bread. I am moving it from my "to bake" list to my "bake often" list.
David
I checked Hamelman's "Bread" out of the library, mostly because I wanted to learn to braid the Winston Knot. While thumbing through the book, I came across a section on scoring loaves and according to him I've been doing it all wrong. He insists that the slashes start on the left end of the bread and work toward the right AND the slashing stroke should be done left to right - backhanded. How could this possibly make a difference?
Well, yesterday I needed a "quickie" baguette and after the final proof decided, "What the hey?" and tried Hamelman's technique. The first cut I tried was too deep and just dragged the dough, so I lightened my touch and sort of scratched the surface. Disappointed in my attempts, I put the bread in the oven and this is what came out.
This morning, I tried it again on some Anis baguettes:
Both of these were 75% hydration doughs and I've never had this kind of success on wetter doughs.
I don't understand it, but I'm going to keep doing it until something better comes along.
Larry
I have made this recipe about 8 times and so am pretty familiar with it. But I have 3 major questions:
Many thanks.
Whole Wheat Bread..P. Reinhart, BBA-pg. 271, Note: Knead Only Once. Yield-3 LoavesSoakerSingle | Double | Triple | |
1 Cup | Course whole-wheat flour | 2 Cups | 3 Cups |
¾ Cup | Water, at room temp | 1 ½ Cups | 2 ¼ Cups |
Whole-Wheat Poolish of a thick paste consistency. (note: he also does it as biga)
Single | Double | Triple | |
1 ½ Cup | High Protein whole-wheat flour | 3 Cups | 4 ½ Cups |
¼ tsp | Instant Yeast | ½ tsp | ¾ tsp |
¾ Cup | Water, at room temp | 1 ½ Cups | 2 ¼ Cups |
Dough
Single | Double | Triple | |
2 Cups | High Protein whole-wheat flour | 4 Cups | 6 Cups |
1 1/3 tsps | Salt | 2 2/3 tsps | 4 tsps |
1 tsp | Instant Yeast | 2 tsps | 3 tsps |
2 Ts | Honey | 4 Ts | 6 tps |
1 T | Vegetable oil-optional | 2 Ts | 3 T (I do 2 T) |
1 Large | Egg, slightly beaten (optional) | 2 | 3 eggs |
2 Ts | Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, (garnish) | 2 Ts | 6 T |
*note: i have crossed out what I do not use.
![This German Farmer's Bread (Bauernbrot) was made from a recipe in Gini Youngkrantz's Authentic German Home Style Recipes - Fourth Edition (pg. 21). This bread is made from approximately half rye flour (48.8%) and equal amounts of whole wheat flour (25.6%) and AP flour (25.6%), excluding starter. The recipe calls for a cup of active sourdough starter along with yeast in the final dough. Ms. Youngkrantz's recipe produces an excellent German sourdough rye bread very much like the Bauernbrot I remember from Germany. The recipe calls for "free form" loaves but I used German unlined willow brotforms for the final proofing and placed them on a parchment lined peal and docked them about a dozen times with small 8 inch bamboo skewer slighly larger in diameter than a tooth pick (they held their form nicely) then slid the parchment and loaves onto a baking stone, then a cup of boiling hot water to produce a blast of steam at the onset of the baking cycle. This recipe calls for a slow-bake on low temp. (350 deg. F. for 70 minutes) with steam. Instead, I baked them at 450 deg. F. for the first 10 minutes (to get max. oven spring) then lowered the oven temp. to 350 deg. F. for the remaining time. I checked them at the end of the 70 min. baking cycle and they read 210 deg. internal temp.Howard - St. Augustine, FL](/files/images/Bauernbrot%20No.6%20-%20Collage.preview.jpg "This German Farmer's Bread (Bauernbrot) was made from a recipe in Gini Youngkrantz's Authentic German Home Style Recipes - Fourth Edition (pg. 21). This bread is made from approximately half rye flour (48.8%) and equal amounts of whole wheat flour (25.6%) and AP flour (25.6%), excluding starter. The recipe calls for a cup of active sourdough starter along with yeast in the final dough. Ms. Youngkrantz's recipe produces an excellent German sourdough rye bread very much like the Bauernbrot I remember from Germany. The recipe calls for "free form" loaves but I used German unlined willow brotforms for the final proofing and placed them on a parchment lined peal and docked them about a dozen times with small 8 inch bamboo skewer slighly larger in diameter than a tooth pick (they held their form nicely) then slid the parchment and loaves onto a baking stone, then a cup of boiling hot water to produce a blast of steam at the onset of the baking cycle. This recipe calls for a slow-bake on low temp. (350 deg. F. for 70 minutes) with steam. Instead, I baked them at 450 deg. F. for the first 10 minutes (to get max. oven spring) then lowered the oven temp. to 350 deg. F. for the remaining time. I checked them at the end of the 70 min. baking cycle and they read 210 deg. internal temp.Howard - St. Augustine, FL")
Bauernbrot (Farmer's Bread) - Gini Youngkrantz:
This German Farmer's Bread (Bauernbrot) was made from a recipe in Gini Youngkrantz's Authentic German Home Style Recipes - Fourth Edition (pg. 21). This bread is made from approximately half rye flour (48.8%) and equal amounts of whole wheat flour (25.6%) and AP flour (25.6%), excluding starter. The recipe calls for a cup of active sourdough starter along with yeast in the final dough. Ms. Youngkrantz's recipe produces an excellent German sourdough rye bread very much like the Bauernbrot I remember from Germany.
The recipe calls for "free form" loaves but I used German unlined willow brotforms for the final proofing and placed them on a parchment lined peal and docked them about a dozen times with small 8 inch bamboo skewer slighly larger in diameter than a tooth pick (they held their form nicely) then slid the parchment and loaves onto a baking stone, then a cup of boiling hot water to produce a blast of steam at the onset of the baking cycle. This recipe calls for a slow-bake on low temp. (350 deg. F. for 70 minutes) with steam. Instead, I baked them at 450 deg. F. for the first 10 minutes (to get max. oven spring) then lowered the oven temp. to 350 deg. F. for the remaining time. I checked them at the end of the 70 min. baking cycle and they read 210 deg. internal temp.
Howard - St. Augustine, FL
I make several different versions of this very famous cake as it is probably my very favorite of all chocolate desserts and perfect for a fancy presentation. The only thing that may cause problems is finding the ingredients in the States. I don’t know what’s available over there, so I’ll do my best to describe how it’s done here.
For Sean’s birthday we had a very nice dinner of marinated, then BBQ’s duck breasts, a zucchini – chèvre tian and sautéed potatoes. I decorated his cake with maltezer’s and white and dark chocolate Mikado’s and 4 sparklers.
Gâteau Royal or Le Trianon
Marcaron base :
60 g finely ground almond
130 g sugar
15 g flour
2 egg whites
1 tsp cocoa
Preheat the oven to 220°C
In a bowl, mix 60g of the sugar, the almond, the flou rand the cocoa.
In a mixer, beat the egg whites and when they start to foam, add the rest of the sugar and let stiffen. Fold in the dry ingredients.
Prepare à springform pan (around 22 cm), line it with parchment paper and fill with the batter.
Bake ten minutes. Let cool and then remove from the pan.
Prepare a cake ring, or the spring form pan that has been cooled and washed. I use a ring that is placed directly on to the serving platter. I lined the outer edges of mine with a plastic ring so that when it came time to take the cake out, the plastic stops the cake from sicking on the side of the pan and then can be simply peeled off.
Place the baked base in the ring by cutting it to size.
Praline layer :
In France we have a brand of chocolate called Poulain 1848. They make a praline bar that is used for this cake. I don’t know if anything like that exists. You can also use milk chocolate blended with Nutella. Less « chic » but it works. Soft, pralne chocolate of any kind should do the trick. The gavottes may pose another problem. Here they are:
200 g pralinoise (Poulain 1848)
90 g crêpes dentelles « gavottes »
40 g ground praline
Melt the chocolate. Crush the gavottes. Mix the praline and the gavottes in to the chocolate.. Spread this mixture on to the macaron base, making sure the corners are filled and it is level.
Mousse au chocolat :
75 g sugar
1 egg + 3 yolks
200 g baker’s chocolate (good quality !)
300 ml whipping cream
Beat the egss and the sugar with 2 tbsp of hot water. This should triple in volume and become very light in color.
Melt the chocolate and then blend it in to the egg mixture.
Whip the cream until it form a « whipped cream » and fold this gently in to the chocolate mixture, making sure it is fully incorporated.
Spread this on top of the praline layer and even the top as much as possible.
Place the cake for 8-10 hours in the fridge. I placed the fridge at 1°C for the setting period.
Comments :
This recipe can be found on a great number of French cooking sites and blogs. The recipes vary somewhat. This one comes from a very nice blog called Amuses bouches
http://amusesbouche.canalblog.com/
I wanted to try the macaron base because I usually do a génoise-type base and often soaked in kirsch. I have to say, I prefer the génoise base. You can also skip the praline layer and make a chocolate brownie base. I do that sometimes and make a thicker mouse layer using only whipped cream and melted chocolate.
I also made this cute Batman cake for his friends at school. He was quite delighted with it. It was one of those things... 9pm, wanting desperately to go to bed, but I had to figure out how to do a Batman theme because it was Sean's special day. It worked out just fine. I was rather proud of myself!
Batman cake
Hamelman's 40% Rye with Caraway
Hamelman's 40% Rye with Caraway Crumb
This is the second of Hamelman's rye breads I've made. The first was his Flaxseed Bread, which I thought was pretty terrific.
Eric Hanner's photos of Hamelman's 40% rye looked so great (as did SteveB's), and others who had made it gave it such rave reviews, well! How could I not make it?
Eric and Steve both used AP flour and Medium Rye Flour. On reading Hamelman's formula, I found he calls for Whole Rye Flour and High-gluten flour. Since I had both of those, I used them. (Actually, I chickened out and used 2/3 high-gluten and 1/3 bread flour for the wheat flour.)
The good news is that this is one of the best tasting rye breads I've ever had. It is moderately sour with a pronounced flavor of rye and caraway. The crust was chewy, except the "ear" which was crunchy. The crumb was rather dense in appearance but with a lovely mouth feel and chew.
The bad news is that I think I must have under-proofed the loaves. I let them expand by about 50% before baking them, and I got explosive oven spring and bloom. The loaf I do not show had the biggest side-blowout I've ever had (and I have had pretty extensive blowouts with my ryes before).
I expect I'll be making this one again. Maybe I'll let it double before baking next time, though.
David
Pain de Campagne variation
Pain de Campagne variation, crumb
A couple of weeks ago, I baked a pain de campagne. The formula evolved from that for baguettes which Anis Bouabsa had shared with Janedo. It had some sourdough starter and some rye flour added to Bouabsa's original. Of course, I didn't have any French T65 flour, so I used KAF "French-style Flour," which is their T55 clone. Also, rather than forming the dough into baguettes, I made one large bâtard. The mixing method was also changed somewhat. After a 20 minute autolyse of the flours and water, the other ingredients are added. The dough is mixed using a method I learned from Hamelman via proth5, although I have since found a very similar method in Reinhart's BBA (see his formula for Pugliese.) The dough is stretched and folded in the mixing bowl with a plastic scraper for 20 strokes, repeating this 3 times over an hour. (20 strokes. 20 minutes rest. 20 more strokes. 20 mintutes rest. 20 strokes.
The critical method I retained from the original was how the dough was fermented: After the autolyse and "kneading," the dough is refrigerated for 21 hours before dividing, shaping and baking.
See my TFL blog entry of August 31, 2008 for more details. (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8454/pain-de-campagne)
King Arthur Flour sells a "specialty flour" they call "European-style Artisan Flour." They have told me this is their approximation of French T65 flour, which is what Ansi Bouabsa actually uses for his baguettes. The European-Style Artisan Flour is a blend of Spring and Winter wheats with some ascorbic acid and some white whole wheat. It is 11.7% protein.
This week, I made pain de campagne again. The only changes from my bake of two weeks ago were 1) I substituted KAF European-style Artisan Flour for KAF French-style Flour, and 2) I made two boules rather than one bâtard.
The European-style flour absorbed more water, resulting in a drier dough. It was also slightly less extensible, but still more so than, say, KAF Bread Flour.
I baked using the same method as before. For the two boules of about 480 gms each, I preheated the oven to 500F and turned it down to 460F after loading the boules and pouring the hot water in the skillet. The water was removed after 10 minutes. After another 10 minutes, the loaves were "done," but I wanted a darker crust, so baked them for an additional 5 minutes, then left them in the turned-off oven for another 5 minutes.
The crust did not stay as crunchy as the previous version. The crumb was about what I expected. The dough acted like a 68% hydration dough, and the crumb looked like it. The aroma of the sliced bread, 3 hours after baking, had a pronounced smell of wheat bran, and the taste of the whole wheat in the flour really came through. It was only slightly sour. The texture of the crumb was quite nice. It was tender and chewy. My experience suggests the flavors will meld by tomorrow morning, and the taste will change. I'm looking forward to tasting it.
Personally, I prefer the previous iteration, at this time but others may differ. Certainly, both are very nice.
David
Savory Hot-Crumb
This bread has the best aroma I have ever smelled. I was afraid the fragrance of rosemary and garlic would wake the family last night while it was baking. Really heavenly!
Last week I discovered that the things I liked about Mark's Kalamata and Pepper Jack Cheese loaf was the herb infused oil and the hot spicy bite you get from the cheese. I decided to try just using the elements that stand out, skipping the cheese and olives all together. Oh, then I thought I would add some crushed fresh garlic.
So, this is a rustic basic white bread with 40 g of olive oil infused with 1-1/2 teaspoons of fresh chopped rosemary, 1-1/2 teaspoons dry French Thyme (Penzies), 1 heaping teaspoon of crushed red pepper run through the spice grinder to make it fine, and 1 large clove of garlic, crushed. I warm the oil in a custard cup for 25-30 seconds in the Microwave and let it set for a while. The oil mixture was added to the water in the final dough. I did subtract the weight of the oil from the water amount. This amount was for a batch of 3.2 Lbs or 2- 1.5+Lb loaves.
If you look at the close up shot you can see the flecks of red pepper that didn't get pulverized in my spice mill. I had hoped that I had over done the pepper and it would be way to hot for normal pallet tastes. But once again the heat of the pepper was subdued by the heat of baking .
I think next time I will roast a head of garlic and smush that up instead of using a single raw clove. The combination of Thyme, Rosemary and Garlic is a natural in many foods. Baked into any bread you have a crowd pleaser!
Eric
Hamelman's Rye with Flax Seeds1
Hamelman's Flaxseed Bread - crumb
Jeffrey Hamelman's Flaxseed Bread from "Bread" is a 60% sourdough rye. It is almost exactly the same formula as his 66% sourdough rye, with the addition of flaxseeds added to the dough as a soaker. This is a delicious bread, but the wonderful flavor really comes together the day after baking. One day 2, it is mildly sour with a prominant, hearty rye flavor mixed with a very distinct flavor of flaxseed. The seseme seeds on top, which Hamelman says are traditional, add another nice flavor and a nice additional crunch.
I have made many rye breads before and love them, but this is my first attempt at one of Hamelman's German-style rye breads. I must give credit to Eric (ehanner), whose beautiful rye breads from Hamelman inspired me to take the plunge.
David