danlepard

Hello FG, When you say that the leaven can be kept cooler starting on Day 5, does that mean in the fridge or is that too cold? I found it successful to promote the initial fermentation by keeping the starter in a warm place for the first few days. However, sometimes to develop the flavour characteristics I'm looking for I will keep the starter refrigerated after that initial period, especially if the flour mix used for refreshment contains 30% + whole-wheat (or clear) flour. But for a white starter I might keep it always at room temperature and refresh it twice daily. I use the words 'might' or 'sometimes', because with all baking it depends on your resources, tastes and intentions. As 'room temperature' will vary from place to place, then the result will also vary and create the characteristics that the baker, bakery, and loaf are known for. And unless we are all set on replicating others peoples loaves, then that is the path we must promote - the creation of individual characteristics. When you say "...each day I will remove 1 kg of starter, and refresh...", is that truly each day? I do believe that the best result (the most vigorous, healthy fermentation, and the cleanest taste and aroma) comes from regular "by the clock" refreshment. (note: I wish I hadn't used the final quanitities (1kg) that I did, as this might give the impression that you need to make loads of starter. Only if you need a bucket full). What if you're not baking for a few days? Can the leaven, once established, lie dormant until it's refreshed before making the dough? In my refrigerator I have three starters, in different states, sitting dormant. Today I will take out a tablespoon of starter, mix that with addition flour and water (50g flour, 50g water), and leave that in a small covered bowl for 12 hours. When bubbles start to appear on the surface, I will add an additional 50g of flour and 50g of water, and leave for a further 12 hours. Then I will reduce the amount in the bowl by 4/5th's, and then add 75g of flour and 75g of water. Depending on how vigorous the fermentation is, I will either refresh that again (with the final required quantity of flour and water) in 12 or 24 hours. I tend to use up all this amount in my baking, if I am only baking one batch that week. Also, when you remove some of the refreshed leaven to start a dough, must the leaven then be "fed" some flour and water to compensate? No, what I do is let the amount I keep in store (150g, say) run down (as I remove a teaspoon each time). Then occasionally I remove the stored starter, refresh all of that with flour and water, let it ferment once more, then remove another 150g to be stored for future bakings and bake with the remainder. Because if you didn't do this, wouldn't the proportions quickly go out of whack when you do subsequent refreshments? Don't quite understand the question, but perhaps it is answered above? To reframe the question, what's your advice to someone who's established the starter but wants to subsequently bake only once a week? Choose the day you want to bake, then 2 days before baking take a teaspoon of your stored starter out of the refrigerator, and refresh that with flour and water (as above). Aim to reach the total quantity of starter you require for your recipe (generally 30% - 40% of your recipe flour weight) by the time you want to begin mixing your dough. regards Dan

Hello Chad, Bakers percentages. Simply, the ingredients expressed as a percentage of the total amount of either flour (usual) or of the dough (unusual, but I have met bakers who use this system). So, if you consider your sum of flour 100% , then the other ingredients (water, yeast, salt, etc) can be expressed as a percentage of that total (i.e. water 68%, yeast 0.5%, salt 2%, and so on). So, baker A will say, "Great sourdough, how much water is in the dough?", and baker B will say, "I use 70%". Baker A now knows that for a quantity of flour, be that 10kg, 22.5kg, or 87kg, the amount of water needed (to replicate baker B’s dough) is 70% of that flour total. These percentages help express opinions and differences, too. One baker might say, "to make a perfect baguette, you need the dough hydration at about 71%, not the 68% that X baker recommends". To my mind, it works best in tandem with metric units. But then I missed out on imperial measurements at school. regards Dan

Dear Kit, When I was young, I remember being told that there were ingredients that were of 'eating quality', and ingredients that were of 'cooking quality. From this, I used to imagine that the cook was an alchemist, turning base ingredients into golden foods. For many chefs, and bakers, this is still the case. Find the cheapest ingredients, and make them valuable through the processes you apply. But it did always seem strange that there were foods that you might cook with, but not simply eat alone. It was only later, when I started working with Alastair Little (1991, at his restaurant in Soho, where each day we would bake most of the restaurant bread, alongside an excellent multigrain loaf from the Neals Yard Bakery), that I learned another approach: take the best ingredients you can find, and treat them simply to preserve that quality. That is, combine good things carefully and simply. A food writer, Emily Green, suggested I use John Lister's flour from Shipton Mill. Both Alastair and his co-chef Juliet Peston would have Maldon Sea-Salt on hand (at the time, one of the few table salts without additives and still a constant presence in restaurant kitchens in the UK). I started using the unfinished bottles of sparkling water (saved from being tipped down the sink) from the restaurant tables in my baking, and noticed that the bread was lighter, crisper and more unevenly aerated. Was this due to the water? Well, I don't know. But to this day I always try to use the purest water I can in my baking, and the best ingredients I can find. Late this Autumn, I taught classes at Ceci Paolo, in Ledbury, near the foothills of Malvern. And I thought, "couldn't someone set up a bakery here, using wood from the forest to burn in the oven, water from the Malvern spring to mix the dough, salt from Halen Môn in Wales, and grain from mills in both England and Wales"? One day, I hope... regards Dan

Just looked at the Providores website , and the Tapa room downstairs (my preference) is open all afternoon. The menu is very good, can get quite busy in that after-work time. Peter Gordon is still cooking there, and it is definitely a must visit in London. But how will you manage to eat after a good lunch a few hours before? regards Dan Providores 109 Marylebone High Street London, U.K. W1U 4RX Telephone: (+44) 020 7935 6175 Fax: (+44) 020 7935 6877 Nearest Tubes: Baker Street, Bond Street, Regents Park

Hello, As both slkinsey and Robert Schonfeld recommend, do look out for bakers who have long-established starters, and ask (gently) if they might offer to give you some. Though I do make new starters, as a way of explaining the process to other bakers, I am always touched and proud to be asked if I would like a small piece of nurtured starter cared for by another baker. The link that Robert gives, and his comment about Carl, expresses that thought best. It also helps to get the idea across that we 'caretake' yeast, rather than create it. I have a starter that was given to me a few weeks ago by a baker in Denmark. I brought back some flour milled from a local wheat cultivar, rather grey but with a rich flavour, and I will use that with the starter tommorrow. For my sins, I have found that adding currants to a mixture of flour and water, probably due to the sugars released as the fruit decomposes, does seem to stimulate activity in the young starter. It was a step I practiced after finding a recipe for leaven in a tiny, remarkable book, 'Nouveau Manuel complet du Boulanger', published by Julia de Fontenelle in France in 1827. I tried the recipe, and it worked for me. As slkinsey rightly states, the yeasts present on the surface of the fruit are not the cause of the fermentation we hope to acheive. But I'm rather attached to the method and the history linked to it. regards Dan

Hello Oraklet, I'm very curious about your problem, as I'm sure there is an answer. I'm guessing that there is insufficient activity in your starter when it is added to your flour to make the dough. If a bulk fermentation is left to occur at a temperature of 4C (if that is the temperature of your refrigerator) it might be too low to allow the fermentation to accelerate faster than the production of lactic bacteria, giving you an intense sourness in the final loaf. Not knowing your recipe, or method, it will be difficult to predict what the problem might be. Assuming you will bake on a Saturday, this is what I propose: At 8pm one Thursday evening, take 1 tablespoon of your starter, and mix it with 50g of flour and 50g of cool (16C-18C) water. Stir it all together into a thick batter, and leave the bowl at kitchen temperature (make a note of what that is, in your home) overnight. The following morning, add 100g flour and 100g water, stir that once more, and leave until the following evening. Then add a further 150g of flour and 150g of water, stir once more, and use this to bake the following morning. Start early, say 7am, mix your dough to the recipe given in the Jacks class notes here. However, so that you use up all of your room temperature starter (except for your store that you keep in the fridge), these quantities will help: 600g starter 900g water 1500g flour 40g fine sea salt (or less/none as you prefer) and allow it to slowly ferment at room temperature until 1 or 2 pm, using the folding technique described (this will stimulate the yeast activity), then shape and leave to prove until 6 – 7 pm. The course notes will be your best guide here. There are great bakers who keep their starter in the refrigerator, refresh it each day, and find that it has enough activity to leaven bread if used at a percentage of, say, 30% - 40% flour weight. I have worked at bakeries where this is done, and the bread has been excellent. However, this works best if the starter is refreshed daily; and really that requires you to bake bread daily – not a bad thing, but possibly not what you have in mind. It’s funny, I’ve just come back from Denmark, fell in love with the country, and can think of little better than a slice of good Danish rye bread. Regards Dan

Hi, Don't apologise, my daft english is to blame (I don't think 'peeled' is a dictionary word). Your loaf had the sturdy bottom roundness that sometimes suggests cool dough placed on a hot surface. All the better if you achieved it with non-stick paper and a baking sheet. The top split and overall peaked shape may suggest the dough was a little young when it went in the oven, however it could also be attributed to a crust forming on the outer surface before the dough had achieved it's maximum oven spring. It's worth, on the next bake, adding 30 minutes to the final prove (assuming other variables are the same), photographing it, and comparing the two. A glass of red wine, a little cheese and good butter? regards Dan

Wow, Beautiful crust colour, a good bit of spring in the dough, too (maybe you could try a slightly longer final prove?). A good lift around the base of the loaf (it looks like it was peeled on to a hot surface?). Can't wait to see the crumb. Jack will log on as soon as he can after his plane gets in (the jetsetting baker ) regards Dan

Hello MottMott, It's unlikely that the culture would have all died, but some of it may have. The most important thing is consistent refreshment, according to your preference, in the days prior to using it. Try a twice a day (or every 8 hours if you sleep light) refreshment schedule, keeping perhaps one fifth back and replacing the remainder with almost equal quantities of flour and water (I prefer 120g flour for every 100g water). The life contained within the mixture is much more tolerant than you might at first imagine. I must agree with slkinsey and Robert about terminology being misleading. I do think of a good San Francisco sourdough whenever the term 'sourdough' is mentioned. It's not a word I feel comfortable using to describe naturally leavened breads in France, Germany, anywhere outside of the US region, as the encouragement of acidity was rarely considered a primary goal in the good European bakeries I know of. Just a different set of criteria. You might ask 'why leaven bread naturally if not to achieve sourness?'. For me, it is the pleasure and inherent beauty of the slow process. The simplicity, if you like. Good to see the extraordinary rec.food.sourdough mentioned here. It is a mighty resource, and one that must be required reading for every bakery student. Darrell Greenwood's sourdough faq's are, as he rightly describes, 'the definitive web pages on sourdough bread information'. If you haven't looked and been inspired, go to http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/sourdoughfaqs.html regards Dan

Hello, Hope everyone's starter is looking healthy, with a clean & sharp aroma. Just two things, forgive me if they're obvious. When you are testing a recipe for the first time, do take notes, recording everything you do. My pen gets covered in flour and dough, and the book I write upon often has dough, starter and flour wiped across it. Yet when I come to try the recipe again the next day, it means that I can be reasonably sure what steps I took previously. Don't simply rely on your memory, get into the habit of writing it down. Without a camera, this will provide a snapshot showing how you made the bread that day. Following that, I use weight measurements on electronic scales to assist me (metric out of preference). Though I absolutely agree with Jack's decision to use a measuring system that the readers feel comfortable with, I find that when I'm initially shaping a recipe, if I need to add additional ingredients (dough too wet/dry/not enough X or Y), then it is easier to zero the scales and quickly weigh whatever I am adding to the bowl, than to guess at a volume measurement in the haste of the moment. In a quieter moment, once I am happy with the recipe, I will translate the measurements into volume (cups and spoons). I'm really knocked out by the thoroughness, interest and thought in the questions and answers given here. So often I'm told (by editors swept up in a 'quick and easy is best' frenzy) that readers aren't interested in detail, that long recipe are off-putting, and that vague measurements leave more room for adaption. Good to see the enthusiasts right up at the front! regards Dan

Hello Jonathan, The oven in the bakery is a rather simple (but beautifully formed) electric deck oven from a company called Eurofours. The choice of a French oven over an English was due to last minute confusion over the deck (baking chamber) size, and Eurofours had the largest oven that would fit in the small space we had provisioned (that may not make sense, but the story is rather long and complicated and involves different 'standard' tray sizes, and the eventual interoperability, boring but rather important as it restricted the size of other equipment). Electricity and Gas - as I set up bakeries for baking newbies, it is important that the sytems put in place are relatively simple, and electricity offers that ease (switch it on, switch it off). I advise others on how to create the bakery that they , rather than I, want. And I would (for my own bakery one day soon) like to try to have a wood fired oven, ideally built by my friend Paul Merry, and much like the late Poilane's smart setup downstairs in Elizabeth Street, London. But my employer-customers are fearful of the wood fire - the financial cost of providing suitable extraction in a London building, or concern that maintaining a fire would pose a responsibility that the staff wouldn't care for. Just different intentions, I guess. Andy, I must correct you. The wonderful Baker & Spice was formed before I became an employee, and grew because of the talent and enthusiasm of a caring bunch of ex-chefs, oddballs and passionate nutters. I did my bit, and have been overly credited. But I was very lucky to be there at the time. The full cast list is on the last page of Baking with Passion. But since then, I'll take due credit.... So CheGuevara, the above might describe me best. I get offered the chance, by chefs and bakers in the UK, to help them create good bread. I'm a surrogate bakerman ("now give the bakery up, Mr. Lepard"). I do go back to visit, but mindful that now it is someone elses baby. During a portrait for a magazine last week, the photographer said, "That's good for you, getting to walk away a month after the opening." Umm, that depends on what work means to you, I suppose, regards Dan

Hello Elyse, Firstly, I tend to leave the dough, during it's first fermentation, on a board or a tray. This is because a mass of dough will heat up in the centre (much like the core of a compost heap), and when you are working with large pieces of dough this potential variation in temperature between the core and the outer edge can be a problem. Before I continue here, I must add that I have never found this a problem at home, working with 1 or 2 kg of dough. By tipping the dough on to a flat surface, and giving it a turn on the bench, this not only stretches the carbon dioxide bubbles that form, but also ensures that the any warmer or cooler sections of dough are moved, helping the dough temperature stay even. This action also cools the dough a little, which can be a help in a overly warm bakery, and when using soft flours. and Flossie, I'm very pleased you did ! regards Dan

Ok, Yes, they are antagonistic, though apparent simplicity of fermentation is hiding a complex series of responses. Commercial yeast, multiplying at a faster rate, will dominate. Irregular crumb stucture is primarily achieved by the manipulation the dough during the bulk (initial) fermentation. If instead of being knocked back, or punched down, the dough is tipped out on to a board, and stretched and folded once or twice, this will elongate many of the the small pockets of carbon dioxide as they are produced. Thus, repeated over several hours, little hole = thin elogated hole = big hole. Different types of yeasts will produce gas at different rates, i.e. bigger/small size holes. Stretch these, and the effect is magnified. Wetter doughs do open up more when this method is applied, but I'm finding I'm moving back towards a drier dough (68%), rather than those very wet (70%) ones I once loved. As the refrigeration unit on the retarder is also taking the weekend off, I felt it best not to comment on a practice that isn't currently being used. But soon, by Wednseday hopefully, the fermentation will be kept at around 18C. Though, it's funny, I do stumble on to many small bakeries in Europe that produce excellent naturally fermented breads at bakery temperature (varying from 18C - 28C). The exceptions to the rule, I suppose, regards Dan Lepard

Hello Andy, I must quickly appologise as I fear I've given the wrong impression about my own dissatisfaction with ingredients. I was hurtling through life, very excited about the breads and methods I would encounter around the world, and imagined that the bakers I met with were doing the same - that is, searching for 'the best'. They weren't, and I was so wrong and misguided. What they were doing, in creating excellence within the bounds of their traditions, was taking local ingredients, learning to understand the characteristics of local flours through generations of practice (and 'acceptance', another word that is at the top of my baking glossary), and creating the best bread they could. The weaknesses are the strengths, the faults are the admired qualities in the loaf. You know, there are excellent ingredients everywhere if we choose open our mind to them. Certainly in London there is no shortage of wonderful flours, grains and yeasts from around the world. But what about local, the small mill that struggles to sell the unfashionable English grain. By getting over my silly 'dissatisfaction', growing up and learning to discover what qualities the local grain could give to a loaf, and by beginning to learn to respect what we have, I believe I have grown 10 fold as a baker and a person.

In the case of 3 breads (the white, rye, and brown), I described them as commercially yeasted breads. That is, although the amount of commercial yeast added is very small (5g per kilo of flour), that yeast is still the dominant leavening in the dough and cuts the dough time down to 5 hours (as opposed to 10 hours on the leaven bread, made without commercial yeast - still a relatively short time, but the bakery is very warm and there is a slight reluctance by the bakers to extend the times with lower tempartures, as they are all new to baking at a respectable rather than breakneck speed). At this level, the souring acts as a lactic 'improver', increasing shelf life, aiding the development of an inregular crumb stucture (an affectation, I know), and gives the loaf a more complex flavour. If your question is also about using both commercial yeast and sour ferment (created by leaving a flour and water mixture, made slightly lactic with the addition of a little sour milk) to naturally ferment) in the same bakery, then I would assume that it would be difficult to keep the sour completely pure from any commercial yeast, given that it is handled and used in production in the same work area. I have never added it to a sour to start the fermentation - a pointless task that only fools the baker.

It finally opened. Last Friday, at 8.00am, suddenly and quietly. So, having taken the weekend off, here are a few thoughts, explaining a little about the bakery that sits alongside a bar and simple-food kitchen. As I’m just the start-up guy, the journeyman baker, and certainly not a spokesman for the company, these thoughts are simply personal observations and history about a rather special group of activities enclosed within the space. As my involvement will end shortly (within the next few weeks) and I start the next project, I thought as Andy suggested I participate more, that I would let you in on the personal thoughts behind my work there. The history and preparation... Initially, when St. John in Smithfield opened almost 10 years ago, I set up the bakery. Following my departure, the bread at St. John was maintained and nurtured for 8 years by Manuel Monade, who together with Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, planned to open a bakery somewhere around Brick Lane. The three had worked quietly trying to secure a site, and finally last year, signed to the property in Commercial Street, E1. Then Manuel suddenly departed, and that left a big space in the project. Fergus and Margot (his wife) had suggested I became involved, and I put forward ideas for head bakers. Eventually, we felt that the best solution was to employ from within the company, and St. John’s pastry chef Justin Gellatly was offered the position of head baker at the new bakery. This made sense because my thought had been to combine the bakery and pastry sections into one cohesive unit, and though the bakery methods I would install would be fundamentally different to those used at old St. John (changing from quick no-time doughs, to slowly mixed fermented artisan baking), essentially they would be easy to teach if the interest and willingness was there. And Justin has made the effort to embrace these values. I set rules for myself to guide to work. Firstly, I would write the dough methods and alter them to work with the chosen flour. This decision was, in part, an attempt to correct my own approach to baking, which had become increasing driven by dissatisfaction with the ingredients, an approach I could not justify. Surely the grain grown locally (in East Anglia and Kent) was capable of baking good bread? For hundreds of years it did, why not now? So initially I looked to 2 small mills, where the slow milling methods might also add flavour, texture and colour to the loaf – Redbournbury watermill in St. Albans (01582 792 874), and Maud Foster windmill in Lincolnshire (01205 352188). These flours were used initially in the tests for St. John B&W (baked suing the ovens at Locanda Locatelli). However, after a recommendation from Troels Bendex at Breads Ecetera (07811 189 545), and Paul Merry, I finally settled with Cann Mills (a watermill in Shaftsbury, Dorset -01747 852 475; Paul runs his bakery courses there). Secondly, the bread would be baked in the late afternoon, for purchase and delivery early evening (5pm) - when friends want to buy bread, and making it an more attractive proposition for potential employees (the people who ‘love working nights and sleeping during the day’ are perhaps not the people you want to employ). In many countries, bakeries within a town will bake at different times, and be closed on different days, to avoid chasing the same buck. It also means that, as a customer, you watch the bread being baked. All of the breads use a sour ferment, and we have three (a white, a mixed grain – white, rye and wholemeal, and a rye/cider). The ferments are kept at a cool temperature (15C) in the cellars, and are refreshed with equal quantities of flour and liquid (water usually). There are four breads, all organic, that I have worked with the bakery on, the ordinary White (Cann stoneground white flour, sour ferment, water, salt and commercial yeast – 0.7%), the ordinary Brown (Cann stoneground white flour, wholewheat flour, sour ferment, water, salt and commercial yeast – 0.7%), the rye (Cann stoneground white flour, rye flour, rye grains, sour ferment, water, salt and commercial yeast – 0.7%), and the Leaven (Cann stoneground white flour, wholewheat flour, sour ferment, water, and salt). All are openly textured, with a thick crisp crust. The bakery equipment was sourced by Les Nightingale (01733 324 363), and chosen and designed by myself. The bakery team, as of today, is Justin Gellatly (Head Baker), A-Cau Duong (the baker who maintained the old SJ bakery with Manuel and after until this opened), Warren Blakeman, Chris Niewiarowski, and Suzanne Banks. And the rest? Run by GM Lou Barclay, with head chef Carl Goward and bar manager Jo Norman, its almost an English diner, or a Parisian cafe. Quite dour and northern European, the dining room serves (at any one time) a few simple dishes, though these groupings change throughout the day. Ginger cake, and egg and bacon bits in the morning, seed cake and madeira at 11's, two or three simple braises (tripe, duck legs and carrots, say) cooked in the bakery oven, bread, salty butter, prune tarts and thick cream, washed down with good French (only) wine. Late afternoon will see the arrival of little madelines, eccles cakes and shortbread, And the evening rolls on with more dishes to settle the stomach. St. John Bread and Wine, 94 - 96 Commercial Street, E1 6LZ, telephone 020 7247 8724, fax 020 7247 8924, http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk

Thank you, Andy. I do post sometimes, but I struggle to find anything relevant to add (other than the odd post about Turin and Newcastle, two places I know well). It was such an honor to stand next to Randolph from Neal's Yard, someone who's work in promoting British cheesemaking is markedly grander than my own attempts for Britain and it's bakers. And my word, Ronnie Corbett to boot....my editor at the British Baker (our trade journal) tells me that Ronnie's father was a baker. He's a hero of mine, and if you watch tommorrow night (ITV S.E. region, 11.30pm) you will hear a cheer go up as he walks on the stage. Other unusual highlights....listen out for the naked one waxing on about how he used to read Gordon's books when he was a youngster (Hmmm, how long ago?). Dan

Hello Peter, I know Turin quite well. My favorite osteria there, where I go every time I'm in Turin, is Osteria Antiche Sera, Via Cenischia 9, Torino (011 385 4347). It is a slow food office favorite, but an evening only place and I prefer it to most of the restaurants I've eaten at, anywhere. Do go, it is very special. Places I've heard are good, but haven't had a chance to go to are: Osteria Con Calma (in strada Cartman, 59), Sotto la Mole ( in via Montebello, 9), and C’era una Volta (011 655 498 or 011 650 4589).

Hi, Other than those listed: it really depends what your after. I travel to Newcastle frequently, and I've liked: Cafe Royal is very good (but I do work for them), from breakfast though to the evening. Has a great deli. Cafe Royal 8 Nelson Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Tyne & Wear Tel: 0191 2313000 The company have a very good pub with food, ales and wine, Twin Farms 22 Main Road, Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle upon Tyne. Tyne & Wear Tel: 0191 2861263 Not far from Newcastle, and worth a visit, The Angel Inn Main Street, CORBRIDGE, NE45 5LA Tel: 01434 632119 Fax: 01434 633496 Email: info@theangelofcorbridge.softnet.co.uk head chef - alan o'kane Alan trained with Philip Britten (at the Capital), and at Cafe 21. The meal was great, very comfortable room, classy cooking Otherwise, Chinatown is good, perhaps heavily anglicized, but big portions of clean fresh food. Went a bit early to the Baltic, so can't give a favorable comment (but hope they've lost the potted indoor plants). Stay at the Malmaison, rooms are great, food I would give a miss.