glennbech

A Sourdough "Pain de mie" could be interesting, I'm looking forward to hearing about your results! The "Sweetness" in the pan de mie might work well the the sour element of sourdough. Go for it ! :-) In the mean time; This his how my Pan de mie turned out. It's glazed with an egg and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It tasted great! (especially if you're a sweet tooth.) Almost no crust, buttery, and very soft and spongy crumb. I would really recommend the recipe. I couldn't bake it last night, so It spent the night in the fridge. It actually rose almost 100%. (Yeast sure is forgiving when it comes to rising) ... Proofed it for an additional hour or so after I took it out of the fridge, and baked at 200c for about 45 minutes.

When making a steak with good meat quality, the optimal core temperature, when the meat is most tender, is about 55c/131f. Microwaving boils the water (takes to 212g/100c) in meat 1-2 cm from the surface. Boiling is never good, and is a recipe for tough meat. Microwaving leftovers is something completely different. I'd invest in a thermometer, and rely on it to see when the meat is finished. It can be used for all kinds of meat, costs about $15. Different meats have different optimal temperatures. Information on this is available all over the place -) good luck !

I'll try to answer this a bit more in detail than "yes, you did something wrong" :-) Chicken and turkey needs to be handled carefully, and should be roasted at low temperatures to avoid/reduce the process of hardening muscle tissue. It's also a very diffucult animal to roast in one piece, because the redder legs are tougher, and require more time in oven than the delicate white meat of the breasts. For successfull chicken or turkey ; - Always let rest to room temperature. (You didn't use a frozen one I Hope ?) - Preheat ovcen to 200 c (392 f) This is the WARMEST temperature you'll ever use for a bird! - Place a pan in the bottom of your oven. - Put the bird on it's side on a metal rack, place it in the middle of the oven with it's right leg up. - Roast for 10 minutes. Turn the bird around, and roast if for 10 minutes with the left leg up. - Reduce temperature to 140c (284 f), put the bird on it's back, and roast for about 40 minutes more. The times mentioned will vary on the size of the bird, and your oven. The reason why you want to fry it at a higher temperature in the beginning, is that most of the flavour in a bird is located the the fat close to the skin. Frying on high temperatures liquidizes this fat and let's it go into the meat. Use a thermometer. Put it in the meatiest part of the leg (but not touching bone). Turn of the oven when the thermometer says 65C / 149F. Take it out of the oven when the temperature passes 70/158. What I think went wrong in your case was ; - If the meat was cold or even worse frozen, you have boiled the outside with steam (from the water you put in), and later in the micro wave oven. Leaving the inside cold. (red) - Never use the micro wave. For later ; If you over-do a bird like this, and the meat goes real tough. Make a cream sauce, and put the meat into the sauce. The fat will make the impression of juicy meat .-)

One of the more scientific books I've read on cooking lately, states that Meat will absorb water if left in a salt water lake for some time before roasting. This is the opposite of what you are saying here right ?

Last week when dining out at an asian place here In Oslo, the people sitting in the table besides us ordered Rack of lamb. It looked fantastic "stacked" on the plate. So, last time I went to the supermarket, I ended up with a venison rack, and I though I could cook that "Asian" style as well. I'm thinking a thick sauce, sweet, hot... Any ideas for an "Asian style" Venison Rack? The meat is from new zeland, probably not game, and frozen. I guess the game taste isn't too striking. Other recipies not "Asian style" also very welcome! :-)

Im using this recipe for Pain de mie as we speak .-) 700 g milk 1000 g white flour 50 g sugar 30 g yeast 20 g salt 100 g butter Diced. Mix everything together, but hold back 100g of milk. (If you're using a kitchen machine). Mix for 3 minutes. Then mix for 5 minutes adding the last of the milk. Slow down, and add the diced butter in small amounts at a time. Let the dough rest for 1 hour, divide into three pieces, and let them rest for 20 minutes. Form loaves and rise do double size. Bake.

Another very usefull leasons learned today ; Never (completely) trust a recipe! Since Im new to the sourdough baking, I tried to be true to my recipe that got me good tasting bread the last time; However, the results were disaster. My pre-ferment/sponge were stored 8-12 hours, just as my good working recipe. However, when baking today, i stored it at about 32-33 C. Last time, I guess the temperature were about 26-28. This makes a huge impact the the pre-ferment! Today, after storing at 32-33, the pre-ferment were liquidized. I could pour it out of the bowl. It aslo had the best rising ability I've ever seen in a sourdough. My guess is that the processes that feeds on the statch is running a lot faster at the 32c temperature, producing a more liquid dough. Since Im new, I didn't dare to alter my initial recipe and went for the same amounts of additional flour and water... This was a total disaster, with yet another extremely sour "pancake" bread :-) I ruined a linnen cloth. Even stuffed with rye flour, the dough stuck to my improvised proofing tool. I couldn't even slice it, since the breads were so Wet. So it cracked up all over during baking. I guess I have to practice practice practice. Im was a bit frustrated today. Since i got real excited seeing the great rising power of my dough, the dissapointment over the extremely bad result was extra hard. But, I'll keep doing it untill I get it right, and develop a feel for how it's done !

You're reply is perfectly technical enogh -.) I was just wondering if you had made a "special" type of focaccia .-) I'm very new to this, and were confused to see breads with hydration levels less than 50% .-) Happy baking... Mmm... It sure looked good .-)

This is probably a Pain de mie (Crumb bread) If I remember correctly it was made by the french bakers to satisfy tourists and customers who didn't apericiate the typical hard crusted french bread. Now the french love the bread as well. It's often made and sold in rectangular shapes. The lack of crust comes from the fact that a lot of milk and butter is used in the recipe. One recipe I found, called for about 10% butter. I think most of the liquid is milk, and the additional fat helps soften the crust even more. It also contains sugar, which can explain the sweet taste... But more importantly.. Why do you want to know? Was it good? I'm thinking of making a batch for the Saturday breakfast, as my wife is no big fan of hard crust .-) Rgrds,

Hi! A Question about your total hydration... Putting your recipe into my fantastic Baker's percentage calculator Shows me that this is a very dense dogh, with a total hydration at about 40% Is this typical for foccacia recipes? Rgrds

Looks great! How on earth dou you handle a 100% hydration dough?!! .-) I've been struggelig to keep my 75% doughs from sticking to everything in my kitchen .-)

More issues As I continue my sourdough experiments ; A) In today's batch. one bread was burnty while the other was not. How is this possible ? Both of them are in direct contact with my Pizza stone that is at bottom of my electric oven. I guess it was burned because of hight temp. Right now I'm warming my oven to 482F/250C... I might reduce this to 230C ? How one escaped this faith, but not the other amazes me. B) Dough WILL Stick to a floured linnen cloth in a basket !! Why didn't anyone tell me this ? *grin* Will I need a "professional" battenton.. (Spelled correctly?) where can I buy those? C) I measured 34 degrees C in my kitchen at some point when the doigh were proofing.... How will this affect the result ? Any ideas ?

Yeah... Sponge devleopment while I'm at work. Should have thought of that one .-) While we're at it; I guess the sponge/dough ratio affect how sour the bread gets? . As well as how much starter there is in the sponge, and how long you let it ferment?) Mm... I guess I have a lot to learn. Yesterday, I experimented with a sponge, with equal amounts of starter/flour/water and short fermentation time. ( 3 hours). However, I ended up with a sponge of 450g, and a total dough weight of 700. That was really sour bread ! .-) The taste, crumb and crust were not bad though. Tomorrow, I'll try a sponge that is 30% of total flour weight, with a small amount of starter, and leave it while at work. I'll Proof/ferment as you suggest. I'll be back with the results! Another thing ; I'm getting tired of handling doughs at > 70% hydration levels. They're so sticky. Do you get real big holes and soft crumb at 60-65% hydration ? Thanks again all for excellent feedback.

Should have been.... A) 3 hours starter refresh, 1 hour bulk fermentation and 3 hour proofing. or B) 3 hours starter refresh, 3 hour bulk fermentation and 1 hours of proofing.

Thanks a lot sirch1980. The tips regarding rye substitution was very helpfull. Now... Experimenting a an "express sourdough" ( I want to see If I can cram a baking session 7 hours in between end of work at 17.00, and bedtime, around 00:00) What is better; Long bulk fermentation, or longer proofing? If we consider two aproaches, where only 7 hours is available. A) 3 hours starter refresh, 1 hour bulk fermentation and 3 hour proofing. or B) 3 hours starter refresh, 3 hour bulk fermentation and 1 hours of proofing. Im doing this experiemnt right now, So I guess we'll soon enough see if 7 hours will produce good bread .-)

- In a dough with about, let's say, 1 kg og flour. Is there a magic formula to determine how much refreshed starter / sponge to make? Can I compensate for a small sponge by bulk fermenting the bread longer ? - In norway the supermarket flour contains 10,7 % protein. This is gluten right ? Is it protein content that determines the water absorbtion abilty of a flour ? Is this what is refered to as "strength" ? Or are we talking about how fine the wheat is milled ? How does this attributes affect the bread ? - How much oven spring can I rely on getting from a dough? Let's say I bulk ferment my dough for 5 hours, shape the loaves (they will collapse a bit during this process), and put them straigh into the oven. Will the bread rise at all ? - I've seen vitamin C in some recipes. What's the right way, and reason to apply witamin C in bread baking ? - I have some recipes on wholegrain soursoigh breads, and bread with a coarser ground flour. Can I use my nice and acitve fiine starter for these breads ? The recipe states to use another starter. (From rye). Is this only for taste ? Will the bread rise just as well with a fine flour starter ? Hope someone can help me shed some ligh on this magic .-)

I guess the tawing tactic "back in the oven" is great for taste, but have you tried masuring weight after leaving them uncovered 10-15 minutes in the oven ? I just did a very and unscientific experiment with a loaf I'm about to have for breakfast, and lost nearly 10% hydration .-) I might a a math/science freak now. Who cares if it tastes good...Nice looking bakery on display by the way! Inspiring!

I freeze them in the plastic bag. After thawing I notice that there is some dampness/humidity on the insides of the plastic. I guess this is only a very small percentage of the evaporated water. That's why I suspect the crust has not absorbed "all", and that there actually is a microscopic "loss" even when thawing in a plastic bag. Thanks for all the tips here. I'll try thawing in plastic and re-baking. Sounds like that is the process that will give the best tasting result. Toasting is of course another option, but beeing north european.... Well... Toast and tea is just not our thing (at least not mine!) :-)

I recently did a small study on thawing bread. Since you cannot use a plastic bag when thawing it (Crust gets real bad), some kind of "breathing" material must be used, meaning dehydration. So, how much water is lost during thawing ? Here are the results. (Total weight loss over approximately 12 hours.) Plastic: 0% (start weight 149g, end weight 149g) Paper: 1.9% (start weight 104g, end weight 102g) Cloth: 4.9% (start weight 122, g end weight 116g) Other details; the bread was baked with a 65% hydration, baked into round loaves and cut in halves. Three halves have been used in this "experiment". This means that all loaves have a “cut”, and is not totally surrounded by crust. This probably has an effect on the total result, but the comparisons should be valid. I conclude with the cloth/fabric giving the overall best results, but at a higher dehydration cost. (I like crispy crusts!) I guess the overall best approach would have been to put half baked loaves in the freezer ? Any other thoughs on preserving bread ? (Complete details of my "experiment" can be found on my homepage/food blog. Go by clicking here

By the way; Have any one seen a start look like this ? It's a thin layer of fluid on top of the "dough". Very strange... I guess this is a very bad sign .-) .. .And I'm throwing this one away and starting over again, with plain white wheat flour after Jack's instructions when I come back from holiday. I had high hopes for my fruitstarter .-) Maybe I'll try it again later when I get more usded to regular ones, and know how they should behave .-)

JAck; Thanks for the tips. I'll reduce the hydration to about 65% and make sure that my starter is active. I'll post the results in the thread. By the way; Any good tips on keeping the temperature at around 30c ? My kitchen is a bit drafty, especially during winter. The indoor temp is always somewhere around 20-23 depening on the season.

It's always a bit de-motivating when you spend a lot of time on a project, and it doesn't go according to plan. I guess that happened to me. So have a look and learn, see how things can go when working with starters, chefs and sourdough recipes. My Recipe was as follows; 1 kg of Fine what Flour 6,5 dl of Luke warm Water. 24 grams of salt 500 grams of sourdough starter made from fermented fruit. You can have look at a recipe for this starter earlier in my blog. <a href="http://www.glennbech.com/2006/04/baking-with-sour-dough-how-to-make.html">http://www.glennbech.com/2006/04/baking-with-sour-dough-how-to-make.html</a> The first thing that struck me was that the dough was extremely wet... I know all of the recipes from that particular book emphasize on using wet dough, so I didn't think much of it.. After struggling a bit with it to form three loafs of bread, I covered it up to rest for an hour or so. The next thing was that to follow the recipe, I had to use 100% of my starter. I was not very keen on that and wanted to keep 100 ml for further use, so I gambled that 430 grams of sourdough would be enough ( 70 grams short, or 14% less than stated ) . The results were disastrous and the sourdough did not rise properly, the recipe told me to put the loaves on a sheet of baking paper, cover them up and let them rise. Instead of rising "upwards" these bastards chose to rise "outwards". Instead of bread, I got pancakes! After 2-3 hours of "rising" I gave up, covered in plastic and went to bed. The next morning, not much had happened, and I threw the breads away without baking them. I am going to make the qualified guess that three factors made this dough a disaster; - The starter wasn't well enough developed. I kept it and have been feeding it, so I hope it will come along nicely after a few more days. - I took a shortcut and kept 80 grams (1 dl) of starter. Used Less that the recipe stated. - My starter is probably (for some strange reason) more liquid than the starter the recipe was based on, making the total amount of liquid in the dough higher than desirable. Hence the pancakes... At least, these are my theories and the things I'll try differently next time! Here is a step by step illustration of the baking disaster. 1. The loaves are a bit small, but I still hope they will rise, I took the dough out from my Kenwood kitchen machine, and made three loaves, you can only see two because I had another "accident" with the third. Not my day! <img src="http://www.glennbech.com/uploaded_images/step2lookinggreat-770093.jpg"> 2. After half an hour or so of rest, I do the finishing touch on the dough and put them on a paper sheet and cover, so the rising process may begin. I was pretty happy with my result, and pleased with myself. <img src="http://www.glennbech.com/uploaded_images/step1okay-779898.jpg"> 3. Im starting to suspect that this is not going to be the bread of my dreams .-) <img src="http://www.glennbech.com/uploaded_images/step3notsogreat-761329.jpg"> 4. Even After two hours the loaves are not rising at all but just floating out like giant pancakes ... This is pretty much how they looked 12 hours after as well. Can't get much worse tha this ? to bad I don't have a profile shot of the doigh, mabe 1 cm (0,5 inches) high. <img src="http://www.glennbech.com/uploaded_images/step4disaster-752623.jpg">

Thanks for the tips jackal10, I guess I'll have to do some research on how and where to shop my ingredients. The local supermarkets, even the well stocked ones do not carry a lot of different flours here in Norway. I've read some of the more technical discussions here about gluten content and milling. Im amazed by the different things you guys have in stores in the US (And other countries as well). Anyway : An update of my progress is in order as well... Day 16 Today we take 3 dl of fermented apple peel liquid, and mix in 300 grams of fine wheat flour. we also add 1 dl of the product from day 15 and throw away the rest. This time we put it in the fridge. I'll try to use it for baking, and start the feeding process tomorrow. Im hoping to get a stable and reliable chef for sourdough baking going.

Hi All, thanks again for nice feedback. I'm looking forward to participate this active community of foodstuff lovers -) As an answer to seth/jack I'll have to say that the source of my method is one of a rather famous bread bakery in Oslo, Norway, and their published book. They do not state a special reason for kicking off the starter on fruit, other than that you might recognize the taste in the final product. They also claim they survived their troublesome start making apple pastries for a local coffee shop, and used the leftover peel for fermenting starters. I have a questions though; Is it easy to get a starter/chef going on a pure fine wheat flour? I've tried a couple of recipes earlier with rye, but I find the taste not very suitable for fine white bread, and better for wholegrain like for example the danish 100% rye bread (which, you cannot make without sourdough) I guess a 100% sourdough starter made from pure white wheat flour would do just as fine as my fancy one from apples :-) However, Im really looking forward to have my first slices of bread with the jelly I made from the leftover apples .-)

Hello Carolyn, Sorry for the mistake about 17 apples. Hope you didn't start peeling. My intention was to write 17 days to complete the chef. I guess you'd have to peel 6-10 apples depending on size. Lost a chef in a divorce, lol! They couldn't share it ?