The Bread Topic (2009 – 2014)

[antdad]

Some really fine looking breads in this thread...another Jim Lahey "no knead" fan here.

Recipe here...http://greatbread.blogspot.com

[Rico]

jmolinari posted a ciabatta recipe on the recipegullet a few years back, and I went ahead and tried it out the other day - it works. Well. He says he's got a better one now, but for a first-timer, I was really happy with this one.

[lizztwozee]

glennbech, do you bake in electric or gas? Your loaves are just beautiful! You must also rise in a vehicle that creates the lovely flour veil with "stripes" -- I'd love to see a shot of that.

[minas6907]

This is my first attempt at making anything from the Bread Bakers Apprentice. Previously, any baguette type bread I've made was from rather bad formulas from On Cooking or The Professional Chef, very disappointing with the results. But these puppies came out very nicely, I like the rather specific instructions for making the steam (where as the technique from The Professional Pastry Chef didn't seem to yield too good of results). There was a clear, very big difference with these loaves, I do think it's the first time I was able to get a crust I am happy with on a baguette. The recipe was the 'Pain a L'ancienne.'

[minas6907]

After cultivating a starter for 2 and a half weeks, I got some time to try out the 15 page tartine bread recipe. At first it was sort of confusing because everything was written in long paragraphs, but the process is basically no different then most recipes. I followed his directions and was very suprised by the outcome, by far the best loaf I have made! I didnt use a combo cooker, but found that the medium sized black steel pans will fit nicely into the oven without the top pans handle being too long. Pleasantly suprised with my first attempt at a bread thats leavened with only natural yeast.

[HowardLi]

Made CI's Rustic Italian Bread last week. It was excellent. Crumb was consistently bubbled and the flavour was up there with some of the best breads I've had for that style.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Oma Salome's black bread. Addition of 1 tbsp of malt extract syrup made a huge difference. Apologies for the cruddy pic.

[minas6907]

I went with a friend to a restaurant supply store today and saw these nice baskets that would work perfect for proofing a loaf, and it wasnt $30! I'm always shocked at how expensive the bannatons are, but this was just a little cracker basket with a pretty tight weave, not perfect, but for $2.50 it did wonderful. So I just made a quick tartine loaf to test it out and was pleased with the result, this loaf was made using 15% rye flour.

Edited April 12, 2012 by minas6907 (log)

[rod rock]

@Isabelle Prescott my mother is making similar as yours and i must admit it is one of my favorites

[Jon Savage]

This morning's effort (60%ish hydration, naturally leavened):

[rod rock]

Very nice! It looks crispy

[Okanagancook]

I am trying to make pita bread. Our friend just built a brick oven and I tried pitas in it last night. White flour only. The oven was around 550 degrees. We only got two out of 7 to puff right up. The others did not puff up totally. Uneven puffing. Any thoughts on why they all didn't puff. Is it the way I rolled them out? All were around 7 inches in diameter and I am using the recipe in Flatbreads and Flavors by J. Alford and N. Duguid.

[heidih]

Okanagancook - there is some discussion about puffing factors in this topic

[curls]

First time trying out King Arthur Flour's recipe for cinnamon bread. Quite tasty; this recipe is a keeper.

[furzzy]

Not sure where to post this...just pulled these out of the oven. They're still crackling!

I don't have a steam injection oven. I bake the baguettes on a Fibrament stone set in the very bottom of my oven, no rack. At first, I throw roughly half a cup of water into the oven right over the baguettes, every 3 minutes, three times. The amount of steam give me amazing spring, and by throwing it right onto the dough, it keeps it wet enough to allow the spring.

We don't prefer them quite so dark as they properly should be, so that's why the color may not suit some.

[furzzy]

And here's the crumb. I've just started baking again after several years' hiatus because of health. So I'll call this acceptable for the first try back. :-)

[Ann_T]

And here's the crumb. I've just started baking again after several years' hiatus because of health. So I'll call this acceptable for the first try back. :-)

Wow!! Way more than just acceptable.

[furzzy]

And here's the crumb. I've just started baking again after several years' hiatus because of health. So I'll call this acceptable for the first try back. :-)

Wow!! Way more than just acceptable.

Wow! Coming from you, Ann, that's quite an honor. As I said before, everything your post is amazing.

[furzzy]

Made this sandwich bread yesterday. Used Bob's Red Mill 10-Grain Hot Cereal & KAF White Whole Wheat flour. Hubby said it was one of his faves ever.

ETA: I slashed the top & put the tiniest bit (ha!) of butter in it before baking.

Edited June 20, 2013 by furzzy (log)

[Ann_T]

Furzzy, I'd love a sandwich on your bread.

[furzzy]

Beautiful, Ann!

[Ann_T]

Thanks Furzzy.

[Syzygies]

I'm reporting on our naturally leavened bread from freshly ground flour, after dozens after dozens of experiments. It is a serviceable house loaf that is around all the time; we just had bruschetta tonight with first tomatoes of the season, for which it was perfect. It is my attempt to balance the looks of classic artisan bread with the flavor of sourdough from whole grains. I can't buy bread that tastes like this bread, and we're within a drive of Acme Bread, which I revere. Some of the links and observations may be helpful to others.

Bread is a continuum, so I find it crucial to maintain a spreadsheet, rather than follow other people's recipes. I tape a summary page to a cabinet door, to mark up as I work. It helps to adopt baker's percentages, in order to compare notes with other sources. Our default grain is organic red winter wheat; the spreadsheet (in grams) tracks other additions, and yields two loaves.

A day before baking, I feed our 80% hydration starter every 12 hours, using 75% red wheat and 25% rye. The night before baking, I grind and measure out all dry ingredients. The day of baking, I autolyse the flour for an hour or two, then add starter and salt, kneading by hand twenty minutes on a butcher block counter. This starts out a mess as with any wet dough; a bench knife is essential for collecting the dough every now and then. I bulk rise 3 to 4 hours, then proof 3 hours (until ready, usual finger test) in linen cloth in wooden frames. I transfer to the oven on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and remove the parchment paper part way into the bake.

I started out far more of a "flour, water, salt, leaven" purist. The bit of yeast is insurance and a bit more loft; it can be left out. Similarly, a bit of diastatic malt promotes rise and a nicely colored crust; this too is optional.

Freshly ground flour is "green" and will flatten into the classic, feared "flying saucer" loaf shape unless one adds a bit of ascorbic acid. How does one add so little? One cuts in stages to a 1:400 concentration, thinned with white flour, as directed e.g. by Suas. I similarly cut the diastatic malt to 1:7, and keep jars of each mixture handy.

We grind flour using a Wolfgang Mock Grain Mill. One can spend more; we weren't happy with the flour or noise from several lesser choices. It would have saved us time and money to have started with this mill. This is also known as the Komo, a frequent choice over at The Fresh Loaf forum.

We sieve bran from our flour using 12" Round Stainless Steel Sieve, Fine Mesh (55 mesh) set in a Vollrath 8 Quart Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl. Setting the Wolfgang two clicks back from a gnashing noise, this yields 80% extraction flour. For comparison, Pain Poilâne uses 85% to 95% extraction flour. A smaller sieve is too tedious; a larger sieve would be nice if one has the room. A matched pair of these bowls and a coarser sieve is handy for sifting mixtures together, such as preparing fixed concentrations of ascorbic acid or diastatic malt, or mixing these into one's flours before autolyse.

We bake over a charcoal fire in a Komodo Kamado ceramic yard oven. I usually set the fire a few hours before baking, bringing it down below 500 F before adding 400g of ice for steam, then baking 20 minutes or so at 450 or so. One can't judge such an oven by air temperature, as radiant heat is a significant factor; one wants to bake naturally leavened breads to 200 F internal temperature, with outer appearance a potential bonus, not the deciding factor.

For steam I keep 400g slabs of ice in our chest freezer, formed in a chamber vacuum sealer bag, sealed using an inexpensive impulse sealer. This is the way to go, for example, to freeze stock. This slab easily slides onto a 15" Lodge Logic Pre-Seasoned Skillet filled with two spools of Straight Link Chain in Stainless Steel. I've seen this idea in a number of places, the earliest being The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens. Most recently, Bouchon Bakery advocates such an approach, getting lots of credit and ridicule for popularizing this much steam. Steam injection oven – Keller style – safe? is an eGullet thread on this topic. In a nutshell, commercial bread ovens introduce lots of steam, plant spritzers don't, 400g ice over this much thermal mass turns into enough steam to displace the air in an oven a few times over, and not everyone is convinced that they need steam. It does lead to a thinner crust and better oven spring.

[shar999]

Cooked this Rustic Sourdough Bread outside on the Big Green Egg yesterday.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Oh, that's gorgeous! How do you get the spiral effect on the crust?