The Bread Topic (2014 –2015)

[Okanagancook]

Very brave of you Anna N to try such a weird looking recipe.  Sometimes, things just work out.

Good luck finding black treacle, cyalexa 

[Anna N]

Anna N, I think I must now find some black treacle.

Anna N, I think I must now find some black treacle.

No black treacle in my life. Molasses does the trick just fine.

[cyalexa]

No black treacle in my life. Molasses does the trick just fine.

good to know - thanks

[Anna N]

Two small loaves of sun-dried tomato bread with shallots and herbs.

[paulpegg]

I have been a member here for some time but never posted in this forum before. The work I see all of you have done is outstanding. I have been a baker for almost 45 years and have read may books on the subject and tried almost all of their procedures. In recent years I have been mostly using Jim Lahey's no-knead method with some adjustments. I recently learned about Gontran Cherrier's Red Miso Rye and adapted to my method. The first part of this is a straight rye and the second part incorporates red miso into the mix. Try it, you will be surprised. 

 

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery with inspiration from Gontran-Cherrier in Paris http://gontran-cherrier-boulanger.com/

Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

 

600 gm bread flour, more for dusting

200 gm rye flour
4 gm instant yeast
16 gm salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

 

 

For straight rye bread use 600 gm Bread flour, 200 grams rye flour, 4 gm yeast, 16 gm salt, Mix all dry ingredients then add 500 to 600 gm cool water and mix well to get a firm but sticky mass.

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 600 gm water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 F degrees.

 

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

 

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

 

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 F (232 C). Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Sprinkle the bottom with some corn meal or wheat bran. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Score with a sharp knife or razor bladé as desired.

 

Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned and interior temperature is 200F (93.3C). Cool on a rack.

 

For Rye-Red Miso Bread add 150 gm of red miso to 450 gm water and mix into the dry ingredients as above, adding more water if the mix is too dry. This will make a stickier mass and you should definitely allow it to rise overnight or longer. Bake to an internal temperature of 200F (93.3C). The bread will be quite damp and need at least one full day to dry out. The taste continues to develop for two or three days.

Here are a few shots.

 

This one was made with the above procedure.

 

It had a nice tight crumb

 

This one was made with less water to produce a rounder boule in the dutch oven. Sorry, i didn't take picture of the cut loaf, but it was similar to the one above.

[minas6907]

Heres a tartine loaf I did a little while back. The sucker weighed in at 1.7kg. We made many a french toast from this one.

[aliénor]

dave w.  love the look of your sourdough wheat boule. could you please post the recipe so i can give it a try.

thanks

aliénor

[robirdstx]

Dough for Simple Crusty Artisan Bread. Will use half of the dough to bake up a loaf tomorrow and save the rest for another loaf later in the week.

[Dave W]

dave w. love the look of your sourdough wheat boule. could you please post the recipe so i can give it a try.

thanks

aliénor

Sure I use

200g sourdough levain 100% hydration rye

350g bread flour

150g stone ground whole wheat flour

320g water (with the levain it's 70%hydrated)

12g salt

48 hours out feed starter to make levain, and

Mix salt and flour and water

Autolize preferably in the fridge overnight. Mix with levain well you have to work it in due to differing densities

Ferment at room temperature a few hours then refrigerate 12-24 hours.

Shape dough and cold proof overnight, allow to finish proofing at room temp an hour or two while oven warms

Bake in 450f in Dutch oven covered for half the cooking time, about an hour total. The dark ones above went about 75 minutes as I was distracted.

I'm baking one right now incidentally.

[robirdstx]

Simple Crusty Artisan Bread:

Baked in a dutch oven on parchment paper.

Cooling.

Sliced and ready to dip in herbed olive oil.

[Anna N]

This is Nigel Slater's cider bread made with 50% bread flour and 50% wholemeal spelt flour and half a can of Strong Bow cider. Slater calls for 35 g of fresh yeast to a mere 500 g of flour. That translates to two or more sachets of dry yeast! Couldn't bring myself to use that much yeast to that much flour so reduced it to 2 teaspoons active dry. It is an interesting bread that smells much more strongly of cider than it tastes.

It is a very, very easy bread to make with little kneading, no fussy shaping and does not even need to be slashed. I am pretty sure that Google will bring up the recipe.

[Cyberider]

A very interesting thread!  I've been away from this forum for a couple of years since it was blocked at work where I do any online activities I need to.  All of a sudden, it's open again so will look forward to reading more and maybe posting some of my bread baking.  Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas to all.

[cyalexa]

This bread is truly amazing

http://www.foodlovermagazine.com/recipes/try-classic-russian-black-bread-recipe/5799

 

I finally remembered to purchase instant coffee so I can make this bread. I noticed a couple differences in the blogger's recipe and the one published in Short and Sweet. Did you use one or 3 tablespoons of sugar? Did you use steam when you baked your loaf? Thanks.

[Anna N]

I finally remembered to purchase instant coffee so I can make this bread. I noticed a couple differences in the blogger's recipe and the one published in Short and Sweet. Did you use one or 3 tablespoons of sugar? Did you use steam when you baked your loaf? Thanks.

Except for making only half the recipe and subbing molasses for the black treacle I followed the ingredient amounts precisely. I did not use steam.

[Anna N]

I felt the need to bake some bread today. This is my normal white sandwich loaf but instead of making one big loaf I made two small ones. The one in the front has a name that I cannot recall but it is made of two balls of dough which join up as they rise and bake.

[ElsieD]

Happiness is getting the book Flour Water Salt Yeast and also the Emile Henry baguette baker for Christmas. My husband is one swell guy.

[AlaMoi]

this is a two days recipe with diastatic malt - veddy good

[cyalexa]

This bread is truly amazing

http://www.foodlovermagazine.com/recipes/try-classic-russian-black-bread-recipe/5799

 

 

I made this today and it was by far the ugliest loaf of bread I've ever made. I over-proofed it so my slashes remained as deep ravines due to lack of oven-spring. Additionally, it was undercooked. That said, it tasted delicious and was such an interesting technique. I liked the way the yeast turned the rye gruel all puffy. I think we will be having a lot of sandwiches over the next few days. Better yet, I think I'll give most of it away so I can make another loaf right away.    

[Anna N]

I made this today and it was by far the ugliest loaf of bread I've ever made. I over-proofed it so my slashes remained as deep ravines due to lack of oven-spring. Additionally, it was undercooked. That said, it tasted delicious and was such an interesting technique. I liked the way the yeast turned the rye gruel all puffy. I think we will be having a lot of sandwiches over the next few days. Better yet, I think I'll give most of it away so I can make another loaf right away.

I am so glad you tried it and I do hope you will give it another shot.

[tinyragebaking]

The bread thread! I make this No Knead recipe and I use a baking stone and steam to produce this bread: 

 

I am not sure if the cracks on the exterior of the bread are good or bad.  It's been humid lately and my bread hasn't had the nice exterior crunch that I like, so I've been baking it for a bit longer than usual lately! 

I'm trying out the ciabatta recipe from Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice tomorrow!  I have the poolish sitting in the fridge ready to go. 

[paulpegg]

The cracks tell me that you have a nice crust that should produce a great crunchy bite. Nice job.

 

I am not sure if the cracks on the exterior of the bread are good or bad.  It's been humid lately and my bread hasn't had the nice exterior crunch that I like, so I've been baking it for a bit longer than usual lately! 

I'm trying out the ciabatta recipe from Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice tomorrow!  I have the poolish sitting in the fridge ready to go. 

[tinyragebaking]

Thanks paul  

I'm letting the ciabatta rest right now but I'm concerned that I didn't add enough water to the dough.  The measurement from Reinhardt's instructions say to start with 6 TB water and add more as necessary (upwards to 3/4 of a cup) but I only added enough as much as I thought "felt" right. Out of the 3/4 c water, I had about 1/2 c left.  I think the dough should be a lot stickier and wet.  It is almost too easy to handle, which concerns me.  I'll report back later in the day with how it turns out.  

[tinyragebaking]

Not sure if it was my meat hooks man-handling the dough, or lack of water, but the crumb looks too tight for a ciabatta: 



Exterior looks ok: 



No stone, used steam.  The crust was soft, and the entire bread had a wonderful chew despite the really tight looking crumb.  Would try making it again.  Definitely need to do more research on the bread though.  

[Anna N]

No-knead challah.

[Shelby]

Hamburger/sandwich buns