The Bread Topic (2015-2016)

[Smithy]

5 hours ago, Ann_T said:

.Franci, they look great too me.  Would love one with my coffee.

 

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Decided to try and recreate a Sourdough Chocolate cherry bun that I use to buy from a bakery when we lived in Vancouver.

 

 

Were you happy with the results?  What (approximately) did you do?  It looks delicious.

[Kerry Beal]

6 hours ago, Ann_T said:

.Franci, they look great too me.  Would love one with my coffee.

 

 

Decided to try and recreate a Sourdough Chocolate cherry bun that I use to buy from a bakery when we lived in Vancouver.

 

Is that the Sourdough Chocolate Cherry loaf they sold at the bakery in Grandville Island?

[Ann_T]

3 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Is that the Sourdough Chocolate Cherry loaf they sold at the bakery in Grandville Island?

Kerry,  No, there was a bakery/restaurant on West Broadway, Ecco Il Pane, that baked these amazing buns with chocolate and cherries.  They also did a muffin that I loved, it was more like a bread pudding muffin.  I hadn't thought of this bun in over 15 years so I'm not sure how close my memory of them came, but everyone was very happy with my recreation.  I will add a little bit more sugar to the dough next time I make them.  I'd like the dough to be a little bit sweeter.

[Franci]

My son doesn't like if I twist his favorite recipes.  So, usual brioche for him and made only 6, filled with prune jam and pecans for me and hopefully my daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Loaf of KA white bread.  Had to test it out with some blueberry jam that my neighbor brought me from Newfoundland.

 

[kayb]

It's rainy and miserable outside. I am jonesing for some good bread. But as I'm leaving town tomorrow, I'll wait until I get back and bake on Saturday or Sunday. OK, maybe Monday. No, not Monday, I have work obligations. Doggone it. Must bake Saturday or Sunday.

 

[Ann_T]

Yesterday's bake.

 

 Eight small Boules and 

 

and eight small  baguette "buns"

 

 

Edited March 11, 2016 by Ann_T (log)

[liuzhou]

After a straight run of 9 or 10 loaves which which I've been very happy, I'm now feeling upset and disheartened. The last two have been utter disasters.

 

I am using the same flour, yeast, recipe, oven, temperature, timing etc. Nothing has changed except the results.

 

The batch before last failed to rise at all. (Possibly my water was too hot. And today's rose perfectly and, after baking as normal,  looked great, but once it had cooled and I cut into it, I could immediately see that it was still only partially cooked - maybe ¾ cooked. Parts were still a doughy mess. I did chuck it back in the oven for a bit, but it refused to bake properly.

 

I really don't know what is going wrong.

 

 

[paulpegg]

I use a thermometer to test for doneness. I stick the thermometer into the middle of the loaf and it is done when the center is at 200F.

 

If you don't have a thermometer then gently tap on the bottom of the loaf. It should sound hollow. If it sounds dense then it is not fully baked.

Edited March 14, 2016 by paulpegg (log)

[liuzhou]

19 minutes ago, paulpegg said:

I use a thermometer to test for doneness. I stick the thermometer into the middle of the loaf and it is done when the center is at 200F.

 

If you don't have a thermometer then gently tap on the bottom of the loaf. It should sound hollow. If it sounds dense then it is not fully baked.

 

Yes, I know. It sounded hollow and measured over 200F. 100ºC to be precise. It still wasn't cooked through, though.

Edited March 14, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[Anna N]

Is it possible the thermostat on your oven is now wonky?   I know it was fine before because you were having success.  Do you have an oven thermometer?

[liuzhou]

12 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Is it possible the thermostat on your oven is now wonky?   I know it was fine before because you were having success.  Do you have an oven thermometer?

 

It was never very accurate. I don't have an oven thermometer - unavailable here; few people have ovens. I do have other temperature measuring devices though. I'll check it again tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion.

Edited March 14, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[kbjesq]

@liuzhou I'm not sure that this is of interest to you, but I have had a Zojirushi bread machine for almost 10 years now. I mostly use it for mixing dough (which I then shape and bake in my oven)  but when I do allow it to bake the bread, it works great. There is an adjustment for light, medium or dark crust,  as well as "homemade" settings that allow you to customize each of the mixing, rising and baking features. 

It also makes meatloaf and fruit jam. I'm very happy with it. I've never had a bread failure with the Zo bread machine. 

[liuzhou]

1 minute ago, kbjesq said:

@liuzhou I'm not sure that this is of interest to you, but I have had a Zojirushi bread machine for almost 10 years now. I mostly use it for mixing dough (which I then shape and bake in my oven)  but when I do allow it to bake the bread, it works great. There is an adjustment for light, medium or dark crust,  as well as "homemade" settings that allow you to customize each of the mixing, rising and baking features. 

It also makes meatloaf and fruit jam. I'm very happy with it. I've never had a bread failure with the Zo bread machine. 

 

Thanks for the response.

 

Unfortunately, I only have a tiny kitchen with minimal storage space and another machine is just not what I need right now. The fridge is in the sitting room, as are the pop-up toaster and the rice cooker. Apart from the toaster oven which is on the floor, the only 'machines' in the kitchen are an electric kettle and a stick blender and they are pushed for space.

 

For a country that exalts in its food culture, they haven't really worked out kitchens yet. Mine is bigger than many. One of my neighbours doesn't really even have a kitchen. They cook on the open balcony.

[Kerry Beal]

Wonder if you could bake in the rice cooker? I know that I've got a book around here somewhere that shows how to do all sorts of non rice things in the rice cooker.

[Anna N]

34 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Wonder if you could bake in the rice cooker? I know that I've got a book around here somewhere that shows how to do all sorts of non rice things in the rice cooker.

Tried bread in the rice cooker.  Perhaps if you were starving......

[liuzhou]

39 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Wonder if you could bake in the rice cooker? I know that I've got a book around here somewhere that shows how to do all sorts of non rice things in the rice cooker.

 

I suppose it's perhaps possible, but you have little control over temperatures with a rice cooker. They are designed to cut out at 100ºC which is way below any temperature I bake at.

 

I won't be going down that route. Anyway, I need it for my rice!

Edited March 14, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[Franci]

Cornetti again. Less leakage of butter but still very far from ideal. These guys are heavy. Ah, ah. I think I need a lot more practice. 

 

[Ann_T]

Home-made Rye bread.

.

Sliced for breakfast.

[cakewalk]

Made this loaf the other day, mostly following Peter Reinhart's basic sourdough except I added some yeast because I didn't have all day. (Don't tell!) This was mostly bread flour with 1/2 cup of semolina and 1/2 cup rye flour. Rather than make two boules, I formed one large round loaf which was a bit over three pounds. I prefer this because cut the loaf into quarters and wrap and freeze them. Reinhart says to bake to 205F, but next time I'll let this go to 210F. I also think it needs a bit more salt, but that might just be me. But the crust was very nice, and the semolina and rye added nice flavor and texture. The texture I think is from the semolina, it seems to work wonders in a loaf of bread. (Just as I think buttermilk works wonders in the texture of a cake.)

[EsaK]

Need help with my starter... I've had it going for like 3 weeks or so now, feeding it each day. So, roomtemp is around 20-21°C, I began the starter with equal grams water and AP. After a few days, I started feeding whole wheat flour. Each night, I took out 100g and put in 50g (the last week I changed flour to 60g) flour and 50g water and stirred. It has smelled yeasty, soapy, alcoholy or something like that everyday. 

I've made all kinds of things with it and there certainly is a sourdough flavor to it. Made some "crackers" with only the discarded starter, and they tasted very much like the sourdough crackers we have here. 

The issue I have is that I'm really not sure if something's wrong with my starter or is it as it should be? I can't notice any rising within an hour, two hours or the next day after I've fed it. And sometime before I began using 60g/50g flour/water to feed it, it took on a dry looking surface. Below are two pictures, roughly 1hr after feeding (it looked exactly the same right after feeding, 1hr, 2hrs later) and the next morning (which is what it looks like the whole day, kinda dried on the surface). Any thoughts and help would be greatly appreciated!

[cakewalk]

Not sure what to tell you, EsaK. You say you've baked with it. Are the loaves rising? Do they taste good? I've never had any luck maintaining a whole wheat starter for any length of time. I'll usually keep a white starter, and a few days before I plan to bake I'll start feeding it WW flour if I want a WW loaf. The starters above don't seem to have any bubbles, but often there's a lot of action going on under the surface, and we can only see the top. I've never done this, but have read that one way to test starter is to put a tablespoon of fed starter into a bowl of room temperature water. If it floats, you're ready to bake some bread. 

[EsaK]

Thanks for the thoughts cakewalk! The few breads I've made with it were okay, not superbly open textures. Taste was quite nicely sour I think. I took it as a good indicator when I made the crackers with only the discarded starter and they tasted almost like ones from the store (which are delicious, mine were less great).

 

The openness/rising I would imagine is due to many factors other than the starter. If they should be rising close to like with yeast though, then there's probably something wrong. And as you mention, the top really doesn't look bubbly at all. I've stored the discarded parts in a plastic jug in the fridge where you can see that even in the fridge it develops quite a bit of bubbles. Same thing in the roomtemp, the bubbles are under the surface mostly. 

 

Now I'm thinking I should start a new one with AP flour (or rye, that's what they used to use) and see if the starter rises and how it smells/tastes.. 

[liuzhou]

On 14/03/2016 at 0:37 AM, Anna N said:

Is it possible the thermostat on your oven is now wonky?   I know it was fine before because you were having success.  Do you have an oven thermometer?

 

After my couple of bread disasters, I was discouraged, but yesterday baked again and was happy with the results.

 

Today, I managed to track down an oven thermometer and tested the oven. It is spot on temperature. Either that, or the thermometer is exactly as wonky as the oven!

 

I'll just put the failures down to gremlins and bake on! I'm thinking about olive bread. And now that my bust shoulder is 95% recovered, I may even knead!

Edited March 25, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[Anna N]

 

 I am OK if you laugh at my shaping disabilities!  I was handicapped by a baking stone which was smaller than I thought it was. So for the second batch I made mini loaves.  This was my first attempt at Stirato from In Search of the Perfect Loaf.   This was such a fun baking project that I will surely repeat it and improve my shaping skills.