The Bread Topic (2016–)

[dtremit]

19 minutes ago, Isabelle Prescott said:

A quote from The Fresh Loaf:

 

"Bakers use the "high heat dry milk" to get assurance of the reproducibility of the rise of their bread. The high temperature in the process changes the glutathione to a compound that will not affect the gluten structure. Glutathione reacts with the gluten to reduce the gluten structure so that the dough does not rise as much as it might."

 

Thanks, Isabelle! I had gotten as far as figuring out that the KAF stuff was "high heat," but most dry milk seems to be sold as "instant" or "non-instant." The only stuff I can find explicitly listed as "high heat" (or low heat, for that matter!) is in 50 pound bags.

 

I have seen people say that "non-instant" dry milk is produced via a high-heat process.

 

I mostly use it for one specific bread, though, so I think I'm just going to try a pound of "non-instant" and see how it comes out.

[Isabelle Prescott]

I'm going to do an experiment and make the same recipe with instant powdered milk and the same recipe with instant powdered dry milk that has been reconstituted and heated per The Fresh Loaf to see if it makes any difference.  (Sometimes we complicate bread baking to a point of being ridiculous.🌭)

 

[Isabelle Prescott]

They talk about professional bakers using the "high heat dry" milk.  Well, I like the taste of home made bread much better that what the professional bakers make.

[jimb0]

I wonder, if the glutathione is denatured by simple heat, whether one might also quick toast the instant milk powder to achieve the same or similar results.

[Ann_T]

Today's bake.

Fed my starter this morning and decided I wanted to bake today. rather than make a biga and wait for it to double, I just added 80g of the discard into a batch of dough along with 3g of yeast.  

Starter doubled in less than seven hours and it is back in the fridge.  I've been trying to remember to feed it once a week. 

Baked four batards and

 

four small bun size rounds.  

 

Started each loaf off in the CSO using the bread steam setting.   After 10 to 12 minutes moved the loaf to the Oster to finish baking.   

This method allows me to bake a number of loaves with the benefit of the steam, in a short period of time.  

[rotuts]

So , .....

 

I have to get an Oster soon ?

[Ann_T]

2 hours ago, rotuts said:

So , .....

 

I have to get an Oster soon ?

Well, maybe.  I know you probably wouldn't be disappointed.  And they are usually on at a very good price.

Costco here has the manual one on for the low price of $109.99.   That is the lowest I have seen.    I think I paid $169 for the digital model.

 

I used the CSO and the Oster exclusively.   So far I haven't found anything that I can't bake or roast in at least one of them.

The Oster will even hold a 6 qt dutch oven , a 15 1/5" X 13" baking sheet and I have a stone that is 15" by 13 for breads.

 

If I had room I would be tempted to buy another one, but since I still have a second CSO in a box, probably won't. 

 

[Kerry Beal]

I saw the french door oven at Costco here today for $99. Don't know manual vs not however. 

[Ann_T]

On 5/23/2019 at 7:24 PM, Kerry Beal said:

I saw the french door oven at Costco here today for $99. Don't know manual vs not however. 

 

@Kerry Beal, I think there are a few members that have the manual and some the digital   I don't  think it matters. 

 

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/153620-breville-smart-oven-vs-oster-dumb-oven/?page=6

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Last week I didn't bake.

 

 

 

A little strange because I followed Modernist Bread's directions.

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

But I must say the end result was pretty good.  Note I had to perform an additional fold beyond what Modernist Bread directed in order to work with the dough at all.

 

My theory is that my KitchenAid doesn't mix like MB expects.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Staff of life for tomorrow's lunch...

 

 

 

No dough was reserved for pizza making so loaves are larger than usual.  I baked the boule a few extra minutes.  Most of the baguette will probably be gone before I head for bed.  Early morning.

 

 

[ElsieD]

I bought some Red Fife cookie and cake flour today that they claim is 16% protein.  They also had  bread flour which was 19% which I did not buy.  The bread flour was of the whole wheat variety.  The flour is really fresh as it has a mill date of May 29th.  I plan on using this flour for bread and have an active rye starter I would like to use with it.  Is there anything special I need to know about using flour that has a protein content this high?  I am used to using bread flour that has a protein content of 13%.  I practically had to mortgage the condo to buy this stuff so if there are any pitfalls I would like to know ahead of time.  Thanks!

[Duvel]

No knead-style mixed grain bread (50% whole grain spelt, 50% wheat), 80% hydration, 5 days cold fermentation, baked in preheated cast iron ...

 

[lindag]

I made a recipe of goulash the other day that just screamed for some homemade white bread to go with it.

I can't even remember the last time I made a loaf of plain white bread but that day I really needed some.

I used this recipe from KAF.  Exactly what I wanted.

[Ann_T]

Pulled a batard out of the freezer last night for dinner. It had been the freezer for two weeks. 

 

This bread was made using Roger's unbleached all purpose flour, not their commercial Silver Star bread flour.

 

 

[David Ross]

Well, I'm not much of an actual bread baker, but I figure that I can post something made from bread.  The crouton.  I don't think homemade croutons get attention.  I've been making them for years to go with my Caesar salad.  But about a year ago I started using a new technique.  Rather than cut the croutons into cubes, I tear them from a loaf of bakery French bread.  This is intentional so the surface of the crouton soaks up the garlic butter olive oil blend I douse the croutons with.  They are so darn tasty that often they're gone before there is time to garnish the salad.  

 

I just start with bakery French bread then tear it into small croutons.  The garlic butter is 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup olive oil and 6 cloves crush garlic, cooked down to melt the butter. The croutons are toasted first for about 10 minutes in 350 oven to just start to brown.  Then I drizzle over some of the garlic butter, back into the oven for another 10 minutes until golden brown.  Then into a large bowl and tossed with more garlic butter and seasoned with salt and cracked black pepper.  I'm sure all of you use your delicious breads to make croutons, and maybe someday I can get to the point of not having to buy bread to make my croutons.

 

[Ann_T]

Nothing better than homemade croutons.   @David Ross, I would so snack on your croutons. 

 

Hand-mixed a 1500g batch of dough yesterday at 72% hydration. Divided it into three containers and put them in the fridge. 

 

 

Took one out the fridge early this morning and baked three baguettes and one small round.

The little round was a result of having to cut a piece off one of the baguettes so the baguette would fit on the stone in the CSO.

Took a  second batch out of the fridge this afternoon and will  make pizza for dinner.

And the other container will stay in the fridge until I feel like baking again. Maybe tomorrow or Thursday.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

On 6/1/2019 at 10:55 PM, Duvel said:

No knead-style mixed grain bread (50% whole grain spelt, 50% wheat), 80% hydration, 5 days cold fermentation, baked in preheated cast iron ...

 

 

I am unaware of this extended fermentation.    This is absolutely beautiful!    Thanks for the inspiration to experiment further.

[Okanagancook]

A small bakery in our local area does this long ferment.  Our neighbour who is gluten intolerant  can eat this bread.  Apparently the gluten gets altered during the long ferment.

[blue_dolphin]

Focaccia from A Girl and her Greens. The one on the right has the Potato, Red Onion and Thyme topping from the book. The header notes suggest coming up with your own toppings so there's a leek and sausage version on the left.

Going into the oven:

 

And out:

 

The recipe says to use two 8-inch round pans. I used 1/4 sheet pans instead. The recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon + 2 teaspoons of yeast in the dough and says NOT to use instant yeast. I went ahead and used instant yeast and I used about half the amount (~ 3/4 T), which is still about twice what I would normally use. Everything worked fine. I baked them for 22 min vs 25 in the recipe but probably should have pulled them out of the oven a few minutes earlier due to the larger pan I used.

Edited June 7, 2019 by blue_dolphin (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

 

[Ann_T]

I still had one container of the dough that was made on Tuesday. So last night I baked a round in a Dutch Oven.

 

From the same batch of dough the pizzas were baked from except this dough was now five days old.

 

Sliced this morning.

 

This dough made the best toast this morning.   It was a yeast dough, but I had fed my starter, and tossed some of the discard into the  batch rather than just throw it away.

So over the five days the flavour really developed.   

[blue_dolphin]

One of today's pita breads

 

[Ann_T]

@blue_dolphin, I love watching pitas rise.   

 

 

We hit over 30°C yesterday.  I love the hot weather.  But people here on the west coast seem

to complain a lot when the temperature is over 22 or 23°C.

 

Even though it was too hot in the house to bake, I did anyway.

 

Dough was made on Tuesday, started with a Biga, and I divided the 1220 g batch into two containers and it went in the fridge for a long fermentation. Took one container out yesterday morning and baked late afternoon.

Using my new method of starting each loaf on a stone in the CSO on the bread bake steam setting, and then transferring to the Oster, I cut the time in half that it takes to bake four baguettes from start to finish in the CSO.