The Bread Topic (2016–)

[heidih]

So I just could not take it anymore. I never bake when parents are in town for 5 months but it is my birthday so "screw it". I have no fridge space so I did no-knead super simple just on the counter overnight (it is 50's 60'sF here) Free form. I got distracted so the bake was longer than usual but the crust was wonderful and the innards well developed.  Enjoyed with roasted garlic and a bit of salami. 

[lindag]

Today’s loaf is Amish Potato Bread

Warning, this one’s a grower.
 

[keychris]

Reinhart's baguettes from Bread Baker's Apprentice.

 

Edited October 6, 2019 by keychris
typo (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

On 10/4/2019 at 1:02 PM, heidih said:

Well I am plebian at best. Finally defied  stepmom and made no knead dough today. Not allowed into fridge so gonna counter rest until tomorrow. My bday then so let thee baking begin! 

I ALWAYS let mine rise in front of a furnace outlet.    But then I live in SF ...

[heidih]

20 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

I ALWAYS let mine rise in front of a furnace outlet.    But then I live in SF ...

 

I usually cold ferment the no-knead for several days to boost the tang

[Margaret Pilgrim]

37 minutes ago, heidih said:

 

I usually cold ferment the no-knead for several days to boost the tang

This is absolutely the way to go.   I am not trying for sourdough tang, but for a country sweet dough flavor.    One of these days I'll remember to try the legit way.  

[JoNorvelleWalker]

[Ann_T]

On 10/5/2019 at 10:30 AM, heidih said:

crust was wonderful and the innards well developed. 

And that is all that one wants in a loaf bread.   Crust, innards and flavour. 

 

Happy Belated Birthday Heidi.

Today's bake.   

Sourdough baguettes.  Made a biga before leaving for work on Sunday and

made the dough Sunday night.   Came out of the fridge this morning and baked this afternoon.

 

 

[Ann_T]

On 10/5/2019 at 4:27 PM, lindag said:

Today’s loaf is Amish Potato Bread

Warning, this one’s a grower.
 

@lindag I bet that loaf makes a great sandwich bread.

 

[sartoric]

So a few weeks ago my birthday present was a sourdough workshop. This is loaf number 3, the best one yet. 

 

Here it is sliced with olive oil to dip. Served with fettuccine slathered in pesto (holy basil, garlic, almonds and parmesan) and roasted cherry tomatoes.

 

I’m excited about this sourdough thing. The dough works really well as a type of naan bread too.

My sourdough starter brings me joy.

Edited October 13, 2019 by sartoric (log)

[Ann_T]

4 hours ago, sartoric said:

So a few weeks ago my birthday present was a sourdough workshop. This is loaf number 3, the best one yet. 

 

@sartoric Gorgeous loaf.  Love the colour of your crust.   

 

I know how you feel about your starter.  Funny because I don't even really like sourdough all that much, but I love being able to make bread

from a sourdough starter that I "grew".  And both Moe and Matt love sourdough bread.

 

Last night's soudough bake. Dough went into the fridge Thursday night and came out yesterday afternoon.

8 smaller size baguettes.

 

Sliced this morning.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

These days pretty much I bake my bread on autopilot.  This evening after I mixed my dough I realized I was working with a batter.  Something* had been tragically miss measured.  I added flour, mixed, added more flour.  About then I knocked over my timer and broke it.

 

Extracted spare timer from the box and carried on.  Tonight's loaves may be a little strange.

 

 

 

Hope springs eternal.

 

 

 

*my guess is either flour or water.

 

[ptw1953]

I hadn't prepared myself, mentally, for the cutting of diamonds on the crust, so did only 4 slashes...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Last night's loaves were pretty good.  I couldn't reproduce them if I tried.

 

[teonzo]

On 10/15/2019 at 5:49 AM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

*my guess is either flour or water.

 

Mai tai, added ingredient. That's why the result was pretty good.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Ann_T]

On 10/14/2019 at 10:27 PM, ptw1953 said:

I hadn't prepared myself, mentally, for the cutting of diamonds on the crust, so did only 4 slashes...

 That is like the perfect loaf.  

 

 

[Ann_T]

Had enough of sourdough for the time being so went back to yeast.

 

Stirred up a yeast biga on Monday night with 220g of water and 220g of flour and just a 1/2 teaspoon of yeast.

This is what it looked like in the morning. 

Nice and active.

Added it to 1000g of flour, 700g of water, 3g of yeast and 27g of salt.

Baked last evening. Picture taken before the sixth batard came out of the oven.

Sliced this morning for breakfast. 

 

 

[Captain]

On 10/13/2019 at 7:02 PM, sartoric said:

sourdough workshop

Was that with Lisa. Sourdough Kit?, down in Pottsville.  I really enjoyed my lesson's

[Smithy]

On 10/16/2019 at 10:58 AM, Ann_T said:

Had enough of sourdough for the time being so went back to yeast.

 

Stirred up a yeast biga on Monday night with 220g of water and 220g of flour and just a 1/2 teaspoon of yeast.

This is what it looked like in the morning. 

Nice and active.

Added it to 1000g of flour, 700g of water, 3g of yeast and 27g of salt.

Baked last evening. Picture taken before the sixth batard came out of the oven.

Sliced this morning for breakfast. 

 

 

 

Absolutely fabulous! What kind of flour did you use? When I get back to bread baking - maybe next month - I'd like to try this.

[Ann_T]

25 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

Absolutely fabulous! What kind of flour did you use? When I get back to bread baking - maybe next month - I'd like to try this.

@Smithy,  I use  a Canadian flour - Roger's Flour, their Silver Star bread flour which is one of their commercial flours. I buy the 20 kilo bag.  It is sold in Costco in Victoria.   On

the odd occasion when I run out and can't get into Victoria I will buy either their Bread flour or their unbleached white at one of the local grocery stores.    Both make excellent breads.

[Franci]

As I mention in the dinner thread, I am going to post here my result on the “Pizza in teglia alla romana”, I am putting it in brackets because, I am not really  following the tradition here, in the sense that this style pizza has at least 75% hydration and 24 hours  minimum rising in the fridge (if you are interested in translating all the characteristics that this pizza should have a good read here). I am planning of first getting a constant good result on a simplified version before going to higher rising and hydration. 

I think only one time I had that amazing, amazing result that you are left with no speech, would like to go back there. 

 

First, I always use the on-line calculator from the Confraternita della pizza. I’ll explain if there is anybody who wants to try. 

 

A paniello is the portioning for your pizza dough (how many pizzas are you going to make), peso paniello is the paniello dough weight. The general rule of thumb is taking the area of the pan divided by 2 plus or minus a 20%. I have the standard Paderno blue steel  this is 30x40 cm, so area 1200/2=600g of dough. Less than that with little experience gets difficult to do a good job. I used 650g. How much hydration you are looking for is the other box to fill.  Then you put the salt/liter water, I decided 30g/L and how long you want your dough to rise, of the total hours how many refrigerated and the room temperature (I put 20C because I often have AC on). You can add a fat (olio or burro, butter to the calculation) and if you are using any poolish, mother, etc and how active it is. Also you can check the box if it’s going to be a pizza in teglia in the pan. The yeast there is fresh, I am using the red star active dry, and to convert from fresh I am multiplying the fresh for 0.375. I think next time I am going to change a couple things. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Franci (log)

[Franci]

So next time I’ll bring hydration at 75% and the paniello weight to 600g, add a tiny bit of oil. My rising is pretty short.  I like to mix around noon, so it rise by 5pm and I can give some folds to the dough and let it rise again. 

I have some very nice YouTube videos for the portioning and shaping of the dough and the final placement in the pan but it’s all in Italian. I think next time I will take some pictures and add them. 

 

 

 

[heidih]

I have to say I do not measure. Do it all by instinct. Always good - maybe  not consistant. Relax - we have done bread for ages and it works without overthinking. OK slap me now  

[Ann_T]

@Franci, thank you so much for posting about your “Pizza in teglia alla romana”.

 

This is not a term I was familiar with, but it reminds me of the pizza that a friend use to make.

A family from Italy moved into our neighourbour when I was around 14 or 15.   The oldest child  "Anna" and I were the same age.  

She had two younger brothers and both parents worked.   It was her job, when she got home from school, to look after her brothers and to get dinner started. 

This pizza reminds of the pizza that she would make to serve as the bread that accompanied their dinner most nights. 

 

It was made in a pan and cut into squares and had very little in the way of toppings. Mostly a homemade sauce and maybe a little Parmesan.  I don't 

remember much in the way of other toppings, except maybe a few slices of their homemade sausage that was preserved in oil. 

 

I loved going to her house because it was so different from mine.  Her house had all these wonderful smells of garlic and herbs and her father and her uncles

had wine fermenting in their basement.    I learned to make my first pizzas from Anna.  No measurements, just adding this much flour to a bowl, with this much yeast and this much salt and oil and enough water until it

felt right.   

 

Years later , Moe and I use to go to a town just north of Toronto to have Sunday brunch at an Italian banquette hall.  And they had two or three versions of this pan style pizza on the buffet.  It always reminded me of Anna's. 

 

Now I know it actually has a name.  It is early here, so I just started a batch and after the last stretch and fold it will go into the fridge while I'm at work.  I'll get Matt or Moe to take

it out before I get home and we will have it tonight.

Thanks again.  

[Franci]

@Ann_T, what a wonderful memory! I wished I had a grandmother to learn all these things. My northerner grandmother, the only one I got to know, never baked bread in her life. Being from Bergamo, she was more of polenta dishes, or ravioli. And my mother, very sweet tooth, has always been a terrible baker! 

Italy can be very confusing when it comes to pizzas. This style of pizza in teglia alla romana is very recent, from the 80ies, it has very big bubbles, I think  it has been Gabriele Bonci merit making it popular also in the rest of Italy.  It’s a different style than the scrocchiarella from Roma. This lady here does such a beautiful job in her home oven, too bad is just italian but the video is good to watch. 

There are so many pizza in teglia, in my area for example it’s more like a focaccia. I found funny when going to the North to the grandparents that anything with tomato they will call it pizza and for me it was just a matter of thickness, everything thick for me was a focaccia regardless the topping. 

 

@heidih no doubt I can still making something edible without too much stress but I find it impossible, if I don’t keep my variable constant for some time, to be able to replicate the same result over time. Of course, who does it professionally or had tons of experience can have the flexibility I am lacking. 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Franci (log)