Baking with Myhrvold's "Modernist Bread: The Art and Science"

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On ‎7‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 7:07 PM, kevinkeating said:

In most cases, shaped dough is placed into bannetons with the seam side UP, whether proofed cold or warm, and then fully inverted and scored (on the non-seam side) when moved to the oven (this is true using the combo cooker method as well in professional deck ovens). 

 

Thank you, thank you!  I think this explains my confusion.  I had always been placing the dough in the banneton seam side down and then flipping the dough out of the banneton onto the peel so that the seam side was still down.  If the dough is placed in the banneton seam side up then the pictures on page 3-338 make perfect sense!

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My steam oven has been suffering so until I can replace it* I've not been mixing French Lean Dough.  However tonight I plan to start another batch of Neapolitan Pizza Dough (p 5-113).  My question as always comes down to what numerical speeds are intended in the stand mixing instructions.  In this case it's 4 minutes on "medium" and 4 minutes on "high".  For folks who worry about picograms they could be more precise.

 

Last time I didn't dare set the KitchenAid to speed 10.  I have the largest KitchenAid and at speed 8 it was dancing about on the countertop -- yet for full gluten development I still needed more mixing time than called for.  No complaints about the end result, I was quite pleased with the dough.  I just don't want to see my burnt out mixer on the floor.

 

I have a face protection helmet.  Maybe I should just jump to ludicrous speed and see what happens.

 

Oh, and another question:  any thoughts on why the poolish for this recipe is so small?

 

 

*next payday.

 

 

[Duvel]

2 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Oh, and another question:  any thoughts on why the poolish for this recipe is so small?

 

Well, MB is pretty much technique-oriented, so size really doesn’t matter here ...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

3 hours ago, Duvel said:

 

Well, MB is pretty much technique-oriented, so size really doesn’t matter here ...

 

I mean why is the poolish so small relative to the other ingredients.

 

[jer_vic]

My first attempt at the Chocolate and Cherry Sourdough recipe.  I didn't have osmotolerant yeast, so I used ~50% more regular yeast.  I probably could have doubled the yeast without any issues, but it's a fairly dense loaf anyways, not sure if that's worth trying.  Flavour was great, different from anything I've had before.  Bridging the gap between cake and bread....  Will definitely be making it again.  Oh, and dried cherries seem to be expensive!

 

[jer_vic]

And a nice Pain Rustique for good measure.

 

[Kerry Beal]

Pain rustique cracking away on the cooling rack.

 

[keychris]

35 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Pain rustique cracking away on the cooling rack.

 

 

Don't you just love that sound

[Kerry Beal]

3 minutes ago, keychris said:

 

Don't you just love that sound

I do indeed! 

 

Here’s the crumb - not completely cool but hubby wanted some.

 

[JoaoBertinatti]

Hey guys, I have a question. I am planning to feed my levain at 10pm and use it after 14h, 12am, My doubt is, I take what I need at 12am (like 70%) and feed right away(but then the 24h routine breaks) or I take what I need and keep feeding the rest(~30%) of the levain at 10pm, without discarding?

Edited August 31, 2018 by JoaoBertinatti (log)

[Chris Hennes]

@JoaoBertinatti - I usually split mine at feeding time, so feed both the part I plan on using and the part that is continuing on at the same time. If you are talking about feeding earlier or later than your normal feeding time I'd only feed the part you plan on baking with, and feed the other portion at the normal time.

[rob1234]

I'm trying to make the grain count bread and it says to pressure cook the grains per instructions on page 3-376 but that page is about selecting the correct cooking vessel for baking bread. Anyone know what the correct page reference is?

[Chris Hennes]

15 minutes ago, rob1234 said:

I'm trying to make the grain count bread and it says to pressure cook the grains per instructions on page 3-376 but that page is about selecting the correct cooking vessel for baking bread. Anyone know what the correct page reference is?

Yeah, it's volume 2, not 3. 

[rob1234]

1 minute ago, Chris Hennes said:

Yeah, it's volume 2, not 3. 

 

Thank you.

[Chris Hennes]

This weekend I returned to sourdoughs after a summer-long heat-induced absence. It wasn't actually the plan, but a friend of mine stopped by my office the other day and asked if I had a starter he could have, his had gotten infected and was on its deathbed. I didn't (now that I'm comfortable starting new ones I didn't see a reason to maintain it all summer long), but I had previously given my starter to a colleague at work. So she brought in hers, and after my levain-killer friend took what he needed, I also grabbed a bit and figured I may as well bake with it this weekend.

 

My colleague had been feeding it whole wheat flour, but the levain didn't seem to mind a feeding on white flour Friday night, so by yesterday morning it was definitely ready for baking. I made six loaves total: two Modernist Focaccia, two Master Recipe Sourdough, and two Chocolate Cherry sourdough (now a marital obligation, I think!). Here are the latter two loaves:

 

 

 

 

They are all a touch over-proofed (overnight at 13°C), and honestly I was also really lazy with the shaping and just sort of let the dough drop into its banneton. So not perfect, but functional and delicious anyway.

[Chris Hennes]

And for giggles, a video showing the production of the Modernist Focaccia (I made it into pizza, which I cooked on the grill because it's still quite hot here).

 

 

[Lisa Shock]

I had been planning to do something very similar with Focaccia fairly soon -try and replicate NJ style 'Sicilian' pizza, the stuff that's baked in a sheet pan and has a very thick (think 1" or higher) crust. Your pizza looks great!

[rob1234]

I'm unclear about a few things with the grain count recipe. The recipe has 210g nut, seed, and grain mix which I assume is weighed using cooked grains based on the fact that the total bread yield is 1kg but on the page with all the different mixes they total 210g using raw grains. When I cooked the grains for the mix the mix weighed a lot more than 210g. Should I use it all or measure out 210g of it when I mix it in?

 

For cooking the grains the bread recipe says to mix them all together and pressure cook for 25min but the page in volume 2 referenced in the recipe has different cooking times for each grain.  Again, which is it? When I cooked quinoa for 25 minutes it was mush.

[Chris Hennes]

I'd say that the True Modernist Way™ would be to cook each grain separately. And I think you'd want to use 210g total cooked weight for the 1kg dough recipe, but I guess it depends on how much you like inclusions! They have demonstrated that you can include a nearly arbitrarily large amount and still get a successful loaf. 

[Chris Hennes]

(That said, I've used one of those generic 7-grain mixes, all cooked together obviously, and still gotten excellent results)

[rob1234]

Thanks. I ended up recooking some quinoa separately. Did some cracked corn, farrow, and wheat berries for 25 minutes all together and it seemed to work ok. Combined with 7 other random seeds and nuts I had laying around and only used about 60% of the mix to equal 210g. Should be ready for the oven in about an hour.

[Chris Hennes]

As usual I've got several loaves in progress this weekend, but the craziest looking, by far, is this purple beast:

 

That's the blackcurrant and marcona almond sourdough just after adding the almonds (medium gluten development). It is seriously bright purple.

[Chris Hennes]

OK, the last loaf just came out of the oven... four of them today, starting with:

 

Modernist Sourdough

 

Of course. I usually make at least one loaf of this when I'm making sourdoughs. I tried a different proofing strategy this weekend. I started making the loaves at about noon on Saturday. I machine-mixed, so they were ready for proofing at about 4:00pm. I proofed them at 13°C until midnight or so (so eight hours), then moved them to my normal refrigerator overnight. I started baking at about 11am so the loaves got something on the order of 12 more hours of colder proofing. I prefer handling the dough at the colder temps, it scores more cleanly and seems to retain its shape better. Last weekend my loaves were overproofed, having been left at 13°C overnight. This weekend they were spot on.

 

 

[Chris Hennes]

Pistachio Butter Sourdough (KM p. 72)

 

This starts with a normal batch of sourdough (I used the Modernist variant), to which you add 20% pistachio paste and 20% toasted pistachios. It tastes basically like pistachios (shocking, I know). It would probably be great with a pistachio gianduja spread on top, but I enjoyed it plain or with butter as well. It's a light green color: not too intense, just enough to be unusual.

 

 

 

[Chris Hennes]

Lemon and Herb Pesto Sourdough (KM p. 71)

 

This starts life as a normal sourdough. After pre-shaping into a boule, the dough is flattened into a disk and a divot made in the center. An herb pesto (roasted garlic, thyme, oregano, rosemary, and lemon zest) is added to the divot, then thin lemon slices layer on top. The dough is then shaped into a boule such that the pesto forms a layer over the top of the dough ball, just beneath the surface. It's proofed like that, and then scored to reveal the filling.