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

[Eric Srikandan]

22 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I baked a boule and a baguette last night.  This time I reduced the salt to 1.5% and found it more to my liking.  The baguette I had for dinner, most of the baguette anyway.  I have not yet cut into the boule.

 

So far with the book the crumb of my baguettes is not as open as I would like.  I have been more pleased with the boules I've made.

 

I've found the same - my baguettes were really a bit in the dense side whereas a boule seems to come out a lot better.

[Anna N]

 

More hamburger buns (traditional) this time for my son-in-law

[Chris Hennes]

OK, time to get caught up on the past few days' baking...

 

Lavash Crackers (p. 5•69)

My calipers are at my office right now, so I didn't really have any way of measuring the thickness. I just rolled it out through my pasta maker on its widest setting. In retrospect I should have taken it down one more notch, these ended up thicker than I'd have liked. The flavor and texture are good, although the toppings did not adhere very well and all fell off (except the salt). Probably need a starch slurry to make these big seeds stick.

 

[Chris Hennes]

Kubaneh (p. 5•44)

This is the closest the book comes to pastry work, and it's pretty close. These are really a laminated dough, although the purpose of the butter is really to help you stretch out the layers. It's in the chapter with flatbreads presumably because they simply didn't have anyplace else to put it. Obviously it's a flatbread the same way a croissant is a flatbread. They are a slightly sweet dough (enough that I was surprised the recipe didn't call for osmotolerant yeast) and end up very buttery. Delicious, of course.

 

The shaping is quite complex here. You take a 125g roll and stretch it to a 60cm/24in square (this involves a lot of butter!):

 

Then you fold it into thirds:

 

The recipe calls for rolling it up here, but that would make an 8" roll which I couldn't see working. I wonder if they really fold it again here. I did:

 

Then you roll it up:

 

The recipe makes eight of them, which get arranged like this:

 

These are then sealed up completely, proofed, and then baked:

 

The recipe never instructs you to remove the lid, but as you can see when baked sealed up, you are really steaming them, so they don't brown. The photo in the book shows browning. So put them back in the oven for a few minutes:

 

 

 

[Chris Hennes]

Modernist Naan (p. 5•22)

I think this would have been more successful had I not docked the dough, I think the texture would be better if you let it puff up when baking. The flavor was fine, although I did not have enough probiotic powder, as it turned out. I bought one of those little single-serving packets thinking the recipe called for 1 gram (the packet contained 1.4g)... nope, the recipe calls for 10 grams! Which strikes me as an awful lot. Their volume conversion also seems fishy. It turns out they are calling for the same weight and volume of probiotic powder as the non-Modernist recipe calls for yogurt. Does anyone have a sense of whether that can be correct?

 

[Chris Hennes]

Modernist 100% High Ryes with Rye Porridge

I really liked the Modernist High Ryes bread, and wanted to play around with the texture of it. So I made a rye porridge and added 200g of that to the standard recipe. This made the dough behave much more like the non-modernist variant, so I baked it in a loaf pan like that bread.

 

[Chris Hennes]

Pain de Méteil (p. 4•371)

This is a roughly 55% rye / 45% wheat dough leavened completely with a liquid rye levain. Pretty hard to go wrong here, the flavor is excellent, particularly the crust.

 

 

[rob1234]

On 2017-11-27 at 1:00 PM, Kerry Beal said:

1 kg - 13 x 4 x 4

 

 

Thanks for this. I noticed the recipe says to use a pan 33cm x 10cm x 6cm even though the pan size page 212 says 1kg fits in 33cm x 10cm x 10cm (=13x4x4).

 

Nothing is listed on the corrections page about this. I emailed them at the corrections@modernistcuisine.com link on the website but it bounced back saying the email doesn't exist.

[Kerry Beal]

I've become a little stuck on the Jewish Corn Rye. Made it on Thursday at work and took some excellent german salami, pastrami and cheese to serve with it. Then made it again yesterday at work - then today had to make a single larger loaf for home. 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgot to glaze it - but not seeing that as a huge problem!

 

Now I need to get a little daring and make something new - perhaps I should close my eyes and open the kitchen manual at a random page?

[Chris Hennes]

Volkornbrot (p. 4•435)

I've never had this bread before so I am not really qualified to judge, but honestly I sort of hope I screwed this one up. I suspect I did, anyway, as I re-read the instructions for the final mix and look at their photo (and other photos online). They appear to get a bit of rise, whereas I don't think I got any rise at all. I know my levain is healthy because I used the same levain for several other breads that day and they all worked. Where I went wrong, I think, was the final mix stage. I never looked at their expected time for the mix, I just saw the instructions saying to mix until homogeneous. Well, what they wanted was a homogeneous paste, whereas what I had was a homogeneous... granola. Or something. It wasn't a paste. I probably only mixed for four or five minutes, not the 8-10 the recipe actually calls for. I think this one is borderline indelibly dense, but I guess it's possible that is the desired outcome. @Kerry Beal, maybe you need to try this one next so I can see a comparison!

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

8 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

Volkornbrot (p. 4•435)

I've never had this bread before so I am not really qualified to judge, but honestly I sort of hope I screwed this one up. I suspect I did, anyway, as I re-read the instructions for the final mix and look at their photo (and other photos online). They appear to get a bit of rise, whereas I don't think I got any rise at all. I know my levain is healthy because I used the same levain for several other breads that day and they all worked. Where I went wrong, I think, was the final mix stage. I never looked at their expected time for the mix, I just saw the instructions saying to mix until homogeneous. Well, what they wanted was a homogeneous paste, whereas what I had was a homogeneous... granola. Or something. It wasn't a paste. I probably only mixed for four or five minutes, not the 8-10 the recipe actually calls for. I think this one is borderline indelibly dense, but I guess it's possible that is the desired outcome. @Kerry Beal, maybe you need to try this one next so I can see a comparison!

 

 

I shall add it to my list! Today I randomly selected modernist focaccia.

 

 

[Anna N]

23 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

I think this one is borderline indelibly dense, but I guess it's possible that is the desired outcome.

 Well it might not be too far off. It’s 1 1/2 kg of dough baked in an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2“ pan.  Sounds like a doorstop. 

[Chris Hennes]

Just now, Anna N said:

 Well it might not be too far off. It’s 1 1/2 kg of dough baked in an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2“ pan.  Sounds like a doorstop. 

I expected a doorstop, I just think I overshot the mark a bit here. Their photo seems to show a (slightly) lighter texture than I achieved. How does one typically serve this stuff, anyway? It's not great for just munching on out of hand -- it tastes great, but that texture needs a counterpoint.

[Anna N]

Just now, Chris Hennes said:

I expected a doorstop, I just think I overshot the mark a bit here. Their photo seems to show a (slightly) lighter texture than I achieved. How does one typically serve this stuff, anyway? It's not great for just munching on out of hand -- it tastes great, but that texture needs a counterpoint.

 I find it needs to be sliced almost paper thin (they recommend a Danish bread slicer!) and then used as a base for a strong tasting (e.g. pickled herring) open face sandwich.  Or strong tasting canapes. 

[MelissaH]

36 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

I expected a doorstop, I just think I overshot the mark a bit here. Their photo seems to show a (slightly) lighter texture than I achieved. How does one typically serve this stuff, anyway? It's not great for just munching on out of hand -- it tastes great, but that texture needs a counterpoint.

Your photo reminds me of the super-dense rye bread that's served in ultrathin slices alongside snert (pea soup) in the Netherlands.

[Kerry Beal]

Modernist Foccacia 

 

 

 

 

Baked in cast iron frying pan

Edited January 2, 2018 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Kerry Beal]

4 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

Volkornbrot (p. 4•435)

I've never had this bread before so I am not really qualified to judge, but honestly I sort of hope I screwed this one up. I suspect I did, anyway, as I re-read the instructions for the final mix and look at their photo (and other photos online). They appear to get a bit of rise, whereas I don't think I got any rise at all. I know my levain is healthy because I used the same levain for several other breads that day and they all worked. Where I went wrong, I think, was the final mix stage. I never looked at their expected time for the mix, I just saw the instructions saying to mix until homogeneous. Well, what they wanted was a homogeneous paste, whereas what I had was a homogeneous... granola. Or something. It wasn't a paste. I probably only mixed for four or five minutes, not the 8-10 the recipe actually calls for. I think this one is borderline indelibly dense, but I guess it's possible that is the desired outcome. @Kerry Beal, maybe you need to try this one next so I can see a comparison!

 

 

Chris - is this the standard version or the modernist one?

[Honkman]

10 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

I expected a doorstop, I just think I overshot the mark a bit here. Their photo seems to show a (slightly) lighter texture than I achieved. How does one typically serve this stuff, anyway? It's not great for just munching on out of hand -- it tastes great, but that texture needs a counterpoint.

It’s a typical German bread which tends to be very dense (but yours looks too dense). People like to eat it with soup, e.g. lentil soup but duck, pork rillette or Griebenschmalz (lard with cracklings) is also a popular combination.

[Chris Hennes]

14 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Chris - is this the standard version or the modernist one?

Standard.

[Kerry Beal]

Got no rye groats - so I've taken my whole rye grain and buzzed it in the thermomix to crack it a bit. Probably not an ideal situation - and I'm about 30 grams short so I've added a bit of dark rye flour in it's place for the rye groat levain. 

[ChezAndré]

Hello, i gave a try at using vacuum to "develop" the gluten, actually this is my second test.

The first one, was for my pizza dough and i vacuum the dough for about 3 minutes in the large vacuum canister, after that time, i tested for the window pane... nope not yet, the dough tore a bit. After a 20 minute rest, i did notice that the first stretch was a bit improved, and the final dough did stretch out quite nicely. 

My second test today, for my French baguette, i vacuumed it for 6 minutes, then tried the window pane test... result very similar to the 3 minute above... not fully developed.

I am unsure if i will extent the tests by lengthening the under vacuum time. 

Any one else tried?

[Anna N]

Two doughs on the go today:

 

 

 

 

[Chris Hennes]

23 hours ago, ChezAndré said:

Any one else tried?

I didn't use a canister, I used a FoodSaver bag, but I was able to get mine to work by running the machine multiple times (I think five, if I recall correctly), interrupting the sealing between each go so the bag didn't close up. I think @Kerry Beal also had luck using a chamber vac, but I don't have one to test on.

[Kerry Beal]

5 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

I didn't use a canister, I used a FoodSaver bag, but I was able to get mine to work by running the machine multiple times (I think five, if I recall correctly), interrupting the sealing between each go so the bag didn't close up. I think @Kerry Beal also had luck using a chamber vac, but I don't have one to test on.

Yup - chamber vac worked a treat!

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

 

 

Took a lot longer to get to 100 C than expected - about 90 min vs 45. When I get home today I shall wrap it and then cut it in 24 hours or so.

 

There was definately some rise - the question will be what that crumb looks like.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Kerry Beal (log)