The Great Rye Experiment

My basic bread recipes are derived from Alton Brown's Very Basic Bread. My default ratio of flour is 1/3 each regular bread flour, high gluten flour, and whatever type of specialty flour defines the loaf (whole wheat, rye, etc). About an hour ago I started the Great Rye Experiment, where I did up preferments with 5 oz each of bread flour, high gluten flour, and rye flour. When they are aged a day or two I'll make loaves out of each, using the exact same recipe, except each will have a different flour within their loaf that was the preferment. The objective is to see if there is a taste and texture difference, and if so which one tastes best. My mini boules seem to bake fastest so I'll probably do them, which will also make it easier to pass them out to a couple different households for the great taste testing.

One major ingredient I've forgotten in my recent rye loaves is caraway seeds, which defines the rye flavor for most people. I was so infatuated by my overnight room temp preferment that I left out a major ingredient. Silly me.

So the experiment is started, preferments are fridged (I've pretty much established that fridged preferments are better than room temp preferments, which usually have a sour taste), and I'll do the baking Monday or Tuesday, depending on how my days end up playing out.

The Quest for Farmer's Market

I've been a stay at home dad for over 5 years. Over 3 years ago I started retailing cloth diapers from home, and made some hobby money that paid for my new digital cameras and other stuff. But the market has changed, there are now a ton more retailers and my main supplier has changed a couple of their rules that pretty much blew away the reason most of my customers came to me. Markets change, I can deal with that, but it was also the final straw that made me decide to get out of the cloth diaper retailing market. So what should I do once the stock is gone?

Why, perhaps I could sell some of my bread at the Farmer's Market. I'm not sure if it would be a good idea or a bad idea, but the feasibility study for it involves baking lots of bread for taste testing. That has lead to the conclusion that fridged preferment makes much better bread than room temp preferment. I also realized that I'd been forgetting the caraway seed in my rye for awhile (silly me).

So today's experiment (or tomorrow) is making a double batch of wheat, and seeing if halfing the salt makes a better loaf or not. Preferment was made last night, we'll see when I get it done today or tomorrow.

Bread Triad....

For a small experiment I decided to use 3 different types of flour as the preferment for Alton Brown's Basic Bread recipe. From left to right in the pics we have white, wheat and rye flour used. In the top pic are 3 preferments made from 5 ounces of whole wheat, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast and 10 oz water. I let them proof at room temp overnight, and you can see how the yeast fed more on the wheat and especially the rye.

After an overnight proof I used high gluten flour (the recipe calls for 11 oz, but I used 10 because it gets a bit gummy with that much flour after an overnight proof) and 2 teaspoons kosher salt. Proof about 2 hours, shape and proof another hour before baking at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.

The overnight room temp proofing of the preferment makes for a stronger flavor than an overnight or multi day fridge proofing, which I'll do in a side by side experiment later. The dough makes an excellent small loaf that weighs about a pound and a half, and fits into a 1 pound loaf pan (far as I can figure it's called that because it fits a loaf made with one pound of flour and doesn't count the liquid content.)

Today I made some grilled cheese out of the bread, with excellent results.

pizza madness

I ran across this website recently, the man disabled the safety on his oven so he could cook using the 800 degree oven cleaning cycle in the quest for the perfect pizza.
http://jvpizza.sliceny.com/

Calzone

Calzone, using Alton Brown's pizza dough recipe. I took the dough out of the fridge about 3 hours before using, divided the dough in half and rounded it into a disc. Roll it flat, add pizza sauce, toppings and cheese to half, put a little water on the edge and seal by pressing down with your fingers. Slice through the top just barely through to the toppings (and you can tell toppings apart by how many slashes you do, I did 3 for veggie pizza and 5 for pepperoni), put on parchment paper, brush with olive oil and bake on pizza stone at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Overall these worked out really well. I added about a teaspoon or so of basil to the dough while making it, it makes for a little more flavor but is mostly really neat looking. When you add dried herbs to the dough it may mean needing a little more water to compensate for the increase in dry goods.

Country White Bread, Panera Cookbook

I acquired The Panera Bread Cookbook a few months ago, and have just begun exploring their recipes. First thing I will say is that they use fresh yeast in their recipes, which I think is not practical for most home bakers. The stuff goes bad quickly, and if there is a difference in flavor I don't know because I can't find fresh yeast locally.

Reviews of the book say that it has almost no recipes of the bread used at Panera Bread, but I'm still checking out a couple to see how I like them. I modified the recipe slightly due to my laziness with materials.

Country White Bread

Starter
1 cup warm water
2/3 teaspoon instant yeast
4.8 oz all purpose flour

whisk together, let ferment (recipe says 30 minutes, I gave it 3 hours)

Add to starter
3/4 cup warm water
3 Tablespoons honey (I used unrefined sugar, didn't feel like cleaning up honey today)
1 1/3 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil (recipe called for shortening, again was feeling lazy)
22 oz all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon salt

I kneaded it all in the Kitchen Aid mixer, proofed in greasted bowl for about 2 hours until double, divided, shaped and proofed for about an hour in 2 smaller loaf pans (8.5x4.5x3.75 inches). Each loaf was about 1 lb 3 oz, and there was room to spare after the second proof so I think that it could have been put into one larger pan, or more dough used. The smaller pans are called 1 lb loaves, no clue what that means. Maybe 1 lb of flour.

Baked at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, internal temp read at 200 degrees (target temp 190-200). I think I could have shaved 5 minutes off and saved the top from a little extra browning.

Overall a tasty loaf, and the texture would have been great for a freestanding loaf. I may modify and play with the recipe in the future.

Julia Childs, slamming the dough

Someone on The Fresh Loaf linked to this video of someone showing Julia Childs how to make French bread by hand, with an interesting mixing method (slamming the dough against the counter). I may try this at some point, but I'm really fond of my mixer because it's just so much easier.

http://www.pbs.org/juliachild/free/baguette.html#

Challah Bread, lessons learned

I made 2 loaves for a dinner this past Monday, and rushed through the recipe. The good news is that you can rush challah bread and still come out with good loaves. The bad news is that the loaves were so big, they were still doughy in the middle. Luckily the ends were done enough that we had plenty to eat, but now I own a probe thermometer so I can test future loaves (I believe that 190-200 degrees is the target temp for most bread, but I'll have to double check).

Recipe used was the basic challah recipe, but I made a triple batch to use in my two largest loaf pans (5"x10"x3"), and I could have just used a double batch. I baked it for 40 minutes, I'm guessing another 5-10 was needed. I can't remember just how much dough went into the pans, but that is something else I'll be blogging about. The pans are listed as "1 1/2 lb loaf pans", but I know that 1.5 lbs of dough would fit the smaller pans best.

Sorry about the large gap in the blog, a combination of life getting in the way and bread burnout made me reevaluate how I do the blog. I know that I easily do 100 loaves in a year, but trying to pace it out for the blog is a bit much. So instead I'm going to record what I do and just not worry about repeats or doing 2 a week. So welcome to the easier, more enjoyable blog.

ongoing projects...

Last night I made a double batch of the challah bread recipe, did a first proof and shaped the loaves. These I covered and kept in the fridge overnight, and in the morning set them out for about 90 minutes before baking for 45 minutes. They turned out nicely, so I know that I can retard the proofing overnight after shaping successfully.

One bread we are eating, the other went to a friend because she won a game of "Guess When the Repair Guy Shows Up" (my washer was broken, and they always give you a 4 hour window of when the repair guy may show. I usually post a contest to guess when this is on my LiveJournal.)

Loaf #5 of 100 for 2007, oatmeal rolls

I got the starter recipe from The Bread Book, which is a decent book although it has all the measurements in grams and uses cake yeast measurements. I usually end up translating the recipes to my usual methodology anyway, so here is how I did it.

Oatmeal Rolls

Mix together
8oz rolled oats (not instant!)
1 3/4 cup milk
Cover and let sit for 2 hours.

Combine
4 oz whole wheat flour
4oz bread flour
3 1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t instant yeast

blend with the rolled oats mush, knead 10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes by machine. Proof for 1 hour, punch down and shape the dough. The recipe called for the dough to be divided into 16 rolls (I did 2 oz rolls and got 15 out of the batch). On a second try I did eight 4 oz rolls and liked the size better, pictured on the right. I also used high gluten flour for the larger rolls, but don't think it fluffed them up that much.

Let the rolls proof for 30-45 minutes, then brush with egg and sprinkle on some rolled oats. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, cool throughly.

Overall I liked this recipe, the results tasted pretty good. I did try a batch with apple cinnamon granola, but the results were so bad that I cropped them out of the pictures and will pretend they didn't happen. A sweet cinnamon raisin version of this is probably possible, but will require some experimentation.

My kids loved the rolls to dip into their soup. Then they tore them apart and scattered them all over the floor. So it's not just food, it's entertainment.

Loaf #4 of 100 for 2007, Purple Challah Ring

A friend gave me some purple yam powder he got from an Asian market. The ingredients were just powdered purple yam, it's only purpose was to make the challah loaf purple. After baking it was slightly purple if you saw it in good light, but I was just adding it for the novelty. It was also my first time making a ring of rolls.


Purple Challah

Mix together
12 oz high gluten flour
12 oz bread flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons purple yam powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Add
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon yeast
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
9 oz cold water

Knead until smooth, put in an oiled bowl. Cover and proof at room temp, or put in a cold oven with a pan of hot water, for about 2 hours until double in size. Punch down, fold over on itself a few times and shape the dough. In this case I made 8 equal boule balls (I think they were about 4 oz each) and formed them into a ring. Let proof for another hour or more (I was distracted and this rose for 3 hours without ill consequences.)

After second proof, turn oven to 350, glaze the bread with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired. Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the loaf (this one baked about 40 minutes.) Cool. Bread tears away easily at the joints between the boule balls.

ongoing projects...

Besides trying out new methodology to create a good tasting loaf, I'm also playing around with just how much bread dough I can make at once. I got a used Electrolux mixer a few weeks ago, and it is able to get more bread kneaded than my Kitchen Aid mixer can due to the bowl rotating rather than the dough hook. There are some thing about it that are less intuitive than the Kitchen Aid, but I like the fact that it can do larger amounts and there are fewer moving parts to get my hand mangled in if I have to scrape dough for any reason while it's moving.

Today I made about 5 lbs of dough in one batch (haven't weighed it yet, I'm guessing based on ingredients). I'm playing with sourdough at the same time, so we'll see how these loaves turn out.

Loaf #3 of 100 for 2007, Caterpillar bread

After some earlier success with pull-apart rolls, I wanted to try them on a French loaf pan. For this recipe I used teff flour and seeds along with the regular bread flour, high gluten preferment and whole wheat flour.

After making the dough I divided it in half, and each half into eight pieces and formed them into small rolls, which were placed side by side on the parchment covered French loaf pan. After proofing I applied a wash, scored the top and sprinkled on teff seed (which should have gone on after the wash and before the scoring, but I almost forgot).

The result was a tasty bread, and a nice tear apart function to the loaf. A friend dubbed it caterpillar bread, and that's what I'm going to call it (better than gator tale bread, my first thought). Basic bread recipe was used with teff and whole wheat flour.

Preferment
8 oz high gluten flour
15 oz water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

Mix together in a container that allows for expansion (I mix them together with a whisk), cap with a loose fitting lid or with plastic wrap and a few tiny holes poked through the plastic.

The Dough.
8 oz bread flour
2 oz teff flour
6 oz whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
preferment
egg for glaze
teff seed for sprinkling

When it's time to make the dough, put all of the flour into the bowl of your mixer. Add 1 teaspoon instant yeast, 2 teaspoons salt and the preferment. Put in your dough hook and mix until the dough just comes together, about 5 minutes. Cover with a towel and let rest 15 minutes to let the water saturate the dough, then turn on medium speed for 5-8 minutes to knead the dough.

While the dough is kneading, bring a teakettle full of water to a boil. Pour about 3-4 cups of hot water into a bowl in the oven and close the door. This creates a warm, moist enviornment that the yeast loves. When the dough is through kneading, transfer it to a greased bowl (I sprits a bowl with nonstick spray, then do a quick spray over the dough). Put the dough and bowl into the oven with the hot water and let proof (rise) for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, it's time to shape the dough. I will cover shaping techniques later, so I'll assume you can form a basic boule or put it in a loaf pan for now. Once the dough is shaped, refresh the hot water in the oven, and put the loaf back in for 1 hour. When the hour is up, remove the loaf and start preheating the oven (mine takes about 10 minutes to preheat). While the oven heats, scramble and egg and brush it over the surface, then use a serrated knife to make slashes on the top of the loaf. sprinkle with teff seed. Bake at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes for a whole loaf, 25 minutes for a French loaf.

Loaf #2 of 100 for 2007, millet whole wheat with flax meal

Again I used the basic bread recipe for the loaf, with high gluten flour for the preferment and the remaining dough half bread flour, a quarter millet flour and a quarter whole wheat, plus 2 Tablespoons flax meal for added texture, flavor and nutritional value.

I made a boule, but it spread out a bit more than I intended, and the large slashing let it spread out a bit more than intended. It was still tasty, slightly nutty and grainy.

Preferment
8 oz high gluten flour
15 oz water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
The Dough.
8 oz bread flour
4 oz millet flour
4 oz whole wheat flour
2 Tablespoons flax meal
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
preferment

When it's time to make the dough, put 1 pound (16 oz) of bread flour into the bowl of your mixer. Add 1 teaspoon instant yeast, 2 teaspoons salt and the preferment. Put in your dough hook and mix until the dough just comes together, about 5 minutes. Cover with a towel and let rest 15 minutes to let the water saturate the dough, then turn on medium speed for 5-8 minutes to knead the dough.

While the dough is kneading, bring a teakettle full of water to a boil. Pour about 3-4 cups of hot water into a bowl in the oven and close the door. This creates a warm, moist enviornment that the yeast loves. When the dough is through kneading, transfer it to a greased bowl (I sprits a bowl with nonstick spray, then do a quick spray over the dough). Put the dough and bowl into the oven with the hot water and let proof (rise) for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, it's time to shape the dough. I will cover shaping techniques later, so I'll assume you can form a basic boule or put it in a loaf pan for now. Once the dough is shaped, refresh the hot water in the oven, and put the loaf back in for 1 hour. When the hour is up, remove the loaf and start preheating the oven (mine takes about 10 minutes to preheat). While the oven heats, scramble and egg and brush it over the surface, then use a serrated knife to make slashes on the top of the loaf. Bake at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes.

eggs, trouble in a shell...

I just had an interesting experience today while making some challah. Last night I'd gotten more eggs, but instead of my usual jumbo sized eggs I got large eggs because they were cheaper at that grocery store. When I made the challah dough, it was too dry. I realized I was using smaller eggs, and cracked one into a measuring cup. Sure enough, a full ounce smaller. Jumbo eggs are about 4 oz (1/4 cup), these were 3 oz. With 2 eggs in the dough, it was 2 oz short.

So from now on, I'll be listing the egg content in ounces rather than by the number of eggs, because that's just more accurate. And no one wants dry challah dough.

Loaf #1 of 100 for 2007, spelt whole wheat bread

In my experience, you can make a loaf with whole wheat but you want at least half of it to be bread or high gluten flour for a lighter loaf. For this one I used high gluten flour for the preferment, and the rest of the dough was half bread flour, a quarter spelt, and a quarter wheat. An egg wash and simple boule and slash made for a hearty and tasty loaf. I used the basic bread method to make the loaf.





Preferment
8 oz high gluten flour
15 oz water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
Let proof in fridge overnight, store up to a week.

The Dough.
8 oz bread flour
4 oz spelt flour
4 oz whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
preferment
egg for glaze

When it's time to make the dough, put 1 pound (16 oz) of bread flour into the bowl of your mixer. Add 1 teaspoon instant yeast, 2 teaspoons salt and the preferment. Put in your dough hook and mix until the dough just comes together, about 5 minutes. Cover with a towel and let rest 15 minutes to let the water saturate the dough, then turn on medium speed for 5-8 minutes to knead the dough.

While the dough is kneading, bring a teakettle full of water to a boil. Pour about 3-4 cups of hot water into a bowl in the oven and close the door. This creates a warm, moist enviornment that the yeast loves. When the dough is through kneading, transfer it to a greased bowl (I sprits a bowl with nonstick spray, then do a quick spray over the dough). Put the dough and bowl into the oven with the hot water and let proof (rise) for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, it's time to shape the dough. I will cover shaping techniques later, so I'll assume you can form a basic boule or put it in a loaf pan for now. Once the dough is shaped, refresh the hot water in the oven, and put the loaf back in for 1 hour. When the hour is up, remove the loaf and start preheating the oven (mine takes about 10 minutes to preheat). While the oven heats, scramble and egg and brush it over the surface, then use a serrated knife to make slashes on the top of the loaf. Bake at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes.

Refrigerated dough...

Many of us have time constraints when baking. And when trying to bake multiple loaves at once, we can only fit so many in the oven. One way to space out loaves are to refrigerate the dough for hours or even a day or two to delay proofing. I recommend doing it after the first knead and before allowing it the first proof. I haven't done any experiments with refrigerating the shaped loaf, but I do know that I would rather let the dough proof a little longer on the first rise than after shaping, when things usually go faster and can go wrong much more easily.

If storage space is at a premium, take a gallon ziplock bag and give the inside a good hit with nonstick spray before dropping in your dough and sealing. You can make several loaves in a row this way, and label them on the outside of the bag. To use the dough, just remove from the bag and proof as you normally would, but allow an extra 30-60 minutes for the dough to lose the cold from the fridge.

Loaf #17, challah recipe two with bread flour

This was my first successful ring loaf (as opposed to Loaf #13), in which I used the second challah recipe but with bread flour instead of all purpose flour. An egg wash and sprinkling of sesame seeds finished it off. It was a much better bread with bread flour, softer, moister and a bit chewier. It lasted for several days without too much deterioration in flavor and texture.

Challah 2.0
2 teaspoons instant yeast
17 oz bread flour
1/4 cup (2 oz) warm water
3 large eggs, plus 1 for glaze
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey or 1/3 cup sugar
sesame seeds

Slurry
Whisk together yest, 1 oz of the flour, and all the warm water until smooth. Let stand uncovered for 10-20 minutes until it begins to ferment and puff up slightly.

Dough
Whisk 3 eggs, salt, oil and honey or sugar into yeast slurry. Stir in remaining flour, knead for no more than 5 minutes.

Proof
Proof for 2 hours, shape and proof for another 2-3 hours until the loaf triples in size.

Mix the remaining egg with a pinch of salt for glazing. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 325, 15-20 minutes for rolls, two 15 oz loaves for 25-35 minutes, one 1.5 lb loaf for 35-45 minutes.

Loaf #16, tear apart raisin challah rolls

Again I played with challah bread and all purpose flour, this time adding raisins to the mix to see if it had any effect on the outcome. I've gotten good enough at dividing the bread dough that I just eyeballed it to cut the dough into 8 pieces and put them into a typical loaf pan.

The addition of raisins didn't make up for the fact that all purpose flour has a drier texture than bread flour, not quite as much flavor. But the loaf pan did make for a nice bundle of rolls, perfect for a family dinner or small gift.

A small note. To keep the raisins from mushing and discoloring the bread as much, I keep them in the freezer until right before I add them to the dough. If you don't mind them blending a bit with the dough and discoloring it, then the raisins can be added at room temperature. If you use blueberries it will turn the dough blue unless they are frozen.

Challah 2.0
2 teaspoons instant yeast
17 oz all purpose flour
1/4 cup (2 oz) warm water
3 large eggs, plus 1 for glaze
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey or 1/3 cup sugar
3 oz raisins (store in freezer)

Slurry
Whisk together yest, 1 oz of the flour, and all the warm water until smooth. Let stand uncovered for 10-20 minutes until it begins to ferment and puff up slightly.

Dough
Whisk 3 eggs, salt, oil and honey or sugar into yeast slurry. Stir in remaining flour and raisins, knead for no more than 5 minutes.

Proof
Proof for 2 hours, shape and proof for another 2-3 hours until the loaf triples in size.

Mix the remaining egg with a pinch of salt for glazing. Bake at 325, 15-20 minutes for rolls, two 15 oz loaves for 25-35 minutes, one 1.5 lb loaf for 35-45 minutes.

Time, the baker's best friend/enemy....

Time is among the most important elements in baking. Too much or too little can ruin the simplest recipe (ask my sister about burning water.) There is a basic time rhythm to my bread baking, which is tweaked a bit for specific recipes. Your average loaf of bread won't self destruct in a matter of minutes, but 10 minutes can make the difference both during a proof and certainly during baking.

My typical bread baking goes something like this.
Make a preferment the day before baking.
When starting a loaf, step 1 is to fill the tea kettle and turn it on. I'll need the hot water in about 10 minutes.
Put all dry ingredients in the mixing bowl, add preferment/wet ingredients and turn on the dough hook.
Just bring the dough together, cover with a towel and set the timer for 20 minutes. This lets the flour hydrate, more important with whole wheat flour from what I've read. I skip this with some breads like challah which don't require much kneading or hydrating.
When the timer goes off, remove the towel and start the dough hook back up.
While the bread is mixing/kneading, put a large bowl in the oven and fill with hot water from the kettle. In a few minutes it will create a warm, moist environment that the yeast thrives in.
Take another bowl and spritzed with nonstick spray.
Put kneaded dough into nonstick sprayed bowl, put in the oven with hot water. Set timer for 2 hours.
When the timer goes off, set tea kettle on for a new batch of hot water. The water in the oven may still be warm, but I prefer to keep it going hot for max rise.
Pull out the dough and prep your work surface for shaping. I have a big cutting board that I prefer for this, it makes cleanup easier than using the counter.
Prep your baking dish, whether it's a loaf pan spritzed with nonstick spray or sheet pan with a silicon mat or parchment paper.
Shape your loaf in whatever style rocks your boat.
Place in the pan, put back in the oven.
Dump the old water and replace the hot water in the bowl.
Set time for 1 hour. This can vary a little bit, since some doughs proof faster or slower, but usually an hour is a good time to at least check.
When the timer goes off, if the dough is about ready pull it out and preheat the oven. Learn how long it takes for your oven to preheat and set your timer for a minute or two past that, so you get the loaf in the oven immediately after preheat finishes.
Don't forget to remove the hot water bowl. My hot water bowl is oven safe, just in case I forget.
Glaze the loaf if you are using an egg wash or other crust treatment. This helps keep the loaf from drying out during preheating. If you aren't using a glaze, find a bowl or plastic container big enough to cover the dough so it doesn't crust. I've never had luck with plastic wrap, and I prefer to have something around that I reuse.
When the timer goes off and the oven is preheated, put the loaf in the oven and set your time for the recommended baking time. This is usually between 25-45 minutes, depending on the size and shape of the loaf. A typical loaf pan with 1 1/2 pounds of dough takes about 35 minutes, a French loaf takes closer to 25. Wetter doughs can also take longer than dryer ones.
When the timer goes off, check your loaf with a temp probe, knock on it, or just go on good faith that it's done. Put the pan on a trivet and let it cool for at least 15 minutes before trying to dump out the loaf.
Don't forget to turn off your oven.
Put the loaf on a cooling rack for at least an hour before attempting to cut. Warm loaves aren't done baking, the gluten inside is still solidifying.
Keep the loaf in a plastic bag or sealed bin to keep it fresh. Most bread is only good for a day or two before it gets stale.
Overall, it takes probably 4 hours on average to make a loaf of bread. You can do many things while waiting for it to proof and bake, but always be nearby so you can do the next step in a timely manner.