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Benito's blog

December 7, 2021 - 3:02pm
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Benito

Duchess Bake Shop’s Cardamom Orange Sablés Bretons

"These traditional French butter cookies are a snap to make. They positively melt in your mouth and make a great addition to any holiday cookie lineup. The cardamom-and-orange combination is perfect for the holidays, but if you aren’t a fan, you could simply omit those flavourings and add a bit more vanilla."—Giselle Courteau, co-owner, Edmonton

 



I’ve only heard of Sablés before and never had them.  When my brother in law sent me this recipe in interested me and since I have some cake flour that I seldom think of using I thought it was a good time to put it to use make these.  The most challenging part of making these is transferring the dough onto the cookie sheet and spreading it evenly onto the cookie tray particularly since I do not have the recommended size cookie tray.  I eventually prevailed and was able to get a pretty decently even sheet.

 

**I found the instructions a bit odd in that the butter and sugar aren’t creamed as is the usual method of these sorts of recipes so I put in asterisks what I did**

 

Prep 20 min 

Total 1 hour 50 min 

Makes 16 cookies 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cake and pastry flour , (180 g) 

2 tsp baking powder 

1 tsp  ground cardamom 

1/2 tsp salt 

3  large egg yolks 

2/3 cup granulated sugar , (128 g) 

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp unsalted butter 

1 tsp orange zest 

Topping

1 egg yolk , beaten 

2 tsp , sanding sugar 

Nutrition: 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

Line a 9×9-in. baking pan with parchment, leaving overhanging edges on 2 long sides. 

Sift flour, baking powder, cardamom and salt into a large bowl. 

Combine 3 yolks and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until thickened and pale yellow, about 2 min. Beat in vanilla until combined. Beat in flour mixture, butter and orange zest just until combined. 

                                ********************************

I’m not sure about the instructions, I think the dry ingredients as above are fine.  But the order in the mixer should be cream butter and sugar, then add eggs, vanilla and orange zest.  Next add the sifted flour, baking powder, cardamon and salt mixture.

                               *********************************

Transfer dough to prepared pan. Press down with your hands, working dough into all corners. (You may need to sprinkle a little flour on
top so it doesn’t stick to your fingers too much.) Using the flat bottom of a cup, smooth top. Refrigerate for 1 hour. 

Position rack in centre of oven, and then preheat to 350F. 

Topping: Brush top of cold dough with beaten yolk. Run the tines of a fork across dough horizontally and vertically to create a design. Sprinkle generously with sanding sugar. 

 

Bake until cookies are golden-brown, 25 to 30 min. Remove from oven. Immediately run a knife between parchment and pan. Lift overhanging parchment and transfer sablés to a cutting board. Cut into 16 squares. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool completely, about 30 min. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. 

 

These are quite delicious and they do melt in your mouth to some degree.  I would definitely make them again.

Benny

December 6, 2021 - 2:14pm
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Benito

Cranberry Orange Walnut Christmas Wreath



This is a recipe I found in Southern Living magazine that is relatively quick that uses commercial yeast to make.  I wanted to make several of these over the next couple of weeks to bring to work and to other places that are closed on the weekends when I’m off work.  Therefore I needed something that I could squeeze into a work day somehow and this seemed to be that recipe.  At some point in the future I would like to make this using my starter, but for now this is a faster way to make these that fits my current work situation.  There are no tasting notes accompanying this post, unless my colleagues at work save me a roll.

 

 

Ingredients

Dough


  • 1 cup whole milk 240 g

  • ½ cup unsalted butter melted

  • ½ cup granulated sugar 100 g
  • ¼ cup water 75 g

  • 1 (¼-oz.) envelope active dry yeast 7 g

  • 4 cups unbleached bread flour, divided, plus more for work surface 480 g  (180g, 100 g 200g)

  • 1 large egg, at room temperature

  • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt 5.69 g

Filling


  • 1 cup fresh or thawed frozen cranberries

  • 1 cup pecan halves (Walnuts)

  • ¾ cup chopped unpeeled orange (from 1 orange) 

  • ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar

  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

 

Additional Ingredients


  • 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

  • ½ cup powdered sugar

  • 2 - 3 teaspoons whole milk, as needed

 

Directions

Instructions Checklist

 

Because the dough goes directly into the fridge after mixing start night before.

 

Step 1 Prepare the Dough: Stir together milk, butter, and ¼ cup water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium-low, stirring often, just until butter is melted. Remove from heat. Let stand, stirring occasionally, until mixture cools to 120°F, 10 to 15 minutes. 

 

  • Alternate Step 1:  Melt butter.  Add  milk and ¼ cup water to the bowl with sugar, yeast and 1 ¼ cup flour in the bowl and mix.  Then add egg and another ¼ cup of flour beat until incorporated.  Then add salt, butter and remaining flour and mix until fully developed. 

 

  • Step 2 Stir together sugar, yeast, and 1¼ cups of the flour in bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add warm butter mixture, and beat on medium-low speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Add egg and ¼ cup of the flour. Beat until incorporated, about 2 minutes. With mixer running, gradually add salt and remaining 2½ cups flour, beating until mixture forms a stiff and sticky batter, about 1 minute. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Chill at least 4 hours or up to 12 hours. 

    Step 3 Prepare the Filling: Pulse cranberries, pecans, and chopped unpeeled orange in a food processor until finely chopped, 10 to 12 pulses. Transfer to a small saucepan; stir in brown sugar and salt. Cook over medium, stirring often, until mixture begins to bubble around pan edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, stirring often, until thick and jammy, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool completely, about 1 hour. 

    Step 4 Turn Dough out onto a very lightly floured work surface. Divide evenly into 2 pieces (about 1 pound, 2 ounces each). Working with 1 Dough piece at a time, roll into a 14- x 7-inch rectangle. Spread half of the cooled Filling (about 1 cup) on top of Dough rectangle, spreading to edges. Starting with 1 long side, roll up jelly-roll style, and pinch each end to seal. Shape into a ring (about 7 inches in diameter), and pinch ends together to seal. Place ring, seam side down, on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Repeat process using remaining Dough and Filling, placing ring on a separate greased baking sheet. 

    Step 5 Using kitchen shears and keeping Dough ring on baking sheet, make cuts around 1 ring at 1½-inch intervals, cutting from outer edge and in toward center, leaving about ¾ inch attached at the center. Turn each cut section, in the same direction, to lie on its side with the Filling side exposed. Repeat process with remaining Dough ring. Cover rings loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place (75°F to 85°F) until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. 

    Step 6 About 30 minutes before Dough is finished rising, preheat oven to 350°F with racks in top third and lower third positions. Meanwhile, whisk together egg yolk and 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl. Brush Dough rings lightly with egg mixture. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating baking sheets between   top and bottom racks halfway through bake time. Do not remove from oven. Cool completely on baking sheets in oven, about 30 minutes.

    Step 7 Whisk together powdered sugar and 2 teaspoons of the milk in a small bowl. Add remaining 1 teaspoon milk, ¼ teaspoon at a time, if needed to thin glaze to a pourable consistency. Drizzle glaze over rings; let stand 10 minutes. Serve warm.

 



 

https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/christmas-sweet-roll-wreath

December 4, 2021 - 12:35pm
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Benito

100% Stoneground Organic Whole Wheat Sourdough 90% Hydration

This is my second bake using the method I described in my last bake of 100% whole wheat.  In short, I sift out the larger flakes of bran with a #40 sieve, that bran gets scalded and allowed to cool in the fridge overnight while the levain ferments.  In the morning the dough is mixed and the gluten is developed before adding the bran.  The major difference with this bake is that I increased the hydration to 90%.  Despite that I believe that this flour could still take even more which I’ll do next time.



After the bran is added through a series of stretch and folds in the bowl, the dough was given an additional 100 slap and folds to ensure that the brans is well distributed.  The pH at this point was 5.51.

Target pH drop of 1.0 for shaping and an additional 0.3 pH drop for baking.  Because I found the dough challenging to score and I wanted to try something different with the crust when the dough reached 4.22 and had a rise of 59% I placed the dough in the freezer for 20 mins and then 10 mins in the fridge.  By the time the dough came out of the fridge the pH had fallen past the target 1.3 pH drop and had fallen all the way down between 4.1-4.15.  The pH meter had a difficult time locking into a reading likely because of the varying temperature of the dough the exterior being colder and then warmer the deeper into the dough.

So I wanted to do a decorative dark crust, something I’ve seen on IG by Aggie of @aggie.chronicles. Essentially it is a simple but slightly messy method of applying dark cocoa to the crust.  After the dough is turned out of the banneton onto parchment the rice flour is brushed off.  Next the dough is misted with water.  Then dark cocoa is sprinkled on the dough trying to fully cover the dough.  Any Excess cocoa is dusted off.  Next the the cocoa layer is misted again with water and then rubbed into the surface.  The coating should be a thin paste.  Finally score as you like then bake.







 
December 4, 2021 - 5:52am
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Benito

Rhubarb Custard Cake

 



This is an interesting cake, as it isn’t particularly cakey, instead it bakes up to be a firmish custard that is sliceable and made all the more tasty with a scoop of ice cream.  I’ve posted a fair number of rhubarb desserts here not only because I love tangy desserts but also because I’m lucky enough to have a close friend who has a large rhubarb patch and FedEx me rhubarb each year for the past couple of years.  So of course when we have them over I have to make a rhubarb dessert.  I didn’t have the time to make pie pastry so thought I’d try this Bon Appetite recipe instead.

Now my rhubarb is frozen and was sliced to 1.5-2” lengths.  This recipe calls for much longer lengths but this worked out none the less.  I allowed my rhubarb to defrost in the fridge overnight and because the rhubarb needs to stay at the top of the cake, I discarded the rhubarb water that came off the defrosted rhubarb but didn’t squeeze the rhubarb to remove anymore.

Ingredients

8 servings

For 9” springform pan

4 Tbsp. melted unsalted butter, cooled, plus more room-temperature for pan

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for pan

¾ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. kosher salt

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1½ cups sugar, plus more for sprinkling

¼ cup sour cream

2 Tbsp. dark rum

2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

13 oz. rhubarb stalks, halved lengthwise if thick

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and flour pan. Whisk baking powder, salt, and 1 cup all-purpose flour in a medium bowl. Whisk eggs, egg yolk, and 1½ cups sugar in a large bowl until very pale and thick, about 1 minute. Whisk melted butter, sour cream, rum, and lemon zest in a small bowl. Whisk butter mixture into egg mixture just to combine. Add dry ingredients and fold in until batter is smooth; scrape into prepared pan. Chill 10 minutes to let batter set.

Step 2

Arrange rhubarb over batter however you like, trimming as needed. Don’t press fruit into batter—just place over top and let it rest on the surface. Sprinkle with more sugar and bake until cake is golden on top and browned around the sides, 45–55 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cake cool in pan 10 minutes. Slide a knife around sides of cake to loosen and unmold. Slide directly onto rack and let cool completely.

 

Do Ahead: Cake can be baked 1 day ahead. Store tightly wrapped at room temperature.

 

 

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/rhubarb-custard-cake

November 26, 2021 - 11:36am
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Benito

100% Stoneground Organic Whole Wheat Sourdough

For this loaf I wanted to try sifting out the larger bran flakes.  I finally purchased a #40 sieve.  Taking all the flour, I sifted it through the #40 sieve extracting about 46.5 g of large course bran flakes from 492 g of the stoneground organic whole wheat flour.  I intended on scalding the bran, but made an error adding an equal part by weight of room temperature water then remembering that I wanted to scald so added the second equal part by weight boiled water.  The bran was mixed to ensure it was fully hydrated and then cooled overnight in the fridge to avoid any microbial activity.

 

The stiff levain was built and left to ferment overnight at 74ºF.

 

The next morning the pH of the levain was 4.17 and was then broken down in water, then the sifted flour was added for a fermentolyse.  After 10 mins of rest I started gluten development with slap and folds then gradually added the hold back water in several aliquots using Rubaud to fully incorporate the water well.  During the addition of the second aliquot of water the salt was added.  In total at this point 250 slap and folds were done to develop the gluten in anticipation of the bran interfering with the gluten sheets.  After a rest of 20 mins the hydrated bran was added through a series of stretch and folds in the bowl followed by slap and folds until the bran well well incorporated.  The pH was 5.55 at this point.

30 mins one bench letterfold

Then at 30 mins intervals coil folds x 4 done

A pH drop of 1.0 was targeted for shaping

When pH 4.55 reached rise was 42%, shaping was done.

Warm final proof done targeting a pH drop of a further 0.3 at which time baking was started.

 

Pre-heat oven with cast iron skillet in the oven and set up for open steam baking in anticipation of pH targeted baking.

30 mins prior to baking, pour 1 L of boiling water into metal loaf pan with Sylvia towel and place on baking steel on the lowest rack of the oven.

Once oven reaches 500ºF turn dough out of banneton, brush excess rice flour off, score and then brush with water.  Transfer to oven.  Pour 250 mL of boiling water into the cast iron skillet on a high shelf, high enough that the dough have fully bloom.  Drop temperature to 450ºF and bake with steam for 25 mins.  Then vent oven and remove all steaming gear and drop temperature to 425ºF.  Bake for another 25-30 mins rotating as needed.






As you can see from the aliquot jar, this dough had about 75% rise at the time of baking.

Time lapse video of the oven spring first 25 mins of open steam baking.









I’m quite pleased with this bake especially considering the issues I’ve had with baking 100% whole red fife in the past.  For a first try on my own recipe, I’m quite happy.  Now the bloom could be better and I know that the hydration despite a calculated 86% approximately should be higher.  I wasn’t sure how much extra water the scaled bran would contribute to the dough once it was added.  In the end, I don’t think it added much so next time I’ll have to bassinage even more water into the dough.  I’ll know more about how this turned out once it is sliced.

November 20, 2021 - 8:30am
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Benito

Seven Porridge Sourdough

I wanted to try this recipe again but with more of the porridge and cooked a bit longer. I increased the porridge to 15% and cooked it with half milk and water. However, in order to keep the porridge moist during cooking, an unspecified about of water was added. The porridge is kept at room temperature covered until the next day.


 

I built an overnight stiff levain which was kept at 76ºF which started at a pH of 5.26.
In the morning, I mixed salt, all the water and all the whole wheat and this was allowed to hydrate for 30 mins.
At the end of this short saltolyse the levain was at 3.5-4x rise and the pH was 4.12. It was added to the wet dough and broken up and hydrated. The bread flour was then added, the pH at this point was 5.26. After a 10 min rest slap and folds x 200 were done.
An additional 16 g of water was added via bassinage bringing the hydration not including the porridge to 80%. After a 5 mins rest the porridge was added through a series of stretch and folds. pH now was 5.36. After a 30 mins rest a bench letterfold was done. Then at 30 min intervals a series of coil folds were done until the dough appeared to have good structure in this case 4 were done.
The dough was then allowed to fermented at 80ºF until it showed a rise of 35% and a pH of 4.38 at which time shaping was done. The shaped dough in banneton was then allowed to start final warm proofing on the counter until the pH reached 4.1 and the rise was 50%. Cold retard was started 3ºF overnight for next morning baking.
Pre-heat oven with cast iron skillet in the oven and set up for open steam baking.
30 mins prior to baking, pour 1 L of boiling water into metal loaf pan with Sylvia towel and place on baking steel on the lowest rack of the oven.
Once oven reaches 500ºF turn dough out of banneton, brush excess rice flour off, score and then brush with water. Transfer to oven. Pour 250 mL of boiling water into the cast iron skillet on a high shelf, high enough that the dough have fully bloom. Drop temperature to 450ºF and bake with steam for 25 mins. Then vent oven and remove all steaming gear and drop temperature to 425ºF. Bake for another 25-30 mins rotating as needed.







November 20, 2021 - 8:17am
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Benito

Raspberry rhubarb pie

I’m a bit out of practice making pastry. I usually only bake a pie when we have friends over for dinner. So with the pandemic it has been a while since I made one. For this pie I decided to try Kate McDermott’s all butter pastry from her book Art of Pie.

Traditional Art of the Pie All-Butter Dough

An all-butter crust is not as flaky as a butter and leaf lard crust, but the flavor can’t be beat.

FOR ONE DOUBLE-CRUST PIE OR TWO SINGLE-CRUST PIES

INGREDIENTS

2½ cups (363 grams) all-purpose flour, unbleached

½ teaspoon (3 grams) salt

14 tablespoons (196 grams) salted or unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces

½ cup (118 grams) ice water + 1–2 tablespoons (15–30 grams) more as needed

I added 20 g of sugar to this to help with browning.

As per usual with pastry, getting everything cold including your hands is essential to prevent the butter from melting into the dough rather than staying ins sheets between layers of the dough. It is hard to avoid kneading it as a bread baker but we must resist the temptation to knead.

I sprinkle the water on about 1 tbsp at a time and then toss the flour/butter with a fork. After I added about 120 g of water, I pick up a handful of the dough and squeeze and once the dough barely holds together then the dough is hydrated enough. There may still be a few dry areas, I don’t worry about those as the 1 hour rest to allow the dough to hydration. I bring it all together I compress and then fold the dough several times in the bowl, then divide into two and then wrap in plastic and rest in the fridge before rolling the dough out.

I still have rhubarb that my close friends gave me from their garden, it was frozen away. So I decided I’d try a different combination of fruit to go with the rhubarb.
Sweet raspberries pair well with tart rhubarb, and the two combine into a beautiful ruby-red filling. Vanilla bean scrapings add a creamy smoothness to the mix.

MAKES 1 (9-inch / 23-cm) PIE

1 recipe for double pie crust

1½ pounds / 680 g rhubarb, trimmed and coarsely chopped

8 ounces frozen raspberries

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup / 192 g granulated sugar

⅓ cup + 1 tbsp cornstarch

⅛ teaspoon fine salt

I cooked this until it just started to thicken and then cooled overnight.

In the morning assemble the pie, filling the base with the raspberry rhubarb filling which has nicely thickened in the fridge. Do your lattice top crust and then fold and crimp the edges as you prefer. Place the pie in the freezer while the oven heats to 400ºF.

Once the oven has reached temperature, apply an egg milk wash to the lattice and then apply sugar. Place the pie on a lined cookie sheet and then place onto your baking steel on the lowest rack. I find you can get a nice dry browned bottom crust by baking low and on a preheated baking steel.

Bake for 30 mins at 400ºF then lower the oven temperature to 350ºF. Rotate during the final half of the baking and keep an eye on the top crust. I usually shield the crimped crust with a pie shield and seldom need to do any other shielding.




November 15, 2021 - 5:19am
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Benito

100% Stoneground Whole Wheat Hokkaido Sourdough Milk Bread

Back from two weeks off without any baking. My starter was refreshed two weeks ago at 50% hydration, given 1 hour at room temperature then refrigerated. The pH had only dropped to 4.4 or so when I returned so there was plenty of food left. I discarded some, then brought the hydration up to 100% and did a small feed. He tripled in 3 hours but had not yet peaked, so I discarded and fed him again. 5 hours later he had peaked at 3.5-4x with the dome just starting to flatten. He was ready to build a levain for this bake.

You may have noticed my gradually increasing the whole wheat in my Hokkaido sourdough milk breads lately. I finally decided it was time to do 100% whole wheat and this didn’t disappoint.

For a 9” x 4” x 4” pullman pan

Sweet Stiff Starter
• 53g stoneground unsifted organic whole wheat flour
• 24g water
• 18g light brown sugar
• 18g sourdough starter ~100% hydration
1:1.33:2.9:1 starter:water:flour:sugar

Tangzhong classic 1:5 ratio
• 89g milk (adjusted down to 1:5 ratio from original)
• 18g stoneground unsifted organic whole wheat flour

Dough Dry Ingredients
• 9 g vital wheat gluten
· 424 g stoneground unsifted organic whole wheat flour
• 54g sugar 12.5%
• 7g salt 1.6%

Dough Wet Ingredients
• 180g milk (consider adding more milk 5 g next time, dough was stiff)
• 50g egg beaten (about 1 lg egg)
• 60g butter 13.9% softened but do not melt, unless you are mixing with the mixer then melt. Combine with 30 g of flour to make easier to add to dough if hand mixing.

Total flour = 513 g

Total weight 1004 g

Pre-bake Wash
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 Tbsp milk

Post-bake Wash
• 1 Tbsp butter

Instructions
Starter
Mix the starter ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 50% growth.  In fact I usually get 2.5-3.5x growth.
Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.
At room temperature, it typically takes up to 10 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.
Tangzhong
In a sauce pan set on med-low heat, whisk the milk and flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.

Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, briefly whisk the dry dough ingredients, and then add the sweet stiff starter, separating it into 5-6 portions as you add it to the bowl.
Now pour/scrape in all the wet ingredients (including the tangzhong), with the melted butter last. With the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed for a minute, scrape down the sides, and then mix on medium speed for 15-20 minutes. The dough will seem very soft, but as you approach the 15-20 minute mark, it should not stick to your hands and should pass the windowpane test.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, form it into a ball, flip it smooth side up, cover and let rise for 6-12 hours depending on room temperature. You can place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier.
Prepare your pans by greasing them or line with parchment paper.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Press the dough into a rectangle and divide it into four. Shape each tightly into a boule, allow to rest 5 mins. Using a rolling pin roll each ball out and then letterfold. Turn 90* and using a rolling pin roll each out to at least 8”. Roll each into a tight roll with some tension. Arrange the rolls of dough inside your lined pan alternating the direction of the swirls. This should allow a greater rise during proof and in the oven.
Cover and let proof for 2-4 hours (more if you put the dough in the refrigerator). I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash. Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190F. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF. You can brush the top of the loaf with butter if you wish at this point while the bread is still hot.

Wonderful flavour, there isn’t any real sour tang and certainly no bitterness that I had always thought was characteristic of 100% whole wheat breads like this that I ate as a child. I’m not sure that the Vital Wheat Gluten was necessary, but I wanted to ensure that I was able to get the shreddable crumb that this type of bread should have.

Benny

 






 
October 24, 2021 - 6:05am
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Benito

Country Sourdough



I baked this loaf as a present to thank neighbors of ours who will be taking care of our plants while we are away on our first vacation of almost two years.  It was a last minute decision to make a country sourdough and there was a weird issue with the aliquot jar measuring rise.  I have rarely had this happen but the aliquot jar never rose past 15% increase in volume.  It is really odd that this should happen, the dough for the aliquot jar was removed from the main dough after a very thorough mixing.  In fact, for the first time I used my stand mixer to knead this dough so you’d think that the levain would have been well incorporated in the dough.  Anyhow, since I’ve been following pH I used that along with the expansion of the main dough to decide when to call bulk quits.  The pH of the white flour levain at time of addition was 3.87.  At the end of mixing in the stand mixer the pH of the dough was 5.45.  End of bulk was pH 4.45 when the dough was shaped.  End of warm proof was pH 4.02.  Cold retard at 3ºC overnight and at the time of baking the next day the pH was 3.9.  

This dough is 80% hydration, 15% stoneground whole wheat, 5% whole rye, 50% bread flour and 30% all purpose flour.

Not a bad bake, but it certainly had a bit more spread than I would have liked, I suspect that the hydration may have been a bit too high for these flours. 




October 22, 2021 - 3:17pm
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Benito

75% Whole Wheat Hokkaido Sourdough Milk Bread

Slowly working my way up in the percent whole wheat in my Hokkaido sourdough milk breads.  75% is the highest so far and I think it was quite successful.  I’m not sure how much higher I can go and still get the result that I’d like.  I did change things this time to add an autolyse because a majority of the flour is stoneground whole wheat.


For one loaf 9x4x4” Pullman pan

 

Ingredients

 

Sweet Stiff Starter 

• 53g bread flour 

• 24g water 

• 18g light brown sugar 

• 18g sourdough starter ~100% hydration 

1:1.33:2.9:1  starter:water:flour:sugar

@ 76ºF 10 hour not at peak

 

Tangzhong classic 1:5 ratio

• 89g milk (adjusted down to 1:5 ratio from original)

• 18g Whole Wheat flour   

 

Dough Dry Ingredients 

• 55 bread flour 

      · 305 g whole wheat        

• 54g sugar 12.5%

• 7g salt  1.6%

 

Dough Wet Ingredients 

• 169g milk 36.8%

• 50g egg beaten (about 1 lg egg)

• 60g butter 13.9% softened but do not melt, unless you are mixing with the mixer then melt.  Combine with 30 g of flour to make easier to add to dough if hand mixing.

 

Pre-bake Wash 

• 1 egg beaten

 

• 1 Tbsp milk

Instructions

Starter 

Mix the starter ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 50% growth. (See gallery where 150ml grows to approximately 225ml.)

Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.

At room temperature, it typically takes 7-9 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.

Tangzhong 

 

In a sauce pan set on med-low heat, whisk the milk and flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.

 

For my first bake, in the morning mixed the wet ingredients including the tangzhong with all the whole wheat flour to allow the bran to hydrate for 1.5 hours.  Added levain next and mixed to incorporate.

 

Next added sugar, salt and bread flour and mixed to incorporate, rest 10 mins.  Mixed until very good gluten development and windowpane.  

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, form it into a ball, flip it smooth side up, cover and let rise for 6-12 hours depending on room temperature. Bulk lasted 5 hours at 82ºF.  You can place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier.  I didn’t do that this time.

Prepare your pans by greasing them or line with parchment paper.

Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Press the dough into a rectangle and divide it into four. Shape each tightly into a boule, allow to rest 5 mins. Using a rolling pin roll each ball out and then letterfold. Turn 90* and using a rolling pin roll each out to at least 8”. Roll each into a tight roll with some tension. Arrange the rolls of dough inside your lined pan alternating the direction of the swirls. This should allow a greater rise during proof and in the oven.

Cover and let proof for 4-6 hours (more if you put the dough in the refrigerator). I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash.

 

 

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190F. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF. You can brush the top of the loaf with butter if you wish at this point while the bread is still hot.

 

I’m quite pleased with the oven spring this dough was able to achieve with this much whole wheat.  I think going higher than 75% I’ll probably need to add some vital wheat gluten in order to attain a shreddable crumb which is a characteristic of this style of bread.








 


 Alternate the direction of the swirls for better rise.





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