Mebake's blog

I wanted to bake a Rye bread from Peter Reinhart's book : Whole grain books, as a change from Hamelman's Rye recipes.

With 45 % Rye flour, and 55% whole wheat flour, the bread is very wholesome, and enriched. It contains butter, honey, caraway, and nigella seeds. The bread is leavened with the 45% Rye flour amount as Rye sour, but the final dough contains 2.25 tsp of instant yeast. The bulk fermentation and final fermentation takes from 50-60 minutes at most.

The dough was understandably sticky during mixing, and never came together well. I resisted adding flour to the final dough and adhered to the recipe. This dough sticks to everything, so i should have really kneaded the whole wheat dough (soaker) to proper gluten development as stated in the recipe before final incorporation.

As with most recipes of the book, the final dough ferments FAST! i had to watch it closely.

The bread is very, very aromatic and wholesome. 3-4 slices is all you can eat in one sitting, it really fills you up fast. This is the first time i use spice in bread, and oh my! was i missing so much with leaving out caraway in rye breads!

The Rye sour stands out here, with a pronounced sweetish tang. This is a very satisfying flavorsome bread.

-Khalid

Ever since i started baking bread at home, I have been baking with rye flour quite judiciously. Rye flour sold for retail on the shelves of supermarket chains in Dubai, and the UAE in general ,is mostly exclusively Doves farm organic rye flour. The flour is quite expensive given that it is organic: US$ 3.4 per Kg. I continued baking with it for years, with beautiful results and excellent finished products, until today.

 The other day, I was restocking on Bread flour (12.6% protein) from the mill , and I was curious whether they mill other grains too. To my delight, they milled Rye too! Non-organic of course, but German rye (t-170 flour - Dark rye flour) nonetheless. I was thrilled with the idea of having Rye flour in bulk, to bake with at will. The flour also was considerably cheaper, being non-organic, and in bulk: US$ 0.81 per Kg! I forgot to take a picture of the flour, but it had a consistency similar to whole rye flour, but with finely milled bran.

I was eager to test run this new flour, so I fed my rye starter with it, and let it ferment. Usually, the organic doves Rye flour raises and collapses in 3 hours at room temperature, this one took an hour more. This was my first encounter. I created a sour levain from the ripe starter, and it rose and ripened, but the unique scent of a fermenting Sour was not as potent as I’m used to. That was my Second encounter. I mixed the sour with the flours for the autolyse, added salt , fermented with stretch and folds, shaped, proofed, and baked.

The aroma of the finished loves were the usual, nutty and sweet with a hint of rye. The flavor was almost identical to the ones i made with the organic rye, though slightly inferior. I'm partial to the ones i made with organic rye, but the true test will be in a 100%  Rye bread; this is were the the true difference will be revealed.

I'm not sure whether the flour being non-organic has to do with it's slower fermentation rate (fewer bacateria and wild yeasts), or it being Dark Rye, but i'm paritial to the first reasonining.

Anyway, overall, my new t-170 Rye flour did a good, and i'm very pleased with it.

Note: the the Rye flour package says bread mixes, but the sticker shows:T-170 Rye flour, Which, i think, is the german grade for whole grain Rye flour (anyone?) No additives here.

-Khalid

I wanted to bake a hearty Rye for many reasons. Firstly, to satisfy my Rye craving, and secondly to serve as a rye altus for further rye baking.

So, I have baked a 3-stage 80% Rye from Jeffery Hamelman’s book: BREAD, and it was high time that I bake it in my Pullman pan lookalike. The recipe calls for medium rye, and since I didn’t have any, I sifted my organic store bought Whole Rye flour. The sifting resulted in almost medium rye flour, and so I added back some of the bran to emulate medium Rye flour consistency.

I had thought that 3 stage detmolder Rye is time consuming,  precise , and daunting  to make. Now that I made it for the 3rd time, I have attuned myself to it’s schedule. It it really simple to make if you plan ahead.

After 36 hours of being wrapped in linnen, here it is:

Wonderful aroma, and flavor. Sweet, and sour, earthy and moist... very satisfying!

- Khalid

I promised myself the other day, that I’ll try Mark Sinclair’s  (TFL member mcs) Potato rolls. My kids desire soft enriched white breads;  and as i watched in regret my wife’s grocery bags carrying bland/cottonty mass produced rolls, this was my chance to try out Mark’s wonderful rolls featured in his latest video.

I have followed the recipe religiously, as I wanted to be true to Mark’s authentic product. I did deviate, however, when it came to overnight refrigeration. The rolls were baked the very same day, and they were absolutely delicious! They’ll have to taste even better refrigerated.

The house was filled with buttery aromas when those rolls were baked. My wife and kids ate them warm. Silky Soft, and squishy,  slightly chewy crust, and a heavenly buttery milky sweet flavor, the rolls were a hit with the family. They loved it, and ask for more!

Thanks alot Mark for the video and the recipe!

-Khalid

This is a 100% whole wheat bread with corn slurry. It is an enriched bread with molasses and oil. TFL member Janet (Janetcook) has blogged about it earlier here.

I used sunflower oil, and substituted Molasses for date syrup since i didn't have any. Like janet, i used a sourdough starter (210g) instead of the yeast called for in the recipe. Furthermore, i had storbought fine cornmeal, so i cooked it to a slurry and used it after 1/2 hour.

I mixed the dough with a mixer, but continued by hand when the corn slurry, date syrup and oil were added. Since the dough was faily wet, i kneaded using the (Slap and fold technique) and the dough was miraculously turned into a soft, smooth dough. (The corn slurry was edible enough as it is, and i could eat the whole lot!)

Given the fact that i used a white starter, the levain was an all white liquid sourdough, so the fermentation of the dough was fairly sluggish. After forming the doughs and molding them into the pans, they were allowed to ferment for an hour and then were refrigerated to the next day eveneing (18 hours). Next day, i removed the pans from the fridge, and allowed them to continue fermenting for 6 hours! at 10 pm they were ready to be baked.

This morning, i had a slice. The crust was soft, and the crumb was moist and very soft. It was slightly sour, yet sweet from the date syrup. the corn slurry did not shine through as i had hoped, but it did help establish the overall character of this loaf.

Personally, i preferred Peter Rienhart's Anadama. However, next time, i won't reduce the corn meal to a slurry/mush. Janet's version must have tasted loads better with the coconut oil, and freshly ground corn.

-Khalid

At long last, I got around to baking David’s favorite staple bread:  His San Joaquin.

The bread was fabulous! I loved it, and I will be baking it again in the future, no doubt.  

Thanks a lot David for sharing your lovely formula :)

- Khalid

A very easy to make whole wheat bread:

This is a method I came up with, that marries two good techniques: Delayed fermentation, and the no knead technique.

 The method goes like this: Add tiny yeast (or active starter) to flour and water, give them a mix to barely incorporate them and put the dough in the fridge for upto 48 hours. Remove from the fridge when you want to bake, cut the dough into quarters and sprinkle salt on top, and mix briefly to form a dough and leave to rest on a floured work surface. An hour later, Shape the dough into a log/batard/boule, and insert it into a pan/brotform. An hour to an hour and a half later bake the dough in a preheated oven for 35 minutes. (Even without any enrichments, this dough takes color fast, due to the saltless retardation).

I have baked a 50% whole wheat bread using this method, and it was extremely tasty and easy to make.

Recipe:

(Makes 1kg dough)

Whole Wheat flour: 287  g

Bread flour: 287 g

Water: 414 g

Instant yeast: ¼ tsp

Salt: ¾ Tbl

Total: 1000 g

-Khalid

Last week, I had some left over whole spelt flour, some corn meal, and some semolina in addition to a ripe Rye starter. Therefore, I decided to put them all to use in a new recipe as follows:

UPDATE** INSTRUCTIONS:

Prepare the Rye sour by adding a tablespoon and a half of your active rye starter to the 250g water, and mix well to disperse. Add the Whole rye flour, mix well, and let stand for 8-12 hours at room temperature until the surface just starts to crack and collapse. To prepare the soaker, weigh all soaker ingredients into a bowl, and then weigh 160 grm of water, boil it, and add it to the soaker. Mix well, cover, and let stand until overnight, or when your rye sour is ready.

Next day, mix all ingredients at once, by hand or using a mixer for 5-10 minutes. The dough will remain relatively sticky, so try to resist adding any flour at this stage.Shape as a round and let ferment in an oiled bowl for 2 hours at preferably 78 F or 24-25C, folding it half way through at the 1 hour mark. By the end of bulk fermentation, the dough will have risen by 50-60%. scrape your dough onto a heavily floured surface, pat the dough even (Don't knead), divide into the desired dough pieces, and round each piece leaving them to rest for 15- 20 min, covered. Dust your basket with a mixture of all purpose flour and rice flour, and shape your dough and invert it smooth side down into the basket. The final fermentation will be only 45 minutes, but watch the dough NOT the clock. Preheat your oven at this stage with a stone in place to a 500F or 260C. 5 minutes before loading the bread, place your steaming dish filled with wet towels on the bottom of your oven.  When ready, invert the dough on baking paper lined peel/ board and close the oven immediately. Bake for 15 minutes with steam, and then remove the steaming dish and reduce the temperature to 400F for another 20-25 minutes. 

When the time is over, remove your bread from the oven. Wear oven mitts, and tap on the bottom of one loaf, It should  sound hollow. Furthermore, you may insert a thermal probe into the center of the loaf from the bottom, and the temperature should register 195-200F or 90-95C. If it doesn't, put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Cool the bread completely on a wire rack, prior to cutting. 

Due to the soaker, the aroma of this bread is really attractive. When cool, The crust was somewhat chewy, and the crumb slightly moist but not chewy. The flavor of this bread is earthy sweet and very pleasant. The crumb is close textured and compact due to all the whole grains, the bread might have benefited from extra lightness by increasing bread/all purpose flour.

I have eaten this bread thinly sliced with a spread of cheese, and it was fabulous. This bread keeps really well.

- Khalid

I've baked this recipe twice before, but this one i wanted to exclude the yeast and extend the bulk fermentation. Actually, this bake was sort of a controlled test that was aimed at verifying whether or not i could bake during my working weekdays, which i'am happy to say: YES, it works!

First day eve, I started feeding my starter one day to creat the levain for the next day;

Second day, when i came back from work i mixed the levain into a dough and retarded the dough after 2.5 hours;

Third day after work, i preshaped, shaped and baked.

i'll have to admit, though, i don't like to split the joy of baking into several days, but the convenience of having bread anyday of the week was my incentive.

One thing worth mentioning: i added 1/2 tsp of diastatic malt to compensate for the extended refrigeration of the dough (21 hours).

Flavor wise, there was no noticeable sourness to this bread, though the sweetness of the raisins may have masked it. It was a good basic bread with sweet pockets of raisins, but nothing more. Could i be too accustomed to wholegrains that i can't appreciate delicate flavors of white-ish breads anymore? Could it be the malt? All i know is that the original recipe with the yeast added had a better overall flavor.

Still, though, i like this bread and loved the idea of being able to have bread almost any day of the week.

Khalid

I have recently converted my White Liquid starter into a stiff one, with a 50% whole wheat flour  - 50% AP flour flour mix. I browsed through the bread books, and found that Hamelman’s Miche point a calliere appeals to me, in addition to be a favorite of mine. Miche it was, therefore.

David Snyder has blogged about his Miche too, so I was thrilled to return to this favorite recipe. Although I had no high extraction flour, I decided to use a mix of 45% freshly milled whole wheat, 45% bread flour, and 10% All purpose flour instead. I followed Hamelman’s recipe to the word, except the High extraction flour.The dough was a breeze to work with, despite being sticky at the beginning. 

The flavor of this bread is that of a typical Miche, Fragrant, chewy, and sweet-sour. I have baked this Miche boldly to benefit from the concentrated flavors in the crust. The crumb was slightly moist and chewy.  All in all, this bread is a winner.

Khalid