March 16, 2012
by neil
1 Comment

100% Whole Wheat Hearth Bread

I recently acquired a new book on artisan bread baking that I have tried a few things from. The advantage is that I don’t need to have already set up my starter to make a levain in order to bake tomorrow morning. These recipes mainly use yeast rather than sourdough, and can be whipped up fairly fast and put in the refrigerator overnight or for up to four days. The book is called “Peter Reinhart’s artisan breads every day”. The following recipe is based on one from this book.

This whole wheat yeast hearth bread recipe makes 2 loaves.

Ingredients

1000g whole wheat flour
18g salt
36g brown sugar
11g active dry yeast (I use Allinson’s which is meant to be rehydrated before using)
780ml lukewarm water
36g sunflower oil

Mixing the Dough

Mix the wet ingredients together in one bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a largish mixing bowl. Pour the wet ingedients into the dry and mix thoroughly (using either a wooden spoon or a mixer with paddle on low) for 1 minute. Make sure the dry ingredients are completely incorporated into the wet. Allow it to rest for 5 minutes.

After initially mixing the dough

Mix for 2 minutes further by hand or with mixer using dough hooks on medium-low. The dough should be slightly sticky (like a normal sourdough dough from my other recipes). Mix for another 4 minutes and in the final 20 seconds do so quite vigorously (mixer on medium-high).

After all mixing is done

Using the same technique mentioned in the Seeded Sourdough Bread – A Complete Walkthrough article, turn the dough using both hands 4 times, once in each direction. Allow it to rest for 10 minutes, and then repeat (do this in total 4 times). This is done to develop the gluten and provide structure to the bread.

Two-handed turning technique

After this, place it immediately in the refrigerator in a tightly sealed bowl overnight or for up to 4 days.

The turns are finished, ready for bulk rise

On the day you intend to bake, take it out of the refrigerator 3 hours before baking time. I did this the next day. The result is shown below:

After the bulk rise in the refrigerator

Lightly flour the work surface and then using a curved bowl scraper, pour the dough out onto the work surface. Split the dough into two parts, and shape into two loaves, as shown.

Splitting and shaping the loaves

Dust two bannetons with rice flour and place each loaf into one.

In the bannetons for the final rise

Baking

Allow the loaves to rise covered until they are roughly twice the size (2-3 hours). The loaves may look like this:

The fully risen loaves

Preheat the oven to 230 C (mine takes 40 minutes to get to that temperature) together with the combo cooker. Take the smaller part out, tip the first loaf into it, score the top in a pattern of your choice with a razor blade or similar sharp tool, cover with the larger portion, and put it in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes with the lid on, then 25 minutes with the lid off. Cool on a rack.

The loaf cooling

Put the combo cooker back into the oven for 10 minutes to reach temperature again, and then repeat with the second loaf.

Conclusion

The bread came out really good. It doesn’t have the texture and structure of a sourdough loaf, but it tastes good and is excellent sandwich bread. Certainly my kids liked it and it is a reasonable substitute if I haven’t had time to prepare a leaven. I will undoubtedly be baking this again.

The final results, sliced

January 24, 2012
by neil
0 comments

Musings on Technique

I haven’t posted much recently. Not that I haven’t been baking, but I haven’t been baking much that was any different to what I have been baking. Just trying new things out. I got inspired by a new book, “Peter Reinhart’s artisan breads every day”.

One thing that interested me was the idea of doing all the turns inside of 40-50 minutes, with breaks for 10 minutes in between, instead of doing them every half hour. It turns out that the gluten develops just as well by doing all the turns in the first hour, and then I can just leave it to get on with doing the bulk rise and not touch it for the remaining 5-6 hours until I am ready to split loaves.

Now that I have the banneton bowls, and after re-reading some material about what gives better oven spring, specifically the higher hydration levels, I have started hydrating at the original levels that I was using. The result is that the bread is becoming better and better.

In the near future I will post some new things I have been trying out, but I still have too much to do in my normal job to have time for experimentation and writing it up. But soon. Watch this space .

December 8, 2011
by neil
2 Comments

Sourdough Pancakes

On a recent weekend, I decided to make sourdough pancakes for Sunday brunch. I was looking for a pancake that reminded me of when I was younger, more the American sort than the European variety. Here is a recipe that I tried that worked out great!

The night before:

1 cup of sourdough starter
1.5 cups of water
2.5 cups of flour

Just before cooking them:

1 egg
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar (brown or white)
2 tbsp sunflower oil

The night before, I took about 1 cup of my sourdough starter (that is most of it actually, so I took 30g out to make a new starter and used the remainder for the pancakes), and I mixed it with 1.5 cups of water and 2.5 cups of flour, then covered it and let it to stand at room temperature overnight.

The next morning, just prior to cooking them on the stove, I lightly beat 1 egg, added into that 2/3 of a cup of milk, and 2 tbsp of sunflower oil. I added that to the sourdough from the night before, together with 1 tsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of salt, and 2 tbsp of sugar. I whisked the mixture together to make sure it was reasonably well mixed.

Then cook as normal for pancakes (griddle lightly oiled and just hot enough that a water droplet will bounce around on the surface, not immediately sizzle and turn to steam).

The results were everything I was looking for:

Sourdough Pancakes

100 percent sourdough white bread revisited - sliced

November 14, 2011
by neil
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100% White Bread Revisited

I decided to retry the white bread I attempted last time, where I had been dissatisfied with the oven spring, and the fact it had large holes below the surface.

This time around, I made a special white flour starter, using 30g of my normal starter. I also reduced the amount of water to 650ml from 700ml. I was also using the new bannetons, so had some hope that the bread would retain the shape better.

The result was better than before, but still didn’t give me the oven spring I wanted. On top of that, the flavor was a bit bland (though good) and since it wasn’t terribly popular, I also noticed that it dried out faster than most of the breads I have been baking. There is definitely something to be said for mixing some whole grain or some seeds, malt flakes, etc. into the flour.

Here is the recipe:

200g leaven

30g starter
85ml water
100g white bread flour

650ml water
1000g white bread flour
18g salt

Here are a couple of pictures of the results:

100 percent sourdough white bread revisted

100 percent sourdough white bread revisited - sliced

All in all, I think I will skip pure white bread, at least until I give a try at the baguette. The standard country loaf doesn’t seem to be the right venue for it.

November 10, 2011
by neil
0 comments

Partial Wholewheat Sourdough Bread Recipe

I recently acquired a brand new set of cane bannetons for the final rise of the loaves, so I was very eager to try them out. I decided to make a bread that has become fairly standard in our household, a mixed white/wholewheat bread that the kids tend to like.

This time around, the recipe looks like this:

200g levain

30g starter
170ml water
100g white bread flour
100g wholewheat flour

650ml water
300g wholewheat flour
700g white bread flour
18g salt

I created the starter the night before, as is my usual practice. The next morning late (once the levain was ready) I then took 200g of the levain and set it aside, and placed the rest in the refrigerator as the new starter. I mixed the levain into the water, and then added the flour. This was then thoroughly mixed together and then left to rest half an hour before adding the salt. I proceeded with the turns, every 30 minutes, for about 6 hours. Then I poured the dough onto the table, split the loaves, formed them initially, gave them the usual bench rest of 20 minutes, and then did a final forming and placed them into the floured bannetons (using rice flour). After rising for 3 hours, I baked the first and then the second.

First impressions are:

The loaves have a better shape because the bannetons are better suited than the bowls I was using, resulting in a higher loaf.
They also have a lovely pattern from the floured areas of the bannetons.
This time around, I was careful to keep the initial period with the turns to six hours, since I may have been waiting too long before. The oven spring was better, but not sure if this is the sole reason.

Overall, the new bannetons are great, and the basic mixed loaf recipe produces a great bread! Here are some pictures:

30 percent wholewheat in banneton

30 percent wholewheat

30 percent wholewheat-cut

Neil Robinson

On the trail of great bread!

100% Whole Wheat Hearth Bread

Ingredients

Mixing the Dough

Baking

Conclusion

Musings on Technique

Sourdough Pancakes

100% White Bread Revisited

Partial Wholewheat Sourdough Bread Recipe