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I made several process improvements. Last week's Vermont SD version was to dip my toe in the water giving the couronne a try.

Changes:

• Replaced the Vermont SD with my standard Sesame Semolina dough
• 8 balls @125g each rather than 6 balls at 167g (thanks to Will for referencing the 8 config in his writeup)
• Moistened balls and rolled in bowl of sesame seeds, rather than sprinkled on as was last week's afterthought.
• Placed directly on parchment inside a bottomless springform pan with a round container in the center to give it shape.  Both removed prior to placing the ring back in retard for another several hours.
• Scored consistently at the same level all around

 Baked at the same 460 dF with steam.

Because the balls are constrained by being placed shoulder to shoulder, there isn't a lot of room for internal expansion of the crumb.  But they will still make tasty accompaniments at the dinner table.

The training wheels have been removed.   This was the test to decide whether a third bake will accompany us to a friend's house for dinner next week.  It will.

Because of relocating to Europe (220V) I will sale my barely used Famag Spiral mixer.The unit is basically brand new (see picture). It comes with the offset bar, the sprocket to increase speed to 312 RPM (high adoration dough) and additional head levers (all of which was never installed and is brand new - I can provide additional pictures of the accessories to those who are interested). A overall package of $ 2,000+. I am asking $1,400 not including shipping. Local pick up is available and preferable given the weight of the unit. 

I just received my new shipment of grains from my favorite place Barton Springs Mill and was dying to try their new grain called Stardust. Its a hard white winter wheat grown in Alva, Oklahoma and it’s certified organic. It is supposed to have a slightly malty, mild wheat flavor and after using it I would agree.

I milled the berries with my Mockmill 200 and was sifted and milled twice with a #30 sieve, and then sifted with a #40. I save the bran to add to my levains which I find give them a nice boost.

I added some roasted baby potatoes I had left over and pulsed them in my mini-food processor to make them smoother. I left the skins on for some extra flavor and texture. 
I also added some of my favorite Jade colored rice which adds some nice texture to the crumb.

I used about 58% of the Stardust in the total flour, with the balance being KAF bread flour. I would definitely use close to a 100% of the Stardust next time I bake this loaf, now I know how it behaves.

I really like the way this came out. It has a nice clean mild wheat flavor with a moist crumb and will make great sandwiches or grilled bread.

Formula

Levain Directions 

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.

Let it sit at room temperature for around 6-7 hours or until the starter has almost doubled. I used my proofer set at 76 degrees so it took around 5 hours for me. Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

 Main Dough Procedure

Note: I use an Ankarsrum Mixer so my order of mixing is slightly different than if using a Kitchenaid or other mixer. Add all your liquid to your mixing bowl except 50-80 grams. Add the levain in pieces and mix for a few seconds to break it up. Next, add all your flour to the bowl and mix on low for a minute until it forms a shaggy mass. Cover the mixing bowl and let it rest for an hour.   Next add the salt, honey, potatoes, rice and remaining water as needed and mix on medium low (about speed 3) for 24 minutes.  If you are using a more traditional mixer you would only mix around 7-10 minutes.

Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 1.45 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours. I use my proofer set at 79-80 degrees. If you are leaving it at room temperature 72 degrees I would let it sit out for 2 -2.5 hours before refrigerating. Depending on how developed the dough is after the initial mix you may not need to do as many S&F’s.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours or if using a proofer set at 80 degrees for 1 hour.  Remove the dough and shape as desired and cover with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap Sprayed with cooking spray and let rise at room temperature for 1 1/2 – 2 hours.  (I use my proofer set at 80 F and it takes about 1 hour to 1.5 hours). You will need to judge for yourself if you have a nice fermented dough before baking in the oven. I also added the topping mix directly to the bottom of my bannetons and rolled the dough side to side to make sure I had good coverage. You can also spray a a tea towel and then sprinkle the topping on the towel and roll the dough onto the towel.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 540 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 450 degrees.  Bake for around 35 minutes or until the breads are nice and brown and have an internal temperature around 200-210 F.  I made one large Miche so I baked this for close to an hour and lowered the temperature to 440 degrees after 30 minutes.

Take the bread(s) out of the oven when done and let them cool on a bakers rack for as long as you can resist. 

I recently baked (and enjoyed!) Benny's Chocolate Olive Oil cake. It reminded me that a while ago I made a very tasty German chocolate cake and I thought I would make it again. Unfortunately I had lost the link to the recipe, but after a lot of searching, I found it again - only to find that the link had broken! Fortunately The Wayback machine came to the rescue.

The recipe is in a sense totally the opposite of Benny's cake, using chocolate, not cocoa and butter, not olive oil. It is very rich, but very tasty.

Here is a link to my pdf recipe, translated from the German. I have retained the flowery introduction at the start of the recipe as I find it entertaining!

https://mega.nz/file/XIcz0AZK#mLtXRBsZywVAKYmT1W3KFDi9voBZE55NlaeXsDkrt48

One bonus is that the recipe is very easy to make - no need to separate the eggs. I scaled the cake down to 20cm as I thought the original 26cm version could have been a bit dangerous for just the two of us!

Note the crack where my rubbish baking paer didn't release properly!

Lance

Don't post much anymore but still breathing & baking.  I was rummaging around the far depths of the kitchen cabinet and came across a Bundt pan.  It was nestled inside of one of those "coffee cake" ring pans, which we may have used twice in a decade or more.  

Several years ago I tried to shape a couronne with just a ring of dough, to somewhat disappointing results.  But yesterday I figured why not try it a more traditional way employing a less than traditional baking pan. 

For my money there is no easier levain dough to make than this one, and if there were to be any missteps I didn't want the composition of the dough to take the blame.

It turns out that this was a fairly easy task to complete using 1000g dough divided into 6 167g balls.  Due to the height of the central tube, adding the center leaf-over dough was not an option.  C'est la vie.

The sesame seeds were an afterthought.  For a first time out of the starting gate, there's not much to complain about, but the next should exhibit more consistent scoring.

My first bake this trip in Fort Lauderdale today was a success.  I was a bit worried taking some of my homemade miso (who knew it was so hard to find down here?) and starter across the border.

My starter survived the trip and was raring to go after one feed so I prepared the levain to bake a loaf of bread.  Although the instructions below state that I used a stand mixer to develop the dough, I actually do not have a mixer here and had to knead by hand.  I really missed by Ankarsrum Assistent but it is far too expensive to buy one for the time we are here.  Anyhow, it is probably good to hand knead once in a while.

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For one 9x4x4” Pullman pan loaf.

Instructions

Levain

Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth. 

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

At a temperature of 76-78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.  For my starter I typically see 3-3.5 times increase in size at peak.  The levain will smell sweet with only a mild tang.

Tangzhong 

In a sauce pan set on medium heat, stir the milk and whole wheat flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until well thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.  Theoretically it should reach 65ºC (149ºF) but I don’t find I need to measure the temperature as the tangzhong gelatinizes at this temperature.  You can prepare this the night before and refrigerate it, ensure that it is covered to prevent it from drying out.

If you plan on using a stand mixer to mix this dough, set up a Bain Marie and use your stand mixer’s bowl to prepare the tangzhong.

Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk (consider holding back 10 g of milk and adding later if this is the first time you’re making this), egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar and levain.  Mix and then break up the levain into many smaller pieces.  Next add the flour.  I like to use my spatula to mix until there aren’t many dry areas.  Allow the flour to hydrate (fermentolyse) for 20-30 minutes.  Mix on low speed and then medium speed until moderate gluten development this may take 5-10 mins.  You may want to scrape the sides of the bowl during the first 5 minutes of mixing.  Next add room temperature butter one pat at a time.  The dough may come apart, be patient, continue to mix until it comes together before adding in more butter.  Again, knead until well incorporated.  You will want to check gluten development by windowpane during this time and stop mixing when you get a good windowpane.  You should be able to pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.  Add the sesame seeds, then mix again until they are well distributed.

On the counter, shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 2 - 4 hours at 82ºF.  There should be some rise visible at this stage.

You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier to shape.  Remember, if you do so the final proof will take longer.  Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight, however, you may find that this increases the tang in your bread.

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

Lightly oil the top of the dough. Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top and divide it into four. I like to weigh them to have equal sized lobes. Shape each tightly into a boule, allow to rest 5 mins. Using an oiled rolling pin roll each ball out and then letterfold. Turn 90* and using a rolling pin roll each out to at least 8”. Letterfold again from the sides so you have a long narrow dough. Then using a rolling pin, roll flatter but keeping the dough relatively narrow.  The reason to do this extra letterfold is that the shorter fatter rolls when placed in the pan will not touch the sides of the pan.  This allows the swirled ends to rise during final proof, this is only done for appearance sake and is not necessary.  Next 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 at a warm temperature.  I proof at 82°F.  You will need longer than 4-6 hours if you chilled your dough for shaping. 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 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. 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.

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My Index of Bakes

I am going to Fort Lauderdale for ten weeks and I’m bringing some of my starter with me to bake, but I’m also going to keep some starter in Toronto.  This is what I did to prepare my starter for a long hibernation.  I’m now down in Fort Lauderdale.

I fed my starter 1:1.5:3 starter to water to flour to reduce the hydration to near 50%.  This reduced hydration will slow the organisms down.  One time I was away from home for three weeks and I was surprised that my starter had mold growing on it.  I greatly reduce the chances of that happening now by placing a good layer of dry flour on top of the starter in its Weck jar.  The times I have done this it has worked very well and I have not seen mold since.  

I then gave John Dough 1 hour on the counter before placing him in the fridge to rest until I return.

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My Index of Bakes.

Hi everybody.

I have a bakery in El Salvador, central america. I used to check this block to solve some doubts. Great work what your are doing.

I could not find some topic that help me on this.

My bakery is inside the restaurant so for now we are feeding our starter with a 1:2:2 ratio at 5:00am, 1:00pm and 10:00pm. At 5:00am we find 720grs of starter and with that we make our levain at a 1:1:1 ratio. It works well until today. We have to move the bakery outside the restaurant cause we are growing, but there is a little problem that is giving mea lot of headaches.

now we work from 5:00am to 2:00pm so nobody could feed the starter at 10:00pm. My first guest was to modify the feeding ratio. First 1:4:4 it doesn’t work also try a 1:8:8 ratio. Also the starter wasn’t good at 5:00am we come back. 

We are a tropical country so during the day our weather tem is around 30 and at night could be from 20 to 22.

what do you recommend, what could be do? Right now one of us is taking the starter home but is to much risk and responsability to give to the workers. 

Thanks in advance

Like many others I have tried my hand at Irish soda bread from time to time.  I've never been happy with the results. The loaf has usually been flat, dry, crumbly, more scone-like.  Usually I have baked the loaves free-standing, a few times in an open skillet, and I usually have used baking powder instead of baking soda because it's more tolerant and why not?

I've read up on the history of Irish soda bread, and I even received a bag of King Arthur's Irish-style Whole Wheat flour for Christmas.

Then I found this story by Stella Parks on Serious Eats that has changed everything -

https://www.seriouseats.com/real-irish-soda-bread-recipe

Digging deeply into how people actually made soda bread in the 19th century, she learned three things that make an enormous difference:

1. The dough should be *very* soft - as soft as can possibly be handled;

2. The dough needs to be alkaline, not acidic.  So you need enough baking soda to neutralize the buttermilk's acidity (baking powder is fairly neutral and won't do that).

3. The bread was mostly baked in an iron pot with short legs and a cover, set over coals and with coals heaped on top.  IOW, a Dutch Oven. Even when baked in a skillet, the skillet would have been covered.

Ms Parks tried it out, and she says the results were a revelation.  No more crumbly, dry bread with little taste.   To quote her,

Before digging in, I let the soda bread cool on a wire rack for about 15 minutes, a completely arbitrary time determined strictly by my own impatience. The sound of it was glorious, accompanied by a shower of crispy shards that flew out with every pass of the blade until my knife sank into a pillow crumb that gave way as cleanly as any sandwich loaf.

My first slice was without butter or salt, yet it tasted moist and rich, with an aroma something like that of a bakery-style pretzel—mild, but distinct. My second, third, fourth, and fifth slices were consumed in a blur of butter and honey

So I tried it and got pretty much the same result.  That was with white AP flour.  Then I made a loaf with 50% Irish-style WW, and that was wonderful too.  Both these loaves were rather flat because my dutch oven is too big across to provide any real containment.

For today's bake, I used a smaller, ceramic pot (2.5 qt) to contain the dough, and I added some baking powder to get more lift.  Wow! Look at that lift!

Here's what the loaf looked like before slicing:

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 Today I'm a happy camper!

TomP

I have not made a bread with coffee in a long time so I figured it was time to try one again. 

I used one of my favorite whole wheat berries from Barton Springs Mill Quanah along with some spelt berries and milled fresh flour. The Quanah was sifted and milled twice and the Spelt was sifted once and milled twice both with my MockMill 200. I milled the whole grains in my MockMill200, sifted with a #30 sieve, re-milled and then sifted with a #40. I save the bran to add to my levains which I find give them a nice boost.

I used a dark roasted coffee blend for the coffee flavor and added some dark maple syrup infused with coffee beans as well.

The end result was a flavorful loaf with hints of coffee and a nice open crumb.

Formula

Levain Directions 

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.

Let it sit at room temperature for around 6-7 hours or until the starter has almost doubled. I used my proofer set at 76 degrees so it took around 5 hours for me. Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

 Main Dough Procedure

Note: I use an Ankarsrum Mixer so my order of mixing is slightly different than if using a Kitchenaid or other mixer. Add all your liquid to your mixing bowl except 50-80 grams. Add the levain in pieces and mix for a few seconds to break it up. Next, add all your flour to the bowl and mix on low for a minute until it forms a shaggy mass. Cover the mixing bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour.   Next add the salt, maple syrup and remaining water as needed and mix on medium low (about speed 3) for 18 minutes.  If you are using a more traditional mixer you would only mix around 7-10 minutes.

Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 1.5 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours. I use my proofer set at 79-80 degrees. If you are leaving it at room temperature 72 degrees I would let it sit out for 2 -2.5 hours before refrigerating. Depending on how developed the dough is after the initial mix you may not need to do as many S&F’s.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours or if using a proofer set at 80 degrees for 1 hour.  Remove the dough and shape as desired and cover with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap Sprayed with cooking spray and let rise at room temperature for 1 1/2 – 2 hours.  (I use my proofer set at 80 F and it takes about 1 hour to 1.5 hours but I should have let it go further on this bake). You will need to judge for yourself if you have a nice fermented dough before baking in the oven. I also added the topping mix directly to the bottom of my bannetons and rolled the dough side to side to make sure I had good coverage. You can also spray a a tea towel and then sprinkle the topping on the towel and roll the dough onto the towel.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 540 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 455 degrees.  Bake for around 35 minutes or until the breads are nice and brown and have an internal temperature around 200-210 F. 

Take the bread(s) out of the oven when done and let them cool on a bakers rack for as long as you can resist.