Thanksgiving Bread

Yesterday was a day of baking. Doing two different loaves in one day takes a bit of management with different rising, folding, shaping and baking times. The two different breads I made were a Pain au Levain, a classic French Levain white loaf, made using a stiff levain sourdough as the basis. The second loaf I baked was a Hazelnut, Fig and Fennel seed loaf, also baked using a stiff levain sourdough.
It was a bit of a nightmare as I ran out of white flour right at the crucial time of shaping, so the dough was fairly sticky and it became a nightmare to control so some of my loaves don't look as nice as I hoped, but I guess you can say I was going for the rough and rustic look. But all in all, I think they turned out pretty well, the scoring could have been better though.
As of now I haven't tasted them, but will post back once I have news to report on the crumb and flavour.

Building a Stiff Levain

Up until this point in time I have only been working with a liquid levain sourdough when baking. This weekend however, the bread I'm baking requires a stiff levain. To fast track this I converted a postion of my liquid levain into a stiff levain by calculating the correct amount of flour I needed to add to bring the ratios from 100% hydration, down to 60%. Initially I was super dubious as to whether this would actually work. 60% hydration felt really dry and I wondered whether the levain would have enough "breathing room" to actually live. It proved me wrong and went mad. It has been growing way more actively than the liquid levain, it's quite exciting. Last night I fed it again, and this morning it was bursting at the glad wrap seams, so I broke some off to store in the fridge for next time, and fed it up again to incorporate into my build tonight for my Fig and Hazlenut Sourdough for thanksgiving.

Christmas Pudding

My Christmas pudding project is coming along nicely, and I figured it was time to cook one of the mini puddings up so that I could check that they were working correctly. ie not going mouldy or tasting terrible. However I couldn't just cook the pudding, I had to do the whole setup with custard, and not having brandy I made a bourbon custard, and it was amazing.
The pudding turned out so well, the home dried variety of oranges and tangerines made such a broad citrus flavour, an then all the extra fruit and nuts just made it so Christmassy. I was totally stoked at how well it turned out. Big reps to the Maggie Beer recipe.

Sourdough

Yay. It was finally time to bake some more bread. A friend was having us over for dinner so I wanted to cook an epic loaf of bread. I made another sourdough using my three month old culture. I matured the culture over 3 days, mixed the dough with the levain culture on Saturday morning, folded and fermented for 2.5 hrs, then shaped and let rise for a final fermentation of 2.5 hours and then baked the whole dough as one massive loaf.
This was a big loaf as it was meant to be shaped into two loaves, but like I said, I wanted to make an epic loaf. Unfortunately this huge loaf extended cooking time, and I ended up with a slightly too hard of a crust. I'll know for next time. However, there was a beautiful sourdough flavour and it raised really nicely, with some beautiful little air holes and a really nicely textured crumb. The crust was nicely coloured and the score marks worked really well, creating a very nice looking loaf of bread.
Next weekend I'm excited as I'm going to be baking a fig and hazlenut levain.

Baking

Wow! It has been quite a weekend of baking. I must have felt like I needed some carbs after my 3km swim this morning! Anyways I baked two sourdough loaves, 2 Country loaves, one free form and one in a bread tin.We are also having friends over and I have made pizza dough - which is going bonkers! The two sourdough loaves were a bit of an experiment. So they both started from a 16hr levain build, I then mixed the final dough and let ferment for 2.5 hrs, folding twice. After this I shaped out two round loaves and these went two ways. Loaf A had a final fermentation for another 2hrs and then was baked. Loaf B was retarded overnight in the fridge, so that fermented for another 12hrs or so.
The results of this in terms of visibility are obvious. The one that spent some time in the fridge didn't rise as much, the one that was baked straight away is by far the best sourdough loaf I've done in terms of crust texture and rise, however the sourdough flavour is more subtle. I am yet to taste loaf B, but will review more when I do.
The second bread I made was the country loaf. This loaf comprises of a poolish, built 16hrs before the final build, and utilises 50% of the final flour so you have a high percentage of pre-fermented dough - giving a stronger flavour in the final bread. This loaf was amazing. The crumb is really light and spongy, a total delight to eat, it almost feels like you aren't eating anything, but you get this delicious yeasty flavour, and could quite easily demolish a whole loaf in one sitting. The crust was super light and crispy, and just crunched when cut, sounding similar to deep fried tempura batter. This was one of the nicest loaves I've made and it will definitely become a staple loaf in my repertoire.

Cibatta

I baked this cibatta loaf the other day. I ws really happy with how it turned out. The flavout was delicious and the crumb turned out just how I hoped with some nice big holes. The bread was made using a poolish type of pre-ferment that fermented for about 14 hours before making the final dough. The final dough was amazing and full of life. It was bubbling and had an amazing elasticity and lightness.

More Sourdough

I baked another batch of sourdough, the dough felt the best it has yet, nice and light. I also finally got the scoring to work correctly - although it is far from a work of art. This was done mid week pre-empting some friends that were going to visit for dinner on Friday, however they bailed so sow more bread for us, and it frees up the weekend to bake a different kind of bread! I don't want to overdo the sourdough and rick getting bored of it, gotta mix it up a bit!

Fresh Out Of The Oven

Friday night, and another sourdough baked. I keep trying to refine the same recipe. I think the dough may have been a bit wet this time, but the levain starter was amazing. So each new bake gives me something else to think about. I think the bake was a bit hot and long this time as the crust started to get pretty dark - not burnt, but getting close. But maybe this is an appetizing part of an rustic home made loaf of bread.
The smell is always amazing when baking at home, especially with my own sourdough starter. The aroma of sourdough as it bakes is delicious, but then having to wait till the bread has cooled to allow the crumb to develop kills me. The anticipation is brutal, but always well worth it. I hope you enjoy the photos.


And this is the crumb of my sourdough from last week!

Friday Night Baking Session

I had a massive baking session this weekend! My last few sourdoughs have not been quite right, they have failed to raise aas much as I would have liked.The flavour has been amazing, but the behaviour of the dough hasn't quite been what I would like from good bread. After baking this loaf a couple of times, I realised that I was starting my liquid levain build slightly differently to how the recipe intended. Although the end result should have been quite similar, I thought I would change this to see if it made a difference.
It made a massive difference, I got way more rise and body out of the baked loaf, and the dough felt way more light and springy. I also cut back on the moisture a bit, as I felt the last few batches had been too wet. So I think all of these tweaks have got me in a much better plac, however I baked one huge loaf, instead of two half loaves which I normally do, and the result here was what I felt was a slightly undercooked crumb, it was just a bit too moist and doughy at the base of the loaf. Anyway, many things were learnt from this bake. All positive, one being, don't change too many things at once :-) Anyway next bake will be indetical but I will make tow smaller loaves again.
The other project as my first attempt at Baguettes. This recipe used a straight dough, with no starter of any sort set up. This was fun becauser I was just able to bang out the bread after work, which was gratifying as you get the final result quite quickly. This brad was amazing! The dough was so light and strong, with a great spring and a decent moisture content. It was very acticve as well, with lots pof bubbles blowing up all over the place. Shaping the baguettes was incredibly difficuly, especially with how fragile the dough felt and me not wanting to over work the dough. So the result was baguettes that looked more like cibatta, with a baguett crust and crumb. But that aside, the flavour was delicious and the eating quality was very good with a nioce contrast of soft and crunchy.. I can't wait to make thses again and try to get the shaping right.

Amazing Sourdough Levain Pancakes

On the weekend I had a big baking session - post to come - and had some sourdough levain left over so I made these off the dial pancakes.They were well and truly the most involved pancakes that I have ever made, but the final result was well worth it. Imagine a crumpet the size of a pancake!
Anyway, the night before I built up the liquid levain, as well as my batter in a separate bowl. These both did their thing overnight (batter in fridge, levain in nice warm place). The next morning these were folded together then fried up in good old healthy coconut oil. The result was the most amazingly textured, tasty pancakes. We had two each and were totally full!

The final Christmas Puddings

Today was a day of baking. I finished off the christmas cooking, the house smelled amazing, and still does, and now I have two and a half months to mature the puddings while eagerly awaiting tasting them!

Home Made Sourdough

For the last few weeks I have been raising my own sourdough starter...and baking many sourdough loaves. They taste amazing, and it is a lot of fun. I am finding the process of baking sourdough to be one that is similar to brewing. The way you deal with raising the yeast is quite similar, and I always get that sense of amazement when I see that there is something alive in my bread! The sourdough liquid levian adds an amazing flavour to the bread, the first loaf worked perfectly and had the exact delicious characteristics that you would expect from sourdough.
It is going to be an interesting hobby to continue with to try and refine and get the best our of my bread.

Christmas Baking

This year I decided to get into the Christmas spirit early and bake some Christmas puddings, in order to let them mature for a few months before we eat them. I found a recipe from Maggie Beer, for a cumquat Christmas pudding. This is kinda funny, as I'm living in Vancouver, I have discovered that dumb ass North Americans have no idea what proper pudding is, nor do they seem interested in learning that their sloppy shit excuse for pudding is more like gelatinous custard. Anyways, this has made it difficult to find the required ingredients to make this pudding. Obviously they don't have cumquats here. So I ended up substituting for dried oranges. They also don't have good, affordable, dried citrus rind, WTF, so I ended up having to buy and dry my own oranges. This was actually quite fun, albeit a tad laborious. Next, good luck finding a good baking store here that sells Calico cloth....I ended up having to use cheese cloth. Anyways, that done, my Christmas pudding turned into a week long process, which is kinda cool as I think a Christmas pudding should have a lot of time, effort and love put into it! I mean you share it with all your close family and best friends on one of the most sharing days of the year.
The recipe made enough batter to serve 20 people. So I broke it up into one big pudding for 10 people, and then 4 smaller puddings so I can share them with Kate on special occasions or give out for Christmas gifts to close friends. The cooking process is amazing, steaming the puddings for a long time, before hanging them to mature for the next few months. The house just smells of delicious citrus, berries and spices while the puddings are boiling. I can't wait to eat them.
Thanks for reading. For the recipe check out Maggie Beer.

Baking Bread

So I have recently been given some nice bread recipes from my dad. They are more involved than bread that I have previously made, but it is way more fun and the final result is far superior than anything that I have ever made in terms of taste, aroma and texture. This loaf below is a cracked wheat loaf, using a mixture of brown and white flour, as well as the addition of some soaked bulghur form some added texture.

Homemade Bread

I made this amazing loaf of bread with a recipe that my old man gave me. It is a basic hearth loaf. You make up a yeast starter the night before, which looks and smells amazing as it ferments. The dough was the most amazing feeling dough that I have ever made. Super light and fluffy, elastic and just felt amazing. The loaf tasted amazing, cut well and just had this awesome yeast aroma.