Back again!

After a long hiatus from recording my breadly escapades, I am back in a new space – my adorable Seattle hallway kitchen. There are many non-adorable parts of having a hallway kitchen, most notable the complete and utter lack of counter space, but with a $9.99 Ikea butcher block laid on top of the kitchen table, all is well. I have also acquired a kitchen scale (hallelujah!). It’s not digital and not especially accurate, but it helps a lot, and I got it for less than a dollar at the Goodwill outlet, so I’ll overlook its faults.

So I am back to perfecting my loaves. This time around, I tried using a very wet soaker (350 g whole wheat flour and 550 g water) that I let sit for about a half hour. I then added 650 g organic hi-gluten flour and 100 g water. I think it was too wet – sort of surprising, as 70% water is pretty normal – but I ended up then overcompensating with kneading in slightly too much flour, so it ended up not mattering.

The end result was sort of decent. One of the loaves baked up very nicely, expanded in all the right places and looked like a real artisan loaf. The other wasn’t so lucky – it expanded, but didn’t really grow into the score I had cut. The shaping was probably off. The saddest thing was that, due to being spoiled by convection ovens in my upbringing, the one on the bottom burned on the bottom, and the one on the top burned on the top. Blah. The loaves were also quite dense. Not sure if that’s due to shaping or rising or proofing or just that there was a lot of whole wheat flour (that’s actually pretty old, so maybe I should think about throwing it out…). Anyway, it was edible, and that’s all that matters ☺

Catching up on co-op bread

So, I forgot to post last week when I made bread (on Valentine's day...I was in the co-op for something like 10 hours straight and made a ton of Valentines as well as a ton of bread). But it was good, I think. I tried to reduce the amount of water by a couple of cups because the time before was so loose, but I could really only reduce it by a cup or so. I added black olives and black pepper to the dough, which made it more exciting and delicious, but it was a little too peppery. It also exploded, by rising way faster than I thought it would - both in dough and loaf form. So I ended up with a lot of really flat, really large boules.

This time, I decided not to add anything to the dough, but to continue to reduce the amount of water, and also take down the amount of yeast and place it in a cooler spot in the kitchen. Again, I wasn't able to reduce the amount of water by that much, but the dough did come out a lot stiffer. I took the amount of yeast down a lot, from 5 3/4 T to 4 T.

I left the dough to rise for nearly three hours, which was a nice amount of time for it. The dough was pretty dry, so shaping proved a little difficult, since I wasn't really able to seal the seams on the bottom very well. I only let the loaves proof for about 40 minutes, in a warmer place, and they seemed like they were perfectly ready to go when I scored them and put them in the oven. Now only time will tell...

Cooperation pt. 2

So, I let the dough rise for 3 hours, shaped it and proofed it for 1.5 hours. I'm actually pretty happy with the way it turned out. Here are my notes:

-Oh wow, measuring works! The dough was a great consistency and got itself into a great bowl-cleaning ball.
-The dough was actually a little loose and wet for my taste, so next time I think I'll reduce the hydration to 68%.
-I tried a few methods of shaping and scoring, but they were all moot because the dough sort of overproofed. Next time I'll let them proof for just a half hour or something - the kitchen is much warmer than I thought.

Adventures in Cooperation!

After a somewhat busy and rocky start to my last school semester, I have finally found the time this Saturday morning to make some bread in my co-op. Hooray! I am sticking to the book this time, but using half whole wheat, as per the co-op's preference.

Soaker:
29 1/8 c. WW flour (local and organic, so lots of hull and crunchy bits)
14 3/4 c. water (I didn't really measure the temperature, but I was trying for 77)

I let this rest for about a half hour while I measured the rest of the ingredients and traipsed all over campus trying to find salt.

Dough:
soaker
7 c. water
28 c. white flour (probably 3/4 King Arthur Sir Galahad and 1/4 organic)
7 3/4 T. salt
5 7/8 T. yeast

I kneaded it 5-10-5-10-5 and put it in an oiled tall container to rise. I'm a little worried about the temperature in the kitchen. I tried to measure it, but I think all of our thermometers are vaguely broken, so I covered the container in a plastic bag, put it in a corner near the oven, and am hoping for the best.

If at first you don't succeed, try and fail again

Well, in short, the sourdough was a disaster. I sort of left it in the fridge for 20 hours and it overproofed and got this terrible crust because I didn't cover it well enough. Again, the flavor was excellent, but the appearance, density and crust were so off-putting that I threw it away.

Onto the next. I decided to go back to basics. My mom bought a kitchen scale for herself (OXO brand, 30 bucks at Target, digital readout, US/metric measurements, 5 lb. limit - it's pretty awesome) so I used that to make a plain, white bread.

465 g white flour
35 g WW
380 g water
10 g salt
5 g yeast

The dough was pretty stiff. It couldn't even really absorb all of the flour, which was surprising, since this is over a 70 percent hydration. I kneaded it in the usual way, let it rise for 3 hours with a fold-and-turn after 90 minutes, and then shaped it and let it proof for 2 and a half hours. It was still too damned dense.

At this point, I'm thinking, come ON, I'm doing everything right! I'm using the right yeast for long fermentation (SAF brand), measuring with a scale, kneading correctly, using good flour, hydrating it enough...man. So next time, I'm going to make absolutely sure that I measure out enough water (maybe I'm mis-measuring?), and let the loaves proof in the fridge overnight. I think I'm also going to try making one big pan loaf rather than two small ones, as I've been doing. Maybe I'm just unsatisfied with the small loaves because they don't leave enough room for a sandwich. Unlikely, though.

Hey, there's infinity in that box

So I am very behind, having never written about the results of the last batch. They were better, but still pretty dense. Frustratingly enough. I think the most frustrating part was that the loaves felt so ready and wonderful when I put them on the peel, but hardly expanded in the oven. I mean, I still have a good flavor, but not much else.

So. I asked my boss (who knows bread better than anyone) what I should do. He said: 1. stick to the formula, 2. scale back WW to 20% before trying anything too tricky, and 3. give up on Red Star yeast, which is engineered for quick rising rather than long fermentation. As I was leaving, he called out, "Infinity is in the box." "What?" I said, truly confused. "The formula," he said. "It seems like science when you're looking at it, with all those parameters, but really there's infinite things you can do with it. It's art."

Well, instead of using all of his suggestions, since I didn't have non-Red Star yeast on hand, I started a sourdough. I don't have the exact measurements with me, but I did make them, and I think it helped. I did a pre-ferment (levain, to get fancy) with the starter, some WW, water and white flour, and left it overnight on the counter. Then I mixed up the dough, kneaded for 5 minutes three times with 10 minute rests in between (it felt amazing!) and then let it rise for about 3 hours in the closed oven. I shaped it into loaves, and now it has been rising in the refrigerator for 18 hours. Which worries me just a little, since I won't be home to deal with it for a while yet, but hopefully because it's at 40 degrees it won't overproof. The one tricky thing about this bread as art thing is that it doesn't always fit too well with the rest of my life. Something I should work on. Anyway, I'll bake it off later this afternoon, and let you know how it goes, as well as actually give the formula I used :-)

p.s. I made cream puffs on Sunday, too! I used the Julia Child recipe for pate au choux, and made a sort of cannoli-esque filling with our homemade ricotta, flavored with orange and clove. Incredibly delicious. As a baking note, if you cut the puffs in half after they're done and then let them sit in the turned off oven insides-up for 5 minutes (as Julia recommends) they'll be much crispier.

God damn, I need a kitchen scale

Today I decided to screw this whole wheat stuff, I'm just going to back up and bake with mostly white flour for a while. This means that I don't really need a soaker, which is nice, since I didn't decide to start the dough until 4:30. However...my penchant for forging ahead without thought has again gotten in my way. I used 3 cups of King Arthur white bread flour, and one cup of WW bread flour (I also gave up on using regular WW flour - why subject myself to this?) with 1 2/3 cups of water at 85 degrees. The dough is okay, but a little stiff. Okay, maybe a lot stiff. And two things occur to me: one is that this would be a _whole_lot_ easier if I had a kitchen scale and could actually measure ingredients accurately, and the other is that, duh, white flour has a different weight per cup than WW, so of course my proportions are messed up. Anyway.

I didn't do a pre-ferment, that is, I mixed all of the ingredients together at once, and then kneaded for three short periods and one longer period. Once the dough was good and kneaded, I stuck it in the fridge. I think I'll let it go overnight and shape it in the morning. We'll see how it goes. Damn, am I terrible at consistent changes or what? Resolution: from here on out, I will figure out my next recipe as soon as I have the results of the previous batch. Okay? Okay.

Just for fun, here is my present wish list of kitchen equipment:

- A KITCHEN SCALE (flat-top and digital...i.e. way too expensive for me at the moment)
- a water spray bottle
- a meat thermometer (y'know, one of the ones you stick into stuff...also too expensive at the moment)
- a counter that actually fits my body
- a piece of wood to use for a peel


And, my mom and I made cheese! Granted, it was from a box and it was just ricotta, but it's delicious and it got me excited about cheesemaking. Now I want to make cheddar before I go back to school...and buy some rennet for myself. Our kit came with vegetable rennet, but I'd like to try the animal stuff. I haven't read anything saying it would work better, but I'm curious.

Again, again!

The recipe:

2 c. WW flour
1 ¼ c. water
mixed together and let soak in the fridge overnight

1 c. WW flour
1 c. King Arthur white bread flour
¾ c. water (71ish degrees)
1 2/3 tsp. salt
1 1/3 tsp. yeast

So, obviously I changed the flour to be ¾ WW and ¼ white bread. Also, I microwaved the soaker until it was about 71 degrees, and added a half cup more water and a tiny bit more yeast. The amount of water seems exorbitant, but it might be necessary for the hydration of the wheat. Even after the first kneading, there’s a huge difference. The dough is more pliable (my shoulders don’t hurt quite so much) and the gluten looks happier already. I think it really likes being above room temperature.

This time, I put the bowl with the dough in the oven to rise, after I had let the oven warm up to about 150 degrees and then shut it off. It worked great! My mom brought to my attention that our kitchen is very drafty and can get randomly cold, which I don't think the dough liked much at all. So this time, it rose very well, in much less time than I expected (I thought it would take maybe 3 hours, but I think I shaped it after about 2). I tried a new shaping technique I had learned at work, but because the counter is so high for me, I wasn't able to be as gentle with it as I should have been. Then I put the loaves in their couches and put them in the oven.

They were looking really promising; a nice squishy bounce to the dough after just an hour. Then Mom took them out of the oven to cook dinner, which had the double effect of changing their temperature and keeping them from baking for another hour (dinner was delicious, though!). Though they looked really great right before I flipped them onto the peel, as soon as they were on a flat surface, they began to fall, and didn't rise much in the oven. So, though these loaves were distinctly less brick-like than the last batch, they were still pretty dense. I would speculate a few reasons for this:

1) Too-tight shaping
2) Too much yeast
3) A combination of too high a proofing temperature and too long a proofing time, leading the loaves to overproof and fall at a crucial moment.

So next time it'll be back to 1 1/4 tsp. yeast, as well as either a cooler proofing temperature or a shorter proofing time.

The result...

Well, the 100% whole wheat was a disaster. Okay, not a disaster, per se, but really not what I was hoping for. Pros: it had a really nice, thick, crunchy crust, a soft crumb texture, and a nice flavor (enough salt! And WW tastes great). Cons: it felt like a brick. The loaves hardly rose at all, in or out of the oven, and I gave them almost 8 hours in a warm place. I don’t think I killed the yeast, because they were still rising a little bit before I finally got fed up and put them in the oven.

What I think I could do to change it is this:

1) Maybe try adding a little bit of white flour, or using WW bread flour rather than just the regular stuff.
2) Increase the proportion of water. I had to add about a third of a cup anyway, because the flour would just not incorporate. Ideally, I’d like to only go up to about 75% water (this means that the amount of the water in the mix is 75% of the weight of the flour), but with 100% WW, I realize I may need closer to 80%.
3) Suck it up and let it rise longer. What I really should have done, I think, is let the shaped loaves proof overnight. I was both impatient and afraid that they wouldn’t rise if I put them in the fridge, or would overproof if I left them out. But in retrospect, overproofing probably would have been better than what I got.
4) Increase the amount of yeast by a little bit.
5) Let the soaker warm up before I mix up the final dough. I think the fact that I started kneading when the total mix was only 62 or so degrees was not really helpful for yeast happiness.

At least I know that the soaking works wonders, and that the amount of salt is right.


On a happier note, a few days ago, my mom and I went to a commercial kitchen supply store, which was amazing. I felt like a kid in a candy store. My mom really wanted to buy a pizza stone, which I greatly appreciate, as I’ve been using it for bread to great effect. I wanted some French fry baskets to use as couches (pronounced “kooshes,” and used to help loaves keep their shape while proofing). We both got what we wanted, plus I picked up a dough blade for 3 bucks (!) and splurged on a canvas pastry bag, which I plan to use to make éclairs and cream puffs. I think I may have to break the rules of this blog to write about them. And then, while I was making preparations for baking my first loaves, I found a broken half of a cutting board my mom had lying around, and I’ve been using it as a peel (that thing you use to put bread or pizza into the oven directly onto a stone). It’s perfect! Which is great, because before this I was trying to slide a sheet of parchment with two unbaked loaves on it onto a 400-degree baking sheet in a 400-degree oven. Not the smartest thing I could have done. Bottom line: I love kitchen toys, and commercial kitchen supply stores. And I should wait at least a year before going in one again.

My first try

Well, okay, so that's a lie.  I can't really count the number of loaves of bread I've baked in my life, over a summer of working in food service and a semester baking 20 loaves a week in a food co-op and numerous home baking exploits.  However, I am a haphazard baker by nature, which sometimes presents me with pleasant surprises, but always is frustratingly inconsistent.  So, my new project is to bake a whole bunch on my own, and record my processes and results while messing with different variables.  Hopefully I'll end up with something I like consistently :-)

Previously, I've used the basic recipe from the Tassajara Bread Book.  The book is amazing, and has lots of great recipes as well as a beautiful poem about leftovers.  However, this basic bread recipe leaves something to be desired.  I've found it to be rather dense and wet, with a thin crust.  It also uses sweetener, which is fine, but is difficult when one wants to remain vegan, cane-free and cheap (yes, molasses is a viable option, but it colors and flavors the bread in a pretty intense way).  So, as the title of my blog states, I'll be reverting to using only four ingredients for a while - flour, water, salt and yeast.  I will vary the types of flour I use, the length of fermentation (resting and rising), the temperature ingredients are at, and to a small degree, the proportions of the ingredients.  So, without further ado...

My First Attempt at Long-Fermentation Bread

Well, I should preface this account with the statement that my first mistake here is measuring the ingredients by volume rather than weight.  I know, I know, I know...it's totally inaccurate and variable.  But I can't really afford a scale, so it'll have to do.  What I've been doing is calculating recipes by metric weight, and then converting them to US volume measurements using www.gourmetsleuth.com.  Not perfect, but it works in a pinch.  The recipe I used is as follows: 

500 g whole wheat flour (4 cups)

350 g water (1.5 cups)

10 g salt (1.3 tsp)

5 g yeast (1.25 tsp)

So, my second mistake was probably jumping into this project with 100% whole wheat bread.  What can I say?  I got excited!  I started by soaking half of the flour in an equal weight of water overnight, so it could hydrate.  This definitely helped; already I've noticed that the gluten strands aren't breaking as often as I usually notice with whole wheat dough.  I then mixed this mixture (cold, directly out of the fridge, another mistake) with the remainder of the ingredients, all at room temperature except for the water, which was about 80 degrees F.  I kneaded this for 4 minutes, let rest for 7, kneaded for 4, let rest for 8, and kneaded for another 4.  I really intended for all those times to be longer, but I got tired (my counter is about 7 inches too tall for me, and if you've ever kneaded 100% whole wheat dough, you'll know that it takes quite a bit of effort) and impatient.  It is now rising for 3 hours, next to the wood stove (probably 85 degrees F).  It's been 2.5 hours.  Though the texture has changed quite drastically, it still hasn't risen all that much.  I'll probably turn it after another half hour, and give it another hour after that to rise.  We'll see what happens...