Bread Baking Results - 2013
Listed below are the breads that I baked during the second year of my bread baking journey.
2/6/2013 Basic Sourdough Bread |
27-28 |
Source of Recipe:
The Bread Bible (Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 2/8
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: -
Water
Salt
Sourdough Starter
Comments: Well, it's actually been a while since I baked bread, so I thought I'd better get with it. I refreshed my neglected sourdough starter and took it from there. I made a Basic Sourdough Bread using a 'formula' from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". Rose prefers maintaining a stiff sourdough starter, while I prefer to maintain a liquid sourdough starter. Although she provides details on converting recipes between the two styles, I had challenges in getting the dough ball properly established - ended up with a firm dough/water mixture in the mixer and then when I added the starter, I ended up with a real mess (the starter just coated the outside of the dough ball instead of getting integrated into the dough ball). I ended up pulling the mess out of the mixer and using a food processor to integrate the starter with the dough ball (thanks for the suggestion, Roxie). Then back to the mixer to knead it. I didn't have a banneton or brotform, so I used a couple of baskets that we had around the house with powdered cloth liners. They worked ok, but I would have preferred something narrower in order to have a more rounded shape. The resultant loaves tasted good toasted and will be tested in a sandwich later in the day.
The Bread Bible (Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 2/8
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: -
Water
Salt
Sourdough Starter
Comments: Well, it's actually been a while since I baked bread, so I thought I'd better get with it. I refreshed my neglected sourdough starter and took it from there. I made a Basic Sourdough Bread using a 'formula' from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". Rose prefers maintaining a stiff sourdough starter, while I prefer to maintain a liquid sourdough starter. Although she provides details on converting recipes between the two styles, I had challenges in getting the dough ball properly established - ended up with a firm dough/water mixture in the mixer and then when I added the starter, I ended up with a real mess (the starter just coated the outside of the dough ball instead of getting integrated into the dough ball). I ended up pulling the mess out of the mixer and using a food processor to integrate the starter with the dough ball (thanks for the suggestion, Roxie). Then back to the mixer to knead it. I didn't have a banneton or brotform, so I used a couple of baskets that we had around the house with powdered cloth liners. They worked ok, but I would have preferred something narrower in order to have a more rounded shape. The resultant loaves tasted good toasted and will be tested in a sandwich later in the day.
2/10/2013 Whole Wheat Cinnamon-Raison Bread |
29-30
|
Source of Recipe:
The Tassajara Bread Book (Author: Edward Espe Brown)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 6/6
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water Molasses
Salt Olive oil
Yeast Dry milk
Poppy seeds
Cinnamon
Yellow raisons
Comments: I tried something different for a change and made a Whole Wheat Cinnamon-Raisin Bread (based on a recipe from Edward Espe Brown's "The Tassajara Bread Book"). The bread turned out a little dense, but had good flavor - better toasted than plain (at least in my opinion). I used yellow raisins instead of regular, dark-colored raisins since I had a feeling that yellow raisins would be more flavorful.
The Tassajara Bread Book (Author: Edward Espe Brown)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 6/6
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water Molasses
Salt Olive oil
Yeast Dry milk
Poppy seeds
Cinnamon
Yellow raisons
Comments: I tried something different for a change and made a Whole Wheat Cinnamon-Raisin Bread (based on a recipe from Edward Espe Brown's "The Tassajara Bread Book"). The bread turned out a little dense, but had good flavor - better toasted than plain (at least in my opinion). I used yellow raisins instead of regular, dark-colored raisins since I had a feeling that yellow raisins would be more flavorful.
3/2/2013 Mantovana Olive Oil Bread |
31
|
Source of Recipe:
The Bread Bible (Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 1/6
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water Extra virgin olive oil
Salt Unhulled sesame seeds
Yeast Sunflower seeds
Poppy Seeds
Cracked flaxseed
Comments: For todays baking, I decided to go back to a hearth bread that I've made before: Mantovana Olive Oil Bread, based on a recipe from Rose Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". I've baked this bread without a huge amount of success numerous times before. Although we like the flavor of the bread a great deal, I always come up short on the appearance of the loaf. As a result, I continue to experiment with the development of this bread with a desire to end up with a good-tasing loaf that also has a decent appearance. Well, this time around, I ended up with the most unusual loaf of bread I've ever baked. I placed the developed dough ball into a long bread pan. Right before placing it in the oven, I decided to use an egg wash on top and then coat it with some poppy seeds. Well, the brushing on of the egg wash completely deflated the dough ball. Being a little annoyed by this development, I just decided to pop it in the oven and bake it as is. The end result was a very flat bread - still had good flavor :-)
The Bread Bible (Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 1/6
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water Extra virgin olive oil
Salt Unhulled sesame seeds
Yeast Sunflower seeds
Poppy Seeds
Cracked flaxseed
Comments: For todays baking, I decided to go back to a hearth bread that I've made before: Mantovana Olive Oil Bread, based on a recipe from Rose Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". I've baked this bread without a huge amount of success numerous times before. Although we like the flavor of the bread a great deal, I always come up short on the appearance of the loaf. As a result, I continue to experiment with the development of this bread with a desire to end up with a good-tasing loaf that also has a decent appearance. Well, this time around, I ended up with the most unusual loaf of bread I've ever baked. I placed the developed dough ball into a long bread pan. Right before placing it in the oven, I decided to use an egg wash on top and then coat it with some poppy seeds. Well, the brushing on of the egg wash completely deflated the dough ball. Being a little annoyed by this development, I just decided to pop it in the oven and bake it as is. The end result was a very flat bread - still had good flavor :-)
3/13/2013 Pugliese |
32
|
Source of Recipe:
The Bread Bible (Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 8/8
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Durum flour
Water
Salt
Yeast
Comments: I ended up going over to friend, Russ Vaught's house to have a bread baking day. In reality, I was there to provide modest assistance, and lots of support/encouragement, as Russ baked two types of bread:
(1) Pugliese ('The Bread Bible'; Rose Levy Beranbaum) &
(2) Transitional Country Hearth Bread ('Whole Grain Breads';
Peter Reinhart)
Both turned out extremely good. Sincerely enjoyed the day - learning from Russ; witnessing his techniques; reviewing baking books/resources; and exchanging ideas. Thanks, Russ, for sharing your kitchen, time, & resources.
The photo above is of the Pugliese - we made two of these small loaves. It's really good bread, but relatively more expensive to bake due to the need to use rather expensive durum flour.
The Bread Bible (Author: Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 8/8
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Durum flour
Water
Salt
Yeast
Comments: I ended up going over to friend, Russ Vaught's house to have a bread baking day. In reality, I was there to provide modest assistance, and lots of support/encouragement, as Russ baked two types of bread:
(1) Pugliese ('The Bread Bible'; Rose Levy Beranbaum) &
(2) Transitional Country Hearth Bread ('Whole Grain Breads';
Peter Reinhart)
Both turned out extremely good. Sincerely enjoyed the day - learning from Russ; witnessing his techniques; reviewing baking books/resources; and exchanging ideas. Thanks, Russ, for sharing your kitchen, time, & resources.
The photo above is of the Pugliese - we made two of these small loaves. It's really good bread, but relatively more expensive to bake due to the need to use rather expensive durum flour.
3/13/2013 Transitional Country Hearth Bread |
33
|
Source of Recipe:
Whole Grain breads (Author: Peter Reinhart)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 7/9
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water
Salt
Yeast
Comments: This is a picture of the other loaf of bread that we baked the day I was over at "Russ Vaught's Bakery". This is 1/2 of the Transitional Country Hearth Bread ('Whole Grain Breads'; author: Peter Reinhart). Although it had a rather dark-colored crust, the texture and flavor were great.
The baking of this bread didn't proceed without incident though. As the actual baking was about to start, we filled an iron pan with water on the shelf below the bread. In doing so, and to protect the glass oven door from accidentally cracking if water were to spill on it, we covered the glass door with a towel. Somehow, in our hurry to get the oven door shut again, we neglected to remove the towel. Moments later, what we thought was steam started coming out of the oven vents. Shortly thereafter, we realized that this wasn't steam, but rather something else. Russ opened the oven door to find a smoking towel. He quickly removed it (before it caught on fire), but about that time the smoke alarm started to blare. The bread didn't seem to have any ill effects from sharing the oven during the the early baking stages with a smoking towel.
Whole Grain breads (Author: Peter Reinhart)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 7/9
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water
Salt
Yeast
Comments: This is a picture of the other loaf of bread that we baked the day I was over at "Russ Vaught's Bakery". This is 1/2 of the Transitional Country Hearth Bread ('Whole Grain Breads'; author: Peter Reinhart). Although it had a rather dark-colored crust, the texture and flavor were great.
The baking of this bread didn't proceed without incident though. As the actual baking was about to start, we filled an iron pan with water on the shelf below the bread. In doing so, and to protect the glass oven door from accidentally cracking if water were to spill on it, we covered the glass door with a towel. Somehow, in our hurry to get the oven door shut again, we neglected to remove the towel. Moments later, what we thought was steam started coming out of the oven vents. Shortly thereafter, we realized that this wasn't steam, but rather something else. Russ opened the oven door to find a smoking towel. He quickly removed it (before it caught on fire), but about that time the smoke alarm started to blare. The bread didn't seem to have any ill effects from sharing the oven during the the early baking stages with a smoking towel.
4/25/2013 Potato Bread |
34-35
|
Source of Recipe:
Whole Grain breads (Author: Peter Reinhart)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 5/7
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Potato
Water Sugar
Salt Shortening
Yeast
Comments: I decided to make the bread that my Mother-in-Law (Lillian Smith Kilbourne) makes regularly - her Potato bread. It turned out fairly well, except that I don't believe that I baked it long enough. The taste is good, but one of the loaves (not pictured of course) had spilled over the side of the bread pan during baking and during final cooling, sort of collapsed to that side. I feel that the gluten structure was sufficient, and have concluded that (1) I let it rise too long to begin with and (2) didn't let it cook long enough. Next time, I'll insert a thermometer in to make sure it's done. In any event, we've enjoyed the bread toasted, just how we like it when my Mother-in-Law bakes this bread.
Whole Grain breads (Author: Peter Reinhart)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 5/7
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Potato
Water Sugar
Salt Shortening
Yeast
Comments: I decided to make the bread that my Mother-in-Law (Lillian Smith Kilbourne) makes regularly - her Potato bread. It turned out fairly well, except that I don't believe that I baked it long enough. The taste is good, but one of the loaves (not pictured of course) had spilled over the side of the bread pan during baking and during final cooling, sort of collapsed to that side. I feel that the gluten structure was sufficient, and have concluded that (1) I let it rise too long to begin with and (2) didn't let it cook long enough. Next time, I'll insert a thermometer in to make sure it's done. In any event, we've enjoyed the bread toasted, just how we like it when my Mother-in-Law bakes this bread.
6/7/2013 Tartine Country Bread |
36-37
|
Source of Recipe:
Tartine Bread (Author: Chad Robertson)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 8/9
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water
Salt
Sourdough Starter
Comments: I baked a couple of loaves of 'Tartine Country Bread' using a recipe and technique from Chad Robertson's 'Tartine Bread' book. The bread contained just the 4 primary ingredients: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, and a sourdough starter. His technique involved two differences from what I was used to:
(1) no real kneading of the dough - just periodic folding inside a large bowl;
(2) using a dutch oven combo cooker - I baked it for 20 minutes inside the dutch oven and then removed the cover of the dutch oven for the final 20 minutes.
The result was a bread that looked decent; had a nice crisp crust; nice interior; and very nice flavor - it certainly falls into the category of one of my favorites. I'll be baking this one again for sure.
Tartine Bread (Author: Chad Robertson)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 8/9
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water
Salt
Sourdough Starter
Comments: I baked a couple of loaves of 'Tartine Country Bread' using a recipe and technique from Chad Robertson's 'Tartine Bread' book. The bread contained just the 4 primary ingredients: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, and a sourdough starter. His technique involved two differences from what I was used to:
(1) no real kneading of the dough - just periodic folding inside a large bowl;
(2) using a dutch oven combo cooker - I baked it for 20 minutes inside the dutch oven and then removed the cover of the dutch oven for the final 20 minutes.
The result was a bread that looked decent; had a nice crisp crust; nice interior; and very nice flavor - it certainly falls into the category of one of my favorites. I'll be baking this one again for sure.
6/18/2013 Tartine Country Bread |
38-39
|
Source of Recipe:
Tartine Bread (Author: Chad Robertson)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 5/8
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water
Salt
Sourdough Starter
Comments: I baked two more loaves of 'Tartine Country Bread' using the same recipe and technique from Chad Robertson's 'Tartine Bread' book that I used June-7th. Although the bread tasted good and had a good crust & crumb, it didn't look nearly as good as when I baked this bread a little over a week prior. I had challenges getting the dough out of the Final Rise Baskets - I apparently didn't cover the kitchen towel with enough 50/50 rice flour/whole wheat flour mix - the dough stuck to the towel & in getting it into the dutch oven combo cooker, the dough essentially collapsed, resulting in a flatter loaf.
Tartine Bread (Author: Chad Robertson)
Rating (Appearance/Taste): 5/8
Ingredients:
Base: White bread flour Also: Whole wheat flour
Water
Salt
Sourdough Starter
Comments: I baked two more loaves of 'Tartine Country Bread' using the same recipe and technique from Chad Robertson's 'Tartine Bread' book that I used June-7th. Although the bread tasted good and had a good crust & crumb, it didn't look nearly as good as when I baked this bread a little over a week prior. I had challenges getting the dough out of the Final Rise Baskets - I apparently didn't cover the kitchen towel with enough 50/50 rice flour/whole wheat flour mix - the dough stuck to the towel & in getting it into the dutch oven combo cooker, the dough essentially collapsed, resulting in a flatter loaf.
6/28/2013 Loaves #40 and #41
|
40-41
|
I enjoy the flavors of spent grain bread - as a result, I picked up some spent grain from Mike from his 6/26/2013 batch of Gamble Mill Pig Iron IPA beer. The grain Mike used was a combination of malted barley: Franco Belges Pale Ale Malt (a French malt) and Thomas Faucett Caramalt (a British malt). I used the same bread formula from Jasmine that I've used in the past - used honey a sweetener. I also cut back to milk from 1 cup to 3/4 cup. Used yeast this time around - could have raised a little longer. I believe I deflated the dough a bit when I applied an egg wash just before inserting the loaf into oven. I had originally intended to put oat flakes on top, but ended up putting poppy seeds instead. The reason I had applied the egg wash was to give the poppy seeds something to stick to.
6/28/2014 Loaf #42
Cheddar Bread
Although I had made this particular bread (Cheddar Loaf) once before with good results, this time, the loaf totally deflated during the early stages of baking - the difference from prior baking of this loaf was that I (very gently) applied an egg wash to the top of the loaf just before inserting into oven - I know this is related, but do not know the reason. Result: a very weird looking loaf of bread! Still tastes good though.
6/28/2013 Loaves #43 and #44
Tartine Country Bread
This is quickly becoming my 'go to' bread. Once again, I baked a couple of loaves of 'Tartine Country Bread' using a recipe and technique from Chad Robertson's 'Tartine Bread' book. The bread contained just the 4 primary ingredients: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, and a sourdough starter. As noted before, his technique involved two differences from what I was used to:
(1) no real kneading of the dough - just periodic folding inside a large bowl;
(2) using a dutch oven combo cooker - I baked it for 20 minutes inside the dutch oven and then removed the cover of the dutch oven for the final 25 minutes.
I really like this bread!
(1) no real kneading of the dough - just periodic folding inside a large bowl;
(2) using a dutch oven combo cooker - I baked it for 20 minutes inside the dutch oven and then removed the cover of the dutch oven for the final 25 minutes.
I really like this bread!
9/15/2013 Loaves #45 and #46
Tartine Country Bread
This continues to be my 'go to' bread. Once again, I baked a couple of loaves of 'Tartine Country Bread' using a recipe and technique from Chad Robertson's 'Tartine Bread' book. The bread contained just the 4 primary ingredients: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, and a sourdough starter. As noted before, his technique involved two differences from what I was used to:
(1) no real kneading of the dough - just periodic folding inside a large bowl;
(2) using a dutch oven combo cooker - I baked it for 20 minutes inside the dutch oven and then removed the cover of the dutch oven for the final 25 minutes.
When I split the dough, I was somewhat careless and ended up with two loaves that were a little different in size. I need to learn to weigh the full quantity of dough and then weigh out exactly 1/2.
Four considerations for the next time I bake this bread:
(1) no real kneading of the dough - just periodic folding inside a large bowl;
(2) using a dutch oven combo cooker - I baked it for 20 minutes inside the dutch oven and then removed the cover of the dutch oven for the final 25 minutes.
When I split the dough, I was somewhat careless and ended up with two loaves that were a little different in size. I need to learn to weigh the full quantity of dough and then weigh out exactly 1/2.
Four considerations for the next time I bake this bread:
- consider proportionally increasing the initial ingredients so that I end up with two larger loaves (the size of the dutch oven seems to warrant a slightly larger dough ball)
- as mentioned above, weigh out the dough balls when splitting
- figure out how to score the dough prior to cooking - I always end up really damaging the top of the dough when my blade just rips & pulls as I attempt to make my mark
- when placing the dough in containers for the final rise, use much more of the rice flour mixture - I tend to have the dough stick to the cloth and have trouble getting it into the dutch oven without gently massaging it off of the cloth