Bread Baking Results - 2019
Listed below are the breads that I baked during the eighth year of my bread baking journey.
1/3/2019 Loaves #205, #206, & #207
Emmanuel's Sourdough
We had Ryan/Kara/Lillian/Elliot and Betsy/Lucas/Jasper at our house for several days over Christmas. Mike/Chris/Teagan/Owen were also over at our house quite a bit too. During a few short days, we went through 3 full loaves and a partial loaf of sourdough bread. Hence, time to get baking and restock. I went with Emmanuel’s Sourdough again this time, baking 3 loaves. I gave one to Mike, Chris, and family, and put the other 2 loaves in the freezer <we had just taken the last loaf of sourdough out of the freezer a couple of days ago>
1/24/2019 Loaf #208
Spelt Bread
When I was in Atlanta in mid-January, Ryan made arrangements for me to shadow (and modestly assist) the bakers (Chris Wilkins & Anna) at Root Baking Co. After a great 7 hours at the bakery, they gave me (along with lots of other stuff) some very high grade spelt flour. Not wanting to let this flour sit around too long and risk never using it, I decided to try baking some spelt bread. After considerable research, I decided to go with the formula described in Bob’s Red Mill Baking Book.
The bread was easy to make and, to my surprise, tasted really good. I tried it as plain bread and then as toast. The toast really tasted good, possibly influenced by the generous amount of butter that I applied.
One downside of this particular bread was that the bread crumbled easily when being sliced. Perhaps it would be good in the future to incorporate some unbleached bread flour in with the spelt??
The bread was easy to make and, to my surprise, tasted really good. I tried it as plain bread and then as toast. The toast really tasted good, possibly influenced by the generous amount of butter that I applied.
One downside of this particular bread was that the bread crumbled easily when being sliced. Perhaps it would be good in the future to incorporate some unbleached bread flour in with the spelt??
1/28/2019 Loaves #209 & #210
Rye Bread
When I was in Atlanta in mid-January, Ryan made arrangements for me to shadow (and modestly assist) the bakers (Chris Wilkins & Anna) at Root Baking Co. After a great 7 hours at the bakery, they gave me (along with lots of other stuff) some very high grade rye flour. Not wanting to let this flour sit around too long and risk never using it, I decided to try baking some rye bread. For some reason, I wanted to bake the rye bread without the use of a sourdough starter. I decided to go with the formula described in Peter Reinhart’s “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”.
The actual recipe was for Marbled Rye Bread - my intent was to prepare two doughs (one white rye and one dark rye) and then prepare them in such a way that I would end up with a spiral bread of light & dark rye. Since I didn’t have actual dark rye, I decided to use Reinhart’s technique of preparing two identical doughs with white rye flour and then adding liquid caramel coloring to one of the doughs to create a dark rye. So as to not mess up, I followed Reinhart’s mise en place process of getting all ingredients measured out and set aside before starting the mixing. The only items I chose to wait until the end were the molasses and the liquid caramel coloring. Somehow, I ended up mistakenly putting the liquid caramel coloring into both doughs, thus transforming both (instead of only one) of the doughs to be dark rye doughs. So much for the marbled look!!
The bread was reasonably easy to make and tasted really good. I tried it as plain bread and then as toast. My preference was the plain un-toasted bread.
The actual recipe was for Marbled Rye Bread - my intent was to prepare two doughs (one white rye and one dark rye) and then prepare them in such a way that I would end up with a spiral bread of light & dark rye. Since I didn’t have actual dark rye, I decided to use Reinhart’s technique of preparing two identical doughs with white rye flour and then adding liquid caramel coloring to one of the doughs to create a dark rye. So as to not mess up, I followed Reinhart’s mise en place process of getting all ingredients measured out and set aside before starting the mixing. The only items I chose to wait until the end were the molasses and the liquid caramel coloring. Somehow, I ended up mistakenly putting the liquid caramel coloring into both doughs, thus transforming both (instead of only one) of the doughs to be dark rye doughs. So much for the marbled look!!
The bread was reasonably easy to make and tasted really good. I tried it as plain bread and then as toast. My preference was the plain un-toasted bread.
2/18/2019 Loaves #211, #212, & #213
Emmanuel's Sourdough
We’re almost out of bread, so I baked 3 loaves of my current stand-by, Emmanuel’s Sourdough. Everything went smoothly (I guess it should since this was the 22nd time that I’ve baked this particular bread). Loaf#1 is going to Mike, Chris, Teagan, & Owen. Loaf#2will be used when Mike & Deb Kauffman come to dinner tomorrow. Loaf#3 is going into the freezer for use later.
2/18/2019 Loaves #214 and #215
Tartine Country Walnut Sourdough
During my planning to bake some straight sourdough bread yesterday, I asked Roxie if there was any type of bread she would like me to bake. She immediately commented that it had been quite a while since I baked any walnut bread. And, she was right - my last bake of walnut bread was November-2016. So, I finished the straight sourdough yesterday and at the same time prepared to bake some walnut bread for today. I used the great recipe/procedure from Chad Robertson (Tartine Bread) and baked 2 loaves. The deferred fermentation (i.e., placing the developed dough in the refrigerator over night) worked great.
3/5/2019 Loaves #216 and #217
Saturday White Bread
Well, it’s spring break for the State College school system and we are being visited by Teagan & Owen for a few days. As we were finishing up playing monopoly,Teagan mentioned that she wondered when her and I could bake bread together again. This reminded me of the time that we did bake bread together - Owen & Jasper wanted to help, but thinking 8 hands in the dough was a bit much, I discouraged Owen & Jasper, but promised to include them next time. Based on this, Teagan agreed that I would first bake bread with Owen and then have a bake day with her the next day. <We’ll get Jasper in the ‘bakery’ next time we’re with him - assuming he’s still interested>
I wanted a fairly simple recipe, so decided to go with a yeast-based method and ended up using Ken Forkish’s Saturday White Bread process. Owen had a good time, was proud of his accomplishments, and anxious to try some of his bread.
Since Teagan & I also baked 2 loaves the next day, the two of them had 4 loaves of bread to take home. They took one of Teagan’s to eat right away and took one of Owen’s frozen for later. Due to space limitations in their freezer, they left the other 2 loaves in our freezer for us to get to them later.
I wanted a fairly simple recipe, so decided to go with a yeast-based method and ended up using Ken Forkish’s Saturday White Bread process. Owen had a good time, was proud of his accomplishments, and anxious to try some of his bread.
Since Teagan & I also baked 2 loaves the next day, the two of them had 4 loaves of bread to take home. They took one of Teagan’s to eat right away and took one of Owen’s frozen for later. Due to space limitations in their freezer, they left the other 2 loaves in our freezer for us to get to them later.
3/6/2019 Loaves #218 and #219
Overnight White Bread
Well, it’s spring break for the State College school system and we are being visited by Teagan & Owen for a few days. As we were finishing up playing monopoly,Teagan mentioned that she wondered when her and I could bake bread together again. This reminded me of the time that we did bake bread together - Owen & Jasper wanted to help, but thinking 8 hands in the dough was a bit much, I discouraged Owen & Jasper, but promised to include them next time. Based on this, Teagan agreed that I would first bake bread with Owen and then have a bake day with her the next day. <We’ll get Jasper in the ‘bakery’ next time we’re with him - assuming he’s still interested>
I wanted a fairly simple recipe, so decided to go with a yeast-based method and ended up using Ken Forkish’s Overnight White Bread process. Teagan and I prepped the dough the evening after Owen baked and then we baked Teagan’s 2 loaves the next morning. Teagan seemed to enjoy the process again, especially the messy part of mixing the dough by hand. She commented how much she enjoyed helping and looked forward to doing it again.
Since Owen & I had baked 2 loaves the prior day, the two of them had 4 loaves of bread to take home. They took one of Teagan’s to eat right away and took one of Owen’s frozen for later. Due to space limitations in their freezer, they left the other 2 loaves in our freezer for us to get to them later.
I wanted a fairly simple recipe, so decided to go with a yeast-based method and ended up using Ken Forkish’s Overnight White Bread process. Teagan and I prepped the dough the evening after Owen baked and then we baked Teagan’s 2 loaves the next morning. Teagan seemed to enjoy the process again, especially the messy part of mixing the dough by hand. She commented how much she enjoyed helping and looked forward to doing it again.
Since Owen & I had baked 2 loaves the prior day, the two of them had 4 loaves of bread to take home. They took one of Teagan’s to eat right away and took one of Owen’s frozen for later. Due to space limitations in their freezer, they left the other 2 loaves in our freezer for us to get to them later.
3/13/2019 Loaves #220 and #221
Saturday White Bread
We had invited Glen & Diane Miller and Gary & Nancy Olin over for dinner. We decided to include fresh bread with the meal, so I baked one that I could do the same day. I chose to use the formula & procedures described with Ken Forkish’s Saturday White Bread.
This was also the first time that I’ve tried to use stenciling to decorate the top of the loaf. The stencil went on fine and, in an effort to make sure the bread did not expand in the oven through the carefully-applied stencil, I scored the loaf along both sides of the stencil. I’m not 100% sure what happened, but the loaf expanded right through the stencil & hardly at all through my scoring. Perhaps my scoring was too shallow? Also, this loaf was rather oddly shaped following the bake.
Anyway, I froze the loaf that was malformed and we had the larger and more attractive loaf for dinner with our company. They seemed to like it very much.
This was also the first time that I’ve tried to use stenciling to decorate the top of the loaf. The stencil went on fine and, in an effort to make sure the bread did not expand in the oven through the carefully-applied stencil, I scored the loaf along both sides of the stencil. I’m not 100% sure what happened, but the loaf expanded right through the stencil & hardly at all through my scoring. Perhaps my scoring was too shallow? Also, this loaf was rather oddly shaped following the bake.
Anyway, I froze the loaf that was malformed and we had the larger and more attractive loaf for dinner with our company. They seemed to like it very much.
3/15/2019 Loaves #222 and #223
Saturday White Bread
Betsy, Lucas & Jasper joined us at the cottage for a few days. We took this opportunity to have Jasper help me bake some bread. I had Teagan & Owen help me a couple of weeks ago, so now it was Jasper’s turn. Like Teagan & Owen, Jasper was very focused and did a great job helping with the preparation, shaping, and baking of 2 loaves of bread.
We had just finished up some bread I had in the bread bin, so the timing was perfect. Shortly after the baked bread cooled, we cut into it and sampled. Although it wasn’t quite cooled down enough to have with dinner, we all saved some room and had it shortly after dinner. It tasted great.
We had just finished up some bread I had in the bread bin, so the timing was perfect. Shortly after the baked bread cooled, we cut into it and sampled. Although it wasn’t quite cooled down enough to have with dinner, we all saved some room and had it shortly after dinner. It tasted great.
3/22/2019 Loaf #224
Rustic Cornflour Bread
When we were in Atlanta in January, Chris Wilkins (Root Baking Company) gave me some high-quality corn flour - I used a small portion of this to make some grits, and decided to use the rest for some bread. I looked around for some good corn flour bread recipes & concluded to try the one from Paula Roy (Constantly Cooking) because it looked fairly straightforward.
As expected, it was fairly straightforward to put together. It sure called for a lot of yeast, which is likely why it increased in volume so much prior to baking. I did have an oversight though - I decided to bake the bread on a pizza stone and neglected to introduce any steam during the baking process. This seemed to affect the crust (somewhat brittle) and perhaps the color ??? (quite light).
Anyway, the taste was quite good - we had it as bread and as toast - the bread style tasted better in my opinion.
As expected, it was fairly straightforward to put together. It sure called for a lot of yeast, which is likely why it increased in volume so much prior to baking. I did have an oversight though - I decided to bake the bread on a pizza stone and neglected to introduce any steam during the baking process. This seemed to affect the crust (somewhat brittle) and perhaps the color ??? (quite light).
Anyway, the taste was quite good - we had it as bread and as toast - the bread style tasted better in my opinion.
3/29/2019 Loaves #225 & #226
Basic White Sandwich Loaf
It had been a long time since I baked this particular bread. Deciding a plain white sandwich loaf was what I wanted, I went with this recipe again. It turned out good. I used the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible" as a guide.
4/6/2019 Loaves #227 & #228
Forkish 50% Whole Wheat Bread with Biga
My original plan was to develop my own whole wheat sourdough starter & use it to bake some sort of whole wheat bread. I’m not sure what I did wrong with the creation of the whole wheat starter, but it just didn’t seem to take off like I expected. After tossing this starter away, I decided to just bake some whole wheat bread using yeast. I turned to Ken Forkish’s ’50% Whole Wheat Bread with Biga’ and baked it right after getting to the cottage. I also experimented with some stenciling, but my lack of a spray bottle caused me to rub water on the dough, thus flattening it somewhat. I need to pick up a small spray bottle to dampen the area where the stencil will go.
5/14/2019 Loaves #229 & #230
Forkish 50% Whole Wheat Bread with Biga
In the past, whenever I wanted to bake bread at the cottage, I had to plan ahead & transport my baking supplies from home to the cottage. In order to eliminate this need & to provide more flexibility on spontaneous bread baking at the cottage, I decided to get another set of baking supplies at the cottage. Once I got a full complement of bread baking supplies at the cottage, I was anxious to give them a try. So, I decided to once again go with Ken Forkish’s ’50% Whole Wheat Bread with Biga’.
As it turns out, we decided that we were going to go over to Betsy & Lucas’s house the next day so that we could attend Jasper’s pre-school concert. Roxie made some soup for pre-concert dinner & I decided to take one of the loaves of bread (the other loaf went in the freezer).
The bread turned out good, with a very good taste. The loaf shapes didn’t turn out as planned. I had a terrible time getting the oblong loaf off of the pizza peel & onto the baking stone - as a result, with all of my efforts to shake the dough off the peel, the dough collapsed before baking even started - it did experience some oven spring, but was still mis-shaped. As for the round loaf, I struggled getting it out of the banneton and into the dutch oven - it fell hard into the dutch oven and collapsed somewhat - the resultant baked loaf was too broad and not high enough.
Lessons learned:
(1) use more cornmeal on the pizza peel to facilitate easier movement to baking stone
(2) cover round banneton with an oiled (or heavily cornmealed) silicone baking mat; invert onto a pizza peel; & then slide dough off of silicone mat into dutch oven
As it turns out, we decided that we were going to go over to Betsy & Lucas’s house the next day so that we could attend Jasper’s pre-school concert. Roxie made some soup for pre-concert dinner & I decided to take one of the loaves of bread (the other loaf went in the freezer).
The bread turned out good, with a very good taste. The loaf shapes didn’t turn out as planned. I had a terrible time getting the oblong loaf off of the pizza peel & onto the baking stone - as a result, with all of my efforts to shake the dough off the peel, the dough collapsed before baking even started - it did experience some oven spring, but was still mis-shaped. As for the round loaf, I struggled getting it out of the banneton and into the dutch oven - it fell hard into the dutch oven and collapsed somewhat - the resultant baked loaf was too broad and not high enough.
Lessons learned:
(1) use more cornmeal on the pizza peel to facilitate easier movement to baking stone
(2) cover round banneton with an oiled (or heavily cornmealed) silicone baking mat; invert onto a pizza peel; & then slide dough off of silicone mat into dutch oven
5/19/2019 Loaves #231 & #232
Forkish Saturday 75% Whole Wheat Bread
We ran out of bread last evening so I decided to bake something this morning. I decided to go with a whole wheat bread that we’ve enjoyed before - Ken Forkish’s Saturday 75% Whole Wheat Bread. This bread is a fairly simple bread to bake & can be completed in a single day.
I baked 2 loaves. I cut the larger loaf in half and put both halves in the freezer for later use. The other loaf accompanied the soup we were having for dinner.
I experimented with a new technique for getting the proofed dough into the oven:
For Loaf#1, I inverted the dough from the brotform onto a heavily oiled silicone baking mat. I then attempted to carefully slide the dough from the silicone baking mat into the dutch oven. Well, it didn’t really slide off as I was hoping. By the time I was able to free the silicone mat from the dough, the dough was somewhat deflated and irregular in shape. When it was done baking, it was more oblong than the original round shape I started with.
For Loaf#2, I once again inverted the dough from the brotform onto a silicone baking mat (not oiled, just plain silicone). I then carefully placed the silicone mat onto a baking stone. This worked ok.
In both cases, I over-proofed the dough. It was a hot and humid day and I let it proof too long. Once I realized the situation, and with the oven not completely warmed up yet, I placed both doughs in the refrigerator to delay further proofing. Both doughs were too loose and had lost some of their gluten. This resulted in poor oven spring in both cases.
I baked 2 loaves. I cut the larger loaf in half and put both halves in the freezer for later use. The other loaf accompanied the soup we were having for dinner.
I experimented with a new technique for getting the proofed dough into the oven:
For Loaf#1, I inverted the dough from the brotform onto a heavily oiled silicone baking mat. I then attempted to carefully slide the dough from the silicone baking mat into the dutch oven. Well, it didn’t really slide off as I was hoping. By the time I was able to free the silicone mat from the dough, the dough was somewhat deflated and irregular in shape. When it was done baking, it was more oblong than the original round shape I started with.
For Loaf#2, I once again inverted the dough from the brotform onto a silicone baking mat (not oiled, just plain silicone). I then carefully placed the silicone mat onto a baking stone. This worked ok.
In both cases, I over-proofed the dough. It was a hot and humid day and I let it proof too long. Once I realized the situation, and with the oven not completely warmed up yet, I placed both doughs in the refrigerator to delay further proofing. Both doughs were too loose and had lost some of their gluten. This resulted in poor oven spring in both cases.
11/8/2019 Loaves #233 & #234
Forkish Saturday White Bread
Having once again torn my rotator cuff and requiring a surgical repair, I took off several months from baking bread. We just ran out of store-bought bread, so I decided to go with something quick (meaning no need to nurture my sourdough starter back to life before baking). I went with Ken Forkish’s easy recipe for Saturday White Bread & it turned out like I expected - just fine!
11/20/2019 Loaves #235, #236, #237 & #238
Crusty French Baguette
Roxie & I were invited to dinner at Carrie Kauffman & Dave Yoxtheimer’s, along with Mike & Debbie Kauffman. Carrie was preparing lasagna and a salad, while Debbie prepared dessert. Upon asking what we could bring, Carrie suggested bread. As a result, I baked bread for the meal. I decided to go with a baguette, but since my sourdough was dormant, I ended up baking a new baguette recipe based on yeast instead of my normal sourdough starter.
Based on ingredient quantities, my inclination was to bake 3 loaves instead of the 4 recommended in the recipe. I should have gone with the 3, as the baking loaf 4 resulted in very modest portions of crumb.
The recipe called for baking at 480F for 35-40 minutes - once again, I ignored my inclination to either reduce temperature or reduce time of baking. The results were baguettes that were over-baked.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the flavor and we ended up eating about 2-1/2 loaves, so it wasn’t a complete failure.
Based on ingredient quantities, my inclination was to bake 3 loaves instead of the 4 recommended in the recipe. I should have gone with the 3, as the baking loaf 4 resulted in very modest portions of crumb.
The recipe called for baking at 480F for 35-40 minutes - once again, I ignored my inclination to either reduce temperature or reduce time of baking. The results were baguettes that were over-baked.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the flavor and we ended up eating about 2-1/2 loaves, so it wasn’t a complete failure.
11/22/2019 Loaves #239, #240, & #241
Emmanuel's Sourdough
With all of our children and grandchildren planning to be with us for several days over Thanksgiving, and having only one loaf of bread in the freezer, I decided we should bake some sourdough bread for the family. The grandkids seem to prefer sourdough and also seem to prefer white bread instead of bread that includes whole wheat flour. As a result, I went with Emmanuel’s White Sourdough recipe/procedure. I baked 3 loaves, stored them in the freezer, and will pop them out as needed when family arrives.
12/09/2019 Loaves #242, #243, & #244
Emmanuel's Sourdough
We took our last loaf of homemade bread out of the freezer yesterday, so I figured I better bake some more. Since we’re going to a Singing On Stage performance of Teagan’s, I’ll take one fresh loaf to give to her after the performance. The other 2 loaves will go in the freezer for another day. I went with Emmanuel’s Sourdough again. The last time I baked this particular bread (Nov-22nd), I didn’t let it proof as long as I normally do and liked the results better. As a result, I limited the proof cycle and once again thought the resultant loaves were much better.
12/10/2019 Loaves #245, #246, & #247
Emmanuel's Sourdough
Although I just baked bread yesterday, I decided to go with it again while the sourdough starter (The Wongster) was alive & active. I again went with Emmanuel’s Sourdough. Of the 3 that I baked yesterday, I gave one to Teagan & Owen. Of the 3 that I baked today, I’m going to give one to Mike & Deb Kauffman for their oyster party (we’ll miss the party, but wanted to get some bread to them anyway).
12/30/2019 Loaves #248 & #249
Forkish 50% Whole Wheat Bread with Biga
Prior to the Christmas holiday, I had baked 6 loaves of bread - we gave one of these to Mike, Chris, & family and another to Mike & Deb Kauffman (for a oyster get-together that we were invited to but were unable to attend) - between us, Betsy&Jasper, and Mike&Chris&Teagan&Owen, we quickly went through 3 of the other 4 loaves over Christmas - as a result, I baked 2 more loaves to make it through the holidays - I went with Ken Forkish’s 50% Whole Wheat Bread with Biga since we enjoyed it so much the prior time I tried it - it turned out great this time too - I placed 1-1/2 loaves in the freezer since I figured we’d only go through about 1/2 loaf before everyone departed and before we headed out of town also.