Thank You Ken Forkish

I bought Ken Forkish's Flour, Water Salt, Yeast recipe book late last year and it has become my 'go to' book.

First step last year was to successfully created the levain using what ever wild yeasts are in my house and on my flour. Keep a portion of it in my refrigerator and take out and refresh when needed. This is what the levain looks like when its been refreshed.

Refreshed levain

Lots of bubbles and a sweet sour note. I'm going to use it in two batches of overnight country brown and a batch of baguettes from the Tartine book.

Next step is to weigh out the flours and water, mix, and autolyse for 30 minutes. The recipe calls for 276g of whole wheat flour, but I like the slight tang of rye so I weighed out 200g whole wheat and 76 g of rye flour.

After mixing for the autolyse the dough is nice, soft, and shaggy. Although Forkish calls for hand mixing, I prefer to use a dough whisk at this stage.

Flour and water mixed for autolyse

Autolyse is a simple technique where the flour and water is mixed together until no dry material is left. No kneading, just cover and leave. What is happening is the flour is absorbing the water to become fully hydrated. In turn, this releases enzymes in the flour that stimulates the proteins that start the gluten development. Other enzymes begin the process of breaking down starch into simple sugars that will later feed the yeasts.

After 30 minutes the salt and levain is added to the flour and water mixture. The salt is kept out until now to because it would retard the gluten development.

The dough after adding the salt and levain

Now we can get our hands in the mix, making sure to first wet them. The levain is incorporated by mixing first, then cutting the dough by squeezing the hand through it bringing the thumb and index finger together in a scissors type motion. Look at how well the gluten has developed already.

Now to start developing the dough. My oven had a proofing setting that is about 75^oF. and the bins of dough are going in there for the next stage of bulk fermentation. No longer do we need to knead the bread, especially with higher hydration doughs.  This Overnight Country Brown has 78% hydration, that is 78g of water to every 100g of flour. The technique that has replaced kneading is generally known as stretch and fold. With a wet hand slipped under the dough about a quarter is lifted up until resistance is felt. The section is then folded down over the other side.

First stretch and fold before inverting

See how much smoother the dough has become

Working around the container, this step is repeated four or five times until the dough is in a ball. Then the ball is inverted so all the folds come together face down.

Three to four stretch and folds should see the dough really nice and subtle. That's it for tonight. The dough will now continue to bulk ferment overnight. Tomorrow's episode will be the final shape and bake.

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU ARE HAVING FUN!

Can't believe it's been several years since I last posted a blog. No excuses! The bakery still is operating. The Zojirushi I highlighted in my last post has been very busy. My 'go to' bread on the Zoj is a Como Bread from Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts Rustic European Breads for Your Bread Machine. It uses a biga that I keep in the fridge and feed from time to time. Wonderful slightly sour taste. Usually I bake it directly inthe Zoj, but sometimes I will take it out after the dough cycle and shape into boules.

The biga also goes into a Pane All-uva - Raisin Bread - that I play around with different add-ins - raisins, or chopped dates or cranberries, depending on how I feel. If I have too much biga, it goes into sourdough waffles or pancakes. 






Some recent bakes: 
Beet and pomegranate challah. Made this one for Rosh Hashanah in the braided round style. The beet and pomegranate molasses filling went in as filling to the dough before rolling out into the braids. 

Overnight Breads. Experimenting with recipes from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. Made two breads, the first a white loaf, the second a 40% whole wheat loaf. Both are retarded overnight in the fridge and baked in a dutch oven. Much wetter dough than I am used to, 75-80% hydration. Lovely crumb and very chewy crusts on both.

Overnight White

Overnight White

40% Whole Wheat

40% Whole Wheat

New Equipment

Coming home on Friday I stopper at Pickers, a local indoor flea market. Wandering around I found a Zojirushi BBCC-X20 2lb bread machine. I have lusted over one of these for a long time but at over $200 I've balked.

So imagine my surprise on asking the price to be quoted $25.00. Whipped out my wallet and paid cash before they could change their mind. Machine is super clean and does not look like it has had much use at all.

So today took it for a test run with Max's flax seed artisan bread. Think I got the dough just a little wet but the end result looks inviting.

Certainly find this machine quieter than my West Bend machine. Remains to be seen which one is the best, but since I use my machines a lot, will probably alternate for a while. Will make baking challah easier as I usually bake four loaves at a time, but can only get two loaves from one machine. So now I can make two batches of dough simultaneously.

Special Challah

You know from previous posts that I bake challah for Temple B'nai Sholem in New Bern. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come up at the end of September and early October.

Tradition for High Holy Days is for the challah to be round, symbolizing the cycle of life. I was able to find a wonderful example of how to weave a round challah at http://www.ou.org/shabbat_shalom/article/woven_round_challah/. This was the result - a wonderful intricate round loaf.

Apart from this I have a new recipe that I have been experimenting with. It's Clay's Multi-grain Sourdough Sandwich Bread from King Arthur Flour. In place of sourdough I have substituted the Italian Winter Biga that I mentioned in the last post. The mix requires more water than the recipe calls for 1/4 cup in place of 2/3 cup. The grains are Bob's Red Mill 5 grain cereal. Creates a great, long lasting sandwich bread.

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVING FUN!

Just realized it's almost two years since I last posted - where does the time go? Still bake two or three times a week however. Earlier this year my bread machine finally failed after several years of weekly use. Not bad for a machine bought used at a resale shop. Would really like a Zojirushi but they are beyond my budget. Did find a West Bend two blade machine that is similar and bakes a rectangular loaf. Much more affordable on Amazon so that is my replacement.

Most recently I've been working with biga.Nearly titled this post The Biga the Better but thought better of it. Once again, Linda Eckhardt and Dianna Butts' book Rustic European Breads for the Bread Machine has been my inspiration. They have an Italian Winter Biga that is simply:

• 1/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 3/4 cups bread flour

Add the yeast, water, flour and mix by hand until hydrated in a large plastic container. Cover and let sit for a minimum of ten hours. If you don't use it all, refrigerate the balance for up to two weeks and use as a starter for another batch later.

They have four recipes using this biga!

Como Bread - based on 3C bread flour and 1/2C of whole wheat for 1 1/2lb loaf, this classic northern Italian bread is moist and chewy inside with a crisp crust and keeps well just wrapped in a tea towel. Direct substiution of rye flour for the whole wheat makes an interesting alternative.

Pane All'uva - an Italian raisin bread with a similar texture to the Como Bread. For variety, I have substituted cranberries or chopped dates for the raisins, as well as golden raisins for regular. My personal favorite is the chopped dates.

Ciabatta - this has become my 'go to' recipe for both ciabatta bread and also for a ciabatta roll that I make by cutting the dough before the final rise into rectangles about 4 inches each side.

Raisin in the Rye Rolls - a wonderful combination of dark raisins with rye, these rolls can be eaten plain or with a smear of butter. The book recommends mashing 4ounces of goat cheese, Stilton, or mozzarella with 2 -3 tablespoons of creme fraiche or fresh cream and spreading this mix on the the split roll and adding additional raisins. Have not tried this but it should be excellent.

Jewish Rye bread is my current nemesis. Rustic European Breads has a recipe that looks good but every time I bake it the top collapses. Otherwise, it is a well flavored rye with caraway seeds and a great texture. Toasts well after the first day. Yesterday I found a recipe online for Rebecca's Jewish Rye Bread on food.com. The two recipes are similar except for the addition of some whole wheat flour and gluten with dried onion flakes as an option. Still get a top collapse but much less than the other recipe.

Today is a baking day, four Challah for the local Jewish Temple and a Como bread for the weekend. Until my next post don't forget - Friends don't let friends eat Wonder Bread.

I've Been Busy

I'm continuing to bake my standards, sourdough bread, orange and cranberry muffins and sourdough cinnamon buns. And I still bake four challah every four weeks for the local Jewish Temple. I was on a bread baking forum recently and found a reference to Brother Juniper's Santa Rosa Struan, which is a struan baked in a bread machine. Some further research found this was published in Rustic European Bread from your Bread Machine by Linda West Eckhart and Diana Collingwood Butts. Straight to Amazon.com and they had several used in very good condition. The book arrived Saturday.

Turns out that the struan is one of Peter Reinhart's recipes, when he was running Brother Juniper's Bakery in Santa Rosa, CA. Interesting co-incidence since I was a tester for Peter's latest book (due out soon).

Anyway, had a yearning for baguettes and there is an interesting recipe for Pain a L'ancienne -(that's French for old fashioned bread if anyone is interested) in the book. Has some rye flour in the mix and starts with a sponge made the night before. Very easy to make and got two nice baguettes. Crust was not as crisp as I would have liked. May need to be more aggressive with the steam when baking next time. Good texture and taste.

Here's a photo of the finished product:


Happy baking!

Miserable Weather

This has been a miserable weekend with rain and low temps both days. So it was a bake weekend! Two batches of sourdough cinnamon buns for the freezer, a batch of three fruit marmalade with molasses for the cupboard and savory muffins for a breakfast meeting next Tuesday.

I still play with Peter Rheinhart's new recipes. Latest was to make the multigrain struan with Bob's Red Mill Ten Grain cereal as the cooked cereal, substituting two cups of whole wheat flour for the same bread flour with two tablespoons of gluten, and molasses for the honey. Made two loaves of this last week and two of the multiseeded bread.

Revived the sourdough starter today so tomorrow will be two sourdough loaves and a batch of cranberry/orange sourdough muffins.

Still trading bread for eggs with the two guys across the road. They sell their surplus eggs at a Farmer's Market and keep on trying to get me to sell bread there. But do I reaaly want to get up at 3:00am on a Saturday morning to bake? I'm too much of a perfectionist to want to sell day old bread at the Market. Perhaps I should take samples to the market and test the waters for artisan bread. Now if I could just take orders there and deliver later in the week. I do have one regular customer however. I bake challah for the local Jewish Temple, four loaves every four weeks. I use a bread machine recipe for this, Peter Rheinhart's recipe uses far too many eggs!