albacore's blog

I was reading how UK bakers, especially in Scotland and Ireland, used to bake their batch loaves in wooden frames. That's right - the wooden frame goes INTO the oven! Originally, the bakers didn't even use a frame - it was just lengths of heavy timber inserted into the oven defining a rectangle with the dough pieces inside the rectangle. Interestingly, these lengths of wood were called "upsets".

There's a Scottish baker, Wild Hearth Bakery, who does these batch loaves to perfection. Some regional German breads are also baked the same way.

The idea was so wacky, I just had to try it! Like all new things baking, the journey turned out to be a lot longer than expected....

So I made a simple frame designed for 2 loaves. Oak for 2 sides and maple for the other 2 - just what I had available. I guessed at a size of 5" tall x 9" x 6 3/4" internal. Simple butt joints screwed together:

I made white yeasted bread based on a 4 hour sponge. Baked for 1 hour at 200C Two main problems: the dough stuck badly to the wood (even though oiled well multiple times) and not enough rise.

I then read that the frames should be oiled and baked empty for 60 mins at 190C. This certainly eased the sticking problem, especially if the frame is oiled and floured before use.

The second bake was similar to the first, but with the sticking problem more or less solved. This helped the loft. It was a lot bolder, too:

Both bakes had excessively thick bottom crusts. I'd baked  with the frame sat on a thin baking sheet which was then placed on my bake stone. So for bake 3, I did away with the bake stone and used another thin steel baking sheet instead. This worked fine.

I also get fed up of nearly white bread and did a 100% sponge enriched dough with 20% freshly milled heritage wheat (Millers Choice) and SD levain along with the yeast.

This solved the rising problem, but introduced problems of its own, with the loaf sides collapsing in with a doughy strata in there as well.

Probably reducing the hydration will solve this. Another problem is that the outer wall of the loaf (in contact with the wood) never rises as high as the inside wall so the loaves are lop-sided - I think this is a known fact.

Although this loaf looks worse than the earlier ones, it's actually very tasty!

So quite a journey - and more to do!

Will I carry on? Sadly, probably not, as I don't find any advantages in the loaves or their flavour. Some say there is a woodyness or smokiness there, but if so, it's very subtle.

It's also quite a chunk of hardware to have lying in the kitchen (somewhere).

Still, it was a good learning curve!

Lance

I was very taken with HungryShots/Denisa's recent blog post on her 40% spelt SD loaf and her excellent description of the evolution of her Mk IV version.

So when I found a bag of Doves Farm white spelt flour in a local shop, I thought it was time to give it a try.

Denisa had done all the hard work, so I changed very little:

• 10% stiff levain
• 35% white spelt/5% wholemeal spelt
• hearth baked batardes insead of dutch oven boules
• 4 folds - I skipped the lamination - too intricate for me! In fact 4 folds is 3 more than I usually do.
• no preshape and stitch shaped

For pH watchers, pHs were once again much higher than the "norms" - 4.60 at the end of bulk (70% rise) and 4.20 at bake. Dough pH continues to be problematic for me as a determinant.

I'm happy with the end result - good rise, good ears and very tasty bread! Thank you Denisa!

Lance

I recently saw the Nussknacker (eng: Nutcracker) on Dietmar Kappl's Instagram feed and decided straight away that I wanted to bake it.  It comprises a tasty mix of wholemeal spelt and coarse rye flours, leavened with a rye sour and packed full of roasted hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower and hemp seeds.

Very kindly, Dietmar has provided the recipe on his blog, so no need to reproduce it here. Suffice it to say that my only changes were swapping some of the sunflower seeds for hemp hearts, 15ml extra water in the main dough, 1.5g IDY in place of the fresh yeast and a topping of mixed black and white sesame seeds.

I baked it as a single loaf in a long thin Kaiser loaf tin. I'm pleased with how it turned out - quite dense, but not heavy as the high quota of nuts give it a great crunchy texture.

Lance

I chanced upon this recipe for wholemeal rolls on Abel Sierra's wordpress blog. I liked the look of them and thought I would give them a try.

Sadly, Abel's blog no longer exists, but it can still be accessed via The Wayback Machine.

Here is a screenshot with my English translation of the ingredient list:

I decided to do a classic English 4hr sponge:

440g BF 13%

389g H2O

3.1g diastatic malt flour

2.65g IDY

DT 26C

While this was fermenting I Mockmilled 350g Millers Choice heritage wheat grain and sifted at #30. I scalded the bran with 142g boiling water.

I made the main dough as follows:

sponge

scald

WW pass through

90BF 11%

18g sugar

45g butter

48g liquid whole milk

DT 26C

Mixed in the Kenwood to windowpane

BF 75mins with S&F at 45mins

Scaled at 90g

FP 30mins

Potato starch wash tops for seeds/oats

Baked 10mins with steam, 10mins vented.

I think these turned out pretty well - nice soft crumb and good flavour from the Millers Choice grain. I find some of the heritage grains, eg Red Lammas, too "branny".

Lance

This is the second time I've made these buns and they really are very tasty. I was so pleased with the first batch that I used exactly the same recipe second time around.

The recipe is courtesy of chef Rick Stein. I watched him make the buns in an episode of his recent Cornwall series. I more or less followed his recipe, but, as always, did a few tweaks:

• I upped the saffron to 0.7g (no expense spared!), to get more flavour and colour in. Also when using saffron I like to grind up the strands in a pestle and mortar with a tspn of sugar and a little of the milk
  
  
• soak the dried fruit (I used 40g currants and 30g raisins) in the milk for an hour before using
  
  
• I used a flour mix at 11% protein - if the flour is too strong the buns could be chewy
  
  
• mixed in the Kenwood, 5 mins slowest and 5 mins faster - check for a good windowpane, then add fruit on slowest
  
  
• buns scaled at 92g x 12 pieces
  
  
• egg yolk wash and baking regime as in my hot cross bun recipe - I don't like sugar syrup glaze
  
  
• if you like saffron, be prepared for a heavenly smell in the kitchen when you make these!

Lance

Starting All Over Again

I've been hit by a mystery starter affliction. The starter, levain and dough would rise well and in a timely manner. But when the dough went into the oven, loft and oven spring were poor.

I've no real understanding of why this has happened as my starter is well maintained. The only thing I can think of is a possible lack of calcium; I switched from a starter feeding mix of 90% BF/10% WG rye to using 100% high extraction wheat flour (home ground and sifted). In the UK, bread flour (well, nearly ALL flour) is fortified with calcium carbonate. Since I was using tap water and our water is very soft there may have been a shortage of calcium in the starter refreshes after I switched flours.

Anyway, I decided to build a new starter and see if that cured the problem.

I made the starter from 50g freshly milled high extraction flour (90% wheat/10% rye), 0.2g malt and 35g spring water. This was stored at 30C for 24hrs, at which point it was looking nice and active.

This is how it looked after after a couple more builds, 2.5 days after starting:

What I noticed is that the new starter is a lot more frothy than the old one - there seems to be more gas production.

And the bread has a much better, fluffier crumb:

Lance

Somehow or other I landed on an Italian web page with a recipe for Colomba di Pasqua. Being nearly Easter, it did seem like a good time to make an Easter dove. Besides, I wanted to send my sister a birthday present, having not seen her for a long, long time - like so many people.

This is the recipe, found on the giallozafferano website. I figured that this must be a well tested recipe, since it has well over a thousand comments! It's a yeasted recipe (I used SAF Gold), but nevertheless, fairly complex.

First problem - no mould and no time to order paper ones. Answer: make one! I liked the look of a single winged metal one that I saw a picture of, so with a piece of scrap thin aluminium sheet, a pair of tin snips and a pop-riveter, the dove was born. All done free-form and the head is a little small, but I was happy enough with it.

And here is the dove at the end of final proof:

And after baking:

Out of the tin after cooling for a few minutes:

No crumb shot, as this was going off as a present, but I did make a small sister loaf with excess dough:

Lance

My Hot Cross Bun Recipe

Here is a hot cross bun recipe I worked on last year, as I felt many recipes I looked at had room for improvement.

It combines elements from two classic commercial breadmaking books (Manna by Walter Banfield published 1938 and Kirkland's The Modern Baker published 1908). Other sources of inspiration were Rossnroller's TFL recipes and a few of my own ideas.

Key points are:

use of a true flying sponge to get the yeast nice and active
careful selection of flour for soft crumb and good flavour - ideally an 11% protein (UK measurement) bread flour plus a bit of high extraction spelt for flavour (optional, of course). Suitable bread flour is T500 (eg German or Polish) or Italian 0 or 00 low W pizza flour at 11% protein
use of egg yolk without egg white, panettone style
replacement of the sugar syrup glaze with an egg yolk wash - I really have no time for the glaze; it makes the buns very messy to eat and to store.
use of a plain flour/rice flour piping paste for the crosses to give good texture and low gluten for "pipeability"

Here we go:

Fruit

62g currants
21g sultanas
10g peel

Pour boiling water over fruit (minimum to cover), cover container and leave for an hour or two

Flying sponge

79g milk
79g water
8g sugar
5.6g idy (SAF Gold osmotolerant if available, but standard also works)
19g bread flour

Mix in a Kenwood or KA with balloon whisk to get plenty of air in. Aim for a 28C sponge (you will need to prewarm the bowl and whisk).
Store at 28C for approx. 25mins. Ready when head begins to break.

Main Dough

250g bread flour 11%
50g mockmill spelt fine kitchen sieved
2g diastatic malt flour
2g salt
47g white sugar
40g egg yolk
24g soft cubed butter
20g olive oil
Spices:
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground green cardamom
1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon


Method

Mix flours, salt, sugar and spices in a bowl.
Sponge in Kenwood bowl fitted with dough hook
Add egg yolk
Add flour mix
Mix slow then faster until mixture leaves sides of bowl. Check for good windowpane
Slowly add in cubed butter bit by bit till mixed then oil bit by bit till mixed.
Add in drained fruit on slow.
Turn out, stretch and fold and shape into a round.

Bulk proof approx. 1hr 28C – should be well risen.
Divide into 7 x 92g buns. Best to weigh them out, so you get uniform buns. Shape into balls, pin to flatten slightly, and arrange on a greased baking tray. The buns should be close together but not quite touching each other or the sides of the baking tray.
Final proof approx. 1hr 28C – buns should be doubled in volume.
Preheat oven to 210C (T&B heat, no fan, no steam, no baking stone, but close vent if poss). While preheating, make mix for crosses.

Cross mix to pipe (combine and mix well):

32g plain (cake/pastry) flour 9%
13g rice flour
13g canola oil
32g water
1 heaped teaspoon sugar
Pinch cinnamon

Brush egg wash on buns – 1 egg yolk, pinch salt and 1 tspn icing sugar dropped directly onto yolk, mix with a spoon, then add about 10 ml water and mix all together.
Then pipe on the crosses

Baking:

Top and bottom heat
Bake buns on double sheet:
Preheat 210C
210C for 7m, bottom heat only
190C for 7m, top and bottom heat
175C for 7m, top and bottom heat

As soon as possible, get buns off baking tray and on to cooling rack.

Lance

Work in Progress

First step: make the brew piece. Russian red rye malt and process detailed here

Here's the result after 5.5hrs in the water bath at 65.5C. The water bath is a cheap sous-vide circulator in a saucepan of hot water.

To be continued....

My Rus-ian bread journey

I've always been interested in Yippee's posts about CLAS and I've done a couple of CLAS bakes with good results. Most of the detail on CLAS is to be found on Rusbrot's blog and in his YouTube videos. What caught my eye recently was his post about Russian Monastery bread. This is presented as a rye/wheat bread made with a custom built starter. The starter is made with coarsely crushed rye malt and raisins, followed by a rye flour build, so I'm guessing it is a composite of a raisin yeast water and sourdough. I didn't have any rye malt, but Rus suggests you can use coarsely crushed rye grain and malt extract instead, so I ordered some malt extract, but it never came. Back to plan A mkII - make my own rye malt! This is the guide I followed, but much simplified as I was only making 200g. A few days later it was ready and I kicked off my Monastery bread build.
I followed Rus's process to make a rye/wheat Mischbrot. All went OK and I ended up with an OK bake. It was a bit solid, (like all my rye bread is!) and had a lot of cracks in the crust - not sure why.

After this, things got more interesting. Rus suggests that you can save some of the dough to make a ripe dough starter - pate fermentee, I guess. So I did this and used it to make a high extraction wheat flour big boule.



Levain build 1

    10g rye malt coarsely crushed
    10g Red Lammas wheat grain coarsely crushed
    10g BF
    10g Red Lammas flour
    12g ripe dough
    40g water
    5 hrs 28C
   
Levain build 2

    10g levain build 1
    100g WW flour sieved
    75g water
    12hrs 25C
   
Main dough

    200g WW flour #40
    200g WW flour #50
    100g Manitoba flour
    350g water
    autolyse 20m
    106g lev build 2
    10g salt
    mix, 2 folds
    3 hrs 45m bulk
    NB: remove 70g dough as a ripe dough starter and store in frij
    shape to  one big boule
    FP 1hr 10m
   
    And what a great bake it turned out to be! Super oven spring, good loft, nice open and moist crumb
   
   

   
Just to make sure this bake wasn't a fluke, I did a similar bake, but to two small boules and one tubby batard again nice looking loaves:

So go on - why not give it a try! If you have a proofing box, you are good to go!

Lance