Yippee's blog

French style milk loaf... If you prefer milk bread that's less fluffy, this one is for you.

French style  milk bread.  Chess table painted by my kids...

This milk loaf has more bite than the Japanese ones.  If you prefer milk bread that's not fluffy, this one is for you.

74% hydration baguette dough....

Lebanese Roasted Tomato Soup - ran out of fresh basil, garnished with cilantro instead.  It feels wonderful when I see my family enjoying my bread and soup...

Coral bells...

Going through the usual marathon bulk ferment - 5 days this time

0% pre-ferment, liquid 100% yeast water

70% bread flour, 30% cake flour, egg yolk 5%, yeast water 65%, butter 8%, salt 2%, sugar 8%, milk powder 16%

Using my new tool in shaping...

Applying egg wash...

Scoring BEFORE the final proof...

My oven is being used, so proving in the proofer my husband built me years ago.  Having used it mostly for making yogurt these days...

Looks kinda spooky and smells stinky,   especially when it heats up, all because of the dairy spilled before. No matter what I do, still can't get rid of that smell

Covering with a rainbow blanket for additional insulation...

SteveB's ingenious design using a reptile thermostat...

Done proving...

The 15 minutes following loading is "ShowTime".  I'd turn off all the lights in the kitchen and sit in front of the oven to stare at the dough, "nervously" waiting for that oven spring...

Preheat oven @425F; dough weight about 1200g, bake @365F x about 60 min, first 15 minutes w/ steam 

Have made an important decision about baking...

It rained...

 Bought a new tool, a taping knife, for my next baking project - this is going to take a while...or I should say it's ongoing.  I need to keep baking, otherwise I'll walk away from it once again.  It's so easy to give up...

The instruction that came with my stones specifies certain side up.  I had it reversed because the foil covered up the surfaces.   I found a better solution while I was shopping for the taping knife.  Now it's much easier to move these overweight babies in/out of the oven.  BTW, I use Fibrament Stones.  No complaints so far. I saw the lava rocks while I was at the store.  But I can't remember why I need them.  Additional thermal mass? I'll buy them when I figure it out...

Now my oven is officially set up for baking hearth breads...

Taking baby steps to reacquaint myself with the process...

Progress today:  made a high hydration boule (76% baguette dough) with my new tool, no sticky hands.  I'm so excited... 

See how "clean" my hand is...

Putting another gadget, the wine cellar, back in service. I need all the help I can get to overcome my "hardship" in baking, but nothing compares to your baking conditions. I'm embarrassed of thinking about quitting Thinking of you, Pal...

Only these babies and swimming  can get me out of bed at dawn these days...

This is what I usually see when I come home from work - a mess. Bread crumbs everywhere, on the table, on the floor...but I'm not mad.  Because I know my older son has eaten my bread again when he's home from school.  He loves my bread and he loves dipping it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. He can devour the entire loaf by himself.  As a mom,  one of the happiest moments is when I see my kids taking that extra bite, and growing that extra inch; and I don't mind at all to have become the shortest person in the family...

Fresh bread for breakfast, unbelievable...but where there's a will, there's a way...and I've been baking EVERY DAY.  With practice, each loaf improves, and the senses and memories of baking have returned...

 Hey, Stu, here you go...

  I love spring, the flowers are blooming in the garden... 

Trying something new today - making a "porridge" for bread.

Your porridge is nothing like the porridge I have in mind...

This is my kind of porridge - pork and preserved duck egg porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥),  my favorite...

Following your measurements...

Grinding millet flour in a coffee grinder...

Just fed these babies the day before. They are hyper-active...

Only yeast water is used, no starter this time...

Extra YW outside your formula, I'll find out if my speculation is right...

I don't have your fancy wheat flours, only have my good old Giusto's:  WW on the left, AP equivalent on the right...

Meet Zo, my "first love" baking partner.  It mixed all my beloved loaves of Hokkaido Milk Bread.  It's semi-retired now and only takes on R&D job like this...

Just as I speculated, your dough is too dry.  It lacks the extensibility that Zo needs to work with...

So I added about extra 8% of YW, little by little, they call it the "double hydration" method. Now your dough hydration is about 76%.  As usual, I pinch. It's ready for the millet porridge...

Adding millet in the dough...

Done mixing the millet in the dough...

Pinch again, it feels right...

Using a "fancier" container this time, just for you

Standard procedure... To be honest, it doesn't really matter...

No flour in this dough is pre-fermented.  Bulk fermentation is going to take a LOOOONG time. Now it's Monday night/Tuesday morning.  In the morning when I go to work, the dough goes back to the fridge. It doesn't seem to have any activities at all at that time. But once it gets over a threshold, the activities pick up.  In the next few days, the dough is going in and out between the proofer and the fridge to complete bulk.

Dough on Wednesday night - coming out of fridge to continue...

Dough on Friday night - looks ready.  But I'm tired So wait one more night till Saturday...

What the dough looks like on Saturday...

Now comes the challenge.  I haven't made a free-form bread for almost more than four years.  Totally out of practice, my mind just goes blank when I stare at the dough.  I can tell you, from this point forward, I mishandle the dough in ALMOST every step - not tightening the skin, not sealing the bottom seam, not scoring right, and ...the list just goes on... 

But I do ONE thing right...and I have Dabrownman to thank!

While the dough is proving...

Scramble to find my stones and set them up...Use foil just to keep my husband quiet, don't ask me why.

Can't find my lava rocks, must have tossed them when I thought I'd never use them again.  So a pie pan in a rimmed baking sheet on the oven floor for steam...

1.6x, it's time!

Looking at this "flat disc", you wouldn't believe the oven spring I'm going to see.  The dough wobbles and stretches in front of my eyes as it expands upward, you know, like those crazy air dance tube man you see at a car wash! I think I'm hallucinating!

See how puffy it is...

WW flour 55%, AP flour 39%, millet flour 6%, 20% millet porridge; NO pre-fermented flour; 76% hydration, salt 2% - Stu's formula with hydration modified

 The crumb shot...

Mango coconut salad with goji berries, walnut, pecan, tomatoes etc.- my usual dinner...

Ahhhhh, flowers in the office....

and millet bread for snack... Simple pleasures in life...

I feel so lucky that I can eat regular bread because the gluten-free breads on the market are so expensive! I hope those of you who suffer from gluten intolerance don't ever have to be ripped off again - you can make your own delicious gluten-free sourdough bread!

Only used raisin yeast water for hydration of the dough.  Soon this whole jar of YW would be gone...

The main ingredient...

The success of this loaf is counting on this ingredient - a LAXATIVE!!!

Found a better deal after the shopping of all my ingredients was done: WF Market carries psyllium husk powder (bulk section) at a lower price than the online vendors.  What a surprise to find a deal there!

"Dinging" garlic oil in the microwave...Mind you, this loaf ain't low fat...

My un-refreshed buckwheat starter...

Refreshed, ready for use...

First, there's laxative; then there's this... Ewwww, not a pretty picture...

Whatever starter left in the jar is refreshed with new buckwheat flour, YW, and psyllium husk powder...

Whisking the "laxative" with YW...

Done whisking...A gel formed.

Using paddle to mix the gel, the starter, and the rest of the YW...

Now adding buckwheat flour...

Switching to dough hook, not to develop gluten, but because the mass was getting too cumbersome for the paddle...

Pinching again...The dough felt pretty elastic, it seemed very promising...

Panned...

Start proving...

Meet my other bread making partner...

Done proving...

The dough was ready...

The first sign of readiness...

Not bad...

100% buckwheat flour (30% pre-fermented by raisin yeast water), 4% psyllium husk powder, overall dough hydration 140% (all yeast water)

gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, gum-free, and sugar-free...Is that good enough for you?   I can eat almost anything, but I realize not everyone is so lucky...

P.S. I probably will decrease the % of psyllium husk powder used next time because I keep getting this funny food-stuck-in-my-chest kinda feeling after eating this bread.  May be there's too much fiber in the bread. And it took almost two days for that feeling to go away! Scared the hell out of me! That's why I don't use additives in my breads unless there are no better options.  You just don't know what damage they would do to your body. And I tend to be very aggressive/heavy-handed when trying out the additives for the first time.  But then I find out right away where my limit is...

Baked at 430F for 75 minutes, the smaller loaf came out perfect...

The Pullman loaf was a bit too moist to slice, almost like a rye loaf...

Still a bit too moist on day 2...

Can't be staring at bread all day, need to see some colors - my Valentine's gift...

Mission accomplished!!!  Thank you all for your input!!!

The winner! 

  Made with wheat bran levain, inspired by Dabrownman's great idea...

The wheat bran levain.  I know, that's a lot of it.  I usually make my breads with 50%+ of pre-fermented flour.

Mixing the bran levain in the dough...

Adding sprouted grains to the dough...  For this bread, the sprouted grains were mixed and cooked together before adding to the dough; there was no specific proportion for each grain.  

Testing for gluten development. Imagining myself pinching my kids' cheeks.  In a way, the dough is my baby too, isn't it?

Done mixing.  Looking good...

The wheat bran whole wheat bread 

100% whole wheat flour, 50% of which and 16% wheat bran were pre-fermented by starter and raisin yeast water.  I decreased the % of sprouted grains to 24% because the dough was not as strong, and I didn't want to take any chances in my first bake of this bread.  It's very likely that I'll test and change the proportions of wheat bran and sprouted grains in the future.

The crumb shot...

Ready to serve...

The runner-up... 

I call it "the guys' loaf" because I used ingredients suggested by the guys: 10% cracked wheat soaker, 20% sprouted wheat berries (plus 10% of other mixed sprouted grains), and 2% vital wheat gluten. 

Thank you for helping me out!

Getting ready for the "chewy crumb" challenge... 

No more collecting dust, the grain mill is now being used...

Cracked wheat soaker - cereal-like, tastes sweet, very nice; microwaved for 2 minutes, all the water had already been absorbed.  Even though I used about 160% hydration in the soaker, the cracked wheat berries still turned out a bit too tough in the baked loaf.  Have you ever had similar problem with your soaker?  

Sprouted grains for this bread were cooked and weighted separately... 

Mixing the base dough... 

Adding cracked wheat soaker first...Used only 10% because I was worried about the hydration in the soaker would make my dough too wet.  

Testing for gluten development again.  Pinching cheeks... 

Sprouted grains with specific proportions... 

Start mixing... 

Final testing of gluten development...

All set... 

Bread made with VWG comes out taller... Wheat bran WW on the left, without VWG. 

Crumb shot of the "guys' bread". It's not as chewy as the wheat bran WW bread. Even though only 2% of VWG was used, that bland hollowness, which masked the flavors of all the other ingredients,  shocked my taste buds one more time. It suddenly dawned on me why the store-bought whole wheat breads taste like "cardboard".  The VWG used in those breads must be one of the culprits! 

The "just for fun"...

Bread on steroids - made with 4% vital wheat gluten. Don't tell me what you're thinking!!!

With 4% vital wheat gluten added, yes, the bread is less airy and it gives a more substantial mouth feel. However, I still don't find the bread "chewy" and it tastes bland, which I suspect is caused by the (over use of) VWG...

 but the loaf is indeed much taller... 

Custom made for someone special...

100% whole wheat (Giusto's organic high protein) flour, 50% pre-fermented with starter and raisin yeast water; 60% sprouted grain mix: lentils, millets, soy beans, corns, and wheat berries. 

Whole Wheat Protein Bread

Beautiful weather on Game Day.....

Hello, everyone,

Long time no see!   Hope all is well and Happy New Year!  I have been away from TFL for quite a while.  During this time, I stopped baking bread, got rid of all the starters and bags of grains that I had accumulated,  and devoted my very limited free time to pursue other hobbies. 

A turning point came during this past holiday season, when I received a new oven as a Christmas gift from my husband. When I found out this oven has a new feature - proofing, I said to myself:  Maybe this is a sign that I should start making bread again.  So I "fired up" this new oven and baked my first loaf of bread in years on Christmas day. This day became the happiest and the most memorable Christmas ever!

Since that day, something related to bread is always in the works, either nurturing my starters, designing a new formula, spouting the grains, or pre-fermenting the flours, the bread making process has been non-stop, so has the flow of joy that overwhelms me.  Everyday is happy day, as long as my bread making is going well, and I have not been disappointed so far. 

For the first time, I have systematically utilized all the equipment I had acquired to produce bread.  Every mixer, from my Zo to KA to SP5, has been put to use either to test a formula, mix a sizable preferment, or to mass produce bread dough.  In this one month following Christmas, I probably have produced more bread than the few years combined when I was active on TFL.  I not only provide a steady supply of varieties of breads for my family, but I also have plenty to share with my friends and colleagues.  From scratch, I create a dream, a love story, a gift,  a memory that will be etched in minds as heartwarming moments. Sharing has made bread making one of the most rewarding experiences in life.  I hope you'll feel my joy when seeing the pictures of my bread.  Happy Baking!

I call them "super" breads because they are made with super foods: quinoa, flax seed meal, chia seeds and more...

The sprouted wheat berries are a well-liked ingredient...

 From scratch, I create a dream, a love story, a gift,  a memory that will be etched in minds as heartwarming moments.

One thoughtful gift,  one memorable Christmas...

After years of dedicated service, my assistant has retired.  To celebrate this big event, we'd presented her with one of the most popular entertainments in the Asian community - a karaoke party; a Chinese style hot-pot buffet farewell lunch; and a going-away card.     Though all of these 'standard procedures' were thoughtful, they were lacking the personal touch she deserves.  Therefore, I made her a loaf of rye bread, with not only the best ingredients, but also, above all, with love. 

During the last couple of days of her career,  as she's going around to say goodbye to her friends in the various departments she had worked for in the past decades, I took photographs of them. A photo album capturing these precious moments will be on its way to her.  Years from now when she opens this album again, I hope, fond memories of her ex-colleagues (and my bread) will come to her mind vividly.  I will miss her dearly.

For photographs, please click here .

Submitted to Susan's Yeastspotting!

This bread was specially made for my kids' piano teacher, a German master pianist.  It was  also my first bread in many, many months.   I felt that a rye bread would be most appropriate for this occasion.  

Submitted to Susan's Yeastspotting!

Under the ‘pressure’ from Akiko – “…tell me how it turns out, even if you are NOT SUCCESSFUL. Please tell me the truth…,” I handled this bake with intense focus as if I were sitting for an important academic examination. I even violated the baking curfew I had vowed to administer. But I can tell you now, I’ve had no regrets doing so, even though the after-effects of sleep deprivation made me walk around like a zombie the following two days.

Japanese style sandwich bread is nothing new to me. I had made numerous loaves of them when I started out baking bread two years ago. However, there was a new element in this bake – wild fruit leavens, which I’ve watched with great interests but have never taken the initiative to further experiment. Akiko’s informative post and beautiful bread have given me the push I needed. She has opened the door of opportunity for me to experience a new dimension of bread baking. Thank you, Akiko!

I followed Akiko’s formula and instruction closely with one exception: weight of the final dough was reduced for my smaller Pullman pan.

Here are some pictures of this 'new', wild yeasts leavened bread:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58821372@N05/sets/72157626338061266/show/

A similiar type of bread I  made before with commercial yeast:  

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11745/recipe-japanese-style-sandwich-bread-water-roux-starter-sponge