Jw's blog

here is an update on some of my recent baking. I started to experiment with a few new shapes.



I don't know what to call it, tubeshape?



On this picture are just a couple of fastbreads, put in the fridge late in the evening, baked early in the morning. Brought them over to a friend for lunch. Made a BIG impression, a lot more then the effort I put in.



Do you know this kind of bread? it is called frysian rye bread. This is from a store, I'll try making it someday. It tastes real good.



Next is a zopf, but also in a different form. Just looks nicer, not easier to cut.



A couply of these will be gone in no time, great with home grown marmalade.



Since my yeast is 'back online', I am making the standard overnight bread again. Biga late at night, started finishing it early in the morning.



This is my bread in ten (hours). Starting a biga as late as possible, then finishing it early in the morning after the sun's salutation, in a couple of hours. I let it rest for 2.5 hours and then do a 2x 30 minutes wake-up before final shaping. Sometimes the scoring looks much better then on this picture, no effect on the taste.

I am actually in San Diego this week, hoping my order from sfbi has arrived... 

Happy baking!

Cheers,
Jw.

upon multiple requests, here is a picture overview of my lazy bread (slowrising). It takes 20 minutes 'work', excluding oven and wait time, incl cleaning up. I don't remember where I once started out, I guess it was BBA.

Ingredients: 500 grams water (half a liter), 5 grams instant yeast, 440 grams white flour, 220 grams five grain flour (or rye), 2 tsp salt, 50 grams of seeds.

Stir the luke warm water and put in the yeast and let is rest for 5 minutes (while you mix the flour)



Add the salt to the flour, mix it to the water with the yeast. Mix it for about 1 minute. Left it up a bit and add some oil (this is walnut oil).



Cover it up with plastic seal, let it rest for 30 minutes before you put it in the refridgerator.



After 8-16 hours (usually just overnight, a few days should still be ok) take it out of the fridge. I use the tool to remove the dough from the side of the bowl and then turn the bowl completely over. 



Put some flour on the surface, do not knead (...). Shape it roughly, try to build some tension in the surface .

After 45 minutes, the dough will have spread a bit more. Turn on the oven (preheat at 250 celsius) and score if you will. I add a bit of water to the surface to the bread, add some rye flour and seeds. Moisterize which ever way you like best.



Here we go. 15 minutes at 230 celsius (450F) , 15 minutes at 200 (390F), then minutes with 'temp off'.  Then take the bread out so it can cool off.



And here is the crumb. Just today I saw an add selling these breads for 4 euro (5.5 USD), all my ingredients costs me 70 eurocents (1 dollar), excl the energy for the oven (plus I know what I eat, plus the taste is great, plus it's a great smell in the house, plus it only takes 20 minutes, plus I can take care of my own family, it is great to share bread with friends and family).

The disadvantage: there is no zen of breadbaking in this type anymore (for me).

Happy baking! 

Cheers,
Jw.

I have been making a lot a lazy bread lately. Takes me 20 minutes (incl. cleaning up, excl. baking time) for two breads. I always add seeds, makes the taste much better.

For flour I use 2/3 white, 1/3 rye or 1/3 five grain flour. I have tested the different percentages, mostly I go with 1/3 en 2/3.

The round bread: I was trying to make a bread for a bigger party. This would make cutting a bit easier (and it did).

The eary bread is pain de provence (I believe). I used wild yeast instead of instant for these.

I like this close-up!

The piggy bread is full rye. Very heady and solid, didn't rise very much. Great taste with a brettlejause! (just a table with good food, bread, sausages, cheese etc),

I'll have some more exiting pictures next time, finally got a new camera.

Happy baking!

Cheers,
Jw.

I took a break while on a businesstrip to Berne, Switzerland, and found a breadmarket! I was sort of a promotion, all different booths. It was a promotion activity of http://www.swissbaker.ch. Looks like the Swiss bakers community. Just a few impressions:

Roses decoration, looks nice! Pictures quality is from my phone...

Lots of figures. I guess you can eat this as well, but kind of hard to take along to work...

Steinhauer brot, Macenbread? looks from a realy fire based oven.

Cow bread?

I took a few more pictures. Will post them on request. What a shame I could not take anything along home...and what a great break from work.

Cheers,
Jw.

A few weeks ago I asked around at TFL if I could freeze my starter. Thanks for the all the tips: I turned half of the starter into ice cubes, left the other half in the fridge. The result: the icecubed starter needed some awakening (feeding for 2-3 days). It has a stronger taste then the starter I put in the fridge. Both as still very useable.

A first result with the icecubed yeast: spelt-honey-SF style (and extra honey on top). It all looks a bit pale, but that is not yeast related. Great sauer taste, a bit stronger that the mother-starter (which just needs more time to get tastier, eg. overnight).

A first result with the started I saved in the fridge, with 'line seed'? Flax?. Saved in a typical breadbox.

On this SF style bread you don't need any butter, just this 'stroop' (like solid apple syrup).

We have been away on a holiday to Sweden. No need to bake bread there... Look up baker Flink when you make it to Enkoping. Great bread.

Greatest surprise when we got to our cottage: it had a real wooden oven in the garden.
No time for that during the holiday. If you ever need a baking vacation!

That's what I would call happy baking!

Cheers,
Jw.

this weekend I researched the strenght and taste of my wild yeast. I made one starter with wild yeast (pure), one with an extra half a teaspone of commercial yeast, and the third with some sourdough powder I once bought. Also, in the oven I covered half of the breads with a alu-foil pain for the first 15 minutes.

Conclusion: the wild yeast is not that strong yet, a few spots  in that bread were not completely developed. The alu-foil really helps. Those breads looks nice and have a better crust. Adding a bit of commercial gets me better results (or I need to proof longer next time). You don't see much difference during the whole proces, it's all happening once you hit the oven.
About the picture: top row is with cover, from left to right: wild yeast only, added commercial yeast, added sourdough powder. The one in the bottom row in the middle rose twice the size in the oven, but is was 'all air' wiithin.

Crumb: the one is the middle is the wild yeast only version. This was around lunch today, baking was yesterday 5 p.m.

I thought I'd add a few others pictures this time as well. Not just from the bread itself, but also how we eat it. These are heart-breads, just pain ancienne, with a bit of wild yeast (for the taste) and extra seads. great to receive or take to school..or to eat with raspberry marmalade.

this picture shows part of the lunch table from yesterday. the yellow light comes from the sun roof. just 'lazy bread', bacon and some fish.

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last but not least: I made a few extra zopf last thursday for colleages at work. Six-strand breading is getting better (bottom right). I used standard flour and not the special zopf flour.

Happy baking! (just had to take a bread out of the fridge, we ate all bread already..)

Cheers,
Jw.

Last saturday I started around 5 in the afternoon to bake, ended just after 11 that evening. First batch was (les) pain a la ancienne, three days old. Sunflower and pumpkin seed versions. One of them turned into 'his royal stickyness', don't know what that happened. 100% same conditions. A bit more flower in the folding helped. The first loafes were in the oven a bit too long, but still ok.

The second batch I made using "David's un-original sourdough after Susan from San Diego's Original Sourdough". Maybe not the best ovenrise, but I was happy with the progress and result. I used alu-foil to cover the loafs for the first third of the baking time. The loafs grew almost too large to fit on one tray in the oven, have to split up next time. Looking back, I noticed that my scoring wasn't too great, but I didn't have much time to focus on that during the whole session.

third: one loaf of sourdough, using the oregon trail description for San Francisco Sourdough bread. worked out fine, tasted just like landbrot from Austria. It is the sunflowercover bread, in the overview picture below, just before the zopf.
fourth: a lot of zopf! this time I used six strand braiding. Video's on youtube were very helpfull! I ended up with a total of 8 of them.

I was all done on sundaymorning and just put the bread out on the table before the visitors came. It was fun to do (make this much bread) and nice to give away at Easter. I will keep things simple for the next couple of weeks (maybe...). The last picture is more of a breadvista, at the end of the bread-a-thon. Now, mondayevening, all my bread is gone. Home with family and friends!

Happy baking!

Cheers,
Jw.

I always like the positive approach. If have been able to progress with sourdough, the starter is really developing nicely. Last week I made my first sourdough from this starter, also somes pain ancienne. You can see that the crumb of the ancienne looks nicer (left), but the sourdough has more taste.

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Today I made another sourdough, but used a flour called 'grobbe' to make the final dough. According to the label from the mill it contains: rye, line seed, corn and a few other things I cannot find the translations for. I basically followed the recipe for the Oregon Trail (The Doctor's Sourdough Bread). Happy with the result, the family judgement will be tomorrow at a birthday party!

This bread really asks for a lot of attention, but it is well worth it. Keep on baking!

Cheers,
Jw.

mixed breadbaking experiences, this weekend. On the positive sides: I was able to produce 'a lot of bread' and consume most of it (since we had visitors). In the picture: on the left sourdough from a few weeks starter (top), the others below were 'quick sourdough', I used a dried powder I bought in the store. The starter wins it by far with taste, according to the expert taster at home. In the middle simple buns, on the right pain d'ancienne (front) and plain bread.



In this crosssection picture you can see the better sourdough, the quick sourdough and the plainbread.



As for the tigerbread: that is clearly a trick I still have to master.
The first rise needs to be shorter and I have to wait with putting the paste on until the last ten minutes.



And since I saw a few pictures with dogso n TFL, : here is our faithfull bystander, her name is Bowie.
This dog went to the zoo (!) last saturday, and was ready to chase the real tigers there.

Happy baking. Cheers, Jw.

Actually just 'pain de provence', using Floyd's recipe from years ago, with a local liquer from the town which is a.k.a. "Bois le duc"/Duketown. I went easy on the herbs as well. This is one of the best breads I have made so far, I am really proud of it. Also, I almost gave up half way, the dough was too sticky and I was under time pressure. Never a good thing with 'new' breads.

The pain de provence is the larger bread, just as big as the basket itself. Wish I could make a closeup..
The smaller is just a sourdough, which is finally rising a bit. Great taste.

I have added a few pictures of the production breads. Mostly with some seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, etc).
All week baking is too much work for me, I will go back to once of twice a week. I do enjoy experimenting more that production baking and I am searching for the most 'healthy' mix.