trailrunner's blog

I figured out how to downsize an image. Used my flaked Kernza for my usual porridge bread. It just keeps getting better and better! Amazing tender open crumb. I took advantage of the information others posted to get more flavor out of the porridge step and just poured boiling water on the flaked grain and didn’t cook further. Worked perfectly.

I use different flour combinations each time I make this bread. This time was Rye, Rouge de Bordeaux , and Stardust ( white hard wheat ) . All milled in my Mock Mill. With Arrowhead AP as the white flour. Whole grains are 70% of the mix. 100g of Kernza. I use my “ trinity” and Apple Yeast Water and 250g of active levain. Made 3 /750g boules. 

Didn’t do my usual “ beat like batter” step. Went straight to all liquids and all flours mixed til wet. Autolyse 1 hr ( while digging holes for 3 gallon size shrubs I’m redoing my landscaping). Wet  the counter place dough pat out to lamination size letter fold. Rest. Do two more times. Let rise til triple. Shape rise 1 ° room temp. Retard 18 hrs bake in graniteware roaster lid on/ lid off. Couldn’t be any more tender and full of flavor. 

Still can’t get photos to load. Oh well the bread is perfect. 😊
Danni doesn’t post here anymore but her amazing breads reside in my list of favorites forever. 

I flake my own oat groats. I use my Trinity , add 100g of very active Apple YW along with SD levain and sub an assortment of fresh milled grains.

The biggest and most notable change for this bread is the fermentation temps and timing. I’ve never done either like I did this time and likely won’t be able to replicate exactly but will try due to how well the bread dough performed.

100g oats toasted and then add 200g boiling water stir and set aside. 
250g active levain -100% hydration

100g active YW 

200g hard red wheat milled

100g rye milked

100g spelt milled

175g Stardust 

425g Arrowhead Mills unbleached AP 

23g salt

40g each- Yogurt . Honey. EVOO = 120g

550-650g water ( hold out 100g depending on your porridge consistency add as needed when doing first in the bowl folds) 

Put the 550g water, 100g YW, salt, levain and  Trinity into large bowl. Whisk together. Add the room temp porridge. Mix well. Add all the whole grain flours and beat hard with a wooden spoon like cake batter. Add all the AP flour and do in the bowl folds turning and folding til everything evenly moist. This is when you can add held back water as needed. Just enough so all is moist. Cover autolyse 30-60 min. Wet counter and do folds using part or all of that held back water. Dough should be very pliable and not sticky. 
Oil a large bucket and place dough into bucket. Lightly oil top of dough. 

This where I departed from all previous bakes . It was late so I placed the covered container on the screened porch approximately 50° out at 7 pm. Left it to rise til midnight- it wasn’t as much as I would have liked so went back to bed. At 6 am it looked fantastic! I lightly floured the counter dumped out divided gently into two huge pieces gently rolled each into a long cylinder tucked ends rounded into boule and placed into cloth lined bannetons. 

Left at room temp a couple hours til quite puffy then retarded in the fridge til late in the day . They grew well above the banneton sides. Huge beautiful loaves. 
Preheat 475 turn down 450 - 25 min covered graniteware roaster  then uncovered 425- 20 min. 

Perfect color. Natural burst on top and amazing crumb for a porridge high grain bread. And exquisite flavor profile. 

I doubled and baked the 8 small loaves and an 8x4 pan not quite full. 

2 T soft butter

1/2 c white sugar 

1 large egg

1/2 c light brown sugar 

2 c fresh milled Purple Straw soft red wheat

1/2 t baking soda 

1tsp baking powder 

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp mixed spices - I ground cinnamon. Allspice, clove and nutmeg

1 c sliced pre moistened dates

zest of one orange

3/4 c oj

cream sugars and butter. Add egg beat til smooth. Add all dry ingredients. Add OJ and zest. Don’t worry if looks  curdled. Butter pan/ pans. 350° 30 min for tiny 8 pan loaves or 45 - 60 depending on larger loaves. So delicious. My Robert said “ it tastes like Christmas!”

Haven’t made this since 2018. What was I waiting on ???? This was originally posted by the prolific poster/ baker Shiao-Ping. It’s the most flavorful rich incredible bread. I made my own adaptations so will write it up below. 

It’s very easy to inoculate your current YW with banana slices. There’s also info online to start a YW with banana from scratch. I just add a new fruit to some of my current active YW I don’t start from scratch. 

I don’t do anything but my typical minimal folds in the bowl and then I laminated 2x to incorporate the chopped dates. Shiao-Ping doesn’t have dried fruit in hers. I have my dried fruit hydration down pat and did that as usual. 

Mist fruit microwave a couple minutes cover tightly . Then chop or whatever you’re going to do. I slice in 3-4 pieces. I like distinct pieces not purée . 

250 g levain made with 125g fresh milled rye and 125g active banana YW

220g Stardust hard white wheat milled 

45g rye milled

55g Rouge de Bordeaux milled

250 g roasted ripe bananas  ( 300° with peels on) 

35g each Trinity- yogurt, honey , EVOO

9g salt

Fold everything together til all is moistened. Cover rest 30 min. Fold in bowl rest fold rest. Laminate on either wet counter or lightly floured to incorporate date pieces. 
Bulk ferment til about double . Shape boule place on floured cloth in banneton rise at room temp til puffy and cover then retard . Bake in covered pot ( I use my graniteware roaster ) 450 20 min covered and 20 min uncovered. 

It is the loveliest tender loaf. Gorgeous crumb and you can taste the banana but it’s not overpowering. 

I’M SORRY! I used the soft wheat had both out for two different projects. Corrected . 

Amazing, light as air. And the flavor! My husband is the biscuit man expert! We have the best formula ever thanks to a blog that I will link. Get your buttermilk icy cold. Melt the butter ( use WAY less butter than folks think you should) stir into the icy buttermilk and voila. No cutting no overworked dough. Perfection. 

Will update with formula if you are interested. C

340g freshly milled Purple Straw grain Barton Mills ( chill with the buttermilk while prepping everything else) 

15g sugar

2 g baking soda

9 g baking powder

4 g Kosher salt 

480g very very chilled whole fat unadulterated Buttermilk 

60g melted butter

Some notations: I know this flies in the face of more butter is better but for truly light biscuits this is ever so much better and…. you can spread it ON the tender light hot biscuit in lavish fashion as you eat! This flour is very thirsty! This is double the amount of buttermilk he usually uses  with Arrowhead Mills AP . ⭐️ you can’t really have too wet a biscuit dough… but you can definitely have too dry. So don’t worry. It’s ok to mix with a wooden spoon these will not be tough. Scoop with a regular sized ice cream scoop drop on parchment place in preheated 450° approx 15 min. These are “ cat head” biscuits! Big!! Makes 14. 
whisk all dry ingredients. Add melted butter to cold buttermilk and whisk just to mix lightly so you see small blobs ( cooking term). Pour over dry ingredients and fold til combined. Don’t worry it’s easy to mix you aren’t beating it but you don’t want any dry parts. 
 
Scoop/ plop onto parchment. Start watching at 10-12 min but should take 15. Depending on your oven. Enjoy. 

Here’s the link to this genius technique! My Robert has done due diligence and his version works! If you decide to use any other flour or not fresh milled adjust the buttermilk downward as required. 

https://thecafesucrefarine.com/ridiculously-easy-buttermilk-biscuits/

Adapted from TX Farmers formula which she in turn adapted from Laurels Bread Book. It’s simply outstanding and easy when you remove all the mixer stuff and follow the lead that was started of hands mostly off the dough and let time do the work. 

We don’t care for the shreddable crumb instead we like the cake- like fine crumb. So enough about that here’s my variation on a classic. 

Levain build: 

26g stored starter

43g H2O

80 g flour - I milled Stardust Hard White Wheat

mix ferment  overnight -use all 149g

Soaker: 

89g rolled oats - I flaked oat  groats 

403g boiling H2O

14g salt

mix and cover overnight

Dough:

536 g flour ——I milled 100g Spelt 200g Rouge de Bordeaux and the rest Stardust

100g active YW apple 

50g EVOO

67 g honey 

mix everything till wet. Cover 30 min. Mix by bowl folding . Rest 30 min.  Bowl fold once more. Butter heavily a 13x4x4 Pullman I use the lid and butter well. Scrape dough into pan even out with wet spatula. Replace cover don’t close all the way rise almost to top. Refrigerate either overnight or while you do preheat. 
Bake 375° 30 min covered 15 min uncovered. 
Cool thoroughly. I divide in 3 and freeze 2 pieces. Incredible bread. 

only the one picture. I have trouble with the photo part for some reason uploads get denied too big. Anyway this is the best Pullman Hands Free yet 

As far as I can tell these are a first ! No one’s ever posted an Apple Yeast Water levain bagel. I used to make bagels all the time. Have always and only used the formula from Wild Yeast blog. They are always perfect. I always use a lye bath. It’s extremely easy and so dilute there’s no danger at all. 

Three qts water and add 3 tsp lye. Bring to boil. Can reuse stored water. I’m stirring up another batch of bagels  in the next couple days so covered and left on back burner. 

I subbed my unfed stored YW 150g added to 150g t80 flour as that’s all I use now for white flour. They were shaped and  left to rise 4 hrs and retarded 5 hrs after shaping. Boiled 20 seconds per side and baked at 400 for 18 min. Fragrance is fantastic and a beautiful brown shiny crisp crust. Will post crumb in the AM with homemade jam 😊

Following are my adaptations to the no levain no knead bread. I mix everything together just til moist using a large wooden spoon. Autolyse 1 hr or so.

I  then do my version of bassinage by thoroughly wetting the counter scraping out the dough throughly wetting the top and patting out to a large rectangle then letter fold and tuck into a ball and place in oiled container. I do this 3x with 30 min rest inbetween ultimately using an extra 100 g of water. Dough responds exceptionally well and becomes like silk. 

500g t80 French import 

150g spelt home milled

50g rye home milled

300g wheat home milled (generic )

70g stored starter 

20g salt

35g each EVOO, honey, buttermilk

100g apple yeast water(  stored )

600g water + the bassinage

let rise during the day and then shaped 2 boules and retarded 18 hrs 450 lid on 20 min and lid off 20 min in graniteware roaster . No steaming needed. 

I wanted to see how this would work with really old stored starter and a substantial amount of fresh milled whole wheat. Worked beautifully! 

My stored YW starter hasn’t been refreshed in I don’t know how long… maybe months. I milled 400g of a generic WW . I used 40 g of the stored starter and for good measure subbed 200g of stored Apple YW for part of the water. 

 Mixed everything in the KA til no dry parts. Let autolyse for 30 min. Turned on KA speed 1 , rather than do folds , for 1 min x 3. Bulked at room temp 70 degrees for 9 hours. That’s when I woke up and checked and it had at least tripled. Ok… stuck it in the fridge and went back to bed. 

Took out dumped on countertop at 8 AM it was very soft and spread so I did a couple folds and shaped placed in floured cloth lined bannetons and right back into fridge. 

4 pm turned out scored and baked per Another Girl’s post. I used her weights for everything. 

This bread is delicious! Crust is very chewy and the crumb is very soft and chewy . Quite like a good ciabatta. Really happy with it. Amazing open crumb for 40% WW. 

Nothing different except I frequently swap out my grains so as to get through my inventory. Milled  the grains right before using them they were  still warm. Mixed everything except salt autolyse 30 min. KA mixer 7 min speed 2  adding in the salt and some extra held back water. Cleaned the bowl as usual with a perfect ratio of dry/ wet ingredients. 

I am very pleased with the crumb and crust and amazing wheat flavor. Made great grilled cheese sandos. Don’t recall ever making 3 loaves as identical as these 3! 😊

335g Yecora Rojo berries Barton Spring 

335g T85

232 Generic WW berries

100g Danko Rye berries Barton Springs

250g mixed levains - one rye starter one YW starter

200g active Apple YW

350g water

23 g salt

Trinity- 40 g EACH EVOO, Honey and Buttermilk

450 degrees Graniteware roaster 20 min lid on 20 minutes lid off.