STIR THE POTS

Matzah

You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat matzos, the bread of affliction; for in haste did you come forth out of the land of Egypt; that you may remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.

—Deuteronomy 16:3

Cold Bulk Ferment

Often I start making bread on a whim, or when my levain is peaking or... even when the clock tells me it's time to go to head for work. This happened on a recent bake. My levain peaked in the early hours of morning. I took the chance to bulk ferment in the refrigerator till I could continue with my bread baking later on coming home.

I found some hints regarding long cold fermentation on The Fresh Loaf and on Wild Yeast Blog. Without much time, I mixed both doughs, checked that the temperature was between 72-75 F, then put them in the refrigerator. Returning home at the end of the day, I let the dough sit with a couple folds, in hopes it would give body and maybe warm up the dough. And then I returned to two familiar formulas, for a seeded and grain loaf, and a chestnut, wheat loaf with walnuts and figs that came from inspiration from a baker in Aix in provence, Farinoman. 

Below are the results, and I can say that they made my taste buds and belly happy. 

Mixed grain, sunflower levain

Chestnut, wheat  with walnut and fig

Brioche

 

I remember the first time in baking school that we hand-made brioche. It was a sticky and messy venture which included incorporating butter into sweet eggy dough. Once we could manage the dough-slapping technique - recently made famous by Richard Bertinet -  it started to get a cohesive gluten structure, meaning, like me and my fellow students, you can do it, too. And you don't even have to enroll in school. 

 

 

Here's two pathways to explore. You can try dabbling with the buttery richness of brioche by enriching the dough with olive oil, as explained in Chad Robertson's Tartine, which gives the finished product a healthy feel. Or try what I've done, adapting a recipe from a Parisian boulanger called Laurent Bonneau, the formula found on the bread forum Boulangerie Net. It's a formula for a 25 percent rye brioche, originally a straight dough, but I tinkered a bit to a hybrid rather then full levain as I had failed in my last two levain brioche. The formulas needed tweaking, as the results were less then perfect!

Before.....

 

 

After....

 

 

A few pointers:

1.) Longer ferments for sweetened doughs, especially with levain.

2.) An overnight cold chill, so you can shape the dough.

3.) Bake at between 375-400, depending on size or weight of your brioche.

 

 

 

Cross To Bake

No religion crosses my path save for the divinity of food, from cooking it to baking it to eating it. That said, with the holidays coming up I became interested in "Hot cross buns" and Anglo-Easter confection, to which I turned for baking clues everywhere from Andrew Whitley's book Bread Matters to blog posts from Dan Lepard and Elizabeth David.

Besides finding some interesting anecdotes, I also found some formulas to try. And try I did, throwing in spelt levain wheat, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg  and some German brot gewurze for spice, the plump cranberry and rasins mix for sweet chewiness. Here are the results. 

 

 

Blasphemy's aside, I enjoyed the ritual, and even though I was on the fence about the cross bit, well I took the plunge and went  for it.

I've made the symbolic gesture, it's the buns that count.

Thoughts About Alternative Grains

Rye and spelt are two grains I enjoy using in baking bread, though they lack the gluten strength that builds the structure of wheat doughs. But then they make up for it in flavor and texture. Though we'd like to believe the could substitute for gluten-free diets, and they enjoy a new popularity in baking, in actuality they are not gluten free, even if they contain lesser amounts than wheat. Rye contains higher amounts of gliadin but it is lower in glutenin. And spelt has a higher amount of protein, which contains gluten, so it's no magic bullet to battle the anti-gluten fight.

Today, wheat, itself, is grown to create bumper harvests, a process which can deplete the ancient diversity of the heritage grains, as described here. That said, a baker told me the same is true even for spelt, which is a hybridized distant relative of wheat. It's the cause of much discussion these days in the bread community, because of marketing and mislabeling. I'm happy to know that there are dedicated artisans, bakers/millers today who strive to slow down and return to age old methods, from farm to our table. All to say, as more of us look to make our own bread, there are a myriad of issues to navigate or just ponder. Grist for the mill as we bake. 

Broa de Milho

Broa de Milho is a Northern Portugese bread made of  corn, rye and wheat. It's one I first noticed here. I asked Azelia, baking friend and super serious bread investigator about it, as she's Portugese. She gave it a go and when I first attempted a translated version I got from Azelia herself,  I forgot the salt.

The first attempt seemed so promising, after a short rise in the oven the loaf top revealing the lovely familiar cracks I associate with the bread. But while there was lots of oven-spring, it didn't seem to get any color. That's when I noticed the salt sitting in a cup on my counter. Thinking about it, I also didn't scald the corn  as I'd seen in the video and what was clear in the instructions. Needless to say the dough went into the waste bin.  

The second attempt was a charm. Once the white corn meal was moistened, I let it cool, then added in the rye, starter, a bit of yeast and wheat flour. This is a rustic loaf, dense, but moist and filled with a sweet rye flavor.

 I used medium rye flour, and a white corn meal, in hindsight I would of also left out the yeast for more sourdough, as Azelia also mentions in her report. Using only a single ferment after mixing in the banneton, it was short no more then 45-60 minutes total. Into a hot oven, I steamed it, though I'm not sure it needed it. Quite pleased the second time around and it would go nice with some Caldo Verde or maybe clams and pork, sardines for sure.

Hanf mischbrot (Hemp bread)

Hemp - that super nutritional full of amino acid seed is making large strides into your supermarket shelves. I've been sprinkling it on my yogurt, and now I decided to bake with it, incorporating the seed into my loaves. While  making a German style Mischbrot with rye, I decided to use hemp in seed form but also make a paste like Dan Lepard did in his walnut and raisin formula I'd seen here. I figured the buzz and grind of the seeds turned into unctious paste...well, you know, full of flavor.

I'm still tweaking this dough, as I had to leave it retarded in my fridge for a dinner, which for rye heavy breads can be a killer. The taste and feel of the bread is still quite good, and I suppose there might be a change in the overall hydration next time as well, still testing!

I mixed this dough, using minimal turns, in a Kitchen Aid. Initially the dough felt very wet, but while bulk fermenting about an hour, it seemed to firm up. Note, my baker friend, Mike Avery, told me American rye is thirsty. I really loved the flavor of the ground hemp; it's akin to tahini or peanut butter.

Rather then slashing the loaf with a razor, I docked it, giving it a more rustic character when the edges split.

The crumb is tight, the feel is soft and silky (I assume from the use of hemp), but maybe using white whole wheat flour in place of bread flour would have given a bit more strength to the dough.

I sent a query to Dan Lepard about the dough's slow fermenting process during proofing. He wrote back, telling me that the reaction of hemp could be like spices in breads that inhibt the rise.

Here's the basic numbers

Hemp 20% (Half ground, the rest seeds)

Wheat 30%

Rye     50%

Water  70%

Sauer   20%

Salt       2%

Yeast     1% (optional)

Rosettas, Michettas, Kaiser Rolls

Recently, my Montreal chef friends Michele and Guisseppe were baking a bread similar to a kaiser roll, the old fashioned sandwich roll that characteristically features a hard crust and soft center. Up north, they call these breads Rosettas or Michettas. In actuality, they're Italian breads from Lazio region. They have a look known as "soffiato," which translates as "blown,"  because of the way the top crust has the markings from a metal stamp and its inside is airy and light. 

I wanted to get into the fray of baking my Canadian-bound buddies. And so I proceeded. Here's what happened. 

Not having the stamp for the crust, I utilized a technique from an Austrian baker. My best way of describing it is rather than use a tool, I hand-crafted a single braid (or plait) that resemble's a sailors slip knot.

Anyway, this dough is a soft roll in the crumb, with both yeast and a biga (pre-fermented dough) of 65 percent hydration. Oil and lard will usually enrich this dough to give both flavor and crispness to the crust (Strutto), so I went solely with extra virgin olive oil.

 

There's a bit of sugar to sweeten the roll, which I sort of like, as it compensates for the salty toppings. In this case, I enjoyed the bread with Trapenese pesto, as well as mozzarella and prosciutto. And so will you, and just for extra zest, add a cold glass of water or, even better, a tall glass of birra.  

Holy Toledo: The breads of Antonio Cepas Alonso

Bread is a silent sirenity, especially late baking in dimmly lit kitchen. I spent such an evening recently, baking a loaf, the formula of which I'd found on the Facebook page of Antonio Cepas Alonso, a baker from Toledo, Spain.

I had spent a full day at work in the kitchen, then come home to bake. After mixing the dough and waiting for the bulk ferment, I lay down, but fought the urge to sleep. I wanted to finish the bread and take it to my mother's house the next morning. My eye's felt like lead, but after starting to doze off, I forced myself back to the kitchen. The evening was cool, and I wondered about the chance of an overnight final proof. But then I decided to retard it in the fridge for at least five hours, as it was just midnight when I laid the dough into the banneton.

In the end, it all worked out. This bread is fabulous, having a moist crumb that's got a hint of honey. According to Antonio, who I managed to chat with after baking the bread, he uses the honey "to caramelize the crust in a more reduced cooking time." Antonio added that he uses "add's a small dose of honey every so often when refreshing the sourdough to stimulate some activity."

I hope to visit Toledo to sample his bread and meet the baker. In the meantime, I'll follow his advice and his gracious guidelines to make these breads here.

 

60/40 Rye

Since I've got my rye levain perked and regularily refreshed these days, I decided to use Dieter Buschman's Sauerteig rechner ( sourdough calculator). Perhaps I'll try various percentages of rye/wheat till I get to a total of 100 percent rye. In the meantime, my latest is a 60 percent rye and 40 percent wheat. I used a 50/50 mix of white whole wheat and white all-purpose flour, along with medium rye in the final dough. Just out of precaution and time (it was a late night bake), I used yeast along with the sourdough.

The result?  A moist loaf and a perfect foil for butter and ham. On my next try, I may do without the yeast and go all white whole wheat. Or I might even do use bread flour which could give it a bit more structural strength. Mind you, I like the rustic flavor and texture as it is, but you can always tweak bread, give or take a percent.