The bread is my idea of a sourdough country loaf.
The cheese is from the same batch as the photo I posted last week. This one
is a tad too 'oozy' for me. But the flavor is great.
annie
But on second thought, that cheese was sitting near a very warm loaf. I recut it an moved
the loaf. It's not as oozy as I thought. Can you see the more solid center. This is how I like
my Camembert.
annie
You baked that bread? How nice!
Do you make your own sourdough fermentation? Or, do you use a starter?
I always love having my own cheese on my own bread. Makes me feel like I really screwed up the global system!
Just yesterday I baked fresh Baguettes for breakfast. So easy. Was great with that St. Marcelin!
Thanks Yoav.
Are you asking if I made my own starter? If so, yes. It was 'born' about 8 years ago in San Ramon, Ca.
We really do have great indigenous yeasts and lactobacilli in the SF Bay area.
annie
mmm, fresh, warm bread and some lovely Camembert to spread on it AND both from your own hands...I can almost taste the satisfaction through my monitor. Well done.
Thank you ever so.
annie
Awesome! I was never a huge fan of sour flavor in my bread until I recently discovered that sourdough doesn't need to be sour and that there are so many ways to preferment yeasts. Would love to know how you do it! I pre-ferment a lot for French bread and I do tons of no-knead whole grain breads. The baguettes are quite new to me but I thoroughly enjoy them. Really quick and easy to make. I also often use whey from cheesemaking instead of water in my breads.
It should be sour if it's done correctly. In fact, some of the 'famous' commercial places out
here add citric acid to get it that way. In order to get a lovely home made sour loaf, it has be be fermented over 18 to 24 hours. This is the tricky part, getting the yeasties to be really active for that period of time.
You use a 'mother' or sponge. I have always found it easier to keep starters, , , unless of course,
you bake every day. I only bake once a week.
Your baguettes are beautiful. I make primarily boules, as they require no additional forms.
If you have any questions, you should go to the Northwest Sourdough web site. My
friend, Teresa is one of the greatest sourdough gurus.
annie
Great resource Annie! Thanks!
I like the naturally fermented starter idea, I am just not into the sour taste. Doesn't work for me with eggs, cheese, salads, jam etc. That's how I use it. I do however love the texture of those SF sourdough breads.
Most of the breads I make are boules as well. I do a lot of those no-knead types so they do rise 18 hours. I make them in a ditcvh oven and the dough is highly hydrated so you can't really form them well and they just come out like boules.
For the other types, I prefer batards. I have a really nice German brotform that helps them rise and gives them beautiful shapes and lines. But for stuff like baguettes - I just hand form them. It's easy enough and no need to special forms and bakeware. A good baguette should round up on the bottom on its own without the help of special form baking sheet.
I don't meant to hijack the threads, but here are some examples. As you can see I am a bit limited and not as hardcore as you are. Note that the barards are raised in the brotform and you can see it on them. The boules rise in the dutch oven. There is a quick white bread that I baked in a german clay dish (Romertopf) and lastly, a tasting of my cheese and my jams with my bread.
Very pretty loaves...
annie
Cheese . . . . jam . . . . . and bread? Dude, you are a triple threat! It's always interesting to see the participants here show their other facets. Looks very tempting.
Oh, and what are the 'cheeses-on-a-stick' we can see in your pic?
Thank you kindly! These are little aged goat's "Lollipops". They are like little Sainte Maure cheeses. 14 day aging semi lactic.
I also make them in a blue version (2nd photo below)
I recently made some rose petal jam from my Grandmother's garden,
You can even label it semi organic (the sugar is not) :)
Yoav that is some nice high hydration loafs,good random holes.
Im personally a big of of whole wheat and "spacially" grains rather then 100% white flour.
I feel that they give more earthiness to the aroma and greater depth of flavour.
Im brewing some wheat beer this week so I hope to make something interesting with the spent grains.
Nice. I am not sure what to do with these grains. I recently washed a Tomme with wheat beer.
I too love the whole grains but find them difficult to create a great fluffy airy texture, so I always mix them in with bread flour and maybe gluten. I find that it takes only a small amount of rye flour to prevent your bread from rising nicely and if you put too much of these whole grain flours you will end up with a slightly bitter bread. I use lots of grains, usually sesame and black sesame, caraway (Dutch caraway!), roasted sunflower seeds, oat bran, oatmeal... I mix them in for the 2nd rising of the bread or coat the bread with them just before entering into the oven (actually, I spray the bread with water first, then I sprinkle the seeds, then make the slits and put in the oven). I recently began using a food processor in a method that requires freezing water to make dough. It heats up as it turns and you get a well-kneaded dough before it has a chance to overheat.
"I too love the whole grains but find them difficult to create a great fluffy airy texture"
Two words, High hydration.
WW can absorb alot more mosture then white flour. I can easly do 80% while still keeping it workable where with white flour 80% will be chiabeta at that stage.
Some brave bakers even do 85% but I dont use a proofing basket just a floured pyrex boule which I flip on a baking paper ontop of a piece of cardboard and slide it on to my baking stone.
Vital Gluten addition is a good idea, I bought about a pound once, finish it and havent used it since. Its rather expenssive if I remember right.
I avoid using my stand mixer with WW,Its too easy to over mix.
I prefer to use time and a few strech and folds to develope the gluten.
I dont do any kneading aswell,time (and love) is all you need.
Quote from: Tomer1 on June 19, 2011, 01:29:37 PM
I prefer to use time and a few strech and folds to develope the gluten.
I dont do any kneading aswell,time (and love) is all you need.
Agreed. I don't knead, do pretty wet doughs, and just do a long, cool ferment with several stretch and folds.
(http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p316/pkphotodo/Cooking/Baking/Levain11-25-09.jpg)
These look amazing!!!
I often mess up the sliting with these hydrated doughts though. How did you get it to slit so perfectly? They are usually so sticky that my lame just pulls the cut and the dough knots together before it has a chance to rise.
Thanks, Yoav. My "lame" is pretty lame, really...lol...just a straight razor blade jury-rigged with the pointed end of a chopstick, threaded through the blade slits. I don't really have a special technique, the only thing I've tried to master is to slash bravely and quickly, at an angle (to the loaf), so that there's some overlap, "grigne." Any hesitation in cutting, I find, drags the loaf, so I really do slash, rather than cut. Sorry for the vagueness – difficult to convey what I mean, but I hope it conveys something meaningful.
Edit: Oh, I should add, that typically a do a very long ferment, with often two or even three cold-ferment stages, including in the form, in cloth – so there's a bit of a "rind" by the time I get to bake day. That, too, helps the slash, I'm sure.
Yes, I do that at 30° angle and have a french lame which is really a razor blade with a long handle. Works great on drier loaves, baguettes etc. but with some of those 60% hydrated doughs it doesn't matter how determined I am, if I do my smooth one-motion straight and quick slash, the dough just stick to the blade and pulls, destroying the loaf, or I get a tiny shallow slit that gets closed and heals before the dough gets to rise. It's a bit annoying. so much so that I have reduced these loaves' moisture so I get less rise and have to let them ferment longer but at least it looks like proper bread.
I am also having a slight crust issue with these doughs. It comes out beautifully dark and seems crispy but after cooling down, there is so much water in these doughs that it softens up the crust and I need to put it under heat again to make it crispy. I am not sure what's the step to take. Perhaps baking it on low heat and extending the bake by 20 minutes to dry the living daylights out of it. Problem with low heat is that it creates no rapid rise and the long crusting period makes a thick crust
ARGH! You guys are killing me! my bigget weakness is bread. Good warm bread with a nice basil EVOO spread! Mmmmmmmmmm
Dang you did get married right Yoav? :o
"but with some of those 60% hydrated doughs it doesn't matter how determined I am, if I do my smooth one-motion straight and quick slash, the dough just stick to the blade and pulls"
60%? you mean 80%? 60 is really dry, more toward a baggle or a dry pizza dough.
The trick of crisp crust which remains crisp is
A)super heating your baking stone (My oven goes all the way to 270c and I crack it on at least 40min before baking).
B)browning at high temp (Maximum temp your oven allows during the first 5-7 minutes with steam.
C)Venting the oven of the steam after that 7 minutes.
D)lowering the temp so to avoid over browning (burning) ,You can go as low as 190c.
E)Over bake it, go beyond the 200f and cook it well done.
The trick is to achive all of thos at the same time, you need to know your oven to do it right so you end up with a golden brown top,with browned bottom and low residual moisture.
Cool completly on a rack with good air circulation before bagging it or what not.
I use a few layers of newspaper (the sports section is the best) to store my bread because its a good moisture absorber.
If I make a really large loaf ,half is sliced and goes into the freezer to be used for toasts\cheese toasties or I give some away.
If not It usually keeps for 2-3 days.
Quote from: iratherfly on June 27, 2011, 06:47:45 PM
Yes, I do that at 30° angle and have a french lame which is really a razor blade with a long handle.
Yes. And as I mentioned, my "lame" is lame, just a razor on a chopstick, but it works fine, and is a heck of a lot cheaper than a bought
lame.
I'd agree with Tomer that 60% hydration isn't what I'd call a wet dough. The pictured loaves above, for instance, were at about 76% going into the oven. I'd also agree with Tomer that hot stones are key. He heats his up for 40 minutes, I go all the way to an hour. I don't vent steam, but it might be because I have gotten it down, the amount of water in my "steaming pan" (an old crepe pan, black steel). I do drop the temp – oven is at 500F, immediately dropped to 400F. And I cool completely on a wire rack before bagging.
I usually do 500°F to 450°F, feels like below it would not be hot enough. I don't use stones which could be the reason for the issues indeed. (old stone broke). I have done up to 80% hydration and I find it impossible to slash. The lame I have is a stick with razor so I think it's the same as what you are describing. I find that a long bladed meat slicing knife works better and in the case of baguettes I cut as deep as 3/4 of the baguette's height to get a proper slash. I just need this not to be so sticky around the blade so that it won't pull it and that it wouldn't stick back together before it rises in the oven. It's a lot easier with loaves I rise in a brotform and bake flat but with no-knead in a dutch oven - forget about it. It's so soft that you can't slit it and then move it to the hot dutch oven. Ahhh ...practice!
I find 500/400F works well for me, on boules and batards. The "stones" I use are simply red ceramic tiles, untreated - confirmed from talking with the manufacturer that they are food-safe. Dirt cheap, I think about $1 per tile, if I remember correctly. I just lay them in, 6 at a time, and they work really well, after one seasoning.
My slashing tends to work better on the true levains, the boules and batards – my baguettes are a hybrid of sourdough and cultured yeast, and I have to be more careful with them to avoid pulling the slash (and they're hydrated less). I make the baguettes for quick consumption – they stay fresh about a day. My levains easily hold close to a week without loss of freshness. Sourdough's amazing stuff, isn't it?
With slashing there is really no reason to go deep, you just want to "injure" the surface to allow for expantion and internal gas to release.
This might be the reason your lame sticks, if you get a good dry surface on a high hydration loaf with a good amount of flour it creats a sort of low hydration surface which can be slashed without a problem but again you dont want to go deep into the soft gooey interior.
I get that and I know how to slash a normal bread quite well. The problem is that the hydrated doughs just ignore the lame altogether and heal before they got any chance to rise.
Are you being extra generious with the flour? preferbly rye which has higher absorption capacity?
Add it during shaping and by the time its proofed it will suck in most of the flour, so again dust it considerablly and pat it a bit.
Hold the dough with one hand and slash so your sort of helping the dough react to the pulling force.
I saw a good clip of it showed on a high hydration battard, I'l try and find it.
Thanks Tomer, so you mean make the surface somewhat drier by dusting it generously with a more absorbent flour and then slash?
Also, lately I figured out that I have had an issue with dough that over-rises in the second rise. This means that even if I slash it -it is already at the end of it's maximum rise so the slits don't expand because there is nothing more to rise. For a while I confused this with slashing problem but recently I make sure to rise it less in the second rise and let it go nuts in the oven. a HUGE improvement in the bread texture and crust formation.
Yoav, I bulk ferment, 4 hours poolish, 5 hours stretch and fold, then into the banetton and overnight, 15-18 hours in the refrigerator. For kicks I used to often bake the loaf directly from the refrigerator. Explosive spring! You can see - in my experience, with a direct from cooler-to-oven bake, the height is so much, it poses a problem with top-browning:
(http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p316/pkphotodo/Cooking/Baking/Levain12-5-09II.jpg)
(http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p316/pkphotodo/Cooking/Baking/Levain12-5-09CrumbCU.jpg)
It is ridiculous enough for my wife to term the bread by a certain anatomical part ( :o), so I allow a bit of tempering and continued ferment the day I bake, say, an hour, 1:15. That allows good spring, while not being the uncontrolled, explosive "pop."
Sorry, I haven't been on the board for a couple of weeks anf getting back into the threads. Can you elaborate about the exact formula?