Ciabatta: The Next Experiment

It has been a while since I made ciabatta.

There were lots of experiments with other types of bread, some more successful than others. I also made friends with the small gas ovens on several sailing yachts. These are a law unto themselves and one needs to be very careful to allow for free air flow around your baking, lest your food turns into burnt offerings.

My experiments with yeast and flour have been a growing success. At least, this is what I think. I specifically try to keep the process simple in order for the recipe to be accessible to the normal yachtie and amateur baker. The process needs to simple and not require any special tools or fermenting equipment. Like a refrigerator, for example. Most yachts do not have sufficient refrigeration space to allow overnight slow fermentation of your dough. Perhaps it is in these endeavours that I am struggling with an appropriate process to achieve the special results that I am searching for.

Talk about pioneering in a new field!

I have made several experiments in baking a proper ciabatta. Most have been successful, but the elusive big, shiny fermentation holes have always escaped me.

Very soft dough, second rise using
 a plastic bags and a place mat
 to keep the shape

So this time around I decided to go to a softer dough with higher hydration. In addition, I used a finer flour. All of the loaves I baked previously were quite tasty, but somewhat on the heavy side. After some consultation and interpretive reading of various recipes and methods, I decided on a mix of cake flour and white bread flour. Here in South Africa we don't get the 00- and 000-classification of flours. The list consists of cake flour, white bread flour, brown bread flour and whole wheat flour.
You may get sifted and unsifted variations, stone ground and non GM. That's about it.


For this experiment I used whole wheat unsifted stone ground non GM flour. Long words for decent flour. Four cups of cake flour and two cups of white bread flour made up the mix. That is enough for two large loaves or three to four smaller ones.

After perusing my copy of Peter Reinhardt's books “Crust and Crumb” as well as “The Bread baker's Apprentice,” I decided on a modified version. The recipes use a biga or a poolish. Both pre-ferments require overnight fermentation in a cool environment. This is difficult to achieve on a small yacht, so I settled for a direct method.

The ingredients are flour, water, salt, yeast. Some butter or other animal fat. That's it. Very primitive. Simple ingredients, focussing on the method and the relative quantities.

Making ciabatta requires a very soft dough. So this time I made a dough by measuring out the required amount of flour using a cup. Then I added salt and the yeast. After mixing these dry ingredients thoroughly, I added the soft butter and rubbed it in thoroughly by hand. Then I added water a little at a time, mixing it through every time until the dough had some even consistency. This I kept up until the dough was almost runny.

Very soft loaves, very hot bricks in the oven

I left the dough to rest for a few minutes while gathering my wits. This dough is not kneadable at all. You fold it using a wet ladle or a wet hand. Clean an appropriate area on your work surface and keep a jug of water ready. This is for wetting your mixing utensil and your hand.

At the start of kneading it is almost runny, getting somewhat stiffer during the folding process as the gluten develops. Eventually I transferred the dough to the well floured kneading board. By this time the dough was not really picking up much more flour from the kneading board and I was able to continue folding the dough for another five odd minutes. The test for the readiness is to take a small piece of dough and do a stretch test. Stretch it and see if you can get it to keep an almost translucent  film. If you can, the dough is ready for the rise.


I sprayed some spray-and-cook stuff on the dough ball to limit drying out before covering the dough and putting it aside to rise.
After the rise you need to form the loaves. This is where you may get into more trouble by losing the fermentation holes already formed. Handle the dough with care, it is still very soft. After this rise you may need a peel to transfer the loaves to the oven. They will be very tender and you will not be able to manhandle them.

Perhaps this is where the biggest problem lies. Dividing, forming and handling the soft dough may lose the gas in the dough. So there is a caveat.

The oven may be set to quite hot. I baked these loaves at 230ºC/450ºF for fifteen minutes, then set the oven temperature lower to about 180ºC/350ºF for another twenty minutes. And I used paving bricks in the oven as heat capacity to get the required oven spring.


Check the loaves towards the end. If they echo with a solid sound when tapped, they are ready. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for about twenty minutes to half an hour. They are still cooking and are filled with steam. This makes them very brittle. The steam needs to evaporate for the crumb to develop into something elastic.

These loaves came out the best I ever achieved. Very nice crisp crust, very soft, sweet crumb. But the elusive large fermentation holes have yet again escaped me.

So now I sit here and ponder my next experiment with a cup of coffee and a generous slice of fresh bread covered in real butter.


Remember, always use real butter.




This post also linked to YeastSpotting!


All images taken with a Samsung S4 smart phone, Snapseed and ViewNX2 edits.


Authored by Johan Zietsman


Last updated on 2015-01-18

The Doldrum Cruise Start

The full implication of the East African doldrums finally came to light today. In a roundabout way too.

But I am getting ahead of the story.

I made my usual phone call for weather info on the satellite phone today. In fact three calls. Of which two gave me sketchy information and one, inadvertently, gave me more useful information.

Us sailors need weather information to plan our passage and course for the next forecast period. On voyages close inshore we get the forecast on the VHF radio at set times, depending on where you are. But out in the ocean one is dependent on phoning a friend to help with this service. It makes life at sea a lot safer.

Today I had two sets of information in which the informants gave me some ideas of their own. The third informant was my wife. She gave me an update on the weather at home and the forecast for the rest of South Africa for the next few days.


Now, you would argue that the information is valid only for the region in question, which would be right. However, it is quite possible to derive a forecast for our whereabouts from the South African forecast.

This is possible because we are north-east of South Africa and close enough that cold fronts passing over the country will affect our weather over here. Cold fronts in this area travel from west to east and lose some of their impetus over the southern African continent.

So today I learned that a strong cold front passed over Cape Town two days ago, passing over the eastern part of the country by today and tomorrow. This means that the south Indian ocean high that sits near us will be pushed north to give us the doldrums. Then the same high pressure system will move south again as the front passes, giving us back our wind.

To conclude this very heavy essay on weather, I forecast a northerly to north-easterly wind of around twenty knots two or three days hence. In support of this, our wind started coming back today with a light air of around five knot out of the north-east and the barometer dropped by one hectopascal and stayed steady.

Ocean weather systems 101, I guess. Only time will tell whether I am right.

We made a few turns on our path the last few days in in our quest for optimal speed and progress. This had a positive reslut that we picked up a current of around one knot, helping us along, whereas before we had none. Thank heavens for small mercies.

In addition we are now on an ocean cruise. We re-budgeted our food and fuel and found that we could live quite long waiting for the wind to come without having to motor like mad to get to a fast food joint.

Today was wash day, tomorrow boat cleaning day. And so we shall keep ourselves out of mischief.

The pineapple vinegar is fermenting merrily in the bath and we are making attempts at fishing. My guess is that we won't catch anything at the speed we are going at present, though. Hopefully the situation will soon change for the better.

Today was also baking day. We haven't had fresh bread for a few days now after the last of the store-bought bread ran out. It was nice to have a slice of warm bread with real butter for a change. It appears that I have now come to an understanding with the oven and the two loaves came out nicely baked with a thick caramelised crust and a fluffy, elastic crumb. Not too bad for an off-the-cuff recipe.

We also have some reasonably fresh flour of French origin and type '00'. This is not readily obtainable where I live, so I had to make do with what I have. A whole new learning experience, using a different flour than the ones I am used to, in addition to a new brand of instant yeast. Life in the galley gets quite interesting as well!


We were able to relax our strict regime today and watched some movies. This may become part of the daily routine by the looks of it. Good entertainment and not too taxing on the mind.

A voyage with a difference, this oceanic cruise. Quite a positive experience.

My first and hopefully not the last.



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-07-06

Baking As An Artisan: A Whole New Experience

Up to now I have been a dabbler in cooking and baking. With varying results, as can be expected from a dabbler.

On the positive side there were some very successful moments. Successful outcomes of baking and cooking efforts that got highlighted by others too. It keeps one going, knowing that your humble efforts are seen by others in cyberspace after all.

Then things happen. Call it Karma if you will. Or an Angel looking after you. You get noticed by others who may find your skills useful in their world. And so it was for me, being part of the birth of a restaurant. A bistro, actually. Complete with a bakery.

A friend opened a new bistro and bakery. I was asked to help with the bakery. What a privilege! My meager skills were becoming useful!

The start: Multi-grain mix with the sourdough

We had some experimentation with various recipes along the way before the bistro opened. Again with mixed results, as there was no prover yet. But recently the scene changed and a prover appeared next to the oven. Complete with adjustable temperature and humidity.

Time for proper baking.

This time it was for real and we decided on a multi-grain sourdough loaf. I baked this before at home, so we reasoned that the risk of getting it all wrong was low. The original recipe is from Peter Reinhardt's book The Bread Baker's Apprentice. A very useful reference to have on hand. Again, in this case, as you will see shortly. I used a variation of the original recipe for baking at home, about which I wrote a blog post recently.

Of course, doing the same thing on a larger scale is simply not possible. Triple the quantities of ingredients and there will be something not quite in the right ratio. The dough will be too dry or not salt enough. Or some such thing. Luckily we were aware of this and checked every now and then as the work progressed.

A proper mixer

You are now working with industrial quantities, not a cup or two of whatever. The yeast comes in a block of about 150x150x350 mm. Five odd kilograms, I venture. You cut off a piece and weigh it. Not a sachet of 6 grams of instant yeast. And you get to weigh the other ingredients. Volumetric measures simply do not work in this environment.

Enter Peter Reinhardt's book. The book gives quantities in bakers terms. Percentages of the main ingredient. Percentages are scalable, so it was a cinch to get the right ratios.

Or so we thought. You need to read the book very carefully. Peter Reinhardt also says in the book to check every now and then too see if the dough is elastic enough and has the right taste. Which is what saved this batch of bread.

For a start, we deviated from the recipe by using existing sourdough from the refrigerator. No soaker. So we were left with a problem of getting more flavour out of the multigrain part. We got past this by using warm water. The next part of using our own initiative came when the dough was mixed and found too dry and brittle. Which meant too little gluten. So more flour was added, which made the dough much drier. This required more water.

Not your home style bread pans

We carried on by adding flour and water alternatively until the dough was quite elastic, would hold a thin membrane and tasted nice. Of course, this played havoc with our original measured quantities. The next batch of loaves would need an adjustment on quantities.

We also found that the different types of flour had different moisture content. The flour used was stone ground full grain flour. Another difference. This probably had the biggest effect on the water quantities. I get the idea that the full grain flour is heavier and soaks up much more water than other flour. Something to be aware of. Of course, this is South Africa and the flour will differ in cultivar of wheat too. Another major difference.

We found this out with maize flour in Mexico. The coarse maize flour available in South Africa makes the most amazing maize porridge, but is useless for making tortillas. In turn, the maize flour sold in Mexico for making tortillas is useless for making South African style porridge. Believe me, we tried. And failed. Several times, in fact. In the end we just accepted the fact that we shall not be eating the crumbly style mieliepap with our steaks from the braai while in Mexico.

Going into the prover. Garnished and cut

Something to bear in mind. Flours are different across the world. Make an experiment before launching into full production. Baby steps. Take it easy, go slow. I teach this to my sailing students too.

Eventually we decided the dough was ready.  The blob of around 6 kg was left on the table to rest, covered with a plastic sheet against drying out. As can be expected from a sourdough, the first proofing took quite a while. The coarse multigrain mix also has an effect, no cause for alarm if things go slow in the beginning. The dough doubled in volume before it was divided into blobs of around 700g for the second proofing.

Here I learnt another trick of the trade. Take the blob of dough in both hands and fold it into itself using both thumbs. This has the effect that the side away from your thumbs get stretched, making for a nice looking loaf. The seam on your thumbs' side gets to be squashed together nicely and goes on the bottom of the loaf. We decided on putting the garnish of rolled oats on before the final proofing, along with the requisite cuts on the top.

The tops of the loaves are cut to help with even rising. Else you may get oddly shaped loaves. The proofing went fine. Having controlled temperature and humidity makes a huge difference in the process. So does having a proper industrial oven with controlled air flow. This translates to even temperature everywhere in the oven. So all the loaves bake at the same temperature, irrespective of where they are in the oven.

Bistro style: Checking taste and texture

The last surprise came with baking time. Having an oven up to the proper temperature and proper air flow has a major effect. These loaves baked in about twenty minutes. I did not have time to enjoy a cup of coffee peacefully before the message came that I should get myself over to the oven to see what was going on. On arrival, my friend was already unloading the loaves, the baking done.

The results were outstanding. A crisp and chewy crust with a wonderfully soft crumb. The bread had a distinct after taste of sourness coming through, with the crumb getting sweeter as you chewed. A wonderful result indeed.

Real bread, artisan style

For me, a new perspective on baking. Don't follow blindly, think for yourself. The results are your responsibility, not someone else's. And don't let your fears stand in the way of a culinary adventure.

More of life's small lessons, I guess.


This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-03-21

Home Baked Bread: A High Fibre Loaf

At last I am back in my favourite kitchen. Home. After two months away and many culinary adventures later, I am back in my own homely little kitchen.

The words do have a cosy ring to it, much like the Mole's place in The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Your own place has this feeling of home.

Having been away for so long, I had this primordial urge for proper bread. I crossed a mental hurdle just before my departure on the last voyage, so the missus hasn't tasted the version of bread I now bake. I purchased a copy of Peter Reinhart's book The Bread Baker's Apprentice some time ago and studied it. You have to open and study the book.

Which means reading intensively several times. Especially the part about what happens when you start mixing flour, water, salt and yeast. I had ample chance to experiment on the voyage, mostly successfully and often very successfully. The challah I made on board could be the best loaf I made to date. I shall certainly strive to top that one.

This time around I decided on a plain and simple loaf. Light Wheat Bread is the heading in the book. The recipe in the book requires whole wheat flour. I do not have flour with crushed wheat, so I used brown bread flour instead. The flours that I use are whole grain, stone ground, unbleached, non-GMO anyway, with the brown bread flour having ample wheat husks to give the loaf a rustic coarseness. Long words to describe decent, old fashioned coarse flour.

I followed the recipe reasonably to the point. I had to use whole milk instead of the three dessert spoons milk powder prescribed in the book. Otherwise the mix is easy and the directions for decision points are clear and easily understandable.

Here at home it is high summer now, with temperatures in the late twenties and early thirties Celcius. There is some mercy, though, in that we have the famous Cape Doctor. The south easterly trade winds, funneling into a near gale over the local Hottentot's Holland mountain range and across False Bay almost every day, cooling us down a bit.


Needless to say, the high temperatures make for very short rising and proofing times. You need to pay attention to the happenings inside the proofing box. Perhaps this fast proofing also makes for less flavour, but that one I shall test when I have space in the refrigerator for a large blob of dough and overnight proofing.

Ingredients for two medium sized loaves

2 ½ cups white bread flour
1 ½ cups brown bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 dessert spoons brown sugar
¼ cup whole milk
1 ½ teaspoons (10g) instant yeast
2 dessert spoons vegetable fat (shortening)
1 ¼ cups water at room temperature

Process

Stir together the dry ingredients, then add the water until the dough becomes sticky. Allow five to ten minutes for the dough to develop gluten, then rub in the shortening. The version of shortening that I use is quite hard, so I have to really let it thaw, then rub it into the dough.

Mix the dough thoroughly and make sure that it is reasonably soft and elastic. Knead this until the dough is satiny. Do a window pane test, as Peter Reinhart describes it. Stretch a piece of the dough so it thins out and becomes translucent. The dough should hold this easily. If not, he dough is too dry or too soft. You will know. Add flour or water as needed, knead it in and check again.



When the dough is ready, pat it with some cooking oil against drying out, then cover it and allow to rise for an hour or three. In my case an hour and twenty minutes was sufficient time for the dough to triple in volume.

Knead it down and shape it as required. I divided the dough into two equal pieces, shaped them and popped them into rectangular bread tins. This was covered with a damp cloth and allowed to proof until the dough was standing above the rims of the bread tins. This took about twenty minutes in the conditions prevailing in my kitchen.

Pop the loaves into a pre-heated oven at 230ºC/450ºF, spray a fine mist of water into the oven, leave to bake for five minutes, then spray water again. Turn the oven down to 190ºC/375ºF after ten minutes and bake the loaves for another thirty minutes. If you made thinner loaves, the baking time will be less, so do check on the baking progress towards the end.

These loaves had a decent oven spring and sprung to one and a half times their starting volume again in the oven. The crust was crisp and chewy, with a wonderful soft and springy crumb. The vegetable fat I use for shortening makes for a much slower drying-out rate, so the loaves last a bit longer than overnight.



However, if you have hungry teenagers or sailors around when the loaves come out the oven, I doubt that you will have to worry about the storage life of the loaves...

And remember, use real butter.


This blog post also linked to
Yeastspotting!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-12-14

Crossing Another Mental Hurdle: Multigrain Sourdough Loaf

Interesting how we all learn mostly from our own experience. Edward de Bono has written at length about the thinking process and thinking mistakes. And somewhere the idea emerges that problem solving is a process that will get you back to where you were. Progress requires different thinking.

And so it is with me too. I wrote a whole blog post describing a way to get out of a thinking rut in the realm of photography. Then, in the wee hours of the morning when everything is quiet except for the noises from the southeaster howling outside, it dawned on me that perhaps I am in a baking rut too. In a way of speaking.

Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing really wrong. But a definite feeling of having to do something new, something out of the ordinary.

Later that morning, after the early morning chores had been attended to, I opened my copy of Crust And Crumb by Peter Reinhart. The book is a veritable treasure trove on the various processes going on inside the dough. Worth reading several times and keeping it as a ready reference when planning your next loaf.

I decided on a multigrain sourdough loaf. Just for the difference in process and a new way of preparing the dough. I have never made bread that took longer than a morning or so, from preparing and kneading the dough until the baking is done. This was a going to be a first for me.

The project started off with feeding of the sourdough to wake it up. Then it was fed twice a day over two days. I decided on a biga style sourdough, which resembles a dough, rather than my normal batter-like sourdough. By the evening of the second day the biga was almost walking out of the refrigerator, so I popped it into the freezer. I had to slow things down a bit, as I was not going to stand kneading dough in the middle of the night!

The next morning the biga, now frozen solid, was taken out to thaw. I cut the block into smaller pieces to get it thawed quicker.

In the meantime I gathered the rest of the ingredients. Quite fun, as we do not normally have the ingredients listed in the recipe as standard items on our grocery list. However, the book says one is free to experiment. So I did.

I did have some left-over cooked basmati rice, which I used. Then I added some maize meal as the coarse corn flour part. Braaipap for my South African readers. You may substitute this with some corn flour that is used to make tortillas. We can't make tortillas with the maize meal we have here, and you can't make mieliepap with the stuff they sell in Mexico for making tortillas. But for this bread it is all about the flavours.

There were also semolina, rye flour, brown bread flour complete with some bran and rolled oatmeal in the multigrain mix. You may experiment, but keep it to the quantity listed in the recipe, otherwise you may find that the loaf is very brittle as a result of too little gluten in the mix. The ratios given in this recipe is an indication only, experiment to your heart's delight.

I also added two tablespoons of vegetable fat to the mix. This helps with keeping the bread from drying out too fast. It then lasts for some days instead of drying out overnight.

The instant yeast is just one sachet. Here in South Africa it comes in 6 gram sachets, which translates to 0.16 ounce. Bear in mind that there is already some very lively yeast cells working in the dough, so this is just a booster. As for the buttermilk, the recipe calls for ½ cup,which I doubled. This left me with a trickle of buttermilk in the container. Next time I shall add all of the buttermilk and adjust the water content in the dough. In the quantities I used, this will not make a huge difference.

In terms of the process, I tried to follow this within reason. Mixing is by hand, so is the kneading. The quantities given in my book were doubled to make three medium sized loaves.

This experiment resulted in the best sourdough loaves I have made to date. The multigrain content provides a palette of flavours, ending with a sweet after-taste. This bread also got discernibly sweeter the longer you chew on it. A wonderful recipe, definitely a keeper for me.

And now I have a much better understanding of how to treat my sourdough!

Ingredients

For the multigrain blend

¼ cup rye flour

½ cup rolled oats

¼ cup semolina

¼ cup brown bread flour

¼ cup maize meal

For the main dough

4 cups biga-style ferment

3 cups of unbleached white bread flour

1 ½ cups multigrain blend

4 tablespoons cooked basmati rice

4 tablespoons brown sugar

2 ½ teaspoons salt

6 gram instant yeast

1 cup buttermilk

3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons vegetable fat

½ to 1 cup of water

Some rolled oats for garnish on top

Some cooking oil to pat the dough against drying while rising.

Process

Mix the biga into the other ingredients. I normally add the vegetable fat only after a few minutes, giving the gluten time to develop. Otherwise you may also end with a brittle crumb in the loaf.

Knead the dough until it becomes satiny. You will find, as the book describes, that the dough is quite gritty in the beginning. This is due to the coarseness of the multigrain mixture. This coarseness will disappear as you knead. I follow the advice of Peter Reinhart by testing the dough for elasticity. He calls it the window-pane test. The dough should stretch to a translucent state and keep the thin membrane. If it doesn't, then it needs more kneading or the dough is too dry. I don't have fancy equipment or a controlled environment, so this look and feel method works for me.

Incidentally, from another source I learnt to taste the raw dough. If it does not have a pleasant taste, something is wrong. In my case, it is the quantity of salt. But this method works well. Pleasant tasting raw food normally results in very good tasting cooked food.

This dough is supposed to be about 65% hydration, so it is on the soft side, but still knead-able. This mix of mine came out nice and elastic and I was just able to fold it. This was left to rise for ninety minutes or so, by which time the volume had more than doubled. Remember to pat the dough with some cooking oil against drying out during the first rise.

I folded this a few times without jarring it to get it back to the almost the original volume. This ball of dough was then divided into three balls. These balls were shaped by rolling and folding them into a flat cylinder shape to fit the bread pan.

I used greased bread pans and then dabbed some oil on the tops of the loaves again. These were left to rise until the dough protruded above the bread pan rims. Add some rolled oats as garnish and pop these into the oven.

I nowadays use both top and bottom elements in my oven, no fan, and I spray some water into the oven. These loaves were baked in the oven pre-heated to 230ºC /450ºF for ten minutes, then the temperature was turned down to 175ºC /350ºF for the rest of the baking period of forty five minutes to one hour. The oven was misted on introduction of the loaves, then again at ten minutes and fifteen minutes. Depending on the shape and size of your loaves, the baking time may vary. Check after forty five minutes to see if the loaves have baked through. They sound hollow when tapped and should have a nicely browned crust.

Turn them out to cool for an hour before slicing them. They are full of steam and quite brittle when they emerge from the oven, so don't be tempted to slice them. You may just spoil a very good loaf into a brittle mess.

And remember, use real butter!

This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-12-11

Day 43: Last Sourdough Twists In The Caribbean

Today is the last day of the long legs of our voyage. We are sailing past the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean at the time of writing this.

In weather that is very hot and humid, the only respite from the heat being the breeze caused by our moving through the air. There is literally no wind to speak of. Not even the famous zephyrs that the Vaal dam sailors in inland South Africa know so well.



My last watch will be tonight from 00h00 to 03h00. During this time my last baking efforts for this voyage will come into fruition when the loaves are baked. This will be the last use of the oven before decommissioning prior to handover. The refrigerator is almost empty, ditto for the freezer.
Slowly but surely we are packing away all loose personal items and getting everything in order to clean up and hand over the boat.

This period in the voyage always comes with some nostalgia. You are now handing over your child, which you so very carefully looked after and nursed through sickness and health, to some foreigner.
Enough of nostalgia. Hungry sailors also need to eat. So we turn again to the age old staple:

Sourdough bread.

This time around I decided on a similar dough than the challah I made earlier on the voyage. As this is the last baking of the voyage and we still have a night sail to Tortola, I decided to make two loaves. Hopefully they will last long enough!



The dough is again quite soft. I started with the last of my sourdough, ditching about half of it as the gluten in the flour was already consumed. Half a cup of white bread flour was fed to this, along with enough water to make it just runny.

After leaving this starter to ferment for six hours, I mixed in the rest of the ingredients, barring two cups of flour and the currants. This quite soft, almost runny dough was left for another seven hours to ferment before the next mixing and kneading.

The last ferment was left for five odd hours before final shaping and proofing. Final proof was four hours.


Shaping was done by making four long snakes and twisting them in pairs, as opposed to the three stranded braid of a challah. The loaves were cut on top to facilitate even oven spring, and basted with some whisked egg white.


These were baked at 230ºC/450ºF for twenty minutes. The oven was turned down to 190ºC/375ºF after twenty minutes and the loaves turned back to front to facilitate even baking in the small oven.



Ingredients

For the starter

½ cup sourdough
½  cup white bread flour
Mix and allow to ferment for at least six hours

For the main ferment

All the starter as above
2 cups brown bread flour
3 cups white bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 eggs
1 egg yolk (The white is kept aside for the basting)
4 dessert spoons brown sugar
1-2 dessert spoon vegetable fat
2 cups water

Mix all the above thoroughly. The consistency should be almost runny, too runny to knead. Cover and allow to ferment until double in volume. This took some seven hour in my case.





For the last ferment

All of the above
1 cup white bread flour
1 cup brown bread flour
½ cup blackcurrants

Mix all of the above thoroughly. The dough should now be still soft, but foldable if not kneadable. Fold for ten to fifteen minutes until the dough is satiny and quite elastic. It should not be sticky any more.

Pat with some cooking oil against drying out, cover and put aside to ferment until double in volume.
Take the dough out, turn out onto a floured kneading board to rest for fifteen minutes, then divide into two loaves and do final shaping. Try not to degas the dough. I opted for a twisted format, so there was quite a bit of handling of the dough.

Allow the shaped loaves to ferment at least another hour before baking. They should be at least 1½ time their original volume.

Baste with beaten egg white, slice the tops to facilitate even oven spring, then pop them into the oven. Bake for twenty minutes at 230ºC/450ºF, then turn the oven down to 190ºC/375ºF. Turn the loaves back to front to facilitate even baking and bake them for at least another twenty minutes. Check for through baking. The loaves should make a hollow sound and should be reasonably crisp on the outside.

Remove the loaves from the oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Allow at least forty minutes for these to cool before slicing them. Don't worry, they will still be warm!


Well, as you may have noticed, I wrote most of this before the loaves went into the oven. This is where the twister became a real twister. The dough rose beyond comprehension and I had to do the shaping much sooner than anticipated. The dough was quite soft still, too soft, in fact.

But I did not heed any warning.

So it appears that the dough has morphed into something alien. Or is the proper word “mutated”? Whatever the case, the dough dripped through the oven grid between popping the loaves into the oven and the end of oven spring. Much like something escaping from one of the lesser known planets in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Perhaps I should write Peter Reinhart about this alien effect. Or perhaps just send him a link to this blog post...

The two loaves became one in the oven, restricting the air flow and thus the proper baking. The shapes of  the loaves were completely lost, but the taste remained.

There is a lesson in here somewhere, I think.

But then I got hungry.

Fresh bread is always wonderful.

And remember, use real butter.




This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-11-06

Day 37: Laid Back Boule

The wind at last dropped us. This after sailing continuously for over sixteen days, running the motors only to charge the batteries.

I had the 03h00 to 06h00 watch this morning, which saw the last of the wind disappearing. We are now about 450 miles from Barbados, three days' worth of sailing. At this time of year we are almost into hurricane season still. The weather certainly looks ominous enough. Real Halloween stuff, in tune with the date.


But not to worry, we have weather info at the end of a telephone call. I still like to observe the cloud and wind patterns, though. It is like being really at sea and understanding your environment. A telephone call does not impart understanding, it is a short cut. To me, far better to make observations and an associated prediction, then confirm your predictions via the telephone. One lives closer to your environment in this fashion.

The sky was quite clear this morning, hardly a cloud in the sky. This is tropical holiday weather. Clear, sunny skies in the morning, with some thunderclouds building in the afternoon, making for very romantic sunsets. Pity we are not on holiday with our loved ones. But is still a blessing to live through these experiences.

I had clear sights of the sun and horizon, so I decided to forego the dead reckoning adjustment from the previous set of dead reckoning data. Proper sun shots, taken with care provide better data than a rushed sun shot through a hazy cloud. Which is what I managed to do after writing the blog post yesterday.

This paid off in that I got a proper fix with 12 nm difference to the GPS. In fact, my dead reckoning position and the final fix basically bracketed the GPS fix. QED.

Having made dinner last night, today is my day off. I had the two twilight watches today, sunrise and sunset. It carries a message to relax and take it easy.

But it was also baking day again. I decided to make a real rustic loaf in boule shape. Heavy with coarse brown bread flour, this serves as a proper meal. I normally have mine with butter only. Real butter. There is no substitute for the taste of real butter.

This loaf has just the basic ingredients of water, flour, salt, fat and yeast. Nothing else. The caraway seeds on top counts for garnish only. I decided to go the full hog with this loaf, making the dough on the dry side and having three sets of proofing. These are the first rise, then the second rise after kneading it down, followed by the final proofing after shaping.

This loaf was also allowed more time for final proofing than the previous ones I made on this voyage. Just for the learning experience. The loaf responded well and rose to double the original size. The oven in this case was set to 230ºC /450ºF for the first fifteen minutes, then turned down to 190ºC /375ºF for another forty minutes. I found on the previous occasions that similar loaves did not caramelise enough on top and the crumb seemed a bit doughy to my taste, so I am upping the baking regime this time. Perhaps this one may over-bake a bit, which is manageable, I reasoned. Just check for status towards the end, I argued.



Ingredients


2 ½ cups unbleached stone ground white bread flour

2 ½ cups unbleached stone ground brown bread flour

10 g ( 1 sachet) instant yeast

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 dessert spoon vegetable fat

2 cups water

2 teaspoons caraway seeds for garnish

Some flour for dusting the kneading board and the baking sheet

1 dessert spoon cooking oil for patting


Process


Mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly, then add one cup of the water. Mix through, then add the rest of the water until the dough has a knead-able consistency on the dry side. Allow this dough to rest for five minutes, then add the vegetable fat. Mix through, then turn out on a well-floured kneading board. Knead until the dough is quite elastic and satiny, then form into a flat ball. The dough should keep this shape quite easily. Pat the dough with oil against drying out and set to rise for at least an hour, but mostly until doubled in volume.

Turn the dough out on a floured kneading board and allow to rest for five minutes. Knead it back to the original volume, form into a ball and set to rise until doubled in volume again. Turn this dough out on the kneading board, allow to rest, then shape into the final shape without degassing the ball.


I chose a boule shape, for the rustic character of the intended loaf. This one is supposed to be a real artisan loaf, so I went with the traditional shape too.


Spread the caraway seeds on top, making sure that they stick. I had to press them down a bit. Allow this final shaped loaf to proof for another thirty minutes, then turn on the oven. I allowed about eight minutes for the oven to heat up. Make some cuts on top to allow for oven spring. I went for the traditional square pattern on the round boule, but any cuts will do. Just make sure that they are just through the crust, not too deep. The loaf may deflate.

Pop this loaf into the oven at 230ºC /450ºF. Allow to bake for fifteen minutes, then turn the oven down to 190ºC /375ºF. For another forty five minutes. Turn the loaf around after twenty minutes to allow for even baking on all sides.


Check for baking status: the loaf should be crisp on the outside with a hollow sound when tapped. After the loaf is fully baked, remove it from the oven and turn out on a cooling rack. Cool for at least forty minutes, this one is quite thick and will take longer to cool.


Then slice and enjoy. Remember, again: Use real butter!

　


PS – I had to wait until my night watch-keeping slot before having a taste of this one. It came out beautifully spongy and dense without being heavy. The crust was nice and chewy. And the taste was quite sweet, in spite of not having any sugar in the mix. A result of allowing sufficient proofing time and long enough rest after baking?


You tell me.

　


This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

　


Authored by Johan Zietsman



Last updated on 2013-10-31

Day 33: A Sourdough Loaf And Good Navigation

I like it when a plan comes together.

The famous line from the original A-team television series. Today, for me, it is pertinent at last.

My navigation studies are paying off. Methods proposed in the text book and applied as suggested has now started to pay off. The differences between my fixes and the associated GPS fixes are now into single figures. A statistical trend, at last. I shall certainly work hard at keeping it in a converging phase.

It does take some decent concentration and judgement on boat speed and effective direction. Course made good over a twenty-four hour period. The ships chart plotter will give it to you, but that sort of defeats the object of the exercise, does it not? So far, I am getting used to judging the boat speed from the condition of the wake and so on. The effect of the current is very difficult to guess, but the statistical method of applying a correction to the next DR position using the previous fix' data helps a lot.



You get lies, damn lies and then statistics, goes the tongue-in-cheek adage. Well, in my case statistical methods have helped me. And I have come across the same statistical methods in active and adaptable control system theory. Talk of cross pollination and integration of knowledge areas.

Today was also baking day. The loaf of choice was a sourdough loaf. This is actually quite challenging, as we have over 32ºC/86ºF weather with a relative humidity of a tad over 70%. This makes for interesting side effects when mixing the dough. Add to this the building of the starter and the proofing and you easily end up with a runny dough.


Today I had exactly such a runny mess after the first phase of building the starter. Then I realised that I used brown bread flour instead of white bread flour. This all happened in the dead of night on my watch. Quite handy when you have to work watches and you are in a baking mood. Both require you to be awake at odd hours.


The yeast did not like the coarser flour with the added fiber  but nevertheless ate away merrily at the available starch. This morning, after coming off watch, I realized my mistake and fed the starter again, this time with the proper flour. I got an immediate response and the starter doubled in volume in three hours. Not bad for a wild yeast.



I proceeded to feed the starter one more time, basically making up the final mix. This included some wild onions seeds ( Nigella sativa) and salt. I also added a the vegetable fat after allowing five odd minutes for the dough to develop gluten. This dough was quite wet, but just dry enough to knead, rather than fold.


It is quite difficult to judge the water content when working like this, so I judge by the handling qualities of the dough. I add water or flour until I have a consistency that I like and know.

After kneading the dough until it became satiny and quite elastic, the dough was patted with a thin layer of cooking oil, covered and put aside to rise. My "proofing bin" on board is the bottom of the cupboard in the galley. At least the temperature there is stable and perhaps less than 30ºC. The dough rose to double the volume in just over 90 minutes.

This was shaped and left to rest in the cold oven for half an hour for final proofing. This dough sagged a bit in the heat, but did increase in volume. Perhaps I shall have to look into making a drier dough next time around. This loaf was dabbed with egg white and a sprinkling of grated cheese before baking. Baking at 190ºC/350ºF for 45 minutes produced a crispy loaf nicely baked through. There were some uneven fermentation holes, which is what I strive for when baking with sourdough. The crust was nice and crisp with some elasticity and chewiness, while the crumb was quite spongy. There was just a hint of sourness, which is heartening, as I battled to get a less sour product from my efforts. This one came out the way I intended.


Ingredients

Making the starter


½ cup sourdough mush

1 ½ cup white bread flour

1 cup water


Mix thoroughly and allow to ferment at least six hours. You need to see many bubbles as the mix ferments.

Building the starter

Use all of the above and add another 1 ½ cup of flour and ½ cup of water. The mixture should just not be runny. Allow this to ferment until at least double the volume. In the conditions aboard here just off the Amazon river delta, this took just three hours.



Final mix

Use all of the product you made, then add the following:

2 cups white bread flour

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon wild onion seeds

1 dessert spoon vegetable fat

yolk of one egg

1-2 cups water on standby

Mix this lot thoroughly, adding water to make the dough just mixable, then allow to rest for five minutes. Now mix in the vegetable fat and start kneading. Add water or flour in small quantities as required to adjust the consistency. I know that the tyro bakers out there will balk at this, but we are in a rather primitive environment baking equipment-wise.

Knead the dough until it gets satiny and elastic, pat with some cooking oil, cover and set to final rise. This lot doubled in volume in 90 minutes.

Turn out the dough on a kneading board and allow to rest for five minutes. Now shape the dough into the final shape, trying not to degas the dough. At this stage I dabbed some egg white on top and sprinkled some grated cheese on top of that.

The final proofing for this loaf was half an hour plus the time it took for the oven to heat up. Baking at 190ºC/350ºF for 45 minutes produced the loaf as described.


Allow the loaf to cool for at least half an hour. This one was on the flat side, so it cooled perhaps a bit faster than a thick loaf would.

And use real butter.

　

　


This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman


Last updated on 2013-10-27

Day 25: A Squall And Challah

　

Today started with a squall for me. I was on watch from 03h00 to 06h00. The squall hit us just after 04h30 when dawn was strong in the air and I had switched off my headlamp and stowed it away. At this time one also turns up the display brightness on the instrument panel at the helm to have a legible display for the daylight conditions.

The squall was relatively short-lived and not too strong. I shortened sail as a precautionary measure, but the wind never went over 25 knots across the deck. We were happily sailing along at four and a half knots during the brunt of the squall. I got rained on a bit and cold, just cold enough to make my teeth chatter. The rain didn't make an impression, as I had ample time to fetch my rain jacket. In fact, the rain was not worth breaking out the shower kit.

Luckily it was getting close to breakfast and some food. I did have a hot chocolate, though. Life is not that Ascetic aboard this delivery vessel!

I did break out the shower kit later in the afternoon, though. I took a hand bucket shower on the aft deck to get rid of the built-up grime from the very humid weather we are having the last two days.


I also had some opportunity during the afternoon to take my normal sun sights but through some clouds. Again, I proved to myself that sun sights through clouds, no matter how thin they seem, are not a good idea. My calculations differed from the GPS.by 13 miles, even though the readings were close together.

I am still hoping for a clear morning to take some star sights. Haven't done that for ages. I shall have to use the reference chart to find the stars again! For now, the moon is in any case so bright that star sights are almost out of the question.

Today was also baking day again. I made challah, just for the heck of it. Challah is a European bread from the Middle East, baked by the Jewish people for celebrations. It is a rich bread and quite suited to special occasions. I decided the occasion is special enough. Baking day in the middle of the Atlantic sounds special enough.

The recipe was adapted from the recipe given by Peter Reinhart in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It is most certainly worth the little extra effort.

I followed the basic procedural instructions but had to adapt the ingredients. I used vegetable fat instead of oil. And the flour for my loaf was a mixture of white and brown bread flour, both stone ground, unbleached, whole wheat flour. Having no sesame seeds on board, I used some currants in the dough. The currants are also used for coleslaw, but that is a different story.

This is by far the most successful loaf I have made. The crust came out a beautiful golden brown colour and was crisp yet chewy. The crumb was soft and elastic, with a sweetish taste and full of flavour. The flavour improved with each chew. Just like Peter Reinhart, the author of the book, remarks.


With this loaf, I should be able to buy somebody's birthright, almost like in the Old Testament. Certainly, the loaf was very popular with my shipmates, who devoured most of it within half an hour.

These wonderful flavours develop as part of the enzyme action due to the process of making the loaf, not so much the ingredients. But I now am a firm believer in the qualities of unbleached, whole grain flour.

I have an electronic copy of Peter Reinhart's book, therefore I have no page reference. A copy is obtainable from amazon.com here. I list the ingredients again for ease of the reader. The original recipe is in the book. I used volumetric measures, as we don't have scales on board. At least not the weighing kind. And at present not even the fishy kind. But that is yet another story.

The specific baker's formula can be obtained from the recipe in the book. This is the Hungry Sailor version.



Ingredients for the Hungry Sailor's version

2 cups stone-ground unbleached whole grain brown bread flour

2 ½ cups stone-ground unbleached whole grain white bread flour

4 dessert spoons sugar

1 sachet (10g) instant yeast

1 ½ teaspoons salt

2 large eggs, beaten slightly

1 large egg yolk, beaten slightly

2 dessert spoons vegetable fat

1 large egg white, stirred to a froth for egg wash

¼ cup currants

1cup water

 

 

Process

This loaf has a three-stage rising and proofing profile. The dough is mixed, then there is the first rise. The dough is then kneaded down to degas and left to rise for the second rise or proofing. After this comes the last stage of shaping, then final proofing before baking.

Furthermore, the vegetable fat is added only after the gluten has formed. This makes a difference to the elasticity of the crumb in the end, so it is important to follow the procedure carefully.

Stir together the dry ingredients. Leave the currants aside for the moment. Mix half of the water with the beaten eggs and egg yolk. Pour this into the dry flour and mix thoroughly. Add a little water as required. The dough is supposed to have less than 50% hydration, so be careful of too much water. Mix the dough, then let it stand for five minutes before adding the fat. Knead in the fat, then knead for another ten minutes to develop the gluten further. Pat with cooking oil, cover, and leave to rise for an hour or so. The dough needs to at least double in size.

Of course, this is the part where I went to sleep after my shift on watch, so the dough more than tripled in volume in the two intervening hours of my slumbers.


No problem, I just kneaded the ball down to where it started. At this stage, I added the currants. Pat the dough down into a flat rectangle, then spread some currants on half of the dough. Fold the dough over the currants, then repeat until all the currants have been added. Shape the dough into a ball, cover, and leave to rise for another hour or until it has risen to 1½ times the volume again.

On the boat, this took about an hour. I stow the dough in a plastic salad bowl with a lid, inside the galley cupboard. At least the temperature is very stable and constant there. I have measured it at 27ºC. I suspect that this may be the seawater temperature around here.

When the dough has now reached the final volume, the final shaping can commence. I chose to make a braided loaf. Divide the dough into three pieces, roll each piece into a sausage tapered at both ends and braid them. Start the braid in the middle. This is the traditional way.

Or roll the dough into a long snake and coil it. Or shape into a boule. Whatever. Exercise your final creative urge and form a loaf from the ball of dough.

Dab some egg wash over the top of the shaped loaf and leave it to rest while the oven heats up. Then baste some more egg wash on top before popping the loaf into the oven. Add some poppy or sesame seeds now. I used the currants, mixed in earlier.

The oven should be at 190ºC/350ºF. For want of a proper baking sheet or parchment, I use a piece of aluminum foil as a baking sheet, but it is a bit flimsy. Next trip I shall have a baking sheet.


Bake the loaf for twenty minutes, then turn it about so that it may evenly bake on all sides. Bake for another twenty to thirty minutes, then remove from the oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Allow the loaf to cool for at least an hour. The crumb is very brittle at this stage and the loaf will easily break into several pieces if handled roughly.


Bon appetit!

Remember to use real butter. I had to fight off the rest of my shipmates to allow the loaf to cool properly.


Three-quarters of this loaf was consumed within half an hour. I don't think the rest of the loaf will last through the night...





　


This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!


Authored by Johan Zietsman


Last updated on 2013-10-19