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

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 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 19: Sunday Sourdough Loaf

At last the wind came. We still have a cloudy sky, but now we have about 13 knots of wind over the quarter, meaning we are sailing.

A peaceful and quiet Sunday afternoon. I am alone on watch, Everyone else is taking a lie-in, leaving me with some me-time. Normally we would have a game of rummy or the Monopoly Deal card game going, but today seems to be unanimously declared a rest day.

I was able to get some decent sun sights this morning just before noon. These reduced to a fix which was about 10 miles away from the GPS at the time. Persistence pays after all, I guess. The trick is not to let the inaccuracies get into your ego. Eckhart Tolle in the Power of Now has a point after all. Don't get dejected.

I also baked the first sourdough loaf of the voyage. The starter was described in my previous blog post. The final dough was mixed and kneaded last night at around 23h00 and left to rise overnight.

This morning I checked the status and found that the dough had risen to about double the volume, but was sagging too much to my preference. So I added half a cup of flour and folded this into the dough. The dough was too soft to knead, so I just folded it many times. The soft dough makes a very nice loaf, but, being almost runny, I am dearly missing a proofing basket on board. A proofing basket of sorts or a baking tin would help to keep the shape.


The new mix was left to rise for another two hours after shaping before I popped it into the oven preheated to 210ºC . The loaf was baked for forty minutes, being turned around 180 degrees after twenty minutes. The oven on the boat is quite small and the loaf on the large side, so it tends to bake more on the one side.


This loaf was made with some wild onion seeds, some real onion, grated, and some grated cheese. The onion is grated, rather than chopped in order to get it fine enough.

Take care with the amount of water. The onion is quite juicy and will add more water than you may think, making the dough too soft. I had to add some flour after the first rise to get the dough stable enough to shape. You add the onion at the main mix and the cheese just before shaping, Otherwise the cheese gets broken into vey fine bits and you lose the texture.

The vegetable fat I use goes by the brand name Holsum in South Africa. I believe that one can also use the stuff that is sold as original margarine.

The other part of the story here is that this method will get the yeast part of the sourdough growing fast and furious, while the slower acting lactobaccilli will be left behind. This has the effect of making the end result less sour.

I have had the occasion where the loaf came out quite sour. While this is good on the odd occasion, not everyone likes a very sour bread.

This loaf and flavours by request from the skipper on the grounds of having had such a loaf on a previous trip. I feel honoured, I have a fan!

Ingredients

For the starter

½ cup sourdough mother

1 cup stone ground brown bread flour

1 cup stone ground white bread flour

1 cup water

For the main dough

1 ½ cup stone ground white bread flour

1 cup brown bread flour

1 teaspoon wild onion seeds ( koolonj/ Nigella Sativa)

½ onion, grated

½ cup grated cheese

1 ½ teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons sugar

1 dessert spoon vegetable fat

about ½ cup water

Process

For the starter

Mix the lot and leave to ferment for six hours. The starter will increase in volume, but not necessarily double. The critical point here is to ensure that the mix is thoroughly fermenting. Mine had large bubbles.

For the main dough

Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly. Rub in the vegetable fat and then the grated onion. Add the starter to this and mix thoroughly. Add a little water at a time so that you end up with a soft dough that you can almost knead. Fold the dough and press down, then fold again, keep on doing this until the dough is elastic and satiny.

Now flatten the dough, sprinkle some of the grated cheese on one third, then fold the dough to cover the cheese. Continue with this until you have folded all the cheese into the dough. Pat the dough with some cooking oil to prevent drying out, then store it in a cool place to rise. Here you need to have at least double the volume before proceeding to shaping and baking.

After the dough has risen, shape it into the required shape. Take care not to degas the dough, else you will end up with a flat, hard loaf. Allow two hours of proofing time before baking this loaf in an oven preheated to 230ºC. I checked the loaf after twenty minutes and turned it to allow even baking on all sides. Then I allowed another twenty minutes of baking before switching the oven off.


The loaf was left in the closed oven to develop flavour and to cool slowly. After another ten minutes I turned the loaf out on a cooling rack for final cooling. Leave the loaf to cool for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer. During this time the steam evaporates and the elasticity comes to the crumb.

Remember to use real butter.

Bon appetit!



This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-10-13

Day 18: Some Sun And A Sourdough Starter

Today the weather cleared for the afternoon and we actually saw some sun. The first welcome heat in a long while. I was beginning to feel like Samuel Coleridge Taylor's Ancient Mariner:

“ The Sun now rose upon the right
Out of the sea came he
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.”

Quite to the point, I would venture. We are, after all, sailing more or less in a northern direction, if a bit skewed to the west. I never could figure how the peots of old received theeir muse, until I actually crossed an ocean. Combine that with Eckhard Tolle's The Power of Now and you have a life's lesson in understanding your universe.

Andd I mean the psychological one specifically. I have carried on at length about the external influences in normal urban and well developed environment. Today I had yet another clear moment, so to speak, about these influences. The absence of the city's  overload of input data gives one some time to deal with your inner self and your ego.

According to Tolle the ego is the center and origin of all fears. Having to deal with Nature out here allows an elegant transition ninto the acceptance of what is, and dealing with it psychologically. That, is to observe the ego and yet not to yield to the prompts from the ego. In that way one gets some rest, as the ego then subsides and goes to rest.

The cloudy weather is specifically a case in point. There is clearly no way to influence the weather to change. So, you need to change your outlook and just accept it. And live in the Now.

I started a sourdough loaf today. This time around I am following a different approach. The mother sourdough was in the fridge, so I took it out and simply stirred it up and fed it half a cup of the intended flour, with a little water to make it runny. Then I made the starter using half of the flour for the intended loaf. This was left to develop and grow for seven hours. Basically the starter needs to double in volume before the next step. Nice and slow, nothing hurried here.

Much like Eckardt Tolle proposes.

The next step would be to make up the final mix dough. This will be later tonight. After kneading, the dough will be left in the bottom of the cupboard to rise. I am planning for at least eight hours' worth of rise time, but we need to wait and see. Again going with the flow.

I have had success with this approach in the past. The cool weather actually helps a bit here, since the rise time will be slower, giving more time for flavour to develop through enzyme action. I am also following the general direction given by Peter Reinhart in his book The Bread Baker's Apprentice for the basic sourdough loaf. Except that this one will have some real onion and cheese as well as some wild onion seeds (Koolonj /Nigella Sativa).

The interseting part here is that almost all of the preparation is happening in the middle of the night to coincide with my watchkeeping duties. This is part of the beauty of using a slow fermenting yeast. It takes a long time between stages of development of the dough.And the effort in the active parts is really not that much.

 The resulting loaf is quite worth the effort and the planning that goes into the production. But the best part is in the eating. On this trip I actually have to take turns with Bianca, our lady crew member, to have the first end crust bit of the loaf. Luckil;y the rest of the crew are not partial to that specific piece. To me, the first crusty slice is the best part of the bread. And the crust must be crisp and chewy. Lately my efforts seem to bear fruit in that the crust comes out a beautiful brown colour and is quite crisp.

Hmmmm...

Watch the next blog post for the finale.

Our fishing efforts took a turn for the better today. Perhaps in a roundabout way, I should add. Just as the sun came out. All three of the fishermen lost a lure to violent takes, to the great mirth of the fourth crew member.

Yet another lesson in just going with the flow and gracefully accepting laughter from a female spectator.

Talk about dented male egos!



Authored by Johan Zietsman


Last updated on 2013-10-12

 

 

Is Light Sourdough Bread A Myth?

Perhaps the holy grail of all bakers: how to make a light loaf. This prize has been escaping me for a while now. Even after extensive consultation and blatant, overt picking of brains, my loaves came out on the heavy side. Whatever yeast I was using, the problem remained. Sometimes the loaves did come out reasonably light, but not light enough to my taste.

That is, until two days ago. I reasoned that the problem did not lie in my understanding of the oven and heat flow, nor was it vested in the ingredients. Therefore the problem had to lie in the process. So I sat myself down and started thinking.

I do knead the dough enough. Kneading for fifteen minutes appears to be OK. The starter or sponge also appears to be OK, with lots of large fermentation bubbles. So does the first rise, with a volume increase to almost triple the original volume.

So the problem should lie after that part of the process. After another round of consultation with my baker friends, I realised that I am treating the dough too harshly after the second rise and the loaves simply fall flat.

A bit like “listen to your Grandma, lest she box your ears like she did in your younger days.”

I then made up another batch of dough, following my normal mixing and rising regime. This time I allowed a full ten minute rest after turning the dough out on the kneading board. The dough was then gently folded. It was a soft dough after all. No added flour except for that which the dough picked up from the kneading board.

This lot was then split into two small humps and formed into loaves. These went straight into the bread pans and then back into the cold oven for the second rise of four hours.

This time I hit pay-dirt. The loaves rose perfectly. I took them out of the oven to allow the oven to get up to heat of 190ºC/ 374ºF before baking. My bread likes to go into a hot oven with some steam or a cup of boiling water in the bottom of the oven.

The loaves baked for 35 minutes and was then summarily taken out of the oven and turned out to cool on a cooling rack.

Tapping the loaves already gave me the right indication of success with a nice hollow sound. After cooling, the loaves were nice and spongy to springy, not hard.

And the proof was in the cutting of the first slice. Very light and airy. The lightest loaf I ever baked. A lesson well learnt, albeit the hard way.

Now for a repeat performance. In sourdough baking, the learning never stops.

This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-07-20

Baking Sourdough Ciabatta After Consulting My Baker Gurus

Perhaps I should have called this post 'Making Headway Against The Vagaries of A wild Sourdough.' But this is not a lamentation.

I actually have two experienced bakers to consult. Not too shabby. So between the two sets of advice and my trusted copy of Classic Sourdoughs, Revised by Ed Wood and the late Jane Wood, I set out on my next affray into the wonderful world of baking with sourdough.

I have the oven temperature and the spritzing with water under proper control. Ditto for the dough mix. And I am getting a wonderful fermentation of the starter as well as the main rise. I mix about a cupful of the mother with another cupful of flour for the starter, adding just enough water to make the starter somewhat runny. I go with personal judgement on quantities; this is worth about two cups of dough in the final mix, so I am not too worried about exact quantities.

This lot is left out on the kitchen counter for six hours or so. I judge readiness for the main mix by the size and quantity of fermentation bubbles in the starter. The starter should look quite spongy with bubbles bigger than 6mm (1/4”) The main mix is a different story, though.

The main mix consists of the starter plus two cups of white bread flour and two cups of stone ground, whole wheat brown bread flour. Long words, but the mix here is more critical to the end result. I add just enough water to make a soft dough. This dough is folded, not kneaded. I keep at it for at least ten minutes. The dough becomes sticky, then elastic. I keep on folding for another five to ten minutes.

This time the main mix included two dessert spoons of olive oil in addition to two teaspoons of salt. After all, ciabatta being Italian, there has to be olive oil for the fatty  or oily part of the ingredients. This to make the bread more elastic, was the advice. The main rise was overnight in the oven. My oven being the most controlled place in terms of temperature, even though it is switched off.

In this case, I tried a new approach. The ambient temperature in the house is around 18ºC (64ºF). I understand that one wants to have a warm atmosphere for the first part of the fermentation, then something colder for the last part. Well, not having a large refrigerator, I made a rudimentary plan.

I patted the ball of dough with olive oil against drying out, then put the dough in the mixing bowl with the lid on. This lot went into the cold oven. I then switched on the oven to get the temperature up to 50ºC (122ºF). When the oven was up to temperature, I simply switched it off again. This gave me an elevated temperature for at least six hours, cooling down gradually overnight. This was a very successful experiment. The dough rose to almost triple the original volume in twelve hours.


I turned the dough out on the kneading board and let it rest for a while before kneading it down prior to the second rise. This mix appeared to be a bit runny still, so I kneaded in another ¾ cup of flour. This got the dough into a consistency more to my preference for this stage. The second rise was for four hours, during which the dough again more than doubled in volume. I considered this as positive feedback from nature on my process!

The dough was then formed into two flattish loaves. I divided the dough, then flattened each half and rolled then loosely into a flat loaf. The idea was to catch more air bubbles in the dough during the loose rolling. This worked well. The two loaves were rested for the time it took to get the oven up to temperature. This time I used a lower heat than before, around 180ºC (350ºF). The advice from my baker friends was that the loaves are thick and therefore need time to heat up and bake inside.

I heeded the advice and was pleasantly surprised with the result. This was also one of the few times ever that I started the loaves in a hot oven. Normally I would start from a cold oven, reasoning that there would be more time for oven spring as the oven got hotter. However, this last experience indicates that a hot oven from the start works better. I still have a small steel cup with boiling water in the oven to provide steam. This works well.

The loaves rose a little in the oven at the beginning. They came out very nicely browned, with a chewy crust and a reasonably airy crumb. The flour mix was just right and the flavour wonderful.


My next experiment would be to get these loaves lighter. I have some ideas. Come visit again, we are having fun!

This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-07-14

Fresh rolls on the griddle

GBYC sunset

I recently had a few bright moments. At least, I think I had. Those moments when you are overcome with a sudden surge of hate for the daily drudgery and just knowing that it is time for something else.

In this instance I had the idea of shaking off all the ingrained inhibitions of a blogger of carefully planning, inventing and preparing a dish. Reworking the recipe and so on.

Drudgery at its best.

We have a regular Wednesday night braai (barbecue for my overseas friends) at the local yacht club.  “We” being a circle of friends and fellow sailors. There we literally share the food. One piece of meat is cooked at a time, whether it be sausage or a well matured steak. This is then cut into bite size slices and dished out. Then the next piece of meat goes on the griddle. And so on. Rather like a very South African dry fondue, if you will.

Dough turned out to rest

The meat is accompanied by a piece of bread. I would like to use the word “slice,” but in this case a piece of the bread is literally broken off, rolled around the slice of meat and eaten just like that. Using your bare hands.

Of course, the other hand is holding a glass of some decent red wine. A wonderful occasion indeed.

Enter my bright moment. I decided to try an experiment. Baking dinner rolls on the griddle.

Now, there is nothing new about this concept, except that I have not done this before. I have made lots of cakes using self raising or normal flour, salt and water. No yeast.

“Twisters” I think the Aussies call them. Roll the dough into a snake, then roll the snake around a suitable stick and cook it over the fire. Remove from the stick, fill the hole with a sausage and you have a wonderful camp hot dog.

I used to made patties and put them directly on the griddle. Useful addition to your camp braai.

Dough roll cut into wheels

But on this occasion it was time for sticking my neck out a bit. Proper dinner rolls made with yeast, cooked on the fire, no oven in sight.

Although they came out perfect, there is a caveat. The heat needs to be controlled well, else you will end up with a roll that is well cooked to a nice tan colour outside, while being raw inside.

Part B of the problem lies in the shape of the roll. If it is too thick you may end up with same result as for too much heat. 

Wheels after second rise.

The message is very clear: Very low heat and rolls that resemble patties rather than rolls. Mine was just thick enough to be very difficult too cook. Bear in mind that you may end with nice fresh rolls that comes after the rest of the food has been consumed.

That is the third part of the caveat: You need to have these things cooked along with the rest of the food.

Of course, you can always just pop them in the oven before the time if you are at home. But the beauty of these lies in the fact that the final preparation is done in the presence of the guests.

The recipe is quite simple. I adapted a standard recipe from the multitude available on the internet. A baker friend taught me that any bread needs flour, salt, some oil or fat, some sugar, yeast and water. I added two eggs as well. Most of the dinner roll recipes have eggs in them.

Almost too thick for  cooking on the griddle

Ingredients

½ cup stone ground rye flour
½ cup white bread flour
2 cups stone ground brown bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 dessert spoons brown sugar
50 grams butter
2 large eggs
1½ cups lukewarm water
1 dessert spoon instant yeast. That is one sachet
Some cooking oil to seal the dough for rising.

This idea worked

Process

Mix the dry ingredients, leaving out the yeast. Melt the butter and rub it into the flour mix. Now add the yeast. Add the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly. Add the water a little at a time and mix until you 
get a soft dough that does not stick to your hands.

The dough can now be turned out onto a kneading surface and kneaded for ten minutes. Not just until it is nice and elastic, like I used to. No sirree, the full ten minutes. Then you get proper gluten.

After this I patted the dough into a roll with hands wet with cooking oil to seal it, put it into my mixing bowl and popped it straight into the boot of my car to rise. The weather here is quite cool, so I parked the car in the sun and left the dough to rise for three hours. This is a bit long, but there was no harm done. The dough may have subsided a little due to the colder late afternoon air, but it was still more than double the original volume.

I patted down the dough ever so gently, then squashed it into a rectangle. The rectangle was loosely rolled up from the short side to make a dough roll. This was cut into wheels and left to rise for the second rise.

Here is where the second caveat kicks in. You need to cut the wheels on the thin side, so that they are just the right thickness after the second rise. Mine was on the edge of being too thick, so they rose magnificently and ended almost too thick too cook on the griddle.

This idea didn't

Allow half an hour for the second rise, then pop the rolls on the griddle. The heat must be minimal, especially in the beginning. This allows time for the heat to penetrate the roll so they can cook on the inside. Remember, this is on an open fire or coals.
After all this, with the other guests standing chafing at the bit, this batch came out superb.

A fluffy, elastic crumb and a crisp crust. And, of course, nothing beats the flavour of a roll fresh from the griddle!


Bon appetit!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-05-24

This blog post also linked to Yeastspotting!