This time the fruit was blueberry. I initiated my starter from my blueberry yeast water and bread flour, and through a series of successive refreshments (5X), I created sufficient starter for the following loaf. I don’t know, but I suspect the loaf was once again, overproofed as I ended up with yet another “muffallata” loaf.The color of the crumb is most striking, almost like a pumpernickel. The taste is faintly blueberry, sweetish. With cream cheese it tastes very much like a bagel.

Ingredients

70g starter (10 r4/30 flour/30 BYW @100%)
158g blueberry puree (132L,26S)
175g AP flour
4g salt
234:166 = 70% hydration dough
total loaf =407g

Preparation

To make this loaf, I took 9g of the starter (4th refreshment) and fed it 30g each bread flour and blueberry yeast water. This I left at room temperature for about 3 hours until it has more than doubled. Then I combined it thoroughly with the blueberry puree, which interesting enough was more like a jelly than I expected, must have lots of pectin in blueberries. I stirred in the flour and the salt, gave it a S&F and let it rest for ½ hour. This was repeated for three hours, then not thinking, I put it in the cooler (46*F) for about 3 hours.

Then, remembering that I needed to shape it, I took it out of the cooler, preshaped it and left it out for 30 minutes. Then I shaped it into a boule and placed it into the floured banneton. This was replaced into the cooler for the remainder of the night.

The next morning I took it out of the cooler and let it warm up until the oven and combo-cooker was up to temperature (460*F).

unbaked dough

When the oven was up to temperature, the loaf was slashed and loaded into the combo cooker and baked with the cover on for 20 minutes. Then the cover was removed and it was baked another 10 minutes. After ten minutes the oven was turned off and the door was left ajar for a final 10 minutes

beauty shot

profile

crumb shot

Ingredients

Preparation

Levain – First and Second Builds and Autolyse

Combine active yeast water and AP flour. Cover the bowl and let it rest at 75F. The initial build (10g SYW/10g AP flour had doubled in about 6 hours.
About 15g of this first build was combined with the second build water, then the second build flour was added and stirred well.
In a second bowl the autolyse flour/PYW were combined until just mixed. Both the 2nd build and the levain were chilled at 46*F for approximately 15 hours.

Final Dough

The next morning, I combined the 2nd build levain and the autolyse along with the salt. The autolyse was already starting to rise, given the presence of yeast in the PYW. This was thoroughly mixed with the salt and the levain and finished off with an initial S&F in the bowl. It was left to rest for 30 minutes. Time was 6:40am.
The S&F/rest process was completed every ½ hour until 9:10. At this point, fearing that the dough would severely overproof, I covered the bowl and put it in the fridge (40*F) and left it there for about six hours (3:00pm).

Then, I removed the bowl and dumped the contents out onto a lightly floured surface. While it was cold, I divided it in two and roughly shaped a log. This was left to warm up for ½ hour covered.
After ½ hour, 3:30pm) I shaped the dough into the baguettes and placed them on a parchment-covered clouche. These were covered and left to proof. At the same time, I preheated my oven to 460*F and set up my steamer.

When the oven was up to temperature, I quickly loaded the loaves onto a peel, slashed and loaded them into the oven. Covered and steamed for 25 seconds, they were baked for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I removed the cover. After an additional 10 minutes I turned off the oven and propped open the oven door. After the final 10 minutes I removed the loaves.
Here is the result.

I guess I needn’t have worried about it being overproofed. The oven spring was massive.
Lots of irregular holes. Delicate crumb. Crispy Crust

So. In my research on the subject on the Fresh Loaf website – where I spend most of my days (I have no life), I read about the use of banana as food for sourdough starter. Well, if bananas work, how about peaches? Thus began the experiment. The first step was to convince my standard grain fed sourdough starter to like, and want to eat the sugars contained in peach puree. Taking my cues from Ron Ray, as documented in his Banana Saga, I slowly weaned my standard wheat based sourdough starter to accept a diet of first AP flour and peach puree until I reached the point where there was no more water in the starter seed. Specifically, starting with 10g of 100% hydration sourdough starter, I fed 10g AP flour and 20g peach puree. The subsequent feeds used the previous phase’s starter at 10g for seed, plus 10g AP flour and 20g peach puree. After four consecutive feeds (P1-P4), the amount of water in the starter was close to nil.

As can be seen in the graph below, it took a couple of iterations of this process before the starter began to behave predictably, in terms of how much and how long it took to rise to its maximum height.

From there, I began the process of weaning my starter to accept a diet of pure puree (no AP flour), again to the point where there was no more flour in the starter seed. This too took a few iterations before the starter was essentially entirely comprised of fermented peach puree. The growth cycle for this conversion process is shown below:

First to be noted is that with diminishing amount of flour in the starter mix, there is a marked reduction in the ability for the mix to grow beyond 80% of the starting volume. For this reason, I changed the flour for the final dough from standard AP to Bread Flour, as it has a higher protein content, which may provide more gluten in the dough, which hopefully will allow the bread to rise. This remains to be seen.

Now this starter ready to be developed in the final dough. I wanted to create a dough that relied solely on peach puree for the water content (Google assures me that peaches are 80% water). Thus, peach puree is comprised of 80% liquid and 20% solids. As is the recommendation, I set about creating a dough that was approximately 1/3 preferment (in the form of fermented peach puree), and was at approximately 75% hydration (e.g., liquids as a proportion of solids) and holding the overall loaf size to approximately 400g, yielded the following formula:

Ingredients

60g Starter (phase 8 from above)
185g Bread Flour
150g Peach Puree
4g salt

Preparation

I combined the 60g fizzy starter with the 150g peach puree. Then I slowly incorporated the 185g bread flour to form a rough, sticky dough. I covered the bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes to hydrate the flour. Then I mixed in the salt.

This was given the first stretch & fold (S&F) in the bowl and left to rest for 30 minutes. At this point, I was forced to alter my plans and work in an additional 11g of bread flour. The dough was just too sticky and not holding together.

This S&F/rest process was repeated a total of four times over the next 1 1/2 hours. After the final S&F, I left it to rest an additional 1/2 hour before I turned it out onto a lightly floured counter (approximately 8g flour) and preshaped and shaped the boule. This was placed in a floured banneton and into the 46*F cooler overnight (approximately 11 hours).

The following morning, as is my habit, I took the dough out of the cooler and let it come to room temperature. About half an hour into this warming up period, I began to preheat the oven and the combo-cooker to 450*F. This takes about 1/2 hour. When the oven was fully preheated, I removed the cooker from the oven, overturned the dough onto the parchment, slashed (not very well, hmm.), and slid the loaf to the bottom of the hot cooker. Placing the lid, back into the oven the whole works went for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the lid was removed—The moment of truth, pancake, hockey puck, boule? What would it be, well, as it turned out, peaches are not the best for massive oven spring. I wouldn’t call it a pancake, somewhere bigger than a hockey puck, but not much. After removing the lid and turning down the oven to 425*F the loaf was baked for another three minutes, then I removed the bottom of the cooker and the parchment, and placed the loaf directly on the stone. This is where it remained for another 7 minutes. Then, I propped open the oven door for an additional 10 minutes (total 40 minutes in the oven). Then I removed the loaf. Well, it does smell of peaches.

The oven spring is not great, sort of like it was overproofed. It sounds hollow when I thump it and the crust is quite thick and hard. So. Now comes the real test. After all of this work and experimentation, did I create a peachy tasting peach bread? Here is the shot of the crumb:

As you can see, the crumb is definitely a peachy color, moist and tender. There are bits of peach visible in the crumb. Does it taste of peaches- yes, faintly. If someone were to not tell me peaches were 51% of the mix, would I ever be able to figure that out? No. Alas, I think the pursuit of fruity flavor in a baked bread needs something more than peaches.

For this recipe, I created a batch of yeast from sliced organic strawberries, a few cubes of sugar and tap water. This was held at a relatively warm room temperature and stirred/shaken several times a day until it started to bubble like slightly flat soda. From this, I was able to bake bread with the same moisture/shelf life characteristics of sourdough but without the sour. Now I keep the yeast water in the refrigerator and have scooped out the fruit when the color is bleached out. I feed the water either more fruit or a sugar cube about every week or so, or if I use any to make bread. I just add back to the jar the same amount of water that I take out and throw in more fruit or a sugar cube before returning it to the fridge. Special thanks to Ron at the Freshloaf for the inspiration for making this bread:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20693/culturing-growing-and-baking-range-wild-yeasts#comment-144440]

Ingredients

Levain: Grams IngredientBaker’s %

33gAP Flour 100%
33gActive Strawberry Yeast Water (SYW) 100%

Final Dough: Grams Ingredient Baker’s %

66g Levain (60-80% risen) 28%
200g AP flour 86%
133g Strawberry Yeast Water 57%
4g Salt 1%
233g Total Flour 100%
176g Total Water 71%

Preparation

Levain

Combine active yeast water and AP flour. Cover the bowl and let it rest at 75F. The initial build (10g SYW/10g AP flour had peaked (more than triple) in 8 hours. The second build (another 10g water/10g flour) doubled in just 1 hour. This is a very active strawberry yeast water.

Final Dough

In a large bowl, combine levain build and 133g reserve yeast water. Stir well to combine. Add the AP flour and mix until roughly combined. Cover and set aside 20 minutes to autolyse.

Mix in salt. Rest 20 minutes.

Repeat S&F/rest process 4X every 1/2 hour. (approximately 2 hours since rough combined at 8:00.)

Preshape and shape into boule. Place in floured banneton, cover and retard at 46*F overnight. Begin to preheat oven and combo-cooker to 450*F. Remove dough from chiller and proof at room temperature while oven is heating. When oven is ready, slash and load and cover bread. Here the bread basically collapsed and never rose higher.
After 20 minutes, remove cover and lower heat to 425*F. Ten minutes later, prop open oven door ½”. Ten minutes later remove loaf and cool.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23208/sourdough-colomba-pasquale-let-it-soar

, but I scaled it down here for my purposes. Also, rather than making it in a big cake, I opted for a dozen buns baked in 3.5 X 1.625 inch panettone molds (ordered from Amazon). I also bought a heat mat and a digital thermostat (intended for seedlings from the Amazon garden section -works great, who’da thunkit) to keep the starter and the proof box at the required 85* after killing the starter twice with other less effective methods (e.g. oven with light on -too hot, medical heating pad that turned itself off every two hours – ARG!). What won’t I spend in the pursuit of greatness?

H3. Ingredients

Levain (Grams), Ingredient Baker’s %

87g Italian Sweet Starter (50%, fed 4 times and kept at 85F), 35%
249g bread flour, 100%
86g butter , softened 35%
67g sugar, 27%
36g egg yolk, 15%
163g Water (96+67) 65%

Final Dough

Grams, Ingredient, Baker’s %
688g first dough
54g bread flour
10g honey, 3%
3g salt, 1%
19g sugar, 5%
36g yolk, 10%
38g butter, softened, 10%
8g vanilla, 2%
2g orange zest, 1 orange
102g candied orange peel soaked in Cointreau overnight and drained well before using, 28%

Summary
361gTotal Flour, 100%
192gTotal Water, 53%

960 g dough/ yields 12, 80g rolls

Preparation

Saturday afternoon, I chopped up the 102g of candied orange peel and covered them with some Cointreau – Txfarmer used rum and hot water, but I went for something a little more orange-y. I covered the bowl and left it out overnight.

H4. Levain

In a small sauce pan, combine sugar and 96g of water, heat until sugar completely dissolves. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

In the bowl of the stand mixer, combine starter with yolks, add in flour, sugar syrup, butter, beat with paddle attachment until becomes a smooth, wet dough. Dribble in the 67g of water until completely absorbed. Cover the bowl and let it rest at 75F for 12 hours. well, that was the plan anyway. At midnight, I checked my dough. It hadn’t budged a speck since 7PM. So, I grabbed a big tablespoon full of my active 100% starter and stirred it in, hoping by the morning it would be quadrupled like everyone said. Not so much. There it is at 9:OO and it’s gone up maybe 1/2 inch (it started out at 1 inch, now it’s 1.5. So we wait. In the meantime, I’m starting another mother starter at the ol’ 85*F. Me thinks I didn’t develop the gluten in the first dough enough and maybe my starter isn’t strong enough to begin with. Ah, time will tell. We

It took until 10:45 for the first dough to double. A total of 15 hours. At that point we proceeded to the final dough.

H4. Final Dough

In the standing mixer with paddle attached, combine levain, flour, honey, salt, yolks, vanilla, and orange zest. Mix at speed 1 until gluten develops.
Then, slowly add sugar, knead until the dough is smooth and leaves the side of the bowl. This took about 15 minutes on speed 1 on the KA.

Add the softened butter by tablespoon lumps, and knead until the dough is very smooth and elastic, passing windowpane test with a strong and thin window.
Add in candied orange peel mixing at speed 1 until combined. This took another 15 minutes to achieve a strong windowpane. Cover and rest at 75F for an hour, or until double. So at 11:30 we set the dough in a container and left it at room temperature for about an hour. When we came back from a quick lunch, it hadn’t moved a bit. Since I was already heating the sweet starter for the next round, I decided that this final dough could use a little more encouragement (ie, 85F versus room temperature), so under the proofing box it went, and stayed there until 3:30 when it was finally doubled (4 hours).

At this point, I intended to use my specially purchased paper panettone molds. Since this was shaping up to be less than optimal, I changed my mind and instead lined (bottom and sides) two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper. The dough was divided and roughly shaped into boules and dropped into the lined pans.

Proof at 85F for about 3 hours, until the cases are almost completely full. Back under the proofing box it went until the dough tripled (almost to the top of the 2-inch high pans). This was accomplished around 8:15PM. (5 hours later).

Prepare the glaze: 60g of sugar mixed with enough egg whites to moisten (a little more than a teaspoon to form a thickish glaze). Spread lightly over the tops of the rolls. Top with 57g finely chopped toasted sliced almonds, decorate with toasted whole blanched almonds and pearl sugar (I skipped this for this round), then completely cover with powdered sugar. Bake at 360*F until well browned, about 20 minutes for the 80 gram molds, more like 40 minutes for the 8-inch cake pans.
Remove and cool completely on a rack.

When it came out of the oven it was like a souffle, very light and slightly collapsing under the weight of the crust. Cut into while barely warm – OMG the most delicate crumb, lightly sweet and tart from the citrus/Cointreau, with the crunchy almonds on top. Divine! Can’t wait to make it again. Next Sunday.

These are from the 2nd batch – this time a full batch (this recipe is 60%). It made 12 80 oz rolls and 10 40 oz rolls. Divine is hardly the word.


crumb shot

These take a long time to make (start to finish), but on in terms of actual effort, it’s not really that much more trouble than say, baguettes. Do take the trouble to locate whole spices and grind them up yourself – the pre-ground stuff isn’t worth the effort saved.

This recipe is based on the one provided by Syd on the Fresh Loaf: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23021/hot-cross-buns

I have scaled it down to better suit my family (12 vs 24 buns).

Ingredients

Water Roux

35g milk
15g butter
1.5g sugar
1/16 tsp. salt
35g flour

Levain

Roux from previous step
350g bread flour
1g yeast
215g milk (70*F)
5g sugar

Final Dough

Levain from previous step
150g bread flour
6g salt
60g sugar
2.5g yeast
50g milk (70-74*F)
70g egg (about 1 ½)
1 tsp. spice mix (see below)
50g butter, room temp.
60g golden raisins (plump and juicy)
60g candied orange peel, chopped to ¼ inch chunks

Spice Mix

½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. 5-spice powder
1/16 tsp. ground ginger
1 whole allspice berry (fresh ground)
2 whole cloves (fresh ground)
1/16 tsp. nutmeg (fresh grated)

Cross Paste

33g flour
33g milk
3g melted butter
9g sugar
¼ tsp vanilla
lemon zest

Preparation

Water Roux (Thursday 3PM)

Three days before baking, in a small saucepan, combine milk, butter, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil to melt butter, then cool to 163*F. Add flour all at once and stir until temperature cools to 140*F. Transfer to a small bowl, cover surface with plastic wrap and chill 16 hours.

Levain (Friday 7AM)

Combine water roux (previous step) with milk. Add flour, yeast, and sugar. Stir to combine, cover and chill 48 hrs.

Final Dough (Sunday 7AM)

Combine levain (from previous step), flour, sugar, yeast, milk, eggs and salt. By hand, blend thoroughly (I had to dump it out on the counter and use the hand frissage method to get the lumps of levain thoroughly mixed into the dough.) Transfer to the stand mixer fitter with dough hook, at at Speed 2, add the butter slowly, one lump at a time until it is completely absorbed. Increase speed on mixer to 4 and knead for about 5 minutes. Transfer back to counter and knead by hand until the dough is smooth and bouncy and will windowpane easily. Stretch the dough out to about a 12”X12” square and spread raisins and orange peels evenly over dough. Fold up like a letter and knead the mix-ins thorough the dough.

Cover and rest 15-20 minutes. Preshape into 12 rolls (90g apiece). Keep preshaped and unshaped dough covered. Final shape into rolls, turning and pressing on counter with the cupped hand to tighten the gluten cloak. Place shaped rolls on a piece of parchment and cover to let rise for 2.5 hours.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350*F with a baking rack positioned in the middle of the oven.

Combine paste ingredients, stir to combine and transfer to pastry bag fitted with a small sized star tip (I used a too large tip and ran out of paste less than half way through.). Just prior to baking, pipe crosses on each bun.

Bake at 350*F for 18-23 minutes, until nicely browned. Transfer to wire rack to cool. For the uncrossed buns, I made a glaze of confectioner’s sugar and Cointreau and used that to fashion the crosses. Store airtight.

For the savory side – we did another Tartine Country loaf, this time with my Frankenstein starter mix (1 part pumpernickel, 1 part medium rye, 1 part 9-grain mix, and 1 part whole wheat). This is what I feed my starter on a day to day basis and it seems to like it just fine.

For the sweet side, I took my cues from Shiao-Ping’s Chocolate Sourdough at the fresh loaf, http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13543/chocolate-sourdough-chad-robertson039s-way, but altered both her recipe and technique just a bit.

The process that I used was to deal with both breads at the same time, even though as it turned out, the chocolate bread was baked the day after the country loaf.

The night before the day I mixed the doughs I started the levain build for both loaves. For the country loaf, I fed 3 grams of hungry starter 50 grams of my starter flour mix (above) and 50 grams of room temperature water. This amounts to a 1:16:16 starter/flour/water ratio whereas I typically feed 1:4:4 or even 1:2:2, but this is what Chad said to do, so just this once, okey-dokey. I stirred this up well, covered it, and put it in the cooler at 54*F overnight.

For the chocolate loaf, I took 15 grams of hungry starter and fed it 30g bread flour and 23g water (about 75% hydration except my hungry starter was at 100%, but I’m not going to stress over an extra gram of water are you?). This too was stirred up and placed covered in the cooler overnight.

The next morning, around 7AM, I took both starters out of the cooler. Ah, the country loaf was not ready to go. The float test failed – the dab of starter sunk like a stone. I guess the big meal and the extra chill did not result in as much activity as was necessary – either warmer temps or less food. Not to worry. I took another 15g of hungry starter and just stirred it in. This I left covered on the counter for about 2 hours. (note the recipe summary below assumes you start the final dough with 50 grams of starter at 100% hydration that has ripened for two hours passing the float test. How you get there is up to you.)

For the chocolate starter, a dab of which was floating happily in the glass, I added 68g bread flour and 51g water. Stirring, covered and let rest for two hours at room temperature until the float test was passed.

So around 8:45 both starter dabs are floating happily in the little glasses so we’re ready to start making the doughs.

For the country loaf, here using only 50 grams of the starter (the rest went into the trash), I added 225g bread flour and 25g medium rye flour, along with 162g room temperature water. This was mixed thoroughly by hand until all of the flour bits were completely moistened and combined. This I covered and let rest for 40 minutes. In the meantime I dissolved 5 grams of salt in 13 grams of water.

For the chocolate loaf, I opted to combine the starter (all 187g of it) with 162g bread flour and 108g water. I added the water first to the starter and made sure it was all but dissolved before I added the bread flour. This was mixed by hand and left to rest for ½ hour like the other dough ball. In the meantime I stirred together 25g Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder, 22g agave nectar (I didn’t have any honey), the seeds from ½ of a vanilla bean pod and 5 grams of salt.

For the country loaf, after the 40 minute autolyse, I squeezed in the salt water solution until the bowl was essentially dry and the dough was tightening up. I finished off with the first stretch and fold (seam side up) and left it to rest for ½ hour.

For the chocolate loaf after the ½ hour rest, I took the cocoa mixture and blended that into the dough. Since this was a fairly stiff 75% dough, it was a job, and since I was using the special dark cocoa it was a messy job at that. Squeezing, kneading, folding, cursing, and finally adding another splash of water, we got ‘er done and very little if any of the original white dough was visible. It was interesting how plastic the cocoa powder made the dough feel – must be the cocoa butter that changes the texture. I gave it its first fold and into the bowl, always seam side up, covered and rested for ½ hour. This marks the beginning of the bulk fermentation stage, lasting a total of four hours. (9:35AM – 1:35PM)

Back to the country loaf, not much, just a simple stretch and fold in the bowl. Covered and rested for 45 minutes.

Back to the chocolate loaf. On the countertop, I spread in about a 12X12 square a mixture of 18g Trader Joe’s semi sweet chocolate callets broken into 1/4s (the best thing Trader Joe has ever come up with!!) and 18g Trader Joe’s dried sour cherries. This was topped with the dough stretched out to about ¼ inch. On top of this, an equal amount of the chocolate cherry mix was spread evenly on top. Pressing down to make everything stick, and then folding up like a letter, and then a square and back into the bowl. Covered and rested for 45 minutes.

Back to the country loaf, a simple stretch and fold in the bowl. Covered and rested for 45 minutes.

Chocolate loaf, do a stretch and fold in the bowl (10-15 times) so that all of the dough is fully stretched and folded back onto itself. Cover and rest 45 minutes.

Back to the country loaf, a simple stretch and fold in the bowl. Covered and rested for 45 minutes.

Chocolate loaf, do a stretch and fold in the bowl (10-15 times) so that all of the dough is fully stretched and folded back onto itself. Cover and rest 45 minutes.

By this time, two hours have gone by, now leave the country loaf dough alone for 1 1/2 hours. Then do a final stretch and fold. For the chocolate loaf, let it rest for two full hours.

Preshaping. In both cases, we are working with a single loaf. Dump each out of the bowl onto an unfloured counter so that the bottoms of the dough are facing up. Flour the surfaces lightly, then turn them over. Pinch the unfloured sides together in rough rounds. Flip over, flour side up and rotate on the counter with both hands and a little downward pressure to tighten into boule shapes. Let rest 20 minutes right on the counter before final shaping. Cover with the upended bowls.

Final shaping
Pat each round lightly out into rectangular shapes. Fold the bottom thirds towards the center. Stretch the right side out as far as it will without tearing and fold to center. Repeat same on left side and top side. Take the bottom third again and fold it down so that it completely meets the counter surface. Pinch to close and gently round into boule shape. Place seam side up in banneton lined with a linen napkin well rubbed with rice flour (Note: the last time I used a banneton straight without the napkin, it stuck and ruined the loaf, sob!). Cover with plastic wrap (I use a standard hotel-issue shower cap). Leave both shaped loaves out on the counter for 2 hours.

For the chocolate loaf, after two hours, I placed it in a big ziplock, banneton and all, in the refrigerator (40*F) for overnight.

For the country loaf, after two hours it was close to proofed, so I preheated the oven and my mini combo-cooker to 500*F. After 45 minutes, the oven was ready. I dumped the proofed loaf onto a square of parchment, scored, and loaded onto the lid of the cooker. Covering with the top of the cooker, into the oven it went. At the same time, the heat was lowered to 460*F. After 15 minutes I removed the cover on the cooker. After another 10 minutes, I propped open the oven door for the last 10 minutes.

We were so hungry last night that we ate a full half of the boule after it was just above room temperature. It was fantastic. Crispy, fluffy, wonderful.

The following morning, this morning, I woke up and preheated the oven and the mini combo cooker to just 380*F. When it was up to temperature, I took the banneton out of the fridge, where it was not at all more risen than when I left it, and I dumped it onto another square of parchment. Scoring was way easy with this cold of a loaf, and into the hot combo-cooker once again. Covered and placed into the 380*F oven. After 15 minutes I took the top off and feared the worse. A brick met my eyes. Oh well. New recipe, bound to be some failure. None of it. After another 10 minutes, I checked on it, almost completely round, sphere – wonderful bubbly cherry chocolate juices oozing. So I took it out of the oven. Barely body temperature inside with the probe. Back in it went. Another 15 minutes. Out, temp? Nope. Back in. After a full hour it was finally at 207*F and done. Well worth the wait.

So baby boule adventure had a happy ending – Yeah! Eclairs on Thursday – hope I can wait that long.

Summary

Tartine Loaf – Final Dough Formula

Amount, Ingredient, Baker’s %

50g Well Fed Starter (2 hours old, 100% Hydration – 25g flour/25g water, 16%
225g Bread flour, 75%
25g Medium Rye Flour, 8.3%
175g Water (74*F), divided Use, 67%
5g, Salt, 1.6%

Chocolate Cherry Loaf

1st Starter Build

15g, Hungry starter 100% Hydration, 6%
30g Bread flour, 11%
23g Water, 9%

2nd Levain Build

68g Hungry starter (from above), 25%
68g Bread flour, 25%
51g Water, 19%

Final Dough

187g Well Fed Starter (2 hours old, from above), 69%
162g Bread flour, 60%
108g Water, 40%
25g Cocoa Powder, 9%
22g Honey or Agave Nectar, 8%
1/2 Vanilla pod seeds only
5g salt, 9%
36g Chocolate, chunks ¼ inch, 13%
36g Dried sour cherries, 13%

Ingredients

Levain

33 g Active starter
100 g Water
133 g KAF Bread flour

Final Dough

266 g Levain
166 g KAF Bread flour
6 g Kosher Salt
7 g Sugar
1.63 g Instant yeast
2.5 g Diastatic barley malt powder
7 g olive oil
104 g Water at 80F
1 cup chopped pepperoni slices

Preparation

Levain

Mix the night before baking. Dissolve the starter in the water in a medium sized bowl, then add the flour and mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl tightly and set aside until double in volume (3-6 hours). Refrigerate overnight.

Final Dough

The next day, remove the levain from the refrigerator and allow it to warm up for an hour or so. Chop it into walnut sized pieces.

Mix the flour, salt, sugar, yeast and malt powder in the bowl of your mixer. Add the levain pieces, olive oil and ¾ cups of tepid water and mix thoroughly. Adjust the dough consistency by adding small amounts of water or flour as necessary. The dough should be very slack at this point.

I mixed the dough with the dough hook in the KA mixer for 8 minutes then I added the pepperoni and mixed for another two minutes. I then transferred it a glass bowl sprayed with cooking oil.

I did a complete rotation S&F in the bowl and covered the dough and set aside it for 20 minutes. Then I did another S&F and covered it and left it alone for about an hour, when the dough had approximately doubled in size.

I then dumped the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and preshaped it into a log. I allowed the dough to rest 5 minutes or more, then I formed into a bâtard. I then placed it in a floured couche, covered with plastic and allowed it to proof until it was 1-1/2 times its original size and passed the “poke test”.

Meanwhile, I preheated the oven to 500F with a baking stone in place.

When the dough passed the “poke test,” I scored the loaf and transfered it to the baking stone and covered it with the lid and Injected with steam for 15 seconds, and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes I removed the lid and lowered the heat to 450F and baked until done (about 20 minutes). It is important to keep an eye on this, as I burned it a little because I was doing something else instead of watching it. It still tasted good, but it wasn’t the best result.

The bread turned out a little thinner crusted than I would have liked. Perhaps more steam and longer covering would have given a better result.

It was then removed from the oven and placed on a rack to cool.

This recipe is similar to the previous one in that it takes three days to make. The difference is that this one uses a starter; which is good since I’m feeding my little (25g.) dough baby twice a day and it seems a waste not to use it in the baking that’s going on around it. Happily, since I only keep 5g. of starter , the remainder is perfect for building the starter for this recipe – Not sure where the other 5g. goes, I guess it sticks to the sides of the bowl and the spoon – hard to believe that all equals up to 5g. but scales don’t lie.

Speaking of scales, if you don’t already have one, get one. I recently upgraded my scale to an Escali and it is a dream. It weighs down to a single gram and won’t shut itself off before four whole minutes have gone by. At only $25 on Amazon, an amazing improvement. My old one hated to switch to grams and shut off/locked up all the time. Drove me crazy!!! Breathe.

Anyway, searching for the perfect Eli’s sourdough baguette…This one is from txfarmer’s 36 hour+ Baguette recipe from the fresh loaf website:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19830/36-hours-sourdough-baguette-everything-i-know-one-bread

Ingredients

Autolyse

212.5g flour KA AP
150g iced water

Levain

15g hungry starter (100% hydration, 20% rye to total flour) (12 hours since last fed)
30g water (room temp 73*F)
30g Bob’s Red Mill Dark Rye

Final Dough (75% hydration if you are curious)

All of Autolyse
All of Levain
5g. kosher salt

Overall Dough Baker’s Percentages

Flour 100% (87.4% KA AP, 12.6% Bob’s Red Mill Dark Rye)
Water 75%
Salt 2%

Preparation and timing

Autolyse

Sunday night before cocktails (just one for me please – I hope to have had my last hangover ever), blend together the flour and the iced water. Stir until all of the flour is well moistened. Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 12 hours (more or less)

Levain

Monday morning after coffee (7:30-ish). Feed your hungry starter with the room temp water and the rye flour. Stir well and cover. Set the levain aside in a warm place until it is fully aerated and a small dab will float in a shot glass of water. This takes about 1.5 hours with my starter/kitchen.

Final Dough and Bulk Fermentation

Monday morning around 10:30am. I could have started this earlier, but I had to go over to a friends to play computer mommy and help them figure out how to use their new ipad.

Chop the cold autolysed flour mixture into small walnut sized pieces and squeeze to thoroughly blend in the bubbly levain. Also blend in the salt. You shouldn’t see any obvious dark lumps of starter/light lumps of autolysed flour when you are done. This is a sticky mess. Have courage and persevere. Finish with a stretch and fold full rotation in the bowl to tuck it into a nice ball. Cover and rest 30 minutes. Repeat this S&F/rest process every thirty minutes for three hours. If you do the s&F with wet hands, it’ll minimize the sticking. Each time you stretch and fold, the dough will start to come together more and more (see pics below).

Monday 10:30am – Just mixed dough (1st S&F), sticky sticky!

Monday 1:33pm – after last S&F and to bed in the fridge until tomorrow, same time.

Cool Retardation

Monday at around 1:30. Place the happy dough baby in the fridge for a long 24 hour rest.

The home stretch – Preshape, Shape and Bake

Tuesday around 1:30pm. Take the dough baby out of the fridge. At this point, I scrape it out of the bowl and onto a lightly floured counter. I think this’ll minimize the degassing after it’s had a chance to wake up. Leave it there covered to warm up and rise until double (about 2 hours)

Tuesday around 3:30pm. Flip the dough over so the good side is down. Preshape the dough into a fat torpedo. Cover and rest 40 minutes.

Tuesday 3:40pm. Preheat oven with stone in place at 460*F.

Tuesday 4:10pm. Shape the baguette and gently place in the floured couche. Cover the whole thing and proof until it passes the poke test. At this point get out the steamer and the lid so you are ready to roll.

Tuesday 4:40pm. Slash, load, cover and steam for 25 seconds. Bake 10 minutes. Uncover and rotate, and bake for another 15. Internal temp should be 207*F.

Tuesday 5:05pm. Remove to rack and cool.

Be aware, these take three days. Times are given for rough planning purposes. We’ll see how these turn out. This recipe is based on the Gosselin Baguettes from the fresh loaf website.
With the new real estate offered by the fibrament stone, along with the fancy wide steamer cover, I’ll actually be able to bake two long baguettes with this recipe – yippee!

Ingredients

Flour Autolyse

235 g unbleached KA AP flour
15 g dark rye flour
150 g water (73*F)

Final Dough

1/4 tsp. instant yeast
25g cold water (iced)
5 g sea salt (I used kosher salt)

Preparation

Flour Autolyse

Mix the flours and water and blend about 1 minute, until all the flour is moistened. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Simple. This was Thursday night.

Final dough

at 7:15am Friday, Take the flour autolyse and cut it into small chunks. To this add the yeast and the additional cold water in the stand mixer bowl. Mix with flat beater for three minutes until the water is absorbed. Then add the salt. Switch to the dough hook and knead until the dough slaps the bowl (about 3 minutes at medium speed). Cover the bowl and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Bulk Fermentation

at 7:30am Place the dough in a wide bowl and complete a full stretch and fold in the bowl (about nine times for a full rotation). This means with a wet hand, reach under the dough from the far side of the bowl, stretch the dough up and fold it over the top towards you, turn the bowl about 1/8 turn and repeat again and again until all the dough has been folded. Cover and rest 30 minutes. Do this fold and rest three more times for a total of 1 1/2 hours. Then let the dough rest for 45 minutes, fold and rest another 45 minutes (again 1 1/2 hours) ending with a final fold. Then place the bowl, covered in the fridge for 24 hours. Now I started this process at 7:30 in the morning and finished it at 11:00am.

Shaping and Proofing

At 11:00am on Saturday, take the dough out of the fridge and divide into two and preshape into fat torpedoes (about 6-8 inches long) on lightly floured counter. Cover with plastic wrap and rest 1 hour
at 11:45am, preheat oven to 490*F (stone in place). Get out the steamer and lid and be ready to use it.
At 12:00pm, shape the baguettes (this went surprisingly well) and rest in the floured couche, covered about 45 minutes until they pass the poke test. (after 1/2 hour the 1/2 inch poke returned sl-ow-ly to original shape).

Slashing, Steaming and Baking

When the dough is ready, around 12:35pm, slash and load the baguettes. Cover and steam 25 seconds. After 10 minutes, uncover and lower temp to 430*F with convection. Bake another 10 minutes until nicely browned. Then turn off oven, crack open door and let them dry in the cooling oven another 10 minutes.

Cool on rack. Crackle crackle. Listen to them sing. Well, these didn’t sing – but they sure look nice. Check out the scoring on the smaller loaf – Awesome!
Inside Crumb Shot

Results: moist open texture, cool and creamy crumb. I’d say not too shabby for a newbie.