The Bread Thread

[Wowbagger]

Do you make toast from fresh bread? I always think that is sacrilege, and that a loaf has to be at least a day old before I will consider toasting it.

[hatler]

I always wince a bit when the children toast the bread that's fresh out of the machine.

[citoyen]

Do you make toast from fresh bread? I always think that is sacrilege, and that a loaf has to be at least a day old before I will consider toasting it.

To clarify, last night’s dinner was the Italian style cheese on toast - excuse my whimsicality.

But anyway, I’m not precious about what I use to make toast. If it’s toast I want, it’s toast I shall have, whether the bread is fresh or a few days old.

I have noticed, however, that very fresh bread doesn’t toast well - it can go a bit claggy.

[perpetual dan]

I made some seeded dark rye bread last weekend. “Dwarf bread” as Mrs Dan calls it. I put some in the toaster yesterday and that was rather nice.
I agree that properly fresh bread doesn’t toast as well.

[Slave To The Viking]

I’m not precious about what I use to make toast. If it’s toast I want, it’s toast I shall have, whether the bread is fresh or a few days old.
.

Absolutely. Toast is not to be foregone.

[Feanor]

A bit of a departure today, a straight 40% wholemeal loaf.
This is a 'straight' dough, ie yeast-leavened rather than a levain-based sourdough.
Main reason was it takes me a couple of days to revive my levain out of the fridge, and I wanted something quicker.
So this is an overnight low-yeast content (1.5g of dried yeast in 500g of flour) ferment.

It's 40% wholemeal flour, which would normally be considered quite high.
There's a risk of baking bricks rather than loaves.
But with the right hydration, it's actually light, with a good mouth feel and a decent wholemeal flavour.

It's 80% hydrated, which sounds very high. More than 78% would certainly be difficult to work with using just regular strong white. It would be a bit like working with blancmange. But the wholemeal absorbs more water than strong white, and the 80% hydration gave a surprisingly stiff dough considering, and with good structure.

I'll do this one again.


40% wholemeal by Ron Lowe, on Flickr

[Mrs Pingu]

Looks yummy.
Maybe if I get sufficiently bored over xmas I might try making some 'different to the every day' bread even though I've been waiting until we're shot of the crap oven. I have never been very happy with my attempts at yeasted wholemeal before now, might take a leaf out of your book.

[citoyen]

Looks great, Feanor.

My sourdough starter is in hibernation at the moment - have tried to revive it a couple of times but keep getting distracted and forgetting about it. So all my bread lately has been made with bog-standard fast action yeast. I do tend to lower the dose - ie use one sachet for a two-loaf batch - to slow down the fermentation. It does seem to make for better flavour.

[Mrs Pingu]

I think I might have made the same recipe as Feanor, mainly because it was the first similar looking Forkish recipe I could find on the internets https://food52.com/recipes/83036-overnight-40-percent-whole-wheat-bread-recipe

No fancy pattern as I don't have a round banneton so I improvised with a tea towel in a bowl, and the boule looks like a brioche as I didn't trust myself to get the dough in the dutch oven without burning myself so I used a super thin silicone sheet which of course folded and left those crease marks.
But I'm pleased with it as a first attempt and it tastes pretty damn good.
2021-12-27_04-02-03 by The Pingus, on Flickr

2021-12-27_04-02-15 by The Pingus, on Flickr

I've got to admit I never normally bother with autolyse or adding salt but I may try that with my usual bread now and see what difference it makes.

[Feanor]

Yes, that's the same recipe from the same book.
Looks like it's worked well.

It's a good all-purpose bread, lasts well and makes good toast, without any levain faff.

Looks nom.

[Mrs Pingu]

Thanks for the tip, I was impressed.
How do you get yours in a dutch oven (if that's what you used), any tips?

This is probably about where I regret giving the huge oval one we had to the charity shop during the great purge.... having said that I think if I'd baked it in that it might have been naan bread shaped.

[Feanor]

I scoop the shaped loaf up from the worktop fairly sharpish after couping it out of the banneton, because most of the more highly hydrated doughs will start to spread out and become difficult to handle.

I scoop with closed fingers to avoid the dough starting to droop between my fingers.

Then, I lower it as far as I dare into the dutch oven, and essentially drop it the remaining distance.
I might give the oven a wee shoogle to straighten it out a bit.
The whole process needs to be done quickly, and I've found it's remarkably tolerant of minor fuckups.
If the dough has enough structure, the small drop does not seem to de-gas it in the slightest.

To get the structure, I'd say do the folds in the recipe properly, and then when shaping the loaves, do the stretchy-dragging thing enough that the dough ball holds a good shape before dumping it in the banneton.

[citoyen]

Panettone... it's a kind of bread, right?


Panettone by citoyen, on Flickr


Panettone by citoyen, on Flickr

Would have liked a bit more rise but I'm very happy with how it has turned out. Tastes amazing. I even went to the trouble of making my own candied peel - made using the most beautifully fragrant lemons, found in Lidl, of all places.

Making it is a loooong process - several stages of mixing and kneading, and two very long proving periods, not to mention the initial building up of the lievito over the course of a few days before I even started on the panettone. Worth the effort though!

The basic dough, made with lots of eggs, butter and sugar:

Panettone by citoyen, on Flickr

After a long prove, this is augmented with more flour, more eggs, more butter, more sugar, vanilla, arome panettone, and honey, then vigorously worked until the sticky mess becomes a coherent, smooth dough. This is then shaped and placed in the pirottini (paper case) and left for another long prove:

Panettone by citoyen, on Flickr

15 hours later:

Panettone by citoyen, on Flickr

I could have left it longer but was getting bored of waiting by this stage, plus I was worried it might over-prove and collapse so decided to bung it in the oven. Once it's cooked, you then have to leave it hanging upside down for at least four hours to cool - if you omit the hanging upside down bit, it can't support its own weight and will collapse, apparently.

This is the recipe I used: Proper Panettone by James Morton

[Feanor]

Ooh! That looks good!

I'll sqrl the recipe away for another day. Yes, it looks a bit faffy but I don't mind that.

[Mrs Pingu]

Mmm that does look good citoyen!

In other news, I tried the Forkish recipe but using my everyday bread flour which is this:
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-wholegrain-seeded-flour--taste-the-difference-1kg

It sort of worked but now that I'm in the middle of the loaf there's a sticky almost undercooked bit right at the bottom of the loaf. I also hadn't realised there was sugar in that mix before.

[Feanor]

With Ken's recipes, I stick to the specific flours he specifies, because they all absorb different quantities of water and so the hydration needs adjusted if you substitute other flours.

So for that recipe, it's straightforward Strong White, and straightforward Wholemeal flour.

Ken does suggest you can vary this, but notes that you will need to alter the hydration.
I've not had the confidence to go off-piste with his recipes yet!

Do you think the problem was just the sugar content?
The other thing to check: is your oven getting up to the right temperature? I think you mentioned having an oven thermometer. 245C is quite hot. I seem to remember you were not too happy with the oven. The Dutch Oven needs to be fully heat-saturated, and I follow his 45-minute advice in step 7.

[Mrs Pingu]

I did check the oven temperature for the first loaf and it was bang on. I was somewhat worried there would be too much water for that flour but it seemed ok. One thing I have noted is that a lot of std WM flour recipes use fat, which I usually add to this flour in the form of walnut oil and I usually add some vitamin c as well which I didn't this time. I don't really know what the problem was, too many variables really.
Overall, it was just an experiment for shits and giggles, it wasn't a total disaster, and it was better than the usual quick proof version by miles, even with the slightly sticky bottom.
I can either let that flour down with some strong white or try seeing what difference adding vitamin c might make.

[Mrs Pingu]

Update on my experiments of the Forkish recipe. After my gummy bottom from the 100% Sainbo's malted flour I decided to try going back to the 60% (not a bakers percentage) strong white and using the malted flour instead of wholemeal. Still got a gummy bottom..
So then wondering if it was just me I went back to the original strong white/wholemeal recipe, and it was fine.
Now trying to figure out a way of getting rid of this Sainsbo's flour (sadly I have a massive stash of it) but don't want to go back to the original bread I made from it. Will have to see if just adding 20% of the malted flour still results in a gummy bottom.

[Ham]

That looks like a good strong flour, how are you kneading? with an 80% hydration, you might be struggling to knead properly - maybe it needs longer knead? Might be worth an experiment starting the knead with a 70% an add the last 10% after?

Rather than use malted flour, I add malt to the dough all the time and never have issues although I never go over 75% for wholemeal. My daily loaf is a mix of wholemeal, spelt (15%) and rye (5-10%) which works best at 65%.

[Feanor]

The Forkish recipies are all stretchy-foldy, not traditional kneading as you might understand the term.
You really don't want to be rough with these doughs.
I've not found any experimentation to be required: he spent years doing that so we don't have to!

It's interesting to note how the different flour blends are playing out.
I will continue to follow this!

[Mrs Pingu]

Science isn't dull!

[Beardy]

Has anyone used a Dutch Bread Oven or Bread Pan of any kind? Isn’t worth getting or will any old ovenproof cooking pot do just as well? I’m sorry if you’ve discussed it before. 

[Feanor]

Yes. I use a Lodge brand Dutch oven.
But yes, it's just a big heavy cast iron pot.
Im sure any big heavy cast iron pot would be fine.

Needs to be big enough diameter for your loaf, and high enough to accomodate the rise.
Also, lack of long handles to allow it to fit in the oven!
Mine is about 250mm in diameter, and almost straight sided, ie diameter at the base is similar to the top.
It's about 160mm high, with its lid on.
It weighs around 6.5 kg.

I'd not want to go any smaller, it suits the size of the dough coming out of the banneton.

The large thermal mass makes for a stable baking temperature.

[Mrs Pingu]

I've got a 'Vogue' one which I think came from Nisbets. I do have a smaller Le Crueset one but I don't think it would be quite big enough. Even Sainsbos sells the cast iron dutch oven thingys these days though.
I did have a brief pang of regret at getting rid of the massive oval one we had in the great purge last year until I realised I'd probably struggle to lift the thing these days...

[citoyen]

I was given a Lodge Cast Iron Combo Cooker for Christmas, which is rather good. The best thing about it is that you can use the lid as a base and the pan as a cloche, so you don't have the issue of how to drop your bread into a searing hot pan.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/cast-iron-combo-cooker?sku=LCC3

I haven't learned how to get best results from it yet - still experimenting with temperatures and cooking times. But as Feanor says, it retains heat very well so you don't get a big temperature drop when you open the oven to put the bread in.