BREAD, post Photos and Recipes here.

[imafan26]

O.K. You have drier air. When it is raining, even if it is 70 degrees outside, the humidity is so high that it takes forever for bread to rise. So, while making bread is a good thing to do when I am stuck in the house and need something to do, I can't do it on a rainy day. Even proofing in the oven takes a very long time.

[applestar]

My multifunction toaster oven has “proofing” function. It works well but last night I wanted to start a sort of a biga and needed it to keep the sponge warm for about 5 hours, and found out proofing only runs for up to 2 hours.

But it turned out that the “dehydrate” function which can be set to run for a number of hours (a couple of days actually) can be dialed down to minimum temp of 86°F and I could turn off the “super fan” mode so as not to disturb the little yeasts.

That worked very well.

[Gary350]

Summer I proof bread at room temperature but in winter glass bowls in kitchen cabinets are 65° they need to be warmer. I make a cast iron skillet of 85° water to set the cold bowl & bread dough in. Cold bowl lowers water temp to about 80° and by the time dough is double in size water is 75°. Kneed dough again then let dough double in size again. Then bake bread.

[applestar]

My first attempt to bake sourdough bread. At least they look kind of pretty… but I panicked with these when the dough was too wet and sticky and added extra flour that I probably shouldn’t have… also FORGOT the last 4 hour room temp proofing before shaping and banneton/fridge stage, and ended up trying to do-over the last two steps.

I’m suspecting the alteration is showing up in the smoothness of the cut-and-expanded inner crust.

These are also flatter and not as domed as I was hoping for.

It might be because I don’t have a suitable alternative to a Dutch oven which I don’t have. — This cast alum 2-handled pot is too shallow, and I think the dough is spreading sideways after hitting the lid. I’m hoping to find/rig a substitute domed lid next time.

I’ll find out how badly I did when I cut them for the “crumb” test… maybe in a little while…..

…eta… So, what do you think? Does anyone here know how to interprete sourdough “crumb”? (I hope I’m using this word properly — “cut surface appearance of the interior”)

This is the first (round, plainer) one. If there being both big and little holes is a good sign (vs. relatively evenly distributed similar sized holes), then this turned out good.

Crust was crackly/crisp and chewy, though the bottom crust was rather hard (but not inedible as I feared), and inside was dense and soft but not dry. Nutty and sweet with more chewing, but not really “sour”.

2nd loaf:

…there seemed to be more detectable “sourdough flavor” today. Is that likely?

[pepperhead212]

Looks pretty good, applestar! The hardest part I've found with sourdough is getting enough of the sour taste, without getting too sour.


This was prompted by the price of eggs lately! I'll be using enough of those for cookies pretty soon. I put a tsp of xanthan gum in, plus bananas help, when there are no eggs.

I had 3 smallish, very ripe bananas I had to use soon, and I got another one out of the freezer, since they are small. Smells fantastic baking, and tastes delicious - not super sweet, even with those very ripe bananas.

Eggless Banana Bread

Grease an 8½ x 4½ pan (or an 8 x 4, for a deeper loaf)

3.8 oz whole wheat flour
3.8 oz sorghum or oat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
Sift these dry ingredients together into a 3 or 4 qt bowl (I processed them together in the food processor, then dumped it in the bowl).

3 large, or 4 smaller extra ripe bananas
5.25 oz (3/4 c) light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c neutral oil
1/2 c chopped walnuts (option)
Process the bananas and sugar in FP, or mash together in a bowl. Add vanilla and oil, and process briefly, to mix well, then scrape into the bowl of flour, folding together well, adding the nuts last. Scrape into prepared pan, and level out. Let rest, while heating oven to 350° (or 300°, for convection).

Bake 45 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Eggless banana bread, all whole grain. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Banana bread, cut into, and on end. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[applestar]

Wow looks good! Do you get Xanthan gum from King Arthur? I missed their Black Friday discount — I could kick myself.

Thanks @pepperhead212 for the sourdough bread review. I think I’m hooked — you’ll see me posting more in here this winter, I believe.

…I couldn’t wait until the morning to bake the sourdough bagels like I’d planned — I think probably because it got so warm today and the original recipe was meant to be made during winter (judging by the room temp for proofing indicated).

I can see this pre-planning of the proofing schedule is going to be part of the sourdough learning curve….

I’m pretty sure the original was meant to be denser bagels, but mine turned out more like soft bagels.

Chewy, flavorful, and sweet as advertised (honey in the dough as well as the pre-bake simmering water — which I had to modify by combining with pure maple syrup because I didn’t have enough honey… ha! that might be part of the problem — honey can suppress yeast, but maple sugar probably boosts)

(… and no you’re not seeing things — this non-dairy cream cheese is made from coconut and is blindingly WHITE I do like it a lot. )

[pepperhead212]

I got that xanthan gum from Amazon - cheapest /lb of any I found. KA flour has gotten way too expensive for just about everything, in recent years.

It's easy to get hooked on baking bread, isn't it?! Saves a lot of money, besides being so good.

[Gary350]

Wow applestar & pepperhead212 your bread looks very good! Has anyone noticed if King Arthur flour makes better bread than Great Value flour?

When I was in college I lived in a house with 5 guys we made 3 loaves of bread about twice a week. Craig Parker was the bread master he had a bread book and he taught us how to make the best sour dough bread. A several day old yeast starter is what makes the best flavor sour dough bread & bread needs to be 50% starter. Starter can be natural yeast or bread yeast.

Sour dough yeast starter recipe is 50/50 flour/water, 1 quart of water, 1 quart of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 T yeast. Leave it out at room temperature for several hours then keep it in the refrigerator about 4 days until ready to make bread. YouTube video says, keep yeast starter in frig 1 week. TV cooking show says, factory yeast contains yeast nutrient after 24 hours in a starter nutrient is used up, now you have natural yeast. Factory yeast insures you have a good yeast sometimes a natural yeast can be bad, dough turns gray or black then smells rotten. Once you have a good starter going, keep it going.

When making bread pour 1 cup yeast starter into a bowl then add equal volume of flour + 1 tsp salt. This = 2 cups total dough it makes 1 loaf of bread. I like 3 cup bread.

Every time you use the yeast starter you need to replace the flour & water then keep it in the refrigerator until the next time it is needed. I don't make bread every week like I use too if I make a yeast starter it will not get used for 6 months an probably go bad. You can make a starter 1 week in advance then use all of it to make a loaf of sour dough bread.

NO salt & no more sugar in the yeast starter, add salt when making a loaf of bread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wTt8VGyBdk

[Gary350]

This morning grocery store bread was green, so I tossed it out and made 3 yeast starters. I made 1 loaf of bread with 1 yeast starter. I sliced dough top open but that never works for me I am doing something wrong. Flour mix was, bread flour, wheat bread flour, oatmeal flour, corn meal. Wife made cinnamon rolls with 1 yeast starter. The other yeast starter goes into the refrigerator 1 week to make sour dough bread next Sunday. Add 1 cup of flour to a yeast starter it makes 1 loaf of bread.

[applestar]

Some videos I’ve been watching —

Bake with Jack channel —




Mary Grace Bread channel —
(blithely adding extra water like she did here is where I got in trouble — later I found out that less hydration is recommended for beginners … but I love how easy she make it all sound )


… and sourdough_enzo channel is what got me started in the first place —
https://youtube.com/shorts/yqcZ02A5HZQ?feature=share
[youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/yqcZ02A5HZQ?feature=share[/youtube]

…hmm… I can’t get shorts to embed…

[applestar]

LOLOL — Mrs. @Gary350 beat me to it, but here are my sourdough cinnamon rolls with recipe substituted with coconut milk and almond flour for “dusting” while kneading, and addition of chopped dried apricots and walnuts. Also replaced half of the sugar for the cinnamon sugar with allulose.

The sourdough schedule for this one took about 18 hours altogether.

[applestar]

I just noticed your question. I don’t know if they make better bread but I do use King Arthur flours most of the time.

I do have the Whole Foods store brand 365 whole wheat right now because they substituted with it, saying they didn’t have King Arthur White Whole Wheat … they haven’t stocked it since either — I might have to buy it direct from KA website (I like using it for pastries and as all purpose flour).

I also like Bob’s Red Mill and Arrowhead Mills, and I tend to get organic when I can. I would love to grind my own, but so far, the kind of flour mill I want has been beyond my budget and/or lower on the priority list.

[pepperhead212]

If you have a lidl store around you, they have their brand of WW flour that is not only the cheapest (gone up to $2.79/5 lbs this last year, but still the cheapest), but it has 13% protein, making it a very good bread flour. I noticed the higher gluten, the first time I used it in bread.

[Gary350]

If you have a lidl store around you, they have their brand of WW flour that is not only the cheapest (gone up to $2.79/5 lbs this last year, but still the cheapest), but it has 13% protein, making it a very good bread flour. I noticed the higher gluten, the first time I used it in bread.

You made me look.

My Great Value bread flour says, nothing about % protein but it says 4 grams per serving.

My Whole Wheat King Arthur bread flour says 14% protein, 4 grams per serving.

Oat meal %0 protein

White corn meal %0 protein

Yellow corn meal %0 protein

Graham Crackers %0 protein

Barley, no information.

[pepperhead212]

Those are normal % listings for white bread flours, and the other WW brands I've used have been in the 12+% range, though I've seen even less. I knew the first time I used the lidl WW that it had more gluten, though I didn't know how much - the protein is just a way of guessing this, as there are other proteins, of course.

I'm surprised all those other grains had 0% listed.

[applestar]

Looks like there are lidl stores not too far away. I’ll have to take a look next time I get a chance. Thanks!

…did you notice “Bread” flours seem to have Barley malt added? Apparently “gluten” is added to them sometimes (“jack” channel has a video explaining in UK “gluten” as flour additive is specifically listed on “strong” flour, some viewer comments seem to indicate in UK only soft wheat is used, but in the USA hard wheat is used for “bread” flour, then opinions diverged as to whether listing gluten additive in ingredient label is required….)

My previously attempted whole wheat bread recipes included ADDING “vital gluten” to the flour. Of course there are people who are sensitive to gluten. (Luckily I don’t think I am, but I always hesitated to add gluten separately)

One of the other types of bread I’m going to be exploring soon is rice flour bread that starts with whole rice grains. Most of these start with white rice, but I’m beginning to see brown rice recipes as well.

I forgot to mention when I got my vitamix for last Christmas, I did get the set that came with “grain” …um pitcher? (I can’t remember what they call it). So I AM also thinking about sprouted grain breads to try as soon as I get my winter seed sprouts and micro greens projects started (delayed this year due to extended interest in the outside Hoophouse growing…. )

[Gary350]

…did you notice “Bread” flours seem to have Barley malt added?

UK only soft wheat is used, but in the USA hard wheat is used for “bread” flour,

One of the other types of bread I’m going to be exploring soon is rice flour bread that starts with whole rice grains. Most of these start with white rice, but I’m beginning to see brown rice recipes as well.

I AM also thinking about sprouted grain breads to try as soon

I buy grain at Sprouts Grocery store. If you sprout barley seeds in the house it brings out the flavor. Sprout roots should be very short. Sprinkle barley sprouts on a cookie sheet then bake them in your kitchen oven to get a very nice roasted golden brown color with good barley flavor. The darker you roast barley the better the flavor gets. Dark golden brown color is good. L60 and L90 malted barley is excellent in bread. L120 malted barley has a chocolate flavor. You can buy malted barley at beer making supply stores, local or online by the lb.

The easy way to get barley flavor is to buy dark beer. Michelob Amber Bock or Dark German beer adds very good flavor to bread.

UK YouTube cooking videos are confusing they talk about soft flour in bread then they show finished cooked banana bread & muffins, we call it cake.

Easy way to get rice in bread is cook the rice first. Puree cooked rice in the water your using to make bread. Then add, flour, salt, yeast.

[imafan26]

I hardly buy bread, but I did go to the Walmart earlier this week and noticed the price on the bread is now almost $5 for the bargain white bread. Our bread prices climbed and the quality of the bread has gotten worse now since the local bakery closed. Bread is now coming in from the mainland frozen. Safeway has always brought in their baked breads frozen and baked them in the store. The bread now keeps longer because of the enzymes in them to keep them softer, but they actually fall apart easily when they get older.

Rice bread is an option. It has a finer texture and is a heavier bread, but it does not have gluten so it does not require yeast or proofing.

[pepperhead212]

applestar, You don't have to worry about adding wheat gluten to bread, unless you do have a sensitivity to it, and if you do, you can't be using wheat in the first place! Only when you are using a lot of rye, or other non wheat flour, like in many rye breads, do you need this, and it just brings the gluten up closer to that when making all wheat breads.

As for the barley flour, this is usually added to the white bread or all purpose flours, so it can be used for making yeast breads. The amylase enzyme converts some of the starches in the flour to simple sugars, to feed the yeast. And when using all whole grain flours, with no barley added, it helps greatly to add some of that diastatic malt powder - about 3/4 tsp/lb of flour.

Here's some sprouted wheat flour I made one time - sprouted the berries, then dried it at about 110° in my dehydrator, and put through the grain mill. Did the same with some rye berries.
WW sprouts in Nutrimill. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished WW sprout flour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Baked loaves - sprouted wheat bread. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[applestar]

Good to know — thanks @pepperhead

I’m loving all the advice!

[Gary350]

Some videos I’ve been watching —

Bake with Jack channel —




Mary Grace Bread channel —
(blithely adding extra water like she did here is where I got in trouble — later I found out that less hydration is recommended for beginners … but I love how easy she make it all sound )


… and sourdough_enzo channel is what got me started in the first place —
https://youtube.com/shorts/yqcZ02A5HZQ?feature=share
[youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/yqcZ02A5HZQ?feature=share[/youtube]

…hmm… I can’t get shorts to embed…

My problem is, I keep making bread like my grandmother did it always makes a very fine crumb bread. I found this method on a British baking video. I fold the dough then smash it flat to push out all the air. Fold & smash, fold & smash, over and over. I need to learn the pinch & fold method.

Some videos show people that use the same yeast starter every day for 30 years. An India video shows a bakery with a 50 gallon yeast starter, they use 25 gallons to make bread every day, they replace the 25 gallon starter with another 25 gallons of flour & water mix every day. That is how I made bread 45 years ago I always thought it was to have FREE yeast every day. I had a 1 gallon yeast starter in the refrigerator for about 2 years. Next I see videos people make yeast starters then use it the next day or a week later.

Dutch oven is a neat trick it holds moisture to keep dough softer so bread can rise larger than it would have in a kitchen oven with out the Dutch oven. I found a video that says, put your bread dough in a Dutch oven then put the Dutch oven in a COLD kitchen oven then turn on the oven. As the cold oven warm up the dough slowly warms up and becomes 20% larger than it would have in a hot oven.

I need to try all these new ideas. If you dust the top of your bread dough with a tiny amount of baking soda then after bread has baked turn heat up to 425° for a few minutes you get a very dark crispy top crust.

Here is another good bread video this guy says, 50% bread flour and 50% whole wheat flour, I needed that information. I will try this with my yeast starter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJEHsvW2J6M

[pepperhead212]

I made some Russian black bread yesterday, made with sourdough.
Sourdough Russian black bread, almost ready to go into the oven. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished black bread. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[Gary350]

I removed yeast starter from our refrigerator last night about 7 pm. This morning starter was room temperature and should be easy to knead but it was like kneading a piece of foam rubber. It took me 30 minutes to knead 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour into the yeast starter dough. It took 20 minutes to knead another 1/4 cup of WW bread into the dough. Then I decided to let dough rest & rise 1 hour maybe it will be easier to knead. I tried to knead another 1/4 cup of flour into the dough and dough broke up into pieces like cake. I worked another 30 minutes kneading in the last 1/4 cup WW King Arthur flour. I let dough rise for 3 hours and dough was starting to act like real bread dough, not cake. Dough was doubling in size every 45 minutes, I kneaded it 3 more times. Pinch and fold knead method was not working with this dough but fold and tuck method works good. I have 2 deep cast iron skillets I used them like a Dutch oven. I let dough rise to about 2½ times larger then cooked it in the oven at 375° for 30 minutes. Dough was 50% white bread flour + 50% whole wheat flour. This is the first time I every made a loaf of 50/50 bread that didn't turn out like a piece of cement. I buttered the hot bread then let it cool, then sliced it. Wow this is very good flavor bread. Bread turned out perfect like bread should be. This is amazing flavor, I will make this again but next time I will make the entire bread recipe then keep it in the refrigerator so I don't have to spend 2 hours trying to knead the last 1 cup of flour into the yeast starter.

[applestar]

Yeah the FLAVOR made from the sourdough starter is just amazing. Also how much the dough rises.

I’ve become confused about when to use flour vs. oil or water to prevent sticking while working with dough that isn’t ready to be shaped and baked.

So — and I think I’ve mentioned plenty of times how I like to just make things up as I go and not closely follow recipes except as inspiration starting point — BUT! I am currently following this video and recipe from his website EXACTLY (except for the whole rye starter, but I’ll make one as soon as I can get some — for now, mine is a whole wheat starter). Notice how he uses water for first 3 folds, then flour for pre-shape and shape+basket steps. The dough was pretty dry and stiff in the beginning, but absorbed more water and became softer but at the same time, developed elasticity and less sticky.

My bread dough is in the final pre-shape rest on the board right now, then shape and benetton rest in the fridge.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try preheating the oven with a pizza stone and then putting in and turning off for first 10 minutes method. (BTW I’m only using the Breville multifunction convection oven and not the big oven)


…I also made sourdough pancakes from the discard starter— took out to feed the remaining starter in the jar for using this morning. I didn’t take pictures but the pancakes were scrumptious— I added bananas and chopped walnuts and served with butter, maple syrup, whipped topping, and chocolate hazelnut butter.

…and we just had sourdough pizza from the dough I made several days ago — I hadn’t been able to make the pizza and the dough has been waiting in the fridge all this time. I think they lost some of the activity and didn’t rise as much as I expected, but the chewy flavor was absolutely delicious, though not as crisp-crusted as they should have been — so room for improvement there.

Based on “jack”’s video and recipe, and I used storebought fire-roasted tomato/garlic pasta sauce cooked down and seasoned with EVOO and dried my garden marjoram. For topping I used whatever cheese I could find in the fridge — so pizza #1 was slices of locatelli cheese, blobs of cream cheese, and shredded mexican cheese mix and #2 was slices of locatelli cheese, blobs of sheeps milk cheese and thinly sliced oyster mushrooms
1/2 of each are pushed together in the photo:

[Gary350]

Yeah the FLAVOR made from the sourdough starter is just amazing. Also how much the dough rises.

I’ve become confused about when to use flour vs. oil or water to prevent sticking while working with dough that isn’t ready to be shaped and baked.

…I also made sourdough pancakes

…and we just had sourdough pizza

New dough is sticky I use flour to keep my fingers from sticking. It takes 1 or 2 hours for dough to become elastic. I keep 110° warm water in a skillet then set glass bread bowl with dough in the warm water, dough rises very fast & elastic dough develops faster.

I watched a video yesterday where a woman was dipping her fingers in water over and over to keep from sticking to the dough. She said, she use to use oil but once she got better at it she started using water instead of oil. Elastic dough is not very sticky.

We will try sour dough pancakes and pizza crust.

[applestar]

I’m learning SO MUCH!


FYI…This is the pancakes recipe I used —
https://homegrownhappiness.co.nz/fluffy ... -pancakes/

[applestar]

@Gary350 — I meant to comment on your “dutch oven” bread — looks great and good idea

(I’m considering similar 2nd pot as lid idea — I just can’t use long handled ones because they won’t fit in the little oven. I have a couple of large corningware and pottery casserole/stew pots but am afraid they might break when cold bread dough is put in after super hot preheating … might try starting with them cold)

I’d like to see you try slitting the top with a razor blade — be sure to hold it 45° angle tangent to the curve of the dome.

I’m doing it because that’s part of the “sourdough” methods I’m following, but I just learned it’s also what you want to do for white flour french baguettes and am poring over different videos so I can make some next time. (I have to make short ones because of the little oven though)

[applestar]

Ta dah! . Got the “ear”. I did have to modify some of the baking process. Will need to keep tweaking to discover the ideal fit for my little oven which can’t hold heat too long.

I WAS going to try using the cast alum pot ON stone without using the lid and had preheated it, but by the time I finished my artwork (experimenting with misting with water and dusting thoroughly with white flour before slitting for that artisanal bread look), the dough had started to rise from being out of the fridge and got too big to fit in the pot

FUN advantage of the pizza stone method is you can watch the bread experience the “oven spring” rise and split the slits wide open.

[pepperhead212]

You're really getting addicted to this baking, applestar! Your family must be enjoying that.

[applestar]

They are, and with critiques and suggestions —

Today, I made steamed filled buns with a recipe using discard sourdough but adding yeast and baking powder. I tweaked the recipe by adding 2Tbs of all purpose flour and equal weight of water to the discard and letting it reactivate to 2x the volume, and halving the amount for yeast and baking powder.

I also made up my own filling from leftover sausage with onions and peppers that hubby made a couple of days ago — there was one anduil and one chorizo sausages left.

I added about 5 culled prematurely harvested mini napa’s from the other day, and 2 shiitake mushrooms, and one carrot — all finely diced plus some minced garlic + one fully ripe Goldfish pepper, one immature “white” Goldfish, and one Aji Dulce Amarillo; ground sesame seeds; added some Japanese natural dashi powder and soy-free sauce, etc. Then thickened the liquid with corn starch. Lots of roasted sesame oil drizzled around the buns in the steamer to keep them from sticking to each other….

I forgot to take their pic while all 8 were still in the steamer, but here are 6 of them being kept warm in the toaster oven and a couple pics of the filling.

* Hubby complained there wasn’t enough filling even though it was all I could do to enclose the filling and pinch them closed when forming them — the buns TRIPLED in size after steaming. I need to figure out how to stretch the dough thinner to create more filling space without letting out all the air .. Is it OK to roll them flat? Would they puff back up if I proof them longer first?

* I couldn’t help myself and ate my 2nd piece after watching DD1 eat HER 2nd one.

[pepperhead212]

Looks great, applestar! It's been a long time since I did those filled, steamed breads, and I remember that even when the bread didn't seem like it was much, compared to the filling, it turned out like yours.

[applestar]

Just read this article,

The Early 19th Century Addition For More Robust Bread Dough | Tasting Table

…and of course wanted to try right away, but I don’t have the magic ingredient on hand… and thought of YOU @Gary350 — bet you do — the secret is BREWERS yeast, and they recommend trying different ratios but maybe start by substituting half of the bakers yeast with brewers (“adds bitterness” so don’t overdo … and there are differences in brewers yeasts).

@pepperhead — I wonder if nutritional yeast can also add umami? (but I suppose not the rise?)

[Gary350]

Just read this article,

The Early 19th Century Addition For More Robust Bread Dough | Tasting Table

…and of course wanted to try right away, but I don’t have the magic ingredient on hand… and thought of YOU @Gary350 — bet you do — the secret is BREWERS yeast, and they recommend trying different ratios but maybe start by substituting half of the bakers yeast with brewers (“adds bitterness” so don’t overdo … and there are differences in brewers yeasts).

@pepperhead — I wonder if nutritional yeast can also add umami? (but I suppose not the rise?)

I find the people that write articles are much better at writing articles than making, bread, beer or wine. They write what they were told but don't really know much about what they write about.

I have been making wine, beer & bread for 50 years but I'm no expert on yeast but much better than I use to be. I have put beer yeast and wine yeast in bread but that was years ago. There are 1000s of different yeast. Beer yeast will all stop and died at about 1.015 SG = Specific Gravity on the hydrometer because this is the best sweetness for beer but each yeast has it own flavor that is why there are so many different beers, they each use different yeast to make different flavor beer.

Wine yeast is different than beer yeast, some are very aggressive they produce a lot of CO2 very fast and other yeast are very slow. Some wine yeast stop and die when hydrometer reaches a certain SG, 1.125 is a very sweet as pancake syrup wine and .990 SG is a very dry wine with zero sugar.

If you put 2 yeast into the same, bread, wine or beer it is like 2 armies fighting for the same land only 1 yeast will win. There is a cool trick you can do with 2 different yeast. First you add a yeast that dies early SG of 1.015 then add a different yeast that will take over and ferment to SG .995 this gives you the flavor of both yeast. But the 2nd yeast will change the flavor of the first yeast. There is information that was handed down from generation to generation to make the best wine or beer that only the wine maker in, France, Spain, Italy, etc., has for their wine.

Bread companies have their own yeast too. I see YouTube videos where bakeries & bread makers use the same yeast starter for 50 years because their yeast starter makes a better bread than any other yeast they have tried.

There are 1000s of yeast floating round in the air, you take your chances by letting bread ferment from wild yeast, some will taste better than others and some might smell & taste like road kill.

I learn from make bread if I add 1/2 tsp of yeast bread is slow to rise it might take all day but you get a different crumb from slow yeast vs fast yeast. If you had 2 tsp of the same yeast bread dough rises very fast crumb is different with very large air bubbles. Yeast starter is like adding 1 tablespoon of yeast to bread it rises faster and depending on the yeast a large quantity of slow yeast can still produce small crumb bread.

A very slow ferment makes the best flavor, wine & beer, that is true for bread also.

[pepperhead212]

Most brewer's, a.k.a. nutritional yeast, doesn't have that funky, cheesy smell, like it used to have - they have sort of taken the aroma out of it, so people can use it in countless things, without that smell and flavor it used to have. Not sure if it lost some of the umami, with that. I've usually added it for the nutritional value, though it did add that umami aspect, especially in bread that was not yeasted, like cornbread.

I discovered very early in my bread baking days that the faster risen breads really didn't have much flavor. "insta blend" (not related to Instant yeast) was an early method, where the bread was in the oven in an hour, which obviously didn't develop much flavor. The Rapid-rise method called for mixing the special yeast (the early brand of instant, but basically just a finer yeast then, and more expensive) in a percentage of the dry ingredients, then blended in the mixer, adding 125° water, which would normally kill the yeast, but temperature came down some, with the dry ingredients. And this developed some of the gluten, reducing amount of kneading necessary. Then, a short rise in the bowl, followed by the pans, before going into the oven. But again, all to speed things up, and it just didn't have the same flavor the regular ones had.

[applestar]

I activated my sourdough starter last night and spent the day babysitting the batch of dough I mixed up this morning.

I went back to my first try — Mary’s recipe — but without adding the extra water (which should be reserved for advanced students like Jack said — the dough was much more manageable and less panic-inducing this time )


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Hy7sERGDQ

…then I followed Jack’s hourly folding schedule, using spritz’ of water until switching to flour for the last “pre-shaping” step, which also isn’t in Mary’s… but I did use rice flour for the final dusting.

I then embellished the two loaves during pre- and final shaping by layering instant coffee crystals and date syrup during folding/shaping for one, and layering matcha tea powder and anko (adzuki jam) in the other.

(I was REALLY going to make plain sourdough loaves, but I lost to my impulsive inner child….)

THEN, I adopted another person’s step to wait for 1/2 hour before transferring the banneton basket and napkin-lined wooden bowl with the shaped dough balls in them to the fridge for the overnight (about 16 hours) rest.

I’ll post the final decorative slashes and baking results tomorrow.

[applestar]

Ha! They did NOT turn out as I had envisioned, and no oven spring to speak of AT ALL , but they both taste divine

* I was trying to embellish the matcha•anko bread with a tree branch design and dried blue butterfly pea blossoms taken from a tea bag, but quickly realized the pea blossoms would be blackened and crisp by the time the bread was baked, so I pushed the blossoms into the dough. I think the blue color bled into the dough or the matcha dusted on top had burned — either way the result wasn’t very appealing, so I broke out my expensive matcha powder which has this lovely green color and liberally dusted the finished loaf.
* In contrast to the coffee, maybe the antioxidant/antiseptic quality of the green tea suppressed the yeast because the interior crumb showed very fine pores. But it was equally soft and lovely, with faint sweetness that was intensified by pockets of anko jam. Crust was crisp/crackly and chewy but less hard than the coffee (probably from being baked in the loaf pan — I did take it out of the pan for the final 10 minutes)

* I dusted the coffee•date syrup sourdough (pumpernickel swirl-ish) with regular cocoa and brushed the finished loaf with butter melted with left over instant coffee crystals — it’s has intense sourdough/country bread flavor … not quite pumpernickel obviously in appearance nor flavor (didn’t have molasses)… thick chewy and crackly/crispy crust and surprisingly soft interior crumb This would be a good sandwich bread although DD1 just kept eating it by itself (with extra coffee butter) and ate a 2nd piece.
* I think the date syrup (possibly coffee too?) over-excited the yeast because the dough actually rose overnight in the fridge, and was loose/had lost structure and spread out … not to mention I was trying the cast iron skillet as base which has wider diameter.
* I was trying to incorporate SOURDOUGH_ENZO’s decorative and expansion slit. techniques but failed, …and the belated attempts to encourage more oven spring burst was to no avail as you can see….

[Gary350]

Boston Cream filled pastry.

This is a bread recipe with cream filing and frosting on top. I started this, quick mix, quick rise, recipe after dinner about 5:30 pm and was finished in about 1½ hours. I made 1/2 the recipe just incase it turns out bad.

Mix all the dry items together in a bowl, 1/2 C flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp yeast, 1 T sugar. Stir well then pour in 1/2 C of 120°f water. It mixes up quick like pancake batter. Once everything is mixed add another 1/2 C flour. Kneed the flour in about 1 minutes.

Put dough in a warm bowl to rise. Set the bowl in a pan of 110° water. Dough was double in size ready to kneed again in 45 minutes. Cut dough in 4 equal pieces, roll each piece of dough into round balls, place balls on a cookie sheet to rise setting on top of the 110° pan of warm water.

40 minutes later dough was ready to go into a skillet of 360°f hot oil. Cook about 3 minutes on both sides. Place on paper plate to cool.

Mix 2 T spoons of powder sugar into 1 C of cool whip. Put cool whip in a very small zip lock bag. Cut 1 corner off of the bag.

Microwave a can of chocolate cake frosting for 20 seconds to make it soft enough to spread easy.

Poke a sharp knife into the side of each pastry, move knife, left & right to cut the center. Poke your finger in the knife hole to make the hole bigger and round. Squeeze white cream filling into each hole. This was not as easy as it looked on the YouTube video.

Top with chocolate frosting.

I only made 4 pastries'. We each ate 1. We each have 1 left for tomorrow. Wow, these are very good.

[applestar]

This time, I followed Jack’s whole meal sourdough recipe almost exactly (starter is now fed with whole meal rye), except I tried autolysing the flour (1:1) over night. This was based on this video by The Bread Code

(I experienced the same slack dough as he did and probably won’t try this any more. Someone commented for the video that whole wheat flour doesn’t need to be autolysed)

2nd loaf is Mary’s soft white bread recipe made with instant yeast and 1:7 whole wheat:white bread flour.

I did tweak the recipe by using water used to boil potato salad potatoes/carrots/peas/corn for the “warm water”. I ran into trouble since the recipe called for sandwich loaf pan with lid and I tried using regular tetrahedral loaf pan and wrapping with an aluminum foil. The top of the loaf stuck to the foil and let a lot of the air out.

However, they both taste wonderful. The sandwich bread is soft and sweet, while the sourdough bread is chewy and hearty.

[pepperhead212]

You're really getting hooked on this, apple! Glad you're liking it so much.

[applestar]

Thanks! I’m in my “basic research” phase of this “project” which means I want to get a feel for the various options and choices so they are all laid out like cards to choose from.

I know I’m trying to run by not sticking to a recipe and practicing to improve but — what can I say? — this is a lot like gardening