Bread Bakers Unite - Page 3

[callmemama]

I boiled a big pot of potatoes last night, then measured out 3 jars full of potato water - 3 cups each! My sponge is almost through with its first rise now. Can't wait to try this potato-water bread!

[lisap]

Originally Posted by Thmom

If I have a recipe I can follow to the T it turns out great, but I have a hard time with improvising (and I'm and improvisational type of cook)
but my biggest problem is that I'll make several loaves worth in my stand mixer (I can usually get 4 loaves at a time) and I want to freeze the dough so we can always have fresh baked kwim.... but when I freeze it I can't get it to rise again!!! HELP! This is what is keeping me from making all of our bread.
We go through about a loaf a day and I'd like to be able to make the bread for the whole week on one day and bake a loaf each morning...

I'd also like to know more about soaking ww flour... I haven't a clue as to how or why you would do this please fill me in...

I also want to know how to use different flours to acheive different flavors and textures.

And can those who are in the know please have more discussion on the use of white sugar vs honey/sucant/mollasses etc...

I currently use a really basic recipe
11 oz. very warm water
1 egg
3 T Honey
2 T Oil
1 t Salt
2 1/2 C Flour
2 C Whole wheat flour
1 1/2 t yeast

Put into bread machine in order, and let her rip! It makes a large loaf.

I generally double the recipe and use my stand mixer and bake in the oven...

This recipe sounds great! Can I use 4 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour?

[Thmom]

Originally Posted by lisap

This recipe sounds great! Can I use 4 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour?

yep, I 've done that but it makes it denser and doesn't rise as well. Maybe add some gluten or perhaps with this sponge that keeps getting talked about the rise would be better...

[Thmom]

okay I feel stupid... but what is a sponge? what is it's purpose and how is it used?

[captain optimism]

A sponge is a pre-ferment. Basically, you make part of your dough first--usually, it's flour, water and yeast--and let it rise. Then you add the rest of the flour and water and yeast, and whatever other ingredients you are going to put in there. There are lots of different kinds of sponges: there is a poolish, there is a biga, and there is something called paté fermentée.

These are all modern (as in, post invention of commercial yeast) versions of an older practice. Before brewers started to collect and dry yeast off of beer and sell it for bakers, bakers had to rely on wild yeast. They trapped this yeast in sourdough starters, which also have the advantage of lactobacilii (from the same family of friendly bacteria as is in yogurt). Bakers would save some of the dough from each batch to leaven and condition the next batch of dough. After commercial yeast got popular, bakers started to use sponges made with commercial yeast.

Using a sponge is a great idea if you are doing whole grain baking, because the increased length of fermentation time really helps make the bread lighter. In general, my recent experience with sponges has been amazingly positive. Even though you don't have to knead the sponge, when you add it to your dough it tends to reduce the kneading time. Everything goes together so nicely!

[ComaWhite]

Any essene (manna) bread makers out there?
I just recently started out and would like to swap ideas/tips!

[spyiispy]

I'm subbing too! I'm always on the lookout for new techniques to tweaking my bread-baking (I most certainly will be incorporating the potato water trick). Bread is in my blood, I think. My mother supported our family after my dad left by baking for my grandma's country store. I remember her baking late into the night....and first thing in the morning, the smells from the kitchen would be incredible. I make sourdough mostly......as nearly all yeast is genetically modified. Just yesterday, I made some awesome sourdough French bread. Its got a very *light* sourdough taste and a crusty, chewy crust......the sourdough taste is so light, in fact, that my FIL (who doesn't like sourdough) couldn't even tell. The trick, this time.......was a proofing box. A proofing box is very easy to make...just cut off the long side of a box big enough to place your pizza stone or cookie sheet inside (whatever you're baking your artisanal loaves on). Place inside a garbage bag, with the open side toward you. When the loaves are shaped and ready to rise.....place them (on the cookie sheet) inside the proofing box and close the bag. Voila! It provides high humidity and protects against drafts. If you want to really increase the humidity, stick a wet sponge inside the box with the loaves (Just be sure to leave space for them to rise without touching the sponge). Jacque Pepin recommends this method. You can also use your microwave OR your dishwasher as a proofing box.

"Here's the procedure.
Before you start making the dough, throw about a cup of water in the bottom of your dishwasher. Turn the dishwasher to the dry cycle (make sure you you have the high temperature dry on) and firmly latch the door. When the dough is complete (the dry cycle should be done by now), put it in a bowl and cover it. Then quickly open the door, place the bowl in, close the door and firmly latch it. Set a kitchen timer to exactly one hour. At the end of the hour (no peeking or you will let the heat out) remove the dough which is now perfectly doubled. If the recipe calls for a second rising (breads, rolls) as soon as you remove the dough, put the dishwasher on through half it's dry cycle to reheat the "proof box". Form your loaves or rolls and cover again according to the recipe. Place the loaves back into the dishwasher as above for exactly 30 minutes while you preheat the oven. After 30 minutes, your breads will be perfectly risen. Take them out of the dishwasher, put immediately into the hot oven and bake according

With this procedure, you will be able to make any yeast based recipe start (from the moment you take out the first ingredient) to finish (when you take the bread out of the oven) in three hours with perfect consistent results each and every time. I have used this technique for years and would never raise my breads any other way. Give it a try and you too will become a believer."

The second thing I learned with these two loaves is to place a cookie sheet on the bottom baking rack while preheating the oven. Just before placing the loaves in to bake......pour a cup of water onto the cookie sheet. POOF! A big cloud of steam! Place your loaves in and quickly close the door. If you want some extra steam......throw some more water in after a couple minutes. For even crustier loaves....spritz the loaf with water after its risen in the oven. Sourdough is supposed to be given a day to rest. Yeah right.....I've only been able to wait a couple hours. LOL The crust gets crustier if you do.

Lisa

[tofumama]

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[captain optimism]

I do the steamy oven trick, too. I didn't know that most yeast was GM, I thought that only yeast for commercial bakeries had GM enzymes added.

Tonight I did something really crazy. I tried a new recipe that called for unbleached white flour using some Vita spelt flour I had on sale. It's special dough that you mix using ice water and then do an initial fermentation in the fridge. It's supposed to be a wet, "rustic" dough. I'll let you know tomorrow if it worked. I'm nervous because I don't know anything about the gluten content of the flour I used. Oh well, there's always the famous homemade bread rule, to whit: anything that is homemade bread tastes good.

[almama]

Hi all-

I've been bitten by the bread bug too.

Kneading: Xenabyte you recommend a light knead - could you define this? I always thought you knead until "elastic," but I'm able to get a dough elastic well before the normal 10 minute or so kneading time recommended.

Does anyone knead using a mixer? I'm considering it because it is the most difficult part of getting the bread made with three little one (conversely it is also can be the most fun part with two little ones . . . when the baby is fussy is when the problem starts). My current mixer can't knead (dough ends up in the motor . . .), so I'd have to upgrade.

"Wet dough" -I'm trying to keep my dough as "wet" as possible and get better end results but man it is hard to knead such a dough by hand.

Flour: We've gone 100% WW or white WW. What else do you add to make it taste a little lighter? Spelt? Oat flour?

Cost savings: Anyone else whose gas bill has skyrocketed with this new bread baking mania? I'm trying to figure out how to time all my cooking into one oven "on" but that's hard!

Really enjoying this thread and can't wait to try potato water.

Anyone use lecithin or ascorbic acid to give the dough a kick?

[callmemama]

Almama, I let my mixer stir all the flour in (this is the hardest part for me!). I use the dough hook but when it starts climbing, I take it out and finish kneading it by hand. I always replace about 4 TBS of my ww flour (in an 8-cup recipe) with vital wheat gluten in my initial sponge, and my bread is pretty light. I think it might be due to the sponge method though, since I was never able to produce decent ww bread before I used it.

[captain optimism]

I just got the first loaves of the spelt bread out of the oven. I was using whole grain spelt flour to make this special Peter Reinhart recipe, Pain l'Ancienne. The special thing is that you use icewater to mix the dough, and do a long cold first fermentation for 8 hours in the fridge. He promises an extraordinarily crispy crust, big holes in the crumb, a light bread and great flavor--in the original recipe, which calls for white flour. using the spelt was my way of, um, using up all that spelt flour I have!

I find with the spelt that the crust is not especially crisp, though it is very nicely chewy. The crumb has satisfyingly big holes , the bread is light, and it has an unusually tempting smell. The flavor is excellent--I found it improved as the bread cooled. It is a good bread, even if not the one that the original recipe promises. That won't stop us from eating all of it, I'm just saying! I now think I might try it with whole wheat as well.

I have been using my Kitchen Aid to both mix and knead a lot lately, because my toddler gets annoyed when I knead for a long time. This last recipe had 6 cups of flour and the Kitchen Aid handled it well.

For most doughs, I do the windowpane test to see if the dough is kneaded sufficiently. You take a piece of dough and stretch it between four fingers. If it stretches enough to be translucent, you have kneaded enough, and if it tears, knead more. (I guess that's an elasticity test, so it's the same as kneading until elastic! )Some recipes don't require that much kneading.

The SAF Instant yeast I've been using has added ascorbic acid, which Catarina, another experienced baker around here, told me was giving my dough a kick! It has been working well for me since I got a cookbook that actually calls for SAF Instant.

[callmemama]

I forgot to post back about my potato-water bread. It rose really well, but its heavier than usual. Is this nomal?

[beanma]

so, i have a coupla questions for y'all experienced bread makers out there. for one, i'm really intrigued by the sourdough idea. i tried to make a starter the other day when some yeast i had was bad. i'm curious if anybody does it w/o commercial yeast at all. can you just let it hang out and gather yeast from the air? i ended up just throwing mine away because it was not happening.

the other thing i'm curious about is if anybody has made salt risen bread? here's a page i found about it -- http://www.chaski.com/wwwboard/food/messages/13858.html . my mom used to love this and the bakeries in the little old southern mt town where she grew up used to sell it commercially. i'm intrigued by it, too, and might try it one day when the kids aren't being too demanding. the recipe says it really likes it warm so i might wait til warmer weather...

(eta: the salt risen bread also uses potato water in the fermentation and no commercial yeast at all. here's a better site about salt risen bread -- http://web.mountain.net/~petsonk/ . somebody try it and let meknow what you think.)

[chrissy]

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[Zhlake]

Can anyone tell me about freezing dough for later use. Do you freeze it after it rises in the pan, or do you rise it after taking it out of the freezer?

Also, when I made bread this weekend (for the first time) I let it rise twice before shaping and then let it rise again in the pan. Is that necessary or could I have just let it rise once before shaping?

[lisap]

Yesterday I made my first two loaves of bread! They came out wonderfully ! I have decided to make bread every week instead of buying. I saw something at the store today: whole wheat whit flour. What is this and is as good for you as whole wheat brown flour?

[umefey]

I don't often have enough time to make tons of bread... But i LOVE it when i get a chance.
My favorite bread book is Laurel's kitchen. They have the most wonderful instructions!

[captain optimism]

Originally Posted by lisap

Yesterday I made my first two loaves of bread! They came out wonderfully ! I have decided to make bread every week instead of buying. I saw something at the store today: whole wheat whit flour. What is this and is as good for you as whole wheat brown flour?

I believe this is the great King Arthur flour that I used to get in the supermarket sometimes. Here is the product page from the company:

http://ww2.kingarthurflour.com/cgibi...01541049381667

Here is the relevant information to you:

King Arthur 100% White WHOLE WHEAT Flour
Milled from hard white winter wheat, a new variety of wheat lacking the bitter compounds (phenolic acid) of red wheat.
Includes 100% of the bran and germ of the wheat berry.
Lighter color and sweeter flavor than that of traditional whole wheat.
Substitute for all-purpose flour in any cookie, brownie, muffin or quickbread recipe to add nutrition to desserts and snacks.
Coarsely ground, containing visible flecks of bran and germ.

So it's actually the wheat berry that's white.

Since it has all the bran and germ (the other part of the wheat is the endosperm, and they all have that part!) it should be just as good for you as other varieties of whole wheat. I think you will still have to bake bread as though you were using another whole wheat flour. (That is, don't use the techniques of white flour--you need a longer knead for whole wheat.)

I remember really enjoying using this flour in the past, but haven't in awhile.

Did you know this flour company is entirely employee owned?

[captain optimism]

Speaking of flour ...

my friend offered me a five pound bag of flour. I thought that since she was sharing her special bread book with me, that it would be flour recommended in the bread book: unbleached white bread flour. (That's what I usually buy--actually, I usually buy one bag of organic unbleached bread flour, one bag of whole wheat bread flour, and one bag of whole wheat pastry flour, and then I stash them in the little plastic bags all over the kitchen!)

No. She gave me, for free (very generous) a bag of Gold Medal, blindingly bleached, all-purpose flour.

I think i'm going to use it to make pastry and that I'll add some wheat germ or something to it to make it less...something. I mean, more nutritious. Any ideas about how to jazz this up nutritionally and make it into something?