My Bread Year: 1-2-3 Sourdough Bread

This year I have decided to blog every bread I make, even if I have to double up on the breads per post, post breads multiple times or even just post only pictures as proof. Why you ask? Why not, I say. Though I really don't have time for the endeavor, I want to prove to myself that the failures (and there are always failures) are as instructive as the successes.

We begin with the first success: This bread is called 1-2-3 Sourdough Bread after this post from The Fresh Loaf, one of my favorite bread resources. Way back, a hundred years ago, in April, I was trying to get the hang of my Electrolux Assistent N26 (aka DLX) stand mixer and stumbled across the formula for the bread. Of course, this actually predates my purchasing the Bread Baker's Apprentice, and predates my knowledge of Baker's Percentages. I did have a scale from beer brewing, so off I went.

People always mention a learning curve when using the Electrolux Mixer. In my case, I never had a Kitchen-Aid, so my learning curve was on how to use a mixer in the first place. Back then, my first doughs baked into very flat bricks that never rose. Even the yeasted ones. I was actually thinking maybe I had made a mistake in buying the machine.


But from what I had read, people initially hated the machine. I was determined that the machine would work for me.

I quickly realized that I the advice I had read- let the machine run by itself for 12 minutes- was valid, but for larger batches of whole wheat bread. Plus no one had mentioned the speed of the mixer, and I also realized that the machine had likely overmixed the bread, thereby ruining the structure of the gluten.

My breakthrough came when I did two simple things: 1) I watched the dough being mixed from start until it was ready. Don't ask me how long this takes, but from my previous experience I know what dough looks like when it is ready, so watching the process helped me a ton. Reaching in and feeling the dough also helped determine when it was ready. All those years of hand kneading have really paid off! 2) I resisted the urge to add more flour. Also known as Add 90 percent of the flour and reserve the remaining 10 percent in order to curb this urge. The thing is that the dough looks like it will never come together. Eventually, like me now, you will just dump the measured flour and walk away.


The funny thing is, every time I pull a loaf of bread from the oven, I don't jump up for joy. I don't really get excited about things when they happen. But when I reach into the bread box at work and pull out a half loaf of my own bread, I smell it and can't believe I made the bread. It's like a twin version of me made the bread and gave it to me. I cut a slice, toast it, and just think about how good the bread tastes.


1-2-3 Sourdough Bread from this post on The Fresh Loaf
Recipe:
230g Sourdough Starter @100%- I keep mine fed with Type 1050 flour
460g Water
690g Type 1050 flour
14g Sel de Guérande

Formula:
33% Sourdough Starter
66% Water
100% Type 1050 Flour
2% Sea salt

Baked in tiny oven with baking stone and oven steam. Results in a 71% Hydration loaf.

My Bread Year: Too Much Sourdough Starter Bread

The second batch of non-BBA dough this year was this one, baked about ago, but only posted now. Buying a half-loaf of bread weighing 1,7kg sort of derailed my bread plans since then, so you'll have to wait a while for more posts from My Bread Year.

So. One morning just before I left for work, I realized I hadn't made any bread and had way too much starter on hand. I usually build up my starters so that I have about 300g by the weekend for baking. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I'll start a day early and kick it up to 600g in order to have enough for a miche.


The DLX can handle an insane amount of dough. This one was 3,3kg, and didn't strain the machine, but almost filled it to capacity.


I occasionally make a sourdough in 15 minutes before I go to bed, and leave it to rise in the bowl of the DLX overnight. However, I have never tried letting it rise during the day, while I'm at work. Okay, once I did, but the dough didn't rise and the resulting product had to be thrown out.


This time, though, the dough rose, and I did a few stretch and folds before forming batards and one big miche.


Unfortunately, the bread was too big for the baking stone; some of the dough poured over.


The oven spring was unremarkable. Perhaps because I baked the miche after the batards, which meant the baking stone had cooled a bit. Still, the bread was flavorful, and remarkably hole-y.


I only managed to get a picture of one of the three batards. The others were eaten pretty quickly. They were pretty mangled, since they were a bit too long for my 30cm square baking stone.


Another example of the bread pouring off the edges. In this case it was because they were rolled out too long.


From this angle, it almost looks like a club foot.

No recipe this time because I lost the piece of paper on which I wrote the flour mix. The only details I can remember is that I used a mixture of Type 405 flour, which was on-hand, as well as some Type 1050 and Type 812. The hydration was 66% as calculated in the few rushed minutes before work.

BBA Challenge #19: Marbled Rye Bread

So, I've actually been baking bread for about 12 years now. My first loaf was in high school. Imagine that! I was not even 18 and already baking bread. Unfortunately, that loaf didn't come out at all. In fact, it didn't even rise, as I had no idea what I was doing, and the yeast I used was more than two years expired.

Still, I soldered on, and by the time sophomore year of college rolled around, I baked again. I don't remember how where I learned to make bread. There was no bread book that I discovered all dusty and tucked away in a remote corner of the library. I think I just sort of remembered that high school loaf and just dug my hands in to water and flour again, determined not to fail.

My bread baking had actually dropped off in the last few years. Since coming to Germany, I think I had perhaps baked two or three times, and despite having eating a lot of rye bread, I didn't really think that much about bread. In part, it was because the bakery across the street is so amazing, so I could just pick up a Landbrot whenever I wanted. Plus, on almost every street in this city there is a bakery. On the street where I work, there are three, the last one having just opened about six months ago. Not all bakeries are good, but most halfway decent ones will have a great selection of mostly dark bread.

The thing is, though, that when you have a baking culture that is fairly reliant on rye, you sort of start to get sick of it. In every good bakery, I ask what percent of the flour used is rye. Most of the time they answer without thinking, but at Soluna Brot und Öl on Gneisenaustrasse they got all uppity, particularly when I corrected their comment that sourdough can only be made with rye flour. Maybe in the Deutsches Brotfachbuch or something. They do, however, make the absolute best bread in Berlin (aside from yours truly, of course), so I will forgive them. Maybe it's that charming German service I've been hearing about.

So, it is with heavy feet that I dragged myself to the nineteenth loaf in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.


The bread consists of two loaves. Rather, it consists of making two loaves that are exactly the same except for coloring. Hold on. It consists of making two batches that are the same except for coloring, then rolling them together into two separate loaves with a swirl. Got that?

I don't drink coffee. At university I tried getting into it, honest I did. But it didn't work out. Coffee and me- we don't mix. I have often said that I have an iron stomach, but this iron stomach just does not like the acidity of coffee. It makes me double over. In addition to that, I don't drink any caffeine. Yup, you heard me. I don't need caffeine. When I wake up in the morning, I have trouble getting out of the warmth of the bed, but once I'm awake, I can't go back to sleep.

While the recipe suggested coffee as a colorant, I didn't have any on hand. I did, however have the can of joy pictured above.


At various points in Germany's history, coffee was scarce. Not all the time, just at certain points. During wartime and during the time of the DDR, people had to improvise. What resulted, is a small market for Malzkaffee- coffee made out of roasted barley. In recent history, however, they added malted barley and chicory for flavor.

So that's what I drink every now and again. Though Malzkaffee is popular amongst the elderly, younger people tend to snub their noses at this coffee ersatz. For me, however, it is a warm yummy drink as well as the colorant to my bread.


The mise en place was the same things, but doubled. I doubled my use of bowls because I didn't want to re weigh everything and half it when it came time to do the bread. The only difference is the bowl on the upper left with the Malzkaffee.


Two batches were made in the exact same manner. Peter Reinhart warns here about overkneading the rye and making it gummy. Because I've never actually baked with rye, I freaked out and didn't really knead it for more than four minutes. I theoretically could have thrown it all out and started again. After all, rye flour is super easy to get here. I got a bag at the grocery store near work. Next to the spelt flour.


I have to apologize for the relative lack of beautiful photos, as we were also preparing a Mexican feast for a guest at the same time I was making the bread. Mexican Feast post will have to wait until we do it again, as it was too hectic to take photos. Which means the rye bread got short shrift.


The loaves came out squished. There wasn't that much rise, and virtually no oven spring.


Also, the dark part of the rye wasn't very dark, even though I added about a half cup of the "coffee".


And! I also got a hole in the top of my crust. Usually this is a sign of overproofing, but in my case, probably not. These are the two loaves cut, by the way, as we made our way from one to the other. Just in case you were wondering why the swirls didn't match up.

I have to say that I was very underwhelmed with the flavor and texture. It was just. Well, dense and oddly flavored.

And. But.

Something changed in the course of the week.

I ate slices every day for a week, thinking it was unfair that I had to eat it, and trying to think of someone, anyone, who would take the bread. On maybe Wednesday I bit into it. Toasted. And was amazed. I don't know it it is a flavor thing or even a decomposition thing, but the bread tasted way better. Maybe I just had to adjust my taste buds. Or maybe it was the Poiret fruit spread.

Other Rye Bakers who haven't lost their Marbled are:

Deb at Italian Food Forever

Paul at Yumarama

Sally at Bewitching Kitchen

Janice at Round The Table

Cindy at Salt and Serenity

This post is part of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge. Thanks again to Nicole from Pinch My Salt for the challenge.

My Bread Year: Whole-Wheat Brioche

I hadn't intended on making Brioche. But one day I woke up and was craving it so much that I had to have it. Instead of cracking open a recipe, I decided to just find it. After all, I just wanted a piece, no?

The bakery in my street has pretty amazing bread, but their brioche is, well, not-so-amazing. It's made in muffin tins and, even though it has the tête, it's just not what I wanted. I wanted something specific, something just like- no- exactly like the buttery richness of the brioche from the beginning of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.

I wanted that brioche.

But I didn't make it. I spent about another week trying to find some- which is near impossible here in Berlin- before I remembered that Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads has a recipe for Whole Wheat Brioche.

The recipe follows Reinhart's Epoxy Method, where two unlike doughs meet to create a stronger better dough. The soaker is essentially the water and salt, and probably serves as an extended autolyse of the flour, as well as to develop flavor. The starter or biga has a minimal amount of yeast, and also develops flavor, but also allows the yeast to multiply so that less yeast is needed overall. In this case, the soaker consisted of scalded milk, butter, flour and salt. The starter had the eggs, along with flour and yeast.

Both mixtures were difficult to work with because they were so thick. I wanted more liquid in the mixtures to make them easier to work with, but that didn't happen. I just mixed as well as I could and stuck the two mixtures in the fridge.

After a night and day of refrigeration, I took them out and mixed them together. Because they were so cold, they refused to mix, and I had to allow them to come to room temperature before they would even merge.

I sort of messed up in this part. After the mixing, the dough is supposed to go directly into the molds. I let it rise in a bowl before checking on the time in the book. I molded them about two hours into the first and only rise.

So, because this is supposed to be My Bread Year, overbrowned warts and all, I am presenting all breads as they came out. You may remember my Stollen disaster. No? Oh, maybe that's because I'm getting ahead of myself.

The electric oven I work with has an exposed element at the top, so breads usually come out browner than I usually want. Somehow, I seem to never learn my lesson, and usually let things become darker than usual. Though the dark bits were still delicious, the brioche would have looked even better if it hadn't been so dark.

But the bottom came out great!

As for the taste? Heavenly.

Well, at least when the bread was warm. It tasted completely like pancakes. The whole grain was sweet and nutty and the butter was just enough to make the crumb so tender. It was amazing.

The bad part? Well, when cool, the bread was dry and tasted a bit bland. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because the recipe has very little sugar, or because there wasn't enough butter.

Or, if I may completely take a wild guess. When warm, the bread was probably releasing more aromas, which helped make it taste better.

I'm still craving brioche, but not as much. I even paid a visit to Galeries Lafayette, thinking that if I couldn't find brioche there, I would give up. I found some, and it was good, but it wasn't the exact brioche I wanted. Again, not enough butter.

The Modern Baker Challenge: First Five Quick Breads

No, these lovely sugar cookies aren't part of the Modern Baker Challenge. But they are some of my favorite sugar cookies ever. These bunnies were part of our Easter Monday Kaffee und Kuchen extravaganza. Kaffee und Kuchen is a German tradition and translates to "coffee and cake". The whole gist of it, which I've never understood, is that you invite people over, usually one or two, and serve them coffee and cake. It's sort of the same in the States, only you serve, um- coffee and -er- coffee cake.

Although I absolutely love having people over, our small apartment can only handle so many. If the smokers hang out on the balcony that barely fits two people, and everyone that loves to watch me frantically prepare food or fill bowls with reserve snacks stays in the kitchen, then maybe there's enough room for everyone else in the living room. And, no, even though the balcony is attached to the bedroom can anyone sit on the bed. It's too full of coats. In the summer we get a pile of winter coats and put them on the bed just so no one will feel tempted to stay.

Easter is a strange thing in Germany. Although we are getting screwed out of four holidays this year (May Day, German Reunification Day, and 25/26 December all fall on weekends and we don't get replacement days), you can always count on the Easter holidays to give you four holidays in spring. Germans get Good Friday and Easter Monday, then, forty days later, Ascension, known as Himmelfahrt (literally, the drive to the sky/heaven), and then Pfingstmontag, which is the Monday of Pentecost. Some federal states even get Fronleichnam (Corpus Christi) as a holiday. However, the next holiday after these is usually on the third of October- German Reunification Day.

So when we were planning our Easter invite, we decided to invite everyone we knew. Only we were counting on half of our friends being away. It being Easter and all.

But no.

We had been counting on half of our invitees to show up, but all but four of the people we invited showed up. Plus one party-crasher that we had forgotten to include on our list. Which was okay. Except that no one was smoking on the balcony. And no one was in the kitchen watching me struggle with an oven that had bottom-half-died the week before.

By the time I figured out that the lower heating element had died in the oven, it was simply too late to cancel the event. We had already received RSVPs from almost everyone on the list.


I know I probably said I would never have multiple breads in a single post, but these five breads were planned for the Kaffee und Kuchen, so they all belong together.

The first bread was the Fennel Fig and Almond bread. I made this one Saturday, two days before Easter Monday. Though not in the recipe, I had to add raisins to the bread. For some reason, my nut guy at the market misunderstood me and gave me 150g of dried figs instead of 250g, so the taste was not as awesome as I would have liked.


The thing about quick breads, though, is that you basically mix the dry ingredients, which are basically flour, leavener, and salt, and then set them aside. You mix the wet ingredients, which usually include some combination of milk, buttermilk, butter, eggs, and/or sugar.


And, after mixing both together, you add all the fruit and additives. There's really nothing to it.


Just take care not to overmix. That is, mix until everything barely comes together. If you have fruits or nuts, you mix them in after that stage, so don't worry if everything is not quite all mixed through. If it looks like the above just before you put it into a pre-heated oven, it will turn out fine.


The second bread made on Saturday was the third bread in the book-


Whole Wheat Currant Bread. Which turned out to be Whole Wheat Cranberry and Sour Cherry Bread because my nut guy just gave me a look when I asked for getrocknete Johannisbeeren- dried currants. No? Well, then sour cherries and craisins it is.


Day two started with the fifth bread from the book- Apple Raisin Bread. And, though I was ever-patient and very sure to take pictures of all of the mise en place, I somehow forgot this one.


Even though I forgot the way-before image, I certainly didn't forget the not-quite-after pic.


Also on Saturday, Date Walnut Bread. The dates were pitted then soaked in hot water.


You start with the eggs and the sugar, mixing them up to a light color, and then add the vanilla extract.


Then you mix in the dates.


As usual, you mix the dry ingredients separately, add them to the wet ingredients, then fold in the walnuts at the end.


I know, I know. It's a silicon cake mold. Even worse, it's that ugly blue that almost all plastic based kitchen equipment in Germany is made from. Someone must have had bonus boatload of blue. Bad. But it's all I have.


Day Three is no-stress day. However, Day Three is also the day of sugar cookies, hot cross buns for the Mellow Bakers Challenge which I probably will never get to post. This day is the day of the event. This day is the day of Chocolate Spice Bread.


Only there's one hitch. Remember the oven?

While baking the White Bread for the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I discovered that the oven was not heating properly- Which also accounted for the bad bottom of the Tuscan Bread as well.

But it was too late when I realized that, no, the oven is not broken in that way. I had thought that the oven was shutting off before it got hot enough. Ah, the thermostat. Of course. But then I put my two oven thermometers on different shelves. The top was plenty hot, but the bottom was about 50 degrees lower. In Centigrade. Which is like 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Just before I embarked on baking these five breads. I did a test. I cranked up the oven. After about 15 minutes I put my hand on the bottom half. Warm. But not hot. I turned the knob to bottom heat only. After about 30 minutes, the oven was cold.

So how did I manage to bake all five breads in one weekend while the oven was half broken.

I pulled myself together and cranked up the oven to maximum. Placed my baking stone on the oven floor to reflect heat, and did my best.


Which was all I could do. This is how ugly it got. On the second night, I pulled out the Date Walnut Bread, flipped it out of the cake mold- And it all melted into the center. The center was not even cooked. I ended up covering half the cake in foil and making a sort of inverted funnel to redirect the oven heat into the center of the cake in order to fully cook it.


Despite all that, the cake was wonderfully moist and dense. Very sweet, but without being overpoweringly or shockingly sweet. This would have been my favorite if the others had not been just as good.


The Fig, Fennel, and Almond bread was a bit dry, but perhaps because I hadn't wrapped it tightly enough. Or perhaps because the top was done before the bottom.


But it was still delicious. I would have liked more figs, but it really is my own fault for not paying closer attention. Next time I'll get enough figs for this bread and more.


The Whole Wheat Currant Bread- again with a substitution. Again with a too-brown crust. Slightly dry because of me wanting it to be completely cooked through.


But still awesome. The craisins and sour cherries a perfect match for the weight and nuttiness of the whole wheat flour.


I have to say that the Chocolate Spice Loaf was my least favorite, but that doesn't mean that I didn't eat two slices of it.


The chocolate was pronounced, with a little hint in the back with the spices. Good. Excellent, even, but I did have to sample all of the loaves, no?


And the one nominated for and awarded the prize of "Will definitely make again when the oven is fixed" was the Whole Grain Apple Raisin Bread.


I don't know what it is about apples and their wonderful flavor in bread. But I know I'll be making this one again. I can only hope that the crust is as crunchy as the one on this bread.

Yes, I'm in the Modern Baker Challenge. And, yes, I have 9 more quick-bread-like baked goods to complete in 6 weeks. Let's hope I have time to blog them all.