Bread - What are you baking today…..
-
For my part it is about routines and enjoyment. I know I enjoy making (and eating) the bread, and I also enjoy seeing my family enjoy and eat it, so I've tailored my routines to make it happen, around my work and family commitments.
I am able to work from home one morning a week, and apart from that I have weekends and evenings. The biga and poolish pre-ferments need 12 hours, and the bread can be real 3-5 hours after that. This means it can be started the night before with an overnight ferment, and baked the next day, or started early morning and finished before bed time, with the ferment happening while I'm at work. I then do the dough mixing and baking after the smallest kids are in bed.
As for sourdough, this is normally a weekend thing. The levain gets made Friday or Saturday morning, the dough gets mixed the same evening and the bake is the next morning. With the exception of planning the extra step (making the levain), and given that my weekend evenings rarely involve bars, nightclubs and wild parties anymore, the sourdough has less impact on my family time. This is because forming the loaves, proofing and baking takes less time out of a Saturday or Sunday than mixing the dough, folding and then doing the forming, proofing and baking, which is what the big/poolish loaves require.
-
I think so @neph93. The first recipe I used had me proof 3 times?! It definitely worked but the 3rd time wasn’t a charm. The 2nd loaf I only proofed once, different recipe. Going to get with my Dad, the bread expert in my life, and try his methods next. Hopefully get some sour dough started from him too
-
Pizza looks good @Steffen I made
Pizza on a Forkish biga dough this weekend. Six of them in fact.@Giles I need to look into the cost effectiveness of bulk buying like that. It may not work out given import costs…
Did a morning of home office work which allowed me to do a cheeky bake. 100% white, and 70% white, 30% eight corn, both based on poolish:
-
You guys are on another level now. Jesus Mary and Joseph
-
Hi all,
Great inspiring bakes!
I’ve been using the Forkish method for a while now and have been getting great results using bannetons and a dutch oven as recommended.
Weekly bakes have settled on firm family favourites like a 50% white poolish with grain & rye flour and a simple “Saturday white” but with about 40% malted grain added (“Cotswold Crunch”)One bake schedule I’ve struggled with it the overnight proofing in the fridge as the dough sticks to the bannetons. I’m pretty sure the bannetons are well ‘seasoned’ and I add extra flour each time I use them. Any additional advice/ tips?
Thanks in advance
Dan -
Nice looking loaves Dan…
I'm a just-chuck-more-flour-into-the-banneton kind of guy. Sometimes it works, but if it doesn't, it just adds an additional layer of rustic-looking to the loaf
And sometimes I brush the excess flour off before placing in the oven, but usually, I don't bother.My goto is Forkish 50% Poolish with 500gms white in the Poolish and 500gms eight-grain in the final mix. I get the eight-grain from Matthews, which I suspect is where you get your Cotswold crunch...
Yesterday's effort....
-
Cheers Giles.
Yes, I usually bulk buy white, 8 Grain & Cotswold Crunch from Matthews and then I use some random Rye flour (only about 100-150g per 1kg bake) bought from a local supermarket. -
Hi all,
Great inspiring bakes!
I’ve been using the Forkish method for a while now and have been getting great results using bannetons and a dutch oven as recommended.
Weekly bakes have settled on firm family favourites like a 50% white poolish with grain & rye flour and a simple “Saturday white” but with about 40% malted grain added (“Cotswold Crunch”)One bake schedule I’ve struggled with it the overnight proofing in the fridge as the dough sticks to the bannetons. I’m pretty sure the bannetons are well ‘seasoned’ and I add extra flour each time I use them. Any additional advice/ tips?
Thanks in advance
DanThose are two very nice loaves of bread @dan79
With sticky doughs I sometimes used hard wheat semolina to season the bannetons
-
@dan79 my best tip is in the vein of “mo’ flour” but specifically I season the bannetons but also the formed dough, before I place it in the banneton. This seems to help although whether it is just more flour making the difference I do not know.
Another good idea is to wet or flour your fingers and loosen the dough carefully before removing it. It doesn’t damage the form of the bread and allows you to discover the sticky bits and deal with them before any damage is done.
Finally I would also recommend the Forkish levain method, specifically the one for the Country Blonde. This calls for the bulk ferment to be done overnight and the banneton proofing to be done the next morning for about an hour or two. It allows you make great fruity, buttery bread and to otherwise dodge the whole issue of sticky bits [emoji1]
-
Looks amazing! @Chap
Thanks for the kind words and tip; I'll try and get hold of some semolina and give it a try.@neph93 I'm always pretty delicate when tipping out the bannetons, but will give your technique a try next time. As for the Country Blonde, I figured I'd try to perfect the pre-ferments and basic recipes first before moving to the advanced recipes, but as you say, the schedule for a levain bake is pretty convenient (much like the Poolish)
You guys have set such a high standard!!
Thanks for the advice. -
Judging by the look of your bread @dan79 you have all the skills you need to move on. If you go back to the start of this thread you’ll see some of my early “efforts” (disasters). I started with levain breads bodged together from internet recipes, then got my hands of FYSW and learnt poolish and biga techniques. With the exception of making your levain you know all you need to already.
Giving the bread a gentle fingering to check before twatting it out of the banneton by slamming the banneton onto a baking tray (I warm my fam when I’m going to do it it makes that much noise), helps a lot. It doesn’t damage or de-gas the dough at all, happily. I read somewhere that home bakers treat their doughs with a lot more reverence than they need to.
-
This afternoon’s bake; 60/40 white & Cotswold Crunch, done as a one day bake (Forkish “Saturday white bread” schedule).
The sandwich tin loaf was still proved in a banneton, and then moved to a solid iron 2lb loaf tin, then covered with foil instead of transferring to a dutch oven.For anyone interested, the loaf tin was from Netherton Foundry:
https://www.netherton-foundry.co.uk/shop/baking-tins
-
Lovely looking loaves @dan79
Busy weekends and hungry family meant a slightly creative baking schedule for me. Saturday morning I prepared two poolish and a levain starter and yesterday evening I was mixing and folding three lots of dough at the same time, a 100% white and a 80/20 eight corn, on the two poolish, and a Country Brown on the levain. I was baking the two poolish doughs around midnight and the Country Brown this morning.
The four Poolish loaves have been sliced and frozen and will be for breakfasts and lunch boxes this week (or at least the first half of it), while the two levain loaves were breakfast, lunch and dinner today.
The poolish:
And the Country Brown:
