Bread - What are you baking today…..
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I am off to Cornwall for a few days fishing. The day I get back, we have a few people coming to stay, all perfectly social distancing compliant (more on that later
:-X), so I though I better get some bread baked as I won't have time to do it when I get home….
I also made about 5 kilos of pimped bolognaise, but that's in the freezer…....
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Excellent work… all looking beautifully rustic too.
I’m under pressure to bake 6-8 loaves a week at the moment. The three increasingly large and hairy ones demand home baked bread as standard and have also learnt to distinguish pure levain bread from pre-ferments. They have a preference for sourdough but poolish is good for lunch box sandwiches. I’ve created some entitled monsters.
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Can you blame them for wanting this ?
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I am off to Cornwall for a few days fishing. The day I get back, we have a few people coming to stay, all perfectly social distancing compliant (more on that later
:-X), so I though I better get some bread baked as I won't have time to do it when I get home….You are killing it at this point G
always looking good...always looking tasty -
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For this mornings bake, I kept the remains of my starter from Friday and double fed it with finely ground white flour. In between feedings it has sat in the small cupboard space above my fridge which has an air temp of about 29C. This is more or less the Forkish “warm spot white levain” recipe, with a few modifications.
It is a long process (in practice it lasts three days), with lots of steps. It is fun though and produces some dough that was great to work with. Waking up this morning to the finished bulk ferment was a joy.
The end result is the best bread I’ve ever baked. I really wish you could all try this….
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I also made about 5 kilos of pimped bolognaise, but that's in the freezer…....
One of my favorites…....
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So, I started an overnight bread last night. After the bulk ferment at 21:00, I should have shaped into loaves and place in the fridge to prove overnight. I forgot (red wine may have been involved. So the bulk ferment lasted 15 hours at room temp. I shaped into loaves and proved for 30 mins and bunged in the oven. The result was surprisingly good….
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Made my two standards yesterday evening and this morning…. white bread with 20% spelt on a poolish levain and the Forkish Country Blonde. I’m getting consistent results from an establishwd schedule with the latter, so I’m thinking I should try the Pain Au Bacon with it, next week.
Poolish:
Country Blonde:
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Had a weekend/bread/alcohol related FUBAR myself today…
Mixed a poolish last night 50/50 flour and water, 500g each. This morning as I was mixing the final dough my ever so slightly thick head decided to put in 500g of water and not 250g making the dough 100% hydration. I tried not to panic and started doing math (badly) to work out what I needed to do to preserve the flour/water/salt/yeast ratios. The flour was easy, the salt a little harder and the yeast nigh on impossible as the poolish is supposed to make up 50% of the final dough and not 33% as this will be. Sunday morning head, emergency mathematics and baker’s percentages don’t mix.
The bulk ferment and proofing seem to have gone well. Best case I get three white poolish loaves, but the taste will probably be a little bland because of the reduced poolish per loaf.
Updates to come...
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That'll do
Indeed it will. And I now know that the equipment I have will allow me to make bigger batches without it taking meaningfully longer time. Three loaf doughs are no problem, and there is probably room for a four loaf dough too.
EDIT: in other news, I’ve been smoking trout today. Coming to a thread near you soon.
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Cold… used one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Abu-Garcia-Fish-Smoker-Black/dp/B004O6LQ8Q
Full account later this evening.
