Sourdough things I learned this week

Forgot to add salt in my bread. So, learned importance of salt not just for taste but also impact proving (no salt to retard so makes it quicker, so over proofed my bread) and the structure of bread (non existent, so no shape once it came out of banneton) . Interestingly saltless bread has a long tradition in Tuscany and Umbria region. So would go great with tuscan soup. I am also probably going to make some croutons adding some salt while cooking.

Had a little think of about hydration and starter again. Found this interesting post about hydration. I tend to do equal part water to flour to feed my starter (100% hydration) but a stiffer hydration (more flour to water) to your starter means you don’t have to feed it as often. Great option if your taking a break for a couple of days.

Which also lead me to thinking instead of adding water what if you just used starter with a bit of bread. Someone had the exact same thought. This great discussion has the answer. Long story short is basically you don’t get the gluten structure. Also lead me to this post from food52 about preferments.

I always struggle with more hydrated runny dough and apparently been kneading wrong. This video is quite thorough and vey well explained from the bread code, about high hydration kneading. The second one is a great step by step in real time kneading by Joyride coffee.

Galette des rois

Happy 2021! The 6th is king’s day and there is nothing like a galette des rois to celebrate.

You can buy puff pastry or depending how confident you are make your own. It took me a couple tries to get it right but quite enjoy making semi rough puff pastry now. The best recipe I have found is this one and this one. Spatuladessert does amazing galette des rois including puff pastry. It has a great how to roll and fold puff pastry diagram guide.

Now for the galette des rois itself. Couple of celebrity chef recipe – David lebovitz and Raymond Blanc or French a la cart which has 3 variation recipes.

I ended mashing a bit all the recipe and adding Yuzu curd. Used a 23 cm sandwich spring tin which was really handy. I used the bottom spring as a guide to cut out the puff pastry and the inner opening as a guide for the filling. It was also handy to store puff pastry disks in the fridge.

Ingredients

• 100 g almond flour
• 70 g icing sugar
• 30 g Demerara sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Zest 1 tangerine
• 100 g unsalted butter cubed room temperature
• 2 large eggs room temperature
• 2 tbsp Cointreau/ gran marinare
• 2 tbsp Yuzu curd
• 500g puff pastry
• 1 feve and gold crown

Glaze

• 1 egg yolk
• 1tsp milk

Recipe

1. Mix well almond flour + icing sugar + Demerara sugar + salt + tangerine zest. Making sure that you don’t have any clumps from the icing sugar.
2. Cream the butter with the sugar/almond mixture.
3. Add eggs, one at a time
4. Add Cointreau + Yuzu curd.
5. You now have pate d’amande. Cover and store in the fridge.
6. Divide your puff pastry into 2. Roll out and make two 23cm disk. Cover and refrigerate with the pate d’amande for 45min.
7. Preheat the oven at 180C.
8. Take one of the disk out and gently draw a circle around 20 cm. Fill the circle with the pate d’amande. Put the feve somewhere random in the pate d’amande. Wet the edges with some water and put the 2nd disk on top. Press the edges together and be carful of air bubbles.
9. For a proper seal and classic bit of decoration, us two finger tips press down on the edge and put the blunt edge of the knife between the finger tips. Do this all the way around to get a scallop pattern edge.
10. Mix the egg yolk + milk with a pastry brush and glaze the galette. For optional patterns, using a knife gently and making sure you don’t cut too deeply create the pattern of your choosing. The classics are swirls from the centre or my favourite lines with opposing diagonals inside.
11. Bake for 30 min or golden brown on top.

Seeded rye sourdough

Been busy with lots baking as we go back in lockdown. Found the best recipe for sourdough muffins on baking sense website. The muffins were delicious. The sourdough pizza also look amazing, so does the sourdough buns, sourdough pitta bread, sourdough donuts, sourdough coffee cake ….. Actually I want to do all the sourdough recipes. So plenty to keep me busy for the next couple of weeks.

I also made this seeded rye sourdough. This is an absolutely lovely loaf, in fact this might be one of my favourites. This makes quite a large loaf so had to use a large banneton (a bread proofing basket). It was also too big for my dutch oven so used a pizza stone instead. To make sure the oven was humid enough I used two small loaf tin filled with water.

Ingredients:

• 100 g whole grain bread flour
• 250 g white bread flour
• 105 rye
• 200 g water
• 100 g milk
• 175 g starter
• 25 hemp seeds
• 50 g pumpkin & sunflower mix seeds
• 20 g nigella seeds
• 10 g flax seeds
• 5 g caraway seeds
• 125 g boiling water
• 15 g of salt

recipe:

1. mix the water +milk + starter + half of the flour. Let it sit for 45 min.
2. In a separate bowl add and mix all the seeds and pour boiling water over it and let it sit for 45 min.
3. Add the rest of the flour +salt +soaked seed mix to your dough let it rest for 10 min.
4. Fold 4 times every 30 min.
5. Final fold and shape – you want to form in a ball and pinch the fold together. Turn the dough so that pinched fold are on your working surface and light pressing down twisting the dough so that it becomes taught.
6. Flour well a large banneton and place the dough in it.
7. Final bulk rise –about 8 hours depending on temperature. I quite leaving overnight somewhere cool.
8. Preheat the oven to 240C with the pizza stone and two small tin loaves filled with water. Once the oven reaches temperature leave it another 30min to make sure the pizza stone is heated through.
9. Taking out the dough – Cut and place baking paper over a cutting board and place it on top of the banneton. Holding together the cutting board, baking paper and banneton quickly invert it.
10. Slash your the top and place it on the pizza stone as quickly as possible.
11. Bake for 45 min at 240C and the last 15 min at 180C at until the top is a deep dark brown.
12. Take it out of the oven and let cool completely.

Sourdough tortilla chips

The start of autumn means sadly the end of tomato season. But happily lots of green tomatoes and tomatillo to make salsa. And what would be salsa be without some delicious tortilla chips. This is also another super useful recipe for sourdough discard. Store them in airtight container for 2 weeks max as they do get stale.

ingredients

• 170 grams corse corn meal
• 170 grams fine corn meal
• 450 grams sourdough
• 45 grams room temperature butter
• 1tsp fine salt + corse salt to sprinkle before cooking
• 1tsp grounded pepper (more if you like a bit more of bite)
• (optional) grinder black pepper, paprika, onion poudre or garlic poudre

1. Mix well in a bowl corne meal + sourdough + butter + fine salt + pepper
2. Wrap up the dough in cling film and in the fridge for at least 45 min.
3. Divid the dough in 4 even portion. 1 portion should fit a standard cooking tray.
4. Flour some baking paper that fits your baking tray.
5. Roll out your dough to quite thin around 1/4 cm.
6. Sprinkle some coarse salt and more pepper if you want more bite.
7. Now to cut to triangles. Start with even vertical and horizontal lines so you have squares. Next do diagonal lines where the corners of your squares meet.
8. Sprinkle some olive oil and use a pastry brush to make sure there is an even coat.
9. In the oven at 180c for 30 min

Sourdough crackers

There are many things you can do with sourdough discards that don’t involve chucking it. after all its just flour and water. this ranges from dumpling, pop overs/ Yorkshire pudding, sauce thickening, bechemele sauce, batter to deep fry, scallion pancakes to pie crust. King Arthur bakery website has a long list and so does chowhound.

One easiest and quickest way to get rid of sourdough discard is sourdough crackers. There are many version of this but the easiest and quickest way is the 1st versions which is just sourdough starter and olive oil.

The second one is more floury/ biscuit version with a slight rise that has small pockets. It is not quite as tangy as the pure sourdough+ olive oil crackers. Handy tool to cute into square is a rolling pastry/pasta cutters which make really light work of the whole process. For flavouring you can just sprinkle any dried herbs or seeds or spices or grated hard cheese. I have just been using marjoram as I have been using them to eat gorgonzola. Store them in an airtight container and they should last for about a month.

sourdough and olive oil –

• 300 grams sourdough starter
• 30 grams olive oil
• 10 grams salt

spread on baking parchment and bake at 160c for 45 min. once cooked take out of the oven and snap off into pieces.

More floury version –

• 300 grams sourdough starter
• 150 grams ap flour
• 10 grams salt

Roll out on some baking paper until quite thin and cut into even piece with a pastry cutter. Bake at 180c  for 30 min or until slightly brown.

 

Mincemeat Revisited- American​ version

Exploring the wonderful world of mincemeat. Thinking of creating an Italian mincemeat with amaretto and some similar flavours to panettones. I have called this the American version because it has whisky, fresh cranberries and pecans and maple syrup.

I made my own candied peel, the recipe can be found here. They are very easy to make. To get enough peels I started saving all the peels from oranges, grapefruits and satsuma I ate and put them in a bag in the freezer. The candied peel should be made 3 days before you make this recipe.

Ingredients

• 30g raisin
• 225g sultanas
• 215 currants
• 170g dates, finely chopped
• 140g fresh cranberry, finely chopped
•  20g stem ginger
• 165g pecans, finely chopped
• 175g candied peels, finely chopped
• 90g demerara sugar
• 70g maple syrup
• 5 apple, peeled finely chopped
• 50g butter
• 200g suet
• 2 oranges zest
• 2 lemons zest
• 1 grapefruit zest
• 2 mandarins zest

Recipe

1. In a large bowl mix well all the ingredient except the brandy together.
2. Leave the mixture to settle in covered and in a cool place for about 12 hours.
3. Heat the oven to 200ºC and put in your mincemeat mixture in an oven proof pan and leave in the oven 3.5 hours. It really doesn’t look pretty when it comes out but it does taste and smell delicious I promise.
4. Leave to cool mixing it once in a while.
5. Once cool add the brandy and mix it well.
6. Sterilize some jars by washing them thoroughly and putting them in the oven at 180ºC for at least 5 min.
7. Put your mincemeat in the sterilised jars. Leave in a dark cool cupboard until you need it.

Baker’s percentage! Maths! Excel!

So baker percentage is an easy way to see your baking ratio – that is except for math illiterates like me but King Arthur flour has a good math website. The WildYeast website also has even a four-part tutorial if you want to go a bit deeper. The ratio is flour based so water, salt and starter are in percentage of flour. Which makes sense really as flour is always the main ingredient. For example –

No knead rosemary polenta bread.

percentage %	grams	ingredient
100	800	bread flour
41.88	335	water
15	120	starter
2.75	22	salt
22.5	180	cooked polenta
12.5	100	milk

No knead work loaf.

percentage	grams	ingredient
100%	450	bread flour
50%	225	water
22.22%	100	starter
2.22%	10	salt

Are baker percentage intrinsic to baking bread? No, but they are great if you want to quickly and precisely calculate batches and ingredients. There is a really long discussion with lots of comment on the fresh loaf about this (it does get wonky and even a little snippy). The weekend bakery also has a dough calculator to make it easy for you.

Another use for baker percentage is too quickly and easily compare recipes by its ingredients. For example, what is the best hydration for a plain boule to get the best crumb? I have tested 70% all the way down to 45% water to flour ratio. Ie from my excel workbook –

percentage	grams	ingredient
highest hydration
100	450	bread flour
65	292.5	water
25	112.5	starter
2.25	10.12	salt
medium hydration
100	450	bread flour
58	262	water
25	112.5	starter
2.25	10.12	salt
driest hydration
100	450	bread flour
55	262	water
25	247.5	starter
2.25	10.12	salt

I found that for the best hydration ration is around 50%-60%. Over 60% the boule doesn’t keep its shape is more ciabatta. Under 55% you don’t really get an\y nice bubbly holes.  It is easy too quickly draw up a table and easy to set up on an excel workbook.

Anyways you don’t have to use it but it is a helpful tool for bread making and general baking because both rely so much on precise ratios.

Mincemeat​ – Christmas is coming!

My two favourite things about Christmas are crackers and mince pie. During the festive season, I can be seen scouring mince pies across London to find the best. This year I have decided to up my game and do my own. The first step towards this exciting endeavour is making mincemeat. I think the very traditional and origins of this recipe did use actual meat but most modern recipes do without it. It does use beef tallow known a suet, for vegetarians there is vegetarian suet.

You can use the mincemeat right away for pies but I am going to try to wait a couple of weeks to let it really steep.

My base recipe was Delia’s excellent homemade Christmas mincemeat. I added dates and cranberries. I also put slightly less suet and sugar. The candy peels are the ones that I made over the summer the recipe can be found here. I am going to try to do variations by substituting brandy with calvados or whisky.

Ingredients

• 3 apples cut into small pieces
• 2 tbsp allspice
• 2 tsp anise star
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 350g raisins
• 225g sultanas
• 30g cranberry
• 6 dates chopped into small pieces
• 225g candied peels
• 250g brown sugar
• 200g suet
• Zest of 2 oranges
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 200g crushed almonds
• 7 tbsp brandy

Recipe

1. In a large bowl mix well all the ingredient except the brandy together.

2. Leave the mixture to settle in covered and in a cool place for about 12 hours.

3. Heat the oven to 200ºC and put in your mincemeat mixture in an oven proof pan and leave in the oven 3.5 hours. It really doesn’t look pretty when it comes out but it does taste and smell delicious I promise.

4. Leave to cool mixing it once in a while.

5. Once cool add the brandy and mix it well.

6. Sterilize some jars by washing them thoroughly and putting them in the oven at 180ºC for at least 5 min.

7. Put your mincemeat in the sterilised jars. Leave in a dark cool cupboard until you need it.

Summer Break

Sorry, have not been baking any bread, been a bit on a summer break. The starter has been the fridge and sleeping for the last month.

An excellent way to store your starter is to feed it well with flour and water give it a stir. Leave it a couple of hours at room temperature before putting in the fridge. Your starter should be fine for at least a week. I have left very well feed starter in the fridge for 3 weeks. If you are planning not to bake for a really really really long time you can also freeze it.  Just put the starter in a jar and in the freezer.  I have some emergency starter in the freezer at all time in case the worst should happen. To restart your starter from the freezer, it takes a little coaxing to wake up. Leave it to thaw and then feed it well.

Anyways will be back soon though!

No knead olive bread

Sorry been a little lazy with posting, have been taking full advantage of the lovelier summer. This has included fruit and veg picking in the country side, going to lavender fields, growing avocados, and some flying trapeze as well as just sitting in sun in a pub garden.

But here is the no knead version of my precious olive bread recipe.

Came out very well with a nice crumb. The bit of red is because I use the Waitrose stuffed green olive but you can use normal black or green olives.

Ingredients:

• 400 g whole grain bread flour
• 500 g white bread flour
• 500 g water
• 200 g starter
• 115 g olives
• 25 g olive brine
• 50 g olive oil
• 20 g of salt

recipe:

1. mix the water and flour slowly until just incorporated – Autolyse for 1 hour
2. Add starter +salt +olives + olive oil, let it rest for 10 min
3. Fold 6 times every 20 min. When folding use olive oil on your hands not only moisturise the hands but also keeps the dough from sticking.
4. 1st rise – oil the bowl, or use a clean to well
5. Folding and proofing – divide the dough in two and shape two balls. Let it proof for about 20 hours in the fridge.
6. Final bulk rise – take out the dough out of the fridge and at room temperature for about 2 hours. Preheat the oven at 260C˚ the Dutch Oven(I have a Le Creuset pot).
7. Slash the top and Bake at 260C˚ for about 20mins with the lid on. Lower the temperature to 190C˚ for another 30min.
8. Take it out of the oven and let cool for a couple hours.