Roasted Hazelnut and Prune Bread

I didn’t bake bread for more than 2 months now. I’m happy to see that my natural yeast is still alive. I fed it three times before baking the bread (including preparing the stiff levain build) and on the second time it became several times bigger .. wow.. it must be starved : P

The recipe is from Jeffrey Hamelman’s “Bread”, my second time to bake the bread. It calls for both bread flour (I used King Arthur All Purpose Flour) and whole wheat flour. However I found out my whole wheat flour was expired just when I wanted to prepare the dough, hence I replaced it with Bob’s Red Mill’s Dark Rye (the other flour I only had).

The texture of the bread is tighter than using whole wheat. Also the taste of rye was not strong enough. Maybe I should use rye sourdough instead of white one if I have it? Or ferment the dough for longer time without the commercial yeast? Anyway the original version with whole wheat flour does taste very good, especially the roasted hazelnut and prune, the deep flavor is good to enjoy in autumn. There is also 5% butter in the bread, which makes it softer and more flavourful. My baked bread always have darker crust, but I like it this way. : )

BBD#21 – Genzano Potato Pizza

Happy 2nd anniversary to Bread Baking Day! I would love to celebrate the big day with this delicious Genzano Potato Pizza. When I looked for my cook books for some interesting pizzas, Daniel Leader’s book helped solved my thought with this. Though without the traditional tomato and cheese, this pizza is also perfect to eat and share in a party. Incredibly thin & crispy, in additional to the potato flavor, I think this pizza would go very well with iced cold beer, ale, lager, etc. If you have a chance to make this pizza, remember to use some good sea salt instead of table salt, which would definitely bring out the potato flavor without overpowering it! The pizza base also had stronger “bread” flavor as it’s made with natural yeast. My family doesn’t enjoy Western bread as much as I do, but they also enjoyed the pizza.

One thing is I used King Arthur All Purpose flour instead of high gluten, and the dough could not have full gluten development as it’s very wet. Also the recipe said the dough should be 1/2 inch thick in the sheet pan, however mine was only about 1/4 inch. The recipe should make one sheet pan pizza, but it didn’t mention the size. I looked on the web and found mine is a quarter size sheet pan (9-1/2 x 13 inch). So I made 1/4 of the recipe. I am not sure if anything was wrong with this. Anyway the pizza base was finally good as it’s crispy more than chewy. So the gluten development and sheet pan size didn’t quite affect the result (to me).

The recipe is adapted from Daniel Leader’s “Local Breads”. I found the blog “Hungrig in San Francisco” also posted the recipe, so I am not typing it again.

Now I’m submitting this to BBD#21. Enjoy & Cheers!

Sunflower Seed Rye

Love this! Different from last time, the sunflower seeds were toasted beforehand this time, and definitely has made the bread much nuttier. Couronne shape of the bread has increased the crust to crumb ratio. The rye, toasted seeds and high amount of crust resulted in a strong taste and went very well together, and filled the mouth with a long finish even with a small piece. It really impressed me how the shape of a bread will affect its taste. Of course I hope I’ll shape the couronne better next time so I’ll be even happier. Haha.

Recipe from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice

Makes 1 pound loave

Firm Starter:

33g 100% hydration levain

38g unbleached high gluten or bread flour

17g water

Mix and ferment at room temp. for 4 hrs, until doubles in size. Then fridge overnight.

Soaker:

80g coarse whole-rye (pumpernickel-grind) flour or rye meal

85g water, at room temperature

Mix and soak at room temperature overnight.

Dough:

78g firm starter (take out  1 hr beforehand to get off the chill)

127g unbleached high-gluten or bread flour

5g salt

2g instant yeast

56g-85g water, lukewarm (90F – 100F)

1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

1) Mix the ingredients except the seeds, adding water slowly to adjust the dough consistency. Knead for 4 minutes. Then add the sunflower seeds. Knead for extra 2 minutes until the dough passes window pane test. Avoid over-knead to prevent the dough from turning gummy with rye.

2) Bulk fermentation: 1.5 hrs until doubles in size.

3) Shape into couronne. Final fermentation: 1-1.5 hrs untnil 1.5 times in size.

4) Preheat the oven to 500F. Bake at 450F after steam for 10 minutes. Then lower to 425F and bake until golden brown for extra 15-25 minutes.

5) Cool completely before serving.

Sunflower Seed Levain

I made Daniel Leader’s Sunflower Seed Levain today. It is a pain au levain (70% white flour, 24% whole wheat flour, 6% rye flour, 25% stiff levain, 60% hydration & 2% salt) with 14% sunflower seeds (soaked in 35% water overnight and then drained). The bread is moist and sour and hasn’t got the taste of sunflower seeds. The five grain levain I made last time had more complex flavor. I wonder if it is because of my skills or the recipe. I’ll try some more sunflower seed recipes later to find out what’s wrong.

*** Today (the 2nd day) I ate the levain again. Surprisingly it was good and tasted different. It’s only a bit sour and has a nice balance of the tang, wheat and seeds flavors, and less moist (but moist enough). Now I understand it’s because the bread was still a bit warm when I ate it yesterday, which enhanced the sourness and moisture. How important “cool down completely” is. Now the bread is great. I’m loving it.

Kamut Levain

Though both spelt & kamut are acient grains, the flavor of kamut is light instead of being as strong as spelt. It also has a unique flavor that many resources describe as buttery. I cannot think of the best description to the flavor now, but I think there is another flavor besides buttery. Anyway, Kamut’s light flavor is good for summer.

This bread is made of starter, and I think the sour taste has overwhelmed Kamut’s light flavor, even though I did not retard the dough overnight. Hence I would prefer to prepare a less sour levain next time or try baking with pate ferment.

Also, I sprinkled the dough with Kamut instead of plain flour. However the taste is just similar to plain flour even after baking.

Recipe: “Local Breads” by Daniel Leader