Instead of using whole wheat, I used unbleached white and replaced 53g with spelt.
The buns didn't rise much, and so not much overspring either. I noticed a strong buttery taste when the bun was consumed on the same day, but the buttery taste decreased the next day.
A nice bun recipe using sourdough starter, but I don't think the texture is soft enough for hamburger bun.
So the second loaf of the pain au levain has been sitting in the fridge for...about 27 hours now. Time to bake!
The oven was on at 300c for about 2 hours (we'd just finished having roasted goose breast for dinner). I cranked it up to 44oc, took the dough out from the fridge, did the normal routine: slash, spray and steam, then put it right into the oven (yes, straight from fridge to oven). In order to make sure that it will still get a decent overspring in the oven, I covered the loaf with a large stainless steel bowl for the first 20 minutes.
Many people praise how wonderful the overspring is when the dough was covered during the first xx minutes of baking. I never really bother doing it. Since the author of the bread states that retarding the dough will affect overspring, I got a bit worried. So time to use this little trick.
The bread rose nicely, with beautiful blister all over.
Next, I increased the oven temperature to 475C, and got ready for my sourdough bagel bake. This recipe is based on Reinhart's Crust and Crumb. I only made two changes: 1. I added 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast to compensate for the 0.8oz starter (recipe calls for 8oz starter but I only got 7.2oz); 2. retarded in the fridge for only 5 hours instead of overnight
Though the amount of yeast is tiny, I can definitely small the yeasty scent from the bagel :(
The bagels were overproofed a bit. Though I was on schedule, the addition of this small amount of yeast did mess up the activity of the dough. When I boiled the bagels, they floated right up. Fortunately, the finished products came out beautifully (I baked them for 15 minutes instead of 12 minutes)
I have a feeling that the texture will be more like a sandwich bun than a bagel. But that's all right, these are yummy artisan bake and I'll savour them one after after!
I've been blogging my bread making results to TFL forum since last year. I guess I should start recording my experiences here. So here I go.
The recipe is based on Hamelman's Bread book. Since I've just refreshed my starter 2 days ago, I used it in the recipe instead of following the levain build. After mixing all the ingredients, the dough seemed a bit dry, so I added an extra 1.5oz of water to the mix.
When I divided the dough in half, instead of the 1.5lb piece as described, mine came out 2lbs. No idea why. I baked one according to the schedule, and refridgerated the other half. The book says retarding this dough overnight isn't recommended. Well, I'll find out the next day.
This bread offers really nice texture and taste, much better than the SF SD from C&C. Will give it a try again.
oh yes...don't try some new recipes the night before if you need to bring your baked goods to a fund-rising event the next day...that's the lesson I learned tonight.
I should have done the same old scone recipe. How difficult it is to make scone? Not at all! However, if you get a not-so-reliable recipe, the outcome will be a disappointment. For some reasons, I tried this scone recipe. The source is from Canadian Living and there is a seal of "Tested till perfect" on the page. Sounds good? Sure. So with all my heart, I gave it a try.
I followed everything on the recipe except replacing the fake sugar (splenda) with real sugar. The dough seemed to be very wet when I tried to pat it down to 2cm thick. It shouldn't be that wet. However, I proceeded with the rest. When I took the scones out of the oven, they didn't rise much at all. The flavor was there, but they didn't have the normal scone texture due to the high level of moisture.
I've tried making bread from scratch before, the type of bread that requires using yeast, kneading (or whatever method), fermenting...I'm talking about the whole meal deal here. Then my husband showed interest in bread making also, and he started creating a sourdough starter to make our own sourdough. The bread department thus moved over to him.
However, my interest in bread making never stops. We have several books at home on bread making, and I always keep an eye on new publications. Recently, I checked out a new book from the library: The River Cottage bread Handbook. It is probably the smallest bread book we've read, but it is packed with essential information and helpful photos. Great binding and nice printing. On the same day that I've checked out the book, I baked a bread. It was very satisfying. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the bread. No worry, I need practice. There will be more bread to come.
Yogurt is good for you. It helps nurturing healthy bacteria that our body needs. Of course, besides the health factor, I do enjoy eating it. Unfortunately, buying yogurt regularly means creating many plastic waste. I do buy the 1.75 kg container instead of the individual one serving size and use the reusable container to pack my yogurt everyday, however, there is still another container to throw away. As a result, we've started making our own yogurt.
Surprisingly, it is very simple to make. If you don't believe me, try searching on the Internet "homemade yogurt" and you'll find lots of how-to info with pictures and videos and much much more.
What I'm going to journal here is our experiment on making yogurt.
First, we'll need a starter, and that I use some from my trusted yogurt that I always buy. When you buy a yogurt, read the label and make sure that the ingredient says it contains ACTIVE BACTERIAL CULTURE.
Second, get a litre of milk (buy those come in a bottle so you don't need to create another waste).
Third, an optional item according to our experience, is the powdered milk. Many recipes on the Internet says adding powdered milk will create a more solid texture. We've tried both with the powdered milk and without, and found the difference is minimal.
Choose organic ingredients if you can. When you think about the amount of hormones given to cows, buying organic milk/yogurt will become a natural choice.
Now is the process:
Preheat the convention oven to 200C. When it reaches 200C, turn the oven off.
Heat the milk on low heat (I use a glass pot) up to about 110C
OPTIONAL: if powdered milk is used, whisk in half a cup in the warm milk. Make sure that you mix it really well in the milk or you'll end up having milk solid in the end product
Turn off the heat, stir in half a cup of the starter (yogurt). Don't let the mixture temperature goes over 130C. Place the pot in the pre-heated oven. Let it stands for about 10 hours.
If you start making the yogurt after dinner time, you'll have freshly made yogurt for breakfast the next day. Of course, make sure that you keep the yogurt in the fridge after the 10 hours of curing.
Here are some of the ways we use our yogurt:
blend with fruit and juice and you'll have a creamy smoothies
add some blueberries (or any fruits) and you'll have a tasty fruit yogurt
mix a spoonful of yogurt in the homemade salad dressing
etc.
See "active bacterial culture" in the ingredient
This is how the homemade yogurt looks like in the pot
I have been making carrot cake with our homegrown carrots for quite a few times already. They are delicious ;) Have you tried pulling the carrots off the ground just an hour before using them for baking?
To be honest, fresh carrots like this should be eaten raw, and yes we do eat them raw! Give a carrot a quick bath and get ready for a juicy crispy bite...hmm...trust me, you really have to try growing carrots.
So why I want to use them in baking?
The carrot seeds were sowed since last summer (same as the beet seeds). Their fate is similar to our beets (see my previous post) and we really need to finish eating them soon. So today, I pulled a whole bunch of them (sorry, forgot to take a picture), made a quick carrot salad and for the not so good looking part of the carrots, I used them to make a carrot cake.
You can find carrot cake recipes easily in cookbooks or on the Internet. I have compared quite a number of the carrot cake recipes and found that the ingredients are more or less the same. So I'm not going to repeat the cake recipe here. The only difference that I made in my recipe was that I used FRESH carrots ;) I also used eggs that were purchased from my husband's colleague who raises his own chickens in his farm somewhere in the Fraser Valley (I think) . If you have farmers market in your area, you may want to buy eggs directly from them instead of those from the supermarket. The quality is much better, though the size of the eggs will vary. When you finish the eggs, give the egg carton back to the farmer so that the carton can be re-used.
