bread baking

[Retinend]

That's a real thing of beauty!

[Retinend]

What's nice about baking your own bread is that you can get the crispiest possible result, so that it makes a real racket to eat it. At the moment I'm munching away and I can't understand a word coming out of the TV because of the volume.

[Retinend]

Dear Dr. CaB,

I might have given myself indigestion after eating my first ever sourdough bread made from my own starter. Or if not, then it's a big old coincidence, because I never had a stomach ache like this in recent memory, and it happens to be the first day I eat this new thing for me, home-made sourdough bread. Well it tasted amazing but could it actually be harming me? The loaf didn't rise much and has a really strong smell, almost like cheese. Am I just a victim of a dangerous trend that is silently killing? I actually don't know if I want to risk trying again if I recover soon... it's got a bit of an association for me now. Stools: type 5 on the BSFS.

Regards,
Retinend



P.S. I actually feel fine right now - the aches lasted for about 60 minutes at a slightly uncomfortable intensity.   

[hamfist]

that sounds like when my starter went a bit weird, I was feeding it on organic white flour and somehow it made it produce less yeast and more bacteria, it took on a weird smell and failed to rise.

I binned most if it, gave it boggo Allinsons strong white bread flour to eat and even added a sprinkle of bicarb (to reduce the acidity which may gave been killing the yeast) and a sprinkle of dried yeast.

It came back to full vigour, now I only feed it Allinsons and it's thriving.

[Retinend]

I chucked it in the bin. I gave it a sniff and the smell that I was initially proud of creating - since it is now so unfortunately associated with sickness - just instinctively repulsed me.

That is, the sourdough loaf-that-barely-rose went in the bin - not the starter. I didn't chuck the starter in the bin, but I'm putting it on the backburner for a while and, using myself as a human experiment, will see if I feel sick again the next time I dare eat the product. To be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I feel obliged, as a bread-lover, to master the dark art of sourdough, all the same.

Question: the starter can live forever, like a plant, so long as it is fed, right? It doesn't ever expire, right?

[hamfist]

correct, just feed it regularly (like daily if at room temp, weekly if in the fridge) and remember you discard some before feeding. I bake twice per week - 2x2 loaves, each loaf I take 100g starter and add 100g water and 100g flour to it and let that bubble up. When not baking I discard 100g of starter from the jar and feed it 50g water / 50g starter.

[Pink Gregory]

I usually bake 1 loaf a week but I've left the starter un-fed in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, as long as you refresh it the day before feeding it seems to work fine.

I am doing hybrid leavening at the minute though.  Still, you only put yeast in the final dough and the starter takes the flour/water well enough before then.

[MojoJojo]

I binned most if it, gave it boggo Allinsons strong white bread flour to eat and even added a sprinkle of bicarb (to reduce the acidity which may gave been killing the yeast) and a sprinkle of dried yeast.

I'm too lazy to bake bread myself properly, but I do have a bread machine, and one tip I would give is get your strong flour from Aldi/Lidl. Tesco charge around £1.30* for 1.5kg, but Aldi/Lidl sell the same for 67p, which means it actually started to get price competitive with cheap supermarket bread.

I mean, flour isn't a major expense so it's not a big deal really, but flour keeps well so easy to bulk buy.


(*they only seem to have whole ground available on my internet shop at the moment)

[Retinend]

You can't keep a baker down. I let the starter feed for five days before giving it another try. That time, the bread rose decently and it no longer had the heavy cheesy smell once baked. The resulting bread dough tasted precisely like a nice pancake, much denser, but without the need for egg, milk or butter. Needless to say, it didn't make me feel sick.

It's sourdough 101, I am aware, but I'm only just learning now how perfect this stuff would be instead of self-raising flour in a pancake.

Today was my second successful attempt at a sourdough. I didn't want such dense product this time, so I went for half and half - two big spoonfuls of starter, and half a normal (7g?) packet of yeast for 2/3 of a kilo of flour. I'm really happy with the flavour and texture result, and I think I will settle for this recipe as standard for the time being:



The "Swirl" is a bit annoying. I will knead harder next time.

[hamfist]

wow that looks deliciously fluffy ! nice nice nice !!!

[Emma Raducanu]

To celebrate Orthodox Easter, I made Tsoureki. Thought I was going to be defeated by it because it took about 5 hours to prove and I assumed my yeast was fucked but got there eventually (I assume the sugar content retards it a bit or something). It is an excellent bread not too disimilar to brioche but importantly flavoured with (hard to find?) ground cardamom, mahlab and mastic. It's hard to persuade someone to make something but if you want to try something different and can find these spices, it's worth a try because it's fucking stunning.

https://akispetretzikis.com/categories/glyka/tsoyreki-to-enamisi

This guy's recipe/video is worth following because it's important to knead the dough (with kitchenaid) for almost 20 minutes then after the first prove, there's a roll and fold thing that helps acheive the correct texture. However, this recipe calls for far too much mahlab (3-4g is enough).

There's enough dough for 2 loaves. The first I plaited and the second I rolled into loads of little balls and layered up a loaf tin with these, chocolate chips and a mixture of brown sugar/mahlab/cinnamon to create something like monkey bread. Most importantly, it will fill your house with the most amazing smell. But yeh, mahlab. Where you gonna find it.

[Retinend]

I was wondering what would happen if you bunged a bunch of spice into a dough, presuming you had some sort of dish in mind that would complement it.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Looking good there, Retinend.

[Retinend]

In celebration of the football season (actually it's a total coincidence that it looks this way) I made this choco-brioche bread - exactly the same as I always make bread, but with milk instead of water and sugar replacing some of the flour. And a big dollop of sourdough, combined with a standard block/packet of baker's yeast.

The sourdough I have been cultivating for a few months now is absolutely brilliant, but I always combine it with regular baker's yeast. My theory is that the standard baker's yeast makes the dough inflate quickly, whereas the sourdough sort of works away "in the gaps", creating all the unpredictability when you look closely at the crumb (not to mention an improved, chewier texture and "breadier" taste).

[Blue Jam]

Making some lazy bastard bread today. Dan Lepard's minimal kneading technique with Allinson's "Country Grain" flour. No adulterants, just gettin' lazy with the shop-bought goodness.



Livin' Country Style.

Chucked out my sourdough starter a few months back. It was in good health but just a bit too lactic. It definitely tasted sour but the lactic character was a bit overpowering. Might get another one on the go soon.

[Blue Jam]

Lazy bastard bread rolls:



Kept 'em rustic. Pretty chuffed with these. Good return on the minimal effort.

[Retinend]

Lovely, hetereogeneous results there.

Regarding dodgy sourdough - I think for me the problem was that I was using exclusively whole wheat flour for the first month. That way, it gave off a lot of acidic stuff, it had an "edgy" aroma, and never rose up in the container as much as it does now. To anyone who hears the advice, as I did, to exclusively use whole wheat flour, consider starting with regular flour and transitioning to whole wheat flour later, when you're confident the sourdough will properly consume it.

[Pink Gregory]

Old thread I know but look at this absolute queen

Finally started using the proper timings for overnight cold proving, considering the low temperatures of the kitchen in winter and utilising a cool bag with an ice pack in it, and the difference is phenomenal, it's all in the crust.

Unfortunately the problem now becomes finding a breadknife that can actually penetrate that hide.

[hamfist]

Wow that is a beautiful hunk of bread, great work !!

[Pink Gregory]

Wow that is a beautiful hunk of bread, great work !!

A friend gave us a bread sized cast iron dutch oven for christmastide and christ it makes a hell of a difference to just shoving it on a baking tray.

Of course it's a fairly large boule so not great for sammiches so now what I need is another massive iron bucket that's in a slightly ovoid shape

[poodlefaker]

I get very good results from an enamelware lidded pot* - one of those white things with blue edging. Much cheaper than cast iron.

*can't bring myself to use the term Dutch oven, soz.

[Vodkafone]

I just made this Finnish archipelago bread and oh my goodness it's delicious. Think malt loaf but more savoury and bready. The only ingredient that's tricky to get is the malt extract, but you can get it in Holland and Barrett.

[Des Wigwam]

I just made this Finnish archipelago bread and oh my goodness it's delicious. Think malt loaf but more savoury and bready. The only ingredient that's tricky to get is the malt extract, but you can get it in Holland and Barrett.

Looks great - question: how sour does/should the milk be? Or is it just a matter of sticking a bit of lemon juice in it?

[Vodkafone]

Looks great - question: how sour does/should the milk be? Or is it just a matter of sticking a bit of lemon juice in it?

I used buttermilk and was about 100ml short so topped up with oat milk. Buttermilk isn't very sour so you probably could just put some lemon or apple juice in some regular milk and it would be fine. It's probably to balance what would otherwise be a bit too sweet.

[hamfist]

Looks lovely !

My wife birthed this Swiss Zopf this morning. Massive, soft milky white loaf.

[Retinend]

it looks like a particularly well-formed turd

(and I mean that in the nicest way)

[Blue Jam]

Just dun an Indian-style tear-and-share bread:



Used the same recipe I used to make Cinnabons for the BCS finale, again with Candarel rather than sugar, no butter or eggs in the dough, but this time I used hazlenut milk (because my dairy milk had gone chunky) and instead of cinnamon I used some Indian sweet baking spice blend. Gonna wait for this to cool then top it with a cardomom and rosewater icing.

Came out all light and rich like a cronut even though there's no butter, pretty chuffed!

[Dex Sawash]

Phwoarr

[Blue Jam]

Cheers! Spice mix contains cinnamon but the main ingredient is coriander and in this context it tastes surprisingly lemony, not unlike the lemon juice/cream cheese frosting on Cinnabons. Works really well!