Spring Farmers Market

In a true sign that spring is finally here, this Thursday was the first Cornell farmers market, a weekly marketplace that brings fresh meats, produce, and other items right to the heart of the Cornell campus. This student coordinated event runs through the spring & fall semesters and provides a great opportunity for students and the rest of the campus community to experience the wealth of fresh and local items that central NY has to offer.

It was at this farmer's market that I first learned of the Cornell Bread Club, a collective of student baking enthusiasts who prepare a variety of fresh baked items for campus events and to sell at the weekly market. Sometime last fall semester I wandered over to the market to pick up a few tomatoes and spotted their table. The club's head baker, Abby, had baked up some amazing sourdough that changed my whole outlook on homemade sourdough. Her bread had great flavor and texture, and had risen into beautifully formed loaves. It really inspired me to up my game with naturally leavened bread.

From that point on I became much more attentive to the care and feeding of my culture, and have improved the quality of my sourdough immensely. So much in fact, that I decided to contribute a few loaves to the market myself. I made 3 big loaves of whole wheat sourdough and a couple experimental loaves of German style whole grain bread. And I'm happy to say they all sold out, along with a bunch of other delicious loaves contributed by other bakers including, apple, cranberry-walnut, cinnamon swirl!

Whole Wheat Sourdough 

(adapted from Chad Robertson's White-Wheat Blend in Tartine No.3)

B Flour WW Flour WWW Flour Wheat Germ Water Starter Salt

Mass 350g 500g 150g 70g 850g 150g 20g

Percentage 35% 50% 15% 7% 85% 15% 2%

• Mix all of the ingredients and autolyse for 30min
• Fold once an hour for about 3-4 hrs. Then leave in the fridge overnight
• Scale out dough into 1000g loaves and let rest in a banneton for 1-2 hours
• Bake at 450 in a covered dutch oven for 45min until internal temp is 200F

Results 

I got some really nice looking loaves from the whole wheat sourdough. The German-style barley & spelt loaf came out pretty cool too... I'll do another post on those loaves soon.

Conclusion

I was really happy with how these came out, and glad to see that other people seemed to like them too! It was fun scaling up my baking volume and selling a few loaves. Looking forward to next week's market.... I'm thinking something Easter themed!

30% Einkorn Bread

Introduction

I was given Tartine Bread book No. 3 by Chad Robertson as an early birthday present last week (thanks Michael & Martha!) and I finally got a chance to use it this weekend. After the heirloom grain tasting event a few weeks ago I have been wanting to try some different wheat varieties so I picked up some Einkorn flour at the local co-op. Fortunately this book has a recipe for a loaf that uses 30% Einkorn flour so I started with that.

Einkorn (a.k.a. Triticum monococcum) is one of the earliest forms of wheat and a close descendant of wheat's wild ancestor Triticum boeoticum. It originated nearly 10,000 years ago in the fertile crescent, right at the dawn of the agricultural revolution, and has remained relatively unchanged ever since. Unlike modern hybrid wheat varieties, Einkorn (German for one seed) produces only one grain per spikelet. This of course limits crop yield and explains why it is a rather obscure crop despite excellent nutrition and flavor (ref).

This was my first attempt at using einkorn flour & I expected that the dough made with it would be kinds of slack and weak due to the low amount of gluten in this grain. I recruited my sister in law Sophia to help with the 3+ hours of stretching & folding (...while I went out for a beer), and she did a stellar job. I returned to find that she had made a nicely developed, cohesive ball of dough from the shaggy mess of flour and water I left her with... well done Sophia!

Materials & Methods 

We actually followed the directions from the recipe this time (mostly) so I won't reprint it here. The only (slight) modifications were: 

• We used straight whole wheat flour with the bran, instead of high extraction flour
• We left it in the cold overnight for bulk fermentation

Timeline:

7p 7:30p 10a 1p

Mix flours, water, and starter. Let rest for 30m to autolyse. Incorporate the salt dissolved in 50g of water by stretch and folding. Ferment at for 3-4 hours, folding every 30m Divide into 2 loaf sized portions Place in floured banneton and proof at RT for 3-4h Bake at 500F for 20m in a covered dutch oven, then 450 for 20 min and a final 10 min uncovered

Results 

This dough was super wet (75% hydration) but the dough did not stick to the banneton and was surprisingly easy to work with after the first several stretch & folds. This recipe made two loaves. Both loaves rose nicely and sprung more than I expected in the oven. The crust color was a lovely reddish gold brown that made an amazing contrast with the  swirl of flour left behind from the banetton. The aroma of this bread was noticeably different than white or whole wheat. The flavor had a honey like, grassy sweetness that was really good. The weak point in my opinion was the texture that was a bit too soft which made it difficult to slice, even with a serrated bread knife. The warm creamy golden crumb had a nice complex hole structure with some nice large holes randomly mixed among smaller ones.

Conclusion

This is an incredibly beautiful and unique tasting loaf. The only problem was that it was a little too soft for me. Perhaps next time I will try it with more bread flour or some additional vital wheat gluten.

Sprouted Rye Sourdough

 

Introduction

I pretty much just made this one up. I have been trying to get my sourdough bread to come out a bit more sour & I also wanted to experiment with some sprouted grains. So I looked through several different recipes and came up with this. The goal here (in addition to testing out my brand new loaf pan!) is to ferment a good amount of rye flour for an extended period of time to get it nice and sour & incorporate some actively growing sprouts without messing up the texture of the crumb.

Materials & Methods

Rye Flour Bread Flour Sprouted Rye Water Yeast Salt

Overall Mass 330 g 570 g 300 g 640 g - -

Overall Percentage 37% 63% 33% 71%

• The percentage of pre-fermented flour is 44%

Rye Sourdough White Starter Sprouted Rye Bread Flour Water Yeast Salt

Mass 660 g 200 g 300 g 470 g 210 g 1/2 t 15 g

• This is a pretty wet dough so mix as well as you can then leave it to rest rather than kneading for gluten development.

Timeline

-- 7p-d1 7p 11p

Begin sprouting 300g of Rye grains by soaking in water for about 8h, then straining and rinsing occasionally over a couple days until sprouted. Put in the fridge if they start growing too  quickly (these actually sat in the fridge for several days... I'll try to get to them quicker next time). Also, mix 330g rye flour with 330g water and 20g starter to make an active rye sourdough. Leave this to ferment in the fridge for a couple days while the sprouts are sprouting. Combine the fermented rye sourdough & sprouts with the remaining ingredients and mix until combined. Let rise 1-2 h then retard in the fridge for ~24 h. Remove from fridge and bring to RT (~1 h). Divide into 2 loaf sized portions, by patting flat, dividing & folding. Place in prepared loaf pans and proof for 3-4h Bake at 450F for ~45m. Cover with aluminum foil for the 1st 15 min to trap steam & if necessary again at the end  to avoid excessive browning.

Fermented rye flour and sprouted rye ready to mixed into dough.

Results

I am pretty happy with this. You could tell it was going to be sour because the rye starter was pretty ripe by the time I used it and every time I took the pre-mixed dough out of the fridge I could smell the tang of sourdough in the kitchen. The sprouts added their own spicy kick to the overall flavor and the aroma during the bake was awesome. The pre-mixed dough rose well (my levain was kinda weak from being in the fridge over the weekend so I added yeast - next time I might try without additional yeast), but after shaping the second rise was kinda weak. I'm not sure if it was just exhausted from the long fermentation, or if I should have let it go even longer?

Conclusion

Really delicious flavor & not too heavy texture either. The sprouted rye berries add a really nice element, like sweet little morsels that pop between your teeth. I think the texture of the crumb is about right for this type of bread, but it did seem a little too moist. Maybe adjust the hydration or baking temp / time to improve that. Definitely worth trying again though!

Sourdough English Muffins

Introduction

Now that my starter is alive and active I have to feed it regularly to keep it happy. I really hate to waste food though, and you can only pass off so much on your friends and family (but if anyone out there needs some...let me know). So I have tried to keep the amount I discard to a minimum by feeding only once a day, and maintaining a pretty small amount (150g) when not in use. I also don't feed it on weekends when I am away, and it recovers well from these short visits to the fridge. Even mainaining it in this way I still end up with a couple cups (~500g) of leftover that I need to find a use for.

Lately we have been enjoying these Sourdough Pancakes on a pretty regular basis. They are great because they are made almost entirley of the spent sourdough & they keep well so you can have leftover pancakes for breakfast throughout the week. This weekend I wanted to try something different though so I gave this recipe for Sourdough English Muffins from the Wild Yeast Blog a try.

Materials & Methods 

• As usual I didn't quite follow the directions. I had some buttermilk and wheat germ in the fridge so I figured those would make nice additions.

AP Flour WW Flour Starter (100%) Milk Buttermilk Wheat Germ ---- AP Flour Salt Baking Soda Sugar

Mass 320 g 200 g 210 g 352 g 200 g 3 T ---- 150 g 1.5 t 2 t 2 T

Percentage 48% 30% 31% 52% 30% - ---- 22% - - -

Timeline:

8p 9a 10p

Mix the first portion of the ingredients and leave to ferment/rise overnight. Add the remaining flour, salt, sugar & baking soda and mix briefly until you have a smooth dough. It will be pretty wet and sticky. On a floured surface, pat down the dough to about 1/2 to 1" thick. Cut out muffin sized rounds, cover & leave them to rise for about 1 hour. Bake on a medium hot griddle for about 15-20 min flipping every few minutes to make sure they don't get too dark.

Results

I was pretty impressed with how well these came out. The first few were kind of massive and got a little too dark by the time they were cooked because they were so thick. I made the rest thinner and turned down the heat some and they were just right. The muffins split well with a fork and are full of little nooks &crannies just like they are supposed to be.

Conclusion

Considering all of the starter and the additional buttermilk I was surprised these weren't more tangy than they were. Not that they weren't tasty, I just expected more of a sour kick. Maybe that will develop with time. This recipe made 13 muffins so there are plenty leftover and I am definitely looking forward to having these for breakfast this week!

Heirloom Grain Bread Tasting - Jan 18 & 19, 2014

Loaves made from two of the heirloom wheat varieties we sampled. Appalachian White on the left and Frederick on the right.

I was browsing the web last week and I came across the website for a local bakery that I was not aware of... the Wide Awake Bakery in Trumansburg NY. After checking out some photos of their work I came across a link that said "Bread Tasters Needed".  It turned out that the folks at the bakery, in conjunction with other artisan bakeries in NY and New England were collaborating with a team of researchers from Cornell and the USDA-ARS (among others) to investigate the suitability of heirloom wheat varieties for agriculture and baking.

The long term goal of the project is to help bring back strains of wheat that have been largely neglected with the advent of industrial wheat farming in the mid-west, ultimately developing a local wheat economy for the northeastern US. These are strains of red & white, spring & winter wheat that were bred and grown locally in past centuries, and produce well in local conditions.

The baking was done on Friday by Stephan's team at Wide Awake Bakery along with Jeffery Hamelman of King Arthur Bakery in Vermont, and Sharon Leader of Bread Alone in Woodstock, NY. The bakers made loaves out of several varieties of locally grown wheat that was grown specifically for this research program, and evaluated the flours for different baking characteristics.  I missed out on that part of it, but the next day Michelle and I joined them, and about 20 others in the Food Science building at Cornell to be trained as bread tasters in preparation for the tasting event on Sunday.

The training was developed by Liz Clark, a coffee connoisseur from Ithaca's Gimme Coffee. It involved tastings and detailed discussion of foods and flavors ranging from roasted hazelnuts to cultured cream. We sampled, savored and discussed for much of the afternoon using a flavor wheel to help guide our conversation.

The next morning we arrived early to do some training tastes of both cooked whole grain and bread. We considered grains of Einkorn and Spelt, and baguette and sourdough loaves for practice (and the bread nerd in me was very excited to taste Einkorn for the first time). Samples were rated by color, consistency, shape, and of course flavor... along with over a dozens other categories. What followed was a full day of tasting, both bread and cooked grain. We had seven varieties of each and the bread samples were tasted twice.

The bakers used a standard formula for 100% whole grain loaves. The results were about as hearty as they come. Bursting with nutty malty flavors, varying degrees of sourness, and packed with well beyond your RDA of dietary fiber.

The breads were similar overall since a standard formula was used, but subtle differences where definitely there. I had never focused so carefully on a single bite of bread, but  when examined in such detail the experience is definitely kind of profound. Flavors come in waves. Sour, sweet, and bitter all make an appearance but in varying order and with different intensities.

After all of the samples had been tasted the hidden identities of the wheat varieties we sampled were revealed. It turned out that my two favorites for both bread and grain, were a soft winter wheat called "Frederick", and a hard winter wheat variety known as "Appalachian White".

By the time we left I have to admit my taste buds were exhausted. But I learned to focus on bread in a whole new way. Not just in terms of flavor, but the subtleties of texture and appearance as well. I was pretty impressed by how something so simple as bread could be so complex when considered in such detail. Who knows, maybe someday bread tastings will rival wine tastings here in the finger lakes.

Rye Bread - 1st try, 2 types

 

Introduction

In the interest of exploring more interesting flavor options I want to start baking with some different whole grains. I thought a nice classic rye would be a good place to begin. I haven't worked much with rye & from what I have read it is a lot different from wheat flour as it does not have the amount of gluten necessary to form a strong dough. Because of this, it is typically mixed with wheat flour at some percentage to improve dough strength and rising ability. I tested out 2 recipes with different proportions of rye flour.

Materials & Methods 

• Both formulas need a portion of rye sourdough.   

Rye Sourdough Starter (~80%)

Rye Flour Water Starter

Mass 362 300g 17g

Percentage 100% 83% 5%

• This starts out like thick clay.
• Let it ferment at RT for 24h until it puffs up. It didn't rise much but I could smell a strong odor of fermentation develop.

40% Rye with Caraway

B Flour Water Rye Starter (80%) Salt Yeast Caraway Seeds

Mass 279g 162g 340g 9g 6g 9g

Percentage 100% 58% 122% 3% 2% 3%

• Roughly mix everything except the starter first, then add the starter
• It will be quite sticky and hard to handle at first. Mix breifly and rest for 15min
•  Finish mixing by kneading together
  
• Use damp hands when folding to avoid sticking 
• Leave to bulk ferment at RT for an hour

65% Sourdough Rye 

B Flour Rye Flour Water Rye Starter (80%) Salt

Mass 189g 161g 249g 340g 11g

Percentage 54% 46% 71% 97% 3%

• Roughly mix together everything except the starter first, then add the starter
• It will be VERY sticky and hard to handle. Mix breifly and rest for 15min
•  Finish mixing by kneading together
  
• Use damp hands when folding to avoid sticking 
• Leave to bulk ferment at RT for an hour

Timeline:

-- 7:45p 8p 9p 10p 11p

Make the Rye Sourdough the day before baking Mix flours, water, and starter. Let rest for 15m to autolyse. Finish mixing by kneading breifly. Transfer to an oiled bowl with cover for fermentation at RT for 1 h Shape into boules and place in floured bannetons to rise at RT for another hour Bake at the first loaf (40% Rye w Caraway) at 450F for 35min in a covered dutch oven Bake the next loaf (65% Sourdough Rye) at 450F for 35min in a covered dutch oven... remove the cover and bake for another 10 min

Results 

The results here were mixed. The loaf with less rye and added yeast rose and baked up nicely (Figs 1 & 2 left loaf). The loaf with 65% rye however was dense and heavy. It did not rise well and it was overly moist in the middle even though the exterior seemed fully cooked (Figs 1 & 2 right loaf).

Figs 1 & 2. Crust and crumb for 45% caraway rye (left) and 65% sourdough rye (right). You can see the slight marbling from incomplete kneading of the pre-fermented rye with the rest of the dough. This wasn't done on purpose, but its kinda nice

Conclusion

The 45% rye w caraway was really good. It could probably have stood for a bit more rising time and a touch more salt, but the texture and flavor were pretty good. The caraway flavor was just right and there was a nice sour tang from the pre-fermented rye.

The 65% rye sourdough needs work. It definitely needed more salt, and maybe should have lower hydration overall (?). It should also be left to rise for 3-4h at >75F too, instead of 1h at RT. I'll be trying this again so I will update then.

Tartine Levain

 Introduction

I was browsing through the Tartine Bread book by Chad Robertson a while back and saw that his main technique involves high hydration dough, sourdough starter and occasional stretch and folds to make beautiful naturally leavened loaves. This seemed like a good transition from my typical yeasted no-knead recipe to a naturally leavened variation so I figured I'd try a loaf based on his technique.

Materials & Methods 

AP Flour WW Flour Water Starter Salt

Mass 400g 50g 350g 100g 10g

Percentage 89% 11% 78% 22% 2%

• You are not supposed to knead this… it is too wet. Just fold periodically during fermentation. This means reaching down into the dough bowl and pulling up a handful to fold over the ball. Turn and repeat 3-4x to cover evenly. This is one fold. 


• Use wet hands when folding to avoid sticking

Timeline:

1:30p 2p 5p 8p

Mix flours, water, and starter. Let rest for 30m to autolyse. Transfer to an oiled bowl for fermentation and Incorporate the salt by stretch and folding. Ferment at >75F for 3-4 hours, folding every 30m Divide into 2 loaf sized portions Place in floured banneton and proof at >75F for 3-4h Bake at 450F for 25-30m in a covered dutch oven

Results 

This came out totally awesome. I will definitely be returning to this recipe. The result is a hearty  (but not heavy) loaf with a beautiful crusty exterior and a glossy open crumb.

Conclusion

I think this may be my new go to recipe for everyday bread. Beautiful, simple and absolutely delicious.