/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>5459313
It is unlikely the starter will be ready for baking in 2-3 days if it's only 3 days old. Having built many starters from scratch, the average time to maturity is about 2 weeks, and even then that's cutting it close. It's possible you have a super-starter, but if it's not doubling in 4 hours every time you feed it (assuming ambient temp of around 74F), it's probably not good to go.

Bread and baked goods thread. Haven't started one in a while

Anybody bake anything interesting recently? Anybody have any questions about baking bread?

I have some 50% rye and 15% oat bread proofing right now. Will post pics when it's out of the oven.

I'm studying for Step 1, and I'm bored.

Anyone want to talk about bread? Happy to answer questions.

>>5244003
Using 100% whole wheat in a pizza is dicey. If I'm going for for a heavy whole grain dough, I'll usually mix the whole wheat flour with bread flour in a 60/40 split, maximum. I guess you could do 100% whole wheat, but you would want to be sure to roll it out very thin, and NOT to stretch it. Because of all the bran in whole wheat flour, 100% whole wheat doughs never form complex gluten networks, which means you're liable to tear the dough if you try to stretch it like you would a normal pizza.

Bread myth central up in here.

>>5154589
Nice looking loaf, OP.

>>4918989
I bake on a FibraMent stone, uncovered. The baking cloches seem to work well, though. I've just been happy enough with the results without any additional gear that I haven't had the urge to buy a few.

>>4866744
Never wash a stone. Most anything that gets on the stone during normal use will burn off after a few oven cycles. The only way to safely clean a stone is to wipe it down with a dry rag.

>>4770636
What do you mean did you fuck up? Did you just mix it? If so, it still needs to go through bulk ferment, shaping, and proofing before you bake it. Baking in a cast iron dutch oven is just fine. People seem very happy with the results when doing that.

>>4743245
If it was at an Italian restaurant, then it may have been a variant of Pugliese bread, which tends to be rounder and has a denser crumb than Ciabatta. You're probably looking at something with 65% water (baker's percentage). The key with any add-in in bread (olives, nuts, seeds, fruits, etc) is to throw it in there after you've already kneaded the dough to just under windowpane. This is especially true of oil-cured olives, since the fat will inhibit gluten formation and will result in a dense bread if you don't add them in to the dough at the very end (and work it very little after they are well incorporated).

>>4743259
Soda bread is easy, but super delicious. My wife nearly cried the first time I made it for her, since she has a lot of fond childhood memories of eating it in Ireland. Most breads are pretty impressive to family, I'd think. You'd be surprised how many "artisan" breads, when baked in a loaf pan, actually make really wonderful thick cut toast and sandwich bread. In general, however, toast and sandwich breads tend to have a pretty high amount of fat in them to provide that dense, tender texture. Too much and you've basically made a cake, though. Try 100% flour (90/10 bread/WW), 62% water, 4% olive oil, 2.5% salt, 2% non-diastatic malt powder, and 0.3% yeast. Make sure to give the bread however much time it needs during bulk ferment/proof to let it achieve the correct volume, though. I would bake something that has that much fat at 375F in a loaf pan. Any hotter and it's unlikely the center will cook.

>>4723742
Yeah. Admittedly, I always end up struggling with making half-sized baguettes like these. I'm so used to cranking out full-size ones, that when it comes to portioning and preshaping, I always forget/ignore that I need to go half as large. As a result, I get wonky half-baguettes. Oh well, still delicious.

>>4723744
75% hydration and 5% whole wheat, crumb was very, very wide open. The dough was made first with a 2 hour autolyse, followed by a 24 hour bulk retard in the refrigerator. It goes a long way to produce a chewy crumb.

>>4687878
The no-knead breads seem to produce really great loaves. I've been really happy with the results of these low-knead doughs, so I can't imagine they're much different.

>>4688105
The good news is that you don't have to eat it.

>>4688960
It's the plight of the capable baker, I think. People don't even ask if I'll bring bread anymore. They just expect it.

>>4688970
Looks like nice bread, but that's a hell of a handful of spices on top. Fennel? Maybe caraway?

>>4583194
It's hard to say, objectively. Unlike most commercial mixers, I'm having a hard time finding a capacity chart so I can give you a more specific answer. A good mixer can do 70% of capacity, by volume, of a 55% hydration dough. That would mean that in a 5-quart KitchenAid Professional HD, the ideal would be approximately 3.5 quarts of dough. Unfortunately, none of the KA mixers come even CLOSE to the 70% (and neither do most small commercial mixers). In reality, the Pro HD model can probably do 40% of capacity, and the Artisan model even less.

The good news is that it's rare to make a bread with hydration that low. Usually, it sits in the high 50's to low 60's, percent by weight. Plus, you can always just break up your batches into smaller quantities, and knead individual loaves one at a time in the event that you do want to make something that is very low hydration.

>>4379502
Slashes are a difficult thing to master. A good sharp double-edged razor and lots of practice are a baker's best friends, when it comes to slashing. The key is to create really good surface tension during preshaping/shaping, then to slash briskly at a 30 degree angle for a bloom, or at a 90 degree angle for a flat slash (pic related).

>>4241686
I use a baking stone in the lowest rack position of my oven. Underneath it I place a cast iron pan. I heat my oven to 550F (+ convection) with stone and pan in it, and let it sit at temp for about 30 minutes to an hour to allow everything to get ripping hot.

When I'm ready to bake, I put the dough on the stone, and put about 2 cups of boiling water in the cast iron pan. I close the oven quickly, and drop the temp to 475F (+ convection) after 2 minutes. Then I just make sure to bake the loaves long enough to reach that dark golden brown.

I make quite a bit of sourdough bread. Two weeks is probably a little short in terms of starter maturation, and it's likely that you'll experience better leavening performance after a couple more weeks of twice-daily feedings.

Sourdough, in general, is a patient-man's game. Because commercial yeast is specifically selected for it's leavening power, it rises much more consistently and powerfully than sourdough, to be sure. I've found that fermentation and proofing temperature is fundamental in rising time. I can ferment at room temp and it will take a dough that is made with 30% starter by weight approximately 6-8 hours to finish. If I do it at 78-82F with humidity, then it takes 2-3 hours. You can try bulk fermenting and proofing in a microwave after blasting a container of water for a few minutes, and I can almost guarantee you will be amazed at how much it changes things. With that said, a faster ferment or proofing period generally means less sour flavor, so it's a balance, to be sure.

Your bread looks nice.

Pic is a 30% dark rye sourdough from a couple months back.

>>4054114

Hey! My bread! This is such a proud moment.

>>4025891
The wife and I generally cut a "sacrificial" slice off of the end of the bread that always sits against the cut surface. That slice goes stale, but keeps the rest of the crumb on the interior of the bread nice and moist. The linen cloth does a good job keeping the crust edible for 3-4 days. After 3-4 days, toasting the bread before eating it brings it back to life, and extends the shelf life another 1-2 days.

Hey everyone. I don't want to freak anyone out, but I baked more bread today.

Again, another simple rye sourdough, just like last week.

I actually took the time to record the whole process on video, and I'm halfway through editing it already, so by the end of this coming week I should have a 25 minute overview of how I bake my bread.