So another break, but as the weather has improved lets talk about warm or cold water in bread making.
Many recipe, especially if you are to use dried yeast (and there is good quality dried yeast to be had), tend to suggest using luke-warm or warm water. The idea is this makes the yeast more active and thus more likely to make your loaf rise. Equally, it is usual to use warmed milk (often previously scalded) in sweeter breads. For dense breads (ie those with fruit, nuts, eggs etc) there is some value to this as the yeast has to do extra work to create a nice open crumb (or such breads tend to end up rather dense - which of course can be the goal). For relatively simple breads, this also makes some sense as it speeds the process of completing the bread. A simple white or whole-wheat loaf using warm water will need about 90 minutes for its first rise, 30 for the second and then can be baked. So it can go from initial preparation to being eaten in under 4 hours. However, warm water is not essential to making yeast ferment - it simply speeds it up. And there are real gains to slow bread. The gluten breaks down, the flavours develop and it fits very well with using sourdough starters (which need time in any case). I almost always use cold water with sourdoughs, they then have 3-4 hours to stand for the first rise (depends a bit on how warm the day is), another hour and then overnight in the fridge to be baked the next day. Note they go into the fridge, not a warm place (do that and you end up with a goo), as we want to slow the fermentation process not speed it up. Now the reason for this blog is about the difference between ciabatta and baguettes - fuelled by annoyance at a dire recipe for ciabatta in the Herald a few weeks ago. That was little but a simple white flour bread quickly raised. The difference between the 2 shows the difference between hot and cold approaches. They are similar, you make a starter, combine that starter with fresh flour and the final shaping involves folding the bread. But the starter for ciabatta can use warm water, it stands for 18 hours in a warm place, it then produces the relatively large holes in the bread you want. A baguette starter is made with cold water (as cold as you can - add ice cubes if you want), then into the fridge for 18 hours, then combine with fresh flour and more cold water. There are some other differences (ideally) in terms of the flour you use, but the key is how the starter is prepared - and there the two breads can't be more different.
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Realise I've not much blogging for some time. I suspect that like many of us I'm in an odd trap between time, worry and things. So, to me, one of the delights of bread making is experimenting. Alter the ratios (especially flour:water) and is the resulting bread nicer or not (or just different)? Find a new recipe and just see where it takes you. For a while I've fancied making a Milanese raisin bread but its a bit daunting. The key is that the ratio of flour:raisin is 1:1. Now adding raisins to bread (with or without nuts) is fairly common but not at this volume. Its also a layered bread. By that, I mean once you have kneaded the original dough you don't knead again but fold the bread on itself to create layers (the classic bread that uses this approach is, of course, the croissant). So it is fairly time consuming. First stage is easy, soak your raisins. And then it starts to get interesting. Take about half that water and reheat, add the yeast and let it stand. So the bread is made with raisin flavoured water. The dough itself is a relatively conventional Italian white bread. So here's the challenge, the dough has risen and the idea is to place all the raisins in it: Flatten the bread, add about 1/3 of the raisins ... this stage is easy: Fold back, let it stand for 15 mins, repeat with half the raisins. Same process again for a third set of layers and the last of the raisins - at this stage stretching the dough around the filling was getting tricky. Let it rise again, bake and eat. This is from the edge where the layering didn't quite work, was better in the middle. So what do you get. Well a very moist bread with a rich flavour (not least from re-using the water the raisins soaked in). Think it demands a bit more practice till the various stages fit together more readily.
And very tasty - certainly an interesting addition to the various enriched breads I make. One practical question is how does bread stay fresh? Especially when the only preservative included is salt.
Inevitably this is a bit of an individual judgement but my feeling, very roughly, is that a normal bread made up from yeast will be fresh for 2 days. The sourdoughs for 3 days (the longer proving seems to make them last better) and the enriched breads for 4 days (again my instinct is this the effect of butter, milk, fruits etc). After this, I'd say the breads are perfectly edible for a couple more days. Obviously, if you toast the bread that can make a difference. Equally popping it back into a warm oven for 5 minutes makes a difference. I find it takes about a week for the bread to start to go stale and solidify - in other words just the moment to make it into bread crumbs, filling for meat balls or bread pudding? If it is frozen on the day its made, I think it tastes very fresh for about 2 months. After 3 it seems to have lost most of its flavour but is still ok. I'd not freeze much beyond this. And while we are on the topic - if bread stays ok for the best part of a week, why does commercial/supermarket bread need to be stuffed full of chemical preservatives? Well properly made bread generates a chemical process that introduces natural preservatives as the bread naturally rises (which takes time). Supermarket bread is baked once it has been machine made - so to gain both flavour and any longevity it needs to be pumped full of artificial ingredients. And, just to repeat 'freshly baked in-store' is possibly the most misleading claim of the industrial bread sector. Not really a blog post, just suddenly (and very welcome) busy making breads, so this is today's sourdoughs all on their way to fridge to prove overnight -
Given the poor quality advice from the UK government it is no surprise that there is no useful guidance about how the Covid-19 virus affects bread making.
So this is the best I can offer at the moment. One version I have read that even eating food that has the virus has no effect (it seems you actually do have to inhale). I'll be honest and say I'm not completely convinced by this, since the virus can be spread by touching an infected surface and then touching your face (though this seems to be a very low risk). However, it does seem that cooked foods are a particular tricky surface for the virus so the risk does seem to be minimal. More obviously, the actual process of baking is going to kill it, so there is no residual risk from flour or working surfaces. Risk points are packaging and payment. I use fresh paper bags for every loaf (and again paper seems to be one of the surfaces that the virus can't last on), so the packaging should be clear. Handling is limited, in that the bread is removed from the oven with oven gloves (it is hot after all) and placed in the bag before delivery (and that remains a small risk point). Advice on cash payment is all over the place and again there is no useful or reliable advice. Many places have decided to rely just on contactless payment, I've decided to simply offer the option to pay me using paypal. So at the moment, I feel confident in carrying on. Clearly not if anyone at home feels ill but that is different. The remaining problem is ingredients. I am going to suspend sales of enriched breads simply as milk/eggs are hard to get hold of (there also seems to be a Glasgow wide shortage of walnuts) and stick to two basic sourdoughs and the wholemeal bread. I'm also going to reduce prices a bit to reflect the circumstances. So, a brief digression to accuracy in names and what they mean.
Here, I'm not going to discuss the downright misleading claims of many commercial breads ('fresh baked in store' really isn't - and the bread is probably even more full of preservatives and other chemicals than the other stuff they sell). Nor about misleading information about the actual ingredients. Focus in this discussion if a bread is given a particular name - what does that mean? Best described using three of the different breads I regularly make and sell. At one end of the scale is the wholewheat bread. I chose to make it with 60% wholewheat, 40% white bread flours but in truth it could be a loaf made from anything on a range from 100% wholewheat to about 60% white/40% wholewheat. I think my chosen mix gives a slightly lighter bread than pure wholewheat and its a good base for adding fruits, nuts or seeds. But in effect, the same name could easily be applied to a wide range of actual breads. The Levain sourdough is in the middle of the scale - the name has a meaning and its probably the third most common style of bread made in France (behind baguettes and country breads). The norm is for it to made with some combination of white, wholewheat and rye flours, usually in a sort of 70/15/15 ratio. The bread can readily be made either with a yeasted starter (over two days) or, as I usually do, with a sourdough. The practical issue though is that what is actually in a Levain varies. The flour mix alters across France, I have recipes that use spelt rather than wheat flour, in addition you can add sesame or sunflower seeds. So you sort of know what to expect but in reality the baker(y) have a lot of leeway in what they call a Levain and the actual ingredients. At the other end of the scale is say the Pane Nero I have started offering. Whilst like anyone I end up with small variants that suit me, in effect using this title is an indication of a very specific bread with distinct flavours and combinations. You can certainly take the base recipe and make something different with the ideas but I don't think you can then use the name of the original. Call it an Alpine Rye Bread and that would be fine. So a little while ago I bought a specialist Italian bakery book. Lots of interesting breads - and bread related cakes - to explore. Most fit into the broadly typical Italian style, a relatively light loaf, mostly using white bread flour (but it is worth noting that Italian white flour is less finely milled so you safely add around 10% wholewheat), and flavoured with herbs, olives or oils etc. One caught my attention, a Pane Nero from the Bolzano region. As to be expected this has more in common with German breads than Italian. Not least it contains around 30% Rye (all but unique in Italy) and is heavily flavoured with maple syrup and fennel seeds. The book recipe is basically to make up a started with rye, water and some yeast in the morning. Use this to add to the main flours in the afternoon, bake in the evening. So I decided to see if I could convert this recipe to a sourdough method. Now most Italian sourdoughs use the solid levain style of starter based on white flour. So I had a few guesses about how to start it this way, how much water, how to juggle the actual flour mix and so on. The results got better, but something was wrong. In truth it was coming out closer to the Auvergne sourdough that I often have for sale. Which fits as that starts with a solid sourdough and then 60% white flour, 40% rye. So went back to the recipe again and with my notes, and a chat with someone. Which made me realise, I have a watery rye sourdough starter (the Poulish), just I am so used to that forming the base of central european/scandinavian breads. So simply replaced the yeast mix with the watery sourdough, made up the bread with the indicated mix of flours and water. And when it was ready the next day, baked for 45 minutes rather than the more common 30. And it worked perfectly ... so need to move that one from the list of breads made up with the solid sourdough starter to the ones that need the watery poulish. And here's the evidence: And inside it was moist and fragrant, with a very firm crust ...
For various reasons spent the morning baking (ok not a surprise this is what I do to earn a living ... in part) and decided it was worth a wee blog and some comments. So first was a Pane Nero. I converted the recipe to use a sourdough starter but its an unusual bread. Rye is very rarely used in Italian breads (its common as a small part of most French loaves and obviously in Eastern and Central Europe and in Scandinavia). Not surprisingly this one comes from the German speaking regions around Bolzano (so in reality closer to other German alpine styles) but what really struck me is it has more in common with a Czech Rye from Bohemia. Both the ratio of flours and the way you puncture the bread, rather than the usual slashes, just before baking (the main difference is using fennel not caraway as the main flavouring). So here it is, pre and post baking - note the puncture marks, the crack at the top of the baked bread is common with relatively dense Rye breads While I was at it, a chocolate bread (again from my new Italian recipe book by Carol Field) and the endlessly adaptable Wholewheat that is always for sale. This is such a useful recipe as you can make it heavier or lighter by adjusting the ratio of flours, add seeds or nuts and raisins, or strong flavourings like fennel or caraway. It can also be folded to give a variety of styles .... which gave us: Final bread was an Apricot couranne. This is best seen as a festive bread, in many ways it can be used when you would otherwise eat a Stollen or similar. Once the dough has risen, flatten it out and cut almost into two strands. Fill each strand with the filling - apricots, sultanas, walnuts, orange, butter, sugar and marzipan in this case, fold over and platt them so you get to: Fold the bread to make the crown, place it in a cake tin (this helps it to keep its shape when it rises), bake, glaze (I used the orange juice that the apricots had soaked in), some more almonds and icing sugar ...
Many bread recipes call for warm water (or milk) to be added to the yeast.
I almost always use cold water and/or relatively cool milk (you need usually to scald this first but not always - but this choice affects both the taste of the final bread and how the dough behaves).` So this short post is in praise of cold and slow, especially for bread making. Using cold water tends to slow the rising (ie after you have added yeast) of the bread. This has a direct impact on the taste as it leads to the creation of acetic acid which gives extra flavour (as the name implies its a bit vinegary) and structure to the bread. Then letting bread rise slowly (in a cool place or even a fridge) means that you can use less water (so tend to produce slightly denser breads) and ensures that the flavours have time to emerge (as doing this encourages the natural creation of lactic acid). In combination, this produces a bread that keeps better - both tasting fresh for longer and, even if a little bit stale, will still be useable 4-5 days after being baked. As mentioned before, sourdough starters really enhance these health benefits. First you invariably start with cold water as the process of rising and proving the bread is going to take around 18 hours in any case. Second, a cool place, or the fridge is the best place to leave the bread as you want to control the speed (if it happens too fast the bread might collapse). Primarily the variety of wild yeasts that make up a sourdough all add to the production of those elements that ease digestion and reduce the incidence of problematic phytic acid which can be a cause of some forms of gluten intolerance. And of course, commercial bread making is all about speed not quality. So the breads don't rise properly, sugar is used to speed the process, all sorts of chemicals are added first to mimic the natural rising and proving and then to stabilise the bread afterwards (as well as keep it appearing fresh when it really isn't). And of course the beneficial effect of naturally produced acetic acid is replaced by adding cheap commercial vinegar. What is Sourdough?
Worth restating this. For a start its not a distinct type of bread, you can make almost any type of bread using sourdough rather than baker's yeast. In effect, its a means to introduce yeast into the bread and fluid mix and give you a risen bread rather than a flat bread. However, sourdoughs have advantages over conventionally yeasted breads. They contain 30+ different yeasts so are very helpful if you have some yeast intolerances (these are often linked to the consequences of badly used baker's yeasts), they are more tasty and much more healthy. Some problems On the other hand, there are some practical problems. First, they take far longer to be ready for baking - usually around 18-24 hours. How much of a problem this is rather depends. Clearly you can't wake up and produce a sourdough to eat at lunchtime (you can with some breads) but you are actually not doing much to the bread for most of this time (it takes 2-3 sessions of kneading, the rest of the time it sits happily doing its thing in the fridge - or somewhere cool). The good thing though is that a sourdough you started the day before is then ready to be baked in the morning - take it out the fridge, let it warm a little and bake it. This assumes you have a sourdough starter. If you don't then things become a bit more complex. The process of producing a useable sourdough base takes 4-7 days, so you need to plan your bread a week in advance (ahem). Worse, unless you want to then start near industrial volumes of baking, you will have to throw away part of each batch or you just end up with far too much. The good thing is this is a one-off process, once you have produced a sourdough starter all you need to do is to keep it alive. Sustaining the sourdough Basically what you have with a sourdough starter is a lump of dough (solid like a levain or watery like a poulish), you add this to fresh flour and water (usually around 200g of starter to 500g of fresh flour) and make your bread. So sooner or later, you use up the starter you first created. If you want to keep it going, then you need to add fresh flour and water to what was left, this in turn will become your starter for the next round of bread making. This is why you will see sourdough starters described as being 10 years old - what this means is the very first batch was made then and a small portion of that original is still present in the mix (in a wierdly homeopathic manner -- I'm not exactly convinced that this has any practical effect). If you are working on a fairly steady process of baking and refreshing this process sort of works out in the end. But it can cause problems. Those of you who order from me will have seen the occasional posts saying I have too much starter and that there will be bread for sale. The reason for this is that if you do not add fresh flour/water to the mix in effect the yeasts start to starve. Once they have eaten all the nutrients in their current batch of flour the sourdough will lose its effectiveness - at an extreme will actually die (though this is actually hard to achieve) - so it needs new food (ie fresh flour and water). Ending up with too much? The practical problem is how you do this for the levain style starter. As mentioned in an earlier post, this is now the most common style of sourdough starter as it is more reliable and easier to use than the older poulish style. But, as often, with convenience comes a problem. You need to refresh at least once a week (more often is better) and you need to use a fairly strict ratio of 1:2:1 - in other words for every 100g of the old starter, add 200g of new flour and 100g of water. This means that say 200g of old starter will end up producing around 800g of new starter. So, if for whatever reason, my production process is interupted or I am ending a period of relatively high volume production, it is all too easy to end up with more starter than I can realistically use - hence the sales. I do really hate chucking any food out, so would rather use it up somehow. |
AuthorSome background on bread making, rants about commercial bread making practices and whatever else comes to mind Archives
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