blog – Page 29

Fig-Anise 50% Whole-Wheat Bread

This Fig-Anise 50% Whole-Wheat bread was developed with the help of baker Martin Philip during the Creating Signature Breads workshop at the Kneading Conference West 2013.

Ingredients

By percentages

By weights (for four loaves)

Method

Using mixer on first speed, combine flours, water and levain until incorporated (reserve about 10% of the water for later adjustments if needed)
Sprinkle salt and yeast on top
Give a 15 to 30 minute rest (we didn’t have time to do a longer autolyse at the Kneading Conference but a longer one would have been better)
Turn mixer back on to incorporate yeast and salt
Check hydration: dough should feel supple. Adjust as necessary
Mix 2 min on second speed until gluten is fully developed
Put in anise seeds, soaked grains (don’t strain them) and figs
Mix to combine on first speed: dough will fall apart first, then knit itself together
DDT: 78°F
Fermentation: 3 hours with one fold at 45 min
Scale at 560 g
Pre-shape as a loose boule (you have to be really gentle with this dough as it contains a lot of whole wheat and could get really dense if manipulated briskly)
Shape as batards or tear-drops (to mimic shape of fig). If using a tear-drop shape, fold one end of the batard over itself as illustrated below
Proof seam-up in floured bannetons or on floured couches for 45 min to one hour (use whole-wheat or whole-spelt flour)
When loading on a peel, give each tear-drop loaf a slight curve to one side
Bake for 32 to 35 min at 450° F, with steam
Cool on a rack
Enjoy!

For detailed information on various aspects of artisan bread baking, please visit King Arthur’s YouTube channel: in this video in particular, from 6:38 min on, Martin Philip demonstrates how to shape a batard (in the first part of the video, master baker Jeffrey Hamelman shows how to shape both boules and baguettes).

For those of you who are using BreadStorm (including the free version), please click on this link to import the formula so that you can scale it up or down as desired.

Kneading Conference West 2013: Creating signature breads

Martin Philip, our instructor for this workshop, is a baker and the bakery operations manager at King Arthur Bakery in Norwich, VT. According to his bio on King Arthur’s website, in previous lives, he was a professional opera singer and worked in investment banking. I never met him in these past avatars. I only know him as an accomplished baker (the flavor and crunchiness of the straight dough baguettes he handmixed for us the following day while our other dough was fermenting put to rest once and for all any preconceived idea I might have had on baking without a pre-ferment). Martin is also an excellent instructor. A firm believer in the Socratic method, he favors collaboration and the meeting of minds over didactic teaching and magisterial pronouncements, yet he keeps a firm hand on the discussion and never lets it go out of focus. It surely works for me!

The goal of the workshop was to design a bread as a group. Martin explained that before we could even start, we had to make a few choices. What kind of a bread did we want? What ingredients were we thinking of using? What did our production schedule look like? The combinations were almost infinite as Martin demonstrated from the deck of cards he uses as prompts. A baker may want/need to:

Showcase seasonal flavors
Use grains that are available locally
Diversify his or her offerings
Satisfy a customer request (for a specific taste or nutritional benefit)
Challenge himself/herself by using a new technique or a different type of flour

Based on the flour(s) to be used, the baker needs to make decisions regarding:

Type of pre-ferment (if using)
Hydration
Type of leavening
Mixing
Bulk fermentation
Shaping and scoring
Final proof time
Bake temperature and duration

FLOUR

If using a weak (low protein) wheat flour, the baker might choose to pre-ferment all of it (i.e. to hydrate all of the weak flour with some of the water in the formula, adding a bit of yeast and salt, and to let it ferment anywhere from three to twelve hours) in order to make the dough stronger
If using a strong (high protein) wheat flour, an autolyse is the way to go as it helps boost extensibility. It is highly recommended for baguette dough
If a niche flour (buckwheat, einkorn, legume, quinoa, grapeseed, sprouted wheat or spelt, durum, sorghum, kamut, mesquite) is to be used, thought needs to be given to ways to get the desired crumb structure

WATER

Hydration is pretty much dictated by the type of flour(s) to be used

LEAVENING

The baker might choose to use either commercial yeast or a starter or maybe both. It all comes down to the kind of flavor s/he is looking for. Baguettes, for instance, have a very different flavor profile when made with liquid levain as opposed to commercial yeast.
If using a levain, build schedule needs to be a consideration
Liquid levain and poolish are usually made with white flour but some whole flour can be used as well. A pre-ferment containing whole grain will be more active: it might therefore require the addition of a bit of salt. A white poolish or levain is more predictible.

AUTOLYSE

An autolyse is an optional step in which all the flour and most of the water in a formula are incorporated in the absence of either yeast of salt until the flour is thoroughly hydrated. This somewhat shaggy dough is allowed to rest for a mininum of twenty minutes before the baker proceeds with the mix proper. The goal is to jumpstart both gluten development and enzymatic activity
Commercial yeast is never added to the autolyse but when a formula calls for poolish and/or liquid levain, the poolish and levain are added to the flour and water in the autolyse (flour wouldn’t hydrate properly otherwise since they contain a large part of the total water in the formula)
Doing an autolyse is highly recommended if the dough is to be hand-mixed
But even if using a mixer, an autolyse is an excellent way of developing the gluten without overprocessing the dough and risking loss of flavor

MIXING

What type of mix is best for the bread the baker has in mind? Short? Improved? Intensive?
Generally speaking, today many artisan bakers choose to mix the dough very gently and to rely on folds to develop the strength of the dough during fermentation

BULK FERMENTATION

Decisions need to be made regarding:

Time: if the dough is machine-mixed, total fermentation time might need to be reduced
Number of folds (usually based on an evaluation of the dough consistency)

After this short recap of the considerations a baker needs to keep in mind when designing a bread, Martin invited all of us (I would say we were about fifty, half professional bakers, half home bakers) to pitch in with ideas and suggestions. The only non-negotiable condition was that a pre-ferment had to be used. Also, it soon transpired that beautiful dried figs had been purchased for the purpose of this workshop and the idea of a fig bread was quickly adopted by consensus.

The back and forth was most informative. For ease of reference, Martin’s comments are presented in bold and in a different color. Please keep in mind that all percentages are given in relation to the amount of flour, always expressed as 100% (for more on bakers’ math, please refer to the post entitled BreadStorm)

Participant: Could we make a 100% whole wheat bread?
Martin Philip: Since we are going to use figs (a heavy ingredient) it would be preferable to use a fair amount of white flour in order to optimize crumb structure. Going 50% white 50% whole wheat would be a good compromise

Participant: What proportion of figs should we use?
Martin Philip: Since the figs we just bought are moist and don’t need to be soaked, we could go anywhere between 25 and 35%. Back home it might be worthwhile to try and make one bucket of dough with 20% figs and another with 30% and then decide which one works best. If opting for another dried fruit, keep in mind that raisins, currants, pears and apples all pull water from the dough unless quick-soaked in boiling water before incorporation

Participant: Could we leaven the bread entirely with liquid levain?
Martin Philip: Sure! Back at home or at the bakery you can, but because of time constraints during the Kneading Conference (due to limited oven space), we will need to add a bit of yeast. Another reason to add yeast is that figs have a high sugar content. Sugar being hygroscopic, it tends to slow down fermentation by pulling water away from the yeast
Tip: if you are making one single dough with different breads in mind, take out the portion you need to make the fig bread and add a bit of yeast to that, keeping the rest of the dough yeast-free for other purposes

Participant: How liquid is the levain we are going to use?
Martin Philip: We will be using a levain hydrated at 100% but at the King Arthur Bakery, the liquid levain is kept at 125%-hydration

Participant: Could we use a firm levain?
Martin Philip: The bright acidity of a firm levain might be a bit assertive for a fruit bread but it might be interesting to mix and match liquid and firm levains or to use a liquid levain and a biga. All elements need to be balanced. Is the levain acidity kept in check by the sweetness of the figs? Experimenting is the way to go

Participant: Could we add in a bit of rye levain?
Martin Philip: We certainly could but if the levain is going to sit all night before we mix the bread tomorrow morning, it might be best to stick to wheat (rye develops faster and may cause the levain to peak before we are ready for it). Another consideration to bear in mind that a sour rye would add acidity

Participant: How much levain should we use?
Martin Philip: The percentage of total flour used in the pre-ferment affects both the functionality of the dough and the flavor of the bread. It is one of the most notable feature in any formula. A high proportion of levain tends to make the bread denser. The ideal in this case would be to use about 18% levain although at the Kneading Conference we will have to use 30% because of time constraints

Participant: Could we make miches?
Martin Philip: Better go for a smaller shape in order to maximize caramelization. A tear-drop shape that would emulate the contour of a fig would be visually pleasant for this bread

Participant: What hydration should we go for?
Martin Philip: No need to reinvent the wheel. The best way to determine hydration when creating a new formula is to look at existing formulas for similar types of breads and see what percentage of water they use. A good starting point for this particular bread would probably be 74-75%. In any case, the baker needs to monitor dough consistency throughout the mixing, keeping a container of water close at hand

Participant: Could we use a soaker?
Martin Philip: A soaker would be a great addition. If you opt for soaking grains such as wheat, barley or rye chops for an extended period of time at room temperature, bear in mind that you need to use a bit of salt or the soaker will be off by the time you are ready to mix. For best flavor, toast the grain, then let it cool, crack it in your mill, add water and soak overnight. In this formula, we are going to use wheat because that’s what we have available but back home you may want to try other grains and see which one works best for you

Participant: How much water should we use in the soaker?
Martin Philip: A good ballpark figure for hydrating cracked grain is 120% (meaning a baker needs to use 120 units of water for 100 units of grain). The water used to hydrate the soaker comes out of the total dough water. Same thing for the water used in the levain

Participant: If using a spice such as anise seed, what percentage should we go for?
Martin Philip: One percent is usually the way to go. Remember to always toast aromatics before incorporating them in a dough. Use a heavy metal object to bust up the anise seeds a bit after roasting

Participant: How much salt should we use? Two percent?
Martin Philip: Because of the high percentage of figs and cracked wheat, 2% salt might be a bit low

The (almost) three-hour brainstorming ended too soon for my taste. I could have gone on listening forever! Martin explained that the next step would be for him to work out the formula on his computer based on what had been discussed and to feed the levain. He would mix the dough the following morning, so that dividing, shaping and baking could start in early afternoon.

See Fig-Anise 50% Whole-Wheat Bread for the completed formula and more photos.

Kneading Conference West 2013

It is hard to say what I enjoy most at the yearly Kneading Conferences West: the bucolic setting (the orchards, gardens and fields surrounding Washington State University Research and Extension Center at Mt. Vernon, Washington), the learning opportunities (the instructors are invariably top-level), the discovery of “new” flavors through the local revival of age-old varieties of grain, or the networking (bakers flocked in this year from ten different states, including Alaska and Pennsylvania, many came from Canada and an adventurous soul even made it all the way from South Africa). All I know is that each time I go home re-energized and eager for more.
The only downside to such inspiring events is that they are also exercises in frustration! Take a look at the schedule for this year and tell me you wouldn’t have be tempted by pretty much each and every one of these lectures, classes, workshops, and visits. I know I was. Never more than at a Kneading Conference do I regret that human beings haven’t been graced with the gift of ubiquity. Oh, well…

In 2011 and even more so in 2012, I followed the grain, trying to get a better idea of the ways bakers could help revive and sustain farms in their communities by sourcing ingredients close to home and learning to work with heritage crops, “liberating” the aromas of their terroir in the process. This year, I went for the bread.

I picked the two-day class on creating signature breads, taught by Martin Philip, a baker and the bakery operations manager at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont (more on the class in an upcoming post).

I also picked the hamburger workshop taught by Mel Darbyshire, head baker for Grand Central Bakery in Seattle. The focus was on developing buns that would be both handsome and wholesome, and Mel nailed it for sure. I never knew such plump and tasty beauties could actually be good for you! I’ll post pictures and the formula as soon as I can.

Finally, on the last day, I sat in for a fantastic lesson on the science of bread, taught by Lee Glass, a passionate home baker and a physician with a keen interest in the chemistry that underlies baking. While I took copious notes, I would be hard put to convey what I heard in a comprehensive and scientifically meaningful manner. So I won’t attempt it. Instead and with Lee’s help (which he kindly agreed to provide), I will try to put together a few posts on what goes on behind the scene at various stages of baking. If all goes well, it will be a project for the long winter months.
The Conference wasn’t entirely focused on technique and science though. Other participants chose different classes. For a broader perspective (and way more pictures since operating the camera with a cast turned out to be a bit of a challenge), you may want to check out the links provided at the bottom of this post.

Darra Goldstein kickstarted the Conference with a welcome reminder of bread culture through the ages. I already knew Goldstein, who teaches Russian at Williams College and is a founding editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, as the author of A La Russe: A Cookbook of Russian Hospitality, a marvelously nostalgic book which followed me cross-country when we moved west. But I didn’t know she was also a bread aficionada (she even owns and operates an Alan Scott wood-fired oven).
There was fervor in her voice as she evoked the traditional Russian stove: made of brick and covered with stucco, it can fire to a very high temperature and since it releases heat very slowly, it can be used reliably for a variety of dishes as it cools. First comes the rye bread, dark and fragrant, then soups and porridges, and finally when the heat is almost a memory, the fermented dairy products.
Slow and beautiful, the stove was always seen as a life-giving force and controlling it was an art. But it would be a mistake to romanticize bread: much of Europe was always on the verge of famine. Putting a loaf on the table required a lot of manpower and was back-breaking work, often done in the dark bakeshops where the only light came from the oven, as attested in the work of numerous painters, notably Millet in France.
Recalling how difficult it had been for her to adjust to life in the Soviet Union as a graduate student, Goldstein said the only thing that kept her from flying back home was Russian hospitality or “Хлеб-соль” (literally “bread-salt”). Deeply ingrained in the Slavic psyche, it designates the welcome traditionally offered to newcomers, important guests or newly weds: a loaf of bread and some salt.
Today, bread is still a staple in many countries. It may play a less central role in the diet of other nations, including France, but often remains an essential part of their cultural identity as attested by French designer Jean-Paul Gautier’s 2005 fashion collection Paris-Couture (the video is in French but the fun is in the watching). Although nobody wore bread to KCW (alas!), bread love was everywhere…

…in the heady fragrance of wheat…

…in the intricate braiding of exuberant whole-grain challahs…

…or in stylishly rustic loaves.

Still, Richard Miscovich who teaches artisan baking at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, and champions wood-fired ovens, encouraged bakers to go beyond bread and use the full range of temperatures such ovens offer as they gradually release heat. I didn’t attend the class but I heard people raving about it afterwards and from what they were saying, no oven will be allowed to cool empty from now on if it can be helped…

A just-baked potato galette

When all is said and told, holding an event such as the Kneading Conference is a lot like sowing: you get to scatter seeds all around, some drop into awaiting furrows, some blow with the wind, others still travel with birds to faraway places. But wherever they finally fall, all of them carry the promise of growth. I am deeply grateful to KCW’s sponsors as well as to the organizers, instructors, volunteers and WSU staff members who unreservedly shared their knowledge and skills. You guys rock! Thank you.

Related links

Kneading Conference West (official website)

Breadsong’s blog: Kneading Conference West, Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3

Floyd Mann (The Fresh Loaf): Kneading Conference West, Part I and Part II

BreadStorm

You can’t escape your childhood. Ain’t that the sad truth! The fact came back to bite me when I got introduced to baker’s math back in January 2009 during my first Artisan bread class at the San Francisco Baking Institute (SFBI). Oh, don’t get me wrong, I loved the class and completely understood the point of sharing formulas (what we home bakers call recipes) in percentages instead of weights. Baker’s math makes it easier, among other things, to adjust dough size according to the amount of bread desired, to compare different breads and to troubleshoot problems. But even though baker’s math could be more aptly described as a common language for bakers rather than real math, mastering it is still an uphill battle for someone who is number-challenged. And that’s where childhood comes in: I have been number-challenged all my life. In my days, it wasn’t called a disability. At least not in France. But that’s what it was.
Don’t you go thinking I was slouching during math classes, however! No, sirree! Never one to waste time, I took the opportunity offered by these otherwise excruciatingly boring hours to practice writing with my left hand. (To this day I can write with both hands – not as fast or as legibly with the left as with the right but still, well enough – or at least I could before I broke my wrist. Not sure I’ll still be able to do it when I get my wrist back…)
As an aside and just in case you are wondering, homework was never a problem: my mom had been a math teacher and being a sweet and trusting soul, she always “explained” my math homework to me until it was entirely done and done right. My teachers never really understood how I could be such an assiduous student (appearing to write down their every word in class and always handing in perfectly completed homework on time) and still do so poorly on tests. How could I have ever guessed that one day I’d be a baker and that I’d bitterly regret not possessing the most basic math skills?
Of course you don’t have to use formulas to be a baker. There are bakers out there (and I know quite a few of them) who wouldn’t touch a formula with a ten-foot pole. They come up with their own recipes, do their own math and they are perfectly fine, especially if they mostly stick to the same breads and don’t have to redo their calculations every day to adjust to a fluctuating market.
But the fact is that more and more, bakers are exchanging formulas, not recipes. If you take artisan bread classes, chance are you’ll go home with a handful of formulas. You see formulas on the Web (there are some on The Fresh Loaf, on this tentalizing and instructive blog for instance ), on the Bread Baker’s Guild of America‘s website or in industry publications. Knowing how do the math is really convenient if you are looking to diversify your production, whether you are a home baker or a professional.
Granted, the whole baker’s math concept is simple and even I grasp it: flour is always 100% and the proportion of every other ingredient is indicated relative to flour as in the formula below:

If the baker decides to use two different kinds of flour, the same formula looks like this:

See how the total flour percentage remains 100 even when two different flours are used? Truth be told, the word “percentage” is a misnomer. It’d be way less confusing to say “unit”. In both these simple formulas, for 100 units of flour, you need to use 65 units of water, 2 units of salt and 1 unit of yeast. But still the convention is to use the word “percentage” and since we are trying to speak a common language, we better adopt a common vocabulary as well. (Sigh…)
Should you actually want to bake from either of these formulas, you first need to decide how much dough you want. If your goal is to make two 500g-loaves, your calculations need to yield one kilogram (1,000 g) of dough. Using this number as a basis, the same two formulas look like this expressed in weights:

For people who are not number-challenged, the calculation is pretty straightforward. A simple rule of three does the trick. Indeed, at each baking class or event I attend, I see fingers flying on calculators and I hear numbers called out as fast as I can jot them down. I get there too but it takes me a while and when the formula gets more complex (when a pre-ferment such as a levain or a poolish or both and/or a soaker needs to be factored in), the process becomes painfully slow. The possibility of a mistake rises exponentially and I often get discouraged.
Friends and family members have tried to teach me how to use a spreadsheet instead of a calculator but to no avail: as soon as the program opens up on the screen, my eyes glaze over and as much as I will myself to listen carefully, my mind invariably logs out.
Enter BreadStorm, a superb tool for bakers developed by Jacqueline and Dado Colussi (more on them in an upcoming Meet the Bakers post). I have been a BreadStorm tester for months and I bought it as soon as it came out of beta, a few weeks ago. Why? Because BreadStorm does all the calculations for me, and in a split second too. For the first time in my baking life, I can tackle any formula that comes my way and that, my friends, is pretty sweet. It goes a long way towards assuaging any regrets I might still harbor regarding math classes!
Jacqueline and Dado are passionate bread bakers and they love people. In fact they welcome dialogue. They have been very helpful during the testing months and just as supportive after I bought the program. I felt they were there for me and didn’t let go of my hand until I was on firm ground. Because, needless to say, the first time I opened the software (still in beta, with no tutorial available yet), my brain froze instantly and the familiar glazing sensation came over my eyes. BreadStorm looked like it might morph into a spreadsheet any minute. I was paralyzed. All I managed to figure out was how to enter ingredients. But it got better. With the developers’ help my mind gradually thawed and things started to make sense.
Now that I have more or less mastered BreadStorm, I use it all the time to enter favorite recipes, including from bread books I have had for years or to create my own, starting with the percentages of flour, water, levain and other ingredients I am planning to use. I can adjust any number at any time and weights and percentages are immediately recalculated for me. For someone who had trouble figuring out hydration before (unless it was 100%), believe me, it is a dream come true. A learning disability made irrelevant… Wow!

Apple-Buckwheat Boule – a bread I baked last week from a BBGA formula entered in BreadStorm

If you are still with me at this point, you are probably curious to see how BreadStorm works. Jacqueline kindly agreed to put together a tutorial for Farine readers. It is copiously illustrated and self-explanatory. On the technical side, please note that BreadStorm has been designed for Mac users (OS X.10.6+). An iPhone version is currently being beta-tested. It makes it possible to scale formulas on the fly if you are away from your computer. It looks pretty neat.
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I purchased the software at the full price and with my own money. I am not being paid for this review and I will not make a penny off future sales. BreadStorm belongs to Jacqueline and Dado Colussi and to them alone. I just happen to love it!
If you like it, you can either buy the full version as I did or download the free one which enables you to read and scale any BreadStorm formula but not to edit it nor to create your own.

Pear-Hazelnut Ciabatta

From looking at the above picture, you’d think this was just another ciabatta, right? Simply a different flavor combination than the one posted last week. And you’d be right of course, except that, as always, “l’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux” (what is essential remains invisible to the eyes, as the fox explains to the curious little boy in Le Petit Prince).
Indeed, beyond the listed ingredients, what got baked into this bread is friendship and love and the gratefulness that fills my heart for the support you have steadfastly afforded us since tragedy struck. Frankly I couldn’t have made it so far so soon without your help. Each of your comments and emails has reached my heart and added a brick to the foundation on which healing may one day begin. Thank you!
The realization came to me as I was gathering what I needed for this bread: the stone-ground whole wheat flour with golden specks of bran came from a baker on Vancouver Island, the round and plump hazelnuts from a friend’s farm in the Fraser Valley, the dried pears from a local friend who is rebuilding his home (as he will be without an oven for more than a year, he kindly brought me all -and I do mean all- his baking supplies). The levain was the distant progeny of the one sent to me last year by another friend on Orcas Island. The apron around my waist was a present from a friend in Maine.
I was making the ciabatta for a friend from France who will be visiting next month: she lives above a bakery on a quiet street in a city near Paris. She has never eaten homemade bread in her life.
As I stood thinking of her, weighing each ingredient in turn, I remembered the kindness and passion of the baker who had shared it with me and I suddenly realized that beyond the eagerly awaited guest and my baking friends, all of you were in the kitchen with me as well, still present eight and a half months later, still caring, still remembering our grandson and still striving not only to show support but also to prevent further acts of random violence like the one which had devastated the Newtown families. I could never thank you enough. This ciabatta is dedicated to you.
It was inspired by the cool front which has hung over our valley for the past few days: mist rising from the river at dawn, odd leaves turning bright red, apples and pears hanging heavier in the gardens that line the trail, humming birds dancing at the feeders as if already gearing up for the long trip south.
Cliff Mass, our beloved local meteorologist, says summer isn’t over yet and I believe him. Still I have seen the writing on the landscape and distant memories of fall have come drifting back. The yellowing fruit against the old stonewall in my grandfather’s orchard, the ripe hazelnuts falling off their husks under the thicket by the chicken coop, we kids filling our pockets before heading out for a day’s adventures, the breath of a faraway and long-ago garden brought back by the smell of damp grass as I bend to pick up the paper from my Northwest driveway every morning. Threads of life woven together. Past and present. Love and loss. Being part of a larger whole, of a living tapestry. Separate, yet connected.
A comforting thought to go with the first bread of fall.

Pear-Hazelnut Ciabatta

The method is the same as the one I described in my previous post with minor changes.

The oatmeal I used was a leftover from breakfast the day before, it hadn’t been cooked with baking in mind and was therefore a bit runnier than I would have liked. Had I made oatmeal specifically for this ciabatta, I would have reduced by half the amount of cooking water. As it is, I can’t tell you how much water I used because I never measured it. I adjusted for the wet oatmeal by reducing the amount of water added to the dough in the final mix.
I soaked the pears only briefly (three minutes only and in boiling water) and used the soaking water (which smelled delicious) in the dough.
The hazelnuts I roasted and peeled, then ground coarsely in a flat bowl with the thich bottom of a small bottle of balsamic vinegar. The grinding was no hassle. But the peeling was rough: I had never truly appreciated before how convenient it was to have two hands when rubbing hazelnuts together.
I didn’t soak the hazelnuts but right before incorporating them into the dough, I gently hand-mixed them with the pears so that some of the wetness would rub onto them and they wouldn’t be as likely to suck up water from the fermenting dough. Next time I might try and soak them briefly as they may have dried out the dough a bit.

Ingredients (for 3 ciabattas)

450 g unbleached all-purpose flour
150 g whole-wheat flour
150 g wholegrain steel-cut oats, cooked, barely salted, unsweetened, at room temperature
Water 1: 300 g
Water 2: 75 g
150 g dried pears, roughly chopped, soaked for three minutes in boiling water (unless they were super dry and hard, I wouldn’t soak them any longer for fear of their turning to mush)
80 g hazelnuts, roasted, peeled and coarsely ground
150 g ripe liquid levain (100% hydration)
150 g ripe poolish (75 g flour + 75 g water + a pinch of instant yeast)
18 g fine sea salt

Method (the bread is made over two days)

The night before

Feed the levain
Prepare the poolish
Roast, peel and chop the hazelnuts

Early on the day of the bake (at least two hours before mixing begins)

Roughly chop the pears and soak them to cover for three minutes in boiling water
Drain, saving the water

Mixing

Pour water 1 (including pear-soaking water) in bowl of mixer
Add all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, oatmeal, levain and poolish
Mix on low speed until incorporated
Add the salt
Mix on low speed until gluten is developed
Add water 2 (slowly and in stages) and crank up speed one notch
Mix briefly (just until the water is incorporated)
Bring speed back down to low and add pears and hazelnuts
Mix until incorporated
Set dough to rise in oiled and covered pan

Dough temperature was 80°F/26°C and room temperature 72°F/22°C
I gave the dough two folds at 50 minute-intervals
Fermentation time was 4 hours, followed by 45-minutes proofing time (I am not sure why the dough fermented faster than last week. Maybe the sugar in the pears sped up the process?)

Dividing and Baking

As described for the teff ciabatta

Except that I set the oven to 410°F/210°C for the first 15 minutes
And lowered it to 400°F/204°C afterwards to prevent the crust from darkening too much (again because of the sugar in the pears)
I also tented the ciabattas with aluminum foil after the first 15 minutes
I used steam at the beginning and kept the oven door ajar for the last five minutes

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: