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50% Whole Red Fife Wheat Bread


I made these two rustic looking loaves with the Red Fife wheat flours I brought back from my visit to Cliff Leir’s Fol Épi Bakery in Victoria, BC (see related post Meet the Baker: Cliff Leir).

Cliff’s formula and timeline for Fol Épi’s 50% whole wheat bread 

  • 2:30 PM: first build of the levain: 7% starter + 100% white flour + 100% water. The build goes into the fridge (Cliff explained that some of the oil present in the bran gets smeared on the white flour during the milling. For that reason the starter moves very fast and needs to be refrigerated for this first long fermentation)
  • 6:00 AM: second build: 72% starter (the whole first build) + 100% white flour + 100% water. No fridge this time
  • 11:00 AM: final dough: 50% whole wheat flour + 48% white flour + 2% whole rye flour + 11.5% starter (the whole second build) + 75% water + 2% salt. Mix on first speed. Autolyse: 20 min (no salt, no starter). Final mix: add salt and water. Mix 6 minutes (same slow speed). Dough cooled to 50°F/10°C. Rest until 12 AM
  • 12 AM: dough allowed to warm up to 72°F/22°C (depending on the weather or other conditions, it might need to be retarded some more at this point)
  • 5:00 AM: one fold
  • 7:00 AM: divided @ 750 g – preshaped (20 minutes rest) – rolled into a batard shape – final proof: 45 minutes on couche dusted with white flour
  • Bake for 35 minutes 445-465° F @ 230-240°C

I like how the bread turned out when I made it at home: the flavor of the grain shone through, there was no acidity whatsoever and the crumb was wonderfully mellow. 


My version of Cliff’s 50% whole wheat bread

But, as can be seen from the two pictures (the one above and the one below), I didn’t get as good as oven spring as Cliff.


Cliff’s own 50% whole wheat bread

I used the formula that Cliff had so generously shared with me and did my best to follow his guidelines as to timing and temperatures but in a home environment, life (and sleep) sometimes intervene. Once again the grain is only half of the story, fermentation control is just as important. I didn’t have the means of cooling the dough to 50°F/10°C right after mixing. The best I could do was to put it in the garage when the temperature hovered around 62°F/17°C, leave it there and check it periodically to make sure it wasn’t fermenting too fast. I didn’t want to put it in the fridge which would have been too cold.
The dough behaved in unexpected ways both during mixing and during fermentation: you know how it is hammered in our heads as apprentice bakers that you can’t ever follow a recipe exactly because there are such variations in the flours from one manufacturer to the next (and even from one batch of flour to the next from the same manufacturer) that the percentage of water must be adjusted each time?
Well, I thought that I had that angle covered. I was  using flours milled by Cliff, the dates of the milling were indicated on both bags, I was well within the two-three week period (actually much closer to two) and I figured I could safely go ahead and hydrate at 75% as he does. I didn’t put in all the water in one shot but still I was less cautious with it than I usually am and soon found myself in a spot.
I was mixing by hand (at the bakery, Cliff uses a very slow and gentle old mixer equipped with two “arms” that mimic the rythmic gestures of an artisan baker). The dough was gobbling up the water beautifully but almost as soon as I stopped folding it over itself, it sneakily relaxed to the point of slackness. I now wonder if it could be because I forgot to use filtered water and just used tap water (we have city water and it is chlorinated although not heavily so).


As it were, I thought it just needed more folds and I must have folded it half-a-dozen times but every time I went back to check on it, it had spread again. That being said, it later lent itself rather gracefully to being divided and shaped. I set the batards to proof on a flour-dusted couche making sure I secured the edges on both sides so that they wouldn’t morph into ciabattas behind my back. Still when I put them in the oven, they were a bit flattish and I was definitely not hopeful…
So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the breads did get get some oven rise and turned out acceptable looks-wise. Flavor-wise, they were fragrant and wonderfully evocative of sun-drenched wheat fields (although not quite as complex-tasting as Cliff’s). I don’t have any more flour to try again but Cliff also kindly gave me some Red Fife grain. I am storing it in the fridge for now. I will try milling it to see if I can reproduce the two loaves I made with his flours and this time I will remember to use filtered water!



Ingredients (for two loaves scaled at 980 g):
Levain: first build
  • 1.5 g mature white starter (at 100% hydration)
  • 18 g white Red Fife flour
  • 18 g water
Levain: second build
  • 38 g starter (all of the first build)
  • 51 g white Red Fife flour
  • 51 g water

Final dough

  • 600 g whole Red Fife flour
  • 576 g white Red Fife flour
  • 24 g organic dark rye flour
  • 900 g water
  • 138 g starter (all of the second build)
  • 24 g salt
Method: 

As indicated above, I forgot Cliff’s recommendation regarding filtered water and it may have made a big difference in the way the dough behaved. Also the second build of the levain took forever to ferment and I had to delay mixing by eight hours (a whole night) because I wanted it to be fairly bursting with singing bubbles before putting it to work.
Otherwise I did my best to follow his guidelines in trying to make this amazing bread at home and I am happy to have this opportunity to thank Cliff and all the other bakers I have met so far for their generosity in sharing their knowledge and resources. Seeing the pros at work is truly the best way to learn and I love the fact that these artisans care enough about their product to help a bread enthusiast make better bread. I know no better way to thank them than to support artisan bakeries wherever we go. Truth be told, that’s my favorite kind of shopping spree!
The 50% Whole Red Fife Wheat Bread is going to Susan for this week’s Yeastpotting.

Meet the cheesemaker: Lin Bourdais

Remember I told you in my last post how we had the baguette from Normandy with cheese the same night? Well, it wasn’t just any cheese: it was this cheese, a tomme from the same terroir as the baguette, i.e. Pays d’Auge in Normandy.

The notion of terroir is of supreme importance to the artisans we met that day. Erik the baker moved to the country to be closer to the wheat. He started using a small mill close to his bakery but the miller moved away. So for now he gets his flour from le Moulin de Persard in Western Normandy. When Manu realizes his project of growing and milling wheat for the bakery however, the full circle they both have been dreaming of all along will become reality.


(photo courtesy of our friends at Tree-Top Baking, along for the visit)

Lin Bourdais, 47, has been making organic cheese for 6 years at Bois Canon, the farm he bought from his parents. He has thirty cows who produce milk all-year round on 52 ha (128 acres) of land. He sells his cheese on two open-air markets (Mézidon and Caen) as well as to a few natural food stores and to CSA’s.  This year he had to deny cheese deliveries to other stores: the farm doesn’t yield enough milk to make more cheese (it takes 450 liters of milk to make 45 kg of cheese) and he doesn’t want to buy milk elsewhere, even from a neighbor, because he wouldn’t know first-hand what the cows had eaten and wouldn’t be able to control the flavors. He works with the tastes of his terroir and wants it no other way.
He has help: Sophie Martinet, who became his business partner a year-and-a-half ago; Xavier, who is interning at the fromagerie and David, an expert cheesemaker who came to replace him when he had to leave for a while (sorry, I don’t have last names for Xavier or David). Three people need to work full-time to maintain production levels.
Now Lin’s cheese isn’t typical of what Normandy usually produces, i.e. soft cheeses (such as Camembert, Pont-L’Évêque or Livarot). Tommes are normally to be found in mountainous areas, such as the Alps or the Massif Central, and they are often low in fat. Lin’s isn’t. He uses full fat raw milk and the resulting cheese is wonderfully tender. The one he cut open for us had been aging since the previous June (since we visited in March, it was about nine months old). It gets better as it ages but Lin says the demand is such that it is difficult to keep enough tommes around to age them.
He currently sells cheeses made in January 2012, November 2011 and June 2011. He says that once he kept a cheese for two and a half years to sell at Christmas time. He put it for sale at twice the regular price -which is €12/kg or a little bit under $8 per pound- and it flew off the table.
Lin’s tomme is an uncooked pressed cheese (like Cheddar). I know this is normally a bread blog but just in case you are interested in cheese (I know I am: wine and cheese have got to be my favorite food pairings), take a quick look at how it’s made (the first photo is kind of foggy because it was very warm in the room and we were coming from outside, so glasses and camera lenses misted up right away!).

(photo courtesy of Tree-Top Baking)
The first few weeks, the cheese is washed two to three times a week and at the very beginning, it gets flipped over at each washing. Afterwards, the washing occurs only about once a week: it starts from the top shelves (where the older cheeses reside) so that the bacteria naturally occurring on the rind can trickle down and bring more flavor to the younger tommes. The shelves have to be made out of white wood (ash tree, Norway spruce, fir tree). Any other wood would impart an unwelcome taste to the cheese.


We were sent to Lin’s farm by Seth, from Boulangerie Les Co’Pains, but I am not sure Lin is eager to have unannounced visitors. If you are in the area and want to try his cheese (which I strongly recommend because it is very tasty), your best bet is to go the markets at Caen or Mézidon and look or ask for Fromagerie GAEC du Bois Canon. You won’t regret it…

In Paris with bread on my mind…

Having arrived in Paris a couple of days ago for Europain, I had the great pleasure and honor of leading my first bakery tour yesterday on behalf of the Bread Bakers’ Guild of America. Being the appointed guide and interpreter, I couldn’t really take many pictures or any notes but I’ll share what I have.

We visited Boulangerie Julien (75 rue Saint-Honoré) and Maison Cohier  (270-272 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré). “Les boulangers américains” (the American bakers) couldn’t have asked for a warmer and more gracious welcome. We were shown and explained everything and all our questions (of which there were many) were answered. Both Jean-Noël Julien and Jean-Pierre Cohier have received awards for their baguettes: Julien for best baguette in Paris in 1995 and Cohier for best baguette Tradition in Paris in 2006. Monsieur Cohier – who supplied the Elysée Palace with baguettes for three years and catered in the process to two successive presidents, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy – shared with us that Jacques Chirac liked his baguettes “bien cuites” (baked to a crusty brown) whereas the prevailing taste in today’s France is, sadly, for the opposite (a much blonder baguette).
Both bakers churn out an impressive amount of breads, cakes, viennoiseries, salads, sandwiches, etc. in a space that’s barely larger than the kitchen in many American homes (having no flour storage space at all, Monsieur Cohier gets his flour delivered every two or three days). As is often the case in Paris, the labs are located under the store in the cellar. Neither is air-conditioned, by choice. Monsieur Julien actually had the air-conditioning system dismantled because the workers kept getting sick. Room temperature was in the 20-22°C/68-72°F during our visit but I imagine it climbs way higher in the summer.

Both master bakers make their famous baguette tradition the same way: with no poolish or levain or any other kind of preferment. They use .6 % of yeast and go for a very short and gentle mixing (with three folds at 20 minutes’ intervals) then a long cold fermentation for 20 to 24 hours (Monsieur Cohier told us that on weekends the fermentation goes on for 48 hours and the resulting baguette has incomparable flavor). Then the baguettes get scaled and shaped (here the techniques differ: Julien uses a divider and a shaper whereas Cohier does everything by hand), they rest 45 minutes and they go into the oven.  In both cases, the ovens are electric and a different temperature is used for the sole and for the top.

Having bins of baguette dough fermenting at all times enables both bakeries to churn out loaves as needed all day long. Boulangerie Julien actually closes only two hours a day (in the late evening): the rest of the day and night it is bustling with activity. We visited on a Saturday morning and a large order of mini-viennoiseries (1500 pieces) had just gone out. They had been mixed and shaped the day before, frozen overnight (for ease of storage) and baked at dawn.
We asked Julien and Cohier whether they ever use levain: Cohier doesn’t. Julien uses a rye liquid levain in certain types of bread other than the baguettes but he doesn’t make or keep it himself. He buys it and gets it delivered. I had heard about German bakers subscribing to a levain delivery service but I didn’t know it was also done in France. Julien said that the logistics of keeping a firm levain would be mind-boggling with so many bakers working in shifts as fermentation would tend to get out of hand. The liquid levain was easier to handle.

Morning Cuddle Bread with Oats, Plums and Hazelnuts

The anxiety of influence is most certainly a reality for some. After all, a whole book has been written on the subject (although the author probably didn’t have the art of baking in mind) but I am happy to report I don’t suffer from it. I love leisurely browsing through books and/or exploring online worlds and letting ideas wash over me, leaving behind precious little nuggets of inspiration. Sometimes – and that’s the most fun – these nuggets combine to form something completely different.
That’s how the morning cuddle bread came to be. A couple of weeks ago a British Columbia food podcast had pointed me towards an oatmeal, walnut and plum bread, which the Man pronounced to be a wonderful breakfast bread…

…and as I was contemplating what to bake for him for Valentine’s Day, I remembered another fruit and nut bread I had once bookmarked in Les 20 meilleurs ouvriers de France et médaillés d’argent se dévoilent et vous offrent leurs recettes choisies, a book put together by l’Équipe de France de boulangerie (the French Baking Team) in the early 90’s.  What I had liked most about it was its endearing shape (two entertwined pieces of dough) and its name, pain câlin du matin (literally morning cuddle bread).

Oven-roasted hazelnuts
The two recipes got reborn as one: from Chef Bruce (the British Columbia baker), I retained the idea of the plums (the Man is a huge plum fan!) and the nuts (but instead of the walnuts, I used the fragrant hazelnuts my friend Meeghen had brought me from her own orchard). I also stayed with the mix of wheat (whole-grain and all-purpose) and oatmeal (I love the tenderness of an oatmeal crumb). From the French recipe – by Gérald Biremont, “meilleur ouvrier de France” (best artisan baker in France) – I took the shape and the name. After all, what’s more appropriate on Valentine’s Day morning that a sweet little cuddle?

Interestingly both recipes call for a straight dough but I always prefer using a preferment: the bread keeps better, if nothing else, and I find it tastier too. So I reinterpreted the Canadian recipe to use both a poolish (made with only a speck or two of instant yeast) and some levain. It took its own sweet time to ferment but, hey, Valentine Day comes around only once a year. Besides the dough did all the work, leaving the cuddling to us…

Ingredients: (for 8 morning cuddle breads or 4 cuddle breads and a loaf)

For the poolish

  • 280 g all-purpose flour
  • 280 g water 
  • one tiny pinch of instant yeast (0.06 g)
For the final dough
  • 200 g mature white starter at 100% hydration
  • 320 g all-purpose flour
  • 150 g white whole wheat flour
  • 115 g old-fashioned oat flakes, coarsely ground in a food processor
  • 180 g water  (amount to be adjusted up or down depending on your flours, the humidity in the air, etc.)
  • 100 g oven-roasted hazelnuts, roughly peeled and chopped
  • 110 g dried plums, roughly chopped
  • 19 g salt
Method: (this bread is made over two days since the starter and the poolish both need to be fed the evening before and to ferment overnight)
  1. The night before, mix the poolish and feed the starter. Let both ferment overnight at room temperature (if very warm where you live, fermentation could be faster, which means you may need to adjust your schedule accordingly)
  2. On baking day, mix the flours, the starter, the poolish and the water until all the ingredients are well distributed and all flour is hydrated. Let rest for 20 minutes
  3. Add salt and mix on low speed until a soft pliable dough is formed (don’t overmix)
  4. Add the plums and hazelnuts and mix gently (I find it easier to take the dough out of the mixer at this stage and mix in the fruit and nuts by hand)
  5. Set in an oiled container and let rise until at least doubled (it took close to 6 hours at 72°F/22°C)
  6. Divide in two pieces of roughly 850 g each
  7. If you want to make only cuddle breads, then divide each of these pieces in 8 and make 8 baguette-shaped cylinders. Twist them together by pairs. If you want 4 cuddle breads and one loaf, divide and shape accordingly
  8. Proof until doubled in size (in my case, it took one hour and a half at 72°F/22°C). Pre-heat oven to 400°F/204°C
  9. When ready bake for 15 minutes (with steam the first five minutes) then check the color and if necessary turn oven down a bit. Turn the breads 180° and bake another 15 minutes. They will be ready when they have a rich color and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
  10. Cool on a rack!
Enjoy!

The morning cuddle bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting.

Breadfarm’s Winthrop Whole Wheat Bread



Winthrop Whole Wheat Bread (as made and sold at the bakery)

Loosely based on a Peter Reinhart recipe, the Winthrop loaf is a fairly simple bread to make at home. You just need to plan ahead since it requires two preferments: a 24-hour soaker (which spends 12 hours in the refrigerator and 12 hours on the counter) and a whole wheat starter. Breadfarm‘s owner Scott Mangold uses wheat from two different parts of Washington State: white whole wheat flour from Bluebird Grain Farms in Winthrop and coarse whole wheat flour from Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill in nearby Burlington. Having neither of those, I used what I had on hand, which was white whole wheat flour from Fairhaven and hard red winter wheat berries from the coop, which I ground coarsely with my own little mill.

It is also a rather forgiving recipe if you make sure to bring both preferments to room temperature before incorporating them. I miscalculated my schedule for the day and had to slow down the starter in the fridge. It came back to life beautifully. Scott says that as an alternative to making the soaker one day ahead of time, you can also make it only 12 hours before mixing and then skip the waiting in the fridge part by just having it rest at room temperature (about 73°F/23°C).
Breadfarm maintains a whole wheat starter at 100% hydration but any wheat starter can be used provided its hydration is appropriately adjusted. I used my regular white liquid levain (100% hydration) and simply fed it twice with coarsely milled wheat flour before using in the recipe. The important part is to  make sure  to feed the starter about 8 hours prior to mixing (although, as I said, I had to slow mine down and it still worked). It must achieve full ripeness. If fed coarsely milled flour, the starter holds longer between feedings and the resulting bread is more chewy.


Fairhaven coarsely milled wheat flour

Ingredients (for 3 small loaves): 
(Scott uses his mixer at the bakery but at home I did the mixing by hand)
For the soaker
  • 320 g white whole wheat flour
  • 248 g water
  • 14.5 g salt (all the salt for the formula goes into the soaker to inhibit protease activity)
For the starter

  • 65.5 g ripe whole wheat starter (100% hydration)
  • 262 g coarse whole wheat flour
  • 262 g water

For the final dough

  • .85 g instant yeast (about 1/4 of a teaspoon) (used in a production situation to ensure that the bread rises on schedule but optional at home)
  • 23 g water
  • 590 g starter (all the starter)
  • 582 g soaker (all the soaker)
  • 227 g white whole wheat flour
Method:
In the video below, you see Scott mixing, folding, scaling and shaping. Only two folds are shown but Scott actually did three. Also the bakers working and chatting in the background are Caryn, Gregory and Nathan. Matt was in charge of the oven that day and he did the baking as Scott had to go home take care of his kids. 
  1. Proof the yeast in the warm water for 5 minutes (even if it’s instant as it makes it more active and you need to use less)
  2. Combine all ingredients and mix until you get a good windowpane test (see video) but the dough is still loose and shaggy. Target dough temperature should be 78 to 80°F (26-27°C)
  3. Fold three times at 25 minutes interval
  4. Divide and shape as batards 25 minutes after the last fold (no pre-shaping)
  5. Bake about 20 minutes after shaping in 450°F/232°C oven for 35 to 45 minutes with steam in the first few minutes.



Winthrop 100% Whole Wheat (the Farine version)

I had fun making the Winthrop loaf and I love its flavor. Scott says it has a small but devoted following among the whole grains crowd and I can understand why. It’s definitely a keeper!

The Winthrop 100% Whole Wheat Bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting, her weekly roundup of breads and other baked goodies.