That was the Week.......

That was the week where I used over 20 kilogrammes of flour.
I made,

12 Sourdough Spelt Loaves,
4 White Sourdough Loaves,
3 Wholemeal Sourdough Loaves,
4 Rye Sourdough Loaves,
7 Yeasted Spelt Loaves,
2 Wholemeal Chickpea and Seed Loaves,
2 Special Order Loaves, (Using Gluten-free flour but not Gluten-free)
12 Sourdough Rolls, (6 each of Carrot and Walnut)
12 Spelt Crumpets,
12 Sourdough Scones (6 Fruit and 6 Plain)
20 Vegan Teacakes.

My best week yet.

Busy Day, Part 2.

At 0430 this morning, I mixed the Chickpea and seed dough, I hope the mixer didn't wake anyone.

I left it to rise and put the ovens on to heat up the stones.

The spelt had risen well overnight,

and I folded it into tins.

By 0530 the stones were hot so I started the White loaves,

which left the bannetons free for the Chickpea dough, which had doubled in size.

When the White loaves came out,

 I re-heated the ovens and put the Spelt and the first of the Wholemeal loaves and the Rye in for 50 minutes,

followed by the Chickpea and the rest of the Wholemeal.

All baking was done by 0745, after the loaves had cooled I tried my new bags and labels.

And now I feel rather tired.

Busy Day, Part 1.

Friday 26th June 2015 is my biggest set of orders to date. 

A total of 19 loaves for three different customers, being Sourdough I had to start them on Wednesday afternoon, when I first woke the starters.

On Thursday I fed the starters at 0500 and started making at 1300. Apart from 2 yeasted Spelt and 2 seed and Chickpea I had 6 Spelt Sourdough, 3 Wholemeal Sourdough and 4 White Sourdough. The Chickpea, although yeasted, still required a pre-ferment.

After stretching and folding, everything was ready for an overnight rise at 1800.

That's 4 White

3 Wholemeal,

6 Spelt,

and a pre-ferment.

Roll on 0430 in the morning. That's when I start the yeasted Spelt and finish the Chickpea. The overnight loaves can go into the oven in relays, although I have two ovens I can still only do 4 sourdough loaves at a time, largely due to the size of my baking stones.

If it all goes to plan, I will be finished and cooling off (me and the loaves) by 0800. Ready to load up and deliver at 0900

I'll let you know how I get on.

Sourdough Scones

Here is the recipe for the Sourdough Scones. Its based on a King Arthur Flour recipe but I have modified it slightly and added fruit.

Ingredients,

240g Sourdough Starter at 100%, it doesn't have to be fresh, discard is fine but keep it in the fridge until you need it.

120g Plain Flour,

0.75 tsp Salt,

2 tsp Baking Powder,

115g Cold Butter, cut into pieces. (I used to grate frozen butter into the mixture but as long as it is cold it works fine.)

Either leave plain or add a maximum of 100g Dried Fruit/Grated Cheese/ Chocolate Chips before mixing.

Method,

 

·    Preheat the oven to 220°C. Grease a baking sheet, or line it with parchment.

Combine everything. Work gently until the mixture is a cohesive dough.

Put the dough onto a lightly floured sheet of parchment and gently mould it into a pancake about 2-3cm thick.

Use a 3 inch (8cm) cutter to cut rounds. Mix the scraps together and form into another pancake, continue until the dough has all been cut.

Place the biscuits onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2" between them so they can spread a little.

Bake in the upper third of the oven for around 15 minutes, or until they're golden brown.

Remove them from the oven, and cool on a rack. They will keep in an airtight box at room temperature for several days. 

They freeze well.

Fruit and Plain.

Gluten Free (Sort of)

I've resisted making any Gluten-free breads so far, for one very good reason. To be absolutely sure of no cross contamination, you need to have two sets of everything and deep clean the kitchen between making GF and normal breads. To be honest it was never going to be worth it, as it would mean that although I had two ovens, I could only really use one for normal breads.

So when one of my customers asked if I would try a GF loaf, I explained why I was reluctant and to my surprise she accepted the reason but explained that it wasn't necessary to guarantee cleanliness. She is not Coeliac, just slightly intolerant and likes the taste (if you're reading this I hope I got that right) I agreed to have a go and researched GF, eventually finding an easy starter method here.

 http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/gluten-free-sourdough-starter/

Starter Bubbling

 The starter is made with a blend of Rice, Tapioca and Potato flours. I then added Brown Rice flour and Buckwheat to make the dough.

Lining a proving bowl

 The website where I found the recipe, 

 http://www.artofglutenfreebaking.com/2010/10/sourdough-bread-boule-gluten-free/

suggested proving in a lined bowl, then transferring the dough, in the paper, to a preheated Dutch Oven. It worked a treat.

Ready to prove.

Ready for the Oven.

 As instructed, I baked it in a covered Dutch Oven. It had an hour at 220° C, the last 15 minutes with the lid off.

Finished loaf.

It tasted really nice, not at all what I was expecting.

Crumb.

I just hope she likes it.

A new method for Spelt Loaves

My new routine for Oats starts this week and I thought that I would try a different way to make their Spelt loaves.

Previously, I made them on the day using 500g flour, 350g liquid and 10g each of Yeast and Salt per loaf, with normal proving times.

For tomorrows I am trying a pre-ferment, like I do with Millie's Panini, just to see if it has any effect on the taste or the rise. Initially, I thought I would make a quarter of the dough, with less yeast to compensate for the extra time it would ferment.

I mixed 500g flour and 350g water with 5g yeast and will leave it to ferment in a container for 24 hours at room temperature.

Tomorrow morning I will mix the rest of the ingredients and add this whilst kneading. There are two ways this can go but confidence is high.

I'll let you know the results tomorrow.

Increased Capacity.

My new Bannetons have arrived, along with encouragement from Andrew Whitley, one of my inspirations.

Orders have increased again this week, more Sourdoughs and now Sourdough Crumpets for Galleons stores. The recipe is here : http://brixhambread.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-new-improved-sourdough-brixham.html

I also started making Wholemeal loaves for Oats. 

The samples I took over to the health-food shop in Preston went down well and there was some interest shown, despite my forgetting the promotional literature (well flyers)

All the extra bread I had this week didn't go to waste either, I made some croutons with the bulk of it, using up some Balsamic to give them a tang.

Being Saturday, I have just fed my starters, ready for another weeks baking, the Gluten free one is showing promise, with a bit of luck I can try a loaf next week.

Roundup

After me saying lat time that I would tell you about the sourdough I realised that I can't. The reason is that the recipe comes from an online course that I have paid for, and it wouldn't be right to pass the formula on without permission.

Suffice to say, it involves a lot of resting, (the dough that is!) and folding, the results are pretty impressive though, and the method can be extended to several other formula's.

Demi-Baguettes

Crumb

Spelt Sourdough

A selection of Sourdough's

Of course I have a lot of starter left over so I made Spelt Crumpets today as well.

and in other news, my Gluten-free sourdough starter is bubbling well, that's a project for the future.

Did you miss me?

Did you even notice? I have been without the Internet for three days, and I survived!

Not that I have had much time for surfing, I have just done the biggest order to date for Oats, 13 Loaves, 12 Scones and 12 Speciality rolls, (Buckwheat and Rye and Poppy Seeded Sourdough). It might not sound like much but bear in mind I used to do 4 loaves for them, and that not every week. So I guess that's progress.

Buckwheat and Rye Rolls

Spelt and Walnut Spelt

3 Seed and Chickpea

Poppy Seeded

Sourdough Spelt

Scones

I have brought 50 Kilo's of flour this month already, in anticipation of a busy summer, I will (I hope) use most of that by the end of June.

I had a request for samples of the Savoury Morsels from a wholesale company locally, they want to try all the flavours so I will deliver them tomorrow.

sales of the Morsel have been slow, I was wondering what to do with all the bags I had ready.

Next week I will also be taking bread samples to a health food shop about 9 miles away, its a new venture for them as they mainly concentrate on body builders and extreme martial arts but apparently some of their customers have asked for healthy bread. They also want high protein pizza bases so I will make some up with the Extra Strong flour that I have (14% protein).

I have my first sales of Sourdough loaves in my new outlet, I have made white and wholemeal and deliver them tomorrow,

when I get the time I will tell you all about the process.

All the practising to get these loaves just right has left me with a lake of discard starter so this morning, to kill two birds I tried my new crumpet pan on my new induction hob (with my old silicon rings) to use it up.

It took a bit of experimenting to get the temperatures set up, I had scratches on the gas hob controls for the ideal heat, I'm not marking this one but have the numbers. And the results were tasty.