Another Experiment

I'm becoming a victim of my success, I have no room in my fridge to overnight prove all the loaves I'm making.

So I'm experimenting with proving on the counter, using Teresa Greenways excellent 'Alaska Sourdough' which is a good seller for me.

So today I made the dough a little later than usual but otherwise used the same method. I only boosted my starter once, to try and keep it a bit less active, to see if that would slow the rise down. The temperature in the kitchen will be about 15°C overnight.

I shaped it and put it into bannetons at 6pm, 12 hours before baking.

Next morning at 5am,

they had risen well but not too much and the oven was on.

I baked them as usual and the spring seemed to be about the same, they were done in the same time as those baked an hour after coming from the fridge.

So it looks like I have solved my problem, you can do without a fridge retard for these loaves. 

Consolidation

I seem to be settling into a pattern of orders, not too much but enough to keep me amused. Apart from my own supply this week, I made 30 loaves, 20 Teacakes, 12 Sourdough Rolls and 12 scones. 

I also made a batch of Chocolate and Orange Biscuits, incorporating Sourdough Starter, which came out even more delicious than I remembered. Fortunately there were a couple left over for quality control.

 Amongst the loaves were my usual Spelt Tin and Batard made using Bakers Yeast, the rest were all Sourdough, 4 Rye, 4 White, 3 Wholemeal, 9 Spelt and 2 Spelt/Oatmeal. All these seem to be selling well so far but others like 3 Seed and Chickpea or Spelt and Walnut are not moving. Maybe it's time for a bit of aggressive marketing.

It was Rolls week as well, when I stock up one of my best customers with flavoured Sourdough Rolls. This time, I was asked to make a batch with Pine Nuts and to choose the other myself. I picked grated Beetroot, which I hope went down well.

Beetroot on the left, Pine Nut on the right.

I took the Beetroot and Cheese bread that I made last week down to Millie and Me, to see if they were interested in it as a special, as you can see, she made it look amazing.

Millie and Me

20 July · 

Today's Special inspired by An amazing new bread from Richard at Well Bread. Beetroot & Cheese filled with Goats Cheese and Roasted Red Peppers!

If I get chance, this weeks experiments will be a Greek Barley Bread and a White loaf flavoured with Green Tea. It all depends on how many orders I get.

Cheese and Beetroot Bread

As it's the weekend, I get the chance to have a play with ingredients to see what I can come up with.

This week its the turn of grated Beetroot and some strong cheese, Cornish Tickler to be precise. I had brought a pack of cooked beetroot and intended to use the liquid as well.

250g grated beetroot and 25 g water from the pack

100 g cheese, in cubes

Because of the added water in the beetroot, I modified the liquid in the mixture, reducing it by 75g. I also substituted 50g of olive oil for water and added 20 g of coarse semolina.

So the actual formula was:-

500g Flour,
20 g Coarse Semolina,
50g Olive Oil,
225g Water,
250g grated Beetroot with 25 g liquid,
100g Cheese, in cubes,
10g Yeast
10g Salt

I mixed everything together and kneaded in my Kenwood for 5 minutes on low speed. Then I put it in the oven to prove as usual. 

This involves putting a pan of boiling water in the base of the oven and adding the dough in a bowl. I then turn the oven to MAX for 1 minute ONLY, to create a warm, wet atmosphere. I then ignore the oven for 90 minutes. It seems to work as well as the £140 prover they sell in Lakeland.

After they had proved I shaped them into tins,

and left them for another hour.

They then had 30 minutes at 220°C with steam.

and after letting them cool, I cut a slice, hoping to get a piece of cheese.

and I did!

Spelt Sourdough

In response to a couple of requests, here is my way of making Spelt Sourdough, freely adapted from a lot of places on the web (thanks everyone, I can't  remember which one of you helped with which bit but thanks) and after a bit of trial and error on my part I have come up with this method. It must be OK because I sell about 10-15 loaves a week and have had nice things said about the results.

First my starter is just a normal 100% hydration starter using Wholemeal Spelt flour. I get mine in bulk from Shipton Mill, 20 kilo's a month of both White and Wholemeal Spelt. More about that in a minute.

The starter is well established and I keep it in the fridge, on Mondays and Wednesdays I take out a bit and start to feed it up ready to bake. The amount depends but I always feed twice at 18 and 6 hours before mixing my dough.

For each loaf I use,

 350g Water                             

 45g Honey                                                                 

 60g Starter                                                               

 530g Flour                                                                

 10g Salt                                           

The flour is made up of 50% Wholemeal and 50% White Spelt, it gives a softer crumb and people seem to prefer it. On the occasions when I have tried 100% of either it's not gone down so well. Sharpham Park in the UK sell a ready mixed blend of White and Wholemeal Spelt as well.

Anyway mix everything in a large tub and leave it for an hour. Then stretch and fold hourly three times. Another hour after the last set, split into portions and leave to rise. No need to refrigerate, the low amount of starter means that the rise is slow.

I start mixing at 1200, fold at 1300, 1400 and 1500. At 1600 I split and leave until 0500 the next day.

Portions ready to overnight rise.

Next morning.

 At 0500 I gently turn the dough out and fold once on a lightly floured surface, being careful not to knock too much gas out! The loaves then go into floured tins for 60-90 minutes, depending on when they are risen to the top of the tins. If you leave them too long you get a big bubble in the middle so keep an eye on the dough. Check the pictures to see what I mean.

Ready for final prove

 At this time I put the oven on to 250°C

Oven ready

Bake with steam for 25 minutes, then without for another 15 or so until the internal temperature is above 95°C. I don't slash them, the dough is too wet and they make nice patterns on their own.

And that's it.

I hope that this has given you a few ideas.

Saturday Experimenting.

As I said last time, Saturday is a day for trying out new ideas. When I did my stock check at the end of June, I found a lot of half bags of fruit and nuts from the cookies and other things I did last Christmas.

After getting rid of everything that was out of date I had Cranberries, some Raisins and a few Pistachio nuts. And a bar of Green and Blacks Dark Chocolate!

I had brought Cashews this month as they were on offer and had enough Oats and Oil to make Granola.

The basis of the Granola is 270g of Rolled Oats, 60 g Oil and 113 g Honey. After that its up to you, I just throw in about the same amount of whatever I have lying around, in this case the above mentioned. Put the oven on to 150° C before you start. (Incidentally, in case you don't know, the degree symbol is made by holding the "ALT" key and and pressing 0,1,7,6)

I crushed up the Cashews and added some Walnuts as well and broke the chocolate into small pieces.

Mixing it all together I placed it on a lined sheet, pressing it down.

Then its into the oven for 20-30 minutes, hard to be precise as it depends, but the edges start to go golden, that's when its done. It will still be soft in the middle. Let it cool completely on the sheet, turning halfway to let the bottom dry.

When its completely cold you can break it up and store it in an airtight container.

At the same time, I made up the Dough for a new loaf, this one is Sourdough Spelt and Oatmeal. It seemed a little wet but I don't think that will be a problem, I make a Wholemeal loaf that's equal amounts of flour and water, also known as 100% hydration. This one has a bit more flour than water. (82% hydration)

After 2 hours in the proving oven it had risen a little so I shaped it into two loaves and left it for a second rise.

After another three hours, I reckoned that it was ready to bake.

It was too wet to slash so I just put it in with steam. I think I should have used smaller tins, never mind.

40 minutes later it was done,

And after it had cooled I cut a slice,

A very nice, soft sandwich bread. Good Sourdough taste too. Now to unleash it on the public.

A Mention in Dispatches.

As you will be aware, I supply Oats Healthy Living Store in Brixham three times weekly with all sorts of goodies. 

Mostly I bake Spelt bread for them, either using Doves Farm Yeast or risen with my own Sourdough culture, which is now over two years old. (and called Hortense if anyone is interested)

I also bake Sourdough Crumpets, Vegan Teacakes and Sourdough Scones for them on a regular basis, not forgetting Rye Sourdough loaves, incorporating Fair-Trade Honey gathered from wild bees in SW Ethiopia. 

Not only that, I produce Flavoured Sourdough Rolls with added Carrot, Walnut, Pine-nuts, Poppy Seeds, Beetroot or whatever else you might fancy.

I can of course create other breads and I also produce Sourdough Chocolate Brownies, Sourdough Biscuits and Muffins. I have made Sourdough Rosti and Doughnuts to order in the past. I just love messing around with Sourdough. (In case you couldn't tell) 

After all that self-promotion, click on the link to go to the Oats website, where you can see just what a fabulous place it is.

www.oatsofbrixham.co.uk

Anyway as its the weekend, I will be experimenting with a few new products, this weekend it will be Granola, using up a few things that I have in my ingredients box. After that it will be a Spelt and Oatmeal loaf, before the weeks business begins.

Don't miss my next post, when I'll tell you how I got on.

Friday

The end of another week, a little quieter than last week but still worth doing.

Oats today had 20 Vegan Teacakes, this seems to be about the normal weekly amount.

 They also had a couple of Spelt loaves in Batard shape and some more Spelt Sourdough. 

The spelt has really taken off, I do loads of Spelt loaves and crumpets.

The Rye loaf is part of an order for a new customer, another local Health Food shop. They take White Sourdough, Spelt (again) and Rye.

The loaves I showed you proving last night rose well in the fridge,

I baked the Wholemeal in a Dutch Oven this time, to help it keep its shape (the dough is 88% hydration so very wet)

So there it is, the last bake of the week. I'm off to enjoy myself, tomorrow I'll start getting orders for next week.

Praise

Like all of us, I do like to get a positive review for my efforts and I got one yesterday evening from a regular customer of Oats in Brixham. I produce Sourdough Rolls for her on a fortnightly basis and have made Carrot flavour as well as Walnut, Pesto and several others.

This week she left it to me to choose flavours and I picked Gluten Free Sourdough and Poppy Seed. I also tried rolls flavoured with Pine nuts and made some Vegan Oatcakes for her.

Pine Nut and Poppy Seed Rolls

Inside a Pine Nut Roll.

I was really pleased to get this email.

hi Richard

Pine nut rolls are FABULOUS - top of my favourites list straight away. - and the gluten free rolls are excellent too! - Of course the poppy seed are brilliant - they passed with flying colours last time!
- and I just love the added thickness of the oatcakes - they make such a divine mouthful.

So I am wonderfully happy this week with my whole order - thanks to you!

regards

I will have to keep up the good work, lots of Sourdough is fermenting away ready for tomorrow's orders, Spelt and Rye, Wholemeal and White. I've shaped the Wholemeal and the White, I'll do the rest in the morning.

All ready for an early start.