Bread

Noice

Top tip - once they're cooked, whack them in a hot dry pan to get some char just before serving

Recipe?

Normal bread dough recipe, just a little on the wetter side. Roll out about a 75g ball into a pitta shape with plenty of flour so they don’t stick. Into the oven at 220C for about 7 minutes :)

@TvH oooohhhh yeaaahhhh, but these almost got snaffled before they made it to the plate!

Am starting to play around with different flours and keeping some dough back for longer retarded proving times.

This one is 25% dark rye, 5% spelt and the rest strong white Canadian. Made with a mixture of my normal starter and some rye starter.

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Look better than mine did. Did you do them in the oven or on the hob?

Local pita place around here uses coarse ground polenta to stop the pitas from sticking under forming. It adds a nice crunch as well.

In the spirit of trying things out I tried to vary proving methods for the last batch. First loaf was shaped and proved overnight out of the fridge (because I forgot to put in fridge). It was lacking tension when it came out from the banneton and rose poorly.

The next left to prove overnight then shaped and left out for a few hours before cooking. It was pretty formless and had the worst lift. Also because it was at rtp it turned darkest despite having the shortest cooking time. (All loaves cooked to around 95 C)

Final loaf had the longest prove, was shaped and returned to the fridge and cooked from cold. It popped up best by far.

First loaf is a couple of posts up.

The next two are attached below. At least I now can identify when my bread has been over proved.

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And my wife now tells me she prefers the over proved loaf!

#evenwrongwhendoingitright

anyone have experience with spent (malted) grains from brewing - I saw @Olly398 had used some a few months back I think?
I want to know how much I can use, as even a small batch of brew leaves me with several kg of grain. I get my grain crushed, but I feel like it must need further grinding or something to go into bread, as it is still pretty large bits.
Any advice is very appreciated...

Hiya, yeah I used some - maybe around 15% from memory, and it added a generally pleasant taste and texture. But, it doesn’t have much sugar left in it and mainly adds roughage. Some of the husks were a bit glassy and didn’t make for great eating. Worth an experiment though!

In the oven - but the difference between 7 minutes and 9 minutes is the difference between soft pitta and very crispy pitta! Gotta be quick!

Yeah I think I'll have another go this weekend using the oven and natural yeast.

Tastier no knead bread this weekend. 18hr prove has helped I think. Plus poppy seeds on top.

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Bacon Sourdough loaf. Ridiculous but quite fun to do. Bacon fat folded into the dough along with the cut up pieces

Ken Forkish method from his book.

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Holy shit. Bread 2.0

Any suggestions for a suitable cheese to add to a loaf for cheesey bread?

Leftover

I'd run out of wheat flour and made a 100% rye sourdough loaf. Turned out nice:

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I baked a cheese loaf last night. Over half of it got scoffed in less than 10 minutes by 1 year old and hungry mummy. I’ll call that a success then.

Simple recipe: just 300g flour, 1tsp each of salt and yeast, plus 100g grated extra mature cheddar. I baked it at a slightly lower temperature than normal too.

Edit: @Backstop I missed your post!

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Starting to play around with recipes

525g mixed plain and rye starter (70g white mother, 35g rye mother, 210g water 140g white flour 75g dark rye)

1025 mixed flours (500g plain white, 125g light rye, 125g dark rye and 275g wholemeal spelt)
650g water
27g salt

Mixed the starter
Mixed flours water and salt and gave both mixes 8 hours

Combined starter and autolyse mix, stretched and folded at five times at approx 50 minute intervals and then shaped and retarded overnight prove in fridge.

It’s a wetter mix than I am used to but giving a nice crumb. Dough did stick to banneton so needed some jiggling to get it to release which may have lost a little air.

(Did make one loaf last night which had been proving at rtp, but it stuck really badly and came out a bit like a cowpat - great flavour and crumb but really messy crust)

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I got given 15kg of rye flour for free. I've never baked with rye flour, but a half-and-half with strong white has come out ok.

Now I want a banneton to get a nicer shape.

Tried this the other day, got the seal of approval from the OH

https://breadtopia.com/sourdough-rye-bread/

Nice, thanks for that. I haven't tried sourdough yet, as I've shied away from adding more variables to baking when I don't yet know what I'm doing. But I think it's probably a good next step.

I'm going to try this one next: https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/04/black-bread/

I was in the Czech Republic last week and a local bakery was offering different sourdough rye loaves, called 33, 50 and 66; referring to the percentage of rye flour in the combined flours.

Baked a 33, which came out slightly lighter and moister than previous loaves.

Here's the recipe and a photo:

350ml water
125g rye starter
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tbsp molasses
166g wholemeal rye flour
333g strong white flour
1 tsp salt

Everything but the salt and flour in a bowl and whisked up. Flours and salt mixed separately and added gradually to wet.
Stir/move about for 2 minutes. Leave for 15 minutes.
Stir/move about for 2 minutes. Leave for 15 minutes.
Stir/move about for 2 minutes.
Leave to prove for 12 - 14 hours.
Turn out on floured surface and knead for 2 minutes. Rest for 15 minutes.
Transfer into floured banneton.
Leave to prove for 1.5 - 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 250C. I use a lidded cast iron pot that I place in the oven too. The lid/skillet is at the bottom with the bottom as cloche lid.
Take pot out and dust skillet with flour, transfer the dough, slash top, cover with cloche bottom and back in the oven.
Turn down to 220C and bake for 35 minutes, then take cloche off and bake for a further 15 minutes.

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Looking for an easy recipe to make a sourdough tin loaf that would take me less time than a free form sourdough loaf. Any recommendations?

Would also welcome tin recommendation as I imagine this will have a big impact on results and I've only got a very cheap aluminium one at the moment.