Thanksgiving dinner, last night

We set off the smoke alarms last pm while searing the turkey! 😎 At the table: Grandma, Uncle Tom, Aunt Jennifer and her friend Sharon, Kam Yoon, Arley et moi. I made a turkey and bone-in rib steaks (all sous vide), chia seed bread and a baked tray of delicata squash, beets and onions. Sure the expensive beef was tender and moist, but the turkey was.
Un. Believable. I'd cooked steaks for everyone, minus myself, and offered turkey morsels to everyone at the table. Shockingly, almost everyone asked for another, larger slice!
Sharon had adopted Aunt Jennifer's meal plan (we didn't know she had one) and claimed to have lost 50 lb--wow. She raved over my chia seed bread (of course, it's not on her schedule!). Uncle Tom brought a burnt loaf of bread--a result of baking while distracted--he ate a slice, but thankfully broke no teeth. Sharon brought Brussels sprouts. Aunt Jennifer made a salad. In a musical mood, I'd bought (parsley) sage Rosemary and thyme, but only used the sage and Rosemary.  Instead of thyme I should've bought time 😎--I'd use that. I used sage to season the turkey and rosemary to season a tray of roasted squash, onions and beets.

Much credit goes to daughter Phoebe for mentioning sous vide this year!

A new bread just came to my life

Yesterday, I started a new batch of dough at 9:30 in the morning. I wanted it to be ready to bake by 4:30, so I preheated the oven to 170 degrees and turned off the oven. I mixed the dough as follows:

3/8 teaspoon yeast, more than the usual 1/8 to 1/4 tsp.
1.5 teaspoon salt
300 grams of Trader Joe's all purpose flour
150 grams of Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour
405 grams of water (90% water weight:flour weight ratio)

I preheated the oven to 170 degrees and placed the mixed dough into a covered three quart saucepan big enough for it to expand to triple its size. I turned the oven off and put the dough inside.
At about 3 p.m. I took the dough out of the still warm oven, wet my hands and stretched it out and folded it. I covered it for 30 minutes.

The dough after the first stretch and fold

I stretched and folded the dough again, covering it again for 30 minutes.

The dough after the second stretch and fold

I stretched and folded it one last time and put the dough on a large sheet of parchment paper. I put the dough back in the saucepan. I didn't want to bake it just yet. Since we were going out to dinner, I put the covered saucepan in the cold garage { 50 degrees F)

At about 8:15 p.m. (now almost 9 hours after mixing the dough) I uncovered the dough to see it almost pushing up past the rim. I lifted the dough and lowered it into a preheated Dutch oven, covered it and set it into the 450 degree oven. After 30 minutes I removed the cover and baked it for 15 more minutes. I set it out to cool. We cut it in the morning to enjoy the fluffiest bread I've ever made with whole wheat flour.

This also works with 360 gm of water (an 80% water weight:flour weight ratio). Read on:

 I baked a loaf of half Trader Joe's white whole wheat and half all purpose flours. Same amount of yeast and salt. 360 gm of water. Same fermenting conditions. Mixed at 7:30 a.m. covered and put into a 170 degree oven, turned off.

5.5 hours later, at 1255 I laid the dough into a wetted baking pan

 Where I pushed it out to the edges with wetted hands

 and stretched and folded each short edge 2/3 of the way to the opposite edge. I then stretched and folded the top edge down. Back out went into a covered saucepan

 At 1400, another stretch and fold. Back into the saucepan. At 1510 another stretch and fold, then back into the saucepan. At 1540, a final stretch and fold after which it went onto a piece of parchment paper and into a shallow bowl, the purpose of which was to keep the dough from sticking to the paper in a deeper container.

At 1745, I put my 5-quart cast iron Dutch oven into the oven, set the temperature at 450 degrees and let it preheat. At 1815 I picked up the dough using the parchment paper and laid it into the hot Dutch oven, covered it and let it bake for 35 minutes. I removed the cover reduced the heat to 400 degrees and let it bake for 10 + 2 plus one minutes looking into the oven in between to prevent the bread from getting too dark.

Here is the bread above.

Pizza

Pizza-making challenges me. The complexity of the crust, the toppings, baking it, cutting it, eating it. I don't bake pizza frequently enough to remember how much flour I use for a cracker crust, a thick bread crust or something in between. NNo do I remember how much water I mix with the flour. I'd like to think I'd recorded this information somewhere, but I don't remember where for this round of pizza construction.

Yesterday's event was based on 700 gm of flour and about 75% water. I just didn't recall how many 10" pies I'd make from that nor if they'd be thin or thick crusted. I thought that I'd make 5 or 6 pies but it didn't look good for even 5 after the first three came to life from Half the dough. I made the 4th and 5th from the remaining dough--they  have me two medium crust 10" pies.

Today, I mixed 400 gm flour for two pizzas, fat crust requested by my mom. 70% nearly hot water, 0.5 teaspoons of instant yeast, 1 teaspoon salt. It sat atop the warm fridge for 4 hours. I kneaded it for 5 minutes, but I can't recall why, as I've made so many pies using a no-knead philosophy. Let it rest 20 some minutes, then rolled them out to about 10" on parchment paper. Toppings went on. And the pies went into the 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.

I strive to achieve an airy crumb with thick crust.

Sourdough per King Arthur

I'm talking about King Arthur flour.  Here is the link to the recipe:  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-recipe

Whoa, this worked! Only, I didn't like throwing out perfectly good starter.  Next time, I start with two tablespoons of whole wheat flour and 1 Tbsp of water then adding the same on day 2, then on day 3 add four Tbsp flour with two Tbsp water. day 4, I'll add 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water. day 5, I add one cup flour and 3/4 cup water (you can't go wrong with this) by which time the yeasts and lactobacillus will have gone to town if their living space is warm enough (68F/20C or higher).   

The bread I made was a no knead sourdough.  How it's done:  Take 50-150 gm* of sourdough starter (1/4 cup to a full cup), & mix it with 360 gm of water (1.5 cups), then add 450 gm of flour (3 cups), and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt.  Mix well and place it in a warm place about 70-80 deg F.  In 12-15  hours, use a large ladle and turn the dough on itself.  Preheat the oven with a Dutch oven inside to 450 F.  In 2-4 hours, you can use the same ladle to scrape the dough into the preheated Dutch oven.  Cover and place into the oven.  After 30 minutes, remove the cover and bake for 15 min more.  
Don't fret if the dough hasn't doubled before baking.  

* The difference between 50 and 150 gm of starter isn't much in the big picture over 12 hours.  Don't fret this detail.

When feeding the starter after removing some to bake with, I try to feed in the same proportion of water to flour as I use in my breads, which is usually about 75-85%.  Example:  80 gm of water plus 100 gm flour.  This is more likely to affect your dough and bread if you draw out 150 gm of starter to bake vs. 50 gm.  You'll figure out which is best for the type of bread you make.  The example of bread I give above, water 360 g and flour 450 g, is an 80% dough.

No knead, no touch bread

For the longest time now, maybe six or seven months, I've been making the no-knead bread without touch the dough with my hands and without adding any extra flour to ease handling the dough.  Formerly, I'd flour my hands to fold the dough once, flour my hands again to transfer the dough to a floured proofing basket, and flour my hands again to drop the dough into the baking pot.  Now, I just use a wetted spatula to "fold" the dough and to coax it into the baking pan.  I haven't noticed any difference in the quality of the bread, except that I'm not eating roasted flour with my bread.

This works with sourdough no knead bread as well.

It's sourdough

I mixed a lump of dough for a loaf of no knead bread a couple months ago, I didn't have time to bake and left it in the fridge.  Soon enough I forgot about it, and when I opened the lid a few days later, it smelled a bit sour and it had a layer of grayish liquid on the top.  Toss it out?  Nah, stir it up and add some water and flour, leave it on the counter and see how it turns out.  A day or two later, the thin soupy mixture had come back to life, making bubbles.

I took a cup out to which I added flour, water and salt.  Then I fed the mixture with some water and flour. A day later I baked the dough, yielding a modest loaf, but quite sour.

Days later, the starter looked more like a wet dough.  For the next two loaves, I took 250 gm of starter, added 200 gm water, 310 gm white flour, 40 gm whole wheat flour and 1.5 tsp salt.  I fed the starter with 1/4 cup water and 1/4-1/2 cup flour, but the starter seemed to need more when I mixed for the fourth and fifth loaves.  time was about 14 hours. baked better loaves of bread, with regard to loaf height for 800 gm of flour/water (the amount for a "traditional" no knead bread).

In conclusion, the process by which one gets a sourdough starter can include using the yeast from a one pound package of SAF Instant yeast, of which I still have at least an ounce after four or more years.  Maybe the wild yeasts are superior, and maybe you could say you got yeasts resident to your part of the world, but sour is sour and the bread is great, especially in combination with the long ferment times.  ITrader Joes' sourdough breads never tasted this good!

Bread ver. 2.98

This is the bread with the crunchy crust and chewy crumb and the big holes.  New York Times no-knead bread recipe is great for a crowd of ravenous teenagers, but for one or two people it doesn't quite fit. I often take up to three days to finish a loaf using the original recipe.  Sometimes I'll eat bread to the exclusion of other tasty dishes. 

The solution is either to freeze half the loaf, or just make a smaller loaf that I can eat in a day or so. I elected the latter. I halved the ingredients, fermenting for the same amount of time and baking 20 minutes covered and 11 minutes uncovered at 450 degrees.

I also discovered a great place to ferment the dough:  on top of the Sub-zero fridge in Mom's house. In my house in Washington state, I'll probably put a light bulb and thermostat in an ice chest.

The Recipe:
Mix in a bowl:
1.5 cups all purpose flour (some of it can be whole wheat)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon yeast
6 oz (180 gm) water

Cover the bowl and let ferment for at least 12 hours.

A great ferment gives itself away by the presence of bubbles on the dough surface 12-24 hours after mixing. Don't worry if it ferments even longer--the dough will just become more like sourdough. 

Sprinkle the dough with flour and coat your palms with flour. Pick up the dough and fold it several times using flour to keep it from sticking to your hands. Holding the dough in one hand, spoon about an inch of flour into the mixing bowl,  and gently lay the dough in the bowl. Sprinkle flour around the dough to keep it from sticking to the bowl's sides as it proofs. Let the dough proof for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 deg F. Place a covered baking dish in the oven to preheat. When the dough has doubled in size,  gently drop it into the dish,  cover the dish and bake 20 min covered and about 10-12 min uncovered until the crust has browned to your taste.

A note about the baking dish. I have used a 4-5 qt Dutch oven of aluminum and another of cast iron with great results. I baked the pictured loaf in a thick cake pan with tin foil as a cover.

Butter up!