Days 8-13

Had the soft opening on Friday.  The breads came out well.  My main notes were that the country loaves were inconsistent and the ears did not open up on most of them.  I did baguette, focaccia, country loaves and whole wheat with fruit and nuts.  Over the last few days I have tried some various incarnations of country/sourdough loaves, including Bouchon's Pain Campagne.

Pain Campagne #1:

69% hydration, 5% whole wheat and 5% rye.  33% levain and .1% yeast.  3 hour bulk fermentation, 1 hour final proof.

Tried various shapes.  The raises percentage of levain added some good shelf life, and the flavor was nice, only mildly acidic.  Crumb was a little tighter than I would like.  

 
 

Sourdough #5:

58%  levain, 10% whole wheat and 10% rye.  2.5 hour bulk fermentation, 1.5 hour final proof.

This is a different technique to achieve an acidic tasting dough.  Previously I have taken my Pain Levain formula which has a relatively low amount of preferment(20% levain compared to the amount of flour) and letting it cold proof overnight.  This long, slow proof essentially lets the acetic and lactic acids from my levain build and fill the rest of the dough.  For this recipe I start with a much higher percentage of levain, and go for a shorter proof.  In this way it is almost like a cheat-recipe - instead of seeding the dough with a little levain and let it naturally grow, you add more levain from the beginning.  

The depth of flavor was not the same as a long slow ferment, however it was pretty damn good and this recipe will come in handy if I am in a situation where I don't have 10 hours to make a bread.

 

 

Seeded Whole Wheat #4:

10% whole wheat flour, 10% rye flour.  33% levain.  Sesame, flax, walnut and pumpkin seeds.

This was essentially a campagna dough, and I planned to do it free-form.  However with the addition of the seeds the dough got way too wet and practically turned into a goo, so I was forced to bake in the pullman pans (lid off)  In the future I will drain the seeds longer, or else calculate the extra water as part of the total hydration.  It was hard to shape so the corners of the loaf were wrinkly.  However, I found I could not stop eating this bread and almost ate a whole loaf today.  There is definitely something to be said for packing such a high amount of seeds and nuts into a dough  - very nutty and addictive.  I have ordered some new grains and am going to add some cereals to this, and my final product will probably very between fruit/nut and seed/cereal.

 

Brioche #1:

30% butter.  15% sugar.  40% eggs and 24% milk.  Baked in a pullman pan with the lid on, portioned at 1100 g and baked at 400f for 40 min.

Finally - brioche!  We may not sell brioche right off the bat, but eventually I would like it be a specialty of ours.  We could make it with eggs from the chickens and excellent butter.  There are hundreds of different traditional pastries that use brioche, and we could always have a different one on the menu.  Tart Tropezianne, bostock, doughnuts, brioche feuilletee etc. 

This dough was nice because it had a higher level of sugar than I normally use.  It had a great crumb and a wonderful tasting crust. M.H. bread and butter make some truly amazing bread but I tried their brioche and definitely think we can do better.  Granted the food costs may be prohibitive, but I would rather do brioche once in a while than compromise on the recipe.

I now totally get why people like the pullman loaf - the square looks so cool.  It keeps the crumb tighter I think too.  The trick apparently is to cool it on a rack immediately.  If it is left int he pan the sides sink in, which is a mistake I made very recently.

 I also started with a low percentage of butter (30%) to start off easy.  We will work our way up as far as butter content goes - most excellent brioches are around 50% (the one I learned at quince was 60% as well as half yolks and half eggs - Jeeze Louise!)  The other reason I used a lower butter amount was because I was saving half the dough for another purpose...

 

Brioche Feuilletee #1:

Above brioche dough laminated with 25% butter - 4 tri-folds.  Rolled out and rolled up, baked at 375f for 16 min.

When speaking with chef about his thoughts on bread service at AQ, he suggested that a type of roll should be included, preferably something highly refined.  This dough was made to see the feasibility of a laminated option.  It could certainly be done eventually, when the kinks in the technique are worked out and perhaps the staff grows up here.  This is the most butter rich dough possible.  It is quite rich and I believe only tastes good when warm (but when it is warm out of the oven it is crazy good.)  In my opinion this recipe would be optimal when certain garnishes are added in, so that the extreme butteriness has something to compliment it.  Some ideas are black pepper-pecorino, lemon-rosemary, walnut-blue cheese and maple-smoked salt.

 

 

Day 7 5/28

 

Focaccia #3:

20% levain, 7% EVO, 400g portions.  Baked at 400f 28 min.

The taste is nice, the best by far being carrot and dill, which I want to keep as a signature.   I've found that many of the herbs and greens I put on the focaccia blacken and lose all flavor in the oven, so I want to avoid garnishes that are susceptible to that.  Delicate herbs can be worked into the dough itself.  Also, it hit me the other day that you can also garnish the loaves after they are baked, especially if you want to use garnishes that cannot stand up to any heat like flours.

Whole Wheat #2:

Fruit and nuts added- raisins, apricots, pears, hazelnuts and pecans.  4% sugar, 3% fat to slightly tenderize.  20% levain, 15% whole wheat flour and 15% rye flour.

The loaf was decent - I put it in a loaf pan which I like for this variety, even if it's a totally lean dough.  However the garnishes should be at least doubled, as they were pretty sparse throughout the dough.  The taste of the bread itself was nice.

 

Baguette #6:

Poolish again, this time roughly 3 to 2 poolish to levain, with just 2g of yeast to boost the dough.

Came out nicely, with wonderful scores and color and a great crumb.  If I can, I would like to explore the pate fermente loaves better because since I am using some levain in the dough, the pate fermente would have levain and commercial yeast in it.  It is also slightly more convenient.  

Day 6 5/27

Light Rye (NY Deli) #1:

20% dark rye flour.  20% levain with a little supplemental yeast.  Shaped and baked as a country loaf.  Caraway seeds added.

Very nice flavor.  As is typical in this style, the caraway distracts from the flavor of the rye flour, but it's hard to complain because this is my favorite type of bread for sandwiches.  As it was made with levain it tasted better than your average deli loaf.  This bread would work very well with grains, dried fruit, perhaps even gruyere.

Black Bread #1:

20% dark rye flour.  20% levain.  3% cocoa powder, 18% black coffee and 3% gin give this bread it's character, along with caraway.

I learned this recipe under the name "russian black bread" from my previous mentor and it was a favorite of ours.  It is reminiscent of pumpernickel but is not technically pumpernickel.  The unique additions give a haunting flavor and color.  I would add molasses next time and use a different spice - perhaps juniper.  Also I would bake it in the pullman pan.  Would work very well if any of the restaurants wanted a bread to go with a smoked fish course.

 

Marbled Rye #1:

Folded various sized pieces of both of the above mentioned breads into each other.  Pretty simple actually.

Looks very neat and I think would sell well eventually, but not as of the beginnings of the bakery.  This technique can be extrapolated though in various ways...

 

Baguette #5

Moved away from poolish for this iteration.  Went for 20% levain and 20% pate fermente.  .3% yeast, cut in half from the previous recipe.

Best baguettes yet.  The flavor is certainly where I want it, and fresh out of the oven it is very nice, with the toasted starch aroma good baguettes have (think popcorn, sort of.)  Color was the best, and I don't know if it's because of the change of pre-ferments in the recipe or my loading-steaming-baking-venting routine is getting smoother.  500 more bakes will iron that out :)  Crumb was more lace-like, but not absurdly open.  Now I need to repeat this.  I used a shape I saw in a spanish bread book where the ends are left alone so they have little knobs.  Unique and attractive.  Could be used for a different bread that we want in the baguette general shape but need it to be differentiated in some way.

Day 5 2/26

Focaccia #2:

Pate fermente used (ciabatta from yesterday) at 20%.  Portioned in ring molds and square pastry frames.  Both look nice.  The round loaves got various herbs from the garden.  The two square ones got carrot and dill and strawberries, nasturtium and hazelnut.  Baked @ 400f for 28 min.

Carrot and dill was a great loaf.  Strawberry hazelnut nasturtium was nice but needed far more nasturtiums, and perhaps a splash of vinegar.  I should not use bronze fennel because it looks sort of like hair when it dries out in the oven.

Seeded Whole Wheat Pain de Mie #2:

20% whole wheat flour.  Sesame, flax, poppy and pumpkin seeds soaked and added to dough with butter.  Baked @ 400f for 50 min.

Nice nutty flavor and fluffy texture.  Would be great with turkey and avocado.  I baked one with a lid and one open.  The lidded one sunk way too much in the sides.  I will try a slightly larger portion as well as de-panning immediately.  Flax was a little overwhelming.

 

Almond Pain au Lait #2:

1000g bread flour

700g almond milk

12g yeast

40g barley malt syrup

20g salt

100g coconut oil

100g almond butter

This was my attempt at a vegan rich dough.  The results were far better than I had expected - buttery and slightly sweet, with a mild nuttiness.  The texture might have even been softer than a standard pain au lait.  A good option for vegan and vegetarian patrons.  As I said before, this dough can be endlessly varied.   Brushed with almond milk.

Pain au Levain #2:

Minimal mixing method (by hand.)  Mixed previous night at 6, received 2 folds and then put into retard. Taken out 9 am, baked 6.5 hours later (very cold fridge.)  68% hydration. 10% whole wheat flour.

Scores are improving.  Color ok.  Crust was a little soft.  Crumb was tighter, I believe because I took the hydration down.  Flavor exceptional.

 

Baguette #4:

Same as yesterday - half levain and half poolish.  Level of commercial yeast was reduced by half- I'm using a wild yeast culture so I don't need to dope it with all that extra.  I'm going to cut it in half again tomorrow and let it ferment longer.

Color improved from yesterday - still want a little more brownish-brick red in the crust.  Flavor and crust texture have been consistently good.  Crumb could be a touch looser.  Scores opened up very nicely.