What are You Baking the Week of June 4, 2017?

[BakerAunt]

My husband and I returned last night from the latest segment of our moving trip. My variation of Moomie's buns, made as rolls, were still good after six days, and he is taking the last one for lunch today.

I will be baking my Buttermilk Grape Nuts bread today, and probably something else. I haven't baked since a week ago, so I'm eager to get back into the kitchen.

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• This topic was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Tuesday evening, I baked "Butter-Pecan Fantasies" cookies from the KAF Cookie Companion (p. 253). I substituted in 1 cup of white whole wheat flour, and I used Gold Medal flour for the remainder and added 1 Tbs. ground flax meal. I used the butter rum flavoring option. I used an 8 oz. bag of the Heath Toffee Bits, and added about 5 1/2 oz. of leftover butterscotch chips. The pecans are from our tree. I baked for 12 minutes on heavy baking sheets (16 per pan). It made 47 cookies.

[BakerAunt]

Tonight I made the KAF Ultra-Thin Crust Pizza.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made more rye bread. This time I doubled the recipe and doubled the yeast. TOO MUCH YEAST! The bread has good flavor but my loaves had blow outs.

I made pizza and today I'm making strawberry shortcakes.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm to the point where for most recipes I use half the yeast it calls for.

I'm not convinced that all blowouts are a matter of 'too much yeast', though.

[KIDPIZZA]

aaronatthedoublef wrote:

I made more rye bread. This time I doubled the recipe and doubled the yeast. TOO MUCH YEAST! The bread has good flavor but my loaves had blow outs.

I made pizza and today I’m making strawberry shortcakes.

AARON:
Good afternoon, Aaron, if you doubled the recipe & you feel you had a baking disaster it isn't because you doubled the yeast... that is an acceptable practice....it is that to begin with you had to much yeast in your original recipe which is typical in America, recipes which are authored by persons prof. & amatuers alike that have no formal culinary education.
If you like, post the recipe & I will scrutinize it for you in accordance to acceepted baking science rules.

Enjoy the day Aaron

~KIDPIZZA.

[BakerAunt]

I think that most U.S. recipes were designed for the packets of yeast, so darn it, they are going to use the whole packet, no matter what! However, even the KAF recipes often seem to me to have too much yeast, perhaps because people want that rise in an hour, thank you.

I often cut back on the yeast if it seems excessive to me. I don't usually double the yeast if I double a recipe but add about half of the original yeast amount.

That said, it is better to have someone scrutinize the recipe for balance, as Kid Pizza has offered to do.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

I doubt the size of a packet of yeast has changed since the 1950's, and I am fairly sure the potency of either active dry yeast or instant dry yeast has changed in that time frame.

0.75% to 1.25% of the total flour weight is a good starting point for how much yeast to use when developing or analyzing a recipe. If a pre-ferment (biga, poolish, etc) is being used, that usually means you can use less yeast.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The recipe is at least 20 years old as I've had the cookbook that long. It does not use packets of yeast. It does use a sponge.

Sponge:
1 cup water (increased to 1.5 because I let the sponge go longer and it seemed dry)
1 TBL dry yeast (I use SAF Red)
1/4 cup bread flour (I subbed in first clear)
1 1/4 cups rye
2 TBLs caraway seeds

Dough:
All of the sponge
1/4 cup water
2 tsps. sugar (I used honey)
2 1/2 tsps. salt (I use Morton Kosher)
Approx 3 cups bread flour (again I used first clear)

I doubled all of the above. The taste, color, and texture are good. I made one, big two pound loaf and three smaller one pound loaves. Three slashes in the one ponders and five slashes in the two pounder just to see the aesthetics.

Thanks

[Mike Nolan]

I wonder what the point to putting the caraway seeds in the sponge is, perhaps so that it acts as a bit of a soaker as well? It's not like caraway seeds are going to impact yeast growth much, except maybe absorbing some of the water.

I haven't played with my Bakers Math Calculator (in development) in over a year, but I added Clear flour and Caraway seed to the list of ingredients it knows and this recipe comes up as 62.7% hydration.

[KIDPIZZA]

aaronatthedoublef wrote:

The recipe is at least 20 years old as I’ve had the cookbook that long. It does not use packets of yeast. It does use a sponge.

Sponge:
1 cup water (increased to 1.5 because I let the sponge go longer and it seemed dry)
1 TBL dry yeast (I use SAF Red)
1/4 cup bread flour (I subbed in first clear)
1 1/4 cups rye
2 TBLs caraway seeds

Dough:
All of the sponge
1/4 cup water
2 tsps. sugar (I used honey)
2 1/2 tsps. salt (I use Morton Kosher)
Approx 3 cups bread flour (again I used first clear)

I doubled all of the above. The taste, color, and texture are good. I made one, big two pound loaf and three smaller one pound loaves. Three slashes in the one ponders and five slashes in the two pounder just to see the aesthetics.

Thanks

AARON:
Good afternoon. Aaron my friend, I honestly do not know where or how to begin to help you.
To begin with your method of doing the sponge is totally incorrect.

2nd item...The employment of this excessive use of "FIRST CLEAR FLOUR" is not helping your baked product. I will explain later.
This amount of yeast Aaron (1,TBLS)= 3 tsp.... this is 3/8ths of an oz...for approx. 21, oz of flour that you posted Aaron. no wonder your rye bread failed...the gluten structure could not develop...It began then became porous & could not hold the minimum hydration that you posted.

Aaron you only have 59/60% hydration here you could use more like 62/63% worth.

Aaron I will begin by telling why the employment of 3, cups of + 1/4 cup of first clear flour is poor practice.

All wheat flour is PATENT FLOUR. With 1, exception, that is first clear flour.
It is a less expensive flour, this flour is used only because of it's tannish color in rye breads & added MUCH NEEDED protein strength...again MUCH NEEDED protein strength. WHY???
But & however Aaron, the gluten formed is WEAKER from this flour. Than from the use of PATENT FLOUR. As you know, RYE flour has little or none gluten in it, hence why we add a patent white flour in addition, to provide the gluten it's strength. When you added a ton of this flour you weakened the structure ... that is one reason why your baked product failed, Aaron.

Aaron I will close now. I hope that I was clear in my composition to you. If you say that you will bake the recipe that I will provide you with, I will then modify your recipe into a viable baked product.
Either way Aaron, I was happy to help you today.
Enjoy the day.

~KIDPIZZA / CASS.

[Mike Nolan]

Cass, what weight/cup did you use for the first clear flour in computing the hydration percentage? King Arthur says it is lighter than regular flour, 3.75 ounces per cup compared to 4.25 for AP or bread flour.

[KIDPIZZA]

Mike Nolan wrote:

Cass, what weight/cup did you use for the first clear flour in computing the hydration percentage? King Arthur says it is lighter than regular flour, 3.75 ounces per cup compared to 4.25 for AP or bread flour.

MIKE NOLAN:
Good afternoon. Yes, Clear flour is lighter per cup because it has the bran & other parts removed This flour is made from remanants left over after the aforementioned have been removed from the patent flour. Yes of course it is lighter. How much lighter ???? I didn't want to research it because it would take too much time...not important to me to get my point across because with all that yeast sucking up all that water, hydration is too low. Besides I think I USED 4.5, OZ PER CUP IN WEIGHT...But I generaly use 4.75, oz per cup for patent flour. however the BREAD BAKERS PROF GUILD says AP flour is at 5, oz per cup. kAF is wrong on many things baking, this is just another one of their culinary BS from un~educated "A'holes. with more $MONEY$ than brains.
ENJOY THE DAY.

~CASS / KIDPIZZA.

[Mike Nolan]

The United States Department of Agriculture's Food Database says a cup of AP flour is 125 grams, which is 4.41 ounces. They don't have an entry for (first) clear flour.

I've done numerous experiments measuring flour, depending on the accuracy of one's measuring cups (many are terribly inaccurate) and how you measure out the flour you can get anywhere from just under 4 ounces to well over 5 ounces per cup. Personally I find most recipes given in cups work pretty well at 4.25 ounces per cup.

I have not found a place on the BBGA website (I am also a member) where they give the weight of a cup of flour, all the recipes I've looked at on their website and in their magazine are in baker's math formulas. Since I nearly always weigh the flour in bread and their recipes have to be scaled down for home use anyway, that's not a problem for me.

[BakerAunt]

I've always had success with the First Clear Flour in my rye breads. It certainly improved my Limpa Bread to use it.

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