What are you Baking the Week of September 13, 2020?

[Joan Simpson]

I've got a loaf of cinnamon bread in oven KAF recipe I added an egg to the dough so we'll see tomorrow how it is.

[Mike Nolan]

Today I'm making another semolina/malt bread recipe in the Pullman pan (about 25% less dough this time) and I'm also making bagels--sort of a Montreal-style recipe (less salt, honey instead of barley syrup in the dough, honey in the poaching liquid instead of baking soda.)

[Mike Nolan]

The Montreal-style bagels are out, and they're definitely fluffier and softer on the exterior. They won't have quite the same taste as a true Montreal bagel, because they weren't baked in a wood-fired oven, but I think they'll be pretty good for supper tonight.

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[Mike Nolan]

The Pullman loaf came out good, too, I used the Austrian Malt bread recipe with 28 ounces of flour, 50% semolina. (This is a 4x4x13 pan.)

I took the lid off 5 minutes before I expected it to be done, and the internal temperature was only about 180, so I gave it another 10 minutes, at which point it was 205.

I'll slice it in the morning, but I expect the square slices to be fine.

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[BakerAunt]

Great looking bagels and bread, Mike. Oh, for a taste....

[Joan Simpson]

I agree with BakerAunt your bread looks nice Mike.My cinnamon bread turned out well,it was KAF recipe with potato flakes I didn't have dry milk so I subbed all water for whole milk and added one egg,upped the cinnamon a tsp. ,the dough has the egg wash before rolling up and my swirl was nice,the taste is almost like cinnamon roll.I did have a small blow out on the side but that's ok with me.I shared with my sister in law so my loaf is almost gone.

[skeptic7]

Its Rosh Hashanah, the feast of apples and honey. I made whole wheat apple honey scones, and gave half the batch away; and my variant of the KAF Apple Challah and gave 1/4 of it away. I was really hoping Judy would have taken more of it. Its so much harder to give bread away during the pandemic, I'll just have to eat it all myself. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

Joan's Cinnamon bread has my mouth watering, but since we are out of regular bread, I needed to focus on what could be used for sandwiches. I made another attempt at adapting the recipe for Whole Wheat Sourdough Pan Bread, from an old Sunset cookbook titled Bread (first edition, not revised one). It seemed a little dry back when I tried it on May 20, so I adapted it further by increasing the sourdough starter further to 1 1/4 cups. I used the same proportion of whole wheat and dark rye that I did in my previous adaptation, but I used just the Bob's Red Mill artisan bread flour, and I increased my olive oil substitute to 3 Tbs. I inadvertently may have cut salt by half rather than by a third as intended. I preheated the oven to 400F, then turned it down to 375F once I put in the bread. The loaves got nice oven spring. They are cooling now. I look forward to slicing into one at lunch tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

The Whole Wheat Sourdough Pan bread came out very well. The tweaks appear to have helped with the dryness I noted when I first worked with the recipe back in May.

On Saturday, I baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made earlier this week. They are needed because my husband finished the last of the previous batch today.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The Pullman loaf is neat. I like sandwich loafs that are loaf shaped or at least batards. Guess it's my lack of imagination.

How are the Montreal bagels in size? There is a place in Brooklyn that makes them and they are considerably smaller than traditional New York bagels.

BA, those crackers are a huge problem in my house. They do not even have a chance to cool. Maybe if I make them on a week when the kids are in school and the temp is lower some will be left.

I finally figured out what is blowing out my sourdough bread! My oven is always part convection. Whenever the temp falls and needs to be raised the convection fan at the back kicks on to circulate air. The part of the loaf closest to the fan blows out. Maybe it's the increased heat. Now I need to experiment with how to shield it.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--Perhaps set the oven 25 degrees hotter, then when you put the loaves in, turn it down to the correct temperature?

[Mike Nolan]

I make my bagels with about 3 ounces of dough, that's smaller than the standard, which is more like 4 1/2 ounces, but we like them better.

The bagels made Montreal-style (less salt, honey instead of barley malt syrup) are a bit bigger than the ones I get with the recipe as written, I think it's because the lower salt makes them puffier. Traditionally, Montreal bagels also have a larger hole in the middle, that's probably also due to the softer puffier dough.

The conventional wisdom is that blowouts are related to under-proofing, being close to the convection fan could mean they get more oven spring activity. If you've got a 1 or 2 inch deep half sheet pan, you could try baking them in that, it might shield the dough more.

There's kind of a narrow window between under-proofed and over-proofed. Home conditions are generally not as consistent as bakery conditions, so we're always guessing as to when they're ready for the oven.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA and Mike.

Mike, the reason I think it's the fan and not over or under proofing is I can make two or three loaves from the same batch. If they are directly in front of the fan the side in front of the fan pops. Never the other side and never a loaf not directly inside of the fan.

I will try to prop something up to block the fan during my next bake.

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