[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, Not sure about the caraway seeds either but in Jewish Deli Rye from Secrets of a Jewish Baker they also add the caraway seeds in the starter not when making the dough. Maybe, as you say, it absorbs some of the water. Maybe it flavors the sponge/starter which gives a stronger flavor in the final product.

BBGA being coastal-centric is fine for me as I am on the East Coast.

BA, I do not use my mixer for bread anymore. It's just too small for anything over four cups of flour (KA rated it for 10 cups), it overflows, and I have to play with it too much and the clean up is way too much. Also, when I was teaching the kids to make bread they all went home and asked their parents to buy a KA mixer. So for the next class I started to do it by hand and now I just have continued that.

The only thing I've used my KA mixer for in recent memory was making whipped cream.

So it is as consistent as I can make it doing it by hand.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. I am not a BBGA member although it may be a worthwhile investment at this point. And you're right about side-by-side comparisons. I just haven't had the time or the space to make and store multiple doughs at once.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Cass, Mike, BA, Thanks. I appreciate the help and wisdom.

I did not know about patent flours so that is new. I can always use bread flour instead of clear since that is what the original recipe called for. I subbed in clear because reading Secrets of Jewish Baker he recommends clear. I also like the bran left in clear.

I should probably try using bread flour to see the difference in taste and texture.

Also, I made five loaves and only one - the two pound batard - had a blow out. I made three, one pound, round loaves that came out fine.

This is what KAF says about clear flour:

First clear flour is what remains after milling patent flour, giving it a darker color and higher mineral content. Traditionally, Jewish bakeries used first clear flour to bake their rye breads – the protein in first clear balances the lack of gluten in rye flour to give rye breads loftier rise and better chew.
Combine first clear flour with flours that typically produce denser loaves (like whole wheat, rye, or spelt). It'll improve the rise and final texture of your baked goods.

[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

[aaronatthedoublef]

Looks good. It sounds a little like a profiterole in a cannoli shell which sounds tasty.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Never tried mini-pies although I keep meaning to. One of my pastry chef friends started a whole individual pie trend in Seattle. I think it would make for a nicer dessert but at Thanksgiving my people want to see a whole pie that is cut into and served. Also if you have different slices of pie on your plate - our family tradition is a little of everything - they run together and so people end up with pecan mixed with pumpkin mixed with chocolate hazelnut all with whipped cream.

KAF's big pecan pie calls for blind baking in their baking book. And I found a good article on blind baking here.

Please let me know how your mini-pies turn out. Maybe I'll try some pies this summer.

[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.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The bread is not the star but have you ever had a corned beef sandwich on wimpy, tasteless rye. My goal is to find the happy medium.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. It was interesting. I let the sponge rise for 24 hours and then mixed in the rest of the flour and water. It needed more water than called for with an 8 hour rise so I know that.

To your point about moving things around, it did not have much of a first rise but after flattening it, stretching it, and shaping it the dough had a good second rise and a really good oven spring and gave me a nice, high loaf.

The only one in the family who likes rye is my oldest and he noticed a difference between the 8 and 24 hour versions. I intend to expand my test subjects with my next batches.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I guess I didn't phrase the question right. I understand not letting the yeast lose all its rise on the first rise so let me rephrase this.

I have two recipes - one prepares the dough and calls for a first rise that is 18-24 hours at room temp.

The second calls a for a sponge for with an a rise between 2 and 8 hours at room temp then making the dough from the sponge and more flour and water.

I like the sponge recipe better but any guesses as to what would happen if I just made the whole thing and gave it a long rise at room temp without letting it go so long it doesn't have a second rise?

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

I might try an egg wash next time. I want to get the cornstarch right too so there is a choice. Since I'm doing this for people who want to put it into production cornstarch is less expensive but egg was is less labor intensive.

I think I'll make a double batch and then can try different things on different loaves.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I had my second attempt at rye bread. This time, instead of following the recipe I let the sponge sit for about 24 hours instead of eight. The bread had a lot more flavor but absorbed a lot less flour when I was building the dough from the sponge. Perhaps if I need to add extra water to the sponge and/or when mixing the dough with the sponge. I'll try that next.

Also, I followed Mike's advice about stretching the dough before shaping it and wound up with a higher, tighter loaf. I did not use the corn starch glaze this time and the bread looked the worse for it. I also need a tighter seam as it did not fully close.

But it was a step forward since the taste was better and I learned more about making a good looking. good tasting loaf.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Somehow I turned DCS into DCR. Sorry about that. You can start here.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I found this range. It does not appear to have a sealed burner but it would fit ANYWHERE!

I had a Fisher Paykel washer and dryer years ago. The dryer had an Easter egg and when buttons were pressed in a certain sequence it would play the theme from Star Wars.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

There is an Ikea in Schaumburg which is probably a couple of hours from South Bend if I remember my Chicagoland geography. I swear there used to be on in Chicago in the Bakers Square area but that may be faulty memory.

Blue Star does not have sealed burners. It has burners that drip through into drip pans which actually fit nicely in a home dishwasher. Most of the Garland pieces did not. A couple of chef friends offered to lend me their commercial dishwashers but once in the spring when the weather warmed up and once in the fall before the first freeze I would take the parts outside and hose them down.

I didn't mean to imply that gas ovens had no hotspots - they definitely do. But gas ovens also have some natural convection that help mitigate them. But even if your brand new oven, electric, gas, wood burning, coal (really popular here for pizza) or whatever starts out with no hot spots it will develop them over time as a result of heating and cooling and expanding and contracting. That's why it is good to be able to have your oven regularly serviced. Which, BTW, highlights another problem with commercial ranges in a home. The people who fix home appliances do not know about commercial appliances and the people who fix commercial appliances are not bonded to work in your house.

Convection ovens have caused me challenges with bread in that the outside browns way too fast and long before the inside is even close to finished. The ovens I use at our temple are convection (I have not figured out how to turn off the fans) and it took me a couple of test runs to get things right. It does not appear to do anything either good our bad for my pizzas in my oven. It just makes noise with the fan running.

I've never tried DCR but on Mike's recommendation I might. But I hope to never have to buy another one of these ever again.

Whirlpool owns: Maytag, Amana, and KitchenAid. The quality of all these brands has dropped since they were acquired but my parents owned their house for over 50 years and had a total of two refrigerators, both the same model Amana with the refrigerator on top and the freezer on the bottom. We sold the house with the second still running just fine.

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