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I once read an article about how professional bakers bake at home. One just put a metal bowl over the loaf.
I'm not sure why one would turn the Dutch oven upside down with the lid rather than leaving it right side up with the lid on.
I'm not sure what was in the Ancient Grains flour that King Arthur marketed some years back, but none of us liked the resulting loaf of bread, which tasted somewhat bitter. I ended up subbing small amounts of that flour into other breads in order to use it up and not waste money.
I suggest being skeptical about coconut oil. While it is trendy in some "health" writings, it has a lot of saturated fat. The last I heard, the American Heart Association was not recommending it.
I have been using avocado oil in some of my cakes. It is neutral and has the same amount of saturated fat as olive oil, plus it also has healthy fats. I also use it, with a tad of butter when making crumb toppings. It works well for sauteing vegetables and meat, and it has a higher smoke point than olive oil.
For a time, I used grapeseed oil, but I could never find information on its health benefits, so I switched to avocado oil.
I will be making dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Sunday afternoon, since it will need to rest in the refrigerator until the end of the week, when I will bake them. I predict that my husband will have worked his way through the current batch BEFORE that time.
Feed those hungry mouths, Aaron! It is work, but it is a delight.
Most King Arthur recipes have what I consider too much salt. Do you think that they own stock in a salt corporation? Or maybe that is what baking schools teach then? Someone once responded to a poster by stating that the salt is "necessary for the structure of the bread," but I have not found that to be true. I usually reduce the salt in their recipes by a third, and I cut it by half in the Rustic Sourdough I baked earlier this week.
I have three loaves of my Whole Wheat Oat Bran Bread in the oven. With our weather being cooler, it is good to get ahead on the bread baking.
We had leftover turkey, lentils, vegetable, barley soup, served with the rest of the Rustic Sourdough and the loaf of Limpa bread I took out of the freezer.
We also had strawberries--the first of the season were at the farmers' market this morning and I bought two quarts.
Joan--I am sending you hugs, and I will keep you and your family in my prayers.
Navlys--They are very good. While they do not have the melty taste of a peanut butter cookie made with butter, they are an excellent substitute when butter in the diet needs to be reduced or eliminated.
Thanks for the info on nutritional information panels, Mike. While the grams are more useful than the old percentages (and the milk I buy STILL uses percentages), it gives me at least a general idea. For people who need precision because of health impacts, it would be problematic.
I also baked the Gourmet Soda Crackers from the dough I made yesterday. They are now cooling and crisping in the turned-off oven until tomorrow. These crackers bake better on my 1 and 2/3-sized sheet pan. The dough rested in the refrigerator for 17 hours (18 hours is the maximum), and I think that made it easier to roll.
I had planned to bake Lemon Ricotta Cookies on Friday, but after I had weighed out half AP and half white whole wheat flour, I pulled out the opened container of ricotta and saw flourishing green mold. The container went into the trash, and I went to Google to see if I could find a different recipe. My husband has not been eating much peanut butter lately, so I searched to see if I could find a cookie that would use natural peanut butter and no butter. After some frustration, I found a recipe for Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies at a blog, The Simple Veganista:
I did not need them to be vegan, so I replaced the almond milk with 1% milk. I used granulated sugar, instead of coconut or "pure cane sugar." The recipe said that it was fine to reduce the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 cup, so I did, as I find most peanut butter cookies achingly sweet. I used some of the combined AP and White Whole Wheat flour that I had already mixed. I weighed the peanut butter, calculating the weight of a cup based on what the jar said was the weight in grams of 2 Tbs.
The dough came together easily with my hand mixer. I used a #40 Zeroll scoop to apportion the dough into 24 balls, but I needed to shape them into balls with my hands to smooth the surface, before flattening them with the crisscross pattern. My husband had one after they cooled and was pleased. I will have one for dinner tonight.
On Thursday evening, I baked the Spiced Rye Cookies from the King Arthur site. No changes were needed, as these are an oil-based cookie, although I use a #40 Zeroll scoop and drop the balls directly into the sparkling sugar to coat them before putting them on the pan. I will let the flavors meld before I start eating them tomorrow. The spices do not work well for my husbandâs digestion, so I will bake a different cookie tomorrow for him.
I also mixed the dough for the King Arthur Gourmet Soda Crackers, but I modify this recipe by deleting 2 Tbs. water and increasing the oil (I use avocado oil) to 3 Tbs. I also wait to add the oil until I have the other ingredients mixed. The dough rests up to 18 hours in the refrigerator before baking. After the bake, they remain in the turned-off oven until completely cooled (usually overnight, but at least 8 hours). That means I have to think ahead as to whether I will need the oven again before they cool.
Yes, I hit a lot of ads while searching. It was useful to look at some sites that discussed how to season the cloche bottom or the difference between pre-heating and cold start. One site showed shaping techniques, which I found helpful.
There used to be a recommendation of soaking the unglazed cloche before using, but there seems to be a movement away from doing so, now that so many are glazed, and so do not soak up water.
Most of the recipes do not use wholegrain flours.
There is some debate between preheating the cloche bottom and doing the cold start. With the latter, it is important to oil the unglazed bottom or to grease the glazed one, then sprinkle with farina to prevent sticking. Supposedly, there is more oven spring if the cloche is pre-heated.
Most recipes specify putting the cloche on the bottom oven rack. Since my cloche set-ups, whether I use the base that came with it or the bowl, which makes it somewhat higher, fits on the second rack up, I used that position, and it worked well.
Timing is hard to figure out, and with the covered loaf, it is not possible to see how it is doing during the baking. My sourdough loaf used 5 1/2 cups flour (originally AP flour) and a cup of sourdough starter. 50 minutes at 425 seems to work for the larger loaf with a cold start. For the smaller cloche set-up, I baked 35 minutes at 400F, then another 10 minutes uncovered. I will take notes as I work with other recipes.
On Wednesday, I baked a loaf of Rustic Sourdough Wholegrain bread. I have started a separate thread on baking with a cloche, so the details are there.
It was 72F this Wednesday morning, but then a thunderstorm with rain came through and nicely cooled our area as well as watering our garden. We got an inch of rain. I made my turkey, lentil, vegetable soup for dinner, using chicken broth, water from cooked potatoes, carrots, celery, red bell pepper, mushrooms, garlic, ground turkey, Bob's Red Mill Vegi-Soup assortment (red and brown lentils, green and yellow split peas; barley letters), dehydrated onion, Penzey's Ozark Seasoning, and the last of some kale.
I decided to try an experiment for a rustic sourdough bread I wanted to bake. I worked off of the King Arthur recipe that appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of Sift (p. 65), but I made an overnight levain using a cup of my thick, milk-based starter, 1 cup King Arthur AP and 1/2 cup water. The next day, I mixed it with a cup of water to which I had added 1 Tbs. honey and proofed 1 3/4 tsp. active yeast, then added a mixture of 3 cups whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup mostly pumpernickel flour, and 2 Tbs. special dry milk. After mixing, I allowed it to rest covered for 15 minutes, before adding 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Artisan bread flour, mixed with 1 1/2 tsp. salt. (The original recipe calls for 2 1/2 tsp.!) I mixed in 2 Tbs. olive oil, then kneaded. I had to add a bit more of the bread flour to bring the dough together. I let it rise for 45 minutes, which was more than enough time. After turning it out onto the mat, I pre-shaped into a boule, waited 5 minutes, then repeated the shaping, using a technique I saw online. In the past, I have tried to shape boules from the top, pulling the dough in; now I work from the bottom.
I baked the bread in a round Romertopf bread baking bowl that I bought from King Arthur some years ago but had never used. I did not know at the time that most Romeertopfs have lids. I have a small King Arthur bread baking bowl, and it can be a challenge getting the bread cooked through without the top getting over browned and having to be covered with foil. I found that the cloche cover, from the cloche set I bought from Skeptic, rests nicely on the rim of the bowl. So, I greased the glazed bowl, sprinkled with farina, and put the shaped dough inside to rise, covered with the cloche top. Given the speed of the first rise, and the warmth of the house, left over from yesterday's heat, I anticipated a quick second rise and checked it at 35 minutes, slashed the top, then put it into the cold oven and set the temperature for 425F.
I checked at 40 minutes, and the temperature was 165, although the top had browned nicely, so I re-covered and let it go another ten minutes, at which time it reached 200F. It came out of the bowl beautifully. It ended up a bit lopsided, no doubt a shaping error, but at the highest, it is three inches tall. I will cut it tonight to go with soup at dinner, at which time, it would have at least five and a half hours to cool.
I might replace all the AP flour next time with the Bob's Red Mill Artisan bread flour.
Note: The bread has great flavor and texture.
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