[skeptic7]

I'm thinking of changing some of my recipes around to adding an egg to get extra rise in the bread.

[skeptic7]

My English Muffins turned out well. I should be able to bake all whole wheat bread with the generic whole wheat flour, just being a little more careful with it. It felt as if it didn't rise quite as well as the KAF ww flour.

[skeptic7]

I missed this.

[skeptic7]

I've started a half recipe of English Muffins, using the whole wheat flour I bought from Giants. I wanted to see if I could make a 100% whole wheat bread using generic ww flour. So far this flour is coarser and has more large bran flakes than KAF flour. I threw away any bran flakes that would not pass through the sifter. I've had KAF also appear with more bran than I would like, but not in the last 2 years, and I would call Customer Service to complain when that happened.
Wish me luck.

Also NY Times had an article on focaccia -- it seems some people are decorating their focaccia with bits of vegetables and herbs to make floral pictures before baking. I'd post a link but its behind a firewall.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

BakerAunt; I remember seeing the regular Pain Au Chocolat recipe on the King Arthur Flour site, but it doesn't seem to be there any longer. There is a recipe there but it calls for a Puff Pastry Dough, which I find indistinguishable from Croissant dough. There is a Brioche recipe in "Peter Reinharts's Whole Grain Breads" which I might use for inspiration. Clayton also has a Brioche recipe and a Petit Pain au Chocolat recipe that oddly enough calls for 1 1/2 lbs of brioche dough -- the odd thing is that the brioche dough recipe makes 2 1/2 lbs and 1 lbs of dough.

[skeptic7]

I've made variations of this a couple of times, its featured in the KAF 200 Anniversary Cookbook. Thats an interesting information about the aluminum foil. I wondered why somethings can't be stored in aluminum foil for a long time.

[skeptic7]

I did a basic cheese pizza yesterday with mozzarella and chedder cheese. It was very good.

I was looking for Pain au Chocolat recipes on the Internet today. I remember these as a brioche like bun with a stick of chocolate in the center. Most of the recipes I see are for chocolate croissants, which aren't the same thing.

I don't know if any of you read Anime Fanfiction, but I want to recommend one where the main character finds that he is not a genius baker. His first bread is a dismal flop, and so are the next several attempts. The POV character is a deadly genius ninja from a village that actively trains ninja and sends them on dangerous missions.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/17401478/chapters/40958717

[skeptic7]

Mike;
Your last bread looks like it has measles! What is the purpose of docking the dough? Do you think the flavor or the texture will change by tomorrow? I've notice that on some wheat breads, that breads which seem too soft are stiffer the next day, and crusts soften as they absorb moisture from the inside of the bread.

[skeptic7]

I got it.

[skeptic7]

I remember using a Joy of Cooking recipe that called for fresh yeast cakes. At that time, probably mid 70s, I bought them in the grocery store. This was for a very rich pastry. I haven't seen them recently.

[skeptic7]

Aaron, Thanks for the link. I like the almost recipes for sourdough bread found at that website. I wish I was around when the bread came out of the oven.

[skeptic7]

There is an article from NPR about failed Sourdough starters. Its amusing

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/22/841443442/so-your-sourdough-starter-failed-thats-ok-science-needs-it

[skeptic7]

I made a lucky guess. I feel so guilty eating waffles because it takes more oil than pancakes to cook them and then you can add so much butter at the table.

[skeptic7]

ItalianCook;
My introduction to sponges came from "From a Baker's Kitchen", and after that I read everything I could, and probably got it wrong. However here is an easy example from my basic English Muffin recipe with 1/3 whole wheat.
Ingredients
1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 2/3 cup white flour
1 tsp yeast
1 cup water -- room temperature
1/2 cup milk -- scalded
1 tsp salt
3 tablespoons butter.

Dissolve the yeast into the water. Mix in the whole wheat flour. This will form a batter. Cover and leave it alone until it is light and bubbly. This is the sponge part. It also lets the bran in the whole wheat flour absorb liquid and become soft before kneading
Mix in the milk. Mix the salt into one cup of white flour and blend it in. Mix or knead in enough additional flour to form a stiff dough. Let rise a little.
Knead in the butter and enough flour to make it manageable. Knead the dough until fully kneaded.
Divide dough into 9 parts and put in greased English muffin rings. Let rise until fluffy and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, or 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

I make all my bread by hand and a number of the waiting steps are there to make kneading easier, like letting the dough rest before kneading in the butter

[skeptic7]

I think everyone is just using too much yeast. I've been doing the sponge method of bread making since I found out about it, and so I use only 1 teaspoon of yeast for a batch, whether that batch is 4 cups of flour for a batch of English Muffins, or 8 cups for Hot Cross buns, or 3 cups of flour for a normal size loaf of bread. I keep my yeast in the freezer and am just now using up the cup of yeast I bought years ago. I did just buy a 2 lb package of yeast when I was panicced at the flour and yeast shortage last month. This is going to last me for the next decade.

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