Wild Yeast

Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters

Saving a Drowning Dough

Just to be clear, this is not what is referred to as a water bagel.

This is what happened when I added approximately 50% more water than I should have to the final dough of some sourdough bagels. Unlike another bread I made in the same week, where the overwatering was deliberate if misguided, this was pure accident.

What to do? Add 50% more of all the other ingredients to preserve the dough’s bagel identity? Not an option, since I had neither more sourdough starter nor high-gluten flour on hand. Toss the dough? Perish the thought!

There was only one option left that I could see: process and bake the dough as if it were ciabatta. That is, I folded it several times during the bulk fermentation to get the strength that is difficult to achieve in a mixer when the dough is so wet. (Of course I was helped here by the high-gluten flour and the sourdough as well.) Then I used my usual ciabatta technique to cut the dough into roll-sized rectangles and proof it in a very-liberally-floured couche.

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Brunkans Långa (The Wet Version)

I suppose this bread is a study in how it is possible to lose sight of the preponderance of evidence and allow yourself to be led in a different direction by becoming fixated on a single detail.

Although this was a perfectly fine bread, it was surely not what Görel had in mind when she asked the Bread Baking Babes to undertake Brunkans Långa, the “long loaf” from the Brunkebergs Bageri (bakery) in Stockholm.

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Dragon Tail Baguette Shaping Video

I posted these dragon tail baguettes a while ago, and  here, as promised, is a video showing the shaping technique. I love it because it yields a connected string of easily-break-off-able, single-serving-sized rolls, without having to individually shape each one.

Note that the final shaping, which is shown here, is done on a fully proofed baguette just before it goes into the oven. The shaping of the original baguette is not shown here, but I’m planning to have a video of that soon, too. For a 50-cm (20-inch) baguette, eight or nine segments is about right.

Continue to video…

Cherry Pine Nut Scones

In their excitement over the delicate marzipan flavor of cherry pits, people often overlook the dark crimson fruit that surrounds them. But did you know that the flesh of the properly-ripened cherry — firm, sweet, and succulent — is actually quite good in its own right? In some cultures, the cherry fruit itself is even more prized than the stone cached within.

These scones, although they do contain fruit and a small amount of sugar, are not what I would call sweet. If you’re feeling adventurous, make your cornmeal the coarsely-ground variety and give your teeth the workout they thought they’d never get from a scone.

The scones maintain a good shape if they are formed in a cake ring, frozen before cutting into wedges, and frozen again before baking. I like this adjustable-size ring because it’s very versatile, but you can use a plastic-wrap-lined cake pan if you don’t have one. Layering the fruit with the dough, rather than mixing it in, helps the fruit stay intact. And a cherry pitter makes short work of separating the stones (seriously, don’t throw them away!).

Continue to the recipe…

Cherry Pit Ice Cream Petits Fours

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop.

For the second month in a row, the Daring Bakers were challenged with ice cream and cake, and I am not complaining one bit. (The only drawback is that these things are very tricky to photograph when the weather is hot, as it has been this week. And I’m not altogether facile with my camera. Which means I resort to photographing things like a carved soapstone fish on a plate as a stand-in to figure out the appropriate camera settings, while the sweet and meltable things rest comfortably in the freezer until the last possible moment. This will give the archaeologists something to wonder about when they unearth my photo collection a thousand years hence.)

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Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad (Panzanella)

The dark saltless Tuscan bread wasn’t my favorite, but as a simple salad with sweet cherry and grape tomatoes, onions, and basil leaves in a garlic vinaigrette dressing, there’s just nothing to complain about at all.

If you require a recipe, here’s one. Otherwise, just toss whatever ingredients are the object of your summertime desire (in addition to tomatoes and basil, think olives, cucumbers, peppers, eggs, bacon…) together with one-inch cubes of rather dry bread, and dress for dinner. Done. Delicious.

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