Saturday, July 31, 2010

Mellow Bakers in July

Another month of Mellow Baking from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread". There were four recipe to choose from this month, I made all of them and as it is the last day of July here are the pictures and my thoughts about them.

70 % sourdough rye with a rye flour soaker and whole-wheat flour
This bread turned out quite well for a bread with lots of rye flour. It was too wet so I added extra (white) flour, I guess about 50 grams. This may have helped a little to help it stick together. I love the way those slices are shaped, because of the baking in the pullman pan. It was quite sour tasting/smelling, but had a good texture.

80 % sourdough rye with a rye-flour soaker
This is real dense bread with even more rye flour. And as I'm not a rye flour nor a sourdough lover, this is just not for me. It reminds me a lot of German breads and that's just not my cup of tea. It was a personal triomph though that the bread wasn't all flat and bricky. My dear husband who's not a real sourdough fan, but loves rye ate it all. Thinly sliced is best I guess.

Bialys
This recipe I have seen in a lot of bread baking books, but never made it before. Even so the recipe is appealing, cause bread with onions always smells great and can be really lovely. The pink colour of the onions is because I used a red onion (I was out of normal onions), I also mixed in a little poppy seed. I was a bit disappointed with them I'm afraid, that was because the onion was not really cooked/baked, so you ate partly raw onion which was a minus. Did I use too much so they couldn't cook through or is this the way they're supposed to be? Don't know, but I prefer them baked before placing them on the dough.

French Bread
Wonderful baguettes, quick and crispy crust... but again some minus points, not with the depth and taste of a baguette with a real retarded dough or with a pâte fermentée. We ate them freshly out of the oven when we had a BBQ, so there's not much to beat warm and fresh baked bread. But I prefer other recipes for a real baguette.
So all and all not my favorite recipes, we'll see what next month will bring!

6 comments:

Finla said...

Wowo love all three breads, but i have never had that bailys that just looks so so special and yumm.

NKP said...

Gorgeous breads! I am also in love with that great, long pan.

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Lucky I just had that lunch suggestion you just left me because otherwise I'd be wanting one of those ryes with the salmon I brought home yesterday.
The tomato bread toasted and rubbed with garlic was brilliant. Thank you. Hope you enjoyed it too ;-) (darn I wish this pond weren't so wide.)

Chef Gulzar said...

Hi...

I read this post..Wow...lovely.I love all three breads, Thank you. thanks for sharing this.


http://chefgulzar.com/
Chef Gulzar recipes in Urdu

Elizabeth said...

Like Natashya, I really like the tin you used for the 70% sourdough - it makes such tall bread!

I WANT those bialys! (even if the onion isn't quite cooked)

-Elizabeth

Gea said...

Lien, wat ziet je blog er PRACHTIG en professioneel uit zeg! Mijn complimenten. En ik kan niets anders zeggen over wat ik zie in deze posting: 'k zou er graag m'n tanden in willen zetten.