Here is my bread:


What about yours? Post your photos and recipes here.

Question:
Anybody baking bread?

Choices:
Yes.
No.
No, but maybe I will in the future.

 

That's a beautiful loaf for sure. I don't do much bread baking in summer. I am too busy running my canner. Come winter, after the garden work is done, I do make some sourdough. I use a potato flake recipe for the sourdough. It is wonderful.

This is the recipe I use for Sourdough.

On occasion I do use my bread machine but don't care for the recipes it came with. Bread is tasteless unless I add a Sh-load of herbs.

Jiri, your loaf is just gorgeous. Nicely done!
I haven't baked any bread since moving to Texas three months ago, but Ann, I am going to try your potato flake sourdough. I baked some when I lived in New Mexico, but with hit and miss success. Perhaps I was not taking altitude -- nearly 5,000 feet -- into proper consideration. I usually used recipes out of "Beard on Bread," but also tried some of the no-knead "artisanal" recipes with indifferent result.
Elevation here in Sweetwater ios about 2,300 feet.

Bill, are you enjoying your new location?

Bill:

My friend in Clackamas, OR, is baking great bread. We have different flours here in Europe, so our recipes are not interchangeable at all, but my friend can try your recipe and you can try his. He is time to time here on AR, so I will let him to know about this thread.

Jiri

Ann:

Thank you. I don't do much bread baking in the summer too, but now it is colder weather here and I like that nice baking bread smell too.

Sometimes, I do something wrong and got just flat piece of concrete, it is maybe weather or pressure dependent, maybe yeasts are different, I don't really know. But the most of the time, it is good. Better than the most commercial stuff.

Jiri

Ann, I am liking Texas so far. I have great neighbors. I still have a lot of work to do on the house before I can even unpack half my boxes, so I have sort of had my nose to the grindstone. Good excuse to start some sourdough for a change of pace, don't you think?
Jiri, I have had my share of disappointments just like you. Is that caraway seed in that loaf in your photo?

That picture is worth a 1,000 mouth watering words!

I agree that in addition to the finished product, in the interim it makes the house smell like heaven.

Here is a very simple recipe, used by Bedouins all over the desert.

Mix flour into a dough.

Once you get the right consistency, sprinkle with flour, so it is not sticky.

make into a flat bread, half an inch thick.

Throw on top of embers.

Turn over a few times till ready.

It should be relatively dry, and can be crumbled by hand.

In a large bowl, crumble then add stoned dates, and home made oil.

Mix together.

This is a stable food for the Bedouins.

And can be stored for a very long time.

I LOVE it!

If no date is available, sugar is used.

Bill:

I used caraway seed alone (mixture of whole seeds and powder) some times, but here I used "bread spice mixture" made of caraway seed, coriander seed and black cumin seed, all partially crushed. Don't know exact word for it, those seeds are just in half or thirds or so.

Jiri

Jiri, they make your loaf seem even more inviting.
Saeed, that's an interesting dish. When you say "make a dough" is this just flour and water? Also, what is homemade oil? And finally, which of the many date varieties works best? All we seem to get here is "Medjool."

Bill:

A lot of people here put some "healthy" stuff into bread. I mean some nuts, olives, onion, sunflower or whatever seeds etc. I don't. I like it simple. Neutral in taste, no special flavors. So I can enjoy it with whatever I want, for example home made bacon, home made processed cheese or butter and caviar.

BTW home made processed cheese is simple and great tasting. You make it only from hard cheese you like. Best is always made from mixture of leftovers ;-)

Jiri

Jiri, I tend to prefer bread plain as well -- just the flavor of the loaf. Your home-made bacon and cheeses sound wonderful.

Ann, my two days are up on the potato-flake sourdough starter, so I will bake this afternoon. The kitchen has had an "interesting" smell for the past 48 hours.

Home made bacon:

I am smoking it in modern digitally controlled smoker with mixture of equal parts of alder, beech and hickory wood chip. You can sit inside (when outside is cold), monitor your temperature remotely (in cellphone app) with alarm and drink your favorite beer.

Jiri

Jiri, that looks incredible. European bacon is different from what we get here.
What is your favorite beer, living in the nation that gave the world the Pilsner?

Bill:

That bacon is almost pure fat. This particular one is from Iberico pork. It is used mostly for cooking purposes, but you can make thin slices and put on bread. It is really soft and you are right, it is completely different style than your bacon.

I smoke also pork shoulder and other:


We use venison or whatever you call it, just meat from wild animals for making different sausages and salami. Of course, there is about 30 % of lean wild animal meat (wild boar, mouflon, elk...) and about 70 % pork. This includes Polish and Hungarian sausages, Tyrolean also, but we tried also fermented Chorizo and Fuet salami.



And here is Fuet and Chorizo, mold is developing (we used salami mold cultures).

After stuffing about 3 days:


After next 10 days:


After a month from last picture:


And for all this, home made bread is the best ;-)

Jiri

Jiri, that all looks great + obviously, you know what you are doing. Thanks for sharing.

Jiri, the smoked goodies and sausages look great!

I hope to do a lot of that this winter. What kinds of things do you use the smoked fatback in?

Bill, let me know what you think on that sourdough. It gets tastier in time as it ferments. I keep mine frozen when not doing any baking. I will pull it out and wake it up once wood stove season starts up again here.

I can tell you that sourdough makes the best pizzas.

Ann:

Bacon or smoked fatback is used primary for making lean (venison, hare, whatever) meat more tender and it includes some smoked taste too. It is used prior to roasting or frying.

For me, it is hard to translate exactly, but few pictures will be worth of thousands words:

Video how to do it. It is in Czech, but it is obvious. The best is to make good shaped parts out of smoked fatback and freeze it. It will get stiff for a while.

https://youtu.be/DxyiVz3vU_k (not my)

And this could be the result: (not my)


Also, I use it when making goulash, when frying onion as the basis for the meal, I add small cubes of this fat too (about 1/3" in size). I use it also for the basis of many different sauces.


Here, we roast about 10 pigeons. In the stuffing, there it is:




Here, we roast wild boar leg with vegetables. There is that fat in small cubes too, it adds fat, smoked taste etc.







Jiri

That looks fabulous!!! I'm hungry just looking at it. But then, meat + potatoes, true staples.

Ann, BTW, I looked up that site where you bought your sausage stuffer + they have tons of great kitchen appliance products at very reasonable prices. Thanks
!

Jiri, those sausages/salamis look incredible. I bet they would make for a fabulous pizza using Ann's sourdough crust.
Ann, my bread dough had its first rise overnight. I'll shape into loaves this morning and bake this afternoon. Funny, but my batch of starter yielded a bit less than a cup, total, after that explosive first proof, so I am out and will start over.

Good luck, Bill! Looking forward to what you think. Yes, Vevor has lots of stuff. Not a fan of the m in china situation but hard to find a lot of things that are made 'here. The stuffer I bought looks well made. I will use it this winter.

The post puller I bought from Vevor looks a bit weak though. I will see when the ground softens up around here. It's like concrete in drought so I have to wait for rains before I can try it on some T posts I want out.

Jiri, I can see how the fatback works. I am hungry now!

Ann, if someone in your neighborhood has a tractor and a chain, it's the only way to pull T-posts, believe me. I miss my little Mahindra/Yanmar three-cylinder diesel ...

The bread didn't rise as much as I had hoped after I put the loaves in the three pans. I let them go for seven hours, then baked. The bread is sweet, like a brioche.

No, I have had better luck with the leverage type post puller with the Ozark clay and rocks. Plus it is hilly and the tractor can tip easily as sometimes I do not have a good angle to park it to pull a post. You'll have to trust me on that.

Ann, understood. I have also used a short length of chain and a bottle jack to "git her done."

quote:

hose sausages/salamis look incredible. I bet they would

I'm continuously developing my own skills in backing bread. However, this days my technique and recipe can be called stable version.
Equipment/Environment:
Cast Iron Dutch oven or cast iron Oval Roaster with lid.
Parchment paper
Mixer with dough hook
common kitchen el. stove

Ingredients/Amount:
Described recipe is based on 70% of water for base dough. Somebody told me, flour and water ratio for bread should be between 70~80% where 80 is more sticky dough and require more skilled baker. Calculation: 70% dough in baker terminology means: put 700grams of water on every 1000grams of flour

If you do 70% dough is simple remember flour ratio: (700g of all purpose is fundamental, and 300 of your choice)
Simple:
700g all-purpose flour link
230g Whole Wheat Flour link
70g Dark Rye Flour link
+700g water

Variant with semolina
700g all-purpose flour link
150g Whole Wheat Flour link
100g Semolina Pasta Flour link
50g Dark Rye Flour link
+700g water

Bread Leaven (something like yeast but my own culture that I maintain couple of yrs - can write other post if interest)
I usually create about 300g of leaven it is 1:1 all-purpose flour : water

25g salt
5~10g bread spice

Bread spice 8-4-2
I have spice grinder and I mill spice in advance (just keep ratio):
80g caraway seeds (do not use cumin) McCormick Gourmet Caraway Seed
40g Black Caraway Seeds (Also known as: black cumin seed, black onion seed, black caraway seed)
20g Coriander Seed Powder link


Summary:
1000g flour
700g water
25g salt
5-10g spice mix


Steps:

1) start Leaven [2hrs-5hrs] - until size is about double and you can see large bubbles
all my leaven from fridge (you can substitute by dry yeast)
200g all purpose flour
200g lukewarm water
put in some bowl stir and cover by some dishtowel

2) dough preparation
Its important to prepare dough before its inoculated by leaven. You can see how dough change structure a bit (bakers call it autolyse)
put all flour and water in mixer with dough hook and mix slowly at least 30min
I use function 5sec mixing + 25sec stop

3) put all together in mixer
dough + leaven + salt + spice
mix long enough to be not too much sticky, whole mixture will not stick on sides of mixer bowl and it has nice smooth structure. You can drop a bit of all purpose flour if you thing dough is too sticky.

4) I usually split this amount of dough in two and make two almost spheres. (I work on board with flour).

5) then I prepare place for bread grow: I have two Pot Drainers for Cooking , I cover them by cloth with flour on top and put the dough ball in the middle.

6) wait for grooving ~ depends on temperature and strength of yeast but it can be between 4 to 8 hours


7) then I start oven with cast iron inside temp: 550F

8) put carefully one bread on parchment paper and inside cast iron duch oven with lid in my el. oven for 20 min ... (you can drop a bit of water under parchment paper just before closing preheated lid )

9) take Dutch oven out and put bread into el.oven on rack only for another 20 min ... you have to regulate temperature down to 450F

10) take nice colored bread out of oven and let it sit on some grid. Grid ensure air access from bottom.

Summary:

Raised bread bake under lid: 20min 550F
Without cast iron just on oven rack: 20min 450F