justkeepswimming's blog

I had some leftover chocolate babka slices in the freezer that needed to be used up. When deciding what to do with it, I found this recipe:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/7177/bread-pudding-ii/

I decided to make my own version and used that as the base. 😉

Babka was cubed and put into an 8x8 in pyrex. The dark chocolate was broken up into small chunks and distributed throughout the bread cubes. The pudding recipe was mixed as described, though I used just a little less sugar and left out the cinnamon. I thought about including it, I like Mexican cocoa etc. But I am bringing this to a holiday gathering, and wasn't sure if others would appreciate the combination. After pouring the mixture over the bread and chocolate, I used a fork to gently push the babka chunks down into the mix. I had a little leftover Nutella to use up,so at the last minute I dolloped some on top of the concoction for good measure.

This was soooo decadent, soooo good! It was a hit. One person who said he doesn't care for bread pudding had 2 servings, lol. Highly recommended if you ever want to use up leftover babka. 

Ready for the oven

Still hot and bubbling, the smell is amazing!

 They liked it!

 Merry Christmas!! 🎄

This is a Halloween candy corn themed coconut chocolate babka, as suggested by my husband. No candy corn was used in this recipe (I'm not a fan). I couldn't resist giving this a try. I think he may have been in the mood for some chocolatey goodness, and he kept nudging me along with ideas. 

I followed Maurizio's recipe again. Once the dough was almost mixed to where it needed to be, I split it into 2 randomly sized balls. Then I started adding food coloring to the dough.... The only other colored bread recipe I found had suggestions for how much to add, and it was wayyy more than I intended for the orange color. The yellow came out a little less intense, but still more than expected. I lost count adding it 1-2 drops at a time, but I think it was about 10-12 drops. Apparently the color intensifies after a couple of minutes. Lesson learned....

Crumb shot tomorrow, after we get to a family gathering. The kids will be all sugared up before they even go Trick or Treating. 😆

My first babka! I am not counting the one I tried last week that was a complete, greasy mess that never did a thing. That one was a yeast based recipe that I think was faulty from the get go, and to date is the only batch of dough I have ever just thrown out. 

I used Maurizio's babka recipe. Until just a few weeks ago, all my bread had been mixed/kneaded by hand, as I did not have a mixer. After much research and some input from Mariana (thank you, Mariana!), I decided to go with a Bosch compact mixer rather than trying to work with a food processor. Ordered in April, and it just arrived a couple of weeks ago. After reading his recipe/process several times through, I dove in. So glad I did, it came out really good. 

Lessons learned during this bake:

 - I don't know if it's true for all enriched doughs, but this loaf did not grow very much in size or have such obvious signs of fermentation as my usual bakes. I was glad I had used a glass bowl, so I could see the tiny bubbles through the sides and bottom of the bowl. 

 - Work quickly while rolling out the cold dough and spreading on the toppings. In my warm kitchen, the dough started to proof and get puffy, making it harder and harder to work with for rolling.

 - Don't assume any particular step will work easily. "Place the rolled-up log on a baking sheet and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes" part took longer than it should have. The first 2 baking sheets would not quite fit in the freezer.

 - I used Nutella (thanks to Danny for posting how to thin it out and make it spreadable). Next time I think I will try to make Maurizio's chocolate filling instead. The Nutella tended to glom onto the knife while slicing the loaf, and I had to keep cleaning the knife between slices. I was quite proud of myself for not getting cut, lol. 

This was a hit for both of us, as well as some nearby friends we gave some to. You couldn't taste the Nutella, the flavor from the dark chocolate was more prominent. The coconut was just enough to give a little extra flavor and was a pleasant addition chew-wise as well.

Will definitely do this again, probably at the holidays. 

Pics:

Getting the filling ready. I froze the chocolate first, then just smashed them inside the baggie to get small chocolate chunks/chips/dust.

Filling in place, ready to be rolled up:

Proofed, coated with egg wash, and ready for the oven:

 Cooling. I sprinkled a little more coconut on top, then used the simple syrup glaze to sort of glue the coconut in place:

 Yummy crumb:

Not sure why my paragraph breaks aren't working today.... Might be something related to creating this post on my laptop instead of my phone? Apologies in advance....  This bake was inspired by idaveindy. I had read in one of his past threads about Steve Gamelin's no knead bread approach. I had never heard of him and on a whim decided to look into it. In part, because my 92 y.o. mother in law loves fresh bread, but can't handle all the kneading, etc. I ended up watching a bunch of what he has on you tube. By far, Mr. Gamelin has the easiest approach ever. He bakes with IDY, and shows how you can get all sorts of bread baked in whatever container you have available. His approach is about as minimalist as you can get, and it's worth watching the video just to see him work. Besides, what's not to love about watching a white haired man wearing a Carhart t-shirt baking, lol. Dave gave me a few tips on how things might go if I wanted to do a whole wheat version using fresh milled flour. AZ monsoon has cooled things off enough to make baking more do-able, so I decided to go for it. I mostly followed Steve Gamelin's recipe, but adjusted hydration slightly (my whole wheat flour was way too dry otherwise). He does use 16 oz. of water in some recipes, so I went with that.  Also, Steve measures by volume and not weight. Dave suggested something between 3.5-4 cups of flour, so I split the difference there. And the general principle was to only mess with the dough if I was going to be in the kitchen for another reason anyway. Ingredients:3.75 cups whole wheat flour (a mix of 75% hard white spring and 25% hard red winter wheat, but I suspect anything would work).16 oz room temperature water1.5 tsp of salt0.25 tsp instant yeast (Edit - while measuring flour for another bake, I weighed 3.5 cups of my fresh milled. It came in at 450 gm of flour.) Day 1.  07:40 a.m. During breakfast cleanup, I mixed the flour, water and salt, covered the bowl and stuck it in the fridge. (I love his mixing technique, he uses the handle - it works remarkably well!).  5 p.m. Starting to prep dinner, pulled dough out of fridge. Mixed yeast in by hand. Performed 4 S&F over the course of the next 2.5 hours, whenever I thought of it.  (I couldn't help myself, and wanted to be sure the yeast was well incorporated.) 7:30 p.m. Covered dough back into the fridge. No signs of yeast activity at all, not surprised. Day 2.  5:30 a.m. Dough out of fridge while hubby is pouring coffee (yes, I am spoiled). The dough looks like it did right before going into the fridge - no bubbles, no change in size or texture when gently poked, nada. I stuck it into the microwave with the surface light on to warm things up a tad. After 2 hours, turned the light off as I headed to the pool to do laps, and ignored the dough. Dough fresh out of the fridge this morning:  12:30 p.m. Checked the dough at lunch and voila - lots of bubbles, and about a 70% volume increase. I followed Steve's video example, using the spoon handle to degas and stretch the dough, then basically poured the dough into a 9X5 in loaf pan. I could see some reasonably good gluten development while I was stirring, which was nice to see. I'm not much on binder clips, the ones we have are way to hard for me to squeeze.... So I used some of these stainless steel clothes pins we have instead. They worked fine, though I did have to make sure the top pan was squared up correctly.  1:00 p.m. Preheated the oven to 400F. In his videos, he used to proof for longer, but now he recommends a 30-60 min proof. I split the difference. 1:25 p.m. After a 50 min proof, the bread was baked at 400F for 40 min as recommended. Cooling - I would normally have baked this just a tad darker, but wanted to do things as close to the recipe as possible. In hindsight, I think he bakes to a lighter color than I might for a lot of his breads. And next time I will use my 8 x 4 in pan. I used the 9x5 he recommends, but I prefer taller rather than wider bread.)   Thanks, Dave, for giving me the nudge. It was nice to learn something I incredibly easy I can do pretty much anywhere, and I'm pretty sure my MIL will tackle this once cooler temps make it to her area. Edit to add crumb shot, and refine ingredient details.  A bit more dense looking than some of the recent sandwich bread I have made lately, but you wouldn't know it from the chew. It came out tender and moist, and you can taste the flavor of the wheat more than my SD bakes. Hubby liked it a LOT, with more compliments than he normally does with SD. I could see where this would be handy for any sort of travel that includes a place with a kitchen.... Put the flour, salt, and IDY in a Ziploc, add water when ready to mix, proof at your leisure whilst vacationing, and bake in whatever container they happen to have available. I had better be careful, this is going to wake the travel bug within.... 😁🚙    

One of the advantages of doing the same recipe back to back combined with having reasonably decent notes is it's easier to reproduce the last bake.

Tweaks for this bake: No steam (sprayed with water instead), and a foil tent for the second half of the bake. Otherwise, I did everything the same as bake #1 (same hydration, fermentation times, all of it). Oh and I followed minioven's advice and made sure the rim if the pan was in the center of the toaster oven.

The crust is more evenly colored on the sides and bottom, and the top is not so overcooked which is appreciated. 

Update, crumb shot below. I'm not a good photographer, and phone cameras don't always capture things as well as possible. That compression of the crumb on the sides/bottom is much better than the last loaf. The crust is a bit more chewy than we care for in a sandwich bread maybe. Overall it's a reasonable bake, especially for a toaster oven, lol. This one probably won't be high on my list of what to bake next, only because there are others we like much more. On to exploring the nuances of our new oven! First up, verify internal temps. 🌡️

Mary

Our kitchen has been completely out of commission for a partial remodel (cabinet refacing, which required every cabinet and drawer be emptied and packed out of harms way) for the last 2 weeks. Things are put back together enough now that I got to bake today. Still using the toaster oven outside for now, until I can put the new oven through a few trial runs to verify temps and learn how to work it. 

This is the first time I have made Trevor Wilson's pan bread. I added a little more whole wheat than he does, but otherwise followed his recipe. 

My version:

300g Bread Flour

65g fresh milled hard white wheat

16g Sprouted Whole Spelt Flour (have some I need use)

8g fresh milled rye 

243g Water, plus 7 g more while mixing (the whole wheat addition seemed to require a little more water)

8g Salt

50g Starter @ 100% Hydration 

Mixed til everything incorporated (not going for gluten development). 

Rest (covered) 1 hour.

Kneaded in bowl til dough was a bit more supple. It still felt a little grainy so I kept this short.

Rounded dough and placed in lightly oiled bowl. Dough temp 76F, room

Bulk proofed 4.5 hrs., no folds. This may have been too much, if the aliquot is any indicator. Time got away from me.

Pre-shaped into oval and rested est 20 min.

Gently shaped as per his video. Placed in 8.5x4.5 loaf pan, covered with damp towel. 

Proofed at RT 3 hrs. Removed towel 15 min before baking, scored (a less than successful attempt), and into the preheated toaster oven with my makeshift steam source (a small Pan with a wet hand towel) at 425F. After 20 min, steam removed, pan rotated, and baked another 20 min. Final internal temp 207F. It's cooling right now, crumb shot tomorrow.

This one would have benefitted from a foil tent for the second half of the bake, the top is a bit darker and harder than the rest of the loaf. I know it will soften somewhat. The toaster oven may have been set a few degrees high as well. The thermostat knob is less than precise. I accidentally sent the oven thermometer away with the old stove and didn't have a way to verify the internal temp before putting the loaf in. Oops.... Oh well, it was a budget model, I will get another one next time I go into town. 

I decided to see how the new "outdoor kitchen" would do with an artisan loaf, instead of a pan loaf. I followed this recipe, with a very few tweaks below. (Thanks, @SunnyGail, for your recent post of this bread, which gave me something new to try out. 😁)

A few of my notes:

350 gm KAF AP flour

100 gm home milled hard white wheat

50 gm home milled hard red winter wheat (was using up a bag of berries).

350 gm water

100 gm starter (100% hydration, very active, might have been just past peak?)

11 gm salt

Mixed flour and water, left covered at room temperature 4 hrs while we went to lunch with family and ran an errand (which was not supposed to take so long, lol)

Hand mixed salt and starter into the autolyse. Bulk fermentation 5.5 hours with hourly coil folds as he recommends. Aliquot was at approximately 60+% and dough was a little jiggly. I didn't want it to go much longer m, so shaped, placed in cold banetton (had pre-chilled it), placed in a bag and refrigerated overnight. 

Banetton out of fridge after 14 hour retard. Toaster oven preheated for 30 min with a cast iron skillet inside. It JUST fits, lol. Lightly spritzed the dough and the inside of a stainless steel bowl with water. Baked at 450F covered with the stainless steel bowl for 20 min, then uncovered for additional 20 min.

Observations:

What a goofy shape, lol! 😂 This was shaped as a batard. It spread out more than up while baking, so half of it took on the shape of the bowl. Now it looks like a boule on one side, with a flat edge on the other. There wasn't much clearance between the bowl and the bread. So when I went to take the bowl off, part of the bread had started sticking to the bowl. I had to quickly work with a butter knife to pry them apart, which left a little scar, lol. The baked bit tasted nice. 🤭 Note to self, grease the bowl a bit if I do this again. And I neglected to notice if it was the front or the back of the loaf that changed shape.

Like my previous bake, the side of the loaf closest to the back of the oven baked faster than the front. Rotating the loaf during baking helped even it out.

And this little oven does a great job maintaining a steady temperature, even after getting the bread in and out a couple of times. Likely the cast iron skillet helped even things out as well. Still, it seems up to the job overall. 

Edit - crumb shot added below, and clarification of a process step above.

A former owner of our home had this BBQ enclosure built by the back patio. We never wanted to use it for it's originally intended purpose, because we didn't want bbq smoke etc accumulating on the painted ceiling of the patio cover. My very talented husband ran power out to it, and now I have an official summer kitchen. Just the thing for baking in the hot AZ summer! I did a test bake today. 

Toaster oven is a Hamilton Beach XL model. It has the ability to bake in convection mode, but I chose to not turn on the fan since this was my first attempt at this. 

Bread is a simple straight dough recipe from KAF (recipe here) though I did change the flour a little:

75% whole wheat (200gm home milled hard red winter wheat, 100 gm home milled hard spring white wheat)

100 gm KAF bread flour

238 gm h20

50 gm oil

85 gm honey

2.5 tsp IDY

28 gm dry nonfat milk

1.25 tsp salt

Hand mixed, (edit, cold rest in frig for 30 min, initial dough temp was 92F, down to 76F after rest), kneaded 10 min

Bulk 90 min

Proof 50 min

Baked at 350F x 20 min, loaf turned 180 degrees and covered w foil, baked another 18 min to internal temp 192F. It's still cooling, crumb shot tomorrow.

Some day I will figure out how to shape a loaf that isn't so short on the ends and tall in the middle. 😂 I even pat it down a little in the pan, trying to get it to be more even end-to-end. Ah well, it tastes the same. I did notice when I spun the loaf that it had baked more toward the back of the oven than the front. The side with the oven spring was towards the front at the beginning of the bake. Next I'll have to make sure it's positioned evenly front to back, and see if it happens again. I may be getting more heat loss through the glass door than elsewhere.

Overall I think this is going to work really well. It kept the kitchen from heating up, and I suspect used much less power than heating up the oven. Thanks to @minioven, you were part of the inspiration for this project. 

Mary

This is my first time making a porridge bread. They always looked more challenging than I was ready to tackle. After reading the entire previous CB that featured this bread (read it several times, lol), I decided to go ahead and give it a try.

Levain:

75 gm, half bread flour, half WW, 100% hydration (9 gm seed culture)

Oat soaker:

125 gm oats (home flaked)

250 gm h2o

Pinch of salt

Dough:

350 gm bread flour

150 gm whole wheat (home milled, hard white wheat)

375 gm water - held back 25 gm

75 gm levain

11 gm salt

Added levain to mixing bowl, then added water and mixed til levain dissolved.

Added flours, mixed to shaggy mass, then rested (covered) 1 hr. 

Boiled water and poured over oats, allowed to soak x 10 min. Much of water was soaked up - added10 gm of held back water and cooked oats slowly (about 12 min), covered and cooled to 85F. Oats were more of a thick paste than creamy, wondered if it was a mistake to not use commercial oats. 

After 1 hour dough rest, added salt and 10 gm held water, mixed til sticky.

Transferred to bulk container and rested 30 min. Folded porridge in slowly (was certain my oat choice was a mistake and no way they would disperse evenly - and then they did). Rested 10 min, then began first S&F sets every 30 min.  

S&F every 30 min. X 6, then rest 1-2 hrs. (Me, bulk may finish fast w warm temp and fresh milled flour). After 2 sets of S&F, swapped ti coil folds x 3 sets total. Dough was extensible and not as slack as I had been reading. It wasn't tight either, but would firm up sine with each set of folds. Total bulk time 3.5 hours. Dough was getting puffy but wasn't jiggly yet, I think it would have benefitted from a little longer bulk. But it was getting late and time for bed.

Turned dough out onto floured surface, sprinkled top with flour and preshaped. It oozed outward somewhat but then stopped. Covered and rested 15 min then shaped, flipped onto towel covered with oats, and put into the banetton seam side up. Seam was sticky and needed extra stitching to get it to stay together. Banetton placed into plastic bag and into frig overnight. 

After 11 hr cold retard, oven preheated with DO at 475F x 1 hr. After preheat, banetton out of fridge, dough flipped onto parchment (it didn't stick ?), scored, sprayed, then loaded into hot DO. Bake covered 20 min at 450F, then uncovered 40 min. 

So far I m pretty happy. After reading some of the hydration issues and trouble getting the dough to cooperate after adding the porridge, I count myself lucky to have it all go this well on my first try. Fresh out of the oven - the proof will be in the crumb shot tomorrow. ?

Update with crumb below. The crust is still crisp but not overly so, with a very soft and moist crumb. It leaves a little gummy residue on the knife, but neither of us notice any gumminess in the chew. Hubby really loves this one, which fits. He's a big fan of any bread with seeds or decorative toppings. All in all, a successful bake. (Note to self, scale this down a little for loaf pan.)

After reading Benito's recent bake, I realized it's been years since I made a simple white bread. Life finally gave me a little room to bake something reasonably quick, so I went with this KAB small Pain de Mie. (Benny, looks like you inspired several of us.... ?)

I followed their recipe and things went just they said.... until it came time to proof the loaf. A last minute change of plans came up, so after bulk and shaping, it went into the fridge for final proof. Six hours later, I put it on the counter while the oven preheated. It rose in the fridge, but only to about an inch below the pan edge. My choice was to wait longer, or cross my fingers and see what oven spring might do if I tried a cold bake (which I have never tried before). I went with the cold-ish bake. Baked in a 9x4 in Pullman pan with the lid on for 25 min at 350F, then lid off for 10 min. The crust was still a tad under baked, so I added another 5 min. bake time. Internal temp 197 when I took it out to cool overnight. 

Not too bad! I think if I had let it warm up and rise a bit more before baking, I would have gotten the square top. It has a very soft crust and crumb, and tastes like - plain bread, lol. I have a personal preference for the various flavors SD and whole grain breads offer, so I am not likely to make this very often. Still, it's worth having as something to do when a basic white bread (or rolls?) are needed.

Mary