Thread: Who bakes bread?

Hand carry everything 7 miles from the air strip.
Wow, that’s an impressive effort for daily sustenance.
And tasty looking goods they make. Look like stuff we’d bake.
Today’s loaves, no toppers as I’m all out of sesame and poppy’s.

Baked 15@500 with steam,
Then 25@480, no steam.
Crust is almost charred but not, my favorite for stews and chili’s.
A real roof of mouth scratcher!

Originally Posted by MikeB52

Hand carry everything 7 miles from the air strip.
Wow, that’s an impressive effort for daily sustenance.

I stumbled upon this and I found it well worth the nearly hour long watch. Talk about EFFORT! Plus it's way cool to see how it was done using actual tools and building that was used 150 or so years ago.

The historian's took four professional bakers and set them up in a vintage bakery with vintage recipes and ingredients to make bread that common folks would have eaten daily.

You'll shite when you hear how many calories were needed to be consumed daily by the working class and the majority of those calories came from bread.

I hope all will take the time to watch, learn and enjoy this



PS: 20 stones is 280 pounds----------

My latest batch of yeast bread didn't require anywhere near the effort of the above presentation on how bread was made back in Victorian Days, but it did come out with a bit of a twist.

I'll be seeing if I can slightly cut the recipe back a bit. The texture and taste is wonderful. However even though I let the initial rise get a bit more than double, the container wasn't quite large enough and I had too much protruding from the ends. I could have started baking before it had risen as much but I really like the soft airy texture.



After it had cooled for about 15 minutes, I cut the one end off, then snipped the end of a long bamboo skewer and put some non waxed dental floss and ran it around the tube to loosen it.



Out of the tube. I sliced the end piece up and ate them still warm with butter.



I'm thinking some kind of sandwiches are in order for supper.

Damn I wish Joel (Benz) was still with us to see how he enabled me to try a baking tube like his mother used on occasion. We 'were' going to bake bread in her tube when I rode over next time, but he passed before we could. I sure miss him. Oh well, one day we'll meet again.

In the early 1800s white flour was produced by a process they called boulting. Before that only the wealthy enjoyed white flour and now the "lower classes" could get products with white flour. However what they didn't understand was once you strip away the outer layers you are left with very little nutrition and folks whose diet really depended on bread got the calories but no nutrition and they wondered why they were coming down with diseases. It was only well into the 20th century they realized this and started adding vitamins and minerals in white flour.

Without all the modern conveniences making bread from scratch is tough work and better left to the young.

Looking for inputs
I am going to be making four loafs of sourdough bread using white bread flour and 20% einkorn, spelt, rye or whole wheat. This will be testing to determine if I like any or them. Since the daily temperature has been exceeding 100° and I don't have central air I plan on using these containers.

I will be using this technique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1EBQclnVYU

.
80% hydration
cook at 450° covered for 10 minutes then uncovered until the crust turns dark brown
Any thoughts?

I like all four of those flour adds in my sourdough recipes.
Haven’t tried his technique before but it does look easy.
Keep your adds under 25% of the total weight of flour added or it does get heavy, IMO, and weigh out your loaves accurately before forming for those tins. I’d shoot for around 200-300 grams dough per loaf maybe.
I use a kitchen aid mixer with the dough hook for my entire mix and knead.
Dissolve my salt in hot water, then dilute till my target water is hit. Add my flour, then my starter. 10 minutes later into the bowl for the first rise. 3-4 hrs later cut to loaves and into the baskets and into the fridge for final rise overnight.
Bake the next day whenever and away ya go..
These were with 25% einkorn to hard white on the weekend.

Originally Posted by MikeB52

I like all four of those flour adds in my sourdough recipes.
Haven’t tried his technique before but it does look easy.
Keep your adds under 25% of the total weight of flour added or it does get heavy, IMO, and weigh out your loaves accurately before forming for those tins. I’d shoot for around 200-300 grams dough per loaf maybe.
I use a kitchen aid mixer with the dough hook for my entire mix and knead.
Dissolve my salt in hot water, then dilute till my target water is hit. Add my flour, then my starter. 10 minutes later into the bowl for the first rise. 3-4 hrs later cut to loaves and into the baskets and into the fridge for final rise overnight.
Bake the next day whenever and away ya go..
These were with 25% einkorn to hard white on the weekend.

Excellent Bread Porn….right there !

I needed to complete this step before I could proceed. A customer who was an extensive baker told me about it.



You use bananas that are ripe but not spotted. All green should gone. Line a baking sheet with foil and bake the bananas at 325 F for about 25-30 minutes and allow to cool.

They come out with the same flavor as really ripe banana.



I really should wrap it up tight once it's cool and wait a day for the flavor to improve but it's smelling way too good.

Looks delicious Roy.
Can almost them it from here!

Originally Posted by MikeB52

Looks delicious Roy.
Can almost them it from here!

Instead of using the tooth pick method, I used the ThermoPen to check on inside temperature and pulled it when it was about 202 F/carry over brought it to 205 and it's really nice and moist with a very nice texture. And it tastes great



The yellow bits are dried apricots. Sometimes I'll add nuts or currants just to be different.