Today was a random day at school, we received a mystery basket with some vegetables, meats, starches and dairies and decided on some recipes upon those ingredients.
One of the things we decided to make was bread. I will explain how we make most of our breads in school.
Before you begin, you will need to make your starter, let's call him Boris.
You will use:
- Bread Flour (10oz)
- Active Dried Yeast (1tsp)
- Warm Water (6.5 floz, about 90 F)
- Salt (1 1/4 tsp)
If you don't want to use these exact measurements that is fine. As long as your dough looks like a bread dough.
Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl and knead on medium speed. Let it sit for about 15 minutes, now add the salt and knead about 10 more minutes, until it develops gluten. You can test it by punching it with your finger. It should bounce back, not holding an indentation.
Ps: You should add the salt after a break of 15 min. because salt inhibits gluten development and yeast growth.
Now put the dough, Boris, in a lightly oiled big aluminum bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, leave it in a relatively warm spot of the kitchen (about 90 F) and let it double in size. It will take about 4-6 hrs.
Once it has doubled, punch it down to give the yeast new feed. You may use Boris immediately or retard it in the cooler.
Remove Boris from the cooler about 1 hour before use so that it warms up to room temperature.
Once you have used the amount of Boris needed, you must feed it with a minimum of 1 cup of water (room temp 70-90 F) and 1 cup of Bread Flour. This is a daily measurement.
- If you are using it in a constant basis, feed it with a ratio of more water than bread flour, such as 1 to 0.5 since water will accelerate its growth.
- If you are not using it in a daily basis, feed it with more flour than water, such as 0.5 to 1. This will give it structure and not let it grow to much.
- If you are using it a lot and you feel it is diminishing in size, feed it a bigger quantity of food, such as 2 to 2.
- You can also feed it with some new starter from the new bread you are making that day.
- That would be a portion of your flour, yeast, water, salt and Boris. After it has been fermented twice and before you are about to form it and proof it. That is the moment when you would take a portion of it and feed it to Boris.
10 Steps in Bread Production:
- Preheat oven at 550 F.
- Scale ingredients:
- 12 oz Boris (starter)
- 24 oz Bread flour
- 1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 15.25 floz water (90 F)
- 0.5 oz Kosher salt
- Bread flour as needed
- In a mixer, with a bread hook attached, mix the flour, water and yest in medium speed for 1 minute. The water and yeast should be mixed together before so that yeast does not lump. Now add Boris and mix for 2 minutes. Now stop and let the dough rest for 15-30 minutes. This is called Autolyse. This allows the starch of the flour to absorb the water. Resume mixing and add the salt at the end of the process. If needed add a touch of more bread flour. Mix well until resistance is felt when the dough is tugged on. At this point the dough should feel sticky but elastic.
- 1st Bulk Fermentation: put the dough in an oiled container and cover it with plastic wrap. Outline the the outside of the dough with a marker on the plastic wrap. This way you will notice when it doubles in size. Place it in a warm spot of the kitchen (90F) and let it ferment.
- Once it has doubled, punch it down to even out the temperature of the dough and give the yeast new feed.
- 2nd Bulk Fermentation: This will help develop structure and flavor development, especially at high altitudes.
- Once it has doubled in size again, scale and weight your dough. Give it an extra 13% weight since it will evaporate once baked.
- Shape your dough to the desired shape, such as a Baguette or a Miche shape. Hint: When making Baguette, if you want it to have bigger air bubbles and a crunchier and darker crust shape them initially only to half their length size and let it proof. After 30 minutes gently stretch it out to its final shape and let it proof until done. This way you are stretching out the initially-formed bubbles length wise (horizontally), making them bigger and giving the a bigger shape to grow taller).
- Place your bread on a Couche (your "Bread Bed" can be made by placing a clean and folded in 6 parts table cloth on the under part of a baking sheet and covering it with flour). place a small container with steaming water next to your dough that is about to ferment and cover it without touching it, such as with a plastic box. This is called Proofing. It should double in size. You can test for doneness when you punch it with your finger and it holds its shape. Place it on a Bread Peel covered with a little bit of flour and corn meal (so that the bread slides easily from the peel) and Score your bread at a sharp 45 degree angle. this will break the surface tension of your bread and allow it to expand correctly during the baking process. Obs: you place your Couche on the back of a baking sheet because when you transfer it to the bread peel it will slide downwards, more easily without hurting the delicate risen dough.
- Immediately after scoring place it on the bread stone of the hot oven. Now put a sheet pan with about 1 cup of ice water on the bottom of the oven. This steam will retard the crust formation of the bread, making it grow taller. The combination of the steam, hot air and carbohydrates will also give the bread a caramel color as it bakes.
- Once ready (it should have an internal temperature of 190 F), remove it from the oven and let it sit for 15 minutes before cutting. This will allow the gluten strends to cool and reconnect.
We had our dough rising in a basket called Willow Banneton. That is how it got this shape.
The Beurre Rouge that I made that turned out very nicely. We ate it with our Pan Seared Striped Bass.
Also, I roasted the Delicata Squash seeds from the Squash that was used to make our soup.
It was a nice Garnish for our Soup, thrown in right before serving time. This way they kept crunchy.
Above you can see the Beurre Rouge and the Roasted and Salted Squash Seeds.
Making Beurre Rouge:
Beurre Blanc (made with white wine)/Beurre Rouge (made with red wine) evolved from the practice of enriching cooking liquids with butter.
It is made by preparing a flavorful reduction of vinegar or (and) wine then whisking very rapidly pieces of butter into it while it is still hot and on the stove.
Each piece of butter carries all the ingredients necessary for a new portion of sauce, so it's up to the you to decide how much butter you want to use in your sauce.
The consistency of the Beurre Rouge should be similar to the consistency of thick cream. If you wish to make it thicker you can do so by using clarified butter (which does not contain water particles) once the initial emulsion with butter has been formed.
Detail: You need to use normal butter to form an initial emulsion between the fat and the acidic liquid in Beurre Blanc (Rouge) because the complete butter contains protein particles that make this emulsion happen.
Once you create an emulsion and get it to the consistency and adjusted flavor that you desire, you should keep you Beurre Rouge warm but not hot.
If it gets over 135 F it will begin to separate and leak butter fat.
If it gets below 86 F (body temperature) the fat crystals will solidify and separate from the liquid as well.
An overheated Beurre Blanc that has been broken can be restored by adding a bit of cool water while whisking.
The addition of a bit of cream at the end process of making your Beurre Blanc provides the sauce with more emulsifying materials. This makes the Beurre Rouge more stable.
Above you can see a Striped Bass en Papillote. It is fairly easy to make, but since it does not get any Maillard browning flavor, I advice you to use flavorful vegetables that are well seasoned so that the steamed final product tastes interesting.
You can fill the fish and vegetable Papillote with fresh seasoned Bell Peppers, seasoned Red Onions and Fresh Herbs. This combination will create a more intense Papillote "surprise".
Delicata Squash Soup Ingredients.
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