65K

i am officially humbled. i just checked the traffic to the tartine bread experiment, and it seems that since i began this project, 65,000 viewers have visited my blog. sixty-five thousand! think. if i had you all over for dinner, i would have to haul out the folding chairs from the attic.

sprouted white winter wheat boule with sprouted whole grains

thank you for popping by now and again to see what's going on. it's amazing to me that this thing that started as a personal curiosity would end up being a curiosity to so many of you too (i actually started this blog because i was so irritated to find that after i moved to l.a. from the bay area that there really is no good bread here, well, tavern's larder, sure, but they're a million miles away, and a million dollars for a loaf).

sprouted rye boule with sprouted whole grains

i know that many of you are bloggers just the same, and i want to let you know that i frequent your blogs too. you help me to stay inspired with the bread that you bake (and if anyone is doing frangiapane anything out there, you have my heart, lock, stock and barrel).

rye

barbara at my italian smorgasbord, sara at three clever sisters, mc at mc-farine, susan at wild yeast are just a few to name. every week i have a look-see to catch up on what everyone's doing, and i bookmark the pages to some day bake all the beautiful bread that i see over yonder. one of these days i'm actually going to open one of my million bread books so that i can become a better baker.

rye

listen up.

so this week i sprouted my own rye and white winter wheat berries for my bread. dammit, i sprouted my own grains! and boy did the loaves come out swell! well, i will say this. the interior grains were tender as all get-out, grains on the outside of the bread were a tad chewy the day of the bake, but the next day they were fine.

rye

while i was on this sprouting roll, i also decided to try my hand at a batch of rejuvelac, a fermented drink that's sort of like kombucha, but you ferment grains instead of using a skoby culture, and there's no sugar in the equation, which is why i stopped making my own kombucha. i will let you know if it turns out to be gross.

white winter wheat

i've really got nothing to report. my brain is fried from this heat wave. it's been 90+ degrees every day for two weeks and i'm feeling every degree of it, so i apologize now that i have nothing to say. i can barely move let alone conjure up interesting tidbits.

can you believe i actually turned the oven on in this heat wave? damn. that's some serious dedication.

sprouted white winter wheat and rye boules with sprouted whole grains

THE DEETS

two days before i planned to bake, i sprouted 100g each of white winter wheat and rye grains (separately) like this: in a mason jar (see the picture above), i soaked them for 24 hours first. the next day i rinsed them well, drained them, then covered the opening of the jar with a piece of cheesecloth secured with a rubber band. every 8 hours i rinsed and drained them like this for two days. by the end of the second day they had sprouted little white tails about 1/8 inch long. i popped this in the fridge until 2 hours before my levain was ready, then i simmered the grains for an hour until they started to burst (if you don't cook the grains long enough, you will end up with tough grains on the crust of the bread). drain, set aside to cool.

 sprouted rye

sprouted white winter wheat

on bake day i made my levains. for the rye levain i dissolved 30g of sprouted rye starter with 50g of water then mixed in 50g of sprouted rye flour. the same weights for the white winter wheat levain, except i used my sprouted white winter wheat starter and sprouted white winter wheat flour. you, however, can use whatever you please. my levains fermented for 7 hours.

FOR THE WHITE WINTER WHEAT DOUGH

130g sprouted white winter wheat levain
332g h2o
100g sprouted white winter wheat flour
400g KA all purpose flour
all of the cooked, sprouted white winter wheat grains
12g salt

FOR THE RYE DOUGH

130g sprouted rye levain
325g h2o
100g sprouted rye flour
400g KA bread flour
all of the cooked, sprouted rye grains
12g salt

mix the flours and water for both doughs, cover, autolyse for an hour. after an hour, squish the salt into the dough, then fold in the grains

autolyse

THE FOUR-HOUR BULK FERMENT, BENCH and PROOF

perform a series of turns every half hour for the first two hours at room temp. then pop in the fridge and finish the last 2 hours of the bulk ferment. covered, of course.

fermented dough

after the dough has adequately fermented, turn it out onto a rice-floured work surface, form into a loose round and let it rest for 30 minutes.

after the bench, generously dust a linen with rice flour and line a bowl with it. form the boules, then pop into the linen-lined bowls. pop in the fridge and proof overnight, covered. mine proofed for 12 or 13 hours.

BAKE DAY

an hour before you plan to bake, preheat the oven to 550 fitted with your stone and two cast iron combos. unmold your dough by first placing a sheet of parchment over the dough bowl, then inverting the dough/parchment onto a peel. peel off the linen, score, and pop into the shallow end of the combo, parchment and all.

cover with the deep end of the combo and turn the oven down to 475 and let the loaves steam for 30 minutes.

steamed loaves

after 30 minutes, remove the lid to the combos (use an oven mitt to avoid a nasty steam burn!), turn the oven down to 450 and bake till chestnut. about 30-40 minutes more, rotating the pans at least once so they bake evenly, or the backsides will burn.

cool on a rack, and be patient. your boules should rest for at least an hour and a half to two hours before you cut into them.

THE HEAD SHOTS

to the staff of life!

(p.s., this post is shared with susan at wild yeast blog, ya dig?)

life is too fast, life is too slow...

we are ornery, selfish, hedonistic beasts, aren't we? we want it, we want it now, we want it all, and we want never to feel anything but bliss.

i've been paring down on these bits, doing my best anyway. i think that if we stop for a moment, quiet ourselves, we soon discover that the sound of our jumbled thoughts really gets in the way of things. this cacophony inhibits us from being present and finding joy, even in the sad little things. if there was no sadness, then we would never be able to understand the value of joy. likewise, with whose measuring stick are you using to quantify your little miseries? just consider for a moment.... yeah. see what i mean?

just be quiet now. still your chattery, self-critical mind. it ain't all so bad. and you really already have all that you need. just breathe and let. it. go.

50% sprouted spelt boule

so, i've been tossing around this thought that rumbled across my head not too long ago: RUSTIC JOY (don't bother, the dot com is already taken). yes, think about it. the whole world is craving it, doubt me and head over to pinterest. have a look-see. all of that architecture using reclaimed this and unearthed that, houses made with wood from stumbled upon outhouses.

we are obsessed with rusticity of late, the world as a whole, really, even the french. yes, the french. i stumbled across a parisian girl's blog post not too long ago, and in it, she was over the moon about having just created a cloche using 'found' sparrow feathers. the real art was in the natural artistry of the bird's plumage rather than the girl's millinery prowess, and it was also likely that the poor bird died an indescribably gruesome death at the mitts of some cat since the pile of feather's was found in what sounded like a paris drain gutter. i was a cheerleader for her little piece of found joy nonetheless. she had hammered together something useful out of a rotten thing. and the craving for such earthy ingenuity is spreading across the net like a great conflagration, hungry to burn out our errant and nugatory ways and set the record straight again.

it seems like droves of us want to swap out our metropolitan landscapes for those more pastoral. we are, many of us, in desperate need of star-strewn skies and the primitive rasp of a cricket's mating call piercing the obsidian night. we want to live in shacks whose floors are paved with dirt. we want to grow things in dirt, manufacture things out of dirt. we are in a tizzy over dirty things. earthy things. the infrastructure of our very lives, after all, has been forged of mineral and clay. we are craving a return to the beginning.

it's all just too much, this world. spinning too fast. crammed too tightly. shouting too loud. and it's far too pretty in a really contrived way. this world. we have laminated it with so much sparkle and shimmer that we are all just hankering for a dirtier brand of joy, one that still has the bran on it, one with a natural bit of chew. we've all had our experiences masticated for us for far too long. and there is promise that this great resurgence to return to our roots could connect us to our higher power, our impetus, and give some greater meaning to the breath that we have been gifted. i can think of no greater way to evolve than to remove those unnecessary parts of ourselves and lay ourselves bare. for it is when we lie unmasked that the truth of our paths are revealed.

alas, we are human, and a year of all that dirty, earthy, hippie living will have us showering and grumbling that it's all just moving too slowly. finicky, we.

speaking of bran and chewing through a more substantial life, my bread today is made of 50% sprouted spelt. and i probably shouldn't put this in print, but my neighbor pirouetted across the courtyard this morning to tell me that she had eaten it for supper with her beau and pronounced it 'orgasmic' with the first bite. such a word for this rustic bread.

of course, anyone who describes my bread so lasciviously gets immediately added to the list of recipients who can have a half-loaf at week's end.

have a look.

50% sprouted spelt bread.

i used sprouted spelt from to your health in this formula, a miller that mills their sprouted flours to order. the flavor is beyond compare, as you can imagine. and just so you know, i have been feeding my starters with their sprouted flours, and they are rising at least 25% more than when i use other non-sprouted flours. i seriously recommend using sprouted flours for your health, though they do cost a kings' ransom.

this formula will make one 70% hydration loaf with amazingly evolved, earthy/nutty flavors and a definitive tang, but not overly-so. if you prefer a loaf with less acidity, cut the final proof to 4 hours, refrigerated.

FOR THE LEVAIN, THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BAKE

50g sprouted spelt starter
157g h2o
157g sprouted spelt flour

mix the above t make a paste. ferment overnight, covered, in a bowl.

BAKE DAY

364g levain
350g h2o
250g sprouted spelt flour
250g KA organic bread flour
13g salt

dissolve the levain with the water. mix in the flours. make a cohesive mass (this is an easy to manage loaf), cover and autolyse for 40 minutes. after the autolyse, squish the salt into the dough with your fingers.

4 HOUR BULK FERMENT

for the first two hours of the bulk ferment, perform a series of turns every half hour like this: scoop your hand under the dough mass, pull the bottom over the top, spin the bowl, repeat, then repeat once more. you will do this 4 times in two hours.

for the final two hours of the bulk ferment, pop the dough in the fridge and let it do its thing.

BENCH. SHAPE. PROOF

after the bulk ferment, carefully scrape the dough onto a counter lightly sprinkled with organic brown rice flour. form a loose round. rest on the bench for 15 minutes.

after the rest, shape into a tight boule. sprinkle a linen with rice flour (liberally - ain't nothing like doing all that work to find your dough sticking to a linen that has not been dusted amply), line a bowl with such, pop the dough, smooth side down into the linen. pop in the fridge to proof for at least 4 hours, and up to... let's see, mine proofed overnight for 8 hours an 45 minutes.

BAKE

one hour before you plan to bake, get a combo cooker into the oven fitted with a baking stone on the middle shelf. preheat to 550 degrees.

pull the dough from the fridge, fit a piece of parchment over the bowl, place a peel on top of the parchmented bowl and invert the bowl.

remove the linen. score (i'm still trying to come up with a signature score for this bread). slide the boule into the shallow end of the combo cooker, parchment and all. cover with the fatty end, slide into the oven, turn down to 475 degrees and bake, covered, for 30 minutes.

after 30 minutes, remove the cover, spin the pan 180 degrees for even baking, turn the oven down to 450 degrees and bake till chestnut brown. mine took another 30 minutes exactly.

verdict:
crust: good shattery crust, amazingly so. flavor: nutty, earthy flavor. mid-acidity, not too powerful though. crumb structure: lovely, lovely crumb. light, moist, fully gelatinized. the perfect texture.

to the staff of life!

shared with sister susan over at wild yeast blog.

seigle d'auvergne

seigle means rye. d'auvergne means 'of auvergne', or, the auvergne region of france known for its, well, rye bread and cheeses. seigle (pronounced seg, with a very short 'l' that lives as a whisper on the sides of the tongue. so, say 'seg(whisper)l'.

my seigle turned out as well as i had imagined it would. auspicious crackling, very (uber!) moist crumb that will probably keep for the duration of my enjoyment of it. as well we all know, rye breads can last for quite a while.

i used daniel leader's 'classic auvergne dark rye' as a template for this seigle (page 158 of 'local breads'), but i modified the formula quite a bit in terms of hydration, fermentation times, and fermentation method, and type of flour. i used dark rye, i believe his formula calls for light.

the crust was nice and crisp when it came out of the oven. i waited until the next day to slice it, and the crust was as tender as the crumb.

i realized today that this seigle is a window that peeks into my preferences. i'm a product of two hippie parents. we were a farm-to-table family, drawing our nourishment from a very large, urban garden in our back yard. while our neighbors barbecued, our vegetarian family harvested okra and shelling beans. alice waters thinks she began the farm to table movement in america, but i think it was my father. well, at least in my life he did.

we thought he was a crazy old man back then, my father, with his compost pile and a tiller that looked like it belonged to a weathered farmer with sod-caked hands. what he was was an urban farmer with high ideals about what his family should eat.

he orchestrated the planting of our plot and the rest of us, we carried out his vision, one that, of course, at the time i did not appreciate and could not know would be the foundation of how i would think about food when i got older. now, in my adult years, when my friends grapple with weight and urges for fast food, i get hankerings for dandelion greens with a little lemon and olive oil. it is now that i thank my father for honing a natural inclination toward the earth and its flavors. he is gone now, but his vision lives on in me.

seigle. i began this earthy loaf with a 75% hydration starter that i made from the 100% hydration, 100% rye starter that i keep, the mother of all my breads. i have a deep, deep respect for her. she has fed me well, and provides weekly miracles that astound me even still, this one and a quarter years after i first began exploring my bread path with her.

this seigle will happily pair with one of the auvergne-produced cheeses - bleu d'auvergne, salers, fourme d'ambert, saint nectaire, cantal...

saint nectaire is known as 'the rye cheese', since it is aged in rye straw. how much more romantic can one get than that? this is the orchestra of eating that i strive for - this earthy bread, the harmony of a cheese that was borne to wed with it, and perhaps a ripe tomato and a fistful of greens.

i had a ploughman's lunch today with my seigle, a bit of bleu d'auvergne, saint nectaire, some avocado, red onion, cucumbers and the  ripest, sweetest tomato a girl could hope for. (BTW, we grew the best tomatoes in our urban garden, and my mother would can them for the winter months to come. i was a lucky kid. hindsight, you know...).

life is good. but it's so much better with bread that you bake with your very own hands. thank you for meeting me here at the page once again. enjoy your seigle d'auvergne, and please let me know how yours turns out for you!

seigle d'auvergne

the night before the bake

make your levain by mixing the following:

45g 75% hydration 100% rye starter

50g h2o

50g organic dark rye flour, i used BRM

cover and let ferment overnight (mine fermented for 12 hours).

(*to make your 100% hydrated starter into one that is 75% do the following: in the morning of the day before you plan to make the levain, scoop out 36g of starter, add to a jar with 36g of dark rye flour and 27g water. mix and feed once again in the evening. the next day it will be ready to use for your levain).

bake day!

500g organice dark rye flour, i used BRM

200g strong bread flour, i used KA

550g h2o

125g levain

10g salt

in the bowl of your stand mixer, dissolve the levain in 450g of the h2o, add the rye flour and mix until a smooth, thick, cohesive dough forms.

hey, you know i'm a purest and prefer to make all of my bread by hand, but a dough with such a high percentage of rye will make you grateful that you have a stand mixer. the dough is far too sticky to knead by hand. trust me.

let this autolyse for an hour and 20 minutes.

dissolving the levain, mixing with the seigle flour

the levain, water, and seigle flour amply amalgamated, ready for autolyse

after autolyse

 after autolyse, up close

after the autolyse, add the remaining 100g h2o, the bread flour and salt. machine knead for 9 minutes on the low setting of your mixer using the dough hook attachment (don't use the paddle, even though it might seem like a good idea), scraping down the sides every minute to ensure that all of the flour and water is incorporated.

the dough will be thick and smooth, more like a batter

scrape the sides of the bowl, cover with a plate or a sheet of plastic wrap, or whatever, and begin the 2 hour 40 minute bulk fermentation.

the dough, ready for bulk fermentation

 pre-ferment, up close

 the dough, fully fermented, 2 hours 40 minutes at moderate room temp (73 degrees or so)

after the 2 hour 40 minute bulk fermentation, pour the dough onto a floured bench and rest 10 minutes.

fermented dough on the bench 

the best you can, and don't get frustrated, this is a very sticky dough, and you will not be able to make a perfect boule, shape into a quasi-boule, and plop this (with all your apprehensions in place) into a bowl lined with a linen that has been VERY well dusted with organic brown rice flour. your fingers will be coated with this dough. you will think that you did something wrong, you will want to pitch it, but here's the thing: you did everything right. it is supposed to be sticky with no apparent gluten formation.

pop this into the fridge and proof for an hour and 50 minutes.

your boule, it's gonna look crazy, embrace it!

crazy 'boule' - fully proofed boule! 

okay, you can get excited after you unveil your proofing dough because it will look like the one above...

after 1 hour 50 minutes (45 minutes before bake time, you should have preheated your oven to 550 degrees with a baking stone in place, and a combo cooker heating up to smoking hot along with it), place a piece of parchment over the boule/bowl, place a peel over the parchment and swiftly invert.

remove the bowl and linen to reveal your beauty.

unveiled 

slide the boule, still on the parchment, into the shallow end of your piping hot combo cooker and pop the deep half of the combo cooker on top. slide it into the oven, turn it down to 500 degrees...

 the boule in the shallow part of the combo cooker

bake for 30 minutes with the lid on. after 30 minutes, remove the lid...

a properly steamed seigle 

turn the oven down to 475, bake for another 13 minutes or so. then turn the oven down to 450 degrees and bake till adequately browned. mine baked for another another 17 minutes for a total bake time of 1 hour. of course, cool on a wire rack.

 the seigle is done

it is best to slice high-proportion ryes the next day. the crust, after it comes out of the oven, should be crisp, and the next day it will be velvet-soft. the crumb should be moist, compact, and homogeneous but light, not heavy or gummy.

the headshots

to the staff of life!

this post has been sent over to wild yeast blog's yeast spotting.