Baby Steps … to Bread

Two for you, one for me…

Jalapeno-Cheddar Batard

I’ve made this before, but this time it was even better! I’ve since learned to limit inclusions to 200 grams, and to always do a Batard when heavy with added items. And as with my last loaf of Jalapeno, I included the entire sliced pepper, whole with seeds and pith.

In this bake I stuck with Elaine Boddy’s Master Recipe:

• 500g Bread Flour
• 350g Water + Maybe 20g additional during stretch & folds
• 50g Starter
• 10g Fine Pink Salt

Inclusions:

• 2 Medium Sized Jalapeno Peppers, sliced
• 100g 24-month aged Vermont Sharp Cheddar from our local Meat Store

Baking

In keeping with Elaine Boddy’s method, I cold-baked this bread. Meaning…no preheat on the oven, nor preheat of the Dutch Oven. I just placed the Dutch Oven in the range and dialed the temperature to 450. 55 minutes later I opened the Dutch Oven and it was almost perfect. I baked it open for an extra five minutes. This was done to get a nice color and bring the internal temp up to 200 degrees.

Oat-Milk Cranberry with Nuts & Seeds

A Batard and a Boule for the Thanksgiving Holiday

What to bring to the in-laws; that’s always the question. With my wife just finishing up some medical procedures, she wasn’t in the best shape for her usual baking and cooking. I suggested bread and everyone thought that was a good idea. So now, the pressure was on. With only 10 or 12 bakes under my belt, with some of them complete failures, I was a bit nervous. Okay, so my plan was to bake two of the same loafs, giving me one to sample before heading out the next day.

I settled on an Oat-Milk Cranberry recipe from Elaine Boddy’s book, the Sourdough Whisperer. I love cranberry and I knew that some would enjoy the health aspect of bread made with Oat Milk. I also improvised by adding some Sunflower Seeds, Golden Raisins and a few assorted crushed nuts. For the most part this recipe follows her standard Master Recipe with the exception of using Goat Milk instead of Water. I might have strayed by adding the inclusions during the 2nd Stretch & Fold. I believe the official recipe has you adding 75g of dried cranberries at the beginning when mixing everything else. I also added about 100g of nuts and seeds, which was not in the official recipe.

I shaped one at a Batard and one as a Boule. Elaine’s recipe warns about the stiff dough when using Oat Milk along with all the inclusions. I found this to be true, but still manageable. The crumb of the Boule was very tight, wheras the Batard was open. I’m not exactly sure why, but I might have under-fermented this bake. Since I mixed a double-batch I wasn’t used to the amount of dough in my bowl. I tried the finger-press test and the dough recovered each time and it wasn’t very sticky, so I split the recipe in half and went through the process of stretch & folds along with shaping. I then let it prove in the fridge for about eight hours.

I received a lot of compliments at the dinner gathering, so in the end I guess it was fairly good. The batard I left at home was even better, with a lot of oven-spring. That could be a function of the Kook Pan that I baked it in. I’ve really taken to liking that little pan. It traps tons of steam and it cleans up well.