Oatmeal Bread

I admit, I was half-expecting these oatmeal loaves (from Hamelman's Bread) to turn out disastrously as I was plagued with so much doubt and uncertainty while I was making the dough.  Whenever I make pan breads, the dough is oftentimes very slack and slightly tacky while this one was actually very stiff (though a little sticky because of the honey) causing me to wonder if I should've added more water to the mix.  After going through a few bread baking failures recently, I didn't want to risk another one by altering the formula even if it meant just adding a little water.  A little dissuaded, I still pressed on though and even did an overnight bulk fermentation which is an optional step in all of Hamelman's straight dough breads.  Come morning, the dough was even stiffer for obvious reasons but it certainly wasn't an encouraging sight for me and I was even tempted to throw all of it away and start all over again.  

Five-Grain Sourdough with Rye Sourdough

I recently had a charcoal-fed oven made to use specifically for bread baking and I'm thrilled with the results that I got when I baked Hamelman's Five Grain Sourdough with Rye Sourdough with it.  After pre-heating it for more than an hour with a good amount of charcoal, I slid the unbaked loaves right in, closed the door and waited for the oven to do its magic.  I got mixed results using this oven though, the first batch I made (Hamelman's Whole Wheat Multigrain) had good oven spring but they flattened eventually during cooling.  Having already made a few loaves with this oven, I know now that the key is to really heat up the masonry for at least an hour or even more which will ensure even heating of the bricks resulting in proper convection, radiation and conduction.   

Five Grain Levain

I try to avoid buying multigrain breads from bakeshops around here because I've always been dissatisfied with the flavor and texture of the loaves I end up with.  Most of the time they're bland, dry or have this very rough feel on the palate.  Ever since I started making my own multigrain breads though, the first being Peter Reinhart's Multigrain Struan from his book "Whole Grain Breads," I realized that it's quite possible for any avid home baker to make flavorful multigrain breads that could surpass any commercial variety as long as you use the best ingredients and the proper techniques.  I'm thankful that there are great bread books out there that provide exceptional formulas as well as thorough  instructions that are geared towards the home baker and whatever simple equipment they may have in their kitchens.  Hamelman's book "Bread," though not a book dedicated solely to whole grains, has a comprehensive list of formulas containing whole grains and this Five Grain Levain bread is one of the healthiest and certainly the tastiest from that list and it thrills me to think that I made these myself in the comfort of my own kitchen! 

Cheese Bread

Among all the levain breads that I made from Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, this Cheese Bread was the most successful one so far. I got really good oven spring and oven bloom during the bake and the loaves had a very crisp and crackly crust that they sung!!  I'm pretty pleased with the flavor and openness of the crumb as well....it's definitely a must to use really good cheese -- I think any hard cheese like Parmesan, Asiago, and Gruyere would work really well.  Given this bread's very good results as well as all the other successful bakes I had from Bread, I might just bake through the entire book!  I'm actually (unintentionally) just a few recipes away from completing the chapter on levain breads and the process of creating these loaves in the few months since I started on this book has really helped me understand the complexities of sourdough bread making.  Hamelman's book is definitely one of the best if not THE BEST book you can get your hands on if you really want to understand baking with wild yeasts.

Olive Levain

I think I've already made around 6 breads from Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes and so far, I've not been disappointed with any of them.  This Olive Levain bread is definitely the tastiest one out of the 6 that I made and I regret only making one loaf instead of two.  I've developed this habit of halving bread recipes that make 2 or more loaves (especially if I'm a little uncertain about how they would taste like) and if I only knew that we would be finishing this within mere minutes, then I would've made two or even four loaves for that matter...it's really that good!  But since this bread includes, as Hamelman puts it, "high-octane" ingredients like kalamata olives, it would be extremely expensive to make 4 loaves at once given that I would have to buy a pound of olives just for them!  So I guess it will only be 2 loaves max the next time I make this LOL.  Hamelman did mention though that the amount of olives in the recipe can be decreased by about 20% which would still give the bread a distinct olive flavor.  Well, since I was baking this for our own consumption I didn't bother lessening the olives and went for the full amount which was 4 ounces for half the recipe.  I think you can even play around with the flavor of this bread by using a variety of olives or even the ones that have stuffing in them like anchovies, peppers, etc.  I'm going to try that next time.

Semolina Bread with Black Sesame Seeds

Before I even tried making this sourdough semolina bread found in Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, I first did some research about the differences between semolina flour and durum wheat flour.  What I've learned (in a nutshell) is that both semolina and durum flour are both ground from the endosperm of the durum wheat kernel but semolina is coarser and more yellow while durum flour is a by-product of the grinding of the semolina and has the consistency of regular flour with only a slight yellowish hue.  Many of the books that I've read strongly suggest only using fancy or extra fancy durum flour instead of semolina flour as the latter may not work for a particular bread recipe.  I've read from a few websites though that semolina flour could still yield excellent results in bread making if allowed a lengthy autolyse (about 30 minutes or longer).  Having a few pounds of the actual durum flour that I bought from a local Italian food supplier will delay my finding out if this is true or not though.  For anyone who wants to learn more about durum wheat and its gluten properties, etc this is a great article.     

Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat

I'm starting to get the hang of making sourdough bread and this time, I chose to make another version of Vermont Sourdough found in Hamelman's book which contains 10% whole wheat flour instead of whole rye flour.  The replacement of exactly the same amount of whole wheat flour was the only difference between the two recipes and I wonder why Hamelman had to dedicate a few pages for the whole wheat version where everything (ingredients, percentages, procedure) was exactly how it was written in the Vermont Sourdough's formula.  He could've just mentioned as an aside that the rye flour could be substituted with the same amount of whole wheat flour which also gives the bread a very distinct characteristic despite the very trivial difference.  But according to him, there is an unmistakeable  difference between the two which warrants giving this version a formula of its own.   I'm not a sourdough expert by any means but I was quite curious to see what these distinct differences are but mostly, I just wanted to replicate the same oven spring and open crumb that I achieved when I made the first VS.  

Golden Raisin Bread

Whenever I browse the pages of a new bread book, I always get excited when I find that it contains a few raisin bread recipes in them.  I just love the flavor and sweetness that raisins give to any bread and I would gladly have it it as my only meal of the day -- it's especially nice with cheddar cheese or jam.  Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes has (much to my delight) a number of bread offerings with raisins in them like a golden raisin and walnut bread that makes use of a yeasted pre-ferment (sponge), a sourdough rye bread with raisins and walnuts, a straight dough version that has golden raisins and pecans, and also this levain version that I made which makes use of a liquid white starter and has quick-cooking oats and lots of golden raisins in it!  I do plan to make all of these raisin bread versions soon but I settled for this recipe as I wanted to make use of my newly cultivated white starter.  I also have never tasted a sourdough raisin bread before so I was really excited and very curious to try this out.