I am still testing the new method..

I realized that I am not still satisfied with the new method..   I want to have my bread nicely browned like caramelized popcorn .    Although I don’t to burn my bread.. Even dark bread. I think that they are so beautiful and appealing, but I am questioning about the health fact.

I changed the temperature little bit.  Put the loaves in the oven at 280F and increase the temperature to 430F immediately and bake for 15 minutes.  Then transfer the loaves on the rack to prevent to burn the bottom then decrease the temperature to 400F, and finished up for another 5-10 minutes.

Pretty good so far.. I keep trying until I can reach to the goal!

 

Happy baking!

 

The new method to bake hard bread.

Don’t you have the experience that you feel too lazy to bite off the hard crust? I have been working on the method to have softer crust for few weeks. You may notice if you read my previous posts.

I always felt a waste when I saw my daughter and my husband left a chunk of whole crust.  And I did the same thing because I don’t have strong teeth. lol

Anyway, I can confirm that this method only works with 70% hydration dough or less after baking over 20 loaves.

This method also works for me to maintain my weak oven. lol

1. Bake at 280F for 10 minutes.
2. Increase the temperature to 430F for 15 minutes.
3. Decrease to 400 F and bake about 5 minutes or, until golden brown.

That is it.

Aghh… I better take a picture during using natural sun light..

I am happy with my current bread because everybody eats my entire bread now.

My next goal is to have perfect oven spring for the round bread!!!

Happy baking,

Akiko

 

 

Fixing my oven…

I don’t fix my oven, that is my husband’s job..

Oh well,  It was the same ignition wire again!  How many times did I burn this ?

May be 4 times…  😦

This oven is over 16 years old, and I have just overused since we moved in. lol

I may be able to start baking from tomorrow… 🙂

 

 

Strawberry short cake for my daughter’s birthday.

I broke my oven two days before my daughter’s birthday.  I tried to bake a small cake with the toaster oven that I have.  It didn’t go well as I expected. They were not evenly cooked, there was ugly dense in the center etc…  but the taste was okay.

I am so lucky that I have a very nice neighbor who has been being friends more than the neighbor. She offered me to use her oven, so I baked two sponge cakes at her house. My daughter LOVES the neighbor’s daughter whose name is Christina.  My daughter and Christina were my assistant on the day. They almost grew up together since my daughter was born.

 

 

I broke my oven again.. but..

I have been baking three to four times a week for a month now although I hadn’t have updated til now.

Last night, I prepared two sourdough loaves, I was so happy to transfer these ready -to-go dough into the oven to see their oven springs.  Ah oh… I forgot to preheat the oven,though I previously used it for dinner anyway.. the temperature was 245F. So, I tossed them into the oven.

After 15 minutes, I was surprised to see their oven springs!

Then I tried to increased the temperature to 430F, but the oven temperature kept going down and down.. 😦   ”  The ignition code is burned again!!! may be two of them..)

 

I may try the method again when I make hard bread!

The taste was as good as usual.  🙂

Happy baking!

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Japanese sandwich loaves.

Japanese sandwich loaf ( quick bread)

It has been over 2 years since I made this bread.  And what?  I forgot to add salt!!

Well, they are still edible… 😛

I really need to prepare every ingredients on the table for now!

Happy baking!

 

Koubo by Akiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

 

 

Rustic bread with pure sourdough ( 70% hydration)

 

 

Recipe:   2 loaves

Levain :  Used 70% hydration sourdough       314g

Final dough:   King Arthur all purpose flour   779g

King Arthur whole wheat flour      69g

Water               524g

Honey               11g

Molasses        4g

Salt               19g

 

Method is the same as the Rustic bread with raisin yeast water

 

My family and I have been liking more and more sourdough bread, which has more sour flavor to the bread.

I have been baking this bread once or twice a week for now.  We all love this bread.

Koubo by Akiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

 

 

 

 

Sourdough bread

It had been a long and severe winter this year, which affect my bread badly that I was not able to bake nice bread. So, I took a break such as many animals hibernate in the winter.

I have dried pure sourdough starter . I soaked some of them in purified water a couple weeks ago and worked on until it was ready to bake.  I started to bake about 10 days ago, but I keep forgetting to take pictures.

I made rustic bread  instead of using raisin yeast water.

This sourdough is slightly sour, which I was looking for, and I am very pleased with this bread.

Koubo by Akiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

 

Crumb comparison

 

  Fresh fruit yeast water vs Dry fresh yeast water

I tried many kind of fresh yeast water, then I have always had a question.   Why are all of the crumb with fresh fruit yeast water are so moist? Sometimes, they taste good, sometimes they have too much moist.  As daily breads, I rather make raisin yeast water bread.

However,It is good to bake these kind of breads with fresh yeast water when I look for something new.

From my experiences, Strawberry yeast water bread didn’t have much moisture compare to apple yeast water bread.  Grapefruit yeast water was the worst that nobody liked the flavor to the bread when I made.

Raisin yeast water bread crumb is just like regular bread that we taste at bakery shops, but, raisin yeast water bread has more pleasant smell and aroma.

That is my conclusion that Pectin in fresh fruit yeast water makes moist crumb. The more pectin in the fresh fruit, the more you will get moisture in the bread. I also think that fresh fruit high in pectin interrupt to rise.

Dry fruits don’t have enough pectin to make Jelly, except adding more sugar or fresh fruit juice.  In additon to say,  you may be surprised the fact that fully ripe fresh fruits have less pectin than unripe fresh fruits.

 

 

 Reference:  from Wikipedia

Sources and production

Pears, apples, guavas, quince, plums, gooseberries, oranges and other citrus fruits, contain large amounts of pectin, while soft fruits like cherries, grapes and strawberries contain small amounts of pectin.

Typical levels of pectin in plants are (fresh weight):

• apples, 1–1.5%

• apricots, 1%

• cherries, 0.4%

• oranges, 0.5–3.5%

• carrots approx. 1.4%

• citrus peels, 30%

The main raw materials for pectin production are dried citrus peel or apple pomace, both by-products of juice production. Pomace from sugar beet is also used to a small extent.

From these materials, pectin is extracted by adding hot dilute acid at pH-values from 1.5 – 3.5. During several hours of extraction, the protopectin loses some of its branching and chain length and goes into solution. After filtering, the extract is concentrated in vacuum and the pectin then precipitated by adding ethanol or isopropanol. An old technique of precipitating pectin with aluminium salts is no longer used (apart from alcohols and polyvalent cations, pectin also precipitates with proteins and detergents).

Alcohol-precipitated pectin is then separated, washed and dried. Treating the initial pectin with dilute acid leads to low-esterified pectins. When this process includes ammonium hydroxide, amidated pectins are obtained. After drying and milling, pectin is usually standardised with sugar and sometimes calcium salts or organic acids to have optimum performance in a particular application.^[11]

Worldwide, approximately 40,000 metric tons of pectin are produced every year.^[ci

 

 

Koubo by Akiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

 

Saf instant yeast

Have you ever used Saf instant yeasts?  There are several saf-instant yeasts in here.

Basically, This red one is for regular kind of breads, and the gold one is for breads contain high fat and sugar such as Danish pastry and croissant, the beautiful flaky layers is achieved by repeatedly rolling out a dough.

A Japanese zealous home baker , especially for perfect baguette used Blue Saf-instant yeast to make perfect baguette.  I wanted to introduce her awesome baguettes here, but unfortunately she deleted her blog when I looked up.

 

There is a reason that I bought it online is that one of my best bread friends whose name “K” strongly recommended to me to use this brand when I complained about the others which we can get any stores.
You can read the article of ” Active dry yeast vs Instant yeast “.

This instant yeast is the best! Thank you, K!!  The other store brand’s have a strong distinctive odor, which I really don’t like, however, the red saf-instant yeast have slightly the distinctive smell only when I used 1.4% red Saf-instant as to 100% flour.  I will recommend to use 0.8 % instant yeast as to 100% flour when you bake bread so that you won’t have the brewer yeasty odor.  The price is very reasonable as well.  It was about 8 dollars at Amazon. ( This package’s weight : 16oz / 454g  )

 

But, one thing that bothers me is this package.  Yes, it leaks from the bottom for some reason.  It was a completely vacuumed package with no leaks. It started like that as soon as I cut the top of the package.   I wonder if I am the only one have this problem?

The good thing is about this yeast is very active and rise very well with less yeast. 

It is about 18cm tall. I made tuna sandwich for my husband.

At last, I am still eager to make a perfect baguette,and I want to improve my skills although I have to wait until I get a new oven. It has been for almost 4 years! LOL

Happy baking to everyone!

Koubo by Akiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.