Ciabatta Using Wild Yeast Starter

This morning, all of us (including my son) finish 2 whole loaf of ciabatts, we ate them plain and made simple sandwiches with some cheese and tomatoes from my vegetable garden. By late afternoon, there were no more bread left. This was really the best Ciabatta we've ever tasted, great flavor (thanks to the wildyeast starter) and fantastic texture. I am so very very pleased. Thank you Susan !

Note: I am sorry that you will be clicking a lot through the links in this post. I think it is better for you to see the video, then me trying to explain it with my mediocre English :( 

Recipe adapted from Susan's Ciabatta recipes ( here and here )

Yield :  3 or 4 ciabattas, or a dozen rolls

Time:

• First fermentation :  9 hours (I did mine for 18 hours not on purpose), with fold at 30, 60, and 120 minutes
• Warm up : 2 hours
• Proof : 1.5 hour
• Bake  : 1st load (2 ciabattas)  = 30 minutes and 2nd load (one ciabatta) = 25 minutes (I only have a small round baking stones, so I had to bake them in two batches) 

Ingredients:

541 g flour (Susan using 465 g flour + 76 g wheat flour)

17 g salt

26 g olive oil

610 g mature 100%-hydration wildyeast starter 

355 g water

• Place all ingredients in a mixer bowl, knead with dough hook attachment for 5 minutes until the ingredients is well incorporated. Increase the speed to medium low, continue to mix for 10 minutes, or until medium gluten development is reached. Transfer to an oiled container with lid.

• Fold at 30, 60, and 120 minutes. Put it back inside the container, make sure to oil the container for the second time to prevent the dough from sticking.  Refrigerate for minimum 9 hours ( I did mind unintentionally for 18 hours. Sorry I have to repeat myself)

• Remove the dough from refrigerator, warm  at room temperature for 1.5 - 2 hours.

• Turn the dough out into heavily floured counter top. See this video on how to shape ciabatta, and to transfer the dough into heavily floured kitchen towel, or couche (I don't own one), then cover with plastic or kitchen towel, proof at room temperature  for 1.5 to 2 hours.

• Preheat oven to 475F.

• Transfer the dough into parchment paper by flipping them over (one dough at a time) onto parchment paper  (so that the dough that was facing down, is now facing up). See this video. Since I don't own flipping board,  I always use my large cookie sheet for this job. Probably not an ideal tool, but works fine so far :).

• Spray (8 or 10 sprays) the oven wall prior to load the dough, shut the oven door immediately to trap the steam. Slide the parchment paper into the oven, spray the oven wall with water quickly (about 8 sprays). Shut the oven door, turn the oven temperature down to 450F. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. Cool completely before serving. 

Chocolate Puff Pastry With Crème Chantilly and Summer Berries. Good Bye Summer, Hello Autumn.

Just a fun and delicious way to say good bye to all of those beautiful, fragrant, and delicious berries.  They will come back next year, perhaps with new different varieties , so I am not that  all sad about it. Plus I had pretty relaxing summer to spend with my family, I can't complaint. Always excited about autumn for number of reasons. Love the mild weather, occasionally overcast is perfectly fine for me, a bit chilly at night is okay too, and just like Spring, some of my plant are happy to bloom in the garden. Apple, that's another reason to fall in love with autumn. I'm sure there will be plenty of apple dessert in my home, perhaps you will see some recipe here in my blog. yum!

If you interested making your own chocolate puff pastry, the recipe can be found here. Otherwise, regular puff pastry is fine, and if you don't have the energy or chicken out of making it yourself, there are plenty of a good quality store bough pastry. Easy right? All you need to do next, is to whipped some heavy cream with a little bit of sugar, and cut some berries. 

Teff and Quark Cake

Craving for cake, but need something lighter and quick to make, without sacrificing the taste? I I think this pretty little cake is perfect for that, no electric mixer required, just a whisk, or wooden spoon, and all you need to do is just to mix the wet and the dry ingredients, and bake. A few minutes later you have a delicious humble cake for your afternoon snack. Definitely easy and quick recipe, oh it is simply delicious of course!

Quark Cake Using Teff Flour

make 6 small cake and 1 small loaf

~elra~

¾ cup sugar

3 eggs

¼ cup canola oil

1 container (140 grams) low fat or full fat quark

1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup teff flour

½ cup almond meal

⅓ cup + 1 tbs brown rice flour

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

a handful chocolate chips (optional)

a handful almond flakes (optional)

• Preheat oven to 350⁰F. Butter or oil your moulds, or a loaf tin. For this recipe I use 6 small brioche molds, and a small paper loaf (size 7½" long 3" wide and 1¾" deep).

• In a medium size bowl put the sugar, eggs, oil, quark, and vanilla extract, mix with a hand whisk until just combine. In another bowl, shift together teff flour, almond meal, brown rice flour, baking soda, and salt. Add this dry ingredients to the wet mixture, add the chocolate chips. Mix just enough to combine them. Divide the batter among the brioche molds, decorate with almond flakes if you like. Bake for 30 minutes. Unmold, and cool before serving.

WALNUT Bread

Just a little thing to share with everyone at Yeast Spotting event. This is actually a Norwich bread with addition of walnut in it. Delicious.

L'shanah Tovah

Photo courtesy of my son AD

Chocolate Cake With Poached Peach

Yellow peach, especially if you can find the one that ripe on the tree, is delicious on its own, I feel such ashamed to cook it. But, if you have too many then your entire family can eat, I think it is better to make the use of it then just to let it sit and eventually become inedible. What a better way to make use of it? Everyone is different, but for me, nothing sound more delicious then a simple poached peach serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Of course, I changed my mind, and decided to make a cake instead. Lightly poached peach, moist chocolate cake, it couldn't be wrong. Since the cake tasted delicious, and uncomplicated to make, I thought I share my recipe here. I hope it will inspire all of you. For The Cake: 4 oz unsalted butter, soften at room temperature ½ cup sugar 4 eggs, room temperature 4 oz (55%) dark chocolate, melted-cooled slightly ½ cup hazelnut meal ⅓ cup buckwheat flour ⅓ cup amaranth flour 4 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, or Dutch process cocoa powder 1¼ tsp baking powder pinch of salt 4 to 5 poached peach, recipe follows whole hazelnuts to decorate, optional Preheat oven to 350⁰F. Butter a 10 inches cake pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter the paper as well. Coat the cake pan lightly with rice flour, tap off the excess flour. Set aside. Sift hazelnut, buckwheat, amaranth, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Peel off the skin from the poached peach if desire, then cut into quarter. Set aside. Beat butter and sugar on a medium speed until pale and fluffy. Add egg, one at a time. Beating well after each addition. Add the melted chocolate, beat on a low speed (speed #2) just enough to incorporate them, add the sifted flour mixture, beat for 1 minutes. Turn off the machine. Pour the batter into prepared cake pan. Arrange the sliced peaches on top, decorate with whole hazelnuts if desire. Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool before serving. Note: Unintentionally, most of the poached peaches in my cake were kind of sinking in the middle of the cake, perhaps that something to do with thicker slices of my peaches? For The Poached Peach: 4 medium-size, ripe, but firm yellow peaches 1 vanilla bean, split and scrape, reserve the pod to add to the syrup 1 cup sugar 2 cup water Place the sugar, vanilla bean including the pod, and water in a large enough pan to put the fruit in a single layer, set the pan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Halve each peach, scoop out the stone, add to the sugar mixture. Turn the heat to low. Cook for about 10 minute on each side until the fruit is soften a little. To use for the cake, set aside about 4 to 5 poached peaches in a rack to drain the excess syrup, and let it cool completely. Reserve the rest with the poaching syrup for other uses. Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend everyone!!!!!!