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Post by nana on Aug 2, 2020 19:32:20 GMT -5
My mom was a superlative bread baker, and luckily before she passed she had helped me write down my favorites of what she made, and I have made them all(not as well as she, but good enough), except for her sour rye bread, which always intimidated me with its three day time frame. Until this week, when I decided to go for it. The bread came out delicious in the end, but either I wrote it down wrong, or she made a mistake telling me, because the dough required a vast amount more flour than what the recipe called for. I’m talking 4-5 cups. My mom’s recipe had a casual “add more flour as needed” when it got to the part where you knead it before setting it to rise, but I cannot think that that’s what she meant. I’ll give you the condensed recipe, with the amounts given for each day’s activity. It’s supposed to make 3-4 loaves, so I think the amount of flour I had to add ended up being close to the correct amount, because I did end up with 3 nice sized loaves. But I don’t know when to add it for best results. Day one: Starter 2 cups rye flour 1 cup water 1TBSP yeast 2TBSP molasses —Mix together in bowl, cover and let sit out on counter for 12-24 hours. (I did this, and it seemed rather dry to me. I’ve seen sourdough starters before and they seem more like a pancake batter. This definitely was thicker, more like muffin or banana bread dough.) Day two: Levain 2cups water 2cups rye flour 2cups bread flour —mix together, then mix in the starter too. Cover and let rise another 12-24 hours. (This seemed to have a bit more bread dough-like feel to it, but it was a fairly loose, wet dough to start with and overnight it seemed to get even wetter. Lots of bubbles! Day three: Baking day 1 1/4 cups water 3 cups bread flour —beat together, let rest 20 minutes, then add this “batter“ (her words, this actually made a pretty stiff dough!) and 1 TBSP salt to the punched down starter/levain mix. —knead until smooth and elastic, “adding bread flour as necessary.” This is where I started to realize that I’d gone wrong somewhere. There was no kneading this at all at first, it was like trying to knead the aforementioned quickbread dough. I added cup after cup of flour, at first a little at a time, and then just dumping it on. It started coming together after about 4 cups, (I wasn’t really counting anymore, but that seems about right) and after maybe another cup of flour it seemed to be at least a cohesive dough. It remained quite sticky, though, and if I let it sit for a minute, it got even stickier. But I’d been kneading for over 45 minutes and my arms were tired and we had to leave to take the grandkids to be pretend drowning victims for Newfoundland dog water training.(Best gig for grandkids EVER!!!) Anyway, it rose like crazy, and when I went to shape the loaves, I needed quite a bit of flour on my hands and the board, but they shaped well and they baked fine and the bread was delicious and tasted like I remembered, so I ended up doing OK, but obviously, too much liquid or not enough flour in that recipe as written! I certainly don’t want to repeat the kneading for almost an hour to get the 5 cups of extra flour in there! So, if you are a baker, can you look at this recipe and tell me how to fix it?
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Post by chipperhiker on Aug 3, 2020 21:54:41 GMT -5
I don't have anything constructive to add, Nana, but I just wanted to tell you how pretty the finished loaves are!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 3, 2020 23:15:02 GMT -5
Thank you chipperhiker! I got so caught up in the question that I forgot how gorgeous they looked. I sure wish I could have just a little piece.
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Post by nana on Aug 4, 2020 19:15:41 GMT -5
Thank you! When we got back from dog training and the loaves were finished baking I sent my grandkids home with the round one. They called me after dinner to say how good it was!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 4, 2020 21:37:36 GMT -5
P.S. I looked and I have the Mirro bread cranker with a sort of hammered looking handle. I think you'll like using it. : ))
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Post by nana on Aug 5, 2020 8:57:37 GMT -5
I know I will be thinking of my mom every time. She bought hers back in the early 70’s. I remember my high school friends always wanted to sleep over at my house so they could have fresh bread for breakfast! It should be here early next week!
For those who are not on the other site: My recipe probably failed because it was written for using a bread pail, and now I bought one on ebay. Now this conversation makes sense!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 5, 2020 12:36:27 GMT -5
That's funny. Usually I write my answers on this site or duplicate them. I think the the crank pail will help you get a higher hydration. If you take the dough between your fingers and it "window panes" when you stretch it, it's ready. I should probably make some myself; it's a much more useful form of exercise and the reward is two-fold! Unless I ate the whole loaf, which is always a possibility with homemade bread.
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Post by nana on Aug 9, 2020 12:18:14 GMT -5
I got my pail yesterday! It’s in beautiful shape. I was going to hurry and make bread in it today, but the day got away from me, and I don’t want to be up till 11:00 tonight waiting for loaves to cool. So I’ll start tomorrow. But ain’t she a beauty? She’s “gold fashioned”! In addition, since making space for this in the storeroom(no attic banishment for this baby!) necessitated a cleanout, I am offering up my fancy vintage waffle maker that I have to admit to myself if I haven’t gotten around to cleaning it up after all these years, I’m probably not going to. It was a firemen’s auction impulse. I think I posted about it when I got it. I’ll post it in the proper thread for that kind of thing. But I know there are some here who kind of collect them, so I will pass it along for the price of shipping, if anyone wants it!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 9, 2020 14:15:23 GMT -5
Nana I think I contacted you about that iron. I'll send you another pm. Sorry. Life and hospitals got in the was and I forgot. When I remembered, I forgot to pm you again. Sorry. I'm still interested.
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 9, 2020 14:17:22 GMT -5
Nana I think I contacted you about that iron. I'll send you another pm. Sorry. Life and hospitals got in the was and I forgot. When I remembered, I forgot to pm you again. Sorry. I'm still interested. OMG. forgot to say YOU SCORED on that baby. It exactly like mine, but with pans and the recipe booklet! You'll have to scan that for us sometime. : )) P.S, Your yard looks like a set piece. Super charming.
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Post by nana on Aug 9, 2020 19:17:40 GMT -5
Nana I think I contacted you about that iron. I'll send you another pm. Sorry. Life and hospitals got in the was and I forgot. When I remembered, I forgot to pm you again. Sorry. I'm still interested. OMG. forgot to say YOU SCORED on that baby. It exactly like mine, but with pans and the recipe booklet! You'll have to scan that for us sometime. : )) P.S, Your yard looks like a set piece. Super charming. All that and it came in its original box too! It was shipped from The Mirro factory in Manitowoc, Wisconsin to the Milwaukee Boston Store. The recipe book has a few instructions on using the mixer and adapting bread recipes to it, but the only recipe written assuming you would be using the pail is the same one printed on the pail itself: Health Bread. They seem pretty standard. Fun, though. Thanks for the compliment about my yard. It’s very photogenic as long as you don’t inspect it too closely and see all the weeds!
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Post by nana on Aug 10, 2020 12:14:49 GMT -5
Well! Well, well, well, well, well! And aha! This is definitely one for the so soon old, so late smart record book. Here’s what happened: I took out my lovely new bread pail this morning. I had decided to make the Health Bread recipe since they thought so much of it they printed it right on the pail. The only thing I altered was I did not have enough whole wheat flour, so it ended up being half whole wheat, half bread flour, but I didn’t think that would alter too much besides the fiber content, and probably give the final loaves a lighter texture. But I said otherwise let me follow the recipe and method exactly as written. The recipe called for 10-11 cups of flour plus two cups of wheat germ, total.
The first direction was to make an “elastic batter” with the liquid ingredients, yeast, and half of the flour. This I did, even though my mom never did this. She always put all liquid ingredients and yeast in the pail first, then dumped all the flour in and cranked. (Feel free to chime in, Vaporvac and tell me what you do!) Only to find that in order to get something resembling elastic batter and not just flour soup, I had to add quite a bit more than a cup of flour extra.
Then I added the rest of the flour and was supposed to crank until the dough gathered onto the hook and pulled away from the sides. Cranking that should take about 3-4 minutes, which is pretty much how long it took when my mom made her breads. So I’m cranking and cranking and the dough is getting elastic, but emphatically NOT pulling away or gathering. I start adding flour. And adding flour. I needed a bit more than 2 cups to get it to clear the sides of the pail and do its gathering thing. Are you getting deja vu yet? I was!
Now I know bread making is part art, part science. There is leeway in measuring, as evidenced by the recipe being a range of 10-11 cups and not an exact amount, due to variables like humidity and scooping the flour may compact it or fluff it up, depending. But to be off by so much? Again?!?!? Something was fishy. That’s when the light bulb went on over my head, or as my mom used to say, the penny dropped. Usually, even though the experts tell you not to, I measure EVERYTHING with my trusty 2 cup pyrex measuring cup. Experts tell you not to measure dry things like flour, sugar, etc with a liquid measuring cup because it will not be accurate and yada yada yada. But I have done it that way for all my life, making cookies, pancakes, waffles, cakes, pies, measuring flour in my pyrex and everything comes out fine. EXCEPT when making something big, like a recipe that calls for many, many cups of flour, where my usual method of using a little scoop to get the flour out of my countertop canister would take too long and I want to scoop up a cup at a time. And especially if I am scooping out of my BIG storeroom canister that holds 15 lbs of flour. THEN I use a “proper” dry measure cup. I even level it off with a knife so it’s really accurate. So why do I always need to add extra flour? What could it be? I have been blaming the recipes, blaming my scooping method, blaming everything but the thing that I SHOULD have been blaming all along:
The stupid one cup dry measuring cup that only holds 61/2 ounces, not 8. For every cup I‘ve measured with it, I’m short almost a fifth. If I think I’ve measured 10 cups with it, it’s really more like 8. Add in the natural variations and there is my problem! The handle broke off the one I used to have, and I bought this one at the dollar store to replace it. You get what you pay for. Needless to say, I threw it away toot sweet, and I am so ashamed at how long it took me to figure this out. To be fair, it only really became a problem when the pandemic had me wanting to make more frequent, larger batches of bread, 3 or 4 loaves at a time. Most of the time I do the no knead, which is smaller batches, and a wet dough to begin with, anyway, so it wasn’t so noticeable. SHEESH!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 10, 2020 13:51:59 GMT -5
OMG! That is so funny, but glad you figured it out. I could see being off by maybe a cup if the recipe called for all WW flour and agree it's better for rising to make the first elastic dough if it's all whole grain flour and no white bread flour.. .the real question is how did it turn out? Was it easier to use this pail and did you use those cute bread pans?
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Post by nana on Aug 10, 2020 14:09:53 GMT -5
Yes and yes! Just out of the oven!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 10, 2020 14:18:37 GMT -5
Uggh! I'm so hungry. Wish I could blow the recipe up large enough! What sort of hints do they give for adapting "regular" recipes?
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Post by nana on Aug 10, 2020 20:44:20 GMT -5
Will this do?
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Post by nana on Aug 10, 2020 20:59:13 GMT -5
Mostly they just say to mix any bread recipe in the pail and crank it instead of kneading. They also say you could halve the recipes in the booklet to make 2 instead of 4 loaves, or double them to make 8, with a maximum of 20 cups of flour. However, I noticed that with the 5 cups of flour I started off with, really 4, with that stupid cup, it barely reached to a height the mixer rod could mix, so it would probably work best with no less than 6 cups of flour. The above recipe was the only one in the book that gave bread pail directions. The others seemed like they lifted them from some other recipe book, because some, like the pizza dough recipe, only call for a cup or two of flour—not enough to even reach the mixing rod!
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Post by chipperhiker on Aug 10, 2020 21:56:40 GMT -5
Way to go Detective Nana!!! Thank you for sharing your discovery. I'm intrigued about the bread bucket.
I have an old Universal No. 4 Bread Maker (pail mixer) that I have never used. I can't even remember where or when I got it (you know you have too much stuff when...). Apparently they used to have a clamp, and mine was missing when I bought it) so you could attach it to table. I've never tried using mine because I though it was incomplete. Does your bread pail have a clamp that isn't shown in the photo? Am I just being a wimp, assuming it would be a ton of work without being attached to a table?
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 10, 2020 22:32:23 GMT -5
I'll let Nana give her own experience, but I have the same one Nana has and didn't even know they could have a clamp. I'm guessing these didn't come with one as Nana seems to have a perfectly intact set. I just put it on my hip and turn away. Mine has plastic things on the bottom. I bet one could attach some sort of suction cup to it. Nana, thank you for the recipe. I spent quite a bit of time today trying to find it thinking it would be easy, but no dice, so thank you VERY much.
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Post by nana on Aug 11, 2020 19:35:58 GMT -5
My pail has little rubber feet glued on the bottom so it doesn’t skid around on the counter, but it seems pretty well balanced, it doesn’t take that much to hold it steady as you crank. My mother’s didn’t have the feet (or maybe they fell off early on) and she just did it on her butcherblock, not as slippery as formica. The stockpot one I had that was no good was very hard to hold down while cranking—it required some real muscle. You need to find yours, Chipperhiker, and give it a try and see. They made so many of those, I’ll bet they work just fine!
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 12, 2020 0:02:50 GMT -5
Interesting. I thought for sure those feet were add-ons. Now I'm betting they were original. I'm missing one.
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Post by nana on Aug 12, 2020 6:24:27 GMT -5
One of mine was missing too, but when I looked in the box it was there, so we crazy glued it back on. I imagine whatever glue they used is not so good after all these years, so probably the rest will need to be reglued as time passes.
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Post by mach12 on Aug 13, 2020 10:46:58 GMT -5
I saw a vintage "bread bucket" (their term) on craigslist the other day and was tempted but already have too much stuff, plus I don't know the first thing about them. What I keep wondering, does it do a better job than the dough hook in my Kitchenaid mixer? That has worked well for me, plus I like that I can do other things while it's working. I always have dishwater when I'm cooking and clean as I go and do that while the Kitchenaid is doing its thing. I'd probably make a heck of a mess trying to crank the bread bucket while I washed stuff.
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 13, 2020 14:15:24 GMT -5
I have a heavy duty kitchen aid, also and like it for the reason you state. Still, I do like the bread bucket as I can make more whole grain loaves and I have a space for it. Although I have the heaviest duty made, the limit is still 8 cups whole grain flour. Sometimes it seems to be easier to use the bucket in a hurry which makes no sense. Nana has inspired me to pull mine out a give it whirl again with the health bread recipe.
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Post by mach12 on Aug 13, 2020 18:44:07 GMT -5
I have a heavy duty kitchen aid, also and like it for the reason you state. Still, I do like the bread bucket as I can make more whole grain loaves and I have a space for it. Although I have the heaviest duty made, the limit is still 8 cups whole grain flour. Sometimes it seems to be easier to use the bucket in a hurry which makes no sense. Nana has inspired me to pull mine out a give it whirl again with the health bread recipe. Probably the same as the one we have, a 6 quart professional lift mixer. We had a big 30 quart Hobart Industrial mixer on the ship I did galley time on and that thing would mix some dough. All new sailors when first assigned to a ship are supposed to take a turn at what they called mess cooking, where you rotate through different food service related jobs. When I did my turn I spent most of my time in the galley helping the cooks and in the scullery scrubbing the pots and pans. Fun stuff. That 30 quart mixer bowl full of mashed potatoes was a hand full to say the least. I'd empty it into a big rectangular steam table pan and then carry it down one level to the serving line. If I complained, the Chief would just say "that's good training". Everything was good training. "Oh, you've been shot? Well that's good training!"
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 13, 2020 18:58:53 GMT -5
Your wife must have been thrilled when she found you. It's hard to find one that been "well trained"! :0
P.S. That is the KA I have and love. What I really appreciate about this brand is that all old additions fit the new models, so I've found great solid metal attachments at garage sales, etc. and can still use them. They are so heavy-duty compared to the plastic stuff. They did go through a period where they started substituting inferior internal parts, but the backlash set them straight. For the price, one expects the highest quality. I often wished I had the grain grinder, but have read it can burn out the motor. That's probably one to buy purpose built, but I don't eat THAT my bread or other baked goods. P.S. Funny how all the gluten-free people are suddenly chowing down on bread and banana bread. (Not that some folks aren't truly allergic.)
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Post by mach12 on Aug 14, 2020 9:58:55 GMT -5
Your wife must have been thrilled when she found you. It's hard to find one that been "well trained"! :0 P.S. That is the KA I have and love. What I really appreciate about this brand is that all old additions fit the new models, so I've found great solid metal attachments at garage sales, etc. and can still use them. They are so heavy-duty compared to the plastic stuff. They did go through a period where they started substituting inferior internal parts, but the backlash set them straight. For the price, one expects the highest quality. I often wished I had the grain grinder, but have read it can burn out the motor. That's probably one to buy purpose built, but I don't eat THAT my bread or other baked goods. P.S. Funny how all the gluten-free people are suddenly chowing down on bread and banana bread. (Not that some folks aren't truly allergic.) We got married so young that she didn't have to worry about untraining and the retraining me so I guess when she found me I was at least trainable to some degree. It's a two way street though and I have her trained just the way she wants me. I've been watching for the metal attachments too. They used to be available new for a reasonable price on ereplacementparts.com but now even the plastic ones are mostly listed as no longer available. They still have the repair parts though. I don't use the original grease once a mixer is off warranty. Too expensive and it has a short shelf life. Super Lube's NLGI2 multi-purpose synthetic is food safe and is a superior grease and less expensive. And the mixers run quieter and cooler. I've never heard about the grain attachment wearing out the motor. That's good to know. I think I have one but might have given it to my son. I have a grain mill that I bought from a guy who got it for home brewing and then decided brewing was too much work. It was way overkill for brewing. We used it a lot when we first got it but several places in our area will now mill it for you for something like 3 cents a pound, which means I don't have to plan ahead and add that to my baking plans. And the place I go has an awesome gadget section with stuff from all over the world. Last time, I came home with a cool German potato peeler with three different blades. Because I needed another peeler to go with the three already in the drawer.
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Post by vaporvac on Aug 14, 2020 13:45:34 GMT -5
You give the best info. I wish there was a "save" button on this site.EDIT: I KNOW I just recently looked for a'bookmark' tab and couldn't find one, but now I do. Wonder if it depends which computer I'm using. Yippee! anyway! : ))Edit OK. Now I see that it's only for the thread, not individual posts unless it's cuz I already bookmarked it.
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Post by nana on Aug 15, 2020 18:40:49 GMT -5
I have a heavy duty kitchen aid, also and like it for the reason you state. Still, I do like the bread bucket as I can make more whole grain loaves and I have a space for it. Although I have the heaviest duty made, the limit is still 8 cups whole grain flour. Sometimes it seems to be easier to use the bucket in a hurry which makes no sense. Nana has inspired me to pull mine out a give it whirl again with the health bread recipe. Let me know how it turns out!
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Post by voodoochikin04 on Aug 18, 2020 12:57:03 GMT -5
I was going to ask you if you were using a liquid cup for measuring flour, but then i kept reading lol and saw you found that out anyways. I've made thousands of pizzas over the years and have gone through all kinds of weird issues when making the dough. I quickly learned that any recipe saying to use cups or tablespoons... was not accurately repeatable as far as getting the exact same results everytime. Which is why commercial bakers use baking percents by weight. Flour always being your 100% and I like to use grams personally. I have converted my recipes to be %'s & grams and not cups or spoons. That way every single pizza crust is identical as long as I control my knead time, room temp, rise temp and humidity. I'm anxious to see how pizza will cook in the chambers oven. I had previously modded my last gas oven to reach 800 degrees for my smaller pies but averaged 550-600 for family size. Another nice feature of using %'s is that scaling big or small is no problem as the ratios of ingredients always stays the same. example of a basic pizza dough: 350g Flour 100% 220.5g water 63% 7g salt 2% 7g sugar 2% (optional for easier rise) 3.5g yeast active dry 1% (for quick rise or overnight in fridge) 3.5g olive oil 1% Now if you wanted a better tasting crust youd leave out the sugar, lower the yeast to 0.375% (1.31g) and let it rest in the fridge for 2-3days while the yeast breaks down the flour for food. on another note, making pizza dough or bread dough i've always done one or the other of these two options: mix half the flour with all the water and let it rest no less than 20 minutes covered at room temp, which it becomes an elastic gooey mess which is perfect. OR mix it all and right when it forms a shaggy ball, rest in covered bowl at room temp for no less than 30 minutes then continue with the knead. For pizza dough, one rise and punch down is fine if room temp rising. no "rise" is needed if resting in fridge for 1-2-3 days (cold ferment). sorry for blabbing, hope this is interesting to someone
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