Olde-Style Pumpernickel in Pullman Pan

The bread of the month for the Artisan Bread Bakers is Pumpernickel. The formula, from David of Hearthbakedtunes, is an olde-style pumpernickel that utilizes stale bread, rye berries, rye chops, rye meal and bread flour.

The timing couldn’t have been better for making this bread. I have been experimenting with a new Einkorn bread recipe and after several (less than successful) attempts, I had plenty of old bread to work with. The test breads tasted fine, they just didn’t look very good. When I found out we were making this bread, I knew I could put the leftover bread to good use. It made a unique addition to this bread.

The method for making this bread is similar to the Volkornbrot the Mellow Bakers made a couple of years ago, with a couple of variations. The Volkornbrot utilized a flaxseed soaker and a rye chops soaker, but this bread utilizes an old bread soaker and a rye berry soaker.  This bread is leavened with sourdough but due to the weight of the soakers, the rye chops and rye flour, it also includes some dry yeast to give it some lift. 

Even though this was a heavy dough, it rose really well during the bulk fermentation and the final proof in the pan. If I hadn’t had the lid on, it probably would’ve risen right over the top of the pan.

 

Olde-Style Pumpernickel Bread

Makes: 1 Pullman Loaf

Adapted from: Pumpernickel Bread on the Artisan Bread Bakers FB page.

I used rye flakes instead of rye chops because that is what I had. I also used whole rye flour that I milled in my grain mill instead of using rye meal. Rye meal is a rougher grind of pumpernickel or rye flour, but you can substitute whole rye flour.

Ingredients:

Sourdough Build:

• 9.6 oz Whole Rye Flour
• 9.6 oz Water
• 0.5 oz Rye Culture (I used this rye levain)

 Rye Berry Soaker:

• 6.4 oz Rye Berries
• Water, as needed

Old-Bread Soaker:

• 6.4 oz Old Bread (I used some stale Einkorn bread)
• Water, as needed

Final Dough:

• 8 oz Bread Flour (more for sprinkling if necessary)
• 8 oz Rye Flakes (or Rye Chops)
• 12.8 oz Water (if needed)
• 0.6 oz Kosher Salt
• 2 teaspoons Instant Yeast
• 1.3 oz Black Strap Molasses
• Berry Soaker (all of the above)
• Bread Soaker, drained (all of the above)
• Sourdough (all of the above)

 

Method:

Making the Rye Berry Soaker:

Place the rye berries in a bowl and cover them with water by an inch or so.  Soak the berries overnight. 

 

The next day, rinse and drain the berries. Cover them in three times their volume in water.  Bring the berries to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let them cook for about an hour, until they are soft and pliable.  The berries will increase significantly in size.

 

Sourdough Build:

In a small bowl, add the water, then mix the starter in the water.  Add the rye meal and mix with a wooden spoon or Danish dough whisk until it is thoroughly incorporated.  Let the sourdough rest for 14-16 hours at 70 degrees F.

 

Old Bread Soaker:

Take the stale bread, toast it in the oven until it is really brown, almost burnt, but not quite. 

 

Add water as needed to cover the toasted bread and let it soak for at least four hours, if not longer, until it becomes a sticky, gooey mess.  Be sure to squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible before you use the soaked bread in this bread.  You probably won’t need to add any additional water in the final dough mix.

 

Mixing the Final Dough:

Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the water.  The bread soaker and berry soaker will absorb water in varying amounts so you might not need any additional water.  I didn’t.  Mix the dough on first speed for ten minutes. Add flour (or water) as necessary to get a dough you can work with, but don’t expect too much development with the dough since it’s mostly rye.

 

Bulk Fermentation:

Let the dough ferment for 30 minutes.

 

Shaping the Loaf:

Spray the inside of a Pullman pan and the lid with cooking spray and dust heavily with rye flour to keep the bread from sticking to the top and sides of the pan.  This will also help insulate the dough during the long bake.

 

Remove the dough from the bowl and place it on a floured work surface. Shape the dough into a log the length of the pan. Place it in the Pullman pan.

 

 

Final Proof:

Using your fingers, spread the dough out evenly in the pan and sprinkle the top with flour and a little more oil, if desired.

 

Slide the lid on the pan. 

 

Let the loaf proof in the pan, with the lid on, for about an hour, or until the dough is almost even with the top of the pan.  I took the lid off to make sure it had risen enough, then I slid it back on.

 

Baking the Loaf:

Note about the baking process: This bread was designed to be baked overnight in the oven while it was receding in temperature. This was so the baker could utilize the hot oven, while it was not in use.  In order to simulate this method in a home oven, you need to follow the steps listed below:

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., with a baking stone on the bottom rack and the middle rack removed.

2) Place the loaf (in the covered Pullman pan) on the preheated baking stone and let it bake for an hour at 350 degrees F. 

3) Remove the baking stone, if possible (without breaking it due to temperature change).  This will prevent the bottom crust from getting over baked.  

4) Reduce the oven to 275 degrees F. and bake the loaf for 3 1/2 more hours. 

5) Turn the oven off for the remainder of the bake cycle.  Just let the bread rest in the oven while the oven cools down, about 10 – 12 hours.  My oven was cooled down before that time, but I just left the loaf in the oven the required time.

During the extended bake cycle, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. DO NOT PEEK! DO NOT TOUCH!  These were our instructions.  David said the Rye King would come after us if we peeked or touched it before the bake cycle was complete.

 

Cooling and Resting the Loaf:

Do not cut into the loaf until it has rested for 24 hours!  I let it cool on the wire rack until it was completely cooled.  Then I wrapped it in foil and let it sit for 24 hours.

 

Slice and Enjoy!

I baked this bread for a friend of mine who will be hiking part of the Appalachian Trail. This dense loaf is full of nutrients and has good keeping quality so it’s the perfect bread to take a long on a hiking trip. I know this because I’ve taken this type of bread with me on a hike before, and it was very satisfying for me and the other hikers.  The loaf is so big, there’s plenty to share.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Lessons in Bread Baking: Oops! I forgot the salt

Have you ever baked something and realized after you took it out of the oven, sliced it, and tasted it, that you left out an important ingredient?  That happened to me with this Quick White Bread, one of the breads for the Mellow Bakers’ new bread bake.

We’re baking through Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf or The Art of Handmade Bread, depending on which version you have. I have both versions because I’m trying to learn the appropriate conversions for both North America and Europe. However, leaving out an ingredient was not supposed to be part of the process.

This was supposed to be an easy and quick loaf. So I decided to experiment with it. I adapted the recipe to include Heirloom 18th Century French Mediterranean Bread Flour from Anson Mills and puffed millet and even baked it in a Pullman pan. However, because I omitted the salt, the dough rose too quickly and collapsed during baking. You can see how it sunk in the photo below. 

 

Instead of deeming this bread a failure, I decided to use it as a teachable moment. This is a perfect example of why you should always follow the first basic step of bread-baking: Mise en Place which means “everything in it’s place”. 

I wrote these very words on my how to make bread page: “Begin by getting all of your tools and ingredients ready and within arms length. The success of your bread-baking experience depends on how organized you are so don't skip this step.”  I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t have my “Mise en Place” and somewhere along the way, I forgot the salt.

Salt serves a number of purposes in bread.  It stabilizes the gluten structure which creates a better dough and adds flavor. It also slows down the fermentation process by dehydrating the yeast and bacteria. Technically, salt is an optional ingredient; however, if you’re going to omit it, you should use cold temperatures to slow down the fermentation process or reduce the rising times. I did neither for this bread so that’s why it fell.

Instead of baking the bread freeform, or in a regular loaf pan, I baked it in a Pullman pan. Here are photos of the process I used to shape and bake the loaf.

 

Although the flavor was a bit bland, all is not lost.  This is a great toast bread which is what I was shooting for. I happen to like saltless breads such as Tuscan Bread so this isn’t a problem for me. I just toasted it, spread it with butter and it tasted yummy. I also made a grilled cheese sandwich with it using extra-sharp natural cheese.  Delish!

I was going to make the bread again with the salt to show you the difference, but I used all of my heirloom flour so I’ll have to show you those results another day.

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Toast Bread with Teff

This month the Mellow Bakers made English Toast Bread. It is a little bit different than the Pullman Bread (pain de mie) we made last month.

I’ve been having fun experimenting with different grains and flours so I wanted to try something different with this bread. I had seen a recipe for a Pullman Grain Bread that included teff and spelt so that gave me the idea to add some teff flour to this bread. Using a small amount of teff combined with bread flour is supposed to make a delicious light-textured bread with a creamy, earthy color.

Teff is another one of the super grains.  It is much higher in iron and calcium than wheat, rice, millet, or oats. It is also the smallest grain in the world. It takes 150 grains of teff to equal just one grain of wheat. Pretty neat, huh! 

Three main types of teff grains are grown: ivory colored with a brown cast, mahogany brown and red. Ivory is the most delicate and the mildest of the three.  That’s the one I used in this bread. I found some organic teff flour at the farmer’s market. It’s a beautiful creamy color.

 

Toast Bread with Teff

Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman and Pullman Grain Bread from Cooking with Chef Brad: Those Wonderful Grains I by Brad E. Peterson.

Makes: 1 Pullman Loaf *

* Hamelman’s formula makes enough dough for one Pullman loaf and one small loaf.  I didn’t want to make two loaves so I adjusted the formula to only make one Pullman loaf.

Hamelman’s formula also includes high-gluten flour. Some of the other bakers didn’t use the high-gluten flour, but I had some that I needed to use up so I included it.

High-gluten flour is wheat flour where the bran and germ have been removed, leaving a basic white flour consisting mostly of starch and gluten. It is then dried, broken up, ground again and combined with patent (fine white) flour to make a 50% protein gluten flour.  A lot of bakers opt to use it in their whole wheat breads, but a lot of bakers prefer not to use it. The jury is still out as to whether I’ll continue using it once my supply is depleted.

 

Ingredients:

• 4 cups high-gluten flour
• 1 1/3 cups bread flour
• 2/3 cups teff flour
• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, soft
• 3/8 teaspoon malt powder
• 1/2 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons dried yeast

 

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients using a spiral mixer.  Mix on first speed for 3 minutes in order to incorporate the ingredients thoroughly.  The dough should be of medium consistency.  Turn the mixer to second speed and mix for about 3 minutes (or more) to develop a fairly strong gluten development.

Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it bulk ferment for 2 hours.  Fold the dough once, after 1 hour.

 

Preshape the dough lightly into a round and place on a lightly floured work surface, seam-side up.

 

Cover the round with plastic wrap and let it relax for 10 to 20 minutes.

 

When the dough has relaxed sufficiently, shape it into a tight cylinder and place the dough in the Pullman Loaf pan.

 

My dough was really relaxed so it didn’t form a tight cylinder, but that was okay. I placed it in the pan and spread it out evenly with my fingers so that it would rise uniformly in the pan.

 

Let the dough rise in the pan with the lid on until it reaches about 1/2 inch from the top. The final fermentation could take between 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. and bake the loaves for 40 to 45 minutes.  Thump the bottom of the loaves when you think they are done, and listen for a pronounced hollow sound.  You’ll have to take them out of the pan to do this and if they’re not done, put them back in the pan and bake some more.

Remove the loaf immediately from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool.  If you leave it in the pan, the crust will get moist.

 

After the loaf has cooled, slice and enjoy. 

 

This is definitely a toast bread. I especially like using it for grilled cheese sandwiches. It also tastes good as cinnamon toast.

Thanks for joining me in the Bread Experience bread-baking blog.  I hope you’ll join me again soon.

Happy Baking!
Cathy

 

The Mellow Bakers group was started by Paul at Yumarama. We’re baking breads from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.

Pullman Bread: Mellow Bakers

The final bread in the Mellow Bakers’ lineup for January is Pullman Bread. Pullman Bread gets its name from it’s former use on the long distance Pullman trains in the United States. In France, however, it is referred to as pain de mie, or “bread of crumb,” because it has very little crust. It is usually baked in a rectangular straight-sided pullman pan which gives it a firm crust and a delicious crumb.  It makes excellent toast!

Most of the Pullman Breads that I’ve seen are made with all white bread flour and are similar to the Simple Milk Loaf I made a few days ago. However, I have seen a few versions that include a portion of whole wheat flour in addition to the white bread flour. Since I had just made an all white sandwich bread, I wanted something different. So I made my version using white bread flour and about 35% clear flour.

Clear flour is flour that clears the first sifting (to separate out the bran and germ).  It still retains some of the finer bran fiber from the outer endosperm of the wheat berry and is thus coarser and contains higher levels of ash. It is usually made from very strong, high-protein wheat. I used whole wheat flour home-milled from hard red spring wheat for this bread. Hard red spring wheat has a higher level of protein than hard red winter wheat due to the shorter growing season.

Here is the sifted bran. I saved it for use in another recipe.  

 

Light Wheat Pullman Bread

Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman

Makes: 1 pullman loaf with dough left over for 1 small loaf

Ingredients:

• 4 3/4 cups bread flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour (sifted once to remove the bran)
• 5 tablespoons milk powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 3/4 – 2 7/8 cups water (lukewarm)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 1/4 instant or active dry yeast

 

Directions:

Mixing: Mix all of the ingredients in a spiral mixer until they are thoroughly incorporated.  The dough consistency should be medium.  You want to develop a fairly strong gluten network.  Desired dough temperature is 78 to 80 degrees F.

Bulk Fermentation: Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a linen towel and let it ferment in the bowl for 2 hours. Fold the dough once, after 1 hour of fermentation. 

This is the dough after 1 hour of fermentation.  I folded the dough and put it back in the bowl.

I was doing other things while the dough was fermenting so I let it ferment a little bit longer than the suggested 2 hours.  This is what the dough looked like after 2 1/4 hours. Oops!

Dividing and Shaping: Divide the dough into appropriate-sized pieces. My pullman pan measures 13 by 3-1/4 by 3-3/4 inches so I used 2.25 pounds of dough and had about 1 pound or so left over.  I preshaped two pieces (one big and one small) into rounds, covered them with plastic, and let them rest on an unfloured counter for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Then I shaped the big round into a long cylinder with no tapers at the ends.

I placed the dough in the pullman pan to rise.  The dough came about halfway up the sides.  Maybe a little bit more.

I slid the lid on it and hoped for the best.  I put it in the oven with the light on to rise for about an hour to an hour and a half as the recipe suggested.

Well, it rose all right. Right out of the pan. It didn’t take an hour. It oozed out of the lid and made a big mess.  Fortunately, I had greased the pan and lid really well so the clean up was fairly easy. After I had removed the sunken dough from the pan, I reshaped it and put it back in the pan to rise. I figured I might as well try it and see what happened.

In the meantime, I had shaped the smaller dough ball into an oval shape (sort of).

It rose really well so I scored it and let it rest on the counter while the oven preheated to 400 degrees F.

When the oven had preheated, I placed the loaf on the middle rack with a steam pan underneath. 

I baked the loaf until it was golden brown and sounded hollow when thumped on the bottom.  It was delicious!

Now, it was time to check the pullman bread again to see if it had risen enough but not too much this time.  It’s supposed to rise within 1/2 inch from the top of the pan.  There you go…

I slid the lid back on and baked the loaf at 400 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes.  Then, I slid the lid off to see if it had an even golden brown color all around and a perfectly even crust.  Voila!

I removed the loaf from the pan as soon as I took it out of the oven.  If you leave these loaves in the pans, they will sweat from condensation and that would mess up the nice firm crust.

After the loaf had cooled, I cut it into slices and put the slices into two bags.  It’s a long bread so it made about 24 slices.  I froze one bag and I’ve been enjoying the other pieces toasted with jam for breakfast.  I’ve also had a slice or two with peanut butter. It passed the test!

This was a very forgiving dough. It performed well even when I overproofed it.  It has a terrific flavor.  This is definitely a keeper.  My taste tester really liked it as well.

 

This bread has been YeastSpotted. Please visit Wild Yeast to view all of the lovely breads in the roundup.

The Mellow Bakers are baking breads from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman. Feel free to join us.

 

Thanks for visiting the Bread Experience bread-baking blog.  I hope you’ll join me again soon.

Happy Baking!
Cathy