Allinson Bread with Sourdough

The late Thomas Allinson, who was a British doctor and a dietetic reformer, left us a very tasteful and healthy bread, bearing his name. This Allinson bread is a whole grain bread and contains no additions, so just (full wheat) flour, (much) water, (not so much) yeast and salt. I tried to bake an Allinson using a poolish, based on my own rye-based sourdough and just very little yeast. I posted about making a sourdough starter before (Sourdough Bread with Spelt). Because I have never seen an Allinson 'free-form' bread, and because the dough is very wet, 75% hydration, I use a loaf pan for baking.
I think that the result is very satisfying; the bread tastes great and has a nice crumb!
The evening before baking the bread I make my poolish:

poolish:
- 150 g full wheat flour
- 150 g water
- 1 tsp sourdough

In a medium bowl, whisk together the water and a teaspoon of sourdough. Add the flour and mix it until a smooth dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic and let it develop during the night at room temperature.

The next morning the poolish will be ready for use: some air bubbles are visible at the surface and they are proof that the sourdough has developed well. Now you can make your dough.

dough:
- 350 g full wheat flour
- 225 g warm water
- 9 g salt
- 3 g dry yeast

Add the water and the flour to the poolish and stir until the flour has absorbed the fluid. Now leave it to rest for half an hour, covered with plastic wrap and allow the flour to hydrate. After this 'autolyse' add the salt and the yeast. Knead the dough in the bowl, using a rubber spatula and after a few minutes you can transfer the dough to the working surface. Don't dust it with flour, because the dough must stay very wet. I usually knead wet dough the Bertinet way. This way of kneading is actually a constant stretching and folding the dough, using your fingertips. Check my post about Sourdough Bread with Spelt for a more detailed explanation. After about 10 minutes of kneading the dough is ready for the the first proofing. Put it in a wet bowl and cover it with plastic wrap (I always use a transparent plastic pedal bin liner for this). Let it proof for about 40 minutes on a warm place (e.g. on a rack on the warming plate)..
After the first proofing, transfer the dough to a wet working surface, flatten it with your wet hands and form the bread so that it will fit in your loaf pan. You have to act very fast, because the dough will absorb the water from your hands and the working surface and becomes slippery and hard to handle. For baking Allinson bread I use a Chicago Metallic non-stick 1 lb loaf pan, measuring 21 x 11 cms, it works very well! Only grease it a little with some oil before putting in the dough and the bread will come out easily. Wrap your filled loaf pan in a plastic pedal bin liner and put it on a warm place for the final proofing. The dough is done rising when it has doubled in size and crested about 1 cm over the top of the loaf pan (it can take almost two hours, because full wheat flour isn't proofing very quickly).
Bake the bread in the roasting oven (half high) and put a baking tin filled with hot water under the rack for creating steam. Let it bake for about 15 minutes and transfer it to the baking oven for another 30 tot 35 minutes (also half high). You don't need any steam in the baking oven. When baking time is halfway, I always turn the bread, so that left and right side become equally coloured.

I have made several photos of the different stages of the kneading and proofing process:

ready for autolyse

ready for kneading

after the kneading

before the final proofing

after the proofing

after the baking

White Buns from the Aga

Last night, Christmas Eve, we had a great family dinner and today we decided to stay at home and do whatever we we like best. That means (also): baking bread! This morning I managed to bake very tasty and soft white buns. The recipe I followed is a combination of several, found on the internet.

Ingredients:
- 500 g wheat flour
- 200 g water
- 100 g milk
- 20 g butter
- 20 g honey
- 8 g dry yeast
- 8 g salt
- some melted butter for brushing

Method:
Mix the milk with the water, the honey and the butter and place it on the warming plate to warm up. Put the flour in a bowl and add salt and yeast, whisk it until well mixed. Put it also on the warming plate. At the moment all the ingredients are warmed up to somewhat over room temperature you can mix it in the mixing bowl, using a rubber spatula. When the dough is going to form a ball, transfer it to your working surface and start kneading it for at least 10 minutes. I prefer the Bertinet method: I wrote about this way of kneading in my previous posts about baking bread.
When the dough is ready (stick your finger in the dough, lift it and when it is falling down after a few seconds without leaving any dough sticking to your finger, it's ready), transfer it to a clean bowl, cover it with plastic and let it proof for an hour or so. It has to double in volume, when it is not very warm in your kitchen, put the bowl on a rack on the warming plate.

After this take out the dough and transfer it to the working surface (no dusting with flour is needed), flatten the dough with your both hands and form a thick sausage, which you cut in 11 pieces, all weighing about 75 g. Use your dough scraper for this, or a sharp knife. Let the pieces rest for about 10 minutes.
Now flatten the pieces again, and fold the outsides in, forming a ball with sufficient tense on the surface of the dough. Roll them with your hand and place them seam down on a baking tin, covered with baking paper, a few centimeters apart. Cover them with plastic again and let them proof until have doubled in size (about an hour or more, if necessary on a rack on the warming plate).

When the buns are ready for baking, remove the plastic, brush the tops with melted butter and bake them in the roasting oven, half high. Create steam by putting a baking tin on the floor of the oven and pouring a glass of hot water in it. Bake for about 10 minutes and transfer the buns to the baking oven for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Sourdough based Filone

Now that the mushroom season is over and winter is entering the country, I decided to post again about baking bread. Baking bread is definitely my favorite hobby! This (American) recipe is from Daniel Leader (Bread Alone Bakery) and I found it on the internet: saveur.com. The only thing I changed is using sourdough instead of yeast making the poolish. And I had to convert all the American measures (cups, tblsps, tsps, oz.'s and libs) to grams.... And I had to find out how the dough could be baked best in an Aga. Well, I am satisfied with the result. I hope it inspires other Aga-owners! Good luck!

Rather funny: I am European and I use an American recipe for baking an Italian loaf! A filone is the Italian version of the French baguette (more or less...). The dough is also very wet (about 70% hydration), but olive oil is added and I don't know any recipes of making baguette using oil. This is how I did it:

The evening before making the filone (this recipe is for 2 loafs), I make the poolish, using my own rye-based sourdough. I posted about making a sourdough starter before (check my post about sourdough bread with spelt for this).

poolish:
- 85 g wheat flour
- 75 g water (temp. about 40º C)
- 1 tsp sourdough

In a medium bowl, whisk together the water and the sourdough. Add the flour and mix it until a smooth dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic and let it rest during the night at room temperature.

dough:
- the poolish
- 450 g wheat flour
- 300 g water (temp. about 40º C)
- 5 g dry yeast
- 12 g salt
- 70 g olive oil

The next morning you can make the dough: add the water en the yeast to your poolish and stir until it forms a homogene fluid. Now add flour, salt and oil and mix it well. It does not look like a dough yet; it has become a kind of a 'shaggy mass'. Now cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the flour to hydrate for about half an hour. This process is called autolyse.

After the autolyse you can start the kneading. First knead the dough in the bowl using a rubber spatula and after a few minutes transfer the dough to your working surface (not floured). Knead it for about 10 minutes the Bertinet way: check my post about Sourdough Bread with Spelt where I explained the Bertinet method. When the dough becomes rather smooth and elastic (still sticky to the touch, but releasing from your hands fairly easily), use a dough scraper to transfer it to a clean bowl for proofing at room temperature. Cover the bowl with plastic.
The original recipe tells me that it needs two hours proofing, but in my opinion the dough needs a firm stretch and fold halfway the proofing: take it out and use one hand and a dough scraper to stretch the dough and fold it back over itself a few times (west over east, north over south, etc.). Weekend Bakery published an instruction video about this technique.

After the dough has been doubled in size, put a well floured thick cotton tea towel on a baking tin, roll up the left and right side en lift the center, so that you create two long, thin forms to put your both loafs in when you have formed them. Take out the dough, transfer it to a well floured working surface, cut it in two equal sized pieces, and flatten slightly. Fold the top and the bottom edges of one piece toward the middle, and flatten the dough at the seam with the palm of your hand. Roll it over a few times, to get a nice shaped bread. Put it, seam side down, on the prepared towel and repeat the folding and shaping procedure with the second piece of dough.
Cover it with plastic wrap and let it proof for about an hour and a half.at room temperature.

Bake the bread (after scoring them twice with a razor blade) on a baking stone on the bottom of the roasting oven, with a tin filled with hot water to create steam. After half an hour transfer the bread to the baking oven (half high) for another 10 to 15 minutes.