We have almond milk and pea milk, I’ll try.
Though I may use water first as I’m sure the cheapie bakeries in Bombay are not using anything else for everyday bread 
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Dehydrated and fried - all gone already 
This batch was flavored with just cumin and chilli flakes.
Trying a different regional version of papad now, called khichya or khichiya, typically rice flour based but I’m using nachni (ragi/finger millet) flour, which is a fun purple color in addition to being very nutritious and also very tasty. I bought this type from village women selling homemade foods at a fair a few years ago and absolutely loved them! I’ve flavored this lot with ginger, homegrown serrano chilli, cumin, and red chilli flakes.
There are a few more of these, which means I may get more than a couple myself (my own fault for experimenting small in a full size household ).
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I’m impatiently waiting for these sourdoughs to cool so I can taste them! 40% freshly milled wheat (khorasan, rye, spelt, red wheat, purple barley) and 75% hydration.
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And 100% effective!
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My square loaf pan arrived! Now I can experiment with baby loaves instead of wasting flour (or having to eat through less successful experiments myself…)
Today’s Pullman experiment - no-knead dough with a fridge rest overnight and two rises (by mistake). Covered pan, two-temp bake courtesy a Japanese blog I chanced upon when I was looking for what temp and time for a small square loaf. Stuck with water and no fat in this dough, trying to recreate a texture and flavor that didn’t match the last Pullman attempt that had both.
The color is too light, but the bread is shockingly almost exactly what I was going for - the soft, sliced sandwich bread the aforementioned bread man brings to a door that’s too far away at the moment…
I’m soooooooooooo happy! This might be the happiest-making bread yet 
Of course now that I baked only a tiny loaf I’m sure it will be gone by tomorrow
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Made goat cheese herb babka, my first babka! Creamy and quite light. I’ll do it again, will let the dough (with cheese) rest longer than the initial 1/2 hour suggested in the recipe after it had been in the freezer. I think putting the dough in the freezer helped to shape easier, but I wonder if I can skip this?
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Congrats! The texture looked right! Maybe switch to a higher temperature for the last few minute to colour the bread?
Thanks @naf. This recipe called for 200C for 8 mins and then 220c for 27 mins. I think the issue might have been the mistaken extra rise in the bowl after the fridge - if the dough had just had a second rise in the tin, it would have been to the top and touching the lid.
Color is only an aesthetic - the softer, unbrowned crust makes more sense for what I like it for - sandwiches (and toast, but there it really doesn’t matter).
Holy cow that looks stunning!
And I’d never heard of savory babkas… now I want one!
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Thanks a lot. I’ve in mind to make a chocolate bakka for a while. Husband misread my shopping list and bought a lot of goat cheese, I need to find a creative way to use that and came across the recipe. I’ve read that ricotta works pretty good too. For the herbs, I’ve used the last basil in garden, mint, chive and tarragon. I was hesitating to add some garlic, but found goat cheese and herbs are good already (with olive oil).
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That’s very creative!
We had goat cheese and mushroom croquettes here yesterday, which uses up a lot too.
And I really enjoy crisp breaded goat cheese medallions with a drizzle of honey at a favorite tapas bar in nyc and on a salad - caramelized onions are also good in that combination.
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WOW what a delicious savory babka!
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Nice loaf! I could polish that off in a day!
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First truly cool day of fall here! I baked a sourdough boule to celebrate - 70% hydration with about 20% whole wheat flour mixed with AP. Very delicious loaf - lovely chewy texture, crisp crust and a hint of nuttiness from the whole wheat flour. I also got to try out my new lame, a straight-bladed one. I like it much better than the curved type!
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Wow! Beautiful!!!
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Lovely bread! Did you use only the starter or mixed in some fresh yeast as well?
My 1 week old starter. Will make my first sourdough in a few days!!!
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Levain only. My starter is about 10 years old so fairly fast acting. For this loaf, I took it out of the fridge and fed it Saturday morning. By evening, it had risen and collapsed so it was awake and hungry! I mixed up the bread itself Saturday night before bed - the starter comprised about 15% of the weight of the entire loaf, which is a little more than I usually use, but with whole wheat flour included i thought some extra lift might not be a bad thing. I didn’t knead it, just gave it a few slap and folds after a 30 minute autolyze, then let it rise overnight in a warm spot. I punched it down and shaped it at 10am the next day and it was ready to go in the oven by 4pm.
Obviously this process is more time consuming than baking with commercial yeast but once you get to know your starter, it’s not that difficult to time the rises to fit with your schedule. I do use commercial yeast for enriched doughs, since those doughs are slow risers anyway, but I prefer levain for everything else. You get so much more flavor for minimal effort - all you need is time!
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15% is quite a lot. Did the bread taste more acid compared to your usual bread?
BTW what is the hydration level for this bread? Do you make your bread with a dutch oven or on a hot stone with water tray? TIA
15% is a lot, but I actually find that the length of the rise has a lot more to do with the tangy flavor in the finished product than the amount of starter I use. Of course, you can expect a faster rise with more starter, but you can also control that pretty easily with refrigeration. Also, the way you handle your starter can definitely affect the flavor in your finished products. I store my starter in the fridge, and usually only feed it once at room temperature before using. The fridge seems to keep my starter tasting relatively mild, so if I only feed it once before using (meaning that about half of what I end up using has only fermented for 6-8 hours), it remains fairly mild unless I retard the rise of the final dough (which I frequently do, in the fridge for several days).
However, if I want some very funky starter, I might take out a small amount and do small feedings at room temperature (or warmer) for several days without discarding before using it to make bread - that way, most of it has fermented for several days before using. This can give me more of a sour flavor even without retarding the rise, although if I really want it tangy I still have the fridge option to build more flavor.
Anyway, yesterday’s loaf was 70% hydration, which I find ideal for a minimal knead technique. My formula was 450g total flour (350g white and 100g whole wheat) and 315g water, plus 170g of starter (fed at 70% hydration, so it was 100g flour and 70g water) and 12g salt, for a total weight of 947g. Actually, just recalculating that formula I see that about 18% of total weight was starter. However, as I mentioned, I fed the starter only once before using, so only about 80-90g of the starter (or a little less than 10% of the final dough weight) was well-fermented, old starter from the fridge - the other half of the total starter weight was comprised of flour and water that had only fermented for 8 hours or so.
I use a dutch oven to bake boules like this - I preheat the oven and DO for at least 30 mins at 450, then put the bread in the DO using a parchment sling, cover and bake for 35 mins. My oven heats from the bottom, so I put the bread on the highest possible rack in order to keep the bottom from getting too brown. After 35 minutes I take off the lid of the DO and bake for another 20-25 minutes, depending on color. I have also started dropping a couple of ice cubes into the DO after I put the dough into it (I slip them between the side of the DO and the parchment paper so they don’t touch the bread) and I find that this extra moisture gives me an extra wonderful, thin and crispy top crust with fantastic ears along my slashes.
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