2 kinds of bread

Today I baked 2 different kinds of bread with apricot yeast water.

I used straight method to bake dried fruits bread and prefermented-dough method to make pain de mie.

Bread baked with yeast water has moist crumb, transparent looking bubbles and slow aging speed.

sulphured apricots

I'd never tried to make yeast water with sulfured dried fruits so I tried.

After mixed the fruits with water, i waited for 5 days and nothing happened.

I did not want to discard the mixture so I added a tbsp of raisin yeast water and 4 raisins from the raisin yeast water jar.

Few hours later, the jar was full of bubbles and the yeast water was ready for baking.

So I guess sulphured fruits are not suitable for making yeast water...

a lesson learned.

ZEN bakery style vegan cookies

I love ZEN bakery vegan oat meal cookies.

One of my friends asked me to make something similar so I tried several times.

How does it look?

This is my favorite yummy treat. Good for both vegans and macrobiotics follower.

how's your yeast water?

Hi, friends.

I got a question from my friend about how it looks like when the yeast water is ready for bread baking.

The jar should look like this.
(please see the picture)

It looks like soda pop and has many tiny bubbles.(If yours look like this and still sitting on your counter, please move it to refrigerator.)

If you start making your yeast water more than 5 days ago and yours does not look like this( or anything close to this), add some sugar and shake your jar and wait for another day.

If you are using sulfured dried fruits, you might not get any good result...

Tea leaf yeast bagels

Bagels with tea leaf yeast water.
RECIPE
pre-fermented dough
yeast water: 15g
ww flour: 25g

dough
ww flour:75g
AP flour:75g
tea yeast water:75g
salt:1/2 tsp
(some sugar if you like)

This bread have nice tea scent.
You can mix some tea leaves that you used for making yeast water.

FYI: Pre-fermented dough 21:00, mix dough 7:00, 1st rise until 10:30, shape, 2nd rise until 11:50, boil, bake until 12:15. (room temp. 75F)

Straight Method (Soft French Bread)

This bread doesn't require prefermented dough.

You can use yeast water as water when you start making your dough.

It takes time for the first rise and get relatively faster 2nd rise.

This recipe is good for over-night fermentation.

RECIPE

WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR 100G(3.5oz)

AP FLOUR 100G(3.5oz)

SALT 1/2 TSP

YEAST WATER 130G(4.6oz)
(TAKE YOUR YEAST WATER JAR FROM REFREGERATOR 1+ HOUR BEFORE USE)

HONEY POWDER 2 TBSP (OR 1TBSP SUGAR)




1.MIX ALL THE INGREDIENTS AND MAKE YOUR DOUGH. KNEAD WELL.
2.PLACE THE DOUGHT IN A BOWL.
3.WHEN THE DOUGH DOUBLES, SHAPE IT.
IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO REMOVE GAS INTENTIONALLY IF YOU WANT TO SEE SOME HOLES IN YOUR CRUMB. HANDLE THE DOUGH AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.
4.LET THE DOUGH RISE FOR THE SECOND TIME. UNTIL THE DOUGH LOOKs LOOSEN.
5.SLASH THE TOP OF THE DOUGH AND BAKE AT 400F FOR 15-17 MINUTES.


CRUMB OF THIS BREAD IS VERY SOFT AND GOOD FOR SANDWICHES.
RECOMMENDED COMBINATION IS CUCUMBER AND CHEESE. YUM!

tea leaf yeast

This yeast water smells fantastic!

I am using "the(tea) melange l'aduree" to make this tea yeast water.

Can't wait baking something sweet with this wonderful yeast!

hot dog buns & braided hot dog bread

150g AP

0.5 teaspoon salt

0.5 teaspoon saf red

40g soymilk

70g water

1 tsp oil

1 hot dog (halves)

(2 hot dog buns and 2 braided hot dog bread)

baked them a bit too long...

Q & A

Q. IT'S BEEN 3 DAYS SINCE I MIXED FRUITS AND WATER IN A JAR BUT NOTHING'S HAPPENING. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
A. You can wait for few more days and see OR if you think you need to add some sugar(or fruits) for your yeast water, then do so. There is no 'correct' way to cultivate yeast so you can experiment to establish your original way of making yeast water. :)

Q. WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY FRUITS IN MY YEAST WATER JAR?
A. You can keep them or remove them. I personally prefer to keep them.

Q. CAN I EAT THESE SOAKED FRUITS?
A. Of course! I often add those well soaked raisins to my bread dough.

Q. WHERE SHOULD I KEEP MY YEAST WATER JAR?
A. Once your yeast water is made in room temperature, keep it in the refrigerator.

Q. HOW CAN I REFRESH MY YEAST WATER?
A. Click here

Q. HOW OFTEN SHOULD I REFRESH MY YEAST WATER?
A. If you are keeping your water in the refrigerator, you can keep it there for a month without feeding anything. You need to refresh/feed yeast water before making pre-fermented dough.
See here to see how to

If you forget about your yeast water and more than a month pass, just give it a try by adding a teaspoon sugar to the jar, put the jar in roomtemperature, wait for 1 day and see if it bubbles.

Somtimes even though you do everythign that you can do to make the yeast water re-energized, yeast simply does not become so strong. If you feel like this is the case, use up all the water to make pizza dough and enjoy pizza (requires only 1 rise. 2nd rise is not so important if you are not a pizza enthusiast, right?) or say good-bye...

Make new yeast water.

Pain de mie

click to enlarge pics


Do you like pain de mie?



It has soft crumb and good for sandwiches but simply toast it, butter it and eat it! Yummy!


Here is the recipe for you
(mold size: 8×4×4 inch)

1. Make pre-fermented dough with white & wheat flour 50/50. (instead of 100% whole wheat.)

(my favorite ratio: yeast water 100g + whole wheat flour 60g + bread flour 60g) Ferment it overnight. First two pics show how it rises over time.

click here to see how-to


You have pre-fermented dough ready now? Ok let's sart!

2.

Pre-fermented dough ----------all amount :220g

bread flour ---------------------170g

water --------------------------70-80g

yeast water --------------------30g

salt ----------------------------1 teaspoon

sugar --------------------------1 tablespoon

oil (canola) ---------------------1 tablespoon

Mix all the ingredients and knead to see glutenfilm.

To obtain nice and soft crumb with this relatively lean recipe, you need to knead well.

Put dough in a large bowl and cover. Let it sit for 2-5hours. Until doubles in bulk.
(It is OK if the dough more than doubles but over risen dough tends to be sour, be careful!)

After the first rise, place the dough on the counter and devide into 2.

Make ball shape and rest them for 5 minutes.

Lightly press the dough and let gas (bubbles) out, follow the pictures and shape them.

Put both dough rolls in the mold, cover and proceed to 2nd rise. Wait for 2-3hours until the dough rises (top of the dough rolls get higher than the brim.)

Preheat oven at 400degrees.

Bake it for 25 minutes.


FYI: 2/18/08: room temp. 76degrees, first rise:3 hours, second rise:2,5 hours.

☆white flour dough rises slower than whole wheat dogh.

How to refresh yeast water (click to enlarge pic)

Now you have made some bread with your pet, yeast water, and enjoyed it.

Of course you need to refresh and increase the amount of your yeast water for next baking opportunity.

I know, you don't want to do making yeast water making step from the beginning.

Good news!

You can simply add water and feed your pet some sugar in the jar.

Sugar does not only mean 'sugar' sugar.

Anything that is naturally sweet. (naturally. 0 calorie sweetner won't work.)

I use raisin or other type of dried fruits.

REFRESH

1. Get the jar from your refrigerator and open it.

2. Put some 'sugar'. (10raisin, 1-2 slices of apple, half a teaspoon of sugar, honey..)

3. Cover and let it sit in room temperature over night. (longer in cold days, shorte in hot days)

4. Use it for baking or put it back in the refrigerator.

REFRESH and INCREASE ITS AMOUNT

1. Fill the jar up to 80% of the jar.

2. Follow all the steps above but wait for a bit longer.

( Should not take more than 2 days to reenergize.)

______________________

Q. WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH FRUITS IN MY JAR?
A. You can keep them in the jar or remove them from the jar if you prefer.

Q. WHERE SHOULD I STORE MY JAR?
A. Refrigerator.

INGREDIENTS

WHAT I USE FOR BAKING BREAD


COMMERCIAL YEAST BAKING


1. FLOUR

2. SALT

3. SUGAR

4. YEAST

5. WATER



FLOUR

I mainly use all purpose, bread and whole wheat flour. Usually bread flour has more protein than all purpose flour but not always. (I have seen "all purpose flour" that has more protein than regular bread flour! )


I always keep a bag of cake flour too. I usually use it for cake baking but sometimes use it to mix with bread flour to make french bread flour.

SALT

I use fine sea salt for bread making. Many professional bakers use special coarse mineral salt but I prefer fine natural sea salt because it dizzolves in no time.

SUGAR (including honey and malt/maple/brown rice syrup)

It is not necessary to use sugar for bread baking but sugar helps yeast to energize. If you want to obtain good crust color, use some sugar so the browning reaction occurs. Honey makes bread's crust color darker than regular sugar. Sugar keeps bread moist and soft longer.

Since I am following Macrobiotics diet, I do not use sugar (particulary refined white sugar) in any cooking. You can use any sugar you like.

YEAST

There are many different kinds of yeast available at supermarkets and health food stores. I personally prefer this instant dry yeast called Fermipan. It is available at Smart and Final in California. I also use Saf red label. Also available at S &F. You can buy organic or imported instant dry yeast at some markets.

I used to love using fresh yeast (look like small bricks) but it's perishable and hard to find now so I am not using it anymore.

(macrobiotic followers should not eat bread that is made with commercial yeast but since baking is my biggest hobby so I am still using commercial yeast...)

Special Yeast

There are some natural yeast (macrobiotic friendly) that you can use like instant dry yeast.

I have "shirakami yeast" from Japan. I get this product from Japan. It's easy and has sweet flavor with a lot of trehaolse (helps keep bread soft longer). This yeast is so special. You can even freeze the dough and unlike commercial yeast, it won't get weaken.

WATER

If you live in US, tap water should work with no problem. Purified water tastes better.

Please do not use alkaline water. Bread dough should not be alkaline.

YEAST WATER BAKING

All of the above and most importantly, 'natural yeast water' that you make.

How to make it? Click here.

Yummy ♪ Yeast Bagels (plain) click pics to enlarge

This is my favorite bagel recipe.

There are many different varieties of bagel recipes.

Some contain oil and some don't.

Some contain a lot of sugar and some don't.

Here is the recipe and pics that show how to make bagel shape.

RECIPE (for 3 bagels)

'AP flour 180g (6.3oz)

'salt 1/2 teaspoon

'Instant dry yeast 1/2 teaspoon (I use fermipan or saf)

'brown sugar 1 tablespoon

'water 100g (3.5oz)

('malt syrup or brown sugar for kettling 1 tablespoon)

1. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Knead for 5minutes. Cover and wait fir 10 minutes.

3. Devide the dough into 3 balls. Cover and wait for 15minutes .

4. Follow the pictures and shape the dough.

5. Let them rise for 40minutes at room temperature or until the dough look loosen.

(prepare for kettling. Boil water and put some sugar or malt syrup in a large pan. Pan does not need to be very deep.)

(preheat oven 400°F)

6. Kettle each dough for 1 minute each side.

7. Put them on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 400°F oven.

☆ Some people put 50% (in bakers' %) water but I prefer to put about 60% water.

☆ You can use bread flour but I think AP flour makes good bagels. These bagels have nicely chewy and somewhat soft crumb.

♪　bake at your own risk　♪♪

enjoy baking!

How to bake with your original yeast 2. (click pics to enlarge)

Now you have pre-fermented dough.

Let's make real dough.

ingredients

100g=3,5oz , 200g=7oz , 50g=1.75oz

'pre-fermented dough, all amount 　180g
'AP flour, bread flour, whole wheat 　200g eg.120g white flour+80g whole wheat
'salt 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　1 teaspoon
'yeast water 　　　　　　　　　　　 about 50g

'water 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 about 50-65g = 1.75oz-2.3oz
sugar, brown or honey 1 tablespoon

*if you use cold yeast water right out from the refrigerator, use warm water. Yeast works betten in warm environment.

☆ Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.

Knead for 10-20minutes to see some gluten film(jump to other bread making site. see a picturein the middleof the page) . Gluten film does not need to be very thin.
You can use a stand mixer or a bread maker. I use bread maker for kneading.

Place the dough in a bowl and let it sit for 2-6hours, until double in bulk. Time depends on the room temperature and yeast's strength.

In yeast water baking with whole wheat flour, 60-65% water (yeast water+water) in ratio to flour is enough. Also while the dough is rising, the dough is loosen and becomes soft. Please be careful how much water you add. It's easy to add water but difficult (almost inpossible) to remove water from the dough!

Generally speaking, bread flour needs more water than all purpose flour. Whole wheat flour needs less water than all purpose. So you can put around 70% water when you bake with bread flour only.

☆　After the first rise, take the dough out from the bowl and place it on the flat surface. If the dought is soft and hard to handle, dust some flour.

☆　Divide the dough into 8 small balls.

(or devide the dough into 2 pieces then devide a piece into 4 and shape the rest dough into your favorite shape. Set aside a ping-pong ball size dough if you want to make next butch of dough faster. You can put this small amount of dough next time you make pre-fermented dough.)

☆ Let them rest for 15minutes under the damp cloth.

☆ Lightly smash each dough and round it again.

☆　Let the dough rise again for 2-2.5 hours under damp cloth. Until doubles in bulk.

Preheat oven 450 degrees. Heat a cookie sheet in the oven. Move the dough onto the sheet.

Slash the top of the dough with wet knife.

Mist the dough with water. Also mist inside the oven.

Bake dough for 15-16minutes at 400 degrees. (long shaped bread in the picture should be baked for 20minutes.)

FYI: 2/17/2008

Room temp. 26 degreesC (77DegreeF).

First rise 2 hours, second rise 2hours.

♪♪bake at your own risk.♪♪

How to bake bread with your original yeast 1.

Now you have your own yeast water.

It is time to bake your bread.
What kind of bread do you want to bake?

Savory bread ? Sweet bread? or Bagels?

You can bake any kinds of bread with your yeast but let's bake simple petite rolls first.

I use the method to make pre-fermetnted dough first.

Then use the pre-fermented dough to make dough to bake.

♪What you need to make pre-fermented dough♪

' a container with lid (zip-lock container, topperware ...)

' yeast water (bring it to room temperature if you kept it in the refrigerator)

' whole wheat flour

1. pour 80g (3 oz) yeast water in the container (soaked raisins can go into the dough if you prefer)

2. mix in 100g (3.5oz) of whole wheat flour

knead it with spoon or folk for about 3-5minutes.

When it is hot (room temperature80 °F and above), add a tiny bit of salt to avoid over fermentation.

Over fermentation makes your dough very sour.

Cover and let it sit over night. It will doubles-triple in bulk. (see picture here)

It's amazing to see how it grows !!

FYI: 2/16/08, this mixture tripled in 10 hours at room temperature. (77 degreesF)

If you don't see any changes in your dough, unfortunatelly your yeast water was not good.
Start over from making new yeast water...

**If you want to bake white bread, you can do this process with AP flour or bread flour but I think using whole wheat flour makes the dough more energized.

♪Enjoy baking at your own risk

Strawberry yeast bread

These are the bread that I made with strawberry yeast.





(To make strawberry yeast, lightly wash ripe strawberry and crash them, put them in a jar with water.) click link to make basic raisin yeast.



By using these natural yeast, you can obtain crispy crust and fresh (transparent-looking) crumb.

How to make your original yeast water

So are you interested?

Let me explain how to cultivte natural yeast☆.

Fruits, vegetables and all other things in natural settings have yeast around their surface.

You can separate those yeast by simply soaking them into water for several days.

Originally commercial yeast (Saf, fermipan or allstar....) were cultivated in a same way and strong yeast cells were separated and cultivated for stable fermentation (rise).
----------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT YOU NEED

`a clean glass jar ( I use 24oz apple sauce jar from Trader Joe's)

`clean water (purified or bottoled water, tap water ok, don't use alkaline water)

`organic raisin (almost any kind of dry fruits work but raisin's yeast is strong, I prefer green raisin)

1. Put a hand ful of raisin in the jar. (*about 3-4 tablespoonful. when you put more fruits it will be done sooner)

2. pour water to fill 80% of the jar.

3. loosely close the jar.

4. leave it at room temperature.

5. wait for few days until small bubbles sufface and smells like wine.

(almost all raisins should be floating by this time)

(It would be d0ne in about 3 days in summer, 6-7dasy in winter.)

If you don't have enough amount of one kind of dry fruit, you can mix several kinds such as raisin, apricot, apple or cranberry.

6. once it's done, store it in refrigerator.

Now you have your own natural yeast water for baking!

**ADDING 1-2TBSP "SUGAR" OR "HONEY" TO YOUR JAR MAKES YOUR YEAST WATER FERMENT FASTER AND LEAD TO BETTER RESULT. (YOU CAN GET 'STRONGER' YEAST WATER)
♪　Bake at your own risk　♪

My pet....home made yeast

←This is my pet, green apple yeast.

I bake bread 3-4 times a week using both commercial yeast and natural yeast.

You can buy "natural yeast" or "organic dry yeast" at some stores but I use this water yeast for my bread.

I learned how to make my bread with my original yeast from various Japanese books and Japanese web sites.

Why Japanse sites?

I simply could not find good English web sites that explain how to cultivate yeast from fresh fruits and dry fruits.

So now I put my knowledge down on this blog for the people who are interested in making their own bread with their own yeast.

I am not a professional baker so I might not do things "right".

If you find any incorrect statements please let me know and teach me the correct ways.

Let's enjoy baking!

♪♪　I am not responsible for damages and/or any harm that somehow you get from this site.

♪♪ Bake at your own risk.