There is a difference, but I don't recommend convection generally. It's not always as efficient as a true convection oven, so my recipes are written for the bake setting only. One pro trick I do use my own convection setting for is to increase browning at the end of a bake (just turn it on then—and keep an eye on the bread, it can get dark fast).
oh right. One thing I like about this recipe is that when it uses a good amount of levain. When I do starter tests (ratios, flour, etc.), I have tons of excess levain and the jar is almost full. I usually end up throwing it all out at the end of the week because I can’t find recipes that use more than 100g of discard.
I’m confused about how the water temp affects the yeast. I thought if yeast was exposed to high temps, it dies. For example, if you’re using active dry yeast, and you have to bloom it in warm water, you have to be careful not to go too hot or it will die... I thought that temp was around 120 or 140 degrees (can’t remember exactly). So how do you heat the milk so high in this recipe and not have it kill the yeast when they mix together? I know that everything mixed together will adjust down to the desired temp of 78, but when the yeast and milk go in at the same time, wouldn’t the heat kill the yeast?... I guess in this recipe it doesn’t matter cause you’re using discard and not active starter, so there is no active yeast to kill. And I suppose if you’re making a bread with starter and not discard, that would probably be room temp and wouldn’t require the liquid to be heated so high to get the DDT. Would there ever be a situation where this could be an issue? Maybe using refreshed starter that’s been in the fridge for a day? In that situation, would you wait for the starter to come back up to room temp before proceeding with the recipe?
Tanya - When you combine the ingredients, they immediately drop in temperature and are no longer at temperatures, that could harm the yeast & bacteria. That 78F I show above happened as soon as I stirred the ingredients together, so if you do your calculations correctly, there's no risk at all to the starter.
I timed it and my gas oven took just under 10 minutes to heat, so I waited another 10 minutes (20 total) and then put the bread in, it still came out a little dense and squat, next time I think I'll wait 30 minutes and see what happens. My kitchen was at 73 degrees. I might try an 8x4 ish pan instead of the 9x5 I used. The bread tastes good though, and it was VERY much easier than trying to parcel sticky dough into muffin rings and cook them on a griddle, which has never worked for me. Thanks Andrew!
I'm reading comments waiting for my oven to come to temp — to bake a loaf of this very bread — and noticed your comment about 400F oven. Your recipe says 375F so that's what I'll go with, but should it be 400F?
Mine baked up fine at 375 and knowing the baked temp is 200F really helped. But due to baker error, the loaf came out a squat, albeit tasty, brick. (It will be great as french toast or bread pudding.) I'm definitely trying it again -- once I get a new box of baking soda and figure out how to dissolve it properly before adding. Oh, and because Andrew said this definitely needs a dough whisk, I gotta get one of those, too. :D
This was OUTSTANDING!! Wow. Thank you!! I heated the milk and added to refrigerated discard and it worked out great. I had impatient kids so I think mine could have proofed a bit longer - but was still delish.
This was AMAZING! I received the newsletter while still in bed and reading it motivated me to get up early so I could start making it! My wife said she might even *prefer* it to my (your) regular Sourdough (I have been regularly making The Loaf). I still have enough discard for many more loaves of this, and I'll definitely do so- the only discard recipe I'd preciously tried and liked was crackers. And it really does toast beautifully!!
One question: my batter wasn't nearly as wet as yours- and my loaf didn't rise as much as yours.
I used AP instead of bread flour. Also, my discard was old enough that some water was sitting on the top, and while I gave it a brief stir, I wasn't thorough. As I said, the bread was still spectacular, but for educational purposes: would it be wetter/rise more if a) I used bread flour, b) the discard were younger or c) I'd stirred the discard more before pulling out my 400g? (Or perhaps d) all of the above?)
Thank you so much for the combination of education and recipes. I'm loving it!
sphex - I'd guess that yours was a little flatter than mine because you didn't use bread flour. Bread flour will give the dough a bit more structure to let it rise taller. I'm not sure why you think mine would have been wetter than yours, though. It's gloppy, but not liquid, if that makes sense. (Stirring your discard before using it so its texture is even is always a good idea, though!)
Thank you, Andrew! I know mine was a lot drier because a) compared to your picture (which looks almost like a batter) mind definitely looked like a dough, and b) you used the word "pour" in the recipe's step 4, whereas I lifted the dough ball and placed it in the pan! :)
I'll get some bread flour for next time and investigate how that changes things...
Well it turned out ok for me but was rather flat. Maybe I didn’t allow long enough for the first rise. I think if I’d baked it in my 8x4ish loaf pan it would’ve been ok. Flavor and texture are good but not enough height. I had over 600g of discard so this was a great recipe for me!
As soon as I put it in the pan, I knew I had a problem. Probably should've let it have a longer rise in the pan to see if that helped. Or put it in a smaller pan! I will try again after I rebuild my discard. :) Thanks for trying to diagnose the problem!
Delicious!! And so easy, too. I heated the milk to ~150 degrees F and ended up with a dough temperature of slightly over 80 degrees F, but the bread is super tasty. I was worried it would be flat-topped but it developed a nice dome as it baked (although it took ~47 min to achieve internal temp of 200 degrees F, and there are rather odd brown spots in the crumb-looks a bit like a light brown Holstein cow. Peculiar look, but super tasty.). Will definitely try it again. Small recipe presentation suggestion: mention the need to heat the milk in the listed ingredients section since people who don't read the story at the top of the post might not notice need to heat the milk.
Susan - thanks for the report! See the updated recipe I just sent out. I had that same brown spot problem with my early versions too (it's the baking soda not getting evenly mixed into the dough). I've switched to dissolving the baking soda in water first to avoid that problem (as other recipes do). I do mention the milk needs to be heated in the headnote!
Happy to help! And happy to get a cool bread chemistry lesson that explains the spotting. I'll dissolve the baking soda next time (I had whisked the dry ingredients pretty vigorously, I thought, but clearly not enough). Ah, I see the headnote now--still, my personal preference would be to see milk (warmed to X degrees) in the ingredient list, esp since reading the recipe on a smaller tablet, the headnote seemed pretty far from the ingredient list I was using as I mixed. But that's just my user preference; others may vary, and I did remember, when I started mixing, that in the morning I'd noticed the need to heat (like the first commenter, I read the newsletter and thought: brilliant! I'm going to make that today).
Just a quick question related to Susan's milk being ~150. If I've done my math correctly, given how cold my starter might be, my liquid temp works out to be like 170. Can the temp be too hot? Ie. Would it "burn" any leavening we want? I'm scared to use such a high temp, so figure I'll just go lower and wait longer for the doubling?
I was very excited for this recipe to use up my accumulated discard but am now troubleshooting to find out where I went wrong. I ended up like a couple others with a very squat loaf, only coming to just over half way up my stone loaf pan. The taste was good but crumb a bit dense. I did have the DDT of 78 so I’m wondering if I didn’t let it rise long enough. I used a large bowl that made it difficult to mark its progress but it was over 60 min. I am curious about the stirring before pouring into the loaf pan. What is the reason for this step? I’ll def make another attempt at this and thank you for your explanations and detailed recipes.
A few questions: is your stone loaf pan 9x5ish? Do you have a metal pan? Did it look bubbly when you transferred it to the pan? (Stirring is to make sure the alveoli are evenly distributed). I'm going to guess that it's the low conductivity of your pan that is to blame. I use metal pans exclusively (I'll mention that going forward), because the fast heat transfer ensures that the bread springs before the sides set. If you don't have a metal pan, you might need to use a baking stone as well, to goose the underside of the pan.
Thank you. Yes, I do have a metal pan. I’ll use it next time. My stone pan is 9x5. It was airy but not necessarily bubbly, if that makes sense. My oven was hot already because I was baking a sourdough at high heat (450) so I waited about 10 min for the temp to come down. Even still, I enjoyed it with some fresh eggs this morning:)
I barely had enough discard to make the levain so I did that. When I got ready to mix the dough, I took the temperature of everything and the levain was already at 78. So I'm terrible with math formulas, but figured that that cancelled the levain out of the calculation. Needing to bring up the flour temp. from 72, and noting the room temp was 73, I just decided to aim for about 93 with the milk. This got my final dough temp to 79, so that was pretty close.
I found it really difficult to stir this dough together because it was so sticky, and probably didn't stir it enough at the beginning because I noticed some lumps still present when checked on it during bulk. I probably just need to find one of those dough whisks.
Either works, but the way I wrote the correction didn't require me adding another step. As for starting in a bowl: two reasons. One, stirring before panning evens out the texture (akin top reshaping/shaping). And two: I typically don't like leaving a dough in a pan for long, or it can absorb the oil coating and stick.
This bread is sooooo good! I made a levain so it was already at room temp when I mixed everything together. I heated my milk a couple of minutes in the microwave, let it cool a bit, and guesstimated when to mix everything together. My guess was fairly accurate, with the dough temp being at 79F. The only issue I had was a very funny looking loaf, with one side rising higher than the other. I even tried to smooth out the dough with wet fingers after transferring it to the loaf pan. I have a picture, but I don't know how to post it. No matter, it still tastes good! And I used my Danish dough whisk for the first time. Loved it!
Didn't seem to rise as much as anticipated in 90 minutes despite 77F starting dough temp and ~75F 'proof box' (actually the microwave I heated the milk in). Took on a domed shape while baking, but flattened out while cooling. Pretty dense crumb, and would not be a favorite just sliced off the loaf, but was very english muffin-like when toasted. Thought all the discard would be too sour (was in biscuits), but the flavor was good.
We really enjoyed this loaf tonight, especially toasted. My kitchen was uncharacteristically warm today, so I did the rise on the counter in the sun. Also, let it sit on counter in pan for about 45 min until I baked it. Turned out like your picture! It did seem to lose the dome as it cooled. I baked it until about 210 & golden brown. My kitchen is usually 68 degrees. What is a good way to create a 78 degree environment for rising? Thank you!
Glad you liked! I'm surprised it fell after baking, mine never did that. It's interesting the variability in results people have been having. I have a feeling I'm going to publish a 2.0 version eventually, once I figure out what is going on.
Sam - Possibly so, but I'm baffled as to why it's more problematic here than in other recipes. Maybe it's the high hydration in combination with protein content.
There is a difference, but I don't recommend convection generally. It's not always as efficient as a true convection oven, so my recipes are written for the bake setting only. One pro trick I do use my own convection setting for is to increase browning at the end of a bake (just turn it on then—and keep an eye on the bread, it can get dark fast).
By, “a ton of discard” I didn’t think you meant a TON of discard... Guess I need to make some bigger donations to my discard jar.
or just make a levain...
oh right. One thing I like about this recipe is that when it uses a good amount of levain. When I do starter tests (ratios, flour, etc.), I have tons of excess levain and the jar is almost full. I usually end up throwing it all out at the end of the week because I can’t find recipes that use more than 100g of discard.
I’m confused about how the water temp affects the yeast. I thought if yeast was exposed to high temps, it dies. For example, if you’re using active dry yeast, and you have to bloom it in warm water, you have to be careful not to go too hot or it will die... I thought that temp was around 120 or 140 degrees (can’t remember exactly). So how do you heat the milk so high in this recipe and not have it kill the yeast when they mix together? I know that everything mixed together will adjust down to the desired temp of 78, but when the yeast and milk go in at the same time, wouldn’t the heat kill the yeast?... I guess in this recipe it doesn’t matter cause you’re using discard and not active starter, so there is no active yeast to kill. And I suppose if you’re making a bread with starter and not discard, that would probably be room temp and wouldn’t require the liquid to be heated so high to get the DDT. Would there ever be a situation where this could be an issue? Maybe using refreshed starter that’s been in the fridge for a day? In that situation, would you wait for the starter to come back up to room temp before proceeding with the recipe?
Tanya - When you combine the ingredients, they immediately drop in temperature and are no longer at temperatures, that could harm the yeast & bacteria. That 78F I show above happened as soon as I stirred the ingredients together, so if you do your calculations correctly, there's no risk at all to the starter.
So, just checking, there isn't really a second proof, the pan just goes in the oven after about the 10 minutes it takes to heat the oven?
that's right. But my oven takes longer than 10m to heat to 400F...
I timed it and my gas oven took just under 10 minutes to heat, so I waited another 10 minutes (20 total) and then put the bread in, it still came out a little dense and squat, next time I think I'll wait 30 minutes and see what happens. My kitchen was at 73 degrees. I might try an 8x4 ish pan instead of the 9x5 I used. The bread tastes good though, and it was VERY much easier than trying to parcel sticky dough into muffin rings and cook them on a griddle, which has never worked for me. Thanks Andrew!
I'm reading comments waiting for my oven to come to temp — to bake a loaf of this very bread — and noticed your comment about 400F oven. Your recipe says 375F so that's what I'll go with, but should it be 400F?
i'm doing the same. how did yours turn out at 375º?
sorry, my bad: 375. I did it at 400 too, and it got dark a little too quickly.
Thanks, Andrew!
Mine baked up fine at 375 and knowing the baked temp is 200F really helped. But due to baker error, the loaf came out a squat, albeit tasty, brick. (It will be great as french toast or bread pudding.) I'm definitely trying it again -- once I get a new box of baking soda and figure out how to dissolve it properly before adding. Oh, and because Andrew said this definitely needs a dough whisk, I gotta get one of those, too. :D
Can we mix discard and levain to reach the desired amount?
yep, I've done that too (will add it to the recipe)
This was OUTSTANDING!! Wow. Thank you!! I heated the milk and added to refrigerated discard and it worked out great. I had impatient kids so I think mine could have proofed a bit longer - but was still delish.
This was AMAZING! I received the newsletter while still in bed and reading it motivated me to get up early so I could start making it! My wife said she might even *prefer* it to my (your) regular Sourdough (I have been regularly making The Loaf). I still have enough discard for many more loaves of this, and I'll definitely do so- the only discard recipe I'd preciously tried and liked was crackers. And it really does toast beautifully!!
One question: my batter wasn't nearly as wet as yours- and my loaf didn't rise as much as yours.
I used AP instead of bread flour. Also, my discard was old enough that some water was sitting on the top, and while I gave it a brief stir, I wasn't thorough. As I said, the bread was still spectacular, but for educational purposes: would it be wetter/rise more if a) I used bread flour, b) the discard were younger or c) I'd stirred the discard more before pulling out my 400g? (Or perhaps d) all of the above?)
Thank you so much for the combination of education and recipes. I'm loving it!
sphex - I'd guess that yours was a little flatter than mine because you didn't use bread flour. Bread flour will give the dough a bit more structure to let it rise taller. I'm not sure why you think mine would have been wetter than yours, though. It's gloppy, but not liquid, if that makes sense. (Stirring your discard before using it so its texture is even is always a good idea, though!)
Thank you, Andrew! I know mine was a lot drier because a) compared to your picture (which looks almost like a batter) mind definitely looked like a dough, and b) you used the word "pour" in the recipe's step 4, whereas I lifted the dough ball and placed it in the pan! :)
I'll get some bread flour for next time and investigate how that changes things...
Well it turned out ok for me but was rather flat. Maybe I didn’t allow long enough for the first rise. I think if I’d baked it in my 8x4ish loaf pan it would’ve been ok. Flavor and texture are good but not enough height. I had over 600g of discard so this was a great recipe for me!
Jen - I saw your picture. The crumb looked decent if maybe a little tight. Did you bake it in a wide pan?
Crumb is tight and kind of moist. Texture and flavor are pleasant but a bit distant from and English muffin.
Jen - what kind of pan did you use?
I used a 9x5 loaf pan!
Metal or some other material?
Non-stick metal. It’s my only loaf pan of that size.
okay, then I'm not sure why it was so squat. Hope you'll try it again!
As soon as I put it in the pan, I knew I had a problem. Probably should've let it have a longer rise in the pan to see if that helped. Or put it in a smaller pan! I will try again after I rebuild my discard. :) Thanks for trying to diagnose the problem!
Delicious!! And so easy, too. I heated the milk to ~150 degrees F and ended up with a dough temperature of slightly over 80 degrees F, but the bread is super tasty. I was worried it would be flat-topped but it developed a nice dome as it baked (although it took ~47 min to achieve internal temp of 200 degrees F, and there are rather odd brown spots in the crumb-looks a bit like a light brown Holstein cow. Peculiar look, but super tasty.). Will definitely try it again. Small recipe presentation suggestion: mention the need to heat the milk in the listed ingredients section since people who don't read the story at the top of the post might not notice need to heat the milk.
Susan - thanks for the report! See the updated recipe I just sent out. I had that same brown spot problem with my early versions too (it's the baking soda not getting evenly mixed into the dough). I've switched to dissolving the baking soda in water first to avoid that problem (as other recipes do). I do mention the milk needs to be heated in the headnote!
Happy to help! And happy to get a cool bread chemistry lesson that explains the spotting. I'll dissolve the baking soda next time (I had whisked the dry ingredients pretty vigorously, I thought, but clearly not enough). Ah, I see the headnote now--still, my personal preference would be to see milk (warmed to X degrees) in the ingredient list, esp since reading the recipe on a smaller tablet, the headnote seemed pretty far from the ingredient list I was using as I mixed. But that's just my user preference; others may vary, and I did remember, when I started mixing, that in the morning I'd noticed the need to heat (like the first commenter, I read the newsletter and thought: brilliant! I'm going to make that today).
Why not dissolve the baking soda directly into the milk?
David - entirely doable, the way I wrote it meant not having to add a step.
Just a quick question related to Susan's milk being ~150. If I've done my math correctly, given how cold my starter might be, my liquid temp works out to be like 170. Can the temp be too hot? Ie. Would it "burn" any leavening we want? I'm scared to use such a high temp, so figure I'll just go lower and wait longer for the doubling?
I was very excited for this recipe to use up my accumulated discard but am now troubleshooting to find out where I went wrong. I ended up like a couple others with a very squat loaf, only coming to just over half way up my stone loaf pan. The taste was good but crumb a bit dense. I did have the DDT of 78 so I’m wondering if I didn’t let it rise long enough. I used a large bowl that made it difficult to mark its progress but it was over 60 min. I am curious about the stirring before pouring into the loaf pan. What is the reason for this step? I’ll def make another attempt at this and thank you for your explanations and detailed recipes.
A few questions: is your stone loaf pan 9x5ish? Do you have a metal pan? Did it look bubbly when you transferred it to the pan? (Stirring is to make sure the alveoli are evenly distributed). I'm going to guess that it's the low conductivity of your pan that is to blame. I use metal pans exclusively (I'll mention that going forward), because the fast heat transfer ensures that the bread springs before the sides set. If you don't have a metal pan, you might need to use a baking stone as well, to goose the underside of the pan.
Thank you. Yes, I do have a metal pan. I’ll use it next time. My stone pan is 9x5. It was airy but not necessarily bubbly, if that makes sense. My oven was hot already because I was baking a sourdough at high heat (450) so I waited about 10 min for the temp to come down. Even still, I enjoyed it with some fresh eggs this morning:)
I barely had enough discard to make the levain so I did that. When I got ready to mix the dough, I took the temperature of everything and the levain was already at 78. So I'm terrible with math formulas, but figured that that cancelled the levain out of the calculation. Needing to bring up the flour temp. from 72, and noting the room temp was 73, I just decided to aim for about 93 with the milk. This got my final dough temp to 79, so that was pretty close.
I found it really difficult to stir this dough together because it was so sticky, and probably didn't stir it enough at the beginning because I noticed some lumps still present when checked on it during bulk. I probably just need to find one of those dough whisks.
this is DEFINITELY a job for a dough whisk
Hi Andrew -- when you say milk - do you mean whole milk? will non-fat or low fat work? I only have 2% milk on hand. Does it matter? thanks
Use what you have!
Thanks for the quick response. :)
Um...why not simply dissolve the baking soda in the milk? Also, why not mix the batter and put in the pan to do the step 3 rise? Thank you.
Either works, but the way I wrote the correction didn't require me adding another step. As for starting in a bowl: two reasons. One, stirring before panning evens out the texture (akin top reshaping/shaping). And two: I typically don't like leaving a dough in a pan for long, or it can absorb the oil coating and stick.
Thank you, Andrew! Appreciate your reply.
This bread is sooooo good! I made a levain so it was already at room temp when I mixed everything together. I heated my milk a couple of minutes in the microwave, let it cool a bit, and guesstimated when to mix everything together. My guess was fairly accurate, with the dough temp being at 79F. The only issue I had was a very funny looking loaf, with one side rising higher than the other. I even tried to smooth out the dough with wet fingers after transferring it to the loaf pan. I have a picture, but I don't know how to post it. No matter, it still tastes good! And I used my Danish dough whisk for the first time. Loved it!
I had the same issue with one rising much higher than the other. But it tasted great!!
Didn't seem to rise as much as anticipated in 90 minutes despite 77F starting dough temp and ~75F 'proof box' (actually the microwave I heated the milk in). Took on a domed shape while baking, but flattened out while cooling. Pretty dense crumb, and would not be a favorite just sliced off the loaf, but was very english muffin-like when toasted. Thought all the discard would be too sour (was in biscuits), but the flavor was good.
Robert - glad you liked, despite the less than perfect results. There are clearly a few more variables to consider here.
We really enjoyed this loaf tonight, especially toasted. My kitchen was uncharacteristically warm today, so I did the rise on the counter in the sun. Also, let it sit on counter in pan for about 45 min until I baked it. Turned out like your picture! It did seem to lose the dome as it cooled. I baked it until about 210 & golden brown. My kitchen is usually 68 degrees. What is a good way to create a 78 degree environment for rising? Thank you!
Glad you liked! I'm surprised it fell after baking, mine never did that. It's interesting the variability in results people have been having. I have a feeling I'm going to publish a 2.0 version eventually, once I figure out what is going on.
I wonder if the variable is dough development and type of flour.
Sam - Possibly so, but I'm baffled as to why it's more problematic here than in other recipes. Maybe it's the high hydration in combination with protein content.
My apartment is about 68 these days as well - for recipes that call for a 76-78 degree environment, I rise/proof in my oven with the oven light on.